On aliens and alienation

I am sorry about the punny title but it was either this or "Out of this world" and I feel like this one causes less physical pain.

A lot can be said about Glitch but conventional sure isn’t the word that comes to mind. Watching this drama as soon as it came out while following the reactions online has been a wild ride indeed. This isn’t supposed to be about other people’s opinions, this is my review, my thoughts, but I was perplexed by how badly this K-drama bombed. Reading the initial impressions, it sometimes felt, like I was watching a different show entirely. Upon further consideration I am adding a very mild spoiler warning to my review here, I won't go into any detail about how this story progresses, but will talk about a few elements of this show that were not mentioned in the synopsis or tags. So here you go: VERY MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!

I think the one thing the majority of watchers can at least somewhat agree is on, is that the performances are the aspect where Glitch shines the most, though this was to be expected considering the stellar cast this show provides. Our two lead actresses are of course especially to be praised here. Their dynamic and chemistry might be what this drama thrives on and Nana and Jeon Yeo-been add charm and believability to their roles. But even less prominent roles, like Boras squad of conspiracy theorists or overwhelmed policeman Kim Byung-jo, had their moments. Even Hong Ji-hyo’s abducted boyfriend who had little to no presence, felt like a somewhat fleshed-out character all thanks to his actor’s performance.

But my personal favorite aspect of this drama might be Glitch’s distinctive look and style. It’s quite challenging to present yourself as a sleek-looking drama, while also featuring a ginormous blue alien in your first episode. I will not be too soft here, when it came to extraterrestrial beings, the CGI left something to be desired, but the drama was kind enough to not rely on their presence all too often. When we’re not subjected to computer-generated monstrosities, Glitch remains a surprisingly artistic show, especially at the times where it does get more experimental. Lighting and colors played one of the biggest parts here, switching between soft warm tones when we’re shown flashbacks of Bora’s and Jihyo’s past and the cold blue-and-green tones we’re used to from our sci-fi-flicks. I especially have to commend the usage of green-tinted lighting, whenever a situation was supposed to be uncomfortable or unnatural, it really generated the feeling the script needed. But shot composition, cut, and camera also stood out here. The hand-held camera shined in fast-paced action scenes and in general Glitch very rarely felt or looked static. If there is one thing I have to critique when it comes to the overall look and feel of this show it’s the (rare) moments of slow-motion that always felt entirely out of place to me and like a misguided attempt to stretch shots that might have been too short. But this might just be my personal preference.

This might be where agreements about Glitch end. The plot and script are where opinions tend to differ drastically.
Pacing is something this drama has been harshly critiqued for. While it is true, that Glitch’s start felt somewhat slow, it does pick up speed after four episodes. But I would actually go so far as claim that the show‘s arguably monotone beginning was needed, to create the atmosphere the drama relied on. That’s because we follow the story through Ji-hyo whose life also feels like it has come to halt. At thirty she works a monotone job she doesn’t seem to care about, still lives with her parents, and isn’t willing to take the next step in her long-term relationship. All she’s trying to be is normal, boring even, while she desperately attempts to ignore all the things that make her different, attempts to even ignore the side of her that wants to be different. Things accelerate drastically for her after she reconnects with Bora, so it’s natural that the same goes for the overall essence of the show. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea and it does take some commitment to give the show a chance and see where the plot takes you, but personally, I enjoyed that Glitch took its time.
That the viewer experiences this story through Ji-hyo’s eyes also means that we’re bound to be confused as the plot escalates. Glitch keeps its audience on its toes and toys with plausible deniability. What is hallucination, what are aliens, what is the cult? The viewer doesn't know anything more than the protagonist does. We feel lost because Ji-hyo does too.
This does not excuse the few plotholes Glitch sadly contains. I fully understand frustrations with the ending, a few too many knots were left untied for my taste. So I am not arguing that the plot’s structure is flawless, God no, but I do feel like the pacing of this show isn’t nearly as off as many claim. Some stories just take time and I’d rather be along for the ride than for a script to feel rushed.

“But this isn’t what I signed up for! I wanted sci-fi and aliens! This is too weird!”
Not trying to come across as condescending or pretentious but I am once again begging people to read between the lines when they consume media. Glitch isn’t the conventional alien tale it seems to be at first glance because it isn’t trying to be. And it also doesn’t have to be that in order to be good. Because what is hidden under layers of UFOs and religious symbolism is the story of Ji-hyo’s emancipation. It is a tale of a young woman trying to escape the norm and her passive role in society. It’s about feeling like you literally don’t belong on this planet, like you yourself might be alien because you do not fit the mold people are trying to force you in. And it’s about the role that religion plays especially for people that feel alienated, a tale that showcases how simple it is to persuade them to believe once you have earned their trust. How you can influence individuals to believe in a religion based on self-interest, force them to see UFOs, and make them question everything they thought they knew.
I thoroughly enjoyed this show, it’s rare to come across stories that are entirely female-centric without even the hint of romance (unless you count our two female leads who honestly had enough chemistry to go steady). I got a lot of joy from the portrayal of female friendship. Bora and Ji-hyo’s dynamic worked excellent. But I also just genuinely had fun with this plot and was fully invested in it. Yes it was strange, that’s what made it good. I can certainly say that this wasn’t anything I had seen before.

I shouldn't care what others think but I really really wish people would give Glitch a fair chance. “Too weird” should not be a valid critique, especially when a story is obviously more interested in being interpreted than literal. It’s frustrating because Asian cinema already very often relies on the suspension of our disbelief. How out there or downright Ludacris a plotline is, doesn’t seem to be relevant in romance dramas but as soon as a story requires some form of critical thinking, people shut the door on it. Others obviously are allowed to take away from this show whatever they want, I am not trying to imply that everyone who rated this low is a simpleton who just didn’t get it but I do think that there is a lot more to this story than what meets the eye. I am not trying to argue that Glitch was anything close to perfection, just a lot better than people gave it credit for.

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Pretty but soulless

The Silent Sea seems to have all the right ingredients, from premise to set design to casting, but unfortunately somehow failed to truly grab my full attention.
I don’t consider my time with this show wasted at all, I did sit through all eight episodes in three days after all, but this is not a drama I see myself ever coming back to nor thinking about ever again

Visually speaking, this is a very impressive show. Probably the most expensive-looking Asian drama I have ever watched. The CGI definitely didn’t disappoint. And yet, for the most part, the cinematography didn’t leave a strong impression on me. Not implying that it was bad, not at all, I consider this to be a pretty visually stimulating drama, but it wasn’t anything more than competent. None of the shots felt bland or flat per-se but I can’t shake off the feeling, that The Silent Sea just lacked a certain something. Nice to look at, but not particularly interesting. The only thing I can say with certainty is that this show is dark, thematically, but also literally at many parts. So dark in fact, that at many points I was having real difficulties figuring out what was going on. That can be a stylistic choice of course, but I still don’t feel like it was an exactly smart one.

However, in my opinion, the biggest fault of the drama lies in the characters, which I couldn’t bring myself to really care about. For starters, I thought that many of them were too similar in personality. But I also just failed to connect with anyone emotionally. I don’t think that the actors are at fault here, if anything I was more than pleased with everyone’s performance, but it seems like The Silent Sea didn’t leave any room to showcase human emotion. For the most part, I don’t feel like we got to know anybody. There were very few scenes where I got a clear image of the crew’s dynamic with each other. I don’t need media to have banter and funny and witty one-liners every second scene, in a Marvel-movie-fashion, but I still needed something, anything from The Silent Sea that would have convinced me that these are truly individual people with their individual flaws, strengths, quirks, aspiration, and dreams.

Plot-wise I think this show was fine. The premise was what originally attracted me and the twists and turns kept me engaged, but I really do feel like a story can only be as strong as its characters and unfortunately, this drama just missed the mark here.

Please don't read this and conclude that I consider this to be a bad drama, I truly don't but it didn't really leave me feeling anything. It didn't make me smile (which, considering the genre, was to be expected), it didn't make me sad, it didn't frighten me, it didn't even really make me think about anything much.

Would I recommend The Silent Sea? Kinda a tough question. Personally speaking, it didn’t hit the spot, but I also feel like this might come down to a personal preference in genres. If you like science-fiction, violence, and (most importantly) cool-looking space-stuff, I’m sure you’ll have a field day with this. If you’re looking for a more emotional experience, maybe skip this one.

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Meh

Is something wrong with me? Is it me? Am I the problem? Why can’t I see what everyone else seems to see in this drama?

Everyone was buzzing for this but I honestly hate having to wait in-between episodes and decided to not start this drama before more than 10 episodes were out. So I waited. And it just wasn’t what I wanted from it.
I wanted to love this so so so much. I needed this show, I needed a sweet, cozy, wholesome romance. There were days where I told myself to push through solely so I would live, to watch Homewtown Cha Cha Cha. And I can’t say that I was heavily disappointed, but I wasn’t impressed either.

I want to start off by saying this: Hometown Cha Cha Cha is fine. It’s okay. It’s not bad by any means. But it’s just not more than that.
There are plenty of things to like about this: A beautiful, charming setting that will hit you with homesickness for a place you have never been to. Two good-looking leads. A catchy OST. A fun premise. Lots of lovable side characters. I sincerely love Yeo Hwa-jung, she was my favourite character by far, and even though I am not too pleased with the conclusion to her arc, she had the backstory I enjoyed the most and all things considered, she’s probably my favourite aspect of the entire show. There were a few comedic moments that made me chuckle. It was an alright watching experience. But people are calling this the romance drama of the year and I’m just not on board with that.

The number one thing I read about this show was how refreshing and healthy it was. And I just don’t see it. This felt more formulaic than I expected it to. We have our male lead who is perfect in every single way and always correct. His one flaw is being too caring. We have our female lead whose only job is to be proven wrong by our male lead or get saved by him. This is fine, honestly, what are most romance K-dramas if not female wish-fulfillment? But is it particularly new or interesting? I don’t think so. This felt less like a healthy and realistic portrayal of adult relationships and more like a self-insert fanfiction. There are times when I want that from a story but this wasn’t one of them.
Surprisingly enough, even though I am easy to please in that regard, I wasn’t crazy about the romance between the two leads. I didn’t really understand the progression of them falling for each other, to me, that kind of came out of the blue. Which is a shame because I do think that the actors have chemistry. But it took ages for their characters to even become something close to friends. They had the same surface-level arguments every single episode, which always ended with Doo-sik proving Hye Jin wrong, and next thing you know I was expected to believe that the two were in love as well when I wasn’t even convinced that they liked each other.
I wasn’t impressed with the way this show dealt with Hong's past either. Since we only unpack his backstory in the last ¼ of the show, the first ¾ of the drama felt weirdly trivial. All of the sudden, the entire feel of Hometown Cha Cha Cha just changed and got way too depressing for its own good. And the extent of trauma our male lead had, was way too heavy to be resolved in the little time the drama had left. It really felt like this show bit more off than it could chew. The subject matters were a tad too dark and the writing a tad too clumsy. Instead of our male lead having this ultra-depressing past, I much would have preferred it if both of our main characters could have been just two regular people, with regular people’s problems that made them flee from their city lives (similarly to Lovestruck In The City for example). But sadly Hometown Cha Cha lost everything that made it feel realistic or relatable by that point. And I honestly had to force myself to sit through the last few episodes, something I definitely didn't expect.

