So unrealistic in many aspects. Bad acting from ML.

1. Unrealistic:

Let's get straight to the unacceptable points.

(1.1) The way the ML stares at the FL as if he has a lot on his mind but doesn't say anything—he literally stares all the time since they first met, before the FL got interested in him—is super creepy in real life. I don't think any girl in their right mind gonna fall for a guy who look psycho like that. Actually, I've met a guy who did just that before and it creeped me out. I couldn't reject him in the normal way. I had to think five folds to be sure he wouldn't feel offended and seek revenge instead. To be honest, he might not be that psycho, I didn't really know him since we only met one time, but I didn't want to know him more to make sure either. Staring at someone you're interested in like that doesn't make people want to be your friend. It scares them!

(1.2) During a championship match in Finland, the MCs start to talk about the athlete's love life right before her match. My gosh! How rude and inconsiderate! They don't consider at all how their public announcement on this personal matter of the athlete would affect the athlete psychologically during the game. And this is an international arena in Finland, where people don't have the culture to put their nose in other people's business, nor are they extroverts who like gossip—this is in no way expected to happen in Finland at all.

(1.3) The ML was kicked out of the club and eventually retired from the career when he was 16 years old... They cast a 12-year-old boy to play that role... -_- It's unconvincing. Later on, they also cast a 6 year-old to play a 2 year old boy... It's not believable!

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2. Bad acting of the main character:

The worst performance goes to the ML... I'm quite disappointed that he didn't do well. I watched him since he played Nirvana in Fire and always cheer for him. But after Nirvana in Fire, he gained significant public interest and transitioned to main lead roles super fast—which was too fast and too soon for him. He had to play many roles older than himself and he couldn't portray them properly. It's very obvious in this role. I see there're 2 main points of misinterpretation of the ML character by the actor, which are:

(2.1) Being mature means being stiff.
The actor was about 21-22 years old when he played this 27-29 year-old character, but this isn't a free-spirited 27-29 years old. The ML character is an orphan and was kicked out by his teacher in his teenage years. He lives on his own, reflects a lot on life and it shapes him to be a very determined person. The actor portrays this character just by being stiff—throughout the series, he maintains a stiff expression while not talking. It's as if he thinks being stiff equals being mature and cool. Additionally, many of his gestures, such as the way he points his fingers, uses his hands to make signs or tries to communicate with his eyes, are not natural at all. It's obvious he's not used to making those gestures and just pretends to look cool.

Watching him is like watching a teenager who wants to be an adult, so he straightforwardly imitates what an adult does to appear cool. Most of his gestures look forced. It's truly like a kid overexerting himself in trying to be cool. Watching him, I feel he's comical rather than cool, and I feel pity for him rather than enchanted.

Actually, there's another guy who acts quite the same as the ML thinking being stiff equals being mature and cool, but he has much less proportion of air time, so he's not as much annoying as the ML. That guy is the FL's brother.

(2.2) Being in love means being in heat.
Really, the ML acts like he's in heat all the time. It's as if he's prepared to have sex with the FL at the first blink each time they meet. His character is quiet, determined and self-controlled. So when he's on the verge of not being able to stop himself from getting the FL to the bed, it's like he's in heat and can't help it. He acts like a young boy affected by his hormones, driven by his sexual desire.

Actually, I hesitated a bit about whether to put this point under the topic of character design or acting, but I feel how these scenes become more sexual than romantic is more due to the actor's interpretation of the role. So, let's just put it here.

(Note about FL):
On the contrary, the actress who plays FL has done a very good job. Her nuance in acting is great. Her presence in the series is smooth and natural even in some of the over-cringey scenes.

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3. Shallow character design:

Both main leads have one-dimensional characters. There's nothing complicated about them. They're programmed to love each other without doubt, so they are very accepting of what the other does, even though it could be a red flag for normal people. For example, the ML like to control the FL. He orders food for FL without asking her preference and place it in front of her while she's having something else. He also buys train ticket, forcing her to travel to where she just came from (although with him) without asking her opinion as well. He even arranges his friend to be her tour guide without checking if she has her own plans. It's a troubling dynamic that lacks depth and realism, leaving much to be desired in terms of character development and relationship dynamics.

