Pretty and shallow
Campy and soft, beautiful decors and background, the CGI somehow works but there's an excessive usage of blur, face cam and slow-mo.The storyline is trying to go somewhere, I enjoyed the game of succession, and I command that it tried to go deeper with societal and political issues.
Yet, as expected for this type of drama, it stayed really shallow and kept going all over the place.
If you're there for the fanservice, ZeeNuNew carried it great deal thanks to their chemistry, but their acting was really weak.
JimmyOhm’s chemistry was on another level as well, their story was quite compelling, way more than the main couple imo, they really made me tear up and root for them.
NetJJ were lovely, but I wish we got more of them.
Overall, entertaining if you're a fan of ZeeNuNew and/or want a light-hearted watch.
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This review may contain spoilers
BL is a tag, not a genre
This is really a reminder of it, that "BL" is really just a more precise "LGBTQ+" tag.An applause to the production team; they perfectly captured the 70's, from the clothes to the music to the haircuts to the way everyone is smoking everywhere and anywhere. The shots are gorgeous, there's this constant mood that something important is happening.
The acting is on point for every single characters, and the story is beautiful and hurtful. Of course it's a series, but there's still a realism in the drama of it all. The treatment of women, the overpower of military that has been plaguing Thaïland at the time, and the class difference. We're juggling in the gold of the wealthy and the macabre reality of the poor fighting for their lives and rights. Being able to see the characters going through both worlds makes it all more real.
Apo really fits the role of the idealistic professor, trying to see the good everywhere and help where he can, while still being somehow offbeat with the rest of the less privileged population, despite his roots. Meanwhile, Mile nails the hippie desperate to ignore the politics and keep himself away from it all, while continusly failing to do so.
I knew the fate of Victor as soon as I saw him, though it didn't soften the blow. His infatuation for Trin was strangely touching, he truly had an innocence to him, despite the heavy responsabilities that were constantly weighting on him, and that he had taken willingly.
I wish we had gotten more of Moira. She's the owner of the hotel, she had multiple husbands, has a freedom few women had at the time and holds a lot of power behind the scene. But at the end of the day, I still felt like the lack of knowledge of who she is, and how little we know of her story, makes her more "unknown" than "mysterious".
And my biggest surprise was SonEuro. Krailert and Naran's story was doomed to fail, but that didn't prevent me from rooting and being moved by them. Their chemistry was off the chart, you could feel the love, fear and desperation in both of the characters, sharing the same views yet torn by their opposite sides and responsabilities.
The finale brings it all together. The sacrifices of the characters doesn't solve everything, there's no happy ending because that's not how that works in real life. The people who died are still dead, those who got separated might have found eachother or not, the story kept on running and the world keep on turning.
An incredible and heartbreaking watch.
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