I like the actors past series. And went in excited. I watched the 1st 2 episodes of this and thought it was fun...over-the-top, but fun. Was trying to wait for it to finish b4 I watched the rest...but broke down and have been binging it.
BUT....I hate Pheem. I truly dislike the character. He isn't fun, he is honeslty just an awful person. And I've checked out of the romance....I don't want to give spoilers....but this is not love or sweet or anything. It is a lot of lies, selfishness, half-truths, and using.
The show keeps trying to justify it with Pheems background....but it only justifies so much..he is fully aware of how duplicitous he is being and as of now...episode 6...doesn't care....cause hes getting what he wants out of everyone.
I hate it.
P.s. I started writing this, just so I didnt have to watch the sex scene when it was happening....thats how not into this relationship I am. It felt icky and wrong.
I don't understand the decisions of the main character in his new life at all. It males no sense, except aparently…
Just finished episode 6. And so Joe has been offered by the pink haired friend and used to wanna be lover for his mothers medical bills to be paid in full. Wut says he has savings, and b4 Joe makes stupid decisions, to come to him for money help.....
But Joe decides no...the offer Im going to take is from the deranged asshole who ruined my career, and I blame for my death, and who chained me in a basement somewhere and is also a complete psycho.....yes...instead I will accept the money from him and sell myself and body and be another "stand-in" for the guy that already used me as a "stand-in" when I was original joe....and I claim I hate...m
And that is of course after he went out on his own and became the body double once again to Tong....the man who we all hate and that helped ruin him in the past and that made him into a stand in in both life and work....
Meaning that he is now living the exact samenfreaking life with all the exact same people all over again.....Except now he knows how awful they all are and who the good guys were and still are.....but he still puts himself in the middle of all the assholes and evil people and puts them in positions of power over him, just like in his last life.....
Its effing insane and just incredible stupidity. Joe is a moron.
I mean as hot as he is, and as good natured as he is, i guess he had to not have something...and that is a brain....
So, I have not read the source material, but i just binged these 4 episodes....I am a gay guy....so I am pro M/M couples and screentime and love watching guys fall for each other love stories .....
But I'm kinda shocked how negative the comments section is for this.
This is well made, with a winning cast, and a solid believable story. It is also normal 45 min run times and 10 episode order, something KBL audiences have been salivating for and demanding.
People are saying the straight couple didn't exist in the manwha....okay fine, but it exists here, and its being used in an effect manner. It is the catalyst for Heesu not only confronting his own feelings, but also being smacked with the reality, that his crush is straight and will not, and can not, stay by his side in a "Bromance" forever. His world is disrupted by this romance and what it means, and he and his relationships are changing because of it.....it is very honest and very natural.
I also am not a heterophobe, my world has all people and all their lovely colors and interests in it. And if having a straight couple allows me to have a fully funded, fully developed, with full episode runtimes and episode order then sign me the f up....
This isn't like that Gangster show where they sanitized and wiped the gay story away, it isn't straight washing nor is it bromancing the story to make it palatable to a larger audience...it is simply giving people who may not tune in to a full on BL something to possibly draw them in and give it a chance...while still keeping the characters gay and having a gay romance at its heart.... and again using that straight story effectively for forward plot movement and character development.
First episode is very strong and the first half is better than the last half. It is a very paint-by-numbers, run-of-the-mill, Kdrama romance filled with name brand goods, subway, and coffee candy sponsers. The music is always going and it does everything as super safe as it can down to the white and pastel color pallets of every set and setting. Even with a shortened runtime of only 12 episodes, it feels much longer and took me 3 days over the weekend to get through it.
U have orphans, evil ceos, flashbacks to destructive fires, fated children falling in love as adults, love triangles that evolve into 2nd couples, lots of scenes of cute children who speak like grown-ups, storylines that make "mountains out of molehills" just so there is some attempt at evolving drama in the middle...oh and female dad porn....lots and lots of slow-mo playing at a playground with mutliple pull-ups to show his strength as we prove he is his the best father in all the world, falling asleep in his daughters bed after she painted his fingnernails type porn that is made specifically to make women swoon and aww....
Its fine, like fills time nicely, and is enjoyable in that average way. Nothing is awful here, but nothing is great either...just a very middle of the road, average in every way, gets the job done series....like that music that plays at coffee shops...ya know....you arent mad u experienced it, but there is nothing lasting afterward and it is utterly forgettable....
The actor for Pi Han Ul… could you guys recommend me a drama with him in it? I think I found my new bias…
There is the role that was his debut. A BL called Tasty Florida....it is the only thing Ive seen him in where he is a sweet kind guy...since then everything is very violent...and hes normally a bad guy.
