Reviews

Poetry lost in translation

It certainly needs a better, brand new English translation to allow non-Korean speakers to re-translate it from English into their own languages. I can't believe the current translation is a faithful one, because that means the original script wouldn't make much sense and logic. In English, the back and forth dialogues show too much nonsense. IMHO, it is unlikely that director and screenwriter Lee Son Eum would have liked it this way, not a chance... unless there is still too much inexperience, naivety or lack of skills, but I wanna hope not.
Seriously, whoever produced this mini-series needs a new translator, I beg of you! Otherwise you are missing on a good distribution and reaching the real intended target.

Although the poverty of lines is clearly on purpose obviously, to be honest and objective, setting aside the bad
translation, here and there there are indeed some tiny holes in the script, to the extent that you might gonna feel confused, for example, the staging (the mise en scène) lacks something.
Another fault I perceived is the editing, not very clear, again, a bit confusing: the viewer fights to get the moment in which a particular event is taking place and the general timeline of the events. When you miss that, you kinda fail to grasp the story that wants to be told, not so good, is it? We are not in Christopher Nolan's Inception, right?
Such a shame 'cause, otherwise, it would be one of the best korean BL (finally NOT-BL!) series I have ever watched!

That said, I loved it!

Minimalist, hermetic, realistic, mature, intense, absolutely original and out of the chorus!
Zero clichè, zero cheap and cheesy scenes, no more cringe and unrealistic stuff that want to trigger viewers' emotions but looks ridiculous rather than romantic.
You can definitely see a production trying to pursue its artistic style instead of luring the audience with fan service gifts or marketing expectations. BRAVI!

And so, we have fine characters, both main and supporters: real people, full of flaws, sinners but not monsters, often selfish, childish and opportunist but also caring and capable of self-denial, sacrifice, devotion. And it concerns both sons and parents. We are finally out of stereotypical gay characters, we just watch true boys with their friends and families.

Yoon Dae's devotion and desperate love request, after a life of abuse, is poignant, while his perseverance in making his voice heard is admirable. He seems to be a slacker, taking advantage of other people's kindness, but deep down he is also struggling to regain a sense of belonging. He screams he wants to love and be loved, he still believes, even throwing a tantrum, but then he endures and waits.
His sweetness in stealing kisses from Soo Hyuk shows us his most vulnerable side, almost pitiful: "Leave me tomorrow, but tonight please just pretend and let me have one last gift: let the warmth of your lips be my last memory of you".
There is such a sorrow in this behavior that your heart is tightened, you feel his resignation in accepting that he must live alone, but at the same time your heart is filled with love by the force of his desire. So passionate, so beautiful.

You can feel the same from Soo Hyuk: watching him carrying alone the burden of his family's failures is excruciating and yet his determination to survive and not to give up, despite fatigue and sacrifice, shows strength and courage. He has always behaved as the trustworthy adult without being able though to express his feeling and desires to the point he is no longer capable of dreaming for a better future. We can sense he feels guilty of abandoning Yoon Dae years before; we feel his sense of duty and how much he wants to make it up to Yoon Dae. We can also guess he has always had feelings for Yoon Dae, conflicted intense feelings that frighten him. He is exhausted of being the reliable guy, always taking care of others, he can't bear it no more. Now he needs help, someone to rely on, someone who takes care of him: he would need Yoon Dae to man up and become the adult and so he is tempted to run away again, to put distance between the two of them.
But then he stops and waits.
In different forms they’re both fighters.

In the series there are incredible gloomy atmospheres that deliver the characters' feelings and moods, full of pain and sadness, filled with desire or rage too often suppressed. That kind of desire and anger daring to explode and surface only when there is an intimacy you finally succeeded to build with another human being you feel connected to.
That is why they easily end up hurting each other.
You can spot the exclusivity of their relationship, when they confront themselves and show their true selves only to each other.

Nice choice in picking closed and confined spaces, soft lights and dull colors to portray not only the sense of no-way-out of the two leads but also the attachment, their bond and their intimacy, whispered, in total contraddiction with outdoor or open spaces, noisy and always full of light, where the both of them face their own, somehow abusing, parents. The open place, the rest of the world, is dangerous. The closed one, the two of them, is the safe zone, the shelter indeed, no more the cage that previously locked them up and isolated them. Loneliness creates anxiety though, so Yoon Dae refuses or struggles to live that solitude in places he wants to call home, places he will eventually realize he wants to live with Soo Hyuk.

