MikuYoku

I've loving the series with all 4 main leads being red flags in romance with Kant probably being the worst. The dyanmics of KantBison and FadelStyle are so different and it's cute to see FadelStyle switch completely after Style knows the truth.

The killer brothers are gonna get ballastic once they know the truth but I think Fadel would accept it better and so FadelStyle is probably gonna be ok. KantBison on the other hand is gonna be in a world of hurt...

The first six episodes were good as we got to see the relationship dynamics of Go Yeong with each of the very different love interests as well as a side story of his personal life. I strongly disliked the last 2 episodes although I understand it was following the book.

Epi. 1-2: Go Yeong meets Nam Gyu, a man that is completely in love with him both body and soul. Unfortunately, Go Yeong is still at a stage of life in college whereby he wants his freedom to do his own thing and not get tied down while Nam Gyu is someone looking for something forever and so the conflict is unavoidable. I felt really bad for Nam Gyu as he simply loved at the wrong time.

Epi. 3-4: Go Yeong meets Yeong Su, a man with deeply internalized homophobia. They match the best in bed but it goes downhill from there as Yeong Su's paranoia to avoid looking gay drives him to irrationality. Go Yeong is rightly furious after finding out Yeong Su's hypocritical nature who needs self-acceptace before starting anything with anyone.

Epi 5-6: Go Yeong meets Gyu Ho who is kind, caring and accepting of his HIV+ status which Go Yeong even fears telling his gay friends as they are shown to be judgemental. Gyu Ho is the love of his life but soon cracks appear in their relationship. Despite an attempt to rekindle the spark in Thailand, their relationship goes stale and ultimately Gyu Ho decides to take on a job offer overseas and so their relationship ends.

Epi 7-8: There is no love between Go Yeong and Habibi and Go Yeong quickly realizes that he is marrried and cheating. He realizes he should have treasured Gyu Ho more.

Ultimately, Go Yeong is a deeply flawed protaganist that shows the duality of most people. He is selfish, hypocritical, narcissistic and childish, while being kind, generous and understanding to the people he treasures. This is NOT a BL but a queer drama, hence there is no idealistic ML or fairytale ending. It simply documents the trials and tribulations of an ordinary gay man living in a homophobic society.

When doing a remake of any series, comparisons are inevitable. Whether in terms of budget, chemistry or storyline pacing, the original Thai version is simply better. One key problem is that because this has a much shorter screentime than the original, the story is compressed. This shortens the timeframe to build up chemistry between the couples which is crucial for a drama like this (since the plot is so simple). They are trying to do a 2-couple series on a JBL timeframe which typically only has 1 couple. Thus, the situation could be resolved if the screentime was doubled to allow the push and pull of the dymanics of each couple to develop.

Among the couples, Arashi-Rei chemistry is generally closer to Payu-Rain while from what I can see so far, Fuma-Kai is a bit different from Prapai-Sky.

I love the red flag Ritsu and the innocent Masumi who had his innocence and confidence shattered due to Ritsu's evil past actions. Ritsu goes through his redemption arc to make up to Masumi after maturing himself after feeling guilty that he was partly responsible for his friend's unaliving herself due to his selfishness and inability to see that she was hurting. In the end, Ritsu still didn't lose his edge (unlike a lot of other red flags in BLs that got redeemed) and knew exactly what Masumi needed and gave it to him.

The side characters Yuma and Meguru were a bit interesting as well with their own mini side stories hence giving some depth to their characters.

Tonkla and actor who potrays him really stole the entire show. I was way more invested in his storyline in the end than the main couple. A naturally unhinged psycho, Tonkla uses his skillful manipulation on the two tops who are completely whipped for his ass in order to get them to do what he wants. However, when both failed him in capturing his brother's murderer (+ accessory to murder), he took matters into his own hands and delt with them as he saw fit. He never gave any excuses and was proud to admit to both murders in the end as well as his two-timing and manipulation of both Korn and Win, standing firm on his unwavering inner sense of justice (no matter how skewed).

Agreed that Kant is sneaky and manipulative. Btw, he also conveniently failed to mention to his "good friend“ Style that the person he made a deal to flirt with is a dangerous hitman, especially since Fadel is the more cold-blooded brother. Style literally thinks that Kant is simply in love with Bison and thus wants to get Fadel out of the way (which is only partially true). Everytime Style annoys Fadel with his antics, he is risking his life but he doesn't even know... 😅

I'm really loving the dyanmics between both Kant-Bison and Fadel-Style so far. In the end, the 2 couples are both mirrors of one another and complement each other really well.

