Until We Meet Again
2019 Thai BL series Until We Meet Again (UWMA) aims at presenting a story at the more dramatic and romantic end of the BL spectrum, without straying far from the formula. You'll run the usual gamut of tentative first steps, painful uncertainties and long loving stares, but prepare yourselves for such intense longing that it can even overcome death. There's comedy here too, but, much like that other recent Thai BL success story He's Coming to Me, the true unifying emotional force and strength behind UWMA lies in its supernatural theme.
SPOILERS WARNING: I go into a fair amount of detail about the evolution of some of this series' characters in this review, so this is a heads-up for some substantial spoilers.
Summary: In the late 1980s, two young gay lovers at university Inn (also called Intouch) and Korn try to overcome obstacles that are preventing their relationship, especially their families. When their angry fathers make a final attempt to separate them for good, the boys choose to commit suicide instead. In the present day, shy university freshman Pharm feels inexplicably drawn to an enigmatic, very handsome senior, the swimming club president Dean. Both boys are also haunted by painful nightmares from which they always wake up crying but without fully understanding why. When Dean sees Pharm from a distance at a swimming tryout, he too feels the same strange, sad attraction and tears suddenly come to his eyes. Pharm and Dean soon realise they are the reincarnations of Inn and Korn, and an intense BL romance tinged with grief, yearning and an eternal unbreakable vow of love brings all four boys' existences together.
This very likeable series starts off with a massive jolt in the first five minutes, with Inn and Korn's shocking double-suicide in front of their horrified fathers. By throwing this tragic event at the audience so early, there's a strong Romeo and Juliet atmosphere around Inn and Korn's doomed relationship once the narrative backtracks to the early days of their love. This sensation of dread intensifies as we follow their story in step with Pharm and Dean's fated love, who gradually recognise and accept their past lives, in real time, throughout the rest of the series. UWMA benefits hugely off the back of such an unusual and original parallel-timeline structure.
With P'New back at the helm directing, the likelihood that this series was going to be a notable one was high before it even began production. He brings with him all his talent that worked so well on Love By Chance - his great instincts when it comes to directing young actors, his skill with using silences to draw out the story's subtleties, breathtakingly good use of slow-motion, and, best of all, his gentle, intimate pacing. He gives his audience plenty of room to breathe and to think, using long, drawn-out pauses that he leaves us to fill with our own imagination. He extends scenes well beyond their usual span; even the simplest, most mundane tasks are given up to thirty seconds longer than you'd expect. He used this tactic perfectly in Love By Chance, but here, sometimes, it can feel excessive. The majority of the negativity from viewers about UMWA who find the show boring suggest that it's these long 'takes' that are killing it for them. Saying that the long takes are boring is too critical though; they definitely are not boring, but they are unfortunately used too many times with minimal effect. But boredom is subjective, so I'll leave it to you, dear readers, to form your own opinions on the subject, as the long takes are probably the most controversial topic when it comes to watching and ultimately enjoying UWMA.
I've thought further about what might be giving this negative impression of its long takes, in comparison to Love By Chance, and I've come to the conclusion that UMWA's close focus on Pharm and Dean's story actually does the series a disservice. There's so much going on in this series, especially with Inn and Korn, but the series chooses instead to give around 90% of its time to Pharm and Dean. That's not to say that their story isn't interesting - far from it! It's just that Inn and Korn's tragedy is a much more compelling story, with grand universal themes from epic tragedies, whereas the Dean/Pharm story is limited by how much its romance is predestined. The decision that appears to have been made is that the romance is more important to focus on than the tragedy. This makes total sense for a BL romantic drama, but it unfortunately sets aside the components of the series that could have made UWMA one of the absolute greats of BL. For all its beautiful romance and intensity, the 'smaller' Dean/Pharm story is tightly bound within the much more beautiful, more elaborate framework of the Inn/Korn story. As a result, it feels almost as if Dean and Pharm have no control over their own destiny.
