Wat who acted as Mark was GREAT. His acting felt so real and natural. As a gay character he was also pretty convincing. The story wasn't that great and felt sometimes rushed, but it kept me on the edge of my seat. The chemistry with Yin was okay, but not mind-blowing, mostly because of the difference in acting skills and the script. They made Yin a rather shallow guy.
But I enjoyed this series a lot and watched it in one go. I will rewatch it later just to see Wat's acting again. I'm very impressed by this guy.

On a side note: THEY KISSED. The kisses weren't mind-blowing either, but they were cute. Lately I saw a lot of BLs where it looked like the guys were uncomfortable touching and kissing each other. Mark and Vee never looked awkward.
I'm very picky lately and this rating may seem too high. But I liked this series a lot for the mentioned reasons. It made me excited about BL again.

Read More

I thought about writing a comment, now I write a review. I watched this FINALLY. I have heard a lot about it. People are praising it and say "it's the best BL EVER". First of all, it's good. The cinematography is great, the OST is nice. This isn't a fanservice BL series like we know it from Thailand (and recently from Korea). It's not about pretty boys being cute and having mindless conversations and dramatic love problems. Oh no, I'm wrong, it is EXACTLY about that. No, seriously, the production is on another level and everything feels serious and real and pretty raw. But it is still a rather silly and overly dramatic series. After watching those 7 episodes (they have movie-length) I don't know anything about those two characters. I know that one of them is a good student, the other isn't. That's all. They have no other character traits. I wonder if I'm the only one who noticed this. Until the very end I couldn't get into the characters, but I could get into their "love". Mostly because of the actors being very intense and having a strong bond you can feel throug the screen while watching this series. Still ... the crying! So much crying! I think they did nothing else than cry in the last episode. It was too dramatic. And nothing was explained very well. It seemed like Oh got refused, because he wasn't a girl (they hinted in that direction), but then again, that wasn't true. They somehow made it look like being gay is an issue, and then again it wasn't, when we had a gay love confession in front of many people. Like you couldn't clearly understand what the issue was. Why all the drama? I'm pretty sure others have some thories about it (I have them too), but it was just too much. Still 8/10. This was pretty well made. I also have to add, that PP (the actor of Oh) looks 100% gay. His whole appearance screams GAAAAY, and that's a good thing. It made the series more realistic.

Read More

Seriously, this was a mess. The first 10 episodes were FANTASTIC. They clearly had a big budget to spend. How the tomb looked, the leather figures, the village of the mute - it was stunning. BEAUTIFUL. The action scenes were great, the suspense unreal, and the chemistry between the "iron triangle" was very enjoyable. They had some emotional and dramatic scenes that really got to me. I was in awe and had the time of my life. So what happened? The series changed completely. The remaining 20 episodes take place in a boring looking warehouse. They had some budget left for the ceiling of this infamous warehouse, but that was it. The chemistry between Mr. Fatty and Wu Xei was really touching, but then their storylines went in completely different directions. Wu Xei spends his time with a tomboy, a very annoying and cringy woman, especially when she tries to act cute, and Mr. Fatty becomes the sugar daddy of a divorced boring woman with a child. I watched it to the end for the mystery, but the series tone (adventurous, exciting, suspenseful, beautiful looking) completely changed after the first 10 episodes. On a side note: I know that people ship Wu Xie and Zhang Qi Ling. The title of the series "Reunion" suggested that the iron triangle reunites, but even when they were in the tomb, they got separated. Those guys had maybe 15 minutes of screentime together. And later on the character completely vanished again. Why even put him in the opening credits? Such a waste ...

Read More

Oh boy! I found this yesterday and thought I would give it a try. After the first 10 minutes I wanted to turn it off, I don't know why, I just felt this woudn't be worth it. At the end I watched until midnight, I was completely sucked in by the story. It's really, really good. The acting was superb, the story itself makes you think and almost haunts you. I coudn't get it out of my head even in my dreams. It's a psychological work and it's a great one. I can recommend it to everyone who likes good psychological stories. The BL is real, btw. There is no doubt about it. But the focus is on jealousy and obsession.
Give it a try!

