Very cute and pleasant

This series doesn't cover a lot of new ground, but it's worth watching.

Positives:

The characters are better drawn than in most longer series and more consistent. The story doesn't wear out its welcome, like most longer series. There is humor in it without getting silly and slapstick, the acting is fairly good - especially Jame Kasama, who I think has the best potential. He's able to project his emotions so that you feel what he's feeling.

When it ends, you'd like more, but you also feel like it stopped at the right place. That's what a good series should do. Usually love triangles are tiresome and make you cringe, but here, where everyone really cares about each other and treat each other with respect and empathy, you'll find yourself actually wishing for a thrupple - I'm not kidding, in the comments section it was almost universal.

The actors aren't afraid of m/m affection, which is refreshing and makes the romantic resolution kind of exciting. The chemistry between everyone is strong, and it isn't immediately clear who the final pair will be. There's an extremely strong clue up front so it's not like you don't know, but still, it's nice for the relationships to be left to develop.

There is no seme and uke thing, which is refreshing - just three guys. No evil ex-gf, no "I'm not gay, I only like___________" It's not explicitly stated, but all three appear to be just plain gay - it doesn't even need to be said. There's the usual failures of communication, but in this case they'r plausible, and motivated mostly by insecurity, not "but we're both guys!"

Negatives:

There aren't really any, other than a few too many tropes - there was one ep that was stuffed with them and it irritated me. I was just starting to get over my BL-character-using-a-knife PTSD, but now it's back. It't not a top-tier series, and it's a fluff piece rather than something that will stay with you like I Told Sunset About You, but it doesn't make mistakes, and its fairly enjoyable from beginning to end.

Story: 8.5 - not groundbreaking, but very well-laid out and doesn't waste time.
Acting: 8.5 - solid - not amazing, but never cringey, and Jame (Mix) strays into pretty good.
Music: 8 - better than most BLs. It's not loaded with sappy overblown balads accompanying montages of good times spent together, it's not the usual insipid BL background music but actually sounds modern, and it's never instrusive.
Rewatch value: 7 - I could rewatch it. It would be a good antidote to a bad mood, and I could watch Big take a few more showers.
Overall: 8.5 - about as good as it gets for what it is.

Leia Mais

This is wonderful.

This is a beautiful series, very well written, thoughtful and moving.

Be warned that the ending is not likely the one you wanted, but when you see it you'll know that it's perfect - and beautiful and moving. This series is heavily layered, with a lots of symbolism and it moves into the long shadow the Marcos era casts over the Philippines. It contains not one single tired BL trope, so if you're looking for something different, and with a supernatural element, this might be for you.

It's not perfect. The production quality is just OK, although it's very well shot. The ambiguity of the mirror scenes was well-done and you're left questioning what is really happening and what isn't. Most of the problems are sound-related.

The acting is... not spectacular. The main character, Wade, is played by Kiko Ipapo, who does not display a huge range - he's a bit stiff and flat. While he won't blow you away, he's good enough for you to know how Wade feels about Jose Manuel, and the conflicts he faces, so the series works. And good God is he beautiful - I know it's shallow, but I could stare at him all day (this is not a series you're likely to rewatch, but you might want to review the shirtless scenes several times). The other main is a little more skilled.

I understand this series won't be for everyone, but for me it's one of the higher-tier BLs, and well worth a watch.

Leia Mais

Beautiful setup spoiled by poor and lazy ending

It's starting to become a truism of BL that authors come up with good ideas and have no idea how to bring them to a conclusion, so they just skip over everything and just tack on a shallow happy ending.

This series can't help but bring up a comparison to the Filipino BL Happenstance, with a similar premise but 100 times the depth, although the overall production quality for that series was lower. It had something to say about different times and worlds, and had a bittersweet and authentic ending that carried a lot of power and stuck with me.

This, however... it's quite engaging, cute, and romantic, with a touch of mystery and darkness, up until when Songjam tries to enter Aksorn's world, when it all falls apart.

First of all, while it's possible to do a time jump well, it rarely is done well - usually it's just a lazy jump over any sort of authentic and organic resolution of the plot.

Because of the one here, there was an opportunity to explore the nature of love - does it transcend age? What does it mean when two people are at different places in their lives? But no, they just cast a 32-year old actor to play a 45-year old and called it a day.

Even what should have been an interesting confrontation between Songjam and Aksorn's father happened offscreen, and given the intensity and centrality of Aksorn's conflict with his father, this lazy solution is baffling. "Not only have you defied me by pursuing a useless career, you're also f@#%ing my best friend?!? (or rather being f@#%ed by his best friend since Aksorn suddenly transmutes into an uber-uke, with the usual homophobic loathing of sex that they always seem to have, resulting in uncomfortable coersion scenes.) But, Dad has absolutely no problem with any of this, and all is forgotten. Hugs, expressions of pride, and end scene!

