This is another example of a BL production that, while visually appealing, does ultimately fall short in terms of overall quality when examined more closely. I am not sure when this parade of drivel is ever going to stop, and we will start to get quality Thail BLs that have some mastery to them.

This is a horrifyingly traumatic story told through the rose-colored glasses of characters that only exist in the world of BL. It begins with Ice (Tae Weerapat), a handsome college student, is raped by an unscrupulous college professor because of his naïve, trusting personality. Traumatized by this event and frightened, Ice dropped out of college. He was forced, because he inherited the financial burdens of his father, to do gay porn because the loan sharks threatened to release the sex tapes that were made of him with the professor. When his dilemma was finally exposed for the criminal element it was, everyone he loved had deserted him, including his best friend and mother.

When he was finally able to return to college, he had to endure a significant amount of unwarranted psychological abuse and mistreatment from others because of their preconceived judgements. With supposedly the only dorm room, he is paired with Saint (Ja Phachara), who was once his best friend. However, Ice felt betrayed by him when all this first began. To say that their reconnection is rocky would be an understatement. It is filled with bitterness and resentment.

Indeed, there is much to unpack in this series. Unfortunately, rather than trying to deal with it with any cornerstone to reality, they choose to deal with it in the make-believe world of BL. One can guess what the direction is going to be, and indeed, you would be correct. It is your standard use of tropey storylines. Ice, resentful and angry for feeling abandoned, has to slowly accept Saint’s sincere attempts to reconnect. While Saint genuinely is sorry for his previous actions, most of which had been orchestrated by his domineering and controlling father, it rings hollow to Ice. Needing that time, the two eventually solidify what had already been in place for a long time. A love that begins to rekindle. Saint does convince Ice he is still deeply in love with him.

Their relationship does not happen in a vacuum, however. Both Ice and Saint have a circle of friends who help them heal their wounds caused by the schisms of the past. Sea (Nikita Parkin) and Lanee (JaJa Jutarat) both get involved in their school project, which is making a BL short film. In that endeavor, they also create their own relationship. Two other friends assist them with this project and these two also begin a bit of a stormy and rocky relationship. Mud (Domon Kitmongkhon) and Book (Atom Piyawat) are certainly an entertaining couple and bring some gravitas to the story by making their relationship feel earthy and real.

There are a lot of characters in this series. And I do mean a lot of them. While the bulk of the time is with the protagonists, the acting prowess for each is hit-or-miss. The other supporting characters simply do not shine very much. While each has an influence, their individual vestige is limited mainly because of the pedestrian script and far-fetched storyline. So, for me, no one really stands out.

What this story lacked was purpose; a commitment to a cause – the reason something is aiming for. I could find none. Remember, the gist of this story- Ice had been raped, abused, and traumatized beyond a level that most of us would have been able to handle. Betrayed, literally, by everyone he loved and particularly by the individual whom he most needed, no matter if the reason was not entirely his own doing. And then asked to do a BL student movie in the hopes it would somehow revive their old relationship (which indeed, what this is really about) is beyond-the-pale in terms of bad ideas, given that Ice had just been through so much trauma involving rejection. I simply cannot understand why some writer/director thought this was a good trajectory for a storyline. Did no one think/consider or even ponder that any of that (if this was real life) just might cause ‘triggers’ for someone as vulnerable as Ice? And then to be further exposed and involved in the plot against the same individual who raped and used him would have just about sent anyone over the edge. Yet, Ice handles and adjusts to all of it as if it is just another ordinary day on campus.

There seems to be no awareness or understanding or recognition that what Ice went through was not normal and undoubtedly requires some extensive counseling and/or therapy. Merely saying “I am okay” is not necessarily the case and should not be taken at face value. Are consultants involved in reviewing scripts of this nature to ensure that the portrayal of psychological trauma this intense is handled responsibly, and to address concerns about depicting victims adjusting readily without sufficient context?

That is why I was so disappointed in the acting. Tae Weerapat as Ice needed to go much, much deeper into the psyche of Ice. Serious psychological destruction took place and yet the direction was to make this all about resurrecting a lost love when it should have been about making him whole. Sure, the story could have involved their love relationship, but there is more to a relationship than simply trying to recover feelings from the past; it means taking it in a new, greater direction. Regrettably, the acting skills of Ja Phachara as Saint is simply underwhelming and, therefore, Saint is a one-dimensional persona. While hard to dislike, and speechlessly handsome with his puppy-dog looks, he is hardly dynamic and his affect, for the most part, is astonishingly flat. He hardly shows any sincerity to his personality traits.