Beautiful photography, pure and clean use of the film camera, nice close-up shots: essential, rough, but also touching and emotional. Good acting performances.

The beauty of this work lies in the unsaid, the unspoken, the untold. You get its poetry through the lack of explicit scenes and lines, that creates a very strong tension in the viewers who crave developments in the plot and focus on every detail in order to follow the story. This leads them to imagine the unseen, to create by themselves the love story line that eventually, despite everything, brings to a very happy ending. The light at the end of the tunnel.
I found this a very powerful narrative style.
The series starts with "I reject and resent you but I love you, I want you and chase you" on one character, while the other goes with "I care about you, I help you, I love you but I have to run away from you and everyone else".
Immaturity and emotional openness versus maturity and emotional block. Two mates under the relentless effect of attractive and repulsive forces, even after a long time.
And yet, despite the absence of words, the protagonists' mutual tenderness and love is revealed by their taking care of each other’s shoes, which symbolises so much: I cherish and keep my love for you for years only to myself, because I am too scared to believe in love. Because I don't dare to show you anything, because I can't deal with you and put myself on the line, because I can't be brave enough to hope for anything.... until I do, we both do.
Wonderful, disruptive, romantic message.

However, the ultimate content I found is: "We can support and help each other, but that doesn't mean we genuinely love each other or that we are ready to commit, so what's the difference between LOVE and NEED?
I must test myself, find my own path, complete my coming of age and understand that I don't love you because I need you, but I do need you because I love you.
So, once we get this naked truth, do we really need to take our separate ways in order to love each other dearly?
Can't we just simply have dinner together?"
And taking a leap of faith, while resolving yourself, your answer becomes: "Yes, please, do wait for me, let's have dinner together, shall we?".
Home.

The OST is amazing, no kitsch melodies and rhymes: strong opening and ending songs. On the various
scenes all the instrumental themes edited are wisely dosed and therefore suggestive, powerful and
impressive. It felt like glimpsing a mix of familiar sounds from Coldplay, Radiohead and David Bowie.

In the end, when Yoon Dae says to Soo Hyuk - "Don't call me. You seldom call my name." - tell me please,
who didn't suddenly think they were somehow quoting "Call me by your name"? I certainly did. ;)

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Beautiful Story

This was a beautiful watch and one I’d highly recommend. The plot was a creative time travel drama and loved how they connected all the dots without leaving holes in the plot. The acting was done very well from each of the major players of the story. I was very drawn in and invested in the highs and lows of this drama as it’s very relatable since everyone wants to be accepted, loved and to find their happy ending. The OST was beautiful and paired well with the drama. The production and visuals were pretty standard but doesn’t take away from the show.

I know there is also a remake Korean version that I’ve also seen bits of and there are some minor differences but overall either story is a recommended watch.

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This Drama Will Make You Believe in Love Again.

One of the best storylines I've seen recently. It really is a great drama.

The lead roles, side roles, supporting roles, and even the antagonist all brought me to tears. The story paces slowly, but it hits you right in the feels at the perfect moment.

Hong Hae-in and Baek Hyun-woo's couple faces a lot of struggles, but their final reunion is truly tearful. Their life, their struggle shows us that life is not going smoothly all the time. It has ups and down but most importantly we have to hold and trust onto our closet person, our beloved person tightly in the time of hardship. Shining days will come ones again.
Eun-seong's character also plays a strong role in the drama. His determination and illusion perfectly portray one-sided love.

Overall, I'm happy to have watched such a well-done drama.

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A Story of Friendships & Love Built in a Tiny Courtyard While Overcoming Personal Hardship.

After watching LX in Will Love in Spring and hearing good things about this one as another slice of life story, decided to check it out. Glad I did; he was able to play a more smiling, joking character though with no less responsibility on his shoulders. I've only seen Crystal Liu in A Dream of Splendor where she did very well. This was a story of friendships and love built in a tiny courtyard while overcoming personal hardship.

