Dare You to Death

Waste of time

If you're looking for a dark/mystery Bl, probably skip this one to save your time.
First of all, why do something you're not good at? Gmmtv, please look at what you're selling people and choose a goddamn genre for once and for all. If you don't know how to make thriller bls, DON'T make them. I promise you have a choice and you will save time for people who actually know what a thriller has to have to be good and watchable. And no, don't give me the "Well, it's a Bl!" argument, because thriller bls have a their rules as well. Compared to Manner of death or DFF, DYTD didn't even get close to that. Why?
This company knows damn well what they need to do to earn money from a Bl. Good quality? No. Good acting? Nah. Good ending? Absolutely not. A fan favourite ship? OF COURSE! Works everytime, doesn't it? If you feel offended by this, you're a part of the problem. This company sees you as idiots who will devour anything that involves First Khao, Joongdunk, Pondphuwin, ect, no matter how shit of a bl they play in. They just don't care and that's the root of this problem. You don't consume low quality media, = they don't deliver it and put actual effort in it instead.
Second of all, the vision of the storyline is pretty good and to my liking, but the amount of lovey dovey and unbelievably cringe scenes that tried to fill up the plot holes and left us with zero updates ruined it. Especially in the last episode - the amount of insufferable dialogues between Jade and Kamin, plus their beach scenes just proved the storyline was never the main goal for the directors. A good, fair ending is very important, especially in thrillers, but they killed off Puifai's character just like that? I'd love to see her revenge be fulfilled and see her run away with Puth. But I knew these endings aren't to gmmtv's liking. Sure, let's let Jay live just because we want to, right? It made no sense. Not to mention that after that we didn't even get an update on how the lives of the survivors continued. Again, they just showed us the main characters flirting with each other for like 20 minutes. I never skip things like this in bls, but I was fed up and did so.
Acting felt really off almost all the time, but I really enjoyed Fai's and Puth's screen time. He looks good as a villain, he deserves more more roles like this.
Overall I'm really disappointed because I was excited for this as a dark bl fan, but it was so bad. Do better.

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A weak BL inside a horribly boring story

Oh by Thor's beard. My precious time, where did it go? Where to begin? I try to start to think about something good first. Give me a minute. Joong and Dunk are good looking guys.

That's it. Everything else was horrible. See I love drama, and as Agatha Christie fan I love a good murder story too. But this wasn't it. I felt this weird thing since the middle half that one moment we get a gruesome murder then a BL scene like these must have been the dumbest detectives I have seen. Or police, since... I mean there is a serial killer on the loose, and the police department sents TWO officers for the entire continually escalating situation? Would not the famous father of one of the potential victims (his son) not at least press for more police, or bringing his son out the country? I mean, if I were part of targeted group I'd flee the country like yesterday?

And instead everyone is waiting in the city, doing their same known routines a FEW of them guarded by ONE policeman instead of taking them into protective custody or something??? And sorry, between all the horror Joong and Dunk making out felt so unbeliebaly MISPLACED. Was is not clear the murderer was after everyone? Why did people even think, if they decide (Dare) they would not end up being killed? Sorry, all of these were psychos of some level, and unlike Death on the Nile or any Whodunnit crime this was NOT interesting. It was BORING. I care for none of the victims, nor were the villains in any way, shape or form interesting. It was evil what the people being killed did, yeah, but if one decides to go on such a revenge path with such methods I assume the murderer couple was mentally profoundly deranged before that.

And what did Kamin and Jade achieve? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was like every single decision was unreasonable, pointless and amateurish beyond imagination. To alterate a famous movie quote:

What I've just watched is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever seen. At no point this rambling, incoherent story ever come close to anything that could be considered as rational. Following this series I am now dumber just for having watched to it. I award them no points, and may God have mercy on their soul.

1/10
One point for good looking MC actors.

