Blkittykat

Bizzare, chaotic comedy at it's finest.. most of the time

I have never laughed as hard in public as I did watching this, I'm pretty sure at one point some people next to me thought I needed help because I was bent over holding in the loud laughter and snorting, on account of not wanting to scare anyone.

The story is about two brothers (best friends actually but referring to them as anything but brothers seems to get one of them very angry. That or the subtitles confused me) who buy a cabin in the mountains and a group of university students (this could be on me thought, the subtitles never called them students but I swear I could hear one of the brothers address them all as 'haksaeng') who are vacationing in the same region. The chaos that follows from the first meeting of both groups with each other and their individual meetings with the.. other lead.. forms a majority of the plot.

As established before, this was extremely funny, genuinely heartfelt at points and kind of gruesome. If gruesome comedy is not your cup of tea (not my favorite), you'll have a hard time with some of the scenes, but it's only few in the plenty comedy scenes this movie had. My stomach hurt from laughing too much and my face was streaked with tears by the time I had finished the movie. Because of the laughing.

If you've got an hour and a half, give it a try, especially if nonsense and chaotic comedy is something you like because the entire movie was just that and not much more, but they made it work! Oof, I already feel like a rewatch.

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A(n) Unnecessary Love

Before I talk about the best worst thing about this series, let's talk about the actual worst things.

Watching this felt like watching something that should have come out 7 years ago, with all the engineers and their gears, the hazing and the "I don't like men, I only like you stuff", and they somehow made all this and more much worse than it should have been.

Even looking past all this, it's still difficult to enjoy because one or the leads is an absolute horror of a person. Essentially what we got was one of the worst male leads to ever grace our screens. He spends more than half of the series being a rude, abrasive guy who harasses his ex girlfriend, his friends, his juniors, anything that moves and breathes. They tried to give him a redemption arc, but too little too late to the point where you're going just end it, I don't care.
Couple this with another male lead who is just.. dull. That's it, his entire personality can be summed up with one word. One is a pushover, the other is rude, you're turned off by the personalities even before we can get to the romance.

There isn't much in that aspect either, a majority of the episodes is Prot pining over Pluem, and the rest is a bunch of misunderstandings that is resolved in the final episode. All throughout, I could not understand why these two even liked each other, and the acting definitely didn't help in selling their feelings for each other. As a couple, they had a maximum of maybe thirty minutes of romantic screentime. The rest was nonsense conversations, the male lead harrassing his ex, the other male lead pining (and failing because the emotions did not come through) from a distance, and Pluem bullying Prot.

I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. The factual inaccuracy.
They've apparently known each other for seven years. They met when Pluem was a senior and Prot was in the grade below him. The story begins when they're in their fourth and third year of engineering respectively.
Do the math, and it's four years.. right?
Nope, the show insists it's 7 years.

The best, best part though. The SUBTITLES.
Horrendous. Truly bad, I had such a hard time making sense of some of those dialogues. But so funny. Not as funny as some others I've come across, but definitely made the viewing experience a bit better.

It's weird though, because secret crushes aren't a new deal, and neither was this entire story, but I kind of feel like I would have enjoyed watching something along the lines of this story. They did not make it work though, none of it worked.

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That was.. a trip..

I'd like to say I understood, but I'm clueless. I mean, I understood and I know what happened, but it's still beyond comprehension.

The plot revolves around Third, a bird watching enthusiast who hires Pai, a social companion to accompany him on a weekend trip to a national park to go bird watching. Each of them are in the midst of their respective personal turmoils and this excursion is the perfect excuse to forget everything and just have a fun and relaxing time. This is where it get convuluted, with the introduction of two other characters who contribute heavily to the plot.

And then just like that, it got.. boring. There was no big plot twist of any sorts because there were literally only four characters, the dots connected themselves way before they actually wanted us to connect them. All this mixed with incredibly repetitive flashbacks (that were also incredibly unnecessary) led to a truly weird ending. That ending literally came out of nowhere and contrasted every word and action of the main characters. They tried to make it seem like an open ending, but again it was incredibly obvious.