So far, some racing and loud zooming...and half the run-time is sex scenes with porn music...and then there is some rich guy with scary hair, plastic surgery, and bad make-up...and Babe has a Pretty Woman complex...everything but kissing...oh and babes friends are Prissy Mean Girls...
But the set design is cheesy fun...i mean the set designer from that retro dinner to Babes fuc% pad...they deserve some props.
Oh and I hope Charlie is a bad guy...cause otherwise his character is cringey as all get out and has made me squirm and give side eye to the make believe camera that secretly films my life.
it's a fucking character he's playing. Although I agree Tempted was trash
Yes, im not holding that against him....though it does kinda show a pattern.
However, my card is for those that entertain me and make me excited for their future works becuase I like their choices, skill, and normally have positive reactions to their projects...
Hes piling up far more losses than wins for me....and thus I cant trust that watching his work is going to be enjoyable nor does he have a track record to continuously make me excited.
Next time add a spoiler tag before spewing your unwarranted opinions…
This is the plot...as i opened in my original post I have only finished 3 episodes...do not know how this actually ends...im am just talking about the plot and not giving away anything...there are no spoilers in what I wrote. The first episode gives you all of this.
idk if you understand human nature, were not perfect. Humans are selfish. If you want to see a perfect male lead,…
Being flawed, scarred, and broken...needing to be healed and making mistakes is not the same thing as being abusive, a kidnapper, and forcing others without consent.....
The difference between the 2 is vast...so vast you can drop a solar system between them.
Having a problem with them doesnt constitute asking for a perfect male lead who is shiny, pure, and a rich ceo.
Im 3 episode in...and dislike it. It is the story of a man who has abandonment issues and childhood trauma that is violent (destroys apt etc) in his relationship with a girl he eventually dumps by telling her shes no longer fun...and would never be a good mother cause shes an orphan...
I dont care if he really loved her or not...and if ill learn he did this to save her cause he thought he wasnt good enough or whatever makes the audience think the abuse both mental and physical was ok...it doesnt make it ok.
Then, when he learns hes dying and happens to see her...decides on his own that she was the love of his life and he wants to spend his last time on earth with her...so he kidnaps her...knocks her unconscious at her wedding and carries her away...ties her up at night, chases her through fields....etc.so forth and so on.....
I dont give a fuck about his issues. He doesnt automatically deserve happiness cuase hes dying...he doesnt have an auto pity card that allows him to do what ever he wants...and he sure as hell doesnt deserve to have the woman he wants regardless of her consent becuase he is a man that deep down loves her....and again his life journey on finding his father and healing his childhood is his journey not hers...its not her responsibility to heal him and make him happy.
This show so far is heinous and disgusting....and misogynistic as all hell...
Its also is slow....like unexpectedly slow...and I havent laughed once...for it having a comendy tag....it is quite sad and depressing and has a whole side story line of mobsters and thugs with a decent amount of unneeded semi graphic violence....
Now, im sure the story will twist this to make it all okay. That she really loved him and forgives him for taking her. That she was unsure about getting married...that she doesnt belong where she was going especially with her medical condition...that him doing these awful illegal violent things to her ultimatley was in her benifit and her life is better for it...and we all together will learn a lesson of life and love as he dies....
And its all bullshit.
Im so incredibly dissapointed right now.
P.s. I think I need to take my woo do hwan card back...hes been in what 2 romances...this one and the absolutley heidous trash that is Tempted....and all his other works are ultra violent or hes the bad guy/morally ambiguous character that does bad stuff....i dont care how hot he is anymore.
The small town characters are far too unrealistic...I in general enjoy the city vs rural Korean shows and how they gather larger-than-life characters in the small towns...but this is too far. Also the small town seems and feels weirdly empty...as if no one else except these people make up the town...scenes like when the townleader stops fl at the intersection and then she gives him a mountain of vitamins that they unload and stack in the middle of said intersection and not a single car or passerby is anywhere to be seen the whole time. The meeting hall empty save town leader. Convience store empty besides town leader...the brewery not having any people to draw workers from except these 3 people...yet the town has buildings and roads as if a decent amount of people live there.
I drink, but the romanticization of the brewing industry is kinda weird as well. I mean its saved so many jobs and people. The massive hatred between rival sellars. The brother who roams around the world drinking and sets up shop at a brewery willing to do anything because the beer is that amazing. An entire branch livelihoods and their brewers are on the line for just 1 new beer from an outside producer. The main office being a willy wonka and the chocolate factory but for adults and with alcohol instead of candy....its all just so unrealsitic and far fetched that its hard to emerse yourself and extend the much needed suspension of disbelief that stories hinge...
Then the male lead having a superpower in the midsts of all of this where he can see and feel the truths of people and their emotions around him...an empath...its yes cringey.