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Not Delivering what it is supposed to

The cinematography ,the acting are the worst i have ever seen, there is some forced romance in the whole series, the chemistry in the characters is missing alot.
There seems to be a great plot and storyline if we remove the romance and love talk from the whole series such direction doesn't belong on Netflix it's supposed to be on YouTube or something.
No hate to the actors, their previous works have been great just this one is what has lost me overall.
They need to learn something from the directors of Jack and joker where the romance and action along with the plot was delivered amazingly.
This has been a little disappointment for the audience where a lot of potential was there but was wasted by poor direction, and acting

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The Show Can't Decide What It Wants to Be

Overall, the show seems confused about what genre it wants to be, and that causes the ultimate downfall of the show itself. It's marketed as a gritty thriller where a serial killer is targeting a single friend group full of generally terrible people, and Jade's brother Jay is among them. When the new inspector, Kamin, arrives and takes over the case, he initially butts heads with Jade. This sets up the romantic plotline of the show, but the pacing is inconsistent and choices often don't make sense. The way the plot resolves is ultimately unsatisfying, and I feel no investment in the main characters. It’s possible to have a romance inside of a thriller story like the basis for this one, but this is so poorly executed because it was clear they didn’t know if they wanted to write a romcom BL or a gritty crime thriller.

The characters are initially given a deadline for wrapping up the serial killer case because of media attention, but that later vanishes entirely as they fully blow past the deadline with no consequences. Jade is almost completely unconcerned about Jay because his focus is taken up so entirely by trying to romance Kamin. The show fails to balance the tension of the serial killer's revenge on the friend group with the romantic elements often leaning toward romance far too often which places the whole basis for the plot in jeopardy. The cuts between scenes are incredibly awkward, and the after credits often includes extra “romantic” scenes between the main couple that often left me feeling more awkward than happy for the couple. It was often so jarring and opposite from the ending to the episode, that it would cause confusion about the timeline, as many of them were from scene that happened much earlier in the episode, or just gave me an icky feeling about the whole show.

The friend group who was caught up in the murders as well seemed to have so little care for the fact their friends were all being killed. They would discuss that they were “scared,” but I never saw that taking shape. They were constantly fighting against helping the police, and I understand they all had shady backgrounds that would get them arrested if they revealed the truth, but you are being investigated for murder! Tell them everything, you idiots. Jade and Kamin’s overall lack of interest in the serial killer case was what really killed it. They spent so much time trying to romance each other rather than doing their jobs that I didn’t feel happy when they “won” at the end. Several people in the comments on the main show page noted how a lot time was spent filming the actors staring off into nothing, and I agree. It wasn’t a plot device. I think a good portion of this show was for the purpose of making the actors look attractive to the audience. “Here’s this guy who looks like a model! Stare at him. Revel in his beauty. Isn’t he so gorgeous running into danger? Isn’t he so pretty kissing this other guy?” I honestly was not expecting a romantic comedy from the marketing of the show, and I was often messaging a friend saying, “Just focus on the murder! There are several people dead!”

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Beautiful Trash

I went into this series with high expectations. I'm a fan of buddy cop series, so the idea of that setting as a BL was intriguing to me. I thought the pilot looked amazing, the actual trailer for the series definitely hooked my interest, and I'm fond of both JoongDunk and AouBoom.

Visually the show clearly had a decent budget, the music was good, and it definitely had some scenes and moments that were very well done. For example, the cage fight was a really great scene. Unfortunately the sloppy direction and poor editing resulted in a series that was overall far too often nonsensical in tone and sometimes jarring when rapidly switching from a life or death situation to oh let's throw the BL fans a bone with a sweet moment. Jade and Kamin come across as largely incompetent at their jobs, and the entire handling of what should have been a very serious investigation into serial murder was ludicrous. Even putting that aside, the complete lack of trust between Jade and Jay meant that things that should have been resolved and people who could have been protected all got fucked because... what... friends don't dob friends in to the police?!

The directing/editing team seem to have been on a mission to cut out as much physical intimacy as they possibly could without being publically bashed for being homophobic... which is an odd choice for a BL. I might have been able to forgive that if they had actually delivered on a cohesive and compelling plot overall... but they didn't manage to do that either.

I basically only finished watching this because I felt sad for the actors, who all seemed to have done the best they could with what they were given.

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Disappointment is an UNDERSTATEMENT

So here comes my rants…ahem…review.