I'd like to say I'm disappointed, but that's not it. While everything is clear as it can be in the story, there's just general confusion while watching it because you don't know how you feel, about everything that happens in just two episodes.

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Fake it till you make it

Did they? Both their secrets are still intact at the end of the two episodes, but what was the point since nothing else really happened?

The plot is about two guys who enter into a pretend relationship to protect their respective secrets. And that's pretty much it. They know each other's secrets and they agree to keep those to themselves. A majority of the episodes was utilised to set up their contract relationship, and the rest of it was used to show that the conflict was resolved. It does sound like a well rounded plot when it's put that way, but there was so much missing.

Admittedly, Phol and Pheem do have chemistry, and by the end of the series, they do have an actual relationship that's somewhat endearing. Too bad we couldn't see much of that connection and development though, it was some wasted potential and screen time that they used to display flashbacks instead.

I'm a little disappointed, not going to lie, because I do love a good pretend relationship plot, but the lack of development and the wishy washy dialogues paired with an equally inconsistent story didn't really make for a good series.

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It's about the circumstances...

What would you do if you and your friend are caught up in a multi million dollar debt, being chased around by a hoard of gangsters and a very handsome club owner who just so happens to also be your creditor?

You would inadvertently end up creating a comedy of errors.

It's made very clear from the beginning that the lead of the series, Mote, is a victim of his circumstances. He has his rag tag team of friends who have similar situations and their solution is to come up with a "risque" app to get out of this. Obviously, this leads to murder mysteries, murderous henchmen chasing our heroes around and a whole lot of threats. Nothing exactly new or ground breaking.

The charm of this series comes from the circumstances. The lead trio somehow always find themselves in comical situations, and this is not slapstick humour... The comedy is so subtle that it gives the drama life without taking away from the fact that this is not exactly a comedy. Add to all this a very handsome but kind of psychotic Sun (played to perfection by Mond might I add), and you've got yourself a top notch show.

I would recommend it to a friend.

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Dissapointment noises

What did I expect really? That it would somehow become exponentially better after that dissapointment of a second half of Love Sea?

It didn't, and I'm not surprised. It's a bunch of nothing, which I've come to expect from specials, but this is also a bunch of BORING. And a bunch of nonsense, but I couldn't pay attention to most of it.
The island visuals were the only good thing, I'm just glad they didn't decide to split the time between that and Bangkok like Mut and Rak were going to.

The end credits were easily the best part.. the beach views and the crystal blue ocean.. and the fact that it was over, of course.
But hey, I finally figured out what his tattoo is. It's a quill and an infinity sign. Yay.

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*Shrugs for a minute*

Let's sum up
1) It was cute
That sums it up.

No, no. I joke. Better summary
Episode 1 - Birthday party
Episode 2 - Jealousy
Episode 3 - Graduation party
Better..?

Seriously, I don't know how else I could sum it up or review it, it was cute and fun and a bit unnecessary unless you're in it purely for the cute moments between Rak and Fah.

The story was neatly wrapped up in Your Sky, and this was just an opportunity to see Thomas and Kong display their chemistry again. Just them. No one else got much valuable screentime in what minimal valuable screentime this had and huge portions of the episodes were behind the scenes stuff.
I kid you not, they actually broke out into a choreographed dance number at the end of episode 3, I'm not even joking.

It was all good fun, the episodes were so short they were over before I knew it, and yeah, it's a solid buffer series of sorts.

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Not my crush!

It's always great when you start a drama for one reason - and come out with a plethora of other likes. I'll just list them here because there was a lot to like about this.