I'm really enjoying this series, even though it's not a BL. Or maybe because it would take very little to turn…
It is honestly kinda ridiculous. I mean how there hasn't been a kiss yet is just mind boggling. It is more gay coded or BL coded than any of the Gay or BL programming I am watching right now which includes 2 other countries content.....Hell it's kinda the gayest thing I've watched from GMMTV since Mark's other "friend" show Just Friends...
I dunno guys. I'm on episode 7 and it is really frustrating. I understand forgiveness is a main theme, second chances, and that being poor means you've got to do what you've got to do.
But there is a limit. Isn't there?
How many times do you allow somone to double cross you or simply scam you before you stop embracing them? How many times do you commit yourself to doing bad things and becoming a monster and still get to claim I had too? How many times can someone repeat their actions and decisions causing them to fall deeper into a hole and dragging you along with them before you are allowed to let them go?
How many poor decisions must be made, how many times is someone allowed to aligin with violence, illegal activites, and being a thug to others, and how many wrongs can be used to cross out other wrongs that keep getting larger until people can actually be considered bad people?
People on here hate Rose cause she's rich and an obstacle...when in truth shes done nothing.
People Hate Boss cause hes rich and at the top. But how is he any different from the other characters and their actions...besides being rich.
People hate Save, when he is also poor under the thumb of boss and acting purely out of his feelings of love and to protect another...it just so happens that it hurts the main characters.
People like Tattoo, becuase hes part of the gang even though he has double crossed all the characters mutliple times and shown when the chips are down he will do what benifits himself before caring about anyone else...no matter their perdicament.
The Joker is a rich kid who went around scamming other rich people because he wasn't as smart as his brother...and his awful parents let him know it...and since hes been out of prison has ran mutliple scams which have only resulted in more problems...I mean his first scam led to his second scam to fix the first one and now his second scam has lead to Jack being traded to another crime family as if an object...their separation their own faults. And he's loved by the audience.
And Jack who has mostly held steadfast to his morals and been the one beacon of levelheadedness and goodness...showing that grit and determination is worth something in this world...now is willing to become a crime lord and put a yolk on his neighbors and friends and be the very monster they have all faught against...as long as it saves his grandma....
Meanwhile...the romance is just longing looks and cryptic dialogue that happens once an episode...and maybe a cliche clean the wounds scene...
This has almost 9....
It is a much better produced BL out of Thailand than most...and the actors are doing their jobs here. I was into it in the begining becuase of this. It feels like a step-up from most Thai BLs...but at the same time...as I keep going...the slowness of the show...which is weird for trying to be an action mob story...the only whiff of romance...for it being a BL...and then the show constantly asking me to forgive all the actions of all the characters over and over again...while also supposedly hating the bad guys just cause they are the bad guys...when they are just doing the same things the good guys are also doing....
Im just dismayed and frustrated...and starting to lose intrest.
The saying fool me once...shame on you...fool me twice...shame on me...rings loudly here...how many 2nd chances does a person get?
Dont get me wrong, I dislike Boss, Hope, and Save...too...and hate that i have to deal with them so much...but i also see they arent any worse than the good guys...at all...and I kinda dont like the good guys either...except Jack...holding out that Jack will remain my beacon.
So, by the end of episode 4 I had written a comment that I was checked out of the relationship. That is, I no longer wanted the 2 main leads together. I'm invested in the series story enough that I want to see how it ends....but that end is not me hoping to see the characters come together happily. I already wanted an ending where JY ends up in a happier place and with someone else.
With that, I, as well as others, tried to come up with explanations for the actions taken by our leads at the end of the 4th episode. Everyone was trying to understand how the relationship from the first two episodes became so twisted and estranged by the 4th. The time jump and what came after causing the audience-overall-to recoil.
I watched these boards for a few days following the airing to see what everyone was brainstorming, and I too joined in. I manipulated the information given and did mental back-flips until I could work-out a story that seemed somewhat plausible WHILE also keeping the characters likable and possibly allow the last 4 episodes to reignite the spark of wanting to root for these two.
However, now that episodes 5-6 have dropped and that explanation came, I was actually kinda delighted that none of the comments, or myself, had accurately projected the events of the plot. But, what the plot dealt out ended up even darker than most people had imagined. Thus while I am happy that the plot wasn't mundane, it also simultaneously further alienated the audience, as these message boards are aflurry with anger, dislike, and frustration. It also further tore me wanting these two together. In-fact, I would actually likely be very dismayed, disappointed, and disheartened if the last 2 episodes wash everything clean and make it a nice tidy bow with these two happily at the center.
