Long Khong (2020)

Okay so I just finished watching this series and must I say.... it didnt meet my expectations.... it EXCEEDED them!!

At first I was so close to not even watching the show cause it wasn’t properly available for international fans, the bl romance got censored and we never got to see that steamy locker scene so I was kinda disappointed...

But I decided to give it a try and I DID NOTTT regret it! Although there wasnt gay romance and they didnt make it easy for international fans, the story and the plot were magnificent. During the series one by one the characters die in a different way but the way they die is so smart. Praewa makes them think that its their fault their friends are dying and she is getting into their head, brainwashing them so it can be easier for her to kill the others afterwards. In addition, the plot twist at the end caught me off guard as I couldnt even imagineee that!! Like- WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN? It was so smart and the way it ended didn’t disappoint me at all! Not even in the slightest!

The acting literally shocked me. I didn’t except them to be so good!! They did an absolute amazingg job and they couldnt have done it better! I respect them for that!

The ost fits PERFECTLY for the whole concept and the singer is a queen herself so I just love it!!!

All in all I think that everyone did such and amazing job with this series and I definitely recommend it to everyone! Give it a shot and I hope you wont regret it cause I didn't either❤️

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No...

The reason I decided to watch the drama is the casts; Mark(Love by Chance and The Stranded), Boun(Until We Meet Again) and Praew(Hormones 3). However, Boun died Ep.2 and then Praew died Ep.3, so I kept watching only for Mark. Without him, I think I must have dropped for sure.

At the first few episodes, the story made me thrilled and excited. I was curious what’s going to happen next, even though I knew I won’t be able to see Boun and Praew anymore. The bully scene at Ep.1 was really cruel, and there are also lots of creepy and scary scenes in this drama. But I think it’s ok because the concept of this drama needs like these scenes.

What disappointed me was the latter half of the storyline. Suddenly, it went too fast, especially at Ep.8(the last episode), and some of the scenes didn’t make sense at all. Some scenes continued too long without changing sets which was kinda boring to me. And Kaownah...where had you gone? He should have be given more time to appear.

But setting that all aside, all of the cast really did a great job, that just sucked me in. And I love the opening theme tune, it matches the story.

(Sorry for my poor English TT)

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Disappointed

My first issue with this show is that it's not available on youtube. I liked it from the beginning but the last 2 episodes ruined it for me.. i feel like praewa did not get justice. she deserved better. i just finished watching it and i'm so pissed.. and lilin her sister, how can she try to kill her sister and at the end act like she was the victim, i hate her so much. maybe i'm mad cuz lilin did not die. SHE DESERVES TO DIE. the overall story is good, acting on point except for Mr. fluke(brave) a kid can act better than him.. music is good,uuuhh the back ground music is on point. but somehow i feel like i just wasted my time, even though i have all the time in the world (hello covid) i'm not so happy about this show.. well what can i say.

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What have I just watched?

I am quite honestly annoyed. It was an easy 10/10 for me at the beginning. The story was simple yet effective in making me excited and interested. I cared deeply for Praewa and was anticipating all her "evil" shenanigans. But then they added so many plots and background stories for characters I couldn't care less about, it went downhill quickly.

If only they kept it as simple as they presented the plot at the beginning: revenge story with pure chaos and death. Let Preawa win, let everyone die. Focus the mystery part on Preawa finding out the real culprit of her misery. Why do we need the "past events" story? It brought NOTHING to the plot, was dumped on me in the last episode, and I was like: cool... But why? What exactly was the purpose of it?

Truth to be told... the last episode was just bad. Amazing letdown compared to the rest of the episodes. The ending was neither shocking nor exciting. They definitely did not construct the story well enough for me to think "wow... yes, this makes total sense, why I haven't seen it coming" as the last few scenes happened.

Best part of the show? Ticha Wongtipkanon and Nene Pornnappan Pornpenpipat. Truly aced the roles given. Preawa looked mad AF and I believe every scene she gave. Nene surprised me a lot in the last episode, being the saving part of it. I also appreciate how daring they were with some graphic elements.

Overall, I don't even know. It's hard to judge a show that had an awesome beginning and tragically bad ending. On one hand, I want to recommend watching the first 4 episodes and drop after that, on the other hand... What's the point of watching just half of the show? Do with that information whatever you like, but don't get too excited while watching at first, because the letdown will be massive later on.