Read More

You hate it or you love it. I was touched deep in my soul. The ending was beautiful. The whole series felt like a piece of art. I'm sure many people think it was depressing or the characters were not likeable. Maybe that's true, but so what? I'm an author and my latest book wasn't received very well. They said the characters were bad, they didn't like the development etc. What should I say? I thought it was one of the best books I ever wrote.
I watched this series years ago and now I'm back to write something about it. That proves how much I cannot get it out of my head. I'm not the biggest fan of romance dramas anyway, but this one was worth watching.

Read More

Commercial madness

Okay, people will not like what I have to say. Ep 1 to Ep 5 were great. I would recommend those episodes to EVERYONE out there. Ep 6 was rather slow, but okay. But the end made no sense. The whole let's-compete-who-falls-in-love was too childish. After the legendary rooftop scene it was obvious they love each other. But well. Why not? Give them a chance to do some flirting. Ep 7 wasn't to my liking, but the end saved it. Since then the series got worse. And now, waiting for Ep 10, I'm not even sure if I will finish it. To make it short: It became shallow and too commercial. They did a great job in introducing the charcters, their personality, their past, their relationship, their feelings until everything culminated in the end of Ep 5. The storytelling was flawless, the pace just right, the character such likable und good people, their story so engaging. Even side characters were great to watch, also because the acting was soo good. The girls Ink and Pa are doing a terrific job, the chemistry between everyone is outstanding. This series is full of very beautiful, very emotional and very well-filmed scenes with some great background music. So what went wrong? They just overdid it. They overdid it with the product placement, they overdid it with the cuteness and fluff, they overdid it with the prince-charming-personality of Pat, the overdid it with the in-your-face-education about gay relationship and the wifey/hubby thing (show, don't tell! I get it), they overdid it with the action (gun shot), they overdid it with the humor (it's not funny joking about someone getting seriously hurt), they just overdid it. They even overdid it in real life. I'm not a fan of the way how they advertise the series, the merch, the "couple". They exploited their friendship (which is supposed to be a "soulmate" thing, if that's even true), just for attention and popularity. You can disagree about this, but I didn't like Ohm's sappy love confession on that podcast. The marketing is just soooo heavy. It should always be about the art first, but this really is mostly about the money. I blame the actors (especially Ohm for the exxagerated fan-service, which I first found cute and funny, now I find it a bit fishy), I blame GMMTV that can't milk those actors enough, and I blame the director for just holding the camera on them and letting them do their thing. It's not professional. You can do that once, or twice, but not constantly. It's pretty obvious when Nanon does those improvised kisses, because Ohm always looks suprised. I wouldn't give the green light for such a scene. The director and his friends in general seem to enjoy a bit too much how those cute and good looking straight guys are playing gay. What is this even about? The story? Really? There is no story to be found since the end of Ep 5 or 6. At this rate I expect the parents conflict to be stupid and silly. But well, I'm sure they will manage to show us in those last three episodes once again (and again) the Canon printer, and of course the Nivea make-up remover what every guy out there needs, not to forget the oishi green tea drink with so many vitamins, or those seaweed chips or whatever, and how can I forget the inhaler? This is madness. The director apparantly even called that "commercial art". I'm laughing, really. Don't tell me, they need the money so bad. GMMTV became pretty big over the years. They just saw that those guys are good at doing those commercial scenes and milked it. Like they milk everything to the last damn drop. I will change the review if it turns out that indeed they concentrate more on the story until the end. But I have my doubst. Nonetheless I rated it pretty high. It is too good compared to other BLs to rate it lower.

EDIT: The parents conflict wasn't as bad as I thought. They also toned down the adverstisement a bit in the last episodes. To sum it up: 10 episodes would have been enough to tell this story. There were just too much fan service and filler scenes. Still the last episode fitted the whole series and they did a decent job. I won't change my rating. The series was enjoyable. Far from perfect, but enjoyable. Compared to other BLs the rating sure is justified.

