4Minutes

Life Flashed Before Their Eyes

I'm a fan of the cinematography. I loved how they told this very unique concept of a story in a nonlinear fashion. The jump from one AU to another was jarring and it definitely required my sister and I to pay close attention to the plot as it unfolded.
I thought this was a genius idea. Though there was some confusion over what exactly was happening towards the end of the drama, I think it's less of a 'I hate that drama bcuz I didn't understand' and more of a 'Im not 100% sure what happened but now I can't stop thinking about it' sort of reaction and mindset.
The fact that they had a very real and a very thought provoking topic like what happens to a person when they're on the brink of death but their brain is still active, was mindful and creative. Not many dramas delve into such a topic. It reminded me of another drama I watched (that wasn't BL but could be considered queer) called Behind Her Eyes that portrayed lucid dreaming and astral projection. Love to see it.
I loved the characters - especially Ton Kla and Great. I think Ton Kla was a very complex and realistic person. There were good examples of character development and growth for Great. There was quite an obvious shift in his personality and morals as the drama progressed. His inaction, cowardice and bystander mannerisms were his downfall in one AU (or actually reality). The sudden ability to go back in time by four minutes to fix a major mistake that he made matured him as a person, in my opinion. (I believe this is the AU and the other version was the real version without the powers.) His decision to expose the corrupt Ministry and deny his parents a chance to return to Thailand and continue doing illegal business showed his growth and newly established morals that were nonexistent before. Good for him!
Tyme was also a favorite character. I liked both versions of him, no matter the AU. His revenge was sweet and served ice cold. The best type of revenge. Grandma deserved better.
Korn and Ton Kla felt toxic from the beginning and it still was at the end but I felt bad for them after it all. Korn felt like a Predator with a capital P when their flashback happened and shown their past. I'm not I'm sure if Korn would have remembered Ton Kla if he didn't marry that woman and left his family behind. Korn was dealt a shitty hand - most of the characters were so I only felt bad for his sudden heartbreak and immediate demise. The way Ton Kla and Korn were laid out on the ground at the end matched the same positions when they were laying in bed talking about running away together in the past. Truly tragic, I acknowledge that.
Ton Kla's love for his brother was visceral for me -
Title had it coming! And his father was no better. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, indeed.

The production value was at its highest. Everything looked impressive and intentional. The music and settings were memorable. Despite my confusion at the end, the pace of the drama was appreciated and appropriate for an eight episode show.
I would recommend this show to others and I believe it's worth rewatching. Well done.

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4 Minutes — The BL That Redefined Everything I Knew About The Genre

