Elisheva

Props or people?

Others have explained the problems with this follow-up so I'm just sharing some ideas from a conversation with a friend about whether the director Golf sees characters as props or people. It was a useful question and came about because of two other series from Golf.

I didn't mind that the Our Skyy was primarily about Wat and the film competition. I would have been happy for two episodes of Ayan and Akk just living their best together life. Or maybe a bit of them figuring out their relationship and themselves post-high school. Something like Khan and Thua got. Why were the 2nd couple given something like plausible consistency with their main series characters and better writing than not-Akk and not-Ayan? Maybe they were just generic enough it was the easiest route?

Given the complete and utter lack of understanding of the main characters though plus the focus on the film maker plus the length of the director's cameo, I do wonder if this wasn't more about Golf than the characters. Maybe it's unfair but it's the only explanation I have for the result. Or maybe it's too generous and the explanation is more a lack of competence. First and Khaotung carried the main series through the emotional depth of their acting after all.

Meanwhile in this it's like First didn't bother with characterisation and just played it as a version of himself. Khaotung couldn't save not-Ayan from a plot which stripped the character of his emotional intelligence. I guess if all you're here for is actors snogging that will do you. But why not fanservice which respects the characters as well? It wouldn't be difficult to keep both types of fans happy.

In short, Khaotung and First made Ayan and Akk people and that's why The Eclipse works despite many moments of questionable writing and plot. Golf made Akk and Ayan into props and that's why the Our Skyy 2 is a self-serving disaster.

Ayan would NEVER do that to Akk. Any director or screenwriter who thinks he would failed to understand the character or how it would destroy Akk.

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A quiet call for improvement, compassion and understanding

I have a lot of time for youth drama, especially Japanese films. This one is gorgeous in its simplicity whilst drawing in complexity through quiet touches of the brush, moments which imply more than they state.

The situation Sarya is in because of her family's status as refugees and from a people without a nation is both social and political commentary, a quiet call for improvement, compassion and understanding, and metaphor for the struggles of a young person to find her place, not because of her own uncertainty but because she doesn't fit neatly into society's expectations.

If the ending confuses you, look to what is implied. There is sadness, and there is hope.

May we all do better for our young people and for all who need our help.

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this could have been an e-mail

If you get on with the first few episodes, you'll probably be like those who give this lakorn glowing reviews. If you don't, give it a miss. It doesn't change. It shifts gears around episode 7 or 8, as Ch 3 sometimes does, but that doesn't last.

It's slow, with a lot of padding and filler, and lacks the zip and zing of the kind of lakorn which skims merrily over every plot hole to develop and explore the emotions. This does focus on emotions - pretty much every story line focuses on relationship woes, the occasional resolution, yearning or jealousy - but somehow it all feels cliched and thin. They don't have the richness or depth of the emotions of a good lakorn.

There's a place for all of that of course. I adore the refuses-to-be-rushed pacing of many Thai movies and would have been happy with slow if it had been less cliched. Not everything has to be heavy, and some Thai directors have a genius for integrating serious issues into comedy without losing lightness. I couldn't see that here. It was more like a wash of Meaning brushed across it now and again.

Amongst it all, there are some good messages about being with someone who supports and values you. It's one of many Ch 3 lakorns which incorporate a nod towards women's issues, from workplace inequality to women's sexual agency and desire. The FL is of course a good girl though, because of course. But it also embraces and perpetuates stereotypes, like the supposedly smart lawyer who's figured out a genius move to win her case but is shown floundering - at length - in the court room for the sake of drawn out drama.

And the cat-fighting, jealousy and bickering between women because of men. Even the struggle to be the first woman partner in the law firm is really about a man.

I've finished ep 12, four to go, and I'm dropping it (again) because it's all gone on too long and the obstacles they're throwing in are contrived and insubstantial. Maybe I'll plod on another day but that's more from a sense of not liking to leave things unfinished than real interest.

But it works for some, so if you get on with the first few episodes you'll likely enjoy the rest. There won't be much to get in your way.

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about that ending

The story is gripping, well-crafted and -paced, although often difficult, sometimes disturbingly so. Baifern and Lukkade were pitch perfect in their roles. The men did well too. But this is so much more than entertainment.

Every single note of this is set up to heighten our emotions and deliver their intensity directly into a call for change. May it be heard, and not lost as everyone moves on in search of the next thrill.