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4. Nothing in the story:

Finish watching it and I feel so empty. After 30 episodes and there's nothing to the point that I doubt if it's about promoting Finland tourism. I even wonder if the Finland Tourism Organization sponsored this series since they set it in Finland, one of the most expensive countries to live in in spite of having nothing much for sightseeing, as the location for more than half of the series (the first full 15 episodes take place in Finland and they still come back in the latter episodes). The only thing I get from this series is to see the very intimate kissing/hugging/flirting scenes of young actors/actresses who are the main leads as well as how the ML acts like he's in heat and wants sex with the FL all the time. So, if you're their fans, welcome. If you're not, it can get irritating.

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5. Messed-up timeline:

They're already confused and messing up the timeline for a few time.

For example, they say after the male lead's first comeback game for a year and a half, he moves back to China. That's supposed to be about 2 years after ML and FL first met. Two months after that, ML and FL go to Finland for FL's competition, but they say FL has competed in the arena before which was last year (=the same time when they first met.)

Another time toward the end, when the FL finds out she isn't pregnant, she asks why the ML looks happy. The ML says something along the line of when he was 22 years old, he knew so little, so if his life had stopped there, he wouldn't have become as successful as he is today. But they first met when the FL was 22. As of now should be more than 2 years after that. She can't be younger than 24 years old...

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6. Mundane music:

Their background music sounds mundane and lacks originality, esp. those used during all the competition scenes. They resemble free midi music found on the internet. It's like they simply use whatever they can find to fill the silence during those long scenes where people can't be talking. (And yes, those competition scenes are too long for each time. They use them to drag the length of the whole series.)

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Strong plot. Archaic artistic taste. Problem with ML's acting skill.

(1) Story [+]

I'm very impressed with the plot. The plot is superb and very well presented. They set the knots all the way from the beginning to end which makes the viewers surprised all the way through. All the unexpected plots are conveyed at the right time. Their rhythm to reveal and resolve each knot is very well done.

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(2) Character Design [~]

Great design for the FL and ML's characters. Most of the characters in the drama, even the supporting roles, are properly designed. The only problem I have is the design for the 2nd ML. I think it's about the acting skill of the actor who plays this role, too. The drive of the 2nd ML to love the 2nd FL is not convincing at all. With a shallow design that only aims to force the character into feeling love without a proper background to solidify the conviction combining with the not-up-to-the-standard acting skill of the actor, it makes this character to have a pretty vague existence.

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(3) Acting [~]

The best acting skill in the whole drama is the FL. I would say she's the one who carries the whole drama project to not sink. In the drama, she plays as an actress who performs very well. This kind of role is frightening for the one who takes it for sure as the viewers will have a question in their mind all the time while watching that whether the actor/actress really portrays the role up to the level that the role claims to be. There's some scene that the FL has to perform a difficult scene and I wonder myself in which way that she would play it out. I feel that the scene is truly a difficult one, adding up that the story has to emphasize to the real viewers that the scene is extremely difficult before letting the FL rolls things out. I feel for the FL here that this is surely super challenging for her. What if she didn't nail it... the conviction in her character would be dropped a lot. But the FL made it properly. I cried a bit there though fully knowing it would come out something that way. Gotta praise her.

The ML, on contrary, has a very low acting skill to take a leading role. He overreacts at times, underreacts other times. His acting is unnatural and unbalanced to the FL. The way he tries to be the ML apparently makes him look just like make-believe. He tries to be calmly cool in the ML style, but it's unnatural and makes him look underperformed, emotion-dropped, unbalanced. His energy incompatibility makes him be like an air pocket in his scene.

The role of 2nd ML isn't up to par either, but I don't think we can solely blame the acting skill here as I said on the above topic that the character design of this role is originally not strong/good enough.

For the supporting roles, I'm quite satisfied with almost all of them - the ML's friend, female director, FL's company CEO, FL's gay manager and acting teacher. They did a great job.

