confusing and strange

I may have possibly watched this with my expectations too high, after having watched and loved Mork & Tee's 'Our Skyy' episode, so my feelings of 'meh' are possibly my own fault.

Having said that, 'meh' is about what sums this series up.

The soundtrack is good, the acting is good (leaning towards great at times, especially from Drake) but the plot is a mess. The characterisation was inconsistent and the the tone kept shifting.

My biggest problem with this is the plot. It starts out light-hearted and kind of funny, with Mork handing Tee a bag of gay porn DVD's in front of his girlfriend and their subsequent little prank war and that's all well and good. Then it gets all heavy and serious - which I'd have no problem with if I could actually follow it along and it made sense in terms of what had already been set up.

Mork keeps getting nosebleeds - does it mean something? Yes, apparently, but it's never made clear what. How did Tee and Mork first meet? At the school or at the internet cafe? I'm not sure. How long did they know each other before they were separated again? A couple of days? A week? Dunno.

The way the series is structured, it seems like the first six episodes were going to be one season, and the next six were going to be the second, and then the production team just decided to jam the both together. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of my confusion stems from what was cut out of the episodes.

Is this worth watching? If you have nothing else to watch, sure. Is it worth re-watching? I don't believe so. Once is quite enough.

Like I said, it's just 'meh.'

Read More

Much, much better than I expected

Sometimes, something just defies your expectations and this series did that for me.

Because, being honest, this is another BL series set in a university with white shirts and black trousers and grown adults acting like they never heard of sex; and fundraising fairs and camping out visiting impoverished areas; and medical students and engineering students and freshmen with ties; and scooters and high end cars and huge houses that you would swear should have at least four bedrooms, but only seem to have one or two; and let's not forget the male character with darker skin (because colourism) with the high pitched voice and the limp wrists who ships the ML's.

This is, almost beat for beat, the same plot as every other Thai BL. All the stereotypes are here, all the clichés and tropes are here.

Except.....there's some differences.

The attitude of one of the MLs to the toxic and dangerous behaviour of the shippers, their page and their 'fans' is refreshing. Pi bluntly declares he feels unsafe with the way Mork keeps encouraging said behaviour in his attempts to woo Pi. And well he should, because these 'fans' not only butt into Pi's life, but drag his brother, his mother and his father into it and even threaten to invade his home to take pictures of his bedroom!

At one point, someone starts filming them without permission, and posting it online. At another, someone else has clearly been stalking them because pictures get posted of Pi standing on the balcony of his house.

This series comes down hard, and not even subtly, on the invasive and toxic social media culture that seems to permeate much of the world nowadays.

Pi breaks my heart several times during this series. He's a truly sweet, kind and caring young man who does not deserve the bullying. I can't help feeling that Mork should have opened his mouth and stood up for Pi a lot earlier. I also think that if Mork had given Pi that umbrella, then maybe things would have proceeded differently as well.

Differently, but for the better? Who knows? ::shrug::

I also liked the fact that Mork has pictures of Pi on his phone before his 'makeover' and that he liked him just as he was before Duen and his friends got involved. It would have been so refreshing to see Pi stay that way, but gain confidence as his relationship with Mork grew and let that confidence make him more attractive, rather than going for the 'ditch the glasses, get ride of the braces, fix the hair' kind of makeover that was used.

I really liked Bam. I thought she was cute and bubbly and fun and supportive of Mork....and then they had to ruin it with the stunt she pulled at Mork's birthday party. Why? Just why? It completely ruined her character for me. For god's sake, please stop doing this!

I also liked Muang Nan. Whilst it was clear he didn't like Pi the way Pi wanted him to, he wasn't cruel about it and he kept subtly pushing Pi towards Mork. He also had some good advice for Mork, which Mork should have taken. The cheeky reference to Mix's series 'Tale of a Thousand Stars' was amusing.

This even gave me pause when it came to my favourite pairing. A lot of times, in BL, I'll find myself preferring the secondary couple over the main couple, but here I found myself cheering for both of them. Duen is a great brother and a genuinely funny and likable character. His character grew over the course of the twelve episodes and I loved his fourth-wall breaking.

Meen is a complete cinnamon roll without, thank goodness, the childishness that often goes along with that kind of character in Thai BL He's a bit child-like, but not childish. He stands up for himself and tells Duen exactly what he thinks and feels and doesn't let Duen get away with shit. I approve.

The acting in this is good, especially by Pond, Phuwin and Neo. The editing is also good. The daft sound effects are still there, but are considerably toned down (thank goodness) and the product placement is still very obvious but also toned down considerably.

The only negative, really, is the scene with Duen dressed up as what I assume to be his idea of an Indian holy man. I didn't notice it until someone from that culture pointed it out and talked about how uncomfortable it made them, and I can completely understand why. it was only a brief scene, but it shouldn't have been there.

