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Exceeds all expectations --- What a SHOW.
I am so appalled by people downrating this because they were expecting a full BL. Deep down at its core, My Dear Loser: Edge of 17 is a very solid series. I dived into this show with expectations that it will just be a cute teenage romantic comedy that I can waste my time on. Yes, it was a cute teenage romcom, but I am surprised that it had soooo much more to give.
I think of MDL: Edge of 17 as a two-part character-driven serie: OHxPEACH and INxSUNxAINAM. For this review, I shall treat these two storylines separately and just focus on the characters involved and their respective stories.
OHxPEACH:
Oh has two versions in MDL: Edge of 17. The "loser phase" Oh refuses to stand up for himself and has very few impressive qualities to speak of. After a major character makeover at around Episode 5, the "post-loser phase" Oh begins to fight back and unwittingly gets himself caught up with a gang of bikers. He's a very solid, three-dimensional character in my book and always a pleasure to watch, mostly because of how he was brought to life by Nanon for the small screen.
On the other end of the spectrum is Peach, who has her own loser (Copper) and post-loser (post-Copper) phases. She's that typical girl in a Hollywood teenage romcom with a jock boyfriend and is being (indirectly) pushed around by people around her. Judging by the comments from other viewers, she's probably the most misunderstood character in the series apart from In (to be discussed later). From my perspective, I think that she definitely knows that something wrong is going on around her and she wants to help Oh, but being a teenage girl whose fame and power rest only on the fact that she's in a relationship with the most powerful student in the school, she thinks of herself as too weak to change anything.
Nanon was phenomenal in playing Oh in his loser and post-loser phases. It seemed to me that he was actually playing two different characters here. I only saw previews of his two other famous works--Blacklist and The Gifted--so it was very refreshing to watch him do a comedic role and he excels at it. Surely he will soon emerge and be acknowledged as one of the best actors working in Thailand. There's also the members of the biker gang that stood out, especially Nicky, whose unscripted, hilarious one-liners created so many scenes in the series where Nanon, Lee, and Sing break character.
INxSUNxAINAM:
The INxSUNxAINAM story steals the entire series from the OHxPEACH subplot in all aspects. I have never been so invested in a fictional character in a lakorn as much as I did in these three. Writers can even create an entire spinoff out of this subplot!
The main conflict in this subplot is that In, Sun and Ainam are engaged in a love triangle: Ainam likes Sun, Sun likes In, and In likes Ainam. The guy responsible for this conflict is In, who was ejected from his clique of school bullies but soon found new friends in Ainam and Sun. In is a very complex and well-written character. To borrow the words of a YouTube commenter, In is like a "chameleon" who has no personality of his own but instead molds himself based on the people he's currently with. Initially, viewers will not understand In, but as the series progresses, we begin to realize how poetic this character truly is. The actor who portrayed In (Pluem) apparently understood this and did a good job in making himself and his motives appear ambiguous.
Ainam is one of the best female supporting characters you'll probably ever see in a BL story. She is the complete opposite of Peach, the other main female character in MDL. At such a young age, she behaves like a fully grown woman: mature, knows and stands for what is right, and wise beyond her years. Although she was rejected by Sun, she still helped him get the person he actually wants to be with. I don't know if she received any award or recognition for her performance, but Puimek absolutely nailed the role, especially in two key scenes: Ainam asking In if he is really in love with her, and Ainam telling In that she doesn't believe in the LGBT label: people "just fall in love with each other."
Most viewers of MDL would probably relate with Sun, a character so beautifully brought to life by Chimon. He is pretty much the male version of Ainam: someone who is especially protective of people who are special to him. Throughout the entire series, his scenes with In were probably the most special. There is one scene in particular that I loved: in that anti-climactic bed scene, we see Sun shed tears on his left eye (away from In's view). A few seconds later, he turns to his side to face the camera and we see that he was actually shedding tears in both eyes. It just shows how much In means to Sun that he will even shed tears even while In is watching. That moment is so subliminally dramatic, it's quite beautiful.
