A Story About Freedom

I must say I was a bit skeptical about this. With the amount of dramas recently getting 40 minutes to 1 hour long runs each episode who struggled to maintain a storyline cohesive and engaging, you do get a little aprehensive. The Eighth Sense shows up and tells you that, yes, the episodes are long, but you are going to be so enthralled you will be begging for more. I mean it. I felt like time simply slipped through my hands every single time I watched this show. How did it manage to go by so fast?

The Eighth Sense is one of those projects that stand out because of how clear it is that it's a labor of love. It is a thrilling and passionate story of pain, drama, romance, yearning, and a deep and beautiful portrayal of serious and important themes like trauma, mental health and so much more.

But most of all it is a story about freedom. We follow two characters who yearn for it. Jaewon, who struggles to forgive himself and move on from past traumas, which in turn makes him take cover and shut himself off from the world and Jihyun, who struggled how expansive the world in front of him could be and struggled to break free from his own fear. The characters are full of depth, multifaceted, and most of all, HUMAN.

Combine that with oustanding acting not only from the main couple, who can communicate such raw emotion and chemistry with each other without even speaking a word, but side characters as well (Yes, I am looking at you Lee Mira as Yoonwon), an incredible and unique OST (Which, by the way, introduced me to the incredible korean band Wetter, which i've been listening to everyday for the past 5 weeks) and a superb work from the directors, who brought a distinct storytelling method and editing style to the korean BL industry.

Ok, I know I'm doing too much praising this show, but seriously! It's completed deserved.
Now I'm going to get a little personal here and tell of the impact this show can have on a person. As someone who's on an ongoing battle with mental illness and who's recently went off meds (Yay! Victory) this January after years of feeling numb and not like herself, I was, for a very long time, pretty apathetic and not exactly connected to the whole spectrum of human emotion due to some long term side effects.

Now, when I tell you, this effing show. Because of this effing show, for the first time in so long I felt literally everything rush back to me at once. I went through the whole emotion wheel, spectrum, 5 stages of grief, EVERYTHING. I finally felt like a functional human being, but also a complete MESS. Werner du Plessis and Inu Baek, I'm coming for you!
This show is a must watch, even if you don't care about the genre. I'll say it again, great acting, great sountrack, great use of symbolism, great directors.

Also, it's about surfing as well.

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