Also (and this is not a negative) I was confused by the ending. It supposedly takes place 2 years later, but how had Meen not seen Duen and Pi's room at this point? And have Pi and Mork just been abstaining from sex this whole time? It was just....baffling. Although the scene itself was very funny.

I really enjoyed this series overall, and I'm happy to recommend it and, since I'm re-watching it whilst I'm typing up this review, I state without hesitation that it has high re-watch value too.

Read More

as near to perfect as makes no difference

There's no point pretending this is an absolutely perfect series, because there's no such thing, but this comes so bloody close that it might as well be.

I originally wasn't going to write a review for this, as much as I loved it, because there's 41 pages of reviews on this site for this series and the majority of them are positive - does it really need one more?

Well, I've decided that yes, it does.

As I stated above, no series is perfect and this one is no exception, but the only thing to really complain about are the sometimes rather bad special effects. The giant turtle and the giant wolf spring to mind, plus the non-appearance of a lot of the creatures the cultivators are supposed to hunt thanks to China's daft censorship laws.

Speaking of which, I'm going to get this complaint out of the way early. I was disappointed that a BL novel was adapted in to a censored series, but only in the sense that there were no kissing scenes. I'm a romantic sap and that's all I would have liked to have seen. I'm sure other people wouldn't have minded the, ahem, other stuff, but I would have been happy with some kissing.

HOWEVER this series is a romance in everything but name. It's very much a gay romance in the style of Hollywood during the Hays Code. Everything is implied and hinted at, sometimes very blatantly (the two main leads consider each other soulmates, ffs), so unless you're completely oblivious, you can see the two main leads are in love.

It doesn't stop there, however, as there are implications of romance between two of the other characters who aren't a couple in the book. If you watch it with a shipper's eye, it's very clear. This review is tagged for spoilers, but I don't really want to spoil things outright, so i leave anyone reading this to see for themselves.

On to more positive things.

The casting for this entire series is perfect. I don't think there's a miscast part in the entire line-up, and this has a *lot* of characters, so it would have been an easy thing to do. Xiao Zhan as Wei Wuxian and Wang Yibo as Lan Wangji was a casting masterstroke. They embody their characters so well I 'm certain no other actors would have worked. Xiao Zhan, in particular, is a fine actor.

The chemistry between the two leads is palpably there, which makes getting absorbed into their story so much easier.

The storyline itself can be a bit confusing, as we start out in the present time for the first two episode, and then a 31 episode flashback tells the backstory. i would recommend reading the Wikipedia article on The Untamed if you find yourself confused when you start watching. It helped me a lot. Especially understanding things like courtesy names and other concepts that someone who doesn't have an Asian heritage may not get.

I know some people may balk at the fact that this series is 50 episodes, but they are only around 42 minutes or so and they go by very quickly when you're engrossed in the story. There is also a shortened 'special edition' of the series on YouTube consisting of only 20 episode if that makes things easier.

One of the best things about this series, aside from the brilliant casting and all the lovely scenery (Lotus Pier is gorgeous and I want to live there) is the music. There is, of course, the main theme named 'Wangxian' in the series by Lan Wangji, but officially 'WuJi' on the soundtrack by the composer. There is a duet version by Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, plus the version that they each sing individually.

'Utter Innocence', Wen Ning's character song sung by actor Yu Bin, is lovely, and Xue Yang's character song 'No One Knows' sung by Charlie Zhou is the complete antithesis in tone and melody to his actual character. Also, and I know this is an overused cliche, but Charlie Zhou has the voice of angel. It's unbelievable.

The soundtrack is on iTunes if you, like me, decided you had to have the entire thing on your iPod. It's also on Spotify.

This series is Chinese, and the version I watched has been subtitled. I don't know if it's available dubbed, because I don't watch dubbed media (that's a personal preference, not a slight on anyone who needs or prefers dubbed media). It's available with English subtitles on Netflix and Rakuten Viki. I'm fairly confident other subtitles and dubbing are also available, but you would have to look at your Netflix and Viki settings, respectively.

So, to sum up, this series is impeccably cast, incredibly acted, features stunning scenery and gorgeous costumes, has an engaging and interesting storyline, a memorable soundtrack and I love it so much.

I hope you do too.

Read More

better than expected

Knowing this was made on the cheap, so to speak, I was a bit hesitant about watching it. Not because I have anything against low production values, in of themselves, but because low budget can oftentimes mean bad acting. Which i something I find harder and harder to watch as I get more educated as to what good acting is supposed to look like.

