Eliot_Rulez

medicore show with a good vibe

OMG, was 2024 a hard year for thai shows. Many shows were childish, immature and poorly written with forgettable storylines and often boring as fuck.

What this "university" show did different: It was not as childish, it was not that immature, it had a 2:1 screen ratio (loving it because I don't have a TV since forever) and the vibe compared to all the similar shows (yes I mean all the GMMTV/Sabi Wabi crap) was miles ahead. I can't explain it really, but when watching this, I had a smile on my face regardless of some clichés & forced drama (ep 11) and some cringe scenes. And of course they did polish the presentation to new heights. Not only are the actors cute/handsome as fuck but also the cinematography did everything to perfection especially in the emotional scenes.

Makes this a good show? Of course not. The story is still poorly written without hights and with forced drama. But everything else was executed in a very good way, had a good vibe and was still enjoyable to watch. Overall I expected less and got more :)

Edit:
After knowing what was cut from this version, this makes the show not even medicore, because, they did cut away all the stuff a BL should be about - intimacy... especially the finale had a nice twist in it which can't be seen in the cut version, so a downrating is appropirate. Don't watch the cut version, it's a waste of time, only watch the uncut version!

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cute but a dull main character...

What could have been a very interesting story, turned out to be in the wrong setting all together. The most thing that irked me was that the main character is a grown up man (27), still acting like a child in his puberty. Had this been a school/university setting it would have made much more sense. I understand that some people are a bit slow, but he was slow for a decade which is bit unbelievable for me. Also the barista is more of a side character not a lead, because we have no clue how he fell into love with mr. dull guy. Yes, the guy was always there getting his coffee but there were no memorable interactions between them.

While the last two episodes were the best of the series, it's a bit sad that Mr. team leader had no positive ending. I would not have been against the team leader get together with the barista, but the barista will end up with his trainer and Mr. team leader will be alone :( Maybe because he was the most mature of them all. But the shyness in the end scene is also a bit akward... if you are together for three years you won't get flustered just because you see a bare body... that's too cliché for my taste.

So, this series has a bit a split personality. The lead character was a bit dull and slow, the triple fighting for him were the more interesting people but the setting was also not ideal for this kind of a story. The acting of the three was very good, but I would see them more in an university setting. It's still easy on the eyes and it's cute to a certain point but it is missing something. Production wise I can't fault the series, it is high quality but the script is lacking. Overall a nice watch, but nothing special which is a bit disappointing.

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a mixed bag.

I didn't like the forced living together in Episode 1. Where does something like this fly today? Even if you would like that person, you would not start living together out of the blue. The rest of the story for the main couple was ok-ish. The side-couple was more or less wasted with too little in depth storytelling. They should have the flashbacks for both couples in the beginning which would have helped tremendously. The drama of Kim Jin Woo daddy was there to support the point that he's afraid of not connecting with the people he loves. Contrary he did connect with the girl in Ep 4 which didn't make much sense to me. If you are a loner, reclusive you don't connect with people in no time.
I wish they would have just concentrated on the lead couple and had a series for the side couple, maybe with even only 6 episodes per series.
The friendship between Jung Ki Sub and Choi Balg Eum was the highlight of the series for me. Overall it was an ok-ish series, not earth-shattering story-wise with some fluffy moments, but also not bad.

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to be connected to be alone....

I'm late to the "review-party" because I had to binge-watch the series again to make sense of it.

The style of cinematography with it's wide angle shots was often used to tell us, all the characters are connected but not really that close to one another. Also the communicated more via videos/chats then in real life. That felt very dystopian and scary in a way.

Only two characters had a romantic interest, while the other two compensated to fill a need they didn't know they had. Especially Bua was very manipulative to even offering sex to get the closeness he seeks but not understanding that his behaviour hurts anyone around him. F4M was also an ass as soon he saw Chian he completely ignored Baabin and while Baabin is sensitive to the feelings of people around him, he's too scared to confess to the person he loves. He was also the truest character of all, always advising in a soft or harsh words depending on the situation and never hiding his feelings except hiding his love for F4M.

This love-quadruple can drive some viewers on the brink of insanity. As everything unfolds Baabin says something racist to Bua to protect F4M feelings even when he already had feelings for Bua. So overall all characters are shitty in their own way but they do it not knowingly or in Baabins case out of an misunderstood feeling to protect someone.

There is also bad in the show. The story spans two years, but the time-jumps are often not obvious enough and the choppy subtitles (out of sync, missing sentences) do not help. If each episode would start with a time-jump it would have been easy, but there are many time-jumps in one episode.

The acting was very good, but for me F4M & Chian could not represent a teenager (16-18). They looked too old, so this aspect irked me a lot regardless of their performance. The first two episodes are also a bit too boring, it's really a slow burn and not much is happening. So they could even made that six episodes and cut a bit more, but maybe that should highlight the dystopian feeling for the viewers. But also showing an other side of Bangkok was refreshing.

