This review may contain spoilers
An inbalanced and undercooked meal, nonetheless a meal.
We‘re going straight into it
The inbalanced and undercooked parts:
This series had a lot of room for questions to form in my head:
— What was Rose doing while Din was at work? Just waiting? Or is she doing something at her farm? She‘s the heiress to the farm but doing absolutely nothing to become the actual successor. Din shouldn‘t be able to be around as much when she said she‘d take care of Thip‘s farm next to hers. That is an enormous amount of extra work.
— And who is Rose as a person? All I know about her is that she loves her family and Din. That‘s her whole life‘s driving force it seems. She studied abroad but we already forgot about that in episode 1. Rose felt very underdeveloped and as if she‘s only there to be reacting to what is happening and barely ever taking action on her own.
Seeing the childhood flashbacks she seems to have been raised to become a wifey that needs to be taken care of not the successor of the farm. And that also seems to be her goal. Nothing else seems to be important to her. Not even her fathers farm.
— Din, too, felt a little like a confused character and I don’t mean her gay panic. She also only has a few things that are her driving forces: managing her farm, caring about Rose’s father and disliking Wasu. The new thing „falling in love with Rose“ really throws her off.
— the character introductions fell a little short. For example: after child Din felt sad that she couldn‘t lift Rose up when she got hurt I would‘ve loved to see a scene where she‘s working out/lifting weights as an adult. A simple scene but a connection that‘d make sense and not take up that much space. What I try to say with that is that there‘s almost no difference between childhood Rose, Wasu, Din and their adult selves.
— pretty much every character felt like they were standing still until the plot moved them forward. Din completely forgot about the human trafficking once her gay panic got set off. And she doesn‘t need to do anything because the evil guys are also kinda inactive once they are not on screen anymore and for such a serious topic as human trafficking it was a little underwhelming how they worked with it. There were so many women on the farms… what if they become a target? How easy would it be for Wasu and Wasupol to make them disappear? Was that their goal for Rose as well? Once Wasu managed to marry her she‘d vanish?
— every time Din and Rose talked about their marriage being fake and they were outdoors, near other people or even AT THEIR WEDDING I internally screamed at them to shut up and go to a more secure place. Plus knowing there‘s a mole that tells Wasu everything… why didn‘t more things happen?
— I full on expected some kind of sabotage attempt at their first wedding. Not just Wasu being there and being annoying. I don‘t believe that Wasu and his father are that simple in their actions. There was a fire on Din‘s farm… yeah, but that also just happened once and could be the result of a dry period. So, was it really Wasu?
— Assistant Kaew… I didn’t like how her arc unfolded… At first I did not see any possible one sided love from her except for one look. So I got the impression that this is just to show the blooming jealousy from Rose so there’s a reason for her and Din to get closer for real. Her character is portrayed very timid and backgroundish… then we get heinous thoughts and actions just for her to get a character reset at the end. WHAT. It feels like her arc got developed as they were filming à la: „Rose is just jealous in this scene but what if Kaew is really in love with Din? That would be more interesting and mean a ‚real‘ threat“ - „then she it would make sense for her to end up being a spy for Wasu because she‘s actually super jealous and gets mad, so much so she would commit crimes“ - „But wouldn‘t that be too much? She’s a good person and actually didn‘t want any of that“ - „Yeah you‘re right. Din will forgive her at the end then.“ (dialogue freely invented)
I know this is in the lane of a Lakhon series where there‘s a happy ending for everyone but the bad guys so I can‘t really agree here that she gets a pretty happy ending for what she was willing to do. I guess in the mindset of Moddang: „She‘s too pretty to be a bad person“
— I haven‘t even talked about the acting and directing/editing yet. The emotional parts were well acted but some of the calmer moments were eh. Some scenes felt a little too long and sometimes I wished for a different angle or background music.
In conclusion:
the topics of the story (human trafficking versus gay panic to bliss) felt at odds aka out of balance. And mainly the lead characters felt undercooked and bland.
But all that being said I still enjoyed my time with the series and also have things that I loove about it:
— I loved their flirtatious dialogue. That scene when they pick the wedding dress… And the other bedroom talk had me blushing. And the kisses? mmmh.
— loved the wardrobe. When Rose had that jealousy-off drinking with the other person also wearing a dress with roses. Mmh.
— stacked cast. All the actors for the fathers I have seen before. And the children were adorable.
— I really enjoyed the cousins. Lam the sniper cop with the 100% accuracy. Love. And Fai as well. Once those two entered the scene they easily overshadowed the main two just with their presence and that is not what you want for the leads…
— The locations of the farms looked great. The houses looked so chill and cosy, big but not city rich big. they had some farm charm.
— hooooly, the OST is beautiful. The voices… heavenly.
— that it is the beginning to an GL anthology. Very excited to continue and then return.
I will rewatch the series once I‘ve seen the rest of the element anthology because I feel like I was thinking a little too much and took it a tad too serious while watching. <- also because it seems to be Lakhon(-esque) and I need to get that into my head before rewatching. And after getting more into the vibe of the anthology I see the possibility of changing my opinions. But I don’t see what I’ve pointed out here as a waste. And to me it‘s always interesting to see how my opinions and perceptions change with time and a rewatch and reading some other people‘s opinions. :)
So, once I have rewatched I will return and add +extra comments+ (or I might delete this and write a whole new review. Until then 👋 and thanks for reading until the end)
The inbalanced and undercooked parts:
This series had a lot of room for questions to form in my head:
— What was Rose doing while Din was at work? Just waiting? Or is she doing something at her farm? She‘s the heiress to the farm but doing absolutely nothing to become the actual successor. Din shouldn‘t be able to be around as much when she said she‘d take care of Thip‘s farm next to hers. That is an enormous amount of extra work.