Maybe I am being too harsh on this drama. Maybe I would have given it a higher rating if my expectations had been lower. I gave My Roommate Is A Gumiho an 8.0 out of 10, and on every level, objectively speaking, that’s a worse show. But I knew what I wanted out of My Roommate Is A Gumiho and it delivered exactly that. I wanted it to be dumb, harmless, cheesy, and cringy fun and that’s what it ended up being. But out of Hometown Cha Cha I expected more. Something more adult, more, fresh, more interesting. And it just wasn’t any of those things.

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Is it camp though? GAP and the messy politics of lesbian representation

We did it folks, Asia’s first full-length Girls Love. There is a lot to say about what GAP represents. As the name suggests, this was an earnest attempt to well, close the gap for lesbian representation in Thai cinema, which is mostly known for its variety of BL content. It's a groundbreaking drama that's breaking barriers for sure, but did it break the mold of mediocrity? This review will be a wild ride so let’s strap in (no pun intended!).

I’ve been advised to go easy on this drama and I will do my best. I fully recognize what GAP means and represents for Asian sapphics, and I also recognize that no one involved in this was going for art-house cinema. And I myself am also not immune to charming cheesy trash. But I can’t write this review without addressing GAP’s quality in some capacity.

Since I am trying my hardest not to lose my lesbian-license it might be a good idea to ease in with the good stuff:
GAP’s cinematography is a bit of a hot mess but it does have its more stylish moments. Surprisingly enough those ended up being the sex scenes. I genuinely felt like these were the visuals that the director put the most thought into (I will not comment on how I feel about that) and I appreciated that GAP didn’t feel the need to dial the steaminess down just because it featured two women instead of men. This was an aspect I had been largely worried about before GAP even aired. If BLs are produced primarily for a female audience, would that mean GAP would be produced for a male audience? The fact that the director/producer was male, didn’t ease my concerns. I feared that what I would be served was bound to be a product of sheer fetishization. But I also did not want GAP to feel sexless, just because it had female protagonists. Women having sexual desires is cool actually. Well, I am happy to report that I actually had no issue with how GAP portrayed lesbian sexuality. The male gaze might be impossible to escape but it was subtle enough that I, a bitter lesbian, could still get something out of those scenes.
I struggle with critiquing an actor’s performance, especially if it’s in a language I am not very familiar with, but I will say that Sam’s actress Freen brought a lot of charm and humor to her role. Sam is a bit of a bitch and while I don’t think that her character was executed brilliantly, I also recognize that a lot of measures were taken to make her more likable, which is an effort I can appreciate. One of those was making Sam sufficiently awkward, something that the actress embodied pretty well (maybe because she did feel a bit awkward, who’s to say). I appreciate this effort even more so, after I have been informed, that Sam actually behaves a lot worse in the source material. I think softening those edges was the right move for sure. But script changes aside, I thought that Freen’s characterization came across as charming either way. Charisma is a difficult thing to evaluate because it’s very subjective and also innate to a person, so it might be something that you can’t really praise someone for but I do think that Freen really did the absolute best with the material she was given.
I don’t want to imply that my favorite aspect of a lesbian love story was a male character but I do have to earnestly commend the show for Kirk. The show’s main antagonist is Sam’s grandma, someone so comically evil that all that’s missing is a big mustache she can twirl. Kirk is not that. In fact, Kirk is the guy that everyone at the office loves. Someone that at first glance might even seem like an ally. The guy your friends insist you should marry because he seems “like one of the good ones”. And Kirk is an absolute douchebag. This was a character that appeared likable, had solid motives for the way he behaved, genuinely believed he was doing the right thing, and he still managed to be a huge asshole in a way you had to build up to. Kirk didn’t “suddenly turn out to be evil” because he isn’t and he never has been. But his crime was entitlement. He believed he was entitled to the company as he believed he was entitled to Sam. It’s, dare I say, an attempt at social commentary, that managed to be both subtle and effective all in a show that tended to be painfully on the nose. Kirk as an antagonist amidst the mess was truly a breath of fresh air, I think the casting choice was also great. Choosing some BL-heartthrob to portray him was the right call.
I guess as far as representation goes, this is pretty solid. We obviously have two morally dubious sapphic disasters for our protagonists but we also have one trans woman who is not entirely played for laughs (and one that is….) and a butch/masc lesbian which is something you rarely see on TV these days. None of these characters are entirely “unproblematic“ representation but that is also such a boring standard to uphold so I can live with a little messiness if it means that we get a more diverse cast.
This is such a small thing and I am not sure if it even was intentional, but the OST when something 〜shady〜 was going on and when Sam and Mon were getting down to business were pretty much alike. This furthered the impression that their relationship was a bad and ominous thing that was happening. This might not have been what the show (that presumably is first and foremost trying to be a love story) was trying to imply, but since I have been blessed with both eyes and a brain, this was a conclusion I inevitably arrived at. The OST seemed to point at the concept that Sam’s and Mon’s inherent toxicity was supposed to be text instead of subtext, which I thought was neat at least.

The bad:
One fun fact about me is that I have severe scoliosis and awful posture which is why my physician ordered me to do extensive physical therapy for an entire year. This painful progress might have been erased entirely by sitting through this show as I had to watch it with my head permanently tilted. I am not exaggerating, nearly every second shot of GAP is a Dutch-angle (tilted picture). Sometimes this made sense. A Dutch-angle creates a certain uncomfortableness, an eeriness if you will. Also: Sam is in a higher position than Mon. The scales are tipped. But more often than not this was a creative decision that puzzled me. It’s obvious that the director just thought it looked cool so he decided to use it ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME WITH NO THOUGHT IN MIND. I thought about making a drinking game out of it but that would have been a genuine health hazard.
What is it that this company does? This is an office romance but I m not even sure what this office is ordered to do. Something something social media something something. I wouldn’t care about this if it didn’t play such a big role in the overall plot. Also: Sam wants to keep her company and we’re supposed to think that she is deserving of that but we never see her work ever. It is implied that she is harsh on her workers because their performance determines whether she can keep living her life or will be married off. Well girl, how about you do some work then? I get it, it’s inherent to the cruel nature of the exploitative capitalistic system that the CEO never does any actual work and only leeches of their employees so this is quite accurate to real life but GAP is a silly romance and I am supposed to root for the undeservedly rich. I can’t do that if I never see Sam actually achieve anything. Every little success is due to the work of someone else and it’s not because of her management style but despite of it. To a wage worker like me, this is quite the hard sell. And I actually kind of like Sam and for her to be a bitch and a bad boss at the start of this show is fine, but we never see the needed character development from her. Sure, she warms up a bit, but arguably not nearly enough to excuse her prior behavior.
Sam and Mon suck. Not nearly as much as individuals as they do as a couple. It’s not so much that they’re unhealthy, I think the show knew that to some extent and I don’t think all love stories in fiction need to represent what is desirable in real-life. It’s more that they were… annoying? Which is a weak criticism, I’ll admit. But their constant bickering never seemed worth what they were getting out of the relationship. I was never sold entirely on their love. They had chemistry, sure, but that is very little to build a relationship on. If this was supposed to be a fatal-attraction sort of deal where they cannot keep away from each other despite how unhappy they make each other, this drama also failed to address that in a productive way. I like messiness and flawed, dumb people (I myself belong to said demographic), but Sam and Mon only seemed to always reunite because the narrative needed them to. Not because they were good together or it seemed like something either of the characters would want.
The sound quality was pretty atrocious in a way that I can't explain how it even got like this. Some passages of dialog were completely fine while others sounded like they were recorded with a fork. But I am not a casual lakorn-watcher and I have been informed that for a production of this size and budget, this is quite normal so this is probably just something you have to get used to and I am willing to let this one go.
I want to address the plot but it’s difficult to critique something there is so little of. Which is fine, intricacy is not what anyone watched this for. I guess the story is best described by things happening. One thing happens and then another one. Are those events correlated? Who is to say. But things certainly kept happening, that’s for sure.

So, is GAP an amazing show? God no. Is it an okay show? Also no. Should you watch this? I don’t know, I honestly don’t. I don’t know if I am capable of celebrating something solely for what it might represent. And I can’t recommend this show no matter which framework I use to analyze it. But yet I find myself wanting to. I once wrote that there are two schools of thought when it comes to LGBT+ representation: Either “we want stories that represent our experience, even if painful at times” or “we want access to the same rom-com escapism that heterosexuals get”. And personally, I see value in both. The problem is that I don’t think that GAP managed to deliver either one though I can certainly see attempts in both. There are some hints of social commentary and there definitely is the over-the-top rom-com storyline. But GAP is not good, it simply isn’t.

Is it camp though?

Define “camp”, please. Well, camp describes “art or entertainment that deliberately does not follow traditional ideas about what is considered good in order to produce a humorous effect”. The two types of camp that exist today are purposeful camp and unintended camp. As the name implies, intentional camp refers to the purposeful use of camp in humor. Unintentional camp results from naïveté or poor quality or tastes. It’s “so bad it’s good”, it’s the love of the unnatural, artificiality and exaggeration. This sounds like an insult but truth is that camp and the LGBT+ community have been intertwined from the beginning. Being excluded from mainstream society and mainstream art meant that we had to create our own. And this is where we got our ability to celebrate the ugly and weird. Camp evaluates tasteless kitsch whereas the bourgeois feuilleton high culture scorns it. The camp's level of sensitivity ranges from intense adulation to sardonic, disinterested amusement. Therefore, the definition of kitsch and camp is mostly subjective. And in my subjective perspective, when I look at GAP and see the nonsensical plot, the questionable performances, the Dutch-angles, the fake crying, and the constant yelling, I see camp.
Is this too little of a basis to recommend something? That is up to you but this is the hill I choose to die on.

I understand why so many people needed this to be good. One of my first comments on here reads “If this show turns out to be bad, I will simply gaslight myself into thinking it’s good”. It’s not just the lesbian representation, it’s the longing for a story that is not dependent on men. And now that GAP failed to be even passable, there is the fear, that no one in Thailand’s entertainment industry will ever try again to produce a WLW-story. But truth be told, I think we will be fine. I have never been a BL-watcher but according to all sources, Asia’s first BL was absolute dogshit and yet the genre found its niche. More importantly, however, while successful representation is undeniably incredibly important, social progress comes first. Good LGBT shows, books, and movies have always followed social changes in the real world, not the other way around. As East Asia becomes more progressive, the entertainment they produce will inevitably diversify. But we shouldn’t put our hopes and dreams in these capitalistic constructs. Our liberation should not be dependent on how much money people can make off us. Instead of hoping that rich men in production companies tell our stories we need to get out there and fight for the rights and resources to tell them ourselves.

