I never wrote a review for this series, because back then when it aired, almost everyone hated on it, and so I didn't visit this site anymore. All the negativity got to me.
So let's talk about the elephant in the room: the plot involves cheating. That's a red flag for most people, because it destroys the idea of pure and everlasting love. I only care about a good story. A believable story. A story that feels real where you can connect with the characters. I don't care about cheesy fairy-tales. I don't even care about a sad end.
The thing is, that this series was rather mature compared to other BL series out there. Some parts of the plot were rather silly, but the way they portrayed the emotions were really great. There was sadness, desperation, regret, love. Everyone (Yihwa and Cho included) did a great job. I wasn't really a fan of the "villain", but the whole series was extremely intense. I can recommend it to people who are tired of the cheesy school-boys BL.
Max and Tul are the kings of the BL genre. The most "badass" couple how Tul once said in an interview. The chemistry is mind-blowing. That alone makes this series worth watching. Even though they weren't lovey-dovey (they had trouble in their relationship after all), a simple kiss on the shoulder could melt my heart.

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Okay ... I wrote a review, deleted it, and now I'm here again. I have a hard time to put my thoughts into words when it comes to this series. First of all, I liked it. And then I didn't. Then I liked it again. And then I didn't. I have a hate-love relationship with this series. Objectively speaking, there was some greatness to be found along the way. But I don't like the style and I couldn't get into the story most of the time. Historical Chinese drama is over the top, cheesy and very theatrical (people flying around and spinning dramatically before attacking an enemy). It looks pretty (the colors, the actors, the backgrounds) and cheap at the same time. Some special effects were really bad. They couldn't even provide some proper wigs. The story itself isn't groundbreaking and innovative, but it is well told. Unfortunately, you must be Chinese to understand most of it. The magic, the instruments, the swords, the clans, the "cultivation" - what the hell? It wasn't explained at all. If you watch the whole series you get an idea how it works, but yeah, I'm not impressed how this was just thrown at me.
Talking about the relationship of the two main characters: I'm not crazy about it. I felt like it was a one-sided love. Wei Wuxian is a very charming character. But unfortunately many people died because of him (it was not his fault, but still). At some point I thought it wasn't fair that he got to live happy ever after. So many people were willing to sacrifice themselves for him. Good people. I really wondered why he had to be saved at any cost and at some point I couldn't really feel for the tragic hero anymore. The love was problematic, becasue Lan Zahn was too fixated on Wei Wuxian and - like many others - suffered a lot because of him. His stubborn love made him a rather pitiful character in my eyes. But I guess that's what people call "romantic".
Still, it's a good series. That's why I rate it so high. But it was not for me.

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Korean BL ... what to say about it? I love Korean storytelling. And seeing Korea is making BL series is a reason to be excited. Talking about "Where your eyes linger": the chemistry was great, the acting, the music. The plot was nothing revolutionary, but they added some angst like you don't see it in Thai BL (for example). In general, it was a great watch with very complex characters. It was hard to guess their motives most of the time, but it all came together pretty well at the end. There were still many plotholes and looking back I get the impression they were beating around the bush. It was obviously a BL story, but many people wondered until the very end if it will be only bromance - that tells you a lot about how their relationship was portrayed. Korea still isn't very clear and straight forward about gay love. But that's okay. With this series they only tested the waters. Hopefully we will see more Korean BL series in the future. This was a pretty good start.

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I didn't like the beginning and I think the title is pretty stupid. Still I started watching it and was surprised how much it had to offer. Sometimes it was very mature and it did a good job avoiding some BL cliches or even making fun of them. I got interested in Bohn and Duen immediately. Later I felt in love with Mek and Boss. Unfortunately both couples became extremely annoying throughout the series. I thought their relationship problems were extremely childish. At the end I only finished My Engineer because of Ram and King. Those two were without a doubt the best written couple and very enjoyable to watch. I'm conflicted about the rating. I finished the series, it was enjoyable, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I can recommend it, but it wasn't that great. Still a solid BL.