It doesn't help that (slightly) older Songjam has at most a tenth of young Songjam's charm and cuteness, without 25 additional years of maturity & wisdom. Also, if you think about it, this is about a man in his 40s who wants to be with someone he watched grow up since he was born, which is, well, eww. And that's not to mention the logistics of being the best friend of someone's father without them ever even suspecting it - I suppose it's possible, but COME ON.

Plus, are we to believe that seeing someone born, experiencing his mother's death, and a lifetime of friendship with his father, plust the passing of 25 years, won't have any effect on your love for someone? It might still be there, but it would age and change. I can believe Songjam would do everything in his power to promote Aksorn's happiness, but to retain romantic love for him? That's more than borderline creepy - it's more like grooming.

Anyway, while I loved the first four episodes, the ending is so clumsy, lazy, and ridiculous that I'm not sure I would recommend this.

Leia Mais

Surprisingly bad.

I thought with Earth in this it couldn't be terrible, but it was. And the sad thing is that this was close to being good - if only the actors weren't directed to behave like they were in a bad lakorn and the plot were stripped of its attempts to be serious.

I'll start with the positives: Earth was in it. End of positives.

Seriously, there were some good elements in this, like a lot of the dialog was funny, and so were a lot of the arguments. But the problem was that this was a comedy that they tried to make into a drama, and it ruined it.

After WIn's explosion of murderous hatred for no apparent reason - I can see him being surprised and even upset, but not so furious that he would commit murder-suicide with his sister and destroy his family business out of spite! Anyway, after that the comedy all fell flat. How did he go from hulk-level rage to petty irritation and banter? And they were stuck driving for seven entire days and not once did the subject of the inheritance come up?

The entire plot depends on an unbelievably stupid misunderstanding and failure of communication so ridiculous that I just didn't care about their relationship, except insofar as it might lead to a love scene, which these two actors are apparently never going to do. You're trying to tell me these two have been in love for 20 years and around each other all day every day and during that time it wasn't blindingly clear what their feelings for each other are? And how is someone not able to tell that his own sistr and his One True Love had no feelings for each other at all? Isn't that something that might come up in conversation?

On top of that, the road trip is dull and repetitive, with a few transparent crises thrown in. It was drive, eat, eat, drive, argue, eat, hotel, eat, eat some more, stop for holy water and listen to monks spout aphorisms you'd find in a fortune cookie, drive, argue, eat. Argh! How did Mix not die during filming? There must have been several takes of each of the 7,000 eating scenes where had to inhale a whole feast.

Th mother's evil plan was so stupid I could hardly believe what I was hearing. What if Korn married someone else? She would have thrown away a quarter of her family's wealth for nothng. And if she knew Win would hate Korn, why would she think WIn would ever allow Korn to marry Lin? And what kind of horrible person does something that hateful to begin with to her own child? Again, someone is a total monster and is totally forgiven for saying "sorry, my bad."

And again we have an uke who has no sexual interest in his On True Love - how long do we have to put up with this sh#$? Bad Buddy was family-oriented too, but they had sex constantly. It doesn't need to be onscreen, but there needs to be some heat. Earth is good at putting longing into his glances,, but there's no sizzle between these two other than what you get naturally from having someone as hot as Earth onscreen.

Earth was such a stereotypical seme from 2015 that it made me LOL. And I'm sorry, but Mix and Earth are not equal in acting ability - it's not the best match. In drama, that is. They're both good at comedy and this could have worked if they'd left it in its natural state. This is as body-swap show. Why on earth would you even try to make it a drama?

I dropped this, then binged the second half because it's Sunday and nothing else is on and I needed to decompress after the finale of the almost infinitely better Miracle of Teddy Bear which is inexplicably lower rated than this mess.

If you're a die-hard EarthMix fan, then maybe you'll like this, but otherwise, skip it. Or just don't watch the first episode - that might work. I love Earth - he's one of my top favorite actors, but I could barely stomach this.

Story: 3. The plot is terrible, but the dialog is good, so a 3 seemed fair.

Acting: 6.5. It's passable, and Earth is really good. Mix overacts too much, which I know is a directorial choice and not his fault, but it is what it is.

Music: It was fine, nothing special, but did what it needed to do.

Rewatch value: No.

Overall: The "suggested" was 4.5, but I gave it 5.5 because it does have a few qualities that I appreciated. Earth's abs, etc.