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Tomorrow seems to be a step behind

One can’t say that they didn’t try. In fact, they tried so so hard. Impressive visuals, from shot composition to visual effects, big, big emotions and genuinely good acting moments, relevant subject matters and an important message- Tomorrow went all out. And yet, I am feeling lukewarm about it.

Let me tell you what I sincerely enjoyed about Tomorrow, and there is plenty because my heart is not made out of stone, believe it or not: This drama balances a thin line between goofy comedy and over-the-top tragedy, that I think, sort of worked a good amount of the time. The silly moments gave the viewer a much-needed break from all the heaviness on screen, without taking away from the seriousness of the topics. That can largely be attributed to the characterization of our leads, who all had great chemistry together. I genuinely loved all our four protagonists and the end had me shedding a few tears.
Episodes two and three had some visually very impressive moments, I am not just talking about the quality of the CGI, there were clearly also very creative ideas and strong aesthetic concepts present, and while I feel like the rest of the drama was not able to live up to the standard these episodes set, it was still appreciated and overall Tomorrow was a stylish show nonetheless.
Eventhough I was not always happy with the resolutions the narrative offered (I will go into more details soon), there were a few episodes, or at least moments, that tucked on my heartstrings. While undeniably cheesy most of the time, Tomorrow offered genuinely bittersweet moments that were bound to move the viewer, and at the end, I couldn’t help but feel at least slightly touched by the hopeful messages this show at least tried to convey.

But I can’t help but think that Tomorrow just fell short on more levels than I can ignore. Suicide is a touchy topic obviously, and it might be too complex and nuanced for this format. This doesn’t mean that you can’t try but you are bound to run into a few problems sooner or later. There are so many factors that can drive a person to end their life, and those don’t need to include those larger-than-life tragedies the drama relied on. I often feel like Korean cinema does too much when it comes to tragic backstories, they just pile tragedy on tragedy to the point where it almost feels comical. This becomes especially troubling in this format, where the concept is to introduce and resolve a complex issue in the same hour. And even when the narrative wasn’t centered around unnaturally huge disasters, the time constraints this drama set itself, weakened its genuine-ness. Sadly, recovery is not a straight line. The right words at the right time might put you on the right track, but the road to betterment will inevitably include a few steps back at points in your journey (wow have I run that metaphor into the ground yet?).
One of my favorite episodes featured a woman battling an eating disorder. The plot didn’t rely on over-the-top tragedy, the dialogue was at its most poignant and genuine and I feel like this episode was probably one of the more relatable, comforting and helpful ones. But by the end, I could not help but think that the problem had been grossly simplified. The character who had been determined to terminate her mental-illness-ridden existence like a week ago is seen smiling and eating again by the end of the episode. And I won’t say that I wasn’t moved by that moment, that it didn’t put a smile on my face, but to someone who has seen the effects of eating disorders firsthand, this conclusion came across as a bit weak. And I get it, the actual nuance of the topic might not have been a satisfying story. It might not have fit the hopeful message this show is so desperate to convey. You want to show the audience that the character is recovering because that is how illness is usually portrayed: as a challenge to be overcome or a war to be won. Illness is a story told in the past tense. But it’s never that simple or pretty. The actual story of illness might have been less feel-good. But it also might have been the more realistic, important story to tell.
Here is the problem of Tomorrow simply put: Depression doesn’t make good television. That sounds harsh but it’s true. Mental illness is not a three-arc story with a satisfying conclusion. It is a never-ending battle that you have to pick up every single day. And that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get better, or better said, that you don’t get better at fighting, but it means that when your plotline is centered around suicide, you can’t provide your audience with a clean happy ending without coming across at least a bit ingenuine. No deeper issues or the roots of those were discussed. Every problem seemed to only exist at surface level and could be resolved with the right monologue. It felt like at points, Tomorrow was more concerned with giving its leads witty one-liners that save the day, instead of portraying the complexity of the present issues.

There are a few more problems with Tomorrow, the episode centered around a suicidal dog felt laughable, ridiculously out of place, and almost sort of insulting to me, considering the heaviness of other discussed topics. The episode around a veteran was so oozing with patriotism and propaganda, that it was almost difficult to stomach. The main conflict between Ryeon and Joong-gil could, in theory, have been resolved at any given point in the story, so it felt like a plot point dragged along for drama’s sake. The actual rules the suicide-prevention-team has to follow, are incredibly unclear and seem to only matter when the narrative relies on them, there were multiple moments where the cheesiness of this drama got unbearable for me et cetera et cetera. But compared to my main issue with the show, these criticisms seem minor.

When I look at Tomorrow, I see a drama that is desperate to make me feel better. I see a country, that has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and doesn’t seem to understand why. I see a team of people that genuinely tried. I see a story that failed to understand its own nuances.

You can call me bitter; you can look at my review and say that I simply didn’t get it. That the point all this time solely laid in the show’s hopeful conclusions. That it never tried or had to be gritty or complex. That there is no shame in a clean happy ending if it provides someone out there in the world comfort. And you would 100% be correct. If Tomorrow gave just a single person out there hope, it probably did its job. I don’t have to get something, for it to have worth. Maybe this drama simply wasn’t made for me. But all this doesn’t change how I feel. Tomorrow represents a big swing and a miss for me. But maybe I just need to be thankful that it attempted to swing big in the first place.

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Too short to be great, competent enough to be good

If I had to describe The Fragrance Of The First Flower in one sentence I would call it a great show trapped in a good show.
Words cannot describe how excited I was when I discovered this drama, I think that usually, Taiwan tackles LGBT+ subjects in its media in a very tasteful and impactful manner and on every level, from looks to premise, The Fragrance Of The First Flower looked like it was going to fill the GL-shaped void in my life. Needless to say, that I was gutted when I discovered that each of the only 6 episodes was going to be barely 18 minutes long. Still, I decided to give this drama a fair chance, even though I had the sneaking suspicion that that short runtime wouldn’t be enough to tell this story. And I’m afraid I was correct.

The Fragrance Of The First Flower is a beautiful portrayal of right person- wrong time. The show’s strength without a doubt lies in its gorgeous cinematography and especially in the colour grading. Every shot had purpose while still being aesthetically pleasing and I really feel like the colours dictated the mood and feel of each scene. Some people have pointed out that the actresses look way too old to play their teenage selves and I will have to agree but I still appreciated bot of the leads’ acting. I’ve also seen people complain about the lack of chemistry between them, but that is a sentiment I cannot agree with. I was fully immersed in the relationship between the two characters. There was a lot of subtlety in their performances which I feel like can be traced back to the subtlety of the script and plot. It was very fitting, in my opinion, that the thing that killed the relationship of the two protagonists in high school before it even began, the thing that triggered Yi Mins internalized homophobia, was the painful reminder of the inherent sexualization that comes with being a young woman. The scene in which the two leads almost kiss for the first time until they are interrupted by a pervert was the one that left the biggest impression on me in the whole show. I think it was a brilliant and subtle way of addressing how lesbians are viewed under the male gaze and how their sexualization makes it harder for young queer women to find themselves.
I also think the scene in which Yi Min finally confesses to her husband that she has fallen for someone else is a really strong one. She is desperately looking for another reason to break up with him because on a surface level, she should be happy. Her husband is not a bad man and she has everything she wanted in her teenage years, the house, family, and the role of a wife. Yi Min is looking for something wrong in their relationship so she doesn’t have to address what is really keeping her from being content.

Still, as I mentioned before, The Fragrance Of The First Flower ended up not fully living up to its potential and I really do feel like its main fault lies in the infuriatingly short runtime. In no way is this drama flawless but in my honest opinion most of its problems could have been addressed, if the show just had a few more episodes, or at least longer ones. Everything felt just slightly underdeveloped and it’s such a shame because all the ingredients to make this really special were there. But you just really need that time to develop a believable relationship between two people and unfortunately, time is the one thing this drama didn’t have and that might be the reason the ending fell completely flat for me.
Admittedly, I am a little salty. The BL fandom practically gets content shoved down their throat (eventhough most of said content to be fair, is not great) while I have to look for ages to find half-decent WLW representation. I just kinda had held on to the hope that this drama would be the one to kick off the success of the GL genre, and I doubt it will. But then again, I fully realize that what I am asking for is the same fetishization that gay men have to deal with, so maybe I should just be happy with what I get.

In the end, I feel like The Fragrance Of The First Flower did its best with what little it had. I have certainly seen way worse and at least I can confidently say that this was an earnest attempt at believable, well-meant representation. I have no problem recommending this show to other people who are also starved for WLW-content. The short runtime might have been what killed this drama but at least this way it doesn’t feel like a big commitment.
I will do my best to be optimistic about the future of GL and I’m sure that dramas like this one pave the way to better WLW representation.

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Marry My Husband doesn't want you to think about it that hard

Okay, I’ll say it: I really really didn’t like Marry My Husband.

That’s not to say that it’s a drama without redeeming qualities. While I might have resorted to “hate-watching” at some point, Marry my Husband always felt addictive and binge-worthy. There was always something exciting going on. The over-the-top nature of this show certainly prevented it from feeling stale or boring. The acting performances were??? okay??? Probably??? Everyone does too much all the time but hey, that again works for what this was trying to be. The fashion choices also made me laugh at points (why did she wear a wedding dress to a class reunion???). That’s not a strength of this show, but at least I got great enjoyment out of it.

This is most definitely a Makjang drama and I knew that going in, which meant that the lack of realism was never going to be a factor in my review. Prolonged silliness was what I was signing up for. Still, Marry My Husband left a bad taste in my mouth for reasons I still find difficult to articulate. Is it wrong to dislike a story for feeling mean? Because personally, even though this show bent over backwards trying to make me loathe the villains, I still didn’t get much enjoyment out of them getting their karma. Ji-won transforms over the series from a victim into another vapid mean girl. That in itself is a topic worth exploring but I am not entirely sure if anyone in the writing-room even considered that my sympathy for the protagonist could only last that long. The message is less that cruelty is wrong, more that cruelty directed at the wrong people is wrong. The goofiness of the plot and insanity of everyone’s performance constantly clashed with the severity and realism of the presented issues. Setting another woman up with a man you know to be abusive is an incredibly hard sell. The show only could attempt said feat by making sure that their female antagonist didn’t feel like an actual woman. Su-min had to be comically evil so no one in the audience thought about the implications of the plot. But in doing so, they also robbed me of all the fun I could have had with such a story to begin with.

But okay, even though this drama really doesn’t want me to, let’s talk about the implications of Marry My Husband and Ji-won's mission. When Ji-won is facing domestic abuse, Marry My Husband rightfully recognizes her situation as pitiful. But when Su-min is presented with the same fate, it’s fine because ultimately Su-min is a lot less likable. She’s just getting what she deserves. Women are only victims when they haven’t done anything wrong.
“But Ji-won had to act this way because someone had to fill her place in her abusive relationship”- cool, in-universe this is totally true. But Marry My Husband doesn’t exist in a vacuum. This rule in its worldbuilding only exists, because the author decided to write it. No one made them do that. Even worse, this creates a cycle where abuse is a necessary evil. Someone has to be at the end of the stick. And we have to choose the least likable person who deserves it the most.

