Reviews

A very good start, good pacing, but most important: amazing acting!

A really, really good start!!! This drama made a strong first impression on me. I was hooked within the first 10 minutes. The acting is amazing, the pacing is great, and I'm especially impressed by how well they cast the child actors.

First, I really want to praise the child actors! They play a huge role in bringing Chen Yi and Miao Jing's characters to life.

I've seen Zhou Yu Chen's performances in several dramas, and they've always been amazing. He's consistently left a strong impression on me with his acting. But in this drama, you can really see how much he's matured as an actor through the way he portrays young Chen Yi.

As for Chen Zi Xuan, this is my first time watching her, and she did such an incredible job. She perfectly portrays an obedient, intelligent, timid, and kind-hearted child. Despite carrying so much pain, her eyes still convey warmth, which makes her performance even more touching.

Both the child and adult versions of the male and female leads embody their characters so well that the entire backstory is delivered beautifully and feels incredibly believable.

Zhang Jingyi and Song Weilong bring their characters to life sooooo well. I would describe their chemistry as completely natural. They genuinely feel like step-siblings who support and care for each other. As the story progresses, their chemistry develops at the perfect pace. You can clearly see the warmth, pain, confusion, hope, sadness, and happiness reflected in their eyes.

On top of that, the supporting cast: including the parents, friends, and other side characters, did an amazing job building the viewers' emotions. Whoever was responsible for casting this drama deserves a huge thumbs up!

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Propaganda, fantasy or an attempt to face a problem?

Spoilers: contrary to the initial trailer (released 26.11.2024, roughly 1,5 years before the show aired) "Ticket to Heaven" is not about a priest standing in the way of "forbidden" gay love nor is it about any kind of conflict or drama involving faith and sexuality. Instead TTH attempts to present an internal struggle of a young gay man – Tanrak (Fourth). The way it is written and portrayed the struggle is not (as you might think) about trying to reconcile being gay and catholic, but about Tanrak having to choose between continuing on a path to become a priest or going away with his newfound love – Barth (Gemini). One might think that this is the same struggle, but not really. Although he is presented as a firm believer, Tanrak is first and foremost a kid raised by a catholic institution and filled with genuine gratitude for everything he received from his caretakers over the years. Orphaned at an early age, Tanrak longed – and still does during the events of the show – to reunite with his parents "in heaven". With a background like that becoming a priest seems the right thing to do; it is not a matter of faith (or not just a matter of faith), but of repaying a debt, returning the good Tanrak received. Abandoning that path to be with Barth seems more like a choice between being selfless and selfish/ungrateful, rather than between his faith and his identity – that is the entire struggle Tanrak is going through. As for Barth’s side of the story: he is intended to be a "rebel" character, a gay teen who suffered a lot because of his sexuality and, as a reaction, rejected faith – only to find out he cannot abandon god. With other words: Barth only thinks he is rebelling, acting like a child, not understanding how great and wise god is – and coming to his senses later, at a moment of need. That is my main complaint regarding TTH’s story: it evades what could be interesting, feigns being about deep and serious personal issues of both main characters and turns out to be uninteresting (Tanrak) and disappointing (Barth).

My other issue is that TTH was written like a puff piece for catholicism. In TTH there is no confronting catholicism on its homophobia and hypocrisy nor confronting the church on its corruption and moral bankruptcy – those issues are not even mentioned. Father Arnon ("An" Oliver Poupart) – main stand-in for organized religion as well as main figure of authority – is benevolent, patient, understanding, supportive, forgiving and certainly not homophobic. Basically he is the opposite of an actual catholic clergyman and a made-up, fairytale version of one. The only one who somewhat connects faith and homophobia is Barth’s father – and although the show does not hesitate to present him as evil, it is clear that he is that way despite of his religion and not because of it. TTH goes deeper into fantasy territory by condemning homophobia (even punishing it on screen), but separating it from catholicism and presenting the latter as a force for good. For me – a gay male from a predominantly catholic country which till this day is homophobic, to a large degree because of catholicism and its influence on culture, society, politics and law – that is offensive and awful. I understand the local context – Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country where less than 0,5% of the population is catholic – but it does not change how I feel about it.

TTH’s pacing is problematic: on one hand most episodes feel slow, with hardly any story progression, on the other hand instead of actual scenes we got several montages of Tanrak and Barth spending time together – as if the show wanted to make up for lost time or had less episodes than it should to present everything properly. This also makes it hard to tell how much time passed from Barth’s arrival to him and Tanrak running away – no idea whether it was a few weeks, months or more than that.

