Mr.Kill

Let's dissect why this wasn't great..

My first review in.. in quite a while. And I really felt like I had to write one for Mr. Kill because I had a lot of thoughts. And some time to actually write them down which helped.

Mr. Kill is your typical GMMTV mystery drama. I've watched a few of them, and I'd say of the ones I've watched, this was quite typical of the genre for the company. As in, completely predictable. Did not help that it was also marketed as a bromance because we know what that means in terms of creating mystery. Well, I'll say it anyway, it means there's not much.

This series is actually good on premise if I think about it - a series of murders that copy a dark webtoon, which just so happens to be written by a person with some sort of connection to each of the murder victims. It's a great setup, especially with the (b)romance vibes from the very beginning, where they had Pat and Kay, the two leads, be very ambiguously attracted to each other. It's good when you know they're about to be pushed against each other very soon and then find their way back to each other as the truth about the murders slowly comes to light. All well and good, and it all happened exactly like that.. but.. it still wasn't good?

Let me explain. I just did not get enough of the mystery or the bromance. The reveal that was coming was obvious from the beginning, and the bromance I waited for only came for two minutes at the end of every episode. They tried so hard to balance the plot and the people who star in it that they may have forgotten to give either any depth. I'm going to do something weird now, but bear with me, and compare it to Wu, which was on air right before Mr. Kill - and I'm not going to say Wu had an extraordinary plot but the bromance there was so intense that I think it compensated a little for what I expected of the plot. I know it's not a fair comparison but it really stuck with me for some reason and even though there's quite literally nothing to compare between the two shows, there was atleast something about Wu that made me grow attached.

I'm not going to spoil anything, because honestly I'm not sure if there's even anything to spoil? It was quite a predictable series that didn't really hinge on anything to make itself interesting and I think that's quite a dissapointment. It's not a terrible show by any length, it was actually quite enjoyable at parts and at times. But I wanted more. It wasn't even my expectations that let me down, I'm just a little sad that even without them, I'm feeling a little underwhelmed with the series as a whole.

But I will say, I did like Dew and Tee's performances, and in the moments they had together, it was some good chemistry. As far as the cast goes, I have no complaints, all of them did well. But it sucks that the cast and the opening credits were my favourite parts of a series that had the potential to be amazing.

Just that, the story or the mystery or the bond or quite literally anything, any aspect one would expect out of a plot like this one was non-existent. Yup, just a bit dissapointing.

6.75/10

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Dumbest thriller ever.

Honestly, I’m a huge fan of Dew’s acting, and while the core concept of the story had potential, the execution and direction were outright painful to watch. As a fan of horror and thrillers, I was expecting a grounded, realistic investigation. Instead, the plot was riddled with gaping plot holes, and the mystery was so poorly maintained that I had already figured everything out within the first five episodes.

The biggest issue lies in the complete lack of basic logic. Why would Phat constantly go hunting for a serial killer without any actual police backup, all while routinely putting Kay’s life in danger? Kay is just a writer, he has no combat training, nor is he qualified to handle life-threatening situations. It made zero sense for Phat to drag him along to every active, dangerous crime scene. On top of that, the finale manufactured cheap drama just to artificially inflate the tension.

GMMTV has produced some fantastic thrillers in the past, but this definitely wasn’t one of them. It’s hard to take a police investigation seriously when the main detective acts like he’s the only officer in the entire department.

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Needed more doom, didn't come close to its obvious inspirations, but enjoyable nonetheless

I'm learning that crime-centered plots are hard to write with enough complexity and without losing steam. Despite this story not being original at all, it worked reasonably well right until the end, with the last episode being a total failure on all fronts. Did they completely run out of money and drive or what? The acting was also just good enough for a non-BL (Off, Neo, and Dew probably gave my favorite performances), though it sometimes falls apart (most noticeably with Singha and Tee), and certain heightened emotions didn't convince me, and some supposedly life-threatening situations lacked the necessary urgency.

