Hometown's Embrace

Good intention

Before I start nagging about the many flaws of this series, let me say I liked it, for more than one reason. I'll keep this short, because I think everybody have to make up their mind about the show themselves. I only want to give you some clues.

The message This series, unlike most other Thai BL-series, addresses the social and political situation in the country, like corruption, killings of non-corrupt politicians, or the threat of gang crime. The message behind it is to encourage people to not accept these circumstances, to stand together and fight against crime and injustice. In this sense, the series can be called patriotic, especially in the last episodes. Given the overall situation in Thailand, it seems brave to produce a show like this. So the intention is good.

The plot I won't spoil any details here. A young man returns to his home village in the North of Thailand where a local gang blackmails and kills residents. He teams up with some other young men to fight the gangsters.

The script Here's the first big problem. Many scenes are unintentionally comic with a high level of ridiculousness. You get a rough idea what the writer intended, but the execution is often unrealistic if not illogical. One example among many others is the acceptance of boys' love by the villagers, with parents encouraging their son to have sex with his boyfriend. And in real life it would be nothing short of suicide, if a bunch of inexperienced, if not naive young men stand up against gangsters who have killed average citizens as well as politicians. Fortunately, the gangsters are mere caricatures who don't recognize their enemies although they have seen them several times before. They even don't wonder why a guy they think they have killed is suddenly alive again.

The cast / acting This is the second problem. I would give the series 8/10 stars, but this is a compromise: a 10 for the good looks of the cast, but a 6 for acting at best. There are som...