Ko, an online singing star, has been in love with Teng for years. He knows it's futile, but he can't help but hope. His friends tell him about a holy man in the woods who can make a 'love poison' to change Teng's heart. He goes off and gets it, with some shenanigans involving ghosts, and then joins the soccer team so he can get close enough to Teng to get him to drink it.

Teng, in the meantime, is interested in Nuan and when Ko asks for his help to get better at soccer, Teng asks for Ko's help with singing so he can woo Nuan. Nuan and Teng start dating.

Ko is devastated, and gets drunk with his friends. They call Teng to have him take Ko home and Teng and Ko have sex.

Drunk sex is a thing in this series, because the side couple, Tak and Ko's brother Sek, end up doing the same thing.

Ko tells Teng they should just forget it ever happened and then starts dating Tak.

The rest of the plot is pretty predictable and there's a happy ending all round.

This series has no awkward product placements, no over-the-top sound effects and no disapproving parents. Ko and Sek's father accepts both their relationships and is a sweet and caring man.

The scenery is beautiful, too, because this set in the country and there isn't a university or an engineering student for miles.

The soundtrack is great, the acting is pretty good, the writing is surprisingly sharp at times and this is overall a good series. It's only eight episodes, too, so you can watch it in less than a day.

Overall, I enjoyed this and I think it's worth a watch.

Read More

don't bother - just go watch the Pete/Kao cut

This was just....awful.

There's no other words for it. It was boring, slow and painful to watch. Most of the characters were horrible and unlikeable, the plot was ridiculous (more ridiculous than usual) and the acting was truly dreadful in places.

Also sadly, the Pete/Kao cut of this, which was officially created by GMMTV and posted on their YouTube channel, did not exist when I watched this, so I had to suffer through all 14 episodes to watch Tay and New.

The story revolves around the lives of five sisters: Sanwan, Sanson, Sansuay, Sandee and Sanrak, and their daily lives. It's definitely more soap opera than drama. The oldest sister, Sansuay, owns a clothing store and lives above it with her sisters.

THE BAD: oh, there's so much bad. Starting with just the show itself, the opening credits run for 5 minutes. No, that's not an exaggeration - I timed them.

Then there's the characters. Most of them are terrible.

Sanson is paid by Matt's mother to find out if he's gay (because he spends so much time with his best friend Pat) or not, and the way she goes about it is just awful. One of them is to hire escorts to grope him at a karaoke club. She butts into his private life in ways she has no business doing and not only does he forgive her he starts dating her. Pat is actually gay and has a small crush on his best mate and Sanson treats him terribly for it.

Sanwan is being setup for a relationship by her mother as the 'girl who is the best match for you' in cahoots with the prospective boyfriend/groom's father. The young man in question, only identified by the initial 'R', is supposedly a doctor, but he never seems to do any doctor-ing. He's also arrogant, rude, cruel and a bully. He tries to sexually assault Sanwan in the second episode, ffs.

And his girlfriend of the moment, Sinee, is jealous and possessive and can't let go of the idea that Sanwan wants her man, even though she rejects him soundly and decisively and wants nothing to do with him. Sinee even sets Sanwan up to be raped, which is just....I have no words for how disgusting that is and how reprehensible of a character she is.

Sandee is still the only sensible one out of the gang, and we all stan June.

The main BL pairing in this, as mentioned above, is Pete/Kao. I'm not a fan of the 'accidental kiss' and it wasn't done very well here (Saifah/Zon's in WRU was better) but these two have chemistry leaking out of their pores. So much more more than So and Sansuay.

We also get hints of Sun/Mork, although their relationship is developed more in 'Dark Blue Kiss.'

The BL plot is fairly standard, which means its the only one that really makes sense in terms of character development and plot beats. It's the saving grace of this series.

And Pete's dad is the best Dad in Thai BL I've ever seen.

On the whole, I would highly recommend you watch the Pete/Kao and avoid the rest of this dumpster fire. It wasn't worth my time, and it's not worth yours.

Read More

Oh dear. I really shouldn't have bothered.

I'm going to be honest - I read too much about this series before I watched it to give an unbiased review. I read a lot of comments on the MDL page, I read comments on the YouTube videos and I read a lot of speculation about why this series went off the rails the way it apparently did.

After watching, I'm halfway convinced there was no other way it could go.

The whole premise of the plot was overturned in the first half of the series, leaving it nowhere to go. The story started as a fairly standard one in BL - Young man A (Tine) is being pursued by Young Man B (Green). Young Man A has no interest in B because he's interested in girls, not boys.

Which he declares multiple times an episode whilst also making a point to ogle girls he considers pretty and try to date them. Because he's not interested in boys. No sirree. Not at all.