Performances of both Fourth and Gemini are alright, but I did not feel any of the magic they brought to the screen in "Moonlight Chicken" and "My School President"; the once strong chemistry is mostly gone. Fourth manages to properly convey Tanrak’s uncertainty, hesitation and undecidedness, but his subdued performance makes his character even less relatable and even more uninteresting. To be clear: that is almost exclusively on the writing and direction, not the actor – but I did miss the old Fourth spark. As for Gemini, what I liked in particular was him in the ep. 6 prison visit scene – by far his best performance. After his lackluster role in "The Dark Dice" I was worried Gemini forgot how to act, but TTH proves the contrary. Shame he could not save his character.

All in all TTH was a long awaited chance to see Fourth and Gemini again – a chance squandered by poor writing, bad pacing, very low number of episodes and a horrible, pro-catholic message of the show. Not planning on watching any of that ever again.

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I love Link click but...

I have no idea how to start this review... I'm a huge Link click lover. Time travel is my thing and when it comes with bromance, 'm down bad for it. But... But. I haven't seen Chinese live action and honestly I don't think I'll watch it, but I am very familiar with original donghua, which will be releasing a season 3 soon.

I won't start very positively. It's just my subjective opinion, but I think that Hikaru and Toki don't do justice to Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi. Japanese are generally known for making their live action characters look exactly like they do in manga or anime, so what went wrong here? Where are Lu Guang's white hair, cool and cold attitude but caring heart and the look he always give Cheng Xiaoshi? And where is Xiaoshi's ponytail? Their appearance really bothered me but when it came to their characters, they were almost perfect. Almost. Hikaru cares for Toki and he tries to hide it, but it's not the same as Lu Guang. Lu Guang would burn the world for him, but I honestly can't see Hikaru to do that. Again, as I already mention, that's my point of view, if you can see it, I honestly envy you, because I really miss it in both meaning of this word.

Now I'll say something positive. It's easy to make different animated characters to act like one. When Xiaoshi enters other people, he can't hide his personality. In donghua, it was easy to do, but to put multiple actors who can act exactly like that one character? That's not an easy task and I want to praise the actors of side characters who had to act like themselves and as Toki in their body. All of them nailed both characters perfectly (clapping hands).

About story, there's not really much I can say... It was different from donghua but also the same. I feel like episodes here were fillers, while in donghua there was some kinf of continuation. Not everytime, but at some point, all cases were connected. And everything started and ended with Ema. Here, Ema didn't really get as much space as she desered, which makes me sad, because I was looking forward towards her episode.

Last thing, I'll talk about is bromance. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi are secretly dating (call me whatever you want but if it wasn't chinese, they'd be a canon couple). Even if not, their bromance is really strong and you can actually feel even through the screen that they love each other and care about each other in whatever meaning you want to interpret it. But here, I couldn't really sence that bromance from Hikaru and Toki. Especially not from Hikaru. Toki lives in his own world and that was shown exactly as it should be.

It's not bad, if you don't expect much. And I expected a lot... Which was my fault and I admit it. Overall, I recommend you to at least give it a try.

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Zhao Yanzhou is the most inconsistent and fickle character, completely irresponsible toward others.

When it comes to love, he feigns ignorance and tricks someone into loving him, even though his ultimate goal is to die. He makes no effort to survive to take care of the one he loves. Yet, when his lover and others are in a life-or-death situation, he suddenly starts to cherish his own life—isn’t that a bit too late? If a person is truly bound to die, they shouldn’t form emotional bonds, fall in love, or court someone just to leave them heartbroken upon their death. I absolutely cannot stand this.

I dislike the excessive crying of the characters. It might look aesthetically pleasing, but it is completely unnecessary. They just cry over and over until tears lose their value.

Watching this drama, I can't help but feel an attempt to glorify the beautiful masculinity of the two male characters, while the female character seems to be treated as mere window dressing.

It's a shame for the highly talented cast. The show should have delved deeper into relationships and developed the characters in a more defined direction.

Xiao Zhuo's role was intentionally written to stand out, yet he couldn't fully shine because they still had to defer to the male lead. Sigh...

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I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected. I initially thought it would be a romance, but it turned out to be a story about sibling love instead. While I appreciate the message, the storyline just wasn't for me.

The acting was decent, and the cast did a good job with their roles. However, I couldn't really connect with the plot, and it didn't keep me emotionally invested. It wasn't a bad drama—it just didn't match my personal taste.

Overall, I'd say the acting is worth appreciating, but the story didn't work for me. If you enjoy family-centered dramas, you might like it more than I did.

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Too Much Conspiracy, Not Enough Human Vapor

Human Vapor starts with a strong first episode, an intriguing premise, and solid production values. Unfortunately, instead of keeping the Human Vapor as the true driving force of the story, the series gradually shifts into a conspiracy thriller filled with secret organizations, human experiments, cover-ups, and lengthy investigations.

