Century of Love (2024)

Potential to be great, ruined by writing

7-7.5 stars.

This BL reminds me of The Sign and how I felt watching it. I loved the concept and plot line as well as the chemistry between the leads, but there were just too many moments of logic being thrown out the window that dampened by enjoynment. Also I feel bad rating this low because quality was really nice but it was also highly dramatized with lots of makjang-esque moments that really cheapened the overall quality.

The romance seems like it would be one of those classic epic love stories, like in IFYLITA, that lasts through the years and shows you how time can't stop one true love (I mean, its right there in the title too); however, interestingly enough, I didn't get that feeling by the end of the show. Suffice to say, it feels like the message in this BL is more about moving on and living in the present, not holding on to what has passed but following your heart. Especially with how inconclusive the plot was about Vee and Wat, I just wasn't getting the anticipated 'Centuries of Love' vibes yk? Anyway, I don't mind it too much because the chemistry between the leads was great. Vee's actor did give me cringey moments here and there with his acting, but he was a lovable character.

Mini spoiler: TLDR rant from above is just, how can you name a series 'Century of Love' yet make me doubt at the end whether the main leads are actually the fated couple or not...

Things I liked about this show were the family dynamics between San and his descendants(?), Vee's relationship with his grandma, watching San progress from hating(?) Vee to being head over heels for him, Third's friendship with Vee and him being the voice of reason in this show (also love that they broke away from the cliche of the 2nd ML pining after the MC plot), and Chu (bestest great grand daughter ever), oh and big shoutout to Doctor Tao!

Overall, it's just an okay series. Steam level is medium but has great intimacy (Hello, neck and wrist scenting!). I hope to see San's and Third's actors in other BLs in the future as I really liked their performance in this.

Leia Mais

Ngl I enjoyed this so much I think I’m obsessed

This show had me kicking my legs and screaming – Daou and Offroad’s chemistry is off the charts here!

Century of Love is a unique series that combines period drama and fantasy with classic BL elements.

The key conflict in the series is Vee’s identity as Wat’s reincarnated soul. San’s objective in finding Khun Wad is twofold: to break the century-old curse cast upon him, and then live happily ever after with his soulmate. When a woman shows up purporting to be the real Khun Wad, San and Vee’s love is tested.

A real conundrum. If the person you end up loving isn’t the Destined One as foretold by the gods, will you rebel against fate just to be with them?

Herein lies the subtle twist in Century of Love. It originally appears to follow a “destined soulmate” plot trajectory, but later upends this by providing the main lead with an opportunity to make a choice for themselves.

Century of Love is romantic not because San has been waiting for his soulmate (and suffering physical pain) for 100 years. It’s the fact that San eventually chooses someone despite the fact that he doesn’t know if this person is truly his soulmate.

San simply does not care anymore. Because a life without Vee is not a life worth living anyway. What’s love if it isn’t a promise to be together even without the guarantee of happily-ever-afters?

See more reviews: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/

Leia Mais

The story was interesting and it having so many comedic moments made it even more better. There wasn't a moment I felt bored while watching the show every bit was entertaining.

I watched love in translation and I have to say, both Daou and Offroad's acting have improved immensely. It wasn't bad or anything before but you can really tell they put their all in the show. I also saw someone say the Director had been a bit harsh with them and I think they did a good job even while working under those harsh conditions.

I think my only criticism is what they decided to include. There are a few snippets I've seen online( as well as the bts) that looked good and interesting but was not included in any part of the show and I think that's unfortunate. Another thing, again this isn't about the actors but the decision of the people behind the scene, why did they decide to use certain angles for certain parts of the show ?

Leia Mais

Cute And romantic

what on oddly eerie and weird drama but at the same time so heartwarming fun and amazing. I’m not religious at all so this drama was a bit awkward for me but I enjoyed the store even though sometimes it was a bit dragged on and all over the place. the acting was phenomenal, and I honestly cried throughout this show so many times in a good way. Also the actor who just plays Vee is so freaking cute. Like he is so gorgeous and stunning and adorable. but real talk I really enjoyed this drama overall. I’m glad there was a good story, and they excuted the story line with great acting. Although the acting was great the CGI was just hilarious sometimes and that threw me off but after an episode or two I got used to it!