This show also has a very strange relationship with class, which I found very questionable. Most villains in Marry My Husband are lower class. This is not necessarily a problem but it sure is noticeable. And the one time there is a valid criticism of class society, it gets dismissed entirely because it comes from the least sympathetic guy in the entire show.

Also, even though this is a classic exercise in Girlbossism™ arguably too much of Ji-won's revenge was reliant on the aid of her rich chaebol boytoy who was just a dreadfully boring character. Booooo, I am throwing tomatoes.

Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I just wanted something from this drama that it was never interested in giving. One-dimensional villains that you can just hate certainly still can be fun. I loved the arguably similar The Glory for that exact reason. But even though she was pure evil, I had fun watching The Glory’s villain. Because I could recognize actual attempts to make her feel somewhat real instead of a straw woman.

When I voiced my concerns about this show, I was assured time and time again that it’s “not that deep”. This is just a silly Makjang drama. Its main purpose is to just entertain me. Granted, it did that. Against my better judgement, I sat through its insanity. But I ultimately am the one who decides if it’s that deep to me. You're free to take away from it whatever you want, but what if I'm dissatisfied with the surface level? Marry My Husband might not want me to ask the big questions. Well too bad because I am asking them anyway.

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Delightfully awkward, refreshingly sexy and suprisingly empowering - the whole romcom package

Listen, this probably is not 9.0 out of 10.0 movie. The plot is thin, the pacing odd; I will gladly admit to all of that. But what can I say- I am not immune to the charm of a romance done right, and that is why Love and Leashes essentially is. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I was thrilled when I read the premise of this. I think the way sexuality has been tackled as a subject matter in K-dramas in the past has been sufficiently awkward and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen when kink got thrown into the mix, expecting to get a genuine gem or something so bad it just had to be good. I am happy to report that this movie definitely belongs to the first category.

Let’s start with the vanilla part of it all, before we dive into the plot. All the actors are pretty solid. Our male protagonist was a bit stilted and awkward at parts, but nothing that bothered me too much. While this movie isn’t overly sexual compared to Western films of the same genre, there are more than enough scenes that must have been pretty uncomfortable to film, but the chemistry between our leading pair stayed strong, so props to the actors. I thought they both brought a lot of charisma to their roles and I really enjoyed watching their dynamic evolve.
The cinematography is also pretty good. I can’t think of a word better than stylish. Sexy but not too much, to the point where it feels like you’re just looking at raw meat. In fact, this contains very little nudity but still managed to be pretty steamy, which I would largely attribute to the lighting. This is just very cool-looking sleek movie. The cinematography might not have been terribly creative overall but it definitely had its moments. I also thought the way this was cut added a lot of charm, the office scene (you will know which one hehe) especially stood out to me, I enjoyed it a lot.

Ok now let’s get to the meat (terrible choice of words, I apologize):

I haven’t read a single chapter of the webtoon, so I had absolutely no clue what the heck I was getting into but I can’t help but acknowledge how healthy this romance was! When it comes to bedroom-activities I want to everyone to do as they please as long as it is consensual. That being said, sexuality does not exist in a vacuum. I don’t want this review to be a deeper discussion of the ethics behind BDSM, as I for sure am not an expert on the subject, but it’s worth noting that, from a storytelling-standpoint alone, it’s difficult to justify why someone would get enjoyment out of beating the shit out of their partner. Dominant and submissive- these ideas are all about power. It is an incredibly delicate and difficult task to tackle that subject without immediately falling into unhealthy tropes. A story about such a relationship gone wrong can still be meaningful and interesting- but you have to be aware of the toxic dynamic as to not accidentally glamorize abuse. Many other stories have tried and failed the exact same thing (looking at you 50 Shades Of Grey) but for the first time ever I feel like I was offered a believable and healthy glimpse into the world of BDSM.

So what has this film done differently compared to other popular kinky franchises? Let’s first talk about the obvious: our dom is a woman. This might sound trivial to some people but for me this played a huge part in the power dynamic of this couple. As mentioned in the paragraph above, our typical relationship-patterns are not something that have appeared out of thin air. The woman taking a passive role and the man taking the dominating one- that is not a phenomenon that just sort of happened but the result of a deeply patriarchal society.
I want to avoid comparing this film to the 50 Shades-franchise too much because it’s simply too good to be branded as its Korean counterpart but since both tell, or at least attempt to tell the stories of women falling into the world of BDSM and finding sexual liberation, I will have to draw a few parallels:
In 50 Shades we have impressionable and painfully naïve Anna who is being coerced into her partner’s lifestyle. Christian is her first ever boyfriend and other than his attractiveness she virtually has zero reasons to be into him, as he tends to be extremely cruel to her, even outside of the bedroom where it’s all supposed to be part of the play. Anna never seems to make peace with her partners fetish, she just learns to love him despite that until he finally overcomes his trauma and gets over it.
Ji-woo on the other hand is confident and outspoken, those being the very reasons Ji-hoo starts to feel attracted to her. He treats her with immense respect, constantly making sure that she is okay with the whole thing, as he is worried about traumatizing her. She gives him the clear okay for a BDSM-relationship, does extensive research on the topic and gets to explore fetish on her own terms. Ji-woo takes an active part instead of just taking it. We actually see her find joy in taking the lead and being playful and kinky in the bedroom.
Our male love interest here, does not have to be taught to be vulnerable, it’s a core element of his part in the relationship. That alone made for a much healthier romance than I have seen in countless vanilla love stories. Neither does he have to overcome his kink, unlike Christian Grey. Instead Ji-hoo, while being aware and open about his his fetish, is still on a quest to find self-acceptance. This means that he, just like the female protagonist, has to grow into his role of the BDSM-partnership. Our pair gets to explore new things together because they are both equally inexperienced. There is balance in the unbalanced. Their power might be unequal in the bedroom but in the real world both characters maintain a healthy relationship as they figure out how to navigate a master/servant-dynamic together.
But the film doesn’t stay uncritical of the dangers that come with a kink built on an offset power-dynamic. Not only is there a scene dedicated to “fake-doms” abusing their power, our female protagonist herself has to learn the boundaries of her role. The film makes it clear that just because Ji-hoo is a submissive, does not mean that he is entirely passive or anything close to pathetic. Clear communication and respect are still what their relationship thrives off.

It makes a huge difference whether you’re watching a female character grow into the role of a submissive partner or a dominating one. I don’t want to give the impression that I think that every woman that enjoys getting spanked is singlehandedly upholding the patriarchy. As I said, everyone should do as they please as long as it’s consensual, but Love And Leashes makes a much better and more convincing case for female sexual liberation. And ultimately makes a more interesting story, especially taking cultural differences into account. While sexism is an issue everywhere, when it comes to emancipation, East Asia still has a very long way to go. Women being submissive isn’t just role-play, it’s the societal norm. So it is not surprising that Ji-woo expects her coworker to be the dominating type after learning of his fetish. That role already reflects what we as a society expect out of a man. But getting to see Ji-woo find genuine joy in fulfilling her role as a dom was strangely empowering to see. This was a genuinely educational, romantic glimpse into the BDSM-world. They treated the subject matter with the respect it deserves while still being lighthearted enough to work as a romcom and I can’t recommend it enough. While this might not strictly deserve the high rating I gave I think this charming film excels exactly at what it is trying to be with all its flaws and awkwardness. Love and Leashes is a must-see this Valentines-day for everyone looking for a refreshing take on a truly unconventional relationship.

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All is fair in love and war…

… And this is a little bit of both.
Delightful is the one word that comes to my mind when trying to describe Our Beloved Summer. I will not lie, this series nearly lost me in its second half, but now that is done and all wrapped up, I can’t help but miss it. I try not to have too high expectations in dramas these days no matter what I hear as to not set myself up for disappointment and then be too harsh on a show, as it has happened in the past, but I couldn’t help but be excited for Our Beloved Summer before it even aired. I love the cast and the mature concept and good God- I just love a mockumentary format. It’s a trope that I will never ever get tired of. So yes, I would say that had pretty high hopes for this drama. And while this is definitely not flawless, it still delivered what I wanted from it.

Even at its weakest moments, Our Beloved Summer felt comfortingly youthful from start to finish. The actors, as expected were great. I adore Kim Da-mi, I find her oh so charming and looking at the webtoon, she seemed like the perfect choice for her character. And without a doubt, she definitely did end up being my favorite aspect of this romance. Gook Yeon-su is such a great female protagonist, I couldn’t help but fall for her. Strong-willed, smart, competent, cold but never cruel, childish but never annoying. She was just a wonderful lead.
Second lead syndrome also definitely hit me hard here, Kim Ji-wung was my second favorite character by far. I read many complaints about him being hung up on a girl for years despite having little to no contact with her and while I will gladly admit that he was annoyingly whiny about it at parts, I always viewed Ji-wungs affection for our female protagonist as an extension and manifestation of his jealousy towards Ung: His best friend already got the restaurant chain named after him, the loving family to come home to, how come he has to get the girl as well? So even though I didn’t necessarily agree with our second-leads actions at certain points, they made sense to me from a storytelling-perspective. Him being in love with Yeon-su didn’t feel like a plot point shoe-horned in for a love-triangles sake, it was pretty clear from the beginning on, that his romantic attraction was entirely one-sided. Instead, his unresolved feelings were something for him personally to overcome, and considering that, he felt like a more well-rounded and realistic second-lead than what I am usually used to from my K-dramas.
The chemistry, the most important thing in any romance, was definitely there. Our two leads were great together and a joy to watch through all their bickering and loving scenes. It’s hard to convince an audience, that two characters are good for each other even if you see them constantly fighting and making each other miserable but I think this was achieved here. There was never a doubt in my mind, that our two protagonists deeply cared for each other. Their relationship felt heart-warming and believable and I just had a lot of fun watching them interact.
I don’t think that Our Beloved Summer’s cinematography was necessarily anything special in terms of shot-composition but the color-grading definitely stood out to me and largely contributed to the youthful vibe of the show. Also: the documentary format worked excellent here. The many hand-held shots made this feel even more intimate, like I was genuinely eave-dropping on this couple and experiencing their love with them. The interview parts also fit in really well and were the shows main source of humor. In not many stories do we get to see the dissonance in how a character views themselves and how they actually behave, I thought it made a really fun addition to the show and allowed me to get to know the two leads on another level.

