Everything a good romcom needs
This Vietnamese romcom doesn't re-invent the wheel, but I enjoyed watching it because it has got everything a good romcom needs. The story isn't sensational or even unique, but it is well written without including all the tiring tropes that make some other BL series so unpleasant to watch.
Thanh (Thien Nanh), a handsome young man who loves music and wants to become a professional musician, escapes from his violent, dominant father to his grandma's village. An (Duong Huy), a cute boy roughly the same age as his cousin Thanh, is lured to the village by his grandma (Pham Hiep), too, who falsely pretends to be fatally ill. An travels to the village although he doesn't like the place and hasn't been there for many years, and Grandma's health miraculously improves as soon as the two boys arive at her house.
On the surface, Thanh and An's story is the typical enemy-to-friends-to-lovers plot, but we'll see later that it isn't very conventional. Their first accidental encounter leads to a violent fight, later they tease each other and argue a lot, and every time the two boys do something together, they end up in a mess. But after An is bitten by a snake and Thanh carries him to hospital, they gradually get closer to each other, and between all the comedic scenes there are more and more romantic ones, e.g. when An gives Thanh a bunch of flowers, or when Thanh praises An's cooking skills, whereupon An promises him to cook for him forever.
When another cousin, My (Cam My) arrives who tries to separate the two boys because she's had a crush on Thanh since she was a kid, Grandma decides that Thanh and An share a room, and whenever My tries something to get in between the boys, she makes them get closer. For my taste, My gets a little too much screentime, but she does have a function in the plot, because it is she who unintentionally brings the main couple closer together.
One night, when Thanh is drunk and tries to kiss An, An furiously rejects him, and although his longing and adoring looks as well as his jealousy of My reveal that he has feelings for Thanh, it is obvious that he has experienced something in the past that makes him feel scared of intimacy with a boy. There are some allusions that he may have been abused as a child, and in the final episode these allusions prove right, when Thanh has prepared a surprise for An, but My sends An to a wrong place where he is attacked which brings back the memory of his abuse.
Episode 5 adds a lot of drama to the series as An falls into a deep depression, and nothing that Thanh tries to comfort him succeeds, until Thanh and Uncle Ut perform a shadow play. The dramatic subplot in this series doesn't come across as artificial at all, but it feels natural and realistic which is another proof of the good writing.
Finally, the boys get their happy ending after An forgets about his inhibitions to fall in love with his cousin, when Thanh tells him that he was adopted at a very young age which means that they aren't real cousins. So there is no obstacle left for their love, and they finally get together.
So there is romance, comedy, and also drama, and all this is well written, but there are some more aspects that make this series worth watching. The actors are all good – the leads display their initial shyness and their growing attraction to each other sensitively, Uncle Ut (Huu Dang) has comedic talent, and Cam My is great in funny scenes as well as in the dramatic moment when she confesses to Thanh and is devastated as he only regards her as a ”little sister”. Pham Hiep plays the loving and caring grandmother convincingly.
The setting of the remote Vietnamese village is beautiful, and it allows for a beautiful cinematography which reaches its climax in the final episode. Thanks to its sensitive writing, great acting, wonderful cinematography, and last but not least the beautiful soundtrack, episode 5 is acutally the cherry on top of a beautiful little series – it celebrates love by displaying the fantastic landscape of the remote Vietnamese mountains which to me is the real star of this show.
Although the budget of this series probably wasn't very big, the directing and editing can compete with more expensive series. Even the sound, which is bad in many low budget series, is really good, and I also liked the soundtrack which includes a couple of nice songs. What I liked most about this little masterpiece is the announcement at the end of episode 5 which says ”end of part 1”, which makes me hope for, and look forward to a sequel.
As I said before, I enjoyed watching this little series because in all of the five episodes I felt the skills and passion that the entire cast and crew put into this project.
Country: Vietnamese
Episodes: 5 à 25 – 30 mins.
Director: Kim Ngan
Cast: Thien Nanh, Duong Huy, Pham Hiep, Cam My, Huu Dang et al.
