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Burnout Syndrome (Thai Series)

By Golu
True to its title, this show tries to capture burnout not as some big dramatic collapse but as this slow, draining exhaustion that quietly eats away at relationships and how you see yourself, and honestly it makes the characters feel really real. The pace is slow on purpose, and everyone here is flawed and full of contradictions, nobody's simple. It uses this messed up boss and employee dynamic to sneak in some pretty smart commentary on society. The story digs into toxic work culture, mental health struggles, and how money ends up running our lives whether we like it or not. And yeah, there's a love triangle thrown in too, because of course there is. This one runs ten episodes, each around 45-55 minutes. Jira's twenty eight, broke, and struggling to make it as a painter. Nothing's going right for him, his art isn't selling, he's got no steady job, and he's basically on the edge of falling apart. His best friend Ing does what she can, finding him odd jobs an...
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Exclusive Love (Taiwanese Series)

By Golu
Taiwanese BL series used to be comfort watching , but the last one I saw wasn't very good and sadly the bad please continue with this one. I think the problem is that they have not evolved with time in their storytelling methods. They still keep mandatory 2 couples who journey of love story we go through. There is a bit of drama thrown in. Glossy apartments, good looking actors and some random storyline background but the actual love story following the same tropes of enemies turned lovers or 'I love you so much but can never confess' trope. C'mmon guys, please give us something more. With 12 episodes each of 25-30 minutes, this one is still a significant time commitment. 

Wang Zhan is a wannabe musician who is content with his life. Until one day he is forcibly kidnapped by his older brother to train him to take over the family funeral business. Wang had never had an interest in the work and is quite shocked why his brother would do such a thing.The kidnapper guys an extremely good looking guy who soon becomes Wang's nemesis as he forces him to physically train himself in addition to other rituals that need to be performed on dead bodies. They have a lot of differences, opinion clashes and yet inevitably in the midst of all those disagreements, they slowly grow closer. We slowly find out that kidnapper also has inner demons he is dealing with. His parents died in accident making his younger brother disabled as well. As they start to get romantically involved, Wang also finds out the truth about his brother being sick, which had forced him to force his younger brother to take over the business. Our other couple is friends of Wang Zhan. These two guys have been close friends since forever and are also very much in love with each other. They do everything that you would expect a couple to do, except both are scared to share their feelings for fear of rejection. Things continue to go at a slow speed, till one of them meets a girl and he decides he will get married to her. The wedding arrangements are being handled by the friend who own a wedding planning company. Finally, the planner guy starts to take control making both himself and his friend realize that they are so much more than friends and that they need to be together. After a slow burn romance, this love story alongwith the main coupe come to a logical end as you would expect.

Lets Strat with the main couple. They both come with so much emotional baggage that when the romance starts it is hard to see the chemistry there. The romance was extremely slow burn and in between we have a couple of random other guys thrown in for added drama so that both the kidnapper guy and Wang Zhan realize that they maybe they have fallen for each other. There was absolutely nothing memorable about the whole relationship. Be it music or the training or the romance or the unnecessary drama. Coming to the second couple, The two friends had better chemistry and showed promise, but I had one big issues. I might sound racist here, but the two guys looked so similar to one another, that I always had a hard time figuring out who was who. And of the duo was together with Wang Zhan, things got even worse. Similar make up, similar hairstyle, similar clothes; it all gets confusing. The makers really need to give individualized styling to these characters. The acting sways between good and massively lacking and the plot is absolutely random. I imagine the writers had two spinning wheels in their offices, one for first or second couple, the other with random typical BL tropes. Whatever the wheels showed would be the next scene. This lead to scenes between both couples being widely unbalanced and the plot not having a single stringent line. Despite having a "happy end", it was all loose ends. There were mandatory sex scenes in the last two episodes of each of the couple because who would complain of the ripped abs, perfect skins grinding against each other. It just became drag after the first few episodes. 

Taiwan used to produce intriguing storylines and enigmatic acting. Sadly, this is a reminder that everything changes and has an end. It's time Taiwan BL makers change too and give us something refreshing. (4/10)
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