The Time Of Fever - Tumblr Posts
You said I can ask you if there's anything I don't understand, right? Then please teach me. How to kiss.
THE TIME OF FEVER (2024).
You said I can ask you if there's anything I don't understand, right? Then please teach me. How to kiss.
THE TIME OF FEVER (2024).
That fruit in Donghee mouth sparked something inside Hotae...
Video credit tagged on it 🙏
Honestly, revisiting this show after The Time of Fever is fascinating because it really starts out feeling like Hotae was the one who left Donghee rather than the other way around. And seeing this line after the show just hits differently. And when an injured Hotae gets brought in and Donghee brings out his first aid kit?
This is agony knowing their backstory, knowing the love that was between them and who rejected who and how heartbroken they both were and the joy they used to bring to each other that they can't even approach right now. Ugh. My entire heart to them.
Hits so differently now. Ugh. I do love prequels. Though I wish we could get a happy ending sequel as well. They deserve joy, damnit.
Honestly, just everything about them is so much more painful with the new knowledge of who they were to each other and who they were together and how that all ended.
Absolutely feral over them now. Hotae finally pushing for what he's wanted for so long (because he's wanted this for so long) and the instant rejection from Donghee out of trauma and I love them so much more on a second viewing and with the new show in mind.
So. The Time of Fever. The story is pretty simple, but it was elevated by some choice cinematography and music... sooooo let me take two seconds to gush about the two kissing scenes.
Both scenes are shot to convey something very specific (how special the characters are to each other) and although not much is said, a lot is implied. I don't know how intentional it was, but they also end up almost a perfect "reverse" of each other.
The bare bones of the two scenes are as follows:
Kissing Scene 1: infirmary (public setting, neutral white, Dong-hee takes care of Ho-tae's wound)
tension, uncertainty/confusion, complicated feelings (shaky cam, tense dialogue)
something sets it in motion ("hyung")
music starts
slow and steady - dreamlike atmosphere (tension released)
outside interruption, music stops - back to reality, tension back up
Kissing Scene 2: bedroom/house (private setting, heavy color-coded, ends in pain for both of them)
comforting, easy-going, chill vibe (steady cam, silent book reading)
something sets it in motion (hand feeding)
no music
shakiness, quick movements - raw, not romanticized (tension goes way up)
minimal music - self-interruption - got a lil too real, tension goes down
If you watch them back to back it's even more obvious, I love iiiiiit. The contrast of it all!! YES. Sorry for my ugly GIFs, I just wanna illustrate my points lol
In the first scene, Dong-hee and Ho-tae let down their guard and enter a bubble of peacefulness, before it bursts. The scene starts off with quick, nervous dialogue, no music. The shots go from tight to even tighter, and the camera shakes a lot, reflecting the ambient tension.
The music, gentle and hopeful, starts as soon as both of them "fold". Ho-tae agrees to use the hyung honorific for the first time since ep1, and Dong-hee gently goes in for the kiss. The scene is drenched in white, the camera movements slow, to the point it's hard to notice whether they themselves are moving slowly or if there's a subtle slow-mo effect applied. It's unhurried, like they have all the time in the world.
The music swells into something very airy and dreamy as soon as their lips touch; the camera steadies, the shakiness fades—the surroundings too. Even when the camera pulls back a little, the framing is minimal—you can't even distinguish where they are anymore (in a school infirmary, behind a curtain, against a window). The only thing in focus is their faces, the rest is slightly blurry or washed out. It's not just visually that things fade out, there's also barely any background noise: no ruffle of their clothes, no school chatter, no bird chirping. it's just them, floating on a cloud, the heaviness of the moment gone, the initial anxiety soothed.
The moment, the music, the kiss—everything is interrupted abruptly by an outside element: the school bell. The bubble pops, like a dream they both wake up from—signaling the end of recess, back to harsh reality. Their eyes open, they freeze, and just like that, the camera shakes are immediately back.
The scene unfolds smoothly and clearly: it takes the characters from a moment of tension, to sweet release, steadiness, and calmness—it starts from something complicated and changes to something pure and easy, like a knot being unraveled—and then snaps them back to reality.
The contrast with the second kissing scene, happening in the same episode (!) is nothing but art tbh. Like I said, it looks like the reverse of that first scene, but it unfolds the same way. This time, it starts off quiet and gets thick with tension.
First, they're at home, not in a public space. It's not day-time. They're lying down. The private, safe atmosphere of the scene is reinforced by the warm colors. It's late autumn, it's getting cold. They set up a space-heater (it casts a reddish brown hue over them), place a comfy (red) carpet on the floor to keep the heat in and to laze around on. The camera is steady, the framing comfortable, no shakiness.
They're still facing each other, one is on his back, looking up to his book, the other one is on his stomach, looking down as his own. Everything conveys a cosy, relaxed but intimate vibe, without any agitation. Ho-tae is snacking absentmindedly on some seasonal fruit (clementine/mandarin). There's no talking. There's also absolutely no music. You hear everything, from the distant creaking of the house, to the pages rubbing together, to the crickets outside.
Then, comes what sets the scene into motion: Ho-tae feeds Dong-hee some fruit. Dong-hee takes it into his mouth easily. The mood switches. A lot of close-ups, and the camera movements become shakier, more chaotic: tension goes from 0 to 100. Where there was a lightness, softness to that first kissing scene, it's pretty much the complete opposite here. It's more intense, but there's a sort of ache, an urgency to it that was completely absent in the first scene. The breathing gets heavier, louder, no music to cut through the reality of it. It's been a while since I've seen such an erotic scene, without it being explicit.