Pros: I really love the friendships that were built in the courtyard and how they went beyond the courtyard but into the rest of the village and were intergenerational. Also though FL or XHD lost her best friend in the first episode, she was never far from her mind especially when she finally told her new friends about her. ML or XZY (lovingly called A'Yao) was my favorite character because of just how much he shouldered and was always still joking and smiling. He was essentially taking every major project from the village on himself. When HD and A'Yao became friends, it was nice to see that it wasn't a rushed romance but a real bond that grew. We saw that he caught feelings first but she wasn't far behind. The other great characters were DM, NN, HY, Mr. Ma (when he wasn't flipping his hair), granny Xie and a few of the other grannies, XC, XX (girl) and XX (guy). The 4 kids were cute too. Joseph Zeng's two episode guest appearance was surprising but good. How all the courtyard folks and others would rally around those going through a hard time was very heartwarming. Brought hope to humanity.

Chemistry between the leads was awesome and comedy within the story was pretty good. I really wish they had more time on screen as a couple as opposed to giving that up to her 3 episode leaving and town revitalization towards the end. Their kisses were very good so that as always was an added bonus. The OSTs and BGM, locations, were all very on point. Though there were times when there was maybe a bit more verbiage than necessary, a lot of it was beneficial. Really loved the growth of the characters into better versions of themselves. Found out afterwards that the person who played XC's ex-husband was actually the show's assistant director. Pretty cool when the directorial staff can play extras or do cameos.

Cons: Too many side characters and plots that I felt took up too much of the story. You already had so many important supporting characters that everyone else should have been left alone. Most of the time that XQ girl that had a yen for A'Yao for a while or the embroidery lady who had a heart attack but for the life of me I couldn't remember who she was, there were others too but I don't remember. The leads could have had more together time since this was billed as a romance and they only technically had 9 episodes but most of that was taken up by things and people not important to the story. It would have been easier to focus on the quality not quantity and have the leads maybe get engaged by the end. Show more couple time in those 9 episodes. Wish NN and male XX's friendship/feelings were better fleshed out too.

Forced propaganda was so unnecessary here. You can revitalize a village without sticking propaganda into it. Even the poor kids were singing an indoctrination song. It stuck out like a sore thumb especially when the friends in the courtyard would be just shooting the breeze drinking and making toasts to each other and out of nowhere someone pops out with "may our country prosper"; like who says that when they're just hanging out with friends? It's not a political or even business meeting. Made me role my eyes on more than on one occasion because it was not the series for that. If you're going for a country living romance with friends, you just don't need that. Not realistic at all when there's a juxtaposition to everything else.

Would I recommend it? Despite those few baubles, I enjoyed this story and glad I listened to people in the other comment section. Look forward to LX's future dramas. Check this out if you haven't yet.

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Loved this

Funny, I found this show by accident. I am a baby Treasure fan and I just created a Treasure playlist last month. I love their songs but I didn’t know much about them.

This show was so fun. I got to know the members on a more intimate level. These boys are so cute, sweet, sensitive, and fun… on top of being super talented!

I felt so bad that some of them were super nervous and shy. But, being idols, we know they aren’t allowed or don’t have time for dating. This experience was priceless for each of them and they all grew because of it.

I will watch and listen to Treasure a lot more because of the series. I love them even more!

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When more is not better!

Well, I gave this series a chance. The series started off interesting (despite the very bizarre beginning) but this faded away with each following episode. I realized 3 things after watching episode 6. I didn’t care about the storyline, about the characters, and how this series would end. I actually love slow pacing storylines, but this was mind numbly slow. The script was a mess that had many elements that didn’t fit together or make sense. Everything about this story feels too forced. Especially the reasoning behind Piuno needing to work at the dog café. The overall acting was good. There were some actors that were better than others. However, I give the cast kudos for doing their best considering the script they had to work with. I like they didn’t waste screentime with opening credits, but they did waste it by doing unnecessary flashbacks from the previous episode. I may be old, but I can still remember things that happened in the last episode when each one is only 16 or 17 minutes long. There was also shaky camera work with some of the scenes and some scene placements that was weird.

Random Notes:

I’m probably one of the rare few that likes and enjoys Korean BL series with shorter screen time with a small episode count. This usually forces them to be more mindful of the pacing and story quality, but of course there will be exceptions.

