This review may contain spoilers
Could be better
I’d been waiting for the series Soulmate ever since it was announced, especially because of Taecyeon’s involvement. I was really curious how they would approach the relationship between two men in this case — considering it’s a Japan + Korea and streaming on mainstream Netflix. And honestly, I’m not surprised by the way this story was presented.
The fact that there are no romantic scenes in the series isn’t the issue for me. Feelings can be expressed in a hundred different ways. But I’m not sure I’m convinced by the idea that they wanted to portray a “pure” kind of love between the two characters. I know BL relationships are often overly sexualized and that romantic scenes sometimes add nothing to the plot, but here, honestly, one lingering look and one brief touch of hands would’ve been enough.
I don’t really buy the argument that they simply wanted to show the purity of this relationship. In my opinion, in mainstream Asian cinema the real reason is still fear of how this kind of relationship will be received, so it gets reduced to bromance instead. I’d genuinely like to read opinions from people who see it differently and why, because maybe I’m missing another perspective.
Personally, I think we should find some kind of middle ground between excessive sexualization and completely avoiding the subject of intimacy. Are we really supposed to believe that two young people wouldn’t want any deeper physical closeness over the course of years? That’s hard for me to believe.
The story also has a few plot holes, but I’m not that bothered by them since I understand this is just a fragment of several years of the characters’ lives. The ending, in my opinion, could’ve been better.
The fact that there are no romantic scenes in the series isn’t the issue for me. Feelings can be expressed in a hundred different ways. But I’m not sure I’m convinced by the idea that they wanted to portray a “pure” kind of love between the two characters. I know BL relationships are often overly sexualized and that romantic scenes sometimes add nothing to the plot, but here, honestly, one lingering look and one brief touch of hands would’ve been enough.
I don’t really buy the argument that they simply wanted to show the purity of this relationship. In my opinion, in mainstream Asian cinema the real reason is still fear of how this kind of relationship will be received, so it gets reduced to bromance instead. I’d genuinely like to read opinions from people who see it differently and why, because maybe I’m missing another perspective.
Personally, I think we should find some kind of middle ground between excessive sexualization and completely avoiding the subject of intimacy. Are we really supposed to believe that two young people wouldn’t want any deeper physical closeness over the course of years? That’s hard for me to believe.
The story also has a few plot holes, but I’m not that bothered by them since I understand this is just a fragment of several years of the characters’ lives. The ending, in my opinion, could’ve been better.
Was this review helpful to you?
