Woof. This was rough. Like I almost dropped it rough. This wasn’t a bad drama per se, I’ve seen far worse, but rough is the aptest word I have for it. I’ve seen quite a few reviews give it very positive feedback and while I think some of it is warranted, I think it overlooks some of the glaring issues this show has that may make someone want to not watch the show.

Okay, so I need to address something first because most of the issues in the show stem from this, it’s kinda like the original sin. This drama is based on the sleeper hit Thai film CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE, and it explains so much of the weird stuff that happens in the second half of the show. Like after I finished the drama and had taken a few days to really take it in, I watched the original movie, and everything that had confused me suddenly made sense.

Story: The story...bad. I love the first half, the part set in high school, it was the best part of this story and character-wise. It was fun and cute, a perfectly fine teen drama, a good adaption of the original text. But when it gets to the college stuff, it gets real weird. Some of the story plots make zero sense cause they are in college, they don’t fit into the setting nor do they do anything for character or relationship growth. Characters and character arcs get destroyed. Product placement galore (this one is bad morally, considering who their target audience is, what they are saying through framing and story, and what exactly they are selling - but as an adult who can do critical thinking I found it funny, do a drinking game to it, take a shot every time Angel Zhao is forced to be like “wow these products are making me prettier and now hot boys like me” while she’s slowly allowed to take off what they used to “uglify” her). Bad writing period. Angel Zhao had the weirdest makeover/character story ever. It was all so goddamn weird to me that a story could fail so spectacularly after a very solid start, especially in terms of messaging. And then I watched the original movie. And then it all made sense. All of it, why Angel Zhao had face paint, fake teeth, and a bad wig the whole time (I don’t even want to touch on the colorism). Why they had Zhao twirl a baton for an overly extended period of time even though, I repeat, she’s in college and a fashion major. This explained why the fashion department was in charge of the school play, I mean theatre production. Why Zhao had to fall into a pool when her feelings get hurt, presumably multiple times cause tv. Why her character has a Cinderella transformation and most of the typical beats of a Cinderella story but falls flat in practically all aspects especially the messaging. It’s all cause it was originally in CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE. If you want to know the major sins of adaption sickness that this suffered, I’ll put it at the end since it really is spoiler heavy. Anyways, the story was bad. Moving on.

Acting/Casting: I actually really liked this cast, they just got a subpar script, especially the secondary female lead. Like her character changed completely during the second half of the show and it was an insult to her acting abilities. I think all of the cast can act, maybe not all of them have a range but none of them were miscast. But this show was not what it wanted to be. And poor Angel Zhao had to show up early to set nearly every day to put her ugly suit on and do what she had to do. Pour one out for her.

Music: It was okay, it’s fine. The thing that really got to me was some of the sound editing choices, Most of them were fine, but some of them really were baffling. If this drama had a better, more cohesive story, the sound design/editing would have been the weakest part.

Rewatch Value: I wouldn’t. It’s not particularly spectacular or life changing, it’s not even the best of its genre. It is at times cute and entertaining but that’s about it. If you watch it once honestly that’s enough. I would recommend watching the original movie instead.

1. The first issue with this show is that it tries, to its detriment, to be like the movie. Now, this wouldn’t be bad per se, but the way in which they employ this it’s quite obvious that it was a part of adaptation sickness where they weren’t able to pinpoint what made the original good so they took the most memorable scenes of the show without consideration of the new thing they have created and also they were trying to pad this out. Like honestly this show would have been better as a 16 to 24 episode show. Also, this show does not consider the setting of the original movie in contrast to what it becomes. The original movie is set in middle school. I think it’s quite obvious why this would make for a rocky transition. That said, this leads to the high school half being the strongest part in terms of story and character. High school isn’t that far off from middle school so moving the setting to there doesn’t make me pause and ask "what was that" and "why is this happening". But when placed in a college, it just comes off weird. Like, the reason why she is in the play even though she’s a fashion major is that her movie counterpart was coerced into the school play cause she’s a middle schooler in the drama club. Angel Zhao falls into a pool since it happens in the original when she gets rejected cause angst. This is why her character has a Cinderella transformation, it happened in the original movie because its main target was preteen/teenage girls who know what this means and may love the fantasy. This is the reason for that stupid extended baton twirling subplot and it makes me so unreasonably mad.

2. The next issue may be baffling considering what I previously wrote but these mad lads tried to do it: the show tries to separate itself from and critique the movie. And it is not done well. [play clown music] Like, the movie is flawed - it exits in a weird logic realm and perpetuates harmful messaging at a group primed to take it in uncritically and internalize it in the worst possible ways in the way only 2000s teen girl media could - but at least it’s coherent. I’m not going to go into detail cause the headache is so not worth it, but a good example is the messaging that you should not change yourself for another person. This is laughable for the next reason that this show bites, and yes this did exist in the movie but more in an “I became pretty cause I wanted to attract a guy but I ended up becoming a fashion designer because of it and maybe love allows us to change in good ways”. The point is that the show tries to pointedly go against this, which is comical considering the framing around Angel Zhao’s transformation as being a good thing and “don’t you want to stop being an uggo and be pretty like Angel Zhao? Buy these products and you too can have hot boys want to be with you.” Maybe they should have just let that one go.

3. Product placement! That’s one of the reasons the transformation takes place and they are by no means subtle about this (it wasn’t as bad as ANGEL BESIDE ME but if you’re like me you too will find it comical), they really want their audience of teenagers to buy these products, some which can potentially be dangerous. It’s crazy that they kind of spit on the source material but then go against everything they are saying. And, like, I wouldn’t have an issue with this if one of the products was not basically skin bleach so you can stop “being ugly” cause you have melanin. Which is an insanely dangerous thing to promote to teenagers, a group that is already insecure about their looks and doesn’t think about the long-lasting effects something like that could have on them.