Leia Mais

A dreary mess

The source material for this is an OTT whacky comedy-fantasy, but for some reason this was produced as a drama. The Anda analog in the original is so cute it drives everyone crazy, and half the joke is that he's totally useless. For example, his drawing is so awful that people aren't sure if it's the work of a small child or something abstract that they don't understand. Ryo is so blinded by love that he that he thinks it's really good - again, humor. Lala isn't a person, she's a manga character that Anda fantasizes about all the time (not sexually - she has superpowers and fights evil).

Jet is basically Darth Vader and everyone is scared of him (he's still a good person underneath), and it's Ryo that hates Tee, not the other way around (they're both narcissists and Tee always steals his spotlight - it's major to the plot).

Anyway, nobody ever really sticks to the source material in BL, which is usually a good thing, because they're different media. But the problem is that the original Anda isn't a realistic character - he's not really a character at all, he's more of a plot device, like Ryo's marble. It doesn't work in live action to have a character that is terrible at everything, so they just made him mildly bad at some things, and he never really gets to do anything except look petulant. I also wonder if a story with undertones of pedophilia and incest is the best basis for adaptation.

In this series, which suffers from a terminal case of Penultimate Episode Syndrome, the dramatic tension builds up to intense homophobia (a real bummer) and everyone huddling in tears to a montage of happy times together and a sappy ballad. In doesn't fit the tone of the story. not that anything could, because the tone is so schizophrenic. There are outrageous things thrown in, like Bank's cartoonishly evil and gluttonous manager (so both trans and weight shaming), but these don't fit into the dreary seriousness of everything else.

The writing is poor and wanders all over the place, because they deviated so far from the original story that almost all the plot threads were abandoned just so that we could have people crying in Ep 9.

Most of the characters are bland, and the acting is flat, which is directing and writing, not a lack of ability. There are a couple of moments where you can see how talented Kaonah is, but mostly he just looks mildly confused. This is another case where the soft-focus filter is so cranked up that everyone looks wholly photoshopped. There might have been oscar-worthy performances in this, but we'd never know because it's all a blur.

There really isn't much chemistry, largely because Anda both looks and acts like he's 12 - you can only have one of those, not both. But it' also the writing. I will say that both couples seriously committed to the love scenes, and high scores for that - they were really good. Bonus points for giving us lots of scenes with Film in a muscle shirt or no shirt - he's so hot you almost have to look away.

I can't recommend this series - I was excited to see Turbo & Kaonah as a proper couple, but this was a disappointment. I would love to see this cast in a better production.

Leia Mais

Best fluff you'll find.

I don't normally like something this fluffy this much, but this had a lot of qualities that made for very enjoyable viewing. I really loved this series, and I actually cried through most of the finale, which is a rarity for me.

I'll start with some negatives:

- The Yok/Boss storyline was apparently added and is not in the source material, and it shows. It's not integrated into the main story and feels like it's a completely different show that got stapled to My Ride. It served no purpose as it didn't really contrast with the main story or shine any new light on it. The resolution of it was very satisfying and flipped things around in a refreshing way, but sometimes the Enemies to Lovers trope can be pushed way too far at first, and in this Yok is much too awful. The Blackmail thing was fine because he would never have done it and was just messing with him - it was a little OTT because Boss believed he would and was very upset. And the library thing was a deal-killer for me. Don't mess with people's books - that was just terrible. Especially for an anal-retentive person like Boss - you just know he had all those alphabetized or grouped by subject.

- The Nadia/Mayom storyline was apparently m/m in the novel, and I'm at a loss as to why they would change it - I understand the Nadia character was a very effeminate gay man and Thai series will never make someone like that a main characer in a pairing - they're sole purpose is comedy relief. This is a real disappointment as that would have been something different and special. Ironically, the theme of the Yok/Boss story, which the producers added to the series, was the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone.

- The Por story was dragged out a bit too long, and since the audience has the full picture but Tawan doesn't, it starts to get frustrating. It would have been better to have put more time into Mork's struggle with his sexuality, which was sensitively handled and not the usual eye-rolling drama, so I could have dealt with quite a bit more processing for him. Or we could have had a bit more of the motorcycle guy and the trans teacher - that was interesting.

OK, on to the positives:

- There is a lot of eye candy in this, but none of the actors were just a pretty face or rocking body (more on that later) - everyone did a great job with the acting, even Dr. Por - he's a really cute guy (like he is in Doctor I'm Coming for Soul), but he made him somehow creepy from the start, even though he was apparently a perfect boyfriend. You think there's something wrong, even fairly certain, yet you're not entirely sure.

- Fluke's dimple killed me, and that smile is the sun. His portrayal of Mork was consistent, sweet, quirky sensible, and gave the pair a class difference that was interesting and realistic - not at all a bag of stereotypes, and it just led to some reasonable mistaken assumptions that weren't dragged out or unrealistic. He doesn't suffer from that over-reserved performance style that plagues too many series. And I never felt like he was some actor they dragged in off the street because he's hot.

