The Eighth Sense

Korea has given us some good BL series this year, like ”Unintentional Love Story”, ”A Shoulder to Cry on”, ”Love Class Season 2”, and ”Love Tractor”, but none of them was as unique or reached the same quality as ”The Eighth Sense”. The story sounds quite conventional. Country boy Ji Hyun (Oh Jun Taek) goes to study in Seoul, where he meets his senior Jae Won (Lim Ji Sub), a former member of the university's surf club, who has just completed his army service. Ji Huyn, who is scared of swimming in the sea, joins the surf club to be near Jae Won, who suffers from a childhood trauma. As the two of them go on a surfing trip, Ji Hyun almost drowns and has to spend some time in hospital, which worsens Jae Won's trauma. Getting back together after this incident is a real struggle for both young men. This series is near perfection in all respects – the cinematography is unrivalled in Asian BL series, the coloring is sensational, the acting great, the OST beautiful, and the whole production is cinema quality. As a dedicated fan of BL series, there are some iconic scenes stored in my brain which I can thus rewatch any time I want, e.g. Ohm and Nanon's rooftop scene in ”Bad Buddy”, Yin and War's kiss in the rain in ”Love Mechanics”, Nonkul's olive oil scene in "I Feel you Linger in the Aie", and now also the ending of episode 9 of ”The Eighth Sense” which sent shivers down my spine as I watched for the first time Ji Hyun and Jae Won run toward each other and finally kiss with Conan Gray singing ”The Story”. ”The Eighth Sense” is a unique experience which I can only compare with ”I Told Sunset About You”, and so this is my BL series of 2023.