Young Man C (Sarawat) just might be the exception. He's the traditionally masculine, very handsome and talented young man that A recruits to fake flirt with to drive B away. Young Man B, as is the case with most Thai BL's, has a high pitched voice and feminine mannerisms and is, well, a raging stereotype.

Kudos to this series, though, for avoiding the colourism usually present in Thai BL - B is as light skinned as the rest of them. Now if only one of the leads was darker skinned, it would've completely subverted the trope which would have been even better. Baby steps, I guess.

Then it turns out, as we find out about halfway through the series, that Green hasn't really been pursuing Tine seriously. He had recently broken up with his boyfriend Dim (the president of the university music club that Sarawat and Tine belong to) and was using Tine to make Dim jealous.

Now, if this had happened later in the series, it might have worked out better, but it happened so early that the series had about six episodes to try and fill in and the writers couldn't seem to figure out exactly what they wanted to do. They could have given a bit more time to the side couples, instead of wasting the acting talents of Frank and Drake by having them appear for five minutes every episode.

No, instead we get this mess that just irritated me.

Here's the thing: when Sarawat agrees to fake flirt with Tine to chase off Green, he declares he's going to actually flirt with Tine. And then he says he's not. And then he says he is. And then he says he was joking.

And it continues on like this for most of the episodes. Poor Tine, who you can see is beginning to develop feelings for Sarawat (even if he has Wei Wuxian levels of obliviousness about it), doesn't know whether he's coming or going because Sarawat is....well, tbh, I'm not sure what Sarawat is doing.

It *looks* like he's playing shitty mind games with Tine, but I suppose it could just be his insecurity over actually getting the chance to be with Tine.

Then we get to episode 12 and everything goes to hell-lite because Sarawat forgot himself and Tine's, for some reason, lost all his confidence. Has anyone seen that, by the way? It was around for about six or seven episodes and then slowly slunk away somewhere. If you do see it, send it back would you?

Tine catches Sarawat in an embrace (a very clearly one-sided one) with his "friend" Pam and jumps to conclusions and gets very upset and runs away and cries, and then runs outside (where it is now somehow night even though it was daylight five minutes ago) where he runs into Mil and collapses.

Sarawat comes along whilst Mil is bundling Tine into his car to take him to hospital and he forgets himself completely and doesn't just get into the car (which he would've done two episodes ago.) He doesn't visit Tine in hospital, (presumably because he's still forgetting himself) and ambushes Tine outside of it and *still* doesn't just get in the car before Mil drives Tine away.

The ending consists of Sarawat singing a song for Tine and asking him, in front of all the extras they could hire for this mess, if Tine trusts him again. It's the perfect setup for a kiss. No, really,. Since the end of episode 2, Sarawat has been the one doing all the flirting (and then denying that he's flirting but, you know, you have to have something to deny doing in the first place, so it *counts*) and Tine's been acting all shy and coy.

This would have been the perfect moment for Tine to initiate something. To take charge. To lean in and kiss Sarawat and then say his line. And does he do that? No. They re-unite, happy endings all round, and do they kiss after that? No. Sarawat has been obsessed with grabbing Tine's 'boobs' for the last 11 episodes so maybe he sneakily does that? Yeah, no.

These are the two most chaste young men I've ever seen on a drama series. "If you keep looking at me like that, I'll kiss you til you drop."

Yeah, right, Sarawat. You kissed him a grand total of: once.

And he didn't drop.

I guess double high-fives are the new kissing?

In summation (because this got really long and rant-y but I'm not sorry because this had the potential to be so bloody good and it was ruined) - don't bother. Bright and Win 's acting isn't bad, though they are outshone by Frank, Drake, Toptap and Mike, and the soundtrack is great, but this show got lost in adaptation and whoever wrote this should just stick to original material and not ruin any more books.

If I sound like a bitter old person, about this it's because I am.

Bah! Humbug!

Read More

I jumped into BL one night during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 after watching a multi couple edit video on YouTube one night. I started with 'Why R U?', but when I realised that it hadn't finished being made, i abandoned it (temporarily) and watched 'Until We Meet Again', 'Love By Chance' and 'Theory of Love'

After taking this deep dive into Thai BL, I found MDL and read a lot of discussions and comments and watched even more multi couple videos on YouTube and found my way to SOTUS.

Before I start, full disclaimer: I am not Thai. Nor am I Asian. I am a white Australian. Therefore I may be seeing some things through the lens of my culture and upbringing which may not seem right to someone who is Thai.

SOTUS (an acronym for Seniority, Order, Tradition, Unity and Spirit) is a system that freshmen in the faculty of engineering go through to earn their gear and be officially recognised as juniors by their third-year seniors. Arthit (Perawat Sangpotirat aka Krist) is head of the hazers, as the seniors are known, and he has a tendency to abuse his power.

