Cutie Pie (2022)

Zee Deserves Better

I decided not to watch this series as it was running and just binge watch after the series ended, Im so glad I did! My FF button worked overtime every episode. My main reaction, Zee deserves a better series than this, NuNew is not a bad actor but there was zilch chemistry between the two, Zee was working extra hard in the intimate scenes but NuNew did not hold his own (a few kissing scenes he had an “ugly face look” outshining the kiss) Im dumbfounded that I couldn't stay focus, my mind wandered from boredom and I began to watch the 2nd couple more even though there wasn't much between them. If there was chemistry between any of the cast it was between NuNew and his best friend, I found myself wanting a twist in the plot where they became a couple. The ending.. WTH just.. WTF was that?? Smh. We can do better for Zee!

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Perverts, Manipulators and the mentally challenged

It starts with the perverted old Grandfather deciding that he will arrange a marriage between his preteen Grandson and his little best friend, not the best start.
His daughter and son in law don't seem to mind and the poor friends were happy to sell their preteen son into some kind of prostitution, they were rich by the end so it worked out for them.
We then jump into the future, the children have grown and are dating, Kuea ( pervert Grandfather) is now 20 yo and mentally challenged. He lives a secret life of motorcycles and club singing while being a cutie pie innocent boy for his boyfriend Lian.
Lian knows about Kuea's secret life and wants him to come out, so he tells him he doesn't love him ( Maybe that made sense to the writer but not to me ).
Kuea cries and calls of the relationship and this is where it could have got interesting, instead it just plodded along with Lian the manipulator lying all the time and Kuea the mentally challenged lying all the time.
Every episode we get Kuea saying he his going to be strong and independent but then acting like a battered wife, Lian just played along while talking to Kuea like a 5yo child and manipulating him at every opportunity.
They finally sort everything out and start dating ( never any explanation on why Lian told him he didn't love him at the beginning ) , Lian even asked Kuea if he had been drinking before they had sex.
In this Thai BL they decide they didn't want to drunk rape anyone, shocking I know, but they didn't mind Lian having sex with someone with the mental capacity of a goldfish.
Kuea finally grew a spine and a brain ( not for long ) and dumps Lian at the most inconvenient time, only to get back with him a hour later, THE END.

I think the drama would have been better if Lian had not known that Kuea had a secret life and was acting innocent, he then tells him he doesn't love him and Kuea calls of the relationship.
Keau is heartbroken because he as been trying to please Lian by being cutie pie and all innocent. Jump a few months and Kuea as moved on and is being his real self.
Lian could have then fell in love with the real Keau and the story would have ended happy with a moral twist about loving yourself and being honest in a relationship.

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Winning Story Idea ... Goes Nowhere

I was really looking forward to this drama as I'm a big fan of Zee and the idea of an arranged same-gender marriage sounded like a winner, but I had to read other reviews to see if I was missing something. It seems like one dysfunctional scene after another. The actors do their best with a script that looks like it was made by a committee -- or a computer randomly sorting every cliche BL stereotype together in a chaotic order. I liked the scenes with Kirin (NuNew) and Khondiao (Nat) the best. Having watched quite a few of these BL dramas now, I have to say that if the source material is more than about 5 years old, the screenplay writers need to bring the story up-to-date. I'm so sick of seeing a kiss taken like a threat of violence. If the writers think that's the appropriate response then let the characters shake hands instead ... until a kiss can be accepted for what it is. Sorry, Zee. I'll look forward to your next performance in a show with a better script.

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Beautiful production, passable acting, and lots of steamy scenes...but romanticized abuse and a weak plot.

(Tw: child grooming/pedophilia discussed in next paragraph)

Let's hope the people who had the idea to combine child betrothal with an age gap just didn't think it through, because if not we've got people totally fine with child grooming and pedophilia on our hands. And even though this issue is STARING us in the face (the leads are literally shown meeting when one is an infant and the other is like...seven), it's just absolutely never addressed. Instead, we have the older ML saying things like "I've never not loved you" and "I've been waiting [to have sex with you]" to a brand-new adult to whom he has been a family friend since the guy was born. (Yes, this show made me google the age of adulthood in Thailand. Yes, I know that the age of consent is younger. That doesn't matter to me.) So these statements imply that this man who has been an adult for about seven years longer than his partner has been sexualizing him for...how long? This isn't 1815, when Jane Austen's Mr. Knightley could get away with telling Emma he fell in love with her when she was fourteen and he was twenty-something. This is 2022, when we know that sexualizing minors when you're an adult is wrong. This could have been easily avoided if the creators had just made the leads closer in age or clarified that the older ML only started to see the younger in a romantic light once he became an adult, but for some reason they just... didn't do that.

