A bit disappointing...

I'll be honest, I was really excited for this series. Ever since the announcement of KinnPorsche last year, I was excited for more dramas to come out with this kind of trope! Then this show came along and I was excited to see another show pull this off! But after watching this drama, it really fell short of my expectations, which was really disappointing.

Story: 7/10

The story seemed simple yet intriguing. The idea of a mafia boss's son and a bodyguard is an amazing trope, but the story written with it was poorly executed. I was excited to see how they would face his father, but like others have said the reviews it is mainly the last 2 eps. The writing of the characters was poor (besides Pitch and Bank!) so sometimes I found myself laughing at "sad" scenes, especially anytime Sky started crying. Sky and Suns characters were okay, I found myself really liking Sun and seeing his development as a person, and not as much Sky (I partially blame the acting). As I saw others mention in the reviews, it was hard to like the two girls in the show, because they were never really written with any redeeming qualities! I kind of felt bad that Sky was leading them on...but that was probably about it. Overall, it was an okay story, but I'm sad it was so rushed at the end.

When Pitch and Bank at the beginning of ep 8 were like "yeah, were boyfriends!" it made me go back to ep 7 because I thought I had missed something, like I skipped a scene, but nope, that just came out of no where. I was really excited to see more of Pitch and Bank at the end but they didn't really get a chance to fully develop it. I understand 8 eps is a hard number to work with, but there were a couple of scenes they could have taken out or re-written to make the flow of the story better, personally. Despite their rushed story at the end, Pitch and Bank saved this series!! I like how a small enemies-to-lovers trope was included, and they were absolutely hilarious! They made the show 10000% more enjoyable, that's why the rating is a 7 and not lower than that.

Acting/Cast: 7.5/10

I saw that this has been said, so I'll keep it short here. Gun is not that good of an actor. His scenes where he was sad just made me feel no remorse. His facial expressions were a little over the top, and his crying seemed so emotionless. I wish they had casted a much better actor for someone in such an important role! Now Boat, for someone who I've never seen before in a series, he was amazing! As his character started to develop and change, I also noticed how his acting style changed too! He really made me fall in love with Sun and I think they couldn't have chosen someone better for this role.

Don't even get me started on Pitch and Bank, the saviors of this show. First Pitch, I fell in love at first sight honestly. His character had such development and the actor himself was amazing at portraying it! I really felt his emotions through the whole series, especially when it came to how confused he was about how he had feelings for Bank. He was able to show how he seemed so lost, but he was able to portray it perfectly, his acting was always top-notch! Now Bank, also fell in love, he's such a cutie! Bank appeared as a naïve, innocent, university boy, which the actor played super well. But I also loved how his character switched to being so direct when asking an answer from Pitch about how he really felt about him, because he also felt the same way. Their acting and chemistry together was amazing! The pond scene with the two of them gave me butterflies! It sad to hear a lot of their scenes were cut out because of run time, but maybe they will be cast together again!!

All in all *most* of the actors in this series were pretty well cast for their roles, so overall I gave it a 7.5/10 (but yes, it was mostly for Pitch and Bank).

Music: 8/10

I'm not gonna be a super tough critic on this part. I mean, the opening was good, but sitting here right now righting this review I have no idea what it sounds like off the top of my head. But music they used as background music or during certain scenes was pretty well placed. I never really noticed any scenes where the music was disrupting/distracting. So, I thought an 8/10 was reasonable.

Rewatch Value: 6/10

I'll be honest, I think I'm being generous in this section. I will probably never re-watch this show in its entirety. I will probably look up a Pitch and Bank cut on YouTube and re-watch those scenes. This show (especially the last 3-4 eps) just really were hard to get through, because the story just started to get so STALE. Now, especially since I have seen this super predictable show, I am not going to sit through Guns acting just to watch Pitch and Bank, no thanks!

Overall: 7/10

AGAIN, I think I'm being super generous with this rating, but I feel like its not quite in the 5-6's. Taking into consideration; the budget, how quickly they seemed to have filmed this, and casting, I think its pretty good all things considered. What lowers the rating is some things that could have been fixed beforehand. The story wasn't properly written, so it was well paced for the first 4 eps, but then SUPER RUSHED in the other 4! Also if they had taken time to do more workshops, they could have maybe tried and re-casted someone in Gun's place (I'm sorry Gun you're probably a wonderful person but this role was just not for you). Personally, Pitch and Bank could have passed as the main couple, and they had outstanding chemistry for being a side couple! Besides the main four characters (both couples) any other character that shows up was poorly written and seemed to never have a purpose, they were just was a clear plot device for something to happen. So, if you want to watch this you have been warned, but honestly I would watch it for the second couple! Don't expect anything too high quality but its a simple watch.

SIDE NOTE:

I also wanted to mention something about another drama, I saw no one else mention it so I thought I would bring it up. There's a show that has a very similar story to this one, its a Korean BL called "Where Your Eyes Linger" and it essentially is the same story, VERBATIM. After I finished Golden Blood I felt like I had watched a bad version of this show. "Where Your Eyes Linger" is the same plot (except without the blood thingy in this show) and it has the same ending, with the traveling abroad and coming back. I just thought it was interesting that all shows with this type of trope follow the same track. Wouldn't it be nice to see some more variety? It might have just been me who was this but I wanted to bring it up! I'm not saying they copied it because of course this show has some clear differences; this one is double the length, different small issues, but the main plot points were strikingly similar to me!

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