The relationship needs to be put out of its misery. The healthiest thing any of the characters can do, even side characters, is to say goodbye to each other and take the memories that were happy with them and move forward. JY life is horrible, stilted, and stunned. He has not grown as a person or accomplished anything while sitting in weight for a lover long gone. DH has moved forward and changed as a person, but that person is a broken, dark, angry, distant, and very unhappy man. HHH is also emotionally broken, closeted, and trapped in his own effed up hell. And the relationships between all 3 characters are at best the buzz word "toxic" and at worst debilitating.
I want to say I love this director, and she has some of the best Korean BL works to her name. But, I feel this story was biting off too much. Even though the episodes aren't 10-15 minutes like WYEL or Blueming, it still seems she doesn't have enough time to make a fully realized story with the 30-40 min. 8 episode runtime of this project. It seems she and her writers thought with the added time they could delve into some deep scars, psychological trauma, and romance spanning over a decade of time and still make something poignant and emotionally gratifying. But that is so far not the case. It is dark and broken, with a blistering inadequate time jump, and story that slingshots its characters and audience through tumultuous emotions, odd reunions, as well as short sighted unrealistic catharsis that results in painful empty scenes masquerading as romance.
But its how it has to be...not just how the creators wanted it. It is the crux of a time travel story and decides if it is actually well written or rubbish.
If the time didnt work in a loop as it does and thus all things in the past were already decided and set in stone...then the future or present setting of the story would be altered.
It is the whole multiverse issue.
If someone leaves the present and alters the past then that present is destoryed or no longer exists for that person to go back to. As they left a place in time in which the events that happened to make that future did not happen.
Thus u would get a story like Lovely Runner...(which has some gaping time travel holes in its plot) but overal is a decent stab at mutliverses. Everytime the female lead travels and changes the past, she arrives back in an altered future...or not the same that she left....thus she creates multiverses...and her and the male lead only end up together in a specific mutliverse...where she alters the past in the right way to build that future.
This story has a set present of which is never altered...and the way for the characters to be together in this present is becuase the past was already changed in a way to create this present. Thus, the story can only tell how the loop of time created this present...and it was the characters coming to understand how they themselves did this.
Any story that uses time travel to only give the characters what they want, as in they change the past but areive back in a future thats the same with only the thing they changed different...is bad writing and has a built in fallacy...and does not work...and b4 we say its a fake story and time travel isnt real...theoretically it is possible in the real world...but bound by these laws. We will never live in a world where world war 2 didnt happen...we cant change that even if we discover tomorrow how to time travel....because that past is already past and cant be changed...if it changed then our world and us will no longer exist. But a diverent reality where no one has ever known world war 2 at all. Also it creates the problem that if world war 2 didnt happen then also possibly time travel would never have been invented because the techonoly the world gained during that dark time and those discoveries are what lead to the invention of time travel in the first place.
But I hate all the characters except the best friend being framed and weirdly the Mom of the suicide kid...Im finishing episode 25...
Our main female lead is a good person...but to make the story they have her constantly make irrational decisions and approach every situation in the most round-about convoluted way to ensure misunderstanding, drama, longer run-time, and make her out to seem victimized as all the bad stuff keeps happening around her...but its not her fault she wants to do the right thing...showing how to write a spineless wet nooddle of a character with absloutely no Agency.
The male lead treats everyone cold and distant and like they are all annoyances...but seems like a decent guy. But given there are 100 episodes...and im only on 25...Im waiting for him to either thaw and become an actual good and loving guy...or side with his family and be a monster...im sure ill get both b4 its over.
The 2nd female lead is a waste of screenspace and I cant stand her on my screen. That goes for the whole female leads family...they are all awful people.
The chairwoman over acts and chews on every scene she is in to gurantee she is the loudest and most seen....
Uhg...the story is circular so it can keep going...spinning wheelsnof the same melo drama and calapsing wailing theatrics.
Solid review. I will observe that applying western notions of how timely the subject matter feels out of place…
Hey there, thank you for the ernest and well thought out feed back to my review. I do see your points, and how issues could be had with my take on the subject matter at hand. They are valid counterpoints with great support.
At the same time, I'm only half in agreement. When talking about any culutre that is not ones own, leniency and consideration for differences in time, place, and overall mindset must always be weighed. However, I am not one to fully buy into the us vs them construct that is in play a lot when critiquing or reviewing art. While I admitted that I could understand the improtance of an honest gay story being told given the modern day landscape that is Koreas political and social environment, that environment is also simultaneously not bottled. Western media and art as well as influence have been a part of Korean culture for quite some time. American works consistently perform well in Korean box offices, western stories are easily obtained online and in bookstores, let alone media and online presence that is available via the internet. This was just as true in the 2010s of Korea as it is now. Just as I am here in the west speaking of a show made and aired in Korea so too is the opposite true. Our world, unless in a country that is cut-off by its rulers from the outside, functions more wholesticaly than ever before and shared experiences and storys are abound. Just as I also mentioned that currently Angels in America is being performed by big name Korean artists in Seoul concurrently, art, media, and stories are openly shared between cultures.
