What a mess
No. Just. No. Please don’t give Dan Worrawech any more directing jobs, please!My expectations when starting this series were very low already. Admittedly, the story was better than I expected; it was still a very obvious “The Gifted” rip-off, but the plot development was for the most part unpredictable (which is also due to the fact that it was so random, though). Looking back, there were quite some truly thrilling moments (in the middle of the overall mess). Therefore I must admit that the screenwriters did an okay job – but what Worrawech made out of the material is below my worst expectations. Sadly, not one of the actors was able to show off their acting qualities. Only Ohm managed to save some parts; but Nanon and many others seemed to find themselves back in acting class throughout all the ridiculous sequences of scenes. The two main bad guys were somewhat better than the rest of the cast, but that might be because their characters were much better written than the others.
How can you throw in so many serious topics like drug use and trafficking, gambling, child abuse, kidnapping, attempted and actual murder, bullying and attempted mass shooting, and make it become such an unbelievable mess? There was not a hint of an underlying “message” (like in “The Gifted” or “A Gift to the People You Hate”), the motives of the characters (both good and bad guys) were unconvincing, plot holes everywhere, cringeworthy dialogues, fake dramatic moments (how often do you want to stamp your foot or push a chair just to show everyone that you are angry?) and unnecessary romance with no chemistry. Oh, and let’s not forget the 12-part commercial: it was actually well done (unlike the series), but who thought it to be a good idea promoting this kind of drink after a storyline dealing with the negative effects of recreational drug abuse? Yes, Mr. Worrawech, you have truly outdone yourself!
I don’t want to keep ranting; I know from the comments that many people somehow managed to enjoy the series, so apparently there’s an audience for it somewhere out there. Good for you. But try for a moment to imagine the same storyline done by a director who knows what they are doing – it could have been so much better! Since it kept me watching, I won’t rate the series as low as my review may sound like. But generally speaking I wouldn’t recommend watching this to anyone.
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This review may contain spoilers
I went into this show after watching The Gifted, which is basically everything this show tried to be. There are a couple of the same characters and a pretty similar concept, minus the supernatural aspect. I thought "this can't possibly be that bad" since it seemed so similar. Oh, I was wrong.My first and BIGGEST gripe is the fact that they had to give EVERY character a love interest. Not only was this pointless and made the characters dull, but it confused the fuck out of me. I couldn't remember a single name because we have like twelve students being introduced back to back to back. I ended up calling them all by names me and my boyfriend made up! The romance was super forced and mostly involved the man saving the "helpless" girl. It seemed like they had to be in a relationship to be interesting, which is not true at all! I think this seriously took away from the story. I'll admit, there were a few couples that were necessary to advance the plot, such as the main Teacher and the female teacher (see, can't remember their names and I just finished it ten minutes ago). I also think the relationship with the principals niece and the nerd was also good for the plot! Otherwise, the girls were really pretty useless. I don't even remember how the guys met half of them! That's how ridiculously fast they introduced them all.
The story was interesting in the beginning, then got way too convoluted. There were about five different villains in a thirteen episode show. The plot twists were super predictable, my boyfriend said "Oh, the female teacher is evil??" In an early episode and guess what, that was the big plot twist! The aspect that drew me in was their "special abilities" but you better believe you hardly get to see them ever. What's the point??
The ending was rushed and unsatisfying. We get the image of all the couples living happily ever after and then the teacher making the same mistake he'd already made and sending the students out AGAIN to do secret missions. LIKE WHERE ARE THE POLICE? WHERE IS THE FBI? HELLO? I also want to let you know that the woman who pushed a student off of the roof of the building, had sex with a student, held another hostage in her house and then tried to poison her when she escaped then sent someone to kill her in the hospital. Yeah! THEY COMFORT HER. SHE ONLY MADE ONE MISTAKE THEY SAID. JESUS.
What a disappointment. So god awful in every way. It had potential to be a great show, but they tried far too hard and ended up ruining it.
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This review may contain spoilers
Started good but ended up leaving some unsolving cases.
