Jazz for Two (2024)

it's cute and chaotic, but kind of a mess

The story is about a classical piano player who dreams of playing jazz, and a jazz player who because of a traumatic past, doesn't want to play jazz. Honestly the story is a bit strange, you think they're going to go in one direction and then they yank you the other way. I havent read the manhwa so I'm not sure if it's the adaptations fault or not, but I do know it doesn't flow very well. Their meeting was chaotic and intense, and their development was toxic angst, but i enjoyed the angst. I'll leave a spoiler comment to rant about the story, but I'll leave the review at that.

The actors did an okay job, they're all cute and decent actors, but the two mls chemistry is just okay. They did a good job with the tension in the scenes though. Also our little side couple had great chemistry.

The quality of the filming and production were good, well shot scenes and decent music, no complaints there.

Overall I'd say its worth the watch, it was a cute story for the most part, and the angst and tension are great, but just be ready for a toxic and strange ride in the story line.

Leia Mais

I got excited for nothing

I hate the feeling of being disappointed in the outcome of an anticipated show. An example of this is Jazz for Two who did pretty well during their promotions but the quality of the drama itself was below average. K-BL always has this standard of embellishing the visuals from the casts to its cinematography which became their trend and branding. It was satisfying but not good enough to save the whole show.

Where did they go wrong? It was from the pairing and acting of the cast. They’re all good-looking but lack the right amount of chemistry needed to sustain the romantic vibes of the story. I felt nothing but emptiness despite seeing two handsome men kissing each other. Weak character establishment can lead to failures in catching the viewers’ attention.

It was a good start but that’s it! The next episodes were mediocre with inconsistent tension and phasing from the main leads. Seeing Shin Yechan back in his BL role, even though it was only a cameo appearance, was the best thing in the show.

Did someone remember the psychiatrist on EP04 talking to Han Taeyi? I am annoyed by his way of sitting like a mafia while communicating with his patient. The little details are also important factors that need to be polished now and then. I was also a bit unsatisfied with Seo Do Yoon’s love interest with his senior Jooha, the victim who fell in love with his bully. Is it considered masochist or is it something that occasionally happens with teenagers’ romantic aspects in life?

Nevertheless, it was obvious that the side couple had better chemistry than the main couple. Kim Jin Kwon’s delivery of his role as the main lead was too frail. His role in ‘To My Star’ was lovely. I believe he can do better especially since he is the front liner of the show. Han Taeyi and Seo Doyoon have a better onscreen appeal with decent chemistry; they are my ghost ship.

Leia Mais

I wanted to like it so bad..

Seeing a Korean BL about music students was so exciting to me at first because of my love for music and LGBT dramas. But I was just so disappointed. First of all, the premise was just boring to watch. An 8 episode drama would usually take me no more than 2 days to finish but this show took me 5 days. There was so much potential to dig deeper into the characters trauma but it felt so lackluster.

But the bigger issue lies within the ships. I liked Taeyi and Seheon at first, but after Episode 7 I was done with it. Was no one who recommended this show gonna mention the casual SA that went unmentioned? I don’t care if Taeyi was hurting, I don’t care if Seheon “wanted it”, when Seheon told him to stop he should’ve done exactly that. It’s 2024 and we still have these kinds of scenes… sigh.

And don’t get me started on the second couple… I hate bully x victim tropes so much that this was a no-go from the start. But the line “I’ll love you even if you bully me” made my stomach twist in a bad way. It’s such a shame cause these actors would be good together, it’s just the characters.

Anyways, point is I wouldn’t waste your time on this show. It’s not that good. Watch The Eighth Sense or something instead

