Let's just cut right to it, this show was painfully boring. There, I said it. A story built around partial amnesia has real potential, but between the choppy scene structure and random flashbacks thrown in constantly, the whole plot ends up feeling more tangled than it needed to be. The romance doesn't fare much better either, it's written so poorly that I never really found myself invested in this couple. Both leads come across stiff on screen and deliver their lines in a really awkward way. The show runs 8 episodes, each somewhere around 30 to 35 minutes. Hanuel, a 29 year old language teacher, wakes up after an accident only to realize his memory stops at age 19. It turns out he'd been in another accident back then too, which is why his memories cut off at that point. He has zero recollection of the fact that he's currently living with his childhood friend Saebyeok, who's now a huge celebrity. That makes the whole situation even harder for Hanuel to wrap his ...
Given the subject matter, yeah, this gets explicit, exactly what you'd expect. I kept asking myself, and honestly I'm still asking, whether this is meant to be actual porn or some kind of legitimate art film. I genuinely can't tell you which. The cruising sequences are filmed with this sense of sensuality and mystery hanging over them, like at any moment someone's going to get caught or some outsider's going to crash the whole thing, except that moment never comes, it's just pleasure the whole way through. Nobody treats anybody badly here. It plays like an observational piece, with the camera drifting between tight close-ups and wider shots pulled back. It never passes judgment, just watches everything honestly while still keeping a certain discretion about it. Strange little connections form throughout, sometimes through sex, sometimes through conversations you wouldn't expect. One of the best moments in the whole film is this detailed retelling of a hookup between two strangers, told out loud to a blind man. The director doesn't shy away from raw sex or pleasure at all, playing around with fantasy and fetish almost playfully.
Honestly, what was the actual goal here, what was the director even trying to say with this? I have no clue, and I doubt anyone else does either. There's got to be some reason behind it, otherwise why stage all this primal gay sex against the backdrop of a supposedly family friendly amusement park. As a piece of filmmaking, this was just flat out boring. (2/10)
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