“Think of us as the sea. The wind…. It creates the waves. The waves create the beautiful sound and the beautiful scenery. Where the wind blows, that’s where the current will go.” – Quote from Love of the Sea

Occasionally, when I am writing a review, I enjoy listening to music. As I was remunerating on how to write this review, I suddenly became inspired to listen to Gregorian Chants. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gregorian Chants, it is a style of music developed for the medieval Catholic Latin Mass liturgy sung in single vocal line in a restricted scale. It is peaceful, tranquil, and serene and allows your mind to transcend. Why did I pick this form of music to write this review, as I am not a practicing Catholic? Candidly, I was so moved by this series’ inspirational content. It is sublime, yet pensive. It is wistful at the same time, resurrecting. I was honestly touched by this simple, basic story more than I ever thought I would be.

It is an unpretentious tale of a fisherman, whose young life begins tragically. His name is Samut (Rainnie Dara), which means ‘Sea’ in Khmer. His close and best friend is Veayo (Ksartra), which means ‘Wind’. Veayo is always by his side but, like the wind will disappear, sometimes. Veayo is kind and devoted to Samut. Veayo has been in Samut’s life ever since Samut’s father passed away.

Their relationship is genuinely and fervently a loving one, but not yet consummated into physical intimacy. It is obvious that they are in love with each other, as their world is only them, consisting only of them. At one point, there is a soliloquy by Samut to Veayo that confesses his love for him in the most poetic and moving way imaginable. The above quote is merely a part of that soliloquy. I was so moved by its passion, its depth, its meaning, and complete commitment to him and their relationship, I found myself tearing at its haunting beauty; said in context made more meaningful because they were fishermen standing by the sea listening to the waves. Yet, I could not help but sense that something impending was about to happen that would take away from this remarkable confession of love.

When Samut thinks something bad has happened to Veayo, he panics and loses his mind and dives into the sea after Veayo and realizes the fragility of life and kisses him with passion. Finally, what they no doubt have been longing for has now been realized.

Being poor, however, they must go out to fish and unfortunately are caught up in a storm. Tragedy strikes. What we see next is Samut on the beach holding the seashell he gave to Veayo, asking him to ‘take good care of it’, as a symbol for Veayo to take good care of him as well. Has he?

The acting in this series is celebratory. I believed both young men as the characters they were portraying. They were especially believable when they were together. They were able to display a certain eroticism between them without being overt or obvious about it, yet they wanted the world to know that they were in love with each other. The subtle acting of both Rainnie Dara as Samut and Ksartra as Veayo was mesmerizing. However, if I am being honest, I did find Ksartra rather alluring, especially because of his boyish face and very piercing eyes and smile. If I may offer a suggestion here, if you are going to fully be believable in crying, you must learn to cry with conviction. Crying without tears is essential (be they real or artificial ones) for the audience to fully engage in your emotional breakdown; otherwise, it is diminishing.

I am being a bit obtuse in my review of this touching series because I am hoping you will take the half hour or so that it takes to watch this series to immerse yourself in its beauty. It has a mystical flair to it, as you will see at the end of the series. There is also something transcendentally metaphysical about the characters and what they represent. While definitely human, do they also represent something more intangible? I like to think that they do. And maybe, just maybe, this is a manifestation of something much deeper than what is being shown. There is a spiritual quality to this very short series. Perhaps the reason I was drawn to listening to Gregorian Chants was not merely a coincidence.

I do hope you will take the time to watch this profoundly moving short series that is brilliantly written, well-acted, but obviously done on a parsimonious budget. I am still having a hard time completely understanding why I was so touched by this BL series. This one will stick with me for a long time.

Rating- 4.25 out of 5

Streaming on- Plerng Kob YouTube Channel