At the time of this review, Viki has this listed as a “Hidden Gem” on their website. Of course, this is just my opinion but this is one stone that can/needs to stay hidden.

Once again, I’m going to sound like a broken record because the synopsis on Viki does not give an accurate describe of this series.

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Possui um ritmo lento, um bom enredo e um casal principal apaixonante.

No geral, é um melodrama bem feito, com diálogos profundos e muitos personagens cativantes. Traz muitas lições de vida e constrói um romance lindíssimo. O casal principal pra mim se sobressaí muito em termos de construção de relação, o que pra mim não acontece da mesma forma com os outros casais da trama, que acabam possuindo pouco desenvolvimento e finais bastante abertos. A profundidade das cenas, a beleza dos cenários e a trilha sonora fazem desse drama uma experiência inesquecível. Apesar de no final não ter cenas que eu esperava com ansiedade ainda sinto que foi um bom final para a maioria dos personagens.

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Wasted Chae Jong Hyeop performance

I'm on episode 6.

Caveats:
I'm fine with a sappy romance, and I know that complications are part of the deal with any rom-com. I'm also OK with fantasy thrown in. And even though CJH is doing his sweet puppy thing, I'm very OK with it!

However:
As much as I love CJH, the FL irritated me to no end. Once again, I'm left wondering why a Green Flag ML, has any interest in the FL. It's fine that she's conflicted and confused, but there has to be a sense of humor, or intelligence, or creativity, or genuine sweetness for me to believe that the ML would overlook her cold, push-me, pull-you behavior. I literally skip through her scenes, they're so tedious.

Furthermore:
I've never seen Nikaido Fumi in anything, so I don't know what she's capable of as an actor, but the character is written very badly. How can a 30 year old women (albeit a traumatized one), not be able to see that her behavior is hurtful? I get not being mature or experienced enough to be in a healthy relationship. But for someone who is so "tuned in" to other people's feelings, her treatment of the ML is rotten.

Conclusions:
I'll skip my way to the end for CJH, and the supporting actors, who I like.
I'm really frustrated with writers who think that a woman who is pretty and can cry sweetly is a fully dimensional character. As a woman, it makes me cranky.
As an enthusiastic Kdrama fan, I enjoyed hearing both Korean and Japanese in this show, and I'd like to see more crossover casting.

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Bad writing, not worth its watching time

This is a great example how a terrible writing can ruin a production.
It is not cheap, it is really bad, I hope the writer changes the job after that.
All the beautiful acting of the main leads and of the secondary ones is lost.

This writing is at his best when it does not exist. Fortunately, about 40% of the 16 times 1.5 hours
nothing happens, and that is the best of this writing. The remaining of the story is either
100% foreseeable or disrespectful towards the spectators or simply of bad taste.

The music is carefully chosen and nice, though probably not at all perceivable outside of the show.
The music would not stand out by itself as is the case with the music of other shows.

It is one of the rare cases, where I had to struggle with myself to keep watching; I did it only
in order to be able to write this review knowing it all. Do not repeat my mistake!

In short: this show is not worth the time of watching it because of the terrible writing and despite of beautiful and good actors.

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Implied BL with a puzzling title

I stumbled upon this mini series by chance. It's gratifying to see that implied BL series from China can still exist despite the pervasive censorship. However, I'm not sure if BL series in which the romantic elements are at best heavily implied will continue to be released. Without publicity, even viewers who do not mind the fact that the romance is implied may not get to even hear about them. Yet, publicity will likely draw unwanted attention to such series, causing them to be cancelled.

Another problem with the current censorship rules is the fact that it will almost certainly affect the production budget, particularly for shows that are low-budget to begin with. After all, not many would risk investing in productions that most likely will not be commercially successful. The form that My Sweet Professor takes reflects this problem. It looks quite clearly like a condensed version of a story with much more substantial development. The story does get told, but the depth of character development, which can help viewers immerse themselves in the story and empathize with the characters, is gone. Additionally, the creators of the series have to resort to rather choppy editing to tell the story in such a condensed manner. The scenes quite haphazardly switch from the time when Gao Yuan and Huo Shang are high schoolers to eight years after, when they are adults. Furthermore, the reason behind Huo Shang's disappearance (critical to the story) is done through the speech of another character rather than through actual flashbacks. (And the revelation isn't even quite complete or convincing.)