The freshman are basically required to do anything asked of them by their seniors, which skirts a very dangerous line between hazing and outright bullying. At least one student collapses during one of the activities.

A freshman named Kongpob (Prachaya Ruangroj aka Singto) joins the university and the SOTUS program and immediately defies Arthit, standing up for himself and his classmates against the bullying. And it is actual bullying in a lot of cases. One moment that stands out to me is Arthit ordering Kongpob to stand on a table, shout at the top of voice that he likes men, then go and ask three other males students to be his boyfriend.

It was very hard to watch. Making the freshman run laps, do push-ups or sing and tasks of that nature are relatively okay, but what Arthit had Kongpob do went way past simple hazing. People's sexualities, whatever they may be, are not something to be used for public humiliation.

If you can get through the first three or so episodes, things do improve. Arthit and Kongpob being to understand one another better and each other's perspective on things. They begin to develop mutual respect and then that deepens into something more.

There is not a lot of physical contact in this show. Arthit and Kongpob kiss twice, maybe three times, and that's it. There's no skin shown and no heavy makeout scenes.

There is a now famous scene that takes place on the Rama VIII bridge in Bangkok, where Arthit and Kongpob kiss for the first time, and both the scene and the bridge are now so entwined with Thai BL that they are reference in other BL shows.

SOTUS was released in 2016 and can be considered, along with Love Sick, the show that really pushed Thai Bl into the mainstream. Both shows are on Netflix, both shows are referenced in other BL series (characters are seen either watching the shows, or the couple will go the bridge, or someone mentions/orders pink milk) and both shows set up ideas about what Thai BL should be.

Thankfully, in this series, there is no sexual assault (another trope used quite frequent in BL - from many countries) and once you get past the first four or so episodes the hazing becomes less egregious. If, like me, you were bullied in school, you may find some of the scenes triggering.

All in all, this is not a bad series. The acting is very good. Singto, especially, is an excellent actor (if you like him, do yourself a solid and go watch him in 'He's Coming To Me') and Krist is no slouch either. The supporting cast is also very good (keep a lookout for pre-Kiss Me Again and Dark Blue Kiss actor New Thitipoom and pre-theory of Love Off Jumpol.)

I love the opening titles song.

I don't rate this as highly as other shows, but it's still worth a watch if you haven't, just mind yourself if bullying is a trigger for you.

Read More

Well....yeah.. That was.....an experience.

My first problem with this show is the mixed up timelines. Having Tin x Can's story start from the beginning, whilst carrying on the storyline from series one for the rest of cast makes for very disjointed storytelling. It also means that several scenes are repeated....and aren't as good as the originals.

Having Ae weepy over Pete for the first three episodes was, unfortunately, boring. This is no slight on Perth as an actor. He was great in LBC, and his acting has only improved. It just felt like his character was there to link the two series, and it wasn't necessary. Just having Tin x Can would have linked them just fine.

As with Why R U?, there are too many couples and characters eating up screen time and it would have been better if the series had focused on Tin, Can, Tul and Hin. Tum was there solely for Ae's song, Tar was barely there at all and any episode Kengkla was in was solely to apologise to . and chase after, Techno, albeit in different ways.

I know this show isn't Tharntype or Together With Me, but we had several bed scenes in series one and so now I'm left wondering WTF happened here? Tul and Hin's kiss was filled with more passion than any of Tin and Can's and it wasn't a problem in the first series. The chemistry was there but, somehow, the performance wasn't.

I realise that this series being made whilst Covid-19 is still ravaging the world may have contributed to some of this, but it can't be the sole reason for it.

Mean's acting, like Perth's, has only improved - and it was already pretty damn good - so I have no complaints about the acting. Even the weaker actors like Gun (Techno) who is more of a model than an actor have improved dramatically.

This series had a lot going for it, and yet it still failed to hit the mark. Whether that is because of the writing, or the directing or the fact that it was airing on a Chinese company's streaming service and had to cop to China's daft censorship laws is a matter of speculation.

Is it any good? Yes, in parts. Is it worth watching? Yes. Is it worth rewatching? Again, yes, some episodes were pretty good. Is it a 10/10 series? No, not for me.

A third series was teased, but after this I'm not sure I'd even want to think about what a third season would look like.

Read More

Another show let down by the ending

I'm going to admit straight out of the gate that I'm not the most neutral person in the world when it comes to this show. I've seen the original anime (though I've had no chance to read the manga) and whilst I started out being impressed with how closely this series was following it along, I stopped being impressed by the end of episode 12.

Firstly, all the acting in this was great. I always enjoy watching Singto bringing his 'A' flirting game, and this was no exception. He's such a talented young man.