When it does come, the music kicks in very slowly, just a few low notes of piano, not enough to cover the noises (the kisses, the breathing), the initial warmth of the scene becomes almost stifling. And just a few seconds later, everything abruptly stops once again, but this time, Dong-hee himself is the one putting an end to it. The camera very slowly tones down the shakiness, back to steady.
In this scene, the characters' comfort and peace crumble, the kiss doesn't appease, it lights a fire. Gets them inflamed and exposed. Takes them from innocence and easiness to desire and hurt, from sanity to fever. The hazy, nice moment catches fire and burns up too fast. Like Ho-tae's fingers twisting knots into Dong-hee's sweater, the feelings gets tangled up, and both end up getting hurt.
The first kissing scene was the beginnings of some clarity, they both let go of what holds them down, while that second scene is charged with angst, it weighs heavily on them. The parallel was just so good I needed to get this out.
unintentional love story: im from a manga webtoon! have some slapstick comedy. hot guy kabedon! melodrama! everyone seems to be gay? cheesy fun! dead fish kiss! a ring! wink wink there's an idol tee hee happily ever after~~
the time of fever: i'm straight out of your traumatic queer teen memories. everything's bathed in golden light. homophobia is hanging over you everywhere and it's in your house and it's in you. here's a scene about the intersection of desire fear euphoria horror when u make out with a friend and It Means Something. they're looking straight down the camera and no one winks. sometimes someone moves away and that's how it is. you will fuckin CRY
The space in between them that's taken up by an electric heater? THE HEAT BETWEEN THEM BEING REPRESENTED PHYSICALLY. brb screaming. again.
Can't you stay here? I won't do anything, just stay by your side. THE TIME OF FEVER (2024)
You should smile. I like to see you smile. I never smiled that much. I just realized you don’t know yourself that well. You’ve always been a gentle guy who likes to smile. You’ve been like this since you were little. You always liked to smile and you were gentle. Even so, how can I smile now? I’m not a crazy man. I haven’t smiled in a long time. It’s nice to smile like this.
The Time Of Fever (2024) dir. Yang Kyung Hee
You said I can ask you if there's anything I don't understand, right? Then please teach me. How to kiss.
THE TIME OF FEVER (2024).
The Time of Fever (Ep. 1-3) visual analysis: The Metamorphosis
Ho-tae: "I woke up to find myself transformed into a monstrous insect, lying in bed"...What is this? A story about a guy turning into a bug? Dong-hee: If I turned into a bug one day, would I still be Kim Dong-hee or just a bug?
From this piece of dialogue and the cinematography alone I know The Time of Fever is going to cause me a lot of pain. The only way to describe its style is palpable.
The moment our two main characters, Kim Dong-hee and Go Ho-tae, appear together, we can see the friction and unnamed longing between them.
Notice how often the first episode uses shots with three distinct compositional layers to provide depth and complexity to the relationships portrayed on screen:
In most of these shots, the composition places Dong-hee in the background with Ho-tae on another layer completely--they're distant and never quite aligned on what they want out of the relationship. Despite how these two characters were brought together by their mothers' friendship--I love how the second screenshot uses their bodies in the foreground to frame Dong-hee and Ho-tae--it's that very connection that also creates a wall between them. Although Ho-tae is excited about rekindling their friendship after moving away two years prior, Dong-hee doesn't want to betray his aunt's trust by admitting his romantic feelings for him.
And so he recedes into the background, alone and inscrutable.
The fact that Dong-hee also compares himself to Gregor from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis hits like a sucker punch.
Like Gregor, Dong-hee lives a sort of transient and almost functionalist lifestyle. After being kicked out of his home by his abusive father, he focuses on his school work and trying to get by. He is isolated and his queer awakening only makes him feel more disoriented and misunderstood--he feels like Gregor in his insect form.
And yet we still see moments where he allows himself to yearn for something more and how Ho-tae begins to do the same.
(Side Note: I love love love the show's use of backlighting to highlight the lines of the actors' bodies. It's so simple but intimate and erotic as if the camera is acting like Dong-hee's artist-eye trying to memorize Ho-tae's muscular beauty.)
One of my favorite stylistic choices of The Time of Fever is how it uses close-ups to represent the characters' subjective POV and desire.
Like Dong-hee's sketches, these shots are the fragments of everyday life that are so small yet feel oh so significant while on the path towards self-discovery.
They're gloriously tactile, the shallow depth of field eliminating extraneous detail, allowing us to experience the heady excitement of accidentally grazing your crush's skin or looking into their eyes during a rainstorm.
I don't think I've seen desire that achingly displayed in a hot minute.
And so it makes sense that as Ho-tae begins to undergo his own metamorphosis and understand his own feelings, we see more and more visual parallelism in how their desire manifests.
(Side Note: The second screenshot above is such a gorgeous shot. That inky black negative space not only showcases Ho-tae's gaze at Dong-hee's lips but also his reaction to the realization that hits him. Great 2 for 1.)
I can't wait to see what visual storytelling the next three episodes bring.
You weren't like this before. Things change. I guess I changed too.
The Time of Fever
Sooooo....
I'm a little confused. I've not watched a lot of Korean bls, other than maybe 4 (The Eighth Sense, Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, Love for Love's Sake, Where Your Eyes Linger; loved every one of them. ).
I keep seeing gifs of The Time of Fever. I want to watch it, but I keep seeing tags of Unintentional Love Story and I wanted to know if I need to watch Unintentional Love Story before I watch The Time of Fever. Please if one of you can help me out that'll be great. Also, feel free to suggest any other Korean Bls if you think I might enjoy it.