High Quality BL Deep Dive
Top 10 Highest Production Values in Thai BL
I TOLD SUNSET ABOUT YOU - say what you like about ITSAY (and I have) the production values are unreal for Thailand. It’s on par with Japanese cinema BL like Restart After Come Back Home or His (Japan knows what tf it’s doing, okay? You don’t come from a tradition that gave us Kurosawa and fail at broad scope cinematography). ITSAY uses soft lenses, diffuse lighting, and a nostalgic atmosphere, paying close attention to framing, and forgetting neither background nor close-focus expressive detail. It’s a remarkable piece of cinematography. I caught no mistakes in makeup, wardrobe, body positioning, reflection, or boom mic placement - so they clearly had continuity eyeballs during filming and on final product (which most Thai BLs don’t spring for). So yeah, the filming, directing, and acting is insane but what’s really sand out in ITSAY from a film perspective is their smooth as butter invisibly perfect editing. Post production on this series must have been a BEAST.
UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN - UWMA relies almost entirely on a killer story and pitch perfect acting to carry it. This puts production values squarely into workhorse mode. In other words: filming, cinematography, directing, editing, and everything else are designed to invisibly service the story. They are there to serve, not to distract or even enhance. It’s very different from ITSAY, UWMA does not draw on high cinema at all, it’s using small screen TV techniques - like a great suspense show, say 24 or The Wire. The editing is sharp and choppy as a result. UWMA is meant to move you with narrative first, acting second, and visuals third - like a stage play.
OXYGEN the series - I crowed about it at the time but what Oxygen does, more than anything else, is be very very stylish. It has an atmospheric staged yet subtle filming style that makes it feel like a perfume advertisement or music video (in the best possible way). It’s precise and focused with soft lens, making everything so pretty. it’s not particularly fantastic cinematography, but all its other production values are spot on (except wardrobe, what WERE they thinking?) and the editing is seamless. It reminds me a lot of the kind of filming style and techniques we get from Korea. For Western watchers we can think of this as utilizing the techniques of fashion-forward TV shows like Sex in the City.
GREAT MEN ACADEMY - not strictly BL but I don’t wanna argue about that. It’s on this list because it’s got such high quality production values. Unfortunately for us, it’s hard to find an HD version of this series to truly appreciate how good those are. Sure some of the special effects are naff, but the filming, sound, and directing is spot on for what it is - a YA boarding- school coming of age narrative. It actually uses a lot of Japanese live action yaoi techniques. It has that early superhero movie use of a strong storyboarding, pushing it into advanced focus on framing and staging. There is a lot in common (filming wise) between GMA and yaoi adaptations like Seven Days and Takumi-kun (or, more recently, Color Rush). I happen to really enjoy this style of BL because it reminds me so strongly of manga but there are some who find it stilted.
SOTUS - lots of people have issues with SOTUS but you can’t knock its production values. GMMTV threw money at this baby in a way that they wouldn’t do again until 1000 Stars (and 1k* would spend their budget differently). What GMMTV built its brand on was sitcom style dramas and gameshows. They took the lens and techniques of those products and applied them to SOTUS. What does that mean? There is a lot of bold direct lighting, very close camera work, and central framing. Nothing is subtle, everything about SOTUS is very crisp, in your face, and forthright. All other aspects: cinematography, sound, wardrobe, and makeup are designed to be there, but not noticeable in either a positive or negative way. GMMTV is not trying to win awards, just produced a branded reliable product. It’s more tailored than it is edited - like high quality athleisure wear. SOTUS showcases GMMTV’s BL technique and GMMTV has stuck to the formula it gave them ever since.
HE’S COMNG TO ME - GMMTV takes its patented SOTUS style but puts story front and center (they would do this again with 3 Will Be Free). It’s probably my favorite thing GMMTV does, but it only happens when they luck into a really good script.
DARK BLUE KISS - is an established pair in an LTR (both as characters and actors) given a very relationship-heavy talky script, surrounded by support cast and crew who are all clearly comfortable with each other and their jobs, churning out another installment in GMMTV SOTUS-born formula for success. And it is successful, streamlined, but no one is surprised by this. This should be the bar for GMMTV.
THEORY OF LOVE - is basically the culmination of what SOTUS started. GMMTV took their most functional BL pairing, their best support actors, a good director, and a great post production team and gave them a solid little script with a happy ending that pushed emotional buttons in a precision formula. ToL is the natural result of everything GMMTV does best in BL (Water Boyy is the version of this were a bad script and poor directing failed the formula).
