3
5
Is everone watching the same show I'm watching?
How does anyone find this funny? The level of homophobia and misogyny is unacceptable. In the first episode, feminity in gay men is equated with predatory behavior, and the second episode involves a brothel and one character bullying another into having sex against his will.This is terrible! Not in terms of production values or acting - it's solid there. But the writing is so backward, unfunny, and offensive that I'm truly shocked anyone likes it.
And the evil ex-GF trope again? Can we move past this?
It's a shame - I love everyone in the cast, and I was excited to see Pod in a lead role. Ep 3 was better and funny, but it's hard to get past the previous 2 episodes But even in 3, you have a gay couple paying a call-girl to pose as their romantic interest because they're afraid of Ton. What kind of message is THAT?
And the lack of originality... yikes:
Trip-and-fall-on-each-other-and-stare-at-each-other-with-faces-too-close-together routine? Check.
Engineers? Check.
Pathetic ladyboy? Check.
Silly fujoshi? Check.
One thing it does have going for it is Pod (Ton) is shirtless all the time (or wearing a skin-tight compression tank top which is pretty much the same thing) and I'm shallow.
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Charming and well-written
I loved this series, mainly becaus of the stellar main pair of Tinn and Gun, played by Gemini Norawit and Fouth Nattawat to perfection as teens experiencing first love.The side characters are all well-written and acted, especially Tinn's mother, who is the school principal, and everyone has to love Mark Pakin as Tinn's best friend Tiw.
The story is wholly unoriginal, but it's the best realization of this type of plot.
The actors also sing all the music, which is always a plus., with Ford Arun being the standout, although Fourth & Gemini both have lovely voices too.
This is not a world where homophobia doesn't exist (although it only barely exists), and issues like parental concern over the future happiness of their gay children, or whether or not they did anything wrong, were all realistic and sensitively handled.
What prevented this from entering the top rank of BLs, however, is that although this contained one of the most breathtaking scenes in all of BL - the dance - you'll know it when you see it, and the progression of Tinn and Gun's relationship was magical, it peaked early and stagnated, leaving the second half at a lower energy level and at times quite dull. I don't need kissing in a high school story, but I know that I do not want an endless string of kiss fake-outs, which is cheap and started to feel homophobic.
The central dramatic conflict, that the music club's rules forbid Gun to date before a competition at the end of the year is contrived and the path to the context uninteresting, and the overreaction to a setback for the band was one of the only sour notes that felt out of character and lacked the authenticity of the rest of the series.
Fourth is so cute that there were a couple of time I cried a little just looking at him - that outfit at the prom was fatal. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of him and Gemini - they are both highly talented, and easily hold their own with more experienced actors here and even in Midnight Chicken.
I would rate the first four eps a 15/10, then declining to around a 7, hence the 8.5. The first few episodes were so good I thought this would displace all others and become my favorite of all time - but unfortunately it deflated a bit as it progressed. Still, I wouldn't hesistate to recommend this to anyone and everyone.
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This is a trainwreck.
I keep seeing the phrase "there's zero toxicity!" Sure, if you don't think kidnapping and torturing your love interest counts as toxicity, or infantilizing him or discussing him with his father without his knowledge, or being overarchingly controlling, or being enraged with jealousy everytime your boyfriend talks to another person. Question - toxic or not toxic: "I want to lock you up, preventing you from seeing anyone" and "there's a demon in my heart that could harm you at any time." Was I the only one shouting "Run, Fiat! Run!"It's fine to have a D/s couple, but then you need to say it's a D/s couple and you need to see the couple agree to it. Otherwise, it looks like a psycopath and someone with Stockholm syndrome. Here Mame tried to have it both ways, and the result is not successful.
First and Ja have almost no physical chemistry at all. They have some cuddling chemistry, but that's about it. The actors are so obviously uncomfortable in the love scenes that it makes me squirm. There's always at least a foot of space between their bodies, which is quite an achievement in a sex scene. Leo always looks like he's planking over Fiat instead of f#@$ing him. And their love scenes are all exactly the same. You can count on several things: Leo will grab one or both of Fiat's hands and pin them by his head. His necklace will fall into Fiat's mouth and they'll kiss anyway, despite how that would feel on your teeth. I cringe just thinking about it. Also, metal doesn't taste good. That's why we don't eat it. And the planking.
