This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
Set in rural province of Philippines, we meet a young gay couple who are making ends meet. They have lost their jobs and with minimum savings, they moved to countryside while covid cases everywhere are rising. They both take good care of each other cooking, cleaning etc while also hoping that the virus doesn't catch them. Apparently Dandansoy is a song by some singer which happens to be a favorite of one of the boys. One day this guys starts to feel covid symptoms. It starts with loss of taste and smell, followed by cough. As best as the other person tries to care for him and nurture him, his health continues to take to the worst and eventually he stops fighting and dies, leaving behind the lover in grief and crying, thus reminding us how many lives and loved ones were lost during the pandemic.
This scene of death, of the lonely burial, of the pain of the companion experiencing all this suffering without any support, hurts even more when I stop to think that it must have really happened thousands of times, in several places around the world, showing that in some places and for the most humble population the pandemic was really much more cruel. The series focused on those marginalized section where basics lack electricity, food, news, sanitation, medical help was really hard to come by. So as much as love helps them both, cooking for one another etc, when crisis comes, reality hits hard. Yes, the story is sad and production quality is likely basic at best, the series is saved by some good performances by its two leads given how little scope they had to play with. They do their best. The message might have been better served as a short story, but I do understand that those were the days when BL series from every corner of Asia were being thrown around since people were starving for content. The title was a bit confusing and it would have benefice to understand the real significance of that. May be it's a cultural nuance that somehow I missed. (5/10)
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