ziugae
This review may contain spoilers
Has flaws, but overall a good watch
Unlike all the reviews hailing and praising the source material, I'm going to HEAVILY disagree with that.If you have not read the webtoon and plan to, maybe come back to this after you've read that.
Anyway, despite some shocking scenes in this series, the way the story progresses is very in-tune to the life stages that the characters are in. They're all teenagers, in a highly homophobic world, and they're all in highly emotional situations. I prefer the story in the series, as the source material involves not only a very concerning power imbalance between an older man/married professor and a student, but also how extensively abusive Juha is originally meant to be.
The common complaint is that Taeyi was out of line in one scene the most, but his development and the rage he felt means he was going to explode and Seheon happened to be the one not only making his way into Taeyi's life, but the one that Taeyi felt was making him have to process his grief. Unless if you've lost someone extremely close to you, you won't understand the rage that takes over you and your rationality. Grief is never a clear and straight path, and you don't always move forward. Plus, he's an actual child in this and I think people are going in a bit too hard on him after having such a traumatic and tragic loss then having to process how someone has come into his life and makes him happy (something he tries to convince himself he doesn't want).
Then there comes the whole mess between Juha and Doyoon... I do not think Juha deserves any kind of sympathy if we want to use the source material. In the series there is at least room for some different type of conflict, but the webtoon only highlighted how bad of a person Juha was.
Because of this and the gross the situation between Taeyi's brother and Seheon's father, I don't agree that the source material is better. Even the progress of the relationships is lackluster in the webtoon but I think we had a good thing starting with the series adaptation and the changes/omissions that it had.
Still, until LGBTQ+ productions are taken seriously, given proper funding, and are seen as actual necessary media in South Korea (which they are), we are going to have to take things as they are able to be presented sometimes. I only say this lightly, because even productions like Love for Love's Sake managed to pull of most of the original source material or adjusted it to create a more condensed but still relatively loyal to the story series without sacrificing the queerness it is based on.
Jazz for Two had so much more potential, and it saddens me we could've had more, but I personally enjoyed it and most specifically the complexity of grief that this series gives an insight to. The only real flaws are that it needed a lot more time and better dialogue between characters. And although others want to see more from Juha and Doyoon, I'm okay with never seeing that come full-circle.
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This review may contain spoilers
full of humanity in all it's forms
some films that give a gloss over feelings, but White Night brings you along into a whirlwind of chaos revolving one person's struggles, humanity, and an internal battles. it's the good with a lot of the bad, and the feeling of watching self-destruction take the wheel.the story focuses on one person, wongyu, his pain and journey through processing the trauma he has gone through. though there is no sugarcoating to any of this, his one night stand brings him the grace he had not been given by anyone else. you can see the recognition of kindness, how it's foreign to him after going completely numb to the world, and how he holds back from any kind of expectations. yet, this person, a virtual stranger, keeps coming back to him and keeps being the one to support him in exacting some pain onto the people that have destroyed a part of him that he won't ever get back.
he had hoped things would be the same, at least that is my guess, so when he returns and taejoon has moved on, wongyu's tears are what i interpret as regret. regret that he didn't call taejoon when he left or afterwards as years went by. even as he's grown, the trauma and pain still haunts wongyu and i think that also reflects the untold and unacknowledged discrimination and hate that the lgbtq+ community in south korea goes through even up to this day as not much has changed to help protect victims of discrimination, attacks, and homophobia. (and yes, this continues to be a worlwide issue)
this film is a journey from beginning to end. we get the fear, pain, and helplessness from wongyu but we also get the desperation from taejoon and his anger as well. anger at the world for it's cruelness, frustration with himself for not being able to just walk away, that he is not what the other needs and he's already too emotionally invested, and the feeling helplessness while watching someone struggle to open up again once he learns what wongyu is really doing with the constant back and forth they have going on that night.
the cast is phenomenal and truly gave life to the feelings of these characters to a degree that it makes you go through the rawness of their struggles just within that single night.
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nothing notable
although i love both of the leads cast here, i can't say this is a good representation of either of their skills in acting. i also do not enjoy the way the story was written/directed here. there's a lot of lack of connection for both the characters, and it's hard to understand how exactly they developed feelings. part of this boils down to just how incredibly short the episodes are, but also the lackluster script & storytelling abilities from the producer.this could've been a lot better, but oh well. it's just a casual watch so i don't recommend this to anyone looking for something engaging or with substance.