And that's not even touching on how controlling and stalker-y the older ML is, which plenty of other reviews go into detail about. The writers took the most regressive parts of heteronormativity and pasted them onto this gay relationship, with the younger ML playing the part of the naive, submissive woman who needs a man to make all her decisions for her because she can't think for herself. Then the writers tried to combine that with pro-LGBTQ advocacy messages here and there, and the result was jarring. It's nice that they care about rights for LGBTQ people, but it would have been nicer if they had actually cared to like...meet actual gay people and find out what their relationships are like before writing gay people as committed to replicating unhealthy heteronormative standards.
 
The writers liked the abusive dynamics in the first couple so much that they just recreated them for the second couple, with even less explanation as to why that couple has that power imbalance. And in both relationships, it's all romanticized and not challenged at all. (Commenters need to understand that Dom/sub relationships require CONSENT. Someone who's trying to control their partner and his life without his consent isn't a Dom; they're an abuser.)

Outside of the ethical issues, the plot of the show was pretty weak. It hinges entirely on the leads' lack of communication - only the younger ML discovers pretty early on that the older ML actually knows everything he's been trying to hide, but he just... decides to forget it? Like truly, if that revelation had followed out to its logical conclusion, the lack of communication could have been solved fairly quickly. Then the leads could have worked on being better, more honest partners to each other. But nonsensically, we didn't get that.

The two younger best friends had more rapport, real affection, honest communication, and (dare I say) chemistry with each other than with their older partners. Their friendship was a bright spot in this drama.

I only finished for the third couple. I was really interested in the idea of a super religious guy who sees no conflict between his religion and his sexuality, but sadly, they got little screen time. 

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Give it a go for yourself

I know theres mixed reviews but personally I really loved this show. Cinematography was BEAUTIFUL as was the cast! Its storyline wasn't the most riveting thing in the world but it also really doesnt deserve the hate in my opinion. Personally i adored this and found it to be comforting to watch so give it a go before being put off by the negativity! Im not saying its faultless and people can have their own opinions but i really think this page has an uneven view of how this drama actually was like to watch. Personally one of my faves this year tbh i loved waiting for its weekly comfort . Also, it brings up some really important topics especially around gay marriage and love in general. Also a lot of the problems it could have are addressed in the last few episodes so, it really has some lovely moments.

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Whack AF--Don't Waste Your Time

I got into this because user BadPennyGirl was watching it and wow. She owes me. (Though she suffered too)

Bros, this was a hot mess. Like it's a flat out crime.

Acting: The writing was so bad that it's legit a little hard to really say 100% of the time. But the overall acting was below average. It was either actors overacting their roles or it was the exact opposite, with wooden or flat performances.

Zee--Cardboard flat interspersed with comic book villain sneers early on. And then later it was flat interspersed with bizarre puppy eyed crap. C'mon Zee. You can do so much better than this. It was like the director ordered him to pretend he was a robot.

New--Like his name suggests, man his inexperience was key in how bad his performances were. Yo, it was hella awkward a lot of the time, and the rest of the time New overacted to maximum cringe. The only time his character looked natural was on stage. Or asleep.

Max--Max acted pretty well, he just wasn't given much to work with.

Nat--Nat was about as bad as Zee. Like Nat, bro, I know you can act. But your face did this weird shit all the time this series.

Production: The music was well arranged, even if most of it was cover music. The set design and other shit was woah, good! The editing was fine. The costuming was weird in a dated way but it felt like it was on purpose, so good on them.

Plot: Oh, this is where this shit-fest should get hammered. Themes of underage grooming. Colorism presented like being pale was "noble". That so not cute at all lame ass use of "lack of communication" as the main driving plot point. Except whenever it was convenient to facillitate some good ole fashioned sexing, then suddenly the communication problems got ignored. The way manipulative and abusive behaviors were made to seem cute was also fucked up. There was also a lot of the younger characters being represented as infantile. Especially as relationships deepened and sex was suddenly on the table.

The overall plot was that Kuea lied to Lian about his hobbies and his college major. And he pretended to be a docile bae. And this somehow made him a bad boy that Lian had to break down until he confessed he was lying. Which lian did by using super shady tactics including lying and manipulation and forcing Kuea into corners to make him confess that he liked music, fast bikes and automotive engineering. Sounds cracked AF, right? It was.