I want to resist this idea, but the narrative doesn't do much to persuade me it's not the case. If Dean and Pharm are merely puppets of karma, forced to re-enact their past lives, it diminishes their own story. The adapted history of reincarnated tragic lovers is such an exceptionally beautiful idea, wide-ranging in scope and drawing from classical inspirations such as Romeo and Juliet. Its themes are singular for a BL romance and have enormous potential. When I first read a synopsis of its reincarnation narrative, I excitedly thought UWMA might be even better than that other remarkable (and severely underrated) 2019 Thai BL success story with a supernatural theme, He's Coming To Me. But the way it plays out in UWMA never quite manages to overcome the sense that, despite Inn and Korn's eternal love overcoming death through Dean and Pharm, it was cruel and unfair to hand this karma to Dean and Pharm. Reincarnation is meant to be our second chance (third? fourth?...) at getting life right, to atone for mistakes made in a past life. But Inn and Korn are so present in everything that Dean and Pharm undergo on their journey to love that it detracts from the new couple's own experience. Dean is beside himself with rage when he realises that Korn committed suicide rather than choosing to be a stronger, better man in the face of his father's anger. The pain and suffering Korn inflicted with his suicide reverberate through the decades like a knife through everyone's heart. (It's here where the greatness of UWMA lies, in its exploration of the profound pain and grief arising from Korn's tragic decision, which endure well beyond the boys' deaths.) Korn violated his promise to Inn to always be with him, and he must have known that Inn would definitely commit suicide once he was dead. It's almost impossible to imagine the immense guilt and suffering he left for their two fathers to endure. Korn's brother Krit does his best to keep the hushed-up suicides a secret from the extended family so as not create animosity towards his father for provoking Korn's death. His youngest brother Kard is so angry at his father for pushing Korn to suicide that he never speaks to him again and even gives his wife's surname to his newborn children. Inn's niece and especially his sister are overcome with grief for the rest of their lives. Horrific memories and trauma invade Dean and Pharm's consciousness almost every day. Through Dean, Korn must atone for his mortal error of judgement and redeem himself. All of this barely scratches the surface of the Inn/Korn tragedy. So where does this leave poor Dean/Pharm? Is the love they find actually THEIR love, or is it nothing more than a 'restart' of Inn and Korn's?
The other, much more serious problem with using such long, drawn out 'takes' is that, surprisingly, Dean and Pharm's own love story doesn't have much substance to it. When you take away the reincarnation story (which, when you think about it, is meant to be the reason they fall in love with each other), their love story is almost entirely BL cliché. How is it possible that there's so little to show for their relationship after seventeen episodes? They have a few very cute dates, especially one at an aquarium - poor awkward Pharm, but honestly that "grilled fish" moment is so funny - and their quality time alone together at Pharm's flat or driving around Bangkok is sweet. As we've seen with Ae and Pete's memorable first kiss in Pete's parked car in Love By Chance, P'New has a great knack for creating brilliant BL moments in cars. His extremely strong close-up on Dean's sly face when he admits to Pharm he's single while driving him home is gold-standard BL. There are lots of long loving stares, gentle caresses, and some light teasing with sexual banter. A lot of the series' humour arises from Pharm being repeatedly mortified by Dean's unapologetically horny sexual advances. (This quickly gets irritating though, with Pharm's shocked scream "P'Deeeean!" soon sounding like nails on a blackboard.) The setting of their love in a more tolerant, freer modern society contrasts finely with the violence, oppression and homophobia of the 1980s setting. But unlike Love By Chance, where Ae and Pete noticeably flourish and grow as a couple on screen, Dean and Pharm seem to drift through their relationship from one cute moment to the next. If it weren't for the cuteness, and the few moments each episode of almost morbid intensity, and Fluke's perfectly tuned acting, their scenes alone together would be noticeably generic, flat and maybe even boring. Perhaps this is where the audience boredom criticisms are coming from? They're nicely made and directed, but they aren't much more than fujoshi-friendly cardboard cutouts covered in some very pretty P'New glitter.
