Kidnap

Kidnapped kidnapper

An unusual love story captivates the audience in each of the episodes of 'Kidnap', a Thai series directed by actor, musician, singer and filmmaker Noom Attaporn Teemarkorn ('Midnight Museum'), known for his distinctive style and captivating narratives, in which it presents us with an intense plot where there will be no shortage of violence, kidnapping, intrigue, hand-to-hand combat... and romance.
Pawat Chittsawangdee (Ohm) and Thanaphon Usinsap, who after appearing as a guest actor in 'The Folly of Human Ambition' (2021) plays his first leading role in this series, are in charge of giving life to characters that have even become a trend on social networks, because every time they appear on screen their romantic approaches monopolize the throne of Instagram and Twitter.
Ohm Pawat Chittsawangdee is a young actor who got his start in the entertainment industry with the lead role of Frame in the 2016 series 'Make It Right', which was followed by 'Make It Right 2' and 'Make It Right: On the Beach'. BL lovers remember him for his performance in the film 'Dew', a performance that won him the Best Supporting Actor award at the prestigious 28th edition of the Bangkok Critics Assembly Awards in 2020.
His character of "Pat" Napat Jindapat in the series 'Our Skyy 2' (2023) and 'Bad Buddy' (2022), and that of Khemachat Dhamrong-rattanaroj in 'The Shipper' are also treasured by his fans.
The link between Ohm and the director of the series is not recent, as both had already worked on the drama 'An Eye for an Eye', from 2021. On this occasion, Ohm played the secondary character called
Nawa.
Ohm plays Min, a young actor and stuntman who agrees to work as a kidnapper to use the money from the kidnapping for the expensive medical treatment of his sick brother, as well as to pay a debt owed to gangsters.
However, when her employer asks him to kill Q, him young, spoiled, rich co-star whom he has kidnapped, Min can't bring herself to pull the trigger. Instead, he tells them the job is complete and takes the boy home to hide him.
What we will see next takes the viewer through a wealth of emotions, from despair to hope, from insecurity to love, with Min and Q trying to outwit their pursuers to save their lives and those of their loved ones.
In this way, the two boys create a loving bond and discover that they have a strong and undeniable connection with each other.
Although the relationship does not begin as "Cupid's rules dictate", with the lover arriving with a flower in his hands to give as a gift, this love seems very logical to me because Min never exercises violence on the kidnapped person, while Q He finds in the kidnapper a strong and kind being who can protect him. His protector is always there for him.
Stockholm syndrome is one of the reasons that moves Q, a feeling that grows in his chest when there is an emotional bond towards the person who has kidnapped him. After experiencing something like this, people are not the same. Q is an innocent boy. His only "crime" is that of being the son of Khacha Yuenyongwisut (Lift Supoj Janjareonborn), the incorruptible police officer who is carrying out a criminal investigation in which those who hire Min to carry out the kidnapping are involved.
Let's face it, developing a strange bond with his kidnapper is not original, as it has been explored before. Films such as the British 'A Life Less Ordinary' (1997), by director Danny Boyle; the American 'Kill Me Later' (2001), by Dana Lustig, the Indian 'Highway' (2014), by Imtiaz Ali; and the American gay film 'The 24th Day' (2004), by Tony Piccirillo, have addressed the issue from various perspectives.
The Thai film 'Bangkok Love Story', by director Poj Arnon ('Tell the World I Love You'), from 2007, tells us a tumultuous relationship between two strangers who become close, but deep down there are no points of coincidence with this series, because in the film there is not a kidnapping but a rescue, while the mission entrusted to a cold hitman is not to kidnap, but to physically eliminate a police informant.
The difference that I appreciate between the previous films and the series directed by Noom Attaporn Teemarkorn is that Min is not the typical predator or the obsessive character with psychiatric problems represented by Ricky (Antonio Banderas) in the Spanish film 'Tie Me Up!' (1990), by Pedro Almodóvar, or Massimo Torricelli in the Polish '365 DNI' (2018), by Barbara Białowąs and Tomasz Mandes, to name just two examples.
'Kidnap' does not take lightly a criminal action such as kidnapping, with the legal implication to which the kidnapper is exposed and the trauma it causes to its victims.
What drives Min not to commit a crime is his kindness and love. This is what causes Min to not execute the order given by the employers and instead save the person he must kill. Together, the two young people will experience a traumatic situation in the best way they find possible.
Ohm and Thanaphon Usinsap represent a couple in the story with ups and downs, and Lima syndrome is also present in the plot, since the kidnapper responds to the victim. Since these syndromes exist, which in this case for me is true love, not a condition, there is this way of addressing it in the series. To tell a story this extreme, you also need a lot of delicacy and a lot of respect for the subject.
On the other hand, the strong chemistry between both roles is also partly due to the prior teamwork that the actors do before each scene, bringing to fruition sequences that are out of the ordinary, between kidnapper and victim.
In this character of Q, the actor who plays him comes out on top, combining strength and defenselessness, with a happy and noble character, which does not lack sensuality.
For his part, Ohm continues to stand out in his career in the complex role of Min with a difficult balance between the boy in need of money to save his brother's life and even his own in the face of the bullies who demand payment of a debt. and the nobility and innocence that hides in his heart.
It is not credible to me that a criminal network would entrust the mission of kidnapping and murdering a person with no prior experience. However, this is understandable, since it favors the development of the plot.
Ohm Thipakorn Thitathan, Min's younger brother; Phromphiriya Thongputtaruk (Papang) as Suea; Chelsea Napapat Sattha-atikom, in him acting debut, as Khanomjeen, Min's friend; Pym Pympan Chalayanacupt as Yada, Suea's boss; Title Kirati Puangmalee as Min's senior James, among other actors and actresses, bring a range of intense and complex performances.
Obviously this conflict arouses the interest of the public who loves to see the two main characters together, and also those who follow the other Ohm in his role as Min's brother, who left me wanting to see more of his artistic work after discovering it like August, in 'Last Twilight', and Zo in 'Our Skyy 2' and 'A Boss and a Babe', all from 2023.
By reading the comments on MDL one can see that the majority of the audience really enjoys every scene, every situation that these characters present. There is annoyance, but also a support that makes the audience who finds the series fascinating complicit.
Except for the rookie Nontachai Vinyousupornchai, the other three screenwriters, PingPong Suwanun Pohgudsai, Chalermpong Udomsilp and Sornpanath Patpho, have extensive experience in writing scripts, especially those in the BL genre, having written the scripts for 'Never Let Me Go ' (2023), 'Cherry Magic' (2024), 'Remark' (2016), 'The Gifted' (2018), 'ThirTEEN Terrors' (2015), 'Vice Versa', 'The Eclipse', among others, which demonstrates his commitment and vision in the development of the series.
In summary: 'Kidnap' offers a moving vision of the protagonists' journey as they deal with their growing attraction and the development of a beautiful romance, while searching for a sense of belonging in a world that is hostile to them.
I'll come back to the review to update it.