I found out in the middle of my watch-through that this is "just" bromance (I really need to start reading the tags), which is fine because I believe this subgenre can do some things better than straight-up romance. But this show unfortunately only intermittently gave me what I was looking for. Still, I must give everyone their flowers. Kaye looking all pensively at Phat cooking him breakfast, and Phat pulling a gun on Nop, telling him to drive after Nop says Kaye won't make it out of this—that's the shit. Even if I've seen it all before, I'm never going to get sick of such moments.

I think for this to actually work they would've had to commit to a certain degree of tragedy (I believe in you, GMMTV), be it death or separation or, you know, any real danger with lasting consequences. Otherwise the stakes don't work for me, I can't take the relationship seriously, and it takes the enjoyment out of the leads' delectable emotional turmoil. You cannot give the main characters too much of what they want; half the fun is in what they can't have despite desperately wishing for it. And no, Praew's tribulations, the uncle's death, and the short-lived loss of contact at the end don't count because Kaye and Phat weren't seriously distraught for a significant chunk of time.

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I know better than anyone that we don’t always get to choose what we are.

I’m honestly struggling to write a review without diving into details and spoiling all the important things, because there are so many aspects that made me fall in love with this series.

So…
This show completely broke my brain — in the best possible way — thanks to my silly habit of trying to fit everything into the familiar patterns I’d built from watching too many crime series. Every time I tried to force it into those patterns, they just cracked apart. The twists, the turns, and the emotional, angsty journey this series takes you on are next level. There is never a dull moment. My mind was either eagerly absorbing every new piece of information or melting over the romantic developments… cough Friendly developments, I mean. Yes. Friendly. Super friendly.

The pacing was great. The characters were great. I loved the growth each of them went through, especially Kay. Phat is such a well-balanced character — sharp yet soft at the same time. I also really enjoyed the new characters introduced later; they added so much more intrigue and doubt to the story.

And if you’re yearning for some friends-to-lovers romancing, please pay attention to the fact that it’s tagged as Bromance. We got some really hearty crumbs of their story… and I ate them all up. The bromance took a bit of a backseat to the main conflicts and adventure, but I actually found that refreshing. We were given just enough tension and stolen moments to feel satisfied, while still leaving us wanting so much more.

It wasn’t perfect. There were moments that felt a little too convenient, and I did want a bit more from certain aspects. But overall? I had so much fun with this series. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a story with heart, history, and a journey worth taking.

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Somewhat predictable

Mr. Kill was one of the mock trailers that really stuck out to me, so I was super excited to watch this show. I really enjoyed this version of a crime drama, where it is unclear to everyone, including the viewer, what the main character is up to. While I thought Dew's performance as Kaye was incredible, I feel like his character arc left some things to be desired. I also thought it was quite obvious from pretty early on what the twist would be, so it didn't feel like much of a surprise unfortunately.

Kaye (Dew) is a manga artist known for his romance novels, but before writing those, he used a penname to write a dark and gore-filled murder manga, Nekros. When police captain Phat (Tee) is tasked with investigating a murder, it turns out the exact murder scene had already been drawn in Nekros. Phat start off by suspecting Kaye is involved, but also needs his help determining what the killer may do next.

I really enjoyed following the police chase after this murderer, but definitely thought that they could have done more with Kaye's character! It felt like they were really trying to bait the audience into doubting Kaye, but I just felt like they could have made this more compelling. I also wish we got a little more of Tee's character with his little sister. Still, this was an enjoyable show. In a similar vein to GMM's show Wu, I was quite annoyed with the way that this "bromance" show was done in terms of the relationship between the main characters. I'm not saying it needed to be queer - I am totally fine with a show like this having zero romance. However, the slow motion falling into each others arms, the lighting a cigarette by using the others lit cigarette, and the music choices when the characters are close are soooo romance drama. If you're going to make a drama that's not a romance, maybe don't make the scenes so romantic? Regardless, the show was a fun crime drama even with the pretty expected twists.

