idontwanttothanks

I waffled about writing this because for me, this show was mostly style and no substance, a slick nothingburger that I ate happily enough while I was there but an hour later was hungry again with zero memory of what the burger even really tasted like (the tortured food metaphor feels appropriate here, lol).

First, what I liked: the set and styling was great. I enjoyed it. Everything and everyone was so pretty. The acting was mostly great as well, with special standouts being Joong as Fadel and First as Kant. Joong especially was a force as Fadel, most of the stuff I remember is his. He did such a great job showcasing Fadel's hard outer shell and the vulnerable man underneath who really does just want to be loved. For all the talk about Bison wanting that, it came across to me way way more with Fadel. I just wanted to gather that man up and tell him that it would all be okay, but at the same time I did believe that he'd be capable of cold bloodedly killing a dude and just sort of tossing the body into his jeep to dispose of. Kudos to him for that.

And First as Kant was great. He had to walk a really thin line there for a while - we the audience had to be able to see through Kant's mask while but still find it believable that Bison would not, and then he had to slowly work in Kant actually starting to feel things amidst all the lies. And he did so well. No one does subtlety like First Kanaphan, but I do hope that he gets to be more expressive, if only because I sometimes think having to play all of these reserved or subtle characters all the time makes people think he can't act. And I would be horribly remiss if I didn't call out the boat scene specifically, because my god was that a masterclass. Just...whenever I see him do his thing I am so impressed.

The chemistry was on point, too. Say what you will about the speed of their love or whatever, but JD and FK never miss when it comes to this.

Now the stuff I was less into: I'm just going to get it out of the way right now - I thought that Style is the best Dunk has done yet, but yes, he was still the weakest of the four. He is improving though, and i think that he does much much better when he's not being pigeonholed into the sweet, naive little virgin roles that he was getting for so long. My biggest critique for him as Style was that he sometimes overdid it.

The really unpopular opinion I have though is that I thought that while Khaotung was good, it was the weakest performance I have seen from him to date. Now I'm not a particular fan of Khaotung's (I like him but I won't watch a show just because he's in it) so I've not seen his entire backlog but Bison is not his best work of what I have seen, in fact it's my least favorite. I didn't believe him most of the time, and the line that he was suppose to walk between charming and chilling never worked - I found him to be more charming more successfully but chilling never landed for me, and I think he overdid it about as much as Dunk did, which was very obvious whenever he was in an emotionally charged scene with someone acting more subdued - notably the boat scene and the scene where he and Fadel find out about Lilly. Oh, and the beach reconciliation scene with him and Kant. An actor can mostly only act as well as the character is written and so I mostly blame the writers, but I wish someone would ask him to dial it back just a bit, sometimes.

Also, speaking of Bison, the betrayal from Kant never landed for me the way it did everyone else. I didn't hate Kant or think he needed to die for what he did or apologize and grovel for years. Bison and Fadel kill people but the show and the fandom wanted me to believe Kant was the horrible one? I couldn't help but find that amusing.

I was also deeply annoyed with some of the structure. I noticed this in OF too, so it's not a new thing, but it felt sometimes like things just happened to happen. And the way that plots were just dropped or ignored the second they became inconvenient. Kant is being blackmailed with his brother's safety to work for the cops? Suddenly a non issue when he makes up with Bison. Kant's water trauma? Totally not made worse by Bison nearly drowning him, nosir, he's over it now because love. There are other examples I'm sure but like I said, a lot of this show left my head directly after I watched it.

Last but not least, everyone was so incompetent. The cops couldn't manage to take down two assassins that could barely find their own bums with both hands (seriously, who forgets GLOVES), Kant clocks the CCTV at Fadel and Bison's house but I guess immediately forgets it's there, Bison was literally being photographed from three feet away, cops standing there bold as brass, and he noticed not a thing...literally the only two people who got their jobs done with any degree of competency were Lilly and Style.

I had decided not to watch because the novel was so bad but I am weak for First Kanaphan, okay, and I caved. I'm not sad I did the thing because it was better than I expected, but I also feel unsatisfied and disappointed. I will not be coming back to this one.