- Fluke is hot - both cute and manly without being obnoxiously alpha. Boss is adorable, Yok is sexy once he stops being an asshole, and the Barista (Mayom) is so hot it hurt to look at him. He has what I like to call "it." His gentlemanly demeanor, face, voice, and a completely killer body.

- The class difference theme was well-handled. Too often in Thai dramas there is the simple formula rich=evil, poor=virtuous. Here lower-class characters can have some sophisticated qualities as is the case with real people. The contrast between the main and secondary couple was interesting - while it got in the way for Mork and Tawan, it was mostly due to mistaken assumptions, whereas Nadia's assumptions were arrogant and completely wrong - she was no better than Mayom, and in fact her treatment of him is what lacked class, and it never occurred to her that he wasn't just a simple barista. One thing I didn't like so much was that he changed himself to please her, although I think the main point is that our assumptions about Nadia were off as well - she didn't need him to be a nobleman or rich, she just wanted a man with drive and amibition, which is reasonable. Tawan could care less and seemed to humor Mork's desire to be a provider, even though he's a doctor and most likely to be by orders of magnitude the main breadwinner for the couple. But Mork wasn't sensitive about this issue, it's just who he is.

- While this was very fluffy and clearly aimed at young audiences (if you're hoping for steamy shirtless scenes, you can forget it. They could at least have had Mayom take a shower. Sigh.), it didn't shy away from some darkness, and in fact had much less of that fantasy quality in BL where everyone is rich and everything is shiny. One of the uncles was an alcoholic, Dr Por's weaknesses were cowardly and painful to a lot of people, including himself, etc.

- This had a realistic and positive portrayal of an essentially married older gay couple, which I don't think we've seen before. They were the principal source of comic relief without being ridiculous - in fact they are crucial to Mork's character arc. They felt realistic and weren't archetypes or fairy godmothers. They had normal insights based on age & experience without having magic solutions to everything, and they had their own problems - it's one of the best elements of this series.

A nine is a very high rating, but this was such a pleasure to watch that I enjoyed it more than I have enjoyed objectively superior series. I had low expectations of this given all the production problems and recasting, but it's obvious that a lot of love went into this project. The quality of the cast was much higher than BL standard, and the story, while not terribly original, was well-written with fully realized characters with realistic failings and reasonable use of misunderstandings and mistaken assumption. Sometimes in other series these are so implausible that it's just frustrating, like when the evil ex-GF kisses the seme, but the uke just happens to wander to where they are at that very second for no plausible reason, and even though he sees the seme push her away in disgust, he still assumes they're over and there are three episodes of crying in the rain to sappy ballads ias we watch a montage of happy times together which we've alread seen several times. That doesn't happen here.

In fact, in the finale Mork is operating under several faulty assumptions that both drive the plot and are quite funny, and some of them were other characters being deliberately misleading, but out of positive motives.

So I highly recommend this - the pacing is a bit slow, but if you stick with it you'll be rewarded. If you find that the secondary couples aren't working for you, FFing through them will in no way diminish the main storyline.

Leia Mais

This is wonderful

I didn't expect this to be that good based on the rating here but this is such a beautiful and affirming story. The central love story is slow burn but there is wonderful chemistry, and the dynamic between them is quite different than we've seen in a BL before.

This is a rural setting, and while the characterization and story is more realistic than a typical BL, there is still the element of fantasy that defines the genre.

At first I didn't really find Yamato all that appealing, but it didn't take long for him to win me over. The story is about one man trying to find his place in the world, and another who has, but due to his past is too afraid of being abandoned to open himself up to love, and the resolution of this is beautiful, with an especially nice touch of it hingeing on the love and kindness of a stranger.

I really need to watch it again as there was a lot of symbolism and shading that I only half caught because too much of my attention had to go to reading subtitles, but the director's gradual ramping of the warmth of the film as it progressed was artful.

A lot of people have described this as "laid-back", but I didn't feel it that way - I thought the coiled despair and fear of all the main characters was a palpable tension that underlaid the film until its end. There is zero external drama in this - it's entirely character-driven, which is what a good drama should be.

One negative, at least for me, was the score. It wasn't just entirely Western, it was very specifically Irish, which felt out of place - especially the use of the song Oh Danny Boy and the instrumentation. It didn't have to be gagaku or all played on koto, but I didn't understand this decision and it was a bit jarring and even annoying at times.

I have the story and acting a 9.5, the music a 6, and rewatch value 10 - in fact I'm going to rewatch it right now.