Foei was great as Pooh. Not a complete carbon copy of his anime counterpart, but still giving off the same vibes. A sweet, naive, innocent man doing his best for his young master and his daughter (adorably named Piglet.)

Pluem put just the right amount of emotion into his Krating, and I really enjoyed his character development over the series.

Lee was just about perfect as Punn, the boss, and he has excellent comedic timing.

Those are the positives.

There were a lot of changes made from the original anime, and some of them are understandable because Thai culture is very different from Japanese culture, and some things wouldn't work.

I still don't like Weir's ex, and I'm in two minds as to whether it was better or worse that they changed him from a abusive asshole to a lying, two-timing asshole, but either way he was still there for at least one episode too long. I was already sick of him.

My biggest gripe with this show is the omission of the BL storyline. Antique wasn't a full BL, but the Japanese counterparts to Weir and Pooh did have a BL storyline. And this was teased in the earlier episodes, which was good.....except it was just a tease.

Production writers then gave the middle fingers to the viewers by having the guitar playing scene and then stopping the storyline right in its tracks. And Pooh ended up living with Piglet and her mum in the end and leaving the cafe.

Most people in the comment section were delighted at Weir and Punn being left alone together, and I'm happy their getting to the ship hearts fulfilled, but I'm also very disappointed at the same time for anyone like me (fi there was anyone like me) who wanted the original BL storyline represented properly.

I'm not going to say this was the worse series I've ever seen (that dubious honour goes to En of Love: Love Mechanics) but it just could have been so much better.

It does have rewatch value, though, if only for the first two thirds of the series where things are great between the characters and you don't want to scream.

Read More

I've seen worse

The production staff on this series knew what their target audience wanted....and they delivered it. There's buff, ripped, hot male bodies on display everywhere. I really felt sorry for Gino when he was greeted at the resort by the shirtless yoga class....I wouldn't know where to put my eyes either!

This got really ragged on in the comments and reviews, and I can't say the criticism isn't earned, but I liked this for the short, sweet and fluffy series it was meant to be. I appreciated the fact that everyone seemed generally positive about gay relationships and there wasn't any homophobia.

Some of the dialogue got a little preachy,, especially in the last two episodes.

The series is only eight episodes and the episodes are only about 20 mins each, so the plot isn't complicated and the character development is a little rushed, but it's there. Alex liking Gino didn't come out of the blue, which I've seen happen in BL before.

The actor who plays Gino is not conventionally attractive. He's not unattractive, by any means, but he isn't what we've come to expect in a BL. He's got a slight tummy, his skin isn't flawless, his hair isn't always perfectly groomed and he's not tan.

And, honestly? I find that so refreshing. I don't think it's unrealistic for hot guy like Alex to fall for an ordinary bloke like Gino, and I appreciate that's what happens.

The actor who plays Alex seems to have no body issues whatsoever as every opportunity is taken for him to be shirtless. In the very last episode, we even see him fully naked (albeit when he's lying facedown) and that's something I haven't seen outside of porn.

Is this on the same level as, say,, Gameboys? Nope, definitely not. It's not even on the same level as 'My Day'. It's better than people make it out to be, though, and I'm all for encouraging productions companies to make these series - because practice does help and who knows what we may get to see in the years to come?

Read More

This isn't as good as it could have been

If you've read the comment section for this drama's listing here on MDL, you probably know that this a soft reboot of the earlier 2 Moons, with the first four episodes of this being basically a rehash of the original series.

That is the start of the problems. It would have been better if they had dispensed with that and just devoted the whole twelve episodes of the series to telling the second story.

Another problem is, of course, the change of actors. I have no issue with the changes of the actors who played Forth, Beam, Wayo, Ming and Phana, but I really missed the actor who played Kit. To his credit, Nine is actually one of the better actors in this series, but he's not Copter and that doesn't work for me.

It's clear this was made on a lower budget than the original, which affects some things. The decor in Wayo's bedroom is loathsome, the 'club' they go to drink at looks like a badly decorated studio and the cafeteria looks cheaper than an actual school cafeteria.

General gripes out of the way, let's get to it.

STORY: Rehash of the first series happens over the first four episodes - Wayo getting into the same university as the love of his life, Phana, in the science faculty. His best friend Ming getting into the same uni, only into the engineering faculty (yeah, they went there again), moving into the dorm and being snubbed by Phana, Wayo being chosen as the 'moon' of his faculty and practicing for the competition. Phana not recognising Wayo as the love of his life because Wayo pulled a Clark Kent and ditched his glasses. Phana and Wayo getting together. Ming starting to court Kit. Ming winning the contest and becoming the 'Moon' of the university etc, etc, etc.

