The Shipper (2020)

Best series of 2020

Because this series has really surprised me in a positive way, I wanted to write a short review for everyone who isn't sure if they should watch it or not. My answer is a definite YES!
When this series started, like many others, I wasn't sure what to expect from it. I usually only watch BL series and didn't know if this was going to be BL or not. The first episode seemed a little cheesy to me, but luckily I kept watching and as the story advanced I couldn't care less if it was BL or not anymore, because I began to like the story for what it was.

The Shipper has a very well written story. Every episode is exiting, surprising and unpredictable. It plays with your expectations which makes it a lot of fun to watch and never get boring.
The acting, as far as I can judge that, was also superb. I especially liked First's acting, because he managed to believably portray a girl in a boy's body. Fluke's acting also stood out to me, but maybe just because he was so cute in the series. Overall I couldn't name a single actor who didn't do a great job in this!
I would definitely rewatch this series as I want to know how many new things I'll notice now that I know the outcome of the whole story!

Lire davantage

A pleasant surprise

I was not expecting much from this, honestly. It initially seemed like a silly, over-the-top comedy show with immature, high-school characters. But The Shipper is so much better!

- First of all, great production value! The budget seemed to be quite high, the product placement wasn't too aggressive. The series had good cinematography, a varied setting and a really wonderful soundtrack. The work of the film editors was particularly noteworthy, creating many surprising moments with a clever use of flashbacks and jump cuts.
- The series provided us with a wide range of characters: the inconspicuous nice guy, the mean girl gang, the involuntary bad boy, the perfect student with secrets and the two naive shipper-best friends. The actors portrayed them well. I obviously have a soft spot for Ohm Pawat, and he did not disappoint; even his age didn't seem too far-off for a high schooler, which is mindblowing, actually. Little details in the various relationships shown really made this series above-average. The mean girls writing about each other in various chat groups were hilarious, for example. Adults were not very present, but especially Pan's uncle had some very touching moments. Oh, and the Angel of Death was pure comedy gold, thanks to Jennie!
- After the first few episodes, the character development got (in most cases) surprisingly deep, sometimes in sharp contrast with the overall comedy. We learned about a difficult siblings relationship, about strong bonds of friendship, about unexpected first loves, and about parental pressure. The whole yaoi phenomenon wasn't as present as the title would have suggested, but it was used well to portray the girls' naivete when it came to love. And I loved the audacious gender-bender concept, making all kinds of relationships between the characters possible, disregarding gender stereotypes. I am a little mad however that they went with a male love-interest for Soda in the end.
- I will end with some critique. Generally speaking, the series didn't always get the tone right. By that I mean that over-the-top comedy and very serious issues (sexual misconduct, violence, death) were sometimes clashing too harshly. Leaving the boys' locker room porn crime at the beginning largely uncommented was a very bad move. The Angel of Death's role sometimes ridiculed the concept of death in itself, which is questionable, since this touches upon the very dignity of human life. And storywise it was certainly surprising that Kim was actually dead the whole time, but it ultimately made a lot of the story appear pointless. I appreciate that they tried to fix that problem with the post-credit scene though, maybe we will get a second season (I certainly wouldn't mind)!

If you are looking for a hilarious comedy with great characters, a surprising story and enough emotional depth, this is a total recommendation! Once again a female director saves the day.

Lire davantage

this is actually amazing !!!

STORY- okay when I first watched the trailer and read the synopsis I wasn't planning on watching it, but I wanted to see if it was actually bad and wow its good. Like the idea is so weird but it works for some reason.

ACTING- I mean the acting is really good (side note I love the teacher for some reason), but nobody had been wowing me besides Fluke who portrayed both characters well, and I feel like whatever character Ohm portrays he does a great job.

MUSIC- I mean no comment I did not notice it at all.

REWATCH VALUES- YESYESYES! I am definitely gonna rewatch this, I like how different it is.

OVERALL- If you like thai dramas/ BLs you should give this a try because it is better than you think it is.

Lire davantage

Do Not Go Into This Expecting A BL. It Isn't One.

The title of the show is "The Shipper." Using what you know about titles, it can be assumed that the main focus will be the shipper, Pan. Thus, Way and Kim (the shipped) are still important, but Pan is more important for the story.