I have so many other things to say about MDL: Edge of 17 to justify my 9.0 rating, but I think this review is getting too drawn out. I'll just end this by saying that MDL doesn't revolve around INxSUN; you cannot judge the entire serie based on a single subplot. You have to view it as a whole to gain a full understanding of things.
I think of MDL: Edge of 17 as a two-part character-driven serie: OHxPEACH and INxSUNxAINAM. For this review, I shall treat these two storylines separately and just focus on the characters involved and their respective stories.
OHxPEACH:
Oh has two versions in MDL: Edge of 17. The "loser phase" Oh refuses to stand up for himself and has very few impressive qualities to speak of. After a major character makeover at around Episode 5, the "post-loser phase" Oh begins to fight back and unwittingly gets himself caught up with a gang of bikers. He's a very solid, three-dimensional character in my book and always a pleasure to watch, mostly because of how he was brought to life by Nanon for the small screen.
On the other end of the spectrum is Peach, who has her own loser (Copper) and post-loser (post-Copper) phases. She's that typical girl in a Hollywood teenage romcom with a jock boyfriend and is being (indirectly) pushed around by people around her. Judging by the comments from other viewers, she's probably the most misunderstood character in the series apart from In (to be discussed later). From my perspective, I think that she definitely knows that something wrong is going on around her and she wants to help Oh, but being a teenage girl whose fame and power rest only on the fact that she's in a relationship with the most powerful student in the school, she thinks of herself as too weak to change anything.
Nanon was phenomenal in playing Oh in his loser and post-loser phases. It seemed to me that he was actually playing two different characters here. I only saw previews of his two other famous works--Blacklist and The Gifted--so it was very refreshing to watch him do a comedic role and he excels at it. Surely he will soon emerge and be acknowledged as one of the best actors working in Thailand. There's also the members of the biker gang that stood out, especially Nicky, whose unscripted, hilarious one-liners created so many scenes in the series where Nanon, Lee, and Sing break character.
INxSUNxAINAM:
The INxSUNxAINAM story steals the entire series from the OHxPEACH subplot in all aspects. I have never been so invested in a fictional character in a lakorn as much as I did in these three. Writers can even create an entire spinoff out of this subplot!
The main conflict in this subplot is that In, Sun and Ainam are engaged in a love triangle: Ainam likes Sun, Sun likes In, and In likes Ainam. The guy responsible for this conflict is In, who was ejected from his clique of school bullies but soon found new friends in Ainam and Sun. In is a very complex and well-written character. To borrow the words of a YouTube commenter, In is like a "chameleon" who has no personality of his own but instead molds himself based on the people he's currently with. Initially, viewers will not understand In, but as the series progresses, we begin to realize how poetic this character truly is. The actor who portrayed In (Pluem) apparently understood this and did a good job in making himself and his motives appear ambiguous.
Ainam is one of the best female supporting characters you'll probably ever see in a BL story. She is the complete opposite of Peach, the other main female character in MDL. At such a young age, she behaves like a fully grown woman: mature, knows and stands for what is right, and wise beyond her years. Although she was rejected by Sun, she still helped him get the person he actually wants to be with. I don't know if she received any award or recognition for her performance, but Puimek absolutely nailed the role, especially in two key scenes: Ainam asking In if he is really in love with her, and Ainam telling In that she doesn't believe in the LGBT label: people "just fall in love with each other."
Most viewers of MDL would probably relate with Sun, a character so beautifully brought to life by Chimon. He is pretty much the male version of Ainam: someone who is especially protective of people who are special to him. Throughout the entire series, his scenes with In were probably the most special. There is one scene in particular that I loved: in that anti-climactic bed scene, we see Sun shed tears on his left eye (away from In's view). A few seconds later, he turns to his side to face the camera and we see that he was actually shedding tears in both eyes. It just shows how much In means to Sun that he will even shed tears even while In is watching. That moment is so subliminally dramatic, it's quite beautiful.
I have so many other things to say about MDL: Edge of 17 to justify my 9.0 rating, but I think this review is getting too drawn out. I'll just end this by saying that MDL doesn't revolve around INxSUN; you cannot judge the entire serie based on a single subplot. You have to view it as a whole to gain a full understanding of things.
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