Overall a very unusual show and something we should see more often, even when the romantic aspect is not really a focus of the series. Fluff is very rare, the story is an angsty teenager coming of age story where teenagers seek attention on social media instead in real life. Their friendships are more superficial then in depth but in the end they learn and overcome the struggles albeit with hurting a lot. If you think, I did not like the show you are wrong. It's a very good show especially considering it's from Thailand, breaking the normal school/university tropes, showing the characters in a raw unfiltered way.

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exccentric but not even medicore.

If you are a Thai major in a university and you have a native speaker there, would you not speak thai? :)
This different language and it's explaination made no sense at all. And if you are friends and grew up together, would you not be able to speak each other languages after a time?

I would have wished, they would have not the "murder" case in it, which was clumsy and unrealistic and concentrating more of the MLs opening up their feelings for each others more in detail. They could even save money by only have eight episodes. 🤣

The show was ok-ish, besides the fluffy moments and some character growth of the MLs, it did not have anything special or worth remembering. Again a show which did not need to exist and if you do two languages, just don't explain it at all and nobody would care so much about it.

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slow burn with emotial conflict and a cliffhanger

Why I do love slow burns, I am not a fan of mutliple couples, especially of the grown up sort on the side.
Two teachers are in the same boat as our MLs, but they know each other for more than 10 years and have not found the time to confess their feelings much much much earlier. This is a big downer of the whole show.
First I (and many others) assumend that both teachers where together, but much later on, we learn, that's not the case. That's also the reason why the female teacher has so much screen time.

Tians conflict is not really revealed. If you don't know the book, you don't know that he is a homophobe. The flashback in episode 11 shoulkd teach us that, but (!) it does not... yes he is disturbed what he has seen, but I would never have the conclusion that it makes him a homophobe. He also does not react as such in the two kissing scenes. So something is either lost from the book or lost in the script.

Other than that both characters are what you expect in a BL. One introvert, the other one an extrovert. Both with emotional damage. The character building was nicely done, You see that they are caring for each other and they are growing togehter. But they don't make the step to confess even when both feel the same. So the cliffhanger for Season 1 was done in the nicest way possible for the MLs, but the teachers were a disappointment.

So I personally have to disagree with "best BL 2024", I think that "Unknown" was better. It's a good show, with good acting, very good cinematography but the story is nothing we did not see already. It also has "Addicted Heroin" vibes but they resolve such a story in an other way. We get an unsatisfying ending because it looks like it was designed to have two seasons. Now we have to wait and see if we really get a second season, which is not a given.

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serious, refreshing, cute story with a lacking end

The first gripe I have with this series is the actor of Taichi. While he is not bad, his voice is nothing compared to the actor of the movie version,. Now 7 years later they could have used the same actor because Kohei also did not look like a "freshman".. And second the finale was a disapointment especially if you have read the manga. It was Taichi going to Kohei not the reverse, it was him to confess and in the manga they had THE kiss we were all waiting for. Which would have made this series perfect, but for reasons unknown they changed it. 😭

The rest of the series is very good with some lengths but compared to all the thai crap we had this year, this was a well written script, refreshing, serious but still cute. Overall this is a recommandation and worth your while even with a finale which was not as good as it should have been.

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Entertaining to watch but red flags...

Let me start with all the red flags that show has:
While I get to be pissed off if you are betrayed, there is no reason to get someone raped. The toxic behaviour of Chi Cheng who forced the rape is also disturbing. The elefant in the room is the "hetero to gay" tropé which at least is disrespectful to all gays out in the world and of course complete bullshit. To let Wu Suo Wei be called "aunt" by his bf nephew is also disrespectful and unnecessary.

Because this is a chinese show, they lip-sync everything because there are hundreths of dialects of Mandarin and that causes inconsistencies with fore/background audio and sometimes it felt off. Also I felt the quality of the writing declined and the last episodes fell flat. I'm also not happy that they cut the "top" thing from the book. Chi Cheng let Wei top him to prove his love for him which made it a powerful statement, but we don't get to see that in the finale which was also unusual short.

I can't agree that all the red flags are a reason to rate this show with a 1.0. Compared to "My Stubborn" this was on the mild side in the toxic behaviour. In said show the ML forced his sexual drive on his partner but Chi Cheng at least restrained himself..

The production quality was very good indeed. Of course all the MLs are also eye-candy and their acting was good, but due the lip-syncing some of the acting felt a bit cringe and unnatural (the little nephew of Chi Cheng was horrible for example). The most impressive acting was by a side character Wang Shou played by Liu Jun which really had an impact, but his story felt it does not have a real closure. The same goes with dad & son or if the family did finally embrace Wei. So all in all, it was still entertaining to watch, but storywise this show does not even come close to other chinese BLs like "Stay With Me (2023)", "Blue Canvas of Youthful Days (2024)" and "Secrets Happened on the Litchi Island (2025)".

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Mostly boring and bland with stunning pictures...

