Skip to main content

Baker Boys (Thai Series)

This quirky little 12 episode series, each of 45 minutes, was a nice fun subject waiting to be explored. It focuses on 4 main characters who work in a bakery, including an openly gay main pastry chef. This combined with an ongoing murder mystery and with some backstory of each of these characters bring in new stories every day and some fun, comical and delightful surprises. However, despite the decent start, the makers have tried to cramp in way too many stories and sub plots in one series and after a while you start to loose interest after some repetition. People need to learn from the Taiwan/Japanese counter parts on how to stay focused on main stories for such shows. 

Punn, a 30 year old man comes form a wealthy family decides to open up a bakery in hopes to meet the right girl at work. Due to a childhood trauma where he was kidnapped as a kid and forced to eat desserts, he now throws up every time he eats cake. He hires Weir, a talented pasty chef who has just moved from Paris. Weir is openly gay and has a reputation for being flirty and seducing men including at work. In fact Weird used to like Punk when they were together high school. And even now, Weir doesn't live any single opportunity to flirt with Punn. Together , next they hire Krating, a boxer, who an no longer pursue his dreaming because of a life threatening injury. He joins as an apprentice. Krating idolizes Weir, but he has a rocky relationship with Punn and teases him a lot. And Finally, we have Pooh, a childhood friend of Punn and also his bodyguard. Pooh is comically inept in almost everything he does. Nonetheless, he is loyal, devoted, and protective of his friend Punn. While the foursome are trying to attract customers for their bakery and Mae it work, kids around are being kidnapped and some murdered. Enter a girl named Mine, who works with her parents as investigative journalist, who believes the recent murder might be connected to the bakery. She begins her investigation to find the killer’s identity. The episodes focus on the quirks and relationships of these 4 boys and them navigating their life and getting used to one another while also supporting One in her investigation.

The series started off really well actually. Punn's charm is something that immediately caught my attention and I was totally into him and his smile and his charm, but somewhere around episode 3, things started going south. A random curve ball was thrown in every episode for obviously no reason at all. Right from random appearance of Weir's ex boyfriend and him stalking Weir to an extent of annoyance and harassment, to all the baking contests and finally anything to d with One and her so called investigation. That character was so poorly written and equally badly executed, that some of the other amateurish shows would look much better in front of that. The good thing about the show is the charm that the four men exude. Weir's constantly flirtatious behavior with Punn, Krating teasing and calling Punn uncle was also hilarious. I would laugh so hard every time Krating would bust his balls. He is definitely IMO the scene stealer of this show and gets some really cool dialogues too. Clearly there was a good chemistry here and it got better when they all move in together. But as I said before, other than this, all the other random silliness prevents this show from going one level up. Some instances are stupid and they take away all the fun from the show. Like Weird having a phobia for women. That whole story was unbelievably bad and I couldn't believe what I was seeing when the reason was revealed. It was a wtf moment for me. If not for the extremely charming cast of the show, this show would hav been a huge failure. Their bubbly enthusiasm translates on screen, adding positive vibes and zesty energy to each scene. 

This is not a BL series per say but has a substantial time spent on Weir and his ex, who resurfaces and also constant flirting between Weir for Punn. Thankfully, Punn suddenly doesn't become gay and accept Weir's proposals and I was quite worried about that. Watch the show only for the charming cast and their chemistry, but other than that it is easily skippable or keep your expectations very low. (4/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who

Ultimate masturbation: Shigoki no yama (Japanese) [The Ultimate Masturbation]

I would never know what was the point behind making this film. Was it supposed to be a comedy, cos it wasn't. It wasn't even porn. It was just a silly attempt at making something absolutely senseless and ridiculous. The story, as well as direction is equally shoddy. You could laugh for having seen something so bad, but I wouldn't call that comedy. An old man runs a camp about gay masturbation. The explanation given is that gays masturbate for pleasure unlike straight men, for whom the act is seen as shame or because they can't find a woman. One day a straight man shows up and wants to join the camp for his thesis. After discussion, he is allowed in. Rules include that you can masturbate together, you can masturbate one another, but there is no fellatio or anal sex. Some students of course breaks rule. The teacher then talks about 2 forms of masturbation which gives ultimate pleasure. He shows one without touching and then refuses to talk of the other. Somehow suddenly,