I thought about whether I should write a review on this show because it left nothing but disappointment for me (and many other, I believe). But I decide to do it after giving my time to finish it and thought I should be able to express my feelings. Let’s start with what the story was supposed to be, a Thriller! Yes, it got my attention right off the bat when I read the synopsis, being a sucker for thriller. It being a bl, I was even more excited since I wanted to see something new in the world of bl for once, from GMM (because if you read the comparison between them and other company under bl series, it’s not hard to guess many are feed up with how badly produced their series are).

I decided to give GMM and this pair, JOONG AND DUNK, a chance. Though I have watched some of GMM series, in the earliest making of bl series, JoongDunk was a first, I thought they looked good, which was a plus of course in entertainment industry, especially in bl world (for all the fangirl/boy, the requirement to make money). I wanted only two things, decent story and decent acting but guess what, both GMM and JoongDunk (especially Dunk) disappointed me.

The series did not turn out to be what was promised, it was so bland, tasteless and unrealistic beyond comprehension. It look like GMM wanted to balance the gore to be lightened by the fluffy (cringey) romance of the leads but ended up messing it up so bad that they ended up with nothing on both part, no part was developed in its potential, like the dog that wanted the bone in the reflection and ended with nada. They killed a very potential series by trying to focus on something else, the romance of the two that should be chasing bad guys and solving the crime to prevent another dead! It’s like they think a bl have to have romance, no, two men flirting, kissing and NC scene is a must! They should learn from Chinese bromance series. They should realize by now that exposing everything is less attractive than exposing this and that, minimum, leaving viewers some imagination. Not everything has to had it all spelled out. I believe if they had toned down the romance and focused on solving the crime, it could have been one of those rare gem produced by them. Romance wasn’t needed in this kind of genre, not to mention how they choose cringey romance instead of matured kind of it. The mystery wasn’t that mysterious either with how predictable it was, even Jay’s “crime” was I able to guess (maybe growing up watching Thai drama helps).

The most thrilled I was was when the first murder took place, so much for being a thriller, after that the series pretty much went down, nothing was thrilling and the disconnection the inspector and captain have to the case took the charm of a possible thrilling series away. Like, how could they be so busy with their own romance that they practically look like they only exist to catch the killers in the last episode and didn’t need to do anything to investigate? Like they weren’t the ones who were supposed to be solving this murder spree. They were so misplaced. Most of the time, it felt like the murderers were plucking flower petals after each crime—they are on their way, they are not—and ended up going home bored to death, wondering if they made it too hard for the duo. If I were in trouble, I sure as h*ll did not want these two on my rescue team.

Moving onto the cast/acting, I think the only ones who acted decently were Chimon and Sing. The other avengers team did good job too with the screen time they were given, Joong was okay but I think he can do better. On the other hand, Dunk, this actor was so stiff it made it uncomfortable to watch him. I am not lying when I said I already saw his wooden acting from his first appearance, the car scene. At first I thought it was me who wasn’t used to him but the more I watched, the more I feel that he lack. And reading the comments, it doesn’t look like this was his first project. And many claims that this was his “improved version” which made me wonder how the h*ll did he act in his previous projects. How did he even secure this project to lead? And the next. Frankly, he really needs to take on acting classes. As a leading man, for his fans and his co-star, he owe that much. I don’t think it was he being in character, sure, Kamin was supposed to be reserved and strict but those two personality did not equal to being wooden stiff. It was his acting that lacked, too stiff. Many says that he and Joong are very comfortable with one another but maybe because of his stiff acting, for me, he always looked guarded, especially in those intimate scenes, that I couldn’t feel the chemistry between them. It looked too awkward. Too uncomfortable to watch. Many blames the director for how it turned out but they could only direct and guide, the acting was done with the actor’s ability, his perception of the character, maybe this was how much the director could bring out from Dunk which says a lot about him. I hope he saw how he act from the reaction videos they made and have enough self-awareness to try and improve himself. He is not ready to be Kamin. Give it 3 stars for cast/acting as a whole cast.

What I like about this series would be the idea, the story and development we didn’t get, and I like the ending credit ost in earlier episodes.

Rewatch? H*ll no, one round was more than enough. I am not putting myself in that torture again. (Geez, why is it a must to rate rewatch value when there is none?!)

Yup, it’s decided, I am leaving GMM and JoongDunk behind, as I had wisely done until now.

