archiveofmystuff

[archiveofmystuff]

Heesu in Class 2 Episode 9

I'm going to have to rewatch the show to fully get my feelings sorted out, but this episode.......wow it was not good. I seem to be in the minority on my feelings on this episode (at least on this site), but what was that?

This show has made some baffling decisions to me from the very beginning, but this episode especially came off like the writers had no idea what they were doing. There were some good parts, but I can't help but walk away from this episode (and likely, the entire show tomorrow) thinking this was such a missed opportunity. I'm going to try to succinctly wrap up my thoughts on what went wrong.

Chanyoung and Heesu just suddenly being BFFs again and hanging out like nothing happened without any real resolution to their fight was a terrible choice. Why was I supposed to care about this conflict when apparently the writers didn't care enough about it to give it any real resolution? Heesu just helps him go on a date with his girlfriend and that's it? Am I missing something? ]

Now suddenly Heesu's sister also gets a sideplot regarding her relationship? Is everyone in this show going to get a side plot except Seungwon...who is supposed to be our second lead? We're 1 episode from the ending of the show and we still know next to nothing about Seungwon except that he likes Heesu and his parents had a bad breakup and now he has a step mom. I don't think I'd care as much about these sideplots and just chalk them up to setting the tone of the episode if it felt like we were actually getting development for our "main" couple, but we aren't. It's just dragging on and on and on with so little in the way of actual development and it's frustrating.

Does Chanyoung like Heesu as a friend at all? Do the writers want us to see them as friends? Because honestly I've spent now 9 episodes wondering why Heesu is so obsessed with him. These boys do not act like best friends. Chanyoung is upset he feels like he knows nothing about Heesu, but we have seen him treat Heesu as nothing more than a friend of convenience for the entire show. It never felt like he had any interest in Heesu past Heesu just being someone for him to hang out with whenever one of his girlfriends broke up with him. The show has done basically nothing the entire last 8 episodes to make me think Chanyoung had some issue with Heesu not opening up to him, but now this is being introduced in the penultimate episode?

Oh yay! Seungwon asked Heesu to dinner! Oh wait, we don't get to see the dinner....great. We get one scene and then back to Heesu hanging out with everyone except Seungwon.

For a show named Heesu in Class 2, the writers are obsessed with fleshing out every inch of Chanyoung for reasons I cannot quite figure out. Why? As a viewer the whole "You know everything about me, why does it feel like I know nothing about you?" About sums up my feelings with Chanyoung and Heesu as well.

Chanyoung once again just continues to be incredibly selfish and emotionally unintelligent. What is his obsession with publicly humiliating others? This is why it's so hard for me to believe that his friendship with Heesu is genuine. He has had every opportunity to confront Heesu in this way privately and he has failed to do it. And he decides in the middle of the hallway at school when Heesu is clearly upset is the best time to do it? Once again there's been no indication that Chanyoung was struggling with Heesu being closed off, but suddenly it's a huge problem.

Honestly, I just started skipping all of Chanyoung's tennis scenes. Again, it is taking up SO much time and I still cannot figure out for the life of me WHY. It's not like I'm against side plots, it's just that it's dragging on and on and on while what is supposed to be the main plot of the story is getting microscopic levels of development. It's beyond frustrating.

I hate to be the type of person that sits there and counts how long each scene is to see how much time certain characters get, but I was curious. If we count only scenes where Heesu and Seungwon actually interacted/spoke, they had about 8 minutes and 56 seconds of scenes in this 42 minute long episode. And given that Seungwon evidently hears Heesu's conversation with Chanyoung, I assume most of next episode is going to be spent with him doubting himself due to that. I'm sorry, I don't want to rain on the parade of everyone who is enjoying this, but this was seriously such a let down of an episode in a show that's already been kind of average at best.

[archiveofmystuff]

Love in the Big City: The Outing - Book vs. Movie vs. Show

I recently watched Love in the Big City (Movie) and have a LOT of thoughts that cannot be summed up in one post. So instead, I wanted to focus on one plot point and how it differed from the book to the movie to the show: our male lead getting outed by his best friend. MAJOR book/movie/show spoilers below the cut, not just for these particular scenes but for the stories as a whole. I am also just writing this stream of conscience style, so I apologize for any rambling or mistakes.

