by Frank Hecker, Staff Writer

Content warning: This series includes multiple scenes featuring blood, violence, and sexual assault.

Many of the key developments in Thai live-action yuri have been sparked by first-timers taking big chances on new productions. Idol Factory could not find sponsors for GAP: The Series, self-funded it, and then saw it become wildly successful, make stars of Freen Sarocha Chankimha and Rebecca Patricia Armstrong, and kick off a still-growing wave of Thai yuri series. Fan-created Nine Star Studios took a chance on thirty-something Faye Peraya Malisorn and saw her become a star in the age-gap romance Blank. Now actors and first-time producers Mai Davika Hoorne and her husband Ter Chantavit Dhanasevi have taken Thai yuri into new territory with the prison drama ClaireBell, airing uncut on the OneD streaming service and with significant edits on YouTube.

The Bell of ClaireBell is a naïve young woman who celebrates her university graduation at a nightclub with her boyfriend and their friends, has someone stash their drugs in her purse unbeknownst to her, is caught in a police raid, tried for drug dealing, and sent to prison. There she languishes, abandoned by her boyfriend, too ashamed to reach out to her terminally-ill father, and brutalized by the reigning prison gang. She then slowly falls into the orbit of “rabid dog” Claire, a seemingly-psychopathic inmate convicted of the savage murder of a schoolteacher, and finds protection and (ultimately) love in her arms. Meanwhile around them others live out their own lives in prison: Claire’s elderly cellmate sliding into dementia, a corrupt warden and his upright son whom he hires as a guard at his wife’s urging, the “3D” gang of two sisters and a cousin who control the prison’s black market, and Bell’s cellmate, who offers friendship but may want something more.

The first thing to be said about ClaireBell is that it looks and sounds fantastic: Made on a relative shoestring budget of 30-40 million baht (about $1 million US), it has set design, cinematography, and music and sound design comparable to those of “prestige TV” from services like Netflix, HBO Max, or Apple TV. It also has a high level of acting. Newcomers Pangjie Paphavarin Sawasdiwech as Bell and Mable Siriwalee Siriwibool as Claire are joined by a company of veteran Thai actors, some of whom (including Davika and Ter themselves) have been stars and award-winners or nominees in other productions. I’d especially single out Noon Siraphan Wattanajinda as “3D” leader Dao and Belle Kemisara Paladesh as Bell’s cellmate Kae; their struggles for dominance over the inmate hierarchy amid their own personal troubles drive some of the most compelling subplots in the series.

Those who go looking will find various things to critique in ClaireBell: A few of the plot elements, most notably the circumstances behind Claire’s imprisonment, strain credulity. The 8-episode runtime somewhat rushes the development of Claire and Bell’s relationship. Yuri purists may object to the inclusion of heterosexual couplings (including one scene jarringly intercut with a love scene between Claire and Bell.) And, most amusingly, the product placements that helped fund the series cause the action to occasionally pause as Claire and Bell feed each other slices of bread out of a prominently-displayed loaf, enthusiastically consume yogurt or instant ramen, or comment on the softness of each other’s bras.

But quibbles aside, ClaireBell is top-tier television. Among Thai series I’ve watched I would put it next to The Loyal Pin in terms of overall quality, and I think it almost as significant for the continued development of Thai yuri as was the original GAP. Idol Factory has now imploded in an orgy of financial mismanagement and executive and cast resignations, with Freen and Becky leaving to pursue their own paths. Nine Star is struggling for relevance after Faye’s departure under controversial circumstances (did she jump or was she pushed?). In contrast, Davika and Ter seem to be as competent producers as they were actors. I hope their Mine Media production company builds on the success of ClaireBell to create further yuri series whose quality convinces other Thai production houses to up their game.

Ratings:

Story – 8
Characters – 9
Production – 9
Service – 6
Yuri – 10
Overall – 9

ClaireBell offers a touching romance, compelling performances, and interesting stories, all combined in a high-quality production. It‘s strongly recommended for anyone looking for alternatives to the all-too-common fluff or melodrama of many Thai yuri series.

