jpny01

Adorble and clever

This is a story about a man's dog and cat coming back from the afterlife as humans - I don't think so much reincarnated as incarnated.

The casting and acting are wonderful - although human now, the pets still act like a dog and cat - Choco (dog) follows his former master everywhere, even at home, and escapes to follow Jung Woo when he goes out (especially if he's on a date), and Milk plays the "love me. Stop touching me" game of a cat.

There's no particularly important message to this, other than perhaps Carpe Diem, but it's relentlessly pleasant and fluffy without ever being cloying.

My only criticisms are, and the first is specific to me, the guitarist on the soundtrack kept sliding his fingers down the fret, which sets my teeth on edge and I often had to watch on mute.

More substantially, this is overly sanitized from the source material, being a hard G-rated. Choco is just plain sexy, but other than that, there was no heat between the leads - they had decent "hug" chemistry, but it felt like a primary school romance rather than an adult one, and that limited chemistry made it hard to invest as much as I would have liked to in the romance.

Still, this is one of the better series that aired this year, and is one you can go back to over and over.

The finale clearly set things up for a S2, which would be welcome.

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Lovely masterpiece

While not every element of this series is a "10", it all comes together in a way that "10" is the only possible rating.

This is not a straightfoward or linear story - a lot about it is puzzling, and you won't really get the last piece and see the whole picture until the end. The writing is beauiful and well-thought-out - there are no superfluous loose ends, and you should feel you got the full story in the end. The dialog is sharp, and the playful power struggle between the characters makes you feel like you're watching two boys intereacting naturally.

The acting is superb. Often in a BL when characters engage in a long mutual stare, you roll your eyes and wish they could just get on with it already. Here, you're sorry it's over - the range of subtle emotion that runs over Rossi's face could keep me enthralled for hours. In the first couple of episodes, Meen feels like he's over-acting and superficial, but it's deliberate - he's playing Tiew as cocky & teasing. When Tiew is being sincere Meen's acting is powerful and subtle.

The directing is wonderful, with the best performances pulled out of the actors, neither too reserved nor OTT. The cinematography is artful and always serves the stories, and never degenerates into pretentious artiness, and takes full advantage of the beauty of Chiang Mai and the breathtaking vistas of the surrounding mountains.

You'll be able to tell from the first episode that this isn't going to have the usual BL ending, but fear not, it's not sad. Or at least you will walk away feeling happy.

I can't recommend this highly enough - but if you're looking for a fluffy BL with a straighforward story, this might not be for you, although there's enough fluffiness to make just about anyone happy.

For non-Thai speakers, there's a note below under spoiler to explain something in Ep 2 that's confusing due to translation issues.

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Very ambitious production

I gave this a relatively high rating because the scale of ambition here is so high, and the execution is fairly impressive for such a low-budget production - not low in BL terms, but for the CGI and effects, and all the fight scenes, they got good bang for the buck.

The cast is beautiful - every frame is full of eye-candy (for me, it was all about Gap as Yai and Nat as Art, but they're all hot and gorgeous), it's well-filmed, the acting is overall very good, the music is a step above the norm - but the writing is a mess.

How would you summarize Phaya and Tharn's characters? How did they develop over the course of a long series? Their personalities are similar and there's no journey at all. Even Chalothon (played with wonderful malicious glee by Heng), who has the largest character development, does it with a light-switch off-screen in the #1 enemy of good writing, the lazy time-jump. The side characters were all better drawn than the mains - for example, I could describe Yai in detail, but to be fair, he and Nat were the two best actors in the series, and infused their characters with layers.

Instead of Tharn sulking in flashbacks for the entire final episode, wouldn't it have been nice to see Tharn & Chalothon's interaction? What was the point of the artist character (named "Art")? I appreciated having Nat Sakdatorn wearing very little on my screen for an episode, but it, like most of the plot threads, went nowhere.

The main day-to-day villain is stolen from a Scooby Doo cartoon - I almost expected the "and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids!" His sidekick has no personality whatsoever, so he should consider himself lucky. I think we know who the mentioned but never seen Big Boss is, but I'm really not sure given the way the series ended.