There is no plot. I mean zero plot. Not even a teeny bit. Every week there's some sort of crisis manufactured that depends on an implausible failure of communication that will inevitably make Fiat cry, in exactly the same way he's cried in all the previous episodes, to the point that I wonder if they just shot it once and replay it every time anything at all happens, because anything at all will made him cry. Like sobbing, not adult crying. Then the crisis will be resolved with a handwave off-screen, but will be given in flashback later.
There's an ep where someone withholds from Leo info on a cartoonishly evil villain's plot to hurt Fiat unless he kisses her. So, does Leo discuss this with Fiat and come up with a course of action, or does he just tell Fiat to be on his guard (Fiat says OK and has no further questions, and Leo offers no context for what one might presume is a somewhat unusual thing to say) and kiss the girl? And if you were a betting person, what are the chances that Fiat will just happen to be on hand to witness something that took one second? This is the quality of the writing. It's so bad I sit staring with my mouth open, even though my expectations weren't really very high.
Fiat is a star athlete, and captain of the basketball team, yet he can't descend three stairs (to be fair, there might have been four stairs) without tripping, he can't tie his shoes without Leo, if he's been sobbing, which is 90% of the time, he has to be carried to bed by Leo, and he can't talk to his insane escaped-from-the-asylum mother without Leo's supervision. Leo doesn't even let Fiat battle his own evil twin by himself. (That last was made up, but if it happened it would surprise no one.) What happened to his kick-ass bad-boy character? I have a theory: In TT2, Fiat was pursuing Type, who is an uke, so he could be more aggressive and manly. Now he's with Leo, who's a huge seme Dom, so Fiat has been transmuted into the Über-uke - the most useless and fragile person ever to exist in a BL.
On to the positives: The secondary couple is so well-written that I suspect Mame has an assistant that wrote their story while her boss was off having virgin cat lady D/s fantasies about Ja, because it's really cute and healthy. Leon is aggressive, but always respectful and gentlemanly. I've seen people accuse him of being a rapey stalker, but he asked for permission to pursue Pob which Pob granted. At one point, he starts to lean in for a kiss, immediately and correctly reads Pob's body language, and aborts & apologizes for his behavior. Smart is not the world's best actor, but he's committed to the role, he's very charming, and he has a shockingly beautiful body which I wasn't expecting to see and was unprepared for. And a sweet smile, and he's not afraid of playing intimacy with another man - you really feel Leon's attraction for Pob, both physically and as a person. It's really sweet and cute.
What's more, although there's still a seme/uke dynamic at play, because Mame is incapable of imagining anything else, it's not typical Mame - Leon (the seme) is younger (although still taller, a barrier that will likely never be breached), and Pob is emotionally more mature and stronger, and is always in control, which I like - he's even the only person who will stand up to Leo & Leon's mother. He wants Leon, but he plays it cool and makes very sure Leon is serious before he's willing to let it happen. And when he's sure, he LETS IT HAPPEN, no "I'm a 19th c. 12-year old virgin, you can kiss me on the cheek once per week."
EDIT: The secondary couple are well-written from Ep 1-11. Ep 12 will make you want to go burn something down. Like Mame's house. But if you do, try to let all the cats out first. Also, have you ever tried to travel to a third-world country with a week's notice? Neither has Mame. Clearly.
I really can't recommend this. If you like the main couple and are liking the series, that feeling is not going to survive Ep 11 and you'll feel you wasted your time. I'd wait for a Leon/Pob cut and watch that.
1 for the writing. It's bad. 8 for Leon/Pob in Ep 1-11, negative 20,000 for Fiat/Leo, so I was generous and gave it a 1. Although I should subtract a point for the Leon/Pob ending, but nobody promised us a fairytale. Except they did because this was marketed as a BL. But there's nothing lower than a 1. So pretend it's a zero.
6 for the acting. If feels worse than a 6, but the material the boys had to work with was so inferior that I felt I should give them the benefit of the doubt.
5 for the music. I don't really notice it, so it's not great and not bad, and kudos for not having too many flashback scenes to sappy and overpowering ballads.
