This review may contain spoilers
Pretty Dissappointing
Man this really didn't do much for me. After the first two episodes this show became a bit of a let down and I really struggled to enjoy it at all. I was hoping it'd improve as I kept going, but unfortunately I was left disappointed. I'm all for slightly silly premises and fun romance tropes, but the execution left me pretty bored.I'll start with what I liked because I don't love being super negative, but it's a short list.
I enjoyed the initial progression of Tew and Guy's relationship, they seemed like they were actually becoming friends, and it was nice to see characters develop a friendship first. I also liked the moments when Guy stood up for himself and began to try to have a life outside of Wahl, it was a nice message and well-handled.
The overall concept of online friendships developing into full relationships was nice too, and I liked that the gaming group continued to return to the story.
Unfortunately, that's pretty much all I liked.
Honestly, my two biggest issues were the plot and the production quality. While the general idea of the story is not bad, and had some interesting elements, the execution was at best, lack-luster, and at worst actively grating. The ending especially felt like a really cheap way to generate more drama the villain's motivations were pretty weak and the way everything played out was somewhat nonsensical. It was really just boring to watch, which is sometimes worse than being actively terrible.
I simply couldn't make myself care about any of the characters, including the main couple. Their romantic development left a lot to be desired for me and the acting didn't move me at all. Tew never explained himself and faced very little consequences for his actions, while Guy just had 0 personality. He was a loner who played games and was in love with either his friend or his boyfriend, that's it. I did like how he navigated his feelings towards Wahl, and how he wanted to become a person outside of him, but that was the only time I was really interested in him as a character. Tew's backstory was... a lot, but I could've overlooked it if the rest of the show had been stronger. There were also like 0 repercussions for him lying about really serious stuff or the breakup, it was just all magically fixed, Guy is better than me I guess because that would've given me major trust issues. At least the initial lying about his background plot had some teeth but that was pretty much it. Their chemistry was okay, better in some moments then others, but it often didn't really feel like they were that into each other.
As for the side characters... none of them were particularly interesting and I didn't care about them much at all. Wahl kind of sucked and while he did improve by the end I just couldn't make myself like him much, which is too bad because I'm usually a huge side character guy. Guy's gaming crew was alright and had potential, but their lack of depth made them pretty uninteresting. The less we talk about Kenji the better.
As for the production quality, there are ways to shoot a show cheaply and still have it look clean and polished, this show misses the mark entirely. Lighting is not consistent from scene to scene, or even within scenes. Sometimes two shots side-by-side will have completely different lighting and colouring. It's incredibly jarring and makes the show feel messy and low-quality. The special effects were... nothing to write home about, and the makeup and hair were rough sometimes as well. Although I will say the leads usually looked good (aside from Tew's scars, I literally don't want to talk about those). The audio was pretty rough as well, very inconsistent, often muffled or way too quiet. There were some scenes that could've been easily dubbed over to fix this as well and they just, weren't. I'm sure the production team wanted to make a competent show here, but it felt like it was either rushed or lazy and with all the above issues it was just unpleasant to watch.
Overall, even if you're just looking for something easy and a little fun to watch, this isn't it. At best, you'll be mildly bored for about 8 hours.
Bad shows are one thing, sometimes it's fun to watch super trashy shows and yell at the characters, I'll watch shows even if they make me mad because they're entertaining enough to get me through. I'll take trashy romance and a nonsensical plot over boredom any day.
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Disappointed potential
A Thai BL in a Korean formatting… giving a little more spice/drama and quick story progressing. Shorter episodes and number of episodes.The story seemed as a freah and new premise that we have not seen before. The trailer looked amazing and the CGI elements looked very well made. However, as the story progressed it bacame more and more cliche, which might not be a bad thing for some. I’m just disappointed it didn’t deliver what I expected from it.
Overall, I personally found it quite boring and it has no particular rewatch value for except maybe to watch selected scenes again. The writing became very predictable and fell into old tracks instead of trying to surprise us. I have not read the source material, so this might be expected for the ones who know if the producers were true to that or not.