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A killer premise that never delivered the blow.

I finished Mr. Kill and unfortunately the finale was a letdown. What should have been the culmination of a dark and suspenseful crime thriller never built the intensity I was waiting for. Instead, it was filled with more of the same missteps that bothered me throughout the series.

The premise was actually very good…an artist whose drawings eerily resemble the work of a serial killer, making him a suspect himself. There was so much potential for paranoia, psychological darkness and suspense. But somewhere along the way, I found myself questioning the writing more than questioning who the killer was. And yes…the murderer became rather obvious. Sometimes you just have to follow your gut.

But the finale really tested my suspension of disbelief. You kidnap a police officer and nobody thinks to search him for a gun? After everything these characters supposedly planned? And Praew kidnaps and somehow there seems to be remarkably no consequence for what she did? Earlier we had someone being shot in broad daylight by the river, the gun casually handed to a henchman despite fingerprints…and again I was expected to simply accept it. I can believe corruption. I can believe powerful people manipulating investigations. But the story still has to give me something believable to manipulate.

The performances unfortunately never compensated for the weaknesses in the writing. Dew, Tee and Off had characters that should have given us vulnerability, frustration, manipulation and darkness, but I rarely felt the intensity these roles demanded. Too often I felt I was watching actors playing characters rather than people actually living them. The supporting characters were equally fragmented…much like the storyline itself.

For big fans of these actors, I can understand enjoying Mr. Kill. They certainly have the looks and there are moments of chemistry. But from my own experience watching darker crime and psychological dramas, good looks can only take me so far. I needed to feel danger. I needed that uncomfortable darkness that makes you suspicious of everyone and keeps you glued to the screen. Most importantly, by the finale I needed suspense…and I never got it.

A thriller can mislead me, surprise me and even make me believe the unbelievable…but first it has to create a world believable enough for me to get lost in it.

GMMTV…please do better. You had a killer premise. Unfortunately, Mr. Kill never quite delivered the killing blow.

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Mr.Kill — A Friendship That Killed, but a Story That Didn’t

Mr.Kill had almost everything required to become one of the strongest Thai thrillers of the year. A famous manga artist discovers that murders are reproducing scenes from his work, a police inspector has to determine whether the artist is connected to the crimes, and both men gradually realise that the investigation reaches into their own pasts. Add Dew Jirawat, Tee Teeradech and Off Jumpol to that premise and the potential becomes enormous. I enjoyed watching it, sometimes enormously, but by the end I was left with a strange contradiction: the friendship at the centre of the series felt completely alive while the murder mystery surrounding it rarely did.

The first thing worth knowing is that Mr.Kill is not a BL. It circulated heavily inside BL spaces, Dew and Tee were promoted together, and the closeness of their characters naturally encouraged speculation before and during the broadcast, so I understand why many BL viewers arrived expecting something more. But Kaye and Phat are friends. There is no hidden romance suddenly waiting in the finale, and personally I am completely fine with that. I actually prefer a drama allowing two men to develop an extraordinarily close relationship without deciding that emotional intimacy must inevitably become romantic. Male friendship deserves stories too, and forcing Kaye and Phat across that line simply because viewers enjoy Dew and Tee together would have weakened what makes their relationship special. What bothered me was not that Mr.Kill refused to become a BL. It was that after removing romance from the equation, the thriller needed to become strong enough to carry everything else. A murder mystery should make me suspicious, uncertain and constantly aware that something I believe might be wrong. It should give me several possible explanations and then make each one credible enough that I hesitate before committing to an answer. Mr.Kill gave me an excellent premise for exactly that kind of story, yet I felt surprisingly little suspense because the person I suspected almost immediately remained the person I suspected until the end.