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I went into this series expecting a typical Thai BL — sweet romance, some angst, happy ending. What I got instead was a masterpiece that completely shattered my expectations and left me staring at my screen in silence for a long time after the final episode ended.
The Storyline
The concept alone sets this series apart from everything else in the BL genre. The title "4 Minutes" refers to the 4 minutes of oxygen a dying brain receives before shutting down completely — and the entire series is built around this one devastating idea. The story follows two parallel couples — Great and Tyme, and Korn and Tonkla — whose lives are deeply intertwined through family secrets, corruption, illegal gambling rings, murder, revenge, and love.
Great is the son of a powerful and deeply corrupt family — the Sriwats — who have destroyed countless innocent lives through their illegal operations. Tyme is a doctor whose entire family was ruined because of the Sriwats — and he enters Great's life with a revenge agenda, planning to seduce him and use him to destroy his family from the inside. What nobody planned for was them actually falling in love.
Korn and Tonkla's story runs alongside this as the tragic parallel — two men who loved each other deeply in college but whose relationship was slowly crushed under the weight of Korn's cowardice, family pressure, and obsession with money and status. While Great and Tyme represent hope and change, Korn and Tonkla represent what happens when love is never quite enough to make someone brave.
The supernatural element — Great's ability to rewind time by 4 minutes — draws you in completely. You spend five episodes watching him save lives, make better choices, and fall in love, thinking you are watching reality. And then the show pulls the most gut wrenching twist — none of it was real. Great was shot in an elevator and was simply dying. Everything was happening inside his oxygen starved brain. He never saved Manee. He never saved Dome. The entire beautiful love story of episodes 1 through 5 was just a dying man's desperate wish to have been a better person.
That reveal changes everything. You rewatch scenes differently. You understand the title differently. You understand the whole series differently.
The Characters
Tonkla is the emotional core of this entire series. He is passionate, loyal, and deeply wounded — a man who uses physical intimacy as a way to cope with pain he cannot process. His relationship with Korn was real and consuming but also suffocating because Korn could never fully choose him. When Tonkla lost his brother Dome — murdered by Great's accomplice Title — and discovered that the brother of the man he loved was involved, his grief turned into something darker. His ending — jumping in front of a bullet to protect Korn — is one of the most heartbreaking moments I have ever watched in any drama. He died protecting someone who never fully protected him.
Korn is a character you will love and hate in equal measure. He genuinely loved Tonkla — his 4 minutes prove that because he did not go back to money or family, he went back to Tonkla. But his love was never strong enough to fight for. He stayed closeted, pursued a woman for financial gain, ignored Tonkla's calls, and shouted at him on the day his brother died. He represents every person who loves someone deeply but loves their comfort zone just a little more. His suicide after Tonkla's death is devastating not because it is surprising but because you always knew it was going to end this way for them.
Win — the inspector — is perhaps the most underrated tragedy in this story. He fell in love with Tonkla at his most broken and vulnerable moment. He showed up, made promises, offered justice and comfort. But he always knew Tonkla's heart belonged to Korn. His love was real but it curdled into possessiveness and jealousy — and in the end he became part of the very tragedy he was trying to prevent.
Great's journey is the most complete character arc in the series. He starts as a passive, selfish, cowardly rich boy who watches murders happen and helps cover them up. His 4 minutes transform him — not by changing reality — but by changing himself. He wakes up from his dying vision a completely different person. He confesses to crimes, stands up against his corrupt family, and chooses Tyme over everything. His growth is earned and genuine.
Tyme is complex and layered in a way that sneaks up on you. He came in with cold calculated revenge in his heart and left completely disarmed by love. The moment he realizes he has genuinely fallen for the person he was using is written and performed beautifully. He is proof that people can change not because they planned to but because the right person made them want to.
Manee is a small but important character whose story represents the human cost of the Sriwat family's crimes. Her son died because of their illegal gambling operations and she jumped in front of Great's car — not by accident but intentionally — out of pure grief. Her story is a quiet reminder that corruption does not just destroy enemies, it destroys ordinary innocent families.
The Cinematography and OST
Visually this series is stunning. Every single frame feels intentional and carefully crafted. The color grading shifts subtly between the imagination timeline and reality — once you know what to look for you cannot unsee it. The lighting, the composition, the way certain scenes mirror each other across timelines — it is all deliberate and deeply satisfying for anyone paying close attention.
The OST is haunting and beautiful. It stays with you long after the series ends. Certain songs will randomly play in your head at 2am and you will find yourself emotional without even knowing why.
The Ending
The ending is bittersweet in the most honest way possible. Great and Tyme survive — they find each other for real, not in a dying imagination but in actual reality. They pray together for Tyme's grandmother, for Korn, for Tonkla. They carry all that grief together and choose to move forward anyway. It is not a perfectly happy ending. It is a real one — and that makes it so much more meaningful.
Two couples. Same world. Completely opposite endings. Great and Tyme chose the sun — warmth, growth, a future. Korn and Tonkla chose the moon — beautiful, cold, and ultimately unreachable.
Final Thoughts
4 Minutes is not just a BL series. It is a story about regret, cowardice, grief, revenge, and what real love actually demands from you. It asks — if you had 4 minutes to relive your worst moments, what would you change? And then it quietly answers — you cannot change the past. You can only change yourself.
This series broke me, rebuilt me, and broke me again. The writing is bold, the performances are extraordinary, and the concept is unlike anything the BL genre has ever attempted. It is not a comfortable watch. It is not supposed to be. But it is absolutely worth every single painful moment.
Watch it with your whole heart. It deserves nothing less.