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(4) Artistic Taste - Clothing & Music [-]

Damn... this is a story of a top-class actress who grows up abroad, but her fashion design is terribly, terribly horrible. Her costume is 很土 - very outdated and unfashionable. Her clothing materials are of low quality. I don't know it's this bad because this drama is a low-budget project or the costume head isn't up to his/her job description.

The music is very archaic, outdated, old-fashioned. No taste in music either.

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Dragging. Forced subplot. Unnatural dialogue.

40 episodes is truly too long. It's dragging in general and forced plot would pop up from time to time. The last straw for me would be at ep27 with an irrational scene that shows how unprofessional job the writer team has done.

A sister/friend of ML has died suddenly, which has a big impact on ML. ML decides to leave home without telling anyone for a while to stay alone at a little village in the mountain. His family is very worried while FL has an idea where he would be, so she follows him and meets him when he bungee jumps and almost dies.... There're quite a few weird things here. Let me point them out one by one...

1. At the bungee jump spot, there's only ML without any staff, but that place is fully equiped for bungee jumping. ML's legs are properly roped. - How come no staff? Where the equipments come from then? Who helps him tie his legs?

2. ML carries his traveling backpack while bungee jumping......??!

3. Then he jumps, and the rope is tied for the distance that ML would dip into the lake below, but it isn't a dip. The rope never bounces and everyone concerning to the business leaves ML head stays in the water for as long as he stops breathing eventhough the rope is still tightly tied to his legs. No one drags him up. No rescue team preparing at the lake, either. FL is the one who jumps into the lake and drags him to the bank and gives him CPR. - Wow... really?? No staff around to the point that no one makes any kind of moves when his head stays in the water that long?? And what the hell with the rope not bouncing?? This is so anti-science.

4. There's surely some error along the bungee process. The ML says himself that he has thought thoroughly before bungee jumping, but this still happened which almost made him die. So, he doesn't intend to commit suicide, there's some error, but no one around to take responsibility at all? Like... there's not only staff but no people at all. Not even a crowd to poke their noses. And then, the bungee jumping accident has just passed. No one cares that it happened even the ML and FL....

For the acting.... Zhao Lu Si's acting here is quite unnatural, esp. the last scene when she has the last conversation with ML's father - both her acting and the dialogue are unnatural and awkward. Though the dialouge is awkward, the acting of ML's father is passable, which emphasizes how lacking Zhao Lu Si's acting is when the plot and dialogue given to her are also lacking. (She's normally done her proper jobs when delivering proper plot and dialogues.)

Luo Yi Zhou's acting is surprisingly passable. It's passable on averge, but if considering this is one of his first acting jobs (it's his first series), he's done quite a good job.

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Trying to be artsy but fail

Too long. I start to lose my patience after 3 minutes - after that is to endure. I still watch it til the end. The message is weak. Starts from nowhere - leads to nowhere - no direction. The script makes it even worse by trying to not directly convey what they want to say, by trying to send the message in the form of raising open-end questions but eventually there's still no actual meaning to dig in. The way they try to communicate via cinematography is superficial by using grandiose landscape to allure the audience into the beautiful scenes when there's nothing to represent. Clearly see the attempt to be artsy but completely fails for me. Just another wannabe kind of work.

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Worst dialogue. Super lagging. Go nowhere.

Dialogue here is the worst, full of unnecessity and leads nowhere. The story is super lagging and the dialogue is the huge part to blame. Really, you can just watch the preview at the end of each episode, then skip as much as you want in the next, and at whatever point you stop to have a glimpse you wouldn't feel like you miss anything. I pretty like the leads so I really tried to watch it, but still it's such a waste of time and I couldn't tolerate to not pressing the skip button.

This is an example of a series being ruined by its dialogue. The demolishing level of the dialogue is very impactful it effects the rhythm of the whole story and finally overturns the positive score on other aspects.

Tip on watching this series:
In ep1, hop-watching from point to point, then watch the preview at the end of each episode, and back to watch it point to point again in ep7. That's all. It ends at ep7 - a happy ending. There's nothing crucial in ep8, you don't have to watch it. Out of all 8 episodes, the most portion of content I watch and don't feel regretful to my time is in ep7.

