haengwooncorp

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Li Ming and Heart: Only fools rush in.

Li Ming and Heart are the ingenuity and honesty of teenagers falling in love for the first time, the butterflies in the stomach and the shy smiles and coy gazes, sparks when they touch and tender care. Untainted and innocent enough to feel invincible and unwavering.

What they depict in their story and how they do it feels so natural and familiar that it's almost impossible not to feel compelled by them.

Literal depiction of P'Aof (Li Ming) hitting the audience (Heart) with the amazing script.

The whole show timeline spans during a bit more of half a year (from september 2022 to approximately april 2023.) They do not declare themselves faen until the last episode. If they met around october 2022, that's more than 7 months for them to navigate their relationship from enemies to friends to lovers.

The impressive thing about the storytelling is that, even with few scenes in only 8 episodes, it doesn't plunge right into the romantic relationship. It takes its sweet time to show them slowly falling in love.

At the beginning we had this scene, hinting the crystal clear direction their relationship will take. But then it's let simmering when they realise that both share the feelings of being the outsiders in the world they have been forced to live in (Li Ming because of his upbringing, Heart because of his disability). The sparks become embers to allow their budding friendship to develop.

They have time to bond, share and enjoy each other's new found company. Still, from time to time, we are reminded that the sparks are very much still there, now becoming a very tangible sensation because both boys have already established a bond that it's bound to grow into something else.

Li Ming's eyes moving from Heart's eyes to his lips and Heart slightly blinking... New Year's Eve fireworks have nothing on these two together.

However, what it never fails to amaze me is that the pace to get there is impeccable: even when the focus is shifted again to them learning about each other while they navigate their own lives, the natural progression of their feelings is depicted over and over again as a constant reminder.

But it is not intrusive, it's inclusive. Their feelings evolve into love with time and experience, as it should be.

And once they get there? They keep learning about this new found feeling, they do not jump straight into being boyfriends. Up until now they've been trying to understand each other and from then on they are doing the same as a potential couple.

That's why it feels so right the moment they finally decide to name their relationship at the end of the show. It's not a grand thing, it's just the right person at the right time.

The beauty of their story is not how or why they fall in love, but the way they grow up, learn about themselves and the world they live in and, eventually, face their problems while falling in love with each other.

Only fools rush in and they're anything but fools.

[haengwooncorp]

Jeong Sewoon's SJF posters through out the years!

As expected from our festival boy! 🍀

[haengwooncorp]

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟱𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗼𝘂𝗹 𝗝𝗮𝘇𝘇 𝗙𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯

✨ 𝙅𝙀𝙊𝙉𝙂 𝙎𝙀𝙒𝙊𝙊𝙉 ✨

📍 일시: 2023.05.28 (일)

📍 장소: 올림픽공원

AAAAA SEWOON IS IN THE LINE UP OF 2023 SJF!!! 😭😭😭

[haengwooncorp]

🍀Jeong Sewoon 230603 socmed update!

[#정세운]

계묘년 행운반 학생들! 반장 보면서 월요팅 🍀✊

He lookin fine hereee 🥲

[haengwooncorp]

The second poster for Sewoon's concert just came out!

2023 정세운 소극장 콘서트 “𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑨𝑽𝑬”

I literally chocked on water when i saw the poster, never thought i needed black hair sewoon with a turtle neck on 🥲

[haengwooncorp]

send me an mv and i’ll make you a gifset jeong sewoon | 20 something for anon

[haengwooncorp]

JEONG SEWOON

2023 SEASON'S GREETINGS

✨ 𝐒-𝟓𝟑𝟏 : 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 ✨

Using little prince as the refrence is vv smart starship ugh just take my money 😭

[haengwooncorp]

DaWoon needing SiWon to accept his apology to start anything and SiWon needing so much more than an apology but DaWoon unable to give anything more until that apology is accepted because he cannot move on or forward without that acceptance and both their desperation for what was and what they had and what they want to keep... leading into an extended dream about love for everyone near them, for everyone they care about, about forgiveness and togetherness and family out of reach and beyond imagination and the wishes that cannot so easily be.

[haengwooncorp]

Top 10 BLs Out of Korea

(Presented in order of my personal preference.)

Color Rush (2021) - a high school set BL with a unique paranormal twist that makes this a pitch-perfect allegory for the queer coming out experience and one of the best BLs of all time (I will fight you on this) 

To My Star (2021) - limited use of BL tropes makes this more of a sweet contemporary gay romance between an actor plagued by scandal and the grumpy chef who adopts him, but the gentleness appeals to fans of the BL genre 

Semantic Error (2022) - Korea hits it entirely out of the Park (pun on the actors’ last names intended) by doing a university set BL with everything we might expect done exactly right, their signature quality executed perfectly, and added bonus good story, great pacing, and fantastic chemistry. You cannot ask for more from a BL, let alone a KBL.