The acting could be better for some of the cast. Particularly emotional scenes seemes a little forced and unbelievable. But it is far from the worst performances I have ever seen in a BL. My main challenge with the series lies with the, to me, perceived underdeveloped characters. The heroes were the classic heroes and the villains were the classical cartoon villains without any depth. With the shorter and fewer episodes, side characters were given too much room in my opinion so there were no real time for character maturing.
Also the background music choices were at times a little strange. I did think based on the amazing CGI in the first episodes made me belive that the production had a better budget than it did have.
All in all, its a sweet watch that I would recommend to people, but not in my top 10 for 2023 as I initially thought it would be sadly.
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potencial desperdiçado
Nota: 4/10Foi definitivamente um BL legal e que tinha um potencial enorme. No início, a história parecia ser bem mais complexa, mas em torno dos episódios, na verdade, foi mais simplória do que eu imaginava. Tão simplória que virou uma simples fanfic do Wattpad (coisa típica de alguns BLs), daquelas que você lê em pouco tempo, percebe inúmeros defeitos, mas é imemorável demais para ter uma crítica.
A fotografia ficou muito boa, e as cenas de ação continuam no mesmo estilo tailandês de sempre (interprete como quiser). O protagonista (guy) teve um desenvolvimento muito bom em questões como socialização, mas pecou muito na dependência. O que antes era para seu melhor amigo, agora ficou para o seu namorado. Suportá-lo por algumas horas nos episódios finais ficou difícil. Além disso, ele também atrapalhou muito no episódio final, sabendo que o seu namorado é um EX-GANGSTER e você > ACEITOU < isso, obviamente ele vai ter SEMPRE uma história para resolver, até porque ele tem uma dívida eterna para com seu ex-chefe que estava correndo risco de vida, por que diabos você tentaria impedir/se intrometer nisso? Fala sério, você não sabe lutar.
O ator que fez o Kenji (vilão) merece mais créditos porque sua atuação foi a melhor dentre todos ali. O grupo de amigos virtuais foi uma coisa incrível de ser representada, ainda mais incrível quando esse grupo funcionou na vida real, achei lindo isso. Também foi surpreendente quando a Phai se revelou ser policial, eu de fato nunca imaginaria.
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This review may contain spoilers
In parts yes, in parts no.
This follow-up series to the pairing of Meen & Ping in "Ai Long Nhai" shows improvement in acting skills of both leads, although Ping could benefit from doing improvs in front of a mirror to reduce his squishing of his eyes for most emotions. Their romantic scenes worked well and showed the benefit of both actors being familiar with each other.The show is very much a hybrid of mafia and romance and its production bifurcation is reflected in having two DOP's. I suspect one was chosen to apply the lush cinematographic effects to certain critical scenes, most especially the romantic ones, while the remaining scenes feel stock standard Thai soap in character.
The action scenes are plentiful as entertainment if one ignores the equivalency of portraying a man who kills without compunction with a faithful lover willing to sacrifice a lucrative life in crime for a gay nest. Balancing all these factors causes the storyline to be rushed with the result that critical life decisions are raised and resolved in the time it takes to order at a restaurant, which is a pity because this show has a supporting cast many would envy. Winner as the third wheel in the relationship comes close to tipping the scales away from Guy's boyfriend, Thiu. Tonlew looks as if she could handle roles with more meat. Tinn is clearly working below his class in this show while Nitta and Paam are worth seeing again in other projects. Tommy could be the find of the year if he improves on his acting, but this series is based on a webtoon, and much of it felt cartoonish anyway.
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This could have been so much better
I really wish this hadn't been so difficult to finish, but while the story in general was enjoyable, the incredibly bad acting made it so damn difficult for me to watch... At first I thought Ping's wooden acting was his attempt to portray a character on the spectrum, but by episode 3 I had to admit to myself that no, he is just THAT BAD at acting. And not just him, also many of the side characters' acting was really lacking. I think the only one's I enjoyed watching was Meen (playing Tew) and Tinn (playing Tul) and even they didn't per se deliver a stellar performance... .Also, as others pointed out some of the character had potential to be written in a much more fun and intriguing way. And some generic characters were written so one-dimensional (I'm looking at you, Kenji) it almost hurt. So there really were a lot missed opportunities.
