Unpopularopinionbydemand
watching BL in the corner of my room
This review may contain spoilers
This Could've Been So Cool
I'm so frustrated to see such a unique BL (Korean BL at that) go to such waste. Kissable Lips had so much potential to be THAT BL, and yet it falls off the wagon so fast and so brutally. I can't even really say I didn't like this, I more so am just so disappointed for the way it was executed and how anybody on the crew of KL could think this was okay.
Let's Dive In.
Kissable Lips is a K-BL about a vampire who finds a pure-blooded who can potentially save his life and turn him human as long as the mortal falls in love with him. When the mortal does, incidentally, the vampire reciprocates those feelings, and because of that, he's too scared to take the human's blood in the fear that he'll kill him. Great plot right? Just with this small synopsis, you can get a feel for how incredibly wonderful this story could be, and I remember reading it and being stoked to watch. But sadly, this series suffers from the common, "Korean gays get no time" -- the new phrase I'm calling it.
What needs serious help: With less than 12 minutes for only 8 episodes, this series chokes on its own plot. While I can believe the stakes Junho has to make in order to get Minhyun to fall in love with him, the romance is so hard to believe -- cause it seems to happen in the span of a few minutes -- in the series' world, maybe a couple of days. And while I too fell in love with Jiwoong at first sight, it's hard to believe MInhyun is so ready to potentially die for him at the drop of a hat. It's so important to build chemistry cause without it, you have no series, especially a BL series where the romance is the most important part. If anything, I would've liked them to take the majority of the time they had to build this relationship rather than anything else. Even showing a montage of maybe a few days/weeks going by while they connect would've been a better choice to show than what we got. And Jiwoong and Seobin didn't do a bad job with what they had to work with (they didn't even have a chaste kiss, it was spot on), but when it's not much, you have to look past the parched romance to really not mind the rest of the story.
Speaking of the rest of the story, it was a lot to add for a series that had no time for outside commentary. Like how Junho and Dohyun's story was scattered all over the place, and if you weren't paying attention with the right focus, you would be completely lost. It wasn't developed enough, there were so many flashbacks with little to no meaning, and you make connections, but I'd rather it just be outright explained. Not to mention that Dohyun's actor looked like he didn't want to be there. The delivery of his lines were so bland and uninteresting. They could've cut his parts and I still would've enjoyed the story.
What I liked: I liked the plot since it was unique and not something I'd ever seen. Vampire boy falls in love with human boy. Please, I would take that any day. But I just hate that it doesn't work due to the insignificant time frame. I didn't even mind the ending in which I would've complained about any other day, but seeing as this is a fantasy BL with vampires, I was understanding of why it ended as it did. But because of the stupidly rushed plot, I wasn't even all that sad when he died. I sighed a little and went awe, but it didn't provoke any real emotion. Just imagine how significant this series could've been if we got a fully fleshed out, complex-plot, character-driven, 40 minute 12 episode series. God, It would've been so good.
The title sequence was mesmerizing. The way the lighting cascades over his face and then changes to cast a gloom over him is so addicting. Jiwoong is seriously the prettiest human being ever.
Rating:
Story: 6.5 - So much potential wasted. And for whatever reason Korea doesn't let the gays shine on screen is beyond me. It fell short and left me unattached. I'll give it somewhat of a decent rating since they did what they could.
Acting: 7.5 - Good. The leads were pretty good. Spectacular? Meh, but good enough to keep the story going. The supporting characters were also pretty much in the same category. Dohyun's actor is the only one I wasn't all that impressed with.
OST: 5 - I really don't remember the music. Like at all. Oh well.
Rewatch Value: 1 - this just made me sad and not in a good way. No chance I'm rewatching.
If someone were to ask me for a recommendation solely based on the hotness of the actor, I would then shove this show in their face. Other than that, there are way better K-BLs.
Let's Dive In.
Kissable Lips is a K-BL about a vampire who finds a pure-blooded who can potentially save his life and turn him human as long as the mortal falls in love with him. When the mortal does, incidentally, the vampire reciprocates those feelings, and because of that, he's too scared to take the human's blood in the fear that he'll kill him. Great plot right? Just with this small synopsis, you can get a feel for how incredibly wonderful this story could be, and I remember reading it and being stoked to watch. But sadly, this series suffers from the common, "Korean gays get no time" -- the new phrase I'm calling it.
What needs serious help: With less than 12 minutes for only 8 episodes, this series chokes on its own plot. While I can believe the stakes Junho has to make in order to get Minhyun to fall in love with him, the romance is so hard to believe -- cause it seems to happen in the span of a few minutes -- in the series' world, maybe a couple of days. And while I too fell in love with Jiwoong at first sight, it's hard to believe MInhyun is so ready to potentially die for him at the drop of a hat. It's so important to build chemistry cause without it, you have no series, especially a BL series where the romance is the most important part. If anything, I would've liked them to take the majority of the time they had to build this relationship rather than anything else. Even showing a montage of maybe a few days/weeks going by while they connect would've been a better choice to show than what we got. And Jiwoong and Seobin didn't do a bad job with what they had to work with (they didn't even have a chaste kiss, it was spot on), but when it's not much, you have to look past the parched romance to really not mind the rest of the story.
Speaking of the rest of the story, it was a lot to add for a series that had no time for outside commentary. Like how Junho and Dohyun's story was scattered all over the place, and if you weren't paying attention with the right focus, you would be completely lost. It wasn't developed enough, there were so many flashbacks with little to no meaning, and you make connections, but I'd rather it just be outright explained. Not to mention that Dohyun's actor looked like he didn't want to be there. The delivery of his lines were so bland and uninteresting. They could've cut his parts and I still would've enjoyed the story.
What I liked: I liked the plot since it was unique and not something I'd ever seen. Vampire boy falls in love with human boy. Please, I would take that any day. But I just hate that it doesn't work due to the insignificant time frame. I didn't even mind the ending in which I would've complained about any other day, but seeing as this is a fantasy BL with vampires, I was understanding of why it ended as it did. But because of the stupidly rushed plot, I wasn't even all that sad when he died. I sighed a little and went awe, but it didn't provoke any real emotion. Just imagine how significant this series could've been if we got a fully fleshed out, complex-plot, character-driven, 40 minute 12 episode series. God, It would've been so good.
The title sequence was mesmerizing. The way the lighting cascades over his face and then changes to cast a gloom over him is so addicting. Jiwoong is seriously the prettiest human being ever.
Rating:
Story: 6.5 - So much potential wasted. And for whatever reason Korea doesn't let the gays shine on screen is beyond me. It fell short and left me unattached. I'll give it somewhat of a decent rating since they did what they could.
Acting: 7.5 - Good. The leads were pretty good. Spectacular? Meh, but good enough to keep the story going. The supporting characters were also pretty much in the same category. Dohyun's actor is the only one I wasn't all that impressed with.
OST: 5 - I really don't remember the music. Like at all. Oh well.
Rewatch Value: 1 - this just made me sad and not in a good way. No chance I'm rewatching.
If someone were to ask me for a recommendation solely based on the hotness of the actor, I would then shove this show in their face. Other than that, there are way better K-BLs.
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