Pintar com amor (2021)

Really good series but why it isn’t that popular – an analysis!

I want to be clear from the start so I am going to tell you that Tae Darvid is my ultimate Thai person, so I will try to be as objective as I can. However, if you feel that I am playing favourites with him please let me know! Now, let me take you on a journey. I am going to review the series and point out some mistakes that didn’t help the series to be more popular and have more people talking about it. But before that, we must acknowledge the elephant in the room, and sorry for the following microaggression, but…

Can we all agree that the so-called rooster was a fuc***g CHICKEN? Like wtf? Do I not know animals? Is this an intended joke? Why didn’t they use a rooster? Plz help me… Don’t get me wrong I love Teriyaki (the chicken-rooster) but it must have an identity crisis. Here is what I think Teriyaki is thinking 24/7:

«Phap says that I am a rooster that knows how to have a slow-life and crows at 10 in the morning to wake everyone up”, Teriyaki thought. “But at the same time, they are eating the eggs that I lay”, Teriyaki continued his thinking and started to question its own existence. «Am I a rooster, or am I a chicken? »

CHARACTERS

Our main couple is Maze and Phap. Maze is the president of his company, is a money motivated person, and mainly uses his head to make choices. As his social status suggests, he has an extravagant lifestyle, wearing expensive clothes, living in a luxurious apartment, and driving a costly car. In addition to other rich BL characters (from other BL series), he is greedy with money and will do anything to have a bigger profit. He doesn’t carelessly spend money, and most importantly he will take advantage of every situation in order to gain anything. On the other hand, Phap is a carefree artist that specializes to abstract paintings. He is the exact opposite of Maze and uses his heart to make decisions. He is not rich, he believes in himself and his capabilities, and he loves nature and animals. He loves animals so much that he has three animals’ pals, Poco – a lizard, Steven – a cockroach (yeah, you read that correctly), and Teriyaki – a chicken-rooster with identity crisis.

The second lead couple is Nueng and Tharn. Tharn is an actor and Maze’s best friend (along with Nae). He cares for his friend’s emotions and is rather mature, soft spoken, and kind-hearted person. He is the balance between Maze and Nae. While Nueng is… Is it too soon to make this spoiler? Well, I am not going to tell you who is Nueng right now because it’s a massive spoiler, and you might not want to know that. However, if you keep reading my review you will eventually learn who he is. YOU WERE WARNED! Anyway, for now I will tell you that Nueng is a handsome actor, with a calm aura that everyone is jealous of.

The other supporting characters are the “As You Wish” gang, the employees in Maze’s company. The leader of the pack is Nae, Maze’s and Tharn’s best friend. She is not a company’s employee, but she is sth like an investor – or vice president, according to her – who helped the company when they were in need. Next, we have Noona, the mother of the gang; she has a colourful personality and is loud (“I am soooo confuseeeed”); Ruj, the workaholic one, who is complaining that has too much work, but always delivers on time; Kuea, the talkative one, and Elle, the quiet one, who becomes talkative when drunk.

Last but not least, we have the managers. Phueak is Nueng’s manager, and Pookky is Tharn’s manager. Between these two a “hate” relationship exists, as both do their best to promote their talent. However, Pookky uses “dirty” ways to get Tharn more famous. I loved and laughed with every scene with the managers.

PLOT

In the series we follow the storyline between our main and secondary couple. After a weird event sequence, Phap (played by Tae), the carefree artist, ends up being in debt to Maze (played by Singto), and to pay back his debt he is hired in the company. However, their polar opposite personalities and lifestyles, make their everyday friction difficult… at first! The aversion for each other could be seen, as they don’t address each other by their name, and they don’t use the honorifics “P” or “Nong”. Instead, they mainly use the informal way of saying “You” in Thai.

In the series we get to see how Phap is the first one to open up to Maze and how he does everything that he can to get the other person’s attention. Maze and Phap throughout the series learn more about and from each other. The artist teaches the young boss that relaxing is mandatory, that relying on other people is not that bad, and that living in the moment is important. However, the most crucial thing that Phap helps Maze with, is Nueng (more for that on “My opinion” section).

ACTING

I would like to start with Singto. To be honest, I don’t follow Singto that much. I have only watched SOTUS and SOTUS S with him (fun fact SOTUS was my first Thai BL series). In SOTUS, I was fascinated by his ability to use his facial expressions, and boy was I not disappointed in Paint with Love. For me, this series bring out the best of Singto and with the combination of funny scenes we have an amazing result. I know that I might not be in the position to say this because this is only the third series that I have watched with Singto, but this is my favourite series with him. He was sassy, angry, confused, mad, sad, and desperate when he needed to be, and trust me when I tell you that I believed him in every scene.