Leia Mais

Good cast, but not much else

This is one of those series you only stick with because the cast is really attractive. There is some good acting as well, but unforunately not much material for them.

JC Lopez does a great job of playing a woman in a man's body, not overdoing it but quite convincing and funny - for as long as the plot remembers that he is, in fact, a woman. There was really no purpose to the transformation and it might have been better to skip it. There's no reason Charlie couldn't have started out with the same insufferable qualities as a man. There's a dance scene he has that's so cute and hot that it alone makes the series worth watching. Actually, this would have been more enjoyable if it were just 12 episodes of JC dancing.

Kaleb Ong is fantastic as usual, but unfortunately a bit wasted on his character's story, which is unbelievable and contrived.

Finally, Orly Mejia was a bit surprising, being not just beautiful but quite a good actor as well. The rest of the cast was of varying ability but overall good enough.

The story is repetitive and way too preachy. I don't want to be lectured about gender & love in a BL comedy, and the point hammered isn't really applicable to the real world. It should be that whichever gender you love, your love is valid, not that everyone can be in love with all genders, and in any case it never seems to apply to Trans characters, who all end up alone, so let's not pretend any of these series have any real sense of social responsibility. The message is that only attractive boys deserve love. If you're trying to make a serious LGBTQ+ point, it can't be that all you need to do to get a straight guy to love another man is to pursue him until he gives in, which is not going to lead to many happy outcomes in real life.

In the case of Felix & Kajo, for the entire series Kajo showed no romantic interest or hint thereof toward Felix until he suddently did in the last few minutes. If Kajo had repressed feelings from the start, then we needed to see that procession, not just a light switch flipping between straight and gay.

That lead to the other problem I had, which is there is way too much and too repetitive unrequited love, which grew tiresome and unpleasant. Not enough happened between the main pair to be interesting, and Kaleb Ong is too good at portraying pain to make his storyline something I want to watch in my leisure time. The plot of this is so thin that it felt like watching the same episode over and over after whatever story ideas the writer had ran out after the first handful of episodes.

And dividing it into 12 episodes was a mistake. Having to wade through the same really long credit sequence with the overbearing main theme just ads to the feeling of running in circles.

The direction and other production qualities are OK - it's hard to tell because the script is so weak.

I did enjoy looking at the cast - JC is so naturally cute and sexy that it's hard to look away - but if you need a coherent and interesting story, you won't find one here.

Leia Mais

Beautiful But Disappointing

Note: This is a review of this series as a BL. More on that below.

This is a show I was more excited about than pretty much anything else this year. And when the first episode aired, I absolutely loved it - I was ready for it to be in my Top 3. But then the other episodes happened. I'll start with positives.

The cinematography is gorgeous. The food shots are amazing. The scenery is perfect, the way shots are framed communicates more than the actors do - it's probably the best I've seen in a BL. It's plain excellent by any standard.

Zung, who plays Chef Aue, is excellent. He has the most soulful eyes, he's totally beautiful, and his acting is excellent. Mark, who plays Aek, might be good too - it's hard to tell because of the writing and directing. I think I would say he's good.

The idea for this series is unusual, interesting, and personally appealing, and it avoids most BL tropes - the dumb ones that I find irritating, like tripping and being caught - and many characters use knives constantly and not one single person has cut him/herself, not even when picking up shards of glass and platewear. I've even stopped cringing when anyone picks up a knife. In any case, kudos for trying something different and pushing the boundaries of the genre.

But there area few issues. The direction calls for extremely wooden acting and strange, halting dialogue delivery. Zung is so expressive that I still feel what he's feeling, but I couldn't even tell you what Aek's character is - he's just... there.

There are a LOT of plot tropes. Some of that is unavoidable, because well, plots are tropey. But there are strange repetitions. For example, an evil chef is introduced in Ep 2 - fine, here's the villainess (always a woman, and jeaslous ex-gf, but never mind). Then there's a totally different evil chef introduced in Ep 7, out of nowhere. OK, it's not the first time there have been two villains. Batman movies usually have two. In Ep 8 a THIRD evil chef is introduced. The government should look into the cooking scene, because apparently Thai chefs are a nasty bunch! Fortunately evil chefs seem to be hot, so they're nice to look at.

The pace is glacial. That in itself isn't a problem - I like slow burn, and I like scenes that take their time to develop. But there isn't any content in the long scenes - they just have people staring blankly at each other for exceptionally long periods, and take a really long time to say anything. It's really odd and frustrating. The dialog itself is often unnatural, with people that don't appear to have any life experience pontificating on what love is and how one should pursue it and life in general, and all delivered with solemn placidity.