— And who is Rose as a person? All I know about her is that she loves her family and Din. That‘s her whole life‘s driving force it seems. She studied abroad but we already forgot about that in episode 1. Rose felt very underdeveloped and as if she‘s only there to be reacting to what is happening and barely ever taking action on her own.
Seeing the childhood flashbacks she seems to have been raised to become a wifey that needs to be taken care of not the successor of the farm. And that also seems to be her goal. Nothing else seems to be important to her. Not even her fathers farm.
— Din, too, felt a little like a confused character and I don’t mean her gay panic. She also only has a few things that are her driving forces: managing her farm, caring about Rose’s father and disliking Wasu. The new thing „falling in love with Rose“ really throws her off.
— the character introductions fell a little short. For example: after child Din felt sad that she couldn‘t lift Rose up when she got hurt I would‘ve loved to see a scene where she‘s working out/lifting weights as an adult. A simple scene but a connection that‘d make sense and not take up that much space. What I try to say with that is that there‘s almost no difference between childhood Rose, Wasu, Din and their adult selves.
— pretty much every character felt like they were standing still until the plot moved them forward. Din completely forgot about the human trafficking once her gay panic got set off. And she doesn‘t need to do anything because the evil guys are also kinda inactive once they are not on screen anymore and for such a serious topic as human trafficking it was a little underwhelming how they worked with it. There were so many women on the farms… what if they become a target? How easy would it be for Wasu and Wasupol to make them disappear? Was that their goal for Rose as well? Once Wasu managed to marry her she‘d vanish?
— every time Din and Rose talked about their marriage being fake and they were outdoors, near other people or even AT THEIR WEDDING I internally screamed at them to shut up and go to a more secure place. Plus knowing there‘s a mole that tells Wasu everything… why didn‘t more things happen?
— I full on expected some kind of sabotage attempt at their first wedding. Not just Wasu being there and being annoying. I don‘t believe that Wasu and his father are that simple in their actions. There was a fire on Din‘s farm… yeah, but that also just happened once and could be the result of a dry period. So, was it really Wasu?
— Assistant Kaew… I didn’t like how her arc unfolded… At first I did not see any possible one sided love from her except for one look. So I got the impression that this is just to show the blooming jealousy from Rose so there’s a reason for her and Din to get closer for real. Her character is portrayed very timid and backgroundish… then we get heinous thoughts and actions just for her to get a character reset at the end. WHAT. It feels like her arc got developed as they were filming à la: „Rose is just jealous in this scene but what if Kaew is really in love with Din? That would be more interesting and mean a ‚real‘ threat“ - „then she it would make sense for her to end up being a spy for Wasu because she‘s actually super jealous and gets mad, so much so she would commit crimes“ - „But wouldn‘t that be too much? She’s a good person and actually didn‘t want any of that“ - „Yeah you‘re right. Din will forgive her at the end then.“ (dialogue freely invented)
I know this is in the lane of a Lakhon series where there‘s a happy ending for everyone but the bad guys so I can‘t really agree here that she gets a pretty happy ending for what she was willing to do. I guess in the mindset of Moddang: „She‘s too pretty to be a bad person“
— I haven‘t even talked about the acting and directing/editing yet. The emotional parts were well acted but some of the calmer moments were eh. Some scenes felt a little too long and sometimes I wished for a different angle or background music.
In conclusion:
the topics of the story (human trafficking versus gay panic to bliss) felt at odds aka out of balance. And mainly the lead characters felt undercooked and bland.
But all that being said I still enjoyed my time with the series and also have things that I loove about it:
— I loved their flirtatious dialogue. That scene when they pick the wedding dress… And the other bedroom talk had me blushing. And the kisses? mmmh.
— loved the wardrobe. When Rose had that jealousy-off drinking with the other person also wearing a dress with roses. Mmh.
— stacked cast. All the actors for the fathers I have seen before. And the children were adorable.
— I really enjoyed the cousins. Lam the sniper cop with the 100% accuracy. Love. And Fai as well. Once those two entered the scene they easily overshadowed the main two just with their presence and that is not what you want for the leads…
— The locations of the farms looked great. The houses looked so chill and cosy, big but not city rich big. they had some farm charm.
— hooooly, the OST is beautiful. The voices… heavenly.
— that it is the beginning to an GL anthology. Very excited to continue and then return.
I will rewatch the series once I‘ve seen the rest of the element anthology because I feel like I was thinking a little too much and took it a tad too serious while watching. <- also because it seems to be Lakhon(-esque) and I need to get that into my head before rewatching. And after getting more into the vibe of the anthology I see the possibility of changing my opinions. But I don’t see what I’ve pointed out here as a waste. And to me it‘s always interesting to see how my opinions and perceptions change with time and a rewatch and reading some other people‘s opinions. :)
So, once I have rewatched I will return and add +extra comments+ (or I might delete this and write a whole new review. Until then 👋 and thanks for reading until the end)
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