A violent skirmish with a drug kingpin and the titular kidnapping frame a sweet love story in Kidnap.

Min (Ohm Pawat) is a stuntman who is struggling to make ends meet to take care of his brother Mhen (Ohm Thipakorn), who has a heart condition. His coworker James (Title Kirati) makes him a shady but lucrative offer to kidnap Q (Leng Thanaphon), the son of a renowned police officer. The plan goes awry as Min is suddenly tasked with killing Q, which he refuses to do, instead hiding him at his house to protect him. Situations are complicated further when Q asks Min to stage his own kidnapping in an effort to dissuade his father from taking on dangerous cases.

I do still somewhat agree with my original impressions of the series- that it might have been more appropriately titled ‘Cohabitate’ rather than ‘Kidnap’. Since the second episode, the ‘kidnapping’ is more of a farce that they put on instead of it defining their relationship. Maybe a different show which still starts with a kidnapping but then moves on to the character development of morally grey protagonists would have been an interesting angle to take.

At the same time, it’s not fair to judge shows solely based on what you think they should have been. As it was, Kidnap was a saccharine sweet romance that had some elements of action. By the halfway mark, the action was mostly relegated to subplots while the show focused primarily on the development of the relationship between Min and Q. It didn’t pretend to be anything else.

Their relationship progresses rapidly yet naturally, such that it didn’t feel odd seeing them head over heels for each other after only having known each other for a few weeks. Min protects Q, not just physically, like from accidentally hurting himself while sleepwalking, but from his own mind sometimes when it threatens to drown him in past memories. With Q’s easy-going nature, Min can let down his guard and relax and actually behave like a young man in his early twenties, instead of feeling the pressure of the world on his shoulders. They suit each other well.

Something I really appreciated was how the show dealt with trauma. While Min had his own struggles with internalised guilt over the death of his parents and feeling like he was not a good enough caretaker for Mhen, it was Q’s post-traumatic stress disorder that was an important aspect of his character. We see him have a recurrent nightmare about the death of his mother, and he gets triggered by loud bangs because they resemble gunshots.

The last episode had him start going to therapy again to process his emotions and learn how to cope with them. Even near the end, he has a moment where he gets traumatic flashbacks. He acknowledges that his healing journey is still ongoing. Healing is not linear; there are ups and downs, and putting that scene in the last episode was a good way to show that you can have your happy ending, and still have a while to go before you are fully healed.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Streaming on- GMMTV YouTube/Gagaoolala