But I had mentioned in the first paragraph that this show nearly lost me in its second half. Even though this is a pretty mature and fresh story in concept, I can’t help but feel like this series still fell into all too many K-drama tropes it really didn’t need.
I loved Ungs family, they were incredibly lovable characters, but I am so sick of secret-adoption plot-lines. No matter how maturely they are handled, and I feel like Our Beloved Summer did its best with it, they always seem so cheesy and needlessly melodramatic to me. Like, was this plot point really necessary? His adoption wasn’t something for Ung to work past, he kind of just makes his peace with it without any major events, and I wouldn’t say that this detail about his past really added to his character. The whole thing felt like something written in solely for a plottwists-sake. I don’t think you need to justify a character having adoptive parents, unconventional families are definitely something that should be represented more in media, but I much would have preferred it, if Ungs adoption hadn’t been like a grand reveal or something his parents kept from him. If this was an attempt to further normalize adoptive families, I think it would have been much more sincere and overall tasteful, if Ung had simply been adopted by a loving family, aware of that fact and at peace with it. To me that way, this plot point would have felt much less out of place.
Speaking of out of place, I don’t know what to make out of NJs character. In no way did I find her unlikable or unpleasant, if anything I think she is rather cute but something as glamorous and otherworldly as an idol didn’t really fit into a story that, other than her, felt pretty grounded and somewhat thrived of its relatability. I don’t know, I have to admit that I enjoyed her dynamic with Ung but I can’t help but feel like her presence took away a lot of realism from the show.

However, both of these flaws really didn’t bother me all that much, they were just minor things that took me out of the show a bit. My main critique is something else and it’s a sentiment I don’t think is shared by many people. In my opinion Our Beloved Summers biggest weakness is Ung himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Ung, he is funny, kind, intelligent and thoughtful. He is basically flawless, perfect even. But herein lies the problem: Ung is too perfect.
“It is her fault we broke up”, is something Ung says about Yeon-su in one of the first few episodes. Through the majority of this show I was under the impression that this attitude would be something he would have to overcome. That Ungs weakness was supposed to be his ignorance about his own shortcomings. Very rarely can you blame a break-up entirely on one person, I thought that would be something he would have to come to realize. But then a weird thing happened: The plot validated his thought-process.
It is very subtly implied, that Ungs immaturity and sunny mindset are the reason our female protagonist doesn’t feel comfortable sharing her pain with him. That his nonchalant attitude seems othering to someone who has had it rough and I figured that, since he, for the most part, had lived a comfortable life, Ung can sometimes be ignorant about the struggle of others. But then the show portrays it as if that is something for Yeon-su to work past alone. She should just get over it and open up more. It is stated by herself that the reason they broke up was her own pride, no questions asked why she never felt completely safe to share her burden with her boyfriend. Ung never has to self-reflect. He is someone that was wrongfully left by his girlfriend because she had issues to overcome. His carelessness not only gets portrayed as something that makes him more lovable but as an actual strength Yeon-su has to learn from. Meanwhile her strengths, like her strict work ethic, are actually also portrayed as her biggest weaknesses that made her miserable all her life while her ex-boyfriend got to follow and achieve all his dreams.
I don’t understand why so many K-dramas are so terrified of giving their male protagonists actual tangible flaws to overcome. Maybe it’s because romance dramas mainly serve as female wish-fulfillment and the writers are terrified that we will lose interest if the love interest is not perfect in every single imaginable way, but it is something I am starting to grow really tired of. It’s especially tiring because Yeon-su is such a great example of a perfectly imperfect character, with an equal number of strengths and weaknesses. She had an actual character arc, wisdom to share but also things to learn. I just feel like the same thing can’t be said for our male lead. That is why this felt more like a story about Yeon-su’s growth than like a story about two people both working past their issues to rekindle their relationship. That didn’t make this drama unenjoyable, I love Yeon-su and her learning to open up was still an interesting character arc I enjoyed watching, but I just think that this show could have even better if it had provided Ung with chances to grow as well.

All this doesn’t change the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Our Beloved Summer. I feel like 2021 had been somewhat disappointing on the romance-front but this drama truly was a breath of fresh air. Hopefully this is a good sign and I can expect more out of 2022. Despite its flaws, Our Beloved Summer really felt like summer to me, keeping me warm through this cold winter season.

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Growing Pains

I absolutely adored the first season of I Told Sunset About You. Actually, it Is in my top 5 of all dramas I have ever watched. This show just touched me in a way I still can’t quite explain. I watched those five episodes, no exaggeration, about ten times. My mind was consumed by it. I told everyone around me to watch it (with minimal success), I wrote quotes of it in my diary, I made it my wallpaper, I listened to the OST on my way to work. Point being, I was obsessed, and still am, kinda. ITSAY has a grip on me like not many other stories have, maybe because I felt so very represented by both its protagonists. Still, when I heard that they would make a second season, I wasn’t excited at all. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to watch it.

Why is that?

I've never been interested in what comes after the happy ending. Because what follows, is just another day, on which things might suck again. I never cared for the drama that happens, AFTER two people enter a relationship. This has gone so far, that I will oftentimes just stop watching a show or reading a book, after the couple gets together, because the idea of conflict is terrifying to me. I like things to feel settled and comfortable. And the end of ITSAYs first season conveyed exactly that. It was short and sweet. And I wanted nothing more from it.
However, I still felt some kind of moral obligation to at least check it out. I heard that they had changed the director, which worried me deeply. The trailer dropped and I dreaded the show’s release date even more. It looked exactly like I what feared it would be: melodrama that would drag a short and sweet story down. Still, I decided to give the second season a chance. Even if I personally, didn’t like relationship drama, that wouldn’t have to mean that the show was going to be objectively bad, right?

So, as a huge fan of season one that went into this with loads of doubts, what do I have to say about I Promised You The Moon?
Weirdly enough, even though I wasn’t excited for this at all, I don’t think I am as upset with IPYTM as everyone else seems to be. I think some people are mad at this show for having its leads screw up, which I find a bit absurd. Just because you disagree with a character’s actions doesn’t have to mean the story is fundamentally bad. As long as you lay the groundwork for said decisions, characters are obviously allowed to make mistakes.
I don’t think I Promised You The Moon is a love story, which is probably the thing that caught most people off guard. But I don’t purely consider I Told Sunset About you a love story either, I would rather classify it as Coming of Age. To me at least, ITSAY was primarily about finding yourself, and considering that, the second season felt very much in spirit of its pre-successor.
I have my qualms with this sequel, but a lot of the “criticism” of this series I have seen, just comes from people that wanted some romance scenes between the two lead actors and were disappointed that there would be angst between them.
Admittedly, some of the things I enjoyed most about ITSAYs first season, mainly the innocence of your first love, were missing here. In fact, if you’re looking for something as overall wholesome as the last season, or if you just want to see the two leads be cute together, don’t watch this (or stop after the first episode) because this is very much not that.
But okay, let me start with the things I really liked about this follow-up:

The cinematography was one of the best things about ITSAYs first season, hence why I was so concerned about the change in director. But as it turns out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about in that regard. I Promised You The Moon looks stunning. Every single shot felt well crafted and meaningful. Dare I say, this season looks just as good as the first one, sometimes even a tad better. The camerawork felt just as poetic as this season’s name and was rich with symbolism. I have to especially mention how effortlessly the director made the imagery of season one his own. There were many visual callbacks to the first season but instead of simply being references, the director made sure to always add his own twist. Like how the couple's first kiss in season one was underwater, where they hid away from the world, and their first kiss in season two happens in an aquarium after Teh officially comes out to his mom. The scene is referential to the underwater-kiss but instead of hiding, the couple is now in a public space, open and comfortable with themselves. And that is just one of the many ways I Promised You The Moon kept the spirit of its pre-successor alive while still being its own thing.
I really enjoyed all the new characters (with one exception, you can probably guess who, I will get into that later). Especially Oh-aews new friend circle. It’s nice that they actually have personalities this time and we get a much clearer picture of their dynamic with Oh-aew than with the side characters in season one. When I first watched the second season’s trailer, I feared that the supporting cast would solely serve as a bad influence to drive the leads apart but I actually thought that most of them added something to the story and also added depth to the personalities of our leads so that was a pleasant surprise.
I loved Oh-aews arc here, trying to find his place in Bangkok and also rediscovering his self-worth as his relationship goes all kinds of wrong. Him changing his university degree, is the thing that resonated most with me this season. Realizing that what you might not be cut out for what you dreamed of, is a really difficult, heartbreaking process, but the show does not punish him for changing his plans or “giving up”. Instead, he thrives when he allows himself to do what feels right to him. And that was honestly just really nice to see and the kind of story this burnt-out university student needed.
This is also such a minor thing, as it’s one of the first things that happens in this season, but Teh “coming out” to his mom, or rather finding out that his mom knew about him and Oh-aew all this time, was such a good scene. It brought tears to my eyes. While I really loved how the first season dealt with “queer trauma” such as internalized homophobia, I really wasn’t up to see another five episodes of this couple suffering simply because they’re gay. So it was refreshing to see that bigotry, wasn’t a hindrance in their relationship at all. In fact, they became noticeably more comfortable with being out in front of people. I mentioned the aquarium-kiss, but there were also minor things, like Teh smiling when he first meets another gay couple for the first time.
The acting is probably the second season’s strongest selling-point. I was impressed by the leads’ chemistry in ITSAY but dare I say, the two actors have improved a lot since the first season’s release. Maybe they have simply matured, maybe the director did a better job directing them, but I was in awe by how strong the acting here was. PP Krit as Oh-aew especially took the cake here, he was absolutely incredible. I found myself really looking forward to the documentary episodes of this season and seeing how invested both actors were in their characters was really fascinating. You can’t help but notice that Billkin and PP Krit have a really strong idea on how these characters work and should behave and the strong bond the two actors have is the reason the main Teh and Oh-aew’s chemistry is so believable. They’re obviously very comfortable with each other and trust each other a lot and you really can tell as you watch this show, no matter how much their characters hurt each other.
For the most part, IPYTM managed to keep the realism, that came with season one, alive, which I greatly appreciate. I mentioned how I worried about the second season being full of needless drama to up the stakes and while this definitely is pretty melodramatic, it’s still on the believable side. It is true that I could not relate to the second season like I did to the first one, which, as an angsty gay kid, touched the deepest darkest corner of my heart, but I was still left with a plot that somewhat resonated with me. Noone likes to think about the idea of drifting apart, but it happens. Quite frankly, I do not know a lot of stories that dare to tackle that topic, as it is such a downer, so I found this almost sort of refreshing, even though I dreaded the concept when I watched the trailer. I thought the process of them growing apart was done well, it felt like the natural conclusion given the circumstances the characters were in. The show didn’t go over the top to gives these two a reason to break up, they simply didn’t work anymore. Though there is an emotional climax in episode four, things were going wrong, way before the couple’s big fight. It’s hard to maintain a relationship when you’re both drastically changing and I thought this subject matter was explored in a mature and convincing way.

