The Eighth Sense (2023)

Una historia humana de amor, memorias y errores

The eighth sense trae una nueva perspectiva y drama entre una ola de k-bls que sigue la misma fórmula, los directores nos adentraron a personajes humanos, por un lado tenemos a Jaewon, recién salido de su servicio militar y un chico que lleva una máscara día con día, por el otro lado tenemos a Jihyun, un novato universitario tratando de encajar en un mundo diferente. En condiciones normales sería difícil ver tener química entre dos individuos totalmente diferentes, pero la química entre los actores y la forma en que se desarrolla su relación no da más para pensar que estos dos chicos fueron más que destinados a encontrarse.

Si bien, tenemos detalles que pudieran costar la excelente cinematografía e historia de la serie: inconsistencia en la edición, escenas abruptas, diálogos un poco innecesarios, al final del día creo que para ser el primer trabajo de los directores estos detalles no lograron opacar complementamente mi adición hacia esta serie.

Jisub y Juntaek definitivamente pusieron su todo en las actuaciones, sin su química y sus presentaciones no hubiera podido despegar tan fácilmente, especialmente por Jisub, Jaewon es un personaje complicado, lleno de espinas y diferentes caras a lo largo de la serie, su actuación simplemente fue fenomenal. Y Juntaek, me sorprendió muchísimo saber que era su primera vez, simplemente tiene mucho futuro, no creo que alguien hubiera podido interpretar mejor a Jihyun.

Creo que hubo algo humano dentro de esta serie que hizo que mi rating fuera alto, amo tener historias lgbtq que se salen del status quo y nos meten en una experiencia de tratar de entender estos personajes más allá de una relación, pero más bien como individuos.

Amaría una segunda temporada para explorar en este caso la relación entre Jisub y Jaewon, pero de igual manera considero que el final fue satisfactorio.

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El mejor KBL de la historia

se puede ser el mejor BL coreano de la historia? claro que si, y THE EIGHTH SENSE arraso con todo, la ost utilizada fue excelente y atinadisima, los actores tuvieron una quimica de otro planeta, la direccion , la prodcuccion y la fotografia de la serie siemre fue exquisita. nada que decir. simplemente que ahora habiendo visto el 90% de todos los KBL, tengo la vara altisima gracias a este BL.

La relacion de Jae won y JI Hyun paso por muchas cosas , el peque flecado desde el primer momento y en claro con sus sentimientos aunque fuera joven e inexperto y jaewon sintio la tension desde el primer momento y sacando su primer beso el cual tuvo como respuesta un gran y evidante gay panic, despues pudo sincerarse.

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Arte

Si me pidieran describir esta serie en una palabra lo unico que se me viene a la cabeza es "Arte", esto es más que una serie es una pieza de arte.
Me considero cinefila y al momento de ver una serie soy muy exigente en lo que respecta a cinematográfia y The Eight Sense es una de las muy pocas que supero todas mis expectativas en lo que respecta a todos los aspectos: guión, desarrollo de personajes, fotografía, colorimetria, actuación, soundtrack......todo esta perfectamente planeado. Agradezco mucho al equipo de producción y al cast por habernos proporcionado algo tan singular y especial.

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Esta serie es de lo mejor que he visto hasta ahora <3

La historia es tan profunda pero sin marearte, literalmente a veces no necesito la traducción porque la mirada que expresan los actores lo dicen todo. Cinematografía me encantó, las puestas, los colores, la música, la tipografía también está genial. De hecho que la recomiendo hasta yo la volvería a ver.
Espero que nos den más de la historia de los protagonistas. Me encanto.
Amo la serie, hablo de ello todos los días desde que se estrenó. Amé el final y el desarrollo de los personajes.
Ahora voy a extrañar los miércoles de The eighth sense.

