Why did I do this to myself?

WARNING: very savage review. If you loved this show proceed with caution. It’s also almost 2000 words, you’re welcome.

Story: 3/10
There isn’t much plot outside of the three romantic relationships, so for this section I’ll just talk about them each individually.

Hia Lian/Kuea:
One of the worst written romances I have ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes upon 😊 Nothing makes sense, and everything sucks.

Okay let me elaborate on that. This engagement is ONLY red flags. There are no flags of any other color. The central conflict and basically the plot for the entire show is introduced in the first episode, where Nu’Kuea meets his fiancé Hia Lian, whom he has been engaged to since he was little and claims to be in love with, even though he had been studying abroad the last couple of years and seemingly hasn’t been in contact with him. Sure, I guess. Kuea goes on dates with Lian, who treats him very dismissively and uncaringly, as if he was only doing it out of obligation and didn’t have any interest in Kuea as a person. Their conversation is dryer than the Sahara Desert and they don’t bond at all. When Kuea goes over to Lian’s apartment he tells him he loves him and confronts him about why he doesn’t say it back to him. To that Hia Lian replies with a coldblooded rejection, telling him he doesn’t love him and is only marrying him out of obligation. That’s very harsh, but it’s certainly better to be honest about that, rather than pretending to love him when you don’t right? Well, wrong. Hia Lian DOES love Kuea. Wait- what? You heard that right. Hia Lian spends the next bunch of episodes trying to win Kuea, who is rightfully hurt and fed up with Lian’s antics, over, forcing him to stay with him in his house among other things, even though he literally already had Kuea before and needlessly pushed away for absolutely no reason.

His explanation for his actions? Not an ounce of logic to be found. There really was no reason to be so cruel to Kuea and Hia has nothing to say except that he’s sorry, no explanation. Inconsistent writing at its finest, the writers wanted the dramatic moment of Hia’s cruelty in the first episode, but they also wanted the ‘I always loved you’ narrative for Hia. Sorry but it doesn’t work like that. They should’ve committed to the idea that Hia isn’t in love with Kuea. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time because Kuea was studying abroad, so they don’t really know each other that well anymore. They could’ve shown us Hia falling in love with Kuea as he gets to know him and come to regret his past actions. But the way they did it here, there’s no development, he loved him then and he loves him now. The only thing that’s changed is his behavior, which didn‘t make sense in the first place. The steamy scenes would be so much nicer if the emotional connection between the two was properly conveyed. They really thought putting two good looking people on screen and having them kiss for an uncomfortably long amount time would be enough, but it got boring REAL fast, to the point I started skipping those scenes. Not only were these scenes WAY too long and way too often, in all their other scenes these two characters never gave me impression of having true feelings for each other. Other than the first one, the kisses felt devoid of any emotion. At some point it just started to feel like meat, and it was very off-putting.

Another big storyline for the two is that Kuea is hiding his true personality from Lian. Kuea has got to be the densest person in the world if he truly believes he’s hiding ANYTHING from Lian. In the SECOND episode Kuea announces to the world he is Kirin (but in the last episode he is shocked to find out Hia knows about it? Make it make sense!), not to mention the constant mess-ups of him revealing things, again in the second episode while drunk or wearing his engineering uniform in front of Lian when he supposedly studies something else.

Basically: Kuea was hiding a bunch of stuff from Lian, pretending to be some nice little boy, but Hia Lian found out almost immediately. Hia Lian knows. The audience knows that Hia Lian knows. But Kuea? Has no idea! This conflict is dragged out until the very last episode, and it was the most annoying thing I ever had to witness.

When I saw the trailer, I thought I’d be like this: Lian and Kuea are engaged but don’t know each other very well. Kuea thinks he’s in love with Lian based on an image he has of him in his mind. Lian is not in love with Kuea. Kuea tries to appeal to the version of Lian he imagines by portraying himself as a well-behaved pleasant kid. Lian is not impressed, tells Kuea he doesn’t love him, because he can tell Kuea is being fake and doesn’t want to ‘date a doll’ but a real person with a personality. Kuea is disillusioned with Lian after his coldhearted rejection and stops trying to appeal to him in retaliation. Kuea thinks he’s getting back at Lian by making things hard on him (such as acting out on dates) and being more feisty, however exactly that is what ends up attracting Lian to him. Lian develops true feelings for Kuea and puts genuine effort into getting to know Kuea and courting him. They fall in love, the end.