Light On Me (2021) - Korea does a pitch perfect classic high school set BL with all tropes cleverly deployed to bolster one of the most riveting love triangles ever put on screen… and I don’t like love triangles! 

Blueming (2022) - It’s a tiny bit dark and a tiny bit bittersweet, almost too honest to a university experience and first love for BL. I wasn’t into it at first, but the leads are solid and by ep 5 it got really good, becoming a narrative about self discovery meets understanding and accepting others people’s flaws without hurting them. It’s thoughtful and very sweet. 

Wish You the movie (2020) - set in the music industry featuring a talented singer and the pianist who falls in love with him (and his music), subtle and achingly adorable 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (2021) - 12th Night goes BL in this cross dressing historical, that ended up feeling like a Cinderfella fairy tale, lightly dramatic and utterly charming 

Where Your Eyes Linger (2020) - high school set with a bodyguard trope foundation and a sinister mafia aura that elevates tension

The Tasty Florida (2021) - not really a love triangle featuring the prettiest men ever to be grouped together outside of K-pop, honestly the visuals are ridiculous, there’s a story, it has to do with food, whatever, they so pretty

Long Time No See (2017) - hitmen who fall in love not realizing they are on opposite sides, includes violence and some high heat content  

Korean BL in Brief 

Korea has been in the BL sphere for longer than people realize, second only to Japan. This is probably because it has not been particularly prolific or consistent until Strongberry entered the field in 2017. (Prior to that it was mostly microfilms.) 

Korea is, however, new to the BL series game. Its series still tend to run short, so they can easily be converted into movies, but Korea plays hard ball with tropes (if not setting or age of protags) which has resulted in some of my very favorite BLs like Color Rush, To My Star, Light on Me, and Wish You. They are very clever and strategic about story structure for all they have sparse plots. 

Korea’s first BL-tangential gay film was No Regret in 2006. Which, in keeping with tradition, ended in death and was full of obsession etc. However 2009′s Just Friends? (GaGa) took a huge leap forward dealing with themes of coming out, family acceptance, and mandatory military service. It’s not really BL, it’s queer cinema, and I like it a lot. It ends happy, so give it a try. It has a certain flavor in filming style, honest emotion, and nested realism that you’ll see color all of Korea’s offerings going forward. 

Starting in 2017, Korean queer film production company Strongberry started producing romantic microfilms (mostly BL some GL). To date their only full series is the excellent Long Time No See (2017), which is a mafia hitman gay romance. (Most of their stuff is on Vimeo and GaGaOOLaLa). They specialize in microfilms, some of which are quite quirky but always enjoyable. I always look forward to something new from this studio, here’s my favorites, all end happy. 

Step For You (2018 GaGa) 

Some More (2018 GaGa)

Private Lessons (2020 GaGa)  

A First Love Story (2021 Part 1 & Part 2 YouTube) - HIGHLY recommended, this would be in the top 10 if I included microfilms 

Here’s Strongberry’s exo talking openly on their YouTube channel all about the BL industry and queer production in Korea. He’s remarkably honest (and totally adorable).

Aside from Strongberry, the first Korean BL series of any length to make waves was Where Your Eyes Linger, which seemed to bridge the gap between Long Time No See’s hitman and true BL by using a bodyguard trope but in a school setting. 

The success of that series rather opened the floodgates. It was followed by Mr Heart a more traditional BL and then lighter fare like Wish You. 

Korea has a marked preference for limited cast, short runs (6-8 eps) that can be cleanly repackaged and cut together into 1-2 hour movies. But they honor these offerings with high production values and talent; great wardrobe, makeup, and lighting; workman-like yaoi influenced cinematography; and excellent sound & music - as one might expect from studios familiar with churning out K-pop music videos. Similarly, they often cast idols in lead roles for roll-over fan appeal. 

As far as story is concerned, Korea tends towards: 

three act structure 

a strong setting 

defined character roles & social positions 

slow burn romance 

clean core concept frameworks 

somewhat rushed endings 

They really like a weak seme/uke dynamic (so less heterosexually dysmorphic than Thailand but not as queer affirming as Taiwan) unless it’s set in high school or university. Their narratives tend to be lower heat (Strongberry excepted) with nothing more than a kiss at/near the end, in keeping with the purity standards of their het romance K-dramas. This means there are very few consent issues but it can feel a touch sex negative. 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding was positioned to cause major waves, as it featured most of these narrative elements as well as 3 established BL actors from 3 of their heavy hitter series. Korea was gunning for crossover eyeballs from both BL watchers and Untamed obsessives - and this was the way to do it. Unfortunately Korean BL often has distribution issues and that limited NRW’s international reach. They tried again with Tinted with You that had better distribution and a bit more success. But historicals seem to still elude them. 

