spunkless
Second lead syndrome
I am not a TayNew fan, but after watching them in Kiss Me Again (the only couple worth watching in that entire show), I felt tempted to watch this followup to their story. But boy, the PeteKao here is not the PeteKao I loved in Kiss Me Again. They are particularly stressful to watch, especially Pete, who acts so much like a child that I want to bash his head in.
THANK GOD the creators decided to carry over a side couple from Kiss Me Again to DBK -- Sun and Mork. While everything turned out to be a complete mess on PeteKao's side of things, we take refuge in watching the volatile relationship between SunMork flourish. I would even dare say that I would rank DBK much lower if SunMork was not included. For this reason, in my review I shall only focus on SunMork's part and pretend that PeteKao's story died along with Kiss Me Again , lol.
ACTING/CHARACTERS: Podd Suphakorn... by the time DBK was released he was relatively new in the drama scene, but how he played Sun was exceptional! I would even rank his performance as the second best I've seen in any lakorn. In Kiss Me Again he was quite shallow and uninteresting, perhaps due to the fact that he wasn't given much material apart from being a nagger to Mork and Rain and driving a wedge between Pete and Kao. But when his character finally found a solid ground here in DBK, Podd really showed us how much he is capable of doing acting-wise. I wish I could say the same for Gawin, but it felt like his acting here was merely reactionary and he was only going along with whatever Podd was doing. I am not saying that he delivered a bad performance, it's just he could've done more to make his character stand out because without Sun, his presence in the serie becomes bland.
STORY: Same old enemies to lovers trope. Sun is the disciplined type, whereas Mork is into roughhousing. Their personalities crash entirely, but the mutual attraction between them prevailed. Nothing new to see here. But it was a delight watching these two try to reconcile their differences because at the end of the day, they still want each other so badly. How Mork tried so hard to avoid fights but violence seems to make its way to him, while Sun, being the confident gay, did everything in his power to tame the beast inside Mork, going so far to abducting him.
Production design wise, you would need to watch Kiss Me Again before DBK in order to truly appreciate the aesthetics of the Blue Sky Cafe. That was a major upgrade, and it is one of my most favorite sets I've seen from GMMTV. The scenes in the mountains were also a delight to watch, and like I've said in my review for 1000 Stars, director P'Aof does outdoor shoots particularly well.
Soundtrack wise, DBK has the most addictive intro which I bet no one would even dare skip. I also liked how they actually filmed a scene specifically for the title cards; usually GMMTV series would only show a montage of clips as an opening, but no, DBK did not go that route, which makes it stand out from the rest! If you are observant enough, you can also see that the intro itself serves as a summary of the entire drama. Apart from the intro, DBK has two theme songs, one sung by TayNew and the other sung by Gawin. Tbh the TayNew song is something I ALWAYS skip because 1) singing is not TayNew's forte, and 2) it had nothing to do with the series at all. By contrast, Gawin is an underrated, excellent singer and the song itself carries SunMork's flow of the story too well.
One thing I wish they could've improved upon is how they handled the Manow problem. Any average viewer would know that Manow was only introduced in DBK as that girl who tries to "un-gay" one of the leads (around 90% of BLs have this character, I swear), but ultimately she was not used at all. I would probably say it was a great decision to leave her in the sidelines and focus on Sun and Mork's relationship, but without her playing her role as a potential homewrecker, I thought the Manow character should have been completely removed from the serie.
All in all, a very satisfying conclusion to the SunMork story, and I will honestly defend the PoddGawin tandem with my life because they just click with each other. One could only hope that GMMTV creates another series with these two paired again.
THANK GOD the creators decided to carry over a side couple from Kiss Me Again to DBK -- Sun and Mork. While everything turned out to be a complete mess on PeteKao's side of things, we take refuge in watching the volatile relationship between SunMork flourish. I would even dare say that I would rank DBK much lower if SunMork was not included. For this reason, in my review I shall only focus on SunMork's part and pretend that PeteKao's story died along with Kiss Me Again , lol.
ACTING/CHARACTERS: Podd Suphakorn... by the time DBK was released he was relatively new in the drama scene, but how he played Sun was exceptional! I would even rank his performance as the second best I've seen in any lakorn. In Kiss Me Again he was quite shallow and uninteresting, perhaps due to the fact that he wasn't given much material apart from being a nagger to Mork and Rain and driving a wedge between Pete and Kao. But when his character finally found a solid ground here in DBK, Podd really showed us how much he is capable of doing acting-wise. I wish I could say the same for Gawin, but it felt like his acting here was merely reactionary and he was only going along with whatever Podd was doing. I am not saying that he delivered a bad performance, it's just he could've done more to make his character stand out because without Sun, his presence in the serie becomes bland.
STORY: Same old enemies to lovers trope. Sun is the disciplined type, whereas Mork is into roughhousing. Their personalities crash entirely, but the mutual attraction between them prevailed. Nothing new to see here. But it was a delight watching these two try to reconcile their differences because at the end of the day, they still want each other so badly. How Mork tried so hard to avoid fights but violence seems to make its way to him, while Sun, being the confident gay, did everything in his power to tame the beast inside Mork, going so far to abducting him.
Production design wise, you would need to watch Kiss Me Again before DBK in order to truly appreciate the aesthetics of the Blue Sky Cafe. That was a major upgrade, and it is one of my most favorite sets I've seen from GMMTV. The scenes in the mountains were also a delight to watch, and like I've said in my review for 1000 Stars, director P'Aof does outdoor shoots particularly well.
Soundtrack wise, DBK has the most addictive intro which I bet no one would even dare skip. I also liked how they actually filmed a scene specifically for the title cards; usually GMMTV series would only show a montage of clips as an opening, but no, DBK did not go that route, which makes it stand out from the rest! If you are observant enough, you can also see that the intro itself serves as a summary of the entire drama. Apart from the intro, DBK has two theme songs, one sung by TayNew and the other sung by Gawin. Tbh the TayNew song is something I ALWAYS skip because 1) singing is not TayNew's forte, and 2) it had nothing to do with the series at all. By contrast, Gawin is an underrated, excellent singer and the song itself carries SunMork's flow of the story too well.
One thing I wish they could've improved upon is how they handled the Manow problem. Any average viewer would know that Manow was only introduced in DBK as that girl who tries to "un-gay" one of the leads (around 90% of BLs have this character, I swear), but ultimately she was not used at all. I would probably say it was a great decision to leave her in the sidelines and focus on Sun and Mork's relationship, but without her playing her role as a potential homewrecker, I thought the Manow character should have been completely removed from the serie.
All in all, a very satisfying conclusion to the SunMork story, and I will honestly defend the PoddGawin tandem with my life because they just click with each other. One could only hope that GMMTV creates another series with these two paired again.
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