Bump Up Business (2023)

ITS JUST A GAY BUSINESS

This is a trap - a Business Gay Performance, and im a sucker cause I fell for it.

As a KPOP fan, i loved the concept. Also, as a KPOP fan, i felt disrespected.

Like some of the other Korean BLs out there, i dont know why they couldn't just add maybe 5 or 10 more minutes in each episode to make the story a little bit more cohesive and enjoyable. Its such a waste cause there are so many hints that this could be a good show.

Its the story of an idol Eden, being selected and paired with Jihoon to be in a duo, What 's unique is that they are marketing the group as a gay lover - supposed to be just a business concept, only for the pair to really fall for each other.

There are too many characters and too many subplots but everything felt rushed. They spent so much time with the antagonist, when they could have used that time to build up the chemistry between the main leads and show us when or how the two exactly fell for each other. In episode 7 and 8, i kept checking the runtime cause it feels like the show is just rushing to go to the end and yet I still havent seen what I wanted to see between the 2 leads. Unfortunately as i feared, the show ended too soon without giving any satisying ending. This is a problem with translating a 40-chapter webtoon into an eight 15-minute drama.

It is such a shame really cause the leads are very charming - and Nine kept reminding me of a young Seo Kang Joon. They were both amatuer-ish but they both did enough to be likeable. a few times I was on the verge of really caring about their characters but the show just didnt show enough to make me really reach that level.

I wont forget that cringy scene in the plane where they were both holding hands and sleeping head to head with a smile on their faces looking so uncomfortable when they both could very well be sleeping comfortably in that cushy business class seats even if they were holding hands.

From the onset it felt like a small project conjured up to promote the idol group. The "Business Gay Performance" using homosexuality as a concept was a little bit offensive if you think about it and at first i was thinking they were trying to mock and expose it, but by the end I felt even more ashamed of myself for being a fool and falling for it, even though they were clearly saying FROM THE BEGINNING that this is a Business Gay show and nothing more.

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A lot better than expected

It's an interesting drama based on the reality of how the kpop industry works. I came to this drama because I know OnlyOneOf as a group. Because of that I thought this drama would be really cringe to watch (they are rookie actors and have no experience in acting), but I was honestly surprised with the overall quality. It's a low budget drama, but it's ok in terms of korean BL dramas.
The story was compressed in 8 episodes of 15 minutes what made it feel too rushed. Things were happening too quickly so they used a lot of flashbacks to tell the story. It was smart in storytelling, but as a viewer it feels like you are being attacked with a lot of information from all sides. But that's my only complaint about the script per se. The adaptation from the webtoon was well done and I honestly think it was WAY more sensitive about the topic than the original work.

Like I said before, they have no experience in acting so I wasn't expecting much, but some of them really have a lot of potential. Hyunbin is an annoying, but really charismatic villain. You can know the actor for a villain is good when you feel angry the moment he shows up. In the terms of acting, I think KB was the best one. He looked evil for real. Eden and Jihoon were good as main characters. Eden did look innocent, but not dumb (so common in BL) and Jihoon was an experienced sunbae, but he wasn't an annoyingly cold character for no reason (also common in BL). The characters were well balanced and the actors did well. Nine did a specially greater work in the scenes he was angry which seems a funny thing to actually happen. I don't know if he rehearsed those parts more or if it was fun to him to manhandle KB, as he's the youngest and KB is the oldest.
Jay was an adorable character and I hope to see more characters like him in BL. A character that will back off after hearing a "no". As any BL fan know, characters in Bl usually thinks a "no" means a "try harder".

About the whole plot, I GET that some people will get angry with it. K-pop fans will probably get kinda pissed too. The plot says "the K-pop industry uses gay fanservice to please fans". But is it a lie? EVERY K-pop group will do that and that's set by their company. If you read that and thought "those two (any ship name) don't do that because thy are really close for real", then you know the industry made it work and it already got you. Yes, most idols from same group are probably close, but the fanservice IS REAL, so please don't fool yourself. They will do things on stage, they will lovingly look at each other, they will hug and hold hands and do all that and 80% of the time all this is for show.

All that being said, the whole plot of this is great. It shows how the industry works and how fans respond to it. Now imagine this: companies make their idols do fanservice and among them there are straight people, but there will be queer people too. Imagine working in a place that forces you to PRETEND to be gay as a job, but WON'T ACCEPT you if you ever come out. In this story every main character is canonically queer. Eden even represent a queer kid growing up with a heteronormalized mindset. His first love was a boy, but he never really accepted that part of himself until adulthood.
In the story there's even a part that one of the trainees say there are rumors about Eden and Jihoon as a real couple and he make it sound like a bad thing (as if they weren't pretending to be gay to begin with). In a place like South Korea it' ok if you pretend to be gay, but it's not ok for you to be actually gay. The story is kinda fluffly and soft, but there's a real critique behind it if you pay attention.

