A diamond in the rough? Almost! Kinda...
I have crawled out of my hibernation hole back into the weird and wonderful world of Asian dramas and what am I greeted by but this show - simultaneously a welcome surprise and a massive letdown. Let me explain.
Let's start with the positives:
While it is plenty obvious that the show didn't have a particularly high budget, the audio quality is occasionally poor, and the subtitles are sometimes just plain broken (this, to be fair, is not the show's fault as much as the studio's/distributor's), there is a familiar sort of cheesy charm to the series that the show-runners use to great effect.
The many flashbacks, soft filters, and extensive staring sessions that can be so deeply grating in lesser shows are given new life here, used as they are to tell the story of a man who is absolutely *haunted* by his first love and former best friend.
During the first episode particularly we see Ji being constantly bombarded with images and memories of Achi, desperately trying to escape from them only to bump into Achi by accident, meeting him again after a literal decade.
Cue the cheesy music, sparkly lights, and Achi's thousand watt smile.
Excellent use of time-honored cliches, this show has a Vision, it has Vibes, 10/10.
Later on these same tactics are used to showcase how much Achi has been haunted by Ji for these past ten years as well, which serves as a lovely balance for the first few episodes and provides deeper insight into the characters' motivations and general state of mind.
Furthermore, simplistic as the overall story may be, it takes the time to explore some real world issues - such as grief, loss, and some of the difficult realities of working in the medical industry - with surprising sensitivity and insight and even perfectly sets itself up to tackle complex topics like internalised homophobia and and the politics of para-social relationships ... only to utterly fail to follow through.
Yes, this is where we come to the negatives. This show was so close to telling a fantastically grounded, touching, and relevant queer story. So close and yet so far.
The series tiptoes around the realities of queer relationships , the complexities of self-image and social expectations versus internal desires and then just keeps tiptoeing, never committing to those plot lines even in a subdued show-not-tell kind of way.
Sweet as Achi and Ji's story may be, the lack of follow-through makes the resolution feel utterly anti-climactic, no matter how happy an ending we are provided with.
After a while even the previously so cleverly used flashbacks and filters lose some of their focus and effectiveness.
The show also tries to tell the side couple's story through the same visual tricks as the leads', which simply doesn't work.
Sickeningly adorable though they may be, these characters don't have a shared history, no complicated past between them to warrant such levels of cheesy drama.
You can't simply slap some sparkly effects on your show and call it romance, that's not how it works.
Then there are things like the completely unexpected and unnecessary parental abuse which rears its ugly head some time towards the end of the story and is then never addressed again.
Or the forced kiss in episode one which the show acknowledges as harassment only to then, once again, never bring it up again.
All in all, after I had finished watching I was left with a profound sense of... absolutely nothing. Of "Okay, and? Is that it?"
This is not say I wouldn't recommend watching this show at all. Give it a go, form your own opinion. For all my complaining I can't deny that it has lovely visuals, solid performances from the whole cast, a central queer relationship pleasantly devoid of hetero-normative dynamics, and some genuinely great portrayals of intimacy.
Also there is a very good dog if that tips the balance for you either way.
If you're looking for something sweet and light that won't take too much time to get through, then you might like this one.
Personally though, I'm just too hung up on what it almost was. Always the damn almost...
Let's start with the positives:
While it is plenty obvious that the show didn't have a particularly high budget, the audio quality is occasionally poor, and the subtitles are sometimes just plain broken (this, to be fair, is not the show's fault as much as the studio's/distributor's), there is a familiar sort of cheesy charm to the series that the show-runners use to great effect.
The many flashbacks, soft filters, and extensive staring sessions that can be so deeply grating in lesser shows are given new life here, used as they are to tell the story of a man who is absolutely *haunted* by his first love and former best friend.
During the first episode particularly we see Ji being constantly bombarded with images and memories of Achi, desperately trying to escape from them only to bump into Achi by accident, meeting him again after a literal decade.
Cue the cheesy music, sparkly lights, and Achi's thousand watt smile.
Excellent use of time-honored cliches, this show has a Vision, it has Vibes, 10/10.
Later on these same tactics are used to showcase how much Achi has been haunted by Ji for these past ten years as well, which serves as a lovely balance for the first few episodes and provides deeper insight into the characters' motivations and general state of mind.
Furthermore, simplistic as the overall story may be, it takes the time to explore some real world issues - such as grief, loss, and some of the difficult realities of working in the medical industry - with surprising sensitivity and insight and even perfectly sets itself up to tackle complex topics like internalised homophobia and and the politics of para-social relationships ... only to utterly fail to follow through.
Yes, this is where we come to the negatives. This show was so close to telling a fantastically grounded, touching, and relevant queer story. So close and yet so far.
The series tiptoes around the realities of queer relationships , the complexities of self-image and social expectations versus internal desires and then just keeps tiptoeing, never committing to those plot lines even in a subdued show-not-tell kind of way.
Sweet as Achi and Ji's story may be, the lack of follow-through makes the resolution feel utterly anti-climactic, no matter how happy an ending we are provided with.
After a while even the previously so cleverly used flashbacks and filters lose some of their focus and effectiveness.
The show also tries to tell the side couple's story through the same visual tricks as the leads', which simply doesn't work.
Sickeningly adorable though they may be, these characters don't have a shared history, no complicated past between them to warrant such levels of cheesy drama.
You can't simply slap some sparkly effects on your show and call it romance, that's not how it works.
Then there are things like the completely unexpected and unnecessary parental abuse which rears its ugly head some time towards the end of the story and is then never addressed again.
Or the forced kiss in episode one which the show acknowledges as harassment only to then, once again, never bring it up again.
All in all, after I had finished watching I was left with a profound sense of... absolutely nothing. Of "Okay, and? Is that it?"
This is not say I wouldn't recommend watching this show at all. Give it a go, form your own opinion. For all my complaining I can't deny that it has lovely visuals, solid performances from the whole cast, a central queer relationship pleasantly devoid of hetero-normative dynamics, and some genuinely great portrayals of intimacy.
Also there is a very good dog if that tips the balance for you either way.
If you're looking for something sweet and light that won't take too much time to get through, then you might like this one.
Personally though, I'm just too hung up on what it almost was. Always the damn almost...
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