The Effect (2019)

Great performances

There are a number of interesting themes in this BL drama. The evils of social media and the domino effect of bad actions that cause a whole series of undesirable outcomes. Keng (Oat) is a gay University Senior who falls in love at first sight with shy, introverted Junior Shin (James). Keng endures the common themes of overbearing parents and social conditioning that rejects same sex relationships. Unfortunately, he isn't able to contain the rage this kind of repression creates and ends up raping the object of his love. We're never quite sure of Shin's sexual orientation. Shin's best friends Bright (Yacht) and Promote (Top) really are the stars of this piece -- showing what real friendship is about. They form their own bromance along the way. Some reviewers have asked for a longer series, but I'm happy this one was only 3 episodes. Most of these BL dramas are heavily padded to run for 30 hours and have many sub-plots that lead nowhere. The writing of the first two episodes is very strong and the plot follows a logical path. But there are some serious flaws in the last episode. Keng's brief little blackmail moment doesn't ring true to his character and only puts the final nail in his coffin for being a person unworthy of anyone's friendship, never mind love. Shin apparently recovers from the trauma of rape and even finishes university, two years late. But five years have passed and he has no new friends or girlfriend or boyfriend? In five years? Some have explained the ending as both boys, Shin and Keng, stepped off the curb to end their lives at the same time, finally brining them together in the afterlife. Well, that makes as much sense any other conclusion, but there was plenty of time in the third episode to make that more clear. While the script is above average, writers have to be vigilant about falling into stereotypes. And it's a long and weary Hollywood cliche that gay characters (including those implied to be gay) must suffer violently for their orientation. Or they must be evil. (see almost any Alfred Hitchcock movie for proof of this). So here we've got two evil gays: Man and Keng and presumably gay Shin who attempts suicide and dies at the end. We've seen this formula too often. Male rape is an interesting dramatic platform, but rather than gay Keng as the rapist, why not the straight boys in the photo club? Male rape is common in straight fraternities. Or how about a woman raping Shin? Perhaps an older female employer at a part time job? You see, there are lots of easy fixes to avoid stereotypes and these would have made the story far more interesting.

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La historia es distinta , cruda y de malos entendidos. Al paso de los capítulos lo que creí fuera una historia normal entre dos chicos , fue cambiando y tomo un rumbo totalmente inesperado para mi (y eso que son 3 capítulos).
Si vienen para una historia de amor , no lo es.
Es una historia corta pero creo que la cantidad de capítulos es lo suficiente para contar todo lo sucedido. y con estos me dieron ganas de leer el libro y ver si pasa algo importante que no salio en el drama.
Los personajes principales bien realizados , nada del otro mundo.
La música aveces había momentos en que no la encontraba que estuviera en el lugar correcto y cuando leía la letra de la canción me hacia mas pensar que no era adecuada .

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I Need Black and White endings

I Love Boy Sompobs music, I loved the Characters and the Actors!
Life is depressing we know it we get it . I cant speak for everyone, but I watch these to give me peace , a break from reality.
After this i feel devisated . I really get into these Drama's so when something happens this bad it does effect me.
I am a hopeless romantic and belive that talkimg to each other can help most problems . but how society is people feel that cant speak there minds. I guess I am lucky I say what I want , I say what I mean, I say what I want
That ending OMG , who got hit Shin? or Keng ? Im thinking Keng. Did he Die? I hate unfinished business we dont know
So in my mind I decided Keng got hit, but he didnt die {a bit of karma for what he did} Shin forgave him , and told Keng that yes he did Love him to and they became a couple . Yes what Keng did is totally bad and horriable .
But in my world I want drama but want Love to win
So this is my thoughts , please anyone let me know your thoughts about the ending

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This show was alright, it wasn't anything special. Honestly, it would've been better if it was longer and more thoroughly but basically you're just watching a really long movie, with not a lot of context. It's a basic story, Shin is a freshman college student that admires the popular perfect senior, basic right? But Keng is from a strict background where he needs to succeed and he feels lonely until he meets Shin. Unfortunately with some events, things just go bad and are taken the wrong way, not the way it was supposed to go. It was also completely childish how they went with it. The friends were nice, Shin's family was nice, honestly it wasn't anything bad but it was nothing special all together. Like these things happen all the time, it's a really common thing and so it was a nice play on it but eh. It was good to watch though.

