A perfect blend of romance and slapstick comedy

Before I start my review of “Fight For Love“ (FFL - “VÌ YÊU MÀ CHIẾN“), I’d like to make some remarks about the BL genre in general. For more than a decade, BL has been dominated by Thai productions. The reason is simple – it’s money. Some Thai production companies put huge budgets into their series - money generated by high numbers of viewers, but also invested by sponsors who have realized that product placements in popular BL shows help promoting their brands.

But like every coin, the success of Thai BL has two sides. Lots of companies think that there’s easy money to be made, and so they hire some handsome students who know nothing about acting, and they employ cheap and inexperienced writers, directors, and editors. The result is a vast number of series, many of which are very hard to watch because of poor scripts, bad directing, and abysmal acting. Of course, there are some great, high quality Thai series, but they are outnumbered by weak productions.

The BL scene in some other countries is exactly the opposite. I’m not talking about China and Myanmar, where the genre is obstructed by strict censorship. I’m talking about countries like the Philippines, Cambodia or Vietnam, where BL productions rarely find sponsors and investors, and as the money that is earned on Youtube, the most widely used platform, often doesn’t even bring in production costs, the industry in these countries is struggling for survival. Unfortunately, platforms like Gagaoolala, Iqiyi, WeTV or Viki very rarely include series from these countries.

But as I said before, every coin has two sides, and the good side here is that money can’t buy creativity, and “Fight For Love“ is another good example of how to make a beautiful series with a low budget. RL Studio have proven several times that they can do this – their series “The Star Always Follow You“ (see my review no. 24) or their movie “Stormy Honeymoon“ (no. 33) are only two examples. And now here is “Fight For Love“, and alas, they’ve done it again.

FFL tells the story of Binh (Thai Khang), a talented singer and musician, whose inhibitions because of scars he acquired by being tortured with a burning stick as a kid by another boy result in shyness, so that he only performs as a singer with a mask on his face. Binh is being courted by Thang (Dac Thang), who Binh thinks he meets for the first time when police chases him away after he has performed as a singer in a pedestrian area. Binh accidentally smashes Thang’s camera, and Thang uses this incident to get closer to Binh, who he’s had a crush on for some time.

Thang takes a job in Cam’s (Yen Nhi) café where Binh works part-time, and he moves into the same house where Binh lives. Their love story has to overcome a lot of problems, the biggest being that it was Thang who tortured Binh as a kid and is thus responsible for Binh’s lack of self-confidence.

Binh’s bad experience in his secret relationship with Van (Thanh Chi), who is only interested in him as he wants to steal his songs, is another serious issue. When Binh finds out that Van is actually in a relationship with Binh’s good friend Khanh (Anh Tuan), he is the more convinced that a boy like him doesn’t deserve to be loved, and will always be cheated on.

Van collaborates with his cousin Nhu (Tieu Thanh) to obstruct Binh and Thang’s relationship in order to steal a song from Binh, and on top of that he even cheats on Khanh by starting a relationship with Mr. Long (Hoai Chung) in order to be promoted as a member of a boyband whose casting is managed by Long.

The showdown toward the end of the series is a casting, where both Binh and Van have to perform a self-written song. Although Mr. Long manipulates the voting, and although there’s a mysterious power outage when Binh is about to sing, Binh finally wins, after Thang helps him by playing the guitar when the playback doesn’t work, and Khanh proves that Mr. Long has bought the votes of the audience.

After the audition, Thang disappears as he has promised his aunt (Ngan Quynh) to study abroad if she attends the audition. Auntie, however, realises that Thang is going to make his way even if he doesn’t study abroad, and she organises Thang and Binh to meet again for their happy ending.

Like in every good BL series, there is a second couple – Truong (Tien Hai), the troublesome, quirky, cheerful and good-hearted son of the owner of the house where Binh and Thang live, and Vinh (The Bang), another resident in the house and worker in Cam’s café, who shows considerable skills as a love doctor, although he himself avoids any romantic situations. It’s a pity that there wasn’t enough time for this couple, as the “opposites attract“ trope would have made a nice side story.

