Believable love and amazing chemistry

I have to say, I only watched Kiss Me Again for the PeteKao parts and Dark Blue Kiss really satisfied my ship. In every relationship , there are times where you hide the truth from your partner because you don't want to hurt them or put more strain onto the relationship - I feel Kao so much in most of the episodes. Although the show also makes you see Pete's POV where you can't get anymore possessive than you already are especially when your relationship is deemed as forbidden. Kao coming out to his mom was the best coming out scene I've ever seen and the chemistry between Tay and New in this show keeps me coming back to rewatch. It shows from start to end how Kao was the patient one, always motivating him, bringing the best out in Pete and Pete worshiping Kao's personality all the way till end. The love was believable, the conflicts made me sad and the ending made me smile with joy. Although, they could have given a better ending for Non. After all, he's just a kid who is deprived of his parents attention. Come on, if Lhong from TT can have a better ending, I think Non can too.

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Both the drama and manga broke me.

Story: Yuki and Akira go to different schools but they often bump into each other as they both like to childishly walk on the white lane lines separating pedestrians from the moving traffic. Not willing to step out of the line, they would both hug and move the other to the opposite side so that they can continue walking on the lines to wherever they were heading to. Doing this for years, they became close friends. Akira ended up falling head over heels for Yuki, and throughout their entire time together , Yuki reciprocated. The drama shows how Yuki and Akira, went through struggles in life together, from going to University, to looking for jobs vs chasing their dreams. Akira was always the more practical one. Grow up, go to Uni, get a job, live a normal life. While Yuki has always been nonchalant, expressive, thoughtful and very caring towards Akira's conflicts. After 8 years of being together, all the happiness and comfort started brewing storms within Akira making him question his goals in life, whether or not being in a homosexual relationship would actually bring any fulfilment to him. Although the break up was tormenting for the viewers , it was a turning point for Akira to start realizing what a douchebag he has been , and he even came out to his family while desperately trying to look for Yuki , who disappeared after the break up. I read the novel after I finished the drama and they did grow old together until they both died of old age. I was emotionally gripped. Whether or not you are gay, or whether or not you can relate to the struggles in the LGBT community, the height of bittersweet emotions in this cinematic masterpiece would still grip you to your seat, making you question everything you know about life itself.
Acting: The acting is on point. I felt the pain, the happiness, the bliss, the love. I felt Akira's infatuation with Yuki, Yuki's respect and never ending love for Akira and Akira's struggle with trying to be normal. They picked the right people for the roles , the right music, the right visuals and no scene was a waste of space.
Overall: Although the show was fairly short, it did not need to be long as it captured everything we needed. This covered more depths than a 30 episode drama ever would. Not to mention Wayne Song and Huang Juan Zhi even made an appearance at the end, giving us History3:MODC fans a reason to celebrate XiangHaoTing and YuShiGu's love all over again. This is hands down the best BL I have ever watched.

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This show is ridiculous.

Me in my first 6 episodes: this show is weird. The dubbing is awkward, people are throwing tantrums for the weirdest reasons, i don't understand who is who and what is what.
Me 40 episodes later: crying my heart out when Wen Ning revealed the truth to Jiang Cheng about his golden core. Seeing Lan Zhan cry too broke my soul.
Me after the finale: This show is now an essence in my life. How did I even live without it all my 30 years.

The costumes and props are amazing. I find myself obsessing over what Lanzhan wears everytime he changes attire. Wei Ying's red ribbon is no joke, looks super good on him and his black outfit. The setting and scenery is bewitching and the camera angles are captivating.

The acting was awkward in the first few episodes but I found myself obsessing over Lanzhan's every change of facial expression. Everytime he curve into a slight smile or when he looks into Wei Ying's eyes, my heart goes boom! I read some chapters of the novel and instantly understood that Yibo did a really good job in portraying LanZhan.

The drama took a slightly different turn compared to the novel. I understood that the writers are careful enough to not show a lot of intimacy but show enough just to hint people about the hidden feelings LanZhan had for WeiYing. I knew about this show for a long time now but hesitated to watch it because I didn't want to be upset about the censorship. But seriously , the intensity of the interaction between the two leads will still leave you satisfied. If you need more, you can read the novel as the two leads have a happy ending as a couple there.

The music, gosh the music. Even the demonic tunes were bewitching. Need i say more?

Every character is amazing. If you are going to watch this, go in with an open mind . For non asians, it can be a bit confusing to understand the culture, terms they use and traditional beliefs that only traditional chinese people would understand despite this being in the fantasy genre. But throughout the episodes , you will find everything to be properly explained and all loose ends will be tied at the end.