But the show did also have it's enjoyable moments: So it was a pleasure to watch Tew as a mafia boss being so god damn wipped by a random boy. And the interactions between Tul and Tew were really adorable, what with Tul being so fond and supportive of him and his relationship.
All in all, I wouldn't say it was a waste of time to watch, but I'm happy it wrappped up with 8 episodes as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to take more of the acting tbh.
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Rushed but still eating it up.
Let me tell you about this one *insert giggle emoji*. Yes this show is rushed and should’ve been slated for a 12 ep series however it’s not terrible. When I first saw the cover for this drama I was intrigued. When I then read the synopsis I was like “ooh this is for me.” But when I registered that it was MeenPing acting I almost fainted. I just love everything about MeenPing. Visually together they’re beautiful and compliment each other so well but baby gworl the chemistry is just out of this world. At first when I saw Meen was going to be in a gang I was not skeptical but I also was not convinced. But let me just tell you the writers said fear not because Meen is not going to be no punk ass gangster jajajajajaja. Anyways there’s genuinely only one bad actor so far I forgot his name but you will know who I’m talking about because oh God his acting is SO BAD. I cringe EVERY TIME.It could have been better but I eat up anything MeenPing are in lmao.
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Story
Well Im probably the only one but I find Pings acting really annoying and childish. Its hard to work out if itsa comedy series or a serious series.Ping is much the same character as In Ai long Nhai. These two young actors need to branch out and widen their portfolio
and do some serious acting. How many times do we see the drunk scenario bl series. Im not blaming the actors. They have a script in front of them so what's written down they have to abide by but you can get typecast
by playing the same type of character. The series was OK and many will enjoy it but I could nt take it serious
enough. It went from OK to not OK. Both actors were
good looking and that will probably be enough for some viewers. The love triangle and plot were annoyingly frustrating and the last few episodes were chaotic.
I did watch it to the end but All in all felt let down.
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1This review may contain spoilers
Was promising, what happened?
Started off to be a bop, but ended up being full of plot-holes and nonsense.The first four episodes were perfect. The story was somehow original and both the main protagonists showed off their pleasant personalities, with good qualities and interesting back ground stories. Their dynamic was so cute, the typical golden retriever/black cat relationship. And I was honestly all about it, they got me wrapped around their pinky toes. For real, Meen NAILED the gangster role at first, I was so surprised seeing him drenched in blood and then all sweet with his love interest. How cute.
Things started going down the hill by the end of episode four. The whole confession felt rushed, and I don't think Guy was there yet: literally ten minutes before accepting Tew's confession, he was almost kissing his long-time crush. I also don't understand how their relationship developed so quickly. That made Tew's character way too much confident about the reciprocity of his feelings for Guy. Also, his way out of the gang was way too easy, way too rushed; so much that his promise felt untrue.
The end of the straw was episode six. The fighting scene was hilarious: Tew fought like 10 guys and ended up as fresh as before, not even a little scratch on that stunning face. I get it, you're cool, but you're still human last time I checked.
I blame the eight-episodes-lenght for almost everything of this.
Outside of the way-too-rushed pace, tho, there are SO many problems.
- Kenji is too cartoonish on his own, doesn't even need to get commented;
- Why the heck is the "being with me is too dangerous I must leave you" trope so popular? super annoying and makes ZERO sense;
- The break up felt also very fake. The actors' probably did their best, but with a poor script like this it was almost impossible doing any better;
- I get that Tew is the good guy, here, but he literally solving no problem with Kenji. I get it, you don't unalive people, but... at least do something?
- Was Tew really convinced that an apology and some soy milk would solve things? On what planet does he live? Things were SO messed up that I almost ended up cheering for Wahl;
- End of episode seven makes no sense, again.
It's not the best drama I've ever watched, but it's definitely not the worst. Meenping is always so cute and fluffy: their chemistry is so good, it keeps you entertained enough.
Waiting for the last episode, now, but I doubt it will solve any of the problems I listed before.