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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.

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Great drama, worth watching. I must admit in the first half I was very frustrated and annoyed, but the characters developed over time and it got better in the second half. That doesn't mean that the first couple of episodes weren't great. It just means that it was hard to watch. Teacher Kim was a jerk at the beginning. Even though his behavior made sense looking back, I refuse to believe there wasn't a better way to teach his juniors. I myself would have quit several times if I had to work with him. But I enjoyed that he wasn't portrayed as some super hero who can do no wrong. His character/personality was very difficult at the beginning, but he did grow too. There were many different emotions I felt watching this. I cried more often than I want to admit. It's very dramatic and sad with all the medical cases. Of course many people die in a hospital series. I enjoyed the romance, but that wasn't the main plot of the series. It's about politics and money and about how to live a life worth living, about your principles and believes. It's very touching and thought provoking not only for people who work in the medical field.

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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.

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Beautiful drama. The writer is a genius. I was constantly on the edge of my seat and didn't skip a single second what NEVER happened before. I'm honestly thinking this is the best Korean Drama I have ever seen in my life and I have seen many over the last 10 years. I can imagine people aren't fully sold on this, because 1) they don't like the gaming theme, 2) they watched this mostly because of the love story and – to be honest – the love story wasn't overwhelming and 3) they were disappointed in the ending which has a lot to do with number 2. I'm personally not a fan of those gaming series either. Since I watch Japanese anime for over two decades now, I know very well that this is a popular genre. Seeing some medieval soldier coming to life and having a sword fight with Hyun Bin somewhere in Spain made me almost drop the series (I'm really not into this stuff), but everything is so incredible well done, that you cannot stop watching. The directing, the music, the acting – this is flawless. Hyun Bin did a great job. Everyone was doing great. About the love story: It was nice. But this wasn't the strongest part of the story which is okay. I never got tired of Hyun Bin being the tragic hero, I never got annoyed by the girl being rather helpless. This couple worked out pretty well. For such a tragic hero a woman who supports him emotionally is the best writing choice. The strength of the story lies in the whole gaming theme and how one detail after another gets revealed. The strength lies in the psychological aspects of the story, the deep and complex relationship between the characters, the whole life-threatening scenario. This was such a great watch. I‘m still in awe of this incredible series after finishing it an hour ago.

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This show is crap. Now feel free to down vote my review. My patience is running out. This is impossible to watch. I'm finding myself rolling my eyes constantly. So what's the problem beside the soap operish production, the cheesy and misplaced music, the slow pace (you can watch this on YouTube with 1,5 speed and you will be able to read the subtitles just fine). The problems are (plural, yes!) the badly written characters, the boring and empty plot, the childish conflicts that are dragged out for eternity and the lack of real emotion (New disappoints with his performance, he has the same dull expression throughout the whole series). They changed Kao's character three times now. From a nerdy, insecure and unhealthy jealous guy in Kiss The Series he went to a bold, strong character who knew exactly what he wanted in KMA only to transform into an insecure (again!) coward who prefers lying over facing a difficult situation. So he is afraid of coming out? REALLY? He has a loving mother, supportive friends and a boyfriend that loves him very much. Believe me, when I tell you, he could have it much worse in life. MUCH WORSE. Tay as Pete is doing a better job acting-wise, his character is better written too. If you're looking for some good dialogues and some wisdom it's mostly Pete who delivers that, yes, despite his hot-headed personality and his jealousy. Enough of the main leads. The second leads aren't engaging at all. Sorry. They tried, I guess, but there is no passion (and I'm not talking about sexual scenes). The spark just isn't there. The whole show is just ... I guess you can tell at this point, that I'm angry. Sometimes I think "It's my fault" or "This show just isn't for me", but then again I discover a good show and I remember that good shows do exist, but DBK is not one of them, that's for sure. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck – it is a duck. And this show looks like crap.

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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.