Acting: The acting is really good and it comes to no surprise since it has Ohm, First, Prigkhing, Jennie, etc. I would really love to applaud First for being able to act as Kim AND act as Pan exactly how Prigkhing would. The transition between Pan being played by Prigkhing and Pan being played by First is seamless. I had never seen Fluke act before and WOW he's really amazing, especially at crying.

Story: I'm gonna make a separate section about the ending so we'll just ignore it for now. But this show made an otherwise boring concept interesting. I hate body-swapping, but in this show, it just felt so nice and natural. The synopsis makes this show seem to be some weird fetishizer's wet dream, but it isn't at all. This show does really well at showing how shipping real people can be taken too far and the consequences that could happen when it does. The weird incest-feeling moments are eh~~~, but thankfully they don't last long.

Ending: Did I expect Kim to die? No. Did I want him to die? No. Am I angry he died? No. I'm okay that he died. I loved the ending surprisingly. Maybe that's because I had felt that the show was not as happy as it tried to seem. Some people in the comments of this page felt that Pan should've "been the ultimate shipper and sacrificed herself for Kim," but this would've gone against the main lesson of the show: "Everyone deserves to search for happiness." Kim himself even says in the show that Pan deserves to be happy just as much as they do. It also would cancel out the wonderful message of shipping gone too far. Yes, the straight couple gets a happy ending while the gay couple "doesn't" but that doesn't erase WayKim's feelings for each other at all. Just like Kim told Way, even though they are far from each other, they still love each other and that shows how strong their love is. Do some aspects of Kim dying make sense? No, but I'm not too bothered by it.

I would like to end this by saying, if you're unsure of if you want to watch, try to make it to episode five. If you don't like it by then, drop it. If you're coming because you wanna see boys kiss, go somewhere else. I find this show to be worth it, I hope you do too.

Lire davantage

How I Would Rewrite This Story:

So I will be spoiling the basic plot of the story and then make suggestions for how to better this drama. First though, I do want to say that I overall didn't dislike this drama. I laughed a lot. I think though that this drama was heavily marketed as a BL drama when in reality it's about the BL Shipper Pan and her coming to terms with how her shipping Way and Kim stops her from realizing that there was true love right next to her all along. So, this story is pretty much a straight story with some BL themes.

There was also that really awkward incestuous kiss where Pan, as Kim, kisses Khett, who is Kim's brother. We know that it's Pan kissing Khett, but still in the context of the bodies, it was a bit awkward to watch.

Plot Summary: Two girls, Pan and Soda, love shipping two boys, Kim and Way who attend their school. They write fanfictions about the boys and romanticize the relationship that the two may have. Then, Pan and Kim get into a vehicle accident. They both are in limbo. The angel of death says that she made a mistake and vows to send them both back. Pan gets sent back, but she wakes up in Kim's body. While living as Kim, she decides to help develop Kim and Way's relationship. Eventually, we find out Kim actually died, and Pan needs to decide whether to live the rest of her life as Kim or herself. She chooses to live as herself, and finds love with Khett in the process.

What I would change: I like body switching stories. I think they up until the part where they go to limbo was executed just fine. I think they should have both been brought back, bodies switched. It would have given the plot more to work with. While Pan is busy acting like Kim, she learns that Kim and Khett are brothers (this is already part of the story), but her purpose for learning it now is to help them repair their relationship, because Khett never discovers that Pan is in Kim's body. Instead, they play their parts well.

Pan in Kim's body spends more time with Way. At first, she's determined to make it happen even though there was implication that Way actually has unspoken feelings for Kim. By wanting the relationship to work, and by reading journals that Kim wrote, she helps them grow their relationship.

Kim in Pan's body realizes by speaking with Khett, how Khett truly feels about him. He regrets always ignoring Khett and by bonding with Khett. When he returns to his body at the end, he learns how to demonstrate to Khett that he does care about him a lot. He also picks up that Khett likes Pan a lot, so he helps nudge their relationship along at the end.

Of course throughout the drama, there would be a lot of tomfoolery because Kim being in a woman's body, and Pan being in a man's body of course would lead to funny interactions and awkwardness between the two. But those would be funny themes explored in the drama.

The overarching theme in this story though would be that after switching bodies, they learn things about each other, and help both grow as characters and come to their true self. Kim opening up about his sexuality and reuniting with his brother, and Pan discovering that she loves Khett.

Lire davantage

Had it Funny moments

It did have some funny moments to it, but nothing to brag about.