Plus it wasn't written in a way that was consistent, coherent or even thrilling, bros. I mean, it was also dead AF boring. There were huge gaps were nothing happened and the plot didn't move anywhere until the very end of the next to last episode. All season there is no build up, just the same shit all over, except with sex thrown in. And then at the last second a hand wavy conversation and suddenly everything is resolved.

The second couple was just as badly written. Yi comes off as a bully and an abuser at times. And Diao was dressed and written to seem like he was a child. Which made the sex scenes between Yi and Diao super uncomfortable.

It was a wreck that didn't go anywhere. Most lazy, crazy plot ever. It made no sense.

If I hadn't have forged some friendships on MDL of people who were also watching this shit, I'd have dropped it 4 episodes in. The comments section of the MDL page for Cutie Pie was way more coherent and interesting than the drama.

There was a third couple but there was so little of them in the whole series that they just didn't even matter.

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Goes nowhere with it's set up except to romanticize toxic relationships

The writers don't ever bother developing the parts that need to go between A and B, they just suddenly change things with zero development to earn them and even those moments are rare because they just keep the troubling status quo throughout the whole series. They never deal with the ramifications of the protagonists being groomed by their families, where Kuea is so controlled that he partitioned his self from neurotic man child when he's with Hia Lian and their family to being a relaxed functioning adult with interests when he's away from them. Hia Lian who has been conditioned to dedicate his life to the child of this rich family since he himself was a child, is emotionally abusive, controlling, manipulative, and he can't deal with Kuea having his own agency when actually confronted with that side of him which is something that should have been something the characters had dealt with, to see Kuea reconciling the two sides of himself and changing up their dynamic earlier in the series to bring them to heal individually and develop a healthier relationship, but this is never addressed either. The second couple is a mirror to this suffocating dynamic where the younger men are kept both dependent and in fear of their older partners. The only breath of fresh air is Syn and Nuea who develops their relationship organically through bits of screen time here and there. The show has a nice budget, decent music, a mix of actors of varying capabilities, and characters that could have been interestingly complex, but aside from couple three, there is no potential the show doesn't squander or fizzle to nowhere.

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If you watch this with your eyes and ears closed and your brain turned off, then it's fine

Decided to watch after reading a lot of good reviews and recommendations, but honestly it was my biggest dissapointment among all bl dramas i've ever watched.
First of all, the plot is such a mess. Why was arranged marriage necessary in the first place? And why the parents never even thought that their kids' might be hetero? (For real, how did they guess their orientation?)
Secondly, did the scriptwriters forget about character development? In the first episode we can see how differently Kuea acts around friends and Lian. It would have been great to whitness how Kuea opens up with time to Lian. But instead, we got Kuea's constant fear of not living up to Lian's expectations and plenty of lies from both sides.
Lian and Yi act like control freaks. It was very uncomfortable to watch how they treat Kuea and Khondiao. At first Lian tells Kuea how he hates him and then makes him move to a new house with cameras all over the place. That is not love.
Also, i hate how authors presents relationship of both couples as very cute. Is it cute to completely control your partner? Is it cute when your partner is literally scared of you?
Side characters like Syn and Nuer are fine. Except for the Kuea's mother. God, i hate this woman. Why in the world does she trust Lian more than her own son? Why she never asks about Kuea's point of view? Everyone treats him as a dumb child. That's actually the main problem of the series. Romantic relatioship is about equality and consent. What a surprise, we see none of this in the relationship of the main characters.
Just a waste of time. This show shouldn't have got so much recognition.

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Part Cutie and Part Manipulation Pie

Overall: I was really excited after seeing the trailers and the plot premise. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the lack of agency, manipulation, lying and stupidity. I wish we had seen Kuea telling the truth much earlier and spending the rest of the series learning about the other person's real personality. It did have some fun, cute and advocacy moments. Watched on YouTube.