1) The comedy - I started this for the comedy. I didn't have many expectations to be honest, keeping in mind both the trailer and Hi! By My Luck (the previous part of MuTeLuv) didn't quite have the kind and amount I expected respectively. But this one was actually good. Firstly, the entire cast brought the laughs, main or support. Second, the comedy didn't rely entirely on one type of comedy, they tried multiple genres and most of them worked!

2) The romance - I loved Parn and Nani in this. Don't know if it was the characters or the actors chemistry, whatever it was, they were a treat to watch on screen.

3) The characters - The great thing about comedy is that you can have several characters with varying personalities and have them all be funny. I especially loved how Wutkrai and Fay were written, four episodes is not a lot to have great characterization, but for four episodes, they did great. I wish Ploy and Phu had a bigger impact on me, but it happened in a different way than I thought it would..

.. finally. 4) The cast - I am impressed.
First with Parn. I've seen a bunch of her work, and she really brought some nuance and depth to her character that I very much appreciated.
Then Jaoying, I really liked her as Fay, the perfect mix of supportive friend and knock some sense into you onlooker. There was something about the character and her portrayal that made Fay so likeable.
I also thought Joke as Father was good - he was quite hilarious when it came to that.

Before I close out this section, my penultimate mention is Prem. Oh my sweet boy. His work on his last few previous shows had me convinced he could not act but he somehow proved me wrong here. You need a skill set to do comedy and he may have that! Again, his character didn't quite leave much of an impact on me, but I have a bit more hope now that with the right script and the right to move his face, he can bring something to the screen.

Finally - Nani! My gosh. He can do serious and comedy! His comedic timing was perfect, his character was written quirkily enough that you immediately like him and his soft and sweet side was on full display for four episodes. Plus the styling? Wow.

Of course there were a few things that I think could have been better. They weren't bad, per se, but they weren't exactly to my liking either. It's a me thing, so you may like them, but I'll just mention so all the information is in the review.

1) The story - now I didn't have much expectations from the story even going in, I just needed it to be coherent, which to their credit, it was. I just didn't like the way it flowed. Especially the last episode. It just felt like a Hail Mary they threw in to quickly wrap the story up, and while some of the plotlines were incredible (maybe not incredible, but they were good), a lot of them just didn't hit the right spots.

Not many negatives there I guess, so if you're looking for a fun, albeit slightly alarming plot, give this a try.

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I don't want Duang or Qin with me

Beware reader - this is but a complete rambling, and shall (probably) not contain any decipherable opinion on Duang With You.

Because if this is what romance looks like? I don't want it!
From either POV. NO THANK YOU.
I'm not chasing my crush after they say no, in fact, I'm probably never going to confess to my crush - but that's a me thing - but if do, and they say no, I am not sticking around, like Sir, if you don't want me? Bye, I have better things to do.
And I don't even care if the guy chasing me around is handsome - you Sir, are going to jail, you stalker.

From the very first episode, I did not understand why this was something you were supposed to root for - Golden Retriever and Black Cat energy is real - but everytime Duang and Qin interact, it feels like Duang is literally absorbing all of Qin's energy (not that we get to see a lot of it anyway)

Episode after episode we see Duang going around doing the absolute most (too much) to make sure he has Qin's attention, which starts out kind of weird and kind of innocent. Sometimes you see someone and fall hard because they're attractive and talented and you get a tiny crush. And if you keep running into them, the crush gets bigger and you confess, which is exactly what happens here - albeit with the assistance of two characters with whom Duang shares his single braincell (I love them). It's all fun and antics, because Duang straight up says to Qin, 'I'm going to flirt with you'.
And Qin agrees!

But from there on out we get the worst possible love story, where Duang is doing absolutely everything. Absolutely everything in their relationship. He's all around Qin, bringing him food, drinks, helping him with performances, being the shoulder Qin can cry on - he's doing absolutely everything to get this man to go out with him. Which is either irritating, or endearing if you're Qin. Throughout all this, Qin shows no sign of ever being interested, until he suddenly is.. because they danced well?