What I can appreciate about the series, though, is how the leads' attraction to each other is quite obvious despite being implied rather than directly portrayed. It is clear from the start that Gao Yuan's resentment towards Huo Shang for disappearing eight years before is that of a lover who is coping with his boyfriend's unexplained disappearance. The way Huo Shang tries to approach Gao Yuan again is also clearly the behavior of someone trying to patch things up with his lover.

Unfortunately, there are many loose ends in the series. There is no real explanation of why Huo Shang does not try to look for Gao Yuan earlier. The corporate power struggle that Huo Shang is facing at work is also barely explained (it feels as though the truly censored parts of the story are not even the BL elements.) In the end, My Sweet Professor is a series that would have been much better if it had even been an eight-episode series with standard-length episodes. As a sign of how underdeveloped the story is, we do not even know why the series is entitled "My Sweet Professor".

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Finally, an actually interesting thriller.

(No spoilers.)

I was so excited to see the adaption of one of my favourite webtoons The Pyramid Game coming to the live screen, even more when it was announced with only 10 episodes. (No episode was filler. It was all just so brilliant and tightly woven.) And now, after finally completing it, I can confidently that this IS the thriller of 2024.

This drama actually captures the themes of social hierarchy and the bystander effect so well. It left me anxious, crying from joy and both shock, on the edge of my seat with how each episodes end, and deep in contemplation.

We are able to examine the other characters through the lens of the outsider/new student, aka our main character. Because of this, this show is able to do things that other "psychological dramas w high school students" can't.

We actually do have morally ambigious characters. We get to root for them. Pray for them. Watch them suffer. Watch others suffer. Watch the complex relationships unravel. And its all done so succinctly in 10 episodes.

The antagonist is a fresh face: one can argue her acting is a little stiff, but it's actually her microexpressions that deepen her character even further. She becomes the bane of the show, the bane of the main characters' existences. She's truly a 'villian' - her presence feels eerily untouchable, and that's because of how the drama cleverly portrays her to us, the audience, and to the main characters.

I think the acting and the choice of cast was also extremely clever. They felt so real and young, and thats what we NEEDED. They are teenagers - they are still learning, still maturing. They're going to be selfish, they're going to make stupid, impossible decisions.

I seriously reccommend this. Unlike the other dramas that try to capture this level of thriller and drama amongst high school students, this one creates a contained level of world-building that doesn't rely on typical misunderstandings or miscommunication tropes to prolong the suffering.

The only fault I can find with this is the difference between the webtoon and the drama in terms of the climax at Episode 9. The webtoon properly evaluates and expands on the world-building in a way that 10 episodes can't.

And yet, 10 episodes was enough to do it all. Definitely going to give this a rewatch.

--

Additionally, as this drama is set in an all-girls school, we can enjoy the complexities of girlhood and lesbian relationships without the interference of men and the male gaze. So happy omg :]

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Story destroyed by TERRIBLE writing.

I thought i could wait for the cute moments and it would do it, but no, it just got worse.

The story had potential. The 'trying to impress my crush by learning chinese from the guy that likes me' was interesting. I liked the chaos of the main leads at first. I wish they kept them "enemies" a little longer.

The characters are meh, but i want to talk especially about Phojai and Phumjai. The relationship of the two brothers needed a better storyline cause it's more important that you realise at first. I believe Phojai is a more complex character than it shows. We needed a backstory, the reason why is he so protective of his younger brother and also a little story between him and Tag.

The writing is horrible and when I say horrible I really mean it.
There were lots of things that remained unclear. For example: Tammy doesn't know that Yang is the one texting her online in Mandarin. She thinks it's Phumjai. But when she meets Phumjai in real life, he has no clue what She and Yang are saying in Mandarin and she doesn't suspect anything?? Or the parents didn't ask about their son that was held hostage for a whole 3 months? And aren't they rich?? Well I guess asking for parents money is more pathetic than agreeing to be a slave (well not for much cause somehow he bacame boss nr.2??).