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Just plain bad

To put this simply, this drama is frankly terrible, with a very bad written script and sub-par acting. The whole plot revolving around the kidnap, which was sold as the core of the whole show, is basically forgotten after two or three episodes: after that, the whole thing just becomes a rom-com, and a very cheap one too, with boring scenes that lack both consequentiality and any kind of emotional impact.
The terrible script, unfortunately, translates also to a mediocre acting performance: not even Ohm, who is known to be a great actor, could not do anything to make this thing somehow good in any way; on the other hand, Leng is just not good: I sincerely hope that he will take acting classes after this and get better, at least to avoid smiling awkwardly during dramatic scenes.
About the romance development, Min and Q's relationship is just hasty, bland and really not that satisfying to watch: they just meet, they decide they like each other without any clear reason, and then they just make you cringe for more than half of the show (no amount of "chemistry" can save them from this atrocious script). The remaining story is just a mix of half-written sub plots (Yada's, Q's dad's or even Q's own story dealing with trauma) that basically just serve as intermissions before the next unrewarding MinQ moment. The only likable part in this show is James, which makes no sense as a character at all but at least is kinda funny.
In conclusion, for me this show was a waste of time: I just hope that they will give Ohm better scripts in the future and not decide to waste his acting skills onto this kind of cheap entertainment.