Read More

The rating is currently, while I write this review, around 8.4. I'm a bit suprised.
Let me start with saying this series was pretty charming. There also were nice intimate/kissing scenes. They were able to create a certain atmosphere and feeling that was very enjoyable. Despite that, the plot was messy. This was mostly about the main characters insecurity and rather a coming-of-age-series than a BL. That wouldn't be a problem at all, but unfortunately they somehow forgot to develop the personality of the second lead. He was extremely bland. Also the side characters were boring and not interesting at all. The plot in general was very confusing. I couldn't really figure out what they were studying or doing. They worked on a film project together, but ... I don't know. It was just not presented in an engaging way. I felt lost most of the time. Still the feelings between the leads were well presented and enjoyable to watch. Despite the actors being rather weak. The main guy had the same face most of the time. The second lead was even worse. But ... yeah. I don't know why everyone seems crazy about this. It lacked a good plot, good characters, good acting and good film-making.

Read More

The acting is terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. I may be biased because I in general have a hard time getting into Japanese Drama. While I love anime and manga, I'm not into their "drama style". The mood is depressing most of the time and the acting is so exaggerated, it doesn't feel natural at all. Talking about this series in particular: The main character's acting was the worst. He made such strange faces most of the time, but what was even more annoying: he had no charisma. He was friends with the other two guys, but they had zero chemistry. Zero. Later on he met a girl, and it was the same: zero chemistry. The older actors who were also friends (I don't want to spoil the twist) had much more chemistry going on. Also, their friendship seemed deep and genuine even though we didn't get much background information about them. To sum it up: horrible characters, not likable at all, horrible acting most of the time. The film-making was good, though. Nothing special, but decent. The reason why I rate this so high is the plot. It was pretty intriguing. The games were nice. It's the kind of plot where you want to know what happens next, and you will watch it to the end for sure. I forgot: there was ONE good character - the trans girl. The portrayal was very refreshing, the actress did a good job. She was my favorite. I will watch season 2, despite finding those characters very annoying. But like I said: the plot keeps you watching.

Read More

Okay, I'm pretty sure people will not like what I have to say, but this season is a mess. To make it short: everything that I enjoyed in Season 1 is ... gone. Season 1 was fun, cute, innocent, emotional, charming. Season 2 is dark, depressing, sappy, overly dramatic and cold. Watching Season 1 I felt in love with Shu Yi. The character was so lively and cute, vulnerable and strong at the same time. A bit cocky on the outside, but with a big heart on the inside. Yu did an incredible job bringing this character to life. In season 2 I don't see his charms anymore. It's not Yu's fault. The author decided to make a stupid time skip just to put two characters with the same name in a different environment. And this environment is booooring. I HATE this cold apartment with those concrete walls, the white kitchen with the transparent chairs, that dark sofa, that depressing bedroom with the depressing decoration. I HATE the office environment with the boring workers, the boring colors - they are constantly wearing blue, gray, beige, black or brown. It's all the same color scheme - and it's COLD. It didn't bother me watching the first two episodes, but after that it annoyed me every time a bit more. The story about their jobs and the companies is boring too. It's just done to move the plot forward, but it's not presented in an interesting or engaging way. They both were very talented in school, Shi De was good at drawing, Shu Yi played the piano, they were good at swimming - and now we see them doing boring office work. While I know they were studying for those kinds of jobs and Shu Yi had to take over the company of his father - it's still depressing to watch. Enough talk about environments and colors. The characters changed a lot. Season 2 starts with Shu Yi being angry and Shi De behaving like he saw him just yesterday - despite being separated for YEARS. They seriously messed this first meeting up. Shu Yi isn't the kind of guy to get angry like this. Being cold and arrogant/cocky towards Shi De would have made more sense. Shi De on the other hand - how stupid can you be? We then get one piece of the puzzle after another, so we know what happened. It doesn't make sense. They started the plot somewhere in the middle, and then they tell the story backwards with short and cryptic flashbacks and those sappy dialogues where they slowly solve all those misunderstandings. This is just lazy storytelling. I like some good angst (I love it!), but knowing everything that happened - it feels so unnecessary. All the drama - for what? This became so dramatic, and I have a hard time to relate to it. There is no emotional depth. There was none in season 1 either, but there it didn't matter, because they weren't trying to be so serious. Sam and Yu are still enjoyable to watch with their very unusual chemistry, and especially Yu has a way of embracing and kissing Sam ... it's really heart-warming and beautiful. But yeah, the characters, the plot, even the production went downhill. They still gave us some beautiful scenes (the kissing, the embracing, the cuddling!), but the flow of the story became strange, and I must admit I skipped some scenes. I hope to see Sam and Yu in another production. I don't want to see season 3 of this. Will we get more stupid misunderstandings? I also don't want to see them happy and domestic. This kind of plot lacks any excitement. They should just do a different series with a more mature plot. But knowing that apparently there is no good BL writer out there, I don't have much hope. About the other couples: They are doing an okay job. Nothing mind-blowing, but they are enjoyable to watch. I want to rate it higher, but I can't. I enjoyed episode 1 and 2. Episode 3 was okay, I disliked 4 and 5, and now I'm tired and wonder if I will even watch episode 6, because I couldn't care less about that Alpha that was stolen or whatever. Sam and Yu's story was finished in episode 3 anyways. It's a shame that the author ran out of ideas so early.