As anyone who has watched and read this story knows, the names change. I will be using Jaehee for the book and movie character (I'll specify which one I mean if necessary), Miae for the show character, Heungsoo for the movie character, Young for the book character, and Go Young for the show character. Hopefully it's not too confusing!

Book

In the book, everything is told through Young's writing. We only know what he tells us. So we don't technically *see* Jaehee out Young to her boyfriend, but Young does provide us with what exactly what said. The book established earlier on that Jaehee and Young knew they would be looked down upon for living together, and so Jaehee lied to her boyfriend that she lived with a woman named Jieun. This plot point shows up in both the movie and the show as well, but I think the book elaborates on it the most.

It's established that Jaehee's boyfriend (later husband) is suspicious of "Jieun" and when they get in their first big fight he ends up questioning Jaehee about Jieun until the point where Jaehee confesses that Jieun is Young and that Young is a gay man. I find it interesting that the author doesn't include the quote of Jaehee outing Young, but instead states what she says after, "So, oppa, he's basically a girl. It's just like I'm living with Jieun." The comparison of Young to a woman due to his sexuality is what some may call "problematic." I don't think I necessarily have the space to write all about the implications of comparing gay men and straight women, I just thought it was an interesting line for the author to include.

Jaehee immediately confesses to Young what she has done. She apologizes and says she wasn't trying to let things get that far, but they did. I think the passages that come after Jaehee's confession are some of the best in the book and really show how Young's mind works. He states that before her confession, he didn't have a lot of hang-ups about being outed, and that rumors were going to follow him due to his penchant for drunkenly kissing men in the street. But the difference here was, this was Jaehee. He didn't care if people gossiped, as long as it wasn't Jaehee. As Young says, "Everyone else could say whatever they wanted about me, but Jaehee should've kept her mouth shut. Because she was Jaehee."

Young had never trusted another person the way he trusted Jaehee. He saw them as a unit, as soulmates, as people who truly understood each other and had each other's backs. But at that moment Young realized that he wasn't the most important thing in Jaehee's life anymore. She had used a secret she promised to never tell to protect herself and her relationship at Young's expense. Young says he doesn't expect much out of people, so he wasn't used to being betrayed. But what Jaehee did was the ultimate betrayal in Young's eyes.

Show

The outing of Go Young in the show is quite similar to the book, but not identical. For starters, we get to see the scene play out ourselves instead of through Young's retelling. In the show, Miae's boyfriend tells her that he was told by a coworker/former classmate of Miae that Miae lives with a man. Miae ends up confessing that she lives with Young and that Young is gay. But we don't really see her boyfriend's reaction to this news. Notably, she also does not compare Young to a woman, she simply states that he is gay and only likes men.

We also see the entire conversation where Miae confesses to Go Young what she told her boyfriend. From the way the conversation progresses, the audience can tell that until Miae begins to confess that she outed Go Young, it didn't even cross his mind as a possibility that that's what she had done. When Go Young does catch on and asks Miae if that's what she had done she responds that she had no choice but to tell her boyfriend. Miae then tries to reassure Go Young that her boyfriend is not the type to tell people, but Go Young points out that he has no reason to trust him. Unlike the book, their argument spirals into other issues like Go Young feeling like Miae is basically leaving him behind.

In some ways, it's easier for the audience to sympathize with Miae's decision (as opposed to Jaehee in the book) because we see her first hand in the situation where she feels cornered and is unable to lie convincingly. However, at the same time, it is still ultimately a selfish decision. Miae tries to justify herself by saying multiple times that she had "no choice." But she did. If she had chosen differently would she have lost her boyfriend? Maybe, but she still had the choice and she chose to betray Go Young. In both the book and the show we see Jaehee/Miae be confused by her friend's anger. I think ultimately this is the moment they really realize their disconnect, that they're not the same and they never will be. Miae's (and Jaehee's) choice puts her firmly into the norm. By that I mean, at that moment she chooses conformity. She chooses saving her relationship over staying an outcast with Young. While Miae claims she didn't have a choice, she did, even if she doesn't recognize it as such.

Movie

The movie takes massive liberties with the story, to the point where it doesn't really feel like an adaptation. In fact, as an adaptation I didn't really enjoy the movie, but as a standalone I think it was solid enough (this is a discussion for another post). One of these massive changes is Heungsoo being outed by Jaehee. In the movie, Jaehee's boyfriend (who she importantly does NOT end up marrying) shows up at Jaehee's apartment and sees Heungsoo carrying Jaehee on her back. This prompts him to physically attack Heungsoo and Jaehee ends up yelling that Heungsoo is gay to try to stop the attack.