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A WHOLESOME SLICE OF LIFE DRAMA - ignore the title and trailer

Ignore the title and trailer. It's a solid 10 Slice of Life drama with bomb chemistry, and a healthy relationship where mains communicate their issues openly and maturely, a character's trauma-related PTSD are actually part of the plot and not taken lightly (there is no magic cure, he is still in therapy until very end). The fight and sex scenes are actually decent and "believable" because the MC/Min is a supposed to be stuntman/bouncer who is trained to fight, and not some college boy who is suddenly an expert in martial arts when surrounded by thugs. I know everyone says ML (Q) is basically a damsel in distress, but he is a civilian who is caught in the crossfire between his "Righteous Hero-Cop" dad and the criminals he is pursuing. The guy isn't trained to fight, he has severe PTSD from watching his mom get killed in front of him and he keeps getting kidnapped and hurt by his dad's enemies. U can't really blame the guy for not really being excited about it.

Also, most viewers here underestimate how much your "fight and flight" reflex can be conditioned in case of frequent threats. For eg, if you are "fight" person, your first instinct will always be run towards the threat instead of away, because your mind honestly believes that u can fight it, whether u have the body to back it up or not. So, Q finding himself in situations where he gets in trouble because doesn't have the physic to back up his "fight" instinct (i.e confronting criminals, or running towards the gunfire, even if he gets panic attacks at the sound) didn't seem as weird or strange to me.

That said, all the introduced plot-arcs actually do get completed (some take until the end of show, and there is a time-skip in between); no character, INCLUDING minor characters, is wasted; no unnecessary drama between main leads, or with the dad. ALL communications happen openly and on-screen. The dialogue is at times cringe-worthy, but u can always stare at Ohm (whoever was in charge of his styling deserves an Oscar and a Nobel prize, because MY GAWD!!) and ofcourse, the OST. I'm sure even the people who hated the drama love the OST, so I won't waste my breath on it.

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The best series from GMMTV in this year

Now that the Final episode has finished, it left many emotions and memories for me. Although I thought it would be dark themed story, the series turned out to be romance. But the one thing I like about Kidnap is that the story doesn’t just focus on one character but also to every character’s relationship. I feel like some parts were rushed and the important scenes were cut off, if they didn’t cut it would be more emotional and smooth.
But overall I’m thankful to the whole crew and OhmLeng for this masterpiece,not a perfect but it’ll always be in my heart.

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would have been so much more if they had tried to do less

The early episodes held such promise - bouncing from one crime lakorn trope to another, then swerving (because Thailand, and I love this) into comedy series and developing a beautiful care and trauma focus with Q’s sleepwalking, anchored by Ohm’s ability to show quiet emotion through his face and voice.

But the crime lakorn never became more than a string of tropes, ungrounded and unintegrated, lazily thrown together in pursuit of plot, motivations and filling time. Enough to carry an entire side plot of a 30 hour lakorn but merely surface level tension here. Veteran actors Lift Supoj and Pym Pympan gave competent but generic performances, they could have done them in their sleep. Tae Pitisak was at least given a decent monologue to work with and he is excellent with a good monologue.

This is the first time I've felt my familiarity with lakorn tropes and actors got in the way of watching either a lakorn or series. Their characters were stock roles so I was watching actors go through well-known motions. Papang though, he’s not cut out for a tough guy. Give him more roles please, but not this.

I wish I had seen this earlier, before I got the hang of lakorns and their tropes. It might have worked better for me as I wouldn't have realised how paint by numbers it was. Or maybe I would have just been casting about for an explanation within my experience. The series support characters were generic too.

The BL was also trope-heavy, though on a par for recent GMMTV fare and Ohm can elevate anything through the strength of his acting and facial expressions. Much praise for him. No criticism of Leng, his delivery suited his character. And certainly none for the two of them together or their chemistry. The only thing lacking there was years of fans building up fantasies about their boys, the kind which lets shippers bypass everything else and fill in the gaps with their own emotions.

