Rezkia
This review may contain spoilers
A dangerously badly written romance (review up until ep 7 - spoilers ahead)
This series initially had a lot of things going for it: good main and supporting actors, sleek cinematography and camera language, gritty vibe.
Unfortunately, I found its writing terrible (at least up until ep 7, when I dropped it). It's like 3 or 4 people were hired to write this story and never consulted with each other about its tone, the message they wanted to give, or just most basically, the plot and the characters.
The first 2 episodes were rather dark, with a cinematic camera language and realistic acting. The opening offered social commentary on (in)equality and the show tackled the serious issue of bullying, looking for all intent and purposes like it wanted, over its course, to make a statement, or at least was aware of what it was saying.
And then ep 3 happened and, out of nowhere, the show turned into a fluffy rom-com about a struggling student and his school tutor, instead of the bully and his victims it started as. I seriously have no idea where Sailom and Kanghan's romantic feelings for each other came from. It simply happened and I did not feel privy to the reason nor process.
The same went for Kanghan's behavior: from one day to the next, Kanghan stopped bullying anyone, stopped abusing his privileges as the rich school sponsor's son, and started spending most of his time with Sailom, joking and smiling like he was not making his life miserable just the day prior. Everyone acted like this was completely normal, even the bully friends he started spending less time with in favor of their nemesis, and it was almost like the bullying did not even happen. Everything was swept aside, everyone moved on and no one held Kanghan accountable for his actions. It sucked in terms of character development, and it sucked even more as a way to tackle bullying.
Romance-wise, it’s like the writer couldn’t decide on what they wanted and went for a new scenario every two episodes. Kanghan had feelings for Pimfah (and Pimfah for Sailom) out of nowhere in ep 5, despite Sailom and Kanghan making heart eyes at each other for most of ep 3 and 4. He rejected Sailom’s confession in ep 6, after taking his time to consider it, only to kiss him not 10 min later out of jealousy. There was zero explanation as to what changed his mind, or what prevented from saying yes to Sailom right away if seeing him play with his friend was all that was needed. Sailom accepted Kanghan’s confession and never questioned it, like he had not even been rejected in the first place. Most of the romantic developments from ep 3 to ep 7 sent me on a fit of perplexity and hair-tearing, which made it hard for me to believe in any of the characters’ feelings.
The acting was neither Perth nor Chimon’s best work in my opinion, which is not surprising given the script they had to work with, and I found their chemistry either really good or almost non existent, depending on the scene.
Overall, I felt like I was watching something very disjointed, in tone, in actions, in behavior.
Unfortunately, I found its writing terrible (at least up until ep 7, when I dropped it). It's like 3 or 4 people were hired to write this story and never consulted with each other about its tone, the message they wanted to give, or just most basically, the plot and the characters.
The first 2 episodes were rather dark, with a cinematic camera language and realistic acting. The opening offered social commentary on (in)equality and the show tackled the serious issue of bullying, looking for all intent and purposes like it wanted, over its course, to make a statement, or at least was aware of what it was saying.
And then ep 3 happened and, out of nowhere, the show turned into a fluffy rom-com about a struggling student and his school tutor, instead of the bully and his victims it started as. I seriously have no idea where Sailom and Kanghan's romantic feelings for each other came from. It simply happened and I did not feel privy to the reason nor process.
The same went for Kanghan's behavior: from one day to the next, Kanghan stopped bullying anyone, stopped abusing his privileges as the rich school sponsor's son, and started spending most of his time with Sailom, joking and smiling like he was not making his life miserable just the day prior. Everyone acted like this was completely normal, even the bully friends he started spending less time with in favor of their nemesis, and it was almost like the bullying did not even happen. Everything was swept aside, everyone moved on and no one held Kanghan accountable for his actions. It sucked in terms of character development, and it sucked even more as a way to tackle bullying.
Romance-wise, it’s like the writer couldn’t decide on what they wanted and went for a new scenario every two episodes. Kanghan had feelings for Pimfah (and Pimfah for Sailom) out of nowhere in ep 5, despite Sailom and Kanghan making heart eyes at each other for most of ep 3 and 4. He rejected Sailom’s confession in ep 6, after taking his time to consider it, only to kiss him not 10 min later out of jealousy. There was zero explanation as to what changed his mind, or what prevented from saying yes to Sailom right away if seeing him play with his friend was all that was needed. Sailom accepted Kanghan’s confession and never questioned it, like he had not even been rejected in the first place. Most of the romantic developments from ep 3 to ep 7 sent me on a fit of perplexity and hair-tearing, which made it hard for me to believe in any of the characters’ feelings.
The acting was neither Perth nor Chimon’s best work in my opinion, which is not surprising given the script they had to work with, and I found their chemistry either really good or almost non existent, depending on the scene.
Overall, I felt like I was watching something very disjointed, in tone, in actions, in behavior.
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