Specifics about the ending in comments so it can be hidden with a spoiler. Not just what happens to the main characters, but all which followed. Koo Ekkasit is amongst Thailand's best directors for grappling with social issues - and especially trauma which comes from them - with conviction, depth and compassion. Always compassion. When there are things you don't like in his work, look deeper. In everything I've seen, there's always a reason, there's always more.

I know you're all busy and rushing off to the next thing, but if you've already seen the series please take a moment to click through and read the spoiler-hidden comment. It's about the ending specifically.

Thicha is less revenge drama and more about justice. That's said in dialogue. Thai television sometimes feels like a country in conversation with itself on what it wants to become. The statement everyone involved in this makes is loud and clear. May it be heard and acted on.

Please.

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Writing women into a historical framework

Two things increased my appreciation for this, and thus my rating. The ending. And reading up on the history. The long (and so very Thai <3) disclaimer at the beginning states that an aim is to "encourage viewers to take an interest in history...[and to] seek additional knowledge from experts or historians to gain an accurate understanding of Ayuttaya history."

It did succeed in getting me interested in the history - primarily what is recorded of Sri Sudachan. There isn't much and it's disputed. We don't even have her name or the names of the other concubines, only their titles. A starting trawl through Wikipedia though shows that the framework of men this story is built around is taken from historical records - Chairachathirat and his connections with Portuguese mercenaries and their war tech, Worawongsathirat and his many titles, Yotfa, Sri Sin, Phirenthorathep, Chan, Ratchasaneh.

And also things written about Sri Sudachan herself, or rather the fictionalised versions others chose to tell.

Part of me wishes I'd waited as I spoiled a few things for myself near the end, but it also brought the creators' intentions into sharp, crystal clear, unquestionable focus - this isn't a "historical" fiction flight of fantasy - it's very much about filling in gaps and creating a space for women to exist in that history. One woman, in particular, whose existence was recorded by those who benefitted from making her a villain.

Some of this short lakorn is difficult - war and brutal actions are depicted, sometimes on screen, a few thankfully implied. It's about power, corruption and conflict. It's condensed melodrama too, which will throw some off, especially those who are used to epic long Chinese court intrigues. That's just a different way of telling a story.

Through it all are the women - concubines, confidantes and servants, armed women guards and their leader - their conflicts with each other and struggles to figure out how to get by in a world where they are pawns with limited power and room to move, who they truly love and who they can truly trust.

For these few days, this woman - whose name the men couldn't be bothered to record - was alive again. They did a fantastic job with bringing her, and all of the complicated emotions of a woman in her position, to life.


Links in a comment under a spoiler for those who want to read more. So far it's just Wikipedia as they're understandable summaries and even within these few pages, it's clear how each one takes a different view of Sri Sudachan. I recommend waiting until you've finished the lakorn.

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Worth seeking out

An inquisitive, full of life young Thai woman ends up in Japan on her own and not knowing the language. The family at the farm where she'll be living and working for three weeks is warm, kind and welcoming. Two more show up and cause a bit of chaos. There's a fair bit of sightseeing and a lot of food, some out at markets and restaurants but the most memorable are at home amongst this found family.

Everything is balanced. Jook's vitality, Mee's calm steadiness; uncle Hattori's mischievous grin, his daughter Naomi's gentleness; difficulties when there isn't a shared language, the ways they find around that. All of the characters are well thought out and portrayed. They're each distinct in personality but fit together well. It's a lovely group of people to spend time with.

It's a quiet series, which might disappoint some. The emotions aren't big or dramatic, they're just very real.

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Words are often sparse in this, it's a very visual film. As such, it allows for and sometimes requires interpretation. It's not conventional, tidy, linear story-telling. It's more akin to the non-sequiturs of dreams and memories, where emotions are more important than the narrative links.

I could give you my current understanding of it, after one viewing and some reflection, but that would be far too limiting. It's the kind of film which invites us to participate, to consider its pieces from different angles and points of view. Perhaps there isn't a single meaning or interpretation, but something more like a hologram or a kaleidoscope of shifting interpretation.

The emotions are clear throughout. Maybe that can be a key for those who aren't used to this way of watching a film? There's a question in the non-linear narrative which may not have an answer. Don't get caught up in that, but let yourself be open to the possibilities. This film is worth that kind of attention, simultaneously close and careful, but also loose and free.

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Aside from one thing, this is very sweet and wholesome. Other reviews have that covered well. Love is love at a boys' Catholic school. It's well-made and filled with lovely messages of acceptance of being gay.