2GETHER - what started with SOTUS got twisted in a new brighter more sugary direction with 2g. Everything SOTUS did well, 2g does too, only far more funny and saccharine. GMMTV lucked out with a pair of charismatic leads who could carry the weight of a truly ridiculous script. Then they put a solid (if not ace) team on post production. Sure there are some continuity mistakes and we all caught a boom mic here and a crew reflection there (and they cut costs on wardrobe and makeup), but that signature candy-coated sitcom style of TV filming is tailor made for this series. 2g is pretty because they are pretty and absolutely no effort is put into doing anything more than serve up that prettiness in as palatable a way as possible - like any good romcom. If you’re okay eating all the delicious fluffy pink layer cake you can, then cake is what 2g will happily give you… over and over again.
1000 STARS - is the best produced BL that GMMTV has ever given us and I think it’s owed entirely to the unprecedented autonomy they granted the director, the $$$ they threw at it, and the location shooting. Artistically it’s not as good as ITSAY but it’s the closest GMMTV has ever come to that level of cinema. All production values are extremely high, and perhaps the lens and post production are more in service to the narrative and less designed to dwell on cinematography, but that works beautifully for this particular story. In the end, 1k* is a stunning, simplified, grown up combination of ITSAY and UWMA.
A recent conversation here in the DMs made me realize that some BL watchers are actually interested in the filming side of the equation. So that’s why I composed this list of Thai BLs that are on par with BL produced in countries that specialize in high production (like Japan and Korea).
Thailand has been the highest producer (by volume) of BL since 2017, but their quality control tends to be all over the place. It ranges widely. There are seriously flawed pulps with decent acting and story (like So Much in Love) but terrible directing, lighting, sound, cinematography, hair, makeup, wardrobe, and technique. Then there are shows with very high quality but that are hugely flawed in one particular arena (Lovely Writer’s sound department). While others fail on every possible level (Cupid Coach). That said, most Thai BLs fail on at least makeup and wardrobe, and a lot of it suffers from sound issues and with editing problems (which always ties to pacing).
More?
Here’s a few others out of Thailand that have good production values for Thai BL, but aren’t Top 10.
Ingredients the series - it’s a long form advertisement and its filmed like one. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad style, just that it has a very specific point of view. From a filming technique approach its worth looking at just to see if you can identify how and why it does what it does. Ingredients should make you feel a little bit like Korea’s home-set BLs like To My Star which use a lot of the same techniques.
3 Will Be Free - GMMTV does suspense, production-wise it’s not an unqualified work of brilliance, but it’s interesting to see GMMTV take their style and apply it to a different genre, and I love the story. Is it ultimately successful? You decide.
Manner of Death - hard to judge since i never saw a clean version and the story is a mess, but it feels like romantic suspense. The filming style and production values were totally unobtrusive and entirely served the plot and pace, which is exactly what they should do for a cozy mystery. This one owes it’s technique to British cozies, it’s using a lot of the style one might expect from something like Midsomer Murders, which means it had to have had a good editor. But Thailand isn’t used to this kind of show, so it did struggle in places with post production.
Fish Upon the Sky - fits into the same category as a bunch of others like My Engineer, Tonhon Chonlatee, and My Gear and Your Gown in which production values are okay but only really because they aren’t noticeably egregious. They’re fine. It’s fine. it’s a perfectly serviceable show.
Note that much as I adore Love By Chance it’s not on this list? Neither is TharnType, A Chance at Love, TharnType 2, or Why R U?
I honestly think these all have the same post production team/company (or a variation on that team) and it’s not good. Sorry. It just isn’t. These shows are riddled with continuity errors (like a hand placed one way in one shot, but another way in the next shot even though time has not lapsed), lighting and sound issues, and wardrobe malfunctions.
The cinematography and staging can be fine, but where they really suffer seems to be on the editing floor (or lack of editing) which has a profound impact on pacing. Frankly, this may not be entirely the editor’s fault as these shows often feel like they’ve been rushed to screen, and have no solid storyboard guiding them or their editor.
I should end on a positive, shouldn’t I?
I think, over all, Thailand is getting better at post production at the very least (with the possible exception of sound). They still churn out loads of dross, but GMMTV is tight these days, and there are one or two solid smaller companies doing good work and even pushing for improved cinematography (which no one expects in a romcom, let alone a BL).
I’m optimistic.
Interested in more about the filming side of BL? Here’s a deep dive into Yaoi filming, staging & framing techniques.
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