The Boy Next Door
Examples of Korean BL haven't been easy to find. I've struggled to find anything other than "No Regret", a fantastic movie in its own right but it's not really BL in the strictest sense. Bromance seems to be more common in Korea, a genre that I always try to avoid due to its cynical use of gay-baiting. Mini-series The Boy Next Door is more bromance than BL on the face of it, but more than anything else, it's a brilliant and really effective satire of BL.
Summary: University students Gijae and Kyutae live next door to each other in a block of small flats. They meet out front when smoking a cigarette and don't really hit it off. They feel uncomfortable with each other but at least make an effort to be more friendly with each other. However all their meetings in public end up having the very odd appearance of them being a new couple in love. Their friends and acquaintances are mystified by how close they seem to be, and they all jump to the conclusion that they are boyfriends. The boys do nothing to refute the assumptions, but they constantly swear under their breath whenever someone they know misconstrues their behaviour as an obvious indication of attraction or even love. When a small fire makes Kyutae's flat uninhabitable, the landlord asks him to move in with Gijae while it's getting renovated "because they are so close". The boys reluctantly live together in Gijae's flat, but, to their horror, the BL suggestiveness of their behaviour and the assumptions of others about their relationship continue to multiply.
Get ready to laugh out loud with every episode of this series. Its humour and satire are hilarious, funnier than anything I've seen in BL except for maybe Chinese series Like Love. The satire isn't sarcastic or superior, but affectionately ironic. It takes many of the clichés of BL and exposes them for being the adorably ridiculous puppet show they really are, by turning them upside down. To list just a few: blowing some grit out of the loved one's eye; the spark of awkward recognition when hands accidentally touch; the shared noodle, Lady and the Tramp style; the Pocky Game; being knocked off balance and falling into the loved one's arms; the sad yearning after an angry fight; the 'dominant' cornering the 'submissive' by placing his hand against a wall behind his head; running through the rain under a coat together. There's even a musical interlude!
Each of these BL standards is shown 'in preview' for just a few seconds at the beginning of each episode with the two boys, but entirely without any context. Once we see it actually occur later in the episode, it's not at all what we had assumed it had been. This is the best and funniest aspect of the series, where our assumptions about what we think we've initially seen - just like all the other characters in the series who are shocked by what they think they see - are brilliantly turned upside down by the truth. Context may be everything, but the secondary and even funnier effect of the reversal is to expose the ridiculousness of the clichéd BL contrivance we've just witnessed. It's as if the boys have fallen into a BL alternate universe without realising what they've been doing to put themselves there. When they see how their behaviour might be misunderstood, they are mortified but strangely never attempt to change any misconceptions directly. To add to the satire, small animated elements are sometimes superimposed on the scene - fireworks in the shape of love hearts, roses falling romantically over the screen, breathless soft-focus close ups, blushing cheeks.
Adding to the silly fun and games is the fantastic performance of the actor playing Kyutae, Choi Woo Shik. He takes his nerdy character's obliviousness to great heights of comedy and even slapstick. In one of the best scenes in the series, he meets his Kpop idol and shows how much he loves her by dancing her moves to her with an impressive lack of coordination. He gets all the best scenes in the series, and the best lines, so its such a bonus that he's so good at it. [EDIT: if anyone has seen Korean movie Parasite - the best film of 2019! - you'll know how good an actor Choi Wook Shik is.]
Some of the humour gets lost in the final few episodes when the focus turns to Gijae's ex girlfriend Mina, but the reason for bringing her forward more than makes up for it.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 14/20
Ending: happy bromance
Best scene: I have two, and they are both Kyutae's:
(1) Kyutae and Mina's latest boyfriend have a serious conversation about "boldness" where each completely misunderstands the other, with amusing results. (And it's quite moving too.)
(2) Kyutae's reaction to Gijae's apology for hitting him is absolutely priceless. One of the funniest phone call conversations I have ever seen in a TV show.
Summary: University students Gijae and Kyutae live next door to each other in a block of small flats. They meet out front when smoking a cigarette and don't really hit it off. They feel uncomfortable with each other but at least make an effort to be more friendly with each other. However all their meetings in public end up having the very odd appearance of them being a new couple in love. Their friends and acquaintances are mystified by how close they seem to be, and they all jump to the conclusion that they are boyfriends. The boys do nothing to refute the assumptions, but they constantly swear under their breath whenever someone they know misconstrues their behaviour as an obvious indication of attraction or even love. When a small fire makes Kyutae's flat uninhabitable, the landlord asks him to move in with Gijae while it's getting renovated "because they are so close". The boys reluctantly live together in Gijae's flat, but, to their horror, the BL suggestiveness of their behaviour and the assumptions of others about their relationship continue to multiply.
Get ready to laugh out loud with every episode of this series. Its humour and satire are hilarious, funnier than anything I've seen in BL except for maybe Chinese series Like Love. The satire isn't sarcastic or superior, but affectionately ironic. It takes many of the clichés of BL and exposes them for being the adorably ridiculous puppet show they really are, by turning them upside down. To list just a few: blowing some grit out of the loved one's eye; the spark of awkward recognition when hands accidentally touch; the shared noodle, Lady and the Tramp style; the Pocky Game; being knocked off balance and falling into the loved one's arms; the sad yearning after an angry fight; the 'dominant' cornering the 'submissive' by placing his hand against a wall behind his head; running through the rain under a coat together. There's even a musical interlude!
Each of these BL standards is shown 'in preview' for just a few seconds at the beginning of each episode with the two boys, but entirely without any context. Once we see it actually occur later in the episode, it's not at all what we had assumed it had been. This is the best and funniest aspect of the series, where our assumptions about what we think we've initially seen - just like all the other characters in the series who are shocked by what they think they see - are brilliantly turned upside down by the truth. Context may be everything, but the secondary and even funnier effect of the reversal is to expose the ridiculousness of the clichéd BL contrivance we've just witnessed. It's as if the boys have fallen into a BL alternate universe without realising what they've been doing to put themselves there. When they see how their behaviour might be misunderstood, they are mortified but strangely never attempt to change any misconceptions directly. To add to the satire, small animated elements are sometimes superimposed on the scene - fireworks in the shape of love hearts, roses falling romantically over the screen, breathless soft-focus close ups, blushing cheeks.
Adding to the silly fun and games is the fantastic performance of the actor playing Kyutae, Choi Woo Shik. He takes his nerdy character's obliviousness to great heights of comedy and even slapstick. In one of the best scenes in the series, he meets his Kpop idol and shows how much he loves her by dancing her moves to her with an impressive lack of coordination. He gets all the best scenes in the series, and the best lines, so its such a bonus that he's so good at it. [EDIT: if anyone has seen Korean movie Parasite - the best film of 2019! - you'll know how good an actor Choi Wook Shik is.]
Some of the humour gets lost in the final few episodes when the focus turns to Gijae's ex girlfriend Mina, but the reason for bringing her forward more than makes up for it.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 14/20
Ending: happy bromance
Best scene: I have two, and they are both Kyutae's:
(1) Kyutae and Mina's latest boyfriend have a serious conversation about "boldness" where each completely misunderstands the other, with amusing results. (And it's quite moving too.)
(2) Kyutae's reaction to Gijae's apology for hitting him is absolutely priceless. One of the funniest phone call conversations I have ever seen in a TV show.
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