Billy & Babe get high scores for their lack of inhibition in the love scenes - that was real kissing, and their bodies even touched - but they're so hyper-romanticized and formulaic that they lack any heat, and I just didn't feel it. There is chemistry between the characters, but it's more best-friend chemistry than lover chemistry, at least from Babe, who didn't show much emotional range and I just didn't feel the love from him like I did from Billy. It was strange that they had Tharn in drag in all the past life scenes - that really served no purpose. Even if that role in the mythology it's derived from is female, then either have a woman play the role in those scenes, or just make his character male.

The series had a lot of good stuff in it, some great visuals, some intense scenes, but it seemed a bit like a collection of ideas someone had for great scenes with no coherent plan behind it. There are many plot threads that go nowhere and just take up time (although again, I'm not going to complain about getting my naked Nat, useless or not). His storyline seemed like it belonged to a totally different series (which I would have much rather watched), and I can't help but wonder if this was written as an episodic serial rather than a coherent novel.

And in the end, I was bored. I think perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of stakes. Shot 15 times? No worries, pshaw, he'll be fine! Impaled with a magical ice spear? Just a flesh wound. Fall off a cliff and plunge 1000 meters onto rocks? A nasty bumb, for sure, but nothing to worry about. It even got to the point where when people made comments that are usually the kiss of death, like "when this is all over, I'll have your favorite meal waiting for you at home", I still wasn't worried. There are a few characters for whom there's an explanation for why they aren't bruised and battered after fights, but that shouldn't apply to their hair still being pefect, although I suppose being supernatural could include magically-arranging hair. (Speaking of which, Billy's hair in Ep 12. Yikes.)

I was hoping for a spectacular final confrontation, but nope, nothing of the sort, other than a drug raid which resolved nothing. There was too much that I had to fast-forward through - so many flashbacks and pointless scenes - and because there were no stakes and no real purpose to them, the fight scenes were just filler for me.

I would recommend this for the visuals and actors, but I don't understand the incredibly high score. It's worth watching, and I hope it emboldens more sci-fi & fantasy-themed BLs, and I applaud the effort that went into this, but with better writing it could have been a 10/10.

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It's not bad, but pretty forgettable.

I really thought something was wrong with me today, after seeing all the rave reviews and comments, and I just wasn't seeing what everyone else was seeing. I even read 9 chapters of the webtoon to see if that would solve it. (More on that below).

The actors are competent, but they seemed to be directed to under-emote, Thai style, which de-Koreanized the series a bit, which is a pity. But still, they were solid, and this was beautifully shot. All the side characters had good actors too.

But the story didn't make a lot of sense emotionally. We never get a sense for why Siwon was so hostile to Daun - I kind of understood why, but it wasn't really demonstrated. And then his turnaround is sudden and unmotivated. All of this made it a little difficult to invest in the romance, and it didn't help that their chemistry was not very heated.

I think part of the issue is the original story is a comedy, and they turned it into a drama, and in the process stripped it of everything unique and interesting. In the manwha, Siwon is an outrageous, OTT narcissist, and Daun is an even more outrageous and more OTT narcissist - Siwon is already funny enough, but that Daun suffers from such severe narcissistic delusion that even Siwon finds it incredible is LOL funny. The other issue is that the first two eps are really slow and dull, and because I binged it I never really recovered from that.

But turning it into a very conventional romantic drama just makes Siwon an unpleasant person, which is unfortunate because he's kind of plain when he's hostile and really lovely when he smiles. Daun, instead of being kind of crazy is just a conventionally sweet guy, and Diwan's hostility is strange and assholish. In the comic Daun really is stealing his spotlight, which Daun takes for granted as the natural result of his beauty (he actually glows).

So the end result is a reasonably pleasant but dull and forgettable series. If it hadn't been released all at once I probably would have forgotten about it.

People in the comments section are saying things like "Korea's answer to ITSAY" - I certainly hope not, because I have very high expectatons for what a full-powered Korean BL can accomplish, and this series doesn't even approach ITSAY - this is more like Korea's answer to Fish Upon the Sky. I thought it was markedly inferior in every aspect except cinematography to the same director's Where Your Eyes Linger - which is not at all surprising as she's extremely talented (we need more female BL directors!) and she wrote the screenplay for WYEL as well as directing it.

As a minor note of no importance, I wish Asian dramas would stick with their original names - e.g. Cherry Magic's Japanese title is hilarious - and attempts at wordplay often fall flat. Because "blue" and "Ming" are both words, and Ming-dynasty porcelain is characteristically blue, putting them together just comes out blue Ming (i.e blue MING instead of BLUEming).