I am 50/50 on this drama, as I only picked up because of Ohm.

The story was your normal basic, school girl with no self confidence in herself, protective boy and bullies. an angle of death mistake and switching of bodies. there was a whole lot going on in this drama, but the funny moments made up for the mess i think it was. The cinematography. The acting. The writing. The music. From a thoroughly dispassionate standpoint, Kim's death was really unnecessary in my eyes. I think it could have been handled differently.

Although seeing OffGun made me happy and seeing Ohm dance in the credits made me smile I don't think these two things are enough to save the rest of the episode.

Overall: This drama had way too many mixed signals and not enough of a good message in it.

Lire davantage

Overused, annoying trope in the story

Alert - spoilers ahead:

The reason I scored this otherwise fun and well-produced series quite low is the annoying "Bury Your Gays" trope - while the general tone of story is light (so, you wouldn't suspect there's a tragedy looming ahead) and the straight couple goes on to live happily ever after, somehow the gay couple does not. It was already an outdated tactic back when Western media often employed this trope, 10-20 years ago, so it definitely shouldn't be adopted into Asian media now.

While sometimes a bit corny, the acting is overall good and the actors chosen portray their characters well. The transitions between the two actors which play Pan are very smooth.

Lire davantage

Loved it but low key grossed out

Story
The base plot is good. Like the whole body switching thing was great. However the ending wasn't my favorite. The whole thing that the brothers had was weird. I don't like it.

Acting/Cast
Now while the story was not it First's acting was amazing!!!!! His crying scenes and how he portrayed a girl was great. It was amazing. I hope to see him getting another lead role soon. Everyone else was good but his stood out to me.

Music
I listen to the OST on replay it is such a fun little song.

Overall
Great!! A little confusing at first but otherwise I loved it!!! Go watch it.

Lire davantage

Com certeza é surpreendente.

Começo falando que já sabia algumas coisas sobre The Shipper antes de assistir, pois acompanho bastante um dos atores, e sabia do plot final, mas, o jeito que a história foi se desenrolando ainda conseguiu me surpreender bastante, e pasmem, de um jeito que na minha concepção, até que fez sentido.
Em The Shipper, nós acompanhamos a história de uma troca de corpo, onde Pan, uma escritora de FanFic que sempre acompanhou seu "shipper" bem de perto, acaba ficando presa no corpo de um garoto chamado Kim, que ela achava saber tudo sobre só por escrever sobre ele, mas que no final, acabou estando redondamente enganada. A trama em si se desenrola de uma forma bem risonha mesmo, tanto que apesar das idas e vindas na mesma tecla se tornarem massantes a partir de um certo ponto, você ainda consegue esquecer a frustração por causa de todo o alívio cômico, e aproveito essa deixa pra vangloriar a atuação de First Kanaphan mais uma vez, interpretar um personagem já deve ser complexo, agora imagine fazer um garoto que tem a alma de uma garota presa dentro dele, e ele realizou com maestria, genuinamente parece uma outra pessoa quando a Pan age como ela mesma costumava agir, apesar de estar no corpo do Kim.
Entretanto, apesar de começar de uma forma bem divertida e leve, no final, pode ter certeza que você vai sair mais seco do que uva passa depois de tanto chorar, a revelação de que o verdadeiro Kim, na verdade estava morto, e por isso o corpo de Pan nunca havia acordado em primeiro lugar foi definitivamente dolorosa, apesar de nós termos poucos vislumbres dele de verdade antes do acidente que eles dois sofreram, ao longo da história vamos descobrindo mais e mais sobre a vida dele juntamente com a protagonista, você fica encantado com a pessoa que ele era mesmo que ele tecnicamente só tenha aparecido no começo da trama, você rói suas unhas enquanto aguarda o tão esperado retorno dele, e ainda pior, você imagina quantas pessoas esperavam por ele, tinham assuntos para tratar com ele, e que a vida dele provavelmente melhoraria muito depois de tudo que se passou enquanto Pan estava no corpo dele.
A realidade te acerta com tudo nos episódios finais, você percebe que ele nunca vai poder aproveitar nenhuma daquelas coisas, o começo de um grande amor, que ele nem mesmo pôde confessar seus próprios sentimentos quando estava vivo, ou ouvir os sentimentos da pessoa que ele tanto sacrificaria tudo por, ele também nunca vai saber o quanto Khett, o irmão dele, queria concertar o seu relacionamento com ele, o quanto ele se preocupava e o amava apesar das desavenças, e você acaba The Shipper com o mesmo pensamento que Pan também teve, que faria qualquer coisa pra que o Kim pudesse voltar.
No geral, é uma série mediana, não tem nada muito revolucionário ou incrível, mas é engraçada, divertida, tem músicas viciantes, e me deixou com um vazio imensurável no peito, a história do Kim é um dos fatores que faz a obra não ser tão repetitiva e massante, ela te prende ali, querendo saber como as coisas vão acabar para ele, muitas pessoas acham que o plot da morte não faz sentido e que foi muito injusto, eu concordo que gostaria MUITO que ele continuasse vivo, mas ao mesmo tempo, infelizmente fez sentido sim, todos os fatores deixam claro que algo estava errado desde o começo, e mesmo assim eles conseguem alimentar suas esperanças para o momento em que o Kim vai retornar, apenas para as esmagar completamente, muitos podem achar um rumo decepcionante, eu achei ousado, algo que muitos criadores não teriam coragem de fazer, eu não digo que fizeram da melhor forma possível, mas, essas coisas são feitas justamente pra te deixar frustado, triste, e emocionalmente devastado, e é precisamente este o objetivo que conseguem alcançar.