There is a lingering sense of doubt as to the depth of his commitment, especially since his father remains so adamantly against the two of them. He had folded and fallen apart with his father so many times, and he needed to be an adult way earlier than he did. God knows many of us are saddled with toxic parents, but there gets a point where you must be your own person, and you need not prove your worth to your own parent. While we do see that here, it just feels hollow and exceptionally fragile. Passive actions only go so far in terms of commitment. The rest of it must be sincerely projected by that individual.

Regrettably, there is also no serious screen chemistry between the two of them, although they ‘look’ good together. One cannot act out sincerity; it must be felt. It needs to come out of the screen and grab you. Unfortunately, those two lacked a passion in their relationship. They only went through courting motions. There are clear distinctions between longing, lusting, and loving one another. BLs especially Thai ones, cannot seem to figure out each of these stages and expect us, the audience, to accept getting their actors to minimally ‘long’ for one another and rarely show desire for each other (which is the natural consequence of any sexual/romantic relationship) but then suddenly expect us to assume they are in ‘love’. They are not. These two showed no deep signs of love whatsoever and hardly, if ever, even showed lusting for one another. Ironically, the whole concept of ‘love’ is sorely missed in Thai BLs completely anymore. It is only presented either in pre-pubescent stages of development or as a Pollyanna dream.

Surprisingly, the relationship between Sea and Lanee was a tad more believable but still so adolescent in nature. When are we ever going to see series with adult-like behaviors between supposedly committed couples? Admittedly, however, their kissing scenes were more intimate, thoughtful, and sincere.

Which leads to the third, rather helter-skelter relationship between Mud and Book. Silly, messy, immature, childish, cringey, and exasperating, but I loved it. It was who they were. We can see their mistakes, their ignorance, and hurtful conduct. We see their hesitant personalities and their confused feelings for one another. Yet, the one thing that always seems clear is that through it all, the foundation of their relationship simply grows stronger because they KNOW the dumb things about each other and are on the road to accepting all aspects of one another. In other words, we see them grow. That is their charm and who they are, whereas all we see with Ice and Saint is their journey to a Pollyanna heaven. We honestly never got to know Saint and Ice as a couple because they never talk with each other; only AT each other. Sometimes we saw snippets of Sea and Lanee as to who they were, and, they were even learning better to accept the foibles of the other more intensely than Ice and Saint.

There is so much underlying psychological pain in this series that has not been dealt with. Instead, they took that and turned it into a psychodrama (of sorts) to avoid dealing with the issues. In addition, you have a serial rapist praying on vulnerable young men as cavalierly as picking flowers from a flower bed. And ironically, people, either knowing about it directly or indirectly, or sensing something was amiss, chose not to do anything for a long time, hiding under the umbrella for very legitimate reasons (in their eyes) without even a hint of investigation.

The story tries too hard to cover too much and fails in almost all of it. Through all of this, redemption does happen. While there are certainly redemptive arcs in the storyline, to get there requires twisted logic and implausible plot twists. Plus, the angry rich father who then ‘sees the light’ and/or the rejected mother who begs for forgiveness. The routines are getting way overused and are now officially trite. Each one of those redemption arcs required and should have had a whole episode in and of itself. So much, for example, could have been learned through an intense lesson between Ice and his mother, who disowned him for doing ‘porn’ without hearing her own son’s side of the story. So much more with Saint’s father could and should have been explored not just with him but also with Saint and Ice. Something honest. The childhood friends to enemies to lovers routine is again heavily overused. It all begins to write itself. These stories need to stop being so utopian and forgiving in approaches. Sometimes a simple ‘Sorry’ is not enough. That is laziness and taking the easy way out for writers and the director to a story. Quit feeding pablum when sometimes the audience needs to drink pure unfiltered lemon juice to wake them up from an artistic slumber. Not everyone needs to be so forgiving in every situation.

The performers did what they were asked to do. It was the story and the direction that let us down. The story is way too convoluted, too many couples, too many complexities solved too easily, and psychological traumas reduced to nothing more than casual bumps in a person’s life to living in the BL world. We know they are not residing in the real terra firma.

Thus, this story is dishonest and the relationship between Ice and Saint is also dishonest. Both have been traumatized, especially Ice, and both will need counseling/therapy. The only honest, pragmatic couple that we get to see on a level all of us can relate to is Mud and Book. Watch this series only for them and also enjoy the GL of Sea and Lanee.

A disappointing series that had the potential of shining a bright light on a number of significant issues facing gay people today, such as exploitation, rape, and abandonment. It simply dropped the ball to exclusively go for entertainment value. I wanted more.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Streaming on- IQIYI