Quarantine Stories (2020)

We've had no shortage of quarantine-themed content popping up in the past few months, but this anthology series, which zeroes in on relationships in the days of social distancing, really shines by acknowledging how much things haven't changed at all on that front. Admittedly, everything is heightened by our awareness of the pandemic's existence and the best of the bunch is stuff that directly tackles the feelings that come out of that (loneliness, anxiety, survivor's guilt), but each story stand on its own even without the threat hanging overhead.

Since its exploration of human behaviour is grounded in familiar themes, there's something for almost everyone here: romance (heterosexual and homosexual), horror, comedy, family and friendship. The cast is all great—even with the limited timeframe, you'll come to love the characters as if you know them in real life—and the smart production knows how to sell each event that unfolds.

Even if you only watch these few episodes, they hopefully won't be a waste of your time:
1. Day 10 (Ep. 4) - The only one to tackle its theme in an offline state, featuring a feel-good story about the beauty of human connection.
2. Because We Know You Still Have to Leave The House (Ep. 6) and Mother Distancing (Ep. 7) - These two aren't related, but both tackle the anxiety children face over their parents possibly contacting the virus, so having them back-to-back feels crucial to me.
3. Talk2DaHand (Ep. 3) - The shortest of the bunch and the one that owes itself the most to the weird state of communication in a COVID world. This one has an excellent punchline that stays with you long after you've first witnessed it.

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10 unrelated short films dealing with starting, maintaining, rekindling, and/or ending of relationships during the COVID-19 quarantine. Nine of the ten episodes were uniquely filmed in a video chat/vlog style with the actors actually filming their part separately from presumably the location they are Quarantining at due to COVID. The outtakes from the episodes provided by Nadao Bangkok confirm this. This style of filming is appropriate to what is happening to all of us in 2020

Director Kriangkrai Vachiratamporn - who has directing, writing, or production credits on the Hormones trilogy, ThirTEEN Terrors, and Project S: The Series - does an excellent job of producing a series under challenging circumstances. The storylines for each of the episodes are done well and the acting is solid as he enlists familiar veteran faces from the three other projects that he’s worked on in the past. Since each film is unrelated, it doesn’t matter which episode you watch first. Their short run times, simple storylines, and solid veteran acting make them easy and enjoyable to watch, Take the time.

My top Five Episodes. I don’t want to do a spoiler to explain more so just the titles.
1. Episode 6 - Close Friend
2. Episode 8 - Mother Distancing
3. Episode 10 - What Happened Last Night
4. Episode 5 - Pumpkin
5. Episode 2 - Lovers on the Street

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First time watching a Thai anthology. It wasn’t so bad

In watching Anthologies, the greatest factor I consider for me to like the series or not is the STORYLINE.

From this series, I only got to love the first 5 episodes. They turned out so great even though it was only short. The point of the story was expressed well. These actors too are a natural at this.

Kudos to the screenwriters for thinking and delivering these message to the people today. It actually brought awareness especially to the millennials who is stuck in quarantine.

Rewatch value is nada. As much as I want to, I still have a lot of Thai series to see that I know are much better than this.

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Love through the screen

Can close relationships survive extreme situations? Can the same extreme situation help create new relationships?

I like anthology series and this one, produced by now dead production company Nadao, is definitely one of the best. Unexpectedly, an excellent covid quarantine skype drama from Thailand when the majority of these covid dramas came from the Philippines. There are 10 stories, each dealing with a different kind of relationship.
Here they are:
1. Haunted (from) Home - two brothers pranking each other at distance.
2. Lovers On The Street - a girl finds a photo of her boyfriend with another woman on Google Street View. She enrols the help of her best friend to find who that woman is.
3. The Thuang (Talk2DaHand) - a man tries to recover some money he lent to a woman who refuses to give it back. His reply is awesome. This is the shortest, the funniest episode of all.
4. Day 10 - two neighbours meet and talk through the wall between their balconies, thus curing loneliness brought on by confinement.
5. Pumpkin Can - a fitness trainer decides to help a girl who just got dumped, to get back on her feet. Generosity in hardship.
6. Close Friend - two best friends and unrequited love. Should the friendship survive?
7. Because We Know You Still Have To Leave The House - an inventor, safely quarantined at home, comes up with protection gadgets for his frail friend who needs to go out to work every day. The inventor gets angry when the banker complains about the lack of practicality of his inventions. This one made me angry: the rich guy in safety complains to the poor guy in danger and sulks when he is not obeyed.
8. Mother - Distancing - mother daughter relationship is often a difficult one. But when they are in danger, everything else suddenly becomes unimportant. As it should!
9. The Coach - a guy trying to earn money by becoming a life coach on line. Not a good idea!
10. What Happened Last Night? - a gl.

Each relationship is shown in depth and is really ingeniously produced giving us a serious look at the young people's relationships: be it between siblings, strangers, friends or with parents.

Definitely worth the watch if you are in the mood for a short drama!

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