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I've rewatched this many times. Warning: you will get addicted to this. Make sure you get a good night's sleep before starting this. Mew is seriously an amazing actor. While Gulf could be a bit pale in comparison, Mew's attempt to create chemistry with Gulf did not go to waste. Type's character development was painful to watch at first. I didn't like where the show was going with Type being all abusive with Tharn and Tharn struggling with abandonment issues, just taking all the punches and shirt-grabbings. Type was a dick throughout the entire series but it was really relieving to see him mellowing down towards the end as he fell deeper in love with Tharn. The twist with Lhong was totally unexpected, I was caught by surprise, kept repeating the episode to experience the awesomeness all over again. Another warning is, once you finish watching this, you can't find anymore shows that can satisfy you the same way. I had to go BL hunting for a long time and was left jaded after I finished TT.

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This is a fun series to follow if you're not looking for anything too serious. I don't really like sappy series like UWMA and I'm always looking for a drama that can give me a good dose of comedy and romance at the same time. Bohn's character is so fun to follow, his character development was nicely paced and not too rushed. The writers even slot in nice enough screen times for the other characters. We get to enjoy them although we know they're not the main characters. I just hope we have more development for Ram and King. Super unique story! Overall, I loved how this was written and the actors have really good chemistry with each other.

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Cringed towards the end (still couldn't stop watching!)

I have to be honest here. I dropped the series after the first episode 1 year ago because I couldn't fathom Xu Feng's acting! I felt like he was forced into the series, but after that, I never could get him off my mind. After finished reading Heaven Official's Blessing on Novelupdates, browsing on what else to read, I picked up Advance Bravely and started reading the novel. I fell hard for the Yuan Zong in the novel and I figured, okay why not- let's give the drama another chance.
After episode 1, I still cringed at the acting, but I couldn't stop watching all the way till the end!!!! Xu Feng was super stiff but it made me realize, that's exactly how Yuan Zong is as a character! He is a boring, stiff ex-army veteran who lives his life based on routines and never would lift a vein for something trivial. Unlike Xia Yao, who is more energetic and bubbly- a kid who was coddled growing up being the only form of colour who entered Yuan Zong's life.
What bromance? Dude, they are so clearly in love with each other in the drama! Even though China goes through great lengths to censor gay romance, I felt the affection and longing throughout all the episodes! If they ever do touch each other, I think I would burst a vein! They should change the title of this show to Blue Balls. So much tension, so much staring at each other and so much teasing!
In the novel, I couldn't stand Da Yu and Peng Ze. But they are portrayed in the drama so well! Da Yu is seriously not likeable at all in the novel, but through the drama, I actually felt his pain of one-sided love with Xia Yao and I am definitely going back to the novel to re-read his story. The Wang Zhi Shui here is exactly how I imagined him in the novel! Zhen Zhen is seriously as flawless as I would imagine. Yuan Ru? Seriously, the casting was perfect. They found a super annoying girl to play Yuan Ru and with that, *chef's kiss*- the series became perfect.
I was so amazed by the fighting scenes to be honest. You will find that the show is really extra on the fan service ( slow mos, a lot scenes with half naked men, and multiple scenes with Xu Feng wearing very less clothes.) The action scenes were believable, Simon Gong is a nice actor to look at and the other actors were good as well.
I even watched the behind the scenes footage and the chemistry between Simon and Jason was so lovely. You can tell that they fully understood the novel together because they were talking about the intimate chapters in the novel and tried their best to portray this in their facial expressions in the drama. The crew is always recording these two guys together behind the scenes as they have such great chemistry and brotherhood on set.
Overall, I won't forget this show. Although the novel is not the best I have read, the drama is worth checking out.

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Too sweet , your blood sugar will spike!

Plot

The story is about a simpleton named Tao Mo who moved in to a small county to become the town magistrate after his father was wrongly accused and sentenced to death. Wanting to live up to his father's expectations and be able to face him in the afterlife, despite being illiterate and not knowing anything at all about the judiciary world, he threw himself into a mess of politics, complicated friendships and conspiracies. What was refreshing though, is the fact that he was ignorant and oblivious to everything but he was lucky enough to have very loyal and trustworthy people by his side to get him through it all. The other lead, Gu She is a scholar who never butts into country affairs and politics but due to his fascination for Tao Mo's innocence, felt oblidged to teach him a lesson about his ignorance, but ending up staying by his side , solving all the injustice together.