All in all, I would call Korea very smart and strategic in their production of BL. 

You can watch me lose my tiny mind when Korea finally gave BL the ultimate love triangle (a K-drama speciality) in Light On Me. 

You can watch me lose it again when they unexpectedly executed the perfect university BL in Semantic Error. 

This is part of a series on top 10 BLs from each country coupled with a history of BL.

Japanese BL

Chinese BL

Taiwanese BL

Korean BL

Thai BL

Where to watch it? 

Korean BL used to launch in a way that made it difficult to find internationally, but since 2021 they’re figuring out distribution. It usually ends up on Viki or GaGa. Strongberry is officially on Vimeo and GaGaOOLaLa (which also has quite a few other Korean BL microfilms and older pieces from 2010-2016). 

Also possibly of interest: In which Devil Judge forces me to get into Hallyu marketing tactics, bromances and queerbaiting with regards to (non BL but maybe bromance) K-dramas. 

Top 10 Favorite Korean BL Moments 

Why Are KBLs So Short Compared to Regular Kdramas? 

A lot of argument & discussion over Korea vs Thailand in the BL sphere post lockdown, because Korea finally learned boys can kiss, and that means something important. 

(This post’s top 10 is as of March 2022, source)

[haengwooncorp]

so i just finished & i have no idea where to begin…..

first of all, hwang daseul has always done pretty well with what’s given to her, but i was blown away with blueming. the direction, the framing— everything was so intentional. hyeong dawoon could’ve easily slipped into the one-dimensional, but the nuance to his character was just…. i have no words. if you pay attention to the way he’s framed in the beginning of the series, we rarely get full-on, clear shots of his face (there are a lot of side profile shots, and if we do get a full-on shot, it’s because he’s laughing over something siwon said/did). hyeong dawoon is an enigma. this is in contrast to cha siwon, who is expressive even when he tries to hide it. dawoon’s hard to figure out, but from all the shots of his back it’s clear that he’s lonely— so lonely. with dawoon, it’s the things he does (and the things he doesn’t say— keeping everything to himself because he doesn’t think he deserves to complain). with siwon, it’s the opposite: it’s the things he says, even when he’s not being completely honest. to him, keeping up appearances is everything.       

그러든지 whatever [i don’t care].

i noticed siwon said this a lot when dawoon was trying to get closer to him. it was his way of being nonchalant— he wants to be cool like dawoon— however instead of being cool, it came off as childish. and that’s exactly what siwon is: he’s actually surprisingly innocent for someone so narcissistic…

(it’s the way he responds with a simple ‘whatever’ when dawoon was so clearly flirting when he told him to have sweet dreams; oblivious. how he believes dawoon when he teases him, ready to get out of bed in the middle of the night to go buy him strawberry cake since he asked. how he asks dawoon to comfort him with pouted lips. it’s his childish insecurity and the way he musters up the courage to let his childhood bully know that she was wrong— that he was a cute kid, because dawoon said so. the way he pulled dawoon in for a kiss— clearly his first— all innocent determination and teeth clashing).

they’re both fraught with insecurities, but it’s so interesting that it manifests differently in each of them, and how it is expressed with such nuance through framing and dialogue. i don’t know where i’m going with this but blueming really got me in my feels right now & excuse me while i cry 🥲 

[haengwooncorp]

So your blog is mainly about cats and hating men? Sounds like a cliché, old cat lady in a novel. Lonely, sad life

this is me calling the police 

[haengwooncorp]

me being a very big fan of jeong sewoon

it’s so sad the fact that nobody really post about jeong/jung sewoon here (bcus tbh. im here to try to found some sewoon and khhrnb content crumbs) like all the popular post about him was like from 2017/2018, and now i have this really small urge to post about him here hopin it would get some attention, like tbh i understand about the hype going down but as a big fan i couldn’t let it slide just like that, like if there is only one person who gonna talk about him here it is me, 

[haengwooncorp]

every main dancer has suddenly been found jobless

[haengwooncorp]

happy 3 years anniversary, jeong sewoon! 🍀

[haengwooncorp]

Happy birthday Sewoon 🎉!

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Happy birthday Sewoon 🎉!

[haengwooncorp]

Happy birthday Sewoon 🎉!