Extra fun fact: Mable Siriwalee Siriwibool, the “Ble” in “Blejie”, has a masters degree in cellular and molecular science for biomedical applications and is the co-author of several scientific papers.

by Frank Hecker, Okazu Staff Writer

When last we saw Milk Pansa Vosbein and Love Pattranite Limpatiyakorn, they were playing high-schoolers in the oddly-named GMMTV-produced romantic comedy 23.5: The Series. They’ve now graduated to playing adults, in the oddly-named GMMTV-produced romantic comedy Whale Store xoxo, based on the novel The Whale Store by Snow Leopard and available for streaming on YouTube.

Many Thai series open with shots of the modern skyline of Bangkok. Whale Store xoxo instead highlights the gleaming Golden Mount (Phu Khao Thong) of the Buddhist temple Wat Saket, which commands the heights above the historic neighborhood in which the main action of the series takes place. A key theme of Whale Store xoxo is the contrast between globalized corporations and local Thai small businesses: Wan (Milk) leaves her job at a branch office of a Japanese company to take over her father’s corner store after his sudden death, but soon finds it threatened by the nearby opening of Mouse Mart, a convenience store chain.

Meanwhile Maewnam (Love), who hides her family’s connection to Mouse Mart from Wan, spends her days as a a lecturer at a business school and her spare time picking up extra cash doing odd jobs in the neighborhood. As Wan and Maewnam meet and fall in love, they must each decide in which of these two worlds their destiny lies. It could be the plot of a Frank Capra film, and Milk and Love make for a very Capra-esque couple. In her endearing gawkiness Milk resembles a young James Stewart., while Love is an almost preternaturally adorable “girl next door.” They’re joined by a group of veteran Thai actors playing colorful neighborhood characters.

It should have been a wonderful series, but alas doesn’t quite live up to its considerable promise. Part of this is down to the direction: Not content to let Love work her natural charms and Milk to respond to them, the show early on is somewhat heavy-handed in throwing Maewnam and Wan together: not quite the “I fell on top of you and we almost kissed“ level of cringe, but annoying nonetheless. The more intimate scenes of them kissing also seem somewhat stiff and awkward. This may be on Milk and Love, or it too may be down to the director, a man whom just this week was fired by GMMTV for participating in crass sexual conversations about GL series and actors on social media.

Turning to the writing, much of the series run time is taken up by a subplot involving two other university lecturers, Tonnam (June Wanwimol Jaenasavamethee) and Chompoo (Mewnich Nannaphas Loetnamchoetsakun). The couple have been in a secret relationship for three years, as Tonnam waits forever for Chompoo to come out to her mother Som (Thansita Suwatcharathanakit), the owner of a neighborhood salon, and acknowledge Tonnam as her girlfriend. It’s not a bad subplot, and June and Mewnich acquit themselves well, but  the writers’ desire to postpone the subplot’s resolution until the final episode means that a large chunk of the middle episodes merely mark time. It also means that the last episode itself is stuffed to the gills with incidents, including last-minute plot twists, and the fulfillment of Wan’s and Maewnam’s journey doesn’t seem fully earned.

Rating:

Story – 7 (a refreshing change from the typical Thai melodrama)
Characters – 8
Production – 6
Service – 4
LGBTQ — 5 (the show takes note of Thailand’s new legislative landscape)
Overall – 7

Whale Store xoxo is sapphic comfort food, not as delicious as it might have been (due in large part to chefs who apparently didn’t quite know what to do with the ingredients), but still good enough to satisfy yuri fans hungry for down-home unpretentious fare.

by Frank Hecker, Okazu Staff Writer

Believe it or not, there are Thai yuri novels written by Chao Planoy that are not part of the GAP extended universe; Pluto: The Series (streaming on YouTube) is an adaptation of one of them, from the powerhouse Thai production company GMMTV (who also produced 23.5: The Series). Unlike the other Chao Planoy adaptations reviewed here (GAP, Blank, and Affair), Pluto adds a mystery to the typical romance plot—though whether that’s an improvement is debatable, as we shall see.

Aioon (Namtan Tipnaree Weerawatnodom) is a tomboyish slacker working as a motorcycle courier. Ai is estranged from her younger twin sister Oaboom (also played by Namtan), and is thus surprised when right after Oom’s wedding (to wealthy heir Paul) Oom asks Ai to pretend to be her and break up with her ex-girlfriend May (Film Rachanun Mahawan). That night Paul and Oom are in an auto accident that kills Paul and leaves Oom in a coma. Ai feels compelled to carry out her sister’s last wish, goes to see May, and finds, first, that May is blind and, second, that she herself is becoming attracted to May. Ai decides to continue pretending to be Oom and not go through with the promised break-up. And thus the game is afoot.

