ShortCircuit

You couldn't pay me to watch it, LOL (and I was an avid yaoi reader/watcher back in the day). OgN, some of Motoni Modoru's manga (not all of them, but definitely NOT Shiiku Gakari Rika, that one's atrocious), or the likes of Jinx the manhwa... Not for me, LOL. I can't take it any more.

Then again, things like Viewfinder or Haru wo Daite Ita (classics!!), yes, please, could I have some of that :D

Not really, it's more like "I need money to save my - not actual - mom" and Ming proposing for Joe to be his in-home sex attendant (no love lost there yet) in exchange for that money.

LOL, the paying-debt-with-money does come a lot in manga and anime... Also, quite a lot in danmei, too. Just not in actual live-actions. So far :D

But you would NOT really want to see a live-action of Okane Ga Nai, right? :D

Nah, in the novel, at that point, he was still under the impression that the person he was in love with was Tong. He was doing it all for Tong, to save face for him, to stop Zhou/Joe from "stealing" Tong's thunder. The jealousy was actually for Ming's sister, because she got to marry Ming's dream lover.

When he later found out that back profile was actually Joe's is when everything changes. (IIRC it happened right about when Joe goes - in the book - with that docu team and gets killed in the landslide.) Only then does he rush to the site and feverishly keeps looking for Joe long after everybody else has resigned that Joe is dead.

I wonder how they'll manage the final reveal in the drama, given there's no search for the bodies (he didn't die alone then), and actually not even any news that it happened. Them filming in the same zone and the accidental finding of the bones is what starts the novel's climax.

We'll see...

Well, he's nobody and Ming's family is loaded, that's why the police would do nothing anyway.

He doesn't actually (WILLINGLY) go back to Ming. This time he went home because there were some memories of his parents (and he didn't really expect Ming to still be there). When they get together later, Ming doesn't know who Joe is and forces him into a monetary/not-really-loving relationship because of reasons. So Joe isn't actually to blame here...

The drama could decide to go its own way from a certain point onwards, just saying. I mean, when you're reading, you love to hate the charas, but it's harder for a drama to keep it going, if they don't want to be flamed LOL.

I still hope we're going to see the whole hot mess in all its horrific glory, but I am mentally prepared for them to change it up a bit in order to make him more pleasing... We'll see.

LOL, "I'm only 19, I don't know how adults do it... I just watched some Only Friends to see how they do it and did that" hahaha~

Also Inn, "I got Great over to my place and did some rehearsal - tell them what we did!!" And when Great is trying to weasel out of it and over-explains, Inn goes cheekily - "You didn't need to tell them THAT!" LOL. He's so cheeky :D

I actually watched the whole presentation video (the 1-hr long one) and I don't think I noticed all the details that went into this. But their chemistry is on fire.

The novel is a guilty pleasure, too :D

But then, Joe is such a cute, warm-hearted person (and I loved him with mom and his friends - just not with Ming) that it was all kind of worth it in the end. I just wish Ming was that tiny bit likeable - which he wasn't.

Errr... no, it's not like that, really. But then it might be my take on it is strongly coloured by the novel, which the drama actually follows very closely (no changes so far.

He blackmails second Joe (actual Joe, but details, LOL) into a sex-dependant relationship in exchange for money to treat Joe's mom deadly illness. (And he does that because second Joe reminds him of first Joe, not because he LIKES second Joe. So Joe remains a stand-in, but this time for his original self.)

... You tell me if that's a redemption arc...

...The redemption arc does no redeeming, LOL. IMHO it gets worse from now on.

Ming is not really yet in love with Joe UNTIL he loses him. He did what he did for his beloved Tong.

And what he did sums up like this: in one fell swoop he completely destroyed all of Joe's hard-earned reputation as a skilled stuntman and aspiring actor, nobody in the industry would touch him with a pole, which means he now he lost his means of earning a living, with no work coming his way. And he did that not for love of Joe, or even jealousy - he did it so that Tong got his ~revenge~.

Yes, he's supposedly going to be in love with Joe's memory in the future, but it hasn't happened yet.

Out of all abusive scums in danmei, Ming's among the very top LOL, I couldn't like anything much about him even after the redemption arc. If you think he treated Joe somewhat low... just wait to see what he does to the "second" Joe.

I'm getting obssessively pleased with how close this follows the novel. Not one single misstep so far. YES! MORE like this please!! (And next time please pick one of my favourites, LOL).

This shapes up to be the best adaptation of a danmei so far (in terms of staying true to the original, obviously. I still hate Ming's bones).

And hey, some nuanced acting in a Thai BL drama, finally! I quite like that. This and Wandee Goodday are raising up the stakes on Thai BLs this year :D

I want to start this SO much... but I've been burned before with the release schedule skeddadling all over the place. I think I'll wait and binge it.

