This review may contain spoilers
Walking the fine line...
...between cringy and funny and never stepping on the wrong side! I Will Knock You is such a fun series, unexpected, different and yet so nice!
What I liked:
- Noey: the character and the actor
- his mother & sister & his friends
- the music and the cinematography and final credits' dance
- internal monologues (they spend a lot of time looking at each other but not saying anything out loud!)
- Bom, the actor playing Thi (he does look korean...)
What I did not like:
- nonsense title
- the lack of chemistry
- the usual disapproving parents(think Bad Buddy...) and other drama tropes in the last two episodes
- Thi, the character, a wuss
- last two episodes
Noey is a 16 yr old high schooler, smart, brave, bold, brash, honest and a bit of a thug, leader of a gang with a style and taste stuck in the 80s!. He keeps pursuing a girl from another class. The girl's tutor Thi, witnesses him being rejected by her. Thi is a third year university student, sweet, calm, smart, lacking courage and wits and keeps hearing scary stories about Noey and therefore is shaking with fear every time they meet. And they keep on bumping into each other rather frequently so much so that Noey starts believing that Thi has a crush on him and magnanimously decides to like him back.
Tar, the actor playing Noey is only 18 but he is so flamboyantly talented: he succeeded in the feat of playing a silly character without ever making him ridiculous. Amazing! Bom, playin This, is on the other hand 28 but he looks much younger than Tar . He is as cute as a button, pretty and frail looking and manages to convey the weak and silly and cowardly character that is Thi.
The problem is, even though these two actors are rather good (Tar is better than Bom), there is no chemistry, no sparks fly between them and their love story is unconvincing. Understanding Noey character, it looks like he decided that he was going to fall in love with Thi whether he really has any feelings or not! For him it was a challenge! The series takes place over about a year and a half and nothing happens between them: they keep seeing each other, Thi tutoring Noey, Noey giving Thi rides to school: that felt more like a bromance, a friendship. There was never going to happen anything anyway since Noey is underage(which he keeps stressing every time he tries to kiss Thi and is interrupted!) !
Noey was surrounded by a great group of people: a no nonsense mother, a cool as a cucumber sister and a varied cast of characters in the gang.
The story was interesting for about 10 episodes: it was so funny to watch Noey and Thi's interactions, Noey strutting around and Thi shaking in his panties with fear every time he saw him. But it was original! The styling of Noey was the best I have ever seen in a BL. The music he listened to (that song Destiny will be stuck in my head for a long time! A classic!), how he dressed, and the way he refused modern technology! The cinematography is also special: the filming location were new, looked real, people were real their lives were real. Usual BL is a slick story of rich students! This is not one such series!
Sometimes halfway through, the producers decided to throw in some usual drama tropes in this case, another guy interested in Thi. Nothing pans out there because Thi had already fallen for Noey! But the writes went all guns blazing and throwing tropes at us at an amazing speed in the last two episodes: Thi's parents come for a visit, disapprove of Noey and decide to take Thi back home after graduation. Thi says nothing and just obeys his parents! So the boys break up but Noey think it is a nonsense so he goes up to Chiang Mai and they make up and continue their long distance relationship (in after final credits scenes!) for 5 more years when they finally kiss with Thi acting all flustered and surprised! And his parents are apparently still ignorant of this relationship! We could have done without all these drama tropes: it was neither fun nor funny. These last two episodes were disappointing and ridiculous! They managed to ruin a bit this such original story!
But I still rate it high because this is a series that came out of nowhere and I succumbed to its brutish charm! The surprising part of every episode is a sweet dancing scene during the final credits and the subtle changes in it in every episode: so watch it to the last second, you will not regret it!
I had so much fun watching this series and if it had not been for the two last episodes, I'd probably want to rewatch it!
What I liked:
- Noey: the character and the actor
- his mother & sister & his friends
- the music and the cinematography and final credits' dance
- internal monologues (they spend a lot of time looking at each other but not saying anything out loud!)
- Bom, the actor playing Thi (he does look korean...)
What I did not like:
- nonsense title
- the lack of chemistry
- the usual disapproving parents(think Bad Buddy...) and other drama tropes in the last two episodes
- Thi, the character, a wuss
- last two episodes
Noey is a 16 yr old high schooler, smart, brave, bold, brash, honest and a bit of a thug, leader of a gang with a style and taste stuck in the 80s!. He keeps pursuing a girl from another class. The girl's tutor Thi, witnesses him being rejected by her. Thi is a third year university student, sweet, calm, smart, lacking courage and wits and keeps hearing scary stories about Noey and therefore is shaking with fear every time they meet. And they keep on bumping into each other rather frequently so much so that Noey starts believing that Thi has a crush on him and magnanimously decides to like him back.
Tar, the actor playing Noey is only 18 but he is so flamboyantly talented: he succeeded in the feat of playing a silly character without ever making him ridiculous. Amazing! Bom, playin This, is on the other hand 28 but he looks much younger than Tar . He is as cute as a button, pretty and frail looking and manages to convey the weak and silly and cowardly character that is Thi.
The problem is, even though these two actors are rather good (Tar is better than Bom), there is no chemistry, no sparks fly between them and their love story is unconvincing. Understanding Noey character, it looks like he decided that he was going to fall in love with Thi whether he really has any feelings or not! For him it was a challenge! The series takes place over about a year and a half and nothing happens between them: they keep seeing each other, Thi tutoring Noey, Noey giving Thi rides to school: that felt more like a bromance, a friendship. There was never going to happen anything anyway since Noey is underage(which he keeps stressing every time he tries to kiss Thi and is interrupted!) !
Noey was surrounded by a great group of people: a no nonsense mother, a cool as a cucumber sister and a varied cast of characters in the gang.
The story was interesting for about 10 episodes: it was so funny to watch Noey and Thi's interactions, Noey strutting around and Thi shaking in his panties with fear every time he saw him. But it was original! The styling of Noey was the best I have ever seen in a BL. The music he listened to (that song Destiny will be stuck in my head for a long time! A classic!), how he dressed, and the way he refused modern technology! The cinematography is also special: the filming location were new, looked real, people were real their lives were real. Usual BL is a slick story of rich students! This is not one such series!
Sometimes halfway through, the producers decided to throw in some usual drama tropes in this case, another guy interested in Thi. Nothing pans out there because Thi had already fallen for Noey! But the writes went all guns blazing and throwing tropes at us at an amazing speed in the last two episodes: Thi's parents come for a visit, disapprove of Noey and decide to take Thi back home after graduation. Thi says nothing and just obeys his parents! So the boys break up but Noey think it is a nonsense so he goes up to Chiang Mai and they make up and continue their long distance relationship (in after final credits scenes!) for 5 more years when they finally kiss with Thi acting all flustered and surprised! And his parents are apparently still ignorant of this relationship! We could have done without all these drama tropes: it was neither fun nor funny. These last two episodes were disappointing and ridiculous! They managed to ruin a bit this such original story!
But I still rate it high because this is a series that came out of nowhere and I succumbed to its brutish charm! The surprising part of every episode is a sweet dancing scene during the final credits and the subtle changes in it in every episode: so watch it to the last second, you will not regret it!
I had so much fun watching this series and if it had not been for the two last episodes, I'd probably want to rewatch it!
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