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Try to be wise but not enough.

Though there're many aspects of this series that I give low grades, I don't think it's worth my time to scrutinize all of them here as it'll be too much, so I'll just talk a bit only about one point out of the aspect that annoys me the most which is the story. To make this genre works, outsmarting the viewers is the most important. This story already tried to do so, but it was still not wise enough, not thorough enough, not good enough. I'm not satisfied that I foresaw the answers to 3 games plus the overall plot while the characters struggled too much to find them and even intended to overlook some of them so that they could show that they had to struggle. There're a lot more to criticize about the story, but it's too messy to clarify it in a short time and I don't consider this series worth that much of my time.

I think I should also mention that I came to watch this series after watching Squid Game. They both are in the same genre broadcasting one year apart, so it's difficult to not compare them while watching. Squid Game is smarter, more unexpectant, more succinct. There's much clearer of the system design of the story's circumstance thus more convincing. The editing is more skilled. The production as a whole brings a new taste to its own genre. It's more surprising and exciting to watch. Though I'm not that satisfied with the acting of Squid Game esp. in the early episodes, when comparing to this one, Squid Game is still more impressive.

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Strong start but dragging toward the end. Also, no chemistry between the leads.

(1) Trivial - but still crucial [~]

Sorry I cannot not talk about this, lol.
The product placement in this drama is so ridiculous. It's both obvious and awkward. It's especially awkward when they let the ML says the advertisement scripts as all those scripts are clearly advertising, which is so much out of the character of the ML.

This isn't good for the overall atmosphere of the drama, but can't say it's not good for the consumers. At least the viewers are not psychologically deceived to absorb the product perception. Every viewer surely consciously awares when they put the advertisement in.

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(2) Story/Plotline [-]

The plotline is interesting. In the beginning, they present to the viewers quite a few plotlines that make the story multi-layered and interesting. The thing is they can't resolve their own plots when they need to make an ending to it.

The other components around the major plots lead the story off the topic from time to time. They also have problems with weighing and distributing the proportion of the main/important plots and the surrounding plots (esp. during toward the end).

Toward the end, it's actually both dragging and rushed.

- The overall storyline is dragging. I started to not have the motivation to keep on going when I reached around 3/4 of the drama and was stuck for a long time after watching ep.33. I almost dropped it, but still felt it'd be a pity with just 3 episodes left. When I reached the end, I didn't feel anything much anymore. I'd feel quite the same no matter the end was a happy or sad ending.

- For the rushed parts, it's the main conflict resolving part. For me, those conflicts are (1) the male lead's heart (2) the antagonist's crime. Both of these conflicts were resolved in the most cursory way. How dare and casual the writer +director develop plot (1) to the point that is most interesting and then intentionally throw it onto the floor instead of reasonably unchain it. They develop this plotline in the way of setting a promise to give a kind of answer to it. They are able to not develop the plot in this direction, so there wouldn't be that kind of promise, but they did it. And then they just trashed it with just an irresponsible sentence. This isn't about what the answer is. The answer can be positive or negative, that doesn't matter, but the process of having the answer is important. The only positive excuse for this shitty resolution would be the involved actor of this plot had an emergency reason to drop this drama project, so the production team needed to cut things out this way.

For plot (2), they make a lot of loopholes. The antagonist has always been smart and calm. Toward the end, they still show the antagonist as a confident person but at the same time makes a few important unreasonable decisions. It's out of his character. I can only see that the production team can't find a good way to put him down, so here comes the easy, casual, passing resolvement.

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(3) Acting [-]

The score drops due to the female lead. She plays herself in every drama she's in. I see her having affairs with each male lead she plays with because she is always the same person. This is the life in the parallel universe of the FL in Put Your Head On My Shoulder as well as of the FL in My Little Happiness. Those are the top two dramas of this FL that I like and made me follow her to this Miss Crow (though I didn't finish Put Your Head On My Shoulder properly as I skimmed toward the end).

There's not much chemistry between the FL and ML either. I feel nothing from both the FL and ML's acting in their love scenes. This is another reason why there's not much motivation to drive me to finish it. The second FL and ML even have more chemistry than the main couple in my opinion.

