This review may contain spoilers
What a shame!
This series has been, for the most part, a waste of time. You can watch it once and that's it... it really has very few nice moments and it is filled with the typical Thai clichés for a BL with almost all characters being annoying or trying to act too cute or childish or both. The storylines are stories we have seen in other BLs so they don't bring much in terms of originality and some are acted or directed terribly. Too many couples with only 2 episodes per couple that really doesn't leave much time to explore their interactions and their chemistry as the writers have to rush some of the scenes so they can move slightly forward. And actors who are nearly 30 in some cases (Yoon is 27, Gung is 26, Korn is 25), acting like immature brats. Some comments I read tried to defend the fact that they are portraying 18-19 year olds in university. I never acted like an annoying brat and never did some of the activities these "students" do
Here are some comments on each pairing:
1. Chap and Tae take the roles of Tue and Ake and right from the start we have the classic enemy turned into lovers which we have seen plenty of times in other BLs. Chap and Tae's acting can be defined as "stiff" at best as they really don't deliver much of their dialogues with any kind of emotion or at least nothing convincing enough. Maybe that is the reason Chap was barely seen in "Lovely Writer" he was supposed to be part the side couple but at some point he was completely ignored and wasn't even present for most of the middle episodes of the series. At some point they even mention that the character he portrays in "Lovely Writer" got a new role in another show and they show his Y-Destiny picture. Chap is now scheduled to appear in "The Tuxedo" and Tae will be the lead actor in "You're my Sky"... I hope they both get better acting coaches that can really help them improve their facial expressions and their delivery.
2. Max and Nat take the roles of Sun and Nuea and again, we've seen this storyline before with the teacher or tutor/student relationship who end up falling in love. Nuea is childish, annoying, and a rich-spoiled brat that gets away with almost anything and Teacher Sun cannot do much to resist his "charms". I found these episodes quite boring as I wanted to slap Max for being so soft and Nuea for being so immature. These actors have been a BL couple for a while now, appear constantly in Domundi videos together and are scheduled to be a couple yet again in another project in the near future. Nat is nearly 10 years younger than Max (18 vs. 27 years old) which is why he normally gets this childish, innocent or annoying characters and Max gets the bully, fighter, jock type of characters. They do have good chemistry but sadly, I feel they are both now cast with very similar type of characters (in BLs) which prevents them from experiencing other roles and maturing as actors.
3. Korn and Gung play Mon and Team and here the dynamics of the couple made it interesting as both are best friends in real life. Both graduated from the same university and while Gung is a year older than Korn (26 vs. 25 years old), Korn is Gung's "senior" in terms of cheerleading activities, which is where both met (they share a Youtube channel with some videos about their friendship). However, despite being 25 years old, Korn plays an extremely innocent and childish character that speaks like a 4-year old, pouts at everything and is shocked when Team starts making a move on him. Again, we've seen this story in other BLs so there is no originality in that aspect and the acting a bit better than Chap and Tae but still, incredibly predictable.
4. Pee and Au play Thurs and Pao/Pae and this is a crazy story with Thurs who is a student but also does seance sessions to contact spirits and swindle some money from his fellow classmates. One night, they go to a pool where a student drowned and Thurs then gets a visit from Pao, who is a ghost. They end up falling in love only to be separated when is the turn of Pao's soul to go. Up to this point, we've had Ohm and Singto doing a MUCH, MUCH better job with the ghost/human love story in "He's Coming to Me" so you can watch 8 episodes of a much better story with much better actors. Then, magically, Pae appears in real life, saves Thurs from being killed by a car, doesn't remember being Pao or being a ghost as much as Pee insists on it but somehow feels "a familiar connection" to Thurs and end up being boyfriends. We've seen Pee before in the crazy "YYY" and again he takes on a character that is a bit weird while Au has his first important role... apparently he had a guest role in one episode of "Theory of Love" but I can't remember him at all... but his inexperience shows with some stiff acting.
