LADS rule, but the relationships still make no sense
Yes, this is still worth watching despite the criticisms.* * *
WAIT, why they are still celibate even a year after? This is the most ridiculous “relationship” I have seen in a BL series.
There are zero chances that two healthy young males would ever miss the opportunity to have fun with each other. Every day or more often. There are no headaches, “I am not in the mood”, periods that poor lasses have. Males ALWAYS want to have fun.
Yet the series (well, starting from the original series) shows Win’s character pushing Bright’s one away, even though in reality he has about as much or even more desire to have fun. Win’a character does not even watch pron.
The main couple has only had one drunken half kiss in the original series. This franchise is chasing China in censoring BL.
No wonder some complain about the lack of “chemistry”. The couple is afraid to express even most basic behaviours dating people do.
So maybe Win’s character was castrated due to a trauma or an illness, and this is the key to understand the their relationship? In fact, this would have made the franchise way more interesting than what we have. People with such issues do exist and their plight is never explored.
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NOT believable characters, fake drama towards the end, but still worth watching
Why? Because of the lads. Not even their acting, which is not quite nuanced, just the lads. The only reason I see to watch the series, but it is more than enough for me.* * *
IS IT THE LAW of the genre that at least one of the lads is the straightest thing until he meets “the right lad” and all of a sudden turns gay?
Yes, it is. But no matter how often I see it, it does not cease to be ABSURD. This is the same idea that some ignorant parents have when their sons say they are gay: “you just did not meet the right woman yet”.
In reality no matter how good and “right” a lad or lass is, s/he can never change the sexual attraction the lad has. It is fully hardwired in the brain by puberty as the latest threshold, so you can never discover attraction towards a different gender than what you were attracted to initially at any later point. It is medically impossible.
The only believable scenario for all of those countless BL series with this nonsense is that every person within every BL pair has always felt the same sex attractions set since puberty — be it gay or bi — but the difference could be whether he was embracing it or trying to be in denial.
But whatever comes later can never be a surprise in the lads’ ages those series explore. The stories are not about 14 years old, except for maybe Love Sick (2014; 2gether is the same story but from a competing film studio) or Cause You Are My Boy (2018) with some characters.
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SOAP opera drag, but historic
This series, the first season of it, is the progenitor of the whole Thai BL series industry.The series has maybe the worst first episode of any series I have ever seen. It should be studied in film classes. But if you can survive to the episode’s end, it becomes quite good later.
The popular dubious tropes are already there, including lads discovering their gayness years too late, one of them repeatedly claims he is not gay except for the other lad, sponge baths, a bad girlfriend to hate, and the necessity to get money for a school club, which has latter appeared in Why R U? and My School President, among others.
But this series still had a good number females in it and hetero pairs, some are realistically messy, which was the first and the last time, apparently. The story was a bit more mature and physiological than platonic GMMTV series.
The series also has an equality advocacy, which is not a thing in the BL genre after that, though it is also because Thailand was pretty good about this and has become even better since.
And it was “toxic” because the main pair was dating lasses when they have first engaged. Besides the ridiculous premise, how love happens, not just fun, is shown accurately in the first season.
EDIT: some spoilers added in the first commentary to this review.
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This review may contain spoilers
MAJOR issues, though not horrible
1. Yes, do not kiss gay haters or anyone else without consent. If in the series the main lad does not apologise to the other one for this, then the series does not reach a good lesson as it confirms the myth that gays will take advantage of you.2. The show js saying that the bullies are like this not because they are bad people (which they are because no circumstances force you to be a bad person towards innocent people), but because they were raped by paedo gays.
3. The show is saying that a person has become gay himself after being raped in his childhood, which is another unscientific myth.
4. The raped lad has only ever shown interest in women, but all of sudden is converted to become at least a bi in college. This is also an absurd unscientific nonsense because people can only understand that they are bi or gay no later than puberty, not even remotely in college. Besides, this is the same myth some straight people tell to gays: that they simply did not yet find that special hot female that would make them straight.
5. The raped characters seems to only have two modes of operation: angry and soon to be angry. Not sure why lots of fans have shipped this pair and even got bitter when the main lad’s actor Mew has announced his real life partner.
6. Why did Tharn hide the issue with his ex and has event went to severely meet him? Why the police was not involved? Why is not criminal not in a life long imprisonment for his many severe crimes? This writing is really silly, the whole drama at the end is STUPID.
7. Basically,the main characters are not good people. Lhong is the cutest visually, though is the most evil. Techno and Tar’s brother are maybe the only two good characters.
8. Lots of characters are recast versus the previous series, Love By Chance. Some of their stories were changed.
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The main cast are all VILLAINS except one
Not going into spoilers, but yes, just one character from the main cast is actually a good person: Sun.I like that this is realistic, even though unintentionally, as the authors, of course, suggest viewers rooting for the characters.
Actors have played well. The main lad was playing a mentally challenged person well, with specific quirks that are accurate.
The issue came when he got a makeover, after which he had lost the quirks that can not be really lost by actual people like that.
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Not believable in a key aspect, but CUTE
There are parts of the story that are way more realistic in this series than most other BL.However, in one crucial aspect the series destroy its credibility and pulls you out of the submerging into the world the authors are building.
Namely, the lads’ celibacy, which so radically laughable that I was literally LOLing when the show has presented this point.
If you know how males work even the tiniest bit, then you understand that they think of engaging with any and all attractive potential partners nearly 24/7. This is just a hormonal thing, and it is even stronger for teens.
