Absolute Zero (2023)

Sad Time Travel mystery

I watched all the episodes stuck in an endless, sometimes long, repetitive state of dread. Asking the basic question, why are these two together? The script based on a book develops characters that are in love but have really bad communication skills, chemistry, or have any attraction beyond crying together.

Without any spoilers, WHAT's MISSING:

the moments that show the happiness of a relationship,
navigating a first romance,
or becoming a couple and showing the good and bad of a couple that likes each other enough to have intimacy.

Instead, we get a lot of unnecessary drama but never fully see a main couple with chemistry or

why they belong together is absent and the gloom and doom tone we get is the opposite of a butterfly stomach of first love.

The logic of some of the character's actions, or the mystery isn't enough to garner any re-watch value. But, if you get past the first episode you almost have NO choice but to suffer in silence until the end.

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EITHER YOU LOVE OR DISLIKE IT.

This is a complex story, so complex that it needs a slow burn. What? A slow-paced series and stil a complex one? Yes. Two reasons, the director wants the viewers to immerse themselves on how each of the character feels. It won't be easy for someone that is not an empathy, or somebody who can related easily with other's emotions. The other is the time travel is what make things a lot complicated.

A viewer needs to understand, and feel, how an older person will get involved with someone younger. It is easy to forget that the young person is the other's first love. And coming from the future with an uncertain tomorrow, the older person is feeling both relieved and sacred. Despite what is inevitable in the timeline, you will cherish, protect and live in the moment. For the younger person, it is feeling of familiarity, as if he knows the older one somewhere, sometime.

The laying the groundwork to the youngers' timeline is exhaustively portrayed, much more than needs. Yes, much more than it needs. The director's thought process though if for the viewers to have that gut-wrenching emotion that you will be torn apart every single moment. Torn apart between interfering or letting things as it is, or it was?

It will take 5 episode to tell the "prequel" to Episode 1.

Keep in mind that there is one theory in time travel called butterfly effect. This concept is about changing something so small in the past can have a big change in the future, a snowball effect.

This is a make or break story for Thai BLs.

As for the actors, I only knew Mix from Until We Meet Again as Dean's younger brother, and he is an excellent freestyle dancer. Aside from, I knew Ongsa parents as the mother appears also a mother to Peeranut of The Miracle of Teddy Bear. While the father appeared in a lot of BL series as well.

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It's not a zero but....

I was so excited after I watched the 1st episode. I thought this is going to be a good one. Everything went to hell for me after the older Suansoon went to the past and met the younger Ongsa. I couldn't get over the creepiness of the younger to older. I kept waiting for someone in the series to mention how inappropriate it was. Yikes for sure!
Then the double return to the past to keep one then the other from dying just didn't make sense. Also, no details on how the returns happened or why they happened. Did they just will it to happen?
Then the crying started between that and the constant rerunning of other senses from other life paths was just boring and uneventful. This series could have been great.
The younger couple was much more believable and genuine than the older couple. The producers should have seen that and utilized it more.
The music was overly dramatic and repetitive. Not enough variety.
I fast forwarded thru most scenes after episode 6.
This was a big disappointment.
I did like Nun played by Sine.
Tor and Mix should get the lead in another series. A typical BL with those two would have been an 8.5 for me for sure!

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I loved absolutely EVERYTHING about this series.

As a binge watcher, it took me a day and half of watching only this show, zero torturous waits in between each episode, no other BLs dividing my attention, and I can honestly say that without a doubt, I loved everything about this show and I wouldn't change a thing. What an absolutely beautiful masterpiece of a series!!

The story was so interesting to me, with so many details and layers that all came together to paint such an incredible picture. I loved seeing the story told from the viewpoints of both leads and seeing and FEELING what each of them had to go through. I felt so completely immursed in the lives that were playing out before. So much effort and time was put into making sure the viewer truly felt what the characters were feeling and I absolutely appreciate that.

