sochiichi
Let me start with the plot. You could say that this movie is devided into two equally long parts. The first one focuses on the development of the relationship of the two main characters, and the second one shows the situation of the male lead 17 years later.
You could say that the real story only starts with the second half of the movie and for people who are not into light romance movies, the first half of the movie might seem really draggy and uninteresting as it only shows selected scenes of the couple and their relationship, but believe me, every one of those scenes is necessarry to understand what happens in the second part of the movie and why exactly the main character falls in love with one of his male students.
And let me tell you, this is not a gay movie! It is true that "gay" becomes a subject at the end of the movie, but that is not what this movie is about.
This movie is simply about love. About endless love.
I don't know how it is for most people who saw this movie. I've read other people's opnions about the ending, but I don't agree with most of them. Some just didn't get the message this movie was trying to deliver.
It was not about society and gay people and the "curse" of loving the same gender. Absolutely not. This movie was just about how much love effects you and that it is possible to find your soulmate. This movie is about an undying love that no matter what will never fade.
The characters and the actors were just awesome. I can't really put into words how much I loved the male main character and the way he changed after 17 years, but his love for her never died. It was also increcible how the second male lead (who becomes his love interest in the seconds part of the movie) resembled the female lead, but was at the same time so different.
This movie is just the best and people who like complicated but sweet romance stories should definitely give it a chance. And yes, I really think that this movie is sweet, despite the drama and tragedy that seem to happen to the male main character the whole time.
I've watched this movie a lot of times already, but I could still watch it over and over again and love it just as much as I did the first time I watched it.
Just one thing: Don't drop the movie before the "17 years later" part begins. You will love this movie, believe me!
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Ok, let me be honest. The story was typical for that kind of movie, nothing special, and their acting was good, it could have been better, though.
What made this movie so great was really just the music that fit just so perfectly. It was like the scenes were selected for the songs, not the other way around (and I guess that was the case. After all, this movie is supposed to focus on Mate and their music.)
I could watch this movie again and again because those songs just don't get old and seeing them perform and struggle to fulfil their dream was just so mesmerizing.
Everyone who likes Mate or that kind of music should definitely watch the movie. You won't regret it!
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Short, Sweet and Shallow
As this is a collection of 6 short stories about 6 different couples, you can't expect deep characters and well thought out plots. Some stories are entertaining and work as a whole while others fall short in some aspect or just lack enough substance to keep an audience interested.All in all, however, this was a short and sweet series. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who's looking for a deep story and wants to be emotionally invested in a romance, but if you just want something short to watch during a break or while having a snack, or just want to see your favourite couples from other BL shows again, Close Friend is a good choice.
Here are my comments on each episode:
Episode 1 (OhmFluke) had a lot of potential and great acting but fell short with an ending without a proper solution.
Episode 2 (JaFirst) was just stupid. It wasn't even proper BL.
Episode 3 (MaxNat) was rather fun but felt like a first episode out of a longer series which obviously left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.
Episode 4 (YoonTalay) had a unique setting and cute story but to me fell a bit short by not introducing the relationship of the main characters properly.
Episode 5 (Mii2) had the best characters and pacing out of all of them, in my opinion. The story was heartfelt, the characters were likeable and the ending worked very well.
Episode 6 (KimCop) included some messy scifi elements that I wish would have been explained better but nevertheless delivered a cute story.
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I understand why this has such great ratings. The plot is one of a kind, Lee Jong Suk's acting abilities in this one are on point and honestly, it's super thrilling! BUT BUT BUT after a while the plot just keeps repeating itself. Sure, there is some logic behind all of it but having the same characters die and come back to life 3 or 4 times really gets old. There were so many points at which I thought "NOW would be a great time to end it" but no, they kept going by making a character we thought was dead/gone reappear for the hundreds time...
The female lead was also a big problem for me. Her personality was... non-existent. I couldn't tell you ANYTHING about her other than that she is in love with Kang Chul and that she is a doctor (which she forgets throughout the show by the way, because she never goes back to work lol)
All I can say in conclusion is that the plot is very interesting and I really wanted to know how this show would end, which is why I kept going even after the numerous twists became very old. Would I still recommend to watch this drama? Yes, because I feel like this has become somewhat of a "classic" in the kdrama world and it is one of a kind after all.