Leia Mais

If you prefer something's cute rather then wild ?

I always believe the ratings on this website. Because every time I watch something above 8.0⭐️ it’s never disappointing. I cannot say it would be different with this bl, it’s good.
Just my personal opinion is that it little bit cliche. For example when Wee was sh*t and San hold him I saw that so many times in bl stories. And also I feel like I already watched a similar bl with the “reborn” topic.
The story was definitely interesting , I’m just not quite sure that the idea was unique.
Anyways it’s worth of watching if you looking for a bl with higher quality in acting and storytelling, and if you prefer something's cute rather then wild ? (if you know what I mean). I do still recommend. Peace.

Leia Mais

Good series with great leads

First I would like to say that I really enjoyed this series quite a bit! I think the story was very interesting and they didn't completely butcher the execution like some BL series.

Likes:
1. The chemistry between the main leads is absolutely amazing! I loved them in both series that they were a part of and you can tell that they have a lot of respect for each other. They feel like a real couple, which is something that I hold in high regard when it comes to LGBTQ+ content.
2. The story was very interesting and I love a good reincarnation/fantasy story and it was decently executed. The director and production crew executed the fantasy story as well as the romance story pretty well! I felt like every character had their place in the story and added something to the story.
3. The other actors did a really good job as well especially since a few of them had to play multiple characters with completely different personalities. I also just loved the majority of the characters even the ones that I have criticisms for.

Dislikes/critiques:
1. I thought some of the decisions made by the characters (especially San) were nonsensical. Especially when it came to basically accepting that the new Vad was the real Vad without any proper research into who she actually is (which they did with Vee), San giving the rock to the new Vad which is literally his lifeline, and San abandoning Vee after his grandmother died because he didn't want to cause Vee any more pain (even though it caused even more pain).
2. I wish they would have explored the shift from San basically hating Vee and treating him like crap to absolutely being so in love with him that he would end his own life a bit better. I get that San is over a hundred years old and might not be okay with being in a relationship with a man and I wish they would have explored that more.
3. I wish they would have explored more of the spiritual aspects of the show. Demon Vee was such a visual pleasure that I wish they would have explored it better.
4. I feel like when Vee got stabbed, he healed a little too quickly and with absolutely no scarring? Multiple stab wounds would take Vee off his feet for a least a few months and would most likely leave pretty big scars.
5. Horrible CGI... I know that Thai companies don't have the most money but most of the bad CGI could have been practical effects and would have been 10X more successful.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series and I think the actors did a great job portraying the characters! I would definitely watch this series again or recommend this series to a friend.

Leia Mais

GMM needs to learn how to make better series! I've been ranking my top 3 BL series from another Thai channel for the last three years. They need to reduce some of the silly school-setting themes, otherwise other channels will catch more worldwide attention.

At first, I thought this series would be about reincarnation, a theme we see from Thailand every year. However, I was surprised by how they steered the story into something more cultural (or religious) rather than just reincarnation. I wish I could understand more about this concept, but even though I didn't fully grasp it, I still enjoyed the series very much!

Daou's acting was great! This is the first time I’ve seen him in a series. Does anyone know more about him? I skipped Love in Translation last year, so I didn’t have any expectations for him. Nevertheless, Offroad really needs improvement, which is one of the reasons I couldn’t give this show a higher rating.

I might say this is the best Thai series of the year so far! I hope there will be another Thai series that shines this year.

Leia Mais

It takes a century to learn to live in the present

I had been meaning to watch this one ever since it started airing, and I'm almost upset I waited so long to watch it. This drama is beautifully done, the acting is excellent, and the chemistry even better. While there may be a few plot holes and some annoyance at characters not being able to figure things out, it was overall a wonderful drama that is definitely worth watching.

