This was the first big Brazilian drama that HBO worked on, and it’s a five-episode miniseries that lasts almost five hours in total. It’s a really emotional and political story set in Rio de Janeiro during the late 1980s, and it does a great job of showing what that era felt like while the country was dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Since the world feels so divided today, the show is a beautiful reminder of how queer people can find power by standing together when things are hard. The story is actually based on real things that happened, specifically about flight attendants who smuggled AIDS medicine from the US into Brazil in the 80s. It works as both a history drama and a strong political message. The show is mostly about three people: Nando, his best friend Lea (they both work as flight attendants for Fly Brasil), and Raul, who is a performer and an activist. A lot of the story happens at a club called Paradise, which was one of the few open gay clubs back in the 80s. Nando is a h...
Poon, is a street vendor, who quit school after his parents death to support h younger brother's education. His speciality is variety of papaya salads. Poon has a friend Mayom, who works in a fancy hotel restaurant and invites him for a job interview there. When Poon meets Athip, the restaurant owner, they both realize that they have a very unpleasant encounter just the day before, when Athip almost ran over Poon's brother. Also Athip is shown to be hot headed and temperamental, but his restaurant has been getting bad reviews and he desperately needs a chef and Poon needs money, she joins the restaurant. Meanwhile, when a famous food blogger Teng Nueng leaves bad reviews for the food, it upsets Mayom and he tracks him down to try his cooking again. Coincidentally, the handsome Mayom appears in Teng Nueng’s latest video and becomes a hit with online fans. The two men keep in touch and Mayom starts falling for the guy only to realize that he already has a boyfriend, but he is not ok making their relationship public. Teng decides to open his restaurant and hires Mayom as head chef, while also going through relationship challenges and this is when him and Mayom get closer as a couple. Meanwhile Poon and Athip are going through a great time till one day Athip has to fire Poon for hygiene issues in kitchen when he takes blame on himself. After some misunderstandings, Poon realizes that because they are a couple, it is hard for him to have a parallel boss-employee relationship with him. So Athip helps him own a restaurants nd run it, thereby filing his childhood dream.
The series starts off really well, with quirky cast and well defined characters who don't spend time making faces like this along stretched out Thai dramas. I had no idea about the show so I was pleasantly surprised with quirky yet enjoyable characters and premise. The show manages to capture light comic moments, breezy flirting between the two couples and enthusiasm in first 4 episodes. Sadly, I have no idea why the script writers take it for a downhill post this. The mishandled sub plots (mandatory ex-girlfriend arriving the scene, conflicts which are not really conflicts) start making the show sloppy. The whole cooking competition for Teng's restaurant was such a crucial event, but the execution of it makes it so shallow and rushed and rigged. And then randomly, the characters start behaving erratically, tedious conflicts occurred frequently, and nonsensical events emerged chaotically. The storyteller introduces too many spinning plates and can’t keep everything under control. Even the charm of the four main leads can't hold together the mess that the latter episodes introduce. A show that had a good mix of humor, emotions and romance suddenly goes downhill.
From the acting front, all the people do a good job including the slightly annoying girlfriend. All characters feed off each other's energy and they gel well together creating a fun lively atmosphere. The show does get cheesy at places but it somehow worked for me. Bot the couple had good chemistry and were believable. By the way, in the last episode when Athip gifts Poon a restaurant which makes him cry; I have to say that Poon is the worst crier in the history of BL shows. He looks absolutely weird and ridiculous crying in that scene that t made me laugh. After a promising start, the show raised the expectations for me with its fun zappy premise but its hard to ignore the fact how soon the narrative collapsed of the script writers didn't know where to go from here. It is still watchable with signs of cut love story spread in between an otherwise sloppy sub plots. (6/10)
PS: I had no idea Papaya Salad has sooooo many varieties. :)
Comments
Ok jokes aside, it's one I found not that good. Started well albeit classic (no complaints here) but the whole stupid drama in the middle made me lose all interest. Maybe watching the second couple with the same actors coming from Gen Y, one of the worst BL I've ever seen, didn't play in its favour. I'd happily see the boss and his friend in another series though, as they are both very good looking. I'm superficial and I know it, thank you.
Honestly this and vice versa are two very different shows and its a bit unfair to compare them. I am honestly sure that had vice versa been 5 episodes shorter in the middle, I would have enjoyed it too. I have to say that Thai makers are at least coming up with some very novel ideas though.