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mucho mucho amor puede sanar cualquier alma

ay por favor, quiero hacer una review cortita pq sigo sin encontrar las palabras exactas para describir esta hermosa serie, de vd
antes de que empezara, cuando ví que tendría 10 episodios de 40 minutos cada uno sabía que ya algo iba a cambiar. obviamente no me equivoqué!! hace mucho que no veía una serie tan linda y realista. voy a hacer una listita de cosas que me encantaron:

- la manera en la que abordan el tema de la salud mental de jaewon, es muy realista y encaja con la situación de muchas personas
- la estética de la serie, es tan satisfactoria se ver, los colores encajan tan bien en cada escena, realmente ayudó muchísimo a transmitir más sentimiento!!
- la actuación de los protagonistas, la química que hay entre ellos es increíble, me encantaría seguir viéndolos juntos en series con mucho angst jajsks
- el tiempo de desarollo de la historia, me pareció que en ningún momento fue apresurado, lo manejaron súper bien
- específicamente las escenas finales del episodio 6, son tan TAN hermosas, es increíble como sin diálogo se puede transmitir tanto, la conexión entre los personajes se aprecia a la perfección a través de la pantalla ♡

es una serie que recomiendo al 100%, y la volvería a ver en cualquier momento que tenga ganas de ver algo que sé con seguridad que no me va a causar frustración. no fue para nada pesada de ver, todos los episodios me engancharon mucho, lo cual es bastante difícil jaja
conclusión, me atrevo firmemente a decir que es el mejor bl coreano hasta ahora, e incluso uno de los mejores en general!

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It’s more than just a romance drama…

And that can be either a selling point or a red flag, depending on what you are looking for. Personally, I loved it.

The Eight Sense starts as a story mostly focused on Ji Hyun, a student that moved from the countryside to Seoul to attend a university. Trying to fit into a larger and fast paced environment, working part time and taking classes - having just one friend from the same town. And then he comes across Jae Won. And that’s when the romance starts, Ji Hyun slowly starts to get out of his comfort zone and the plot starts to shift more towards Jae Won.

For me, Jae Won is the star of the drama. His character just resonates with me more. Initially presented as this popular guy who just got back from the military. Guy that has it all: friends, girls liking him, rich and influential parents and an extroverted personality that makes his daily life so much easier. But there is so much more to this character and we slowly see the unhealed wounds as the plot starts to focus on his side more and more.

Both characters went through enormous change throughout this short drama. Both matured and learned more about themselves. While the romance was amazing, organic, well paced and perfectly delivered, the individual stories were the aspect that made me love the drama more. Creating your characters as more than just a pair, making sure they are presented as individuals with their own stories, social circles. Not locking them inside the romance bubble where they are never seen interacting with other people in a context that is detached from their relationship - that’s when you know there was some proper effort put into writing.

I cannot compliment The Eighth Sense enough on how they presented and dealt with mental health issues. This might be one of the best representations in k-bls we have seen so far. It showcases how complex of an issue it might be. How at times we don’t even know how much people around us are struggling, because they learned how to mask it. How the healing takes more than just occasional visits to a specialist. How the system of social support and having people you trust around you is also a vital aspect of recovery. How there is no one solution, magic pill that can fix it all - it’s a long process that needs many elements working together to have a positive and long lasting effect. But also, how it’s obtainable, how it’s not impossible to get out of that dark place, no matter how hopeless it might feel at the moment.

As for the acting - no complaints. Both Im Ji Sub and Oh Jun Taek did justice to their characters and delivered a realistic and believable performance. The Eighth Sense also has an amazing cast of vibrant supporting characters. I adored the female-male friendships thanks to Yoon Won’s and Ae Ri’s fun personalities and great delivery by Lee Mi Ra and Seo Ji An. I hated Eun Ji and Tae Hyung with all my passion and it was also possible only because of how well acted the roles were - props to Park Hae In and Jang Young Joon. It also made me think how we all have flaws, some just have a bit more than others… But we still need to learn how to coexist with them, otherwise it will just make out lives harder.

