Reviews

The Pretty Mess and False Advertisement

**there are plenty of reviews that say nice things about this drama. i even agree with some of it. this is not that review. **

Of all the things Dali and the Cocky Prince tries and fails to be about (which is a lot ) it fails the hardest at being about art. This is about Art the way any office drama is about the industry it takes place in. If I'm being honest I've seen office dramas do better in that regard. Any time one of the characters has to talk about art in a way that does not apply directly to their job they sound like 12 year olds being asked why art is important to them- in front of their art teacher. For a show that takes place largely in an art gallery there is very little attention paid to the art. This would not be a problem except the show sort of sold itself as being very much about art. if this was the biggest problem they may have been able to over come it but this is just the beginning.

Both the show and Dali were advertised and quirky and upbeat. For most of the show Dali is a wet rag of a person sullenly trudging through her problems, dragging the viewer along with her as we wait to see which male character is going to solve the thing for her this time. That's not fun. it's not quirky. it is NOT up beat. it's dull, repetitive and disappointing.

The plot is cluttered and groaning under the weight of so many characters it might even give a daily drama writer pause. the central conflict isnt really central, being itself about too many things and offering a patch work of villains. Because there are so many of none of these villains get enough development so their motivations stay shallow and often don't match the vitriol of their actions. A similar problem plagues some of our good guys too. Won Tak for example exists solely for plot convenience. his development is thin and his relationship with Dali is incredibly inconsistent with the development that they do have.

given these other issues weird editing might seem like a nit pick but i assure you it's not. there is at least one, often more, distractingly bad editing choice in every episode. We've got pointless and poorly executed spit screens, we've got flash backs the reek of ret con, we've got really weird effects and pacing that is constantly being wrecked by waaay too long close ups of the aforementioned sullen Dali. like, i get it, she's sad, her life sucks. but i got that three episodes and fifteen lingering close ups ago. stop. PLEASE. And for the love of all things holy step away from the photo shop painting texture brush or whatever that abomination is. If this show wasnt supposed to be about art it might not bother me as bad but simply applying that texture over scenes completely misses the point and the beauty of highly textured brush strokes.

the chemistry is good though...and the over all production design is spectacular. if only they had put as much effort into the substance as they did into the looks.

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They should all be single

If you won't bother updating a story to present day standards, why bother making it?

This was like watching a kdrama from 15 yrs ago. The levels of stoicism, toxicity and overal domestic violence are so disturbing. I thought we had evolved from that. Apparently, there are many people who still want this type of revivalism. I say just watch older kdramas. We don't need younger generations learning to love from these type of stories. We break generational trauma.

The story was clear, simple and predictable but that was expected and there's nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong with this story is passing the idea that people have to assume a stoic posture whenever they're facing hardships and can't lean on their loved ones to not be a burden. That's very bad because it goes hand in hand with the huge mental health problem they have in South Korean. It's time we show people better coping mechanisms.
This also disregards the age of technology. They have video chat, texts all at the reach of a finger. This "he'll disappear for countless days" doesn't seem plausible anymore, unless he's a player.

It also doesn't seem plausible to simply disregard all the harm people have done to you just because some time has passed by or because they used to have a relationship. It doesn't make sense?! That's just foolish and disregards all instincts of self-preservation.

Both the main and the second lead couples have so many red flags. The possessiveness, the control, the violence! There's another review on here that goes into that in depth, so please read it. It's very accurate.

Don't let anyone tell you this is what love is supposed to be. Love also isn't letting go of your dreams and opportunities because of your partner. He has money to pay for a carer.

The acting was ok. There was some cuteness but that seemed lacking. The male lead was too cute and soft for this role, he didn't have the presence that I feel the role demanded.

I hope that if they pick up older stories they take the time to update them.

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could have been a 10/10

Overall: although I enjoyed the beginning, things unraveled for me. 8 episodes about 1 hour each. Aired on GagaOOLala uncut: https://gagaoolala.com/en/videos/4688/4minutes-2024 (except Thailand, Japan, Korea); iQIYI uncut https://www.iq.com/album/4minutes-sultrier-version-2024-1zc6sune8fl?lang=en_us and cut version https://www.iq.com/album/4minutes-2024-1h7yndte6zx?lang=en_us (Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Spain, United Kingdom and United States); Viu with some countries having the cut version (Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Myanmar, Singapore); Rakuten TV in Japan and Heavenly in South Korea. Re-aired in April 2025 on Viki https://www.viki.com/tv/40989c-4minutes The cut version has NSFW shortened/cut and also cuts out some plot as well.