Summary: good and worth watching, but don't go in with expectations of an 11/10 or you'll be disappointed. Maybe watch the first two eps one day and then wait a while and binge the rest.

Edit: I had to look up this series on 13 May 2022 because I couldn't remember it. I kind of do now, but only vaguely. So I guess I was right and it's forgettable. At least for me. I do remember the Manwha, though because it was really funny.

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Not so much bad as unbelievably boring.

EDIT: Do not be tricked by the fake 10/10 ratings. The show is awful and is too huge an investment of time to slog through.

The story setup is not innovative, but it is at least fertile ground for development. Unfortunately, the glacial pace of that development and the ridiculously boring characters does not exploit this opportunity. First, it seems clear to me that Wil was intended to be the villain, but because viewers inexplicably loved him so much, the producers reversed themselves and made him good, which drained the show of all interest and drama as there is no antagonist.

Second, the best actor, who plays the unstable psycho Nuan, is wasted playing an unstable psycho - which should be interesting, except his instability is too stable and never develops or goes anywhere. But at least you feel something when he's on screen. The actor playing Jimmy is good too, but it takes a long time to get over what a dick his character is at the beginning - they laid it on too hard and so the audience misunderstood that he wasn't the villain, Wil was (well, supposed to be).

The acting overall is fairly good, although nobody is really given much material to work with. Some of the acting is cringeworthy, but to their credit, a lot of the inexperienced actors showed improvement as the series wore on. And on.

Third, it's almost comical that every single male character (and all their family members. I am not joking) in the show is hot for the supernaturally average Joey, when Nuan and Jimmy are like, right there.

I can't rate the plot because there isn't one. I'm not joking.

There is a houseplant that has more scenes than most of the main characters. Still not joking. It is also in more conversations than most of the main characters. It is also more interesting than most of the main characters, and a better conversationalist. There is more chemistry between the houseplant and both Joey and Wil than they have with each other. The chemistry between Joey and Wil is so non-existent that when they touch it feels like the actors are sexually harassing each other.

The music is bad. If the music is not noticeable it's at least doing it's job, which would earn it a five. But there is one bar of music that is run over an over again to the point that you want to poke out your eardrums so you don't ever have to hear it again.

The production values are unacceptably bad - like a child with an iPhone could have done a better job of filming this. The camerawork was terrible, the sound was worse, and the editor is clearly a sadist.

As for rewatch value, I doubt even the most ardent JoWil enthusiast has ever rewatched a scene. Maybe the one in the bathroom where they're both in towels. Wil looks pretty good in a towel, so some people might want to see that again. If you held a gun to my head, I'd probably prefer a bullet to watching this again.

Overall rating: Worse than COVID, not as bad as the Holocaust.

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Cute but pointless

I didn't really get the point of this - it was fluffy but static. There was more than enough time to explore an element of their relationship, like what it's like for one of them to grow old and the other to stay young forever, or how annoying someone who is too neat and tidy can be - anything. The actor playing Ever 9 has an amazing body - I would have liked to see Yi Ping feeling awkward about being sexually attracted to him shirtless or something. I'm sure we've all thought about what sex with a robot would feel like emotionally - and since that's a very likely future for many or most people, it could stand to be explored.

Ever 9 looked hotter with his hair like that.

The bumper car scene and the competition after that were the highlight of the episode for me.

Anyway, if you liked Anti-Reset, you'll probably like this, but nothing happens and the kissing is so-so at best.

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Cute and forgettable

I enjoyed this, and I would recommend it, but it's a bit of a missed opportunity. There is no character work at all - and before anyone says it, it had the same run-time as The Godfather, so don't tell me there wasn't time for character arcs.

Its started off brilliantly, with the tsundere character actually being an insane fanboy barely repressing himself, which was genuinely funny - I even laughed out loud, which is unusual for me. The main character is surly, but in an interestingly masculine way even inside his cute boyish body.

But the entire plot is driven by misunderstanding, including implausible easily cleared up ones. A misunderstanding needs to be driven by the nature of the character, not just thrown in and not explained or dealt with, and the resolution also needs to be consistent with the characters. None of that is the case - the ending is just... the end. It happens suddenly and without any character progression or processing of anything, including the state of someone's apartment.

The chemistry between the leads was so-so - it wasn't unbelievable, but it also wasn't palpable.