But I mentioned having my qualms with this sequel, so without further ado, let us get into them.
Teh is a villain.
As I read some opinion about this season, I came to realize that a lot of people never liked Teh, not even in season one, which honestly kinda shocked me. Because personally, I could relate a lot to him. Yes, he hurt Oh-aew on multiple occasions but I always understood where he came from. I understand that internalized homophobia can mess with you. So I have always been a Teh-apologist, because I saw a lot of myself in him, especially in his flaws. I could relate to his angst, to his pride that so often got the best of him, to his inability to communicate his feelings clearly, down to him making passive aggressive Instagram stories directed at his crush because he is a coward . But man, do I have a tough job defending him in season 2. I have mentioned how your characters are allowed to make mistakes. How them screwing up, doesn’t make a story bad but is the thing that provides conflict. But someone tell me: Why does it always have to be Teh screwing up? All the time. I mean, Oh-aew is a literal saint here, while Teh practically does nothing else but make questionable decisions.
You saw the spoiler warning, let’s talk about the infidelity. As someone, who found immense comfort in this relationship, watching the infamous theater practice kiss scene, definitely made me feel uncomfortable. Made me feel weirdly betrayed even. But I actually don’t absolutely hate the concept of it happening. Not meaning that I think cheating is super cool or even excusable, but I don’t mind it as a plot-point. I mean, it does happen. I think it was set up properly, it didn’t come out of left field or anything like that. But here is the problem: for this show to work, the audience still needs to like Teh. He is allowed to screw up, obviously. But he needs to stay redeemable.
“But user @sapphicdesaster”, you might say “Surely cheating is one of the worst things you can do to another person, how could the show have possibly redeemed Teh after he made such a grave mistake?”
Well rest be assured, I agree, infidelity is gross, and I think Oh-aew breaking up was the punishment Teh deserved. But I still think the narrative could have done something to make this feel less like a gut-punch. First of all: Let Oh-aew hurt Teh once. Like properly. Let him be the immature one for once. Make Teh’s worries about Oh-aew leaving him feel more warranted. Then make his feelings for Jai feel more grounded. Basically, let Oh-aew make a mistake that makes Teh flee into Jai’s arms for comfort. That of course wouldn’t excuse the infidelity but at least soften the blow, if that makes sense.
I mentioned not liking one new character. Shocker, it’s Jai. But the problem for me, isn’t him being a bad guy, I found his reasons to seduce Teh just kind of childish and like a cheap way to explain Teh’s actions away. To me, it took away Teh’s agency in the whole thing. Like “Oh he couldn’t help it, he was manipulated by an evil guy”. Like he had fallen under a spell. I would much have preferred it, if Teh’s feelings for Jai had been completely sincere, if he had simply fallen for his mentor for the person he is. I still would include the scene of him getting turned down, mostly because after watching him break Oh-aews heart, seeing him get played was very satisfying, but I would still change Jai’s motive. Instead of him having this master plan all along, maybe he was genuinely into Teh, but was in a secret relationship the entire time. That would give Teh a taste of his own medicine, without trying to rationalize his behavior away.

Conclusion:
As someone who watched the documentary, I feel like it’s at least safe to say, that no one walked into this half-heartedly. This wasn’t some cash-grab to profit off a beloved first season. I feel like this is a story the director genuinely wanted to tell. It might have not resonated with everyone but that is a risk you just have to take as a filmmaker.
I saw the term “toxic relationship” get thrown around a lot. And I agree, these two did lead a toxic relationship at some point. But like, a story simply being about a toxic relationship, doesn’t make it bad. The question is, does the story endorse a toxic relationship? And I don't think I could accuse IPYTM of said crime. There is no merit to Oh-aews suffering. He isn't put in a position where he has to change his boyfriend. Both characters change drastically but they change apart and seperate from each other. Teh, while the show tries to make the viewer sympathize with him, gets punished by the narrative for his mistakes. Because he is unable to make up his mind, he loses both guys he is interested in. And he can only get his love back, after growing as a person.
I didn’t feel let down by IPYTM, but maybe that’s because I went into this with a pretty pessimistic outlook on what it would be. I understand why this is a somewhat controversial season. It was not the story people were signing up for. Fans were invested in this couple, they wanted to see them happy. And I get that, so did I. In fact, if they made a third season called “Teh and Oh-aew: But this time they’re just in love and nothing bad ever happens” I would probably watch it. But I don’t think that would have been a story worth telling.
Obviously, I expected Teh and Oh-aew to have their problems in this season but I was quite surprised by how heavy they were. And while it was heartbreaking to watch them in this state, it is something I have to praise the show for. This was pretty daring. It’s not often a story tells us that sometimes love, doesn’t conquer all. Sometimes life gets in-between. Sometimes loving someone isn’t enough. Those are scary ideas, but they’re worth exploring.

Still, I am glad that in the end Teh and Oh-aew got their happy ending. Many people said that they didn’t want to see the couple together after the events of episode three, but I still kind of did, provided they both had the time to grow. Does Oh-aew deserve better? Maybe, I don’t know. But love isn’t really about what you deserve. It’s not a rational thing where you can calculate a break-even. It’s doing bat sh*t crazy things, like getting the name of your boyfriend of few months tattooed. It’s also realizing when you need to take a step back, which Teh did. As they met again, I was reminded of the lyrics from their theme song of season one: “If we are set apart by time, I'll be pleased to wait- But if we are set apart by destiny, I have to give up, don't I?” I never doubted that the two leads loved each other, even in their worst state, but as I mentioned, sometimes that isn’t enough. It’s simply the foundation. When Teh told Oh-aew that, even after he fell for Jai, he never once thought of breaking up with him, I believed him. But it was still important that the two of them got the chance to spend some time apart. In the last episode, I saw a couple I had faith in. They were less co-dependent and more well-rounded people. And I think that’s the real story of IPYTM. How time changes everything.

Obviously, this will never do for me, what ITSAY did for me. It couldn’t touch my heart in that way and I also think, objectively speaking, that it simply isn’t as strong as its pre-successor. But I didn’t expect anything else. It had a lot to live up to. I still think this is worth watching. Or maybe you just have to know what you’re getting into. If it’s really important to you to just see the two leads happy, maybe skip this. If you’re looking for a new take on a contemporary relationship as the two leads figure out who they are, this is definitely worth a try.

It seems like I run into this show whenever I need it the most. I watched I Told Sunset About You when I was coming to terms with the label "lesbian ". And now this aired, the year I am supposed move out of my childhood home. This drama kind of forced me, to get over my fear of “the day after the happy ending”. Because while I like the idea of comfortable neat clean conclusions and closure, what happens after the happy ending is simply life. And I can’t escape it forever. Yes, tomorrow might be painful. But it could be beautiful as well.

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How did they get it so right?

First things first, I am not crazy about the BL genre. It feels weirdly fetishistic towards gay couples and from what I've seen, most of them look rather cheap. But after seeing some clips of I Told Sunset About You I decided to give the show a chance. And good god am I glad that I did.
When it comes to teenage, angsty romance, I have never seen a show just nail it like that. As I watched this drama all I could think about was: I've been there. I've been Teh and Oh-aew. I've felt that pain. How did they get it so right?
ITSAY captured the essence of being an insecure gay kid who hates themselves. Of falling in love with your best friend and the fear that once you take that step, you can never go back. Of your first real heartbreak that feels never-ending. And it did that with a relatable, simple story, likable, believable characters, a beautiful ambiance, brilliant acting, and stunning cinematography.

I bought every second of those actors' performances. I believed in their relationship with each other. You can physically feel the yearning every time they're on screen together. It was like I was carrying every unsaid word between them on my shoulders. Of course, they had some passionate scenes but to me what made Tehs and Oh-aews love seem genuine was in the little things. Teh hating the smell of coconut before he started associating it with his crush. Being jealous and not even understanding why. Always needing to touch each other. The sexual tension was in the things they DIDN’T dare to do. They didn’t portray the fetishized version of a gay relationship that I have witnessed in other BL dramas but the awkward puppy love that your first real crush always is.
The raw power that episode three holds is incomparable. I have absolutely zero issues with NSFW content but ITSAY proved, that graphic scenes are not needed to convey purely sexual themes. The way the direcor portrayed Teh's sexual frustration enitrely through his restlessness was incredibly convincing. He clearly did an incredible job at directing the two lead actors, their performance and chemistry could not have been any more natural and it truly felt like every small movement between Teh and Oh-aew mattered. Every interaction, no matter how small seemed to further the tension between the two characters.

As mentioned before, this drama also looks beautiful. Every shot felt like it had a purpose but at the same time was creative. The colour grading was especially outstanding, the colours of this show are beautiful and contribute a lot to the mood and feel of each scene. I really really liked that the kiss scene was underwater as a metaphor for letting go and escaping society's expectations. I also liked that Teh and Oh-aew had to hide behind the stairs to feel safe and unseen enough to passionately hug. There was a good amount of symbolism in the show in general. The red hybiscus as a symbol of passion, that Teh first associates with a girl he likes before Oh-aew makes it his own. The Chinese characters that would ellude to how the relationship of the two leads was progressing. The coconuts, or firecrackers and of course the sunsets, all those were like a red string that tied the whole thing together. The scenery was gorgeous too and now I really want to go to Thailand. And while I surely am no expert on music, I really liked the OST as well. It really went with the general tone of the scene instead of dictating it and telling the audience what to feel. I even liked the Chinese song that also was one of the reoccurring symbolic themes and which lyrics matched up with the relationship of the main couple.

What else? I am so happy that this show tackled the subject of internalized homophobia in such a mature way. Often times I have heard a BL love interest exclaim that he's definitely not gay, not gay at all, definitely, definitely not, he just happens to like this one boy. That makes homosexuality feel like a taboo subject, which is absurd, especially in BL. Teh struggles with those thoughts as well, but something actually comes from it. When he isn’t able to accept himself he, as a result, pushes Oh-aew away. It’s only after he makes peace with his own feelings that him and his best friend can reconcile. Having Teh’s brother actually say to him that it’s “okay to be gay”, that his feelings are normal and natural and that he doesn’t have to hide who he is, was so special to me and very very necessary to see.
But it’s not only Teh who battles internalized homophobia. Even though Oh-aew theoretically is out and proud he hasn’t accepted who he is completely. We see that especially in the powerful and painful bra-scene, in which Oh-aew puts on a bra after being essentially rejected by Teh and then breaks down crying, because he can’t give Teh the normal life that he wants and he would do anything just to be accepted by him, even changing gender. There is also a beautiful moment between Oh-aew and his first boyfriend Bas, in which Oh-aew is surprised that Bas is so willing to hold his hand in public. He has become so used to being someone’s secret, the fact that he’s worthy of love comes as a surprise to him.
I would argue that the main theme of the story is acceptance, acceptance of your feelings and acceptance of who you are. That’s why at the end of the show, Teh and Oh-aew are different, better people. And that’s what good storytelling is all about, sending your characters on a journey.

