Putting my kp defender hat on (fetishizing? toxic? romanticizing abuse/sa? no plot?)

Okay, this is my first review on mdl so be patient with me and buckle up because this going to be long as i would like to take this chance to clear some "popular beliefs" about this series that have been repeated over and over again in both the comment and review sections, popular beliefs that are actually FALSE which i'm going to debunk thanks to the help of my greater friends: the oxford dictionary and critical thinking! The premise is over so let's get started!

-Story is a solid 8.5. While my biased ass would like to give everything a 10, i believe that one of the purposes of writing a review is to give a truthful glimpse of what future watchers should expect from the series reviewed, and since i believe honesty is the best policy, here are my thoughts about the overall story and what i think could have been better. Contrary to what a lot of people have been saying, this series has a plot, a plot that works "undercover" since episode 1 while we discover the main characters of this story (WARNING: this is a character-driven series which means that through the developments of the characters and their relationships the story unfolds, so if you're not into that and prefer series packed with an overbearing amount of plot each episode, this is not for you). Our main protagonist is Porsche who is a 50% unserious, unhinged, and reckless university student on the verge of dropping out and a 50% loving and kinda absent (due to circumstances) brother to Porchay whom he's his everything: the last thing his parents left him to take care of (yes, spoiler but not really he's an orphan) along with the house. Every decision being taken by porsche, decisions heavily criticized by some reviewers and labeled nonsensical, is actually in character with his persona and the lovesick fool is going to become once he falls in love with his forever-worthy foe, Kinn, the heir of the Theerapanyakul clan aka the main family. Kinn, unlike Porsche, is presented to us as this domineering, serious, cold, rational mafia prince (spoiler: he's actually husband material once he falls in love) who is only obedient and second in power to his father, the leader of the clan or as i call him the master puppeteer, Korn, a character and a relationship that will play a big role in understanding the reasoning behind kinn's choices, keep that in mind! What is interesting about their relationship and how it works so perfectly is that, both kinn and porsche are presented to the viewers as incompatible in every single way but as their story progresses we slowly start to understand that they have much more in common than they initially let in. Their inherent understanding of each other, which seemed inexplicable (and some people still don't understand), actually comes from them bearing the same type of burden, the family burden, hence they find solace and understanding in each other something that is never going to change even with the many miscommunications they have going on and that they will continue to have because they are just humans and people don't change that easily like all these bl series want you to believe. I'm not going to explain step by step what's going to happen but the focal point of the plot is Porsche (why would a mafia leader hire a street-tough with 0 experience and relation to the mafia world? What is the reason? And that reason is slowly but surely given to us along with the budding relationship between Kinn and Porsche). Their story is what start the engine of the plot, a plot that moves forwards with them. Again, this kind of character-driven series is actually the most common one, let's think about all the popular bls out there such as i told sunset about you (one of my absolute favorites), bad buddy, not me or until we meet again, every single one of them is character-driven, "the plot" comes second and moves with the relationship of the main couple which is the main focus, the main entrée, the main engine of these series. So why do a lot of people who enjoy this type of character-driven story consider kinnporsche's plot weak? Simple, unlike all the bls i've just mentioned kp has what people deem "toxic" characters (but i'm going to further explain this below and why it's bullshit). Also to have a bit of context to what i'm trying to say you should go take a look at the numerous interviews with the all crew, particularly you should listen to what p'pond, the main director, said about this series and what is the main intent of it. This is first and foremost a LOVE STORY about flawed characters, human beings who struggle in the unusual setting they have found themselves in, it's about broken humans who find solace in each other. The mafia is just a setting, the mafia is just a background that plays a role in the story but it's NOT the main focus and they have always been clear about that.
Now, what i disliked. One criticism i agree with is the fucked up pacing and the time laps that unfortunately they failed to properly show us: kinn and porsche first kiss was like a month into Porsche's new life as kinn's bodyguard and we know that because kinn mentions it otherwise we wouldn't have been aware. The pete and vegas storyline seems very rushed and that is because they failed to show us proper time lapses because there are many hints that pete wasn't held hostage for just a few days, but the way they decided to go with it wasn't it and it's the main reason why i think not a lot of people felt the deepness of their feelings, and i blame it all on the "time management". Also, there are some technical and logical inconsistencies that could have been easily corrected which remind me a bit of all that hollywood nonsense, just to name a few: the lack of bulletproof vests for the bodyguards, the dusty blood every time someone is shot (i guess that red dust looks great on camera and it's visually appealing but doesn't make much sense irl lol), pete's bruises that keep appearing and disappearing like they have a life of their own lol (i.e when pete returns to the main family his arms appear to be free of bruises but then in the bathroom scene they magically make a comeback). Since we are on the topic of inconsistencies, i want to give my two cents, i've seen people a lot of people in the reviews mentioning plot holes but never actually explaining what these plot holes are or when they point them out it's just a lack of attention to what's happening on the screen and the details that, to be fair, could have been easily missed. Overall, the story to me is pretty consistent and solid and makes for a good entertainment, so don't be fooled there are not THAT many plot holes, there is a just amount of them like in every other series.

