Dead Friend Forever - DFF

Exactly Like A Car Wreck (In That I Could Not Look Away)

I have to admit that I actually DNF'd DFF after two eps on the first try. But I gave it a second try and just could not stop. Watched the whole thing in one weekend even though I had stuff to do. It's one of those books that takes ~30-50 pages to get interesting... but, boy, does it.

I think there is a slight structural problem here. Don't get me wrong: I like when a writer trusts me enough to drop me into the deep end. But I was having a hard time following at first. If I had to guess it probably came down to some bad PR decisions, to try to hook viewers with sex and violence upfront rather than building up to it. I GET IT. I know this is tBL.

But I would actually recommend watching in this order (especially if you think you're just here for a glimpse of Barcode...):
Episodes 5-11
Episodes 1-4
Episode 12

The "How We Got Here" device muddied the water. Not necessary. If you trust me as your audience, then trust that I have the patience to wait for the sex and violence.

Onto what I liked... Come for the Barcode but Stay for the Experimental Horror!

This show is extremely genre aware -but in a good way. It uses the vehicle of high school setting to provide some interesting social commentary, rather than being "about high school." This was approached in a highly subversive way. Very bad things happen to these high schoolers. In a market flooded with school setting, this is not your run of the mill high school BL. Rather than "dunking" on the school setting, tho, the writers really transformed it.

Even though the timeline gets chopped and screwed, there is still very much a buildup hat takes place. I love when a narrative takes time to elaborate on the making of a vengeful ghost. We are intimately aware with what created this evil by the time we're fully confronted with it.

The characters themselves are not genre aware/genre savvy, which I also found refreshing. I really liked this persistent thread of a character who is interested in horror finding themselves inside of one - though it does not set them up to be prepared for it necessarily. (Compared to like, for example, a character who already reads comic books about aliens, then meets an alien and is thus not freaked out by it.) Previous experience with horror does not set anyone up to survive it here.

I like stories where you have to be kind of "along for the ride." It felt like the writers must have, at some point, sat around a table asking each other "what's the worst possible thing that could happen next?" CAR. WRECK. But if you can let go of the fact that this is not a story about redemption, there is no retribution, and everyone is bad, then you can just enjoy the descent into madness and the genre subversions.

I'm not sure I understood the ending, or who I was even supposed to ship half the time, or who to hate - or that I needed to. Again, comfortable in the uncomfortable got me to the end. I enjoyed that I had no idea where it was going. It was unpredictable. The pace was... Fast. Hope Barcode got (whatever the thai equivalent of an Oscar is... a golden swan?) for this shit.

I had no choice but to write fix-it fic as soon as I finished it. (Even though, like I said, I was busy and had other stuff to do. I couldn't stop.) Please know there is some fix-it available on AO3. Thank me later.

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Disturbing and unpleasant, but not bad.

An interesting concept for a story. Its strong qualities I'd say laid on the plot and the character writing. They portrayed well the disgusting and shameful part of society, giving a sense of realism to the show, which is something that I appreciated. However, the thriller part lacked in both acting and execution. On the drama part the performances were actually good, but the genre of thriller is a bit more demanding. In many scenes the emotions of terror, anguish and agony either felt extreme or underwhelming. Fuaiz and Ta were the only ones who rose to the occasion and acted very naturally with convincing reactions. For me, a better guidance from the director or choosing more experienced actors on that part might have done the trick. So it's a yes to the story and the plot, but no to the direction and acting on the thriller part.

I would recommend it to anyone who likes darker stories, though. The drama part is actually pretty good and worth giving it a shot.

PS: It's one of those shows that you might need a second watch just to pay attention to the details and the character reactions on the early episodes.

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Amazing but a bit confusing for me

BeOnCloud have done it again. The budget budgeted, the acting was incredible and there were the perfect amount of NC scenes. As someone that came form Kinnporsche, it was so great to see more of Barcode as well as Us and 2J. The production and direction was perfect.
The only thing is that I need to rewatch it because watching each ep weekly meant I ended up SO confused as I'd forgotten what happened the week before. I didn't understand the ending at all, and in my opinion the storyline got complicated (doesn't mean it was! I mean that it was complex and makes you think but it was very interesting, I just had a weak brain and memory between eps), I didn't know what was a flashback, what was a hallucination etc. If I rewatch it all in one go I'm sure it will make more sense, but honestly the story seemed a bit convoluted at times.
It was so powerful though, it really had me questioning the morals of all characters - I was feeling sympathy for characters that had done awful things, and White's death had me sobbing SO HARD (he was the only one that didn't deserve anything to happen to him).
Basically, I got confused and still am a bit, but the actual show was phenomenal. Acting, production, special effects, maturity: all perfection. I can't wait for more series from BOC.

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Rollercoaster Ride

This started out interesting, slowed down, got emotionally disturbing, then downright insane.

I ended up liking this and all of the effort the boys put into making this. My biggest problem with this was the confusion caused by constant flashbacks. I had a hard time keeping the timeline straight.

Let me say this made me cry so hard. I had strong emotions about each and every actor in this series. Whether it be love, hate, pity, or utter contempt. I usually cry pretty easily while watching emotional series but never have I been driving home from work and thought about what I had seen and burst out crying in the car.

