lilili

A weird ass drama that turned out to be my fave of the year

So maybe you’ve seen people talking about Behind Your Touch but you’re not quite sure whether you wanna watch a kdrama where the central premise involves reading people’s minds by grabbing their asses. Well I freakin' loved this show and here’s why I want everyone who’s been holding back on starting this one to check it out.

Behind Your Touch tells the story of Bong Ye Bon, a small town veterinarian who one night during a meteor shower acquires the ability to see people’s memories -- but only if she touches their butts. She teams up with Detective Moon Jang-yeol, a Seoul detective banished to the town because of a screw up, to solve crimes and soon they’re desperately scrambling to solve the mystery of her mother's death and to stop a serial killer. To give you a flavor for the tone of the show, their meet cute is when he arrests her for trying to test out her powers by touching a pickpocket’s behind on the bus.

There's a lot of bizarre comedy like when the FL’s best friend develops a crushes on the ML and keeps serenading him with an accordian. She has a girl squad who she calls on to provide muscle as needed, like the scene where they deliberately start a fight at a political rally so the FL can run through the crowd and touch as many asses as possible. The squad includes a token man who is subbing for his pregnant sister and refers to the 2FL as EONNI! There’s also a screamingly funny 2521 parody that goes on for half the drama (people were referring to it as 5551) and even a throwaway gag referencing a famous artwork by Yoko Ono. The small town residents speak in an impenetrable dialect that has to be translated for Detective Moon who can't understand what anyone is saying.

But even in the early episodes (which are the funniest), there’s elements of a disturbing thriller. For example, the very first scene of the drama shows poor Ye Bon watching her mother’s body getting pulled out of a car in the ocean. And the first episode also features a scene with a woman being dragged through the dirt by her hair

Also know that while there are some very sweet and deeply heartfelt moments and some heart fluttering moments, this is not a romance. While I was dying for something serious to go down between the leads, it's only ever alluded to. I still loved them together. And there are secondary romances which are delightfully bonkers.

As the drama goes on it become less and less about zany wacky shenanigans and more and more about omg where did he stick that knife. The body count is truly impressive and major characters who we deeply care about die which is a bold choice for the creators and raises the stakes for catching the killer.

Unfortunately the thriller part of the story eventually goes off the rails. This writing team has never produced a thriller before and it shows. There's a lot of huge plot holes and implausibilities in the unsatisfactory final episode. It's really too damned bad because up to ep 15 I was absolutely riveted by this show and loving every minute of it.

In addition to the mostly excellent writing (except for the final episode) I want to shout out the performances. Han Ji Min and Lee Min Ki are absolutely perfect as our chaotic crime fighting duo. They handle the comedy and tragedy equally well. The entire cast is stellar, especially the actor who portrays the killer. I also love the Mujin police officers and the local shop owners and fishermen.

My biggest problem with the drama was episode 16 which failed to close some gigantic plotholes and wasted time with cameos from people we didn't care about instead of giving us a proper ending for the main couple.

Despite all that I freakin' loved this show and rate it my favorite watch of the year. I need LMK and HJM in a proper romance together asap.

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Ded from the cute

Thailand dropped the official trailer for their version of Cherry Magic and it was very cute so I decided to watch the original and OMG I was not expecting to love this as much as I did.

This show is SO EFFING CUTE. It's like a basket of puppies wrapped in rainbows, unicorns and sparkle hearts. It's so soft and innocent and yet somehow keeps you on the edge of your seat every single episode. I was literally watching this in bed kicking my feet and squealing.

One of the most impressive things to me is that Adachi and Kurosawa are both fundamentally kind and decent people and that there are no villains or rivals in the story. It's hard to make a story like this dramatically interesting but this production pulled it off.

The casting of the leads is perfect. Akaso Eiji is gifted at physical comedy and I laughed out loud every time Adachi jumped or flailed or just looked panicked when he read Kurosawa's romantic thoughts. But he was also able to pull my heartstrings in the scenes that were sadder and more poignant. Machida Keita was seriously impressive at showing us a man with a perfect facade but who is a pure romantic inside. His performance in the scene where he confesses to Adachi and then covers up his emotions with a pasted on smile was incredible.

