John Master

Soi Silom houses Bangkok’s redlight district. It is a hub of urban nightlife, including LGBTQ-friendly establishments. Silom clusters restaurants, bars, and massage parlors amidst its connected streets. Entertainment options include the city’s famed host bars where patrons can purchase companionship. The world over, such districts provide the kind of environment predators might target—and it makes total sense as the setting for a hybrid series about a cop falling for a bar host. Re-uniting two years after “My Stand-In,” which may be the most successful BL ever about a couple so toxic almost no one wanted to see them end up together, Up and Poom rekindle their onscreen chemistry playing two very different characters. (Of all the BL actors whose careers are tangled in Thailand’s obsession with “shipped pairs,” these two might have the best claim to be “actors who do BL” as opposed to “BL actors.”) Up plays Krit, a detective investigating a series of murders targeting bar hosts. Poom plays Wayu, a bar host Krit recruits as an informant. Soon, both are in over their heads—in terms of the danger posed by the criminal investigation alike with a growing mutual attraction. Frankly, that set-up creates a storyframe with outstanding potential as both a police drama and a BL romance. Unfortunately, the disparate threads “Love in Silom” seeks to weave together never quite gel into a cohesive whole.

Romance is the strong element. Encounters between Krit and Wayu deliver the expected romantic tingles. Most viewers should find it easy to root for the easy-going, affable student-turned-stripper Wayu and the reserved police detective trying to please everyone while leading a double life. (One to please himself; the other, to please his parents.) If their affair heats up too quickly that is more a flaw of the twelve-episode format—which accelerates the pace of all such relationships—than a flaw of the premise. Krit’s and Wayu’s attempts to commit to one another and tune out the noise around them grounds the series with the makings of a solid BL romance.

Layered on top of the romance is a lot of other stuff. Unfortunately, this other stuff reduces time available to portray “Krit and Wayu get closer.” At the bar, Wayu contends with co-worker rivalries over clients as well as clients who expect too much for their money. Many episodes dedicated time to undress the bar hosts. Costume changes, dances for clients, and even rehearsals all created situations for the actors to doff their clothes. (After the first episode, which gets a waiver to establish the milieu, few such scenes advance the plot; so, I presume they exist to serve the viewing audience a steady diet of prime Thai beefcake.) At home, Wayu contends with a gambling addict mother, plus a deadbeat sister who abandons her toddler son. The pressure to double as caretaker and provider for all three generations compelled Wayu to abandon his college education (he had been in architecture school) and take up selling himself at the bar. Meanwhile, Krit has family issues of his own. Not only is his father one of the most virulently homophobic BL parents in recent years, but he is also Krit’s superior at work, where Krit must tread carefully lest any misstep sully his father’s reputation. Moreover, his wealthy family expects him to wed a girl from a family whose standing matches their own. He has persuaded childhood chum Rose to be a beard: outwardly, she agrees to be his fiancée. Just don’t ask either to set a date, because Rose knows Krit bats for the other team. (She is a great character.) When Angry Dad learns of the charade, he takes active steps to break Krit apart from Wayu. Parental opposition to same-sex couples or couples mismatched in wealth are a tedious genre staple, but in this case the virulence of Krit's father's anti-gay rants sour much of the good feeling the BL romance generated.

In addition to the family drama, Love in Silom also delivers one of the more credible police procedurals from among the rapidly growing ranks of BL-cop hybrid series. (Police-in-love is clearly the 2025-26 trend in Thai BL!) By “credible,” I do not imply that the police work portrayed resembles genuine police investigations, but rather that the investigation itself is reasonably complex and layered, whereas many BL-cop hybrids write crimes so superficial that the characters need only go through the motions of policework. This one supplies genuine menace. Whether an actual detective would draw a civilian informant so deeply into the investigation must be overlooked for the sake of a BL. I would also argue that the seriousness of the crimes under consideration—some side characters get murdered along the way and others get kidnapped and tortured—do not necessarily fit the customary mood of a BL series. As a result, Love in Silom skews darker than the BL genre generally. Though whether Love in Silom’s creators regard the police story as primary and the BL romance as secondary is a question that could be debated.

In closing, Love in Silom merits a cautionary endorsement to potential viewers. Viewers who treasure BL for “idealized fantasy” and pure escapism could skip it. This series portrays a gritty side of life, and its romance never quite eclipses its heavier elements. If the BL romance often feels lost amidst noise from the characters’ familial and professional responsibilities, that romance itself delivers exactly what BL fans crave: a romance they can root for. Up and Poom once again deliver solid chemistry between themselves and solid acting in bringing their characters to life. If the duo’s latest pairing falls short of the prior one that judgment does not necessarily signal a complete disappointment. “My Stand-In” was excellent. But if the earlier work set a benchmark to indicate the potential of this pairing, this particular script falls short of hitting that same high level. It settles for merely good.