Moving on with Tae, I know that I said that he is my ultimate Thai person, but dude I am not a royal fan. The only series that I have watched with Tae is 2moons the series. DON’T CALL ME A HYPOCRITE! I really like his personality in real life that is why he is my ultimate. I was really happy when I learned that he would finally have a lead role, and I was not disappointed. In the series he plays a character that is quite different from him in real life, and I must admit that I really enjoyed his acting here. He portraits a handsome, goofy, confident, and a straightforward character, in a comedic way, which I loved. However, there were a few scenes in which his character was sad, and I was like “TELL ME WHO HURT YOU BABY!!!!”.

Regarding the second lead actors, everyone did an amazing job. Yoon and Yacht were able to captivate me in their story and you could see them grow together, be more open about their true feelings, and try to distinguish their work and personal life. You could see and feel Tharn’s (Yacht) internal dilemma on whether he should be honest to Maze about his feelings for Nueng, but not wanting to hurt his friend… Yacht did an amazing job there!!! As for Yoon, he was able to share his worries, concerns, and feelings for both Maze and Tharn. To be honest, I felt that everyone had a great chemistry with each other in the series, which is amazing! I think that my favourite for the other cast was Maengmum. Honestly, I love her! Her acting skills are off the roof, and she deserves every award ever! PLEASE GIVE HER A SERIES ALREADY!

MY OPINION AND THE MISTAKES THAT KEPT THIS SERIES FROM POPULARITY!

As an overall, I have a positive opinion for this series. The first thing that I really liked (beside the casting), was the fact that the story wasn’t developed in a university. I don’t understand why the majority of Thai BLs need to be in university, but I really enjoyed the change of environment. Now the second thing that I really liked, was the fact that even though Maze was rich, he was actually greedy and didn’t belittle the value of money, in addition to other series where usually the rich person doesn’t care about money at all. While another thing that I really liked was the lack of product placements! You don’t understand how much I despise straightforward product placements in series; however, here we have none of it, which I loveeeeeed!!!!

Another thing that I really liked, was the real interaction between the main couple. You know, something that I disliked in the other BLs is that they present false expectations on how two people flirt. The other series portray the couples in a cool way, and they only show us the handsome, jealous, confident, side of the characters, while in reality this is not true. In addition, in Paint with Love, we get to see how an emotional and touching scene could be “changed” by one of the characters. For instance, there is a scene in which Phap and Maze are talking about squids, and you hear Phap saying something deep regarding catching squid and how he does not enjoy doing that. For a moment you can see Maze softening up to Phap and looking at him with puppy eyes, but when Maze gets to say something to Phap, the later eats a squid and destroys the moment and atmosphere between them. Don’t get me wrong, but I love it. I feel that this behaviour is closer to reality, and I love it when it is shown in series. Take your always right, and correct behavioured characters, I will stay with the truer moments. Furthermore, you could see the dilemma that Maze had. He really liked Phap but he believed that the artist was someone lame, who wasn’t at the same social status as him. That is why he couldn’t openly say that he liked Phap and that he wanted to be him. Occasionally, he would bring up a wall between them and making more difficult for Phap to bring down that wall. In my opinion, Singto’s acting was on point in every scene. You could see his emotions through his eyes. He is an exceptional actor. Well done!

As for something that I didn’t like, was the story changes. I must admit that I haven’t read the whole novel, because I couldn’t find it anywhere with an English translation, but I must say that there is a huge difference in the novel and the series storyline. Before I elaborate more on the difference between these two, let me make the huge SPOILER right now. Nueng and Maze are stepbrothers since they were young boys, after Maze’s father married Nueng’s mother. That was the spoiler. Honestly, at first, when I was only watching the series, I thought that Nueng and Maze were ex-lovers, but I was wrong.

Now, let me go back to the main difference in the novel and the series. In the series, the two brothers fight with each other at an older age (when Nueng is trying to apply to university), while in the novel the brothers fight at a younger age, when Nueng was in Junior High School, after his mother’s death, for which he blamed Maze for. I feel that they should had followed the original approach and show us the true fight between the brothers, because this would explain Maze’s acting in front of Nueng in their adult years. In the novel it was stated that the two brothers were very close, and they cared for each other. Especially Maze, he adored Nueng, and he loved spending time with him; so, when Nueng blamed him for his mother death (whom Maze loved like his real mother), he is devastated and due to his really young age he cannot entirely understand what happens.

As someone with an older sister, I can tell you that I understand Maze’s actions in his adulthood. He is awkward, goofy, and trying too hard to be liked and acknowledged by Nueng. His true feelings come to surface when he is drunk, and he asks for Nueng’s approval and attention. Those are true actions. I remember when I was younger, I was doing the same thing and I was trying desperately to get my older sister’s attention. That is why I feel that they should have kept the original fight reason between them.

