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palette cleanser
it's hard for me to really describe this series because nothing about it is that special? and the execution of it wasn't AWFUL but it sure wasn't that great either.the plot is pretty much what you would expect if you've already watched a few university set thai BLs already. shrinking violet Lukchub meets the gentle older senior, Ram, who immediately gets endeared over the cute, shy junior cooking student. they're pretty much as cute and as soft as you would expect, (tbh maybe arguably TOO soft in some aspects but I'll get to that later.)
as with most gentle and soft couples, they fall into the pitfall of being a little dull and slow sometimes, as sweet as they are together. objectively it's quite cute, but that doesn't always necessarily mean it makes for great entertainment either....and Lukchub and Ram honestly aren't that suited to really hold up the show by themselves because of that. I imagine that's probably why the series took a TURN in the last few episodes to focus on the external conflict instead, (bullying).
the bullying conflict felt weird in the beginning since Ram is not a particularly proactive person and he still......isn't really by the end, although he still is a lot in comparison to Lukchub (a very low bar, bless his heart lol). i got left feeling like both of them were too soft for this show, but it's probably more accurate to say that the overall conflict was too serious/extreme for how it ended in the show. the tonal whiplash of it gets offset by the over the top acting Namning sometimes does in her scenes lol. and speaking of her....
the wannabe-jealous-gf got a LOT of focus by the end, to the point where it lowkey felt like she was the surprise third lead of the show? I wish they cut like at least half of her screentime and divided it up among some of Lukchub's friends, both to take the burden off the leads and so that the pairing up at the end felt a little less ridiculous LOL.
with all that said, I think the friend group in this series will always have a fond spot in my heart. i always love a good, supportive friendship group and I found theirs SO cute. I do wish they gave Lukchub more agency to show that he's okay with being taken care of to the extent that he is by everyone around him, but regardless, Phaitong's protectiveness over him in the earlier episodes was so sweet to me. really do wish they got more screentime instead of being shoved to the side near the end for Namning's backstory lol.
tl;dr: cute?, mostly fluff, not much substance
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meaningless fluff
if you liked both couples from both series and wanted to see them be cute, sappy, and domestic together? the special episode is for you.there's not really much else to say because......uh, not much happened? I personally really did NOT like SIYH so I ended up skipping through all of Mek and Prince's parts, and I don't think I missed much by doing so besides them being couple-y. Probably would have missed about the same amount with the other couple if I didn't watch the episode at all.
KluenDao as a couple remain almost nauseatingly sweet and so cheesy that I'm torn between cringing and just finding them cute. I still kinda don't like how shy Dao suddenly seems when he seemed so much more direct and upfront in SIMM before they got together but...he initiates more kisses now? Progress!
Also. probably an unpopular opinion but Dunk (Daonuea's actor) seems a little....awkward sometimes? Which isn't something I particularly noted in SIMM so that might mean it's from the couple scenes they act out. I'm not sure if that's a sideproduct of having to act out a character being shy or squirmy with affection from his boyfriend, but I think it sticks out more because I don't find Joong (Kluen) to be awkward at all. He's all in for the cheesefest and doling out sugar like Willy Wonka at the chocolate factory which I found both weirdly cute and amusing. Seems like after the entire "can't spit it out" mess of SIMM he went the complete opposite direction and now won't shut up about how much he adores his boyfriend lmao...good for him? even if I feel like I gotta check my teeth for cavities from all the sugar
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give it a chance
i tried so hard, but i sincerely could not make myself finish this.but with that said? really, seriously, give this a shot. try to stick with it at least through 3 episodes and maybe you'll start to see the appeal of it, like i did!
it didn't make me immune to feeling intense second hand embarrassment for the characters but...it's kinda a part of this show's weird charm. It's deliberately over the top, it's silly, it's CAMP. I still couldn't take it enough to finish it though lol,,, I hope I can someday.
the friendships in this are so heartwarming and 100% what convinced me to keep watching near the beginning. they're so silly but THERE for each other, they're each other's support systems, their ride or die, and it's so so so adorable and sweet to see. as a queer person, who doesn't want a silly queer group of friends who you Know will always be there for you through thick or thin? they made me feel emotional about as much as i cringed over the show, which is a feat.
i think it's too silly and camp to fully call a soft and sweet show, but that doesn't mean it's Not soft or sweet either. It's just soft, sweet, AND silly. maybe it's not for you, (it kinda wasn't for me, i'm just never gonna entirely vibe with this type of humor, personally), but it's genuinely a show worth giving a shot. there's a heart underneath all of that camp and cringe you might fall in love with.
