This review may contain spoilers
Knock Knock- It's an underage actor and NOTHING ELSE.
What a weird, borderline inappropriate love-letter to a single performer this is.I have never seen anything quite like it. From the first glimpse of Tar Atiwat Saengtien's juvenile knees I went 'uh-oh'. And it was downhill from there.
There really is no reason to watch 'I Will Knock You' except for Tar Atiwat Saengtien's performance of Noey Watphlu. It's a great performance, for the THEN SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD ACTOR. Which isn't necessarily bad, but ooof. Ooof. He's incredibly charming, bringing life to this passionate, impulsive, sentimental character. Don't mistake, Noey is not a well-written character. Noey's vintage style and earnest romantic heart are interesting, but the writing flinches from deeper examination of his troubled nature. Tar is carrying this on pure charisma.
And he's beautiful. It cannot be understated how much the camera loves him. It's impossible to forget that, particularly because of the way they edited this strange show. Multiple times Noey would say something absolutely bonkers, they'd cut to Thi, he'd do a 'haaa?' face and some voice over and halfway through the voice over they'd cut back to Noey, who'd then have another line. Which is BIZARRE. I cannot stress to you how much I'm like 'THI DIDN'T SAY A FLIP FLAPPIN WORD, THIS IS NOT A CONVERSATION, IT IS A MONOLOGUE.'
Sure, each time I'd be like 'damn he's pretty tho'. But, it did not distract me from what a hot mess of NOTHING this show is. I am somewhat accustomed to uneven writing quality between male and female leads in romantic pairings. Generally speaking, in hetero shows the ML is adequately written, the female lead is underwritten. In BL, there's often a mediocre standard which both leads meet; serviceable, but not remarkable. Nothing could have prepared me for how inconsequential, bland and boring Thi was. If Noey is not well written, Bom Tanawat Uthaikitwanit's Thi is...unwritten. He's negative space. He might as well not exist. We know NOTHING about him, except he's awkward AF and tutors kids. And Bom has all the charisma of a damp sponge.
Considering Thi's lack of anything except setting up clumsy set pieces for Noey to react to, there's no reason for Noey to like him. You could make a drinking game our of the number of times Thi just straight up didn't have dialogue in scenes, yet the scenes persist, perpetuated by some ghastly BL necessity. He'd have voice over along the lines of 'omg this crazy kid' or 'if I don't do this he'll beat me up for sure!' but not actual lines, not actual participation in the scene, not actual agency. He's a complete non-entity. He flounders around, a collegiate do-gooder intimidated by a high school junior, his thoughts and feelings on the courtship ultimately unimportant and insignificant. In fact, nothing happens in this show that Noey does not instigate, and not always for readily apparent reasons. I can only assume that in making Bom a more fleshed out character you'd have to address the age and power differences between the two. Instead, they desperately avoid it at all costs. Which doesn't leave a lot to do.
It can't even go to the familiar well of kissing and sex scenes to bolster itself, since Tar is underage. Which I guess I appreciated, but it highlights an awareness on behalf of production that maybe the age difference is A Thing, making it all the weirder when they don't address The Thing. They also clearly don't want to talk about Tar's issues, either Bom or Tar's goals, or anything remotely sincere or serious.
So the script is a joke, Bom's performance is DOA, there's no chemistry, no intriguing side characters, so? They resort to showcasing the single asset they have; Tar Atiwat Saengtien.
So. Admire him. There's no other reason to watch.
Was this review helpful to you?
Paralyzingly dull and inane.
While some of the reviews have indicated that the second couple might be more interesting than Hill and Ter here, I don't give one flying crispy cthulhu. If these four episodes are a measure of the quality of the entire production, count my ass out, I cannot sit through another twelve.The summary here and on Rakuten Viki says Ter is off to a distant university to help 'get over his past relationship', except, oops his crush is at the same university! The first episode opens with a spicy bit and a love confession which turns out to be a dream. Or a nightmare, considering Ter wakes up wailing about it. You'd probably assume that this is a memory of an ex, right? Right? That would be the sensible way to interpret that.
Leave your sense at the door. The screenwriter did.
Very quickly things become confusing as Ter denies there was anything going on between he and Hill. He's steadfast that Hill wanted his sister. Hill, on the other hand, heart-eyes at Ter any time he can see him. Once he knows Ter is on the same campus he stalks him and comes very close to peeing on him in front of the other boys interested in the pretty twink. Then Hill just out and says he wants to court him. Which sounds like there wasn't a relationship then, but might be now? Did they have a relationship? Didn't they? Why is Ter dubious of Hill's stated desire to date? I have no idea how to feel about their dumb romantic shenanigans consisting of forced car-rides and Hill making stink eyes at other boys. If Hill had broken Ter's heart that might be something, but Ter seems to think his affection was unrequited. Ter doesn't talk about his feelings all that much, and what he does say is repetitive or too vague to be useful.
What are the bulk of these episodes filled with then? Oh, I'm SO glad you asked. Not go to class, obviously. When he isn't having dead-end conversations with his roomie , you'll follow a vacantly smiling Ter roaming around campus and going to club activities, interacting with other students to the tune of goofy slapstick noises. Sometimes they'd even put the noise in even if an actor wasn't telegraphing a response, it was very weird. While some of the other characters are certainly more colorful, I feel like all of these people are too stupid to be in college. All of the interactions are farcical without apparently intending to be.
There are some potentially homophobic parents in there, but I lost track of which people were staring at which guy across the campus with judgement. That's when the narrative wasn't interrupting itself with high school flashbacks which do nothing to elucidate the exact situation with Ter and Hill.
It's boring, tedious, and juvenile. The characters are hollow ciphers who exist to be benign and pretty. If the show has nothing of authenticity or coherency to offer in the almost 4 hours I watched, I don't think it bodes well for the rest.
Was this review helpful to you?
