C grade

The adults act like childish while the teenagers get all the emotional heavy stakes and interesting plot developments.

The best parts of the drama were actually the teenagers and their struggle to meet these physically and mentally taxing educational standards and expectations of their parents and society as well as the mother daughter relationship between the aunt and niece. The wildness of the the hagwon institutions like how the parents have to line up everyday to get the best seating for their children was interesting as well. The murder mystery part of the drama was okay, but it was dragged on for like 3 or 4 episodes too long. When it was revealed that the brother is a red herring and assistant guy is the murderer, that's when they should have wrapped it up.

I quite enjoy seeing pairings where both grown consenting adult characters have the female lead as older than the male lead and the corresponding actors, but the casting here is really distractingly off with the actress not looking anywhere near believable as the character age range she is portraying. It didn't really need to be a noticeable issue except for the drama itself making it awkward by throwing lines like "she doesn't look old enough to be a mom to a teenager" and showing that only a decade has elapsed between the past and the present the story takes place in. It's compounded by the fact that the costume department didn't make a single effort to at least style her to look like she's in her 30s or even 40s and always put her in clothes and hair styling that made her look very middle aged.

Her character is also like an emotionally volatile doormat, it would have been nice to see her have some smarts and effectively save or stand up for herself and her loved ones from time to time. Her version of acting cute was really off putting as well with the over the top laughing as she covers her face and violently hits whoever is in front of her. The romance plots of all of the adults were the least interesting parts of the story. None of them had chemistry and it would have been better to keep those as brief as possible. The teenagers were more interesting, I like how the two boys actually developed a friendship despite being love rivals.

For a single mom with younger man romance that also includes a serial killer plot, I recommend watching When the Camellia Blooms instead of this drama.

Leia Mais

Shocking seeming premise, but chill execution

The way that Milk and Choco's respective cat and dog personalities are translated very well into their human forms. I really like how it's just the particular fixations like they way they stare at Jung Woo or like to play with strings that are kept rather than moving around on all fours, meowing, and barking like other stories do. They are in human bodies, grown adults, and fully articulate and understanding of the culture and has understandings of human social norms which Milk is way better at following than Choco in certain situations. The longer they are in the human realm and as they are more acclimated as individual human beings, only then do they start developing feelings towards their respective love interests other than what they had as pets.

It's really great to see Yeon Seung Ho appear as a guest star. He was one of the leads of Strongberry's Long Time No See, their action romance drama, their strongest and my favorite of their productions to date. It's one of the OG korean bl dramas with a positive ending as they are today, a huge turning point that deserves more recognition.

Though the episodes are short, the pacing of the scenes are a bit slow. The stakes could have been explained a bit better, like what exactly does "disappearing" consist of, does it mean their souls will disintegrate forever? How do they know they had 50 days on earth? At first I thought they were rounding up from 49 days, but then they come back for double the amount of days. I feel like the ending was fine as it is for this story, though if there's a season 2, it would be nice if they could elaborate clearer on for what the stakes that Milk and Choco are dealing with.

Leia Mais

Uneven quality but still interesting

It's really cool to see a story that utilizes Thai mythology, the action scenes are well done, the visual effects look good, the leads playing Phaya and Tharn are good, and the supporting role Yai is effective at both comic relief and serious scenes when needed. The Yai hand heart scene with him accidentally interrupting the two diver's conversation is the most hilarious scene of the series.

The pacing of the scenes are a bit slow and the writing introduces a lot of story beats but they disappear abruptly or is explained as something that happened off screen, like whole Montree storyline, Mayris disappears, Chart never getting mentioned after he ended up in the hospital after blowing his cover trying to help them, and the worst instance is the ending where instead of seeing Tharn and Chalothon's discussion, it's just quickly explained away by a Tharn who suddenly reappears. We don't get to see him reuniting with everyone else who has been looking for him and how the conversation went for the whole IDF to be on board with Tharn is missing because of being taken by supernatural forces. As elite officers, Phaya and Tharn aren't very professional a lot of the times. Phaya is also the worst at explaining why he finds someone shady, which is a crucial ability in his line of work. He was also cognizant when drunk Tharn mentioned the amulet, but he just totally forgets about it by the time he goes to the temple. Then there is an epilogue that seemed to be setting up for a 2nd season, but is actually for a special episode for a paywall live in person event.

I appreciate the ambition of the show. It would have been nice if the script was further polished and there was either more episodes or runtime to flesh out certain story points or shaved some off to film some important missing ones. Overall, it's still worth a one time watch.

Leia Mais

Excellent

For those unfamiliar with kdrama, 16 episodes is the typical episode order of Korea tv dramas, so both parts of The Glory is part of the same series/season and one continuous story arc rather than being two separate seasons. The writer is a veteran of addictive hits that are hits and misses in terms of quality for me personally, but The Glory is an objective masterpiece. I wouldn't call it a fun watch considering the painful subject matter, but it is a most cathartic one. The acting is wonderfully led by Song Hye Gyo in her best work to date along with the writer and wonderfully supported by Lee Do Hyun who is Netflix's Sweet Home alum, and all of the support cast on either sides of the revenge accomplice and bully spectrums.