Watched this series with high expectations but ended up disappointed. It was good when they just focus on how Blacklist solve the case in school but when they start to give the romance between the veggie gang and blacklist I started to feel annoyed. Is it necessary though? The Principal supposed to be the main villain here but they still want to give some unnecessary twist by putting Teacher Jin is a villain you didn't know. The closing was rushed. How did Fah escape from Teacher Jin? How did the teacher asked her to write the letter to framed Traffic? Is The God's Hands already handled? And how did Teacher Jin still teaching when she supposed to turn herself to the police?Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A series that is reminiscent of the more famous series, The Gifted. Both star Nanon and Chimon, but Ohm is a nice addition here. Both series are also set in a school and have the students on a mission to expose the dark secrets of the school.As a youth drama, Blacklist's focus on the students as the main characters is necessary but it also stretches one's credulity. The teacher who forms the secret group, Blacklist, to expose the school's dark secrets seems highly irresponsible and inconsistent. Yes, he is ultimately not portrayed as a really great teacher, but the characterization is baffling. As a student in the school years ago, the teacher had a friend who came to harm. He suspects the principal. And yet, the principal decided to let him be a teacher there anyway (for unconvincing reasons revealed at one point). And the first generation of students who make up Blacklist end up being KILLED in the process of their investigations yet this teacher has it in him to form another generation of Blacklist and has no qualms about putting the students at risk.
Perhaps we can explain that the teacher is fixated on exposing the principal's deeds and he's not such a perfect person anyway, but for someone who is so passionate about the cause, the teacher is conspicuously absent in many of Blacklist's meetings, merely setting them a mission and letting them discuss (or fight) amongst themselves before settling on a plan.
There's also the conspicuous absence of parents--Traffic gets into a lot of trouble and his sister, Fah, has disappeared, but the parents are never seen--not even a phone call or something is shown. Yes, this is fiction, but even the fictional world of the series has at least one mother crying for justice after her son almost dies in the school.
The story starts off being rather suspenseful and engaging and even fun. Traffic enrolls in a school to investigate the disappearance of his sister, Fah, and realizes that her disappearance is linked to a criminal group of which certain students are members. However, the series goes overboard with plot twists (which may still be ok, but the twists aren't always very convincing, e.g. the revelation that Andrew is sent by the principal to infiltrate Blacklist opens up holes that the writers can't patch despite scrambling to do so). Then addition of a second villain after the first one (the principal) has been nabbed is bizarre though it is not altogether unexpected. It is also bewildering that even after the principal's criminal organisation has been busted, it is still possible to order drugs from some underlings, as suggested by how Traffic calls a number only to realize that it is a number to order drugs. What's more, the riddle used to identify people in the know hasn't changed when he makes the call . (And it's a common riddle you can answer if you had heard of the riddle before. So much for a secret code.)
Perhaps the series would have been better if the writers had gone easy on the plot twists and focused more on character development. The characters do draw the viewer into the story, but there is little development though showing more of how their experiences have changed them would have been interesting.
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If a brain aneurysm was a drama
One of the first things a writer should consider before writing a story is whether they want it to be character- or plot-driven. If they are a particularly good writer, they might even be able to conjoin both narrative styles to create a well-rounded, thoroughly enjoyable product. If they are a particularly bad writer, however, they will end up with "Blacklist".The problem with "Blacklist" is that it feels like watching someone go through an identity crisis: it simply doesn't seem to know what tone it wants to set, what world and what stakes it wants to establish, or what themes and topics it wants to incorporate into the story for what reason. It constantly flip-flops between a variety of common mystery drama tropes and plot devices without particularly focusing on anything, which essentially means that it accomplishes nothing. I saw a lot of people compare this drama to "The Gifted" but I truly fail to see the resemblance; aside from the largely similar cast and the fact that they briefly mention that the classes at Akeanan High School are being assigned based on the students' grades in Episode 1, a plot point which they end up never addressing again anyway, there's nothing even remotely similar. As someone who still fundamentally enjoyed and appreciated the work that went into the first season of "The Gifted," I cannot in good faith recommend "Blacklist" to fans of the series.
I truly found it baffling how they managed to get every single aspect of the production wrong. Not only are there enough plot flaws to go for miles but the camera work, direction, color grading, acting, styling, and sound editing are all painful to watch as well. If I tried to list everything wrong with "Blacklist" in detail, I could sit here until my age quadrupled and my body started decaying, so I will try to keep it as brief as possible while still mentioning the most important points of critique I have to offer.
Let's take a look at the technical aspects of the production first. The lighting and color grading throughout the entire drama change at the whims of the set crew and editors. Some shots are well-lit and true to color, while others are dimly lit and have a horrendous brown tint to them like there's a sepia filter overlaying it all. There are also times when the shots suddenly turn grey for no reason. Those scenes are not flashbacks or plot intersections that require to be highlighted in grey to aid with the visual storytelling but just regular scenes that they made grey for fun. The editors also seem to not have cared about scene consistency at all because the real mystery in this drama is how in some shots, characters will empty their bottles and in the next, they're completely full and sealed again.
