Golden Blood (2021)

I blame the director

I would like to start by saying that I blame the director. All my major problems with this series basically boil down to the director not directing properly.

Premis is a forbidden romance I can get behind.
Bodyguard falling in love with the boss's son.
Love & duty on the line.💃🏾

For the most part even though the mc starts off as a little spoiled brat, he does get better as it goes on.

The bodyguard is just kinda sad with his kind of adoptive father taking advantage of him the way he does. He is generally good if a little stoic most of the time.

I liked the 2nd couple, they were funny & cute and really deserved a more well developed story than what they got.

The mob bosses and their henchmen were okay. I laughed at them more than I probably should have but they weren't terrible..

The acting overall was okay until the more emotional scenes which is when the director needed to direct the actor better because his acting went from decent to...
The emotional scenes just fell flat coz I couldn't get past his acting which again someone should've flagged & helped.

It was rehearsed, shot multiple times, edited and reviewed and NO ONE thought that maybe they should re-shoot those scenes after giving some helpful feedback to the actor? No one😭

In conclusion: Direct damn it. He wasn't a bad actor, he just needed better direction!

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Watch for Pitch and Bank.

Story, 5.5 :
I liked this series in the beginning and I really enjoyed watching Sun and Sky for the first few episodes. But their story became annoying really quickly. The lack of communication on Suns part really pissed me off and Sky was too hot headed and dramatic for my taste. I would have stopped watching if not for Pitch and Bank. Not gonna lie, Pitch kinda sucked in the first episode but second episode on, he was great. He and Bank were so funny and I think their story was much better. Their drama was more understandable and was resolved much quicker, which I enjoyed a lot. If only they'd had more screen time to show more of their relationship building and some more cute couple scenes.

Acting, 6.0:
Sky wasn't very good at dramatic scenes, Sun was a bit too stony for my taste but that is more of a charecter critique than an acting one. Pitch and Bank were pretty good, not incredible but good enough.

Music, 5.5:
I didn't pay much attention to the music so I can't really say much.

Rewatch Value, 4.0:
I would not watch this again. I will watch Pitch and Bank edits because I really do like them but they don't have enough screen time to justify watch all the episodes again.

Overall, 6.0:
I enjoyed it but I think that it's not worth all the hours it took to watch. That being said, I really like the first few episodes and Pitch and Bank are cute so I'm giving it a higher rating than I would had Pitch and Bank not existed. Watch this if you want but if you want Pitch and Bank alone without Sky and Sun's annoying drama, just watch edits on YouTube.

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It's better than you'd think.

I do have to admit the cover image threw me off from this drama at the beginning. It was giving "editing is my passion!" meme vibes. That being said, after giving it a go, this wasn't nearly as bad as I thought It'd be.

~Story:
Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Yes, this is definitely inspired by the *really good* Korean BL "Where Your Eyes Linger." However, am I mad about it? Hell to the no! And I'll talk about this in a bit.
Back to the point, the story was very well written for the mains and the mains only. I personally really liked it because it felt very complete from beginning to end (and because I love WYEL). We had so much plot about both characters there is literally no questions left to ask. That attention to detail is something that A LOT, and I mean WAY TOO MANY dramas of the BL genre fail to deliver today.
I do think it was a little cheeky and cringey at some points but, on the good side, it was well balanced. There was a bit of action, a bit of comedy, a bit of angst, a bit of drama, a bit of gay shit to clench the thirst, and a bit of cringe. I kinda wish the cringe was minimal, but once the main started singing I had to leave the room cuz I couldn't take it. Episode 7 is one of the most cringey yet hilarious shit Thailand has given me so far.
Everything else in the drama was definitely lacking on screen time to the point I wish it wasn't there. There was little to no room left to care about the friends and their relationship, and the mafia storyline was weak. They weren't well integrated, unfortunately.
Now, as a fan of WYEL, I have to say that this is what I needed. Honestly, WYEL was too damn short for a story that deserved more depth and Golden Blood became all the filler WYEL was missing. When I started looking at it from this perspective, I wished so badly the company behind WYEL could go back and create a full drama to give the story justice. Despite the fact Golden Blood had its faults, it is still superior due to how complete it is.

~Cast/Acting:
It is just as good as it is bad. I'm tired of repeating the same thing, but it's just that these Thai actors are all making the same mistakes over and over again.

Sky: It's satisfying to see how Gun has grown as an actor. The first time that I saw him was a couple years ago in "Love by Chance." His role there was... awkward, to say the least, but it has evolved into something a lot more natural. There were some parts in which he gave us way too much intensity, but I can live with it. At least it was watchable, you know.