Read More

Very disappointing development. It started out as a rather serious and dramatic series despite the humor. In the first 3 episodes the plot focused on bullying and our two main characters were involved. At the end of ep 3 YXG was kneeling in front of XHT and begging him to spare his life. At this point there was a very concerning power difference between those two characters and I was HOOKED. I wanted to see how this turns out. How they can ever trust each other and being in a balanced relationship. This was such an interesting concept. I expected XHT to feel remorse, guilt and later on to understand YXG better, to respect and admire him and finally falling in love with him. In fact he felt in love so suddenly that I'm still not over it. Apparently he developed feelings in ep 3, but I didn't get it back then, because it just didn't cross my mind at all that he could fall in love so out of the blue. But I was willing to overlook the bad writing and the missed opportunities to make this a great psychological work. The relationship developed rather slowly which I guess wasn't a bad choice. But how "being in love" was portrayed was just crazy. XHT behaved like a teenage girl. It was very exaggerated. The humor was also too much. And later on the series became so incredible cheesy that I didn't enjoy it anymore. In this show everything was too much. I prefer serious, deep and smart written stories with good humor. But this was just very simple and exaggerated in every possible way which resulted in a portrayal of emotions that lacked any real depth. They just were in love for what ever reason and then it was so serious they wanted to move in and spend their whole life together. I just didn't feel the connection between the two main leads at all. I constantly asked myself "Why are they together?" The actors have much more chemistry in real life than they had in the series. I enjoyed the second leads more, but I was surprised by the rather explicit sex scenes they showed us. It was back then such a strange contrast to the rather innocent love between the main characters, even though those two showed us also more intimacy later on. It was funny seeing how people liked this, but when it became very cheesy and explicit suddenly everyone was over the moon. Honestly speaking, if this would be my very first Asian BL I can imagine liking it too. It was cute and sexy after all with some typical BL cliches. My first BL was Addicted/Heroin and I went crazy even though the story was completely messed up. But if you're looking for something deeper, that's better written, then this HIStory is not for you. The writing was a mess like in Trapped, the last HIStory series. They just mix up everything and have some serious issues balancing out the mood of a story. Maybe because they are desperately trying to please the audience? No idea. The result is just not good. If people want to give this a 10: go ahead. But this is no 10, sorry. Ah, the end, I almost forgot. The end was an odd choice too, but looking back it made sense, I guess. But it proves again that there is no balance. Everything is just too much. In this case it was too dramatic.

Read More

No offense, but the first season was horrible. Cringy, boring, slow. I think I watched until ep 6 and still couldn't get into it and didn't remember much of it either when I started watching the second season. I was never interested in the second season, because I thought it's a sequel and not a remake. Whatever. I finally discovered it's a new cast and then I watched it, because I had nothing better to do and boy am I glad I did! Let me tell you I'm still not 100% sold on the storyline, especially the moon thing. I couldn't get into the main pairing AT ALL, though that's just me. I don't like such characters and relationship developments. I only watched it for Ming&Kit to begin with, but I stayed for Forth&Beam. Those two couples are the reason why I give this story a solid 9. Both were enjoyable to watch, had some very beautiful, well produced and well acted scenes, great chemistry and an interesting storyline. I honestly think that the Forth&Beam couple was the first BL couple I ever came across in an Asian BL series that felt "real". As a viewer you can imagine something like this happens in real life. There was no unnecessary drama and even though their love started rather fast (with a one-night-stand) it developed at a very enjoyable and normal speed. Their acting was very natural and the characters seemed very mature.
So to sum it up: well produced series, charming and talented actors, interesting couple dynamics. One thing I'm not a fan of (and I mentioned this in another review): everyone seems to be bisexual (or gay) and it's no big deal. How likely is it that in a group of friends everyone is somehow gay or at least interested (romantically/sexually) in their friends? But well, maybe I'm the only one who is bothered by this. The series was still very great.