3 rewatch value. You'd have to hold a gun to my head to make me watch this again, but I will probably watch the naked Leon scene several hundred more times, so a 3. (Seriously, I would watch a Leon/Pob cut of ep 1-11, or maybe even FF through the series for their scenes).
4 overall. Probably an 8 for Leon/Pob (ep 1-11, pretending 12 didn't happen), but unfortunately they're not in it very much.
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Not worth the time.
For me this is the least good Korean BL so far.The pacing is really off - it proceeds slowly, normally a good thing, but very little happens. The plot and characters start with some promise, athough the annoying side characters (tenants at the boarding house) are bit too annoying, especially the one who eats everything. The one who wants it quiet ends up with more screentime than the main romantic interest.
I didn't feel a lot of chemistry between the leads. You get some automatically when you have attractive actors with hot bodies, but they looked uncomfortable in physical scenes, with their bodies tense and standing very far apart. There's even a hand-holding scene at the end where they look like they're about to arm wrestle rather than showing any tenderness.
Especially in the last half, way more time is spend on a straight couple that you don't care about because the guy is unlikeable with no positive traits, and following around and telling us the life story about the rival for Seolwon's affections - what was the point of wasting so much time on this? It's nearly irrelevant to the story except for a 10-second really awkwardly written and acted miunsderstanding. In a series that's less than two hours long, you can't waste that much time on side characters - there was none left for development of the main couple. They liked each other, didn't communicate, which caused problems, then still didn't communicate anyway other than with a very bad chaste kiss. What did they like about each other? It's never covered, and since they barely talked to each other or spent time together, it must have been purely physical. There's nothing to invest in.
The first couple of epsides have some good comedic moments, but this is soon largely abandoned to stuff in as many BL cliches in as possible - in fact it's so bad that one of the other reviewers thought it was parodying the BL genre. I was joking to myself that one main character was a PE teacher and nobody had been hit in the head with a ball yet, seconds before it happened. Somehow a grown man is knocked out for hours by a volleyball, which makes you wonder if he's in the right profession - it's really silly. Also, it hit him in the side of the head yet his nose was bleeding, so they should have rushed him to the hospital because that would only happen if he'd suffered serious internal damage.
The acting is OK - nothing special, and the roles were simple and required no real talent except to look good, which the leads certainly did. The technical aspects of this are passable, but the soft-focus filter is set so high that the whole series is blurry.
I enjoyed the first couple of episodes, and the only reason I slogged through the rest is that it's nearly the only BL on on Tuesday & Wednesday.
Story: 2 - there barely is a story, and it's purpose appears to be to keep the main couple from spending any time together as far as possible.
Acting/Cast: 6.5 - they weren't bad, didn't stand out, and had such unchallenging roles that they barely had to do any acting.
Music: Fine. Nothing stsands out.
Rewathc value - 2. Cheolsoo takes a shower and that's worth rewatching.
Overall: 5. The suggested value was 4, but that's too low - I wouldn't recommend this, but it you really have nothing better to do, it won't kill you. It didn't help that this was running at the same time as the vastly superior series Semantic Error.
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It was so-so, except it had Force in it which is better than so-so.
This was much better than the disastrous Enchante, but it's still subpar in all but one regard which I'll return to.The first half or so of the series was quite good - the characters were interesting, complex, and consistent, and there were several promising plot threads set up...
... all of which were left totally unresolved. Not one single plot point went anywhere. Tian's death, Thoop's conviction, Gun's problems with Time, none of it. Time never even showed up in the story again after the first few episodes, which is a pity because Drake was rather good in a darker role. Even Gun's mother instantly dropped her resistance for no apparent reason.
Instead, the story, such as it was, devolved into the usual GMM ridiculous and implausible drama, wherin Cher's best friend gives Cher completely, astonishingly stupid advice and Cher inexplicably follows it, even thought it's wildly out of his character.
Then the writers did the laziest thing imaginable and gave us a one-year time skip. If someone left you without explanation and then showed up a year later and got on his knee and asked you to be his boyfriend would you a) be overjoyed and immediately accept, or b) Tell him to go jump off a cliff? Can you imagine the emotional suffering and grieving Gun must have gone through? No normal human being would be OK with that. Think about how long a year is and how much changes in that time. Force would have to move on, probably need counseling, and would have had his trust shattered. For years after he'd had PTSD and fear Cher had left him if he was ever late or his phone battery died.