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Welp that was a mess

Dare you to death has an interesting premise - JoongDunk as police officers try to solve a case that somehow is revolving around the game truth or dare. Over the years we have seen especially Thai BLs getting more complex stories and this was really exciting to me.

And then I started watching.

First of all, how the hell is Jade (Joong) still allowed to be involved in a case where his BROTHER is a prime suspect is beyond anything I can understand. No, Kamin telling him to step down does NOT count because obviously, no one else is actually kicking him out. At that point I knew, I can't expect much from the police work.

But holy cow, that was the worst police work I ever had to witness. If the drama would handle the police work poorly but then deliver 100 % JoongDunk love story perfection, I could excuse it. But their love story is weirdly paced and doesn't fit the whole big picture. If they would flirt and kiss A LITTLE less maybe not everyone would have to die. Also, not them trying to talk someone out of killing someone UNSUCCESSFULLY and then keep trying that the next time I'm so MAAAAD IT DIDN'T WORK THE FIRST 3 TIMES WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

Why the hell did they let Champ live is beyond any comprehension, might as well just kill him too.

The script could have been much better.

Dunk's acting improved, but there is still a lot he can work on. I'm willing to look past that if not for some truly upsetting kiss scenes. Especially ep 10 kisses made me tear my hair. Why did the director allow Dunk to leave his eyes open like that? Why does he look like he doesn't really wanna be kissed by his BOYFRIEND? There are moments and situations in which having eyes opened during a kiss scene can be hot. This was not one of them.

I also can't understand why the director told Joong to act down in that lil blooper at the end of ep 10. I'm getting a headache.

The music is good tho, I really like 'Dare you to love'.

Rewatch value is the lowest I can give because I never wanna see this mess again, even though JoongDunk were cute in it. If it comes with the price of my sanity I'd rather wait for a new project of theirs.

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Flirt you to Death

I came here with high expectations, but it disappointed me. I thought that investigation of the murder is going to be the main plot, but, no, it was flirting. We have a dead body in front of us, yet the main characters are flirting. They flirt at home, they flirt at their workplace, they flirt at their crime scene, they flirt at the hospital,etc. I know they are lead couple, but what about the investigation. At one point,I wanted to skip their scenes just to see where the story is going. I have to appreciate myself for controlling my urge and watching all their scenes without skipping.

This show has a worst police department. It's true though that I have watched much worse police departments in other shows. However, it never went this far, when investigation is the central point of the plot.

Now I am going to tell you about the good points of the show. First the chemistry of joong and dunk.The way their story progressed was smooth like butter🕺🏻. I'm not able to come up with another point.

Let's talk about the bad ones🙃.I think the good cast was wasted. They have a really good cast lineup, but it wasn't used well. The reason because they gave more screen time to joong and dunk to flirt with each other. I know they are main characters, but what about the investigation. The clues appear out of no where, making it hard to follow. I thought it was due to my own lack of intelligence. But believe me I have watched many complicated shows, and I have always grasped what was going on. I just couldn't comprehend it, the investigation is all over the place. None of the characters felt fully developed.The action scenes were lackluster and doesn't leave any impact on the audience.

Random thought :
Dunk’s hair in the earlier episodes is so weird. It was like there was a block of hair in front of his eyes. Every time he appeared on screen, it irritated me, and I just wanted to comb his hair so I could watch the series without any distractions.

In conclusion, I want to say that this drama is going to be overrated. No doubt, it is not Joong Dunk’s best work — in fact, it’s not even good. But still, if you're a fan, you should watch it. And if you're not, I dare you to watch it.

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Expectations were high...

Welp.
I had hopes. I thought that perhaps the fact that netflix was producing this would help, but...
Where do I even start? The pacing is HORRIBLE (why are we getting soap opera in the middle of an investigation that had Jay in immediate danger of DEATH????) and the story is simply not cohesive. They say they have no time and have to rush but then they're randomly all lovey-dovey for half an episode. I really wanted to stick this out, but I started yelling at the screen and calling the characters stupid so I'm dropping for my sanity.
I tuned in mostly because I watched The Heart Killers and I saw a great deal of potential in that series that was simply not explored. And yet again I was way more invested in Joong's character (probably because his acting is just better than Dunk's, sorry). Though I have to admit this time around both of their characters are flat as hell. Their relationship makes NO sense at all.
I'm glad to see they got gun training this time around. But otherwise the production is not doing this series any favors... What is wrong with the music????? Why is it just cutting into the scenes louder than the dialogues???

