A high-budget snooze fest
I believe The Next Prince is the prime example of how a show can have the most gorgeous settings, costumes and overall atmosphere while in the end still being a generic, boring, half-cooked mess.While the premise of the show is promising (being Khanin trying to adapt to his new role of prince while also trying to find out what happened to his adoptive father), the whole thing is basically abandoned after two episodes. Four or five different plots are introduced, without giving any of them enough time to properly develop. On the other hand, the romance is particularly bland: Khanin is an uninteresting character, too perfect in every aspect and overall just irritating; Charan is your typical broody BL guy, but besides that and being in love with Khanin, he doesn't really have any other remarkable characteristics, he is basically "just there". Ramil and Paytay are definitely more interesting, but have so little screen time that you can't even understand how their story ends. Calvin and Jay, finally, are just superfluous: I don't even know why the show bothered to give them space, since they have no actual development on screen and just take away precious time for other plot points to be explored.
All the plot points that the shows tries to tackle are dealt with rushed resolutions, while also wasting time on frustratingly long useless scenes ("Oh my gosh, Khanin is going to the market, let's spend 20 minutes on this in two separate occasions") and utterly boring, long-as-hell and derogatorily Wattpad-y sex scenes: the first one is almost 20 minutes long, were the writers out of their mind? The finale is the epitome of an unnecessarily long episode: if you asked me what happened in almost 2 hours, I would not be able to answer because, basically, it's just spiceless nothing.
If you want to give this show a try, go on, but I'm suggesting to not set your expectations too high: maybe that's the key to enjoy this yawn-inducing mess.
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A no-stakes comedy show doing its job
A very well produced series (especially for GMMTV standards), Me and Thee presents itself as an over the top, occasionally absurdist comedy without any meaningful plot points to explore, and overall it kinda gets the job done.The main premise of the whole show, being the mafia boss falling in love with the "normal" guy, is just occasionally tackled, and during the end of the show, blatantly forgotten in favour of a more classic "rich guy VS poor guy" dynamic: while during the first couple of episodes Peach is legitimately scared of Thee, after a while the fact that he is, indeed, part of a criminal family is completely dismissed, creating a very odd elephant-in-the-room situation that finds no resolution. The Arseni brothers being prohibited from having a partner is another plot point which gets shrugged off in the end, making you wonder why Rome and Mok never got together if the scary mafia dad was indeed so forgiving. The Tawan-Aran part is also very problematic as a whole, sending a honestly dangerous message ("everyone needs another chance, even if you are violent and dangerous", apparently).
In the end, the show had no meaningful conflicts at all, a lacking which, in my opinion, made the whole thing kinda boring after a while (also, the episodes are way too long for them having nothing meaningful happening).
Plot holes aside, this series asks you to constantly suspend your disbelief, which pairs well with the over the top comedy. The whole thing is brought to life by the acting, especially Pond's: even though I didn't particularly like Thee as a character (most of his "romantic" behaviours regarding Peach are honestly nightmarish for me, but that's a personal opinion), it's undeniable that Pond had on his shoulders this entire production; Phuwin was also good, but Peach is such a plain and occasionally boring character that he didn't really have any chance to shine.
Overall, Me and Thee is a good enough show: didn't love it, didn't hate it, and sometimes that's all you gonna get from a show.
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This should be the standard
I generally don't write public reviews but frankly speaking this series is just too good and every drama enthusiast (both BL and not) should give it a try. With a mixture of horror, comedy, dramatic storylines and unpredictable plot twists, Peaceful Property is one of the best GMM productions, with great acting and writing, and overall solidifies Tay and New as one of their strongest actors. Both Mook and Jan were also incredible and I would love to see them work together in another series. With a plethora of underwhelming BL series produced by the same company, Peaceful Property honestly makes me think that GMM is just not that good at writing BLs, and they should put the same effort they put into making this series in all of their productions. Kudos.Was this review helpful to you?
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Just plain bad
To put this simply, this drama is frankly terrible, with a very bad written script and sub-par acting. The whole plot revolving around the kidnap, which was sold as the core of the whole show, is basically forgotten after two or three episodes: after that, the whole thing just becomes a rom-com, and a very cheap one too, with boring scenes that lack both consequentiality and any kind of emotional impact.The terrible script, unfortunately, translates also to a mediocre acting performance: not even Ohm, who is known to be a great actor, could not do anything to make this thing somehow good in any way; on the other hand, Leng is just not good: I sincerely hope that he will take acting classes after this and get better, at least to avoid smiling awkwardly during dramatic scenes.
