I enjoyed Fish Upon the Sky, and while I noticed the shortcomings of the acting, both leads had good comic timing, and there were good secondary characters to help carry the weight, plus Pond is gorgeous and Phuwin isn't far behind, so I was looking foward to this - I thought for sure it would be campy fun, with a billionaire heir that everyone is trying to kill having also to get through high school.

Unfortunately, the production takes itself very, very seriously, which makes this a cringey, plot-hole ridden mess of inauthentic emotion and weak acting, and the end result is a series that's alternatively frustrating and boring.

It wants badly to be a PG-rated KinnPorche, but somehow missed the campy outrageousness of that series, which made it's giant plot holes features rather than bugs. Here, everything is a plot hole. The violence is gratuitous, very poorly integrated into the story, and without creating any stakes at all, while leaning heavily on cliches and contrivanaces that are just incongruous and silly.

For example, why is this set in high school? What possible reason for this is there other than "BL needs to be set in school"? Why is a billionaire heir that everyone is trying to kill even in high school? Instead of endangering the lives of the entire student body, why not home school, or just not go to school at all, given he's stupendously rich and has a business empire to run (after he's done with swim practice and his homework)? If he's in danger, why would you give him only a teenaged fisherman as a bodyguard? If you're going to do that, shouldn't he at least be able to protect his charge? Palm can't even fend off bullies at a ballroom dance! (Speaking of which, who goes to a ballroom dance at a senior center to pick fights, and why did everyone just stand around while the ballroom dance thugs [sigh] try to beat someone to death for virtually no reason whatsoever except to insert violence?) Being kicked for half an hour only gives Palm a few scratches, so this is an early indicator that there are absolutely no stakes in this series.

Early on, Neung's mother is gunned down at point-blank range by assassins that simply ride through the open unguarded gates of the mansion - I guess nobody thought to increase security after her husband was gunned down - drive to within 3 meters and open fire. And fail to kill anyone or even wound Palm's father (I think. He seemed totally fine afterwards). The boys are sent to a fabulous beach resort to "hide" for their safety, where they frolic all day and Nueng proclaims he's never been happier in his life. Never been happier than the week after he had both his parents gunned down before his eyes and is fleeing certain death? OK, I guess we all have our standards of happiness, and he never gives his mother a thought during this time, so maybe he just doesn't like her.

There is absolutely no plot purpose to the entire beach resort section of the story - it's simply a contrivance to give the couple a honeymoon, because that's where it goes in the formula, whether or not it makes sense. From the wreckage of the underlying novel behind the script, it looks like the author's intention was to put Nueng through hardships which harden and mature him so that he can return and take on his enemies, but all he does is pay off a loanshark and let Palm's mother sacrifice herself to save them after Nueng completely stupidly uses an ATM and then doesn't immediately leave, allowing the baddies plenty of time to stealthily sneak up with a bunch of thugs dressed all in black at a beach resort walking around with photos loudly asking "has anyone has seen these two boys?" Sigh.

Nueng then dumps Palm with the "find a good woman who you can be happy with" cliche which makes me want to BURN THINGS DOWN. Then they get back together because Palm does the "nonconsensual hug from behind" stupid cliche which makes me want to burn more things down. Then Nueng dumps him in his sleep - sleep induced by pills Nueng buys from the sleeziest and shadiest sex motel manager he could find and then puts in Palm's beer. Sure, why not? Nothing could go wrong with that plan. Besides, Nueng is rich, so he could buy his way out of a charge of negligent homicide. Later on it's Palm's turn for a contrived breakup - the third time's the charm, right? I don't know about you, but if you break up three times for completely stupid reasons in the first month of your relationship, are you really meant for each other?

Anyway, Nueng goes home surrounded by bodyguards, and the story more or less picks up where it left off, which raises the question, what are the stakes? Why didn't Nueng have bodyguards before? If it was that easy for a high school kid to seize control of a giant business empire, why didn't he do it before, when he had Palm's father to lean on and help and guide him?

Then, the authors seem to think that walking in slow-motion, speaking in a deeper voice, and being stern is "maturity", when his underlying behavior is foolish, ungenerous, short-sighted, and otherwise stupid. If you want to seize power, do you march around in dark suits and make grand entrances everywhere and go out of your way to announce yourself and your intentions and humiliate and anger your enemy, or do you take him by surprise?

Anyway, Nueng makes a grand slow-motion entrance to his family's hotel accompanied by that "inception blast" - you know, that loud BWAAAAAA! that plays in movie previews whenever something big happens, in order to lend it weight. So he does that, gives a dressing down to his usurping uncle, and announces he's taking power over the family empire. So what's the next scene? The exact same BWAAAAAA! slo-mo entrance... at his high school. Wow, big man, intimidating high school students with hired bodyguards.

From the moment of his return, everything "meaningful" he says is accompanied by the BWAAAAA!, a musical "mic-drop", as if that gives gravitas to his banal pronouncements. Then he's reuinted with Palm at a derelict building - it turns out Palm has been following him around from about 5 feet away for two weeks, which somehow Nueng's guards failed to detect (and so did Nueng) - because a tall, smoking-hot man dressed all in black and a leather jacket every day in tropical weather isn't noticeable or anything. Also, a photographer follows them into the building, again slipping past the bodyguards. I don't think a single bodyguard managed to guard even one body the entire series.

There are lots of other things that just ring untrue, major and minor. For example, someone suffers multiple gunshot wounds. So what does his boyfriend do? Apply pressure to the wounds to limit the bleeding, you might guess? No, he does what any responsible adult does wth a crying baby, and shakes him vigorously and demands he be OK. I suppose it could be an act of love to try to accelerate his bleeding out so he doesn't suffer, but in that case it might be faster to just shoot him a few more times, Almost comically, it turns out the gunshot victim has a spinal injury - yeah, no sh$%, someone was violently shaking him. I suspect our instinct to staunch bleeding is exactly that, instinct - we've evolved to just automatically know to do that. His behavior is only understandable in the context of some sort of narcissistic psychotic disorder - fear of being alone overpowers basic instinct - perhaps to be expected in a person who has the best time of his life right after his parents are gunned down.

And can someone PLEASE explain the Christmas carols. It's very diffiult to concentrate on what's happening when Joy to the World is playing in the background. Why does this keep happening in BL?

Phuwin is good at comedy, but his lack of acting ability is glaring in a dramatic role where he has to play high school Michael Corleone (The Godfather is the clear inspiration for this series - from the romantic exile to the hospitalized parent in danger, to the son who wants nothing to do with the business eventually being forced to take it over and become ruthless. Well, ruthless-ish). This is underscored by the poor casting choice of Perth Tanapon as his cousin Chopper - poor, I say, because Perth is so phenomenal that it's embarassing to see them together in a scene. If he and the also-able Chimon had been in the main roles, instead of criminally underused secondary characters, this series would have been on fire. As it is, the dynamic between Chopper and his father is the most compelling element of this drama and should have been given much more time (Chopper's father is played by super-hot Nat Sakdatorn - don't believe me? Check out his instagram).

In the first few episodes Pond surprised me - he seemed much improved in acting skill, but then he just spent the entire series looking like a kicked puppy, which he does well, but it gets dull.

This is not all bad. The production quality is fairly high, Pond and Phuwin spend a LOT of time in swim trunks, which is really, really good eye-candy, Perth, Chimon and Nat nail every scene they're in, and there are cute scenes between Nueng and Palm, although their romantic chemistry is close to nil, they do have great buddy-energy. If you're a Phuwin & Pond fan, you will probably really enjoy this. Otherwise, I'd skip it.