Acting/Cast 10/10
I know that a lot of people might find a 10 exaggerated and biased since it's not like there are any oscar worthy performances and i agree, it is exaggerated but it's a ten that needs to be put into context, i'm reviewing, and rating this as a THAI series and if you know a bit about thai series you would find the 10 kinda reasonable. I've seen a lot of people calling out the "bad acting" in kp and to that, i'm going to copy and paste a comment i wrote some days back because i know that most of these people rating the acting less than 7 or calling it bad have actually no experience or a very limited one with thai series, bl or not.
"Being the noisy individual that i am, i always look at the profiles' of the people because i'm interested in understanding where the criticisms come from and let me tell you that i wasn't surprised in the least that for most of these people it was their first thai series and approximately 7 out of 10 had come from kdrama watchers. I'll introduce myself: hi everyone! I've been a tv series watcher for most of my life and an asian drama enjoyer for the past 15 years and let me tell you when i say that the first time i watched an asian drama (i started my journey with the kdrama winter sonata) i was weirded out by the acting is an understatement, especially because i was mostly used to classic american series. I immediately found the acting really "bad" only later to realize that it was not the acting that was bad, it was just different, a different way of acting (as in mimicking daily behaviors which i was not accustomed to), very different from the ones i saw in american or more westerns series. When i got used to korean dramas i then jumped on the dorama train (precisely i started with the iconic hana yori dango), and let me tell you that i was once again weirded out by the acting, the way they acted was very different and while they had a "similar" vibe it was still a totally different way of acting (as in behaving) and spoiler alert that was because cultures and societies influence they way one's acts, behaviors that are later on mimicked in tv series. Well you got the drill, this "culture shock" in the form of acting happened to me every time i jumped on a series from a different foreign country, but the worst shock i got was probably from my first thai series which threw me into a completely different setting from the ones i was used to: the "weird" humor, the dramatic antics, the acting, each of them totally different from all my previous experiences. In the beginning, i also considered it bad acting but then watching more thai dramas (bl and not) i understood that it's wasn't bad acting, they were just different behaviors from what i was used to (NB: not saying that bad acting doesn't exist in thai dramas, it does and it's kinda everywhere nowadays as companies prefer cute faces over talent, but i feel that to really call a performance bad acting you must have some kind of "benchmark", something that some kp watchers have not hence why a lot were weirded out by the humor, the cheesy acting and others behavior). The thai drama industry is VERY different from the korean, japanese or chinese ones which is why when watching a thai series i try not to compare it to other asian dramas because they follow different parameters. Kinnporsche is great series THAI style and has a lot of great acting moments. This not me trying to stop future critiques of this show, everyone's thoughts are valid, this is a message directed ONLY towards the ones who have a limited experience with thai series and uses drama from other countries as their "benchmark", just a reflection in hope to make you see things from another perspective."

Music 9
I'll keep it short because i have much more to say. The soundtrack was ALMOST perfect, very fitting to the scenes, and very telling, music set the mood and made some scenes more enjoyable. The ost is actually also great, my favorite out of all thai series, c'mon slot machine and jeff satur, do i need to say more? The only thing i wish there was more variety, some tracks while being good where repeted too much for my likings.