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(4) Production [+]

High production done properly. No complaint.

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(5) Music [+]

This is what should be praised the most for this drama. Most of the songs are pretty good. It's above Chinese dramas' average. It's obvious they put their heart and effort into composing these songs for the drama. In the beginning episodes, the new songs come out again and again and most of them are good to the point that can stop me from fast-forwarding the scenes that can be fast-forwarded. I don't remember being stopped from fast-forwarding to listen to the soundtracks in Chinese dramas before.

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Art style copied from Hunger Games + Squid Game. Weak storyline. Weak Performance.

Plot [-]

The concept of the story is alright, but the plot and storyline are weak. There's not much substance at all. There's absolutely no need for 6 episodes. They could just make it into a 2-hr movie and that would be enough.

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Acting [-]

The worst acting goes to the FL. Her performance is exaggerated and unnatural. While the genre may require some level of exaggeration, her portrayal goes beyond what is necessary. It seems like she hasn't found the right balance between delivering a performance while maintaining the level of believability.

Apart from FL, FL's friend also delivers an unnatural performance in some scenes. As for the FL's younger sister, she is cute and natural in appearance (I think her performance is the best in the series. She has a long way to go in this career), but the words she uses in her dialogue seem to come from almost 20 years ago. I strongly feel that the writer of this series might belong to Gen Y as their slangs are from the heyday of that era. (For example, who still says เพื่ออออ? (The FL uses this word a couple of times.) And you make the younger sister who is an early teen says ตายแล้วววว (-_-) Guys... no kid says that word. I don't even say it myself though I'm older than her.)

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Music [-]

This series is quite silent when it comes to music. They hardly use any soundtracks or backing tracks apart from the main opening song. I usually admire a series/movie that can captivate viewers without relying on music which often plays a significant role in evoking emotions. However, the way this series avoids using music seems somewhat out of theme. Firstly, with their shallow story and character design, they can hardly engage viewers emotionally, so incorporating backing music would be beneficial for them. Secondly, considering that the series has a futuristic and dystopian theme within the fantasy genre, using the right music would help immerse people who haven't experienced such environments before. While it would be impressive and ingenious if they could achieve this without music, since they cannot do so effectively, they should take advantage of what music can offer here.

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Art Direction [-]

I quite like the art direction for most parts of the series. The light, the colors, the props and camera angles are align with my taste, but they totally lack originality. They are heavily inspired by Hunger Games + Squid Game. The color palettes and the uniform used in this series appear to be direct copies from Squid Game. Though copy, they still did it quite alright, but there's one aspect that stands out negatively, which is the costume of the actors in the last scene, including the ML's costume and hairstyle. The world of the commune in that scene lacks imagination and creativity. It's simply a copy of the hippie style but ends up feeling fake. Just look at the ML's hairstyle, it feels overdone. They seem to have run out of ideas on how to differentiate that community.

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Above all [~/-]

It's super cringey. I got goosebumps and second-hand embarrassment watching the FL doing her foolish things. She's the character that could have been cool, really, but they portray her as dumb.

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So far, the Chinese mini-series I've given the highest score

I binge-watched 8 Chinese mini-series over the past couple of days, and this one stood out as the best among them all. The only other one I found passable was "Confess Your Love," which I rated 1 points lower than this one. I also watched two other mini-series featuring either one or both of the main leads from this show, and they were both very disappointing.

The biggest issue I found with these mini-series is their lack of logical coherence, which greatly disturbed and hindered my ability to appreciate their work. It's quite frustrating when you're forced to pay attention to characters, who behave stupidly and irrationally, that aren't worth investing your energy in, don't you think?

Regarding this mini-series, it's the most logically structured among the 8 I watched. However, it veered into illogical territory towards the end, which led me to deduct 0.5-1 point from the overall score. It felt like they introduced these nonsensical elements for the sake of convenience. It's as if they had a specific ending in mind but struggled to develop the storyline to reach that conclusion, resulting in them fabricating illogical scenarios to meet their predetermined ending. This, I consider, is irresponsibility from the production team.

