Baker Boys (2021)

Good acting, but a confusing "plot"

For those who don’t know, Baker Boys is based off the manga series “Antique Bakery.” I mention this because a) a lot of people expected a BL storyline, which if you’ve read the manga that’s NOT what this story is about at all and b) if you read it, you’ll understand why some of the artistic decisions this adaptation took worked and why others did not.

Story: If you’ve read Antique Bakery, you’ll understand that the story takes place over several vignettes rather than an overarching story. I think in order to keep the viewers’ attention, the writers felt obliged to create an overarching plot which meant stretching out some of the vignettes into larger stories. However, this sometimes creates disjointed and tiring plots. The first 5 episodes are rough to get through because they keep introducing all the plot points and worry about resolving them later. Then, when they finally resolve them, they’re drawn out longer than necessary.
Episode 6 is really where the show starts to find its footing, and it’s frankly the best episode of this series in my opinion. Going forward every episode starts to capture the vignette storytelling and all for the better. We still have the overarching mystery, but it takes a back seat to the more interesting character developments that happen in individual episodes. I wish the series would've focused more on containing plots to individual episodes rather than desperately dragging them out for filler.
Finally, the whole “Family Detective agency” plot did not work for me. The actors were fine, but the characters seemed very amateurish, and they only serve as filler for a lot of the episodes. Their whole social-media, investigative journalism operation just doesn’t make sense…but then again other Thai dramas have shown how ineffectual the Thai police are so maybe that was the angle. However, he culmination of the murder-kidnapping mystery was actually quite good and actually gave the series some suspenseful action it needed for a satisfactory ending.

Cast: If you watched the “Sweet Day Tour” special before the series, the director goes into his reasoning for choosing the actors he did for the main cast, and I think he was spot on. Weir is portrayed slightly different from the manga, but Singto’s portrayal is to die for; his humor and coyness is amazing, and out of the whole cast he captures his character the best. Pluem and Foei are tied next for character portrayal. They’re both funny and entertaining when they’re in the background for an episode, but when they have their spotlight episodes they deliver an emotional performance that really sells their character development. Finally, there’s Lee. I generally like Lee as an actor, but I think he might have struggled a bit in Baker Boys. Lee has a trouble with conveying vulnerability, and he sometimes looks stiff doing so (I’ve noticed this in other dramas of his), which makes it a little hard for his character development in the final episodes. I think he captured the character the writers created, BUT Punn is the furthest away from his portrayal in the original work. Punn is written as very shallow and not very bright. Baker Boys captures neither his business acumen nor his quiet empathy as seen in the manga. I don’t fault Lee for this, I think the writers thought he’d be more entertaining as the laughable and clumsy ladies man.
The rest of the minor characters are a mixed bag. Jamie does a very good job as Mone, it’s just her character’s significance to the plot gets lost as she (and her parents) act as filler for the plot. However, when she needs to be humorous or emotional, she delivers a good performance. Unda does an amazing job as Piglet for such a young actress. I enjoyed her screentime and she was very compatible with Foei. Wave Khoo as Jean was also very true to his character, but like Jamie/Mone he has a very specific plot point and once that’s resolved he becomes filler for a few episodes as well. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t comment on some of the other minor characters, but most do well when their spotlight comes.

Music: The background music for the series was ok. Sometimes, dramas pick background music that ends up being more distracting than entertaining, but this is not the case for Baker Boys (though I’m not sure why the Tony Bennett like music was chosen). The closing themes are also just ok, but it’s hard to tell because they don’t really have any other purposed to the show. The producers clearly felt obliged to have a unique theme song or two for this series (I wouldn’t expect anything less from GMMTV), but it would’ve been nice to have them featured more in the actual episodes themselves.

Did I need to lower my expectations of this show? Yes, I tried to look at this show as its own entity separate from the manga, but even then, you will find yourself bored with the plot at times. Do I regret watching Baker Boys? No, it has its shining moments making it worth a watch through and if you are a fan of any of the actors and actresses that appear in this series, you’ll enjoy them in this.

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Cute Feel-Good Comedy

Shall I call this a comedy about four dysfunctional men in a cafe known for its desserts? One is afraid of desserts because of some traumatic childhood event One is afraid of women also because of some traumatic event. One has to start a new life because his boxing career is over thanks to a medical condition. One takes it upon himself to be a bodyguard to protect his "boss" except that he's not cut out to be a bodyguard. As you can expect, there will be plenty of funny situations.

But this is not a comedy that just makes you laugh. It can be a touching, if episodic and slight disjointed, story on the friendship between the four people and how the support the give one another help them cope with their personal crises.

There's a lot of cuteness in the story, and the more serious parts are not seamlessly worked in. Besides all the relatively trivial events, there is a series of kidnapping that goes in and out of focus in the storytelling. Children have been killed and the killings are not treated as jokes, but hey don't seem to be taken seriously enough. The scenes of dead children seem a little out of place. Perhaps there is a challenge when it comes to making a live-action adaptation of a manga. There is something cartoonish about the characters that enhances the humor but it may not go down well with everyone especially when it is juxtaposed with the scenes of child murders. (There is probably some unintentional social commentary: the police seem so thoroughly incompetent that they don't even think of what a journalist does: check the cafe's CCTV footage to try to find the kidnapper.)

Unlike previous drama adaptations, this one lets the gay character be all-out gay. He flirts openly with men and there is no attempt to downplay the character's sexual orientation, especially when his ex-boyfriend comes into the story. This is nice in itself, but perhaps we are too often teased with the prospects of a Punn/Weir romance. Since times have changed, why not make an adaptation with an actual BL subplot even if it is not between Punn and Weir. After all, if the adaptation 20 years ago could totally remove the character's sexual orientation, why can't an adaptation in 2021 add in a BL subplot?

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