Content Warnings: most content warnings, it has some very dark/graphic parts in it

What I Liked
- mystery element
- grey characters
- use of the number 4 or things adding up to 4
- production value* (includes cinematography, use of color as symbolism, props to represent things)

Room For Improvement
- not a fan of a flash forward (or back) as a hook for a series
- there were too many characters/plot to fully develop them all, also pacing
- misleading trailer, it felt that a different character is the main lead instead of a character people were led to believe
- tricking the audience, not a fan of how that was done
- sweet moments that didn't actually happen
- cliched plot stuff
- no reason why a character had a girlfriend, I couldn't support a romance because it was built to not be a romance
- cringey guitar playing/serenading
- *many scenes were too dark to see the actors' faces or even what was happening, even for scenes at night they need to put light on their faces
- nonsense stuff: I can't comment on all of the medical things and their realism, but I highly doubt any surgeon would spin his medical implements before/during a surgery, that seemed to be a ton of papers for a small clipboard in ep 1, an investigator who didn't wear gloves at a crime scene, in ep 4 a character oddly didn't wear a mask when he should have
- Be On Cloud decided to sell it to a company where it is only airing in 8 countries (and perhaps 2 more) and then had the gall to not respond anywhere to questions about the remaining 180+ countries but instead posted about how to only watch it via official channels, I don't mind companies needing money to get things made but they should have been clear about where and the why (update: after 5 weeks they had an actual international release and the reason was likely money/maybe they couldn't say their whole release plan due to a contract but it still was bad to not have an official platform for 180+ countries for 5 weeks)

Note About an Actor's Age (I didn't take off points for this but as an fyi 1 actor was likely 17 when he filmed several very explicit scenes, age of majority in Thailand is 20)
- it's valid to feel uncomfortable with a 17 year old actor doing explicit scenes and to not watch this series
- it's valid to feel fine with a 17 year old actor who voluntarily agreed to do explicit scenes (and had his parents' permission) and watch/enjoy this series
- everyone gets to make that decision for themselves, I hold no judgement either way for this example, personally I am watching the series but I'm not re-watching that actor's NC scenes

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In contrast to all the off the charts reviews out there, I will attempt to offer a more critical review of Black. Though this drama offers a fairly twisty mystery that is well thought out and intriguing, its failure in execution, story telling, pacing and acting talent greatly limits the appeal.

Right out of the gate, this drama was pretty ambitious as a gritty fantasy crime drama. The lead protagonist ends up being the reluctant grim reaper 444. This drama pummels its audience with questions that will go completely unanswered and/or forgotten until the eleventh hour.  

Revealing secrets and twists is an art form in timing and pacing. Black does not do this well. Rather than strategically presenting big reveals throughout, this writing team chose to keep all of these abreast until the last fourth of the drama. By then, most of my interest in finishing had greatly dwindled to nothingness. Some may appreciate this approach, I personally need more of a bone to keep me interested.

The delivery of this drama is extremely uneven. I faintly recall there being some moments that made my heart race, but most of this drama is watching 444 run around aimlessly trying to figure out his feelings and his past. Again and again, he gets diverted and waylaid. His experience is much like Black’s viewers. It gets quite tiring. Even the episodes that ended with an amazing cliffhanger would resolve in a disappointing opening in the next.

The biggest disappointment of this drama was its characters. Both 444 and Ha Ram were so flat.  Ideally this drama is supposed to detail 444’s internal battle with his empathy for mankind. Yet portrayal was ineffective at keeping my interest. I was taken aback by how little screen-time 444 and Ha Ram shared. For the majority of the show, they are on their own separate journeys. This may have impacted the implausibly of their budding relationship and the lack of chemistry I felt for this duo.  This drama was lost when I no longer cared about the characters.

All of the above doesn’t even touch on the gaping plot holes, the completely untapped supplementary characters and the problematic ending that negated everything that this drama was attempting to accomplish. This drama is being praised for its mystery, but for me that can’t make up for all the other drawbacks. If mystery is upmost in your book and you can overlook everything else, then maybe give it a try ... Otherwise, I would recommend giving this one a hard pass.

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It simply doesn't make a lot of sense

My rating might be a bit harsh but this was honestly difficult for me to sit through. I watched A Tale of a Thousand Stars when it aired and got used to curling up on a Friday evening and just enjoying the episodes as they aired each week. To be honest my entire reason for watching this series, along with the fact that I liked the trailer, was that its airtime was the same and, although I doubted I would enjoy it as much as AToaTS, I kind of wanted to keep the routine.

But, well, it was a struggle.