This was cute and enjoyable, but I don't think I'll remember any of it in a month except for how delightfully weird Akafuji is and how it did things to me whenever Aoyanagi was angry.

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This was fantastic

When you get a first rate director, cinematographer, and editors, find a good script, and cast talented actors, then throw in some love, and you get something like this.

This is a story about a young man, Wang, who engineers stranding himself and his mother seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but in reality at the house of his dead father's closest friend, and his journey of self-exploration that results. This is not really a BL, and if you try to engage with it as a BL, you will not fully appreciate it. I think I saw some of the reviews call it heartbreaking, and it really isn't - but it's about Wang's journey and what he learns about life and himself. In that light, the story isn't at all tragic, because in the end he is wiser, stronger, and knows who he is.

My favorite thing is when a series takes advantage of the visual medium - every shot of this tells a story and supports the story. Sometimes it's obvious, like the role thee screen in In's room plays, or the bridge, and other times it's more subtle, with lighting and framing.

This felt like a play, and in reality it was - almost all of it takes place in one room - but it never ceases to be a film, never becomes static or tired, and every episode feels like it zips by. Every scene is allowed to develop, and is never belabored or rushed.

And I can't tell you what a huge breath of fresh air it is for romantic feelings to develop through normal interaction rather than accidental kisses or one boy tripping and the other catching him. Here it's a real connection, deep and rooted, and it has a power I haven't felt in a long time.

The acting is fantastic - with Pond as Wang it's obvious, but Nike and Mam are both wonderful in their roles as well.

There are a couple of things that were issues for me. While Nike was great, casting a 34-year old to play a 45 (ish)-year old is cheating a bit, and it also distorts the story because it makes Wang and In seem like a no-brainer because the generational difference is not visually obvious - if it were, In's hesitation might make more sense. The second is that Wang's mother is a bit much. Judging by the comments, the audience found her to be the villainess of the story, and she's not - but she's so histrionic and melodramatic that it's a bit too hard to feel sympathy for her.

Also, many people in the comments called In a coward - but is he? I can tell you for sure that I wouldn't let myself be strong-armed into a relationship with someone half my age (and the child of my best friend and my One True Love on top of that) that I'd known for only three days. That's not cowardice, it's just sensible. Wang wanted all or nothing and came on like runaway truck with a deeply introverted person - if he'd approached it as "let's get to know each other, he would likely have gotten what he wanted.

Anyway, this is one of the best series I've ever seen and I can't recommend it highly enough.

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Dull and Disappointing

Sometimes a total disaster of a series, like Unforgotten Night or So Much In Love, can be more entertaining to watch than a thorougly mediocre one. Coffee Melody aspires to be the most mediocre it possibly can without falling over the line into being bad. There are many things that can be individually critiqued, but the quality of this series that most stands out is its dullness.

Part of this is the limp script. Nothing really happens. The main pair meet and like each other and enter into an unearned relationship, there are a couple of minor bumps, all externally driven, and everyone lives happily ever after.

But even then, a featureless script can still create a series that's entertaining - but this production lacks any passion. Was Benz even playing a character, or just being himself? Pavel Naret was apparently neutered, given bad hair, and then directed to be as blandly nice as he could possibly be. The style department couldn't even be bothered to make Titnuea's hair a consistent color - one moment it's deep red, the next it's light pink. That's almost certainly because of the filming schedule, which is based on location, not the story's chronology, but that's the sort of sloppiness that's endemic to this series.

It's largely about musicians and music, but there isn't any until past he halfway mark, and it was underwhelming when it appeared. The sound editing is poor - sometimes the music drowns out the dialog, and other times you can barely hear it. Nobody could be bothered to write or obtain decent background music, so the just played easy-jazz piano Christmas carols.

In the end, this story has nothing to say. Even the difficulties of maintaining a long-distance relationship is papered over by having someone move abroad, and then move right back 5 seconds later. Presumably time has passed, but it was so poorly set up that it came off as unintentionally funny, and his boyfriend reacted as if he'd merely been on an overnight business trip.

There were a few positives: whoever wrote this has a love of coffee that came through, Palm Veerapat who plays Jean was adorable and engaging, and some of the ad-libbed scenes, mostly with Duean Yi's parents, were quite charming.

This isn't terrible. But it's so-so in the most boring way possible. I can't recommend it, and it saddens me, because I was excited Pavel got a role, and I hope this doesn't damage his chances of geting another one.

