etoks21

you write like a addle-brained, self-righteous, judgemental dunce.

I actually hope the commenter you're replying DOES have their life ruined for something they did as a kid. Might learn a lesson about life and when it's time to forgive.

Second watch. This is really something special.

Still, the most powerful, moving, and original end-of-life movie or drama I have ever seen. I first saw it more than two years ago, but only now felt up to the joyful agony of a second watch. I cried without stop the last three episodes, and I'm glad I put myself through it again. I caught a few things I missed before. The live-action/animation combination is handled expertly. I am already looking forward to my third watch in another two years or so.

The script does not shy away from the pain, fear, sorrow, anger, and all the rest that comes with situations like this, but there is a big, big heart underlying the tale and the technique and I came out of this as I did the first time, an utter wreck but with a sense of hope.

Ji Soo is extraordinary in this role. The supporting players are excellent across the board. There is no over-acting. I see real people living through a horrible reality and reacting to it, which is why the show is so profoundly moving and cathartic.

Bravo! 10/10

You didn't mind the 473 plot holes and ridiculously implausible occurrences from start to finish of this film? Those didn't bother you?

If you want to see a list, they're in my comments on this page.

Well, gosh, if you say I'm "dumb," I guess I must be.
Enjoy your standards-free watch of a typical, low-quality, Thai BL.
This type of thing is made for people like you.
Low standards and low quality is how they're able to pump out two of these turds per week.

Absurd.
Stupid.
Ridiculous.
Laughable.
Insulting to the intelligence of anyone unfortunate enough to watch it.

This is the worst-written, most poorly-directed "thriller" I have ever seen.

And I have watched a LOT of thrillers since I found Korean cinema. I never cared for most of those coming out of Hollywood. However, this is a pos to the utmost possible degree. It takes on an infuriating topic - male, korean juveniles receiving appallingly lenient sentences for rape - and makes a joke of it with countless plot holes and moronic, implausible character choices - to the extent that I didn't feel sorry for the mother OR the victim. And I am a deeply empathetic person.

But to evoke empathy in the audience, you have to write characters who don't make endless, stupid choices and a story that could happen in the real, you know, world.

Terrible flick. And I hate to say that because I like Yoo Oh Sung a lot as an actor. Thankfully, his role was mostly tangential so the script didn't call on him to humiliate himself as often as it did the FL.

3/10
Highly not-recommended.

Mom and girl are shown being obnoxiously cute and giggly together, so as to show us how innocent they are.

Mom sees the guy her daughter is interested in hanging with a rough-looking group. Mom only cracks giggly jokes about it.

Girl, who is innocent and naive, but not as far as I could tell mentally retarded, agrees to meet a boy she doesn't know on the fucking roof of the school building after dark, alone.

As in all Korean school bully movies, the doorway to the roof of a very tall school building is left unlocked...at night...in the dark. You know, so students can get raped there or jump off to commit suicide.

Woman's daughter is raped. After returning home from the hospital the girl goes to take a bath. Mom doesn't check on her for TWO hours.

Girl says she is "dirty." Mom cries. Mom never says "no, you're not. You're as pure and blameless as the day you were born. The dirty ones are the boys who did this to you and I will do whatever it takes to make this right. You did NOTHING wrong."

We go all the way through the crime, the immediate aftermath, the useless investigation, the offer and refusal of a settlement, the criminal trial, an acquittal, and she still hasn't informed her ex-husband, the girl's father, of what is going on.

Mom walks with her daughter to the car after the trial, collapses sobbing, wrapped up in her own self-pity, rather than taking care of her child. Again...where is the dad? Has he not been informed of any of this?

Mom REPEATEDLY leaves her profoundly depressed, bed-ridden daughter ALONE at home while she is at work. There is no way in hell this educated woman would ever leave her alone. If she had to be somewhere, then the dad or a relative or someone they pay to come in, stays with the girl. You don't fucking leave a teenager, or anyone, in that condition alone.

Mom allows girl to keep her phone accessible when alone. The mom, the cops, everybody knows the boys have her phone number. Does she change the girl's number? No. Does she allow her to take calls only when she's there? No. So...

The apparently mentally-retarded girl agrees to meet the perpetrators of her rape for a second go-round, with the genius plan of taking on all three of them with a little Xacto blade she brought from home, to force them to "give" her the video they threatened to spread. Only a retarded child would be unaware that there are not already multiple files of that video already on the phones of the three rapists if not other guys by then.

The girl screams and throws something to the floor. Mom knocks but can't get in. Girl comes out of room like a zombie, all cleaned up and says she's going to her music lesson. Mom fucking goes "well, OK then, I guess you're all better. Great," and allows her to go. Doesn't check to see why she screamed, what the mess on her floor is, or if there even IS a music lesson to go to. "See ya!" says Mom.

So she gets raped and beaten a second time.

I know there are evil, stupid people in the world...but these three have just come VERY close to at least going to juvie for rape, so they assault the SAME girl a SECOND time after calling her on her phone, which will leave a record of that call, along with the video they threatened her with, and just let her go along home...? No.

Girl blames herself, as all helpless Asian girls do in these kind of flicks, cries and chops her hair off.

THEN...she comes walking back into her mom and her place with her hair chopped off, her face swollen and bruised, obviously near-catatonic, and the mom stares at her as she walks into her room and locks the door. Mom does NOT say "oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?!"

Next thing we see, girl is all cleaned up, sitting on the couch, bruised face and all. Mom doesn't care about the new bruises and says "I'm off to the market! Need anything? No? See ya!" Mom leaves the girl all alone AGAIN and goes to the store.

