A failed slice-of-life
This series revolves around a group of friends and follows their growth across different stages in their lives, from childhood to adulthood. There are multiple plotlines for each main character, two of which I assume are supposed to be the main ones.
I want to stress that I believe that the ideas for the series are actually very interesting. I really wanted to see how would Gun and Golf's relationship develop after being semi-anonymous pen pals for so long, I was curious about what happened in NoName's past that led him to almost entirely stop talking, I was curious to watch Nan's character development after getting to know Chompoo, and I was even curious to see what choices would Champ make in his life and how would that affect the relationship with his family. There was a lot to show, a lot to unpack, and to be honest I was even ready to shed some tears.
As you might have guessed by the overall rate I gave this series, I was very disappointed. I could complain about every single thing that I found annoying about it, but to be entirely honest, watching this series was tiring enough and I don't have the extra energy needed to navigate all the details that got on my nerves.
What I believe is the main and fatal flaw of this series is that it's supposed to be a slice-of-life, but it wasn't treated as one. There are no major plotlines, we simply follow the lives of these kids/boys/men, so to compensate the lack of an interesting plot, there should be more characterization, more character introspection. The feelings should be vivid and intense, I should be able to empathize with the characters, feel sad when they're sad and happy when they're happy. Unfortunately this was not the case with Remember Me: all the characters are awfully bland, their feelings seem non-existent, and the only reason why I can understand how they feel at certain moments is because they actually explain it out loud. The dialogues describe their (supposed) inner turmoils, their hopes and their dreams, while the actual scenes and the acting barely say anything at all.
The inclusion of some little details that hinted at the year the characters were in was a nice idea, but it was executed poorly, with characters going out of their way to stress that a certain thing was trendy or that a certain event was happening, even when it had little to nothing to do with the story - they oddly reminded me of the usual product placements I saw in other Thai series. The time skips every now and then were also very confusing, and they were also not used properly: it often felt like the characters actually skipped from a certain date to another and their lives just didn't exist in that timespan.
As a result, the series felt awfully long and slow, with no real plot and no solid characters to make things interesting. Since I believe that the actors weren't bad, I have to assume that this is all bad writing and bad directing.
The music was very annoying as well, with the same 3-4 tracks being played depending on the situation. Also, I'm not sure if this was just a Viki problem or what, but the audio mixing was pretty awful: sometimes the dialogues were too quiet and the music too loud, and there were even moments when the voices couldn't be heard or were out of sync.
While the wigs did represent more or less what haircuts were fashionable during certain years, they were not even remotely believable and broke my immersion every time I saw them. They weren't even necessary in my eyes since there were multiple characters with modern hairstyles in the same scenes.
I don't recommend this series because while the ideas are good, they were executed so badly that it was frustrating to watch.
I want to stress that I believe that the ideas for the series are actually very interesting. I really wanted to see how would Gun and Golf's relationship develop after being semi-anonymous pen pals for so long, I was curious about what happened in NoName's past that led him to almost entirely stop talking, I was curious to watch Nan's character development after getting to know Chompoo, and I was even curious to see what choices would Champ make in his life and how would that affect the relationship with his family. There was a lot to show, a lot to unpack, and to be honest I was even ready to shed some tears.
As you might have guessed by the overall rate I gave this series, I was very disappointed. I could complain about every single thing that I found annoying about it, but to be entirely honest, watching this series was tiring enough and I don't have the extra energy needed to navigate all the details that got on my nerves.
What I believe is the main and fatal flaw of this series is that it's supposed to be a slice-of-life, but it wasn't treated as one. There are no major plotlines, we simply follow the lives of these kids/boys/men, so to compensate the lack of an interesting plot, there should be more characterization, more character introspection. The feelings should be vivid and intense, I should be able to empathize with the characters, feel sad when they're sad and happy when they're happy. Unfortunately this was not the case with Remember Me: all the characters are awfully bland, their feelings seem non-existent, and the only reason why I can understand how they feel at certain moments is because they actually explain it out loud. The dialogues describe their (supposed) inner turmoils, their hopes and their dreams, while the actual scenes and the acting barely say anything at all.
The inclusion of some little details that hinted at the year the characters were in was a nice idea, but it was executed poorly, with characters going out of their way to stress that a certain thing was trendy or that a certain event was happening, even when it had little to nothing to do with the story - they oddly reminded me of the usual product placements I saw in other Thai series. The time skips every now and then were also very confusing, and they were also not used properly: it often felt like the characters actually skipped from a certain date to another and their lives just didn't exist in that timespan.
As a result, the series felt awfully long and slow, with no real plot and no solid characters to make things interesting. Since I believe that the actors weren't bad, I have to assume that this is all bad writing and bad directing.
The music was very annoying as well, with the same 3-4 tracks being played depending on the situation. Also, I'm not sure if this was just a Viki problem or what, but the audio mixing was pretty awful: sometimes the dialogues were too quiet and the music too loud, and there were even moments when the voices couldn't be heard or were out of sync.
While the wigs did represent more or less what haircuts were fashionable during certain years, they were not even remotely believable and broke my immersion every time I saw them. They weren't even necessary in my eyes since there were multiple characters with modern hairstyles in the same scenes.
I don't recommend this series because while the ideas are good, they were executed so badly that it was frustrating to watch.
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