The sound editing is also terrible. You can hear voices echo, loud surrounding noises that drown out the actual lines, or clearly hear when audio has been added in post because no effort was put into making the recordings match up with the lip flaps of the characters or adjust it to fit the background noises that would normally naturally occur if the scene had been shot anywhere but in a soundproof recording studio.
The subtitles are just as bad as the audio sometimes with many grammatical and spelling errors and in the last episode, there are even whole sections where characters are speaking but there are just no subtitles to translate what is being said. I suppose the subtitlers also felt too miserable to continue translating this.
I am usually very lenient when it comes to styling in school dramas because the characters obviously need to all wear the same thing. But the problem in this drama is that the few ways that they chose to individualize the characters' wardrobes just don't work. Lila is supposed to be the mean, fashionable girl but sometimes she will literally wear the same whimsical, juvenile hairstyle as Teacher Jinmanee, a grown woman who is presumably at least in her 30s. Title also used to wear a jacket at the beginning of the show, which worked pretty well to make him appear more laid-back and relaxed, but they ended up scrapping it a few episodes in and it never came back, even after he returned to Blacklist. They also basically gave Andrew the same styling as Wave in "The Gifted" in the last few episodes with the earrings and chain necklaces, which in my eyes served no other purpose but to be eye candy for the many people who just tuned in to see Chimon look handsome. The outfits that they gave the characters to wear outside of school are also incredibly basic and did absolutely nothing in terms of visual storytelling and to be honest, most of them weren't even very flattering for the actors. The fact that the best outfit one of the Blacklist members wears in the entire series is when Andrew just puts on some random shirt that belongs to Pakkard's father is laughable.
The acting is also subpar, which is really sad because there are so many good actors and actresses in this but the combination of the bad direction and the actors just having nothing to work with with those characters because they essentially have no personality to go off of probably lead to whatever this flat, boring acting was. The only actor that had some notably good scenes acting-wise was Ohm and even then his acting was still much worse than in any of his other projects because even if he gave his most, there's nothing to salvage this trainwreck in my eyes.
As for the plot, it's unnecessarily convoluted and everything is treated like an afterthought. There are so many serious topics in this, ranging from drug addiction and distribution to school shootings to illegal gambling to sexual abuse and rape to physical violence, and every single one of them is treated like it's just some cool and fun plot device to spice up the plot and not a serious problem that affects our society on the daily and needs to be properly addressed and unpacked. The morals of this drama are actually pretty messed up if you ask me: they pick and choose whether someone is evil or something is morally reprehensible or not based on their feeling in the moment.
They sympathize with a school shooter who tried to kill Lila and Bantad, her love interest, even tells her later that she should've just gotten shot. Blacklist also just casually beats up people left and right without even knowing if they are truly involved in any kind of illicit activity but we're still supposed to root for them because "they are the good guys" and it spontaneously always works out for them. They literally waterboard Joe in one episode to get information out of him when he's not even a member of The God's Hands, which if you don't know is a literal torture method and illegal because it's a human rights violation. But the most infuriating part to me is how Traffic doesn't even believe his sister after she tells him she was sexually abused by Teacher Jinmanee when she is clearly traumatized and has physical signs of abuse on her body, then shames her for being a drug addict instead of helping her, lets her abuser get back to her, and then lets the rapist go and teach at another school elsewhere. There were no repercussions whatsoever for Jinmanee besides her having to switch schools when she tried to kill Viking and Fah and possibly other students and sexually abused multiple female students. Instead, the characters even tell her that they love her and that she's a good teacher and praise her to no end and when I saw that, I truly hoped that the writers of this show would never get a job ever again. Every other criticism of the show that I had collected in my mind up until this point suddenly paled in comparison because while things like calling a group of girls "The Veggie Gang" are cringey, they are at least not as absolutely disgusting and vile as excusing literal crime simply because the people committing it are beautiful or handsome.
Meanwhile, Principal Karin is never shown to be evil until he is just said to be the mastermind behind The God's Hands and a rapist. He even appears to be a reasonable and caring principal in the first eight or so episodes, actively providing mental health sessions and counseling to students traumatized by the school shooting and rehabilitation programs to students affected by the Miracle drug that circulated around school. Andrew is also never shown to sabotage Blacklist until he is suddenly revealed to be Principal Karin's little puppet in one of the last episodes and is just ostracized from his group for no reason because of it. He literally did nothing wrong and is treated as some evil traitor when Title literally betrayed them more often than Andrew did and even put their lives in danger on various occasions. Andrew's father even explicitly states in one scene that Principal Karin would never have been caught if it hadn't been for Andrew, so I really don't understand what the writers were going for here.