About the romance development, Min and Q's relationship is just hasty, bland and really not that satisfying to watch: they just meet, they decide they like each other without any clear reason, and then they just make you cringe for more than half of the show (no amount of "chemistry" can save them from this atrocious script). The remaining story is just a mix of half-written sub plots (Yada's, Q's dad's or even Q's own story dealing with trauma) that basically just serve as intermissions before the next unrewarding MinQ moment. The only likable part in this show is James, which makes no sense as a character at all but at least is kinda funny.
In conclusion, for me this show was a waste of time: I just hope that they will give Ohm better scripts in the future and not decide to waste his acting skills onto this kind of cheap entertainment.
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Intense, heart-breaking and hopeful
By the time I write this review, this show is absolutely the best japanese drama I've watched. The story, the writing, the production value, the overall message of the story all fit perfectly toghether to create a wonderful, intense and engaging experience. It took me just one episode to get hooked by the unfloding story of Minase and Hirukawa, and I enjoeyed every second of it.The story, while probably not that uncommon, manages to portrait perfectly the story of the protagonists, two troubled boys finding unexpected comfort in each other, while also always remaining grounded and realistic. Both Minase and Hirukawa are extremely reletable and genuine characters, and you just can't avoid getting fond of them. Their relationship is very intense, sometimes herotic yet very delicate, and the actors did a splendid job in portraying their relationship. Without any major spoilers, the finale in the eleventh episodes offers a beautiful, well thought, bittersweet yet hopeful commentary on the desire of getting married without being able to, which I personally very much appreciated.
Production wise, the show is phenomenal, with attention to deatils, every camera angle clearly studied and with a soundtrack that nicely gets along with the overall mood of the story, without ever being distracting or off setting: honestly, even though everyone is free to like or dislike the show and its story, it just need to be admitted that is beautiful to watch anyway.
In short, I personally believe Miseinen raised the standards for japanese dramas, with a simple yet impactful story that really touches your soul.
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Impressive under every aspect
This is by far one of the best thai production of this year and frankly one of the best I've ever seen: with a very strong and well written plot, an exceptional acting performance from the whole cast and a well developed romance, Jack & Joker sets a new high for plot-focused BL dramas that don't want to simply tell a romanitc story.As I already said, the plot is very complex, with many socially and politically aware messages throughout, with many high-tension moments, action-filled sequences and tear jerking moments; at the same time, the romance, although not the focal point of the story, is a very well written and devoleped slow burn, with a very detailed characterization of both the main leads and many romantic and rewarding moments. One of the strenghts of this drama is indeed the way both the action/heist plot and the romance are well devoleped, without any of the two remaining half-cooked.
Acting-wise, this was just overall phenomenal: although all the crew did a fantastic job at portraying their characters, Yin and War were absoultely breath taking, delivering one of the strongest acting performance I've ever witnessed in a thai production. War is especially good as Joke, and he shines particularly during his most dramatic scenes, and is in my opinion the highlight of the whole drama.
In the end, this is absoultely a must-watch for BL fans that are getting a bit tired of the same old romantic stories and want something refreshing and never predictable. Highly recommended!
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More like Bore You to Death
Half crime series, half comedy BL, Dare You to Death tries to mix together two apparently contrasting genres, while presenting a grittier, darker version of JoongDunk and, may I say, fails spectacularly.The story tries to juggle between a very serious case of serial murders (and I will say, very gory ones too) and the development of a cheap romance between the main leads. The clash is honestly irritating: you will have two of the most incompetent cops ever seen on a screen shamelessly flirting while teens get brutally assassinated around them. The whole romance portion of the show is not only uninteresting and underdeveloped (you can't even understand why these two like eachother, besides finding eachother hot, I guess), but majorly inappropriate for the context of the whole show: after a while, seeing Jade getting jealous over Kamin on the crime scene of someone who just got crushed to a pulp by a falling car will just have you say "Can't these guys just do their job?".
Besides the boring romance, the crime/police part is honestly terrible, to the point that I doubt the writers of this show even bothered watching a single crime series in their whole life. Cops using guns to threaten suspects, undercover operations without any backup whatsoever, whole episodes spent on marginally important drug leads that lead to nowhere at all, no interrogations of prime suspects and key witnesses are just a few of the absurd things about this whole mess of an investigation that will make you feel like you could do a better job than these guys. The cherry on top was honestly the episode where Jade and Kamin wasted a whole day on a cute date because "they worked a lot so they deserved to rest": is the work in the room with us right now?
Acting wise, Dunk is as stiff as ever, but I at least appreciated Joong's performance, who is pretty good at portraying a goofier character for once. Regarding the supporting cast, they were ok, but unremarkable for the most.
In the end, while I found the show kinda funny during its first half, the latter one just got me so uninterested that I spent most of the time just gazing at the screen asking myself "How was this thing greenlit?" Dear writers, let's put the pens down for a while, shall we?
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