Nevertheless, this mini-series only exhibited these issues towards the ending (about 1-2 episodes before the end), whereas many others in this genre scatter illogical elements throughout when they run out of ideas to maintain a logical storyline. Overall, this mini-series ranked at the top of my list among the 8 I watched.

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P.S. The list of my 8 binge-watched shows is as follows:

Passable:
1. The Deliberations of Love
2. Confess Your Love (2023)

So bad:
1. My Villain Husband
2. A Tale of Love and Loyalty
3. My Cat-astrophic Lover
4. My Fake Wife

Dropped:
1. The West Wind Is Strong
2. The Everlasting Love

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Cute but super dragging.

Long story spanning from high school to working life - same style as A Love So Beautiful, but it is not as plot-driven. At least, the story is rational. ML+FL are not silly. In the story, there's nothing heart-wrenching, nothing much in it, so it's quite dragging to the point of almost boring. I actually had to increase speed and skim since ep12. Personally I think they can finish the whole story within 15 episodes instead of 25.

Anyway, the production quality is good and ML+FL's characters+acting are cute. These were the points that kept me watching until the end or else I'd drop at around ep15-17.

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Wow.. finally a proper movie from China. The overall exceeds my expectation.

1. Acting [+]

My gosh... all the actors/actresses are so good here. High praise for ML & FL. Their acting are so authentic. It's so hard to find good acting from Chinese actors/actresses, but there's a bunch here. I truly dislike the mother and look down on that kind of teacher. It's ridiculous to have this kind of adults to be responsible for children. I don't know if this is a compliment, but the image they draw for adults in this movie makes me look down on the way Chinese society treats their young people and its educational attitude as a whole. They can really make me disgust how egoistic and problematic the adults are to the younger generation. The adults act like what they do are rightful in spite of the opposite. For the leads' part, they both are so young but can handle their roles real well. Wu Lei really nails it. His acting is detailed, which I think is also the result of having competent director that can guide the acting direction for his actors. The FL's role seems to be more level through the story, but her acting is much believable. Nothing looks awkward at all. I feel along with her all the way through, esp. in that scene on her birthday night - it was so embarrassing and I totally feel her. I'm 100% embarrassed together with her.

2. Story [+]

First, they have messages they want to communicate, which are strong and substantial. Second, the subplots are very well weaved into one story. They did so well with the peak, turns and twists, which means there're so many points in the story that provoke my perception no matter it's thoughts, surprise or new happening, and all of them are harmonious in the whole picture. Lastly, the script that is made up to be this film can really make me laugh out loud and scream (due to embarrassment, lol) - the emotions they want to convey have successfully conveyed in each scene.

Note:
I still deduct some points on the score as I think the extreme characters like the mother and teacher are designed to be surreal. I consider it as cheating for an easier way out by distorting the rule to their own benefit.

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P.S. While watching, I was thinking until the end that if the ML's ex-crush was a guy, his subplot would be perfect. Anyway, considering this film is from China where being gay is a taboo, I could foresee my wish/speculation wouldn't be portrayed :P

P.S.2 I just realized one day after watching that the FL here is the same one in Love Story In London. Wha... I gave 1 score for Love Story In London, so I'm glad to see she can actually make it far beyond that. It's great to see her true potential with a proper project that can let her properly challenge herself and shine. Her role in Love Story In London was uninteresting and had nothing to deliver at all.

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I hate this series so much - hate it the same way each time Na Heedo saying she hate Park Yijin.

Well wrap-up. It's so hurtful. This pain almost suppressed the positive score I had for this series, but because of the way they wrap up with recollection scenes to remind the viewers what their messages are - and those messages are so strong I just can't deny it. In this way, they kind of console me to not let the anguish bury the valuable points we've gained from watching the series. The original plot is complex and well built, the characters are interesting and well created, the dialogues are well written. The FL's acting is superb. I don't feel much chemistry between the leads though, and still hate the ending so much. I think maybe because I've been through only ordinary kind of love, never this kind that so intensely intertwines with life to the core. So when I see this kind of love that two people went through so much before being together falls apart, their break-up just doesn't make sense to me.