The narrative choice to include a character episode for each member of Blacklist also doesn't work because the members barely appear in each other's episodes and therefore no group unity is built whatsoever and the characters' personalities are also not being developed although an entire episode is being dedicated to them for supposedly that very purpose. Each member seems expendable and it's never shown why they would need to be in the group because often characters just conveniently have the same skill sets all of a sudden if the story calls for it. Their motivations for joining are also unclear as they keep changing or simply make no sense. In one of the first episodes, for example, it is stated that Bantad joined Blacklist because he wants to get a scholarship but that's not available to students in the rearmost class at the moment and Teacher Wanpadej promised to give him one if he joined. In a later episode, however, it is said that Bantad voluntarily got into Class 4/6 and Blacklist at Teacher Wanpadej's request to get a "free scholarship," which implies he already has a scholarship but it's just not free, which also makes no sense because scholarships are by definition supposed to be free. I am not sure if it's a translation error and they meant a full-ride scholarship but regardless, the story is inconsistent.
All of the characters are also boring and I can't tell you more than one or two traits that they have. Traffic is always angry and in real life, he would probably be an abusive boyfriend. He will literally growl at Melon and risk her getting sexually abused by Jinmanee just because he doesn't want to believe his sister. He also insulted Fah and even completely forgot about her until the last three or so episodes when she was supposed to be his driving force in the story. I hate how he will scoff at Melon and just drag her around like she has no free will and we're supposed to think he's hot while he acts worse than a dog with rabies.
I was excited to see Highlight's relationship with Orange at first because I thought unlike the other relationships it might work out well since they've already been together since before the story starts and the actors, Ohm and Prigkhing, have great chemistry. And it looked promising at first because the way Highlight described his relationship with Orange seemed very cute and I could really understand why they would work well as a couple and then they just break up immediately. Are the writers really trying to convince me that Highlight and Orange broke up after two years because Highlight lied to Orange once? And they didn't even try to make it a steady decline in trust that leads up to them breaking up, it was just over all of a sudden and both of the characters became pretty unimportant to the plot after.
Title is also a mess. I hated his character because he was an asshole to everyone and even flirted with Orange right after she broke up with Highlight, which no good friend would do. He already has a love interest that he has some vague deep history with, so why did they even need that storyline with Title and Orange when it lead to nothing? Just to fill some runtime? How about they used that to actually develop the story instead? They also all act like he died after he leaves Blacklist and say that they can't talk to him anymore because they might get exposed as members of Blacklist as well, which is so weird because wouldn't it be more suspicious if they suddenly stopped talking to him completely when they have been friends all this time? But I digress.
As for Andrew, Jimbae, and Bantad, I honestly barely remember them. They exist and they do something when needed but they have no memorable qualities whatsoever. Their love interests are equally unimportant and I really question why any of these characters exist. Maybe if you melted all of the characters together, you might get enough personality to make one decent one.
Either way, this drama gave me a massive headache and I had serious trouble finishing it. Even while writing this, I just got so upset halfway through that I wanted to bang my head against the wall, which probably would've killed less of my brain cells than watching this drama did. I don't understand how this drama still has an 8.0 rating at the time of writing and I honestly wonder what's wrong with the people who enjoyed this. I just hope nobody wastes their time with this drama because there are a lot of other things you can watch to simp for whatever actor you currently have the hots for that appears in this.
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Relies too heavily on plot twists
This show tried so hard to be everything but failed miserably. The first gaping plot hole is that there is absolutely no presence of any government authority in the show. Police? Hello?Another thing, this show tries so hard on the romance, which turned out to be lackluster and hurried. Also, most of the love stories basically relied on "man saves woman, they fall in love" trope (which is such a sexist trope I can't even).
The show tried to be angst and edgy, but in the end, it turned out to be tacky. This is the type of show that deserves to be just a YA fiction rather than a full-blown series.
The reliance of plot twist without subtlety is crazy! Subtlety is key when creating plot twist. Plant a seed somewhere down the first half of the series in the most subtle way (on which it is barely noticed), and let it bloom during the second half. The screenwriters were probably just like...