Leia Mais

OVERFLOWING WITH GOOD VISUALS

STORY
There was really nothing new about the story, characters who can't move on from the past, confused guys coz maybe the school they are in are all boys ? Is it ? But I think I have seen some girl students, maybe girls are just separated, whatever and present affected by the past things and sort of. I was able to go through it tho, It was easy to understand and entertaining ! Like off course ! Korean drama makers are so expert with it. Since the drama was short, we are not able to see how Se Joon's Dad finally allowed him to play Jazz as he wanted for me somehow that is the point of the story, like it seems since Se Joon have associated with Tae Yi he seems like became divided, I think it would be better if they have also shown some of SeJoon's enthusiasm on Jazz genre and how he is on fire to become a jazz player, but it is still okay, this drama somehow is about visual and gay romance anyways which they did not lack at all
My favorite parts are the confrontations and their confessing, how straight guys react when someone I mean when a gay says they like them, this is how guys react in real life, it happens in reality, but what does not happen in reality is they are not being liked back, also the suicide part, that is pretty serious and a reality also, maybe we have some awakening here
ACTORS/ ACTING
This is what I hated to Korean BL makers ! They always choose guys with too perfect faces ! Like how are we fans gonna refuse ?! This drama has so much of it ! Junho SeonBae so good looking and sexy ! Do Yoon so great acting ! I wanna have a friend like him ! And so pretty face ! Tae Yi he is like Hyeong Seop, him being silent is so sexy , and this newkid member so pretty face and so beautiful lips ! , the acting is enough and satisfying for me, just right facial expression, good script and the tension is in the air so our eyes are so so full of it.
OVERALL
Visual 100% Gayness 100% HAHAHA and rewatchable 100% STORY so so .. OST so so

Leia Mais

Dated and confused ...

I dunno how in the span of 60 days, did I end up from watching one of the best KBLs to one of the blandest KBLs of 2024???

One questions the logic of why the charcters pine after those walking red flags . Getting assaulted and insulted cant be overlooked in the name of love, I mean its 2024 for godsakes. While one can reason it out saying that the characters were kids, their redemption should have had more depth justify that argument.
The shorter duration of the drama hinders the character and storydevelopement significantly. Often times it struggled swinging between the theme of grief and resilence, it failed to stick to one and fumbled its pace and storytelling. Thus the whole drama felt unfinished. I sincerly hoped that charcters had some form of growth , but alas the growth/improvement that they showed comes across as superficial (espl Jung Ha) .
The actors were wonderful , special shout out to Song Han Gyeom and Kim jung Ha.
I really wished that Se heyon and Do yoon came together, they had waaay better chemistry and would not have made the drama feel so dated.

bottom line : great visuals + jazz music + paper thin plot =/= a good drama.

Leia Mais

so promising, yet so disappointing

I've never written a review before, but I feel so strongly about how absolutely insane this show was.

the couple's storyline's made no sense, the characters were so wishy-washy, especially Taeyi, he could never decide on a personality. Seheon was honestly just annoying, Juhe was straight up a bad person, and Doyoon was completely normal...until you realised how weird and toxic his romance was. I honestly wasn't in support of a single romance in this show by the end, I was just angry at the characters.

the story overall was just a mush of stuff that wasn't well planned at all, I found myself laughing in shock at scenes that were supposed to be sad because it was so insane. it felt like they skipped necessary scenes between stuff, because things would change out of nowhere making it not make sense. it all just felt so far-fetched and unrealistic. one thing I did appreciate was the portrayal of homophobia, because it is very much real in Korea, but most K-bl's act like it doesn't exist. I'm glad this one had some elements of that to make it feel more real and heartbreaking.

I really liked the overall aesthetic and visuals of it, the colour grading was nice, so I was really hopeful, because I can be very specific when it comes to colour grading, I just wish the story had been good.

I honestly thought the actors weren't too bad, the script was just terrible. how does anyone play such insane characters convincingly? I quite liked Juhe's actor though, he did a good job, but his character felt the most realistic of them, so maybe that's why it was possible to pull off.

I haven't read the webtoon, but it seems like people don't think this is accurate to it and that the webtoon is good, so I think I'll read that instead.

Leia Mais

Mixed feelings

I went in to this with high expectations, lots of people hyping this up and putting it up there with some iconic kbls such as Eighth Sense. While there is some good to this show, I was wholeheartedly dissapointed and dissatisfied with the whole of the show after i had finished it. The plot? interesting to a degree. The acting? pretty good tbh. The pacing and writing? could be a lot better. Also theres just some weird stuff in this show; the side couple being bully x victim not handled in a great way? Taeyi basically assaulting Seheon? yeah this is not a show i will come back to. Cool concept, love the arts school setting and how they all play instruments, poor execution. Its 2024 people, lets leave poorly handled abuse in the past shall we

Leia Mais

Major Whiplash

I wonder if my opinion of this drama would change if I had read the comic prior to watching. Coming into it blind the series suffers from major issues in pacing, character development and plot holes. They don't do an adequate job of providing context and showing a transition between being enemies and being lovers, and the natural tension of the leads having underlying chemistry even when they hate each other. This left me feeling major whiplash as the characters transitions between being cold and hot and cold and hot again. The characters were out there having 180 personality changes every 30 second and everything they do feels random and out of the blue.