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don't go in with high expectations
I'm frankly surprised by the amount of negative reviews here. cutie pie is by no means a masterpiece but it's not an awful show? obviously we can all have our different opinions on it, it's not like life or death if we disagree on whether a series is good or not but imo it wasn't THAT bad.Cutie Pie has an interesting premise, but don't mistake that with the show really attempting anything groundbreaking in a way that Bad Buddy might've done.
it DOES do some things differently, like Kuea calling out his friends for making him uncomfortable when they make leery jokes about his sex life, him being firm with a romantic suitor who he's not interested in, and Kuea isn't really a blushing maiden with sex. All of these are refreshing, and I do wish that the show pushed more on this aspect of Kuea since I think it made the show fall flat since the beginning made it seem like it would go an interesting direction instead of where it actually ended up. where did Kuea's fire go? it seems to come and go a bit randomly.
the very blatant messaging about marriage equality? a bit sappy and cheesy but still cute (and a good message) regardless. Zee's chemistry with his partners still remain top tier, and I probably would've been a lot more annoyed by Lian if he was played by a worse actor who doesn't know how to soften all of his edges and flaws with that eye smoulder he doles out lol. NuNew is a brand new rookie actor and he did great for his first time acting in general, and in a main role? He did a much better job than anyone could've expected from him.
I did regardless start to get very annoyed with both of their characters by the end because of how dragged out the conflict was getting. It makes sense but it's still frustrating to watch. Just Talk!
The other side couples did a great job too, even where the plot/script failed them. I know that they didn't have the rights for YiDiao's book yet so they worked with the author so they wouldn't really spoil the novel or whatever, but what we got in the show was still....Weird. They should've cut their screentime even more to focus on NueaSyn if they were just gonna give YiDiao's storyline this odd writing.
TL;DR: good chemistry between all of the couples, conspicuous marriage equality messaging wrapped up in cliche romance tropes, and very very very pretty production. don't watch for the plot, because it has about as much depth as a kiddie pool
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i tried so hard to find a nice part of this show to latch onto but . i tried
I usually try not to drop shows until I watched AT LEAST up to the third episode, even with short series but I finally just give up and admit that I'm never going to get around to watching the third episode, or ever finishing this series.Nothing about this appealed to me. I've seen a lot of people call the story a 1000stars ripoff, and I've never really been interested in watching that in the first place, so watching an objectively lower quality ripoff of it? No chance.
This show's counterpart, Star In Your Mind, kept me engaged when the lead characters were lacking because their friends were amusing or likeable. Here, I hated Fah, Fah's friends, none of the side characters interested me at all, (most of which seem to be kids except for that village girl), Prince was fine but didn't seem interesting or endearing enough for me to continue the show solely for him either.
There's a lot of things about this show that I usually wouldn't mind (ex: characters with unlikable traits with a clear reason) but really bothered me here. Fah and the friends are just unlikeable, irresponsible, and yes, I got that Fah was dealing with the heartbreak of his life but I couldn't dredge up much sympathy for his DUI or trying to skirt his volunteer duties as a /doctor/. I get that was maybe the point since it gives a good reason for Prince to like him but the show didn't give me much insight to that hardworking caring brother that Dao sometimes mentions either, past all of his jerkish character now. Like, Fah and his friends are all grown men, which is why it annoys me even more to see them act so irresponsible and--these are more on his friends than Fah tbh--not to mention, immature and spoiled.
I disliked the acting, which usually I would mostly brush past if I liked the characters or story enough, but I didn't. I didn't see much (if any) chemistry either, but I've only seen up to two episodes where the main couple still mostly didn't like each other so I would take that part of my review with a grain of salt.
Sorry to the people that really seemed to like this series but I hated this lmao. If you liked it, good for you! But my personal opinion is that this was close to unbearable. Sure the story is less basic "why don't you guys just talk" plot of SIMM but personally I would that than me finding like 90% of the characters in the show so unlikeable and uninteresting that I don't want to stick around to see if they have any redeeming parts to their characters at all. If.
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