Let's start with the story. It's not good. At first I liked the story of an insecure, unpopular kid who doesn't trust easily being liked by a popular guy who also happens to be his crush's best friend. I liked that there wasn't a love triangle but Pi believed there was. I really did like the set-up of Mork liking Pi when Pi didn't like himself and assumed this was a universal reality, no one would ever like him. But why does Mork like Pi? Like why? I enjoyed their online friendship for a while until I realised that Pi is just depending on Mork, it is not two-sided. Ultimately throughout the whole series Pi is never there for Mork really and Mork is constantly there for Pi. It is an unequal relationship, not because of appearance or popularity, but because Mork is in love with an insecure and (more to the point) extremely selfish character. It doesn't make sense. Everything in their development happens suddenly and coincidentally. There is no evolution, neither character comes to realisations about themselves or each other that would make their relationship reasonable. Mork never shows any vulnerability to Pi, Pi shows too much and relies too heavily on Mork without good reason. It is not a believable relationship progression and their attraction is not developed in the script. Why? Do? They? Like? Each? Other? It does not make sense.

As for the second-lead couple the progression was better. They grew on each other and it made sense that they were getting to know each other and were feeling attraction or crushes or whatever. But god it was juevenile. It was trying so hard to be funny with them, especially Duean. I don't know if this is just a cultural difference but I have seen a lot of Thai content and while some of the humour goes over my head sometimes this is just a lot to take. Although the majority of the age demographic of BL fans may be young, the character himself was in his twenties and he was behaving like a pre-teen which was so annoying. The characters themselves matched okay I guess, I have some complaints but whatever. But it was so juevenile which did get seriously irritating.

The acting was variable. Because I didn't like most of the script I will say the acting may have been better with a better script but here we go. Pond (Mork) and Louis (Meen) had believable acting. Their acting was fine. They did a good enough job with characters that were written to be pretty one dimensional. Phuwin (Pi) is not made for acting insecure in my opinion tbh. He kept overacting the insecurities and shyness. Now, I am a naturally shy person and was incredibly insecure as a teen so there was some relatability for me honestly. But when you are shy and insecure, you hide. You try to take up as little space as possible. He sort of had the shy persona down sometimes but other times it was just overdone. I could tell he was acting. And in some intimate scenes between Mork and Pi both actors were awkward which added to the already mediocre script in terms of being unbelievable. As for Neo (Duean) it was overacting 101. I don't know if this was due to his acting, the script, the directing or whatever but it was too much. Just way too much. It was a character you would never meet in real life. So yeah.

I don't love that a makeover happened, but I do like the fact that Mork liked Pi before. Wasn't like he had some dumb realisation later or anything.

I wish I enjoyed this. It really could have been good. But it was too nonsensical to be funny and too soulless to be romantic. The characters were largely too one dimensional to be believable and everything fell apart after that really. The plot wasn't character driven it just sort of happened because someone said it should, which is not good writing.

One other (relatively small) pet peeve is the fact that three brothers from one family are all gay. Like, why? C'mon now people. Not saying it's impossible but it's just a little hard to believe. Especially when added to the fact that the two younger brothers both have love interests who are themselves brothers with each other. Okay, whatever.

The fans were annoying and overacted. They were not funny. They were toxic but there was no analysis of why they are being toxic and there was no arc where that behaviour changes (which it should and would have been satisfying to watch).

At the end of the day I would not recommend this series to be very frank. There are far better series out there. This one is an acceptable idea with poor execution.

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Plot who? We don't know her!

I waited impatiently for months for the series only for my excitement to be replaced with disappointment as each episode aired...

The Good:

Acting.
For a majority of these actors, this was their first ever series. Despite this, I felt that overall, the acting was extremely solid and great! Biggest props and kudos to Bible, who in my opinion was definitely the scene stealer of the show. Also BibleBuild as a pair, despite the plot line that their characters had, blew me away with the amazing chemistry and tension that they have every time they are onscreen throughout the series.

Cinematography.
This is no Korean Drama, but for a Thai BL, the cinematography is pretty great. Though towards the end of the series the quality of this did start to drop... BUT then again, the cinematography of Thai BL's in general this year have improved significantly... so having good cinematography is honestly nothing special anymore...

The Bad:

Poor Writing. Plot who? We don't know her!
I didn't know that you could take garbage (the novel) and make it even worse (the series)... but they managed to do it! LOL
I can't even begin to count the number of plot holes and "oh how convenient" moments there are throughout this series... The pacing of each episode and of the series in general is extremely off. If you really think about it (which I unfortunately did...), the story makes NO sense. ZERO. NONE. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes and things that did not need to happen and that they could have cut out of the show, but if they did that the episodes would end up being 10 minutes long LMAO

I don't understand the point of having an ensemble of 16 when you can take more than half of the characters away and there would be absolutely zero difference or change to the story/plot. Most of the characters ended up being extremely flat, 2 dimensional and have no real substance or development to them. Macau for example, who could've been used to show more of Vegas's soft/human side in the beginning, was completely disregarded. Half of Ta's screen time was him literally sleeping...