The acting was absolutely top notch. I honestly think they could not have picked better actors and I really enjoyed the special episodes that really gave you a good look at what it took for those actors to emote so much emotion on screen. Oh the absolute appreciation I have for them all of the actors and I am beyond blown away by Tor and Mix. One would never guess this was their first main roles, they performed so brilliantly. The bond and the emotion was so brilliantly captivated and it was an absolute treat to watch it all unfold on screen.

The music was absolutely phenomenal, both sound score and OST songs. NuNew and Sompob outdid themsleves and the people that made the decision to have them sing those songs as well as use the score that they went with? They deserve and award.

The locations and the way this series was shot, the vision they created. It was perfect. That coffee shop is lovely, that restaurant with the bridge in the background, every location chosen, was a perfect choice to me. I am so incredibly impressed with this series and this is easily one of my favorite BLs of the year,.maybe even my favorite of the year and certainly one of my favorites of all time.

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Beautifully cinematic, unlike any other bl/y series drama

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of television I've seen in any genre.
From the start the series doesn't feel like any other bl/y series I've seen. The pace is very relaxed. Lead ins are long and cuts are often extended. The characters all have space to breathe, and we have the space to empathize with them. The series isn't littered with product placements, and yaoi tropes are kept to a minimum (partner feeding, wiping each other down, peeling shrimp etc.). There is very little of the standard Thai drama sound-effect punctuated drama-comedy dialogue. Important scenes often reach their crux in silence rather than against the background of a thai-pop crescendo. Overall the series feels more like a very well shot film than it does like a Thai drama series. It features a complex story, overcharged emotions (director New's hallmark), and touching romance. It's not a series for those in search of flesh however. Watching the series is an exercise in catharsis, not titillation. (Though I suspect that beyond the camera's eye that Ongsa is a pretty wild lover.)
The story is a romantic fantasy in which time travel is the fantasy element, embellished with magical butterflies and oracular shop-keepers. Time travel is the magic that the story uses to allow the characters to experience events and emotions that lie beyond what we experience in reality. This isn't a science fiction story. It's magical realism. Time travel here is some sort of spiritual miracle or miracle of fate. In fact I think that time travel is simply the way in which the author has chosen to tell an archetypal hero story. Ongsa and Suansoon are destined to be partners, but only if they can prove that their love is pure to the extent that they are willing to give up each other for each other's sake.
I suspect that the story's flirtation with causal loops (A causing B causing A) is going to upset some viewers, but it's pretty easy to accommodate them simply assuming some external cause to the whole loop. Call that fate or destiny, and it squares pretty well with the spiritual world of the story.
The acting is sound to phenomenal throughout, without dead lines or awkward sections of stiff manneristic acting. Tor Supakorn especially does an amazing job creating the role of young Ongsa. He's always very three dimensional, which makes it very easy to empathize with him. He manages emotional character arcs and ranges of emotions very well.
The key challenges to filming this story are making the various timelines immediately clear and motivating our empathy for the characters given their unusual predicament. Both challenges are met successfully. Changes in clothing, set dressing, and character demeanor help to differentiate the time-lines, and the use of flashbacks to tie the counterfactual regrets to something we can feel bad about serve to maintain the viewers empathy.
Overall I found the series very effective. It was easy to empathize with the characters and share in their emotions. It's very cathartic, especially at the emotional cruxes of the character arcs. I would add though that it's a story that needs to be enjoyed on it's own terms. If you try to watch it simply to follow the plot of story rather than letting the series engage you emotionally, it's probably going to seem a bit dull and repetitive with the various repetitions of events and flashbacks tying then and now together.

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While not perfect the acting was on a whole other level compared to any other 2023 Thai BL.

I have no idea why people find the story messy or hard to follow, especially if you take your time and re-watch the episode if you really can't follow.

The concept is unique and while some writing is questionable especially avoiding the death of each main character. I have no idea if it's exactly the same in the novel, but they could have taken some leeway to change the story in this aspect. The show's highlight is the acting of Tor and Teng which is completly on an other level. It's neither cringe nor creepy to love whom you love especially knowing they have met at the same age. Their chemistry and acting is nothing I have seen in this years Thai BLs which is the main reason I can overlook all the faults this series has especially in the finale. I would have ended the series when they met again at the cinema, all the continued story was completly unecessessary and irrelevant and would have resonated more positively with the audience.