This scene is so different from the source material that besides the actual act of outing someone, it's essentially not the same scene at all. Heungsoo gets angry all the same and says that Jaehee should've just let him get beat up rather than out him. Unlike the show, we also see more of Jaehee's boyfriend's anger at Jaehee living with Heungsoo. He wants her to stop being friends with him and ends up calling him a homophobic slur. This boyfriend ends up being probably the biggest villain of the movie, in another huge change from the source material.

In the movie, Jaehee arguably has much less of a choice than she did in the book or show. While she does technically still make the choice to out Heungsoo, this choice isn't a selfish one like it is in the book and show. She does not out him to protect herself or her relationship, she does it because Heungsoo is being physically attacked and Jaehee wants to protect him. This change fundamentally changes everything about the scene. While the audience can still sympathize with Heungsoo's anger over being outed, his anger does come across as a bit less justified because Jaehee's only motivation was to protect him, not herself. While Young/Go Young's anger in the book/show may seem a little irrational given his self-proclaimed penchant for kissing men in the street, it is still easily understood because it's Jaehee/Miae betraying him in a way she promised she wouldn't in order to shield herself. That comes across much different emotionally than Heungsoo's anger in the movie.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, I much preferred the outing and the subsequent fall out in the book and the show to what was shown in the movie. One of my biggest issues with the movie was that it felt like a lot of the internal conflicts that I loved so much from the source material were taken away in favor of external conflicts (which could be its own post). The outing is a clear example of this. Instead of Jaehee trying to protect herself and her relationship, she is instead only trying to protect her friend. Because of this choice, despite the violence, I think this scene is far less emotionally impactful in the movie than in the book or the show.

In the book and the movie, our male lead getting outed is sort of the beginning of the end of his first love story with Jaehee/Miae. While they do reconcile, it's different and Young/Go Young knows that his friend is not going to be by his side in the same way forever. She ultimately marries this boyfriend and that marriage is essentially a break up. The movie changes this, it is a true love story, not a break up story. Yes Jaehee gets married (to a different man) but at the end Heungsoo and Jaehee's relationship doesn't feel all that different to what it was for the rest of the movie--there is no real break up between them. There are other changes the movie makes it prove this point even more, but I think changing this scene was a big part of that.

I say that the movie scene feels less impactful because again, the conflict feels more external. It's Jaehee's boyfriend's fault. He's the bad person here, he forced Jaehee to do something she didn't want to do in order to protect her friend. But Jahee's choice is again largely framed as selfless. By contrast, I think the fact that Jaehee (book)/Miae made a selfish choice to out Young/Go Young is incredibly important to her character and to the plot itself. As I said before, it's signaling to the audience that these two are not as in sync as they (and we) may have originally thought. It shows that Jaehee (book)/Miae is willing to walk back on a promise she made to her friend to protect another relationship. It's telling us that Young/Go Young is not her top priority. It's also telling us that Jaehee/Miae doesn't fully understand Young in the way that we (and Young) may have thought she did. She doesn't understand why he's so mad at being outed. In the show, Miae thinks it should be enough to reassure Go Young that her boyfriend wouldn't share his secret. But she doesn't necessarily see why Go Young wouldn't feel that way. Again, this signals to the audience that this is the beginning of the end of their relationship as they know it. By contrast, the movie lacks all of this. There is no real signaling to the audience that Jaehee has fundamentally changed and found something "more important" than Heungsoo. Jaehee's choice is easily understandable, it is easily justifiable, and to me, that takes away much of its impact.

I hope this post doesn't just sound like I'm saying the movie is bad. I do not think it is bad, I don't even necessarily think this scene was bad in the movie when looking at it as a standalone. But I do think that if you look at the movie as an adaptation of the novel in comparison to the show, it falls a bit flat.

[archiveofmystuff]

Love in the Big City: A Proposal to Extend the Discourse

Many of us have been anticipating this full length drama adaptation of the beloved novel by Sang Young Park for months, and when you watch the trailer above, you can see why: this is a queer story through and through, written semi-autobiographically by a queer man in South Korea about his own experiences, and then lovingly and determinedly made into a live action drama to bring his story to more people. It's a landmark show in the Korean media landscape; nothing of its kind has been made before. And that is exactly why the show is drawing harsh backlash before it even airs. It's too honest, too heartfelt, too steeped in empathy and understanding for the nuances of the queer experience in a suppressive society, and that scares people who want to continue shoving queer folks back in the closet.

