10 Years Ticket (2022)

Potential lost in a jumbled mess

When I was a pre-teen, I LOVED writing fanfiction. And I especially loved the enemies-to-lovers trope because the angst that it delivered was impeccable. I wanted the arguing and the tears. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to actually get there. And so what resulted was a string of incoherent moments, the most random and petty arguments just to get to the angst that I wanted, and my ships jumped from “I hate you” to “I love you” but skipped the most important part in between.

That was what watching this drama felt like.

I really think this drama would’ve worked much better as a character-driven drama instead of a plot-driven one. You have all the great archetypes in this cast, but instead of diving deeper into their motivations (Phukao’s loneliness, Plu’s desperation to help his grandmother, Kongkwan being associated with a murderer, Zo’s habit of hiding everything behind a smile) and showing growth, it was like the drama kept throwing conflicts (kidnapping, affair secrets, family death, a big scary mob boss, etc.) at the characters just to watch them react to it and be upset.

Speaking of which, a sidenote: nothing about the mob boss was scary. Random punches and gun-wielding minions are not enough to convince me of someone’s power and it felt more “cartoonish.”

Anyways, as the plot gradually unraveled it became clear that character motivations weren’t thought out and there was no hierarchy of conflict; the romance, which had been what I was looking forwards to most, had no logical progression beyond their childhood connection. And the murder and Lak’s “sacrifice,” which was supposed to be the big hurdle, faded into irrelevance both because its reasoning was nonsense and because everything else was treated equally dramatically.

With the situations so overblown, it felt like the acting didn’t live up to it and this is where I blame both the writing and skill/chemistry. Most of the acting (even the side characters) just felt like they were going through the motions, which is really unfortunate because this was a drama that really tried to sell every character’s pain.

Part of that is, once again, the lack of character motivations. But the other part is simple chemistry. Lak/Mai and Zo/Nink were one of the few duos with good chemistry — it was lacking with all of the parents and there was NONE between Phukao and Kongkwan.

Which brings me to my biggest character problem: Kongkwan. Her character was quite simply, pathetic. When she wasn’t crying she was looking depressed. She had no personality beyond that and honestly, Tu’s acting didn’t help — I can see her doing all the right facial expressions but I just never FELT it. Without any sort of character trait other than “I'm sad my life sucks so I need this doll” there was nothing to connect with.

My favorite character is honestly Lookzo, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s probably the only character without some sort of tragic backstory, which even most of the side characters were saddled with. Despite that, Zo had best writing out of the four mains; her happy-go-lucky, spunky personality contradicting the secret difficulty of how hard it was to be happy was very relatable and emotional, and I think View killed it with her acting. Her relationship with her father was lovely to watch. June was fantastic as well, and the chemistry between Zo and Nink was also good.

I also want to give a shoutout to the child actors for the main leads, especially Little Phukao, who got some of the most heart-wrenching scenes and actually made me feel every bit of it.

Overall, the OST is good and I still think the premise has a LOT of potential, but in the end it just felt messy. The love triangle was unnecessary and they should’ve just focused on the characters healing and digging up the past instead of focusing on new spectacles. It’s unfortunate because there are really great lines of dialogue and questions about family and forgiveness, but that’s all they are — separate moments that are few and far in between.

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