Skip to main content

Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...

21 Days Theory (Thai Mini-Series)

This 4 part mini series of about 40 minutes each was was nice lovely romantic drama, where the two main protagonists have the simplest names that I have veer heard of : X and Q. How I wish that these long shows that I see here, someone actually created a fan-version where all the fluff is deleted and we could get to focus only on the main story. Well. I can certainly wish for things, even though I know they may not come true.

Q, is a decent student who tries to do his best but somehow always misses by a whisker and ends up second. His mother runs a bakery business and wants Q to talk to his senior Mook, a social media influencer, for promotion. But Q is scared and he sees that she always hangs out with her friend X. X challenges Q on his loser status and says that if he can get Mook to invite Q to the big school event in 21 days, he will accept defeat. Q, along with his 2 friends try to come up with a strategy to get Mook's attention, but in the process one day by mistake X gets into an accident. Q feels guilty and he starts taking care of X and the both soon start getting close. Meanwhile, Q's friend is doing many things to get Mook's attention, and attention she gives, but in the process its Q's friend who starts getting feelings for her. Slowly Q and X start to have more than feelings for one another and one day they end up confessing. Q's mother suspects of her son's sexuality but since her brother is also gay, who makes her understand how important it is to have understanding parents, she also comes around. Eventually even though Q doesn't win the bet, but all individuals find pure love in their own way. 

There is a lot that happens in these 4 episodes and I actually liked isa lot. Sure, at places it felt rushed, but I personally thought its a good thing because never even for once it digressed form the core focus of the story. Having said that, I think the scenes of Q with his 2 friends were a lot more interesting and goofy in someways compared to his scenes with X, where romance and drama sometimes crept in. The story is almost predictable where you can guess that it will be Q's friend who will eventually win over Mook. The biggest surprise was the other nerdy friend and you think he has a crush on his tutor but turns out so different and so refreshing actually. The makers also do a good education and balance of internal homophobia with the mother and uncle episode. The storyline is nothing new. Its basic but somehow a refreshing treatment keeps it engaging. Acting overall by everyone is quite alright. No one person stands out, but thats ok. Most characters have been shown positive and thankfully the girls here were not made villains for no reason. Everyone is capable of distinguishing between what's important and what's not. There is a little bit drama that gets added towards the end when Q thinks that X has some elaborate plan to play with his emotions and thats when the show tells us why and how communication in every relationship is important. Overall this show may not stick in your memories for long, but while watching, it had me engaged and kept ay attention and for a change I found myself enjoying the teenage romantic drama, only because it was so focused on what it wanted to say. (7/10)

Comments

Sailor Maan said…
Thnak you Golu, I was about to skip this one (thai highschool always makes me unconfrotable, I know they are 17 or 18 but with their mini shorts I often feel they are 12 and I'm watching something inappropriate...) and I really liked it. It was short and direct, almost shocking (and welcome) in thai BL world. And it was really funny too (that scene where they imagine the false accident had me laugh out loud and will stay with me for a long time!). The surprise relation from Franck and the more realistic talk with the mother and uncle were really nice additions too. I just wished their was one more episode, the ending was so rushed, it deserved more imo. A real nice short little series
Golu said…
"with their mini shorts I often feel they are 12 and I'm watching something inappropriate" LOL. you are crazy but guess what, I feel exactly the same seeing them in their tiny school shorts.
Mother and uncle conversations were actually really nice and like you said, very unlike what we are used to seeing in Thai BL. Although I do have to say that the uncle was annoying in an odd sense of way. I can't out my fingers exactly

This was definitely a pleasant little surprise.
Sailor Maan said…
I have the same feling about the uncle and I don't know why! I wonder if we simply hadn't seen him in another series where he had a horrible role...

Popular posts from this blog

Phor Lae Lukchai (Thai) [Father & Son]

I think the budget of this film was probably too small, but for that, the film definitely offers a different and unique storyline without over dramatizing anything. Yes, some scenes were a bit amateurish but in the bigger scheme of things, that can be overlooked. The film is both beautiful and sad in its own unique way. Aek is a gay dad, whose partner died right around the time their son Nueng was born through surrogacy in a road accident. The relationship between father and son is unpleasant and unstable. We are not really told why, but it seems the father has been unsuccessful in caring and loving his son because of his partner's death. Aek continues to hook up wit hookers. Also, Nueng is constantly bullied by everyone around him for having a gay dad. He has no friends, except Nat, a neighborhood boy, who also happens to be Nueng's boyfriend. In a sudden turn of events Nat is found murdered along with another boy naked. Saddened by the events, Nueng jumps from roof and k...

Sei no Gekiyaku (Japanese) [Dangerous Drugs of Sex]

Every person has their own unique way of dealing with loss. This film is as much a psychological thriller as it is a soft porn BDSM portrayal of two young men that makes the film overall horrifying as well as humane. It is really hard to describe the genre of this film in one word. Its important not that the film has some really disturbing scenes so if you go into seeing this film, please proceed with caution. Although any sexual non-consensual activity is not ok, this film has its won strange way of showing that suicide is not the only solution to all life's problems. Makoto is a regular office goer, who just finds out that his girlfriend is probably cheating on him. ON top of it, his parents sudden death coming back from a trip that he forced them to take, he gets completely dejected and decides to commit suicide. Unknown to him, he is saved by mysterious man Yoda Ryoji, and he wakes up finding himself tied up in leather and belts in a very BDSM setting. This mysterious saver soo...

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...