I refuse to go into an in-depth review of the couples because i'm way too sober for that right now but just know that I bought none of the relationships. And not just the romantic ones... even the sibling relationships were barely touched on or utilised to their fullest potential. It honestly upset me that the one and only scene we got of Kinn, Khun and Kim in the same frame together was in the LAST episode... and that was it... just one scene...

What is this? A comedy? A dark and toxic mafia story? Because it missed the mark on BOTH of those. Most of the jokes were super cringy, childish and did not land well at all... If you want to be dark and toxic, then BE DARK AND TOXIC. Them refusing to commit to the dark and toxic theme just made these characters feel super OOC at times.

If anything, this series just proved to me that all you need for a successful BL series is hot men who can act, good cinematography and a whole lot of unnecessary sex scenes. A good script and plot that makes sense is not needed.

In conclusion, I think that KinnPorsche is still watchable as long as you don't expect anything from the storyline/plot.

Also (very) unpopular opinion but I hope that they will just let the KinnPorsche franchise die after this because I really truly want to see these amazing actors acting in stories that are actually worthy of their talent.

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Overpowered Oppa with 768 IQ and ninja skills saves the day once again! I am surprised.

Listen to me. I really wanted to like this drama. I wanted to like this drama so bad that I watched it to the very end just so it could prove me wrong. I was crossing my fingers to the last minute, almost praying for it to get better. I ADORE Lee Je Hoon and Esom and I love the crime/thriller genre so there really was no reason for me to not like this except that... this is just bad. There, I said it. Now, let's get to the list of reasons why:

▪︎Writing▪︎
See, the fact that this drama is based on true cases was something that was like catnip for my True Crime loving heart. It started out strong as well with a few really jarring cases but soon it gave way to sheer monotony. The cases are so dramatized and they all follow the same black and white format: extremely evil villains get caught by a bunch of street smart folks out for vigilante justice.

That's ok, I mean. That's what you expect from an episodic drama what's not okay is the sheer amount of stupidity in literally every episode. The way these cases are solved is just mindnumbingly dumb. They hinge on convenient plot devices, pure luck on the good guys's side and Lee Je Hoon's ultra acting skills. Yes, you can let the ridiculousness slide once but not again and again.

▪︎ Just an example: ▪︎
Our ML wants to teach this criminal lady (who voice phishes people out of money) a lesson. He wants to play the biggest uno reverse card in k drama history and instead rob her out of all her wealth. So, what does he do? He romances her ofcourse. That's okay. Then, he goes along with her to the bank and leaves his duffel bag that is CONVENIENTLY fitted with a microscopic camera and asks her to take care of it. And what do you know, this lady who literally runs a whole voice phishing ring and bosses around quite a few dimwits CONVENIENTLY places that duffel bag on the freaking table where her atm pin machine is and she also CONVENIENTLY angles the bag towards the pin machine so the camera can CONVENIENTLY record her pin and the good guys can then CONVENIENTLY use that to rob her out of her money as revenge.

I mean, come on. Who even puts a gigantic ass duffel bag on the table and not the floor in the first place? And even if they do, how can the good guys know for sure that they will. It's just them counting their blessings instead of using actual smarts.

See, this is just one example because every single episode is filled with ridiculous stuff like this that requires a lot of suspension of belief.

Moreover, the way the Taxi Gang operates is akin to flashing a bright neon sign that says 'Look at us! We exist' so the entire secretive, batman hiding in broad daylight saving the world plotline falls flat hilariously.

There are also a lot of flashbacks, scene repetitions and just lazy writing with the way conflicts are written for the main leads.

▪︎Characters▪︎
This is your typical squad of self righteous goody two shoes united by their shared tragic pasts. The male lead is so over powered. He can fight, is smart, is hot, is basically a wonder boy all around. You know your typical oppa in every run of the mill k drama.

These guys never lose. Everything is just a small hiccup for them. Never mind the people they are trying to catch are seasoned murderers/criminals and have been successfully evading the authorities. No, because this gang of average joes can take them down EASILY.

I mean yes it helps that one is a hacker, one is an engineer, one is a CEO- but really these job descriptions are all just for the sake of moving the plot. These are one dimensional characters you've seen in so many dramas before and while there is definitely camaraderie and warmth between them, there's not enough focus on thorough character development both individually and in terms of the group dynamic for us to truly form a connection.

The serious problems they do face in the last couple of episodes are so tropey, badly written and resultant of their own stupidity complimented with pointless death baiting and trucks of doom that it's hard to sympathize.

The antagonists are screechy and definitely not the smartest bunch themselves so the entire drama is just a bunch of goldfishes fighting against each other.