Sun: I keep wondering if his "beard" was real or not. Either way I want him to eat my ass like it's his life source. This guy, Boat, was giving me everything my gay ass looks for in a man. Hard nipples, bitch. That is all. Okay, but he did a very good job for the most part. I kinda wish he had made his voice sound a little deeper, though.

~Editing, pacing, direction:
For something that doesn't seem to have a big budget, I think they did the best they could and it paid off a lot better than I was expecting. I once read a review that said the fighting scenes were bad but, honestly, they were the best fight scenes Thailand has given us within a BL. Except episode 7. Please let me forget the entirety of that episode.

Sis, this show has everything: Mafia, action packed lifestyles, college students acting like elementary schoolers, a beard that makes your asscheeks tingle when he's going down on it, that bitch with the chopped hair, unrequited love, past traumas, nurturing feelings, and more. I recommend it, SPECIALLY if you have seen WYEL.

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A Mafias son And his Bodyguard

This Story Evolves around a son who's father would do anything for his son, While the son loves His father he feels Controlled by his fathers best wishes to keep his son safe, the struggles of being a son of a mafias father has made the son want to experience what life has to offer but feels his father is strangling his search for the experience of the outside world away from the mafia life, But before you get to caught up in the type of mafia life his father leads, its far from a tyrannical strangle hold demanding mafia boss that you would think of when you hear the word mafia. The son has decided he wants to be schooled away from his father to give himself some sort of freedom to experience life for himself. reluctantly his father agrees to let his son take more control of his own life and lets him move to a location where he can fend for himself. however unknown to the son the father has taken to have a bodyguard live with the son. From the first moments they meet the son is confused as to why this guy is standing in his doorway. after they exchange heated words the son lets the Bodyguard into his home. From there on they both will be tied together like the bodyguard is his cousin in disguise they are both enrolled at the same school and take the same classes and are stuck together.

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Good idea and that's all

Got to say - I didn't finish it and I doubt I will. Why not? Well, this review is basically the answer to that question.

Let's start with the story - the idea of rich student who's father is a mafia boss and sends his son a bodyguard due to problems with other mafia boss - very good, I haven't seen that in other Thai BLs yet. But as soon as I thought ''maybe it's a non-schematic BL'' the plot hits with tons of typical stuff we all saw in many other series: one of the main lead falls and his future boyfriends catches him, a date that isn't clearly a date, singing a song to each other, going on a university trip, straight girls falling for main leads and causing problems, one is getting drunk and the other one takes care of him... And many more. Besides relationship young master-bodyguard we don't get anything we don't know.
We get a lot of plot holes, unrealistic, I mean completely unrealistic scenarios that could never happen in real life and constant switching between sad, overdramatic moments, cute romantic interactions and typical Thai comedy. Actually the last one isn't that bad although I find it pretty funny how one second we have guns, fights, blood and the other we get normal school life and joking around.

Moving to characters, some of them were pretty well written, like Sun or Pitch. Sun was a character that made me feel like he actually had some ''layers'' and was not a shallow character who's just cold on the outside and soft in the inside while Pitch had absolutely amazing charisma and he brought so much life to the show. I really liked his face expressions, those eyebrows added a lot more to his character.
The worst things I have to say are unfortunately about Sky. Some of the scenes made him look like a boss, but in fact he's just a big child. Literally. Also, giving money to random kid in act of ''kidness'' and going out of the car then looking around and sighing, smiling like an idiot - it all screams main character complex. Going back to him being a big child, no one can say that his actions towards Toktaeng weren't childish. He straight up started to fake his interest just because he was jealous and wanted to make Sun feel bad. He was also acting very strange in the last episodes, changing his mood from happy little puppy to angsty teen in a matter of seconds. Annoying. The only good thing about him was his opennes about his feelings and emotions, he didn't try to hold everything in himself too long like Sun did and he strived for communication. At least with Sun, because when it comes to other people it wasn't so easy for him.
The last - Bank & girls. Bank was fine for me, kind of cute, while Toktaeng and Juno, especially Juno made me lose my mind. I felt pity for them though. Juno was so thirsty for Sun, breaking his privacy and making physical contact when he clearly didn't want to, that's not something I wanted to see. But in the end we all know they were here just to play the roles of straight girls liking male leads, so we could have more drama.

Acting was fine, not the top tier but just OK. I especially liked Sun's microexpressions as well as Pitch's eyebrows lmao. Boat and Sugus did such a great job here.

Music - as in every BL. Literally, nothing to add here.

So, if you usually enjoy Thai BLs - I recommend this one. Slightly different from the rest, might be cool for you. On the other hand, if you just found out [like me] that you cannot stand schematic BLs any longer, it's not for you.

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