absolutely stunning

personally, i was actually hooked on this series right from the first episode. the versatility in their acting to portray such different lives they gave each role was incredible, and it truly was like a sampler to their capabilities. the only problem is i needed each story to go into a full series!
although there was the few awkward scenes, the chemistry between the leads really pulled me right through these moments. i highly recommend this, they are a breath of fresh air, and left me hoping to see them again soon.
truly think that this could be a huge pairing, i just want people to hype them up a lot more!

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a chore to watch

perhaps i'm being too harsh on this series, but it felt like a chore getting through this series. i'm not sure i liked anyone at any point, just maybe putter's cameo was nice?

character-wise, all of these characters were pretty flat to me. i wanted more fleshed out personalities, and i felt like diew was hardly ever accommodating to god. often times, it felt like a very one way relationship, and god doing a lot of the work to get anything going or even discussed, but i also understand there were some things that made diew the way he was--i just didn't like it at all.

wan was also grating to see, and i again don't know if i'm being overly harsh, but he was one of the most annoying characters in this. i dreaded having to watch anything about him.

i don't know, i found myself very disconnected from the entire series, cast, and story. i just couldn't get into anything about this. the most random things would immediately take me out of the story all the time, and i can't say this was much of an enjoyable show for me. maybe i'll have to revisit this at a later time, but for now this is not something i liked.

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THE Thai BL for the year

this series had everything to make it good, and they went ahead to create not only one of the most cinematically beautiful series, but gave life to characters I had never heard of to a degree that they immediately felt familiar.

nonkul and bright had such electrifying chemistry in the most minor moments, it was such an experience seeing them expand on their roles as their bond grew in the story.

i cannot say I’ve felt this way about a series since ATOTS and ITSAY. truly a gem. P’Tee, we may drive you crazy saying this, but IFYLITA truly deserves another season! here’s hoping that may happen someday, but even if it does not, this series gives me the overwhelming interest to pick up the books and actually read them.

a superb series, with a star studded cast, and cinematography that puts most releases to shame. they truly outdid themselves here.

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Get into the Loop

Triage might be one of the best BL series, without relying so heavily on the BL as the selling point. the characters, setting, and storyline are all interwoven so well that you find yourself completely engrossed in this. last thing I knew, I had watched well over 5 episodes in one day. admittedly, the ending could’ve been better, but I found the growth of all the characters enough to make up for it. I can’t vouch for the accuracy in the medical sense, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this set in a medical field. would have enjoyed seeing more of the ER team but it’s just an afterthought at this point.

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very sweet, but too short!

there are so many great factors to this series, but the most important one is the casting! both of the leads had incredible chemistry together, and they delivered in so many great ways in such a short time. it saddens me that this series was so short, and that we still have these small studios doing such heavy lifting when it comes to queer media in south korea. they have some of the most interesting stories, with some great castings, but ultimately are limited on how much they can do.

as far as the story itself goes, it had some tropes that i personally would love to see more: older characters! there is a lot of college and university based series, and this story revolving around professional workplace situations and matured characters (in every sense), felt refreshing.

i hope that people can support the studio directly so we can get more great series from them with longer productions. we can take the initiative to get these studios funded, it's just a matter of putting in the work. i would love to see these actors get more work, both in queer media and outside of it. they both worked incredibly well and created a lasting impression!

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a tragic story of incredible potential

there are a lot of factors that go into developing and producing a series, and i think the most important thing to remember is that the studio that opted to create this series is not very large to begin with. because of this, and likely a lot of struggles to finance and cast the roles, i'm being a bit more lenient for both my rating and review.

to address the main concern: the acting. i think that david did a lot of the heavy lifting here, despite being a rookie with still a journey left ahead for him in terms of presenting a story. kinn was stiff to the point it made the set look cheaper and his interpretation to seem disinterested at times. i can't judge too harshly, as i am not an actor myself, but it does give me pause that the director, casting director, scriptwriter, and the team just went with this despite all that. i would've loved to see david work with someone experienced or that he had a partner that could help him immerse himself into the role better.

acting aside, the sets were interesting, but it all felt very boxed in. regardless of where the scenes took place, it felt very much like a "closed in" experience, where you don't really get a picture for the entire situation going on. you could say it made the series feel like it took place inside of a dollhouse. it could've been used to their advantage and portray a creepier space, but it just felt weird instead.

in terms of the story itself, i was still confused about what the ending meant. i wasn't sure how in the future there's a video, when matthew's family couldn't see khen so how could they be recorded? is the future just a loop now? was everything "fixed"? and had khen already met matthew in his timeline and had just never known it? i might have to pick up the book instead and read it, but i hope we can get more series from Violet Rain, their stories truly have the potential to change how media adaptations of queer novels are approached. i am particularly fond of the focus on historic/past thailand timelines.

overall, the series is not the best, and part of it is likely a failed budget, but i still think it deserves a watch.

