Anne: Hello theater lovers! I haven’t posted in a few weeks. Time passes very quickly from week to week. Last Monday, I was with 3 other adults and 1 seven year old as we looked up at a cloud covered sky, hoping to see if and when the clouds would part a bit.
This was the last peak of the eclipse before the clouds completely obscured what little sunlight we could see. At least the light was still visible through the clouds, so we saw the darkness falling. We didn’t go very far and were prepared for cloud cover, so it wasn’t unexpected. The experience was still pretty decent.
Now, let’s take a quick look at the dramas…
In bloom
The saddest thing in all this drama was the death of our 2nd ML, who finally found someone who loved him as much as he loved Cai Wei. Even in the end, I’m still not convinced that Zhou Lan Jiang loved Bai Xiao Sheng. I’m pretty sure he quite liked it. I think if he had lived, he would have spent his life trying to make it up to Bai Xiao Sheng, but never being able to love her the way he loved Cai Wei. At least our 3rd CP, A Ze and Ling Er finished together. So it was not a failure.
The investigations and exposure of the secret organization actually went pretty well. Although nothing, with a few exceptions, was too surprising, most of the plot unfolded with enough rationality until the end. The death of Bai Xiao Sheng’s father and that whole scene with Pan Yue was a bit over the top, but sure…I’ll buy it.
One last look at these two men who absolutely didn’t care that the room was burning around them (which we can’t see at the moment since the fire has just started, apparently it takes time for all that wood to catches fire…).
My favorite character is A Ze, who gives lots of advice to his master when Pan Yue runs into trouble with Cai Wei/Shangguan Zhi.
A Ze who is always full of confidence when giving his advice… Like below where he gives advice to Pan Yue to help her understand the meaning of Shangguan Zhi’s “actions”…
A Ze always ends up giving the worst advice… when he tells his master that Cai Wei obviously doesn’t like him…
…and it ends with Pan Yue getting kicked for not saying the things Pan Yue wants to hear.
But if I had to tell the truth, I love A Ze’s advice… just to see Pan Yue pull up her panties in the blink of an eye… hahahaha…
Now… what is this ending?
Are we heading towards season 2? And what else are we going to do with a season 2? They can’t spend that much time finding out who number 1 is.
I’ve seen a handful of threads online. Does this hand seem to belong to someone who is old enough to have started this when Pan Yue was a child?! Um… I don’t need a second season, I just need an episode to bring this full circle!
Now if anyone has an idea let me know.
Unknown
Episode 9 just aired… and it’s a bit dull… Why the hell did Wei Zhi Yuan think he was capable of “handling” his brother’s gang members when he couldn’t can’t even fight! Seriously?! For a second, I thought Zhi Yuan had some technique to “manage” the gang, but all he did was put himself in danger, forcing Wei Qian to go and “save” him. Sigh…
I’m glad Xiao Bao and San Pang got together. Wei Qian isn’t happy about it, which is understandable, but I think he was upset that he wasn’t told directly instead of seeing the hickeys. This is not a good way to get this news if you are the older brother.
So…that started my week of binge watching Korean BL dramas on iQiyi…In case anyone hasn’t watched any of them…
Jazz for two (2024)
This story is about Han Tae Yi, who suffers from depression after the suicide of his older brother, and Se Heon, who comes from a family of classical pianists overshadowed by a more accomplished older brother and a demanding father. Tae Yi and Se Heon get off to a rocky start because Se Heon reminds Tae Yi of his deceased brother when he plays the piano. The love of jazz brought them together. But they eventually realized that Se Heon’s older brother was indirectly the reason Tae Yi’s brother committed suicide. And the show had at least one good kiss scene at the end…it was an interesting story and I like the soundtrack. The only thing I don’t like is this weird thing with Do Yoon acting as a punching bag for Joo Ha. The acceptance of domestic violence is just strange.
A Breeze of Love (2023)
This next drama is another BL romance in a school setting, university in this case. Do Hyun is a boy obsessed with basketball. When their team is missing a player, her teammate, Hye In, calls on one of her high school friends, Dong Wook, to join the team. Unfortunately, Do Hyun, who confessed to Dong Wook during his high school years, was not happy that the person who rejected him 3 years ago was back in his life. For Dong Wook, who remained so close to Do Hyun during his high school years, this was only partly because of the strange effect Do Hyun had on his sleeping habits.
Love for love’s sake (2024)
The next show is a game transport drama plot. Tae Myung Ha is reviewing a story his friend wrote and he doesn’t like it. He says that Cha Yeo Woon’s character is the saddest person in the novel, because he was the most miserable. His friend asks if he will change Yeo Woon’s destiny. And the next thing he knows, Myung Ha is in the “game” of the novel. He gets all these prompts. And he realizes that he needs to increase Yeo Woon’s favor towards him. And if he enters the “Love Supremacy Zone”, which is a radius of a certain distance (I forgot what it was) around Yeo Woon, when Yeo Woon has a negative rating against him, something Something bad happens to Yeo Woon. When Myung Han “saves” Yeo Woon from suicide, his next immediate mission is to “make Yeo Woon happy.”
As the game progresses, there are side missions all related to Yeo Woon. Towards the end, the system imposes a penalty and a time limit on Myung Ha to make Yeo Woon “happy”, and if he doesn’t achieve this goal within the time limit, the penalty is death. When he had to choose between his grandmother or Yeo Woon, he caused an error in the system and Myung Ha is “erased” from the world. For Yeo Woon, the next few days were confusing as everything else remained the same, including the additional friends he made during his time with Myung Ha.
When Yeo Woon remembers this, he finds the pen that would allow him to make the changes he wants in his life, and now it’s Yeo Woon who sees the game “prompts”. And then we see Myung Ha and what really happened in her life. As he is dying (after drowning), he regrets his choice. The “game” was a way to teach Myung Ha to love himself, which would make him happy. Then it all comes back to the game world and brings it back to Yeo Woon.
I loved this show. The world of the “game” was a visual demonstration of the events that would make one happy.
I watched a few more Korean BL, but let’s end on the high note of the latest series, which is probably one of the best drama plots of this genre recently.
I want to leave everyone with one last recommendation. This is one of those dramatic short films on YouTube, and it’s one of the best storylines I’ve seen. It is in the same sense that Faithful, but it’s much more condensed so the “revenge” part happens much more quickly. I copied the YouTube link below.
The only problem I have with these dramas is that the subtitles are often automatically generated. I watch a lot of them, but this is probably, hands down, one of the best revenge plots for this platform. It is simply the story of a girl who designed her life to marry into a particular house in order to avenge her sister. The depiction of life in the harem, the lives of women and girls in this environment, will strike audiences on many different levels. There is no romance. ML, as in Faithful, is the villain hiding behind a mask of respectability. The FL is smart, has no illusions about the people she’s dealing with, and she’s smart with her plan. I LOVE this show.
I hope everyone is having a good week. And has anyone started Blooms in adversity? I have this on my list, but have been easily unfollowed lately. Best choice ever, I really want to watch this because it has my favorite actors as the leads… but the plot seems so boring. (Was that too many operating systems?) So… I haven’t been able to boot it yet. And how much Sword and Fairythere are dramas this year?! It looks like at least 3 of them have been released in the last month! Apparently I can’t keep up anymore.