AND now onto the real thing i want to discuss, if you're easily pressed read at your own risk:
i've seen too many times the words "romanticization" and "fetishization" being thrown around carelessly, without any proper explanation of why they feel it is so, and this is something that really irks me because these words are slowly starting to lose their meanings to become umbrella terms for whatever people feel like they mean. So let's go take a look at what the oxford dictionary says but before that a reminder of the warnings given at the beginning of every episode: "Characters, behaviors, places, agencies, occupations and events in this series are FICTIONAL and for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROMOTE ANY ACTION IN THE SERIES. VIEWER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED" These are the warnings that appear at the beginning of every single episode and they are the same warnings that some of y'all like to disregard every episode just to say "this series promotes..." No, this series has no educational purposes which means that it does not promote anything, and it has been written, said, and repeated over and over again by everyone at this point, directors and viewers alike. Do you take fiction too seriously? Are you one of those people who think FICTION has a direct impact on reality? Well, i'm sorry to inform you but that's on you, it's not the series' fault, and this is also why there's literally written "viewers' discretion is advised" a warning that you consciously decide to ignore just to complain about everything that you have been warned about (also, it's a MAFIA themed series, what the hell did you expect? pls someone enlighten me because i still don't understand the expectations you have for this series. The portrayal of high moral standards, standards that most of the time are also unreachable in real life? Pls don't make me laugh). If you see a warning that says "don't touch" but you decide to ignore it and proceed to touch it just to get hurt, whose fault it is? Exactly.
Now onto the definition of these 2 words:

- People claim that the series romanticizes abuse, rape, sa and so and so forth. Setting aside the warnings, let's take a look at the definition: "to romanticize means to make something seem more attractive or interesting than it really is" So by this definition and your claims the show makes abuse/rape/sa better and appealing than they actually are. Sure, but may i ask you where this happens? Are we talking about the dubious consent/sa/whatever you consider porsche and kinn's first time? If so let's talk about it. Some people say that it romanticizes abuse because they played some sort of romantic music in the background which might be true if context wasn't a thing. Was the director's intent really to romanticize sa? Or they were just showing what happened through porsche's eyes? The colors, the focal lens, everything gives a blurry, discontinued, an almost dream-like vibe which is related to porsche's state. The music and atmosphere were in tune with porsche's emotions. Also, are we forgetting that episode 5 exists? Are we forgetting that they clearly showed both porsche and kinn struggling with coming to terms with what happened and all the repercussions brought by that night? How did the series make what happened in episode 4 better when we see porsche literally breaking down? Because it clearly does not, you don't see what porsche has gone through because of that and say: "yeah i want that too! it's so cool!" I would have agreed on the romanticization argument if they left it at that and made it seem like nothing happened, but they did not because episode 5 exists for a reason. You can't take such a scene and ignore what it follows because what happens after determines if the intent was to gloss over the issue or not. Or are we talking about the abuse against pete perpetrated by vegas? Even that, how does the series make the abuse better or good? Can someone elaborate on that? And since we are on the topic, the vegaspete storyline is really complex, and no i'm not saying this to sound elitist or to make it seem deeper than it actually is, both vegas and pete are two very flawed and broken individuals (just like everyone else in the series) and as weird as it sounds they found a bit of "solace" in each other, something that does NOT stem from the abuse and if you think it is then i believe you missed the point of their whole story (and i'm sure y'all are also the same people who believe that vegaspete are in love when if you paid attention you wouldn't call that love, at least immediatly). So in conclusion, however you want to look at it, the show does not make anything better or more appealing, for every action there's a consequence and that's life, people make decisions, and sometimes they make shitty decisions and go along with them but it does not mean that the show romanticizes those decisions.

-Some of y'all have accused the show to fetishize m/m relationships but let's take a look at the meaning of the said word "to fetishize means to get sexual pleasure from thinking about or looking at a particular thing" (in an obsessive way). If you think that the series fetishizes m/m relationships just because it shows two grown men with a high sexual drive/libido acting according to it and having sex and showing their affection to each other physically, then there's the door, go back on twitter where nonsense is normalized. And also if the only thing you got to comment about from 14 episodes is the 5 nc scenes which are no longer than 2/3 minutes each, then i have bad news for you, because maybe you're the ones that watched it for the sex. Not to mention that every nc scene has a purpose, they tell us something about their dynamic, their conflict, their inner feelings, etc, they ARE important. I know that having multiple nc scenes that are not straight-up in yo face fanservice is strange but believe me when i say that if you left those scenes out, their story would lose something, and we as the viewers we would have lost some understanding of these characters. If people after watching this show decide to fetishize or overly obsess with m/m relationship irl (which is gross) that's on them, the show does not carry that responsibility, not when they were all very clear of the aim. The show is not responsible for people's actions and thoughts.

In conclusion, if you want a show with great cinematography, acting and a story that is character-driven then kinnporsche is for you (however keep in mind all the tw and the mature nature of it), if not that's completely fine i'm sure there are tons of series out there that can satisfy your taste <3

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