Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bangkok Love Stories: Plead’ on Netflix, a Plodding Drama About Destiny Set in Bangkok’s Chinatown

Add Bangkok Love Stories: Plead to the shortish stack of BLS series on Netflix, which range from maudlin to insane. Each is set in a different area of the Thai city in the title, and the events of Plead unfold in the Chinatown district where one should certainly expect a lot of pleading to occur.

BANGKOK LOVE STORIES: PLEAD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The camera zooms on two elaborate Chinese statues in a gilded display case.

The Gist: In an outdoor market, Liu (Surapol Poonpiriya) grinds almonds by hand to make delicious almond milk. That’s his day job. By night, he’s a fortune teller. Sometimes, the two vocations mix — in the episode’s opening scene, he explains the concept of destiny to a boy far too young to comprehend it, then tells him, “Your followers will obey and be afraid of you.” Have a nice life as a ruthless dictator, kid!

Liu despairs because his son, Tee (Chanon Santinatornkul), is going blind. Tee has his best pal Ong (Cholsawas Tiewwanichkul) describe porno movies to him, and presumably, if you already can’t see, you’re working around the superstition that masturbation will make you go blind. Anyway, Ong has no problem diddling himself in the middle of such descriptions, and with others present in the room — and then Liu barges in. He’s such a cool dad, he tells the boys not to watch that trash, but to watch better porn, and he’ll send them some. Everyone laughs. Liu jets to a party, and Tee takes up his dad’s spot at the fortune teller booth.

Meanwhile, Ella (Sutatta Udomsilp) and Deary (Morakot Liu) are out drinking. Ella just dumped her cheating lout of a boyfriend. Deary is, like, way into mystical crapola, and wants to drag the skeptical Ella to a fortune teller. Tee reads her palm, and makes her randomly pick a song from his phone, and stares inexpressively into the distance like a lobotomized earthworm. He then tells Ella she’ll lose someone who loves her.

At the party, Liu meets a woman who reminds him of his dead wife. She tells him she knew his wife, and can dress like her if it pleases him. Creepy, yes, but she’s mostly kinda sweet about it? Anyway, Liu’s reaction is about three notches past the acceptable threshold of assholism. He goes home to find Tee sitting on the floor with a blank look on his face. Earlier that day, he could see blurry images. Now, he’s completely blind.

Our Take: These five points must be made:

1. This is deadly dull. The comedy is clunky, the drama is inert and the heavy melodramatic moments play as unintentional comedy.
2. The timeline of this episode’s events is so confusing, it could take place in the middle of the day or at a million o’clock. It’s hard to tell.
3. Without the use of slo-mo, this 43-minute episode would be about eight minutes long — unofficial statistic, of course.
4. Anyone else weary of the superstition/skeptic dynamic where the former is represented by touchy-feelies in gypsy do-rags and the latter by angry, overly defensive poopheads?
5. I kept waiting for the characters to PLEAD, but nobody ever really did PLEAD in a manner befitting a show titled Bangkok Love Stories: Plead. The PLEADing better increase exponentially in the next episode.

Sex and Skin: Nothing yet.

Parting Shot: Liu and Tee embrace, weeping together on the floor.

Sleeper Star: Whoever properly PLEADs first gets to wear this badge proudly.

Most Pilot-y Line: “No one can change destiny,” Liu says. Oh yeah? Think that’s gonna stop us from trying?

Our Call: SKIP IT. If you’ve gotta watch some Bangkok Love Stories — and we all do, right? — skip the dirt-boring Plead and insane, sloppy Innocence and go for the mildly maniacal Objects of Affection.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Bangkok Love Stories: Plead on Netflix