A Winter Sun Wakes the Wind in Spring Hills' Dream
1 people found this review helpful
by Mike Üpsilon
Emptyness. Beautifully shot.
I endured it until episode 10. Now I have learned that it is possible to have too many stunning locations, shot beautifully. I guess anything can get boring.
The story could easily be summarised on a napkin. And then they dragged it out into 16 episodes. I like slice-of-life and story-less drama, provided that I get to feel something in return. Nothing to feel here. In the beginning you are impressed by the stunning locations, set decorations, cinematography, perfect lighting. The location scout must have been busy with this one. You will be slapped with 15 new locations per episode. All beautiful. But irrelevant.
All the bad things I can remember:
- The characters aren't really fleshed-out. Very limited back-stories, many of them are just assholes. Makes it hard to get invested in their stories.
- We have a lot of time on our hands, but the second couple only gets a quick minute here and there, totally random. And the third (non-)couple? We get it in homeopathic doses.
- The music, at times, is totally in your face, incompatible with the scene and takes you out of it. And then the occasional goofy sound effects we are used to in Thai BLs.
- At times, it felt similar to porn: beautiful scenes, boys kissing, boys driving in cars, boys kissing, beautiful landscape, boys kissing. But contrary to porn, everything besides kissing is only implied, never shown. Come on, I'm so bored here!
- The constant mobile phone interface overlays on screen are annoying, unnecessary and take you out of the story.
- Most of the communication happens in code, via messages on social media or in metaphors. Totally unrealistic.
In conclusion, the producers somehow managed to get way too much money and then tried to be deep but only managed to produce theatrical nonsense.
The story could easily be summarised on a napkin. And then they dragged it out into 16 episodes. I like slice-of-life and story-less drama, provided that I get to feel something in return. Nothing to feel here. In the beginning you are impressed by the stunning locations, set decorations, cinematography, perfect lighting. The location scout must have been busy with this one. You will be slapped with 15 new locations per episode. All beautiful. But irrelevant.
All the bad things I can remember:
- The characters aren't really fleshed-out. Very limited back-stories, many of them are just assholes. Makes it hard to get invested in their stories.
- We have a lot of time on our hands, but the second couple only gets a quick minute here and there, totally random. And the third (non-)couple? We get it in homeopathic doses.
- The music, at times, is totally in your face, incompatible with the scene and takes you out of it. And then the occasional goofy sound effects we are used to in Thai BLs.
- At times, it felt similar to porn: beautiful scenes, boys kissing, boys driving in cars, boys kissing, beautiful landscape, boys kissing. But contrary to porn, everything besides kissing is only implied, never shown. Come on, I'm so bored here!
- The constant mobile phone interface overlays on screen are annoying, unnecessary and take you out of the story.
- Most of the communication happens in code, via messages on social media or in metaphors. Totally unrealistic.
In conclusion, the producers somehow managed to get way too much money and then tried to be deep but only managed to produce theatrical nonsense.
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