Achilless
In Between Seasons is about time; the passing of seasons. Time heals, time makes us accept. Time changes us, and brings out both our best and worst parts. That is what this movie is about.
Don't expect any fetishizing of homosexuals in here. The love between YJ and SH is just love, not some fangirl material. But don't misunderstand, their homosexuality is part of the plot, but it doesn't overshadow the theme.
The question is whether their love for each other made their lives more difficult because of the prejudice of society, or whether it made their lives easier because they have each other.
The character with the most depth and development, is SH's mom. Even though, at first sight, this movie seems to be about two boys in love, it is truly the mother who dominates the story. You get to see her deal with all the problems that has been thrown her way, and how her attitude towards those issues changes as time passes.
The movie uses a lot of silence to portray the love or pain of the characters, because it makes you focus on their actions (or none at all). Also, there are some "vague" or "sudden" parts, which causes the watcher to concentrate and think by themselves a little bit (no hard thinking, it isn't complex). For example, if you don't read any summaries, you will only realised that the boys are in a relationship like 20 min into the movie as they suddenly lie in bed together. As you can see, it's not difficult to then realise that they're gay.
<[spoiler]
Or when someone said "stop, I know everything" in a context about divorce, and then you'll realize that that guy was prob cheating. [/spoiler] >
Honestly guys, just deal with it. Use your IQ just a lil bit, not everything is going to be laid out in front of you.
The acting skills are amazing. Like honestly, wow. When the characters were sad or cried, it seemed 100% (no exaggeration) real. Also, the sexual interactions between the boys were, unlike most LGBT couples in shows, really realistic and not awkward or forced.
And lastly a huge shout out out to the colour palette and camera work. A movie should be realistic but also ideal, and In Between Seasons has accomplished that. It's colour pallettes are stunning, but don't go overboard. It's in between artificial and reality. You can see the effort, but somehow it doesn't seem too forced; the artist/director took every opportunity to make the colours stand out, but didn't create extra opportunities just for the sake of it.
The only reason why I didn't rate it a 10, is because the enjoyment of the storyline itself wasn't the best (but good enough, worth an 8). It was definitely to shed a (lot of) tear for though.
To conclude, In Between Seasons is not only just a movie, but also a piece of art: from its heartbreaking story to the deep theme and the production of the visuals. It's all on point.
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Lots of people have a problem with the pacing, but I don't find anything wrong with it at all. Every character is introduced properly and every plan/ruse is explained thoroughly, and the main story directly starts at ep 1.
I see ppl say that you need a bit of brain with this story. Common sense you mean.
Yes, the wording the characters use is difficult, but guys we have English subtitles come on.
The plot is entertaining and not draggy at all. A power fight between princes with lots of conspiracies. I don't mind slow/too little romance. This is indeed about the relationship between Ning Yi and WeiZhi, but there is much more between them than only romance. I also can't stand too much sugar so thank god.
I guess too many people are used to dog blood shit 24/7, aka that either someone dies or some love affair happens every chapter. Well excuse you because this is some mature and realistic shit. Not saying that those dog blood stuff are bad, but don't rate this bad because you don't like these types of serious stories. It's like talking bad about a romance story while not liking romance.
The plot starts great, gets better in the middle but towards the end it declines. At the beginning you mainly see Ning Yi succeeding, and just as I was so done with the MC-only-wins stuff, he finally encountered trouble which made everything more exciting. But as the ending neared, I could feel that characters without proper backgrounds were added just to fulfil certain events of the story, and that events happened for literally no reason at all (aka the ending) just because the scriptwriter wanted it to end that way. But thank god all this rush only happened at the end.
There are many good written characters, with proper background and development. Especially Ning Yi, who's a multilayered anti-hero, who accepts and respects the FL's decisions instead of planning out her life for her.
But some characters annoyed tf out of me. Do guys like girls (aka Shaoning and Si Yanle or smthn) who are stupid and ask for trouble all the time, and thinks that everybody should listen to them? Cuz if that's the case I can at least understand.
Another down point was ZhiWei's character. She's like book-smart but not practise-smart, which rly annoyed me bc like choose a side, u stupid or not? Her storyline had 0 contribution to the powerplay in the beginning, which is why it bored me. But that's just my personal preference. She did develop a bit in the practise-smart area, but that still couldn't save my annoyance.
The acting is so on point. I can't talk enough about Chen Kun's acting. Apparently people find his acting overdone in the beginning. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE OVERDONE BC NING YI IS ACTING LIKE THAT IN FRONT OF HIS BROTHERS ON PURPOSE FOR FUCKS SAKE.
As said before, Ning Yi is ultra multi-layered, and Chen Kun is able to act out all those layers while making sure that he is still playing ONE character (with that I mean that he doesn't act every layer individually as if he's acting lots of characters). Ning Yi's fake crying is funny af, while his true crying looks so real it makes your heart ache.
Chen Kun's acting in this drama is phenomenal, especially towards the end when Ning Yi let out all his emotions.
Other major character's actors are on point too. Ni Ni's WeiZhi looks real. You know someone is good when they can repeatedly cry and make it look real (cuz crying seems rly difficult in the industry cough cough).
Also I never knew Bai Jingting could act so well.
HOWEVER some actors weren't good at al. I hate it when producers (aka all producers) don't make an effort to regulate the acting of small side characters.
I have nothing to say about the music. It wasn't bad, wasn't ear-catching either. It suited and supported the story normally when it could.
9.5/10.
Would've been a 10 if WeiZhi's character didn't bore/annoy me in the beginning and if the ending wasn't rushed.
To conclude I love the tenth prince.
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