As a result of this backlash, the story, which mirrors the novel by being structured in four parts with a different director and focus story in each set of two episodes, is being released in one giant episode dump to ensure that it all makes it onto air. Sang Young Park himself confirmed that conservative groups in South Korea are trying to prevent this show from being seen, and he is fighting to keep promoting it and will ensure its release on October 21st. It will air on TVING in South Korea and on Viki for the international audience.

The best thing we can do to fight back against this kind of censorship is to watch the show loudly, to write and make art about it and celebrate it, and to do that for more than just a couple days. Earlier this year, @bengiyo and I started the Love in the Big City book club to read the novel with friends in anticipation of this drama's release. For four weeks we coordinated weekly discussion posts to correspond to each part of the story, and we intend to do the same with the show. Given what's going on with attempts to suppress this story, I want to open up that invitation beyond those of us who are participating in the book club to include anyone who wants to watch and talk about this show, regardless of whether you've read the novel.

So here's the proposal:

Beginning Monday, October 21st when the show drops, we'll each watch the show on whatever cadence we like (personally, I will be watching two episodes at a time with breaks in between, because that is how it was made and intended to be seen)

Regardless of when we each actually watch it, we will post weekly starting on Mondays about each part of the story in turn. So the week of October 21st we will post art and meta and reactions to Part 1 (episodes 1 and 2), and each subsequent week we'll post about the next part (or each set of two episodes).

Ben and I will also write up and post book club discussion questions each Tuesday that will be more about the adaptation to live action and comparisons to the novel. Anyone who has read the book is very welcome to respond to those even if you haven't been in book club with us previously.

My hope with this proposed schedule is that we can keep discussion of the drama alive for a solid month and give it its full due. Tumblr is a crucial part of the fandom ecosystem and I want to do our part to ensure this show isn't buried. This is a complex story with so much nuance, and if we binge and forget about it in a few days, we cannot do it justice. I want to support Sang Young Park and so many others whose stories have been forced under wraps by this kind of oppression, and I would love it if you all would join me.

[archiveofmystuff]

Love in the Big City (Drama) Teaser Trailers

Two teaser trailers have been released for Love in the Big City the drama! The longer one is on this post and can be found on twitter below!

A shorter, vertical teaser was also posted here:

The teasers have me super excited! Also love to see Kwon Hyuk from The New Employee back on my screen. What does everyone think of the teasers?

Reminder that the show airs on October 21!

[archiveofmystuff]

Love in the Big City (Movie) Will be Released in October

PlusM has announced that the movie adaptation of Love in the Big City will be released in theaters on October 2nd. The film has also been selected as one of the Special Presentations at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. This will be the film's World Premiere.

PlusM's tweet below:

TIFF also has a page on its website for the film:

Synopsis on TIFF's website: No one believes roommates Jae-hee and Heung-soo are just friends, but they’re used to being misunderstood. Kim Go-eun and Steve Sanghyun Noh star in this romance exploring how young adults live and love in the big city of Seoul.

Runtime: 118 minutes

***

My thoughts: It is super exciting this film is going to premiere at a major international film festival! From my understanding it is a big honor to be selected as a Special Presentation at TIFF, so it is a huge opportunity for the movie. While the movie is premiering in Canada, it is unclear to me if the theater release in October will be an immediate worldwide release or if it will be Korea first and other places after.

Additionally, the synopsis on TIFF's website again imo shows how this film is likely to diverge a bit from the book. Kim Go-eun is first billed and all of the branding for the movie has put her as the star while Steve Noh/Noh Sanghyun is treated as the second lead. This is obviously a huge difference from the novel and I am interested to see where that takes the movie, given that I feel like a movie from Jaehee's POV is a much more safe option than the novel's story. However, there's no point in judging before it is out! I am looking forward to see what the actors have in store for us!

[archiveofmystuff]

Love in the Big City (Movie) / Upcoming (2024)

Megabox Plus M has released a promotional video featuring clips from their upcoming lineup of 2024 projects, including these clips from the movie version of Love in the Big City.