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This review may contain spoilers
I just finished watching this drama and even though I did have fun watching it in the beginning and looked forward to the updates every week, I must say that I'm glad it's over now. Like most dramas, this one lost its charm after about 10 episodes. Nevertheless it managed to entertain me for a few weeks and made me watch until the end to find out how the couple would get over their little age-gap problem.The plot, as you can see, sounds like a typical kdrama plot. Kind of ridiculous and very hard to believe that something like that would ever happen in the real world. Some of the characters - especially the female lead and her sister - were also quite irritating and just not... realistic. But if you watch a korean romcom, I guess that's what you have to expect anyway.
Apart from the fact that I absolutely didn't like the female leads, I liked both of the male leads so I continued watching. I feel like Lee Soo Hyuk's character had the most potention and I'm sad that they KIND of dropped his storyline towards the last few episodes. I also didn't like how they decided to end his storyline in the last episode, but since I won't spoiler, I guess you have to see it yourself.
The acting was overall ok. As this is a romcom, there were many many ridiculous and exaggerated scenes but I guess you can't really expect brilliant acting for those anyway. Basically all of the sidecharacters (the coworkers, Seo In Guk's friends etc) had a kind of comedic-role so don't expect a deep storyline for them, because nobody besides the main characters will get one.
The OST was really really annoying. And I mean REALLY annoying. I guess it depends on your music taste, but I almost dropped watching this drama at some point because I just couldn't stand the background music...
Overall this was a funny and cute drama. If you are looking for a show that deels with a serious and emotional relationship, than I wouldn't recommend this one. If you want to laugh and see some cute scenes, though, I don't think you could do much wrong with this one. Don't expect a very satisfying ending, though, because this will end just as messed up as the rest of the drama was.
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The wrong kind of problematic!
You wanna see a beautiful love story between an adult and a child? Congratulations, you've found it...I think everybody who decides to watch this after reading the synopsis expects to be confronted with a seriously messed-up plot and expects to feel disgusted with the female teacher who catches feelings for the 15-year-old student. And while I did think that the teacher was completely inappropiate and should have been banned from ever teaching again, I was also thinking that this scenario should have been depicted in a much more scandelous way just to show how truly problematic the leads' romance is. Instead this series really tried to depict this unacceptable scenario in the most acceptable way possible and delivered us a romantic love story.
Going into this, I wanted problematic characters and forbidden love, yes, but I was hoping for it not to be romanticized. They definitey addressed the problem of such a taboo relationship and its negative effects on the child, but in the end, the whole message of the show still was "If it's true love, it's gonna work out anyway" and that's not a good way to deal with kind of issue.
My biggest problem about this series was the FL. Apart from the fact that she was boring as hell and had no consistant or interesting character traits, I was really repulsed by the way she stood up for her feelings for the underage boy. Also, the people around her, apart from the pair of mothers of the FL and ML, did not react appropiately to this messed-up couple. A romance between a 15-year-old and a 25-year-old is unacceptable and the fact that this woman fell for a child is not something that can be forgiven or forgotten even if they give us multiple timeskips.
But despite my many complaints, I gave it a relatively good score of 7/10 because of the sheer fact that I was very entertained by this series. As I was watching it, I kept needing to know what happens next and though I did not enjoy the side couple nor the direction they took with the main couple's journey, I was kept on my toes the whole time and that explains my rating.
Anyway, despite the producer's obvious attempts to make the audience root for their relationship and understand their unconditional love for each other, I found myself really hoping for them to not end up together, no matter how many years passed, because let's face it, who in their right mind can root for this kind of romance?
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The actors did a good job, although, let's be honest, here: the actors of the two main leads always play the same kind of characters. Having watched many of their dramas before, I absolutely knew what to expect when I got into this. Nevertheless, the drama was enjoyable as the plot about breast cancer and dating two people at the same time was very fresh!
What I did not enjoy was any other plot beside the main one. I could not have cared less about any of those other broadcast employees or the people living in the female lead's building. Those scenes were all extremely uninteresting.
But what really really bothered me was the music. It was soooo bad. Just horrible. It did not fit most of the scenes. Some were completely ruined by the bad choice of background music.
