Judo Boys (2022)

Works against its time limitations

"Blue of Winter" has plenty of potential and indie charm, but what it didn't have was enough time. Unfortunately, its screenwriting makes this as obvious as possible. Instead of using a smaller fraction of the source material and fleshing it out, it seems the screenwriter attempted to squeeze in too many events for its short duration. This makes the progression of the story rushed and difficult to follow.

While it doesn't completely make up for the underdeveloped story, I did enjoy the atmosphere of the drama. Its camera framing, editing, and moody instrumentals give it a pleasantly nostalgic feel. And I must say the actors did well for their debut. Actor, In Gi stands out among the cast as the role of "Ji Seok" required more versatility. He was able to deliver both the confident charisma and sincerity of the character.

It's not the most memorable thing you'll watch but if you're a BL/LGBTQ drama enthusiast, go for it. As a warning, it does end on a cliffhanger and a continuation is not guaranteed at the time that I’m writing this.

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confusing with cliche plot points

Overall: this is a lower budget production that once again would have benefited from a narrower plot (i.e. no love triangle) due to its short runtime. Watched on YouTube.

Content Warnings: smack on the head, blackmail

What I Liked
- the intro animation sequence that went into the live action
- I like the original focus on Judo (but that vanished unfortunately)

Room For Improvement
- confusing/choppy, especially in the first episode scenes just cut to something else and I was confused who the characters were
- too broad of a plot, they should have just focused on two judo players
- cliche things that I hate: love triangle, miscommunication/lack of communication, long time gap (6 years!), open ending, gay for you trope
- camera trick to not show the kiss well

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Boring

Blue of Winter may as well rename itself to the most 'Boring of Winters', with their 8-10 minute episodes feeling like feature-film length with how slow and uneventful it was. I always say to myself that the worse thing a drama can be is boring, and unfortunately, this is one of those dramas. Thankfully however, there were glimpses of potential, and when there was something that caught my full attention, I really liked it. For example, the last episode was really good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had enjoyed more episodes like I had with the last episode, this review would look way more positive. There was also a pretty good OST present and I did like the little attention to detail for a few things that I have not seen with big budget dramas so far yet.

Main negatives would be the acting, dialogue, directing, camera work, sound directing. I understand that this was probably done on a small and tight budget, but it was hard not to notice these things in my eyes. I don't really like to dive into detail on the negatives unless I am angry at something a drama has done to me, after all, other human beings made this.

Would I recommend it? Well, the reason I tried this was because it has the 'sports' genre on it's page. For fellow sports drama lovers, I would not recommend this. There was not much sport. For people into romance? I'd say... probably not, only try it out if there really isn't anything else you fancy.

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Extremamente confuso...

Eu odeio não gostar de algo que eu assisti, e infelizmente não vai ser dessa vez que Blue of Winter vai levar uma resenha positiva.

Tá, mesmo levando em conta que é um minidrama, eu simplesmente não consigo apagar o fato de que: todas as cenas desse drama foram jogadas. O episódio não tinha uma linha contínua de acontecimentos, eram só várias cenas aleatórias repartidas por cortes. Pulos de tempo do nada que te faziam se perguntar "pera, mas o que aconteceu com aquilo?" (e você nunca obtia a resposta). Só não digo que perdi meu tempo assistindo porquê eram episódios semanais com dez minutos de duração, então não era nenhum esforço, porém se me falassem pra assistir de novo, eu com certeza diria não.

Eu daria um ok para a história, acho uma plot simples, mas ok. O problema foi eles não terem desenvolvido ela. A ost é boa, não foi muuuito meu estilo, mas é gostosinha. Agora a atuação é o ponto forte desse bl. Todos os atores são iniciantes, então você não pode esperar uma atuação digna de Oscar, porémmm, o que eles entregaram foi muito bom. Sem dúvidas vou acompanhar seus próximos trabalhos.

Bom, agora é esperar uma próxima temporada, para ver se eles dão a volta por cima e tornam esse drama em algo bom.

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The Potential Was There

Okay look, this series took the cake on the shortest length ever. I thought K-BLs had bad running time, but this one was just bad *italicizes*. Totaling up all the episodes doesn't even get it to an hour, and that's just quite literally insane to me. This production is small, the cast consists of maybe 5-6 people, and the story is all over the place, but the silver lining is that I can see the potential that this could've had had it been thoroughly planned out and much much longer.

Let's Dive In.

It's short, it's rushed, and I don't remember any of the characters' names. But with a run time of 8 minutes for 5 episodes, it can easily happen. Although, what I do remember is that it had a great love triangle, and I mean great. You truly couldn't tell who the lead was going to choose, and it was exciting.

The open ending isn't frustrating just because of the material we got in the first place, and they were probably setting up for a season two, which I have know clue if it'll happen or not.