As for the stance that HIV is less of an issue today and that Korean culture may not require such information be divulged, the show itself, shows this not to be true. From the reactions of his friends at the nightclub when talking about a passerby being positive and covering their glasses, to the military ejecting him because of his status, to jobs requiring bloodtests, (hell even foreigners such as English teachers must prove their negative status before being allowed into the country) to the fact that the main character gives the disease his own pet name and when facing a true relationship says you must know this about me and says Ill give you the night to decide if you want to continue with me...shows the world the character exists in makes HIV a paramount issue. Let alone the betrayal our lead feels by his boyfriend cheating on him and infecting him. This also shows that socially there is still ignorance and fear of it, and for the character to choose to hide it from sexual partners, and also full blown relationships, hell his last one was a married man with a child, think of how it can affect that family, is still very selfish, irresponsible, and does paint him in not a good light.
I do also stand by the story, as in not real life, but the story being told does not use HIV in a way that requires it to be part of the tale. If this was a story of a headstrong out and proud HIV person showing us his best life...then yes HIV being only a passing statement is grounded. But that is not what this show is about and it brings HIV in as a surprise and, again I hold true to emotionally stunted, as something that haunts the main character always and gives a handful of scenes on how it affects his life, but then does nothing beyond this...a plot point..some drama...that has no true lasting effects on the story as a whole. Thus it could be fully removed and nothing changes. Also, given the importance of the social landscape does the first broadcast show featuring a real gay experience have to include HIV, as if it is a given problem for gay people...when the straight stories of Korea hardly if ever do the same, though again it having higher prevelence in straight couples vs gay couples?
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BUT....I hate Pheem. I truly dislike the character. He isn't fun, he is honeslty just an awful person. And I've checked out of the romance....I don't want to give spoilers....but this is not love or sweet or anything. It is a lot of lies, selfishness, half-truths, and using.
The show keeps trying to justify it with Pheems background....but it only justifies so much..he is fully aware of how duplicitous he is being and as of now...episode 6...doesn't care....cause hes getting what he wants out of everyone.
I hate it.
P.s. I started writing this, just so I didnt have to watch the sex scene when it was happening....thats how not into this relationship I am. It felt icky and wrong.
But Joe decides no...the offer Im going to take is from the deranged asshole who ruined my career, and I blame for my death, and who chained me in a basement somewhere and is also a complete psycho.....yes...instead I will accept the money from him and sell myself and body and be another "stand-in" for the guy that already used me as a "stand-in" when I was original joe....and I claim I hate...m
And that is of course after he went out on his own and became the body double once again to Tong....the man who we all hate and that helped ruin him in the past and that made him into a stand in in both life and work....
Meaning that he is now living the exact samenfreaking life with all the exact same people all over again.....Except now he knows how awful they all are and who the good guys were and still are.....but he still puts himself in the middle of all the assholes and evil people and puts them in positions of power over him, just like in his last life.....
Its effing insane and just incredible stupidity. Joe is a moron.
I mean as hot as he is, and as good natured as he is, i guess he had to not have something...and that is a brain....
But I'm kinda shocked how negative the comments section is for this.
This is well made, with a winning cast, and a solid believable story. It is also normal 45 min run times and 10 episode order, something KBL audiences have been salivating for and demanding.
People are saying the straight couple didn't exist in the manwha....okay fine, but it exists here, and its being used in an effect manner. It is the catalyst for Heesu not only confronting his own feelings, but also being smacked with the reality, that his crush is straight and will not, and can not, stay by his side in a "Bromance" forever. His world is disrupted by this romance and what it means, and he and his relationships are changing because of it.....it is very honest and very natural.
I also am not a heterophobe, my world has all people and all their lovely colors and interests in it. And if having a straight couple allows me to have a fully funded, fully developed, with full episode runtimes and episode order then sign me the f up....
This isn't like that Gangster show where they sanitized and wiped the gay story away, it isn't straight washing nor is it bromancing the story to make it palatable to a larger audience...it is simply giving people who may not tune in to a full on BL something to possibly draw them in and give it a chance...while still keeping the characters gay and having a gay romance at its heart.... and again using that straight story effectively for forward plot movement and character development.
So far, I like this.
