BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Fool my once, shame on thee; fool me twice shame on me.” – English Proverb
The allegory behind this theme is fascinating. Its screenplay is where it fell flat. If they had followed the initiative of the story, the saga would have been a way more compelling BL. Instead, it became spasmodic.
This is a parable about identical twins, Sprite and Zee (Frame Ritchanon) who grew up with toxic parents more so from the mother than the father. Mother wants them to success at all costs no matter what the consequences and pushes hard for both to be great at volleyball. Zee becomes a zealot and takes up the mantel and, in the process, loses his soul to make his mother’s wish come true. Meanwhile, the parents separate, and Sprite lives with his father and becomes skilled in jujitsu, as he does not like volleyball. In essence, the two brothers grow up strangers and barely acknowledge one another with only a few close friends really knowing that the other even has a twin.
The receptivity behind this story is very good; the screenwriting is simply awful. We get no background as to why Zee has become so angry, bitter, caustic and condescending towards others and so arrogant against his teammates. We can only speculate. Perhaps a misguided resentment towards his mother simply transferred to others because they are the closest target? Although Zee became a very good volleyball player, the cost is his personality and an inability to even slightly connect to any of the other players. For whatever reason, which is never fully explained, he particularly loathes First (Ryan Panya) most intensely.
Meanwhile, Sprite has a more amiable personality except when he gets angry. He too can be very temperamental and be impulsive as well. Sprite apparently has a dispute with several other jujitsu players which causes conflicts. So, they plot revenge. However, they mistake Zee for Sprite and beat him up instead, requiring Zee extensive hospitalization recovery. Feeling bad, Sprite decides to take the place of Zee on the volleyball team until Zee gets better for him to retain his scholarship.
The issue is that Sprite is not an expert in this sport, nor does he know the players well. So, he solicits the help of the only friend on the team that Zee has and who also knows they are twins and is willing to help. That is Salmon (Mini Ruethaiphat). Since Sprite’s personality is completely different from Zee’s, he tries to get along with the team members. But of course, they become suspicious and weary of his motives as that is not Zee’s nature. First is deeply suspicious and yet vulnerable as Sprite/Zee seems to be concentrating his efforts on trying to befriend him the most. But Sprite as Zee persists and the story of how he manages to become a reasonably good volleyball player, team player, and cohesive member is rather engaging. Plus, the journey of Sprite and First is rather fetching since initially, it certainly did not start out as a love story. Simply, it was one of trying to mend poor relationships but, in that process, a greater and stronger bond began emerging – on both sides. That intensity of feelings spilled over into a romantic attraction that became harder and harder to deny and suppress. The blossoming of that nexus, given the loathing that they had for each other, becomes enchanting and enjoyable to watch and indeed turns sensual.
However, the inevitability of this story is obvious. Zee gets better and with his arrogant personality traits returns to nearly destroy almost all the good-will that Sprite developed. The story begins to unravel. The charade continues when it should not have. The typically stupid and idiotic premise that is so common in many, many many Thai BLs manifests itself in this one. No one communicates openly, honestly, or forthrightly, or at all. When First finds out who Sprite really is, he is legitimately angry and hurt. I along with everyone else could understand why First thought he was played the fool. This is the failure of this series. It could not bring itself to be different from its standard, formulaic thinking. That whole hesitation was so contrived and unworthy.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Frankly despite its awful screenplay, this is well acted, and the actors and actresses did the best they could with a lousy script. But for me, who consistently stands out is Mini Ruethaiphat as Salmon. She is the linchpin between Zee and Sprite and has to maintain the balance without giving too much away. It was obvious from the beginning that she liked Zee and Zee liked her. She maintained a certain level of calm between the players which could not have been easy. Although she had an easy-going manner about her, she demanded respect for her position as manager of the team. Her ability to straddle the two personalities of the vastly different brothers is remarkable and she helps see that the gulf between them is not so great. She helps Zee see that Sprite is falling in love with First and to be accepting of that. I rather enjoyed her role of mediator between the two brothers. An honorable mention has to go to Team Tatchanon as Sam for simply being so adorably cute. He brought a sweet innocence to being in love and we could all feel it. He was obvious about it and looked so wounded when rejected by Zee. But in typical youthful fashion, and as it should be, begins to realize that life must go on and that others out there like you even more than you realize and perhaps they deserve a chance to.
This series is deeper than what it is given credit for. It gets lost in the endless and totally unnecessary cat-and-mouse, ‘enemies-to-lovers’ fiasco between First and Sprite/Zee. In this case, however, we do see some real pain in the eyes and behavior of First. We can only deduce at some point that First might have had feelings for Zee, or who he thinks is Zee. However, he knows that Zee’s personality is toxic at best, and he does not want to get wounded. We see players with real issues having to face them in real time. Some of those situations were handled surprisingly maturely and with great sensitivity. There is a side relationship between the Captain (Tuss Thotsawat) and another player, Mike (Ten Apivit) that is torrid, hot, and stormy.
And in the end, only a ‘friends with benefits’ situation is destined to fade to being just friends. I found that so interesting and brutally honest and real. Life often times is made up of intense pleasurable experiences that merely fade into memories. That is reality. As mentioned earlier, Sam develops a budding ‘relationship’ with Tan (Pooh Phiangphor), a good friend of Sprite. He becomes completely enamored with Sam the moment he sees him (who could blame him). While their relationship is cute, it just seemed so infantile and poorly ‘acted’ that I never once believed they had liked each other or were going to develop a relationship.
Despite its many pitfalls, for some unknown reason, I was captured by this series. Maybe because it was the Herculean effort by Sprite to repair the damage Zee did to his fellow teammates while still maintaining his efforts as a team member of the jujitsu squad. That point got lost in this series as this really was beautifully accomplished. I love the relationship development between Sprite/Zee and First. We were robbed of seeing an intense and stronger affinity develop because of a very poor script. These guys have great screen chemistry and as a couple they are hot and would have been a power couple, but the screenplay failed them, unfortunately. If the truth was told upfront and First became part of the solution, this could have been a story for the ages.
Thai BLs absolutely need to get out of the rut of being formulaic. This series was a shameful waste. It was simply exasperating to not understand why Sprite did not forthrightly simply tell First what was going on after the first kiss. The editing was bad on this one as well. I could not tell at times who was ‘Zee’ or who was ‘Sprite’ near the end. That made the story disjointed which contributed to First’s anger and frustration over what was he supposed to feel for who he thought was Zee. This was cruel, bordering on abusive.
Truth be told, overall, I honestly liked this series. I liked it because these guys were all so adorably cute and so sensual in their volleyball uniforms. But never once did they play to the camera on that issue. (Who am I kidding? Yes, they did, and it was adorable!) It is certainly pleasing to the eye, and the basic premise of the story is beguiling. I just wish the screenplay matched what I think they were trying to create but failed to.
This was good; it just was not great; it could have been though.
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