All in all, this was a fun but rather unnecessary long ride. Had they left out all of the uninteresting side plots and chose some better music, I would have given a way better rating because in my opinion, the main plot deserves it!
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I don't want to get too much into detail but let me just say that Ji Sung is an extraordinary actor. All of his 7 personalities were s convincing. His acting wasn't awkward or ridiculous at all (which sadly is a frequently seen phenomena in kdramas) and his female counterpart played along really well. I also loved that the male and female lead had a good relationship and genuinly liked each other. You would think that that's a given for a couple but no, it really isn't in kdramas.
Some minor points of criticism: Omega's "romantic" storyline was a little bothersome, the constant repetition of the same flashbacks got old after a while and I felt the ending was lacking something as the last episode felt very rushed (even if the ending was realistic).
To sum it up, the plot was incredibly interesting, the acting was superb and the drama stayed good from episode 1-20 which is very rare! I would recommend this drama to anybody who likes dramatic plotlines and is not looking for the typical romance love-triangle or revenge-plot.
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Not a show for babies!
Let me make one thing very clear: you are allowed to like a series even if it depicts problematic behaviour/characters!There are a lot of people on here who seem to rate this show based on how healthy the relationship of the protagonists is instead of the actual quality of the show, which I find questionable. I mean, do Tharn and Type do shit to each other they really shouldn't be doing? YES! But is that type of behaviour, as so many people here seem to claim, romanticised? No! Depicting toxic behaviour in a romcom does not equal romanticising it. We see both characters struggling with their own behaviour throughout the whole show and growing from the experiences. Tharn and Type from episode 1 are not the same Tharn and Type we see in the last episode. What this series depicts is very flawed characters who fall in love with each other and despite doing horrible things to each other manage to forgive each other and built a healthier relationship - something that a lot of people in real life experience!
And apart from all of that, compared to other thai BL, Tharntype actually has a good production and actors who (mostly lol) know what they're doing. The screenwriting was also on point! We don't have to deal with any uninteresting side-characters or bullshit side-plots. The focus of this show is on the main couple always which really helps to keep the viewers on their toes from the first to the last second.
This series is high quality entertainment! I totally get that it's not for everyone, especially not for people who prefer their romance shows to be soft and fluffy (and healthy lol), but nobody should be saying that this show is overrated just because they don't like to see flawed and problematic characters in a relationship.
Sadly, the world isn't a fucking rainbow and so isn't Tharntype, but as long as you don't expect that, this show might make you very very happy as it made me and many other people.
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So the first few episodes were very interesting and I was surprised that there were so many likeable characters. At first, all plotlines seemed to make a lot of sense and bring the story forward, too. BUT then after a few episodes I started to wonder how far they were going to take the romance with the female lead Hae Soo and second male lead. More than half of the show was dedicated to their love which I still cannot understand why anybody would think that was a good idea. There were only a few episodes left to execute the main romanc AND of course all of the other plotlines (many of which were not interesting at all). Obviously, that didnt work out well. The ending makes no sense and is incredibly disappointing. There are so many questions left unanswered.
Besides the fact that this drama did not focus on the main romance enough, my biggest problem was the character of Wang So. He was absolutely unpredictable and I dare say extremely toxic for Hae Soo. Their relationship was emotionally abusive from the beginning to the end.
Another problem was IU. Her acting is very inconsistant. Some scenes she does very well, others are just cringeworthy. At some point I started screaming everytime she made that look as if she was a deer staring into the headlights of a car, about to be hit. She used that gaze for all kinds of emotions, too. Sad, surprised, wondering, or just randomly starring at one of her love interests.
Also, generally the directing and editing was a mess. Some scenes just didn't fit together at all and there were 3 time leaps in I think 5 episodes and suddeny it was 5 years later. Absolutely unnecessary.
Nevertheless, I watched all of the 20 episodes and waisted many hours of my life. Why? Because I just wanted to know how this would end. What would they do to their romance in the end? Well, go and see for yourself. Or don't. I promise you are not missing out on anything.
All that being said, I cannot understand why people love this drama so much. Is it because of the first few very good episodes? Or because of the famous cast? Lee Joong Ki's amazing performance? I don't know. But it cannot be because of the romance or general plot.
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