What was finally the deal-breaker for me was Ep 8. I want to say that characters acted out of character, but I can't really say that - one of them did, and the other doesn't really have a character - he's more of a plot device than a person. But even still, his behavior is not set up in any way, so it comes out of nowhere - all we've really gotten from him is blank stares (this is Mark - he's doing his best, and he does get his eyes to water, so you can see some repressed emotion, but we have no way of knowing what that emotion is because we've never had any insight into his feelings). Usually, one expects the main pair to have a relationship before they break up, but not here - especially frustrating after how slow the burn has been - and there has been zero between them except for the staring, For the breakup to involve violence and sexual violence is even more jarring.

This should not have been a BL - the production doesn't appear to be interested in this aspect, and it feels like a naked grab for a ready-made audience, and it has zero LGBTQ+ sensibility - it's hard not to feel exploited. To add insult to injury, there's a minor character straight couple that gets together simply and happily. In any case, I think it would have been a superior show if it had just been a drama about rival chefs.

There are people who like this show, so I'd watch it through Ep 3. If you're getting frustrated, it's not for you - because it will get much, much worse. If you like what you're seeing, it's probably worth watching, although I suspect most people's appreciation will end with Ep 8. Maybe it can redeem itself - I'll check back when it's over, and if everyone's lauding it, maybe I'll watch the rest.

Story: 4. I like the topic, the originality of the theme, and the lack of tropes. I don't like the lack of plot, stilted and unnatural dialog, and manufactured drama.

Acting: 7. Zung is fantastic, Mark is doing his best, a couple of the side characters are decent, but many are really flat. I'd probably rate the actors an 8, and the acting a 6, which disparity is the director's fault, so I'll settle on a 7.

Music: 9. I really like the music. The main drumbeat is fun, the music is never intrusive, and it's got a unique vibe to it - no complaints, and actually among the best I've seen in a BL.

Rewatch Value: 1. This is another one I'd have to be held at gunpoint to watch again, except for shirtless Zung scenes because I'm shallow and he's hot.

Overall: 6. It's not terrible - it's just very disappointing because this had the potential to be an 11 - I thought it was ITSAY-level after the first episode. As an aesthetic experience, this is probably more like an 8 - it's definitely beautiful. But it was sold as a BL, so that's what I have to rate it as.

Leia Mais

Where's The Doctor when you need him?

Or at least a Dalek.

This is so badly made on almost every level that it's hard to believe anyone from H4 was involved. Sigh. I guess I'll dig in:

Writing: The "plot" revolves around a man (Johnny) from 2000 getting transported to our present. This has absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever and could have been skipped entirely, and then they could have saved the money they paid for the... whatever he was. Fraudulent time travel agent? I don't know. Johnny only takes a minute to totally aclimatize to the 20+ year jump, and then barely remembers he has a granmother who is dependent on him.

He meets Hai Yi, the estranged son of a department store mogul. Who apparently owns one department story, which I guess makes you a gaziliionaire in Taiwan or something. They have a classic enemies to lovers dynamic - classic except for their total lack of chemistry. He befriends Lin Huai En, a peon at the company, who has attracted the notice of the Managing Director, Vincent.

Hai Yi is an irresponsible playboy who hires Johnny to Cyrano a women he wants, and they end up moving in with each other at a company warehouse. Meanwhile, after a tragic death, Hai Yi and Vincent are pitted against each other for control over the company.

Vincent is apparently evil, to the disappointment of Lin Huai En, who is loyal to Hai Yi, whose family funded the orphanage he grew up in. But SURPRISE (not), it was all part of the plan, which makes absolutely no sense and totally cancels Hai Yi's character. If he was a driven and brilliant schemer, why did he lounge around half-naked in a warehouse playing video games and mooching off a destitute time traveler? How did they plan all this if they didn't know the chairman would die? And why would they need to create this scheme in the first place, if they had just supported each other from the beginning? It's totally nonsensical and is an incredibly lazy and lame attempt to create any drama - as if anyone believed for a minute Vincent was evil.

Everything about this is formulaic and predictable. BOTH couples contain the stupid past-connection cliche, and the concluding love scenes are so lacking in chemistry and passion that I had to skip them because it felt like the actors were sexually harassing each other.

There are two positives to this series:

1. Linus Wang's a$$, and just about everything else about him phyiscally. I'm probably not the only one that stuck with this hoping for one more treadmill scene.

2. The appearance of the brother couple from H4, who showed everyone what a kissing scene is - that was one of the best I've scene in a BL, and their acting put the main cast to shame.

Ratings:

Writing: 2. Generous, but they get a point for putting Linus Wang on the treaddmill and another for the H4 couple.

