BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.” – Oscar Wilde
The above quote is so descriptive of this series. It is contradictory, oxymoronic, yet completely genuine in its absurdity. If you seek answers to questions from and about this series, you will not find them. Is this a Theater of the Absurd performance? Perhaps so. All I know is that it is brilliant, a mastery of cinematic artistry, and one of the finest acted series I have seen this year. In order to appreciate this series, you must suspend your idealized notions about BLs and all comforts about conformity or logic, and simply go with what is presented to you.
What is presented to you is a story of two very sad, profoundly so, men rejected by themselves and their families. Or at least by their fathers. Maybe. We are not really sure. It is irrelevant what we think anyway. All we see is their pain and inner torture and that by any stretch of the imagination is presented in an honest silhouette. Cha Soo Hyuk (Jang Woo Young) is a brilliant young man but ambitionless with no clear focus in life. He exists and is seemingly content. Yet obviously not. One day, he, as a repairman, meets a revenant of his. Lee Yoon Dae (Lee Jae Bin) is a bitter, angry, drifter, and grifter. He and Soo Hyuk have had a ‘relationship’ in the past, but it is never clear what. As stepbrothers, or friends, perhaps jilted lovers, or merely close friends that drifted apart; we are unsure.
All we know and see is a real intense tension between the two. Seemingly both not wanting to be in the same room with each other; yet seemingly unwilling to leave the room they are both in. The tension between the two is so palpable and ardent until it finally erupts. While it does not seem shocking, the intensity of their kiss is shattering. Yet never gets intimate. At the same time, the two simply cannot not stay away from each other. Perhaps for a little while, bodily. But never mentally. Both are constantly and continuously on each other’s minds – day and night.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? This is a remarkably fervent series to watch. The acting goes deep emotionally without ever explaining why, however. We really never know the extent or depth of their relationship previously. All we see is what is given to us in the moment. Jang Woo Young as Cha Soo Hyuk and Lee Jae Bin as Lee Yoon Dae took these nebulous roles, with vague backgrounds, and made them immeasurably awful people. Neither loveable nor hateable. Contemptuous, perhaps. Richly deserving only for each other which it seems the way it was meant to be. Their world is only them and the world is meant only for them. They are not going to give us answers. Only more questions. They do not care that we do not know who they are. That is what makes this series so remarkable. It is acted only in the moment. Not with any notion of the past and certainly not with any supposition of the future. They simply do not want to say ‘goodbye’ to each other. If you understand that, then you will understand the story and the ferocity of their acting. I applaud their acting skills for taking roles so ill-defined and making these characters feel like marginalized individuals that we are perplexed by, but for them, the world is right.
Everything about this series is pure artistry. I rarely pay much attention to opening introductions. But in this case, the introduction to each episode is haunting along with the music. Its imagery of various gray figures intertwined, comforting each other, is both indelible and poignant. The story itself is cryptic giving us only small bits and pieces to understand just a little why these two guys are so disparaged and so angry and have internalized deep self-worthlessness. All we sense are two families that seem to have purely rejected their sons. Perhaps because they were gay?
Only conjecture but what else would drive two handsome young men, who are intelligent, have an obvious history together, continue to live marginalized lives, but allow themselves to remain tortured souls based solely on and continuously reinforced by their fathers’ perceptions of them as mistakes, or more aptly stated, ‘failures’. What could be so bad in life?
There is so much underlying to this story if you allow yourself to be surrounded by these two. Put yourself in the middle and watch everyone around them talk to them (inform them or lecture them) about who they are with all missing the one point that is obvious if you are really watching. They are both deeply and profoundly in love with each other but cannot express it for God knows what reasons to themselves. There is just a small flicker of light that shines through at the end that the two of them may or perhaps….
This is an exceptional BL series with no answers and no real point. It is what it is. You will get it, or you will not. The moral of the story: Not everything in life has answers; sometimes life is just an enigma only understood by the individuals involved and is not meant for others to know. Appreciate that aspect of life as well.
One of the best BLs in 2024!
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