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WORST ENDING I WATCHED IN MY LIFE (VERY TERRIBLE)

The ending was fvcking annoying. The story started with Praewa being bullied and the story revolved about Praewa and her black magic and to seek justice and get her revenge. Now the ending is a trash how the fvck did the villain won. Linin was so plastic i cant stand it. Linin killed a child when she was still a child, she manipulated lot of people also but it looked like she was the victim in the end and apologizing in the end cuz she got caught now she was crying while killing praewa and eating her like wtf girl. Everything was a mess. Lots of holes in this drama. I dont know what the director and writer are thinking they must be crazy. Linin was a fvcking evil here but she looked like a pitiful victim in the ending. She didnt even show remorse. There's no justice in the end. I dont know what this drama is implementing. In the end everything just went the way linin wanted. I never saw a villain winning in the ending and getting everyting she wants. This is a trash. Very disappointed

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Not worth it!

The biggest turn down for me here is the ending. It's annoying as F! How can this series let the B win!? That's all. Her acting was good, though. Believable. But in fairness, the plot was unpredictable until little clues were given.

Since this is tagged as horror, in terms of effects, it's okay. I'm not sure but the ghosts look like CGIed. They're not really scary. The lead actress and Dan are also in Stranded, which I think is much better than this.

Basically, that's all I can say. There were some deleted scenes from the trailer. I didn't expect most fo the supporting casts will be wiped out. There were some plot twists, though, that you may not expect.

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came for the gays, stayed for the girls(' acting)

This is more of a rant than a review, sorry in advance ✌

Like most of the other reviewers, I came for the cast. Ticha (The Stranded), Nene (2gether), Boun and Prem (Until We Meet Again), Mark Siwat (The Stranded, Love by Chance) and Kaownah (Tharntype). I was looking forward in particular to Ticha's, Kaownah's and Mark's performances since I felt they were the strongest actors but [we didn't really get to see much of Kaownah. His character just disappeared after the team was dissolved. Shame.]

Let's start with the good things.

Prem cheerdancing. Good shit. Adorable. His character was an ass but it was so cute watching him dance.

Siwat in a college uniform (finally!).

Ticha's everything, but I expected nothing less. Her acting in here was five star. Brilliant amazing phenomenal never seen before. I'd say Nene would come second but I'd have to give that place to Sai's child actress - brilliant kid! Her acting was so natural and it really made me sympathize with the character.

All the elements of black magic was the right amount of creepy and mysterious and all the rules made sense to me.

The revenge plot was fun to watch as well, it got a bit predictable near the middle, and then the finale just...undid all that tension and mystery they built up.

I love horror when it's smart, and Long Khong had the potential to be - righteous revenge, the "good guys" racing against time to uncover Praewa's past, Praewa herself exacting revenge and trying to figure out who cursed her at the same time. But it just fell flat.

My main problem was with the pacing.

That whole thing could've been a movie. It wasn't an ensemble story but it was marketed as such. The cheer members had one (1) dimension each & didn't contribute to the plot past their deaths. The consecutive murders felt like a montage almost. The pacing would've been tighter and more compelling as a 2h15m.

The ending would be stronger if more focus was given on Praewa, Sai, their mom, the relationships between the three of them and the 3-eyed god cult. As it is, it felt like it came out of nowhere. The final episode felt like a completely different show from the previous ones.

The cult members and the Mom, who were inarguably the "real" villains among morally gray cast members, were never properly punished (and I don't get why the mom was suddenly okay with giving Praewa her power when she was so willing to sacrifice her life as a kid?).

Sai would've been an amazing villain - ruthless, consistent, manipulative, proactive against Praewa who was always just reacting. And also, how pretty is Pure!!! Follow her on insta @purepwr.g

Her character was so hard to understand though. Why was she so obsessed with Aya's approval? If she liked Brave, why not put a spell on him instead of Dan who imo, would've already been in love with her without it? How come she didn't know who Praewa was when she never changed her name/face/address?

My second problem was with that video.

I am so, so, SO tired of sexual assault being used as a plot device. It's 2020. They can't just frame it as assault (she was drunk as fuck, didn't know brave was filming, etc) then go back and announce that oh, it's okay! She wanted it anyway! NO. STOP. That was such a fucked up thing to do narrative-wise. Stop doing that.

Also, sidebar: I still don't understand why everyone was so obsessed with Aya?? She's cute but like ?? She barely had a personality. And it was never discussed why Praewa was making a voodoo doll of her or whatever that was.

Lastly, Dan. Ah, poor Dan. I know I'm the minority on this but I would've liked his arc better if he wasn't being compelled. I feel like his love for Lilin/Sai, no matter how misguided it may have been, would've been enough to push him to do the things he did. It would've fit in with the whole every-member-of-the-cheerleading-team-has-a-hidden-dark-side thing they've got going on. And it would've made his character, and the "do you still love me?" line at the finale more chilling and interesting.