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loses itself too much
although I love the cast, it’s the same issue again as far as writing goes: the story sucked.chemistry is everywhere with everyone, but when the story just never really connects, it turns into a jumbled mess of bits and parts that never really give you the full picture.
the racing ends up being a background detail in general, which I was a little saddened about. we also never really get the full story on any of the characters, not even the main ones, so that was also just incredibly disorienting when trying to come up with theories (you can read the novel, I personally have zero interest in it). most of the characters were as complex as a cotton ball, so I wish the series would’ve changed that at the very least (north and sonic genuinely deserved better). there were a lot of unnecessary parts, but with the ending this series had, I don’t think im interested in a second season here. there’s not really anything left for them to do now, but I am still really impressed with a lot of the cast. Lee in specific I am really excited to see act in more series, he has one of the best scenes in the entire series and it left a huge impression on me.
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a float serve at best
you start this series and think it’s going to go a certain way and try to track it, but it ends up just dropping in front of you without making it to a real significant point.I am still giving this a high rating because frame and ryan genuinely carried the entire series, both in acting and promotions. more so that frame being able to pull off two roles, and make me feel very different things for each character, deserves to be praised. they both poured so much into this and don’t deserve to be overshadowed by some of the worst writing to exist. it rivals mame in the sense that there is minimal critical thinking from characters, no world building, dialogue is not a thing, and production that just accepts bare minimum in editing, filming, and sound.
which leads into my second point: there’s too many couples. I would let sam and that other guy get a pass if they actually had chemistry, but team always looks so tense it was actually uncomfortable watching him. I had hoped he would loosen up a bit or even give some unscripted type of improv but it didn’t happen. I hope he gets more comfortable if he continues in this industry, but that couple should’ve been written out of the series or changed how their scenes went. generally, I find second lead couples to take my interest, but this one was a hard pass.
overall, it’s fun but suffered a lot from keeping zee as a relevant part of the plot. this needed more thought put into it from an outside party or something. disappointing, but I still think it was a good watch just to see rising actors like frame and ryan.
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too much
the first episode was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever made myself sit through. it was a constant fight to finish and I kept dropping the show.it took about five episodes for me to see any appeal to tutoryim, though i found leotai a lot more interesting. the script was all kinds of bizarre, the comedy was laid on a bit too heavy for me, and the times I did enjoy anything, it was really just a quick scene and would be over before I knew it.
it may just be that I don’t enjoy this type of comedy, but it bugged me that it had the potential to be a lot better. I do hope to see more of Leo and tai though.
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realistic to a fault
though it is dated, with some rather questionable language, this movie was easy to fall into. all of the boys did a great job and fell into their roles pretty seamlessly. The lack of a significant budget was visible (and audible) but they made it work. And though it likely was not part of the plan, this made it feel like you’re there hanging out with them too.Overall it was enjoyable, though at the end I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Still, I think this is a good watch if you’re just looking for something to fill a boring night. Found myself laughing at some of their antics, reminded me of my high school days as well with some of the crazy ideas we get as teenagers lol
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THE Thai BL for the year
this series had everything to make it good, and they went ahead to create not only one of the most cinematically beautiful series, but gave life to characters I had never heard of to a degree that they immediately felt familiar.nonkul and bright had such electrifying chemistry in the most minor moments, it was such an experience seeing them expand on their roles as their bond grew in the story.
i cannot say I’ve felt this way about a series since ATOTS and ITSAY. truly a gem. P’Tee, we may drive you crazy saying this, but IFYLITA truly deserves another season! here’s hoping that may happen someday, but even if it does not, this series gives me the overwhelming interest to pick up the books and actually read them.
a superb series, with a star studded cast, and cinematography that puts most releases to shame. they truly outdid themselves here.
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Well… It was something…
now that this is over, I think I can say it was just average to me. I didn’t like any of the characters, and I found myself barely connecting to any of them. I’m not sure where the Mew storyline went because he was the least complex, least interesting, and overall most flat character.I think everyone hyping it up, trying to analyze the characters, and general noise from the fans was making this seem more than it was. it was nice to see them push a bit against the norm for Thai bls, especially in the exclusive pairings factor, but I can’t say it made up for the lack of attention in fleshing out stories/backgrounds.
it was an interesting watch, but not something I found too enjoyable. the slut shaming of Boston was also a huge annoyance to me and I think he deserved to be seen as a person, not just a drama factor. he was the main reason the series could even keep going, so it was disappointing not seeing him get to say his piece.
this almost pushed the “open relationship” mentality, as I don’t see this as poly. it just fell short. I don’t really know what else I can praise this for… khaotung’s song? forcefirst being a thing? overall I just watched this to watch it. after the mew dramatics, knowing damn well it was just for show, it lost a lot of wind for me.
anyway, not a bad show, but it didn’t work for me personally.
