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Hometown's Embrace thai drama review
Completed
Hometown's Embrace
2 people found this review helpful
by cdvmty
Aug 6, 2021
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 6.5
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Clumsy try

Ok, first of all... don't expect this to be a series that will wow you and leave a lasting memory... actually, don't expect much because it doesn't have the budget of a GMMTV or Nadao series and the actors are for the most part inexperienced and it lacks a good writer/director/acting coach to help the story.

First, some of the good:
1. The setting is a village in Northern Thailand so at least is nice to get a different setting than Bangkok or Chiang Mai or any other big city.
2. Din's grandmother is the best character of the story. She plays the role of a frail woman that wants to have her grandson nearby and is afraid of losing him or him leaving her alone. She gets emotional after not seeing him for a few days and brings some comedy when she criticizes Din's cooking in front of Than.
3. The initial plot has some merit as all the characters want to seek justice to their own causes and also help the villagers improve their economic and social condition.
4. As someone already mentioned, it exposes some of the common problems poor people have to face in rural communities. The lack of options to make some money forces them to either leave for a bigger city, engage in some illegal activities or take out money from loan sharks who take advantage of them because they lack the knowledge. The series highlights the bad that is happening and the will of the main characters to change this.

Now, some of the bad:
1. Acting is a mess... only X (who plays Dan) has some previous experience acting (in the very mediocre BL series "The Cupid Coach") while the rest are new to the acting industry. And boy oh boy, it is so obvious they are new! They lack the emotion to convey a sad scene or a serious scene and they are not funny enough to convince me in a comedy scene. Kawaii (who plays Din) does a decent job when his grandmother is crying because she misses him and, as he hides from her, he cries and promises to always be by her side. Outside of this scene, the rest were not delivered very effectively by anyone.
2. The plot, that started out with some good promise, ends up being a total mess. The 6 guys take on gangsters with such an ease that is amazingly ridiculous to watch. They plan to take down the bad guys in about 3 minutes of the 6th episode and they execute their plan in about 7 minutes of the 7th episode, it just makes no sense how quickly they ended up beating everyone, the police arrives and catches the bad guys and everyone is happy in the end.
3. The 3 couples (Than-Din, Dan-Khet, and Mongkorn-Mek) don't develop as much as we would have expected or wanted. All have some sweet scenes with some shy glances/smiles, they hold hands, but nothing really develops in terms of their relationship as the plot of improving the lives of the locals seems to take priority. They do get more or less similar airtime with the first 3 episodes being nearly exclusive of each couple and then alternating in the rest until they all gather for episodes 7 and 8.

Finally, the bizarre, ugly, or just plain weird:
1. Product placement is clumsy at best, with awkward moments to introduce the medicines for Mongkorn's father and Din's grandmother and also the magic soap that appears everywhere. True, we got to see all of the actors shirtless so they can shower and use the soap but some scenes were particularly long and unnecessary when the actors had to explain the benefits of the dragon's pill or Than reminding Din's grandmother to take the diabetes pill everyday and how all magically feel much better after taking the pills.
2. For such a low-budget series, it sure had a lot of guns and murders. Than's mother getting run over by a car driven by one of the gang members, Dan's parents being shot in front of him, Khet's mother also being shot under a bridge... It was weird to have so many murders and all executed with so much cruelty (and yes, this also highlights the plot of the series of how a few bad apples take advantage of a whole village). Then when the 6 guys want to stop the bad guys they bring more guns but each ends up fighting, which leads me to...
3. The sound effects were simply hilarious. When the boss is attacking Dan with a knife and missing, they added "whoosh" sounds and each kick or punch had their own sounds as well but all sounded so out-of-place and like the sounds were done by amateurs who had to improvise with a piece of cardboard or other junk they had around to make the noise.
4. This village is VEEEERY accepting and open-minded with all the couples. Episode 8 has all the villagers celebrating the 6 guys and they all seem very comfortable with the fact that all the guys are couples. Mongkorn's parents approve of his relationship with Mek so quickly it was bizarre to see after having all the Thai BL clichés of the parents opposing fiercely to their son being gay and in love with another boy. Mongkorn's parents are so the opposite that they even give their blessing to the relationship (ep. 8). Din's grandmother also suspects of Din and Than's relationship and she tells Than to take care of Din when she is no longer with them. Even the school kids are so happy when Mongkorn starts courting Mek and gossip like true fujoshis shipping their teacher with Mongkorn.
5. We had the crazy jealous female character like in nearly 95% of all Thai BLs when a girl tries to get Mongkorn's attention and then does not believe he likes Mek. And now, we even added a jealous male character that comes out of nowhere in episode 6 and asks Mek to write a love poem for him and then awkwardly confesses his love. We end up with crazy jealous girl and crazy jealous boy confronting Mek and Mongkorn until they end up revealing they do like each other.

So, another low-budget clumsy BL series with good looking actors that need a lot of help to improve and a writer/director that went a bit crazy with the storyline. Some parts are re-watchable and is not the worst BL out there, but after watching it once, you can do better.
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