K-BL First Take: The Director who Buys Me Dinner

Review of Episodes 1-2

The Director who Buys Me Dinner is a newly released Korean BL series starring Park Young Woon, Jang You Sung and Park Jeong Woo. It is an adaptation of a webtoon of the same name. The screenwriter of the drama is  Son Yi Seul. Here is my first take on the K-BL.

Ever since the market of BL content became international, thanks to the Thai BL industry, there have been productions across the world including South Korea. But often times Korean BL’s are an extension of K-dramas and mostly just an attempt to take advantage of the increasing market value. There have been only a couple of Korean BL series which had any depth. I am not a fan of Korean BL’s exactly for this reason.

Lack of Depth

The Director who Buys Me Dinner falls into this latter category. The tackiness of the title, “The Director who Buys Me Dinner” can be because it probably got lost in translation. It might make total sense in Korean, so that can be overlooked. There are some moments of comedy in the drama which works well.

The duration also does not help in bringing any depth in writing. The fantasy element is something that we have seen before in K-dramas, the most famous one being Goblin. But in their attempt to execute the fantasy element, this BL looks almost as a spoof of Goblin. And we do not even understand if this is intentional or comedy-gone-wrong.

The actors are good but there is nothing new even there. The acting is also the typical K-drama hero’s mechanical doing. This is not to say that K-drama actors are bad, but they follow a school of acting which is very repetitive and similar. But that is also because of the repetitive writing which creates similar kind of characters in every single drama. Only some actors stand out with their exceptional skills.

Having said that, The Director who Buys Me Dinner is not bad but it is definitely not a must watch. The actors have really good chemistry and they are a delight to watch on screen. Korean BL fans will definitely enjoy this one.

You can watch it on iQIYI.

The Director Who Buys Me Dinner -trailer
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