The movie stars Kim Go-Eun and Noh Sang-Hyun (aka Steve Noh) and is directed by E.oni (aka Lee Eon-Hee)

Plus M’s website has a descriptive blurb about the movie which states:

Characterized by her sharp tongue and daring attitude, Jae-hee is always at the center of gossip and hateful rumors. Meanwhile, Heung-soo is set on keeping his gay identity a secret for life. One day, in the back alley of a hotel, Jae-hee discovers Heung-soo’s secret by chance. Contrary to Heung-soo’s worries, Jae-hee keeps his secret and even helps him in a critical moment. As the two misfits begin to rely on each other, they secretly move in together and attempt to find love in the prejudiced world they live in.

This is a completely separate project from the drama series that is also set to be released this year. The movie is evidently only covering the first story in the book (the “Jaehee” chapter). The author also appears to have little no to involvement in the movie (this isn’t a judgment on the quality or anything, simply an observation).

It is hard to know how much the movie will change the story, the clips show iconic imagery such as the frozen blueberries and cigarettes, but the description from Plus M’s website doesn’t seem to totally match the book (Our book MC doesn’t exactly hide that he’s gay in many instances).

The movie description mentioning Jaehee first as well as some of the other promotional blurbs I’ve read about the movie, plus the fact that Kim Go-Eun is much more famous than her costar has also made me inclined to believe Jaehee may actually be the main character of the movie. But we will have to wait and see.

No info on a specific release date yet.

[archiveofmystuff]

Jin Ho-eun for W Korea magazine: on filming Love in the Big City

Actor Jin Ho-eun was part of a feature on a few young male Korean actors for the magazine W Korea. For one part of the interview he talked about filming Love in the Big City.

Here is the feature. Below is a screenshot of the relevant part of the article. **DISCLAIMER** This is just through autotranslation on the webpage, it is not an official translation nor a fan translation and could very easily contain some errors. I don't know Korean so I can't vouch for its accuracy lol.

He does confirm he's playing Gyu-ho, which we already knew but I'm not sure if it had been "officially" confirmed by the production or him/his team. He's been posting regularly on his instagram about filming Love in the Big City, so between that and this interview he seems really excited!

He seemingly calls it a queer drama so it's safe to assume it's not going to be "straightwashed" as some people evidently feared. I never really had any doubt about that since I heard the author was involved and also bc....what story is there without it being gay...but some people on other social medias (cough tik tok cough) seemed worried it would be turned into a "bromance" (again not sure how that would be possible), so there you go. Obviously doesn't necessarily confirm they'll depict everything that was in the book, but still! A queer drama with fairly established actors and apparently pretty good budget! From Korea! That's a pretty big deal imo.

Also, I didn't realize he was only 23! He's younger than Gyu-ho in the book but Kdramas (based on my slightly limited experience) don't shy away from having younger actors play slightly older characters so I don't think anyone should assume they're like aging down the characters or anything. Nam Yoon-su is 26 and obviously the book basically spans the main character's entire 20s into his early 30s so it makes sense to choose people kind of in the middle!

Have some pics from the shoot of our future Gyu-ho!

[archiveofmystuff]

23.5 said, "Space is for the Queers"

We have Ongsa (Earth) and Sun in the promo. Earth's desk is tilted at a similar angle as the globe of the Earth is tilted between them, and there are Earth stickers on Earth's locker, Sun stickers on Sun's locker, an alien in a spaceship on Aylin's locker, and a crescent moon on Luna's (Moon's) locker.

Better image of the tilted Earth.

The bike is yellow and has a Sunny sticker on it.

Earth's phone case is of the planets.

And her room is also of the planets.

Including the wall decor (the moon behind Sun as well) and smaller items on the shelves.

Earth's bag has a little Earth on it with the 23.5 on it (Do I smell merch?)

Sun's phone charms are little Suns.

And Sun's bracelet is the planets.

The planets and the stars are in the background

And the Sun is most noticeable when the lights go out.

Earth is in astrophysics.

Alyin's room is filled with aliens.

And this is a reference to the alien film, ET.

Neither here nor there, but in professional basketball, the three-point line is roughly 23.5 feet away from the goal.

And, of course, the title card has an Earth and a Sun on it.

NASA would be proud.

[archiveofmystuff]

The Other Works of “The New Employee” Director Kim Jho Gwang Soo ***Mild Spoilers Ahead***

Given that I am currently LOVING Korea’s newest office-set BL The New Employee, I thought others might be interested to explore the other works of this darling show’s director, Kim Jho Gwang Soo.  Here I am going to focus on projects that he screenwrote and/or directed as those are his queer works.  Many of them are available on Gagaoolala. 

