Wholesome, alas with room for improvement
Well, a wholesome themed series finally found its end, and I assume it ended exactly as everyone assumed from early on, lol. Which, well is no shame, but a bit an ongoing watershed between good and REALLY good series. And it is a beef I have with series I know others see very different. I like BL stories, but personally I feel a BL just on its own just doesn carry enough interest for me, with some rare exception when either the actors or the directing is so great, it does all the job, like some of those small Korean "Kammerspiele" - small chamber plays which revolve around two people with little extra.
But that is not the Thai style, and if I compare it to, right now "Goddess Bless You from Death" (Pooh/Pavel) I felt there was a lack of story here. I mean BESIDE the love, a background against which the lovers to be develop and measure their growth. In this, this series was quite shallow waters. David/Wave had a very helpful memory loss, with Lava first disliking and then falling for him. Not entirely a really breathtaking or new idea, alas. As it is that story was well written and performed, but it had a foreseeable hiccup at Episode 9, the inevitable and again entirely foreseeable "I remember the past but not you" which again to no one's surprise made the 10th episode extremely rushed. So many problems were solved, even a one year time skip. Nothing about the coup, no development of the parents or the fake marriage, not much to see of a year of suffering. And suddenly a five minute happy end, which was nicer than other five minute endings but as lacking as such endings unavoidable always are.
Goods to mention are the scenery, the locations, camera directing and also the many beautiful songs. A scope of many different moods between the actors and their stages of relationship. However, being true to heart, Winny/Satang is not a power couple. Both seemed to act reserved and I have seen many stronger emotions on display given the dramatic moments involved. Satang's acting is okay, but I just could not really feel so much behind the face of Winny. He just sorely lacked the strength to show anger, fear, sadness convincingly enough to me. Often it felt more like a variations of stares. One could accept this, if we had a backstory, maybe he was traumatized, maybe if he had a form of autism or anything that would explain such a reduced facial reaction. It was just a love, given the acting, thinking of it without music, scenery and story supported I had a hard time to buy. Even in wording, I missed those powerful breaking points, explaining deep love or deep suffering at least in words. If you compare it to other series actors (First, Fourth or Pooh) there is just a way too steep difference.
I laude them for making an unusual couple, breaking a bit from the mold. Winny is no model type and Satang is. Winny is stoic manly but Satang isn't "feminine" but strong on its own. It saddens me to say, but Winny just was the weak link of the entire series. And I hate to say that because it seems like "I just want perfect doll actors", but he just didn't work for me as a convincing lover. And the problem is: it isn't their first roles, even though their first main couple series. So how much air to learn to act better is in the stars.
As a wholesome series I felt well watching it, I wasn't bored, it was okay, but against the rising competition it felt just weak. Sure a lot of series are worse, but a lot also now are just better. Just take Pond currently playing the excentric Mafia boss and you know what I mean with really interesting acting. As ever making use of the full scale, it is one of the more difficult series to rate, knowing some prefer just BL and not too much other stuff, so I split it up to explain:
STORY: 7
DIRECTING: 8
ACTING: 5
MUSIC: 9
OVERALL 7/10
But that is not the Thai style, and if I compare it to, right now "Goddess Bless You from Death" (Pooh/Pavel) I felt there was a lack of story here. I mean BESIDE the love, a background against which the lovers to be develop and measure their growth. In this, this series was quite shallow waters. David/Wave had a very helpful memory loss, with Lava first disliking and then falling for him. Not entirely a really breathtaking or new idea, alas. As it is that story was well written and performed, but it had a foreseeable hiccup at Episode 9, the inevitable and again entirely foreseeable "I remember the past but not you" which again to no one's surprise made the 10th episode extremely rushed. So many problems were solved, even a one year time skip. Nothing about the coup, no development of the parents or the fake marriage, not much to see of a year of suffering. And suddenly a five minute happy end, which was nicer than other five minute endings but as lacking as such endings unavoidable always are.
Goods to mention are the scenery, the locations, camera directing and also the many beautiful songs. A scope of many different moods between the actors and their stages of relationship. However, being true to heart, Winny/Satang is not a power couple. Both seemed to act reserved and I have seen many stronger emotions on display given the dramatic moments involved. Satang's acting is okay, but I just could not really feel so much behind the face of Winny. He just sorely lacked the strength to show anger, fear, sadness convincingly enough to me. Often it felt more like a variations of stares. One could accept this, if we had a backstory, maybe he was traumatized, maybe if he had a form of autism or anything that would explain such a reduced facial reaction. It was just a love, given the acting, thinking of it without music, scenery and story supported I had a hard time to buy. Even in wording, I missed those powerful breaking points, explaining deep love or deep suffering at least in words. If you compare it to other series actors (First, Fourth or Pooh) there is just a way too steep difference.
I laude them for making an unusual couple, breaking a bit from the mold. Winny is no model type and Satang is. Winny is stoic manly but Satang isn't "feminine" but strong on its own. It saddens me to say, but Winny just was the weak link of the entire series. And I hate to say that because it seems like "I just want perfect doll actors", but he just didn't work for me as a convincing lover. And the problem is: it isn't their first roles, even though their first main couple series. So how much air to learn to act better is in the stars.
As a wholesome series I felt well watching it, I wasn't bored, it was okay, but against the rising competition it felt just weak. Sure a lot of series are worse, but a lot also now are just better. Just take Pond currently playing the excentric Mafia boss and you know what I mean with really interesting acting. As ever making use of the full scale, it is one of the more difficult series to rate, knowing some prefer just BL and not too much other stuff, so I split it up to explain:
STORY: 7
DIRECTING: 8
ACTING: 5
MUSIC: 9
OVERALL 7/10
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