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I would personally not classify this as BL but as a drama with gay characters and issues. This doesn't make it better or worse, but the viewer's expectations should be set accordingly.

The most significant aspects of the series are that it deals with the issue of homophobia and rape rather seriously. Given the focus of the story, it would have been better if the series had toned down the sweetness at the beginning: Shin's unabashed admiration for Keng (Episode 1) strongly suggests something more than just idolization, and the revelation that Keng is attracted to Shin (early in Episode 2) even before they bump into each other sets things up for the development of a romantic relationship between them.

The tenderness of Keng towards Shin is shown through his inner thoughts and isn't likely to be feigned (unless its an act of self-delusion). It is thus hard to be convinced that Keng would rape Shin (and violently beat him up) at a slight provocation. We do see a hint of a potentially violent streak when he hits Man for an act of malice, but his outrage was justifiable and he certainly isn't hurting someone he is in love with. The sudden and severe violence Keng inflicts on Shin compromises the overall coherence of the portrayal of Keng. Perhaps there is a point being made about how acts of violence like rape can be inflicted by the people one trusts, but it isn't coming across very well.

The depiction of Keng is complex. After hurting Shin, he appears to be sorry and still professes to love Shin. (I guess this happens with a lot of cases of abuse, so it is reasonable enough to show him doing this.) But he also disappears until after Shin has recovered physically, then he threatens Shin with a clip he has recorded during the rape, keeps pestering Shin and even blames everything on Man after Shin attempts suicide. Such behavior threatens to push the character beyond the boundaries of credulity.

As for Shin, it is not clear whether he ever has romantic affections for Keng. This doesn't matter because he was not willing or ready to start a relationship with Keng, so Keng's behavior is wrong regardless of how Shin might have felt towards him. Nevertheless, I can't quite make sense of why he seems infatuated with Keng but tells Keng that he might like guys some day too when Keng confesses that he is gay. It would have been better to show Shin's admiration for Keng without hinting at romantic interest at the start.

For a series of merely three episodes, The Effect deals with plenty of heavy stuff, but the bulk of the heaviest stuff is confined to about one episode. Perhaps commercial considerations are involved here. It invites us the ask what the cause is for the effect that we see. Shin blames himself before committing suicide. But we can also quite clearly see that Keng's violence is what ruins everything for himself and Shin. Even more seriously, the homophobia in society is perhaps to blame for Keng's denial to Man that he is gay (which triggers Man's indignation and leads him to post a photo of Keng and Shin that causes misunderstandings) and the pressure that judgmental comments on social media put on Shin.

The ending is also unsatisfactory. We don't know if Keng or Shin (if either of them) gets knocked down by a vehicle. The ending is open-ended (which is fine), but it is also totally unnecessary (which is not so fine). The series could simply have ended just a few seconds earlier, with Shin graduating (the happy part) and with him reflecting on how he is left to cope while those who have been cruel with their words have forgotten the events (the sad part because we see that there's no way Shin can totally get over his traumatic experiences).

Perhaps one other concern is that the only overtly gay characters are depicted so negatively. Shin's sexuality is too ambiguous although he is not negatively depicted. There is a hint of something going on between Pramote and Bright (Shin's friends), but it's merely a hint. They could have been used as a nice contrast to Keng and Man, who turn out to be really awful gay men. Bright, though, is truly a bright spark in the series. I look forward to his appearance even though Yacht (the actor) seems to be playing a similar role to his role in Love by Chance as a seemingly frivolous but fiercely loyal and true friend. He single-handedly makes the series more enjoyable.

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A serious subject handled well ... well, almost.

There is one over-riding reason to watch “The Effect”: to see the moving and deeply affecting performance of James Prapatthorn Chakkhuchan as Shin, the first year university student whose life is dramatically changed by his relationship with an older student. He captures the demure innocent-looking freshman with a convincing sincerity.