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loses focus, both on itself and with viewers

the way this series was produced makes the story feel like it's growth and development were not let to fully take place. there's a lot to these characters and their background that keeps getting presented in a way that doesn't allow for much of an emotional or informed audience. i understand what they were trying to do, but i think they relied too much on telling the present story through memories of the past and during it they lost a lot of the intensity, confusion, passion, fear, love, and affection that we were supposed to see.

because of this, it's hard for the viewers to really understand highly emotional moments. times like that initial reunion, the food, gifts, or just even the tension are kind of flat since there really isn't much to go off of in regards to their relationship or history.

it was not a bad story overall, but wanting to keep surprising the audience just got boring and made everything a lot more anti-climactic for me. i would have rather seen them grow together and apart then heal from their misunderstandings. this is like getting a story through a game of telephone, except the lines are crossed and you don't actually know where you are in terms of the story.

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a gem in the rough, but a gem nonetheless

though the story starts off slow, confusing, and a little awkward, this series gets better as it progresses. i do also think we have to take into consideration the time that this was filmed in, there was COVID going on, restrictions in group gatherings, and a generally pretty rookie cast.

you really see a lot of the challenges this production had to work with, especially in regards to the games, crowds, and how they used it to portray "loneliness" on the court. i wish they had gotten the chance to film this without a pandemic going on, but they honestly did a great job despite it all. i also think the cast, despite being pretty new overall, did a great job.

the only downside of this, is that the time skips were very jarring. one episode thorn gets hurt, and the next one he's already had a surgery (that he doesn't seem to be using any recovery medical equipment for?) and it felt like i missed an entire episode. honestly, i had to make sure i didn't actually skip anything... still, it was a great watch, and i think it highlighted the complexities that come in sports and relationships well.

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Has flaws, but overall a good watch

Unlike all the reviews hailing and praising the source material, I'm going to HEAVILY disagree with that.

If you have not read the webtoon and plan to, maybe come back to this after you've read that.

Anyway, despite some shocking scenes in this series, the way the story progresses is very in-tune to the life stages that the characters are in. They're all teenagers, in a highly homophobic world, and they're all in highly emotional situations. I prefer the story in the series, as the source material involves not only a very concerning power imbalance between an older man/married professor and a student, but also how extensively abusive Juha is originally meant to be.

The common complaint is that Taeyi was out of line in one scene the most, but his development and the rage he felt means he was going to explode and Seheon happened to be the one not only making his way into Taeyi's life, but the one that Taeyi felt was making him have to process his grief. Unless if you've lost someone extremely close to you, you won't understand the rage that takes over you and your rationality. Grief is never a clear and straight path, and you don't always move forward. Plus, he's an actual child in this and I think people are going in a bit too hard on him after having such a traumatic and tragic loss then having to process how someone has come into his life and makes him happy (something he tries to convince himself he doesn't want).

Then there comes the whole mess between Juha and Doyoon... I do not think Juha deserves any kind of sympathy if we want to use the source material. In the series there is at least room for some different type of conflict, but the webtoon only highlighted how bad of a person Juha was.

Because of this and the gross the situation between Taeyi's brother and Seheon's father, I don't agree that the source material is better. Even the progress of the relationships is lackluster in the webtoon but I think we had a good thing starting with the series adaptation and the changes/omissions that it had.

Still, until LGBTQ+ productions are taken seriously, given proper funding, and are seen as actual necessary media in South Korea (which they are), we are going to have to take things as they are able to be presented sometimes. I only say this lightly, because even productions like Love for Love's Sake managed to pull of most of the original source material or adjusted it to create a more condensed but still relatively loyal to the story series without sacrificing the queerness it is based on.

Jazz for Two had so much more potential, and it saddens me we could've had more, but I personally enjoyed it and most specifically the complexity of grief that this series gives an insight to. The only real flaws are that it needed a lot more time and better dialogue between characters. And although others want to see more from Juha and Doyoon, I'm okay with never seeing that come full-circle.