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Wow, this was really lovely

Warnings : NO WARNINGS. Just plain loving and beautiful.

I was not excited about this given how Skinship is a long ad. There is definitely product placement in this too, but it's wonderfully integrated into the plot and non-intrusive.

Anyway, this is both hot and adorable, with wonderful chemistry between the characters - it's rare that you instantly feel two people are perfect for each other without reservation so quickly. I'm really excited for the full series. Both actors really inhabit their characters - especially Chahub, who does a wonderful job as the mischievous Nine - his not-very-subtle flirting was really funny and sexy, and I really felt his character.

The plot progression is natural and believable, and the way they drew together was romantic and beautiful.

One thing, though: that female employee was so obnoxious that I seriously almost stopped watching this. Note to producers: characters like that are not funny - they're intensely annoying and that behavior borders on sexual harassment, and she should be fired immediately. I would leave and demand my money back if someone treated me that way at a resort.

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A master class in bad writing

This series had so much potential - a talented cast, good cinematography, scenic locations, and everyone involved was giving it their all. This is all wasted on a terribly written story. It's as if they were about to start filming and realized they forgot to get a script, so they sent an intern to go grab the first thing they could find on Wattpad.

The story leans heavily on the implausible-misunderstanding-caused-by-showing-up-at-just-the-right-second-to-misinterpret-something-causing-them-to-drop-the-token-of-affection-they-were-bringing-and-walking-away-sadly trope. If they were to show up one second sooner or one second later there wouldn't have been a misunderstanding. This happens many times, in every case a simple conversation would have cleared it up, and characters never learn from it and make the same mistake over and over.

Everyone behaves wildly out of character to suit plot points. Tai becomes a lying cheater, and the gentle veterinarian exhibits horrific violence. The discussion forum didn't seem to have a problem with this, presumably because Lomfon deserved to be savagely beaten for being a confused teenager. That there were absolutely no consequences to the violence is astonishing and disturbing, and Lomfon neither presses charges nor has even so much as a scuff mark after being the target of what can only be described as attempted murder. Again, lazy writing.

Lomfon, who is so emotionally constipated that he can't tell Tien how he feels, suddenly bursts into a long monologue, while Tien has just stormed off from seeing Lomfon's film, which explicitly and unmistakably showed him how Lomfon feels about him, yet he says he doesn't understand what Lomfon was trying to say with his film. Seriously?

People in general don't act like people. Patts doesn't seem at all surprised to see Tai in Chiang Mai and stands there expressionless for the entirety of Tai's long soliloquy.

There is an enormous number of extraneous characters that materialize out of nowhere, have no effect on anything, then are never seen again. In the finale, the friend who gives advice to Lomfon claims to be a close friend to both him and Tien, but we've never seen him before, or at least I can't remember him. He and most of these characters pontificate about love and life with the profundity of a motivational poster.

In the last episode, in a long and completely pointless sequence, Tai runs out of gas in front of a nice man's house. The man tells him it's very difficult to find gas in the area and that he should spend the night. His girlfriend shows up then they have a long conversation where the couple tell Tai the story of their love. In which THEY HAVE A FLASHBACK. Almost the whole flashback is a random character giving a long expository dump to a friend. The next morning Tai drives off, presumably having filled the tank with his overflowing love. None of this has the slightest effect on the story.

Perhaps most confounding of all, you can just sever your soulmate connection, which negates the entire story, the plot of which is based on destiny - without that, this is just a pile of stupid coincidences, like Tai's grandmother living next door to Patts since his childhood, and he and Tai even communicate by notes and kind acts to each other, but never meet. Really? Tai shows up at the precise moment to misunderstand Patts being kissed by his ex, but never ran into his actual soulmate for 20 years despite his living next door?

That's how awful and frustrating the writing is.

I loved the cast. Title is much improved, Pee is as good as ever, Suar is charming, and Copter is the MVP with a fantastic performance as the repressed Lomfon. I hope to see them in something better than this series.

I can't recommend this. I gave it a 5 because the cast was great, but unfortunately there was only enough material for three episodes and the rest is a jumbled mess that will cause you to dislike all the characters. Except, apparently, Patts, who is consistently called a big green flag - I guess becoming so enraged by jealousy as to try to beat someone to death isn't the red flag I thought it was.

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It's not terrible.

