Welcome to my Saturday blog post where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week I finished recapping Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo with episodes 7-8. There are many reasons I shouldn’t have enjoyed this show and yet I did. Furthermore, the ending was one of the most satisfying I’ve seen in a while.
I also finished Love Is A Poison with episodes 11-12. It’s not a great legal thriller but it’s an excellent sweet romance between a lawyer and a con man. It also has something against people with long hair.
What did I watch this week? I just said above, so let me give you the spoiler-free series reviews below.
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo – 태권도의 저주를 풀어줘 – 2024
A Korean BL with 8 episodes.
A young man trapped in a dark, abusive, taekwondo existence has his life changed when a ray of sunshine shows up.
It’s something when a show has hated tropes and a storytelling style that can drive me bonkers but I still loved it.
Let’s start with where I got annoyed
There is a style of storytelling where you withhold information to create suspense. You think one thing is happening because that’s what you’re shown, only to be shown a different angle, a different character’s perspective, or something that happened before or after. Suddenly, your entire perception of the scene is changed.
This narrative device makes a lot of sense in certain situations or with certain genres, like mysteries or thrillers. It can also show how a character learns that they have misjudged a situation.
But when it’s used repeatedly with romances or stories where I want to go on an honest emotional journey with the characters, I find it disruptive. Instead of being swept along by emotions, I’m waiting for what’s really going on to be revealed. I can’t get as emotionally involved.
It’s hardly unique to Korean dramas, but I have noticed it there more than in other country’s dramas. It drove me crazy in Reply 1988 and I couldn’t get very far into Prison Playbook.
When am I going to talk about Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo?
Now!
We start the show with Do Hoe and Hyeon Ho, who are not our lead couple. They are two high school guys living in a miserable rural town where Do Hoe’s father abuses everyone because he’s the local taekwondo master. The other adults are cool with this because everything sucked in the past.
A stranger comes to town. Ju Yeong, a ray of sunshine who needs to work on his taekwondo, moves in with Do Hoe and trains under his father. He has no idea about the abuse, but he’s aware of the time he lives in and how common these things are.
Do Hoe is laser-focused on getting out of this miserable little town and away from his father, and doesn’t need a distraction like Ju Yeong. But Ju Yeong, with his smiles and interest in garlic ice cream, is hard to ignore.
Meanwhile, I get driven mad by semi-glimpses into what’s going on. Do Hoe Has Secrets. Hyeon Ho has secrets. Ju Yeong has secrets. The show has secrets and I don’t get to know what’s happening. At one point I assumed a character was being punished for being gay, I was wrong, and I’m not sure I was satisfied by the truth.
As the show went on the secrets grew bigger and my patience grew thinner.
And yet, the ending did it for me
The ultimate reveal is very well done. There’s a massive emotional relief when everything comes to the open and gets dealt with. I re-watched the last episodes several times to go through the experience again. I’d earned it.
I think it works for two reasons. One, because the show is not that long, just 8 short episodes, so waiting for the reveal was annoying but not unbearable. And two, because the show is a BL-psychological mystery. Do Hoe is the mystery. What on earth is going on with Do Hoe? Poor Ju Yeong gets the unenviable task of solving Do Hoe.
With that in mind, the show might have had me on board earlier if we’d started with Ju Yeong. I would have accepted being in the dark so much if he’d been the main POV character. There’s a point in the story where it became more Ju Yeong’s POV, and it worked better for me.
I think endings are the hardest part of the story to get right, not just in BL but in any genre. So often they are unsatisfying for one reason or another.
It’s the rare story that nails an ending for me, and this one did.
It’s also a white knight story
If you need well-balanced partners putting in equal work to heal each other, this may not be for you.
Ju Yeong is our hero who rescues Do Hoe from himself and others. I dislike the idea of perfectly balanced relationships and like white knight stories. Importantly, Do Hoe appreciates and rewards Ju Yeong in the end. And the audience too, there was a lot of angst but we got sweet moments as rewards.
Ju Yeong is well-written and acted, so he’s not only a white knight. He has his own past and issues, they are part of the complicated angst, but not the obstacle that Do Hoe’s issues are.
Another thing that could be a feature or a flaw is the BL part. I didn’t notice their being gay mattering except for a little extra secrecy. I even thought it mattered in one place where it didn’t. The real focus of the show stayed on abuse and secrets, not LGBTQ+ issues.
This is one of the best Korean BLs I’ve seen
It joins To My Star, Blueming, Love for Love’s Sake as a favorite while being very different from all of those. I’m glad it’s the second one that I’ve recapped.
So if you aren’t sure if you want to watch it, you can always read my recaps first. Or just skip to the end for why I enjoyed it so much.
Love is a Poison – 毒恋～毒もすぎれば恋となる～ – 2024
A not-legal-thriller Japanese BL with 12 episodes.
An ambitious lawyer meets an attractive conman who might ruin his carefully planned life. Who will definitely ruin his carefully planned life.
Here’s a link to the trailer (in Japanese, it’s what I could find).
Right now Japan puts out a lot of BL centered around food. Usually “one cooks, the other eats” (or they can just drag their love interest to a pastry shop).
I love them. They are simple and satisfying, like a Japanese home-cooked meal.
But they are limiting. I love Perfect Propose and Our Dining Table, but at their core, they are both about a salaryman and someone in a unique family situation. One of them cooks for the other. There are important differences (in one the salaryman is the one doing the cooking!), but a big part of why they work is because they are shorter shows. There’s not enough to sustain more, longer episodes.
This show is both a unique Japanese BL, and not a unique Japanese BL
We’re starting with a lawyer and a con man. Shiba has dedicated himself to the law and has lofty, self-important goals. He meets Haruto, who steals his car, has a mysterious past, and makes his heart pound. Shiba’s neatly ordered world is thrown into disarray by these new feelings he doesn’t understand.
Shiba is also in trouble career-wise because he keeps chasing off his assistants and now no one wants the job. Except Haruto, who has unique ways of gathering information.
Sounds nothing like your typical food-centered drama.
Except that in one of their early meetings, Haruto cooks over a campfire for an inept Shiba. Once he’s taken on as an assistant, Haruto enjoys feeding Shiba and getting Shiba-eque praise. He also decorates for the holidays and wants to go to an onsen with Shiba.
So not really that different.
Early on the show claims to be a “legal drama and romantic thriller” but I think anyone wanting that will be disappointed. The show is on the longer side for a Japanese BL, but at 12 episodes of 20ish minutes each, there’s not enough time for complicated cases AND a love story. Thankfully it focused on the latter, but the cases were weak. Anyone looking for an interesting legal show should skip this.
But Shiba being a lawyer and Haruto being a conman is important. Haruto’s shady actions and repeated assertion that he can “be anyone” make his motives suspect. Haruto’s past could hurt Shiba’s legal career. There are fight scenes and moments of higher intensity than just “will he enjoy tonight’s dinner”. Lame as they are, the cases are part of their growing relationship.
So is the kitchen, relaxing together, and cuddling.
I’d call it a “slightly-legal sweet domestic romantic drama”.
I love seeing unique characters in a domestic setting
This drama is perfect for me.
If you are looking for another Jack and Joker, you’ll be disappointed. But if you wished Jack and Joker focused more on Jack and Joker, this might work for you.
Or read my recaps and see if it sounds like your thing.
Oh, and it has squealing succulents. I love them.
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