The ensuing mysteries are many: Why did Oom decide to break up with May? How did May lose her sight, and is there any hope of her regaining it? What’s the connection between May, a lawyer, and Ai’s “motorpunk” friends? Will Oom ever come out of her coma? And most notably: Why doesn’t May figure out that Ai is not Oom, and why does Ai think she can get away with the pretense? The answers to these questions are revealed in the following episodes, so I won’t spoil them here. However, I will note that the series depends on a series of coincidences, connections between characters, and plot resolutions that are mostly implausible and contrived and therefore also mostly unsatisfying.

The appeal of the Pluto: The Series instead rests on the characters themselves and the actors who portray them. Here the series does better: both Namtan and Film are TV and film veterans, and both have challenging roles that they execute reasonably well, Namtan portraying twins with separate personalities and Film portraying a woman who’s lost her sight. Film also rescues May from being thought of solely as a victim of unfortunate circumstances, and shows that she has a scheming and conniving side as well, as befits a successful lawyer. As for their portrayal of the relationship between Ai and May, Namtan and Film can’t match the level of sensuality displayed by Freen and Becky in The Loyal Pin (or, for that matter, by Faye and Yoko in Blank), but they do make for a very affectionate and appealing couple, and they nail the occasional scenes of extreme emotion.

Finally, while I enjoyed Pluto: The Series for the most part, its existence does make me wish that Thai production companies would find more novels from other authors to adapt. Even the best screenwriters can do only so much with Chao Planoy’s novels, filled as they are with plot contrivances and sensationalistic elements. Other Thai authors surely deserve a chance to have their yuri novels become successful live-action series.

Ratings:

Story — 5 (too many complications, coincidences, and implausibilities)
Characters — 8
Production — 8 (the usual GMMTV professional work)
Service — 2
Yuri — 10
Overall — 7

Pluto: The Series is an enjoyable but uneven watch that struggles to overcome the implausibilities and contrivances of its source material and doesn’t completely succeed in doing so, despite the best efforts of Namtan and Film.

by Frank Hecker, Okazu Staff Writer

After GAP and Blank we now have Affair, a recently completed Thai live-action yuri series available on YouTube. Like those series, Affair is based on a novel by Chao Planoy, interconnected with the other two, although the connection is rather minimal and barely touched on. It tells the story of Pleng (Sonya Saranphat Pedersen), the pampered daughter of a wealthy family, and Wan (Lookmhee Punyapat Wangpongsathaporn), the daughter of Pleng’s family’s housekeeper.

The two girls are fast friends, and perhaps more than friends: Wan is besotted with Pleng and openly declares her love. Pleng—though clearly in love herself—is more hesitant, and pushes Wan to get a boyfriend, in the person of fellow student Ek (Pop Pataraphol Wanlopsiri), who doggedly pursues Wan every chance he gets.

Then their life together is interrupted by a series of tragic events that separate the girls. Wan goes on to become a doctor while Pleng tries to make a living as a musician, until their paths cross again thirteen years later. In a perfect world the two women would mutually declare their love, resume their relationship, and live happily ever after. However, at this point we’re only four episodes into an 8-episode series, and there’s a lot more drama (and melodrama) to come, courtesy of Wan’s and Pleng’s bruised feelings, battered by the circumstances of their separation, the presence of Ek, who’s still hanging around like a bad case of the flu, and Wan’s mother (Um Apasiri Nitibhon, as toxic here as she was as Lada’s mother in The Secret of Us).

Lookhmee and Sonya (collectively “LMSY”) play well together, one of the better couples in Thai live-action yuri. Lookhmee has a delicate beauty that the camera loves, and particularly excels in portraying Wan’s times of anger and despair—which occur fairly frequently. Sonya has more of a “girl next door” vibe, a vibe she subverts as Pleng and Wan tease and flirt with each other—again, the show has a lot of that, and they do it well. Lookmhee and Sonya both do a good job of portraying characters who are flawed in various ways: Wan, traumatized by her separation from Pleng, is overly possessive and prone to fits of jealousy, while Pleng often hides her feelings and is reluctant to commit.