It was unbelievable in the first place that the man whose sole expression was no expression agreed to date the energetic puppy but it only gets worse.
Because even as they date, Duang is the one putting in all the effort. According to Qin, letting someone come to you while you wait is an admirable trait, which no sir. That's not how relationships work. You can't expect to sit still and let someone worship you - but that is the exact kind of relationship they have.
They try to chalk it all up to Qin's experience with dating, him wanting to take his time before getting into a relationship because his first love got too frustrated when their relationship went nowhere after a while. Which fair, he wants to see if Duang is doing it just for the thrill of flirting with someone or if he's actually in it for the long run. Fair? Right?
NO
It would be fair if Qin barely knew Duang, but turns out, he's known him forever! He's known him well enough to know he was a genuine guy, and he still takes his time.

Maybe I can't fault him, because Qin.. Qin is a lot of things and Duang is just.. a lot.
I didn't like either of the leads, the way they were written. The trope they based their personalities on is soooo easy to mess up, and they did it royally here. They are the exact opposite to each other, so much so that both of them feel like absurd caricatures of human beings. It's too much or nothing at all.

Duang is too much. Sunshiny and ever-positive characters are almost necessary in a lot of plots, but not like Duang. Between the sniffing and the actual dog-like behaviour, his instincts to treat Qin like an actual deity can be easily ignored, but don't. That is not healthy behaviour. We don't watch dramas for ultimate reality but that is not healthy or realistic.

Qin is the complete opposite. I think his facial muscles moved a grand total of 12 times in the series. He is depicted as an entirely traumatized human being, which is again fair because he's been through some stuff, but I really hate the 'love solves all' narrative. That Duang is the only ray of sunshine in his life felt like utter nonsense. Even aside from that, Qin was a character written terribly, sometimes his behaviour really did come across as mean and narcissistic and I did not enjoy it.

Duang With You is an execution of one of my biggest pet peeves I have with literature and media - the perfect leads - no known flaws, all surface. And I don't mean flaws that are not really flaws, like "oh I read too much!"
No, how are they flawed and how does it affect their lives and the story? It doesn't have to be super deep, we are watching a romance but if you're going to have two perfect human beings on screen who do and say nothing to provoke, just simply agree.. it's not sparking any change in any of them! The only thing these characters have to grow from is a slightly sad background story that is resolved in one conversation despite them practically blaming everything that goes wrong in their life on that one thing.

We even got a side couple with just minimal screentime and maximum cringe, there was no real point to have them be a couple, except to maybe see how their pairing in the reality show would work out in a drama.

The only bright spot in this came in the form of three names - Duang, Jamie and Pae. I know I just laid into the way Duang was written, but remember the two people he shares his braincell with? I love them. Their friendship was genuinely admirable and the only healthy relationship in this entire show. They were fun, chaotic, supported each other but were never afraid to call each other out or smack some sense into each other. Their interactions were always the highlight, no matter the episode.

I don't even have the strength to rewrite it in my head, it's not a bad concept, it's just age old and so boring that I don't even want to contemplate on if anything in this could've been done better. There were tons, but I just don't have the energy to do it.

Maybe I was in a terrible mood as a watched an episode and that skewed my entire opinion of it.. but I don't think so. I just didn't like it, but honestly? It does have it's appealing qualities, they just weren't appealing to me. So instead of saying I do/do not recommend, I'll let everyone watching figure it out for themselves. My review has pretty much laid out facets of the story, it's only negative because I didn't enjoy them. So definitely find out for yourself - but for me, it was a no.

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Rainfall Ruined

Sometimes, soulmates may meet, stay together until a task or life lesson is completed, and then move on. This is not a tragedy, only a matter of learning.
- Brian L. Weiss

Perhaps this would have been better if soulmates really were meant to part sometimes or at some time. Basis aside, the story promised something new, something that would go against the very premise of the drama, that soulmates don't always need to end up together. A situation where the lead doesn't necessarily end up with the person who promises to be his soulmate, or with anyone at all. As the episodes go on though, it becomes evident that this is through and through a "I'm the one for you and you're the one for me story".