The moment Than appeared, I looked at Off Jumpol and thought: there is my problem. Off is a very good actor, and darker characters suit him remarkably well because he can make friendliness feel slightly wrong without immediately turning into a theatrical villain. But that also means the screenplay had to work much harder to convince me that Than might not be involved. A recognisable actor appearing in a concentrated suspect pool already attracts attention; if the writing then gives him enough unusual behaviour to reinforce that attention without constructing equally persuasive alternatives, suspicion quickly becomes certainty. The final revelation therefore did not feel like the moment when separate pieces suddenly formed a new picture. It felt more like the drama finally confirming the picture I had been looking at for most of the series. That would not necessarily destroy a thriller if the real suspense came from somewhere else. Knowing who committed a crime can still be fascinating when we do not understand why, how, who else is involved or whether the protagonists will uncover the truth in time. Mr.Kill had all those possibilities because the murders copied Kaye's underground manga, immediately raising interesting questions about authorship and responsibility. Was someone inspired by his work? Did the drawings contain memories he did not fully understand? Was somebody close enough to know unpublished material? Was Kaye consciously hiding something, or had he unknowingly transformed a traumatic experience into fiction? Those possibilities could have made the manga itself feel dangerous. Instead, the story progressively narrowed when I wanted it to become more unstable.

Kaye was the greatest missed opportunity. Dew Jirawat has exactly the acting ability required to make a character simultaneously vulnerable and frightening. There are moments in Mr.Kill when Kaye's expressions change, when the mirror imagery hints at another side of him, or when his relationship with violent imagery makes you briefly wonder whether the harmless man Phat is protecting is really the entire person. Those moments interested me far more than simply discovering another clue. I wanted the drama to make me seriously afraid of him. Not by lazily giving him a mental illness and equating psychological disturbance with murder, but by making him morally unreliable. Let him lie convincingly. Let Phat discover something he cannot explain. Let his anger become disturbing. Let the audience spend an episode wondering whether the person we like might actually have done something terrible. That uncertainty would also have made the friendship much stronger. Phat is a police officer investigating murders modelled after Kaye's work. Trust should therefore be dangerous. If he begins caring about Kaye, the drama has an excellent ethical conflict: does affection make him less objective, or does understanding Kaye allow him to see evidence everyone else is misreading? Instead, Kaye becomes emotionally safe too quickly. Phat may question situations, but I rarely felt that the relationship itself was genuinely at risk because he believed Kaye could be guilty. The series wanted us to enjoy Dew and Tee together, and I think it became too protective of that enjoyment.

That is where the fan-service atmosphere started interfering with the genre for me. Dew and Tee are extremely enjoyable together, and their real-life friendship gives them an ease that cannot easily be manufactured. They know how the other reacts, how long to leave a pause and how to make ordinary exchanges feel natural. Watching them work together genuinely looks like two people enjoying the experience, and that pleasure transfers to the viewer. The problem is that a thriller should sometimes be willing to destroy that comfort. I wanted an episode where I stopped enjoying their friendship because Phat had discovered something horrifying. I wanted Kaye to frighten him. I wanted Phat's investigation to feel like a betrayal. Then, if trust survived, it would carry considerably more weight. Dew is easily one of the main reasons I stayed invested. I already admired his acting, but Mr.Kill confirmed what makes him unusual for me: I rarely feel that I am watching him perform. There is very little visible preparation before an emotion appears. His face can change almost imperceptibly, and he allows reactions to arrive as though Kaye is thinking rather than an actor waiting for the correct moment in a scene. This kind of natural performance is particularly valuable in a mystery because a tiny hesitation can become suspicious without needing exaggerated music or dialogue announcing that something is wrong. Unfortunately, the screenplay rarely exploited that ability as aggressively as it could have. Dew was capable of making me doubt Kaye far more than the story allowed him to. Tee Teeradech deserves just as much attention. It would have been very easy for him to disappear beside Dew, especially with Phat being the comparatively controlled character, but he never does. His calmness gives the relationship balance. Dew can make Kaye unpredictable and emotionally restless while Tee gives Phat the steadiness of somebody whose profession requires him to observe before reacting. More importantly, Tee listens on screen. That sounds simple, but many inexperienced actors spend another person's dialogue preparing their own expression. Tee often looks as though Phat is genuinely processing what Kaye has just said, and that is one reason their conversations feel so comfortable. Together, they prove something I hope GMMTV understands: they do not need to be lovers to justify being paired in another drama. Chinese television has long demonstrated how compelling recurring male partnerships can become through friendship, investigation, brotherhood or professional rivalry. Dew and Tee could do the same. Their connection is strong enough without romance, and preserving that friendship gives them access to stories where making them another fixed BL couple might actually become limiting. I would happily watch them as detectives, brothers, enemies, soldiers or two men trapped in another mystery. What matters is giving them material worthy of what they can do together.