Characters and theme

To be honest, I did not read the novel. I decided to watch the drama blindfolded not knowing what to expect. When I watched the first episode , I was amazed ! The scenes were shot beautifully in HD, all the beauty essence of a Chinese historical setting was captured stunningly from all the right angles. I was busy admiring how beautiful the scenes were, I even forgot to pay attention to the story line at times! Tao Mo is so frustratingly innocent. The story was spunned so well that it made us think Advisor Jin was a snake who was conspiring with Cui from the start, but it turns out that Tao Mo's innocense managed to change his heart as well. I was so worried about Mu Chun being a double edge sword! Adonis played this role so well, you never know what were his intentions from start to finish. The story makes you think that you know what was going to happen but then the characters unfold themselves in the end to properly tell you who is that they're actually loyal to! After watching all 12 episodes , I felt that it did not matter whether or not you knew the trades of the world, it's good enough as long as you manouver with good intentions. Everything will come back to you in the end if it really belongs in your hands.

Overall

The acting was good, it wasn't stiff like other historical dramas. The music was too dramatic for me, but it fits the theme. I would not rewatch it in the near future, but I will definitely rewatch it on a bigger TV for the HD beaut.

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To each their own!

I saw a some negative reviews on other platforms who came here for Yibo but somewhat left disappointed because it's not what they expected. Of course they were expecting a similar non talking Lan Zhan to be on the screen again since we have all missed Lan Zhan like crazy since the Untamed ended but I accepted the fact that Wang Yibo is a real person that needs to do other things to progress on his career, not a tool of our perverted fantasy. So , I gave Gank Your Heart a try.

Plot and characters:

It's a sports drama. So, there will be a lot of excitement, underdog wins the trophy, genius behind the scene strategist makes a breakthrough and the drama will end with a heartwarming feel of losers becoming winners yada yada. I expected that bit, but I felt happy throughout the drama because the story behind the team members were interesting enough to keep me hooked. The romance part was pathetic to be honest because Yibo always looks like he is allergic to women, but I bit down a bitter pill and endured it all because of my undying devotion and love for him as an allrounder entertainer. Pei Xi and Yi Xuan stole the spotlight to be honest. These two guys , whenever they come on to the screen, I am always either laughing my head off or expecting a huge dramatic scene to unfold. I loved the FL at first, because she was relatable to most of us, someone trying to make it in the industry but faced with challenges due to unhoned skills and insufficient networking skills. I liked how she progressed from a newbie to a complete pro in the industry, all with hard work and tenacity. I however, did not like how her love life progressed. If someone like Mi Ya came in to my life , I would have either beaten the crap out of her, or I would beat the crap out of Xiang Kong and then walked away with my boot prints on their faces. No one deserves to be played around like what happened to Qiu Ying. The lack of back bone pissed off my feminist side and I felt so angry at the miscommunication trope used for the romance side of the drama.
As for Xiang Kong, I felt baffled at how Yibo showed more passion playing the game compared to when he was cuddling Qiu Ying. Gosh, this guy needs to learn his romance tricks from Luo YunXi. He had this awkward facial expression when he was near her which was not convincing at all. Qi Yue and Qiao Xin were gold! Omg, such good acting. Made me hate them so much but at the same time, I didn't feel their ending was too light of a punishment because the screen writers wanted us to feel bad for them and forgive them. I was like, hmm fine.
Throughout the story, I had to skip the Qiu Ying crying parts because they were annoying, the parts where Yi Yi was nagging non stop and the parts where the Legends chairman was just standing up looking useless throughout the drama. The good parts were the competitive parts where it was the main theme of the drama and the screen writers did not fail there . When Mi Ya entered the storyline, I felt it was an immense plot hole that raises too many questions in my mind. Like Mi Ya wtf? Or Miya, why now? Miya, seriously? Miya, after 3 years , really? It was an unneeded addition.

Overall

I would give it a go. I mean the roller coaster of Main Leads chasing each other in the first 10 episodes was fun for me . Yibo is good at being a tsundere and he will only play that role his whole life if he doesn't flex his facial muscles more often. The competition part is inspiring as well. The journey Qiu Ying took to finally be successful is also fun to watch although I cringe so bad at all the attempts by Qiao Xin to ruin her which did indeed destroyed her temporarily and diverted her path too many times. Qiao Xin's evil doings were recognized too late and I lost interest by the time the story decides to punish her. But anyways, watch it with a low expectation. I put a low rewatch value as I know I would again skip many annoying parts.