Ratings:

Story: 3.5/10 - The time jump was hilarious to me because this isn't long enough to literally skip time?? It's rushed, we don't get enough time to learn more about the characters, and I think had this budget been a bit bigger, we could've gotten some really cool things. The love triangle does feel very authentic, so I'll give it at least three stars.

Acting: 8/10 - I actually think these guys could act. I just think they weren't given enough to show their full possibilties. But for what we did get, their potentials' there and I hope to see them again.

Music: 5/10 - I don't remember it.

Recommndation Value: 4/10 - Sadly this is a miss. But it's super short and you would be benefitting a small company by watching, so maybe if you have less than an hour to spear, then go ahead and watch.

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Not bad, just way too short.

This drama tried to accomplish many things, but it's simply too short to handle any it. There is chemistry between all the characters and the acting is good. But this definitely needed more budget. It felt a little awkward seeing them fight at the end because we are meant to feel tension and buildup, but this just falls flat because of the pacing. If u like BL I would recommend watching it simply because of the characters and acting, but don't expect too much.

As for the love triangle, It felt underdeveloped. Not bad, simply underdeveloped. The first couple we see get close but their relationships gets cut off rather quickly, and near the end the second lover confesses but it's so quick after the news of the couple's break up that it almost feels like a joke. Overall it is a confusing drama. The writer should learn from this.

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Why is everyone confused and disappointed?

There isn´t much to say about this BL since it´s rellay short, maybe a little bit too short in my opinion ( and not only mine ) but let me tell you few things.
I don´t know why is everyone confused lol. There was only one thing confusing ( in the spoiler ) and that´s it.

( SPOILER )
Only thing that is confusing a little bit is that I didn´t know that the two guys are in relationship after the one conffesed. I thought that he only told him his feelings but they just stayed as friends. So that was kinda confusing but that´s all.
( END OF SPOILER )

Also i read that they had low budget for this series and you can also see it, because there wasn´t many characters, also the actors are new ( which is good thing btw! We can see new talents :> ). But that doesn´t really matter because I think it is beautifuly shot and well played. What I don´t like ( but I don´t mind ) is that in some scenes where more people are talking, the camera is focused only on one but it is not like this in every scene!
Also I liked/didn´t like ( can´t decide lol ) that it has an open ending. I am not sure if I want second season because I´d be sad if it wouldn´t end like I want it to end :/ But at the same time I do want another season because the actors maybe would get more attention :)
What makes me mad is that I want to look up their IGs or something but I literally can´t because they are new and not known actors so I can´t find them anywhere. I think they should have at the end of the series write their social medias or smt cuz it makes me mad lmao
And that´s it. It wasn´t bad...I liked it. I don´t know why are people so disappointed :/

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i know i shouldn't but i liked it..

there was So much missing, the plot was confusing at times, everything was super rushed, and the quality overall sucked.. but i liked it!

its not the best bl out there specially since its budget is obviously not huge but it was kinda refreshing and i (think) i understood what they were going for.. i wish theyd worked a little more on the camera work, at times i wondered who was talking bc the camera was stuck on one character and the voice quality was so bad my phone could record everything better. i think the characters look way tlo old to play highschoolers but they did well i think despite having very limited time to send the message of the plot across.

i actually really liked the last scene? where the door bell rang (bc if im not mistaken it indicates that hyunwoo got back with dojin? sorry i already forgot the character names).

lastly, even with limited resources i think they couldve done a better job specially in the directing aspect and they couldve worked more with what they had, they couldve gotten more shots in from the characters' reactions and voices, or added more scenes to the cuts, bc i doubt that would affect the budget but then again idk anything about these things so who am i to talk.

overall, i wouldn't watch it again however it was a cute little pass time and if u have an extra hour i suggest u watch it!

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What the f... was going on man? I don't know...

Bruhhh...... what did I even watch? Even with the synopsis and YouTube comments I was hella confused about what the hell was going on. Apparently two characters were dating for like 2 minutes and then they broke up?? I was like ..... WHEN WAS THIS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN? The actors also had chemistry like a dead cow...... and I still have no clue what the story was supposed to convey. Besides, starting with the manwha scene was the show's biggest mistake. It took me a while to get who was who, which didn't help with the already VERY confusing show. Someone who wrote this script should not write another script tbh. It truly felt like I was watching a kdrama without subtitles and even then I would have understood a lot more than I did with this show WHICH EVEN HAD SUBTITLES IN BOTH ENGLISH AND MY NATIVE LANGUAGE??? Bruhhhhhh.........................

Can we also talk about that ending, which literally was noooooo ending at all.... There's no clear indication of a second season so I absolutely loathe open endings like this. Even if a second season was confirmed I would not watch it xD

I would much rather read the webtoon/manhwa, which I actually want to read, than watch another episode of this.

I do gotta admit that the actor that played Hyunwoo was pretty af.

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