This series also did a great job to convey he feelings of the young Ongsa and old Suansoon which will move emphatic people to tears (as it did with me). Because the acting was so great I rate this show as high, because you can only watch in reverence of such a performance.

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Not Wabi Sabi’s best, fell off completely

I waited an entire year for this show, having heard about it and its promising premise. The first episode was also promising but as the series progressed, it got more confusing and draggy. The story and plot showed a lot of promise and this series had the potential to be great. On the positive side, I appreciated the production quality and cinematography of this series as a whole. The OSTs as usual were on point, even though they were rather overused. I appreciated the small detail of naming each episode. Expanding on the negatives of this series, I have more to say than what I liked about this show. In complete honesty, I started the show to see Mix Wanut. And I expected more screen time for him, or rather the emphasis on the younger version of him in general. “Absolute Zero”, the title itself is Suansoon’s name yet Suansoon’s backstory and character profile was just not explored enough. Rather they decided to explore older Suansoon. There was also the DVD shop uncle who was brought in as a character but essentially contributed nothing to the storyline. Not just the DVD shop owner but also most of the characters. Aside from Ongsa’s parents who welcomingly accepted Suansoon as their second son, I just could not see the point in involving the other characters aside from making the story less empty. The overused flashback scenes, older Soon’s unsolicited romance with younger Ongsa were also things that deterred me from this series. I expected a lot from this series but all that I appreciate of it in the end was the effort that was put into production. All in all, this series was a 7.2/10 at most.

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Lost Its Way

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. Something seemed missing and to was obvious that the physical age of some of the actors was definitely not compatible with the characters they were supposed to be portraying and it showed in the uncomfortableness of the chemistry of the performances. The ending seemed empty to me as well. Unfulfilled to be sure.
You can read my full review at BLBliss.com

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This Time travel thing is okay, but the old Soon is stupid

I like the first episode abut after watching the 4th episode I am totally mad and annoyed on how the story goes. Old Soon is a stupid and selfish bastard thinking he should not let the younger couple meet to avoid accident! What kind of reasoning is that??!!! Accident happens one way or another, what made him so sure thay when he chanfe the future no further accident will ever happen. 2nd, He is only creating a time paradox!! Lets just say he is correct If he change fate and make their younger selves never meet, then he wouldnt know Ongsa, then he has no reason to go back in time!! then he cant warn young ongsa to meet Soon again , they will be couple again and the accident happens and if possible he will travel again to warn them not to meet again. and the loop goes on and on. I wish this series will not go to waste.

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So happy I stuck with it!

This series' theme is one of my favorite: Time Travel, so I was very excited to start watching. It was soon clear that not all time travel is created equal, however and the slow pace turned me off. It took me ages to watch the first 3 episodes and I left the series in my CW list for a longgggg time after that, reluctant to get back into it while it was still airing. I found the adult SuanSoon a cry baby with toxic behavior, and the slow pace bored me. I got back to it though after a few months after it finished airing and BOYYY AM I GLAD I DID.

The pace does not pick up speed, but the slow telling of the story appears to actually have purpose. It is to help us keep our sanity wit so much back and forth. We need breathing and thinking room to understand what is going on. theres still enough crying to fill an ocean, but the way the actors portray and express the characters and emotions is fabulous. I don't really get why SuanSoon goes back as an adult, and SongSa as a highschooler (although I have my theories), but we can feel how much they love each other right to their souls.

The soundtrack by the wonderful Boy Sompob does it's job and we get a huge tearjerker with a beautiful happy ending.

Honestly I do understand some of the critical reviews, but if you stick with it and go with the flow (of tears), you'll love it. Or maybe, it's just me who was in a fragile state while watching. Whatever, it will go on my re-watch list for sure!

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