Leia Mais

Watchable mixed-bag and signals

I enjoyed how the different focuses of each story flowed from one to the other, but the pacing was all over the place. I liked how certain actors in the main pov role were giving a chance to play against the their usual typecast parts and that the main characters being in the wrong is actually shown as being so, whether the respective actor was able to carry the screen time with their acting though is different per case. For a show that sets itself up to show the underbelly of the industry, it doesn't really do much of that aside from showing Pan being sold by his manager to creeps. Most of the storylines involve actors being ruthless to get their time in the limelight rather than the larger systemic issues. Even when the show mentions other issues in the industries like how it's reliant on nc scenes and "service", the show merely lampshades but doesn't have anything in particular to say about it since the show itself is complicit. It literally asks questions it doesn't really answer in form of their own gossip girl type social media account that's featured throughout. There were also fangirl inserts in the form of two characters. The writing for the live comments from both Thai and international fans were eerily spot on and added well to the tension of the scene as you tried to read the reactions and watch the scene at the same time. It was one of the most well done of this kind of storytelling device I've seen so far, so kudos to the show for that. Some of the twitter trends featured were pretty fun to see like how the changed up the names of real people and events that trended regularly in Thailand like dogexpo7 instead of catexpo9. The actor First again is the stand out of War of Y as he was in Y Destiny and props to Toru as well. Both of them carry zero ego when it comes to acting and are fully committed on top of being actually very good at it which made their storyline the most enjoyable to watch. All of the main pov characters are unlikeable though humanized and Achi was the one who got away with the least comeuppance, which is ironic considering how he complained about how Peek was getting that special treatment in Y Idol. Achi is also a rich kid with a nepo safety job waiting for him for insult on top of injury. First really did an amazing job to make Achi bearable to watch. I liked that none of the couples end up happily together. The ultimate winner and this series' gossip girl, ends up to be none of the featured pov characters, but P. Attichon who seems to have some weird unresolved negative tension between him and the actor he's shipped with, but it's never addressed and he unveals his new series about marriage equality as well showing how he uses his social media savvy to stay on the pulse of what audiences want. Overall I appreciated the effort to do something out of the norm even though the delivery didn't exactly come through, it's still more watchable than most other current Thai bl offerings around the time of it's airing.

Leia Mais

A mixed bag with a rewarding bright gem in the midst

Y Destiny varies wildly in quality like a lot of anthology type storytelling, there are many lows, but their high point is well executed artistry. The Kaeng and Puth storyline in Eps 9 & 10 that's wrapped up in ep 15 and their own special 10 minute epilogue is stunningly compelling. I would also suggest watching their scenes as supporting roles in episode 5 & 6 for a extra context of their state of minds as well as their Dear Friend cover music video done in character that's a beautifully aching encapsulation of the relationship.

Though I would rate the show at a 5 and the Kaeng Puth storyline separately at a 9, there are things I liked about the show such as the conceit of having the characters take turn being supporting characters does add additional dimension to them outside of what he see when they are in their romance plots and seeing events from a slightly different point of view as a when scenes from one story happens before or concurrently as a plot point from another story. The contrast of genre tones of the other couples worked well to compound to tragic reality at one point in the KaengPuth storyline in particular. I really enjoyed the styling, such as the creative take on the university uniform for both the general one everyone wears to the personalized takes the characters have and their personal wardrobe and color schemes also feel intentional and adds to the characterization. The use of flashbacks of new scenes to add additional information is also efficient to add more development in the limited episode time.

A review of each storyline on their own before the strongest one:

Tue Ake Ep 1 & 2 The key part of portraying them growing feelings for each other was a miss in all departments.

Nuea Sun EP 3 & 4 features actors Max and Nat switching up their dynamic with Nat playing the confident one and Max playing the cute one works really well.

Team Mon Ep 5 & 6 On it's own it's about a naïve freshman being having his emotions played with for a game by a older Scorer, which also sets up the complications for Kaeng and Puth later.

Thur Pao/Pae Ep 7 & 8 is where supernatural and magical elements are introduced as being real in this world. It almost gave Thur a bit more complexity as a character, but it didn't and the way he is both meeting and reuniting with Pae has no impact because he's a totally different person in life than he is in death, they didn't lay any connection to make it a meaningful story.

Sat Choke Eps 11 & 12 A magical realism episode with time travel through that's inspired by 13 going on 30 expect this is 11 going on 18, which gives very disturbing feelings while watching this 11 year old in a adult body doing adult things.

Masuk Tir & Jia Eps 13 & 14 The final story was a swing and a miss. I understand the intention of a moving portrayal of handling grief, the but the execution was atrociously done. It was also a missed opportunity they didn't bother continuing with or building on any of the set up about spirits and the spirit world that was introduced in Thur's story.

Kaeng Puth Eps 9 & 10 They have the heaviest relationship development despite the friends with benefits set up. The storyline is incredibly well acted by respective actors who are refreshingly committed to their characters without any personal ego and has the skills to to disappear into them on screen. 10 out of 10 score just for them. Extra shoutout to First who was just 18 or 19, not many actors his age has the capability. The storyline is intense, mature, and realistic, not just in terms of the sexuality that is depicted but the layered emotions and the complexities of the relationship . Their story has the most build up from the sidelines of the other stories, particularly Mon's where their appearances inform the history of their story. There are so many intricately placed meaningful details of the story that span from their support appearances, to their main episodes, show finale, and their epilogue that totally respects the audience's intelligence, which is good writing, well directed, and edited as well. The whole KaengPuth storyline is the very rewatchable and worth revisiting.

In a show with ghosts and time travel, the most compelling story is of the complexities of human relationships.

Leia Mais

Has both fun and substance.

I appreciate the range both the writing and acting has from lighthearted humor, sweet love, to nuanced, raw, tragic devastating emotional gut punches. Aside from the very cool stylized use of solid colors to code characters and their inner minds, that the color grading of the other scenes are not afraid of color even while illustrating this world where the characters live in the grey area of morality. The costuming is also very well done. Modern drama costuming looks so deceptively simple, but it's really not. They designed looks that fit naturally without being distracting, as well as reflecting the emotional state of the characters in the scene. All the artistic and technical aspects are done and oversaw with care from the directors/producers, the labor of love from from every cast and crew is felt from the overall quality of the work.

Leia Mais