Aside from focusing more on Inn/Korn, what this series should have done is mix it up a little more - such as creating some more subplots for Dean and Pharm that don't involve reincarnation or the typical BL romance pathway. For example, giving Dean and Pharm's families more emphasis. Some family members are present, and we're given a general sense of how they live their lives and who they are. But they have such an important role to play in the reincarnation narrative, so it would have made sense to introduce them more thoroughly. I like how Dean's siblings were brought forward into the story, especially his encouraging sister Del, but our view of Pharm's extended family is relatively limited. (The 'reveal' of Pharm's cousin and uncle is a big shock though.) There's an ongoing focus on the philosophy of food, and how it can bring people together and bring joy. They present the beautiful, convivial idea that "if you make food for those you love, they will feel it". It's a fascinating insight into how Thais value and respect food, and it's incorporated into the various BL narratives really well, especially with Inn, Pharm and Del's dessert-making. I would have loved to have seen even more of it. The fan service moments in the initial episodes are a fantastic idea and work brilliantly. Love By Chance actors Mean, Plan and Perth all get small cameos, and each of them gets a memorable screen moment. Plan plays Dean's faculty friend and he gets to act against type as a very cheeky, teasing suitor for Pharm, mainly so that he can get an irritated reaction out of Dean. Perth has the most dramatic role as Inn's best friend; he gets a well-acted scene of grief-stricken devastation after Inn's suicide. But it's Mean who gets the juiciest role of Alex, an aggressively direct suitor for Pharm with clearly immoral intentions. This is the sort of role that Mean's icy, vain beauty was born to play, and he's electrifyingly good at it. I would have loved to have seen more original ideas like these, even if they were indirectly related side stories. They have a noticeable impact and break up the predictable running-to-stand-still sensation of the UWMA BL treadmill.
There's a misguided BL sub plot involving Pharm's friend Team and Dean's swim team manager Win. Given how strong the stories of the two main couples already are, they didn't need this third one. And it shows; they put almost no effort into it. I would have loved to have seen perennial BL actress Samantha Coates finally get a substantial romantic sub plot; it almost looks like she is going to get a decent one in the first episode. But when it eventuates, it comes too late and it doesn't give us much either (except perhaps the best laugh of the series), so she's left doing what she always does in BL dramas - playing the over-excited fujoshi friend to the central characters for comic relief, the butt of numerous sexist jokes about her weight and her looks, and a prop to use for cosmetics in some ugly, obvious product placements. This is a complete waste of a much-loved, funny actress.
The successful resolution of such a flawed but fascinating story hinges on the management of the critical climax in episodes 16 and 17, where all the unspoken is finally said out loud. It looks like it's at last going to come together with something more concrete than cute BL scenes, and then guide us towards an exceptional finale. But instead, it makes a sudden, ludicrous decision, as Pharm completely loses his mind when he learns the truth about Korn's fatal choice. Things go downhill fast from this point, with the merged reincarnation-BL narratives diving into ill-conceived ideas that should have been avoided. It's the logical extension of the way the reincarnation story was prepared, but it goes way too far. Fluke tries his best with a difficult acting challenge, but even he falters, as New's carefully controlled direction is overwhelmed by the excessive melodrama. The story does a decent job when it reinforces its strongest theme about the long-term destruction that suicide wreaks, but the manner in which the dual narratives have been merged to bring about the resolution is strange and disorientating.
In stark contrast to the climax, its aftermath through the remainder of the final episode works much better. Even though it's rushed, it's well worth sticking around for. It answered all the questions that I've been fretting about in this review, and it's very satisfying.
I really, REALLY wanted to fall in love with this series, more than any other BL drama I've watched. I enjoyed most of it, but it leaves a bittersweet aftertaste when it's over. It raises your hopes up with some exceptional moments of pain, grief, love and redemption, then slowly chips away at them, until you're mainly left with some cute memories and a lingering sense of their emptiness. It could so easily have gone the other way and been a one-of-a-kind BL romantic drama. Possibly even the greatest of them all. What a loss.
Rating: 13 out of 20
Ending: happy beyond time and existence
Best scene: Inn and Korn's funeral scene is painfully difficult to watch, but it's so well-made with some fine acting too. Equally powerful is Krit's crushing, guilt-ridden grief when he discovers the true meaning of a special keepsake of Korn's.
SPOILERS WARNING: I go into a fair amount of detail about the evolution of some of this series' characters in this review, so this is a heads-up for some substantial spoilers.