And in that, a girl's happiness is necessarily sacrificed because the happy ending is for the boys. Technically that's a spoiler, but the movie's feet are so firmly planted in the pro-gay BL messaging it's a given and the girl is just a prop.

Yay for the boys, it's lovely that way. But I'm left wondering what this does to girls and young women, always rooting for the boys and always being the ones to lose out. The prominent, crystal clear positive messaging for gay boys is such a contrast with the but of course barely worth mentioning negative signal for girls' place in this. Some are more equal than others.

It's strange to finish a movie like this feeling unsettled, and many here will scold me from the other side of the screen, but that's where I am with this. Yay for the boys. What effect does watching a lot of BL have on girls and young women, always coming in second if they're there at all?

Aside from that, it's sweet, well-made and very wholesome. For the boys.

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Nong Sao's First Bad Boys BL

For all the attitude some of the young men throw, this is fluff and pretty tame. There's a lot of simulated drinking and drunkenness, which is one way of creating situation while avoiding plot beyond the relationships; a lot of badly simulated sex, which is another way of avoiding plot; gossiping, gossiping, and more gossiping; some violence and young men who either can't control their emotions/behaviours or struggle to express them.

As far as red flags go, these are comparatively pink, like a teenage girl's fantasy of bad boys. (And perhaps young fantasies, gleaned from screens rather than experience, of what supposedly constitutes passion and hot sex? It's not that sort of wasted movement head thrashing.) It does still romanticise common het tropes (and this is just het romantic drama recast with boys and extra shower/fake sex scenes) like being the one who'll change him - even if the one who does is another fantasy bad boy. So I'm both wary of what this normalises and aware that this is a drop in the bucket of what we all see.

When it settles down, it does makes some stabs at exploring the characters' emotions with a fair bit of intelligence. Points for that, although it's all brief. Friends give good advice, eventually it's listened to and poof, the magic of love prevails. After some more melodrama from the relationships of course, since that's what drives the story. It's not like there's anything else.

I lost count of how many katoey characters they wrote in to serve as bitchy girls (with suitable genitalia of course) to be defeated by the true love of our heroines, erm heroes.

Anyway, it has some good moments amongst the questionable ones but overall it's not great drama. James did deliver his girl-coded bad boy Sherbet reasonably well.

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Nang Nak set as coming of age

Modern coming of age adaptation of 1999's classic Nang Nak, with some nice extra nods to that like Nard's full name. Low budget with inexperienced actors but, like every Mae Nak, it's all about the emotions - the love between the young parents and the love Thailand has for Mae Nak's story.

This isn't one to watch because it came up in algorithms or you're after horror. You'll be missing the context of a story told many times where the intended audience knows nearly every turn, and how each adaptation finds its own way to move our emotions.

if you know and love Nang Nak though, give it a go and watch it with your heart.

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Not bound by words

There are few words by this and no clear narrative structure. It's a collage of curious things and that makes it difficult to find words to talk about it. The title Bachiranun, never forget, a motif repeated near the end may be our best clue. Perhaps these are things the writer/director/actor wants to remember, both from imagination and real life.

The drops into surreal were disorientating so I have no confidence in this assessment. It was all a bit too far a stretch for me and kept me on edge. Others will love it for that. How do the horsehead dancers fit in? Was there significance to the large red pepper-type fruit characters pass to each other? Some of the scenes of dairy farming and fishing/fish processing were difficult for me. The music and elders engaged in traditional making were my favourite parts. In the end, I don't know what to do with this. It is.

Bachiranun deserves a proper review. Hopefully someone will give it one.

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a woman's pain

Thinking about this overnight, I found a useful way to frame this. I don't know how many here might be willing to hear it but perhaps a few might.

Even though this is series length (12 episodes x 1 hour), it's very much lakorn. And it does have the multiple connected stories of a lakorn. Most are highly abbreviated and cliched - a royal family of a fictional country, a high ranking family in debt, and so on. But two are so tightly interlinked they've become a single narrative.

So separate out the romance between men and Pin's story for a moment. Don't see Pin's story as just another obstacle for the men. It is much more than that. Consider, for a moment, the role they play in hers.

She is a very young woman with little experience who has somehow managed to maintain a cheerful, optimistic outlook despite her parents. Her fairytale prince turns out to be gay but she's left to discover it on her own and in a cruel way. The day before their wedding. Everyone else is caught up in their own messes and the only person in the world who loves her has betrayed her. It wasn't intentional from him, but Sasin did. Not by falling in love with her prince but by conspiring with the prince to prevent their marriage and keeping her in the dark about it. Excusable perhaps a couple of months before the wedding, but when it's imminent? This is her life they're messing with, she deserved to know and be given a chance to understand and come to terms with it all.