Taeyi being so physically aggressive really turned me off of the character. Nor did I understand Seheon's motivation for putting up with him, much less why he even liked him as I felt no chemistry between the actors. Jooha's stunts gave the major ick, leaving Doyoon the only likeable character for me. At least he was self aware that he has bad tastes in men. The twist at the end, also felt majorly rushed, and Seheon's reaction to it didn't make any sense to me.

I do like the premise and overall plot of the series. Could have been a winner for me with a better script, editing and directional choices. This may be one of those series you need to supplement with the source material to fill in the gaps, because it didn't work for me as a standalone.

Leia Mais

Not enough screentime for interesting elements + subpar acting: underwhelming overall

This BL series is centred around the encounter of two high school music students as they met and develop conflicting feelings for each other in the midst of their common interest / link with jazz music. Honestly, I'm not the biggest connoisseur of jazz music but I decided to give this drama a shot anyway. Unfortunately, this show missed the marks on many aspects in my opinion.

Story-wise, it was super disappointing...I have the feeling that the most interesting part of the drama was not given enough screentime. There was a nugget of information regarding a specific relationship toward the end of the series but it was clearly not enough...I also had some issue with how the main and the secondary relationship evolved. All the heavy lifting were done (for both couples) mainly by one of the character and the evolution felt too abrupt to be believable. There was also on the last episode a "noble idiocy" move that makes no sense at all and just frustrated me a bit more...

Acting-wise, the actors were too bland. The scenario had some quite angsty moments as well as toxic scenes between the characters...Nothing against that, it can be entertaining and it is all fiction, so I'm not looking for always all green flags characters...But in order for it to work for me, it requires for actors to be emoting so much more than what was the case here. They needed to pour much more passion into the acting in order to make the chemistry much more exciting. The best performance on the series was Song Han Gyeom as Seo Do Yoon and I wish his character had been even more central to the story as it was my favorite.

Production-wise, it felt a bit cheap which is not really an issue for a school series. Here the main default is relating to the music scenes and soundtrack. The couple of pop songs that were used as opening and ending songs were okay to me but all the scenes were the actors were playing instruments felt totally unrealistic. The songs / tunes they used as playback for the music sequences were not really matching and it looked quite fake overall. A bit of a shame when the plot is focusing so much on music.

I would not recommend this to people as there are better BL in high school out there. There are a few moments that are cute (mainly relating to the friendship building between two characters rather than the romantic relationships), as well as some elements that could have been super interesting if more developed and better acted. However, the numerous flaws in terms of scenario, acting and production (especially of the music scenes) make it a series that I would not recommend.

Leia Mais

Very well done all around.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series and everything about it: the story, the acting, the pacing, the directing. It all came together really well to create another great series to add to the growing Korean BL lineup.

The series begins with an insight to where the story is headed then we go back in time to tell the story of how we ended up there. By the time we catch up, there's still more story to come (including one of the best plot twists I've seen).

This series could have really benefitted from a couple more episodes, just because the story was that good and it deserved more ironing out. That's my main issue with KBL series; they are always so short. Sometimes it's good when the story is less involved and doesn't need all the extra filler. But when they are working with a more complex theme or multiple storylines intertwined, they really deserve a bit more time to have it come together better.

I think this series did a decent job with tying together all the loose ends though just a tiny more explanation or conclusion in some areas could have made this series perfect.

This could have been a 10 from me if they didn't use my most HATED trope ever.. The "I don't love you" excuse for breaking up instead of being honest about what was going on in their heads. I can't remember which series I wrote it in but one of the reviews I did for a series that used that, I said that there's no coming back from a claim like that and it's just as true here. Thank goodness the very next scene is someone stepping in and the couple clears the air and reconciles not even two minutes later so the unnecessary angst didn't linger.

The only other complaints I have for this series is that I wish the "side couple" (if you could call them that) didn't really end up together although they were back to being friends. But the senior kind of allowed his internal homophobia to win which is really unfortunate. It would be great to see a side story or even spin off series that explores their relationship more as I still think they had (have?) a lot of potential.

