This is a touching, sentimental journey of young love that was brilliantly done in the beginning but then got lost in its time journeys to recapture its past. While in some ways the story was exceptional, its execution was unfortunately lacking in logic. Initially it had me hooked on the strength of its young actors playing the parts of their younger selves. Simply put, they were brilliant.

This is a story of destiny but not on a linear trajectory. It is a destiny of love between two young men who were meant to be together but had to traverse different directions to get to the promised land. The love story starts out so beautifully between Saunsoon (Mix Wanut) a pensive, withdrawn, perhaps a bit emotionally frail young man, pretty much a loner whose escape is to go the movies. His name literally means zero which adds to his feelings of self-loathing until he begins to realize the power and impact that the number zero has. Along the way, he meets Ongsa (Tor Supakorn) who is, without question, one of the most enigmatic and complex characters in any BL I have ever seen. Tor’s performance is one of the best as he has to traverse so many aspects to Ongsa’s dimensions.

Tor Supakorn is a rare exception for the current world of BL. He is simply phenomenal. The sincerity he brought to this role, the depth to it, the intensity not only in his emotional scenes but in his overall acting is just breathtaking to watch. And he cried with sincerity and conviction that is so rare in BLs. While he was younger, he acted with such a sense of maturity that is hard to overstate. As he absorbed what was going on around him, he knew he had to make decisions as an adult while still be of a child’s mind. Mixed feelings, not fully understanding, yet surmised he had to do the ‘right thing.’ Plus, the weight of what he knew always was carried by him as a Damocles sword that hung around his neck for the rest of his younger life. He bore that pain in his expressions. It was the subtlety of his acting skills and his nuances in his mannerism that made him so exceptional in his role. He is just brilliant and pure magnificence on screen.

The other individual who is just as enigmatic is the old storekeeper, Grandpa (Phichaksa Kaomulkadee). He plays such a pivotal role in this series with subtleness and sensitivity that is hard to define it. Is he corporal, or the timekeeper?

The story from the beginning established a love affair between Ongsa and Suansoon that is destined yet whose strength must be tested. Which would have been a beautiful story except that so much interference in the story telling got in the way, that the message got side-tracked and lost. Here is where it fell apart:

1. Time travel is dangerous. The reason so is based on both scientific and emotional presumptions. Without getting too esoteric, there is undoubtedly some facticity to going back in time and trying to change the outcome of something in the future, i.e., (the Butterfly Effect). Why do we presume that it will be in the favor we want it to be? Secondly, what will that effect be on the emotions of those who are going through what was never planned to be? However, the story to get there, got lost with way too many twists and turns in logic and premise.

2. Regrettably, older Suansoon (Teng Kanist) was simply too old for the role. It had nothing to do with his acting ability; he is a good actor. He looked older than the characterization should have been and that deflated the whole story for me; all those scenes of when he came back and interacted with young Ongsa felt wrong and very awkward. And yet no one raised an eyebrow as to an obviously deep connection between a 17-year-old boy and a considerably older guy. Conceptually, we knew the relationship but that still, in that context and time frame, did not make it right. I wish they had someone playing the part had been closer to what Ongsa’s age would have been which was 27 or 28. It felt and looked ‘off’ and was just plain weird.

3. The story had way too many flashbacks. When there is a heavy reliance of flashbacks to advance the story, you know you have a weakness in the story. I skipped through so much of that as it was superfluous.

4. While the younger Suansoon and Ongsa relationship was a thing of beauty to watch, I did not see the chemistry between the older Suansoon and Ongsa. It looked forced, contrived, and artificial. They had very little screen chemistry. Even they looked like they had an age gap. Their whole relationship looked like a high school performance.

5. Perhaps it is just me, but I did not get the symbolism in the series or its connections. I did not understand the connection between the continuous reference to the movie Once, the blue butterfly, the references to the letting go of the balloon, wrist bands, rings, and the seating G8 and G9 and perhaps others that are sprinkled throughout. Maybe there is no connection, but all are mentioned, and perhaps have some sort of hidden meaning I missed or is simply unclear to me, but they did seem to be a big part of the telling of the story.

6. This story tried to make a change and ironically did a pretty good job of changing an awful original outcome into a more positive one. But a very heavy emotional price had to be paid for 10 years. That sometimes did not get conveyed well or effectively. Going back to point number 1, time travel is dangerous. You can so easily get lost in the story and that is what happened in this series. Older Suansoon’s story was weighted so much more heavily than older Ongsa’s story, which was itself a complete mind-twister to me. I finally gave up trying to figure out how the story was going to end.

7. Yet when the ultimate reconnection happened, it seemed disjointed, emotionally detached, and oddly unsatisfying. One would have thought that after 10 years there would have been way more passion, way more intimacy in their getting together than merely looking at each other as if they were on a first date. I just did not get it. Sex remains a forbidden subject even for men in their late 20s and I am guessing it still has to be slowly approached even though they have longed and waited for each other for 10 years. Maybe that will occur in Season 2?

This story should have been filled with waterworks but for me; it was not. It has its emotional tugs to be sure and some parts of it were brilliant, mostly with the younger Ongsa and some with the older Ongsa as well. A lot of the story was spinning its wheels and going nowhere, which frustrated me; I wanted to see more about how the two younger ones grew up and how they coped, or not.

I felt robbed of any emotional connection to the older Suansoon but felt a bit more connection to the older Ongsa after being so connected to them when they were younger though. Something seemed amiss throughout and to was obvious that the physical age of Teng Kanist as older Suansoon was definitely not compatible with the character he was supposed to be portraying and it showed in the uncomfortableness of the chemistry of the performances both with the younger Ongsa and to some degree with the older Ongsa. The ending seemed inane to me as well. Unfulfilled to be sure.

Of course, the series is entertaining, but I would have cut a lot of the flashback scenes and a lot of the scenes of the older Suansoon and Ongsa to tighten the script. The authenticity of the story was with the younger performers. It lost its magic and focus when the time travel became desultory.

Rating 3.5 out of 5

Streaming on- IQIYI