5. Toru and First play Puth and Kaeng and I've seen comments and other reviews when their episodes came out, that these were the best episodes of the series. I completely disagree and here is why. Puth and Kaeng are sex friends and Puth has established that being sex friends is the only thing for them. Kaeng agreed with that but started to develop feelings for Puth at some point. However, instead of telling him and talking like two civilized adults, he sneaks in Puth's dorm at night to convince him to have more sex with him. Then acts all jealous when Puth starts liking his colleague but then Puth completely forgets about him when he suddenly realizes he does have feelings for Kaeng. Many people loved these episodes because of the amount of steamy scenes they had, but if you take that out, there is no substance to the story with Puth saying that he doesn't like Kaeng only to change his mind, again, we've seen this like a million times in Thai BL. In reality, we had a very similar situation with Tharn-Type season 2 when the characters really did nothing much aside from fighting, crying and having sex. They do have a bit more substance in their story than the other couples, dealing with situations that are more believable but if you like these 2 episodes because of the sex scenes, kisses, and shirtless moments, then you watched for the wrong reasons.
And, the cringy part, was watching the behind the scenes for these episodes (available on Youtube) with the acting coach telling them how to kiss by forcefully grabbing their heads and mashing them together for them to kiss the way she wanted. It looked awkward to say the least.
6. Jaab and Ton play Sat and Choke and here fantasy comes back like in the Thurs-Pao/Pae story with Sat wishing he was popular to a gundam figure and ending his childhood friendship with Choke, only to all come back to bite him in the ass when nothing goes the way he wanted and feeling lonely and depressed despite apparently being so popular at university. Both actors are debuting with this series with Jaab being 20 and Ton being 22 years old and just like it was the case with other newcomers in this series, there is terrible acting guidance with both looking relatively expressionless and super stiff in some of the scenes. For example, the moment when Sat asks Choke why did they stop being friends (he can't remember all the things he did to his best friend when they were kids just to become more popular) should have been quite an emotional one because Choke debates on whether to tell him the truth or not and when he does tell him, Sat should have reacted a bit more dramatically... instead, the emotion was non-existent. Also, while both speak decent English, the excessive use of English for this couple was a bit off-putting. It could be because I'm used to hearing Thai and reading the subtitles in English but they had 4 lines in English, 5 in Thai, 7 in English, 3 in Thai and so on... so, I found that a bit annoying.
7. Finally, Talay, Yoon, and Perth play Masuk, Jia, and Tir and episodes 13 and 14 were the two EVERYBODY was waiting for because we saw Talay and Perth in "My Engineer" and Talay and Yoon in "YYY" as BL couples so we knew they had good chemistry and now all three were acting in the same series and connected somehow. That connection turns out to be Tir being Masuk's boyfriend who dies in a tragic fire in a movie theater. This causes Masuk to fall into a depression fueled by his guilt of not being there to help Tir and Jia just looking at Masuk with puppy eyes but not being able to express his love for him because of all the surrounding circumstances. Masuk cannot let go of Tir memories and then he can see him and interact with him with Poppy's guest role as a homeless man who gives him an amulet to see "his loved one". The story is a bit confusing because Masuk can see Tir and at some points it seems like Jia can see Tir as well. Then, Tir tells Masuk to move on and live his life but never really leaves so that makes Masuk and Jia's interactions WAY awkward doing everything alongside Tir.
What I didn't like is Jia taking such a low position and telling Masuk that he understands he loves Tir and he will accept that... sorry, but Tir is dead and won't be coming back, so either Masuk moves on and gives Jia his spot as boyfriend or just continues to mourn Tir forever.
Episode 15 is the final episode with a short part with each couple which was even worse than the rest of the episodes combined. Kaeng and Puth are calling each other "Papi" and "Daddy" (which brought some memories of how Gun calls Off "Papi" as well) but this couple never called themselves that in their 2 episodes, so why now?
Mon and Team are calling each other "Smile" and "Prince" and Nuea switches from calling Sun "teacher" to "uncle" within 2 minutes in this episode with no apparent reason. Team uses the "kha" like Thai females do at the end of their sentences when he talks to Mon which makes no sense as he was clearly the masculine one in the relationship in their two episodes (another Thai BL cliché). Then, Kaeng and Team are basically being controlled by their boyfriends having to convince them to get permission to go out only to keep checking on them or ask them to come back home very soon. It really made me cringe because those are very odd relationships to be in.
Ake and Sat pretend to be injured (while boxing) or drowning just to get some sympathy from Tue and to kiss Choke (which was terribly acted by the way) only for them to act cute while they apologize for pranking their boyfriends. And, of course, Masuk and Jia are having dinner with Tir sitting there as well and watching them hug and almost kiss, which I'm sure was a bit weird for Perth who barely had any dialogue in the 3 episodes he appears and only watched Yoon and Talay interact. He then sits behind the rest of the cast in the last part of the episode when all are in the pool.