Acting: 4. Jason Tauh can certainly act, but he has nothing to do in this - what a waste of talent. Everyone else was mediocre at best, and Sean Chang's Johnny was supernaturally annoying. His character is a horrible, horrible person. His love interest's father died, so did he offer his condolences? No. Instead he treats him like sh#$ and tries to manipulate him into showing him more attention because he's a malignant narcissist who the entire universe revolves around. His behavior is supposed to be fiunny or something, but you just want him to die.

Music: It was OK I guess

Rewatch: No. Well, maybe the treadmill and the H4 couple's love scene.

Just skip this. If you really like the H4 brothers, there are a couple of scenes worth watching - they don't belong in this series, but I'm not sorry they were here.

What a disappointment. H2 Crossing the Line, H3 Trapped, H4 Close to You, even H3 Make Our Days Count, if you pretend the ending didn't happen, and then this steaming pile of awful. What a sad end to an otherwise brilliant series.

Leia Mais

A dull mess.

This is adapted from a manga, and it's the third time it has been so adapted - there are previous Japanese and Korean versions. The story is over 20 years old, and it shows. TBH, I can't understand why anyone would adapt this once, let alone three times - the original material does not lend itself to a series.

The story is a mess, as too much was attempted - there is a child murder/kidnapping plot (actually, there are TWO child kidnapping plots), plus all the characters have totally unrelated and clashing storylines, none of which are interesting.

The casting is OK, except for Singto, who is terribly miscast as "The gay conqueror" - he has zero sex appeal and thinks flirting is acting like a five year old pretending to be a cat. He's so totally unbelievable as a gay player that I'm not sure what possessed anyone to cast him - both Lee and Pluem are so sexy and beautiful either would have made much more sense.

The acting is good throughout (except for Singto - I'm not trying to rip on him, he's good in the also-airing Paint With Love - he's just not the right actor for this role and that's not his fault), but there are so many extraneous and unnecessary characters that it doesn't save the show. The Scooby Gang amateur detectives/reporters/social media influencers are tiresome, implausible, and add nothing to the story, nor does Pooh's family, which actually contradicts one of the main themes, which is of found family - it doesn't work if one of the main characters leaves the found family to recreate his real one.

If this was going to be remade, it needed to be refreshed with some new elements, like for example BL, since the cynical decision was made to cast actors that would draw in a BL audience. In the Manga, one of the main (male) characters falls in love with the gay chef - so why was that deleted from the series? The actor of that character has played gay, so he's not afraid of it.

I can't recommend this series. If you really hate kids, you might like it since you get to see many dead children, and childen violently abducted and tortured.

Story: 3 - I would rate the manga higher, because it's episodic, which works. This attempts a unified story and fails miserably.
Acting: 8 - good overall, with the exception noted above.
Music: 7 - Pretty good - nothing special but appropriate
Rewatch: 1 - I can't imagine any circumstance that would cause me to rewatch any of this. Nobody even takes their shirt off.
Overall: 6.5 - it's not terrible - it's competently made in every way (except the writing), but there was no reason to make it, and there is no payoff for watching it.

Leia Mais

What a waste.

Well, that was terrible.

First, I seem to recall Boun & Prem having good chemistry in Until We Meet Again, but now I'm starting to wonder if I just found them a refreshing break from Crybaby and his Talking Robot. Because in this series they have zero chemistry. Boun has some on his own because of his looks, but dressed like Bea Arthur they weren't really taking advantage of his appeal. But their acting was also unimpressive - they both did fine with their 2D roles, but they didn't manage to inject any life into this dreary series.

There is no relationship devlopment - they don't really like each other, then they have sex. Comfortably off screen. In fact, the whole basis of their relatinoship is disturbing if you think about it. Arthid met Sun once, for 15 seconds, and has been carrying a torch for him ever since. But Sun was 6 or so when they met, so Arthid is a pedo monster.

The secondary couple starts out as an oasis in the desert, but then they too dry up. They are smoking hot, though. Lee Long Shi is just ridiculous. I hope we see him a lot more. Top is also great at being a huge pile of muscle that can show vulnerability.

The "plot" is convoluted without making sense or being interesting, with no character or story development. All the characters are what they are all the way through to the last 15 minutes when they all turn into totally diffrent people to resolve the "storylines".

The directing is lackluster, the editing is fine, and the cinematography was uninspired, especially given the beautiful setting.

Story: 2. The story makes more sense than Physical Therapy, but that's about all I can say.

Acting: 5. Pretty much 2D. I found myself a little moved by the boxers and Talay, who managed to stand out a bit, the latter having great comic timing and also pulling off his 180 degree turn at the end.

Music: 5 - not much to say. It didn't ruin anything, so there's that.

Rewatch: 4 - I would probably rewatch the boxers and Talay's scenes.