Read More

Don't expect too much

Well, I watched Ep 9, and I'm now dropping this. I will tell you why: The writing is abysmal. You can FEEL this is based on a trashy fanfic that's only popular because of the hotness, the toxicity, the tension etc. I didn't read the novel, but it seems to me they are doing a better job in the series and are trying hard not to make it too stupid and too cliche. Unfortunately, they failed. Let me go into detail: the characters.
Kinn: His real persona seems to be a nice guy, who doesn't really want to be in the mafia. When he was out in the woods, he felt great, and didn't want to return. We got to see a very child-like, fun and adventurous side of him. So what now? What does he do? Is he planning for the future? Is he trying to escape his family? Is he trying to lead the family business in another direction? Is he doing anything? Yes, he is "acting" as the cold/bad mafia boss he is supposed to be. He rules by fear without being very convincing. What else is he up to? His love life is apparantly very important, but also pretty messy. That's what he is doing. Thinking about love, and who he can trust.
Porsche: Apparantly he is a nice guy too. He was working as a bartender. We got a sappy story with his uncle gambling away the money. You would think the family is poor, but their house says differently. Now he works for the mafia. He has to kill people. Gruesome! Does it bother him? Yes, a little bit and for a short time. What is he up to now? His love life. I would expect him to think about the future, to have nightmares, to wonder in what kind of mess he finds himself and what bad things will happen next, but nope. He is busy dancing in his underwear and flirting with the mafia boss. Guys, come on!
Then Vegas/Pete: Everyone on the internet is gasping if Vegas appears on the screen. Yeah, great. I'm getting wet too. Not really. What makes this character special? What? He seems to have sadistic tendencies. Is he smart? A mastermind who pulls the strings in the background? Nope. If his manipulative games are working, then only because everyone around him is dumb. And Pete? Well, he is the comic relief of the show. Great pair!
Then our 3rd beloved couple: Kim (the next as*hole) and Porchay. Well ... Kim plays guitar. You know, because it's not a BL without a guitar player or a soccer player. Enough said.
I don't want to go deeper into all this mess: Like making EVERYONE gay and most of them behaving like a f*ggot. You would expect gay guys in the mafia being more hardcore. Tankhun is too silly, and gets too much screen time. The character is not believable. Kinn's friends neither.
If you go for such a story: make it dark, make it intense, make it believable, play ugly mindgames, make me scream and clench my teeth from excitement! But no. Lets drink and dance and have some sex, while showing occasionally some torture and blood, before skipping to some sappy dialogue where Kinn's or Porsche's friends gives some deep love advice as if there is nothing more important than having a sincere love life, while being in the mafia. And if there is some time left, make everything more gay and more stupid.
Come on! That's all you have got? Sad enough.
I will still give it a 7, because of the good performance and charms of the actors. They somehow manage to breath some life into those boring and brain dead characters. The filming (especially the love scenes) is pretty good, and overall you can see the effort and how hard the team worked. Just fire those stupid writers or hire some good ones. With such actors, such a production team, you could aim for the sky. Instead they give us a silly rom-com with mafia background without exploring it much further. Just do it for god's sake! Be brave! Be edgy! Be revolutionary. Nope. Play it safe. Show us some sex, so people will keep watching and talking about it. No offense to the sex scenes. They are without a doubt the highlight of this brainless series.

EDIT: I watched until Ep 13, though I skipped many parts. I'm shocked, really, and I will lower my rating. The VegasPete story was soooo strange. Is this BDSM? No. What is it then? It was cruel, and then it was cheesy, and everything happened too fast. I'm baffled how bad this relationship was presented. Meanwhile KinnPorsche became also such a cheesy couple with lots of scenes nobody needed. This went downhill BADLY. Stupid people, shallow emotions, unnecessary violence and sex scenes that don't do anything for the story. But you know, 50 Shades Of Grey was apparantly also popular. I'm out here. Bad. Really bad.

Read More