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The Director Who Buys Me Dinner korean drama review
Completed
The Director Who Buys Me Dinner
17 people found this review helpful
by jpny01
Jan 13, 2023
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 5.0
Story 3.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 3.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

A total waste of time

There's a caveat to the title above: if you like stories where nothing is ever explained and nobody's motivations make any sense, you will absoluetely LOVE this series.

First of all, how is getting to live for 400 years as a beautiful 20-something a "curse"? That sounds pretty f@$&ing good to me. So if I witness a murder, I get to be young forever? Sign me up.

In the first episode, a lot of very intriguing plot threads are set up, centering on a mysterious director and his fascination for a new employee at his media firm. By the end of the episode, you're hooked and want more.

It's a trick.

You never find out anything. There's a curse, OK. But who cursed them, why, what the curse is, and how it's lifted are never revealed. Not even slightly. There is never an explanation for why the main pair were cursed. The only thing they did is fall in love with each other. Is the message of the story that God hates homosexuals? Because that's the only motivation you can get out of what we see. What is he purpose of Dennis other than as a plot device in the last episode? What did the director do to him? Why is he so f@$&ed up? Is he part of the curse? Who the f@$& is he?

A lot of the run time of the series has the characters running in circles in a repetitive and formulaic pattern of the uke resisting the seme, and in this case it's inexcusable, as instead of running the same tiresome plot point over and over the story could have been advanced and questions answered.

If felt like the writer came up with an idea, never bothered to flesh it out or think it through, then came up against needing an ending so just pushed the "reset" button, making the entire series totally pointless. The ending made no sense - so if they aren't around each other they'll die, and the only way to lift the curse is to die. OK. Great. If that's not the case, why doesn't Dong Baek get sick when he's away from the diretor after the reset? For that matter, how did Dong Baek get through his entire life before meeting the director without dying? Maybe there's a reason, but we sure as f@$& never get it.

The chemistry between the leads is fairly minimal and the kissing would be too chaste even if the characters were 6 years old. I've seen BLs where there's a meter between the pairs' bodies when they kiss, but the actor playing Dong Baek must have gymnastic experience because he manages TWO meters. This series represents everything that's wrong with KBL. A nonsensical story, way too much time wasted on the uke acting like a twelve-year-old Victorian-era virgin, too many cliches and tropes, bad writing, rubber kisses, and actors who obviously think it's icky to touch each other. (To be fair, that could be the directing.)

This is well-filmed, with shots that support the story - the edit when Dong Baek faints on the set and sees the director but it's actually Dennis is superbly done, and the music has it's moments - but the soundtrack indicating passion is not the same as the actors showing passion.

I liked this series a lot for the first couple of episodes, but unfortunately it devolved into a boring, pointless, lazy mess.
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