Overall: 4 - It feels like it should be lower, but it's not as aggressively terrible as Check Out or Unforgotten Night, and I did get to see some attractive boys that weren't horrible like all the Check Out characters. But Even Sun is really boring.

I would skip this, epecially if you're a BounPrem fan. I was until I watched this. I get that we're all different and like different things, but giving this a 10 is ridiculous. If this is a 10, what was Until We Meet Again? an 87? Come on.

Leia Mais

Beautiful and Bleak

This is a beautiful film that doesn't frame anything in black & white. Max isn't a saint in a tough situation, Pan isn't a naive fool, and he lawyer isn't awful, as he may seem at first.

Characters do manufacture self-serving justifications for their actions, but many of them are at the mercy of their circumstances.

There's not much I can say without spoiling, but this is a beauiful film that is quite dark, but with an ember of hope that some of the love we invest in others can bear fruit and make a world of despair bearable.

Klong is fantastic in this, and while his role is small, Prince is quite affecting as a young teen. Tang does a wonderful job playing Pan as a man who sees the world more clearly than it seems and soldiers on anyway.

Highly recommended, but save something fluffy to watch afterward. Try the same director's Country Boy.

Leia Mais

A near miss.

This short story has a lot going for it - the two leads are really cute, and they have really strong chemistry - the actors not afraid of affection and do a lot of the sort of touching that people who love with each other do. They're very sweet togther, and really pleasant to watch. It's funny, Edison Song's facial expressions are really charming, and the mild outrage with which he faces the minor tribulations of his fate are cute and not OTT as they could have been.

But there are two serious problems. One is that the cloying music is too loud and just oppressive - really unpleasant and irritating.

But more seriously. the fujoshi in this is the most horrible character ever conceived. She is supernaturally annoying, she's a horrible human being, and although I abhor violence, I want to punch her in the face so badly. If you were to line up Meng Meng, Ted Cruz, and Hitler, and tell me I could only punch one of them in the face, I'd choose Mehg Meng without a thought. She's not merely fetishizing, she takes it to the point of malignant self-indulgence and what she does is so awful, so thoughtless ,and selfish, and could have destroyed a family. She's instantly forgiven by the boys, when they should have never spoken to or associated with her again. I mean you want to just grab her by the hair and slam her head into a hard surface over and over again. And that's understating how I feel.

This was hard to rate. I want to give it an 8.5 - other than the abovementioned flaws, it does what it does quite well - but I also want to give it a 1 for Meng Meng. You might enjoy this if you FF through her scenes - she does nothing that's important to the story except for one awful thing, which is revealed offscreen, so you can skip her without missing anything.

Leia Mais

I don't think there are any spoilers here, but there are plot themes & events referred to vaguely.

First of all, for people who had trouble with the darker aspects of this series, well, the title should have given you a clue. This isn't a sweet tween drama - Gu Hai's feelings for Bai Luo Yin are over-the-top, obsessive, and unhealthy - like heroin is. This isn't meant to be an ideal relationship - relationships can be complicated, even toxic.

Many reviewers have said Luo Yin doesn't reciprocate Gu Hai's feelings, but he really does - it's just that his expressions of love are subtle. When Gu Hai asks him if he likes him, he says "you already know the answer, so why ask?" Plus, Luo Yin invited him to live with him and sleep in the same bed, so that's another hint.

- Loved the cast. Timmy Xu who plays Bai Luo Yin is so beautiful it's painful to look at him. The acting is very solid.

- The writing is unusual, as it skips the saccharine quality of a lot of BL and actually gets a tad dark - you'll know what I mean when you see it. It's played for humor, and the Chinese title of the series is "addictive", so it does make sense, but some people will not find any of it funny. The power imbalance was kind of hot, to me at least.

- Although both boys have (semi- and ex-) girlfriends, this isn't the major and consuming obstacle to the main pairing like it is in many of the earlier BLs. Here, the girlfriends here mostly serve to help the mains figure our their sexuality, and they both fit into the addiction theme.

- While you have to wait for it, there are a couple of hot consensual love scenes, at least in the uncensored version. One of the characters is way more aggressive than the other, and in a couple of cases semi-forces the other, although never for anything more than a hand-job . In one scene the more passive one was clearly parading himself in an effort to drive the other crazy, but "he was asking for it" is a bit cringe-inducing even if it's two guys.

- If there's a flaw, there is some repetition, (although common to most serial dramas), especially rejection of physical intimacy. It later turns out there is some fear of pain involved, but hand and blow jobs don't hurt. Also, the main actors are clearly way too old for high school, although I'm not complaining about that.

Ironically, the censored version is more transgressive than the full version - there are physical scenes where cutting out just as it's starting makes it look like one raped the other whereas in the full version you can see that they didn't even have sex.

Leia Mais