BLISS RATING: ★★+
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Anonymous
This BL series had such good potential and started out well. But then it meandered and veered off into silly and unnecessary directions, which was too bad because the overall story is actually entertaining. And so is the side love story. The ‘main’ love story (I am guessing) is between Tan (Leo Peerapun) and Oil (Tai Thanaphat). Oil comes to stay with Tan’s family and Tan in essence adopts him as a younger brother. But the seed of attraction has always been there from an early age. Even Tan’s mother recognized it. As they reconnected again, it rekindled into an unrequited love for one another. And unrequited it is until the last episode. This bantering about, staring into each other’s eyes and intense closeness, drives the story into nuttiness.
Eleven episodes of this was just a ridiculous waste of time and talent! Common on! Either consummate this relationship earlier or move on! A lot of these stories take this route of these long sessions of unrequited love scenes, but it is unnecessary. Why? Because these guys can act and there is such an endearing and underlying bond and chemistry when they are together.
It is never in your face but their whole demeanor changes when they are together. They become enveloped with each other and act as if they are one person at times. Had the story and director been able to take what I think is a natural magnetism to each other and TOLD a story between these two, this series could have been an instant classic. There really is a certain magic between the two that is soft, evident, and jumps out at you.
While I understand that dealing with a romance between ‘brothers’ might be tricky, the bottom line is that it is there. It was established so go with it. Do not be afraid to explore that with deeper feeling and emotions and commitments at an earlier stage in their development. These two, besides begin so incredibly handsome and attractive, have a natural beauty that becomes more enhanced when they are together. This should have been used to make a great story.
The other romance is between Sea (Bank Nuttawatt), a kid with some musical skills who gets into a prestigious school. He is befriended by Tin (Heart Suphawat), who wants to learn how to play the guitar like Sea. This love story I really liked. It is slow-moving but shows pretty good character development in its quest to fruition. Both are attracted to each other instantly but not in any type of conscious level until they begin to spend more time together. Both have girlfriends who to some degree are believable in that role (well for Sea at least). At their age, it is all so confusing and while you may think one way, your body and actions are saying something totally different. They needed to realize that on their own terms and in their own time. And they did.
There is no real intensity here in terms of passion, but honestly, none is needed in this case. The story is about the development of feelings, not so much the feelings themselves.
There is a stunningly beautiful dialogue between Tin and Sea near the end of the series when they begin to realize their fondness for each other. As Tin looks into Sea’s eyes, he says to him, “You are like music, because every note is you.” And Sea, says back, “And you are one of my songs.” There is just something so magical after first love and the endearing sentiment that comes with that. They said that with all the conviction and passion as guys who are really in love would say. Nicely done and beautifully delivered. Like the other couple, these guys are incredibly handsome and are a beauty to behold but that does not define the story.
These guys also, for being so young, have immersed themselves into their roles and play them with a quiet servitude and commitment. None of these roles are ever overacted or played with trying to tug at the heart strings. They are tied into the raw emotions that the actual characters would feel.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? Bank as Sea and Heart as Tin are the most dynamic in this series. Not only are they adorable but there is just something special about what they were trying to accomplish. Awkwardness, unsteadiness, and confusion is what they were experiencing but started to turn into adult towards the end. There acting made them deliciously believable.
As stated, this could have been a great series, but unfortunately it is not. As mentioned, the story meanders with a lot of usual characters and adjunct story lines that go nowhere and look as if they were added to fill up screen time. Example, Tan’s father and stepbrother are introduced for whatever reason that adds little to the story, especially the stepbrother who looks like a serial killer. (Even Oil says he is weird, and Oil does not have a negative bone in his body). There are way too many characters who sometimes add to the story and sometimes simply distracts. Most of that is unnecessary. Oil also has several admirers that are essentially left to fend for themselves. Why add this if it goes nowhere and adds nothing to the story itself?
The pet owner is added in the early stages, which looks like a romantic interest for Tan, but then all but disappears by the end. Huh? One character that I both loved and hated was It (Jeng Chotipat). (By the way, a very bad name if you are trying to translate some things into English. ‘It’ became very confusing). To say that he is stunningly handsome is to say that the sky is just blue. He is quite handsome and yes, I am aware of his age. But again, none of that changes the reality. He plays what I think is a sinister, bitter, rather scary character which I could never figure out why.
He is very scary to me, and I would even be intimated by him as most of the characters were. It is almost emotionally abuse at times. He has a very mean look about him. At the end, he softens and mellows (again, not sure why except that the story made it so). He mellows (maybe) because of a friend, Voice (Chat Wasutha), who convinces him to return to his old ways of being a nice relatable person. Their scenes together are endearing and frankly this would have been a great relationship story to pursue, and I wish that the writers had. There was real chemistry between the two that should be explored.
This was one of the few series that I almost gave up watching. The production, editing, and translations into English made it very difficult to watch. The story dragged on and on with almost getting to the point for couples saying “I like you” but did not get there until the end. (‘I like you’ are magical words in these series and I wait for those words to know that a milestone was reached in the series. Unfortunately, this was not said until the last episode).
I wanted so much more than this superficial story between two couples that overall are very interesting people who could have had special relationships develop. In addition, Voice and It should have had a relationship develop. (Please avoid the use of IT as a name as that gets very confusing when translations in English are involved). As in a lot of these series, there seems to be little trust in the acting. In this series, it does appear as if this is their first big role as main characters or even minor, but little regard to providing some real direction to their work and improvement. Some of them needed real acting direction and advise. It looked like they were on their own or simply winging it. This was a good solid story that did not believe in itself and then got lost. These guys, for the most part, are very young and inexperienced yet they carried what they could on their own without any real direction or solid production. I believed in these actors and they themselves should feel pretty good in what they done; too bad the production let them down.
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