Kant-Bison: Both characters do genuinly like each other but their relationship is fraught because its built on a foundation of lies. Thus, they are both simultaneously sneaky and cautious in sounding out the other while controlling the speed of the relationship (at least for Bison). It's interesting to see how manipulative Kant can be while I also think that Bison is not as innocent as he seems (other than being a contract killer of cos). Btw, Kant is not only manipulative in the sense that he paid someone so that he can act jealous in front of Bison, but also conveniently forgetting to tell his friend Style that he's asking him to flirt with a dangerous killer... 😱

Fadel-Style: Both characters are more straightforward and wear their feelings on their sleeves. Style is annoying Fadel and wearing him down and Fadel is totally aware of it which is the crux of the hilariousness. Although it starts off super rough, I feel that their relationship would eventually be the smoother of the two in the end as they seem to be more honest with each other. The grumpy/sunshine dynamic is always a classic favourite of mine. Fadel seems the type to resolutely protect his love at all costs which I'm sure he would eventually do for Style who is completely oblivious to danger.

I'm loving the chemistry and the dynamics between the 2 main couples BisonKant and FadelStyle. Although FadelStyle starts out more bumpy, I suspect BisonKant would be more angsty later on.

Among the hitmen brothers, I think Fadel would be more accepting when the truth comes out while I don’t think Bison is as naive or innocent as he seems... hehe

Actually, I really like Save just because he was so frighteningly intelligent and ruthlessly amoral.

Firstly, he gave Boss the Chinese herbs to give to Grandma. I personally don't think it was poisoned per se, but he knew that it contained chemicals that would trigger her underlying condition and require operation. It would give him enough plausible deniability if investigated. Boss even described him as frightening (lol) for coming up with this plan.

Secondly, he gave Boss crucial intel on Joke and gave him the idea that Joke would be his problem and thus directing Boss' anger away from Hope. Later on, Boss would rely heavily on him to spy on everyone while acting innocent with his cute face (lol again). Boss even listened to Save over who he should grant loans or not (Sis Oh saying Boss changed his mind in giving her a new loan).

Thirdly, Boss relied on Save to draft predatory slave contracts that confused their victims in pages of terms and conditions like a depreciating rate for the debtor's collateral. Save was also able to convince debtors like Sis Oh to park their money in falling stocks causing them to go bankrupt and remain trapped by Boss.

Fourthly, Jack knew Save's intelligence and told Lompran that with Save playing in his place in Monopoly, it would be a 100% win rate. That's literally Jack putting his faith in Save's brain and betting to be Lompran's dog forever. He was later proven right when Save completely wiped out all of Boss' assets and took his prized Suphanimit property away from him.

Finally, the Four Horsemen chose Save as Boss' replacement to be the next boss of Suphanimit. Obviously they believe that he's capable enough to manage the place and collect debts for them with Hope acting as his enforcer.

If Save was made more of a true villain instead of having a half-assed redemption arc in the end, he would reach legendary villain status like Lhong from Tharntype... hahaha

Haha true. I was a bit iffy on their redemption arc which was rushed and incomplete. Also, how can Save truly redeem himself for knowingly poisoning Grandma and writing blatantly predatory contracts causing others to unalive themselves. Luckily Hope was still shown as kinda selfish in the end which is totally in character for him, lol...

I think they serve a purpose as the 'dark couple' of the series. Notice that Hope and Save are completely opposite the main couple Jack and Joker. They are both evil, but they certainly do not have miscommunication problems and are totally in-sync. Agree that Arun is underutilized, I guess the writers should have shown more of his design skills that can help the entire team.

It was always hinted that Hope was good with computers, but he simply liked beating up people more. In ep.4 he could hack into Tattoo's phone to get Joke's contact and in ep.5 he made the fake ID for Joke to rob the goods truck.

Very good analysis. In the end, the story was simply about one puppet, the Boss, rebelling against his masters the Four Horsemen and thinking that he can be one of their equals, just by clinging onto the made-up story of the power of the ring. The Four Horsemen then decided to play games with him and teach him a lesson before replacing him with a more compliant puppet Save who would never dare dream to rebel against them.