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new life to a tiring series
though I personally dropped the Thai original, I found this interpretation entirely more enjoyable! there was some nice, low simmer tension going on between the pairings that didn’t leave me thinking more was needed.though I personally wished we could see a better amount of intimacy (hand holding, conversations, small moments between a couple) I can’t truly complain about the roles.
one thing I kept getting annoyed by was the bad sound engineering. the voiceovers were really loud and not mixed well so they would take me out of the scenes too much.
other than that, I found the series enjoyable! it was kind of funny seeing max & nat too lol. not sure what that was about but they were cute to see.
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not for the lovers of dramatics
probably my most controversial review, but the story has minimal drama, and that seems to be everyone’s issue with it. I personally enjoyed not having to deal with unnecessary love triangles, second leads, bullying, overly dramatic breakdowns, and miscommunication. in fact, there is so much communication between the leads that it doesn’t fall into the “2 episodes to fix this” trope and I wholeheartedly enjoyed that things were addressed head-on.joke and zo display maturity and growth spectacularly. and even with the few instances where dunk’s acting fell a bit short, he pulled through with his role overall.
if anything, the constant complaints I’ve seen only show that gmmtv are not supporting them as they should. dunk has the potential, he simply isn’t having faith and resources put into him. time also seems to be a foreign concept to gmmtv, as this feels like they rushed everyone to finish. finally, a reminder that dunk is still relatively new. joong has been in this industry for a while now and reprised quite a few roles so it is unfair to compare them. give dunk time.
the only thing I did not like was the ending. joke deserved more than just that dinner scene. his father was absolutely vile and it felt like most of that was cut/rearranged to make it a quick reconciliation.
also, pok and jeng were incredible to see. everyone gets so lost in tearing this down that it seems everyone forgets them. seeing a more raw and realistic coming out gave this show more layers. aou and boom did an amazing job, their scenes brought so many emotions. genuinely would love to see them take on lead roles now.
I don’t know what exactly the complaints are on about, as I found this to be one of the best series I watched as it released. hoping we get more of everyone in this show, they all worked so well together.
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loses itself in cheap writing
I genuinely hate to say this, but any and all hopes for jafirst getting a good series were gone within the first episodes. the acting was fine. in fact, I thought bosston did incredible for finally giving us a gay role. the issue is the writing and I feel like a broken record, but Thailand really is losing in this aspect of the industry.this series came off so terrible, I couldn’t stop thinking it was just pulled off some 13yr olds wattpad. there were moments where punn gave us some seriousness and showed real maturity, there was also some growth for some characters, but it was all so minimal it doesn’t help the series. also, the doctor and ming?? their scenes would’ve been better if they didn’t follow every nasty trope. they were set up for failure and it sucks because I liked their chemistry.
the managers constantly going at each other was what ruined the show for me too. there were scenes about the exploitation some actors face, but genuinely, why?? it was just thrown into the mix for what felt like no reason.
anyway, I finished this just to finish it. jafirst, I love them to death, but this series is one of the worst this year. it managed to not only hold back their chemistry, but also their talents. I can only hope we get them in another series that’s written by people that know what they’re doing with one of the best chemistry pairings that are genuinely not afraid to go above and beyond.
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needed a little more time
the story was interesting, and I’m frankly still surprised such young children were allowed to act in this. still, they conveyed the story and emotions very well. i found ren’s younger version to be done incredibly well.as far as the series goes, I think it deserved more time/episodes. it was pretty complex, so it did suffer a little in terms of storytelling. there were too many wrinkles for the audience to truly feel like we got to know these characters or their stories completely. we learned quite a bit about ren, but the same can’t be said about kazuma. I would’ve liked a lot more story wise, but I do think this was very well done overall.
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some things are best left buried in time
the only good thing about this show was chalarm and his comedic moments.the plot was below average at best, definitely not part of the BL shift going on. the casting left a lot to be desired, and those cast in the leading roles barely had chemistry.
with all the good BLs airing right now, you can genuinely do fine never watching this series.
I do think there’s quite a few in the supporting cast that are genuinely good actors, or at least show real potential, but as for the main pairing… I just hope they can get a better support system or guidance. maybe they needed to workshop more, they looked uncomfortable at times and I had to talk myself into continuing the show in hopes it got better. needless to say, it didn’t.
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too much chaos, not enough connection
this series was hard to get through. there’s a lot of chaos, many unnecessary layers of drama, and characters that kept taking me out of being immersed in the story. Inn did incredible acting that would draw me back in, but the random outbursts of violence against him would sour the good for me. nut was borderline abusive to everyone and I found it hard to feel much sympathy for him most of the time.I do have to admit that the dragging out of the main story made it hard to connect to nut & his feelings. by the time we get the real picture of his life, the show is basically over. maybe I expected a lot more from the constant high praise I see for this series, but I can’t say I feel like I enjoyed this all too much. I am still giving it a high rating because the acting was good. I hated the parents/twins 97% of the time, so that was good on the actors.
overall, a very frustrating series that left me unsure I even connected to any of the characters.
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