There are some positives to this, including that the author clearly has enough life experience to write characters that act like people. The plot doesn't depend on tropes and accidental kisses, it's just a straightfoward attraction between two people.

What the author does not have, however, is any sense of pacing or dramatic plotting. There really isn't much point to the premise as it doesn't really factor much into the story and has nothing to do with the ultimate resolution. There is a mystery at the beginning that could have been drawn out and made more terrifying, but instead the audience is let in almost immediately and it's played mostly for laughs.

The two main failings are the plot holes and the general lack of energy to everything. The end result is that I really never had much idea what was going on because nothing impressed itself on me stongly enough to remember, like in the finale when they reveal their coke-can tabs. I have absolutely no memory of anything involving those. Kevin has an ex that's important somehow, but that's never fleshed out. Also, How is it possible that Kevin wouldn't know the state of his aunt's family? Wouldn't his mother know the truth? Or if not, wouldn't he have to tell her?

Also, the story depends on a three-year time jump, during which the main pair don't see each other. What? Why not? Kevin has the resources to fly back & forth from the US, and Pluem's new job would certainly pay enough for him to travel. Why did Kevin even go home? All he does is live stream - it's not like he can't do that from anywhere.

But most of all, none of this has anything to do with the premise of the show, which isn't in the end a premise, it's just a "schtick". It isn't integral to the plot like in the masterful Something In My Room, and has nothing to say - it's just a shallow and unmemorable romance.

The dialog isn't vapid, but it's infected by the Thai-drama-endless-pauses-while-speaking disease which I take it is supposed to lend serious scenes gravitas, but instead makes them dull and stilted, because nobody speaks like that or we would slap them. The pacing of the series is too fast, but the pacing of every individual scene is too slow.

There are also other strange choices - in the final episode, where Pluem is being seductive (highly, highly, successfully), this could have been one of the hotter scenes in a while, except instead of being turned on, Kevin appears to be terrified, which is really a buzzkill and makes it creepy. It's odd, because when the camera shows us his perspective, he's staring straight at Pluem's pecs, which are ably outlined by the fantastic outfit he has on (speaking of which, the wardrobe in this series is first-rate), so why is he acting like a 12-year old girl facing his first time when he's a man in his late 20s? It drained all the energy out of the scene.

You can see that Boy and Tod have the potential for chemistry, but it's never really allowed to go anywhere, and this whole series feels like it was created with a hand tied behind its back - as if the creators were embarassed by feelings and felt they had to exercise unnecessary restraint.

This isn't a terrible series, but if you remember anything but Tod's short shorts a few months from now, or maybe Boy's sexy smirk, I'd be surprised.

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Trainwreck - but semi-redemptive Special Episode

EDIT: Post-Special Episode comments added.

This series started off well. The acting for the main pair is good, they're very attractive & hot-bodied, and while there wasn't anything ground-breaking, it was nice that the main couple were both guys - fairly equal (although with a cute size difference - and It was a bit unusual for the uke to fight off a gang to rescue the seme from being beaten). Their interaction was refreshing & natural, and all-in-all it was a pleasant watch.

Until it wasn't. First, the secondary couple looked like it might be interesting at first, but it was a dreary slog, with very dull acting and an uninteresting story. Eventually I just FF'd though all their scenes.

Then, the main couple imploded. I should have known that when they got together too early. Instead of exploring the frictions caused by being friends since childhood and then becoming a couple, they opted for the most stupid and tiresome means of generating drama imaginable, the "mercilessly and cruelly break up with him so he can attain happiness with a good woman" trope. Ugh. By the time they emerge from that (by sprinting a mile toward each other wearing business suits in full sunlight without breaking the slightest sweat), you just don't give a flying f@#$ if they get together or just die horribly while crossing the street (which is usually fatal in BL). Although it turns out being run over by the White SUV of Death is survivable, apparently (you'll understand if you make it to the finale).

If I'd stopped watching after Ep 8 I'd probably rate this an 8.5, but unfortunately I continued watching. The plot turn doesn't even make sense - it's implied at first that one of their fathers was so against them being together that they couln't be, but he wasn't. At all. Other than initial surprise, which just about any parent will feel if they've never been given an inkling their kid was gay until walking in on him with a guy.

I will say that the kissing & love scenes were good. Max Lin looks about as good as one can with his shirt off, and Shi Cheng Hao is beautiful, and both commit.