▪︎Female Lead▪︎
Now this just made me mad. Prosecutor Kang Ha Na has to be one of the worst female leads I have ever seen on screen. Now, I know a lot of people didn't like the fact that she was out to get the group but I didn't have a problem with that. My entire issue was how useless she was. Her contribution to the plot was zero and she was just terrible at her job. I wanted her to have like 10 minutes of relevance and I would have been pacified but no throughout the show she wears these badass business casual suits and power walks to... literally nowhere.

She's the last to arrive at the scene, she solves nothing, saves nobody and basically is just a walking talking product placement there to create this fake and hollow opposition for the Taxi Gang and to justify or question their system of justice.
Cause after a while, even you start thinking that if the Prosecutor with so many resources at her disposal can't even decipher the most basic of clues, it's better to just let this rag tag group do their thing.

The only action the poor girl gets is this random gun firing in the air for like five seconds where she badly tries to assert her barely there authority. It's sad, really.

▪︎Plot Development▪︎
The ending episodes just makes the drama look like it's floundering for direction. For like 12 episodes, it has different cases, then suddenly it just focuses on this one villain and then phew that gets solved and what do we know, they pull out an entire plot line from thin air and just throw it in your face. There's no structure at all to the show and it feels like the writer brainstormed all these ideas and just splattered them all on screen without any elegance whatsoever.

▪︎Acting▪︎
Now, here's why watching this drama really hurt me. The cast is phenomenal. Lee Je Hoon is a chameleon. He is great at completely embodying every role he does. Esom is so charismatic on screen. The rest of the cast is great as well but the plot execution and script is so bad that despite the talented cast, it's just 16 episodes of wasted potential.

▪︎What I Did Like▪︎
The only saving grace for me was the comedic moments in the show cause they made me smile and Lee Je Hoon in his various roles was a delight to watch. There was also a lot of potential love/hate bickering chemistry between Kang Ha Na and Kim Do Ki that was left untapped.
The action sequences while enjoyable are nearly not as sophisticated as some other productions. Some fights look obviously fake and visibly "acted". You see the punch, hear the punch but it's like it never really landed lmao. Still, action with hype music playing in the back is always good.

I also loved Esom's Prosecutor boss but he has a total screentime of like 30 minutes in the entire show so that's awkward.

▪︎Ending thoughts▪︎

In my opinion, this drama is a time waste and massively undeserving of the hype. Better examples of episodics with a gang of underdogs fighting crime with crime can probably be found in Bad Guys and Mad Dog.

So, even though I know that you guys are readying yourself for hate comments and downvotes right now, this drama still gets a solid NO for me. Sorry.

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Why did I watch this? I do not know...

This drama has some good moments, and times that kept me interested, especially the historical versions of the leads who at first offered great balancce between the old and the new until the villain started getting exposed and it pretty much went down hill from there... as the drama goes a bit like this:

Bam a lot going on Meeh... confusion flashback... sloow....confusion m nothing to see here cliffhanger... meeh... flasback to cliffhanger... meeh cliffhanger... flashback... cliffhanger... wtf... meh oh come on... cliffhanger... confusion , oh well... so you are going with that trope... flashbak meh... cliffhanger...flashbak confusion.

Our male lead has several interesting personalities but is mostly a look I can say a lot of words with a tone of old autoraty meets wimpey,..

our female lead has 0 self esteem and has more changes of heart than a top thorax surgeon in a transplant centre preforms...

At times I wonder if the actors smiles are acting or if they are smiles of shame... the type born out of the feeling of "do I really have to say these cringy lines"

The kisses and chemestry between the leads are as explosive as a matchbox cought in the rain.

Her friend is annoying as ***** *** ****

But the ex girlfriend has some kind of crazy charm I guess.

The villain has this horrible supposed to be creepy voice that is just ridiculous in every single way possible... But I made it all the way through this. And for that I deserve a badge, pat on the back or an intervention telling me to drop stuff more frequently.

The high score is for the past and the slightly interesting story... that could have been good if only they made the characters more interesting.. and cut out a bunch of stuff... Also these actors can do better, I have seen them do a lot better!

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Not awful, but a disappointment.

On the positive side, the cast is really good, especially the side characters, but Prem is surprising at times and can be really affecting. I guess it's not really surprising given how much presence he had in My Only 12%. Tae Weerapat is both adorable and sexy as the bumbling Bee, Yacht and O are a great pairing, and I even like Manow's romance.