Summary: In the late 1980s, two young gay lovers at university Inn (also called Intouch) and Korn try to overcome obstacles that are preventing their relationship, especially their families. When their angry fathers make a final attempt to separate them for good, the boys choose to commit suicide instead. In the present day, shy university freshman Pharm feels inexplicably drawn to an enigmatic, very handsome senior, the swimming club president Dean. Both boys are also haunted by painful nightmares from which they always wake up crying but without fully understanding why. When Dean sees Pharm from a distance at a swimming tryout, he too feels the same strange, sad attraction and tears suddenly come to his eyes. Pharm and Dean soon realise they are the reincarnations of Inn and Korn, and an intense BL romance tinged with grief, yearning and an eternal unbreakable vow of love brings all four boys' existences together.
This very likeable series starts off with a massive jolt in the first five minutes, with Inn and Korn's shocking double-suicide in front of their horrified fathers. By throwing this tragic event at the audience so early, there's a strong Romeo and Juliet atmosphere around Inn and Korn's doomed relationship once the narrative backtracks to the early days of their love. This sensation of dread intensifies as we follow their story in step with Pharm and Dean's fated love, who gradually recognise and accept their past lives, in real time, throughout the rest of the series. UWMA benefits hugely off the back of such an unusual and original parallel-timeline structure.
With P'New back at the helm directing, the likelihood that this series was going to be a notable one was high before it even began production. He brings with him all his talent that worked so well on Love By Chance - his great instincts when it comes to directing young actors, his skill with using silences to draw out the story's subtleties, breathtakingly good use of slow-motion, and, best of all, his gentle, intimate pacing. He gives his audience plenty of room to breathe and to think, using long, drawn-out pauses that he leaves us to fill with our own imagination. He extends scenes well beyond their usual span; even the simplest, most mundane tasks are given up to thirty seconds longer than you'd expect. He used this tactic perfectly in Love By Chance, but here, sometimes, it can feel excessive. The majority of the negativity from viewers about UMWA who find the show boring suggest that it's these long 'takes' that are killing it for them. Saying that the long takes are boring is too critical though; they definitely are not boring, but they are unfortunately used too many times with minimal effect. But boredom is subjective, so I'll leave it to you, dear readers, to form your own opinions on the subject, as the long takes are probably the most controversial topic when it comes to watching and ultimately enjoying UWMA.
I've thought further about what might be giving this negative impression of its long takes, in comparison to Love By Chance, and I've come to the conclusion that UMWA's close focus on Pharm and Dean's story actually does the series a disservice. There's so much going on in this series, especially with Inn and Korn, but the series chooses instead to give around 90% of its time to Pharm and Dean. That's not to say that their story isn't interesting - far from it! It's just that Inn and Korn's tragedy is a much more compelling story, with grand universal themes from epic tragedies, whereas the Dean/Pharm story is limited by how much its romance is predestined. The decision that appears to have been made is that the romance is more important to focus on than the tragedy. This makes total sense for a BL romantic drama, but it unfortunately sets aside the components of the series that could have made UWMA one of the absolute greats of BL. For all its beautiful romance and intensity, the 'smaller' Dean/Pharm story is tightly bound within the much more beautiful, more elaborate framework of the Inn/Korn story. As a result, it feels almost as if Dean and Pharm have no control over their own destiny.
