Last Twilight (2023)

A Brink of Hope that we all need.

Last Twilight gave us another representation of living as a blind person, and a love that they deserve. The series does not only revolve on Day, as part of the representation, but also this series covers the in-depth reality of what is happening in our current situation today. Every character in this story mirrors the realistic struggles and stigma in every aspect of life: whether it be health, relationship, parenting, family, unhealed traumas and etc; and each one of them represents the emotions that is set to reality: validation, epiphany, fear, hopeful, remorse, guilt, denial, disappointment, frustration, and happiness.

This series can catch the viewers’ attention and have a divided perspective on how they perceive every scene that were put as you run through it. The viewers may not easily empathize the situations especially if they don’t have any experience. Before you watch this series, keep an open mind and do not let your emotions control you because you will get to appreciate the series and how it brought wonders, that led them to be one of the highest rated, not only GMM but also to the entire BL series released of all-time.

There are a lot of takeaways that you can learn out of this series such as, but not limited to: being able to live normally, stepping outside your comfort zone, stages of grief that most of us are going through whenever we have upheavals, rejected relationships and perspective distortion. This series might also deceive you that you might get out of touch with reality because of how domestic the relationship the main couple displayed their affection throughout, however, there’s a balance of everything that was well put together. I have never seen such BL series with plots like this and depicted the realistic tone of life, that it’s not only love is the only solution for us to live happily, but also the sense of individualism and growth that we all need in order to move forward and grow as individuals so that when time comes for us to settle in (on your discretion) a relationship and uncertainty, we already come to terms that we must heal ourselves before our castle will only eventually crumble if we don’t make peace to ourselves.

Let me put my thoughts on each aspect: Story, Acting, Music and Rewatch Value

Story – 9.5/10

This story is one of Aof’s passion projects instead of getting the actors popular by this point as what I can perceive. He didn’t instrumentalize someone’s disability for his works to be more popular, but its purpose is mainly for us to empathize with the struggles of being a disabled person. Not only by being blind but also other disabilities and how we treat them on a normative situation like they are ‘special’ that we have negative connotations about them like how he also gave a representation of the deaf in Moonlight Chicken. He didn’t only use disability as the main story’s medium, but also the realistic view of hope that is divided in two ways, the cognitive distortion to our own beliefs because what we best believe is proven to be already the ‘best’ we can think of, carrying the burden of the things we never get to do when someone’s still by our side and how we can transfer it unconsciously to the one we love and philosophical concept of black and white. Together with Aof’s direction and how the novel was written, the synergy of the two came into slight changes and how it was done perfectly without us asking as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ things happen because at the end of every struggle, there’s a message of ‘hope’ we can get and it will make us more feel motivated to live in our terms. This story is truly inspiring, and everyone will feel validated because what happens in the series also reflects to our own struggles which will make us more engaged and relatable.

Acting – 10/10

Aof choosing Jimmy and Sea to portray Mhok and Day is the best move. As I watched the pilot trailer from GMMTV 2023, I can see now why they are meant to be Mhok and Day and how it suits them given their work before like Vice Versa can also resonate to Last Twilight. Not only Jimmy and Sea, but they put all the best actors by far: Namtan, Mark, Ohmtpk and Film like where will you find a series that there will be a perfect lineup. I have never seen this kind of series to have the best lineup and each other them delivered everything they can offer. As we saw them on their previous works, this has led them to put an extreme effort and showcase what they can show on top of their best performances before. All of them improved especially Jimmy and Sea. With all the GMMTV’s BL couples, they are a breath of fresh air with Vice Versa as an experimental introduction incorporated with a new concept. We saw another side of him that most of us cannot visualize how he will pull off Day and Mhok, and how they can pull of heavier roles. They deserve more works to be honest, I hope GMM can take advantage of the success.

Music – 10/10

As someone who is really into music (not a music major), one of the most important things that I’m looking for in a series is how they were able to put the instrumentals and OSTs. The OSTs for this series is at the top-tier, together with the strings that made us feel the anxiety over what comes next, and also how they are being executed was well put together. One Palm Distance gave us the nostalgia, centennial and vintage vibe that made us want to dance with grace; Blame the Stars brought us two version that bring us comfort and romantic feeling and Last Twilight that made us all cry. If GMM can release a cassette or vinyl version of Last Twilight’s OSTs then I am definitely seated to buy a CD.

Rewatch Value – 10/10

Having a couple with JimmySea and how rare they appear on the public events; this is a worth of rewatch to feel another roller coaster ride. Just prepare your tissues and again, do not let your emotions control you. Rewatching this will give you another perspective and how this series is perfectly made that will let you gain a new perspective and eliminate the biases that isn’t necessary for growth.

At the end of the day, what we want the best of ourselves is growth so that one day we can reflect our past version of ourselves, we can tell how much we have come this far and we are ready to step forward again to enter again in a healthy relationship (not only with love, but also to the society) with an open mind and heart.

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