Content Warnings: non con kiss (very drunk), manipulation, stalking

What I Liked
- the original premise
- the consent displayed in episode 8 part 1, and some other parts as well
- the moments that made me laugh (like Kuea rocking out in ep 1)
- the 3rd couple, although they didn't get much screentime
- talking about marriage equality in the bath tub and later in the series
- great that Hia Lian rejected the terrible pitch using stereotypes*
- the overall aesthetic of the music, editing, etc
- Lian's assistant character was hilarious
- the intimate moments

Room For Improvement
- the main issue I have is that Kuea (and Diao to a lesser degree) don't have agency. Their love interests make decisions for them as if they are the parent and Kuea and Diao are the child instead of them being equal partners. For example Lian saying "I hope that my plan to straighten him out will work." There is a lot of lying (mostly by omission but it's still lying) and manipulation throughout the series. Kuea's mom also outright lies to him. We finally get communication in the last episode! That should have happened around episode 4. Lian even manipulated Kuea until the very end. They had agreed that Kuea would propose and Lian would not let him do it and kept sabotaging him.
- the non con drunk kiss was unnecessary, Kuea didn't even recognize Lian. I've been very drunk before and I still recognized friends so this was non con in my opinion.
- stupidity/non logic, several characters make stupid decisions. Why would Kuea think that Lian didn't know he was Kirin when Kuea publicly announced it at a show at Lian's rival business (so he likely keeps close tabs on it). And then Lian just happens to have a music room with Kuea's favorite instrument??? I really wanted (preferably Kuea) to do some huge reveal around ep 5, break off the engagement and then they needed to learn about the real personalities of the other person and fall in love
- the side couple felt abusive. Having to report his schedule, having to check in every night at midnight etc. They never had an explicit conversation about a consensual dom/sub relationship. Also I was very confused especially in the beginning with what relationship they had and why. We gained insight into their history but, too late in my opinion.
- *colorism, the grandma says she's happy her grandson is "good looking and fair, just like his noble family"

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Sound Message with An Awful Story

Just because the story was awful does not equate it with bad acting. It was a very sell acted and tight production. What was awful about it was its justification of emotional abuse to get its point across. This was one of the most abusive stories I have ever witnessed. Sure, you can euphemistically claim it was for their 'own good'. This is the reasoning for abuse and the excuse for using it. Worse yet, is the abusers think they deserve this. This was a hard series to watch and I wanted to dropped it several times but stuck with it because of its quintessence.

See my full review of this series at BLBliss.com

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First Timer

I'm not type of person who likes watching BL series, But i do familiar with Thai actors, i bumped into BL clips few times and know who's who because my friend is BL fan but I've never intentionally watching BL by myself.
Including this one, i found this series a week before final eps was aired (kinda late but it's okay). I found this series bcs I was searching for unbreakable love cover, and found nunew cover it "oh he has such good voice" that's my first impression. Then my YouTube keep auto playing cutie pie ost after that "oh such good song what song is this" the lyrics kinda fit with my relationship so i can't ignore it.
After that My YouTube played one of the cutie pie eps I'm not pay attention to it but sometimes i Peep to see what's going on bcs I'm in middle of working, when i look at my monitor Hia Yi and lian appear, Yi said "is that funny to played with your fiance like this" (I wasn't fully remembered but yeah that's kinda dialogue)
I suddenly oh what's story is this who's fiance and why - from there i binge watching 1 ep till ep 11 after my work finished
This is my first ever series that i watch completely from eps 1 to the final
Later i know new is rookie actor, for rookie actor for me he's acting already good but ofc need to be improved here and there

After the series finished i decided to read the novel version and see how it goes with my thoughts
They did put twist in the series, bcs the climax point a little bit different, there's still a little bit plot hole but i hope they could put it on special episode bcs for me it's still reasonable

People might think few scene won't happen in real life, like the proposal scene (you'll know what happened if you watch)
But me myself actually bumped into these kinda story few times whether it's my friends or my own relationship with few people, that's why i attached to the OST lyrics somehow it's just something that i want to say.

Honesty & communication not just big part of the story but it's actually also about inner thoughts, overthinking, denial, protective, trust, sacrifices, maturity.
"It takes two to tango"
People who's already matured won't create more drama but want to reconciled asap, you know how to handle problems.

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Biggest disappointment BL ever (from someone who has watched over 50)

STORY
I am a professional author and I have never seen a bigger trash non-sensical 0/10 story than this. Were they out of their minds when they approved of the script? You could pick a random person from the street and they would have written something better. Let me start by stating that the 2 main couples are extremely abusive relationships romanticized as ''true love''. Lian manipulates Kuea to live in his house, isolates him from his friends, doesn't take no for an answer and has a ton of very serious secrets (including owning all of the family fortune of his fiancé). If you have ever been in an abusive romantic relationship, you will be VERY triggered. Kuea feels that he cannot be himself around Lian and practically hides everything about himself, from what he really studies to the fact that he sings at a bar (another sign that the relationship is toxic). Kuea decides to break off the engagement and Lian doesn't take no for an answer. Excuse me? It takes 2 people to start an engagement and one person to end it, unless you are trapped with a controlling abuser. Extremely damaging concept for young, inexperienced audience. I expected to at least address the problematic aspects at some point of the story, but nope, nothing was really resolved.

