Review of, "Where Your Eyes Linger," web series written and directed by Hwang Da-seul, produced by Park Jong-sung for W-STORY and Rakuten Viki TV, 8 web episodes (10-12 min each) released 2 episodes a week on Fridays from May 22, 2020 - June 12, 2020.
⚠️SPOILER WARNING ⚠️ This review contains major spoilers. Do not read if you don't want spoilers.
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MAIN CAST:
Han Gi-chan as Han Tae-joo (IG: @hangichandaily)
Kang Eui-soo as Kang-gook (IG: @jesoo122)
Choi Kyu-ri as Choi Hye-mi (IG: @choi.gyuri)
Jein Jae-young as Kim Pil-hyun (IG: @jaeyoung.jeon.35)
Jung Seo-in as Hye-mi's mother
SUMMARY:
"Han Tae-joo, the heir of TB Group, is under the protection of Kang-gook who has been his best friend for fifteen years. The two share a master-servant relationship, with Kang-gook acting as Han Tae-joo's bodyguard. As they grow up, Kang-gook slowly realizes that he likes Han Tae-joo as more than friends, but realises that he has to keep it to himself. He cannot take his eyes off of Han Tae-joo, but neither can he get as close to him as he wants. Han Tae-joo, on the other hand, is a player who has had several girlfriends in the past, and who is confident and assertive. He knows all of Kang Gook's weaknesses, and enjoys pressing his buttons. The two friends share an unnaturally close friendship, often blurring the lines between friends and something more. Kang Gook often looks at Han Tae-joo with lingering looks of longing, and they share many charged moments of unresolved sexual tension. This state of affairs changes when Choi Hye-mi, a new female student, joins their high school and shows interest in Kang-gook. Han Tae-joo is forced to confront his feelings for Kang Gook. Throughout the story, Kang Gook tries to keep Han Tae-joo at arm's length. This leads to several occasions where Han Tae-joo, who is having none of it, pushes Kang Gook's boundaries." - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Your_Eyes_Linger
MY REVIEW:
Where Your Eyes Linger is a South Korean web series whose total runtime is about the length of a feature film, making it a great candidate for a binge watch, which is exactly what I did. It is a heart warming love story. Tae-joo and Kang-gook are lifelong best friends with a twist -- Kang-gook is actually a servant, supposedly a bodyguard for Tae-joo, although with them being the same age, that seems a little far fetched. Kang-gook is more a companion than anything else.
The story does not have any major surprises or plot twists, and plays out in a predictable way. One cute and unexpected element of the story is that the mother of the female love interest is the person who sees that there is something more than just friendship between the two male leads, and frequently mocks here daughter for trying to get with a gay guy. Also, the title of the series comes from a line that Hye-mi (the female love interest, briefly) says to Kang-gook when she is letting him off the hook for standing her up (so he could spend time with his soon-to-be bf, Tae-joo): she tells him she always felt like even when he was looking at her, his eyes were really on someone else. Additionally, it is interesting that even though it is Kang-gook who has had feelings for Tae-joo all along, it is Tae-joo who initiates the relationship. His jealously when Kang-gook tries to date someone forces him to realize his feelings and that he is not just wanting to tease Kang-gook to test his boundaries like he had told himself for so long.
The only serious plot conflict comes when Tae-joo and Kang-gook are seen kissing. After a fumbled attempt to tell Kang-gook his true feelings, Tae-joo confronts him and kisses him after football practice and they are seen by Pil-hyun who tells on them, ostensibly because he has been coersed into spying on Tae-joo. This all results in Tae-joo's father staging a kidnapping (for some reason...) and forcing him to agree to go to England and cut off contact with Kang-gook, which he agrees to for Kang-gook's safety. Fast forward 3 years with a little montage-style filming, and Tae-joo and Kang-gook are reunited just in time before Kang-gook goes off to Japan to try to forget about Tae-joo. They kiss and we can assume it's happily ever after...
Um. This story is a little trite. And it depends on some shallow tropes. I liked it. The actors did well in their roles and their love story put a smile on my face. The relationship is believable and they did not use the clueless-female-troublemaker stereotype, in fact they used the antithesis of that. It's the women in the story who are like, "Um, duh, you're gay and you like him, not me. "
But, they did throw in the violent, homophobic Mafia dad as the final foil, who is also somehow totally blindsided by a romance between his only child and the person he has been sleeping in the same bed with for 15 years. And, they used the go-abroad-with-no-contact trope that is just so preposterous by 2020 that it ruined the story a little bit. There is NO WAY those two would have no contact -- internet, cell phones, being rich kids, etc. And, if by some chance they really did go 3 years with zero contact, their feelings would not have stayed so powerful that neither of them had any other relationships. They're 18-21 year old males. Enough said.
Where Your Eyes Linger does deserve some props for being South Korea's first BL / LGBTQ+ drama. Being the pioneer in that country allows for some forgiveness of the problems I find with the story. The two main leads were very popular K-idols already, and their presence in the series surely contributed to the success of the series and to the BL explosion that followed in South Korea. Trailblazers don't have to be perfect.
All things considered, I would give Where Your Eyes Linger 3 of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐
All images (c) copyright Viki TV and W-STORY.
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