Overall, I could rant more, probably. but some joongdunk fan probably already has an assasin called on me for this review so i will just end it here.

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Go in to it expecting naked gun meets Thai BL...do not be serious. Prepare for whiplash.

Where do I even start...Let me give it it's flowers and grace first.

A very fun watch if you don't want to use any brain and like seeing fine men look fine. The music is really good, although a bit overused (whenever they play the stripped vocal version of the chorus during ANY romantic scene-) , the cast seems like they're really trying their best and I can appreciate that. There's fun moments, trope-y cute scenes that highlight the chemistry between the actors, and amazing wardrobe for Kamin (like I said, fine men looking fine).

Now, to the nitty gritty of it all. The sudden switch from murder investigation to them acting lovey dovey gives me such whiplash. This story has many types of characters but none I'd describe as feeling real; if you want grounded in reality, this is not the show for you. The pacing feels so odd, 10 episodes is very short for a story with a murder mystery and a romcom going along side, the show does not pause to let the viewer take in anything, it's too comfortable switching genres and expecting the viewers to be okay with it. Even the actors seem confused sometimes on how to act in a scene, Jade will go from being teary and pondering over his relationship with his brother to being flirtatious with Kamin immediately, with no real discussion of comfort between the two, no bonding moment, no "You've done well, I can see how you try your best for your brother", literally anything to acknowledge his real person feelings. None.

Their relationships has no real substance, they've barely had a real conversation. The chemistry exists between the actors but not the characters. I really hope this makes sense to someone; they seem to have this unexplained attachment with each other which feels really quick and gives a sense of "Did I miss something...?" to the viewer.

The action scenes are shot badly, they could've really done those better. The show doesn't really have moments of catharsis or satisfaction that you'd expect in a suspense drama like this. It doesn't really want you to think too much about it either. And I don't, so I enjoy it. There are so many easy fixes and realistic ways that would benefit them and protect the people in line to be murdered but they just...don't do that. They couldn't care less about it really.

Go into this expecting a fun silly cop BL, the case doesn't matter that much, the scenes are cute, depth is non existent, but a fun watch still.

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Horrid writing and Plot Development

I'm gonna start off by saying I had so much hope for this show... but..---Also this review is very much not structured and just me placing my thoughts...

I feel like this show had SOOO MUCH potential but it all kind of fell a bit flat. Diverging from the acting, because I've seen a lot of people hating on that, and honestly I feel as though relative to past shows, it has improved but yk... Anyways that plot and writing..

I'm so sad because it had so much potential but omg it was all over the place( Kind of like this review). I loved the entire idea of the plot itself but the writing felt so... unstructured... Like I get it was supposed to have romance in it but In my opinion the romance plot came out of nowhere, it was like they wrote the script then remembered it had a romantic aspect--AND OMG WHAT KIND OF OFFICERS WERE THEY??? Every other scene somebody would be dead and they'd be flirting in proximity of the body.. LIKE????

Also, from my novice understanding of filmmaking (having taken approximately 1 film class😭) Most shots just felt like the characters were just entering the scene, idk... I feel like in every scene the actors knew they were being filmed... everything felt like acting...(I've explained horribly but idk how to put it into words) it was so annoying because it felt like i was watching a show, like i wasn't immersed into the world at all. There's one scene in particular that I found made no sense, and thats the one where Jade and Kamin were talking to Cherreen and Champ outside the uni, then they go into the building, ask one question, then boom their outside again.... HUH??? sigh---Aslo we're not even gonna talk about those gunshot and blood effects in ep 9... Cuzz.....

Idk I had high hopes for the plot line but i felt like the execution definitely wasn't the best ( I love JoongDunk tho, so I def hope they're given justice with a better script next time, and probably directing too ).

Anyways If you're looking for something to watch periodically and don't rlly care about writing and stuff, feel free to watch it..Its a fun past time I'd say.

Also, Question: if practically everybody is dead, can u consider a case solved???

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