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The ending saved this movie for me. First of all: such movies are my cup of tea: interesting, different, mature. It's about the hardships in life, about love and success. And yeah, it's vulgar. I think it was too vulgar, and believe me, I'm not a prude. But seeing so many rather cheesy and childish korean drama, this was extremely refreshing. It's just that all the focus on the sex seemed off to me. It wasn't really done for comedy. I cried more often than I laughed in this movie. Like I said: the ending was the best. It was really romantic and touching and fitted the overall feeling I got from watching this movie. I really enjoyed it.

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This series got me very excited. It's a while since a series made me fangirl like this. I was waiting eagerly for every new episode. Still I cannot bring myself to rate it higher.

Let me tell you, that this series fooled me. I thought this could be something more than a silly BL series, but at the end of the day it proved me wrong.

STORY (7,5/10): While the overall plot is very serious, interesting and full of twists, there are many rather silly scenes throughout the series. The comedy wasn't working for me most of the time. The policemen looked like a bunch of kids playing cops. The tone of the series changed completely in the second half. From silly comedy and unnecessary cliche BL scenes it went to flashbacks and drama, only to be rather cheesy in the last episode. I feel like the script could have been better. Still, this is a typical HIStory series. While I wasn't that critical with other HIStory series, this time I feel the need to remove my BL googles and rate this objectively. So, frankly speaking, the storytelling was a mess. Even if you binge watch the series, the plot just doesn't "flow". They clearly had some trouble balancing this out. It felt like two different people worked on the script. Less comedy in inappropriate situations, more consistent storytelling, cutting out unnecessary scenes with unnecessary characters etc. would have done wonders. I'm also not a fan of those kisses, where a character has the eyes wide open or those trip-fall-catch scenes (BL fans know what I'm talking about). I feel like those HIStory writers have a checklist and are forced to include those scenes. Some embarrassing touching – check. Getting nervous, because someone is half naked – check. This is silly and I hope they could just stop. Or maybe I'm just too old to giggle and blush, because of such scenes. For me it's just second hand embarrassment.

The love stories were written pretty well though, at least between the main characters. Tang Yi & Shao Fei were intriguing to watch. I enjoyed the rather straight forward approach. At the beginning I wasn't that impressed by Shao Fei's character and by Jake's acting. But throughout the series I started to appreciate how he portrayed Shao Fei. Yeah, the character is a bit goofy, he seems a bit silly and impulsive, but he is smart, brave and strong. Both characters are very complex and multi-dimensional. You want to know what happens next, how their relationship develops. They are adults with a past and certain goals. I really liked how slow the relationship developed, if was very natural and plausible. The chemistry is pretty good too. It's awkward sometimes, but then again those awkward scenes fit the characters and the story very well. Jake & Chris feel very raw and real. Unfortunately in the last couple of episodes both characters lost some of their charm and become rather one-dimensional, because of the dramatic circumstances. Their interactions also felt repetitive. After they became a couple, sh*t started to get down.

Jack & Zhao Zi: This couple was just too silly for my taste. They were mostly cute and lovely. You get the impression the couple was inserted just for fan service. Zhao Zi as a cop is not working. Jack isn't that credible either (constantly playing with his knife like some wannabe street gangster, while being dressed like a K-Pop idol). I honestly feel like the series lost a lot of its seriousness in the first half because of those two characters. Comedy and cuteness is okay, but they really went overboard with the second couple. I got invested in them later on though. I can see why people like them. Both actors/characters were pretty charming.

The hetero couple: I think this is worth mentioning. Those two are very likeable characters, especially Hong Ze as Tang Yi's "sister". She is sassy and really cares for Tang Yi. The love story was cute and got me emotional. Thumps up for including a hetero couple and a likable woman in a BL series! But let's be honest: this storyline was not needed for the overall plot. Cut it out and nothing would change. I guess you can say the same about the second gay couple. At least Zhao Zi and Jack were more involved in the plot.

