Cubic (2014)

Cubic is not your usual crime-action-romance. It is a story about a romance between a high school student and an adult and powerful mafia boss. Talk about robbing the cradle! Or the fact that this high school girl is a genius who helped the mafia and international arms dealer to cheat the police........If you can get pass these little 'glitches' in the storyline and the illegality of it all, the rest is a fascinating and amusing journey of mafia politics mingled with poor make-belief Chinese props and customs. Let me elaborate....

Story: Storyline is the strength of this lakorn - hands down. Perhaps this has to do with how the lakorn is based on a best selling novel; so it does come with twists and turns, plots and sub-plots and a love story between a high school girl with an IQ of a genius and a cold and calculative mafia boss. There are many shootings, killings and people running and hiding in this lakorn. The props are poorly done like in a low budget film/drama but if you can look past that, the story is quite addictive. I will not elaborate more on the story without giving it away. It's the sort that makes you stay up just to find out what is going to happen next despite the poor acting, directing and props! Serious!

Acting/Cast: The best actor in here is the main female lead - the high school girl! I find the main male lead too stiff in his acting to appeal to my taste. Sure, his role is that of a cold and calculating mafia boss, but that does not mean his body language should come across awkward as well! Add to that the fact that I have to fast forward too many unneccessary scenes where ppl pretty much just stare at each other for long periods of time, the acting and directing of this lakorn is really its downfall. The use of poor "Chinese" props and customs (such as the fist to palm greeting that no modern Chinese alive will be caught using!) and a few other boo-hoos provide either comical relief or a frown of annoyance.

Music: Obviously they did not invest much on the OSTs. Nothing worth mentioning here.

Rewatch value: This is one of those lakorns where once you had watched it and know the twists, you will not want to watch it again... at least not in the near future! The value of this lakorn lies on its interesting and addictive storyline but once that storyline is known, all the other weaknesses of this lakorn puts you off re-watching it again.

Overall: I give it a 7.5/10 thanks to the saving grace of its rather unique and addictive storyline. I can see why the novel sells well. What I would like to see is either Taiwan or China adopting this into a T or C Drama. The storyline is certainly worth investing in. Put to it the better filming technologies, use of props and funding in Taiwan and China, this story may be given the essential life for it to be a highly rated drama since most of the characters in this story are supposed to be Chinese! I would also like to see Korea adapt this storyline to apply to Korean gangsters and filmed in Korean contexts. In summary, I feel that some Chinese, Taiwanese or Korean director or producer out there should be alerted to this novel and the potential it can bring if produced properly!

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This is the first time I have ever fast forwarded through a drama. It took them forever to walk somewhere and to think. There were so many scenes of 2-3 minutes of just showing the character staring at another character. I have never been so frustrated in my life while watching a drama. If you cut all the staring, walking and thinking scenes, then this drama is probably only 6 episodes long. If that is the style of Thai Lankorns, then I won't be watching them.

On to the story. I gave this drama a higher score, because I like the premise. Genius teenage girl saves Mafia boss that falls in love with her. Besides the huge age difference of a grown man falling in love with a teenager, I thought that was cool. Even the main female lead character was annoying, because she was down on her looks and herself too much at times. The story has some great plot twists. The problem of the story line is that Stockholm syndrome is in abundance on this show. Another problem is that you have to get around the low budget scenes and the weak action scenes.

The acting is just...I don't know...over the top at times or stiff as a board. There is no natural ability that pulled me into a character. I felt like I was watching a drama rather than getting sucked in to the point that I forget it is a drama. The only person to write about is Mint Chalida as Ruthainark. She is really cute and her acting is good. I'm not even going to go into the other actors. None of them were good in this.

The music is fine.

I won't ever rewatch this.

I don't recommend this drama to anyone. I would have given the drama a 1, but I liked the story line and the girl.

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