Who is Kim Jho Gwang Soo? As outlined in his MyDramaList biography, he is an openly gay South Korean filmmaker.  After collaborating with another openly gay director named Lee Song Hee Il’s 2006 film “No Regret” (regarded as Korea’s first gay feature film), he began to write and direct his own projects, as well as work as a producer.  

I realized after starting the New Employee that I have seen almost all of Kim Jho Gwang Soo’s works that he has directed or written without knowing it was all by him, so I wanted to give a little rundown of his projects so other people can discover them as well!  Synopses are going to be from MDL and the title of each film will be the link to its MDL page.  

NOTE: This summary will contain some mild spoilers for the purpose of trigger warnings!!  However, this post is also going off my memory and I have not watched everything recently so I apologize if I miss any warnings!  I will also give a blanket content warning for homophobia.  Most of his past works are not really set in the new Korean-BL world where homophobia barely exists so it is a theme in most, but not all, of his other projects. 

Boy Meets Boy (2008) - Short film, Director & Screenwriter

Synopsis: On a warm spring day Min-soo, a small boy, meets tall and broad-shouldered Seok-yi inside a bus.  Min-soo keeps looking at the intimidating boy whose sharp eyes are hidden under his baseball cap. Min-soo's heart starts beating.  What will happen to Min-soo and Seok-i? 

Thoughts: Super cute short film that the synopsis basically sums up.  Not a lot happens but it sure is adorable.  Happy ending.

Just Friends? (2009) - Short film, Director & Screenwriter

Synopsis: Min Soo is on leave from the military and visits his boyfriend Seok Yi. While having fun out on the town, they run into Min Soo's mother! When Min Soo's mother asks about their relationship, Seok Yi replies "... just friends." Making things more complicated, Min Soo's mother ends up sleeping with them that night! 

Thoughts: My personal favorite of his pre-TNE works.  Stars (now-well-known) actors Lee Je Hoon and Yeon Woo Jin.  This is one of my favorite short films of all time.  A succinct and satisfying story in under 30 minutes, fantastic chemistry, adorable couple moments, and family drama.  It is also a follow up to Boy Meets Boy, but it’s not necessary to watch that one to understand and enjoy this one!  Happy ending, but some angst thrown in beforehand. 

Love 100C (2010) - Short film, Director & Screenwriter 

TW: homophobic violence

Synopsis: A hearing-impaired boy, Min Soo, is gay, and he likes his classmate, Ji Seok.  One day, Min Soo impulsively has sex with a man who works in a public bath, an experience that lends him a new-found confidence, but at a heavy price.

Thoughts: This is a pretty big departure from his first two short films, while it is happy for a bit of it, the film explores the danger of living in a homophobic society.  Ultimately it is a film about sexual self discovery as well as how queer people are often robbed of safe and healthy self discovery because of violence inflicted upon them.  Definitely NOT a happy ending.

Two Weddings and a Funeral (2012) - Full-length film, Director

TW: death, homophobic violence

Synopsis: A gay man, Min Soo and a lesbian, Hyo Jin are both promising doctors at a general hospital. The colleagues agree to marry so Hyo Jin can legally adopt a child with her lover of ten years Seo Yeong, and Min Soo can please his parents while maintaining his closeted lifestyle. While secretly living with their respective partners, who move in next door, Min Soo and Hyo Jin appear to be a happy, "normal" couple. They enjoy all the benefits afforded to heterosexual couples and are also able to ward off public scrutiny and parental disapproval. However, Min Soo's intrusive parents begin to get a bit too involved with the couple's life, threatening their scheme.

Thoughts: There are parts of this movie I really enjoy.  It was great to have both a gay and lesbian couple in the film and a lot of the film revolved around the gay lead’s group of gay friends.  There was also a lot of playing with Korean honorifics within the friend group that I found really cool to listen to.  However, I didn’t love how the most fem gay character was treated throughout the film and it was quite shocking in a bad way at some points, given that it is supposed to be a romantic comedy.  A happy ending, but at what cost, lol. 

One Night Only (2014) - Short film, Director

I think this is actually two short films released together, but I have only seen the second part “One Night” and not the first part “Night Bug,” so I am going to focus on “One Night.” 