But there are two central issues. The main one is that they've taken a side couple that had 20 minutes total screentime in a previous series and stretched it out to twelve episodes, and for that to work, you have to add plot and character elements to the central pair, or you end up with a dull, repetitive, boring mess. How many times do we have to watch the flashback of Team's friend drowning? For that matter, do we need two flashbacks of every scene? If it's about something that happened at least an episode ago, fine - but sometimes it's the previous scene. If the actors can't convey to us what they're feeling about the previous scene without a flashback, you either need better actors or to trust the actors you have (it's the latter in this case).

And this problem intensifies the other one: Win & Team's relationship is icky. They don't interact as boyfriends, they interact as parent and child. Team is infantilized to the point that it's hard to see him as a man, or even an older boy - he's a small child, who needs protection from everything and constant guidance from his "dad". A power imbalance in a relationship is fine, but this is way too extreme, and not sexy, it's just creepy. The power imbalance is hot when it's physical/sexual. When it's emotional to this degree, it's disturbing.

And as if Team isn't infantilized enough, he actually sleeps between his parents in their bed. I half-expected him to breast-feed, especially as there had been a lot of cow/calf comparisons in their scenes.

I come away from it feeling like Team needs serious psychiatric help. He has two kind and loving parents, but still seeks a parental figure in a lover - he behaves like a sexually abused child. His dad seems sweet, but I'm keeping my eye on him.

There's a scene (which was one of the best in the series) where Team and the mother of his dead friend are processing their grief at a grave, and Prem plays this perfectly, showing just the right amount of grief - tears without wailing, like an adult. But then this is destroyed by him calling Win for help, wailing like a child, and he sits in the rain at a gravesite for TWO HOURS waiting for Win to come rescue him, when his actual parents are a few blocks away. This is supposed to be romantic, but it makes my skin crawl. His friend died over ten years ago when he was 8. Come on. You can still feel grief and guilt, but if you're that incapacitated you need mental health treatment.

The end result is that I end up hitting the +10 seconds button repeatedly through their scenes (you only need one second in ten to grasp it all. Actually you need 0 seconds in ten because all their scenes are the same) to get to the other much more interesting relationships.

This series is a real disappointment - I remember how much I liked them and what a refreshing respite they were in Cry Babies and Their Talking Mannequins (Sorry. I was that one guy who didn't like UWMA.)

A highlight for me was Tul & Wan, who for me stole every scene they were in - both of them were able to create fully realized and consistent characters with very little screentime, and their conclusion, which was quite sudden, worked. Because we'd seen Wan's desperate loneliness and frustration & repression throughout the series, when Tul came on to him, you could see his natural defenses try to fall into place, until a lifetime of pent-up need blasted them like the walls of Jericho. He still did the planking-sex, but at least there was some real heat between them.

Minor points: It was nice to see Fluke's hair non-mutilated by whatever sadist was styling it in Sunshine Night. Someone spiked Santa's Refreshing Tea Drink with cocaine - but it worked and I enjoyed him. Art is so beautiful it hurts to look at him and it's a crime only Aam uses him as a leading man. I love that Tae has a "dad bod" instead of the usual seme's chisled abs and pecs - he's not pefect but very sexy. Boun's hair isn't long enough to tie up and I don't like it. He looks so good when it's down.

Why do Thais allow anyone anywhere near a swimming pool? We already know water in Thailand is deadly since your chances of getting a debilitating fever if rain touches you is 100%. Your chances of drowning are 90%. That's one of the reasons why Team's past didn't really move me. If you drown within 30 seconds of entering a pool, maybe you're not supposed to live.

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The second instalment of HIStory3 for this year is a regressive detour into fan service that has neither the coherence nor the charm of previous storylines.

One thing I usually say about the HIStory series is that it does good queer stories even if it doesn't do other things right. But Make Our Days Count is not working for me at all. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to it a great deal. However nothing can hide the fact the show is badly written, poorly characterised and has nothing to say.

This story about popular and oblivious Xiang Hao Ting who falls for the studious and impoverished highschool student, Yu Xi Gu, (whom he used to bully) seems regressive - annoyingly so. HIStory1 was little but cliched Fujoshi baiting and I have been enjoying how the series has been maturing and evolving through HIStory2 and then HIStory3: Trapped, which for all its many many many many flaws was ambitious storytelling with mature leads.

Not that my issue is with the highschool setting itself but with the awful seme-uke "gay for you" nature of the main relationship and its associated stalking, harassment and abuse. I felt like the first few episodes were basically a relationship post on the "Am I The Asshole" reddit (with the overwhelming responses agreeing that yes, you are the asshole).

I feel so sorry for Xi Gu who just wants to work and study and has this succession of classmates harass, bully, assault, stalk, abuse and finally sexually harass him. Also I have no idea when or why our male lead suddenly decided he liked him; the switch happened suddenly and without much preamble. The romance essentially came out of nowhere and, while I could believe that Meng Shao Fei's pursuit of Tang Yi could easily become a romantic pursuit, a bully swapping relentless harassment for wooing does not work as well. It's no surprise that Xi Gu assumes that the sudden sexual element to the harassment is merely a new ploy by the boy who has been torturing him.

