tbyrnesea
Beautifully cinematic, unlike any other bl/y series drama
This is one of the most beautiful pieces of television I've seen in any genre.From the start the series doesn't feel like any other bl/y series I've seen. The pace is very relaxed. Lead ins are long and cuts are often extended. The characters all have space to breathe, and we have the space to empathize with them. The series isn't littered with product placements, and yaoi tropes are kept to a minimum (partner feeding, wiping each other down, peeling shrimp etc.). There is very little of the standard Thai drama sound-effect punctuated drama-comedy dialogue. Important scenes often reach their crux in silence rather than against the background of a thai-pop crescendo. Overall the series feels more like a very well shot film than it does like a Thai drama series. It features a complex story, overcharged emotions (director New's hallmark), and touching romance. It's not a series for those in search of flesh however. Watching the series is an exercise in catharsis, not titillation. (Though I suspect that beyond the camera's eye that Ongsa is a pretty wild lover.)
The story is a romantic fantasy in which time travel is the fantasy element, embellished with magical butterflies and oracular shop-keepers. Time travel is the magic that the story uses to allow the characters to experience events and emotions that lie beyond what we experience in reality. This isn't a science fiction story. It's magical realism. Time travel here is some sort of spiritual miracle or miracle of fate. In fact I think that time travel is simply the way in which the author has chosen to tell an archetypal hero story. Ongsa and Suansoon are destined to be partners, but only if they can prove that their love is pure to the extent that they are willing to give up each other for each other's sake.
I suspect that the story's flirtation with causal loops (A causing B causing A) is going to upset some viewers, but it's pretty easy to accommodate them simply assuming some external cause to the whole loop. Call that fate or destiny, and it squares pretty well with the spiritual world of the story.
The acting is sound to phenomenal throughout, without dead lines or awkward sections of stiff manneristic acting. Tor Supakorn especially does an amazing job creating the role of young Ongsa. He's always very three dimensional, which makes it very easy to empathize with him. He manages emotional character arcs and ranges of emotions very well.
The key challenges to filming this story are making the various timelines immediately clear and motivating our empathy for the characters given their unusual predicament. Both challenges are met successfully. Changes in clothing, set dressing, and character demeanor help to differentiate the time-lines, and the use of flashbacks to tie the counterfactual regrets to something we can feel bad about serve to maintain the viewers empathy.
Overall I found the series very effective. It was easy to empathize with the characters and share in their emotions. It's very cathartic, especially at the emotional cruxes of the character arcs. I would add though that it's a story that needs to be enjoyed on it's own terms. If you try to watch it simply to follow the plot of story rather than letting the series engage you emotionally, it's probably going to seem a bit dull and repetitive with the various repetitions of events and flashbacks tying then and now together.
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Mosly unwatchable but with some nice moments
Perhaps there are viewers who enjoy this sort of romantic comedy/farce, but I find the main character just too pastiche in rather annoying sort of way. I couldn't take him seriously, couldn't empathize with him, and eventually just fast forwarded through a lot of his screen time. If only the character arcs had been as well defined as the abdomens on show the basic storyline might have yielded a decent series at this length, but instead we get a very jerky and episodic stream of comedic set pieces and mostly stiff dramatic acting from the support cast.Mostly Jade needs to be more loveable. The basic story is reasonable: an otaku who is resigned to experiencing love vicariously through the friends he tries to mediate between finds someone who sees beneath the surface to find him much more attractive than he seems at first blush. But for that to work we need to see more of what actually makes Jade loveable, and we just don't see enough of that to empathize with them.
There are some nice moments and some decent acting here and there, e.g. some of the emotions shown as interactions are Rashomoned are well acted and work to some extent; or the moments Jade and Mai spend looking through Jade's sketch notebook of Jade's time with his new intern.