The plot may be a little confusing now and then, as it chooses to reveal some essential facts in retrospective or flashbacks, e.g. it is only revealed in several retrospectives that Binh and Thang have met several times before the incident of the damaged camera. However, I think it is an indication of good writing that the development of characters and explanation of plot twists is illustrated in retrospective scenes, when other series of lesser quality use annoying inner monologues in the form of voice-overs to do this.

Moreover, not telling the story strictly chronologically opens space for some suspense and unexpected twists, which make the series the more exciting. There’s one more thing that sets FFL apart from many other shows where the intended comedy only results in second hand embarrassment. In FFL, the perfect blend of romance and slapstick comedy has been found, so this is a “rom-com“ at its very best.

The technical quality is very good – there are many, esp. Thai productions with much bigger budgets, that do not reach the good visual and sound quality of FFL. The soundtrack underlines the plot appropriately, and in the audition in the last episode both Thai Khang and Thanh Chi prove their skills as singers.

The directing is also great. If you watch the BTS RL Studio has released for the episodes, you can imagine that director ThuHa must have put a lot on energy in taming this bunch of lively young actors.

Which brings me to the most striking aspect of my review – the cast, who is one of the most handsome I’ve ever seen in a BL series. Let me start with Thai Khang, a wonderful actor who actually carries the show for me. The way he displays his character’s mental and physical wounds, his shyness, his heartwarming care for his fellow men, but also his boldness in some situations is really stunning. His partner, Dac Thang, comes across a little stiff in the beginning, maybe due to a lack of experience, but his acting improves from episode to episode, turning him into a good actor, too, and of course he is serious eye-candy. What a power couple these two young boys are!

Thanh Chi, who plays the bad guy, succeeds in showing that his character is not a one-dimensional villain, but an ambitious young man who is striving to be successful. Together with Thai Khang, he is obviously the most skilled of the actors, and although his character is really bad, Thanh Chi somehow makes viewers sympathize with him. Tien Hai with his vivid display of comedy and naivity belongs in the same category of good actors.

The Bang and Tieu Thanh are RL Studio household names who never disappoint – be it as comedian and love doctor (The Bang) or “bad girl“ (Tieu Thanh). Anh Tuan masters his support role very well, and I may add that this guy is another example of eye candy. Ngan Quynh as Thang’s aunt fantastically displays the seemingly heartless relative and strict businesswoman, whose looks are frighteningly fierce in some scenes, although the viewer senses that there’s a soft side to her as well. Hoai Chung is a little unfortunate as he has to play the unpleasant character of Mr. Long, but making viewers hate a character is an achievement, too. Finally there’s Yen Nhi as Cam, the owner of the café, who is a huge comic talent.

The cast in general is a blend of very young actors, who are not just talented, but also have skills many of their peer actors haven’t acquired at this age, and some experienced actors and actresses the young guns can learn from. Making all of them cooperate like a true ensemble is an achievement of director ThuHa that can’t be underestimated.

There’s one more aspect that proves how seriously RL Studio takes what they are doing, and how much they appreciate their international fans. When many production companies use AI subs which are often wrong and make it hard to understand what characters are saying, RL Studio has real human beings sub their series in English, Chinese, German, Polish, and Thai.

All in all, the series is extreme fun to watch, and viewers both in Vietnam and around the world appear to love it. More than 3 million views even before the series was completed, and well over 4,000 viewers attending the premieres of the episodes, prove that Ms. ThuHa, who is largely responsible for the series as writer, director and producer, has done a lot of things right.

As Ms. Thuha and the cast would like to produce a sequel, I can only hope that they’ll find sponsors, investors and donators to make it happen, as I think I speak in the name of numerous fans that I still haven’t had enough of this wonderful cast.