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Wonderful

I'm not a big fan of Thai BLS but this one was pretty good. The acting was amazing and the concept was new and refreshing, cinematography on point. The plot wasn't confusing, yes at first it is a bit weird after episode 5 but I'm slow as hell and figured it out pretty quickly. I do have to say I do not like the fact that there's a lot of NC scenes. If I knew there were that many I'd just watch the cut version, it was just unnecessary. There were so many storylines and characters, I'd rather have more of the main couple I'm not even going to lie. Otherwise this bl is very good. I wouldn't watch it again though.

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It's a shame that some people didn't pay attention

I actually put off watching this series for so long because I read countless reviews on how the story is overwhelming and confusing... To those people I have to say: did y'all pay attention? There are even multiple scenes where characters are going through the "heart stopper" moment (using this phrase to avoid too many spoilers, but you should understand if you've seen it) and the voice-over of the doctor explains that they are going through the "4 minutes" where they go back in their memories to correct or retry scenes of their lives... It all became clear to me in that one moment with the MC and his mom that we shouldn't trust what we saw in the episodes prior. Then what came after was the real deal, what our "4 minute version" saw flashes of each line a minute passed. It was all so well thought out and planned, I'm definitely going to rewatch to see what I might've missed the first time around.

Now, the concept itself wasn't confusing... But I think the pacing and amount of characters are a bit of an issue. I don't mind being tricked as an audience, I know that was a critic for some other people, but for 8 1-hour episodes, I think a smaller cast would've tightened up the plot. That or they could've given us a couple more episodes so we can fully sit with each person or side-plot. I say this because, personally, I hate when the whole plot unfolds at the end. There were so many characters that we didn't see that miraculously appear to explain the history of the company and other aspects... we could've at least met these folks (specifically the MAIN ANTAGONIST) briefly in the beginning or something if we didn't spend so much time with the brother who ends up being so irrelevant in the grande scheme of everything? Which I thought was hella strange??? Idk. The plot leaves a little to be desired, but idk why everyone hates the ending so much?

TL;DR Could've been better, but it's not a terrible series by any margin. Deserves everyone to give it a fair chance, you won't love all the decisions but it's still fun and interesting and made me pause to theorize many times! That's a good thing I think.

Those are my thoughts :)

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4 minutes to redemption

I really enjoyed this, although I was a bit disappointed that the ending was somewhat open and didn’t feel like a proper conclusion. It honestly seemed like they either ran out of time to film or out of story to tell.


However, I thought the acting was good, and the whole concept surrounding the 4 minutes, and its significance, was executed really well. It might come off as confusing at times (I certainly felt that way), but if you trust the process and stick with it until the end, everything about what happened to Great and the people around him is clarified.


Be aware that there’s a fair amount of gore and spice/intense moments in this, so if that's not your thing, you might want to consider that before diving in.


Otherwise, I had a great time (pun fully intended, lol!)

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You’d be like ‘What did I just watch?’

Ok so, the concept about seeing 4 minutes into the future was pretty interesting but then turns out it was just the consciousness making it up while you are dying in ‘4 minutes.’

Tbh I had to read all the comments to understand that ending because to me it seemed like the story had too many plot holes when it didn’t. Which is why I’d like to say, the director/writer made the story too complex and complicated.

Also what was up with the 2nd couple. They were cheating on each other but ended by dying for each other because they were ‘so in love.’ Well ok I guess.

Honestly I would rather had loved to watch a series where MC ‘actually’ sees the future and tries to change it for better. I was really hoping to watch something similar to ‘Triage’ because it’s one of my favs but this show was definitely not it. Was a bit let down.

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Complex and thus Confusing

For starters, I want to emphasize that I really appreciate BLs with sci-fi/fantasy plots like this one; we have come so far from uni rom-coms. That said the storytelling was needlessly confusing though some might think its a genius way to keep us engaged and gripping, but sadly when you understand the full picture you feel massively underwhelmed and disappointed. What we've known and who we've rooted for 90% of the show, we didn't know anything about anyone by the end. The lead characters I liked turned out to be unlikeable for what they did and the support characters I hated on in the beginning, well nothing changed about them. Acting was decent, good enough for a BL and despite the confusing plot, this was a solid 9 in my BL book for how refreshing it is.

But why did I rate it 7.5? For using "minor" character in NSFW scenes. For even having NSFW scenes for the sake of it. Build a relationship and show these scenes; if I wanted to watch porn I'd go to pornhub.

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