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This review may contain spoilers
Legends and non - linear logic
If you want a recommendation for a BL that gives Indiana Jones × Avatar: The Last Airbender vibes, do I have the one for you! Let me point you to this. It's not as good though but it's there!
The lore is this - there was an ancient city called Tambralinga, founded by four element benders - Wind, Water, Fire and Earth, that has been lost for centuries now, ever since one of the four founders of the city declared a rebellion in order to gain full control of the city and its neighbouring regions and by an extent, just absolute power. Knowing this, the three other founders managed to lock the soul of the fourth in an enchanted box and hid the city in the mountains of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
In the present day, there are multiple people and groups looking for the city, because inside it is a lost treasure that could help each of them with their pursuits - personal gain, a longtime dream or fulfilling a prophecy.
The story basically picks up from zero, with no real context and we get three seperate timelines - one of the founders in the past, the second of a past where some secondary characters tried to find the city and finally, the present, where the leads themselves hope to find it.
I'm always an advocate for a well written story, honestly, consistency over innovation for me because the faux - pas with having complete originality is that you often lose track of what makes it so. Even then, I have to give some points for the story they came up with, it was truly innovative and had some semblance of originality to it - but in trying to make something exciting they completely messed up the execution.
The most coherent timeline of the lot is set in the ancient city, even though the actions and motivations are inexplicable nonsense, it makes sense as a timeline. We get the backstory behind the fall of the city - including details of all the romantic pasts of the leads and supporting characters and a glimpse into what went down between the four founders as the city fell. It's not the most fleshed out but yes it made sense.
The other two - not so much.
The present is the timeline that is most important, it is a culmination of all the actions undertaken by different characters landing upon the heads of the leads, leaving them to deal with the consequences. We have Siwat - who is looking for the city because it was his father Michael's lifelong goal, because he believed there was something in there that could help Siwat. There's Khun - who wants nothing to do with the city because it was in pursuit of it that his father died. So when Siwat shows up asking for his help, he immediately refused and asks him to leave. Because it was by helping Siwat's dad that his father died.
This past - with both their fathers - is the worst one. It has no fantasy elements, it is simply a means to provide more context to the inner conflicts and motivations of the leads and other characters. But it makes no sense. They say they found the city in one episode, they say they didn't in another. They say that Khun clearly remembers that it was during the mission to find Tambralinga that Siwat's father caused Khun's father's death, and in another we find that Michael was nowhere near the country when it happened and the mission was called off at that point?? None of it made sense.
The story is non - linear, jumping between the three timelines and incredibly confusing. There are over ten characters who seemingly play an important role in the story but from the beginning that it's just the plot that's convoluted, but neither it nor the characters have any real depth.
We have a bunch of villians - Siwat's step mother and her lover, and an evil tweed wearing professor Thakoon, who very clearly come off as cartoonish. The only thing the evil professor didn't do was twirl his faint mustache while deep in thought, otherwise they read as Looney Tunes characters.
Then the protagonists. With Siwat and Khun we have Thara and his mother (in the present), and both their fathers (in the past) who are all presented as the absolute good who can do no wrong, and though I was pleasantly surprised to see some cracks in the stereotype, all of the writing just felt very one - dimensional. Things happen because the script said so - there's no internal conflict (when there clearly should be) and they missed a massive chance to make a romance of epic proportions because Siwat and Khun? Yeah, they're reincarnations of Wind and Fire elementals, along with Thara, the Water elemental.
I know this was a soulmates kind of story but it's unacceptable that the plot moves along because they've recognised that fact. There needs to be depth there - pain, anguish, the push and pull between past and present feelings and events. Maybe it was because Thara was salty about being the third wheel in both timelines but we got a severely watered down version.
The character motivations are one - dimensional when they shouldn't be, the story is both extremely clear but the logic is not clear enough, it's all a very rich tapestry. There's no huge plot twists, it all moves along for the sake of it.
The romance too, most importantly, it moved along because it needed to be moved along. I love a good soulmates story but falling in love just because you were in love centuries ago doesn't work. The chemistry between the leads was decent but again, if you want me to believe they're in love, I need to see it develop, even just a bit.
That ending though, worst part of the series by the longest shot, it was laughable because you do not write endings like that that for stories like this. Maybe you do but with this particular kind of execution it was entirely unexpected and unnecessary, I mean I'm not even angry, I'm just.. well maybe I am. That should have been such a sad ending but ooh boy, it was just incredibly bad - so bad it actually made me bring down my rating.
But there's no way they manufactured this series intending for it to be as unintentionally hilarious as it was, it was mostly fun and a nice glimpse into what "could be", but there's still a long way to go as far it comes to blending myths and legends with fiction.