INSTEAD we got Kuea hiding his real personality from Hia and Hia finding out in ep. 2 when Kuea spills the beans while being drunk. Kuea doesn’t remember anything the next day and continues to lie to Lian for the entirety of the show, only to dramatically reject Hia’s proposal in ep. 11 because ‘you don’t know the real me’, when Lian and the audience all know that he DOES know. What a dumb plot, seriously. I’m not even gonna talk about the part where all of Kuea’s family’s property is transferred to Hia Lians name because all that was just needless drama based on miscommunication that was resolved within like two episodes.

Their relationship is based on lies and hot air, nothing more. How did being childhood friends turn into lovers? No idea. Who cares, let’s have another sex scene.

Hia Yi/Diao:
A lot more bearable to watch than Kuea/Lian, but I have to say the same thing I did for them: These two people should not be dating. Diao spent a majority of the show being legitimately terrified of Yi and the ‘resolution’ to their story was just ‘have sex’, not even a proper conversation. And even after they made up and got together, Yi was incredibly controlling of Diao (an 8 o’clock curfew for an adult man who do you think you are, his dad?). Their main conflict was based around the fact that Hia Yi somehow ‘caused’ Diao to lose his memory and feels guilty about it. We don’t know how other than ‘it was an accident’ (something which is only off-handedly mentioned in the last episode), but we don’t get to see the accident nor any kind of repercussions of it. We don’t even ever SEE him being having holes in his memory, the only reason he always looks confused is because Hia Yi is sending mixed signals. And the resolution of this conflict is Diao telling Yi he regained him memory (off-screen no idea when or how that happened, but who cares right?) and then that’s about it. Communication was just as garbage as Kuea/Lian, development non-existent, red flags everywhere, this relationship is doomed to fail.

Nuer/Syn:
The third couple was truly the only redeeming part of this show and they got the least amount of screentime. Because of this their story line had to be very simple. Two college boys meet in a class and bond while working together on a project. A tried-and-true formula that should be boring by now but was incredibly fun to watch, especially compared to the overly dramatic but ultimately dull story of the other two. In both the other couples there was a clear power imbalance in the relationships, with both the older guys having control over their younger partner, who would always submit to them. Seeing Nuer and Syn being equals and having a very sweet romance only made the other couples seem more awful and toxic. Syn’s characterization as a man of religion was clearly established and referenced throughout and wasn’t abandoned halfway through the show as I feared. Not overcomplicating his character is what made him so great. His motives were very clear and his actions in line with his character. Nuer’s character was a bit more sketchy as he was seemingly interested in Kuea at first and then somehow flip-flopped to being interested in Syn. I never quite understood this change in behavior, and whether he was ever really interested in Kuea or not, so that’s a negative. However, these two have wonderful communication skills, and actually talk about their issues! The others should take some notes! When Nuer notices Syn feeling upset at him showing concern for Kuea, he clearly communicates to Syn that he will keep his promise to him. It’s truly a shame these two didn’t get more screentime, especially because there was so much boring filler for Kuea and Lian that we could’ve easily cut out. On the other hand though I feel like the producers would’ve found some way to ruin their story by introducing dumb conflicts if they had more screentime so maybe it’s for the best. Maybe their romance is best suited to being a side-story. Too bad it had to be in a show where the main couples are unbearable to watch.

Acting: 4/10
I know that Zee (Hia Lian) is a good actor but in this they really didn’t give him much to do. His character had two facial expressions: default serious face and annoying condescending smirk. At least that’s better than Max (Hia Yi), who always looked angry for no reasons and Nat (Diao) who always looked kinda scared, although I think that less a problem with the acting and more with the characterization of the two so I’ll let it slide. For New this was his first role and I’ll give him credit for that, but his performance felt very goofy to me. Every time he put on that fake ass smile, I just wanted to smack it off his face. His crying scenes were all very dramatic and just way too much to the point it made me laugh. I’d say my favorite performance was Yim as Syn. His expressions were very lively and cute, and suited the character very well.

Things I liked:
• Nuer/Syn best boys
• Zee being hot
• Reading comments ranting about the show after every episode. Y’all are genuinely so funny.

Music: 5/10
Not much to say tbh it was fine I guess. I did skip all the scenes that had Kirin singing though bc BORING, let’s get back to the story I’m not interested in your plug for his music career or whatever

Rewatch Value: 0/10
please don’t make me watch this again I barely got through it the first time haven’t I suffered enough? I would watch a cut of only Nuer/Syn scenes though, that’d be fun.

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