After losing the love of his life in the 1920s, San (Daou) uses a magical stone blessed by a goddess to live in his current form for 100 years to find his true love's reincarnation. With only a few months left, San is getting desperate - he needs to find her in order to break his century-long curse. Luckily, the keeper of the shrine has determined where this reincarnation will be, and San is ecstatic; that is, until he finds out this reincarnation is a man named Vee (Offroad). Thoroughly convinced this was a mistake, San is determined to find his real true love, all while slowly falling in love with Vee instead. San is left to wonder if Vee is truly his soulmate and able to break the curse, or if these 100 years of suffering will end with his death instead.

I really enjoyed watching this. The special effects weren't very good and there were some aspects of the plot that didn't really work for me, but for the most part I thought the storyline was excellent and the characters were developed really well. There's a lot of repetitive drama when it comes to the relationship, but it is still meaningful and executed well. In terms of the background lore of the goddess, I thought it was explained well enough to get the point across without unnecessary exposition, which was great. I do think fleshing out some of the side characters a bit more would've helped round out this drama, but overall it was beautiful and worth the watch.

Leia Mais

Promising start, poor execution

After watching an emotional rollercoaster like Koisenu Futari, I needed something less serious to give myself the time to recover (one of the best shows I've ever seen.)
At first, I thought Century of Love could be a likable, average Thai BL to distance myself from KF. Boy, was I wrong and right at the same time!

I like the reincarnation trope, but it has to make sense. But the plot didn't make any sense either. Let's break it down.
1- The first 4-5 episodes can't even considered BL, as the drama seems a melting pot of family drama, action-packed scenes with a sprinkle of supernatural and much more.

2- The Mrs. Wad reborn thing: The present-time setting takes place a few weeks before the Goddess's birthday, which means the clock is ticking. San needs to find his long-lost lover to perform the ritual and avoid a horrible death. OK, I get the urgency for suspense and dramatic purposes. BUT.
> San's family doesn't seem to care that time's almost up, living their everyday life, getting a change of heart when the stone is in the villain's hands.
> As soon as Tao points out that Mrs. Wad is back, the family gets into idiot mode; for several episodes, they perpetually ask Tao to redo his calculations because they can't understand who the real Mrs. Wad is. Also, screenwriters couldn't care less about tidying things up, as they didn't ever make clear WHO Mrs. Wad was.
> San's attitude: San gets all grumpy and treats Wee like a broken object just because he has been waiting for his lover for 100 years and can't accept that they might be reborn as a man. Also, for half of the series, San wants to find his lost lover because he loves her and needs her to perform the ritual to save his life. As soon as he realizes he fell in love with Wee, the urge to find Mrs. Wad or use the stone, nothing matters anymore.
> San's condition: It's mentioned that as the Goddess's birthday approaches, the pain San has to endure will increase. In addition, the presence of Wee would benefit San. How? We don't know. There is only one scene where it was shown without explanation.
> Drama for the drama's sake. Most of the drama in the drama shouldn't even be there, but as the characters do not have functioning brains, I see why they inserted these sloppy excuses for getting to the number of episodes they need.

3- Acting-wise, I can't say I'm amazed but neither disappointed. It's my first DaouOffroad drama, so I can't make any comparison to their previous roles. I liked the performance of Offroad, even though it felt too much at times, especially in drama-heavy scenes. Daou's performance felt stiff, which is of the character of San himself, but it felt too much acted.

4- At best, the characters seemed dumb doing what they did.
Why would San and Wee fall for each other? Was Wee Mrs. Wad reborn? What made him so special? I guess we'll never know.


PROS:

- Honestly? None

CONS:

- Lack of characterization;
- Plot holes and poor writing;
- 404: Brain not found;
- The annoying sound effects. I swear-
- Poor CGI: not a major con, but still.

Leia Mais

Pagaría por ver a Daou y Offroand respirar, la verdad...