I wish there was a little more resolution with the father though I get that there were time constraints to fit in the main storyline. They needed to have a serious conversation. The dad get's told off once and he's suddenly a changed man? I highly doubt it. But I just took it to mean it would be a work in progress and that they would eventually come to an understanding, even if we don't see it.

Speaking of things we don't see... I love when a plot twist comes completely out of left field and I don't see it coming while it still fits in seamlessly with the story. I could see people saying there were too many coincidences but I think it was pretty poetic when the truths came to light. (I'm trying really hard not to give it away so I'll stop talking about it now.)

But yeah, I definitely recommend this series. It was full of heart, great storytelling and had a mixture of funny and serious moments that blended well together. The music was a nice change of pace too, giving a fresh spin on a classic formula.

Leia Mais

What even is going on rn

I have to give kudos to this series for being the first one to have a scene so disgusting I teared up lmao - but more on that later.
I'm tired so let's just get into it.

What I liked

- The acting is fine, it didn't take me out of the story for the most part. I think the main leads have decent chemistry, and the other couples (kind of) as well. It's watchable, enjoyable at times, super cute at others, you get what I mean. Kind of a rollercoaster, but not bad overall.
- You add domestic scenes to a series, you got me. Nothing else to add. It was so cute
- I like that they chose somewhat morally grey characters for this series, seeing how literally everyone had issues with internalized homophobia, violence or both. It's a bold choice, and I respect the team for that. And also, the emotional turmoil Tae Yi was going through after his brother's su*cide was an interesting premise.
- Some of the physical comedy is really well done. This series has some hilarious moments, I admit that
- The girl? Loved her. She was amazing and called her brother out for being a fucking idiot. She deserved better though, Tae Yi treated her like absolute shit and she was so nice.

What I didn't like

- First off, don't come for me with the "He's dealing with internalized homophobia, ofc he's going to be toxic" or even the "The show doesn't frame it as a good thing", because I've seen enough of it on TikTok and I'm so tired. I'm not mad about the main love interest (and every other man in the damn series) having this issue. Toxicity can be portrayed well on-screen, and it doesn't have to make a show worse. In this case, though, it's just handled terribly. I'm sorry, but where are the consequences?? Like at all?? Tae Yi does some God-awful things (if I need to name one, touching Seo Heon under his shirt while aggressively asking if that's what he likes, while saying he's not into it and that he's not a *girl* - I'm dedicating a separate bullet point to this one), and he doesn't really pay for them. In my humble opinion, he should have gotten his shit rocked more than once. The "bully" tries to rile Tae Yi up by essentially assaulting Seo Heon without his consent, and all he says is "I'm sorry"???? Yeah man I'm not buying it.
- Okay now THIS FUCKING SCENE. I. Am. Fuming. Maybe I'm just a crybaby lol but I had never been so appalled by a scene in a supposed romcom. Literally made my hairs stand on end. Like, the fear in Seo Heon's eyes?? Terrifying. I hated Tae Yi so much for that, and I didn't really get over it. What's worse is, the show tries to make you forget about it like ten minutes later?? As if he hadn't done THAT at all??? Like no, I'm not rooting for them to get back together, this man has slammed MC against a wall multiple times, bruised his wrist, screamed in his face, given him the cold shoulder - and now the shirt thing? Yeah no. Some scenes in previous episodes were cute but this man needs (more) therapy and a restraining order filed against him.
- Just. Every man is a red flag in this series. The bully IS a bully, and a hardcore one at that. He fucking kicks Doyoon until he bleeds, for God's sake!! And let's not forget the fake flirting and sexual harassment he put Seo Heon through just to get back at Tae Yi. He was fucking awful and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
- The ending is just a mess. They rush to give the characters a happy ending when they don't deserve it, and it wouldn't have come naturally like that. It feels so forced. And the reveal? Like okay, the brothers were involved with each other, but why does that make Seo Heon break up with Tae Yi?? IN THE LAST EPISODE??? Do you see what I mean? There's no way that could've been done well in the span of one single (and the last) episode.

I am disappointed, especially because I really liked a couple of the episodes in this one. I'll be rewatching those because they were the cutest, most entertaining shit I've seen in months. But the rest? A mess.

Leia Mais