As usual that was a top notch GMMTV production with very pretty pictures and overall exceptionell production quality. But as usual for GMMTV it was a very bland and partly boring show. It does cater to the fangirls but I could not care less. Also as usual the side-couple was more fun :)

This thing with french speaking was also a sore irk because they are all not "David Asavanond" (playing Ratis adoptive father) who has a french background and you can't expect someone to learn to speak fluently in three months or so. While they really tried, it breaks the illusion.

The most boring part was the finale... man that was a chore to watch through. So yes, this was a fantasy BL but I did not feel for the characters at all. AomBoom were the comic relief I expected and which made the series more enjoyable. The badies, (Thee's) grandma and (Dech's) father were very two dimensional. There was not much character growth and overall GMMTV had not the balls to make a BL with a bad ending. So they all live happily ever after or so. Besides pretty pictures the show has nothing going for them, so it's an average show in the end.

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Over the top but still shallow...

I'm not a fan of the japanese original, because over-the-top comedy is always just cringy for me.
But while the japanese version was a bit over-the-top it also had some real emotions in it.

In this, I feel it's just polished but steril. There is never a point where there are real emotional connections.
They tried very hard to make it a good show, but they failed in the emotional departmant. All three characters were annoying as hell, one just stupid, the other a tsundere and the Boss is just creepy and overbearing.

So as always, I'm not a fan of thai remakes, because while polished in production the lack in the story and the characters. They also "dumbed down" this series. Did they do so to make it more appealing for the masses? I don't know.

Overall it's a medicore show with no real heights, with a stupid plot twist in the end and the finale was more of the category "WTF is happening"... at least the OST is nice in a funny way, going full India style 🤣. So if you have nothing other to do, there is some entertainment in this, but you won't miss out if you skip it.

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Childish as fuck and too long...

A typical GMMTV production: Too childish, too long, extremly cheesy lines and not much substance.

There are some serene scenes in it, which make the actors shine, but the overly childish behaviour of most of the cast is just annoying. Maybe the mid 20ties actors should have acted in an elementry school instead of an university. The production quality was of course top notch, because this is one of GMMTV highlight products. They did not skimp in the audio department and the OST was excellent. Too bad there aren't any acapella versions of the songs to listen to.

So, overall, it's a series between annoying and fun, but the drama elements of the story feel forced, the disregard for Faifa by all around him was frustrating and the fantasy elements were done to perfection. The right stuff for all the fangirls, but sadly not for me.

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It ends with a cliffhanger....

As always I'm too late with the review, because I thought there will come more episodes.... there will be a "season 2" but now they stoppend in the middle of it.

The positive first: While most thai shows have a trash, meaningless story, they at least tried to make it a simple, but an good one. The actors also did their best. The only downside is the lack of enviroment with missing extras in the background with no noises in the background and mostly small sets. Of course, this is a low low budget effort, but done right in the most places.

Overall it was quite entertaining and I hope the "2nd season" will be completed soon and you can binge watch all of it!

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Cliché after cliché and vastly lack of chemistry...

While we expect shows from Taiwan to be quite nice, this one disappoints. The story is full of clichés, nothing new is told, the lack of chemistry between the couples makes this unbelievable af.

Even when the story tried to eat from the forbidden fruit, it did not make this show in the least interesting. Mostly it was boring and without any charme or emotions. Even the cinematography was not artsy and of course nobody showers with wearing underwar :) When actors are new, maybe Taiwan should also use the practice of an extensive workshop.

The only good things I have to say about this show: A nice title theme and we were spared over-acting comedy and childishness. Overall it was really forgettable. It's not the worst show from Taiwan but the 2nd worst. Better skip it and do something useful with your time.

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I had so much hope, but I'm disappointed af

I thought we will get a nice action show with some romance inbetween. But we got some action and often with excessive brutality and not much romance at all.
I thought we will get a good script, but we did get a really bad script.
I thought we will get good acting, but with such a crap script, they did the best they could.

The finale was especially painful to watch and for me the worst episode of all.
I can ask myself only, why do so many people like this show?
The characters are comically, especially the bad ones, one-dimensional with no growth, abnoxious or bland. The plot is from a $1 trash-novel and there is not much of romance at all, just egos clashing with each other, without meaningful conversations. They only did try with Joker and his father, but it was not as deep as it should be. The solution was lazily written and done in 5 minutes and that was the highlight of the series. A series with a runtime per episode of ~80 minutes is too long if they do not tell a story, develop the side characters. There is no feeling at all that the pairs grow together except Tattoo & Hoy who are together before the sereis started. :) It just gets boring . There were lots of time to develop a deeper partnership, more cuddles, more kisses between all pairs but instead it was wasted with a meaningless plot.

The only believable person of course was granny :) She had me from the beginning. But the rest is too forgetful. The best thing was the soundtrack, but it was wasted on this series, because there was no suspense in the story only in the music. I can't even say the direction is bad with the script which was given.

As with most shows, it starts with a strong first episode and then it goes down the drain.
I will not watch this again and I hope you have not wasted your time with it too :)

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