Plot Hole Dump:
• no way Ping died from a fall that low, she would've broken her leg at worst
• Kin dying and being replaced by Praewa? He's a guy! He's a base in the stunts! If they made Praewa take his place she wouldn't be able to physically hold up their weight.

I heard it's coming on Netflix (hopefully internationally) so I would still rewatch it if only to see everyone + the cheer routines in HD (because the visuals on this cast, wow).

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This is a difficult series to summarize. We may say that Praewa is bullied by the cheerleading team, which has more than a few highly awful people. The bullying turns violent and vicious after Praewa is maligned of being the woman in a sex video with the boyfriend (Brave) of Aya, a central figure in the team. Here's where things get complicated: Aya and a few members of the team beat her up viciously (I think almost to the point of dying), one of them even sends a group of thugs to rape her (in her badly beaten up state) and, inexplicably at first, she is the victim of black magic. Praewa struggles her way home to her adoptive mother, a black magic practitioner, who can only save her from being killed by the black magic by transferring her power to her. After this, Praewa's vengeance begins.

The baiting of BL fans is fairly obvious, with Boun and Prem looking basically the same as the characters they play in Until We Meet Again at first. It's not clear why though, other than for the sake of complementing the message that things are often not what they seem to be. Nevertheless, the story is good enough to hold its own without resorting to BL baiting.

The vengeance plot is rather interesting: we may feel a sense of injustice for Praewa, and the members of the cheerleading team she goes after are such awful people that we are unlikely to feel sorry seeing them punished. However, the series also falls short , at some points even making Praewa seem like the villain and the rest victims. Sure, given her actions, she may well have turned villainous, but most of the rest do not seem convincing as victims. Furthermore, she has to fight the black magic inflicted on her until she deals with the person behind it (who also happens to be the actual person in the sex video).

As it turns out, one of the cheerleading team members is the person in the video. Maybe there is supposed to be a twist in the revelation, but, to be honest, the identity of the person is quite easy to guess. There are only so few women in the team, after all. I think Praewa should have been able to guess it by elimination, but she doesn't. What is interesting is why the person did it, which is where the series manages to throw us a few genuine surprises. The loose threads of the plot get tied up in a rather nice way at the end.

Yet, despite the rather clever plot, one may find that the twists and surprises in the last two episodes are somewhat excessive. The twists given to the character, Dan (played convincingly by Mark Siwat), may be interesting for the plot but is also bad for characterization. If it must turn out that he's under a spell, I would appreciate knowing more what sort of person he is beyond the spell that makes him so devoted to Lin. There are hints of it, but I find it insufficient, so what is becoming a very interesting character till/in Episode 7 suddenly gets flattened in Episode 8.

In the end, the villain wins. The twists and connections between events are nicely presented. However, there are also plot holes, e.g. why doesn't the person (seem to) appear in photos with some dark shadow around, just like how Praewa appears in photos with a dark shadow?

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BL clickbait series

I'LL PUT AN ALERT BEFORE REACHING THE SPOILER PART.

BounPrem had no purpose in this series and promoting them so heavily as a couple was unnecessary and meaningless unless they were trying to gather fujin viewers.

I was interested in it because of the BL too, but apart from that, the cast is amazing. They were what kept me watching it till the end although I knew it wasn't a BL. But again, they used such popular artists just to acquire the fans. Kaownah had zero to no purpose in the series, yet he was promoting it like his life depended on it.

Fans had been anticipating this series due to all these reasons, and they were feeding us well with clips and teasers with English subtitles on YouTube, but then what?? Non-Thai viewers didn't even get subs for it and had to download an unheard app, which only broadcasted it once. Which means, if you failed to watch it on Sunday at the airing time at night, you can't watch it ever again. This made everyone watch the show illegally on various sites that personally frustrated me.

!!NOW HERE STARTS THE SPOILER PART!!

Now that I'm done ranting about all this, I'll talk about the story. It was great and promising throughout. The storyline was what made me not hate the series because of the above reasons. However, at the last episode, they just messed it up so bad. There are a bunch of plotholes, the ending was rushed and unfair to all the characters.

I totally supported Praewa and I loved the black magic backstories. Every episode had a twist and thrill. At first it seemed like Aeya was the worst character, but it turned out to be Lilin. I had been expecting her from a while before she was exposed, but everything was still good. I started to lose my mind in the last episode when we know that Dan actually knew everything about Lilin and still helped her. Now I can justify his character because he was under Lilin's spell, but I wonder why. If Lilin liked Brave (because of which, the entrire story happened), why did she keep Dan under her spell. Like who did she actually want?