Lire davantage

An emotional story disguised as a comedy

Based on the description and the clips I've seen from this show, I expected it to be very silly. And while it starts off that way, the plot quickly deviates from the description and turns into something else that is much more emotional and serious - all while trying to keep a light tone. I think I would have enjoyed this more if it either took itself more seriously and explored these more emotional aspects more, or kept it light and fun throughout. I honestly only watched this because I'm a big fan of First, and it was definitely an experience.

Pan and Soda like to write fanfiction about Way and Kim, which causes some bullies to attack Way, calling him gay. This fight gets Way threatened with expulsion, and Pan, feeling bad about this, apologizes to Kim. Luckily, Kim seems very nice and offers her a ride home, only to crash on the drive. Then, the two end up swapping bodies, but Pan's body is left in a coma. Pan, in Kim's body, searches for a way to get back to her own body, all while learning things about Kim that she couldn't imagine. Her idealized version of him from her fanfiction quickly crumbles, and even as she tries to right his wrongs, she fears what will happen when his soul returns.

Body swapping plotlines aren't typically plots I go for, and while this one had interesting dynamics with it, it still didn't quite get me invested. Of course, a major plotline is Pan trying to get her body back, but there were some dumb decisions made on her part that left me frustrated. However, I really enjoyed the ending and thought that the twists in the story were actually very interesting. As I said, I think that keeping with either the emotional or light tone throughout the series would've made this feel much more cohesive. I do wish I didn't have to ask the question, "is it technically incest if you kiss your brother, but it's someone else's soul?" but here we are.

Lire davantage

as sweet as sugar

surprisingly wonderful.. . ...
to be honest I didn't expect this to be so much awesome cuse the rating was so low and the story was so repetitive ,but I loved the story line in spit of it....
also loved the cast's acting so so much (especially Kim's actor).....despite the fact that the story was too fancying, they turned it into something really believable and i just felt like everything made sense......
i was so longing to know what next episode is going to bring to me .....
i understand that it may be so dramatic and makes you cry a lot but it's worth it....
i am so glad that i skipped the negative reviews and decided to start watching this ....i loved it and i hope you'll all find it lovely and enjoyable....
thanks for reading this review...bye

Lire davantage

Don't rely much on reviews to determine which show is good or not

Yes, so like every other person I was skeptical about this show, but I had nothing to do and said okay let me try it.
Believe me, if I say I was wasn't hooked I am a LIAR. This show was bomb!

The acting...oh my, I must say that First, that guys is a freaking acting genius. The role he acted was..what should I say? It looked like it was simple but it wasn't? Anyway He gave the role another meaning. He was the person who hooked me from the beginning to the end followed by Ohm and the girl who played pan's best friend. I loved them.

The visuals were good too. I think the production did a good job in this one.

The story....ehn not so original but it was looking fresh with the way it was handled...the ending was not what we wanted but the show gave me a bitter sweet feeling I guess I could manage.

The show overall is interesting, the acting really was worth seeing and I highly recommend watching it, also I can see my self re watching this in no time. Hahaha.

Lire davantage