The next eight episodes are dedicated to Phana and Wayo's relationship troubles (jealousy, angst and declarations of love), Ming's attempts to court Kit (which don't go well because Ming has trouble saying 'no' to his ex-girlfriend) and Beam drunkenly sleeping with Forth and Forth's attempts to court Beam afterwards.

The series culminates on a cliffhanger where a rival for Wayo's affections, Park, breaks into Wayo's room and molests him in his sleep. He then takes pictures of the resulting hickey and Wayo, devastated, runs home. Phana is justifiably pissed off at Park , and heads off after Wayo thus setting up the third series.

THE GOOD: For the most part, the acting wasn't horrible. Though I miss the original cast, especially Copter, I think changing the actor who played Forth was actually a good thing. Tae was 27 when he played Forth, and he was just too grown up for the kind of juvenile shenanigans that go on in this kind of BL. Pavel (Forth) and Dome (Beam) are only a year apart in age and it works better to make them a more believable couple and more believable as Uni students.

Having Samantha as Cake was also a huge plus. I loved her in Love By Chance and Until We Meet Again. Please, somebody, give this wonderful actress a lead role.

Mello, who produced the series, also put it out on YouTube with English subtitles already in place and that was very awesome of them. If they do the same with 2 Moons 3, they'll be my favourite production company.

THE BAD: I'm trying not to be too harsh here, because a lot of the problems I have are just personal preference. I don't like the fact that Phana is such a hypocrite. He gets jealous over nothing, but then has a go at Wayo for feeling the same way. He treats Wayo like a child, then chastises him for acting like one. He took Wayo to a club, then forbade him from drinking because he had an exam the next day, then gave him his phone and told Wayo to play games on it. I mean, all it was missing was a pat on the head. Is Wayo a grown man, as Phana tells him in a later episode, or a child? Make up your mind, Pha.

I had high hopes that Forth would be the more mature one of the group and he mostly was. Until we got to the field trip episodes where he basically manipulated Beam into apologising for something the poor young man hadn't even done. Not cool, Forth. Not cool. I don't know whether Beam actually had feelings for Kit, but I couldn't tell that Forth had *any* kind of feelings for Beam until they slept together and Forth just seemed to decide he wanted a serious relationship. There was no build up, no foreshadowing, not even a vague hint.

Ming and Kit's relationship did come along at a decent pace, not too rushed or too slow, and I liked a lot of their scenes, but what happened to Kit's personality? Where's all his confidence and sass and anger gone? We caught a few glimpses of it, but his character was toned down considerably from the first series and I was not happy about it. Can we have the real Kit back for series 3, please?

I realise that what I'm going to complain about next is practically a requirement of BL, especially Thai BL, but I am honestly fed up with the 'scheming girl wants to break the couple up because she thinks she should be with one of them because of her image'. No. Just no. Pring is an attractive, talented, intelligent young woman. Why would she waste her time going after a man already taken and who's already rejected her? Does she have no self-respect? Why are these female characters written to have no self-respect or sense of self=worth? Stop it, please. Just.....stop doing it.

REWATCH VALUE?: Yeah, it has some. I mean, perhaps not all the episodes, but there are some great moments despite the problems and it's an enjoyable series to watch.

I gave this three stars because I honestly think, if the writing had been tweaked a little and some of the set design improved, this could have been a brilliant series, instead of just a good one. It's worth a watch, just keep your expectations low.

Read More

Another show so close to perfect....if it wasn't for that ending

I generally don't write reviews when I genuinely enjoy a show, because the shows I generally really enjoy are always, somehow, ones that everyone else enjoys and rates highly and is there any point in me just adding to that?

In this case, as with The Untamed, this series is damn near perfect. The casting, the acting, the music and even the plot (for the most part) is all excellent.

Let's get it out the way first, though, shall we? The ending. Hoo, boy, the ending. It let this series down big time.

The basic premise of this is that in the modern day, a rather arrogant chef, Jang Bong-hwan working at the Blue House (the official residence of the President of the Republic of South Korea) is set up by his boss to embarrass the President at an official dinner and then further implicated in corruption in food purchases.

Whilst escaping from the police out of his apartment building window, he falls into the swimming pool and drowns. He wakes up to find himself in 1851 in the body of Kim So-Yong, the future Queen Cheorin of Joseon (as Korea was called then.) What follows is Jang's attempts to not only return to his own body and his own time, but also to survive the court intrigue of the Queen's relatives, the Kim family, and their rivals, the Jo family, using only his wits, his knowledge of the past and his cooking skills.

Along the way, King Cheoljong genuinely falls in love with Jang and even compiles a 'Queen's Dictionary' consisting of all the idioms and modern slang that Jang uses regularly to try to understand her better.