Creo que el título de esta reseña ya indica que no soy la persona más objetiva cuando se trata de analizar una obra en la que #DaouOffroad hayan sido los actores principales, porque los adoro, me parecen actores muy buenos y la química existente entre ellos me derrite.

Ahora bien, e intentando hacer un ejercicio de desconexión del yo fan, tampoco veo grandes cuestiones de las que quejarme. Quizá el guion tiene algunas decisiones cuestionables y los momentos de humor no funcionen con todo el mundo, pero la historia es buena, parte del tropo del amor predestinado y la reencarnación, por lo que no inventa la rueda, pero la producción tiene un muy buen presupuesto y el elenco actoral es bueno. La música es para ponérsela y llorar una tarde de verano (en la que Daou va a estar sudando, de eso no podremos tener dudas) y echarse a llorar.

Lo único que me hace cuestionar la serie (y ya no es tanto sus connotaciones artísticas) es todo lo que se ha hablado por redes (y aquí nos movemos en el territorio de los rumores) respecto de las condiciones a las que han tenido que enfrentarse Daou y Offroad en el set. Y si los rumores son ciertos, serían motivo para desterrar al equipo por acoso y mal clima de trabajo.

Veremos, veremos.

Disfruten de estos 100 años de amor.

Leia Mais

An Excellent Drama That Doesn’t Take Itself Too Seriously

This series is an excellent example of a drama that manages to balance drama, romance, comedy, and angst perfectly. A lot of reincarnation dramas usually choose to lean heavily towards either extreme angst or extreme comedy and there is rarely a perfect in between such as COL.

Let's start with the excellent stuff:
- Excellent casting, acting, and chemistry. This applies to all the characters and not just Daou and Offroad. Yes, the romantic chemistry is amazing. But the platonic chemistry between the cast is also crazy electric.
I honestly am in disbelief that this is only Daou and Offroad's second project because their acting and chemistry far surpasses their actual amount of experience. I also have to give a huge kudos to the child actor who played young San, Ms. Vad, and Dr. Third - they were absolutely amazing to watch. Everyone was amazing actually, no line delivery feels out of place or awkward which is a huge feat.

- Insanely funny in the midst of all the Serious. This is an actual laugh out loud funny series for me, which I absolutely did not expect just by watching the trailer and reading the synopsis. Not to mention, all the main casts have amazing comedic timing and a good amount of them are actually so good with physical comedy. Even the editing choice was excellent and insanely funny - there’s this one scene in the beginning where San was asking the first Shinse how long he has to wait, and then the next scene cuts to a picture of the memorial picture of the Shinse and I literally snorted.

- I loved how they wrapped up the story. I had huge expectation on how they were planning to go with the whole "who is the real reincarnation of Ms. Vad" and they wrote what I personally think is the best possible scenario that they could. They managed to convince me that San would still love Vee even if he's not Ms Vad's reincarnation whilst also not negating the enormity of San's love towards Ms Vad, which is a hard balance to achieve.

- They managed to make the age gap not creepy. Eventhough San is literally 100 years old, he learns from Vee as much as Vee learns from him. This really reduces the weirdness of the 100 year gap and any sense of power imbalance

- The characters are all well developed. I love that Vee is not a perfect angel - San knows that and loves him regardless. Although their whole world does revolve around their romance, it doesn't feel one dimensional because Vee has so many other fulfilling relationships in his life other than just San, and San is a literal 100 y.o man so he is allowed to just focus on Vee. I also love how we can clearly see why they fell in love with each other. Both characters are so lovable that its not that high of a reach that theyre madly in love with one another.

Now unto the room for improvement:
- They didn’t really allow proper time for angst. Almost all angst scenes have a comedic element to it which is not fully ideal if you're looking for a good cry. I don’t mind this though, I don’t enjoy crying that much anyways.

- Some scenes didn’t feel purposeful and intentional. I do not mind filler scenes, but I do recognize that this is a room for improvement.