On the positive side, Force is so hot that it hurts a little to look at him. Besides being beautiful, with ridiculous eyelashes and a sexy voice, he has possibly the best body of any BL actor. He does a great job as Gun, playing him consistently and making him enthralling. He plays a quiet and introverted person, and yet he outshines the bubbly Cher by a mile. Book is not bad by any means, but his acting doesn't have a lot of depth. He can be cute and quirky quite well, but I never believed he had romantic feelings for Gun. Whenever they were touching, Book was always leaning away, as if a bit repelled by the proximity. Compare that to Fourth & Gemini in My School President where there's almost no actual sexual intimacy but they portrayed people totally into each other just by looks, leaning into each other, and touching each other almost illicitly. It's really not that hard. To be fair, that might be the directing - it's a well-worn trope that the uke only reluctantly gives in to the unnatural lusts of the seme in exchange for being taken care of.
Maybe being friends in real life is a negative - if you grew up with someone, it would have that sibling-esque quality that makes the thought of being with them kind of icky.
Anyway, Force has so much charisma and is so compelling that he really should be in something much better than this series - if he were paired with someone as good as he is it would be explosive. Imagine Force and Fourth, or Force and Gawin (actually, that might be TOO hot and kill off the audience).
This series was a bit of a guilty pleasure, just because I couldn't get enough of Force, and Book was cute. But it's not good, and it was carried solely by one person.
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Great until the ending
If you were to see this score and then watch the ep, you'd think, "what's wrong with this guy? This show is great!" Well, wait until the last minute. There's a line that is the most tired thing that exists in BL, and they had to go and throw it in.I can honestly recommend not watching this - just watch the excellent first part and use your imagination from there. You will miss almost nothing, as this ep is the same story from Film's perspective, so the only additions are a few insights into what he was thinking in the previous episode. The continuation of the story is only in the last minute, when IMO it's ruined.
I'm actually angry. In a "typical" BL, it would just make me roll my eyes, but here it feels like throwing cargo pants on Michaelangelo's David. The acting and dialogue (with that exception) are excellent, as is the editing, which respects the audience and is efficient from a storytelling perspective. But that stupid line.
It was refreshing to watch a BL that's not crippled by adherence to the seme/uke model - here you could have two guys acting like guys, instead of one of them having to faint whenever touched by sunlight or tripping every time he tries to walk.
But then they had to ruin it. I hope they pair these two in a better project.
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I'm not sure why Asian series all have to have sappy easy listening soundtracks - does anyone actually voluntarily listen to music like that? I'd rather have Classical Chinese opera than this dreck. Fortunately it's only mildly annoying because the story and characters were so engrossing.
I wish it had maybe two more episodes to have a smoother transition for Xia Yu Hao from bad boy to sweet and sensitive - it was a little too quick. It would have been better if it had taken longer for Qiu Zi Xuan to make all the discoveries that uncovered what kind of person Yu Hao is. But for four hours, it was superbly written, a tight narrative without a lot of extraneous activity or repetition.
You won't be sorry you watched this.
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Great fluff, but forgetable.
This is not a bad series. But I also don't feel it's as good as most other people do. I would recommend it, but here's my honest review:The first half of this is spectacular - it roughly follows Romeo & Juliet, so it's hard to go wrong. The director does a fantastic job of ratcheting up the dramatic tension until the end of Ep 5. But then nothing happens. The major conflict with Pran's best friend Wai just evaporates without real resolution due to an external circumstance - there's no conversation about what happened - one moment he's homicidal, the next he's totally OK with everything.
The central conflict between the families also never goes anywhere - there's a brief reveal of the origin of the conflict, and then it's never addressed again - it just goes away... after a time jump.
Speaking of which, time jumps are lazy. The director opted, instead of confrontation and resolution of the central conflict, to just leaping over it. That makes it incomprehensible why they would endure the enormous sacrifice of keeping their relationship secret for five years.