Shin admits he’s not an ‘A’ grade or even a ‘B’ grade student, but that does not mean he can’t think for himself or have his own opinions. When senior student Keng (played with a nice degree of ambiguity by Oat Chakrit Boonsing) spots him on campus and, taking a liking to him, contrives to meet him, it sets in motion what could have been a story of the younger man discovering himself and falling in love for the first time. That would have made for a conventional Thai BL series familiar to all by now; but that is not what happens.

Instead, Shin’s misfortune is to be impressed by Keng’s surface allure of an A grade senior who, beneath his impressive resume, conceals his own secret struggle. Add to this Man, (played impressively if a little too villainy by Mike Weerapat Nimanong), a fellow senior who openly pursues the reluctant Keng, and “The Effect” takes this triangle love interest into the darker side of the powerful forces unleashed by attraction amongst the young.

The damaging forces that align to catapult Shin into injury, shame, depression and worse are painfully written in the performance of James Prapatthorn, who displays a remarkable emotional grasp of his character’s despair. The first-time director, Worawut Thanamatchaicharoen, does well to give him all the screen time he needs to chart his Hades-like descent, because in three hour long episodes, there is little time left over for the many other issues the drama raises.

The limited scale of this series results in numerous other matters being dispensed as if reading from a pamphlet on sexual violence; on top of that, parents are showing over-reacting with inappropriate responses, friends turn up with glib advice, doctors dispense pre-emptive medication with vivid descriptions of side effects for an affliction feared but not yet established and without at any time suggesting counselling for Shin’s trauma which is evident for all to see.

Worse is that the perpetrator of the violence keeps reappearing, spurred it would seem by the writers’ intent to fashion somehow, incredibly, a happy ending from the poisonous seed they’ve already sown into the plot. Certainly, Shin, with considerable justification, has made up his own mind about the senior he initially respected, yet the writers persist & insert a fantastical final plot twist, which is to no-one’s credit.

“The Effect” production is also plagued by the seemingly incurable Thai BL filming sins of staging dialogues in unnatural line poses, over-lighting interiors and unrealistic coincidences of characters arriving at a scene at exactly the right time to intervene in the action.

The series does not make for easy viewing. Still, the creative team are to be commended for tackling such a serious subject, and, thanks hugely to the casting of James Prapatthorn as Shin, they get most of it right.

Shin’s initial admiration of Keng stems from what he himself calls his gut instinct; he is more guarded later when Man takes a surreptitious photo and uses his seniority to imply that he could be trusted how he will use it. As events escalate, Shin’s confusion about developments beyond his control and his powerlessness in the face of a social media tide are both etched in his face and reveal better than words his struggle to articulate responses that will steer him between the competing elements that have invaded his life. When he senses he may have feelings for Keng, his instinct stops him from acting on them; but what is at play here is no longer Shakespearean - Shin’s fate doesn’t rest on his own character. Instead, it has become classic Greek tragedy, where Shin has become a plaything of the gods, at the mercy of others.

When, at the series end, he finally wrests back control of his own life, it would be nice to think that the bad that happened to him was now in the past. But here the creatives upended their own good works; we know traumas such as Shin suffered are not magically erased by three years of work & study and gaining a degree; nor are wrongs erased by wistfully sighting the guy you still have feelings toward after a long absence.

There is a postscript note the producers have inserted referring to Shin and Keng having found a new place; in my view, it is as crass a piece of after-the-event plot connivance as I’ve come across. It should be ignored.

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I wasn't interested in the series until the moment "it happened". Mechanicalness, planking, talking heads sleepwalking. That's how it affected me, even though I know what the creators wanted to say. Then a slight shock from the twist, which I did not expect and the rest does not need to be written by me, because both reviews below me, even if they are different, are partly right and I confess that I would not like to see another series with this theme from Thailand, because a series where what happened happens at the very end is a waste of time for me.


Do okamžiku, kdy se "to stalo" mě seriál nijak nezaujal. Strojenost, prkennost, mluvící hlavy náměsíčně chodící. Tak to na mě zapůsobilo, i když vím, co tím chtěli tvůrci říci. Posléze mírný šok ze zvratu, který jsem nečekal a zbytek netřeba ode mě psát, neboť obě recenze pode mnou, i když jsou odlišné, mají zčásti pravdu a přiznám se, že už další seriál s tímto námětem bych z Thajska nechtěl vidět, neboť čučet na seriál, kde se úplně na konci stane to, co se stalo, je pro mě ztráta času.