I don’t know that I can recommend this to anyone. I’m still traumatized and don’t really wish this on anyone else. Maybe you are tough enough to handle it.

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Nothing Hurts More Than When Your Child Sucks

When I started watching it, I was so absolutely excited.
The mystery was good, the characters were compelling... And then it all went downhill so fast.
I wanted this series to be good, I wanted to believe this narrative but what if felt like was that they had a good premise and then they decided to do a huge totally unnecessary flashback and then when they came back they realised they didn't have enough episodes to conclude this series properly and so they concluded it with literally the first thing that crossed their minds just to be able to say it has an ending.
It's disappointing, honestly.
I'll take the friends I made discussing this on Tumblr and creating a brand new Discord server just for it out of this, though. It'll always be my child that I birthed myself. It's just that my child started doing hard drugs and I couldn't save it from overdosing.

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Scream+The Glory+Incidental BL

Headline says it all. If you took the movie Scream, added The Glory with a peppering of Thai BL, DFF would be the result.

what starts as a love letter to American 90s slasher films quickly plants its roots in Thai culture. The result might have been messier in less capable hands (definitely not perfect by any stretch of the imagination). The director was able to get some really decent performances from a very young and inexperienced cast (Jin, Phee, Non, Tee) and there was nothing gratuitous about the NCs- in fact, I felt they served narrative purpose you don’t often find in Thai BLs.

For fans of smartish slasher films, I strongly recommend. For fans looking for a morally ambiguous romp, I highly recommend.

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Good but could have been better

Although Be On Cloud come in for a fair amount of criticism they do need credit for doing some different things.
On the whole I did enjoy this series though the execution was a bit messy and with a slpit personality having a completely different feel to the countryside and school based sections
It didn't get off to a great start with the audience being thrown into the deep end with scenes involvong 8 of the main characters -and it took a while to actually get to know each of them, and they did overdo the hand held camera style in trying to give it a dramatic style.
I don;t think I would really class this a s a BL more as a drama with some gay characters as that aspect doesn't really play a major part much of the time, however when there were kissing/NC scenes at least they were more realistic as per KinnPorsche and not like on GMMTV.
The bullying was almost uncorfortable to watch at times but Barcode really stood out frrom the rest with his acting peformance particularly in episode 11.
So obviously a 2nd series is planned though possibly a big loss with Copper moving abroad so I guess he might not be in it.

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An Unexpected Delight

I went into this expecting a slasher TV show with a BL element. DFF is precisely that in the first four episodes. However, the show is weakest when it sticks to that expected premise. I usually binge BL shows, but this one took me until the 5th episode to get into. This show has a BL element but is not the central focus. It is similar to the popular BL show Not Me in that way. If you are looking for a romance like many other BLs, this is not the show for you. You also must endure through the first four episodes to get to the really good stuff in the middle of the series.

Once you hit episode 5, it becomes a high school bullying story. It then evolves into a high school queer love story, a crime drama, a problematic relationship with an older man, and the various ways people are culpable in driving someone to the edge. The character who suffers from all this is Non.

This is not a happy series. There is no happy ending, no redemption, only pain, sadness, death, and tragedy.

I enjoyed this show because it did something VERY different within the BL context. Barcode did an incredible job as Non.

A major drawback to the series, aside from waiting until almost halfway to build up the story, is the way it tells its story. It feels like it borrows from the Rashomon formulation of going over events from different points of view. Still, it fills in the gaps of missing information with each character we focus on rather than seeing the same scene from another perspective.

The ending scene is ambiguous, a mixed bag. I am just glad this series broke out of the box of BL tropes and formulas. However, it did fall into a lot of slasher tropes and formulations. You can see influences of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even your standard Friday the 13th or Halloween movie. I would be surprised if none of those movies influenced the people behind this show.

Definitely worth a see. I would have rated this higher if not for the first 4 episodes being rather subpar.

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Le pongo un 9, como el año que viene no haya segunda temporada voy a volver y le voy a poner un 1.

Le pongo un 9, como el año que viene no haya segunda temporada voy a volver y le voy a poner un 1.
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Okeeiiii..it really hurts

Okeii .....I was really hesitant about this series but after reading the review I decided to watch it and literally completed under two days.but I wish shouldn't have watched it ..... Actually before watching the series I had got many and many spoilers ....but after watching it .....it feel like spoilers are not that bad because I was really for all the emotional scene or any other scene ...They all are the as*****s and even don't want to talk or write about them.i think white and new/tan deserved more .sorry to say but I really hated phee.he should continue to help tan instead of falling in love with jin.and the most I hate is jin....he said he loved non and what the hell did he done ...ok last not the least non is also not that good ...but I can understand him when h got to the darkest part or time of his life and that teacher helped him...but I m not saying that everyone should cheat only. And the others(tee,por ,fluke,) they are just as*****s......I really felt bad for me/tan,white and the family of non.....
..


I only want to say that ....if someone is hesitant to watch this series it is best not to watch it....i kinda feel that I shouldn't have watched this series......because everyone is💔

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