"The second act is dragging, what should we do?"
"Let's just wing it. Pants in through. Add everything we can possibly think of!"
Also, the show gives off a premise to be a super fast-paced show, but it focuses too much on the boring parts. Some characters (especially the side characters) don't have proper motivations at all. The Gifted gave most of their characters good motivations (notice I'm using most since Ohm and the twins really did not have much motivation and Namtarn, Korn and Mon didn't really have the best motivations either. Pang's best friend had a good arc though) and I expect Blacklist to do the same, but failed horribly.
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Worst Nanon and Chimon series. I love these two actors, so I watched it.
So many plot holes. The main plot is a bore. Production is poor. Don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of the lead actors but this series is a big disappointment.At the onset, you already know who the main villain is. But of course, they tried to execute an unnecessary plot twist to save this production from the shame of a predictable mystery thriller. The series could have ended in episode 10 but their plot twist extended it for another 2 episodes.
There are also too many unnecessary scenes, which certainly are a waste of time and resources, especially the unrealistic fight scenes. The only saving factor of this series is the cast. If you're not a fan of any of the actors, watching this series is a waste of time.
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This review may contain spoilers
DO NOT WATCH RIGHT AFTER THE GIFTED!!!
To fully enjoy this series, my advice is to not watch it immediately after watching The Gifted.With the genre and concept being pretty similar (suspense, mystery, school secrets) and two of the main leading roles being played by the same actors that also played the two main lead roles for The Gifted, it's natural that people will compare by default. In my opinion, both series are great in its own way however, you can never quite live up to the effects of superheroes and hidden powers thus, DO NOT WATCH RIGHT AFTER THE GIFTED!!!
That said, the story started off immediately by introducing to us the main mystery of the entire series... The missing girl. There we meet Pang (Nannon) who has little to less interest in anything else in the school other than finding what happened to the missing girl who is his sister. We are then introduced to a few other students; Andrew (Chimon), Highlight (Ohm), Jim Bae (First), Title (Drake) and Bantad (Frank) who will accompany Pang in his search and solve the mystery under the supervision of Teacher Wanpadej (Bank). I came into this series for Ohm, Chimon, and Nannon but toward the end of Episode 1, Bank was the one that sold the series to me as I continue on.
The storyline is full of suspense which keeps us at the edge of our seats. There are several bits and pieces which can be quite predictable but there's also some plot twist that is really well done. This series, however, introduces romance and love lines for each of the 6 boys which consist of Melon (Prim), Carrot (View), Pakkard (Love), Orange (Prigkhing), Cupcake (Ploy) and Laily (another Ploy). The whole romance thing going on was pretty annoying in the beginning but over time does grow on you. But if you ask me if it was necessary, NO! It is not necessary to have all of them to have romance. One or two is okay but the entire group? That kinda spoiled it.
One of my biggest cons for this series is that after the big mystery was solved, they managed to introduce a new mini-mystery within just 2 episodes thus it seemed a little bit rushed. I really disliked the ending of this small mini mystery as it does not make sense to me realistically/ IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE do I was annoyed with it. If you're someone that takes in every detail of a series, this one will get you frustrated and fuming towards the very end
Where music is concerned, I think it was done very tastefully. The sound effect and the music is often the driving force behind my excitement before the scene takes place itself. It does build up the expectation for what's to come/
All in all, it's a really good show if you don't compare it to The Gifted. But if you do compare, then even for myself, Blacklist fell short of what The Gifted was able to give us.
Would I rewatch this series again? Yes, I would but I will also skip a lot of unnecessary parts.
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I will not be re-watching this drama but I don't exactly regret watching it.
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One of my first thai series!!!!
Initially, I really liked Blacklist and was amazed by the actors. I even liked the story and rewatched it for more that 5 times. The only thing that bothered me was the music. Whenever there's a 'romantic' scene, the ost will play, but it begins with the instrumental which sounds like it's suggesting fear or danger.But since I rewatched it for a couple of times, I started to see the flaws aside from the music. Some parts of the story doesn't make sense, along with how conflicts were resolved. The only thing that carried this series are the actors. They really did well in making you want to see how the story will end despite how it was written.
I also cannot help comparing it with The Gifted, and I'm lucky that I discovered this first. I think if I have watched The Gifted before Blacklist, this will be dropped after watching an episode or two. So I recommend that if you plan to watch both series, watch Blacklist first so you won't be too disappointed.
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But I still love Nanon and Chimon.
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