The drama definitely starts out strong, the chemistry is clear, the premise is interesting and the characters seem empathetic and fleshed out. However, as the show goes on, small cracks begin to appear, and the story loses it's steam. The creators definitely want to create tension with the "who will the lead pick" storyline, but it's glaringly clear who he will. Filler scenes, uncharacteristic behaviour, unreasonable misunderstandings and unnecessary characters really drag down what could have been a solid story and the more you watch, the more uneventful it seems. Even the genuine conflicts that are presented at the beginning of the show as a roadblock for the potential couple are resoundingly solved within a matter of five minutes, but something that can be resolved with a quick conversation is dragged out for 3 episodes.

Interestingly, with a premise as promising as this, you expect some kind of follow through or proper explanations, but everything is ultimately chalked up to the rain gods playing their games and the very thing that led to this huge snowball is conveniently tossed aside (rather underwhelmingly) when the writers realise they've messed with it too much.

What should have been a simple story was needlessly contorted to create a drama that effectively lost all direction causing them to pull out a Hail Mary at the last moment, and let's just say this should have ended at episode 6, whether the story was complete or not.

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"Hi"! - my (un)likely love

I'm just so happy to see Sea and Keen together on screen again.

"Hi" by my luck follows Err, our self proclaimed "race horse" and high achiever as he braces for life with new competition in the form of Mawin, our "dark horse". Both of them qualify for a highly competitive, high stakes math camp - and the payoff is a scholarship to a school of their choice. But plot twist! Err's confidence was also shaken with Mawin's appearance in his life, and he's been consulting an online fortune teller on the advice of his friend.

Err has gotten advice previously on how to pass a sports examination and the entrance test for math camp, and his newest query is how to get the scholarship. His fortune says - make Mawin fall for him. At least that's how he interprets it, because his fortune teller is kind of vague.

And while at the camp, he and Mawin get closer. They were classmates and they were roomates and Err doesn't feel comfortable following through with his interpretation of the reading the closer he gets to Mawin. Because despite himself, they've grown close, friends.. maybe even more.

Without going into too much detail, I'm glad the fortune teller aspect wasn't exactly what I thought it would be and not as influential in the plot as the premise made it out to be. Because it was wonderful to see the relationship between Win and Err grow ever so slowly before it suddenly bloomed, showing us both their personalities and exactly why they would be a good pair.

Sea and Keen were as wonderful, maybe even better, as I remember them in Only Boo, and their cute chemistry truly worked for this kind of story. It was a very 'enemies - to - lovers'/'first love' kind of story, and they were a perfect choice.

That being said, this is a perfect weekend watch for when you're looking for something short and sweet, and perfect re-watch while we all wait for Head 2 Head ♡

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The power of negotiations

I started for Lee Je Hoon, let's get that out of the way so anyone reading this isn't confused if the review turns into an appreciation post for him.

But he really does have a knack for picking the most interesting of scripts, and this was no exception. The complex world of mergers and acquisitions was still a little lost on me even towards the end, but it was very clear that doing the job required a lot of skill, talent, a bit of luck and a lot of charm. People skills, financial knowledge, business strategies and again, a whole lot of charm.

The story almost felt like it was split into two parts: one of the mergers and acquisitions, and the other of office politics. The thing about having a massive lead cast is that you require focus on every one of them, but that can also mean the story can feel fragmented at times, requiring links to make sure it flows well. I don't think they quite executed that link well with the writing, but doing it any different would've also meant a massive diversion from the original plot.
This may have just been my issue with it, because as a viewer, when you can see two distinct storylines, you tend to latch onto the one you like better. I latched onto the teamwork and personal connections storylines of the M&A team, which meant the office dynamics were a little technical and complicated to me.

