Epic in the beginning, a bit meh in the end

First of all, you need to be aware that this is a slap-and-kiss lakorn. So if you do not enjoy stories with lots of forced kisses, violence, screaming and intrigant behaviour, this one is not for you.

And gosh, does this lakorn excel at that! I don't remember ever watching another show with people getting slapped that often in the first few episodes. That slap-fest is so crazy that it is simply entertaining. I was amused about how everyone was wasting their time and energy fighting instead of focusing on the problems at hand.
Most often the female lead is the recipient of this behaviour and even though she is a rather nice and gentle person, she does not take shit endlessly. There are some very satisfying scenes where she slaps right back. But the female lead is not the only victim of abuse. The male lead is right there with her, getting treated like trash, even though he is subjected to a more verbal abuse.
The main leads are kindred spirits, past lovers who had to separate but are still drawn to each other now that they are reunited. They both suffer from tragic pasts but are more or less unwilling to talk about it, so some misunderstandings ensue. Film and Ester are delivering a great performance here. Especially Film does the switch between angry, hurt and flirty really well. When he smiles at Ester you can feel the attraction oozing out of every pore. There are some surprisingly steamy kisses in the first half of the show. The more disappointing it is that it later becomes more romantic but very tame.

If there is a weak point in the story, it must be the antagonists. I wish lakorns would learn to use misdirects! If you have not figured out the villain by the second episode, you must be blind. If at least that person was competent in executing their evil plan, they would be a worth-while villain, but both their amateur behaviour and the acting of the person playing that role resulted in me not taking them seriously.
The stepmother of the male lead as well. She was clearly deranged, blaming the male lead and everyone else for everything bad in her life and being a horrible person about it. I could work with that, though. But then she does a complete 180 without an apparent reason. Dear writers, if you want to redeem a villain, do it gradually by letting them realize the errors of their ways or give them a traumatic experience to open their eyes. The traumatic experience is there, but she behaves the same immediately after it, only to suddenly change a few days later. Lazy writing if I ever saw one!

Overall, this lakorn is not surprising. There is nothing new that you haven't seen somewhere else before. It comes complete with all the typical tropes like getting chased in a jungle, people fighting for a company, evil stepmother, comedic sidekicks, slapping-kissing-slapping-kissing-slapping-kissing... (why do people never stop after the first time? ^^), the filial daughter who tries to talk sense into her evil mother instead of reporting her to the police, the bad guys waiting for the leads to escape instead of simply shooting them right away, people using a gun as a close-range weapon, so someone can snatch it away, and more.

But the chemistry between the leads and their bantering are highly entertaining and ergo the strong suit of this lakorn. The mystery about who is the villain and who else is involved and how and why they did it is also quite interesting in the beginning. And there lies the problem: in the last third there are no mysteries left for the viewer to solve, as we always already know more than the leads. The romance and the satisfaction of punishing the villains would have to carry the show, but the romance becomes too tame and looses its sex appeal after the leads get back together. And the villains basically destroy themselves with their downright stupid behaviour.
In conclusion, this lakorn starts out really strong, and I was wondering in the beginning if this was one of the best slap-and-kiss lakorns I have ever seen, but then it fizzles out a bit unsatisfactory in the end. It was still entertaining to watch and if you don't expect your villains to be overly clever, you might still find this amazing.

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