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Impressive story & acting but disappointed on how they unfold last ep.

My gosh... it's been all really really good and then dropped a lot in the last episode. A lot of loopholes appeared right in the last episode. A lot of previous knots couldn't solve well in the last episode. I wanted to give a lower score for this drama because of this last ep, but the process coming through till this last point has been really impressive, so I can't help but add a little more points than what it actually deserves.

The cast is great. Love the acting of all the main characters.

The story is heart-warming and tearfully touching during the last 2 ep.

P.S.1
Though how disappointing the last ep was, I still think they did it neater than what they did in Someday or One Day. Someday or One Day's last ep was a lot messier. The story's crucial rules and logic were annihilated. Lots of contradiction there.

P.S.2
I want to leave a note on a few points I really don't like in the last ep below but it's a bit of a spoiler, so beware to proceed on.

1. How the hell the FL traveled back through time right in front of the ML??

2. How the ML had a new identity to completely fit in the present world??

3. If the storyline in the past would change as much as the real ML's identity changed while his love interest was the girl in the next class who transferred during high school, the whole story in the previous 23 ep would totally be ruined. Lots of loopholes become apparent just by this irresponsible, reckless, unthoughtful story unfolding. As to how messy the end has become, it makes shown that the writer desperately wrote all the knots to make the story interesting but he went too far to finally tightly trap himself without a way out. This eventually ruined the world he tried hard to create in the first place. It's very disappointing and annoying how they couldn't think the story through to unfold it properly.

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P.S.3 is added after I had a constructive discussion with another viewer on the comment section :)
~

P.S.3
What is important in 'every' show is the logic of its own universe. This show finally contradicts itself = it ruins its own rules = it ruins its own world.

A time-traveling story is especially hard to unfold. Most of the time they fail because of the rules and logic they set up themselves. It doesn't surprise me that this show also fails at the end when it tries to unfold as it's expectable. The only time-traveling show that impresses me is Dark, the German series of 3 seasons in total.

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Not a story. Just a too-long presentation of one-point idea.

The film about e-sport that is more proper to target the audience who are parents in Gen-X or upper, esp. those who oppose kids playing games.

I watch this film because the promotional trailer looks interesting, but the real thing is just complete opposite. The subject is about e-sport—a trendy contemporary subject, so I expected for the least of exciting CG, fast-pacing story progress and enthusiastic youthful energy. What I found is ordinary CG like a presentation of a 1st-year film student, slow-pacing progress to the point of almost reaching nowhere, and laggard/sluggish energy due to an under par acting direction of supporting roles.

[Shortcut note in case you wouldn't read this 'til the end:
If anyone like this kind of gaming/e-sport theme with the youthful+comical tone, I want to recommend Cross Fire. It's a 36-ep. Chinese series presenting a lot of topics surrounding gaming and e-sport. One of them is also about prejudice from the older generation toward gaming/e-sport, but the production team can present it like a professional storyteller. Rip off all the decoration like CG or cinematography techniques and left only the organic element like the storytelling skills, it's already highly admirable.
P.S. I watched Cross Fire after Mother Gamer.]

Let's talk:

(1) Story
It's not a story. This 2-hour film has only one-point idea which is a mother who opposes her exemplary-student son to play in e-sport league, so she tries to make him lose the competition by building another team to beat his team but becomes a player in the process. Along 2 hours, it mainly presents the journey of a Gen-X mom becoming a game player. The selling point of the film is just to show the contrast of being an old Gen-X in the new world of e-sport (though the vibe is sorta outdated kind of e-sport). The film is shallow. Actually, this starting idea is interesting and has huge potential to create an elaborative story on another level, but the creator might be too lazy to be creative and just stop dead at the first sentence of the story while repeating the loop of that sentence for another 2 hours (—most of the time is mom trying to build the team). There's no story in it. That's why I call it just a too-long presentation of one-point idea.

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(2) Directing
The continuity between shots and scenes is obviously unskilled. At times, there wouldn't be connecting point between scenes. This messes the storytelling making the audience confused and doubts the necessity in the existence of the scene that comes later. The director is not a storyteller. He has no tactic in smoothening out the story esp. the romance part of it. He always puts a flirting scene next to another irrelevant scene out of the blue. The big fail is that all the lovey-dovey bits in the film are unimportant at all. If they cut off all these love bits, the film would look more roundly even than bumpy as it already happens to be.

