Cooking Crush (2023)

oh sooooo boring....

While not really a bad show, man was it boring.
The writing was predictable, there were no real challenges and if you do food, why is the "super monster chef" just the jury verdicts?

At least one fresh face with Aungpao who did a good job but most were acting like highschool kids and not like grown up humans. I am also not a fan of the weird sounds used in Thai romcons, but at least they did not overdo it.

The kissing scenes with OffGun looked strange for me. I mean they kissed really well in other shows but here it feels shallow without the feeling of love or desire.

This show is a good downer if you have seen something like "Not Me", to calm you down and turn your brain off, because the story does nothing to challenge it.

The finale was an all around happy end, all the parents are soooo nice and so understanding especially Fire's mother. Of course grandma was always cool and always supportive but for the rest I would have wished a more rocky ending or more episodes to see them come to terms and less of the earlier meaningless stuff.

All in all this show was a disappointment.

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standard Thai romcom elevated by Off & Gun

Overall: this is a pretty standard Thai romcom, it was nice to see Off & Gun again. 12 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on GMMTVs YouTube channel cut and WeTV uncut.

Content Warnings: past death, grief, mental health struggles, stalking/harassment, bullying, dead body covered, slap, homophobia, unwanted outing, punch, non con video recording/sharing, cyberbullying

What I Liked
- reverse personalities/dynamic from their previous characters
- laughed a few times
- sweet moments
- dream sequences
- motivations/responses of the main leads make sense
- how Prem checked in about Ten's boundaries
- Prem/Ten's mutual and ongoing affection, being supportive of one another
- supportive grandma, Unky's parents and the stepmom
- Ten apologizing for what happened in ep 10

Room For Improvement
- started with an inner voice exposition dump
- not a fan of an aggressive pursuer/reluctant pursuee for the side couple (liked them more starting in episode 7), and then there were some unwanted relationship games in ep 8
- quite a lot of the intended humor was a miss for me
- choppy at times, heard the uncut is less choppy
- the long press and hold kiss with zero lip movement, need more energy in their kissing
- comedy sound effects made things less funny
- could have condensed into 8 episodes, felt slow
- ep 8 the friend going as the in between felt very immature instead of funny
- was disappointed about the Unky arc/telling others without first checking in with the person
- punch was unneeded and then the scene after was jarring with the different tone
- a dad who slaps his son then lecturing him about using physical violence made me roll my eyes
- episode 12 time jump

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