- Plot holes? Or maybe I'm just stupid and didn’t understand. So there are two things I don’t think was explained: does five colored stone have the ability to extend anyone's lifespan eventhough it was literally bound to San and Vad's soul and what was the point of the dream scene where the Goddess cried after San thought that Vee is Vad reincarnated? For my first question, it was more because the mafia and Vee are both under the impression that consuming it will heal them and even San was saying that it has to be given voluntarily and has to be consumed on the birth day of the Goddess. However we saw that the initial healing was done by just placing the stone on San's chest and the consumption was actually to extend lifespan by 100 years. Idk if I phrased this well enough but I just found this part weird.

Anyways this is an excellent watch and I will continue rewatching this for a very long time.

Leia Mais

Bad hair and grief

Well, how do I put this nicely? It was not a train wreck. It could have been better. It should have been better. It was not all bad. I finished it so that is the proof, if you need one, since I drop dramas easily.

The premise was excellent: star crossed lovers and reincarnation with the help of local myths and a magic healing stone. But when the reincarnated soulmate turns out to be a man, it is difficult to deal with the idea. Until it is not any more.

Every plot point in this drama is like that: the problem seems unsurmountable and then, after some pointless running around, everything is sorted out. It started by being very predictable: three shady characters wanting to put their hands on the magic stone. I really thought that this plot is going to take up the whole of drama. Imagine my surprise when that was solved in episode 4. So I went, what now? Well, a couple of episodes later, they brought them all back with an additional accomplice. By that time I had lost every interest I had in this drama: it had become boring and repetitive.

What I liked:
- the premise and the mythology
- support characters: the family, particularly Chu and Tao, were loving, open, fun and funny
-the kid version of San
- Wee with his sunny smile and his grandma
- lessons on how to deal with grief

What I did not like:
- Daou who played San was badly styled and was allegedly harassed on set and it shows in his robotic acting and stilted movements. He actually made me think of NKM in The Veil where he seemed to have forgotten how to walk normally. Same thing here. As for styling: that cropped hair made him look 35 at least: so I needed to check his bio and rewatch the first episode of Love in Translation because in this drama he does not look anything like his MDL pfp. The costumes he was made to wear were just awful: oversized, large and ill-fitting. And finally, his acting was nowhere to be found, he looked extremely uncomfortable as if he wanted to be anywhere else but on this set. The love scenes were unconvincing as they looked so mismatched without any visible chemistry. He seemed clumsy even in the action scenes which were ok (I like the fight with sabres towards the end)
- the character of San: looking for his lost love for a hundred years, suffering in pain every night, being impotent for a century (until he met Wee!). The only fun thing about his curse was when he turned into a young boy: that kid acted better than Daou!
- the predictable villains: as soon as the uncle showed up it was obvious he was the bad guy!
- music was awful, already heard in every other thai bl: funky, snapping fingers songs and the background music stressing the tone of the scene: funny, tragic, romantic....so irritatingly not subtle! I wish producers would learn to respect their audience's intelligence and trust them to know how to recognize different moods!
- PPLs for the toothpaste showing up out of nowhere.

Even though I liked the beginning of the drama very much, very quickly i.e. by the time I reached ep.6, everything I wrote above was starting to annoy me immensely. I debated whether to drop it and then I forced myself to finish it since it is not too long and I had only 4 episodes left. But frankly, it was a torture of misunderstandings, sacrifices for your good, bad pacing and bad hair! To be frank, that is probably my biggest issue with this drama: Daou's hair! It reminded me of Chicago Typewriter which I ended up hating for exactly the same reason: the bad hair which turned out to be so distracting I could not enjoy the plot! Same here!

I'd give them A for the effort but this drama was chock full of plot holes, bad pacing, illogical actions (a car falls into the harbour, it is floating in the sea and the police present are looking for it and not calling for the crane or something?). But there were many light funny moments which made the watch ok, I guess.

And finally, I will never get used, no matter how many times I see it, to lovers sniffing each other. I found it odd when I first saw it in ITSAY and still fail to comprehend it....cultural differences are not there to be understood but to be accepted. Right?

Leia Mais