What happened in the last 2 eps was extremely unnecassary or at least could've been done better. Someone getting kiddnaped and used as a slave has a too big impact to the story for us to only find out when we have 1 and a half eps left to go. Rather than starting with "One wants to run a succesful bussines, and the other..." I think "One wants to TO PAY HIS FAMS DEBTS" could have been a better choice. Also at the end when they find out they met when they were kids was something...

About the acting.../
-None of them could pull the emotional scenes and it was really really bad I had to skip those.
-Daou & Offroad have more chemistry irl than on screen.
-Daou didn't fit this calm poker face type of character cause you can see that he was doing better with the type of personality he had when he was fighting with Phumjai in the first episode.
-Samuel was a perfect pick for O To. He did a great job portraying a cheerful character but also did good in those not so happy scenes.

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A Time-Travel Musical About Cultural Change

It's no Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and it's no Back To Future. But Extremely Inappropriate is, indeed, a weekly musical involving a very limited form of time travel. Written the extremely well-lauded Kankuro Kudo, the series grapples with current social hypersensitivity and conformity which has been intensified in at least some cases by social media. The initial impression of the series is that it's positing the idea that people back in the good old days (1986) would be able to cut through all the woke bullshit and restore some kind of social sanity to the ridiculous limitations imposed of today (2024) by SJWs and their ilk in business and entertainment media. But that position is a bit of strawman that Kankuro attempts to pull apart in the course of the series.

And so takes he the most obliviously sexist and abusive archetype he can think of, a high school PE teacher from 1986 (Ogawa Ichiro played by Abe Sadawo) and has him get on a bus to 2024. Simultaneously, a feminist sociologist (Sakae played by Yoshida Yoh) and her teenaged son (Kiyoshi played by Sakamoto Manato) are brought on the same bus from 2024 to 1986. Hijinks ensue in both time periods as the bus runs its route on Saturdays.

In 2024, Ogawa immediately falls upward in the business world by saying things that cannot be said in the current culture and ends up as the counselor in the standards and practices department of a large broadcast television network which allows the series to address various forms of social policing across the episodes. Meanwhile, Sakae and Kiyoshi are confronted by the old-school sexism and systemic repressions of 1986 while living with Ogama's daughter Junko (played by Kawai Yuumi).

If you are put off by musicals, you might still find this series tolerable. Each episode does contain singing and usually a production number, but they last no more than maybe 3 to 5 minutes of the total runtime of the episode. The songs are not terribly memorable, and, indeed, pale in comparison to the maybe two songs in Kankuro's asadora Amachan from 2013. However, the entire cast are surprisingly good singers and seem to relish their chance to use that skillset in this series. I genuinely recommend Abe's turn as a heavy metal singer in the 2018 film Louder!: Can't Hear What You're Singin', Wimp if you find you enjoy his singing as Ogawa in this series.

The time travel here is no more than a narrative device, and there really is no intention to explore paradox or establish any of the usual variants of timelines and their consequences. A handwavy shock occurs between characters if they are about to do something will cause a change in the timeline (except what it really prevents in the one instance that it happens is something else entirely that really does not involve a potential paradox). Characters go back and forth between the two eras in a completely chronological order mostly to see the differences in the culture that have occurred in that 38 years.

And so if it's not a great musical and it's not a great time travel story, why watch this series? The answer is: for the characters. Ogawa has a lovely shift in attitudes and understanding through his adventures in his future. His daughter Junko sees a world of possibility open up for herself when she sees the way the culture will change. The widowed Oagawa's love interest in the future, Nagisa (played by Naka Riisa), learns more about herself and her family. There are a lot of interesting and fun side characters as well as is usual in Kankuro's work including a self-insert of a television writer in a couple of the episodes.

I'm pretty sure the social critique did not work as well as intended, but I did grow to love these characters. I particularly liked Kawai's Junko though it's Naka's Nagisa that gets to do the heavy lifting in the series which she does with a deft comedic flare.

The final song of the series is a plea for tolerance, but, honestly, Kankuro's comedic study of guilt, atonement and forgiveness Saving My Stupid Youth (also currently on Netflix) from 2014 is much more insightful. I rate that and his Story Of My Family from 2021 (and also on Netflix) a bit higher than this series, but I do think this series is still well worth the watch.

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