I love that we got to see the main couple interacting as a couple throughout most of the series rather than a hug in the last 10 seconds of the series, but the entire second half of the series is basically just cute moments between them, with no further development of their relationship from the climax on the rooftop in Ep 5, and so it gets repetitive and dull - I've never before in my life ff'd though romantic scenes in BLs, but I was just bored and in the later episodes, relied on 2x to get through them. They seem more like friends with benefits than a real couple. In the last ep, they interact exactly like they did at the beginning - not like people who have been building a life together for 5 years.
Ep 5 was the peak because it contained a very skillful buildup of tension with an extremely satisfying resolution. Because all the conflict after that just disappeared, we were cheated of a satisfying resolution. The couple never had to fight for anything to be together - they just were. For 7 more episodes with very little happening plot-wise. If there are no stakes, there's no tension, and nothing to invest in, so all you have left is cute boys being cute to each other, which is great, but disappointing if it's all there is.
The acting in this is very good. Ohm and Nanon obviously really like each other, so their relationship is comfortable, and Jimmy is a standout as Wai - he was downright scary in Ep 5 and he has a strong presence.
So if you want a fluffy feel-good series to watch, you can't beat this. But instead of being what it could have been, one of the best BL series of all time, the director just didn't know how to resolve the dramatic tensions he'd build up, so he just punted, and as a result, other than Ep 5, this series is eminently forgetable. I doubt anyone feels that way just after watching the finale, but I suspect many will, in fact, forget it fairly soon.
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Largely tedious with lazy writing
I'll start with negatives and end on positives.This is poorly written. There are way too many extraneous scenes and endless blocks of dialog that accomplish nothing. If a scene doesn't advance the plot or develop a character, it should be cut. If a scene repeats the same idea over and over, it should be edited down. For example, in the last episode Lom is flirty with Nuea, Nuea rejects him with a comment like "you're getting sneaky". But they did it three times in one (loonnnnnggg) scene. The dialog in general is weak and repetitive, and too much of it is pointless.
The entire plot rests on a completely ridiculous understanding that is so simple to clear up that you want to light things on fire by Ep 5. Then when it's finally cleared up, the main character behaves like it's not cleared up for no apparent reason. It just makes no sense.
The directing is lackluster with a lot of scenes lacking the energy they should have, both comedic and dramatic, although there were some good moments. It also needed a much more disciplined editor.
The acting is just OK. Sunny does a solid job with an uninteresting character, and Pak is about equal playing an even less interesting character. Nuea would have made a good side character, but I just don't think Pak has the charisma for a leading role. He does have intensity, and I can see him being excellent in a villain role. The chemistry was so-so. The actors weren't afraid of inimacy, but their love scenes still had that distance between their bodies that makes most BL sex scenes weird.
A lot of people were greatly put off by Lom & Yiwa's plan, but it's easy to object if you haven't lived in a conservative and unaccepting society with huge familial and social pressures crushing you. What they did made perfect sense, and everyone involved knew the score and consented to it, so why all the judgment? If you're gay a great portion of your life is keeping things secret to avoid minor inconveniences like getting fired, beaten to death, or disowned by your family. There are safe spaces, like your friends, and there are places where you hide who you are, or at least don't volunteer it. People at work mention their wives and children all the time - I can't do that, because even if 90% of people are OK with gay, 10% is still enough to ruin you.
There are some strong points, too. The lakorn mothers were hysterical and the editing around them was brilliant, like the ominous music whenever they appeared. Their fight scene at the wedding was funny, although like so much of this series, it went on too long.
Whoever was in charge of wardrobe should be given a raise, because it was all perfect. Both Lom and Nuea have a personal style and their outfits were beautiful.
The camerawork was good and dynamic - the visuals were beautiful and helped make the series bearable.
Sunny (Lom) has his shirt of a LOT, and has clearly been hitting the gym hard, and that never got tiresome.
I wouldn't recommend either watching this or not watching it. If you enjoy a pile of fluff and are not bothered by ridiculous and frustrating plots, you'll enjoy it. I'm not one of those people, but I still watched it to the end for the positives I mentioned above.