The sexual dynamic reminds me a lot of a dead bedroom with one person (Lian) having a much higher sex drive than Kuea and constantly pressuring him for sex. At some point, Kuea asks him why does he have so much desire and Lian says ''because I have been waiting for so many years'' (according to the show, Lian (27) and Kuea (idk 19-20?) are both virgins). That is another sexually abusive mindset. Lian CHOSE to wait and that doesn't make him entitled to making sexual advances to Kuea every night because he has been waiting for too long. If your partner isn't ready/doesn't want to have sex, you either accept their wishes or you find a more suitable relationship in terms of libido. By far the most dangerous aspect is planting the idea to young minds that if someone says no, they don't really mean it and if you insist, they will eventually say yes and like it.

The other couple (Hia and Diao) is basically Lian-Kuea 2.0, with Diao often being terrified of Hia, who is controlling and also hiding that he works as a martial arts teacher. Kuea and Diao spend time worrying at Kuea's secret house because they don't know what to do with their terrible fiancés. The tiger concept is the most absurd nonsense I have ever seen in a BL and I won't analyze it, it exists for the sake of existing to unsuccessfully cover a plot hole.

Kuea has endless free time as an engineering student (we don't see him studying not even once) and Lian's business activities consist of tragic supposedly comical sketches with his secretary where he basically dumps all the work to the secretary or instantly decides on a very important topic. Poorly written is an understatement. Shows like Love By Chance depict student life much better.

The relationship between Lian and Kuea gives off strong, disturbing sugar daddy-sugar baby dynamics, with Lian always buying the most expensive, extravagant items for Kuea to impress him. They appear to have nothing in common and always seem to have to go eat somewhere or buy something because they need money to cover their incompatibility.

There were pornographic level sex scenes out of nowhere that aimed to create a shock factor or satisfy the audience with the over the top fan service and distract from the horrendous story. Unlike WRU where there was a built up in the feelings of Fighter and Tutor that lead to (modest compared to this show) scenes, in CutiePie they come off randomly. At some point Kuea directly and clearly touches Lian's genitals over his pants more than once (!). If I wanted to watch porn, I would go to the appropriate channels, BL is about romance and many of the viewers watching it are very young, it was excessive and did not match Kueas previous shy personality.

ACTING
Zee, who was outstanding at WRU, acts like a statue in a suit and fails to deliver the calm, collected, businessman persona. NuNew is.. well new and he tries his best but his expressions often fall flat and there is no convincing chemistry between them (the real life 10 year age gap doesn't help either). There are other actors in the show, but their interactions are so typical and boring that I won't write about them, you watch and forget in less than 24 hours. The secondary couple isn't much better.

MUSIC
NuNew's back must be hurting from carrying the entire show away from the terminal disaster with his singing. Very promising singer with a lot of potential.

REWATCH VALUE
If you have one day left to live, you can rewatch it and feel like you exist in that parallel poorly made universe for 40 years.

OVERALL
WHAT AN UTTER FIASKO! I give a 2/10 because I want to honor the effort of everyone involved, both in front and behind the camera. The trailer showed so much potential, it would have been great to see Kuea rebelling and embarking on a singing career, dating a classmate/someone close to his own age instead of being chained to an arranged marriage all of his life or sending Lian to therapy to address his childhood traumas that led to his controlling and insecure behaviors. The show pretends to care for the LGBTQ people by including hypocritical one-two line dialogues (an example is the fact that same sex marriage is not allowed in the country), while depicting ONLY TOXIC, ABUSIVE, POWERED IMBALANCED same sex relationships the entire time. Consent was also very blurry more often than not, but I won't write a novel here, if you have managed to read this far, you have my thanks.

MY CONCLUSION
I wasted my time. I am so triggered that I am going to start my own BL about vampires and elves. I am serious. If you are from Domundi reading this, please, for the love of God, FIRE THOSE TALENTLESS SCRIPT WRITERS AND FIND SOMEONE WHO CAN DO YOUR ACTORS JUSTICE!

Thanks for reading.

D.D.

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