But all of those tropes, that was a lot of weight for the BL to labour under, and through the middle it was more cliches than unique characters. That’s on the writers, Ohm and Leng did their best to try to make them more. (How often am I writing something like this these days? GMMTV, get it back together. Please.)

This had one excellent idea which it developed and then set aside - the sleepwalking, with its mix of care and trauma. Anchored of course by the quality of Ohm’s performance. It seemed a promising start, especially with the kindness and humour it mixed in, the perfect recipe for Thailand’s fantastic way of tempering trauma and difficult subject matter.

They did revisit it in the last two episodes, with the characters having matured. They got the emotions right in that, although it felt somewhat discconected and …. Still trying to figure out what was missing there for me. It might come back to integration of the story lines and their many elements.

The series also had what should have been solid ideas around sacrifice, except they chopped it all into too many pieces and scattered it about, dissipating its emotion. That’s my primary criticism, this series couldn’t be bothered to truly develop and explore any of its ideas. I have to mentally recompile it to appreciate what they were trying to do, it just kept bouncing from one bit to another.

It’s like the many writers (too many cooks perhaps?) didn’t have the courage to properly develop and explore any of their story-lines, or understand which ones were its strengths - everything was resolved too quickly and easily. This would have been so much more if they had tried to do less.

So this is yet another What might have been, with this premise and these actors, if only the creators had done their part better. I very much want that tender care/trauma laced with comedy series the beginning seemed to promise. Choose a few lakorn tropes carefully to develop the themes of sacrifice and the questions it asks around that. And above all, have the courage to stay with those emotions. Thailand does that so well.

What this might have been, with Ohm and Leng and that potential.

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Its MinQ Era

I'm very excited about this series..fr I've never been so obsessed about a series as I am with this one...our boys really did put in their blood sweat and tears..now I know that the series will be a success no matter what...Leng did pretty well for a first timer..his acting exceeded my expectations now I'm so proud...his chemistry with ohm Is very smooth and it's so natural...so far the first episode was well played out and now I can't wait for the remaining episodes to air as well...I just hope that they will get the recognition that they deserve when the time comes...let's watch kidnap while also supporting our boys na

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What will you sacrifice to make your loved ones happy?

What might be important to know:
* This is not an action/crime series.
Yes, there are some action scenes. And yes, there is a crime ring, drug smuggling and a murder case. But it's not at the centre of the plot. The main characters are even only marginally involved -- but the crime sub plot majorly influences certain reactions and decisions.
* This is not (only) a fluffy rom-com.
Actually, after the meet-cute and the scenes when Min follows Q in episode 1 and the preview for epiosde 2, I was convinced that this would be a shallow rom-com full of tropes and over-the-top Thai humour.
It IS very fluffy at times, very cute, with two soft boys who fall deeply in love with each other. But it is not only that.

In its core, the drama explores a much deeper question: How much will you sacrifice for the people you love?
Will you sacrifice your money, your health, your prospects in life? Your life itself? Will you do things you would never do otherwise? Will you sacrifice your own happiness?
And are these sacrifices you make -- are they the right choices? Will they make the other person happy?

I love how these questions are slowly asked and how they are answered differently over the course of the series. Both Min and Q search for the right way to achieve happiness for their loved ones -- with twists and turns, with laughter and tears. As the audience, we get to slowly learn about their lives and history, what made them who they are now and how traumatic events in their lives have shaped their views.

The script is well-written in that regard, there are no dragging parts, and the events of the present and the past are told in a way that they make a cohesive whole.