But despite that, for the most part, they did a fantastic job making the technical terms really understandable and creating dynamic scenes that kept me on my toes. The masterful tacts, the unpredictable ways in which the story moved, the teamwork between the M&A team were all a delight to watch.

I do wish a little more time was spent on developing the characters but I also understand that it's hard to accomplish in such a plot heavy script. One thing I appreciated was that there were clear character roles - set protagonists and antagonists. Because betrayals and backstabbing are incredibly unnecessary in an already complicated plot, I'm glad it was not done.

The actors did an incredible job, all of them. Having set protagonists and antagonists meant they could fully explore their characters and character dynamics, and every main character was compelling to watch on screen. And Lee Je Hoon absolutely smashed it out of the park I mean, he was just incredible. He always embodies his characters completely and you can't help but root for his characters, that always stands true. Him, and the entire cast, honestly, I can rave about each of their performances.

Overall, this was a solid series with a few downs it always managed to recover from. It kept me interested throughout and definitely had plenty of its moments. They did set up a possible sequel.. I don't know but with or without it, I highly enjoyed the series.

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You are my dream

I'm not going to pretend like I haven't had some weird dreams, no. I've dreamt of some genuinely peculiar stuff, sitting on trees, dreams about crushing on someone, I've had ones with full storylines, sometimes better than a few dramas I've watched, lol.
Dreams are fascinating, and if your dreams tell you that your annoying childhood friend/ neighbour is your love interest, maybe you should take a chance, because you might end up discovering that it's a love you never realised even existed.

Such a brilliant concept they came up with, by the way, dreams and romance, because when you say fantasy, with or without it taking up too much screentime, the love story works. It could have been played into completely, or used a plot device for the romance, but either way, they set themselves up perfectly. I absolutely loved Ai and Yu's dynamics and chemistry, the gradual incline from being someone who annoys everything out of you to being someone you realise even with being annoying, is someone you want in your life forever. It's the slowest of slow burns, but never boring because you get to unpack some rather complex connections they have as a pair, having known each other since they were children.

But it was beautiful watching them become a romantic couple, it felt comforting and easy, how you want it to feel despite there being complications. The second couple were also great to watch, they had similar dynamics in some ways to Ai and Yu, but their love story was adorable as well.

In stark contrast, if you're watching this for the fantasy aspect.. it was quite underdeveloped, to say the least. Like I said before, this definitely worked as a romance, but the fantasy was merely a plot device to further the romance, it never felt like a plot of it's own. Even when they tried to flesh it out, it felt rushed and nothing more. But that's okay, it's alright, watch this as a romance and I can guarantee something great. Just don't expect much of the fantasy.

Even though at a point it felt like they could have concluded the story with fewer episodes, I enjoyed it throughout. A good story, a great set of characters, amazing couples and chemistry, I can't ask for more from a rom com, and as I finished, there was a feeling of satisfaction and that's saying a lot.

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More action than plot

I wouldn't say I'm displeased with the special, but this had more action sequences than required and less plot than it needed, and that's not really what I wanted after waiting for quite a while for it to become available online.

The story wasn't quite up there in terms of intrigue, while they did manage to close up a few loose ends from the series, the special really adds nothing to the actual story. An new storyline, new characters, and it felt more like a new series than a continuation. Even the thing I've come to expect most from specials, a ton of romance and updates on the couples and characters, didn't really come through. It isn't a deal breaker though, The Sign was also primarily an action and mystery series, I just personally expected a bit more.

The production though remained consistent. Several questions answered, but new questions arise, the mystery/action/fantasy elements didn't have the right balance yet again, and the storytelling was a bit up and down, but after a while and after watching The Sign, I've become accustomed to it.

There were quite a few elements that did feel odd and a bit out of place, though ultimately it was fun to watch the IDF gang, and Phaya and Tharn on screen again. The ending was quite good as well, once again left me with a ton of questions, but also very curious.

Enjoyable, a little underwhelming and a lot of action. A LOT.

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