BLISS RATING: ★+
“There is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the sky. The problems come when we try to live in them.” – Neil Postman from his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
My sympathy goes out to those who started this series way back in August 2023 when it first began. I know myself too well to realize that a series of this magnitude and depth would not have held my attention for very long as it is an anthology of 12 short stories of two episodes each. I would have forgotten the plots to most of the sub-stories. As it was, even with binge watching this and taking copious notes, there is not much here to capture your attention for very long, and most of these stories become forgettable soon after they are seen. With only two episodes per story, you got very little plot, no character development, and even less understandable conclusions of what the stories were about. Some were comedies, although I found none of them funny at all. Silly yes, but not funny. Some were metaphysical or occult which were incomprehensibly difficult to navigate the point to the story. Most were just drab and dull. Others were just amateurish confusing messes.
There were of course overriding themes or messages to the series which in some cases were poignant but again so much of that was lost by the poor storytelling and bad acting. In general, so many of these stories were incoherent muddles which used flashbacks to piece the story together. That is always a dead giveaway that the screenplay is weak.
However, there is one that, for me at least, has the distinction of being both the best and the worst. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but upon further reflection, I still stand by that conclusion. The one that is quite interesting and profoundly weird is “Pisces of Me’ (I still cannot figure out if that was mislabeled). It is a story of fraternal twin brothers, Kun (Nam Thanabadee) and Korn (Nix Ketchatanat). Even though they are teenagers now, they remain close and still bathe together, which at the age they are now, struck me as astonishingly odd and honestly inappropriate. The whole premise of this story is centered around the idea of them taking separate paths. Korn wants to go off to school in Bangkok while Kun wants to stay behind. His reason for doing so is in some part due to his attraction to another male student named Tod (Pooh Khetsophon). Korn becomes jealous of that relationship, and the story skirts around the whole issue as why he is so jealous. Although they defined it as being possessive of his brother, it seems to be much deeper than that and may be a long hidden but obviously not acted upon sexual attraction to his brother. All of that of course is unspoken but so obvious and I think played a part in why Kun wanted to remain at home. Most of these stories NEVER get to the point clearly. It certainly was a very interesting story. However, the acting was so amateurish and one-dimensional and so shallow, which also included the supporting performers, that it lost focus on what was happening. There is also an attempted rape scene in this snippet that is hard to fathom and as usual is glossed over with the perpetrator being repentive and deciding to become a monk to atone. That is all fine and dandy for him, but it is Korn who was traumatized, and he remains silent about the incident which is the worst thing that could have been shown. This story is so complex with two brothers trying to become individuals without hurting the other and in that confusion with neither one ever having understood their own sexuality, confused and blurred with what sex is because all they had was each other. It is no wonder they had separation anxiety, sexual confusion, and anger towards one another. In addition, one had to deal with the fact of having to nearly being raped and having no outlet to talk about it with anyone, including his twin brother. In addition, you had a completely clueless and tone-depth mother to the needs of her own sons. This story is present simplistically, yet its nuances and message are tangled and deserved and needed greater clarification. Honestly, they needed to be separated; it is only then could they figure out who they are and be their own person.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? There are so many actors and actresses in this marathon anthology that frankly no one stood out and those who did, stood out for the wrong reasons.
There is a lot of very bad acting in this series. That lies mostly on the shoulders of the directors. While these snippets are short, that is no excuse not to push these performers to give their utmost potential rather than appearing like they were doing this as part of a contractual agreement and nothing more.
Some of these stories were simply incomprehensible to understand, even with English translations. The stories were so disjointed, especially the latter ones, and were difficult to slog through. The last story is completely incomprehensible and made no sense whatsoever, including the translation at the end. It also had an entirely mismatched actor trying to play a part 20 or so years his junior that just did not work and felt so wrong and outright weird. I disliked that story the most. It felt and looked icky to me.
Do yourself a favor and skip this series. Unless one of your favorite BL actors is in one of these stories and you feel compelled to watch it, then do so; otherwise skip it. It is not worth your time.
This could end up on my Bathos List for 2024.
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