A Book To Live Action Adaption That Failed to Deliver But Still Has A Special Place In My Heart
Reverse With Me was the first ever Thai GL book I read and it was an absolute masterpiece. Not once did it fail to deliver me a great balance and mix of romance, thriller, and fantasy. Which is why in the first place, I was extremely excited about this adaptation—then it was announced that it was only going to have 8 episodes and I immediately knew my favorite Thai GL novel was not going to have a live adaptation that gave it justice.
Production-wise, SiamSi Studios evidently did their best, as can be seen from the visual effects, intro, and ending sequences. It really did encapsulated the magic of the book, but the main issue of this show is the amount of episodes it has. Zezeho's masterpiece with Reverse With Me could not be replicated properly with only 8 episodes. Sure, some would argue that SiamSi was able to somewhat fix the episodes and length issue by making Fiat the sole antagonist and made a great plot twist that logically made sense and actually moved me quite a bit, but it couldn't erase the fact that KaranKliao's amazing love story suffered because of it.
Due to the show only having 8 episodes, we missed out on so much yearning, slow burn, and natural build-up potential which was what made the book extremely good. Scenes were simplified to the max to maximize the story building alongside the relationship building to the point that everything seems to move way too fast to even feel anything for the main leads. And don't get me started to giving the hetero side couple so much screen time, it was definitely super questionable. I tried giving it the benefit of the doubt thinking it was going to be part of Fiat's masterplan of some sort, but nada. Absolutely nothing. So much wasted screen time that could have been allocated for something else. Not to mention, we barely got to see Kliao's friend group that had so much significance to Kliao's life in the book.
Despite all of these issues, I still can't help but be biased and say that because of how good the book is, the show, in my eyes will carry with it the feels the book made me feel which just goes to show that bad writing will always produce bad shows but good writing makes way for a great show.
Production-wise, SiamSi Studios evidently did their best, as can be seen from the visual effects, intro, and ending sequences. It really did encapsulated the magic of the book, but the main issue of this show is the amount of episodes it has. Zezeho's masterpiece with Reverse With Me could not be replicated properly with only 8 episodes. Sure, some would argue that SiamSi was able to somewhat fix the episodes and length issue by making Fiat the sole antagonist and made a great plot twist that logically made sense and actually moved me quite a bit, but it couldn't erase the fact that KaranKliao's amazing love story suffered because of it.
Due to the show only having 8 episodes, we missed out on so much yearning, slow burn, and natural build-up potential which was what made the book extremely good. Scenes were simplified to the max to maximize the story building alongside the relationship building to the point that everything seems to move way too fast to even feel anything for the main leads. And don't get me started to giving the hetero side couple so much screen time, it was definitely super questionable. I tried giving it the benefit of the doubt thinking it was going to be part of Fiat's masterplan of some sort, but nada. Absolutely nothing. So much wasted screen time that could have been allocated for something else. Not to mention, we barely got to see Kliao's friend group that had so much significance to Kliao's life in the book.
Despite all of these issues, I still can't help but be biased and say that because of how good the book is, the show, in my eyes will carry with it the feels the book made me feel which just goes to show that bad writing will always produce bad shows but good writing makes way for a great show.
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