She deserved to be included in the plans, both as their close friend/nong sao and as someone whose life will be directly and significantly influenced by their actions. They're deciding all of this for her.

She acts out of her own pain, struggling to prioritise her own needs - because no one else will. By the time Rachawadee has caught on and tries, Pin isn't in a place where she can hear it - she is young, inexperienced and in more pain than she can grasp, how could it get worse? The older woman's words are there to guide her in understanding when she is.

If this had been written as a full length lakorn, perhaps it would be easier for international BL fans to recognise Pin's story as its own thing. Did many grasp how much of Khun Chaai/To Sir With Love is really about women struggling for agency within the strictures society imposed on them? If that conversation happened, please point me to it.

Even with the short space Pin's story is given, it is well developed. The best in this small lakorn, with some of the best acting and writing. The moments when she cries, when she's juggling both her own pain, the loss of her dream, and her love for her dear cousin, her friend Saenkaew, and her heartfelt wishes for their happiness. That was all so well done. Much appreciation for Perth's delivery.

If you're open to seeing it, this is the beating heart of the lakorn.

If you doubt this, consider for a moment this insight from Inquisitive in the comments - it is the women who get things done while the men complicated it all. Over and over again.

To be frank, the romance between the men was overloaded with cliches. There is better BL and there are better lakorn romances, perhaps it is the combination of the emotional intensity of lakorns with BL which has so many enamoured with it? Or maybe it's just that they hit the right notes for soft focus women's romantic fantasies well enough? It was good, but superlative? Not for me. Peak is an excellent actor of course, when the director allows, and Pearl has enough charisma to power the entire cast of a uni BL. That carried a lot.

I've rated story and acting lower than many will like because the first half is sub-par. Which has to be on the director, with that many experienced actors performing under their abilities. Fortunately it picks up in the latter half. I'd rate higher for that but I can't ignore the beginning.

If you're heading to smash the NO button, may I invite you to set that reaction aside for a moment to mull over this different point of view for a wee while. It's not the norm for international BL fans but it is very much in keeping with the way Thai lakorns do things and it is absolutely right there in this lakorn for those who are open to seeing it.

There are two central stories here - one is a romantic fantasy between men. The other is about a young woman's pain and her journey through it. She deserves a moment amongst all the adulation for the men to have that recognised.

Even if, especially since, BL too often tells us that women should take a back seat to the men and prioritise their happiness, finding our own in theirs. We matter too.

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so this is where the boys' balls went ;P

After a run of disappointment (Enigma Black Stage), marshmallow writing (Whale Store), over-produced music (all of these), fan service and soft-focus women's romantic fantasy BLs (Ex-Morning, Memoir of Rati and My Magic Prophecy), I was really wondering if GMMTV had sold out their best writing and youth-series energy to chase inter fans and slots on western platforms, so much I was considering giving up on them altogether.

And then along comes Hide & Sis - truly women-centric, intense and ballsy. The first six episodes are excellent story craft, full of complexity and well-grounded, well-integrated surprises. And the power in the women's performances.

The twists never stop. Just when you think there can't be more, they find another. And another. I personally would have preferred it to have slowed down in the second half to allow more room for the complexity of the emotions to breathe and expand and be fully felt before it went on to the next surprise. It was in the story and the cast were very capable, it just needed more time between the reveals (or fewer of them), increasingly so as it neared the end. It is impressive that they kept the plot so coherent and the twists well-grounded in everything which came before but still largely unexpected.

I have some other quibbles, like the way so much exposition was given to Arch. Luke played the role very well, but long explanatory monologues are never the best story telling (which they proved they could do over and over again) and it took up space from Bua. I would have preferred for Jan's skill and talent to be allowed to shine in the middle episodes as much as Aye's did. At least she got strong early episodes.

There are others I want to praise as well, like Piploy's shape-shifting ability, but can't for spoilers. All of these young adults have grown so much as actors over the years and they delivered. If you want details, watch for yourself.

I'm still trying to figure out how to convey this, but they somehow managed to craft an understated lakorn in delivery whilst also giving it plenty of intensity, psychological complexity and suspense. There is A LOT going on, everything matters - though not in the ways you think it might - and it needs attention. It's not one to race through but it's also probably best to not leave too much time between so the energy carries through.

GMMTV has under-utilised their actresses for, well, their entire existence. May this be the start of something different.

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