U have orphans, evil ceos, flashbacks to destructive fires, fated children falling in love as adults, love triangles that evolve into 2nd couples, lots of scenes of cute children who speak like grown-ups, storylines that make "mountains out of molehills" just so there is some attempt at evolving drama in the middle...oh and female dad porn....lots and lots of slow-mo playing at a playground with mutliple pull-ups to show his strength as we prove he is his the best father in all the world, falling asleep in his daughters bed after she painted his fingnernails type porn that is made specifically to make women swoon and aww....
Its fine, like fills time nicely, and is enjoyable in that average way. Nothing is awful here, but nothing is great either...just a very middle of the road, average in every way, gets the job done series....like that music that plays at coffee shops...ya know....you arent mad u experienced it, but there is nothing lasting afterward and it is utterly forgettable....
6.5 stars
STILL IN SEARCH OF A PLOT....
So far, some racing and loud zooming...and half the run-time is sex scenes with porn music...and then there is some rich guy with scary hair, plastic surgery, and bad make-up...and Babe has a Pretty Woman complex...everything but kissing...oh and babes friends are Prissy Mean Girls...
But the set design is cheesy fun...i mean the set designer from that retro dinner to Babes fuc% pad...they deserve some props.
Oh and I hope Charlie is a bad guy...cause otherwise his character is cringey as all get out and has made me squirm and give side eye to the make believe camera that secretly films my life.
However, my card is for those that entertain me and make me excited for their future works becuase I like their choices, skill, and normally have positive reactions to their projects...
Hes piling up far more losses than wins for me....and thus I cant trust that watching his work is going to be enjoyable nor does he have a track record to continuously make me excited.
The difference between the 2 is vast...so vast you can drop a solar system between them.
Having a problem with them doesnt constitute asking for a perfect male lead who is shiny, pure, and a rich ceo.
I dont care if he really loved her or not...and if ill learn he did this to save her cause he thought he wasnt good enough or whatever makes the audience think the abuse both mental and physical was ok...it doesnt make it ok.
Then, when he learns hes dying and happens to see her...decides on his own that she was the love of his life and he wants to spend his last time on earth with her...so he kidnaps her...knocks her unconscious at her wedding and carries her away...ties her up at night, chases her through fields....etc.so forth and so on.....
I dont give a fuck about his issues. He doesnt automatically deserve happiness cuase hes dying...he doesnt have an auto pity card that allows him to do what ever he wants...and he sure as hell doesnt deserve to have the woman he wants regardless of her consent becuase he is a man that deep down loves her....and again his life journey on finding his father and healing his childhood is his journey not hers...its not her responsibility to heal him and make him happy.
This show so far is heinous and disgusting....and misogynistic as all hell...
Its also is slow....like unexpectedly slow...and I havent laughed once...for it having a comendy tag....it is quite sad and depressing and has a whole side story line of mobsters and thugs with a decent amount of unneeded semi graphic violence....
Now, im sure the story will twist this to make it all okay. That she really loved him and forgives him for taking her. That she was unsure about getting married...that she doesnt belong where she was going especially with her medical condition...that him doing these awful illegal violent things to her ultimatley was in her benifit and her life is better for it...and we all together will learn a lesson of life and love as he dies....
And its all bullshit.
Im so incredibly dissapointed right now.
P.s. I think I need to take my woo do hwan card back...hes been in what 2 romances...this one and the absolutley heidous trash that is Tempted....and all his other works are ultra violent or hes the bad guy/morally ambiguous character that does bad stuff....i dont care how hot he is anymore.
I drink, but the romanticization of the brewing industry is kinda weird as well. I mean its saved so many jobs and people. The massive hatred between rival sellars. The brother who roams around the world drinking and sets up shop at a brewery willing to do anything because the beer is that amazing. An entire branch livelihoods and their brewers are on the line for just 1 new beer from an outside producer. The main office being a willy wonka and the chocolate factory but for adults and with alcohol instead of candy....its all just so unrealsitic and far fetched that its hard to emerse yourself and extend the much needed suspension of disbelief that stories hinge...
Then the male lead having a superpower in the midsts of all of this where he can see and feel the truths of people and their emotions around him...an empath...its yes cringey.
But there is a limit. Isn't there?
How many times do you allow somone to double cross you or simply scam you before you stop embracing them? How many times do you commit yourself to doing bad things and becoming a monster and still get to claim I had too? How many times can someone repeat their actions and decisions causing them to fall deeper into a hole and dragging you along with them before you are allowed to let them go?
How many poor decisions must be made, how many times is someone allowed to aligin with violence, illegal activites, and being a thug to others, and how many wrongs can be used to cross out other wrongs that keep getting larger until people can actually be considered bad people?
People on here hate Rose cause she's rich and an obstacle...when in truth shes done nothing.
People Hate Boss cause hes rich and at the top. But how is he any different from the other characters and their actions...besides being rich.