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full of humanity in all it's forms

some films that give a gloss over feelings, but White Night brings you along into a whirlwind of chaos revolving one person's struggles, humanity, and an internal battles. it's the good with a lot of the bad, and the feeling of watching self-destruction take the wheel.

the story focuses on one person, wongyu, his pain and journey through processing the trauma he has gone through. though there is no sugarcoating to any of this, his one night stand brings him the grace he had not been given by anyone else. you can see the recognition of kindness, how it's foreign to him after going completely numb to the world, and how he holds back from any kind of expectations. yet, this person, a virtual stranger, keeps coming back to him and keeps being the one to support him in exacting some pain onto the people that have destroyed a part of him that he won't ever get back.

he had hoped things would be the same, at least that is my guess, so when he returns and taejoon has moved on, wongyu's tears are what i interpret as regret. regret that he didn't call taejoon when he left or afterwards as years went by. even as he's grown, the trauma and pain still haunts wongyu and i think that also reflects the untold and unacknowledged discrimination and hate that the lgbtq+ community in south korea goes through even up to this day as not much has changed to help protect victims of discrimination, attacks, and homophobia. (and yes, this continues to be a worlwide issue)

this film is a journey from beginning to end. we get the fear, pain, and helplessness from wongyu but we also get the desperation from taejoon and his anger as well. anger at the world for it's cruelness, frustration with himself for not being able to just walk away, that he is not what the other needs and he's already too emotionally invested, and the feeling helplessness while watching someone struggle to open up again once he learns what wongyu is really doing with the constant back and forth they have going on that night.

the cast is phenomenal and truly gave life to the feelings of these characters to a degree that it makes you go through the rawness of their struggles just within that single night.

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nothing notable

although i love both of the leads cast here, i can't say this is a good representation of either of their skills in acting. i also do not enjoy the way the story was written/directed here. there's a lot of lack of connection for both the characters, and it's hard to understand how exactly they developed feelings. part of this boils down to just how incredibly short the episodes are, but also the lackluster script & storytelling abilities from the producer.

this could've been a lot better, but oh well. it's just a casual watch so i don't recommend this to anyone looking for something engaging or with substance.

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loses itself too much

although I love the cast, it’s the same issue again as far as writing goes: the story sucked.

chemistry is everywhere with everyone, but when the story just never really connects, it turns into a jumbled mess of bits and parts that never really give you the full picture.

the racing ends up being a background detail in general, which I was a little saddened about. we also never really get the full story on any of the characters, not even the main ones, so that was also just incredibly disorienting when trying to come up with theories (you can read the novel, I personally have zero interest in it). most of the characters were as complex as a cotton ball, so I wish the series would’ve changed that at the very least (north and sonic genuinely deserved better). there were a lot of unnecessary parts, but with the ending this series had, I don’t think im interested in a second season here. there’s not really anything left for them to do now, but I am still really impressed with a lot of the cast. Lee in specific I am really excited to see act in more series, he has one of the best scenes in the entire series and it left a huge impression on me.

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too much

the first episode was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever made myself sit through. it was a constant fight to finish and I kept dropping the show.

it took about five episodes for me to see any appeal to tutoryim, though i found leotai a lot more interesting. the script was all kinds of bizarre, the comedy was laid on a bit too heavy for me, and the times I did enjoy anything, it was really just a quick scene and would be over before I knew it.

it may just be that I don’t enjoy this type of comedy, but it bugged me that it had the potential to be a lot better. I do hope to see more of Leo and tai though.

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realistic to a fault

though it is dated, with some rather questionable language, this movie was easy to fall into. all of the boys did a great job and fell into their roles pretty seamlessly. The lack of a significant budget was visible (and audible) but they made it work. And though it likely was not part of the plan, this made it feel like you’re there hanging out with them too.

Overall it was enjoyable, though at the end I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Still, I think this is a good watch if you’re just looking for something to fill a boring night. Found myself laughing at some of their antics, reminded me of my high school days as well with some of the crazy ideas we get as teenagers lol

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new life to a tiring series

though I personally dropped the Thai original, I found this interpretation entirely more enjoyable! there was some nice, low simmer tension going on between the pairings that didn’t leave me thinking more was needed.

though I personally wished we could see a better amount of intimacy (hand holding, conversations, small moments between a couple) I can’t truly complain about the roles.

one thing I kept getting annoyed by was the bad sound engineering. the voiceovers were really loud and not mixed well so they would take me out of the scenes too much.

other than that, I found the series enjoyable! it was kind of funny seeing max & nat too lol. not sure what that was about but they were cute to see.

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