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Second Chance thai drama review
Completed
Second Chance
2 people found this review helpful
by immoralq
May 15, 2021
6 of 6 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

A return to good form for Thai BL

In terms of writing and acting, was this the best Thai BL I've ever seen? No.

Was it better by far than some of the other show we've all been subjected to recently? Absolutely, yes.

This has so much going for it. There is no glaringly unsubtle product placement (yes, this series could've been sponsored by Jenga, but it's not constantly in your face), no over-the-top sound effects punctuating every other sentence, no scheming female characters trying to break up the couples and, thank goodness, the shippers behaviour was restricted to a bit of gossip and didn't verge on harassment and stalking.

The plot revolves around a group of students in their last year of high school. Paper, Tong Fah and Chris are all close friends. Chris has a crush on Jeno, who is being bullied by his ex, Arthur. Tong Fah has a crush on Paper. And another student, Near, works at a local gaming cafe and is being courted online through a game. He doesn't realise that it's his fellow cafe worker, M, who's doing the courting.

Now, this series can get a little preachy at times. Some of the dialogue starts to sound like inspirational speeches and it's sending a very obvious and clear message about how the end of high school should be approached and how to manage people's expectation of what comes next.

The bullying gets very egregious in parts, especially in the first three episodes, so consider this a warning if bullying is a trigger for you. Unlike other Thai BL's, though, where you wonder why the adults are even in it because they clearly don't care, this behaviour is addressed and the student being bullied is listened to, believed and supported.

The student doing the bullying suffers actual consequences and, even though they're not harsh, it's such an improvement on how other shows I've seen deal with abusive and violent behaviour. I'm sure I don't need to name names.

Also, the bully recognises his behaviour is wrong and apologises sincerely - again, character development we rarely see.

This is a small series consisting of only six episodes, all of which I watched in a day. The episodes are an hour long, however, so it isn't like you're left feeling short-changed and, even if Near and M didn't get the nearly the amount of screen time as the other characters, they still had plenty of development.

The pacing was fairly consistent, the editing relatively good (there were some parts where I was slightly confused because I was watching flashbacks that weren't differentiated from the present time in the story, but I did understand it all by the end) and the music is lovely.

The acting isn't so great sometimes, but given that for two of them it was their first acting job and for the others they've mainly had support roles, it's not horrible. There's some real talent in this cast.

This is a good series and I enjoyed it. It definitely has rewatch value and I'm happy to recommend it.
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