The music is bad - it's like something you'd hear on an afternoon special from 40 years ago about a waitress falling in love with a prince that she doesn't know is a prince. It spoils the final love scene. There are nice cameos from three past series in this "universe" - Be Loved In House (the main couple in this series are divorce lawyers, so it's interesting to see a perfect BL couple having problems), H3 Make Our Days Count, and H4 Close to You.

I would skip this, or if you watch it, stop at the end of Ep 8. The rest is dreck. What a disappointment. Hopefully we'll see these leads in something better, because they were cute together in the first two-thirds.

EDIT for Special Episode: this was added, which really helped and got rid of the sour taste the latter part of the series left for me. Most of the episode is Ze Shou passing out after the wedding and dreaming he's back in high school but with his 28-year old memories - it's sweet, cute, and clever. The Sailor Moon outfit... Also, their English teacher is hot. Note what's written on the black board - it seems to reflect how Ze Shou feels about the girl.

They could have stuck with this idea instead of the pointless drama after Ep 8 and it would have been so much better - in fact it would have been fun for Li Gong to have his own similar dream - maybe with him being a lot more aggressive knowing Ze Shou returns his love.

There are also three new Behind the Scenes episodes that I enjoyed (still ff-ing through the secondary couple) - the actors are so comfortable with each other, and they're both so smart and funny - there's also a lot of shirtless lingering for the filming of the love scenes. It's sweet how teary-eyed they got after the wrap.

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I wanted to love this and did my best

I didn't hate this. But it's not good.

There is no story, or at least not anything coherent enough to really merit the word "plot".

The "story" revolves around a failure of communication so utterly preposterous that it never really recovers from it and meanders all over the place, including a huge amount of time being wasted on an irrelevant corporate espionage subplot obviously written by someone who's never had a corporate job and who's knowledge of technology is minimal, and spends no time at all on one of the romantic pairings - I didn't even know they were a pair until the last scene.

I think the writing trapped itself with the famous preview where Shu Yi strides in to a corporate office and slaps Shi De. They really didn't know where to go from there, so intead an incredibly convoluted and tedious backstory was cobbled together to explain it.

If they wanted to have this start out with them as enemies, there are so many better routes this could have taken. Imagine this: they are comically horrible to each other, but the smouldering chemistry is still there. They end up having hate sex, after which Shu Yi tells Shi De "I hate you. I never want to see you again. Starting one hour from right now." Hate isn't the opposite of love, indifference is. It would have been funny and hot if they'd end up having crazed hate sex every time they were alone beacause they couldn't control it, until they hated each other back into love.

The acting is very good, the costume & production design are stunning, the cinematography was beautiful... there were so many first-rate ingredients - it's just the chef had no idea what to do with them.

There is only one scene I will ever rewatch, and those of you that have seen it can probably guess which one - I don't think I will ever tire of it. Well, maybe two. There's also a gratuitous scene where Shi De takes off his shirt for no apparent reason and stares out the window for a couple of minutes. Pointless, but not unwelcome.

If you want to watch a bunch of unusualy attractive men on your screen for a few hours doing incomprehensible things, you might like this. If you're expecting anything connected to the charming story of S1, you may be disappointed.

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A surprisingly good series

The first two episodes were confusing and not too engaging, but it's well worth giving it a chance.

This is one of the most attractive casts I've seen in a long time, and the acting is fairly good. There are three couples, the main pair and the two side couples - as is not uncommon, the side couples far outshone the main pair, who were the weakest in every regard - their story was odd and full of holes, they looked like they were held at gunpoint to play gay, and their kisses were among the worst I've ever seen. Fortunately, J-Min has his singing career to fall back on, and Kim Yeong Suk looks really, really good with his shirt off, and I liked that the show didn't pretend his abs had no effect on Lee Hyun.

The other two pairs have wonderful chemistry and their characters are more appealing, with MVP going to Lee Kwang Hee as Maru, who is a powerhouse of vulnerability and cuteness and yet so sexy.

I liked how this was about pairs of guys, and didn't divide them into ukes and semes - in fact it subverted expectations. You would assume Sung Min was the seme - older, taller, more muscular. and yet passive and shy, whereas Joo Hyuk is more assertive and confident. None of which means anything in real life about who does what in bed.

The last episode is a bit of a throw-away and could have been skipped, although it wasn't unpleasant.

Anyway, I'd recommend this - it's possibly my favorite BL series lately.

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