Major peeve already though - what is it with the totally lacklustre OP song?... :( I get it they tried to make it different, but there's such a disconnection from that haunting OP in the first season to this one that almost sounds out of tune at times. Maybe it'll grow on me, here's hoping...

The ED song is a bit better, what with the really noticeable voice, not quite what I'd expect from a Chinese costume drama. But I liked it.

JoL1 was filmed before XZ skyrocketed into stardom due to TU. But even when he demonstrated he was a good actor, there were so many antis attacking him and his presence in JoL1 that - even IF he wanted to reprise the role - it would've been doomed from the beginning to have him in JoL2. TBH it was disgusting, the whole thing, especially after the 227 incident. I was sad to see he won't be YBY again, but glad the antis won't come out for his blood again, all for fake outrage.

I think he would've taken the role had it been offered, otherwise.

Then again, the producers already set it up what with having his replacement act alongside him in SBMS, LOL, and what a difference that showed... For Wu XingJian's sake (as an actor) I hope he managed to make it a smooth transition with that change, or he'll get totally flamed if he doesn't...

People do complain about all things. Their complaints do not always end up in a news story, because they don't sell the newspaper. And TBH the quality of "journalism" has reached appalingly low levels in the past few years. Every time there's a story about anything concerning public systems, there's a lot of shilling going on that in the end tries to induce one fixed idea: no public system is worth anything, no union is good for anything, people are better living in a jungle of their own making, where might is right and whoever doesn't agree must be a dirty commie. You get the drift.

I haven't watched the drama (and probably won't start it after all, given the amount of sheer callousness and lack of any empathy about how fiction influences real life that got posted in the comments in this section - if these are some of the people who are praising the drama, it doesn't need me watching it, too). What the union rep was saying was not that the depictions in the drama can't show a dark side of the school system, but that it encouraged people to edit some scenes and use them to berate and demean teachers. Throughout the world, and definitely in SK too, teachers (and public services servants of any kind, from doctors to firefighters etc) definitely do not need that on top of everything.

Then again, any such discussion in here won't do much to change things over there, as I've already said.

Bro, the YT clips demeaning teachers are NOT happening in the mfing drama but in reality. Yeah those doing them and uploading them on social media are unhinged and trying hard to get a rise from anyone they can, but let's not pretend they didn't use the mfing drama itself for their videos.

And by now we all should be terribly aware that there are WAY too many people who can't tell the difference between reality and fiction, are ready to believe any conspiracy theory over a truth that doesn't reinforce their own already formed opinions and also, that there are some really crazy mofos out there ready to actually ACT on those unfunded beliefs.

Also, the freaking unions do NOT have the actual power to change the system, the educational policies (and all other policies, to boot) are made and implemented and funded by the freaking government and parliament (as is), so calling out for unions / teachers to change the very basis of the system is unfair. They have protested throughout the world - not just SK - for fairer work conditions and changes to the system that would benefit everyone, employees and students alike, but what do you know, nobody in actual power wants to do it. Because of profits, political power, and a horse to whip before any election cycle.

But sure, we can blame whoever we want for whatever we want, it's not like anything is going to change in SK from some anons talking it out on the internet.

He has a VERY serious point though. It hasn't even been a year since this happened:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66655572

Also, they had about 100 suicides among teachers in the past five years only, and a lot of those are linked to depression and workplace harassment from parents and students.

So yes, it's not too much for a teachers' union to come forward with a complaint about things that already have consequences in real life, even if they happened in a drama. Or did you miss this part? "They also said, "Following the broadcast, provocative edits of the content with titles like 'Taking down a (school) teacher who speaks rudely' and such have already been uploaded on platforms like YouTube." "

I haven't watched the drama, so I can't say if they actually wanted to comment on things in the educational system or just used it as a ploy in the story, but the union rep has the right to say something about it, if they find it does throw unwarranted shade at people already under a huge amount of stress.

These are my 2 cents on it.

Okay, I have to say it - Great has the greatest little smile :)

They're so freaking cute still, I want to carry them both in my pockets :D

PS Also the OP song is so hype :D

The OP song grew on me so much, the OST improved a lot.

So, we're now into the serious stuff - wow, they did the final scene really well, I got second-hand heartbreak from it, and I KNOW I don't even like Ming, LOL. So I guess we'll see the flashback end in the next ep and on to the present :D

I can't WAIT to see the mother/son moments, I hope they do well with those, they were the highlight of the novel for me :)

As @Levitate14 said, JJM is the ML of A Shop for Killers, one of the best action dramas I've ever watched. Sorry to have spoiled that detail for you, in case you want to watch it...

Regeneration kind of reminds me of Be Reborn, what with the swindlers theme and the atmospheric soundtrack. Also, Jing BoRan - he's mature enough and established enough to pick good dramas with morally gray characters. I'll trust him. The first half ep I watched before deciding to wait it out and binge it was pretty interesting - and the technical details are also very good. I think this one will be a winner.