This change in focus slows the pacing considerably. Long conversations and extended exposition repeatedly interrupt the tension, making the mystery feel stretched rather than expanded. Ironically, the 1960 film explores the same premise in just 90 minutes while keeping the Human Vapor at the center of the narrative and allowing the investigation between the detective and the reporter to move much more dynamically.

The series is technically competent, with good visual effects and an impressive opening, but I found it far more interested in conspiracy tropes than in the fascinating concept that made the original story memorable. For me, it ended up sacrificing its strongest idea for a mystery we've seen many times before.

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totally addictive drama

Just finished Perfect Crown and I LOVED it 😍

From start to finish, I was hooked! Such a great mix of romance and intrigue 💫
A beautiful love story,
Super lovable side characters,
And a gripping plot with so many twists 😱 (like the Prime Minister going from a weak second lead to the MAIN antagonist???!!!)

The ending did NOT disappoint 🙌

And honestly, the whole controversy about the coronation scene… it’s like 5 minutes long, and it’s FICTION!!! People are really overreacting 😅

As for the acting criticism, I was completely immersed. I believed the romance, I worried about the characters… so yeah, no issues there for me at all.

Didn’t get bored for a single second.
Absolutely loved it 💖

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Love it❤️

I love this drama and would willingly watch it over and over again. I’ve written this review to address some comments.

The story follows an unconventional heroine and it’s not all about her. I love that this drama showcases the ML as a strong individual who willingly works together with the FL to achieve joint goals for the country. I like that the ML and FL are intelligent individuals and the story moved nicely along. It balanced a throughly believable plot of fighting for love of country and personal love. Hence the title.

Victoria Song was good as the FL and Ryan Deng was perfectly cast as the younger ML who had to fight for the FL’s love. Ryan Deng was not under-utilised. I would say Zhang Linghe in Pursuit of Jade was. There is so much fighting scenes and it tells the story of a ML who fell in love at first sight but was also suspicious of the FL’s motives. When the ML finally accepted his infatuation with the FL, he chased her intently. This is all amidst war, political and court affairs.

There is a lot of chemistry from the ML but unfortunately, due to the FL’s past experience and circumstances in which she brought upon herself, it was difficult to acknowledge the ML’s love but once she did, both of them were devoted to each other and nothing could stop their love. I like that. Their love was fraught with challenges which they overcame together.

The supporting cast were all intelligent, helpful and loyal as well. I like how they made good decisions and were not deliberately ‘stupid’ in actions and therefore they needed to overcome their circumstances just to create a storyline.

Overall, I have happily re-watched it three times. Good story line, good plot, good cast. It should receive higher reviews merits.

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What's True & What's Not!!

This series was so intriguing. You can't help but get pulled into it within the first few minutes. I think what makes it such a draw, is the fact you're really not sure the direction this drama is taking, but by the end of 1 it becomes obvious ... so you think. From episode to episode things change with such rapid speed, as you get deeper and deeper into the series, more questions keep forming instead of answers.
Min Sik is brilliant in this role. He shows every kind of emotion possible. We watch a man slowly transform from a quiet mundane life, to what becomes craziness and off the wall thinking 24/7. Hyun Wook gives us what we believe to be a kind person looking for a better life than the one he exists in ... and without giving anything away, you do feel that something is not right with his character, Lee Gang.
Through the first five episodes, the only words I could come up with were brilliant and masterpiece ... BUT then the finale happens. It gives such a shocking story change, and personally I don't think it was for the better. I found it to be such a disappointing lackluster finish. I still give the series high marks, because it really was fantastic acting as well as brilliant writing ... but it definitely ruined it for me with the ending.
They use a line in the series that most definitely spells it out "When the line between kindness and cruelty gets blurred, everything becomes a question mark"

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Armageddon???

It was okay. Just okay. Meh.

I mean, there's nothing new about the story. A dying bad boy falls in love with the introverted nerd in class. He'll do anything for the one he loves. Then we have the older brother, who was cast out by his homophobic father because he's gay... only for the father to turn out to be gay too. And of course, we get the dramatic sacrifice at the end where one chooses to stay away just to save the other.

See? It's fine, but nothing new. Nothing that made me go, "Wow."

Now, the ending... what exactly were they trying to give us? An open ending? Honestly, I'd rather they both died because of that comet. 😂

Speaking of which... what was the point of the comet? One moment we're dealing with terminal cancer. Then we're dealing with a homophobic father, which is already a familiar plot. Then suddenly... a comet? Are we in Armageddon now? 😭

And lastly... I have to ask.

What was the thought process behind that opening sequence? You know, the one where they're standing against a black background while it's raining, dramatically reciting quotes? I was so confused. 😂

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