Carla Do
Ready, Set, Love - a colorful mini series for Valentine's Day
Netflix Thailand really opened their 2024 with a fantastic original work. Ready, Set, Love is a dystopian romcom miniseries (6 episodes) with a LOT of comedy, a hint of thriller, the cheesiest and corniest writing but also a lot of heart. The perfect Valentine's Day binge in my opinion.
STORY
Set in a dystopian world the female population outnumbers the male, our protagonist Day (Belle Kemisara) got selected into a government-sponsored reality competition called "Ready, Set, Love" where women compete to win the affection of five "Gentlemen". While the premise is original, I thought the execution of the story was a little bit of cliche and predictable at times. I definitely feel like I caught many references to The Hunger Games and Divergent and other popular dystopian genre works (Eve Capital????). But besides the cliche writing, there were a LOT of LGBTQIA+ positive messages sprinkled throughtout the dialogues and LGBTQ+ representation. I was so happy to get a scene where our supporting lesbian couple having an ultrasound of their baby. Althought the series promoted itself as a romantic comedy series, I think Ready Set Love is was much darker than I had expected for a Valentine's Day release. But with a tight-pacing, the series did well to tell everything in the span of 6 episodes while covering all the characters' subplots as well as not leaving any loose threads (BUT THAT CLIFFHANGER POST-CREDIT SCENE? @NETFLIX BE SERIOUS). The series got very dark all of a sudden in the last episode but I thought it was a reasonable writing choice.
ACTING/CAST
Our ML is Son, the most popular and handsome Gentleman, played by Blue Pongtiwat. I think the romantic scenes between Belle Kemisara and Blue Pongtiwat were believable but not crazy insane, just decent enough because they're two incredible actors. I think the supporting characters definitely stole the series a little bit more for me. I particularly love Paper (the youngest Gentleman), May (Day's younger sister) and Valentine (Day's bestfriend) and Chun. The actors for these supporting characters were delivering top-notched performances even with the little scenes they had. The miniseries did very well in giving all the supporting characters of the series a lot of room to fully portray and tell their stories.
MUSIC
The score is bubbly and fun. I love the jazzy opening intro and the graphics fit it perfectly. There's this song that the character Chun (played by Kunchanuj) sings and I absolutely adore it. Music is a huge part of Paper's storyline and I love the songs seletion for this series.
REWATCH VALUE
This is one of those series where I don't think I'll rewatch because the mystery plot only really works the first time that you watch. But I do think I'll rewatch certain episodes for the cinematography because the color palette of this series is so vivid and vibrant, I was in awe the wholetime. It reminds me of the color palette of Pushing Daisies, which is a favorite series of mine.
PRODUCTION
This was such a high value production from Netflix Thailand, I'm surprised by how bad they're marketing this. I keep mentioning the colors of the series but I'm not kidding at all, it is truly beautiful and so gorgeous. The set, the costume, the visual effects. You can FEEL the high budget for this series from just the first episode because the fictional world they've created is honestly very realistic.
OVERALL
If you're looking for a high-value, fast-paced, quirky campy romcom Thai miniseries (6 episodes) with a dash of dystopian and thriller element, Ready, Set, Love is definitely a must-watch Netflix Original.
STORY
Set in a dystopian world the female population outnumbers the male, our protagonist Day (Belle Kemisara) got selected into a government-sponsored reality competition called "Ready, Set, Love" where women compete to win the affection of five "Gentlemen". While the premise is original, I thought the execution of the story was a little bit of cliche and predictable at times. I definitely feel like I caught many references to The Hunger Games and Divergent and other popular dystopian genre works (Eve Capital????). But besides the cliche writing, there were a LOT of LGBTQIA+ positive messages sprinkled throughtout the dialogues and LGBTQ+ representation. I was so happy to get a scene where our supporting lesbian couple having an ultrasound of their baby. Althought the series promoted itself as a romantic comedy series, I think Ready Set Love is was much darker than I had expected for a Valentine's Day release. But with a tight-pacing, the series did well to tell everything in the span of 6 episodes while covering all the characters' subplots as well as not leaving any loose threads (BUT THAT CLIFFHANGER POST-CREDIT SCENE? @NETFLIX BE SERIOUS). The series got very dark all of a sudden in the last episode but I thought it was a reasonable writing choice.
ACTING/CAST
Our ML is Son, the most popular and handsome Gentleman, played by Blue Pongtiwat. I think the romantic scenes between Belle Kemisara and Blue Pongtiwat were believable but not crazy insane, just decent enough because they're two incredible actors. I think the supporting characters definitely stole the series a little bit more for me. I particularly love Paper (the youngest Gentleman), May (Day's younger sister) and Valentine (Day's bestfriend) and Chun. The actors for these supporting characters were delivering top-notched performances even with the little scenes they had. The miniseries did very well in giving all the supporting characters of the series a lot of room to fully portray and tell their stories.
MUSIC
The score is bubbly and fun. I love the jazzy opening intro and the graphics fit it perfectly. There's this song that the character Chun (played by Kunchanuj) sings and I absolutely adore it. Music is a huge part of Paper's storyline and I love the songs seletion for this series.
REWATCH VALUE
This is one of those series where I don't think I'll rewatch because the mystery plot only really works the first time that you watch. But I do think I'll rewatch certain episodes for the cinematography because the color palette of this series is so vivid and vibrant, I was in awe the wholetime. It reminds me of the color palette of Pushing Daisies, which is a favorite series of mine.
PRODUCTION
This was such a high value production from Netflix Thailand, I'm surprised by how bad they're marketing this. I keep mentioning the colors of the series but I'm not kidding at all, it is truly beautiful and so gorgeous. The set, the costume, the visual effects. You can FEEL the high budget for this series from just the first episode because the fictional world they've created is honestly very realistic.
OVERALL
If you're looking for a high-value, fast-paced, quirky campy romcom Thai miniseries (6 episodes) with a dash of dystopian and thriller element, Ready, Set, Love is definitely a must-watch Netflix Original.
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