That is also why I am harder on Mr.Kill than I might otherwise have been. The performances are not the problem. The visual production is not the problem either. The manga imagery gives the drama a recognisable identity, the crime scenes have atmosphere, and the series generally looks polished. Even the concept of an artist confronting violence apparently generated by his own imagination is strong enough to support something much darker. What failed for me was the dramatic construction. The screenplay rarely made me change my mind, and a mystery where the audience never needs to reconsider what it believes has surrendered one of its greatest pleasures. The secondary characters could have helped create that uncertainty, but their trajectories were often equally easy to anticipate. When somebody began moving toward a darker decision, I usually understood where it was going. When family connections became important, they confirmed rather than transformed the story. Even developments involving Phat's sister felt more inevitable than shocking. None of those ideas were necessarily bad; they were simply presented too cleanly. A good thriller needs noise around the truth. Characters should have secrets unrelated to the murders, witnesses should lie for reasons we misunderstand, apparently suspicious behaviour should occasionally be innocent, and someone trustworthy should give us a genuine reason to reconsider them. Otherwise solving the mystery becomes less like assembling a puzzle and more like waiting for the characters to reach the answer already visible to the audience.

I also think the story confused smoothness with control. Mr.Kill moves very easily. There are few truly disastrous scenes, the acting remains strong, the friendship is pleasant, and every episode carries us comfortably toward the next. But a murder thriller should not always be comfortable. Sometimes the plot needs to become ugly, confusing and emotionally dangerous before resolving itself. By making Kaye and Phat such an appealing duo and preserving that appeal for most of the series, the production created something very watchable but less unsettling than its own premise deserved.

Off Jumpol nevertheless makes Than work as well as the writing allows. He has enough control to avoid reducing the character to obvious evil, and when the darker parts surface they fit him naturally. If anything, his performance reinforced my frustration because I could imagine a version of the same story where Than was used as deliberate misdirection. Make him suspicious enough that experienced viewers immediately accuse him, then give us evidence strong enough to feel foolish for doing so. Make Kaye increasingly disturbing at exactly the moment Than appears more innocent. Let Phat choose the wrong person because he trusts the man beside him. Then reveal what was happening. The same cast could have produced a considerably more dangerous mystery without changing the central premise. What ultimately saved Mr.Kill for me was therefore exactly what its title cannot describe: friendship. Kaye and Phat become the reason to continue even when the investigation stops surprising me. Dew and Tee have the kind of natural screen relationship directors usually spend an entire series trying to manufacture, and the fact that it remains friendship makes it more interesting rather than less. There is affection without the obligation to transform it into desire, loyalty without a kiss waiting as a reward, and intimacy without pretending that two men cannot be emotionally important to one another unless they eventually sleep together.

But friendship should have been the emotional centre of a great thriller, not the substitute for one. Once viewers discovered there would be no BL romance, plenty of us kept watching anyway because Dew and Tee were enough. That should be reassuring for GMMTV. Actors with genuine screen presence do not need a manufactured possibility of romance to keep an audience. Trust them, trust the viewers, and then commit completely to whatever genre you have chosen.

