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Akhilesh Dandge

Akhilesh Dandge

My Stand-In thai drama review
Completed
My Stand-In
13 people found this review helpful
by Akhilesh Dandge
Jul 14, 2024
12 of 12 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 3.5
Story 2.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

Disastrous show with terrible writing!

First of all, let me get this straight! The amount of hype and ig edits endorsed by the PR team has absolutely spoilt the entire drama for everyone! I have don't have much problem with those somewhat beautiful Bollywood edits, but it made me feel like I've already seen the entire show through the reels and there was nothing exciting to be anticipated in every episode, like i already know what's going to happen next. There needs to be certain limits to what extent the clips are released to the public!

Coming back to the show, the kind of hype that was created towards this show had me keenly awaiting for the show to end, so that I could binge watch it to the core! Judging by the premise it gave me hopes that it would deal with actual adult gay complex relationship dynamics which we face in a day to day basis! But I was let down so bad! It was just awful romanticised toxic obsessive 'Girl in trap' BL trope! Even Only Friends did better in showcasing actual gay culture!

THINGS WHAT WORKED:
• Relatively fresh cast was refreshing, yeah Joe was definitely one of the prime most reason I wanted to watch this show
• Miniscule addressal of coming out to family
• Repressed emotions portrayed by Ming towards Tong when he learns about his marriage
• Initial 3-4 episodes did show some potential and were gripping

THINGS THAT MADE CLENCH THE FEW STRANDS OF HAIR LEFT ON MY HEAD:
• The decision of keeping the same actor for portraying both the Old Joe and New Joe just for the sake of pushing the better looking actor shows the shallowness of the director and totally nulls the entire meaning of the show. The New Joe flashed at certain points was so dull and expressionless that it made it absolutely impossible to thing of him being in the character. Like even Chains of Heart does such a convincing job of making both actors likeable.
• The amount of times Joe has spilled the beans from his daily conversations looks so lame and unrealistic.
• Which mother who's spent entirety of her life living in a dilapidated house, just blindly walk in a super expensive villa with a private servant without even getting into any details of how his struggling son was able to provide it.
• The entire redemption arc of Tong was an absolute nonsense filler.
• Cringey trope of promises by his elder brother for helping Ming out from his father.
• Joe's friends did not even take a moment believing that he has been reincarnated
• The usual trope of parents being extremely repulsive and immediately accepting in a flash of a second without any convincing set of repercussions and consequences sets a really bad example to young LGBT individuals, whose lives can be at stake after coming out
• The extremely disturbing stereotypical portrayal of the Indian/Pakistani Sikh or muslim loan shark in an already racially conservative country, which the writer is himself confused about portraying in EP11 is what irked me the most in the entire show. If you are thinking of promoting a show to such a global level, you really need to be sensitive of the racial stereotypes that you are representing.
• The NC scenes had absolutely no build up and lacked intimacy!
• Why does Ming breakdown after the fencing shoot looking at the New Joe's back? He's not even the Old Joe and how does he realise that it was the Old Joe's back not Tong's the entire time when it is the New Joe playing the role.

The amount of plotholes delivered by this script is endless. I could go and on about this ridiculous writing of the show, but I have listed the major factors that frustrated me the most. This is one the biggest let-down of a BL dramas I had in a while.

Viewers beware of the hype, this show is extremely passable!
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