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Fatally Dull
I have to be honest, this is one of the worst BLs I've ever seen. It's not offensively bad, it's just relenetlessly dull and bloodless. I don't want to waste your time with too much detail, so bullet points:- The story was a good idea, but it was just a setting and did nothing to explore behind the scenes of the BL genre, at least not in any realistic and meaningful way. That would be OK, if not for:
- The lack of chemistry between the leads. I'm not sure if that's the actors' fault - the script was weak and the directing especially bad. That's the first time I've gotten bored and ff a love scene.
- The acting is lackluster. It's not embarassingly bad, it's just lifeless. I've seen Gameplay and Best in other things and they were both really good. But all the positioning was so awkward and unnatural - again, I think the directing.
- The editing is rushed, but I understand the production was such a wreck that the actors had to do a lot of the editing, so kudos for that, but it didn't really save the drama. Or I should say "drama', because:
- I get product placement, but this whole series was just a vehicle for marketing supermarket products like makeup and cheap icecream.
- The character of Penelope is truly awful. She spends the whole series sexually harassing the acting coach - relentlessly and without mercy, to the point I would have taken legal action in his place. It was very uncomfortable and yet another miserable portrayal of a trans character as a ridiculous and pathetic man-starved predator.
I can't recommend this, even for Gameplay fans. I came out of this wondering if he was as good as a thought he was, and he's always been one of my favorite actors.
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Really lovely
There's a lot to praise in this - the characters are not formulaic, and the themes of the story are quite a bit more mature than the usual high-school/college boy story.Our main character is about to hit 40, and lives safely and while he's not depressed, he's not happy either, just sort of going with the flow of life, doing the same thing every day, with only his younger employee Togawa to lighten his day. He's unaware that Togawa worships him and will do anything to make him happy. They draw closer and Togawa puts him on an anti-aging regimen which involves doing diffrent things all the time to keep him stimulated and force him out of his box.
It's a great dynamic, where the age diffrence, far from being a problem, is a plus for both of them. Togawa gets good guidance from a more experienced man, and Kozue is revitalized by Togawa's youth and unjaded perspective.
The other interesting quality is that Kozue is clearly the more passive of the two, so the power dynamic is interesting and more complex than the usual seme-uke dynamic. Kozue is older, more exprienced, and the boss at work. Togawa is always deferential and in awe of Kozue, but he's a little like a sheep dog, aggressively herding Kozue in the direction he thinks is best for him.
Where the series is a bit of a miss is that it shies from the physical aspect of their relationship - when you have a 30-year old and a 40-year old, it feels off for their interaction to be so high school, and this is underscored by a moment with a thumb that is tantalizingly domineering and one of the hotter things you'll see in a BL.
There is an inevitable comparison to Cherry Magic, and I must say I prefer this in almost every way. The dynamic between the characters is more natural, the humor is smarter and more understated, and Togawa is refreshingly weird in a sweet yet bossy way.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this - it's well-acted and shot, it's got some good fluff without being about fluff, and the characters and their interaction is not as simplistic as the BL formula generally dictates. It's also a series that you're likely to rewatch, and I don't say that often.
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Surprising - LGBTQ+ rather than BL, but very good.
BL audiences probably won't like this too much - but it's such a refreshing change from the formula. Usually BL characters behave like Jane Austin characters instead of actual people - but here we have what feel like real people. The story doesn't shy away from the superficiality in gay life, or how stupid we are when young, and it touches on the nature of love and the different kinds there are.I think this could have been more special if the position of Rich and his son were reversed - the way it ended up leaned perhaps too heavily on superficiality.
The acting was pretty good - there were a couple of scenes that might have been too ambitious, but kudos for stretching limits. The directing is excellent, as is the cinematography.
It could have used one more episode so that the wrap-up was a bit more full, but it was well-written enough to work at the given length - the final conversation between Richard and Tupe was a highlight.
The music is good, but maybe it could have used a bit more so that the theme song got a chance to rest. There are several things that one would want to rewatch, especially in the director's cut.
I'm so sorry about the loss of the director - it will be hard to find someone of that caliber for S2.
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Ugh. I don't know what happened here.
