lilili

This was the first episode where I really disliked Krailert. I'm not at all upset about the cheating in the context of 1969 when men could be fired or killed for having relationships with each other. But at the gala Krailert was incredibly disrespectful to Devi who is just as much a victim of this situation as he is. Like yes he's not in love with her but he didn't have to ignore her and abandon her at a public gathering. But I know the show is trying to say something about who the victims are when men can't be together freely, not just the men themselves but the women they end up bearded with.

Also I wonder if Krailert is low-key suicidal because his behavior in the bathroom was insane. Veera now knows what's going on and since he's in love with Devi he might use the information to take down Krailert.

One more thing to add: the episode showed how women are collateral damage when gay men can't love freely. I felt so sorry for Devi and Dao at the gala.

Trin works for a think tank advising on the development project, his students are protestors and he's Krailert's nephew. Tanwa's father is an investor in the project and is a very dangerous person who Trin has pissed off. Everyone is involved in the political plot and the streams are going to converge in later episodes.

The novel the drama is based on had a real king, Yeonsangun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonsangun_of_Joseon

But because that King was notorious for all of the people he killed and women he r***d they changed the name for the kdrama and a few of the details. But his basic character profile and biography is the same.

It's very accurate to the 60s and 70s, everyone smoked at that time. I'm old enough to remember when people smoked on airplanes and in restaurants 🤢

they learn to play their instruments but the people on the soundtrack are professional musicians. It's still a huge accomplishment, they look so good in the stage performances because their hands are making the real movements for the music.

Thailand was part of the hippie trail in the 60s and 70s: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/50n4u5/the_hippie_trail_was_an_overland_journey_taken_by/

The people traveling on the trail weren't participating in political protests, they were just interested in smoking dope and hanging out on beaches. So in Thailand it wasn't a homegrown political movement the way it was in the West.

People are so upset about the cheating with no understanding or compassion for the untold numbers of men and women who were trapped in the closet - and still are! Yes it's wrong but not because individual people are failing but because society failed and continues to fail LGBTQIA people. Of course people entered into fake marriages and cheated, it was literally a survival strategy at a time when being outed could get you fired, jailed or killed.

7.1 rating for a kdrama with a star studded cast is like When the Stars Gossip levels of bad

This was so disappointing. I loved the first season of Enigma and how it had strong female characters like the ones played by Prim and Piploy. The plot about the pressure of school destroying students was also good. But this one was low-key misogynistic with how it portrayed women screaming and fighting over a dress. It also got really boring with all of the monologues explaining the plot instead of showing us what's going on. It was also mistake to have the whole thing happen in the house because it was the same sets and it got monotonous. The story became more interesting at the last minute with the political angle and I wish they had built a drama around a sorcerer manipulating politicians and the public instead of the mess we got.

The Japanese version fixed this problem in two ways:

SPOILER FOR THE JDRAMA


One, the husband isn't nearly as abusive as he is in the Korean version and two, the best friend is the one who kills the FL instead of the husband. That makes it less awful that the fate gets passed to the friend.

Also the leads in the Japanese version don't do things like financially pressure the husband to try to get him to kill himself or show up at his funeral to gloat over his mother. That behavior from the kdrama leads is straight up villain behavior.

It's especially bad after watching Satoh Takeru blasting charisma in the Japanese version.

I don't necessarily think Sho is in love with Naoki but I do think the romance between Akane and Naoki is implausible and pointless. My husband and I were saying that Naoki's behavior screamed neurodivergent: not just the obsession with music but the way he neglects his body (forgets to eat, faints from over exertion), sits on the floor and swaddles himself under layers of fabric (suggests sensory issues). He probably wouldn't enjoy being touched and would have problems with intimacy. I think your conjecture that he may be asexual is a definite possibility.

Machida Keita doesn't hold back when playing emotional scenes so that makes it easy to infer romantic feelings for Naoki but I'm not sure that was intended by the writer.

Trin calls Tanwa a hippie so that would be the reference to flower power. Re: Stonewall, it may not have gotten international press at that time. The significance of the uprising wasn't apparent until later.

What was it about the USSR storyline that doesn't make sense? From what I remember Victor's father wrote a book about Stalin and then had to leave the USSR to live in Thailand to avoid persecution but now people are encouraging him to publish the book. What is it about that scenario that isn't plausible? As someone in the US I don't understand

ETA: never mind, I scrolled down and read your post. it'll be interested to see other story plays out.

One of the books Trin was reading is Towards An Understanding of Homosexuality by Daniel Capone, which says that homosexuality could be cured. This is what it says on the book jacket:

"There is hope for the homosexual problem, hope for those condemned to a lifetime of sexual deviance because of some people who feel there is a physical basis for the problem. It is as curable as its underlying causes are reversible, says Dr. Daniel Cappon.

"Here, he explores every facet of the problems of homosexuality and gives a detailed account of his treatment approach.

"This is not a technical book; rather, it is written in simple, easy-to-understand terms starting first with the therapeutic process to determine the type of problem. It then takes up the methods and reasoning used to show whether or not the patient has homosexual problems."

Here's a thread on the book: https://x.com/kath1een_a/status/1954807520549384702

There's nothing wrong with BLs, but BLs focus on romance and Shine is a political story with romance in it. It doesn't have the usual BL tropes.

My intent wasn't to shade BLs even though I can see why it came across that way. BLs are a subgenre of romance. Shine isn't primarily a romance even though there's romance in it. If you count up the number of minutes devoted to politics vs. the two romances it's probably 80% vs. 20%. That's why I thought it was a shame that the comments here were mostly focused on how hot the lovemaking scene is while the rest of the drama is getting overlooked.

That's why I couldn't enjoy Krailert's and Naran's encounter because either or both of them could die as a result. It seems like Naran is the one in bigger danger because he's also a reporter critical of the regime and Krailert's last lover was disappeared.

I'm pretty sure the comments about the US are meant to be a setup for the betrayal of Victor's father. He has tragic death written all over him.