Anyway, I can see why they try to add the love bits into the film. It's because they want to target the teenage group of audience, but their leading character is a Gen-X. Moreover, their main point is to change the pessimistic mindset of Gen-X about gaming, which is literally an unnecessary message to the teens. So instead, they think to pull the teenage audience in with love story, but the result is awkward. Yet to say there's no chemistry between the couple at all. The portion around love here is just too extra, out of context, or in another word—a leftover added on, which resulting in the film direction being a mess.

Let me mention a bit about the cinematography style of the film. I can see they try to use those minimal camera angles that look more contemporary like still shots, edge cut-off shots, symmetric shots, scenes with few props, but it's also seen that it isn't their real style. This style doesn't persist throughout. In the end, what they do is just kind of copying the trend.

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(3) Acting
The acting in love-bit scenes between the boy and the girl gamers is awful. It's unnatural and out of place. They're not shy but awkward. Their no-chemistry is a failure. Their flirting scenes are all fail and not convincing.

The acting direction of the fat boy is also wrong. I think this is the fault of the director. The direction of this character to be humorous by putting himself to be a bland joke doesn't come from the actor for sure. Having a character being a bland joke himself is a kind of comedy that Thai people like, but this direction doesn't work here. The film is already pretty much quiet despite being a (self-proclaimed) action film. This character being a bland joke just make the whole thing worse—now it's truly blandly quiet, but without being humorous. In the film, he even raps a song explaining the game they play, which oh... so awful. The rap is amateur and totally awful in the aspects of lyrics, rhythm and rapping skills. I'm secondhand embarrassed just by hearing it.

The acting of many main characters is just unbalanced in various layers.

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(4) Music
As I just mention that this film is pretty much quiet. Not that they don't use music. It's that they don't know how to use music. For example, at places like stimulating scenes that need music, they don't use the right music to boost the audience's emotions, and at places, the music just fades down until almost disappear altogether despite that it shouldn't. It's like they don't have a good sense of music and when they don't know what music to use or how to use music, they're not afraid of leaving it silent. Anyway, though the music isn't much helpful to the film, at least it doesn't obtrude their own work.

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With the unskillful work of the director, cinematographer, actors/actresses as well as editing team, the film doesn't come out at the top of the level they can reach (—not that the level could be very high, but instead of 2.5 score, they might get up to 3.5 from me).

Let me just finish myself here. I feel like I take more time writing this than watching the film itself.

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Stiff female lead. Script isn't good.

In the story, the female lead pursues the male lead. One of her chasing trick is sending her own composition of flirting poems to him as a secret admirer. Those poems were embarrassing both for the awkward meaning and unsmooth rhyme. The writer tries hard to forcefully put the right sound into the rhyme position of the poem but fails to select the right word for the meaning. As the result, those poems carry weird meanings with forceful sounds. If you know the rhyming rules of Thai poetry, you'd know the poems in this story are lame and a shame.

I don't like this drama after finish watching it, so I'm not really interested in talking/writing about it in detail, but I kind of feel obligated to give proper reasons on some negative points since I mentioned those points as a comparison on another drama's review (also Thai drama). So in conclusion about the poems, they are cringey and badly composed - broken on both the meanings and aesthetic. In the story, the female lead is supposed to be a genius, these poems exist just to downgrade that claim.

Apart from the poems, the dialogue is super cringey. No one would talk like the female lead in real life and get the male lead as the result. In reality, this kind of dialogue would make the speaker embarrassed and make those who hear it secondhand embarrassed as well.

I can see the actress playing the female lead really tries her best in acting. She says all those lame dialogues with all her heart. She acts with courage and hopes to make the best out of it. But nonetheless, her acting is still amateur and too stiff. If you understand Thai, you would know the way she talks is very unnatural. It's reciting. She put too much effort in every word so the words she says have come out intentional, robotic and stiffen her own overall acting.

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