6.75/10
The lore is this - there was an ancient city called Tambralinga, founded by four element benders - Wind, Water, Fire and Earth, that has been lost for centuries now, ever since one of the four founders of the city declared a rebellion in order to gain full control of the city and its neighbouring regions and by an extent, just absolute power. Knowing this, the three other founders managed to lock the soul of the fourth in an enchanted box and hid the city in the mountains of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
In the present day, there are multiple people and groups looking for the city, because inside it is a lost treasure that could help each of them with their pursuits - personal gain, a longtime dream or fulfilling a prophecy.
The story basically picks up from zero, with no real context and we get three seperate timelines - one of the founders in the past, the second of a past where some secondary characters tried to find the city and finally, the present, where the leads themselves hope to find it.
I'm always an advocate for a well written story, honestly, consistency over innovation for me because the faux - pas with having complete originality is that you often lose track of what makes it so. Even then, I have to give some points for the story they came up with, it was truly innovative and had some semblance of originality to it - but in trying to make something exciting they completely messed up the execution.
The most coherent timeline of the lot is set in the ancient city, even though the actions and motivations are inexplicable nonsense, it makes sense as a timeline. We get the backstory behind the fall of the city - including details of all the romantic pasts of the leads and supporting characters and a glimpse into what went down between the four founders as the city fell. It's not the most fleshed out but yes it made sense.
The other two - not so much.
The present is the timeline that is most important, it is a culmination of all the actions undertaken by different characters landing upon the heads of the leads, leaving them to deal with the consequences. We have Siwat - who is looking for the city because it was his father Michael's lifelong goal, because he believed there was something in there that could help Siwat. There's Khun - who wants nothing to do with the city because it was in pursuit of it that his father died. So when Siwat shows up asking for his help, he immediately refused and asks him to leave. Because it was by helping Siwat's dad that his father died.
This past - with both their fathers - is the worst one. It has no fantasy elements, it is simply a means to provide more context to the inner conflicts and motivations of the leads and other characters. But it makes no sense. They say they found the city in one episode, they say they didn't in another. They say that Khun clearly remembers that it was during the mission to find Tambralinga that Siwat's father caused Khun's father's death, and in another we find that Michael was nowhere near the country when it happened and the mission was called off at that point?? None of it made sense.
The story is non - linear, jumping between the three timelines and incredibly confusing. There are over ten characters who seemingly play an important role in the story but from the beginning that it's just the plot that's convoluted, but neither it nor the characters have any real depth.
We have a bunch of villians - Siwat's step mother and her lover, and an evil tweed wearing professor Thakoon, who very clearly come off as cartoonish. The only thing the evil professor didn't do was twirl his faint mustache while deep in thought, otherwise they read as Looney Tunes characters.
Then the protagonists. With Siwat and Khun we have Thara and his mother (in the present), and both their fathers (in the past) who are all presented as the absolute good who can do no wrong, and though I was pleasantly surprised to see some cracks in the stereotype, all of the writing just felt very one - dimensional. Things happen because the script said so - there's no internal conflict (when there clearly should be) and they missed a massive chance to make a romance of epic proportions because Siwat and Khun? Yeah, they're reincarnations of Wind and Fire elementals, along with Thara, the Water elemental.
I know this was a soulmates kind of story but it's unacceptable that the plot moves along because they've recognised that fact. There needs to be depth there - pain, anguish, the push and pull between past and present feelings and events. Maybe it was because Thara was salty about being the third wheel in both timelines but we got a severely watered down version.
The character motivations are one - dimensional when they shouldn't be, the story is both extremely clear but the logic is not clear enough, it's all a very rich tapestry. There's no huge plot twists, it all moves along for the sake of it.
The romance too, most importantly, it moved along because it needed to be moved along. I love a good soulmates story but falling in love just because you were in love centuries ago doesn't work. The chemistry between the leads was decent but again, if you want me to believe they're in love, I need to see it develop, even just a bit.
That ending though, worst part of the series by the longest shot, it was laughable because you do not write endings like that that for stories like this. Maybe you do but with this particular kind of execution it was entirely unexpected and unnecessary, I mean I'm not even angry, I'm just.. well maybe I am. That should have been such a sad ending but ooh boy, it was just incredibly bad - so bad it actually made me bring down my rating.
But there's no way they manufactured this series intending for it to be as unintentionally hilarious as it was, it was mostly fun and a nice glimpse into what "could be", but there's still a long way to go as far it comes to blending myths and legends with fiction.
6.75/10
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