Of course, when Jang and Kim So-Yong switch back about three quarters of the way through the last episode, I expected it but I was still disappointed. Even though it's made clear that both Jang and So retain some vestiges of each other's souls, even the King can tell she isn't the person he fell in love with.

And that is the real shame of it. They genuinely came to love each other and now one of them isn't really the same person anymore. It just....makes no sense.

All the kudos go to Shin Hye-sun for her performance in this. She effortlessly switches between Jang and So and you can always tell which soul is inhabiting the body. Her voice, posture and language all change completely to distinguish between them. She's a damn good actress. Nothing more to be said.

I fast forwarded through a lot of the court intrigue scenes. Not fast enough that I'd lose sight of the plot, but the court intrigue and the Grand Queen Dowager's brother being an asshole didn't really interest me.

The music is wonderful. 'Here I Am' is a beautiful song and 'bong Hwan A' is a brilliant rock song. Both make me wish I could speak Korean just so I could sing along.

This is absolutely worth a watch because the first 19 and a half episodes are great. The acting is on point, the music is brilliant and so much of it is so rewatchable.

if it hadn't been for that ending, this would be a full 10 for me.

Read More

i got nothing

I honestly don't know what to say or where to start with this.

From the synopsis, I thought this was going to be about two childhood best friends who separate as children (kind of like Korn and Knock in TWM) and then reunite at university, only one's been in love with the other since they were kids and the other is apparently straight and has a girlfriend (also like Korn and Knock in TWM) only with more emphasis on the ocean and pretty scenery.

Chon has been in love with his childhood best friend Ton since they were small. They lived literally next door to each other, and when Ton and his family moved away, Chon was devastated. Fast forward several years and Chon, who has taken it upon himself to clean Ton's old house regularly (because the family never sold it and it's been sitting vacant for years) hears someone moving around in the house and goes to confront what he thinks is a burglar.

Turns out it's Ton, running away from uni and his girlfriend who dumped him for a richer bloke. Let's not get into how so many female characters in Thai BL are golddiggers - it won't end well.

Chon is going to Ton's uni, so Ton offers to let Chon live it his house with his two best friends, Ai and Ni. Ai and Ni are a couple, but haven't told Ton because his father is uber homophobic (kind of) and they don't want to lose his friendship.

All this, in and of itself, would be fine. Chon struggles to keep his feelings for Ton a secret, because he doesn't want to lose Ton's friendship, and then it all comes out and Ton has to figure out his own feelings for Chon. Fine. All standard in BL. Not a problem.

But then things do this weird 180 in the last episode, and it turns out Ton was also in love with Chon when they were kids and always has been and everything that happened up to then has been some kind of, I dunno, weird scheme to get Chon to fall in love with him?

This makes absolutely no sense at all. It's like the writers were going one way with this series, and then decided, 'fuck it.' And all the supposed foreshadowing for this isn't very foreshadow-ey even when they try to make it that in flashbacks.

Another thing that puzzled me was Ai and Ni. They're supposed to be a couple in a loving relationship, but we never see them kiss. They lean into towards each other, and then the camera just pans away. What is that about? If the actors aren't comfortable kissing, why cast them in the first place?

Lastly, the odd plot twist led to the reveal that Ton's father knew he loved Chon and the reason he was against it wasn't because he was homophobic, but rather that he was wanting grandchildren to carry on his family name and legacy. Now I know this is a big, big thing in most Asian cultures, but in 2020, and admittedly from my perspective, this just comes off as really stupid. Really, really stupid.

This problem is solved when Miriam, a recent friend, agrees to be a surrogate. Which also weirded me out. Because that happens at the end, which is apparently three years later, so what took so long? And Ton and Chon are both still in uni - was it to give them time to graduate before Ton becomes a father? Is Ton going to *be* the father? Or is the child/ren going to be raised by Ton's parents? What's Chon's role in all of this? what's Miriam's? Is she going to give birth and then give the baby/babies up?

Children are people - not balls to be bounced around, or commodities to bargain with. You should never bring a child/ren into the world if you aren't prepared to put 100% effort into being a parent. They are seriously bringing a child/ren into the world just so there's an heir for Ton's dad? To carry on the family name? What happens if the child is a girl? Did she get pregnant three times and then abort the other two because they were girls? The whole thing is never explained well and comes off as skeevy as fuck.

The first nine episodes of this show were fine. Mostly. I'm not going to touch of how much a himbo Ton comes off as, because that's something you need to see and laugh about for yourself (and episode 10 retcons it all anyway) . Even precluding that, they were fine.

The the curse of episode 10 struck and everything went weird and I think, if I was watching this again, I'd stop after the scene on the pier in episode 10 and pretend the other half of the ep doesn't exist, because it doesn't do anything for the show as a whole and, to repeat myself, is skeevy as all get out.

Read More