When I first saw the trailer for Chains of Heart, I was instantly intrigued. Hot men, action, a masked crusader on the side of good or evil? But what struck me the most was watching the customary Thai funeral of a man I didn’t know, but I could feel that his death will have a profound effect on the main characters and the storyline. The fact it felt like a spiritual successor to “KinnPorsche” was undeniable. As a fan of the darker BLs and Yaoi, my gay heart did a backflip ending in a split at what I was seeing.

Premiering on February 13th, 2023 via the streaming portal IQIYI, Channel 3’s “Chains of Heart” is an action packed series as the fast-paced trailer hinted at, but more than that it offers a mystery like an “Oleander Blooming”. The series is gorgeous, beautifully shot, interesting locals from the forest cliff side to the seedy back streets of the city that the first episode is centered around. Everything shown is filmed in such a way to immerse you into an interesting and dangerous world.

Tharntype alumni Haii Sarunsathorn stars in this series as Ken, a chef who is heartbroken over the disappearance of his lover Din (Kut Tanawat). A disappearance of a violent nature starting at the cliff’s edge where he stepped in front of Ken and they both fell several feet down. The storytelling and pacing of this series is very non linear, which can be both interesting and jarring to the viewers as it was to me. It cuts away from the present storyline to display bits and pieces of the character’s lives.

This style of storytelling does keep me engaged, but at times I felt I needed a pen and paper to keep track of all the details and people. It flits about with so many characters that I found it difficult to keep track of who was important to the story. As well as who those people were. To really explain this, in the first scene of the episode, Din and Ken are chased through the forest through a downpour by a manic gun-toting man. The guy demands to know where his staff is? He toys with the two unarmed men and is set to shoot when a shot goes off, hitting Din and they both fall. I have no idea what “staff” he was talking about or who he is and even after watching the second episode, I still don’t know his identity.

A large part of the series seems to be “wait til later”, which would be fine if these characters were given a sufficient amount of depth or chemistry with one another to work with. But as Ken (who is still mourning Din’s death) spends a large amount of the episode going through different interactions at light speed, it felt like I didn’t get a good sense of anyone besides him and Din. Due to this style of storytelling, I know next to nothing about Din save; he was loved by many and presumed missing for 2 years.

Between a very intense training session leading to a well-choreographed fight scene to protect his friend, it’s clear no one is going to hold him by his hair again. Again, the visuals are very lovely to look at, but the script at time felt like cliff notes and not the full developed narrative I need to fully understand what I am seeing. So I honestly just focused on visuals and the nice cyber punk soundtrack, giving it a very gritty feel.

I felt I had to infer a lot during the pilot episode because much of the character interaction felt like I was watching the second episode and made me wonder where all the introductions were. Like when Ken’s friend DeeDee surprises him and dumps a variety of assumptions about Ken, I’m taking that as a confirmation that the tattoo on his back is a sign that he belongs to the mafia world. Since no one really says the word “mafia” again, we can’t be sure. Dee Dee soon gets Ken involved in a street fight where they are both saved by Cheng Talu (Boom Raweerit, My Dream)

Moments like when Ken’s father appears soon after the fight is over and Ken tells him Dee Dee was stabbed only to have him ask “Are you Thai?”, had me scratching my head unless I assumed that his father wasn’t a part of the same mafia outfit as Ken. The thing about that really confused me was that I assumed Dee Dee was a close friend to Ken (he walks into Ken’s house like he knows him well, the info dumps him, but it turns out that he barely knows him). Things like this often happen in this series where I can’t trust what I assume based on the little shown via the narrative.

What the show does really well is to impart a strong sense of family and closeness going from the father (name I don’t remember seeing) down to his daughter (employee may be) to Ken. The way that works drastically is why I love this series. Seeing Ken in front of the beautiful shrine to Din was such a lovely scene which echoes his misery and the following conversation with his father who offers some sweet tough love in the nicest way possible was heartwarming.

The mysteries continue to multiply, ranging from the man in the mask who goes into Ken’s room to kiss him while he sleeps; to flash backs of Din and Ken, star gazing in the forest. These two moments felt so random because there was no point in time that designated where they took place. Din was afraid to act on his feelings for Ken (so before they were dating or not?). And the creepy guy doesn’t come into his room until after Ken’s father asks him not to do anything stupid (so later that night).

The second episode continues the non- linear storylines as it is revealed that a body has been found which is presumed to be Din. This is mixed with the viewer’s understanding of why Ken is so secretive (I don’t think he is that secretive but he is supposed to be). He lives in a constant fear that someone might be trying to finish the job that was started two years ago, confirming my assumption that he isn’t in Thailand. As that is where the funeral for Din is happening and his friends as well as family do not want him to go back there. My assumption is that the killers are Thai (episode two seriously offered questions with no answers).

The second episode is more domestic and provides much of the missing characterization I thought should have been in the first one. The father details his desire for Ken to have his own restaurant and be independent, living his best life. The acting in the scene is well done as both slip into a steady and familiar silence and the background music provides the emotional vibe.

When Peter appears in the shop looking for good Thai food, I especially liked the electric guitar playing in the background, which adds to the man’s dual nature. Being a suave Thai stranger, versus being a gangster buttkicker, was definitely fun; it creates a nice vignette with the much needed romance between the two, which resonates with my hopeless romantic shipping heart. Also, the close-up shots of the food preparation and cooking versus watching their weighted stares at each other was intriguing. It did feel like Din and Ken at the river and it makes me wonder if Peter was Din.

When Ken’s friends pop up to ruin the romantic mood, Peter dashes out of there and a touch of brevity occurs. The storyline returns to being non-linear as it flashes back to Ken-Din and here you have to suspend your common sense and just enjoy the tragedy. Both are alive, lying in the stream water beside the cliff, not smashed to bits or suffering from hypothermia (mountains get cold, and they are lying in water), just focusing on Din begging Ken to live.

What killed it for me personally was the amount of random moments, random city shots, random disconnected flashbacks that sucked up valuable screen time that could have provided so much context for situations. By the end of the episode I still don’t know who Din is, what staff they were supposed to surrender and what the deal is with the fact that if the mafia did come from Thailand to kill Ken, how did they know where he was?

Rating- 3 out of 5

Streaming on- IQIYI