9 Years of You

Visually good, but lacks emotional impact.

If you’re after eye-catching leads, cute moments, nice visual aesthetic and good OST, this series has got you covered. But if you're looking for a compelling emotional experience, a deeper storyline and outstanding performance, you might end up feeling let down. The show follows the journey of Ran and Dao from 2016 to 2024, showcasing the ups and downs of their lives and friendship over the years. While the series has its strengths, such as good story development and production values, it falls short in emotional impact and character portrayal.

The series starts off promisingly, drawing the audience into the world of the two characters and their evolving relationship. However, as the series progresses, the momentum begins to slow down, but it manages to pick up the pace back toward the end. However, as the story progresses, the storytelling becomes predictable and lacks the emotional depth needed to truly engage me into what more to come. The emotional rollercoaster isn’t delivered well.

In my opinion, there are two shortcomings of this series. Firstly is the lack of significant change over the nine-year period. The time and era shifts from 2016 to 2024 are not effectively translated on-screen, especially in terms of props and setting. Some characters' appearance/looks remain pretty much the same as they were since their college days. The parents don’t even have a strand of grey hair even after 9 years. Hence, as much as I can follow the story, I don’t feel the passage of time or the impact of the changing years on the characters' lives much.

Secondly is the acting. Aim, as a debut actor, may come off as a bit rigid in his performance, but it’s not all that bad. His good-looking and hot-bod might seem to save him, but those aspects alone don’t do wonders to his acting, at least for me. And Cherprang’s acting may also fall short at times, needing to work on delivering a more natural performance. In some crying scenes, her expressions look a bit more forced than naturally sad. She did well in her previous series, but for this one, the way she portrayed Dao feels a bit bland, lacking the nuance and depth needed to make it memorable. While Cherprang and Aim share good chemistry, their emotions do not always translate well on-screen. They surely have some good cute moments, but there’s not much depth to their story to draw me into the emotional highs and lows of their relationship.

In conclusion, "9 Years of You" is a nice romantic drama, but falls short in emotional impact and character execution. While the series has the potential to be a more compelling and emotionally resonant series, it struggles to fully resonate with viewers due to its lack of depth in character portrayal.

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Best Friends are "Better Together" for 9 years and more...

this lakorn is one of the few outstanding I watched from the time I started into asian drama world, though unusually a miniseries for a lenght of thailand drama but enjoyable all the way for every 9 hours of it...

I think as a plot for friends to lovers or the romantic type of dramas, this is the best a thailand drama can be portraying in this decent show comparing how thailands lakorns evolved from two decades ago till now... I can see that there is progression in the execution of lakorns when it comes to the interactions and chemistry of leads, the story, cinematography, acting... the cast was so good and well chosen though I didn't watched any other dramas for any of these actors of this drama but they did a great job in this lakorn...

the time skip in the script going through 9 years made the story a bit lacking in terms of making an overall coherent story causing some plot holes but it was obvious that they would follow this style for a miniseries though maybe it could have been better if making this drama a bit more longer for 3 to 4 episodes but wasn't boring or draggy...

the chemistry as leads turning from friends to lovers is so good and firing, I can see that they couldn't hiding their crush for each others through all these 9 years, even when they chose at the start to follow this concept of "friends shouldn't dating" to not make it complicated if they will break up when leads concluded that after seeing their best friends going through it...

when leads were in a relationship with another partners, it was like an exam in life to test how much they are able to be apart and avoiding each others and it was the hardest for them to accept it when they turned out to have them being separated not interfering in each other like before but the events of story were in their favor to make them reuniniting together unable to give up on their deep love and bond...

the setback of the story and hardships that leads faced and hindered them from being together or arguing to end up being apart were disappointing in some places but the satisfying ending made up for all of this...

as the first drama for the male lead Aim, it was a great start for him and I think he made a nice performance in this drama, playing amazingly how he wanted to protect and standing besides Dao in all her times and for the female lead Cherprang was too good in portraying Dao but I think she could have performed a bit better but all her scenes with Ran were so brilliant and wonderdully done... so the first leads were so nicely paired together

the support characters of both leads family were all so splendid in acting... I like the supportive sister Duan and grandma of female lead and I think the actress playing mother of male lead was so nice and lovely for both of main actors, one of the best mom characters...

in the end it is a drama easy to watch and considered acceptable that what I expected to see in such plots of friends to lovers I found it... it was executed in a wonderful way and would like to strongly recommend it as one of the thailand lakorn that are worthy to try it and above than average... not forgetting the wonderful OST that added a lot of value to the show...

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