Now the second thing that I didn’t like was the lack of accessibility to the series. Actually, in my humble opinion, I feel that this reason was the root cause of why this series wasn’t that popular. You could only watch the series in GagaOOLala, by having a subscription, or in illegal websites where the episodes were uploaded in a few hours. However, there were cases in which an episode could take up to 4 days to be uploaded in any site with English subtitles. All of you know for which episode I am talking about! Episode 6…. It took approximately 5 days for the episode to be uploaded in Dram***ol. That didn’t help the series to build a momentum and have a loyal fanbase. Now, don’t get me wrong, but when I learned that the series are only available to a subscribed website, I knew that it wouldn’t be popular. I don’t want to use other Networks or Companies names, but it is important to look at what your competitors are doing in order to create your business and strategic plan. I believe that in this case this step wasn’t implemented. The majority of BL series that are currently on air, are offered for free on the official Youtube channel of the company that created the series (e.g. Bad Buddy was available with English subtitles, every Friday, on GMMTV’s youtube channel); while Paint with Love required a subscription. That was mistake No. 1.

Mistake No.2 was the lack of promotion. Pffffff… This series could have so much potential! The company could have created a promotion campaign to make this series more popular and to have fans to anticipate for it. They could use social media on their advantage, and arrange live streams with the actors and interact with the fans, or they could create funny compilations with behind the scenes videos (at first they did upload a few behind the film videos but they were too short), or they could have the actors appear to multiple shows (TV shows, radio shows, or social media shows) to make the series more known to the public.

Lastly, mistake No.3 was the inconsistency in the English translation. Before judging me and telling me that I should be grateful that we even have translation for the series, I will tell you that I know, and I am grateful for that. But please don’t underestimate the power that international fans hold. If I don’t perform research on the target audience on the BL series, I won’t be able to know for sure where the watchers are coming from; but from small research in the comment section of different BL series that are posted on youtube, the majority of watchers seems to be international fans. While watching Paint with Love, I felt that there were many scenes that didn’t make any scene, due to the poorly translation, and that kept me from fully understanding a point. I am not sure if I am the only one who had this issue with the English translation, but again something was not feeling right.

BONUS MISTAKE: I am not sure if any of you felt that way, but there were some scenes that didn’t make any sense because there was no built up. I just felt like they said, “Okay this is what we wanted to say in this scene, now cut!”. For example, in the business trip were Nueng was injured, we see that Phap was also injured but he didn’t say anything to anyone. And that’s it... There was no outcome from this incident. Why didn’t he say anything to Maze? Why was he so sad that day? He was the one who helped Maze make it up with Nueng. Did eventually Maze learn about his injury? WE DON’T KNOW!!!! And that’s bothering me! Another example is when Phap took a bunch of bananas to the office, and he handed them to Nae. THAT’S IT!!! NOBODY ADDRESSED THE BANANAS EVER AGAIN! WAS IT IMPORTANT FOR THE PLOT? WE DON’T KNOW! DID THEY EAT THE BANANAS? WE DON’T KNOW! For me a scene should have a purpose; an introduction, a climax, and a connection to future scenes! Anyway…

That’s it! Please let me know if I missed something, or if you disagree with my review! It is a shame, but this series could have been more popular than any other BL series that were aired at the same time!

P.S. GIVE THE STYLIST A RAISE!!!! EVERYONE’S OUTFITS WERE ON POINT AND I LOVED EVERYTHING! THANK YOU P’STYLIST!!!

Leia Mais

This show isn't popular - and for a good reason

This show turned out so bad that my brain feels rotten after finishing it.

First off, what was even the point? Like, you get great cast, veteran actors who KNOW how to act, but instead of giving it a good script, a good writing and good directing with GREAT music and sound design, you give it horrible script, terrible writing, what is even directing? And an atrociously, extremely horrible OST with sound engineering that feels extremely amateur and unprofessional.

I'm not going to lie, in the first few episodes, I was willing to ignore the faulty sound execution, because, of course, Singto - god bless that man. If it weren't for him, this show would get a zero rating. Like, literally, these 2.5 stars are just for Singto alone. You can't even blame him. If you think about, he played Maze extremely well, because I hated him so much throughout the whole second half of the series. I didn't think anybody could be that annoying, but Maze takes the cake. Good job, Singto, seriously, good job.

But, even him couldn't save the unbearable script and the path this show took.