The leads had incredible chemistry. I have no idea how two men simply holding hands or sharing a meal made me shriek like a teenager at a concert but they had a chokehold on me.

The writing is excellent and I loved the themes of learning to love yourself, behave authentically and connect with other human beings. The hook of a virgin with mind reading powers could have gone creepy and gross but instead Adachi's pure nature and sincere desire to help other people made it touching and heartwarming.

Fujisaki deserves a special shoutout for being such a lovely and complex character who is secure in herself, doesn't need a relationship and sincerely desires to support her friends. The show briefly teased us with a possible love triangle and then turned it around to something that added a lot of warmth to the story.

I also really enjoyed Rokkaku for being hilariously clueless and I loved his eager puppy energy.

The only thing I disliked was the second couple, who were poorly cast. Tsuge's actor looked older than 30 while Minato's actor looked about 17 years old even though he's in his 20s. They had no chemistry and Tsuge's actor went way way way over the top. It's very interesting to compare his performance with Akaso Eiji who also brought a manga vibe to some of his scenes but for some reason knew exactly how far to go to make you laugh without being off putting.

I was also seriously disappointed we didn't get a kiss between the leads since the second leads got one. I saw a behind the scenes with the actors and they seemed really comfortable with each other so who knows why they opted not to do it. I have to say though that they were able to sell me on the depth of their love for each other even without a kiss and that's impressive.

I'm sure Thailand will do a good job with this story and they will definitely give us a kiss but I doubt it will make me feel as happy and warm as the Japanese version. This is going into my rotation of comfort dramas.

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Weird mix of romcom elements with dark childhood trauma but it works

I never write reviews of airing dramas but this drama has gotten a lot of bad word of mouth and I want to counter that for anyone who's undecided about watching it. Just know going in that the marketing for this show has been very misleading. Someone on Reddit described it as Business Proposal meets Flower of Evil meets Pretty Woman and that is very accurate. Yes it's often very funny (a dinner scene in episode 4 made me scream laugh) but it's also very heavy and sad in a lot of ways.

It has what may be the weirdest first episode of a drama I've ever seen. You are dropped directly into the story after the leads have been contract married for five years. Their entire relationship to that point has consisted of her meeting him three days a week for dinners he's cooked for her and that they eat in total silence because the ML suffers from crippling social anxiety and struggles to make connections with other people. Despite that, the FL is starting to catch feelings for the ML because he feeds her and gives her a quiet safe space and makes no demands on her, unlike her other clients who constantly have to be managed.

The FL was raised by a shady woman contracted by a corporation to groom the perfect chaebol wife so she could be married off to the eldest son of another chaebol family. The FL refused to go through with the marriage and uses the skills she learned to run a business as a wife for hire. She's been divorced 13 times and has had many more fake relationships that were never made legal. She sends all of her money to the shady woman who treats her coldly but is the closest thing she has to a mother.

The 2ML is the youngest brother of the man rejected by the FL. He's never forgotten her and even though he's become a famous actor he's named his beloved cat after her (it's a one sided love since the cat hates him). There's a big development in episode 4 that I won't spoil but this is definitely not your typical 2ML.

The FL's roommate and best friend is a gay man she fake married (later divorced) to get his homophobic sisters off his back. We first see him with the hot young man he's spent the night with but he dreams of moving to Canada so he can be openly out and attend the gay pride parade in Vancouver. It's great to see an LGBT character in a Kdrama who isn't stereotypical and has his own story arc.

The actors are all excellent but I want to give a special shoutout to Go Kyung-pyo as the ML. I've always liked him but he's a revelation in this drama. The character requires him to veer from dark and scary to endearingly awkward to sexy and smitten to panicked and jealous. He's good at all of it and I also have to mention he's in the best shape of his life and looks amazing in suits. He and Park Min Young have fantastic chemistry but she does that with all of her costars.

Whether or not you'll enjoy this depends a lot on your tolerance for drastic changes in tone and odd plotting (episode 1 felt like episode 10 of a normal drama). It's not like any other drama I've seen. I'm loving it and looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds. I hope it doesn't fall apart in the end but I think it's very much worth checking out.

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