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A dishonest rating but an honest review, because I am a fool for OnlyOneOf

Is my rating honest? No. In reality, it's more like a generous 7. But I love my LGBT+ supporting kings OnlyOneOf, and I would just cry if I rated a drama they starred in any lower than an 8, okay?! So forgive me for fudging the numbers! I am a person with feelings!

All this being said, just because I won't rate it honestly doesn't mean I won't review it honestly.

It makes sense that the acting here wouldn't be stellar; they were all new to this. Credit where credit is due, though, Nine and Mill managed to pull off some pretty decent chemistry with their characters despite not being given a lot to work with. However, the editing, story beats, and pacing desperately needed work, and there is no excuse for that. Many times, when scenes continued, they would abruptly cut to new locations or would skip forward a few hours, giving the watcher this uncomfortable feeling of being rushed. Also, more screen time should have been devoted to showing more of the leads spending quality time together rather than talking about or cutting to very brief clips of it. As they say with books, "Show, don't tell." Finally, did we need the scheming ex? No, we did not.

All in all, could have been a lot better.

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Offers little for both BL and OnlyOneOf fans alike

As someone who is a fan of OnlyOneOf, I really would not have watched this if it were not for the group being in it. Sadly, not even they could save this absolute pile of garbage.

I understand a lot of BLs have small budgets but this one seems basically nonexistent which is a bit confusing when compared to the camera quality which is really good. I fail to understand why this company took on producing this show if they seemingly spent all their money on getting the group. They even reuse music and music videos from the group in the series which is just completely jarring and makes no sense in the context of the series. They seriously couldn’t have just filmed at least a little bit of a music video if it was going to be such an important part of the series?

The plot is nonsense, which is not entirely the fault of the writers. The webtoon is also nonsense and pretty weird, but then again why the company chose *this* webtoon to adapt into live action is beyond me. The premise definitely could be interesting, but the series feels like it goes nowhere. Even when some drama ensues, it ends as soon as it starts and is pretty uneventful.

Jihoon and Eden’s romance feels very random to me. They are both okay characters and have likable qualities but I fail to see why they like each other. They barely have any romantic interactions unless you consider sharing a burger and a small kiss which only one party remembers romantic. Both of their sudden feelings for each other, but especially Eden’s, feel extremely random.

For the most part, the members did a decent job with their acting. But I will say it is painfully obvious at times that this is all of their acting debuts and some performances and scenes are less convincing than others.

I think this series fails for both regular BL fans and OnlyOneOf fans alike. If you are an OnlyOneOf fan, it’s disappointing to see the members’ acting debuts being in such a strange and disorganized show. If you’re a regular BL watcher, it’s disappointing to watch such a low-budget, unengaging series with barely any chemistry between the two leads. This series fundamentally fails at appeasing either of the two audiences it is trying to target.

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Meh

Definitely agree with the other reviews, this felt way too rushed, especially the last 4 episodes. The acting was....okay, super cringy at times, I had to pause the video to regroup. There were also a lot of flashbacks that were not needed, especially when the episodes were around 15 minutes each, there was no need to remind me what happened 3 minutes ago, it felt like they just needed to pad the runtime. It also felt like they tried to throw way too many tropes into a roughly 2 hour long series. The song also kinda grows on you as you watch, wasn't the biggest fan but by the last episode I was singing along lmao.

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A bit raw, but still great

ATTENTION SHORT REVIEW (if you want something more in detail pick another one)

This was featuring the members of OnlyOneOf. Sadly, Rie and Junji didn't have a lot of screentime but well. I'm pretty happy about this drama. As for KB and Yoojung, they were amazing. I profoundly despised KB's character, which proves how good of an actor he is, eve though all mmbers are rookies to acting. Mill and Nine were good too. Eden kind of annoyed me, his character is really, really an idiot, but that was in the script. He did well for being an idiot. As for Jihoon, wow, just wow. Nine really did a really good job. I think his acting is my favorite of the drama. Now, the plot was pretty simple, but still it worked well. There was a bit of misunderstandings, but not too much. As someone who is really sensible to the "cringe" (I still don't have a word to define it but you know what I mean), I didn't have to pause it too much which is a good sign. Though, I'm pretty mad that we didn't have a kiss scene (I mean, normally I'm not bothered but this time they were litterally about to kiss and were interupted FOR WHAT? WHYYY). I supposed that it was pretty complicated to have a kiss scene since, you know, they're idols, but yeah, I'm kinda pissed. Music was good. The OST is made by Nine and Mill, and since they are singers in real life, it was really good. Stan OnlyOneOf yall. Wish we could have seen more. One problem is, it kinda feels rushed. They didn't have a lot of episodes and they were short, so of course they had to fit all in such a short amount of time and it felt like we didn't have much depth to it. I would have really liked an insight on Jihoon and Hyunbin's past relationship but I guess this it all that we will get... Overall, pretty good drama, of course a bit raw, but still great for something made in 8 ep. of 15 min.

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