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This will break you

I felt everything he felt. Nobody should have to go through that. Watching how he was before and after was such a shock, even though I have personally been there. This was such a real depiction, and it destroys you when you watch it. I think this was difficult to find online to watch, difficult to watch, but it is important. Shows/movies gloss over these types of topics but showing the REAL feelings behind this, that is such a hard thing to do, but they did it.

The only thing negative I have to say about this, was the ending, just pretend the last 5 seconds is a metaphor or something. I'm going to leave it at them just looking at each other and that being it. Because that would make sense, as if they weren't actually both standing there, but looking back at their past.

Now I need to go watch James in Meow Ears Up so my heart can mend for him.

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This drama is not a joke, it can happen!

I should say that this is ond of the underrated drama, that require more audience.
To me i loved this drama which is just 3 episode [and i believe they could make some more episode too but still they maintain to develop their characters within that 3 episode though! ??].
Some people just said to me that the story is so toxic, but to mr it isn't! I actually feel sorry for both! Yeah! For both!! And i don't want to give out any spoiler cuz i just want you guy's to watch it yourself and decide how you felt about it!!
In my opinion, that this series is a good one that i could suggest eveb though it doesn't have a happy ending [it is all how you view it ].

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The title is fiting - it's a very impactful series

Viewer (reader) discretion is advised. The series with some very triggering topics which I will also mention in my review. Some such topics are rape, bullying, homophobia, violence, suicide. It has some pretty graphic scenes and it’s not for everyone.

For only having three parts, this is a very impactful series. Going into it, I knew what the story was going to be about, but I didn’t expect them to be this transparent about it. This is not a love story, far from it. It’s a story about a man who is obsessed with another and will go to any lengths to have him. The series addresses a lot of important topics and they do it quite well.

I honestly didn’t expect the rape scene to be so graphic, so violent. Not that it is a good thing, but sexual assault and non-consent are very common things we see in BL series. But they tend to romanticize both, make them gentle and with a lot of persuading. The Effect didn’t go that route. They made it violent, hurtful, traumatic. And that really had a big impact. The dialogue that accompanied the scenes were heartbreaking, especially considering that rapists who rape those that are close to them do see this as an act of love. It is not. It’s an act of violence, of needed control, of showing their dominance. And they point that out too, which is really important.

The trauma Shin went through because of Keng was portrayed very well. Not just his physical trauma through the bruises he carried on his body, but also his mental trauma. Shin’s bruises were in a way symbolic. They were a symbol of his pain, but it seemed like as they started to fade, people around him started to forget how traumatized he is. There is a scene in which Keng begs for forgiveness and offer money, and the fact that Shin’s parents agreed to that, shows that they didn’t understand his pain. I am so glad that Shin had friends who were there for him, who supported him through everything and who protected him when needed.

Social media is toxic, by now we all know that. However, that doesn’t mean that we are not impacted by what happens on social media, by what others say and post about us, even by what we post ourselves. And that is something that this series really pointed out. People always take sides, and they usually take the side of the more popular person. Be it the right side or not. Be it the truth or not. And the worst part is that once it is over, people tend to forget about what happened on social media. They treat it like it’s not reality simply because it happened online. The effects it has on a person are often times not acknowledged.

Homophobia is something that not only followed Shin and Keng at school, but also something that was coming from Keng’s parents who wanted him to protect their reputation. That’s a sad reality that many LGBTQ+ youth still face today. They either cannot be who they are due to fear of what will happen to them or because they are forced to conform to the norm of “normal behavior” that are set by the society.

Both main actors were absolutely brilliant when it came to portraying the emotions, no matter how good or bad those were. I felt their pain. They were on point with their gestures, facial expressions, body movements, even tone of voice. It was so raw, yet amazing.

I do think the story was very rushed. I wish there would be more time to develop the characters and their storylines. And to address some things a bit more in depth. To give Shin a chance to heal before our eyes. And I wish for the ending to be cleared. I am still unsure what exactly happened.

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