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Decent story mediocre writing and production
The main plot/arc is interesting enough. Friends with benefits struggle with the usual problems plus the effects of sexual abuse and harassment to eventually become partners. What works best is the sympathy that is built for Uea, who has to endure a breakup, an evil mother, sexual harassment, and the lingering effects of sexual abuse as a child. You want the relationship to work out for him because he really seems to need it.What doesn't work so well are many of the distractions thrown in here and there to bolster some pretty thin writing in the main story. Also the acting tends to be stiff and manneristic even in dramatic scenes that need a more realistic performance. So even though I'm inclined to be sympathetic with Uea, I often have a hard time believing him as a character, and what would otherwise be fairly effective drama falls flat.
The music is un-memorable. The production values are pretty low (continuity errors, confusing cuts, sound glitches, etc.). At one point the product placements come so frequently and aggressively that I felt like I was being waterboarded with bottled drinks.
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Effective musical romance
The strong points of the series are Bright's musical scenes, reasonably three dimensional performances from the leads, and the soundtrack. The weak points are unconvincing body language between the leads and some clumsy writing that makes the series drag in places.The main arc and plot is well supported by the performances and soundtrack: an introvert who has a habit of communicating emotions through music meets and falls in love with somoene with whom that resonates, and the two of them need to work out how to make the sometimes awkward relationship work. For the series to work the musical scenes need to work, and Bright is a good enough musician to pull that off. The scenes where he sings to Tine are convincingly touching and carry the emotional impact they need to.
What doesn't work so well is the body language between Sarawat and Tine. They just don't seem to be a couple in love very often. I suspect it's in part intentional: a somewhat awkward relationship with an introvert that is somehow advanced by sharing emotions through music. I think it's probably also a result of having limited time to work on multiple takes of the secenes where they interact privately because of the time it likely took to shoot the musical scenes in the series.
Overall though I think the series accomplishes most of what it aims to do, and it's one of the best music centered series I've seen. If they had resorted to the usual fake guitar and produced vocals the series would have been a failure. Very credible and raw musical performances are worth the tradeoff of a little less credible chemistry between the leads here and there.
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Even the subtitle team seams to have given up
Fortunately my Thai is finally good enough to watch the final episode without subtitles, which is how it was released to iQYI. Maybe the subtitle team was a bored with the series as I was. With frequent use of the fast forward button I was able to slog through this series, but barely.The story is thin. There are no significant character arcs apart from "things happen and are dealt with". The acting is mostly manneristic and stiff. The music is unmemorable. I honestly don't remember any of it.
There main story point, new crush resembles former boyfriend who killed himself, is good for maybe six episodes, and in this case it wasn't developed very convincingly so it supports five or six very dull episodes. The story needed a lot more bones to support a full 12 episode series.
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Well made and well acted but a little uneven
The series accomplishes a lot. It remains engaging and enjoyable even though we mostly watch the mistakes and missteps of high school students trying to manage their first romantic relationsihps. It's all drama with very little time spent watching anyone enjoy eachother's companionship, but it works. The attention to detail in portraying life in the baba/straits chinese community in Phuket well exceeds what one typically sees in a television series, and it helps give the series a background depth that supports the narrative by vignette storytelling style. The acting is generally good overall, although this being a series there are the occasional moments of under-realized and manneristic characterizations.The writing is a bit uneven and in places seems to be inconsistent. E.g. Teh and Oh become estranged later in the series after Oh more or less tells Teh the friendship is over. Oh stops returning Teh's calls. And yet towards the end we find Oh asking Teh not to dissappear again.
The main theme music is quite an earworm, and Billkin's performance of it is very well sung and produced.
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Some promising story arcs but not well executed
The series is enjoyable enough in parts. Some of the acting is good. Some of the interactions between the leads are credible. The story has its moments. Overall though the series suffers from lack of continuity or arc. We come to undersand Mangkorn's motivation to some extent (an early crush), but Yai's transition from rivalry and disdain to sexual dependency to affection is just bizarre. We aren't given enough story to make sense of it, nor are the actors given enough of a story to build believable emotional arcs on.Some moments are interesting and generally well done, e.g. Yai's flashback to his childhood while eating with Mangkorn's mom.
Too many of the scenes suffer from manneristic acting where more realism is required, and most of the story suffers from lack of depth.
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