So apparently you can summon your distant lover by playing a Conan Gray song to him. I'll make sure to try that out. Happy Valentines, my single friends!

🔸No matter how much you're lost in life, if you are with the right people everything else will come along. This incredible, thoughtful, sensual and inspiring work of art is a rare collaboration between a Korean and a foreign director Baek Inu and Werner du Plessis. It is coming-of-age genre, and explores such themes as adapting to the new environment (Ji Hyeon in Seoul), processing traumas (Jae Won and his depression), trying to live up to someone's expectations and finding your inner strength. You can tell right away that creating a safe space for queer people was the priority for this BL. There are no triggering scenes, hate speech, rejections based on orientation, but instead there are many understanding friends that support the main characters along the way. You can safely watch this drama. Without a single explicit frame, sexual tension and intimacy flood the screen in all the right moments. I'm hypnotized.

Stunning, stunning performances of Lim Ji Seob and Oh Joon Taek! Their expressions are so subtle, and you can feel little electrical sparks lighting between them on screen. From now on, I demand to see these actors in big successful projects only!

🔸The drama feels especially real because it's not isolated from the real world. It is full of references to such movies as I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay or Hedwig and The Angry Inch, or the influential needle drop The Story by Conan Gray. Several quirky characters like the English-speaking bartender or the cheerful cashier with the K-Trot USB are always surprising and bring diversity to the table even if their influence is insignificant. I imagine this richness is the result of the collaboration. In this case, I'd love more international projects in Korea.

🔸As for the title "The Eighth Sense", I think it's nothing more than an homage to the creator's favorite movie The Sixth Sense. The plot is not even vaguely resembling the 2001 thriller. The only thing they have in common is the main character having counseling sessions about his mental struggles. From the other angle, the title doesn't make any sense as well. Eun Ji, the supporting character, says: "I realized the five senses weren't everything. Just follow your senses. Who knows what might happen?" But what are the other seven senses then? I feel like this particular line just appears out of nowhere to justify the title.

But hey, now I finally learned how to spell "eighth"!

🔸The Eighth Sense is by far the most vibrant and living K-drama (not just as a BL) that doesn't have that manufactured TV production touch. I actually felt a little bit high watching it (hahah) from how much I related and how bad I wanted to be in that campfire circle with the surfing club folks. I wish the cast and the crew good luck and a big success in the future!