Thai Drama Review: Homeschool (2023)
I’ve been waiting a whole time for this series to be aired. I think the first time saw the first trailer was in 2021 and it’s planned to be aired in 2022 but GMM TV postponed it until now finally I can review this series. After watching The Gifted series, I really anticipated that GMMTV will produce another series like that and when I see Homeschool trailer, damn this is it. This is the vibe. Also you can see similiar faces from the previous series, The Gifted. Since the first look from the trailer, I just know this gonna be hit. We can see a little bit of reminiscence of The Gifted, one reason because of the casts but actually the storyline is totally different. In Homeschool we’ll found only reality hits you hard. This time the series isn’t packed in fantasy but still you’ll learn a lot from this drama. After I disappointed with Midnight Museum, another drama I most anticipated and coincidentally both series had Gun Atthaphan in it, I can say clearly that I love and enjoy this series. It’s worth to every aspect for 2-years waiting time to see this series. They did replace a cast in the middle of it, but thankfully all the casts still did a great job for their characters in this series.
This series build up the story in a slow pace but that’s their point. They wanna build up the mystery slowly so the audiences can guess what’s really happen in Homeschool. It gets more intense in every episode until they revealed it. Although it’s running in a slow pace but the story is clear and the audience was led into one direction when all questions will be answered. The challenge when you watching this series is there are many characters you need to know in a short time but physically the characters has distinctive characteristics, so it’s make us easier to remember their name and problems.
If you are ex- The Gifted audiences just relax. You’ll see familiar faces in here. They back as a student again. The twins AJ and JJ, Chimon, Jane, and of course Gun. Can’t wait to see what will Gun show to us in this series. If you know F4 Thailand and think Dew and Nani can do better than they do in F4, yes they also back together in this series. Not just them, but also there are a little surprise here and there if you watch it, maybe your favorite one in GMMTV will showed up here as an extra to make the storyline much better. Talking about the casts, in my personal opinion I always love Dew since F4. But I admit in Homeschool maybe Dew not the best in acting skills but he’s still get a lot of room to grow. The other kids also gave us a incredible performance especially in the final battle they let it out their deepest grudge but somehow they able to hold it back. But for the best act of course I can’t exclude Gun because he always put an amazing performance. He can change into two different person in a short time. He can be manipulative but he still love sincerely. Don’t forget about the masters. My sister’s favorite cast was Master Amin’s young version. She’s disappointed he just showed up one episode. Please watch it if you want to know who played it. Another thing if you plan to watch it, you should looking for Master Prasath. That’s all I can tell.
As you can see, in Homeschool we get so many characters seen and every students has their back story in it. In every episode we’d get back story about a student and the problem they have. They all have their story. They’re all gathered in Homeschool for a greater reason. All the characters in this series are matters. After all the episodes, we’d also know that these poor kids were just unlucky born in wrong environment. Unfortunately in the middle of the series maybe six more episodes to the ending we’ll lose half of the casts screen time because of the storyline. They’re gone too long and only showed up again in last episode for the final battle besides they’re the reason this episode exist. It’s a pity for several casts also especially for the audiences that watch this series because of the supporting casts. I already know that the supporting casts here have incredible skills in acting and also have their main characters in another series. Afterall not everyone can be a main lead in one series. In the end all the casts here still can complete each other to make it a good series.
My impression after I watch Homeschool is it’s different with my expectation after I watch the first trailer of Homeschool in 2021 and in a good way . Still it’s a good series. What’s interesting about this drama of course the message they want to deliver. It’s realistic and I think many people will relate to it. This series only wants to make sure that they deliver the right messages to the audiences. They make this drama not only to entertain the audience but every episode have their own meanings that we can take in our life.
I love the story premise they brought into this series. This school opens for rich family and have high position in society who decided to bring their problematic children in Homeschool. Somehow later we’ll know that actually the parents just want abandon their children.Whether it’s because the child didn’t live up to expectations, the child is burden to them, or simply the child were unwanted from the beginning. They’ll revealed it one by one so the audience could see how the children behavior were formed because their dissapointment from their parents that made them became a vengeance and rebellious kid. This series packed the back story of each characters but still correlated with all things that happened in school. After half of the series aired, the audience still don’t know if this school actually have good intentions or bad intentions. We don’t know who the villain is. Are the masters really a good adults? Or they just want money from this unwanted children parents? There’s a greater reason behind Homeschool was built and we need to reveal the mystery about this school. This is what makes the series keep interesting. They packed it nicely with various characters so we never feel bored and flat. I love how the kids here has different personality and different actions. We’ll find bad kids like Hugo, Jean, and Jingjai who always be a selfish person and using violence. There are Pheng that used to use her weakness to manipulate her friends, Fuji who always filled with rage and talking about gender equality, but in the end all of them able to change to become a better person because in the end they only have each other to relies on. Funny things they also found their love in Homeschool.
The downside of this series is the bad character reasoning for become villain. We always get back story about all characters but not our villain. We can guess but for sure we don’t know clearly what happened with our villain and how hurt the villain was until he/she finally became a people that filled only by anger and revenge. It’ll become more reasonable for his act if we get a little flashback to all things he get in the past just like Master Amin did. For some reason maybe they think to expand it to the next season by seeing the ending. It’ll become make sense we didn’t get our villain flashback. For me Master Amin’s flashback about his young life is one of the most important scene that made this series getting clear. The scenes clearly explain everything. The mystery that seems like a fantasy turned out it’s all realistic. What’s the purpose of Homeschool being built also clearly explained here. It’s become one of my favorite scene in this series.
The main purpose of this series is really simple but they packed this drama with many interesting things. The story and problem are make sense and commonly happens in our society, but they make this series plot become alluring to the audience with adding some mystery, dark, and kinda like Harry Potter vibes but the core of this series it’s all about criticizing society about family, abandonment, and power. This series will show things contain child abuse, violence, money, of course love, and many things that we can learn. From my point of view, Homeschool not a bad thing. Homeschool just want to teach the children to become the best version of themselves without having to rely on adults. They can be strong and rely on each other because that’s all they have. Sometimes the curriculum or the way Homeschool did it too extreme because there are still intervention from our villain there, but this extreme way also the quickest way for them to accept their fate that they’re abandoned and prove it that they still can do better. Homeschool often give weird and hard task for the children but that’s because the children didn’t see right away what value they get from that. They still need to learn to see the big picture of it. In the end, Homeschool become their safe zone. They finally have each other and they all will have their own happy ending.
For me, this series is good enough for the series that I really anticipated from 2 years ago. They started with a slow pace but steady, yet they still give us a little plot twist to the story and from the cast itself. They made the story very clear, though I think it’s possible that this series will continue to next season seeing from the ending an unexpected character showed up. Another reason this series possible for next season is because the villain not 100% defeated. He just arrested but with his skills I think it’s not hard to make a chaos and back to disturb Homeschool. I hope if there’s next season, they can make it better than this season. Of course with the same cast and maybe the children from Gen6 already become Master for next gen in Homeschool. Just throwing some idea here to make it more fun. But personally I really like when Run (Gun Atthapan) narrates for the ending.
“They get to live the life they deserve,
They get to smile, laugh, be happy, fall in love, and enjoy their warming friendship,
The bad things are gone,
From now on, no one will get hurt by their families again,
No one will get hurt from being abandoned,
Because we’ll be each other’s friends, home, and family
We have each other. Homeschool is our home and family”.
Conclusion, my rate for this drama is 4,5 star out of 5 star ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️✨.
No matter how deep in the dark we humans find ourselves, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
