Honestly I can't believe we're still getting BL series this bad in 2026. This mini series runs about 7 to 8 episodes with a total runtime of just about an hour and it is so boring that I genuinely struggle to find the words. The actors are awkward, the story is as basic as it gets and there is almost nothing about this show worth saving. The makers do try to stir up some drama here and there but even that falls completely flat. Ho Won is a 23 year old university student who spots a man sitting alone at a gay bar and gets attracted to him. The man is Min U, a 33 year old who brushes Ho Won off immediately saying he's too young. Ho Won lies about his age and since he's made a bet with the bartender that he'll get this man home before the night is over, he switches tactics and eventually the two end up at Min U's place and sleep together. Despite being complete opposites in every way there's some kind of pull between them and they go on a couple of dates. But t...
The story picks up after the death of a man named Colin. His ex-wife Marion, who was with him for over a decade, and his lover Arthur, who was by his side through the brutal final months of living with AIDS, are brought together in the loft they've both inherited half of as per Colin's will and now need to sell. What follows is the two of them sitting with old grievances and new ones, circling each other, confessing things, and slowly working through a shared loss that neither of them quite knows how to carry. Marion reveals that she herself has been infected with the virus. Arthur, understandably but also a little selfishly, wants to feel like his grief is the more legitimate one. Both of them are broken and both of them are looking for somewhere to put the blame. But as the confessions keep coming and the walls come down a little, something shifts between them and what starts as tension quietly becomes understanding and the beginning of a real friendship.
What I liked is that the film never goes big and dramatic about any of this. The characters react the way actual people might react, messy and contradictory and not always sympathetic. The two lead actors carry it well and the writing does a good job of showing just how complicated these kinds of relationships really are. That said, the endless back and forth between Marion and Arthur does start to wear on you after a while, not because you don't believe in where it's heading but because one of them takes so long to get there. There's also a hint of a subplot about their child growing up with divorced parents, one of whom is now openly gay and in a relationship, but it never really gets developed into anything. Thankfully the whole thing runs just under an hour so it doesn't overstay its welcome.
Watching it now it feels more like a time capsule than something groundbreaking, though who knows how much it must have pushed things when it first came out. What makes it stand out among the AIDS dramas of that era is how it sidesteps the medical and political noise and just focuses on the people left behind, making a quiet case for understanding and the kind of unconventional family structures that don't always get taken seriously. (5/10)
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