All that said, here comes issues I had. The editing was at times truly painful. I understand that in some cases it was probably a stylistic choice that visually represented the state the characters were in, but it did not really feel like it. It just felt like a messy and jumpy editing. In most cases the directing and editing was okay. Opening two episodes had an amazing indie feel to it and I fell in love with it right away, but the middle part of the story just felt a bit sloppy. Some scenes felt on the nose, but I don’t think it was the issue of the scenes alone, but rather the fact they were played one after another.

Overall, highly recommended, but not to people who just want a romance driven story with little to no distraction from that aspect. This show does not even have that many scenes of leads together, compared to other dramas in that genre. It’s more of the characters walking next to each other rather than characters walking together. Sometimes one person stops for a moment. Sometimes one person picks up the pace leaving the other behind. There are individual detours before they can both reach the destination.

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Take NOTES THAILAND

This is ACTING.. this is CINEMATOGRAPHY. this is chemistry without PUSHING it in our face.. it's subtle. it's unspoken. I grew up watching shows like skam and skins and despite me loving the fluff of Thai BL's... I love gritty lgbtq stories and I believe shows like this will open the door and kick it wide open for more Asian countries to do more lgbtq esque shows like this and what 180 degree longitude did a while ago as well. how are these actors ACTING without even speaking...they don't even need dialogue and it's so powerful between them that they don't even need words.

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a must watch series

Overall: this series is unique and beautiful and I hope to see the leads again soon. 10 episodes about 35 minutes each, aired on Viki (cut movie was in theaters in South Korea)

Content Warnings: see my comment with a spoiler

What I Liked
- chemistry and tension
- sweet moments
- how Ji Hyun is inexperienced/timid but goes after what he wants/takes risks/stands up for himself
- supportive people: Ji Hyun's roommate (who is oddly not listed on the MDL page), Ae Ri, the restaurant owner, Yoon Won & the therapist
- production style/value
- that we actually see therapy (gone to voluntarily) and medication however, it still felt like a fictional "love cures all" by the end
- characters discussing how respect is earned not deserved due to age (which is only 3 years difference anyway...)
- that the co-writers/co-directors were trying to solve copyright issues with social media posts promoting the series

Room For Improvement
- I wish they had lit the actors' faces a little bit more during the night scenes, sometimes it was so dark that I couldn't see what was happening
- I believe they purposefully went for a choppy vibe but it came across as jarring instead of artistic, one example is the beginning of episode 3 did not pick up where episode 2 left off, they should have re-shown a few seconds of episode 2's ending and then gone from there
- unless it was a translation error misleading the audience for half of episode 7 was not needed and felt like a betrayal instead of a neat plot twist
- Eun Ji was a cliched evil ex character who was not needed at all, they could have cut that character and that other dude and then spent more screentime in other areas
- not everyone deserved a character redemption, sometimes a person does something so bad that no apology can absolve them and they lose friends, two characters should have had this happen to them instead of the happy/ish endings they received
- we actually never got the entire story with Jae Won
- odd things, a bar owner can't speak Korean in Seoul? there wasn't a swim test? odd conversation in ep 3 about kissing and consent (you don't have to ask but it's nice/a good idea to get verbal or non-verbal consent), Ji Hyun says he'll stop prying or leave Jae Won alone but then doesn't do that, the joke about Halloween/Itaewon was in poor taste as was people laughing at the guy cross dressing
- that the production crew still does not have an official release for SE Asia 3 weeks, and that those in South Korea only had access to an apparently a very choppy movie

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THE CHEMISTRY, THE STORIES

TBH IT'S REALLY SOMETHING NEW FOR KBL, LIKE HOW THE STORIES CAN MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I'M IN THE STORIES LINE????? THIS IS GONNA BE MY TOP 1 KBL. TBH. I'M TYPING THIS WITH MY TREMBLING HANDS. IT'S SOOOOO FUCKING GOOD. IT'S MUST BE HAVE A LOT OF AWARDS.

THE WAY THEY EXPRESS THEIR LOVE, THE WAY THEY LOOKING AT EACHT OTHERS LIKE THEY ALREADY FALL IN LOVE. NOT IN THE DRAMA BUT IN REALITY. THEY ARE SOOOOOOO MUCH IN LOVE. I LOVE ALL THIS DRAMA, STORIES, HOW THEY ACTING AND HOW THEY EXPRESS THEIR FACES.