Also if Lilin was Sai, why did she try to kill Praewa through black magic? Weren't they childhood friends? What happened that made her forget all about their friendship just because her reputation was at stake. And why would Lilin's reputation even matter to her. I found that pretty pointless, but again, without that the story would have taken place. I just would have liked a better explanation to the entire thing cause it doesn't fit really well.

Also the ending wasn't very appealing as basically everyone died. I'm not sure if Aeya died or not because they didn't show her picture when Lilin was paying respect to the deceased towards the very end. So, if Aeya died, how did she die. Like which was the point when she died. I suspect the body switching time, but it wasn't made very clear. It felt like her death was so vague and unimportant that they didn't even bother focusing on it. AND if she isn't dead, where was she at the end. They didn't show her at all, like they forgot the character existed when she really had the power to go out and tell everyone about everything. Treating one of the main characters this way, I just don't know if they expected from us to not notice that.

At the end I have to say that the best thing about this series was Ticha and Nene who played Praewa and Aeya. Their acting was crazy and mind-blowing. After everything, I can only congratulate them for their outstanding performances.

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Entertaining

I started watching it mostly because I has nothing to do. Acting was random at times and even bad. You can tell that it was made with a low budget. Even boun and prem. It would be nice if they explained everything and didn't do all the flashbacks. It made so much not make sense and to keeping up with all the timelines. They tried so hard to keep the person behind the scenes hidden but I guessed it already at ep 3 or was it 4. It's nice to see actors in different ways. I did like this show. And would recommend it. I didn't find it particular scary more of a creepy show you don't want to watch before bedtime.

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A more technical view on Long Khong

It took me a while to finish Long Khong because the first 2 episodes were like...Hmmm, I had to think about it. I'm glad I continued :)
Well, this show got me completely addicted; But I have a few points to note:

First, the acting lacked A LOT on some ways; It seemed as if the actors simply weren't trying hard enough, even though the effort seems to be made in some scenes; The CGI, monsters, and few jumpscares that happened weren't that great. It didn't merge well with the real life scenes, let's say that. At first I thought the amount of gore was unecessary, but as the show kept going, it started making sense and getting creative with it.
The good points of this series is, the plot is amazing. Oh, and the acting of the protagonist is awesome too, I'm so proud of her even not knowing who she is lol. I think is the first time in which I couldn't guess the plot twist, even if I tried hard, and it hit me so bad. It's addicting and at least to me, it is worth it. You can expect emotional rollercoasters with it;

I would rewatch it.

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terrible production & writing

LIKES:
Acting: When Praewa was being possessed or affected by the black magic & was wreathing in pain, she did it well. The actress playing Praewa (Ticha Wongtipkanon) did a fantastic job, the rest were okay.
FX:
the black magic scars and worm like movement in Praewa’s arms was well done, same with the blood & decay/puss wound.
Music:
Suited the scenes well, but sometimes over powered the voices of the actors/actresses. The music wasn’t scary and didn’t add to the suspense, but it was fine.

DISLIKE:
Production:
Camera work was terrible: Zoom in too close. Shots where their heads are cut off, due to not framing the scene properly, shaking camera (no film stabilizer), all so amateurish.
Lighting was very dark often and that on top of terrible filming, made it hard to watch.
Editing also had some issues, with abruptly cut scenes.
Director:
Brave (actor Fluke Pongsapat Kankam) when driving was using the steering wheel like he was off roading or swerving all over the road.
FX:
The possessed dead/zombie people were terrible makeup.
Writing:
As I have come to expect from most Thai dramas is a terribly written show, with many plot holes, character emphasis on the main leads and also in this one if you don’t want to explain the supporting characters let them meet the wrath of black magic [trying hard not to give spoilers away, but they are so obvious anyway].
Also the writer seemed to rip off ideas from the show: The Girl From Nowhere S1 (2018).
They explained the back story from Praewa and Sia (the friend she grew up with), but then used the same film as a memory, which seemed like filler. IF they were going to use memory flashes, the didn’t need to show all of the back story.

OVERALL:
There are better dramas in this genre from Thailand. This revenge storyline was pretty lame and by the last episode it felt redundant and a waste of time. Not thrilling or scary at all. The “who was in the video” bit dragged on and was so obvious. I don’t recommend it, even for fans of Boun & Prem. However it did introduce me to Ticha and I will look forward to seeing her acting in other shows. No reason to rewatch it either.

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