And speaking of pool, it was odd to have some of them shirtless in the pool and others sitting behind them in clothes that do not look very adequate for the pool. They bring back the BL cliché of having a "wife" (I still don't understand the obsession with defining a "wife" and a "husband" role in many BLs I've seen) but mostly do nothing relevant except giving thanks to their respective couples and their friends for helping them... but I just give thanks that this series is OVER.
Here are some comments on each pairing:
1. Chap and Tae take the roles of Tue and Ake and right from the start we have the classic enemy turned into lovers which we have seen plenty of times in other BLs. Chap and Tae's acting can be defined as "stiff" at best as they really don't deliver much of their dialogues with any kind of emotion or at least nothing convincing enough. Maybe that is the reason Chap was barely seen in "Lovely Writer" he was supposed to be part the side couple but at some point he was completely ignored and wasn't even present for most of the middle episodes of the series. At some point they even mention that the character he portrays in "Lovely Writer" got a new role in another show and they show his Y-Destiny picture. Chap is now scheduled to appear in "The Tuxedo" and Tae will be the lead actor in "You're my Sky"... I hope they both get better acting coaches that can really help them improve their facial expressions and their delivery.
2. Max and Nat take the roles of Sun and Nuea and again, we've seen this storyline before with the teacher or tutor/student relationship who end up falling in love. Nuea is childish, annoying, and a rich-spoiled brat that gets away with almost anything and Teacher Sun cannot do much to resist his "charms". I found these episodes quite boring as I wanted to slap Max for being so soft and Nuea for being so immature. These actors have been a BL couple for a while now, appear constantly in Domundi videos together and are scheduled to be a couple yet again in another project in the near future. Nat is nearly 10 years younger than Max (18 vs. 27 years old) which is why he normally gets this childish, innocent or annoying characters and Max gets the bully, fighter, jock type of characters. They do have good chemistry but sadly, I feel they are both now cast with very similar type of characters (in BLs) which prevents them from experiencing other roles and maturing as actors.
3. Korn and Gung play Mon and Team and here the dynamics of the couple made it interesting as both are best friends in real life. Both graduated from the same university and while Gung is a year older than Korn (26 vs. 25 years old), Korn is Gung's "senior" in terms of cheerleading activities, which is where both met (they share a Youtube channel with some videos about their friendship). However, despite being 25 years old, Korn plays an extremely innocent and childish character that speaks like a 4-year old, pouts at everything and is shocked when Team starts making a move on him. Again, we've seen this story in other BLs so there is no originality in that aspect and the acting a bit better than Chap and Tae but still, incredibly predictable.
4. Pee and Au play Thurs and Pao/Pae and this is a crazy story with Thurs who is a student but also does seance sessions to contact spirits and swindle some money from his fellow classmates. One night, they go to a pool where a student drowned and Thurs then gets a visit from Pao, who is a ghost. They end up falling in love only to be separated when is the turn of Pao's soul to go. Up to this point, we've had Ohm and Singto doing a MUCH, MUCH better job with the ghost/human love story in "He's Coming to Me" so you can watch 8 episodes of a much better story with much better actors. Then, magically, Pae appears in real life, saves Thurs from being killed by a car, doesn't remember being Pao or being a ghost as much as Pee insists on it but somehow feels "a familiar connection" to Thurs and end up being boyfriends. We've seen Pee before in the crazy "YYY" and again he takes on a character that is a bit weird while Au has his first important role... apparently he had a guest role in one episode of "Theory of Love" but I can't remember him at all... but his inexperience shows with some stiff acting.
5. Toru and First play Puth and Kaeng and I've seen comments and other reviews when their episodes came out, that these were the best episodes of the series. I completely disagree and here is why. Puth and Kaeng are sex friends and Puth has established that being sex friends is the only thing for them. Kaeng agreed with that but started to develop feelings for Puth at some point. However, instead of telling him and talking like two civilized adults, he sneaks in Puth's dorm at night to convince him to have more sex with him. Then acts all jealous when Puth starts liking his colleague but then Puth completely forgets about him when he suddenly realizes he does have feelings for Kaeng. Many people loved these episodes because of the amount of steamy scenes they had, but if you take that out, there is no substance to the story with Puth saying that he doesn't like Kaeng only to change his mind, again, we've seen this like a million times in Thai BL. In reality, we had a very similar situation with Tharn-Type season 2 when the characters really did nothing much aside from fighting, crying and having sex. They do have a bit more substance in their story than the other couples, dealing with situations that are more believable but if you like these 2 episodes because of the sex scenes, kisses, and shirtless moments, then you watched for the wrong reasons.