Idiot mom comes home, girl is bleeding to death in the tub. Surprise! Not. Does mom call 911 for an ambulance? NO, she loosely wraps washrags around her daughter's wrists, carries her to the parking garage (no one in the apartment building notices or hears any of this and mom doesn't ask for help) on her back and DRIVES the kid to the hospital herself.

Mom doesn't even put the kid's seat into recline position in the car.

Kid dies at hospital because mom didn't call 911.

And that's where I had to take a break to write this. I have never seen/watched a more absurdly ridiculous setup to an orgy of revenge in the second half of a movie, not even a Korean one. This is the laziest damn setup ever. I didn't even feel sorry for the girl because she did so many stupid things, plus so many Korean films make females out to be whimpering, helpless airheads that this just pissed me off.

OK, halfway through and I had to stop the film to come here and at least leave the first part of my comment. Everything leading up to this point is so sloppily written, so badly motivated, so full of stupidity and moron-level dumbassery, I can't believe this flick is rated above 1/10.

My reasons for the above rant under the spoiler button below:

I'll check out Happy Birthday! Thanks.

Hi there. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. If you don't like commenter-to-commenter rudeness, I hope you took note of the rudeness directed at me personally, because the other person didn't like that I mocked their show.

Unfortunately, you misunderstood my criticism of Sea's acting as a statement that people in his character's situation aren't, or shouldn't be, experiencing feelings of sorrow, bitterness, anger, etc. Of course they should! Such feelings are an entirely natural response to losing something as important to life and our understanding of the world around us, as our vision.

Here is what I wrote in my comment: "The badminton scene and the interview scene were excruciatingly bad, primarily because of him. The character's extreme and immediate, smart-ass/hostile tone with Mhok seemed to come out of nowhere. If we're to think his attitude is a result of bitterness at his predicament, he's not doing a good job of conveying that. He just seems like a jerk."

Please pay special attention to the last two sentences. It is my opinion that Sea does a poor job in the interview scene in particular, of evoking the sense that his rude, smart-ass demeanor comes from the emotions I listed above, not that his character shouldn't be having those emotions. For me, what is missing is a sense of brooding/anger/fear that should underlie the smart-ass stuff. I see a jerk in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses, being rude to someone he doesn't know. And if I hadn't seen the badminton scene, I would have NO idea that perhaps this person has a right to his belligerence.

fringe

I like GOOD Thai dramas. Unfortunately, there have been almost none of those made in the last two years. I have EIGHT Thai dramas on my Top 30 Best BL Series, Ranked list. #1 and #2 are Thai dramas. However, six of those are from the early years of BL, before Thailand started pumping out dreck like this show at the rate of nearly two per week. #1 and #2 are ITSAY and IPYTM, which did, somehow, get made in Thailand. They are night and day to this crap.

I don't check out a lot of Thai series, I check out almost none of them. A friend who likes this one suggested I try it. She likes it. I don't. Understand?

So you love Thai dramas, even this one, and spend your time complaining to the few commenters who dare to criticize them? That's a unique hobby. lol

millennial stupid

"media literacy..." lol I love when English-as-a-second-language writers try to say something that ends up making no sense to those who actually, you know, know English.

You can't read either. I already referenced the fact that if Sea was trying to convey his bitterness over being blind with his bad acting, then he failed. You disagree. I don't care.

OK, I'll be rude and snide in return:

I'll comment when and where I please, and as many times as I choose. Don't give a shit what you think about that.
If your watch of this show is "spoiled" because some rando on MDL left some comments that hurt your fee-fees, then you didn't think much of the show to begin with. Poor baby.

Oh...could you confirm for me about how I "lurk" on EVERY Thai BL page? I'd like to see you prove the impossible.

It's telling you have nothing positive to say about the show, just a little temper tantrum about some comments you could have chosen to ignore.

Oh, OK. Ugh, yeah it's a problem. The producers/directors don't trust the acting and writing to move the audience, so they attempt to do so with constant and annoying musical cues.

You sound a little snide with this comment ("your precious time") but I'll ignore that. Yes, perhaps it isn't my cup of tea. Bad acting, bad direction, overwrought, pounding background music and other problems common to Thai BLs are not something I enjoy. So yeah, definitely, if I make it thru the rest of ep. 1 and still see no hope, I'll for sure drop it.

I Told Sunset About You is at the top of my Top 30 Best BL Series, Ranked list. It continues to amaze me that it and I Promised You the Moon came out of the same country as shows like Last Twilight.

Thanks, I appreciate your compliment. Is there some reason a person would have to be "brave" to diss an actor's acting in the scenes the person has viewed? His acting, in two crucial, introductory scenes, was embarrassing. That's 15 crucial, introductory minutes of bad acting.

Viewers shouldn't have to sit through ANY lame acting with the hope that maybe by episode 3 things will improve. It is the actor's job to set the tone and convey the story convincingly from the first second they appear onscreen. Sea hasn't done that.

I suggest you consider raising your standards. Or are you the guy's sister or agent or something?

Gosh, he'd be much better off just choosing to not have the character be a smoker. Not many things look sillier than a non-smoker pretending to smoke in a live-action show.

What are you talking about when you say it's not "just gmmtv who does this?" What is "this?" The smoking?

Well, halfway through episode 1. I need to take a break. All the overwhelming background music, the bad acting, and that thing Thai BL actors do where everyone pauses two seconds between lines has me stressed. I need to take a Klonopin next time before trying to finish this.

Day's mom is beautiful and seems to be able to act. Mark, Day's older brother, has gotten hotter and seems to be able to act as well. How this Sea guy got that role is beyond me at this point. The badminton scene and the interview scene were excruciatingly bad, primarily because of him. The character's extreme and immediate, smartass/hostile tone with Mhok seemed to come out of nowhere. If we're to think his attitude is a result of bitterness at his predicament, he's not doing a good job of conveying that. He just seems like a jerk.