Synposis: Geun Ho is almost hit by a car. At that time, Joon, who is visiting Jinju from Seoul, saves Geun Ho. They happen to meet at a bar later that night. Geun Ho and his friends goes to Seoul with Joon.

Thoughts: It has been ages since I watched this one, but I think I mostly liked it.  Not really a happy ending, but as far as I can remember does not contain violence in the way that some of his other works do.  While the MDL synopsis doesn’t mention it, the film actually focuses both on Geun Ho as well as his 2 friends, not only Geun Ho.  

Made on the Rooftop (2021) - Full length film, Director

TW: serious medical issues.

Synopsis: Ha Neul, a job seeker who has nowhere to go after breaking up with his lover, Jung Min, moves to the house of his best friend Bong Shik, who lives in a tiny room. Bong Shik working as a BJ with a high tension + one-person broadcasting concept is courted by Min Ho, an attractive straight-forward man, but somehow just hesitates. Ha Neul and Jung Min try to reconcile, but they only go against each other and unintentionally hurt each other. One day, Jung-min is in a car accident and Ha Neul has to bring back Ari, the cat they used to raise together.

Thoughts: I really loved this movie.  Focuses on two friends and their respective romantic lives.  Deals with the realities of being in a closeted gay relationship with no legal rights when there is medical emergency, coming out to family, HIV, etc.  It is also genuinely really funny and, at many times, incredibly sweet and heartwarming.  One couple has a complete happy ending and the other has an open/unresolved but hopeful ending.  I would definitely recommend. 

I hope anyone who sees this considers checking out these films.  Most (if not all) are available on Gagaoolala, but you can likely find them other places as well (but please support legitimate streaming if you’re able)!!  Also who else can’t wait for the next episode of The New Employee? 

[archiveofmystuff]

Ok I went back and reread the parts of the manhwa that correspond with Episode 5 and it was less than Seunghyun resented Yooseong’s boyfriend (being Jongchan at the time) and more that finding out that Jongchan was the one who dated Yooseong brought back a bunch of bad memories for him. The episode kind of explored it but the manhwa elaborated further. Basically Seunghyun built his life around Yooseong, he chose his course of study because of his crush and basically put his life on hold bc of this one sided love, then (as mentioned in the show as well), Yooseong taking him to buy his boyfriend a gift made Seunghyun realize he needed to get over Yooseong and move on.

So I think it was less resentment of Jongchan at the time and more that Seunghyun thought he was finally moved on and had something in his life that was good and completely separate from Yooseong only to then find out that Jongchan was the guy Yooseong was with when Seunghyun decided he needed to move on. So he freaked out because it dug up all these memories when he had just gotten over his feelings and he wasn’t sure how to handle it because obviously he’s inexperienced and probably a little overwhelmed. Again I don’t mind this storyline! I think it makes sense, I’m just glad it was resolved quickly, lol.

The New Employee is SOOOO good. I don’t actually dislike the miscommunication this episode because it was solved quickly and I think it makes sense for the characters (one half of the couple being inexperienced with some potential self esteem issues and the other half being someone who has been constantly left by past partners). It wasn’t dragged out and everything else was just so darling I really loved it all lol.

If I remember right in the manhwa Seunghyun resented Jongchan (without knowing it was him) when Jongchan was dating his college crush, and I think it would’ve been good to explore that more because it explained his freak out a bit more, but maybe it’ll come up again (but I wouldn’t be mad if it didn’t lol). There’s a number of good BLs airing right now but I think this one has to be my favorite, it’s just sooo cute.

[archiveofmystuff]

The New Employee is SOOOO good. I don’t actually dislike the miscommunication this episode because it was solved quickly and I think it makes sense for the characters (one half of the couple being inexperienced with some potential self esteem issues and the other half being someone who has been constantly left by past partners). It wasn’t dragged out and everything else was just so darling I really loved it all lol.

If I remember right in the manhwa Seunghyun resented Jongchan (without knowing it was him) when Jongchan was dating his college crush, and I think it would’ve been good to explore that more because it explained his freak out a bit more, but maybe it’ll come up again (but I wouldn’t be mad if it didn’t lol). There’s a number of good BLs airing right now but I think this one has to be my favorite, it’s just sooo cute.

[archiveofmystuff]

Oh I see that Han Jiwoo is just a very very stupid and insecure and depressed man (I say with affection)……my poor Jiwoo why did you do this to yourself 😭😭😭