And, the cringy part, was watching the behind the scenes for these episodes (available on Youtube) with the acting coach telling them how to kiss by forcefully grabbing their heads and mashing them together for them to kiss the way she wanted. It looked awkward to say the least.
6. Jaab and Ton play Sat and Choke and here fantasy comes back like in the Thurs-Pao/Pae story with Sat wishing he was popular to a gundam figure and ending his childhood friendship with Choke, only to all come back to bite him in the ass when nothing goes the way he wanted and feeling lonely and depressed despite apparently being so popular at university. Both actors are debuting with this series with Jaab being 20 and Ton being 22 years old and just like it was the case with other newcomers in this series, there is terrible acting guidance with both looking relatively expressionless and super stiff in some of the scenes. For example, the moment when Sat asks Choke why did they stop being friends (he can't remember all the things he did to his best friend when they were kids just to become more popular) should have been quite an emotional one because Choke debates on whether to tell him the truth or not and when he does tell him, Sat should have reacted a bit more dramatically... instead, the emotion was non-existent. Also, while both speak decent English, the excessive use of English for this couple was a bit off-putting. It could be because I'm used to hearing Thai and reading the subtitles in English but they had 4 lines in English, 5 in Thai, 7 in English, 3 in Thai and so on... so, I found that a bit annoying.
7. Finally, Talay, Yoon, and Perth play Masuk, Jia, and Tir and episodes 13 and 14 were the two EVERYBODY was waiting for because we saw Talay and Perth in "My Engineer" and Talay and Yoon in "YYY" as BL couples so we knew they had good chemistry and now all three were acting in the same series and connected somehow. That connection turns out to be Tir being Masuk's boyfriend who dies in a tragic fire in a movie theater. This causes Masuk to fall into a depression fueled by his guilt of not being there to help Tir and Jia just looking at Masuk with puppy eyes but not being able to express his love for him because of all the surrounding circumstances. Masuk cannot let go of Tir memories and then he can see him and interact with him with Poppy's guest role as a homeless man who gives him an amulet to see "his loved one". The story is a bit confusing because Masuk can see Tir and at some points it seems like Jia can see Tir as well. Then, Tir tells Masuk to move on and live his life but never really leaves so that makes Masuk and Jia's interactions WAY awkward doing everything alongside Tir.
What I didn't like is Jia taking such a low position and telling Masuk that he understands he loves Tir and he will accept that... sorry, but Tir is dead and won't be coming back, so either Masuk moves on and gives Jia his spot as boyfriend or just continues to mourn Tir forever.
Episode 15 is the final episode with a short part with each couple which was even worse than the rest of the episodes combined. Kaeng and Puth are calling each other "Papi" and "Daddy" (which brought some memories of how Gun calls Off "Papi" as well) but this couple never called themselves that in their 2 episodes, so why now?
Mon and Team are calling each other "Smile" and "Prince" and Nuea switches from calling Sun "teacher" to "uncle" within 2 minutes in this episode with no apparent reason. Team uses the "kha" like Thai females do at the end of their sentences when he talks to Mon which makes no sense as he was clearly the masculine one in the relationship in their two episodes (another Thai BL cliché). Then, Kaeng and Team are basically being controlled by their boyfriends having to convince them to get permission to go out only to keep checking on them or ask them to come back home very soon. It really made me cringe because those are very odd relationships to be in.
Ake and Sat pretend to be injured (while boxing) or drowning just to get some sympathy from Tue and to kiss Choke (which was terribly acted by the way) only for them to act cute while they apologize for pranking their boyfriends. And, of course, Masuk and Jia are having dinner with Tir sitting there as well and watching them hug and almost kiss, which I'm sure was a bit weird for Perth who barely had any dialogue in the 3 episodes he appears and only watched Yoon and Talay interact. He then sits behind the rest of the cast in the last part of the episode when all are in the pool.
And speaking of pool, it was odd to have some of them shirtless in the pool and others sitting behind them in clothes that do not look very adequate for the pool. They bring back the BL cliché of having a "wife" (I still don't understand the obsession with defining a "wife" and a "husband" role in many BLs I've seen) but mostly do nothing relevant except giving thanks to their respective couples and their friends for helping them... but I just give thanks that this series is OVER.
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