I want to resist this idea, but the narrative doesn't do much to persuade me it's not the case. If Dean and Pharm are merely puppets of karma, forced to re-enact their past lives, it diminishes their own story. The adapted history of reincarnated tragic lovers is such an exceptionally beautiful idea, wide-ranging in scope and drawing from classical inspirations such as Romeo and Juliet. Its themes are singular for a BL romance and have enormous potential. When I first read a synopsis of its reincarnation narrative, I excitedly thought UWMA might be even better than that other remarkable (and severely underrated) 2019 Thai BL success story with a supernatural theme, He's Coming To Me. But the way it plays out in UWMA never quite manages to overcome the sense that, despite Inn and Korn's eternal love overcoming death through Dean and Pharm, it was cruel and unfair to hand this karma to Dean and Pharm. Reincarnation is meant to be our second chance (third? fourth?...) at getting life right, to atone for mistakes made in a past life. But Inn and Korn are so present in everything that Dean and Pharm undergo on their journey to love that it detracts from the new couple's own experience. Dean is beside himself with rage when he realises that Korn committed suicide rather than choosing to be a stronger, better man in the face of his father's anger. The pain and suffering Korn inflicted with his suicide reverberate through the decades like a knife through everyone's heart. (It's here where the greatness of UWMA lies, in its exploration of the profound pain and grief arising from Korn's tragic decision, which endure well beyond the boys' deaths.) Korn violated his promise to Inn to always be with him, and he must have known that Inn would definitely commit suicide once he was dead. It's almost impossible to imagine the immense guilt and suffering he left for their two fathers to endure. Korn's brother Krit does his best to keep the hushed-up suicides a secret from the extended family so as not create animosity towards his father for provoking Korn's death. His youngest brother Kard is so angry at his father for pushing Korn to suicide that he never speaks to him again and even gives his wife's surname to his newborn children. Inn's niece and especially his sister are overcome with grief for the rest of their lives. Horrific memories and trauma invade Dean and Pharm's consciousness almost every day. Through Dean, Korn must atone for his mortal error of judgement and redeem himself. All of this barely scratches the surface of the Inn/Korn tragedy. So where does this leave poor Dean/Pharm? Is the love they find actually THEIR love, or is it nothing more than a 'restart' of Inn and Korn's?
The other, much more serious problem with using such long, drawn out 'takes' is that, surprisingly, Dean and Pharm's own love story doesn't have much substance to it. When you take away the reincarnation story (which, when you think about it, is meant to be the reason they fall in love with each other), their love story is almost entirely BL cliché. How is it possible that there's so little to show for their relationship after seventeen episodes? They have a few very cute dates, especially one at an aquarium - poor awkward Pharm, but honestly that "grilled fish" moment is so funny - and their quality time alone together at Pharm's flat or driving around Bangkok is sweet. As we've seen with Ae and Pete's memorable first kiss in Pete's parked car in Love By Chance, P'New has a great knack for creating brilliant BL moments in cars. His extremely strong close-up on Dean's sly face when he admits to Pharm he's single while driving him home is gold-standard BL. There are lots of long loving stares, gentle caresses, and some light teasing with sexual banter. A lot of the series' humour arises from Pharm being repeatedly mortified by Dean's unapologetically horny sexual advances. (This quickly gets irritating though, with Pharm's shocked scream "P'Deeeean!" soon sounding like nails on a blackboard.) The setting of their love in a more tolerant, freer modern society contrasts finely with the violence, oppression and homophobia of the 1980s setting. But unlike Love By Chance, where Ae and Pete noticeably flourish and grow as a couple on screen, Dean and Pharm seem to drift through their relationship from one cute moment to the next. If it weren't for the cuteness, and the few moments each episode of almost morbid intensity, and Fluke's perfectly tuned acting, their scenes alone together would be noticeably generic, flat and maybe even boring. Perhaps this is where the audience boredom criticisms are coming from? They're nicely made and directed, but they aren't much more than fujoshi-friendly cardboard cutouts covered in some very pretty P'New glitter.
Aside from focusing more on Inn/Korn, what this series should have done is mix it up a little more - such as creating some more subplots for Dean and Pharm that don't involve reincarnation or the typical BL romance pathway. For example, giving Dean and Pharm's families more emphasis. Some family members are present, and we're given a general sense of how they live their lives and who they are. But they have such an important role to play in the reincarnation narrative, so it would have made sense to introduce them more thoroughly. I like how Dean's siblings were brought forward into the story, especially his encouraging sister Del, but our view of Pharm's extended family is relatively limited. (The 'reveal' of Pharm's cousin and uncle is a big shock though.) There's an ongoing focus on the philosophy of food, and how it can bring people together and bring joy. They present the beautiful, convivial idea that "if you make food for those you love, they will feel it". It's a fascinating insight into how Thais value and respect food, and it's incorporated into the various BL narratives really well, especially with Inn, Pharm and Del's dessert-making. I would have loved to have seen even more of it. The fan service moments in the initial episodes are a fantastic idea and work brilliantly. Love By Chance actors Mean, Plan and Perth all get small cameos, and each of them gets a memorable screen moment. Plan plays Dean's faculty friend and he gets to act against type as a very cheeky, teasing suitor for Pharm, mainly so that he can get an irritated reaction out of Dean. Perth has the most dramatic role as Inn's best friend; he gets a well-acted scene of grief-stricken devastation after Inn's suicide. But it's Mean who gets the juiciest role of Alex, an aggressively direct suitor for Pharm with clearly immoral intentions. This is the sort of role that Mean's icy, vain beauty was born to play, and he's electrifyingly good at it. I would have loved to have seen more original ideas like these, even if they were indirectly related side stories. They have a noticeable impact and break up the predictable running-to-stand-still sensation of the UWMA BL treadmill.