Of course the other relationship is just as bad, with an older man, Lu Zhi Gang, dating a highschool student, Sun Bo Xiang . One particularly revealing (and slightly gross conversation) involves the older man denying he has a romantic interest in Xi Gu because he's far far too young - despite him being the exact age as his boyfriend. No one - even the writers who put that dialogue on the page - seem to have noticed the problem here. Bo Xiang (played with a great deal of charm and nuance by Wilson Lui, who impresses me weekly) is a physical and emotional child, treated frequently like a toddler by his so-called boyfriend . To make the whole thing worse, the writers inserted an unnecessarily graphic sex scene (unprotected sex, even!) between the two of them that, again, felt like fan service rather than a genuine narrative development.

I could argue that the relationship in HIStory2: Right or Wrong was equally as disturbing but there I felt like the show was saying something and had put some thought into the characters and the relationship. The whole thing was both wrong but also quite romantic and it was up to the audience to work out where the line was and whether they were fine with it or not.

I honestly feel like this iteration of HIStory3 was written to a formula containing things people liked about previous HIStory stories and BL generally. They don't have anything to say, they just pulled elements together as fan service. There is nothing that subtle or interesting about it. It's a copy and paste job that celebrates the worst of BL while romanticising harassment.

Worse than that, "gay for you" as a plot device has a tendency to whitewash homosexuality out of the picture, something that's both ironic and frustrating in a series that's supposed to be dedicated to queer romance stories. Writing gay love stories without the gay may be a standard element of Yaoi but that doesn't mean we're not supposed to be evolving past that. And this is where I see this series as mere Fujoshi baiting. And that is a depressingly regressive move from these particular writers.

The ending

This review has been updated following the final episode to make a spoiler-free comment about the ending. It kind of goes like this: OMFG!! No, just no. Watching this show is like watching someone dig a hole and every time you think it's as deep as it can go it turns out it can plumb new depths. Even people who liked this terrible drama hated this ending. Ponder that one for a moment.

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I am hooked

Another new concept ✨️, I am so happy that I am starting my new year with an amazing drama.

This is the story of two parallel worlds, both of them were a couple but for some reason they were separated and forgot each others memories. But one day the ML ( Played by Boss ) suddenly recalled some nostalgic memories about him and the MC ( Played by Noeul ) and was trying to fix everything.

This drama is going to be a masterpiece definitely, their acting skills are improving day by day , most healthiest part is the supportive friends of both ML & MC , they are like " I can do anything for my friend " . Cinematography is chef's kiss 💋, the way they are portraying their characters, is definitely outstanding 👌

No more talking, just try one episode, you will understand.

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Summary: I feel like I was wayyyy too late to jump on this band wagon. I'm still struggling to understand everyone's fascination with this show. Ultimately, would I recommend this show? Honestly speaking, no. But, perhaps I just had such high expectations due to the hype. If you're looking for something with an overwhelming amount of cheesy English lines, somewhat heart racing missions carried out by South Korean "black ops", and terribly inaccurate medical happenings, look no further.

+/- Plot:
Overall, this drama's storyline was not terrible, I wouldn't say that it was every really dragging and I was never really bored. That being said I still have several complaints. The storyline of the lead couple was repetitive with them hashing and rehashing the same argument over and over; them going stead, him going away on a mission, her questioning if she can handle their relationship, something life threatening happening to her, he saving her, and her falling for him all over. They did at some moment have some cute scenes. However, I was actually finding myself more interested in the second lead couple's romance, even though it did follow some of the conventional Korean drama's storylines. All the adversities they faced while abroad were exciting, even if they were pretty unbelievable at times.
I couldn't believe how forgiving they were of the medical portions of this drama though. Everything was wrong on so many levels. I'm not asking that it has to be completely accurate, but for it to at least be somewhat believable. The scriptwriters were pretty shameless and flagrant about the minimal research they put into it.
Overall, it felt a little like they just tried to mash three different categories of dramas together (romantic comedy, action/suspense, and medical) and I really feel like they were just reaching at some points. And don't even get me started on the amount of advertisements they tried to weave in at every moment possible. I understand that this was an expensive production, but it was pretty unbelievable at the end. I could go on about my complaints, but if there's any DOTS fans reading this I will be burned at the stake as it is.