My theory is that whoever directed Ep 0 died. Then they didn't want to spend the extra money to change the credits, so they just didn't get a director or pulled some homeless guy off the street to do it. Actually, that's unfair to homeless people, because I'm fairly sure all homeless people, everywhere, could have done a better job with this series.Ep 0 was quite good - I had no expectations of it given this production company's previous work, which was mediocre at best and seemed like it was all commercials for products, but then Ep 0 came out and it was a fast-paced but not rushed romance between people with great chemistry and charm, so I got excited for the series. It's bad.
Here's what I think the problem is: There is only about 4 episodes worth of "plot", but they stretched it to 12 eps. Because they had Daonuea in a relationship with his first love, Tee (that seemed more based on habit than anything else), all the key characters were stuck in a holding pattern. Danuea was with Tee, so he was not free to be with Nine. Tee was with Daonuea, so he was not free to be with Ice, and Nine had a girlfriend so he felt free to f@#$ anything that could breathe.
Daonuea is a bit whiny, which would probably have been OK because he's cute and has a hot body, but because he had to whine about the same things over, and over, and over, he was just irritating and unpleasant. Nine was a walking red flag - apparenly serially cheating on his girlfriend, and he went hard for Daonuea, who wanted to be faithful to Tee but is a weak person so he made out with Nine pretty much constantly then pushed him away in a oft-repeated pattern that just made him even more annoying. If you're going to cheat on your boyfriend on a daily basis, then just do it, or break up with him. But don't make out with some guy and then act like it's all his fault.
Tee did begin his relationship with Daonuea on false pretenses, and apparently cheated on him in the past, so he's not Mr. Perfect (but is a lot closer to it than Nine or Daonuea, and he's sexy and I want him for myself, but that's not important right now), and he does understand when to give up, so there's that.
Nine's girlfriend is crazy, but somehow relatable. The actress played her very well and made her a fully-realized character instead of an evil shrew. She's clearly unstable and insecure, but aware she's unstable and insecure, which is kind of refreshing because she would generally apologize when she crossed (way, way, way over) the line. And it's hard to fault her for being insecure, crazy and suspicious if her bf really will bang anything halfway attractive.
If this had been four episodes, it would have been a bonkers rollercoaster that was fun to watch, but because it's 12, it doesn't work. Crazy behavior, loss of self-control, forbidden love, etc. can be exciting, funny, or entertaining - ONCE. When the same crazy, selfish, and forbidden things are done several hundred times, it's boring, irritating, and you end up hoping everyone dies alone like they deserve.
The acting is probably decent. I say that because I'm not sure anyone else could have done better with this material, and nobody can say they didn't play their characters with consistency.
I might have rated this a bit too high, but the actors really did try, there was a story, even if it was thin, and it did conclude, albeit in a bit of a contrived happy group ending (with one of the most hilarious pregnancies you'll see. TBH, she should really go get an x-ray, because it looked more like she had a huge breast tumor than a baby).
Anyway, I'd watch Ep 0 and then pretend they met up when they got home and lived happily after. If you'd prefer a story where Nine ghosts Daonuea then shows up as a homewrecker with an insane girlfriend, makes everyone miserable, then Daonuea forgives him because he was randomly at an amusement park dressed as an assassin 10 years ago, and then they live happily for... I'd give them two months at best... then this is for you.
Suprise of the series: Ice and Tee, who had the only hot moment in the 12 eps.
EDIT: There is a special episode after the series featuring Ice & Tee, and it's also pretty good. It's a bit confusing about when it takes place, but it's apparently after Ice returns from Singapore. Anyway, those two have some serious chemistry and they're not afraid of getting physical - they were really making out, not just rubber-lipping it, and their NC-17 scene was possibly the best I've seen in a Thai BL, so I bumped up my score a bit.
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Yikes.
I'm not going to sugar-coat it. This was terrible.I'll get it out of the way - the makeup artist is either a sadist or hates both actors. Han Gi Chan looks 10 years older than he is (which means he's going to be a hot daddy in 10 years) and Holland looks deceased. I kept thinking of Beetlejuice.