Affair was produced by Change2561, a sister company to BL powerhouse GMMTV and the same company that produced Love Bully. The production is high-quality, with often inventive cinematography, good background music, and a blessed absence of annoying sound effects and “comic” relief. However, being based on a Chao Planoy novel, Affair has more than its fair share of over-the-top drama, including a would-be kiss interrupted in the most melodramatic manner possible. Like season 2 of Blank, Affair also hits its peak short of the finish line, frittering away some of its remaining time on a pointless BL moment and one last bit of interpersonal drama.

Ratings:

Story — 5 (not one [redacted] by [redacted] scene but two, and a [redacted] subplot to top it off)
Characters — 7 (some of both Wan’s and Pleng’s behavior is hard to understand at times)
Production — 8
Service — 4
Yuri — 10
Overall — 7 (1 point deducted for the Ek subplot)

Affair is a worthy companion to GAP and Blank in the Chao Planoy Extended Universe, although those allergic to melodrama should note that Affair goes harder on it than either of those series.

It’s been less than two years since Rebecca Patricia Armstrong and Freen Sarocha Chankimha put Thai live-action yuri on the map with their appearances in GAP: The Series. GAP racked up hundreds of millions of views and inspired a host of other Thai yuri series seeking to match its success. Becky and Freen have now returned to put to flight the pretenders to their throne, in their new series The Loyal Pin, based on the novel of the same name by Mon Maw. (The Loyal Pin is currently streaming on YouTube; this review covers the show through episode 7 of 16.)

The “throne” is almost literal in this case, as The Loyal Pin, a period piece set in the 1950s on, tells the story of Princess Anin (Becky), a member of the Thai royal family, and Lady Pin (Freen), her childhood friend and (as the series progresses) lover. Unlike GAP (for which its production company Idol Factory famously had no sponsor), The Loyal Pin is lavishly funded (by the Thai Ministry of Commerce, among others). Every baht of that shows up on the screen, from the beautiful sets to the top-notch cinematography to the lovingly-photographed Thai cuisine. As befits what is in many respects an advertisement for Thailand (part of the Thai government’s “soft power” strategy), The Loyal Pin also presents an idealized view of a (fictional) Thai royal family, depicted (at least thus far) as uniformly nice people.

To put it simply, The Loyal Pin is a romantic fantasy of a princess finding true love — except that in this case the princess is a lesbian. Princess Anin and Lady Pin have been extremely close since they were children, when Pin was adopted by her aunt (another princess) after the death of her parents. While Pin is attending university, Anin returns from studying abroad in England to express her “burning desire” for Pin. Pin, an introverted young woman (and outranked by Anin to boot) is initially reluctant to respond in kind, but eventually gives in to her own desires. But trouble is on the horizon: now that their studies are over, Anin and Pin will no doubt be expected to marry eligible suitors arranged for them. Anin has rejected a multitude of hopefuls thus far, and may escape that fate (there is real-life precedent for this), but it’s likely that Pin cannot. The remaining episodes of the series will presumably see this drama play out.

Freen and Becky’s previous appearances in GAP and other works and their history as an Idol Factory-promoted khu jin or “imagined couple” have given them a level of trust and comfort with each other that makes their characters’ on-screen romance completely convincing. Becky has improved her acting since GAP, and effectively portrays a princess who can be imperious with servants and would-be suitors, and dominant in her love scenes with Pin, but who is ultimately subject to the constraints of her position as a young woman in a patriarchal family.

Freen has less dialogue and the character of Pin is shy and retiring, but she compensates for it using her eyes, facial expressions, and gestures to convey Pin’s emotions. The camera focuses on her when Pin finally confesses to Anin, and rightly so — it’s an achingly romantic scene. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Nam Orntara Poolsak, who plays Anin’s maid and confidante Prik. Nam, who played Sam’s friend Jim in GAP, is truly hilarious as the wingman for Anin and Pin’s relationship; she deserves to have a lead role someday in her own show.

Ever since GAP, fans have been waiting for “FreenBecky” to appear on screen again. Another production company featured them in the science fiction film Uranus 2324, but that movie has not yet been widely released outside Thailand. Now with The Loyal Pin Idol Factory has created a more than worthy successor to GAP, one that further cements Freen and Becky’s position as Thai yuri royalty.

Incredible production values, an affecting story, and solid performances by Freen and Becky make The Loyal Pin the best Thai live-action yuri series to date, a sapphic storybook romance that should delight their current fans and attract new ones.