People hate Save, when he is also poor under the thumb of boss and acting purely out of his feelings of love and to protect another...it just so happens that it hurts the main characters.
People like Tattoo, becuase hes part of the gang even though he has double crossed all the characters mutliple times and shown when the chips are down he will do what benifits himself before caring about anyone else...no matter their perdicament.
The Joker is a rich kid who went around scamming other rich people because he wasn't as smart as his brother...and his awful parents let him know it...and since hes been out of prison has ran mutliple scams which have only resulted in more problems...I mean his first scam led to his second scam to fix the first one and now his second scam has lead to Jack being traded to another crime family as if an object...their separation their own faults. And he's loved by the audience.
And Jack who has mostly held steadfast to his morals and been the one beacon of levelheadedness and goodness...showing that grit and determination is worth something in this world...now is willing to become a crime lord and put a yolk on his neighbors and friends and be the very monster they have all faught against...as long as it saves his grandma....
Meanwhile...the romance is just longing looks and cryptic dialogue that happens once an episode...and maybe a cliche clean the wounds scene...
This has almost 9....
It is a much better produced BL out of Thailand than most...and the actors are doing their jobs here. I was into it in the begining becuase of this. It feels like a step-up from most Thai BLs...but at the same time...as I keep going...the slowness of the show...which is weird for trying to be an action mob story...the only whiff of romance...for it being a BL...and then the show constantly asking me to forgive all the actions of all the characters over and over again...while also supposedly hating the bad guys just cause they are the bad guys...when they are just doing the same things the good guys are also doing....
Im just dismayed and frustrated...and starting to lose intrest.
The saying fool me once...shame on you...fool me twice...shame on me...rings loudly here...how many 2nd chances does a person get?
Dont get me wrong, I dislike Boss, Hope, and Save...too...and hate that i have to deal with them so much...but i also see they arent any worse than the good guys...at all...and I kinda dont like the good guys either...except Jack...holding out that Jack will remain my beacon.
With that, I, as well as others, tried to come up with explanations for the actions taken by our leads at the end of the 4th episode. Everyone was trying to understand how the relationship from the first two episodes became so twisted and estranged by the 4th. The time jump and what came after causing the audience-overall-to recoil.
I watched these boards for a few days following the airing to see what everyone was brainstorming, and I too joined in. I manipulated the information given and did mental back-flips until I could work-out a story that seemed somewhat plausible WHILE also keeping the characters likable and possibly allow the last 4 episodes to reignite the spark of wanting to root for these two.
However, now that episodes 5-6 have dropped and that explanation came, I was actually kinda delighted that none of the comments, or myself, had accurately projected the events of the plot. But, what the plot dealt out ended up even darker than most people had imagined. Thus while I am happy that the plot wasn't mundane, it also simultaneously further alienated the audience, as these message boards are aflurry with anger, dislike, and frustration. It also further tore me wanting these two together. In-fact, I would actually likely be very dismayed, disappointed, and disheartened if the last 2 episodes wash everything clean and make it a nice tidy bow with these two happily at the center.
The relationship needs to be put out of its misery. The healthiest thing any of the characters can do, even side characters, is to say goodbye to each other and take the memories that were happy with them and move forward. JY life is horrible, stilted, and stunned. He has not grown as a person or accomplished anything while sitting in weight for a lover long gone. DH has moved forward and changed as a person, but that person is a broken, dark, angry, distant, and very unhappy man. HHH is also emotionally broken, closeted, and trapped in his own effed up hell. And the relationships between all 3 characters are at best the buzz word "toxic" and at worst debilitating.
I want to say I love this director, and she has some of the best Korean BL works to her name. But, I feel this story was biting off too much. Even though the episodes aren't 10-15 minutes like WYEL or Blueming, it still seems she doesn't have enough time to make a fully realized story with the 30-40 min. 8 episode runtime of this project. It seems she and her writers thought with the added time they could delve into some deep scars, psychological trauma, and romance spanning over a decade of time and still make something poignant and emotionally gratifying. But that is so far not the case. It is dark and broken, with a blistering inadequate time jump, and story that slingshots its characters and audience through tumultuous emotions, odd reunions, as well as short sighted unrealistic catharsis that results in painful empty scenes masquerading as romance.
If the time didnt work in a loop as it does and thus all things in the past were already decided and set in stone...then the future or present setting of the story would be altered.
It is the whole multiverse issue.
If someone leaves the present and alters the past then that present is destoryed or no longer exists for that person to go back to.
As they left a place in time in which the events that happened to make that future did not happen.
Thus u would get a story like Lovely Runner...(which has some gaping time travel holes in its plot) but overal is a decent stab at mutliverses. Everytime the female lead travels and changes the past, she arrives back in an altered future...or not the same that she left....thus she creates multiverses...and her and the male lead only end up together in a specific mutliverse...where she alters the past in the right way to build that future.