+/- Acting/Cast:
While there were moments when I was supposed to be saddened to tears in the last couple episodes, I wasn't. This just goes to say how unattached I was to all the characters, and speaks wonders about their acting. To be honest, I just found a majority of their acting a bit cheesy, overdone, and not convincing. I consider myself a fan of Song Joong Ki, but this drama was not effective for me. I was laughing at the "intense" moments and grimacing at a portion of the romantic scenes. Which leads me into Song Hye Kyo; she's cute and I'll leave it at that. I had problems with her character; indecisive and constantly nagging. I felt that Kim Ji Won and Jin Goo's romance was 10 fold better, which is probably why I was more interested in them.
McInnis David was fine to begin with, but let's just say I understand why he's not an A list American actor.
All the other side characters were decent, I would say that some unnecessary; but my favorite side characters were Dr. Song Sang Hyeon and nurse Ha Ja Ae. They played their innocent, sweet romance really well and it was cute to see them act together.

+/- Music:
There are several songs from well known artists, several of which have sung songs for other popular dramas. They were all pretty catchy for the most part, but I would say there was really only one or two songs that stood out too me.

Rewatch value: This drama wasn't so terrible that I couldn't rewatch it, however it would never be at the top of my list for dramas that I would watch again.

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I rate this drama 2/10 (Dropped it at episode 16)

Because if you make the rules, you can break them!

So we all know that there are two kinds of logic in this world; Real world logic and Drama world logic.When it comes to Drama world logic, you just accept it and move on but if a drama contradicts it's own logic then I'm done!

There were so many reasons I dropped this drama.

It had so much potential to be an inspiring drama about the Hwarang boys struggling and dealing with their problem. Growing, making friends, they could even have added a death of a beloved character to tugg at our hearts a little bit and in that case, it would have been totally fine to add a bit of romance but NO.

This drama contains 90% triangle love drama, 6% recapping romantic moments. 3% fighting and 1% problem solving. Not to mention that the female lead is so pathetic, there wont be an episode where they don't show a 5-minute front angle of her walking and crying...

So because the writers based most of the characters off of a real life royal family and they used the true bone ranking system to create conflict, you'd think they couldn't go wrong.... until they add fictional characters and create relationships and events that never happened while still trying to follow some of the original story. There is nothing wrong with that but if you're going to add some spice, do it right! This just ended up giving the show a lot of contradiction, odd relationships and lose ends.
(Apparently, it's okay to marry your brother if you're royal but not if you're poor.)

To me, some "emotional scenes" turned me off completely. They had so many opportunities to really rip my heart apart by adding some real brutality and feeling into it. I have a specific scene in mind and I'm thinking that they could at least spend some time on this scene to make it believable... This scene got a little over 1 minute screen time... Go Ah Ra got 10 minutes screen time for walking and crying...

Oh well... If you love triangle love dramas with a lot of romance and crying and pushing and pulling and recaps after recaps of scenes that don't really move the story forward then this is PERFECT for you! Don't hesitate to watch it! As a bonus, you get a bit of plot on the side. It's weak... not very well worked out... not very logical... and it doesn't really start until episode 16.... BUT there is one heartbreaking death scene in the first episode so maybe I should give this show 10/10

ENJOY!

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Decoded is a drama about an autist and maths genius who becomes a spy to help decoding the "purple code" the hardest code ever made.
First, I have to say that the acting was very good, especially the main character who was very skillfully portaited. He was exactly how one of my friend (who's autist) is and well, that's amazing how even the way he walks was greatly portrayed. I really loved how each characters was deeply developed.
The story in itself is good, although maybe too long. For a perfect show I would've cut a little bit earlier in the story... As there were some romance/irrealistic things that were really different from the rest of the drama. Also, at times you really get the impression that they just want to make the story longer; I guess they should've made the same story but with only like, 35 episodes. They show some scenes during 3 minutes just with a different angle and your like, yeah, well, that's not even the most epic/emotional scene so could we just advance in the story?
And the ending was a bit too much... Lovey Dovey, I'd say. But I guess romance lovers have to be satisfied too...
But that doesn't mean the show wasn't good. You stay on the edge on your seat, wanting always more and more and to know what happens to the characters, whom you really become attached to. You see how the main character grows up and become stronger, and that really is an inspiration for everybody. I actually stayed up until 2am to watch a few more episodes, and I don't do that for every dramas out there- there were really some epic moments !!
As for the music, I really liked the ending song, and the few music out were nice, although not memorable.
What is incredible is how you're projected in the 1950. The set is beautifully done and the clothes are perfect.
As for the rewatch value... Well, I'm sure I'll rewatch some part of the drama- there are some really epic scenes hehe- but maybe not in its entirety.
Anyway, if you like spy/action dramas, this is for you!
And if you love romance, well, there are some hints in the beginning and the last ten episodes are for you, hehe
(Sorry for my bad English~)

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