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I didn't want to write a review at the beginning . 5 episodes in and I still wasn't sure where the writers were going with this story. But episode 6 onwards the drama started to unpack and the mysterious beef among some of the members started to unravel. From there, I got hooked on the episodes and kept watching till the end. New's Apo really captivated me with his facial expressions. Through his acting , you can feel how raw his emotions are on screen and he oozes the kind of aura that makes you want to see more of him. I struggled to understand the complications behind Min and Wan's story, Wan's character had so much potential but the added complications really ruined it for me. I wasn't entirely offended that a lesbian was turned straight at the end, in fact, I see it as Pan falling in love with Fah's personality and character, not his gender. Which is a good thing to promote- love knows no gender. It's the same thing as a straight man falling for men in other BL storylines. I was furious during the first 6 episodes as it made it look like Waii's attempted rape, Pan and Kluay's bullying incident were not serious enough and I felt the messaging could be clearer that this is not okay and the characters need to suffer more or show remorse. In summary, it's a show about people accepting differences, overcoming their biases, suffering their wrong decisions and coming back from failures. And i need to add, Earth's Waii has 0% body fat!!! That bod is wow.

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Screamed my entire head off during the entire drama!

This drama is too exhausting for me. I am either crawling under the bed with glee or I am screaming from all the second hand embarassment. Let's start with the plot. It's about a girl who can't cry because she was allergic to her own tears! When she cries , she goes into a shock that I am thinking is equivalent to someone having an asthma attack and someone needs to rush her to an emergency room. She tried to apply for this job as an Investment banker at this well known investment institution but found out that her childhood friend was the Director in the company, who failed her during the interview to kick her out. The story starts when she tries to get herself into the organization, drills her way to the top trying to prove to the ML that she is stronger than the girl he knew from the past.

It's a light drama where the characters don't often fall into complicated situations because they actually 'talk' to each other! I am glad this drama did not take the miscommunication route as it would have frustrated me to death. The main leads , although can't see eye to eye on things, were professional about work, still comunicates to each other and the chemistry between them was so lovable that I fell down from my chair many times from swooning. Leo Luo is an amazing actor and seriously, with how funny Bai Lu is, I am wondering how we could keep himself from bursting into laughter on set? Bai Lu is a gift to the Chinese entertainment industry and I continued watching this drama because I am totally in love with her character! I feel genuinely sad for Du Lei's character , gosh Kido is such a good actor. I even almost wished Du Lei would end up with Jiang Jun because he deserves all the good things in life.

Since this drama is still ongoing, please watch it! You won't regret.

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Short and bittersweet!

First of all, I didn't have high expectations since I knew each episode will run less than 10 mins. I knew beforehand it will only be 8 episodes, so I wasn't expecting much depth and skinship. But whoa, so much feels in such a short window. I found myself paying close attention to every scene , not missing anything. Each facial expression, each dialougue. monologue, - the scenes were all worth it! Although I wish to see more after JW confessed, it's okay because I will just let my imagination do the trick! JW's conflict is super cute and SH being so straightforward in what he wants is very refreshing. Unlike most BL characters who ponder and ponder for episodes long , it's nice to see a character who is sure of what he wants and pursued from the very beginning without a doubt in his heart. The actor who played JW , as a new actor, he is superb! I connected well to his character and the emotional scenes were executed so well. Like all Korean BLs, i hope it would run longer.

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When I heard Korea was gonna release their first mainstream BL drama, I was a bit nervous. Nervous mainly for the actors, hoping my babies won't get too much backlash. And I was worried the level of skinship might be discounted. Long story short, I wasn't expecting much.

When I started watching this, episode after episode, I was hooked! There's so much emotion in the way they looked at each other, unspoken words, pent up longing and fragile souls. You could feel it all! They didn't need too much skinship at all! Even when they're not touching, you could feel the intensity. That's how good the acting was. When Tae Joo cried, my heart broke to pieces! Young chaebol getting his heart broken for the first time, no no no!

I felt like the music was soothing and on point. I'm just at episode 6 now and so far I haven't seen much romantic skinship. I don't think they'll have it as Korea is not used to the same level of BL we always expect from the Thais and Japanese. But it's still enjoyable nonetheless .

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The promotion for this series was good. Gave me high expectations. But when I actually watched it, I found myself forcing myself to carry on just for Mild. Pak's character could be written better than this . Had so much potential . I love Mild but his character is super annoying. He was written in a way as though to purposely frustrate the viewers and I had to drop the series 1 episode before the finale as I couldn't take the frustration anymore. Loved the interactions among the side characters but the side stories were not leading to any outcome and I found a lot of scenes to be completely useless. Watch it but don't expect any mindblowing storyline.

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