I am so happy that I Told Sunset About You exists. A show in which feelings are acknowledged and validated. In which men are honest about their emotions. In which women are not plot devices and hindrances but allies and friends. But most importantly: A show about acceptance. Of course, it wasn't perfect. It felt like a bit overwritten at some points and yeah, maybe if I am being strict it doesn't really deserve the 10 stars. But I'm giving it this rating anyways because it touched me deeply and I think stories like this one are needed. For me, this transcended the barriers of the BL genre and can be seen as art. I hope the fact that a show like this can exist in South East Asia is a good sign for what’s to come. This show really reminded me of my undying love of cinema and fiction as well as the power it holds. I never expected to see so much of myself in two young men in Thailand experiencing their first heartbreak but here we are, only stories can connect people from all around the world.

Never have I felt so seen, so represented by a series and its characters and even half a year later, I keep returning to I Told Sunset About You. It's so incredibly genuine in its intensity, awkwardness and clumsiness; honest and helpless like only a first love could be. I truly mean it when I say that I lost a part of myself in Phuket without ever having been there. And I couldn't be any happier about it.

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How much cheese is too much?

Listen, I like cheese, okay. Literally and figuratively. I like it on my pasta and I like it in my TV-shows. The world is a cold, cruel and uncaring void. Every story that tells me that goodness and kindness and miracles and magic exist out there, is very much needed. I think a big part of the charm of K-dramas is, how unapologetically cheesy they tend to be.
That being said, there comes a certain point in life where you will have to ask yourself: How much cheese is too much?
I feel like I know my answer now.

Clearly The Sound Of Magic offers enough redeemable qualities, otherwise I would not have sat through the entirety of it. I think our magical lead has the charisma expected of the role. I think some of the choreographies were kind of fun, especially the opening scene of episode one. Sadly, we got very few numbers with the same energetic vibe but it was still appreciated. The acting across the board is solid, albeit a bit over the top at times. There were moments of neat cinematography and a few creative ideas. It was not all bad, definitely not.

I guess this is the one K-drama where I cannot ignore the music? I don’t particularly care for K-pop or Korean ballads, so maybe this was doomed to disappoint me. I don’t think any of the songs were bad but none of them stood out to me either. I guess I just needed something a bit more upbeat and energetic. The premise of this show is so stupid and fun, but it was just ballad after ballad. I guess I liked the opening song, and the song by Na Il-Deung dedicated to our protagonist in a field. Or at least these are the only ones I can actually remember because they did not sound as similar as the rest.

The plot is anything but subtle. People are either practical saints or cartoonishly evil. Our female lead had to suffer through so much injustice that it almost felt comical at points, it all just seemed to pile up. I guess this was just too much. All of it. Every single aspect of this show. When our protagonists were riding away on flying carousel horses I was about to give up. It felt like Walt Disney on crack.

Despite my harsh words, I think media like this has a purpose. If this story about a poor girl getting what she deserves was heart-warming to you, that's your right. There is nothing problematic or offensively bad about The Sound Of Magic, so if it brought you joy, by all means, indulge in it. But this simply was not my cup of tea.
Cheesiness is omnipresent in K-dramas but more often than not they also have this tongue-in-cheek self-awareness about it. That was completely missing for me here. The premise was too out there to be played this straight. It's almost impressive how this drama had an actual magician as a protagonist and still was not even a little bit of fun.

How much cheese is too much? This much. I know that now.

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Hey, do you want to watch a show that is only sort of good, sometimes?

(VERY VERY MILD SPOILERS AHEAD)

Watching Girl From Nowhere is a pretty bizarre experience. Like I do like this show, a lot actually, I think many things about it are quite phenomenal but if someone asked me, if this drama is actually any good, I wouldn’t know how to answer.
How do I go about rating something like this? Since every single episode, functions as its own little story, you never know what you’re getting into. When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, oh boy, it is bad.

Okay let’s give this ramble some structure, what do I like about this show:
I think this is such a great and fun premise. I love the idea of a vengeful demon in the body of a schoolgirl who has made it its mission to expose everyone’s dark side. I think that setting has a lot of offer and most of the time this drama does, at least very original things with it.
I think the fact that this show consists of many different stories, works to its advantage and makes this drama quite addicting. You can’t really get tired of any characters, and if you really really really hate an episode, you can just skip it (which I have not done so far).
The general ambiance is probably the show’s greatest strength. I love the eerie vibe it has going on. Even when the show got ridiculous (which it does a lot), the spooky atmosphere still almost always kind of worked. Sometimes it was the plot, sometimes the cinematography, sometimes it was just Nannos cold laugh, but Girl From Nowhere managed to keep its creepy ambiance going.
The cinematography also varied in quality from episode to episode, but it definitely had its moments. In the first season, you can tell occasionally, that the production team didn’t have a lot of budget to work with, but they always were creative with it and didn’t always go with the most obvious ways of showing or conveying something, which I appreciate. I especially liked the way this show was lit, which I think contributed to the show's dark feel the most.
I enjoyed that while this show at its core, is just about people getting exposed and punished by Nanno, Nanno wasn’t presented as a force of good. In fact, I would rather compare her with the biblical devil as her main function seems to be to tempt people to do bad things. And when she does expose and punish people, she usually does it through rather unconventional or straight-up diabolical means. I thought that was a really interesting concept and blurred the lines between good and evil even more.
I like Nannos actress. It’s really difficult to say something about the other performances because of the show’s nature but at least I can confidently say that the lead actress, pretty much the show’s only constant, was pretty great, and that’s what matters I guess.

On to the show’s weaknesses:
Even in its best episodes, I never got over how God damn preachy it was. I fully get wanting to include life lessons or at least some kind of message in your material, but good god, does it always have to be so damn obvious. Do we really need characters saying out loud what the writers think? It occasionally made the whole show feel like an after-school special. Like an abundance of strict PSAs. Like at some points I was expecting Nanno to look straight into the camera and go: “And remember kids, don’t do drugs and stay in school!”
I also think that the importance of the messages this drama included also varied a lot, which sometimes gave the show an accidentally comedic feel. The premise of this show is that in every episode a new character is introduced that needs to be taught a lesson. In the very first episode, we have a pedophilic teacher who literally r*pes and threatens his female students. Basically, the worst guy ever, and watching this episode you obviously want this guy to get what he deserves. The second episode (which I actually consider to be the best one of the show) again deals with sexual assault and literal murder this time and again you feel great joy in watching Nanno screw up the perpetrator's life. And then?? The third?? Episode?? Deals?? With?? Art theft??? And you can’t help but go: Huh??? Didn’t we just take a huge step back?? Like I am not endorsing art theft here, but come on. How did we start off with characters getting punished for capital crimes only to arrive at a story about a girl lying about something pretty trivial for some extra school credit?
And then the next episode is just about a guy who has to lie about his family’s wealth to keep his social status and I was just left confused how he was depicted as the episode’s bad guy that needed to be taught a lesson when he’s really just a teenager worried about what his friends think of him. I wouldn’t have minded this so much, if some of the other episodes didn’t depict such gruesome violent themes, that made other episodes' problems in turn seem insignificant.

I have to mention episode four, Social Love, which was the first episode that I enjoyed, fully because it was just so bad. For those not familiar, this episode was about a guy who, after a cute clip of them together goes viral, gets shipped with Nanno by the entire school. To please the growing demographic of shippers, he lies about being in a relationship with Nanno despite actually having a girlfriend, who has to face more and more harassment, coming from the Nanno x main guy fanbase of the school.
This episode, I believe, was supposed to be a critique of toxic fan culture, parasocial relationships, and shipping-wars that I have actually witnessed in the Thai BL community, where actors will straight-up pretend to date for cloud. But this episode is just, and I apologize because there really is no way around it: SO DUMB. Because stuff like this simply doesn’t happen. Not on this scale.
Like I am not Thai. I have never been to a school in Thailand, so maybe this is a cultural difference (though I very much doubt that) but in my high school days, printing masks of the Highschool-sweethearts and wearing their morphed faces during all times, was not really something that just casually happened. In fact, the most common reaction towards couples being cute in school hallways together was just general annoyance and disdain, maybe mixed with a tiny bit of jealousy. As I watched this episode, and witnessed how other students straight up started selling merch of Nanno and the main guy together, I couldn’t help but go: This isn’t a real problem, right? Like this isn’t an actual issue regular high schoolers have to deal with? There, very likely, is not a growing epidemic of mindless superfans in Thai schools that worship other random high school students, right? (Again, correct me if I am wrong, those are just my presumptions). Then, when there were multiple scenes of the shippers (who again, wear masks of Nanno's and main guy's morphed faces at all times) attacking the main guy's actual girlfriend, in an angry-town-mob fashion that I can only compare to the classic novel Frankenstein’s monster, the episode started to feel even more like a fever dream. In the last fifteen minutes, I just felt like laughing uncontrollably, not because what was happening was like funny on purpose, but because I straight up felt like I was losing my mind.
I am fully willing to suspend my disbelief for entertainment. This isn’t Cinema Sins, I am not going to criticize a story everytime it includes unrealistic story beats, but again, considering the scale of problems in some other episodes, which included painfully realistic themes as r*pe culture, this almost felt insulting. As mentioned, I think this was supposed to be about mindless mob mentality and toxic fan culture, two real problems, but the setting in which this took place just didn’t fit at all and made the entire episode feel quite ridiculous.

But I still love Girl From Nowhere. The episode I just mentioned, which I think might be one of the most absurd stories I have seen on screen in the past three years, is one of my favorite episodes of this show. Because it’s so fun. It’s just straight-up insanity and it's completely sincere and unapologetic. It contains zero subtlety, it’s just straight from the heart. Whoever wrote this really felt like this was a genuine problem that needed to be addressed. And that just has a certain comedic value to me.
Still, how do I go about recommending Girl From Nowhere? “Hey, do you want to watch a show that is only sort of good, sometimes?” Because this doesn’t do this drama any justice. It’s not particularly bad, it’s not like I was disappointed by it, oftentimes it did exceed my expectations, but there’s just a certain immaturity about it, that is kind of hard to explain. Its lean towards anarchy. The very idea that justice can be served in only 40 minutes. But that might be where the charm of this show lies. Still, oftentimes the justice that Nanno serves feels hollow and that leaves the drama feeling a bit hollow as well.
Maybe a better question than “Is Girl From Nowhere any good?” would be “Is Girl From Nowhere entertaining?” To that, I could say: yes very much so. When the plot does go off the rails, which happens quite a lot, it’s almost always so bad that it’s good. Like, I was often confused but very rarely bored.

I guess that is all there is left to say. Should you watch this show? Yes, definitely, if you’re okay with the darker subject matters it explores. Many of the drama’s morals will not align with Western ideas. This is a very unapologetically Thai show, which I found charming but might be the reason why this hasn’t found mainstream success yet, so just be aware of that as you watch this.
Don’t expect this drama to change your life. This is a very ambitious series but it’s heavily, heavily flawed. Often times it felt too ambitious for its own good. Still, I guarantee that many of Nanno's tales will resonate with you and most very likely haunt you when you’re trying to sleep at night.