It would have been actually way more painful for the lads to be in the proximity of each other and not do anything than being apart.
The drive to engage is so strong that it makes the brain to flare up with desire and to stop most other thoughts or activities. Especually if the pair is a couple.
Absolutrly impossible to imagine the lads all of a sudden being abstinent. This whole plot line looks as if it came from censorship pressure.
Additionally, as basically everyone has mentioned, the script and direction often feel disjointed, and the sound quality is horrible too often.
Most actors did quite well, though some youth feels like not have a range as actors. Not the main couple, though. The thick eyebrows lad looks very interesting: as if he came from Dargon Ball manga.
Overall, the show offers so much cuteness that it is worthy to watch and rewatch.
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A dragged out student project
This is a middle-tier performer among series, I gave it 4/10.The story is only for an hour, but it lasts four hours. So unless you specifically like the main couple regardless of what is happening, there is nothing much to watch.
The project is filmed with phones and blue LED studio light that make the picture look really bad.
The show was made for $1000 in total or something, but the scenario weakness is inexcusable. Even film academy students do better, the professors would just not accept the scenario like this.
The actors in the project actually did a passable job, even though they did not have much to do. I only gave them a middle grade because of the film itself, not because of their abilities.
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FLAWED in the basis, but still strong in some important aspects
The music, the cast choice and the performances are superb, top notch. The main lad is a hundred peecent believable, and the villains did a perfect job.Even the stupidest and most unlikeable “good” character, the named brother of the main lad, was played perfectly.
As per the mainland Chinese tradition, nearly all of the cast was dubbed. Only the actor for Nie Huai Sang character has his own voice. Knowing how some of the actors actually sound, I do not mind the dubbing as the voice actors chosen have smooth, rich timbres. But the main actor could have totally voice his role himself.
Among important themes, the series shows massacres quite well. Things like this or worse have been happening in reality.
The show has managed to keep some secrets, making viewers guessing, to its very end, which is great.
Of course, the series’ scenario was censored to remove the BL content, but it still works because just normal strong friendship explains most of what is happening. Besides, the series has lots of cute lads and even a very beautiful lady. Actor Song Ji Yang wins the most beautiful mouth of all time category.
The series is a bit too dragged sometimes, so the optimal number of episodes should be maybe 40, not 50.
The directorial narrative is, at times, confusing.
I see no purpose of putting the first few episodes from the current time upfront only to go back to a giant flashback that makes you forget what was happening. The series would have been even better with a more straightforward narrative.
Sometimes you have to guess what is happening: whether it is a flashback within a flashback or it is something going on concurrently.
And even the timeline announcements make no sense. For example, the giant flashback story is actually starts 32 years ago before the current events, not 16 years ago as the show is titling it. But the series stack the timeline shift so much that you can get it wrong.
The last few episodes are too explanatory, which cheapens the narrative.
Some other drawbacks, among the extensive list of notes to took while watching the series, are below with a spoiler tag:
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This review may contain spoilers
DEEPLY flawed, but unique social commentary
1. There is no such thing as telepathy, including between absolute twin clones.2. Identical twin separation is not a thing, unless it is a historical case, which is not the series
3. Why diplomats are retiring at a young age?
4. Identical tweens can not fool each other’s friends for more than a short time: not even because of the slight differences in looks and mannerisms, but because of the whole context of their friendship that twins can not know
5. Shaky camera work
6. Why did not White simply checked the GPS coordinates where Black was attacked?
7. Diplomats study law, so White should not have issues with Black’s law course
8. The most of money of politicians and other criminals are usually in offshore bank accounts, not in mansions. And the wealth in the mansions is not in the mansions themselves but in the land they are put on. So burning a mansion does not do much damage financially.
9. Getting yo the second floor from within a mansion that is nearly fully ablaze would not work as nearly all oxygen is already burnt, and hot CO is raising to the second floor. You can go within the first floor because this is where new oxygen is sucked in. Wetting your clothes or filters will not help, you need oxygen tanks with you.
10. You can not really wake a person who has fainted from CO and toxins asphyxiation by slapping his cheeks. The only think you need to do ASAP is to drag the person to a place with oxygen.
11. You would not be able to handle a motorcycle, if your palm is burnt, and no gloves can help it. Your skin will never regrow with that pressure and friction.
12. Never date a person who is violent. There will be endless excuses every time you will be attacked. Too bad this series makes it fine.
13. This series unique among all BL dramas for raising economic injustice issues.
14. How come a protest against a corrupt oligarch has randomly turned into a LGBT campaign?
15. Why the crime boss is walking around without a guard?
16. Why Off’ character has exposed his identity and attitude to the crime boss?
17. Why he did not just shoot the crime boss from the very beginning, right after his father was killed?
18. Why did not Gun’s character confess that he is a twin brother after the bed scene? No point in hiding it at that point.
19. Actor Fluke is in shape for this series, unlike the 2019 series Dark Blue Kiss. I am glad for the lad.
20. The narrator’s voiceover in this series is not justified, unlike Theory of Love series from 2019
21. Sleep-talking is not an elegant scenario vehicle
22. The advertisement integrations are really funny in this series because they are all around and between the gore and characters get shot and barely surviving at times
23. Gun’s character did not confess to Off’s about his twin lie after the shooting incident, too, which makes no sense
24. No need for White to breakup with Sean for real, a pause until the danger is gone would have been enough
25. No need for the whole gang to go to hospital with the wounded big smile lad. In fact, just dropping him by would have been enough.
26. The real life ending would have been a certain death of all cast.
27. The actors are cute and they did a great job.
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