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Can we get them a gangster manual or something?
I didn’t have super high expectations after seeing the trailer, but I was still expecting more story wise. The plot seemed simple enough, but there were so many plot holes that I was left with more questions than answers in the end. I think a lot of time was taken up by other characters instead of giving more screen time to Tew and Guy, so they could properly develop their relationship. The gaming aspect was nice, but we only got one (maybe two) proper scene related to it. Which is a shame as it appeared to be quite a big element of Tew’s and Guy’s relationship.Besides all the cliché complications and poor decision, the gangster element was very questionable. I couldn’t take Tew seriously as a gangster because of his baby face. I loved the styling; they went for the classic Italian mafia man outfits that looked absolutely incredible on him. But that was not enough. Don’t even get me started on how he was the worst gangster to ever live. Which says a lot because no one in this drama made for a decent professional criminal. Seriously, couldn’t they find a gangster manual or something? It might have helped.
Tew & Guy: Leaving aside what a terrible gangster Tew is, I actually found them quite cute together. Tew is more mature and doesn’t trust easily, while Guy seems to be deeply wanting friends and is ready to trust anyone. I don’t necessarily think they are a perfect match, but I think they are both adaptable enough to make it work. I was a bit bothered how Tew was someone who was always true to what he said, yet that is not something that is carried through the whole show. Guy was a bit too naïve at times too. Meen and Ping have a good chemistry, but there is something about Ping’s acting that always throws me off. I am not sure what it is, but he just can’t handle emotion heavy scenes.
Wahl was so annoying! He was incredible unlikeable character and I was rolling my eyes whenever he was on screen. I did like the game friends; they were quite different from each other, but they were great together. Tul was always loyal to Tew, even if some of his decisions are a bit questionable. Boss left me mostly confused. Not about his feelings, but about his reasoning behind a lot of his actions. It made absolutely no sense.
And then we got to Kenji. He was very cartoonish. He didn’t feel like a real villain, but more like one you’d find in a cartoon. All of which was even more exaggerated by his style, the way he talked and reacted to everything. I just don’t think this was the way to go if they wanted to create a good villain.
The ending was okay, I guess. It was only half of what I was hoping for, but it is also something that the series was leading towards since the 3rd or 4th episode, so it is what it is.
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This review may contain spoilers
Could Have Been So Much Better
The series begins interestingly enough. Even with a worn-out theme of a withdrawn boy who has an unrequired love for his best friend, it was charming for a while. Their friendship seemed sincere and intense. Guy (Ping Krittanun) is a lonely, reserved, socially isolated young man. He is the classic ‘wallflower’ that no one pays much attention to. However, who suddenly pops into his life is Wahl (Winner Nichakoon), a rather outgoing, socially adept, yet surprisingly caring young man his same age. But strangely is possessive of Guy. Over the years Wahl becomes his only friend outside of some gaming acquaintances he meets online. While Wahl has had a steady girlfriend, Guy still pines over Wahl wishing for something to happen between them but knowing that nothing will. Yet always feeling as if there is a deep connection between them.Read the complete article here-
https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/01/03/my-dear-gangster-oppa-series-review-ep-1-to-8/#more-14455
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Not the best drama, but still enjoyable
There are definitely some questionable writing choices and plot holes, but they're not bad enough to ruin the show. It's an enjoyable watch if you're in the mood for a mafia BL. The first 4 episodes were pretty good and the MLs have great chemistry. Overall, it's decent and doesn't deserve the level of hate it's received.Was this review helpful to you?
must a show be good? is it not enough to get silly with it?
To be totally honest, I watched Ai Long Nhai with a 102+ COVID fever and I think it rewired my brain chemistry. So while My Dear Gangster Oppa is certainly not a masterpiece of a show, I had a really fun time watching. It's silly, goofy, campy, and tropey, with not a lot of substance underneath. It probably didn't need to be as long as it was and Certainly should have spent some more budget on the sfx wounds. But it did make me laugh and smile, and I genuinely looked forward to watching each week. It's a pretty big step up from ALN all around, and I look forward to see what these guys work on next.Was this review helpful to you?