Final Thought

Mr.Kill frustrates me because I can see the excellent series it almost became. Dew Jirawat is outstanding, Tee Teeradech proves that he can stand beside him without being overshadowed, Off Jumpol makes a naturally effective antagonist, and the manga-copycat murder premise should have given all three actors something considerably darker to play. The friendship between Kaye and Phat works so well that I would gladly watch Dew and Tee together again without ever asking for romance.

What I needed was a story brave enough to threaten that friendship.

Make me believe Kaye could be dangerous. Make Phat wonder whether his affection has compromised his judgment. Give Than enough ambiguity that recognising the actor does not effectively solve the mystery. Let the sister surprise me. Allow somebody apparently innocent to behave badly for reasons unrelated to murder. Give the audience several convincing truths before revealing which one was real. A thriller should make suspicion uncomfortable because anyone we care about might disappoint us. Instead, the drama used only a fraction of what its actors could have delivered. Their chemistry remained effortless while the mystery became increasingly predictable, and by the finale I was watching primarily because I liked being around Kaye and Phat rather than because I desperately needed to know who had done it.

That is why the title of this review feels appropriate to me. The friendship killed. Dew and Tee made it alive, natural and memorable without needing to turn it into BL. The story didn't.

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Not for everyone, but for those it will be epic.

MR.KILL - Review

Mr. Kill with Dew and Tee as main protagonists featuring Off and Neo, this was a bromance murder mystery series. So, no BL here, despite being made by GMMTV. So keep this in mind.

Mr. Kill was a dark, emotional rollercoaster, asking uncomfortable questions about life and the world we life in. It was deep, unsettling and excellently played by all involved. Warning: it does contain gruesome imagery so it is not for a faint of heart (though I have seen worse), and you may say, eh bromance? Nah.

Still, I must admit I felt greatly entertained despite the story being entirely in a gray area, where good and evil quickly blur and simple answers vanish. Still I felt it was something we all feel, even if we keep it just at the brink of our thoughts. I had a bit a "V for Vendetta" vibe just "we live in it and it is smoother, so we can easy delude ourselves." Which is a powerful message and a challange to the viewer, keeping you thinking.

Knowing what I would get and getting way more, all excellenlty made I have nothing bad to say to this masterpiece of its kind.

10/10
Not for everyone, but for those it will be epic.

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De novo esse tipo de historia

Sim gmm, a gente entendeu q vc quer entrar no hype de coisa de assassinato, mas precisava ser uma história tão parecida assim?
Fiquei super animada com o ep 1 achando q o personagem do Dew iria realmente ser o assassino, q ia ter um plot bom e que o romance iria ter uma pegada mais profundo e delicada. Mas é claro q ia ser ao contrário e o na verdade o mano so vai ajudar a resolver o caso e eles vao se apaixonar no meio do processo.
Apesar disso, adorei a ideia desse trem de Nekros achei bem criativo e acho q eles poderiam utilizar disso pra fazer bastante coisa. Obviamente vou continuar assistindo mas lamentando uma história muito boa desperdiçada. ( Amo vcs lindos DewTee)

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Slightly predictable but still gripping!

I'll start off this review with my least favourite part of the show just to get it out of the way, the sister. Good lord is she stupid, i get that she's young but be prepared to want to throw something at the screen everytime she appears, what an idiot, not the actor, just the character, think my least liked character in recent memory.

On to the series though, it's brilliant, i started watching late as i knew waiting weekly would stress me out and its definitely a really good show to binge watch as i didn't want to stop watching. The story is a little predictable, and you do have to suspend your disbelief at times but i think you have to do this with most crime shows.

The chemistry between the 2 male leads is phenomenal, i can understand people wanting this to be a BL, but it works so well as a bromance as well. Personally i choose to believe its just a very slowburn BL where a future season (or fanfiction) shows their romantic side. Please don't dismiss this show if you are a BL fan wanting pure romance, it has all the elements you could ask for and it is definitely worth giving a try if you like the harsher dramas.

I'd probably put this series in my top 5 that i've watched this year!

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