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Far from perfect and yet more than enough

I sometimes feel like I have mastered the art of being pretentious. I love media analysis, I love picking stories apart and being overly critical and I love finding long, overly-complicated ways to describe why something is supposedly objectively good or bad. But every now and then I come across a piece of media that I just love beyond rationality. That I like more than I feel like I should be technically allowed to. Sometimes, a story can just speak to us, even if it’s objectively flawed.
Well, Upcoming Summer is that film for me.
I didn’t expect much of this film. Until now, no Chinese drama or movie had won me over. I was under the wrong impression, even though I had branched out since discovering K-dramas and had, since then found several Thai, Taiwanese, Pinoy and Japanese shows that I loved, that Chinese cinema simply wasn’t for me. But the trailer of Upcoming summer looked charming enough, that I was willing o give it a chance.
And I’m so happy I did.

There are a few things about this movie that I just find objectively good. For starters, the acting is really strong. Most actors in the C-dramas I had watched in the past, were guilty of over-acting and even though I can get the occasional joy out of watching an actor go way-overboard, it still makes me cringe. But I felt like all the performances here, were more than solid. Noone did too much or too little, the people in Upcoming Summer really just felt like people. The male lead had so much charisma, that even I blushed on several occasion. But I especially lost my heart to our female protagonist, who was childish and strong-willed but in no way frustrating or irritating to watch She really captured that stubbornness that comes with being a young adult without being just a tiny bit unlikable. The chemistry of the two lead actors was absolutely off the charts. All of their interactions felt natural and I couldn’t stop smiling, every single time they were on screen together. But the bond between mother and daughter also stood out to me. What can I say, I just bought all of this. Not one second was I taken out of the story. I believed in the characters, believed in their dreams, hardships and relationships and I sincerely loved them and wanted the best for them.
But the strong performances can also be traced back to the script and especially the dialogue. When I saw the “Fake Dating”-tag on this film, before watching it, I cringed. I know many people love the whole “two characters pretending to go out until they fall in love”-thing, I usually just prefer more maturity in my coming-of-age-stories and the trope is just a tad too Wattpad-fanfiction-y for me. I thought that I was in for another cliché love story with a contrived premise. But this film is everything but. For starters, Upcoming Summer is in no way a romance-movie, it’s a story about friendship and most of all, a story about growing up. And surprisingly enough, I thought Upcoming Summer explored that topic in a strikingly mature and again, very believable way. The dialogue felt deep and poignant but never preachy or unnatural. At no point did it feel like the author was directly talking to the audience. Instead, everything that was said, felt like the natural conclusions to the circumstances our cast was put in. We watched our characters grow as they faced the struggles of adolescence. The film didn’t need to go over the top, didn’t need dark, overly complicated backstories or villains, the pain of your first love, the pain of growing up, was more enough for this to feel impactful.
The cinematography also was great. God is this movie visually stimulating. I wondered at some points if Upcoming Summer wasn’t doing a bit too much, if it wasn’t just a tad too shiny, too grand, if it was just beautiful for the sake of being beautiful, but in the end, it just worked for me. Not a single shot felt flat, every composition conveyed emotion and it was more than easy on the eyes, I really liked the way this was cut as well. I liked all the montages, none of them felt overly long or like a waste of time and the scene at the music festival especially stood out to me in terms of cutting.
The OST is my least favorite part about this film, but I mostly didn’t mind it. I get that they obviously had to include electronic music since that’s part of the premise and some tracks I did sincerely like, but The Chainsmokers just always sound hollow and commercial to me, no matter where they are. This might be a matter of personal preference though.

I can imagine that the ending is a bit controversial. For me, it came too soon, but I could probably watch Chen Chen and Zheng Yu Xing just hanging out and having fun forever. Still, Upcoming Summer left too many threads untied for my taste. For me, the last 10 minutes definitely came out of left field. But I am not mad at the conclusions this story arrives at, even if they broke my heart a bit.
If I had one tiny bit of criticism: The TikTok product placement got a bit too much for me. I get it, sometimes you gotta do these things to fund your film. Still, that was like the only thing that kind of irritated me because it was just so obviously paid for. But as I said, I understand that sometimes as a filmmaker you don’t have much of a choice in this.
The teacher and her meddling in the leads’ relationship were also just a tad too much for me to feel entirely natural. That being said, I’m a white girl that went to a European school, I have no idea how involved Chinese teachers really are and if they would ever behave similarly, so maybe this comes down to cultural differences.

I sincerely love this film. It touched my heart in a way I didn’t see coming. But I am also scared that someone might watch this based on my recommendation only to realize, that it wasn’t nearly as good as I made it out to be. I know it isn’t, okay. In no way is Upcoming Summer groundbreaking or a perfect piece of media. But weirdly enough, this still was the YA movie of the year to me. For two hours I shed my overly-critical persona and just allowed myself to be touched by what I saw. I felt the pain of our protagonist as she, for the first time, discovers that not all love-stories have a happy ending, but that in no way diminishes their significance, that love is more than just romance, that our parents are also just humans. That growing up is the scariest challenge we face in life. Maybe art is less about what the creator puts into it, and more about what the audience gets out of it. I guess some stories just stay with us, no matter how objectively good or bad they are.
Upcoming Summer certainly will.

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Losing Games

Ah what a shame it is to report that I didn’t love Alice In Borderlands second season.
That’s right: Didn’t love. Not didn’t like, not hated. Just didn’t love.

I was tempted to write my review immediately after finishing the finale but decided that I had to read at least the last few chapters of its source material, to determine how much blame I could actually place on the screenwriters. So, have it confirmed that I am aware that this is accurate to the manga. Okay, that fact acknowledged, I am still unhappy with it.

Alice In Borderland continues to deliver outstanding cinematography. But it also seems to be a case of style over substance. While I wanted to happily welcome this drama’s entire change in atmosphere, many creative decisions invited more questions than answers. Back in 2020, when the first season aired, pictures of the almost empty modern Shibuya seemed to unintentionally mimic a COVID-19 reality. This second season was created during a period when deserted shopping malls and shuttered businesses were more current memories than fiction. Which is why the choice to move away from such images, even if it might be true to the source material, seemed a tad puzzling. While compositions of Tokyo in ruins were beautiful to look at and reminded of post-apocalyptic titles such as The Last Of Us, they failed to generate the familiar eeriness the first season provided.
I thought that at some point, there would be a point to this decision beyond aesthetics. Multiple characters comment on how weird it is, that nature has taken over the city this quickly. How the growth of plants seems impossibly fast. But we never get an answer as to why this development took place. It actually doesn’t do anything for the plot in the long run, except underline how this world “doesn’t seem to function like the normal one”. But we already knew that, because our world also doesn’t contain gigantic Battle-royal-esque games or killer lasers.
When Alice in Borderland featured more familiar settings such a courts, prisons or deserted halls, I found myself in awe of its picture compositions. Now that I have read at least a good bit of the manga, I can truly appreciate how masterfully this show recreates comic panels into moving images. During the games, every aesthetic choice taken felt very intentional.

I don’t want to compare this title to Squid Game because I feel like they both function perfectly as its own thing and they honestly don’t seem that similar to me. However, in my opinion, the deciding advantage this show had compared to the Korean title, was the thought and care put into its games. Squid Game never bothered to feature complex challenges, because that was never its focus. Instead, the games in Squid Game almost had to be arbitrary to highlight the random and cruel nature of capitalism. Alice In Borderland had the privilege that it could have complex trials where the players got a chance to outsmart the system they were up against. It’s thrilling, to watch Arisu come up with complex and clever solutions to challenges that are rigged against him.
While season two does have a few interesting concepts for games, quite a few of them are riddled with logistical errors. The show seems to be aware of that fact, so often the players only can win based on conveniences or by trying to gaslight their rivals. And a good chunk of the time, our characters play no real games at all. Instead of clever challenges, this season wastes a lot of time on action segments that get so repetitive that I almost started feeling bored with them. While these scenes were executed well technically, I found myself missing the days when we were provided with games that truly tested their players. I made the mistake of believing that this show was supposed to be about missed potential. Arisu spent his pre-Alice In Borderland-days, wasting his talents by sitting home and being a NEET, so now he gets challenged to show what he’s actually capable of. But he can’t do that when the majority of this season he is preoccupied with being chased by an almost omnipotent master-shooter.

So then, what is the point, really? What is it all about? When Arisu and Chishuya no longer win by making use of their talents and no longer get a chance to self-actualize themselves, what is this show trying to tell me, really?
The writers seem to wonder the same thing. Which is why we get a lot of dialogues of characters philosophizing out loud. A lot of subtlety is lost that way but Alice In Borderland has always been everything but subtle. What does it all mean? Why are we still doing this to ourselves? What is the meaning of life?
Those are all valid questions. Problem is, no one in Alice In Borderland seems to have an answer for anything that has been going on. While the drama's last episode got closer and closer and none of my questions got answered, I worried that I would be subjected to a finale of tiring exposition. But I didn’t even get that, or at least not really. Alice In Borderland fails to answer its biggest riddles, not only about its theme but also its logistics. Who is the mastermind? She’s just a random person. What was her end-goal? Who knows, she doesn’t even seem to be real. Who were the aces of the game and how did they even get to this position? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter because turns out that all of this has just been a mass hallucination.
When Arisu had his last conversation with the gamemaster and she gave him multiple possibilities of what the reality behind this world might be, I found myself preferring every single one of them to the real one. The one where all characters willingly put themselves through a cruel simulation in the future, because they were so bored with their lives, could have been a powerful commentary about how we the viewer also seek thrill in gruesome fiction to distract ourselves. A world where the rich and powerful bet on the players as a form of entertainment, might not have been particularly original, (hello Squid Game, hello Hunger Games), but it would still have had a tighter theme and message than the actual ending. Hell, even the visual of Arisu trapped in a mental hospital could at least have been haunting. But then the show's mastermind literally laughed in my face for believing that the finale could have been something cooler than what it ultimately was. I was a fool for thinking this show was about anything meaningful in particular. What is the meaning of life really? The gamemaster gives the answer to the viewer: “Life is a game. You should try to have fun.”
So there you have it, the theme of Alice In Borderland is to turn our brains off and have fun.

Arisu walks out of the experience and we have to just believe that he is a changed person. But even if that should be the case, the reason in his fundamental change does not lie in the things he learned while playing games, he doesn’t even seem to remember any of them. He’s changed because he lived through a traumatic environmental catastrophe that tragically killed his friends. He doesn’t get to remember all these times he has been clever or brave and he doesn’t learn about the potential within him.

Here you go, those are all the reasons I ultimately felt let down by this finale. Rest assured, I did find myself turning off my brain at some points and having fun. I loved the character King Of Clubs, I cried over Ann's and Hikari's tender moments of friendship. I found myself smiling at Arisu's and Usagi's blooming romance. But ultimately this show has been all spectacle trying to make up for its very apparent flaws. Like an elephant in a hot spring. It’s beautiful to look at, sure, but eventually, you ask yourself how it even got here.

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