This story has a set present of which is never altered...and the way for the characters to be together in this present is becuase the past was already changed in a way to create this present. Thus, the story can only tell how the loop of time created this present...and it was the characters coming to understand how they themselves did this.
Any story that uses time travel to only give the characters what they want, as in they change the past but areive back in a future thats the same with only the thing they changed different...is bad writing and has a built in fallacy...and does not work...and b4 we say its a fake story and time travel isnt real...theoretically it is possible in the real world...but bound by these laws. We will never live in a world where world war 2 didnt happen...we cant change that even if we discover tomorrow how to time travel....because that past is already past and cant be changed...if it changed then our world and us will no longer exist. But a diverent reality where no one has ever known world war 2 at all. Also it creates the problem that if world war 2 didnt happen then also possibly time travel would never have been invented because the techonoly the world gained during that dark time and those discoveries are what lead to the invention of time travel in the first place.
But I hate all the characters except the best friend being framed and weirdly the Mom of the suicide kid...Im finishing episode 25...
Our main female lead is a good person...but to make the story they have her constantly make irrational decisions and approach every situation in the most round-about convoluted way to ensure misunderstanding, drama, longer run-time, and make her out to seem victimized as all the bad stuff keeps happening around her...but its not her fault she wants to do the right thing...showing how to write a spineless wet nooddle of a character with absloutely no Agency.
The male lead treats everyone cold and distant and like they are all annoyances...but seems like a decent guy. But given there are 100 episodes...and im only on 25...Im waiting for him to either thaw and become an actual good and loving guy...or side with his family and be a monster...im sure ill get both b4 its over.
The 2nd female lead is a waste of screenspace and I cant stand her on my screen. That goes for the whole female leads family...they are all awful people.
The chairwoman over acts and chews on every scene she is in to gurantee she is the loudest and most seen....
Uhg...the story is circular so it can keep going...spinning wheelsnof the same melo drama and calapsing wailing theatrics.
So much more to get through....can I do it?
At the same time, I'm only half in agreement. When talking about any culutre that is not ones own, leniency and consideration for differences in time, place, and overall mindset must always be weighed. However, I am not one to fully buy into the us vs them construct that is in play a lot when critiquing or reviewing art. While I admitted that I could understand the improtance of an honest gay story being told given the modern day landscape that is Koreas political and social environment, that environment is also simultaneously not bottled. Western media and art as well as influence have been a part of Korean culture for quite some time. American works consistently perform well in Korean box offices, western stories are easily obtained online and in bookstores, let alone media and online presence that is available via the internet. This was just as true in the 2010s of Korea as it is now. Just as I am here in the west speaking of a show made and aired in Korea so too is the opposite true. Our world, unless in a country that is cut-off by its rulers from the outside, functions more wholesticaly than ever before and shared experiences and storys are abound. Just as I also mentioned that currently Angels in America is being performed by big name Korean artists in Seoul concurrently, art, media, and stories are openly shared between cultures.
As for the stance that HIV is less of an issue today and that Korean culture may not require such information be divulged, the show itself, shows this not to be true. From the reactions of his friends at the nightclub when talking about a passerby being positive and covering their glasses, to the military ejecting him because of his status, to jobs requiring bloodtests, (hell even foreigners such as English teachers must prove their negative status before being allowed into the country) to the fact that the main character gives the disease his own pet name and when facing a true relationship says you must know this about me and says Ill give you the night to decide if you want to continue with me...shows the world the character exists in makes HIV a paramount issue. Let alone the betrayal our lead feels by his boyfriend cheating on him and infecting him. This also shows that socially there is still ignorance and fear of it, and for the character to choose to hide it from sexual partners, and also full blown relationships, hell his last one was a married man with a child, think of how it can affect that family, is still very selfish, irresponsible, and does paint him in not a good light.
I do also stand by the story, as in not real life, but the story being told does not use HIV in a way that requires it to be part of the tale. If this was a story of a headstrong out and proud HIV person showing us his best life...then yes HIV being only a passing statement is grounded. But that is not what this show is about and it brings HIV in as a surprise and, again I hold true to emotionally stunted, as something that haunts the main character always and gives a handful of scenes on how it affects his life, but then does nothing beyond this...a plot point..some drama...that has no true lasting effects on the story as a whole. Thus it could be fully removed and nothing changes. Also, given the importance of the social landscape does the first broadcast show featuring a real gay experience have to include HIV, as if it is a given problem for gay people...when the straight stories of Korea hardly if ever do the same, though again it having higher prevelence in straight couples vs gay couples?