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME MY 10/10 REVIEW OF KOREAN DRAMA. I KNOW MAYBE THEY WILL BE ANOTHER STANDARD FOR KOREAN BOYS LOVE DRAMA.

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I have fallen in love with the story and characters, so I am personally offended by the execution.

My title came off a little strong, so here’s the short answer: this drama is definitely amazing for a gay romance coming out of Korea, but has really poor editing that was consistently jarring and some loose ends.

Now here comes the long answer (starting with the good of course!):
I really do appreciate this drama because it made an effort to tell a genuine gay love story, and I would say they succeeded. I especially appreciated this effort because the homophobia of Korean society tends to encroach on the acting and direction of some other BL series I’ve seen.

From the script alone we already have a good starting point, but the actors definitely took this drama to the next level. Im Ji Sub and Oh Jun Taek were stellar lead actors. You could always tell how their characters felt just through an expression or exchange. The chemistry and tension between them was on point. You could always feel a tangible mutual romantic curiosity between the two of them. It never felt stiff or awkward, or like they were forcing themselves to “act gay.” The effort and care put in the acting and direction gave the romance an authentic feel.
The setting and story were both quite nice. The school setting felt realistic, and the surfing aspect worked with the story surprisingly well.

The main characters themselves were both interesting. I liked to learn more about them, and see them grow and change throughout the series. I wasn’t a fan of Eun Ji or her writing. It wouldn’t have hurt anyone if they put a little more effort into making her a little less of a one-dimensional villain archetype, but in the end she served her purpose.

Now for my main complaint, and the achilles heel of this entire show: the editing.

I wish I was being dramatic when I said the editing made me die a little on the inside. As someone in visual arts who has experience with video editing, I genuinely started to wonder about the vision from the director and editing team, or if there was an editing team and if they got paid. Possibly they were held at gunpoint to make some of the most questionable editing choices of all time. The look of the first two episodes was alright, but the editing lost its way at episode 3 and barely managed to find its way back by episode 8. The coloring and filters were too exaggerated and varied. It very rarely did anything to add to the mood or tone of the show. At worst it was very distracting and at best it was tumblr-esque and outdated.
To be fair, there were a handful of shots I thought looked lovely.

Now if you're someone who doesn’t care about the aesthetics of a show, there is still a reason to care about the quality of the editing. The transitions. This was where the editing really started to hinder the storytelling. It made the story convoluted and hard to follow. I often had to skip back to see if I missed something, only to realize I hadn’t missed anything at all. The transitions are really just that jarring. It didn’t help that they would often throw in random scenes without context and then move on with very little explanation.

Overall, I would still recommend this show and I think it is a step in a great direction for Korean BL dramas. The integrity of the story and characters holds up, even if the transitions and editing made me want to pull out my hair.
The story also leaves me wondering about the character’s futures. I felt that we missed out on some of the development of Jae Won that the story was hinting at. I’d like to know more about our main character’s families and backgrounds, which are still partially unexplained. I would definitely tune in for a season 2. I may even rewatch it eventually now that I’ve come to terms with the horrendous editing.

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Great start, somewhat lackluster finish

I liked this story and thought it had great potential, but I wasn't entirely thrilled with the redemption arc readily granted to very devious characters. It felt forced and didn't really do justice to the story. I also feel that Ji Hyun forgives too easily. Jae Won offered no explanation and that felt wrong. I was angry on Ji Hyun's behalf. I understand Jae Won's trauma but he was projecting on Ji Hyun and also willingly conniving with Eun Ji in the process. I don't know! I felt that his return to Ji Hyun required a little more effort on his part. He just shows up and is forgiven.

Ghosting someone also causes anxiety. Ji Hyun exhibits no signs of insecurity. The makers were so determined to wrap this happily that they hurriedly tied the ends together but the ends are loose and unsatisfying.

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