There are several inconsistencies, both in the writing and the execution. Just to mention some of the most obvious: the scene in front of Q's house in episode 7 would have had more impact if the actors hadn't swapped places for the close-ups, which brought me out of the immersion into an extremely emotional scene. I don't understand why Min's bedroom was restored to its original state after Min had taken care to rearrange everything in episode 2. Also, Min was shown as speaking English very badly (ep. 1), but later, he has no problems with instructing tourists at the surfing school.
One major flaw in the writing is the character of "James". I think he should have been two characters -- because he both has connections to the criminal underground (which are never explained nor explored, and Yada or indeed anyone else doesn't even really seem to know or notice him) and he is this good friend and mentor for Min with connections in the film industry, who is supposed to be extremely likeable and trustworthy? It would not have been hard to write a second character for the criminal connected side (another stuntman, maybe?), and keep James for the rest.
Mhen was unfortunately a bit bland as a character, he was never able to become more than "little brother who is ill and loves his older brother very much" -- and though Ohm Thipakorn obviously tried his best, he was not able to give his character much more colour. (Also, how does he get a heart transplant that quickly?)
Throughout the series, it's never clear how much time has passed, so that some scenes seem to happen very fast after another, when it's probably not the case -- a flaw a lot of Thai BLs seem to share.

But I can overlook these flaws because of the solid technical execution and mainly because the script gets the emotions right, and knows how to tie them together with the main theme of the drama, -- and because of the acting. Both Ohm Pawat and Leng Thanaphon are very convincing in their roles. They were able to make me feel with their characters, to be immersed in their story and to believe their emotions.
Leng surprised me, because I was a bit sceptical if a rookie would be able to portray a character that is at odds with himself and with the world -- and indeed, especially in the beginning, when Q is trying to show one kind of emotions to the outside, while he has opposite emotions on the inside, Leng reaches his limits fast. In his defense, these scenes would have been a challenge for more experienced actors, too.

Overall, I find, again, that it's best to follow a drama's story without preconceptions about what it "should" be, but instead listen to what the writer, the director and the actors are showing us -- and here, they showed us a story about how traumatic experiences can shape your world. They showed us a story about about devotion, about love between parent and child, between brothers, between lovers and what it means to make another person truly happy.

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Meh

In essence, this series commenced promisingly, exhibiting potential for greatness. However, the subsequent episodes deviated significantly, resulting in a monotonous and unengaging narrative. The pacing became increasingly slow, leading to a sense of tedium. The skip button, once a mere inconvenience, became an indispensable tool for escaping the tediousness. While the lead actors delivered competent performances, their acting lacked any remarkable qualities.

For individuals unfamiliar with the genre, this series may offer an intriguing experience. Nevertheless, I found it to be yet another mediocre drama that squandered numerous opportunities. The lead actors, in particular, deserve more challenging roles that showcase their full potential. The series’ overall quality was remarkably rudimentary.

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Good story, bad writing

That headline pretty much sums up everything about Kidnap by the way, the sheer amount of potential a story like this had was ruined by the horrible writing. I'm assuming it's based on a novel and I'm a little scared to find out if the source material itself was this bad, or if it was just somehow messed up beyond recognition while being made into a script.

The weirdest part is how fragmented the story was, it was like watching three or four completely different shows, that was mashed up into one series haphazardly. There was romance and comedy, mystery and thrill, and in the same vein but not really, trauma, moving on and moving ahead. Even just saying it this way would make it seem like these genres won't work great, all together, but let me save you some time, it didn't work.

The genre shifted multiple times in an episode, there was comedy at moments where it made no sense and the whole kidnap plot was the weakest thing in a series called Kidnap. The audience is also left to connect the dots for most scenes, it's never outright obvious how the characters and the story got there, but you think hard enough and you can make the connections. But sometimes you just have to say eh- I guess it just happened that way, so let's move on.

I was genuinely shocked with the amount of potential this story had, I mean, written well and this could have been a masterpiece. But writing it in a way where you introduce different conflicts every episode only for them to be solved (or mostly solved) by the end of that episode, whereas you have the main conflict show up when it's convenient for you.. that's not how you keep the audience invested.

Most of my dissapointment is with the writing though, because despite that weak plot, the chemistry was actually decent, I did find myself invested in the characters to an extent and the acting was pretty good. Min and Q had this great loser in love energy between them and despite the weird way in which I think they started out (it was incredibly fast), they did have that soulmates thing going for them, but the story.. what could have been.

Technically, I should rate this lower than I actually did, but I have a soft spot for Ohm, he was amazing in this. And Title. He was amazing as James, James gets a 10/10. But even with them, I can't give this a high score, a kind of high score I genuinely thought I would be giving this before I started, and even a bit after I started.

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