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La Cuisine thai drama review
Completed
La Cuisine
3 people found this review helpful
by jpny01
Jun 5, 2022
13 of 13 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.5
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 5.0

Cute and worth watching, but a little messy.

The first four or five episodes of this are unusually delightful, with painfully shy culinary student Lukchup and his friends vs his crush, the popular senior architecture student and picky eater Ram and his friends. All of them are nice people and their interactions are cute and dynamic.

The architects repeatedly find excuses to have lunch with the chefs, in sort of a take on Sheherezade but with cooking instead of storytelling. It's really sweet and well-written, with hints of attractions outside the main couple, and I could easily have watched 13 episodes of that and not gotten bored.

Unfortunately, a huge amount of screentime is devoted to the scheming of the wannabee-girfriend and a campaign of very serious bullying. While this plotline is decently handled and the good-guys aren't complete idiots like they usually are and deal with the situation intelligently, it felt a little like a completely different show. There's the main BL, with, shall we kindly say, "understated" acting against the bullying storyline and the lakorn acting of the villainess. She's quite good and convincingly loathesome, but it's just too overpowering for a series like this.

The external threat wasn't at all necessary as there were plenty of characters and relationships to explore. Lukchup is painfully cute, and Ram is handsome enough, but their relationship is so chaste that eventually it becomes awkward and unbelievable, especially as the popular secondary couple Sky & Phai go from 0 to "let's go to my place and f@#$" in 15 seconds (They actually do say this, albeit in euphemisms). The main pair actors are apparently not planning to be professional actors, and it shows with their total unwillingness to do anything gay (even a fujoshi fantasizing about them doesn't have them so much as kiss) whereas the guys playing Sky and Phai seriously commit and provide what could have been red-hot if there had been any setup.

Likewise, it's hinted that Lukchup's handsome older brother and his super-hot manager are involved, but this is never explored, and there are two het and one BL couple that use up a chunk of the finale. One of these couples is cute and does have a bit of time throughout the series, but their progression is rather sudden at the end.

If they had stuck with the earlier structure and explored the interactions and developing relationships of the two groups, this would have been a better series. As is, it's messy and the later episodes are things you just want to get through to reach the end.

I can recommend this, because I got real enjoyment from it, but I did do a lot of fast-fowarding in the later episodes. The ending is satisfying but underwhelming.

Story: 8. This is high, but the beginning is really good, and even though I didn't like the evil-female storyline, it was well-written and the good-guys are not clueless and handle it well. The OTT effeminate gay character is not played just for laughs (and is really good-looking), and immdiately sees through the villainess.

Acting: 6. As typical of Thai BL, the understated style prevents unskilled actors from being embarassing, but there aren't any standouts either. Many of them do a great job of being cute. I'll leave it at that.

Music: Better than average, and very catchy.

Rewatch: I would and probably will rewatch the initial episodes, which I would probably have rated a 9-9.5.

Overall: 7.5 - but if I could split the series, 9 for the first half, 6 for the second half.
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