There's a misguided BL sub plot involving Pharm's friend Team and Dean's swim team manager Win. Given how strong the stories of the two main couples already are, they didn't need this third one. And it shows; they put almost no effort into it. I would have loved to have seen perennial BL actress Samantha Coates finally get a substantial romantic sub plot; it almost looks like she is going to get a decent one in the first episode. But when it eventuates, it comes too late and it doesn't give us much either (except perhaps the best laugh of the series), so she's left doing what she always does in BL dramas - playing the over-excited fujoshi friend to the central characters for comic relief, the butt of numerous sexist jokes about her weight and her looks, and a prop to use for cosmetics in some ugly, obvious product placements. This is a complete waste of a much-loved, funny actress.
The successful resolution of such a flawed but fascinating story hinges on the management of the critical climax in episodes 16 and 17, where all the unspoken is finally said out loud. It looks like it's at last going to come together with something more concrete than cute BL scenes, and then guide us towards an exceptional finale. But instead, it makes a sudden, ludicrous decision, as Pharm completely loses his mind when he learns the truth about Korn's fatal choice. Things go downhill fast from this point, with the merged reincarnation-BL narratives diving into ill-conceived ideas that should have been avoided. It's the logical extension of the way the reincarnation story was prepared, but it goes way too far. Fluke tries his best with a difficult acting challenge, but even he falters, as New's carefully controlled direction is overwhelmed by the excessive melodrama. The story does a decent job when it reinforces its strongest theme about the long-term destruction that suicide wreaks, but the manner in which the dual narratives have been merged to bring about the resolution is strange and disorientating.
In stark contrast to the climax, its aftermath through the remainder of the final episode works much better. Even though it's rushed, it's well worth sticking around for. It answered all the questions that I've been fretting about in this review, and it's very satisfying.
I really, REALLY wanted to fall in love with this series, more than any other BL drama I've watched. I enjoyed most of it, but it leaves a bittersweet aftertaste when it's over. It raises your hopes up with some exceptional moments of pain, grief, love and redemption, then slowly chips away at them, until you're mainly left with some cute memories and a lingering sense of their emptiness. It could so easily have gone the other way and been a one-of-a-kind BL romantic drama. Possibly even the greatest of them all. What a loss.
Rating: 13 out of 20
Ending: happy beyond time and existence
Best scene: Inn and Korn's funeral scene is painfully difficult to watch, but it's so well-made with some fine acting too. Equally powerful is Krit's crushing, guilt-ridden grief when he discovers the true meaning of a special keepsake of Korn's.
Comments
I would suggest that, Pharm and Dean do develop a relationship, even though it is over shadowed by the In/Korn connection. For me the point is that (and Fluke delivers this brilliantly) In slowly takes over Pharm. Pharm is wise enough at the end to take a break from Dean to let In go and to have the time to find out if his feelings for Dean are real and not a shadow of In's feelings for Korn.
The thing I think is brilliant about New's direction is those drawn out moments where the emotional intensity can build. I don't cry at movies to TV. The last time I really choked up was at the end of Titanic when Rose dropped the necklace over the side of the ship. This story frequently had me on the edge of tears.
Here, when Fluke tastes the yellow curry, I was practically crying. And then he goes to meet In's sister. That is also a wrenching moment. It's both Fluke accepting In's reality and at the same time In is reunited with his sister.