ACTING CAST (7,5/10): There were a lot of different characters, a lot of different roles. I felt that most of the roles were pretty challenging and most of the cast did a good job. Almost everyone had a moment where she/he could shine. Still I think there was room for improvement. The actor who impressed me the most was Chris Wu. In some scenes Jake Hsu even out-acted him, only to show us a rather lacking performance in the next scene. Looking back I really feel like Jake's acting was a bit inconsistent.

THE MUSIC (9/10): Very nice music, nice intro and outro. The music that played at the end of ep 12 was beautiful. The whole scene was great and one of the best BL scenes I have ever watched. They also had good background music in some tense and action packed scenes.

REWATCH VALUE (9/10): I normally don't rewatch a series. This is a first for me. If you want to understand everything and not miss any details, you have to rewatch it. It's worth it though.

Overall I give it a solid 8,5 and hope, we will see similar series in the future. Still if you look for a BL series, that you can take 100% serious, then this one is not right for you. It seems many local fans hated on "Trapped" and I don't understand why. "Trapped" is not much different from past HIStory series. It had the same ingredients: embarrassing scenes, emotional scenes, cheesy scenes, dramatic scenes and the obligatory HAPPY END. Yeah, it was not a high school romance, the police-gangster background was different and something we don't see often, but still it was your typical BL at the end of the day. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing. But like I said, for a moment I thought this could be something more.

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Honestly, the title alone is brilliant. I can imagine many people like the love story of the main leads. Jung So Min plays a similar role in "Playful Kiss". There were many close shots of her beautiful face that shows so many emotions. Like in "Playful Kiss" my heart was beating like crazy. There is something about this actress ... I cannot explain it. I felt the same in "The Smile has left your eyes" even though she plays a completely different role in that drama.
Lee Min Ki did a good job too. I didn't know him before, but he is very charismatic. I just hope he will eat something, because the actor was underweight in the series and looked really sick. I don't know if he had to lose weight for a different role, but it was horrifying.
Enough about the leads. The love story is touching and beautiful. But what I really appreciate about this drama was the message behind it. This was about the question what you do with your life and of course you make mistakes and are clueless, "because this is your first life". Marriage is something that is changing your life completely. Will you marry or not? Is it better to be alone or not? How will the environment react? Will you lose your friends, because you don't fit in anymore when you're not married? Or will you gain completely new friends? What I really appreciated how the mother was so desperate when she heard her daughter would marry. She wanted a different life for her. It was obvious that being married means (for a woman) to give up her dreams. Even though the end wasn't surprising (this is a Korean romance drama after all), I just loved how they showed us so many different ways how people find happiness and love. I really enjoyed the side couples so much. At the very end I was more interested in their story.
As a single woman in my 30s who doesn't plan to marry and have kids, I must say this was extremely enjoyable, smart and in a way comforting.
The acting, the storytelling, the production - it was great.

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Jesus Christ...! Let me tell you: this is crazy. One of the most intriguing and suspenseful dramas I have ever watched. Mostly because of the main character. Seo In Guk is spectacular. It's maybe the best acting I have ever seen in a drama series. He just nailed that character which means something when a character is that complex. The way he talked, his facial expressions – everything was just perfect. This series haunts you even after you finish it.
The acting, the way the story was told (the dialogues!), the music, the production – this is beyond great.
The only problem: the plot is paper-thin if you look at it from a distance. It doesn't bother you while watching the series. The drama is so well made that you are longing for more and more ... But after finishing it, you really wonder why it had to be like this. Why certain things happened. You feel like it could have been avoided all together.
It seems this series is a remake of a Japanese drama. They changed a very important part of the plot and I feel like if they hadn't done that, the plot would make more sense. I don't want to spoil, but the motives and the behavior of the brother of the female lead made no sense. They tried to explain it later on, but it didn't convince me at all.
Overall this drama is too great to not rate it very high. I watched it until the end and didn't skip a scene. I even plan on watching it again, just to enjoy Seo In Guk's great acting. His co-star was good too, of course. Jung So Min always delivers. I would love to see those too again in a drama.

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