The problem with this series is that the story makes no sense. Essentially, an all-star chef moves to a hut on the beach to sell udon. A homeless undead person shows up and insinuates himself into chef's life. Undead-guy is good at everything restaurant-related except protecting jugs of aged soy which are left on the floor for no apparent reason. Chef inexplicably falls in love with Beetlejuice, who abandons him in the night, leaving him heartbroken and with nobody to wash the dishes. One year later he returns and Chef takes him back without any curiosity as to why he left or any concern that he might run away again, altough tears that look like they came from a squeeze-bottle fall down his make-up plastered face. Chef seems to have been hurt by his other ex too, but at least he was wealthy and hot, and doesn't flee into the night for no apparent reason.
I'm sure Holland is a wonderful person who has had to endure harships, but we can't be good at everything, and acting is not on e of the things he's good at. I suspect he'd be able to pull off an OTT outrageous character in a comedy, but as a romantic lead in a drama, no.
Story: 2. Bad, but I gave it a point for not throwing in stock BL cliches.
Acting: 6. This is kind. Han Gi Chan is pretty good, and the two other minor characters are decent.
Music: 8. Holland sings the theme song, and it's pretty good.
Rewatch: 2. I'd say 1, but Han Gi Chan does take a shower, and I would rewatch that.
Overall: 5. It's not good. It's not embarassing (except the makeup and writing), but I did find myself hitting the +10 seconds button quite often.
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What a disappointment.
This series started strong and I was looking forward to seeing where it would go. More or less nowhere, it seems.I don't like to criticize actors, and it's possible it was the directing, but Kazuma was bad. When he was angry it was embarassing. Ren was a little better, but he didn't have to do much more than mope and be pathetic.
The directing drained all the life out of the story, and they followed the manga too closely instead of adapting it. But the writing was inexcusably lousy, so the screenplay might as well be too, I guess?
Example: a manga can give strong forward motion by portraying someone running for a panel or two. But when it's live action, you stop paying attention because your mind is preoccupied by two questions: if he's in that big a hurry, why is he running across Tokyo instead of taking a cab? And, how did he manage to do that in dress shoes and a wool suit without breaking a sweat? As if that wasn't bad enough, in the finale he did it again. Twice. (To be fair, the third time taking a cab wouldn't have helped, but I was still preoccupied wondering how Ren got past Kazuma to leave the building. The core where the elevator is would make him have to go past Kazuma, or at least run all the way around the core to the other side of the elevator lobbly.
The series is jammed full of tropes without giving us any compensation. Ren is one of the worst examples of a weak infantilized uke, who can't even defend himself against a falling-over drunk man that's at least twice his age but half his size. Because he takes it up the a$$ and Sanada is a man, I guess. It's ridiculous and offensive. A 12-year old girl would have been able to deal with Sanada, let alone a grown man.
The coincidences are absurd. The population of Tokyo is 40M and it's not a very dense city - so after search the world for 10 years and coming up with nothing, he happens to get a job at the same company? I took if for granted thta Ren arranged for Kazuma to work there, but nope, just a coincidence. Then Ren runs into Kazuma's mother. Then runs into Sanada when he goes to get his things. Why would Sanada go back to the office after going out and getting drunk? And in the brief window where Ren is there?
The relationship between Ren and Kazuma is passionless. At the end they spend the night, and don't even cuddle in bed - in fact Kazuma is actually holding Ren at arm's length so their bodies don't touch. Come on. It's 2023. They don't need to have sex, but they need to look like they want to. It's really sad and weird that the two child actors had way more sexual chemistry than the adults. And apparently more sex.
The end is totally anticlimactic. Kazuma's mother explains she was only upset because they were underage - so then why did she whack Ren across the face? It doesn't make sense. And why did she tell her maid or whoever that was that she's afraid if Ren and Kazuma meet up, they'll never part, but then in the next scene tell them she has no problem with them being gay. What? That makes zero sense - someone behaved completely illogically to throw a red herring at us to generate artificial and pointless drama that doesn't go anywhere and instead deflates like a sad balloon that wandered away during a party and deflated in some dark corner.
In the end, there's just no point to the whole story. What is it about? There were interesting dynamics set up at the beginning, with hints of Ren's depression and trauma, but it goes nowhere. This is just some weird fantasy of the writer to get a strong man to take care of her. Great.
I'd skip this. You'll like it at first, but it becomes a big disappointment.
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