BLISS RATING: ★+
“A single moment of misunderstanding is so poisonous, that it makes us forget the hundred loveable moments spent together within a minute.” – Khushithrone
Lately, I want to cry every time I watch a South Korean BL. Why? Because I am always feeling as if I am intruding where I do not belong. Everything feels so inconvenient, dark, depressing, angsty, and most of all invasive. And no one, and I mean no one, is ever happy, smiling, or appears to be human. I KNOW that is a sweeping generalization, but I feel it deep down to my core. They are seem so repressed and unwilling, or more aptly, unable to truly be themselves. Everyone and subsequently everything feels suppressed and gets repressed. A certain righteous order and decorum must be maintained at all costs. I am not judging, honestly; merely observing. From an outsider looking in. I am frankly not sure how they define happiness or even if they could (especially sexual fulfillment).
And that becomes self-evident in this series. What is missing from this series, as in so many South Korean BLs, is any sense of a connection to one another, a warmth, or an outward sign of love or affection, even in the recesses of their most private moments. It is as if their upbringing, culture, mores, and societal standards, forbids them from being themselves even in the most intimate of times, especially if they are gay.
That may not be the case in real life, but the projection is certainly there, intended or not. This series just screams that out loudly. Therefore, with that sense, it feels uncomfortable watching BLs from South Korea as of late because I feel like I am intruding where I ought not to be with the actors seemingly massively uncomfortable in wanting to portray any type of intimate connection (no matter how small) with one another.
This is your traditional tropey love story. I wish I could be more creative describing it, but I simply cannot. Kim Min Jun (Chae Jong Hyeok) meets Chae Jin Hwan (Seong Seung Ha) in college. Min Jun is a super sensitive and irrationally insecure individual and overall terrified of happiness.
Meanwhile, Jin Hwan is a bit more unreserved and gregarious. Both, by any standard of measurement, are blessed with good looks. However, personal communication among them is limited and certainly the verbal kind is literally non-existent or at the stage that it is just too new to be fully believed. Jin Hwan believes and assumes his actions are showing Min Jun that he likes him and wants to be with him without however clearly stating that. Meanwhile, Min Jun jumps to conclusions about what he sees and thinks he hears without any benefit of the doubt and immediately breaks off the infant relationship. He too will not communicate to clarify or express his feelings. Instead, it is much easier to wallow in self-pity. The tragic part is that they are both in love with each other.
Min Jun obsesses with this self-pity for a solid 7 years, leading a depressing life of devotion to work and remaining in a deep abyss of self-reflection of how terrible life is. Both have cut-off contact with each other until Jin Hwan gets a job at the same company where Min Jun currently works.
Of course, it is necessary to now wallow and waddle through one pity party after another until both realized that each had misunderstood one another. If only, they had talked this through way back when…. The big ‘aha’ moment does not come until of course the very last episode nearly at the last moment, which then becomes a sappy, silly montage of infantile memories and contrived makeups. By that point, I am feeling, well, nothing because there was nothing to feel. There is no screen chemistry throughout. With no real connection between them because one or the other was either too busy being hurt or trying to explain his side with neither seriously wanting to honestly listen to the other. It was hard to see these two as adults because most of the time they were stuck in their pre-pubescent stage of sexual development. Both look and act like robots in terms of their behaviors and affect.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? No one really stands out here but perhaps a shout-out should be given to Lee Jun Gi as the intern Jeong Jin Su. The reason he stands out is because he is one of the very few in this series who acts and feels human. He makes mistakes, looks confused, is lost a lot of the times, frightened, and perhaps (at least I saw it this way) a bit attracted to Min Jun. In other words, he showed qualities of being human and that was refreshing. For that, he stood out in a sea of what otherwise looked like a bunch of cyborgs.
This series had a special episode of what happened to them after a year of being together. For me, it did not provide any satisfying conclusion. Of course, my definition of ‘being together’ is vastly different than theirs. After a year of being a ‘couple’, the same old issues arise with both perhaps understanding each other a bit better. Yet, they simply cannot bring themselves to being actually together. They live separately I am guessing for ‘appearance’ sake. Even though the projection seems like a solid relationship, how can it be? The true test of being a couple is BEING together, which they are not. I found this series more a testament to the continued suppression of how difficult it is to be gay in Korea. Even in the privacy of their own space, they remain ‘guarded’ as if the mores are so strong that there are still some things that two men cannot do even in the privacy of their own space. There is no intimacy. No passion. No joyfulness. No sexual desires. There is almost an aversion to happiness here because if they expressed it, the world would come to an end. If there is no shifting to at least show that gay people are human and can have pleasure, both sexually and non-sexually, nothing is going to change.
Only on rare occasions, do South Korean BLs ever break out of this mold. This is NOT one of them. There is no projection of joy or happiness and just a slight sense of comfort as a couple. No kinesthesia of wanting to be together as partners for a long period of time by living together either even though they robotically profess to love each other. Marriage is unthinkable and not even a flight of fancy. Frankly, I am not sure what the purpose of this series was. It only showed what is; not what could be. Sadly, all I see is a willingness to accept fate without seriously wanting to be a master of it.
I am a firm believer that BLs can and should be a force for change, awareness, and enlightenment. Start showing that, please.
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