10 Years Ticket (2022)

a drama filled with grief to the brim

each and every episode was filled with sadness, there was no escaping it.
to begin with the positives, the acting was great. each cast member did their part perfectly. ohm and tu were great in their characters. even the children were amazing. the set and production were good, every home was unique and felt like someone was actually living there. the costumes were also specific for each character like kongkwan's bows, zo's tomboy-ish dressing, plu with his beanie etc
the plot was interesting on paper but it was not executed very well. i did not get what they were trying to do.
from the past scenes itself it seemed like no one noticed mai or luk that much. after the death, everyone was quick to fight and move away. if they were this good family as they said they would have solved it as soon as it happened. luk's reasoning for going to jail was also weak and selfish, u are willing to go to jail so that his 'reputation' will not be tarnished but u are willing for your whole family to be harassed.
all the adults in this show needed therapy, especially santi, mai and phukao's dad. the dad was horrible. how are u going to ignore your child and abuse him while he is alive and then when he is dead u drink yourself to oblivion and ruin your family. phukao was an absolute asshole. his family falling apart wasn't kongkwan nor her family's fault. his home was already broken. him playing the victim, acting as if people hate him meanwhile he was full-on harassing kongkwan physically and emotionally. the sudden 180 in his behavior after that one jail conversation was so off too.
also how did no one bat an eye at mai and luk's relationship except mai's step-mom???? luk was a teacher and he was a student. even if he failed many years in school, luk would still be much older than him. this is literally pedophilia. also why is she, the adult, making the teenager find a place to live and money????????????
the romance between the 4 felt very forced. the family/brother-sister dynamics were too strong. there was also a lack of chemistry between ohm and tu
the show would have been better if they focused on the 4 of them and their healing and grieving together. there were barely any scenes with them together, especially zo and kongkwan. they said they are sisters but we saw them hang out about 3 times only. it would have been more fruitful to see them learn to forgive and unlearn the hate they learned from their parents.
zo and her dad were the best family in the whole show, they are the happy family which everyone overlooked

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The idea is good - the execution isn't

Having watched the source material, I was exciting for this series. I had watched F4 and was excited to see Tu in another main role, as I found her fascinating in the first show.

I have to be honest, I nearly dropped this series many times. While it is moving and beautiful, it is also severally lacking common sense. The plot starts out so gut-wrenching, but takes many inexplicable jumps and leaps of logic. Some characters are well fleshed out. Others don't have any motivation or thought-out personality. It's very distracting unfortunately.

Personally I was deeply disappointed by the ending and after the first six/seven episodes, it felt like the music (I agree it was way too loud in most scenes) was trying to force emotions that I personally wasn't feeling in that moment. I don't like when tv shows do that. I didn't like the constant crying, the zero-respite atmosphere, the fact that nobody took bigger, broader steps to remedy or get out of the situation. It felt suffocating to watch and simply not enjoyable. Personally I don't like watching 16 episodes of suffering and while I understand the ending was meant to be cathartic, after the revelations of the last few episodes, it felt cheap.

The performances were very mixed too. Some of the parents delivered spectacular performances. Others didn't. I know the comments about Tu's performance are harsh, but as someone who watched this specifically for her, I can't help but agree with the dismay. She was not good in this. There were moments where in scenes with her where it looked like a High School play honestly. The fact that Kongkwang as a character has such strong moments at first and is then delegated to a shy, crying wallflower is excrutiating and didn't do Tu's acting skills any justice. Especially next to other actresses and their powerful performances, it felt like Tu was either handed the short and of the stick or she genuinely didn't know what to do with the role. I've seen Ohm in a few things and he genuinely has quite a natural, easy chemistry with his co-starts, however I genuinely felt he had more chemistry with View's character here than he did with his supposed love interest. That speaks to the love story itself as well, which was the heart of the series and a little hard to swallow.

I could add more but I'm just very disappointed that they didn't stick to the plot of the original series more.

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Enjoyable if you don't expect too much

I have seen several dramas directed and written by Fon Kanittha Kwunyoo, all of which depict vulnerable teenagers who are oppressed by society, and I like her point of view. This drama is no exception and for me it was very intriguing to intertwine the issues of dysfunctional families and young caregivers with the drug problem.

However, there is another major theme of "forbidden love" in this drama, which was not well integrated with the aforementioned social issues, I felt. Some of the actors seemed to be at a loss, and the drama as a whole seemed a bit messy. But still, there was a kind of depth that distinguished it from pointless roller-coaster dramas.

The director herself has name value, and the cast includes many well-known actors, so expectations might be inevitably high, but if expectations are low, it was enjoyable enough, at least for me. It uses a lot of tears, slow motion, and spiritual music, so viewers who like this kind of thing will probably be hooked.

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