1. "Misunderstanding"

Okay, I just want to ask... why? What was the point of making the whole show's plot point the misunderstanding where EVERYONE thinks Maze is in love with his STEP BROTHER?? And why the hell was that only resolved in the last episode? There were so many moments were it could've been said and pointed out that that's not the case. Maze could've said it a million times, Neung as well. Instead, we were left with an empty dialogue, sentences uncompleted, stupid, dramatic plot points just to not get this thing over with. Communication in this show just doesn't exist and, I must say, after finishing Bad Buddy which has such strong emphasis on communication, it was just unbearable to watch. I can understand like a moment or two, but a whole show based around the same miscommunication point? Yeah, no, you cannot sell me on that. Plus, I cannot understand how Maze and Neung had no problem with everyone believing they are together, or were together, especially their romantic interests, when they are BROTHERS?? What is wrong with them like seriously?? Neung could've also just easily been his ex then, if they wanted to go with the jealous trope. Why add the brother thing? The whole thing is just waste of time and space, that's it.

2. Dragged-out plot

This show did not need 12 episodes and it shows. They dragged out the whole plot so much that, by the end of it, I wasn't even sure where we started, what was the original plot point, and where we are now. Like I already said, they dragged it out with miscommunication so much that it just felt so forced. I feel like they didn't have material to make 12 episodes, so they took what they had for like 8 and just decided to drag it out as much as they could. It didn't keep my attention, it made me extremely annoyed, it made me want to pull my hair out.

3. (Unlikeable) characters and questionable morals

It's not even about having characters that you are not supposed to like, so you hate them on purpose and you applaud actors for playing such a good job. No, it's about having characters that you are supposed to ROOT for but you cannot make yourself do that because all of them are so dislikeable, especially Maze. I want to rip the head off of Maze's head because that dude has so many miscommunication issues, the personality so bad and it doesn't change throughout the series at all. He doesn't grow, doesn't learn from his mistakes, doesn't follow the advice from people around him. And I would maybe be fine with it if it was done with the purpose to show how not all people change. But no, it's done in a way where we're supposed to like him. We're supposed to relate to him and root for him and Phap.

Which brings me to the next issue, which is: questionable morals. Specifically, the scene where that dude I forgot the name of beats up Than's manager and all of that is spun in a narrative where the manager is a bad person so they deserved it. Social media is used to show the narrative of how the manager is bad, and everyone else was right in beating them up and standing and just watching that scenario. What's worse is that all the characters HELPED in orchestrating it and presenting it in that way, even recording a fake video to prove a point. All of that was, of course, run by Maze himself. You might think it's a good thing because it shows how easily people on the internet can be manipulated with. BUT NO. That wasn't the point at all!! The whole purpose of that scene was to show how that guy who beat the manager up didn't deserve to be "falsely framed" and that he did nothing wrong and how Maze is the hero for saving him. Eww.

4. Chemistry

The chemistry was just bad - plain and simple. There was no chemistry at all, especially between Maze and Phap. I felt nothing for those two, nothing. Even their "sweet" moments felt extremely boring and plain. That last scene, when they are kissing will forever stay engraved in my brain because there's literally a foot of space between their bodies, WHILE they are holding each other and it's so hilarious and sad at the same time, it made me laugh while holding back tears from the cringe. I'm not even making this up, it's that bad. Not to mention that the whole jealous and miscommunication trope ruined things even more for me. Because if you're that bad at communicating with each other, there's no way that the relationship will ever work out.

Neung and Than ain't any better for me. Neung is also so dislikeable and just comes off as a bad person throughout the whole series, and Than is like the most boring character to ever exist. He has no personality whatsoever besides liking Neung and getting jealous of Maze and Neung (even though they are STEP BROTHERS) and that's it. That's literally it. Plus, that kiss of theirs wasn't even a kiss. I'm not even sure their lips touched at all.

5. Music and sound engineering

And now we've come to the most important and irritating thing for me - and that's the sound and music. First off, I didn't think anything can annoy me as much as the music they used could annoy me. I swear to god, they use the same 3 tracks every time and it's at the most random and unfitting times that it just hits you like the most unpleasant brick and you're just supposed to go with it. I started to hate every single sound and song used in the series because they just don't fit and are so incredibly annoying.

And when it comes to sound engineering... You know, I thought I'll be able to handle it. The first two-three episodes I was able to sort of ignore it, but then everything just became unbearable. I'm sorry but whoever was doing the sound is clearly bad at their job. You can literally hear when the audio track of the characters speaking is added, and when it cuts off because at the same time the background noise disappears and then comes back again. Like, what the hell?? Who thought that was good? Plus, some audio files are obviously such bad quality that you can barely hear some of them. I don't know if I've ever heard the sound being done so bad in something that was supposed to be professional setting.


In conclusion, the only thing good about this show is the cast (thank you, Bruce for showing up and being the only good thing about the last two episodes), everything else is just a whole lot of crap that should be avoided at all costs.

Leia Mais