Monomax's Heartcode: How to Make a Great GL Series Without Really Trying
**Disclaimer:These are just some observations as a long-time GL viewer and is not meant to bash other series. Don't take it too seriously and skip if not to your liking, thanks!**
So, we just really love Monomax's HeartCode and feel like other studios can learn from this production, as follows:
1.Premise matters. A good hook will attract (and keep) viewers. Forbidden love? A business going under? Fake marriage? All well and good. But vowing revenge on the corrupt cop that you suspect is responsible for your beloved activist father's suicide that you witnessed at 10 years old giving you life-long trauma and an unquenchable thirst for revenge? Which pushed you to change your name, train as a cop at police academy and be one of the best cops at your crime division, all so you can get close to said cop, only to (unknowingly) meet said cop's hot daughter and fall for her? That's peak cinema and beats any other kind of drama! It immediately raises the stakes and thus conflict/tension: do you, as a daughter who vowed to avenge your father, continue with your pledge? Or do you follow your heart? It makes for edge of your seat viewing.
2. Characterization. Give us characters that just happen to be queer/WLW. We love that Capt. Thara (Tungpang Pattaravadee Laosa) and Vicky (Jessie Natsiya Prommart) aren't just defined by their queerness. Their whole character isn't just gay and/or gay for each other.
Capt. Than is an ass-kicking,internet-famous, successful career cop who is good at her job, defined by her determined, single-minded motivation: to avenge her father. Which makes her falling in love with her sworn enemy's daughter all the more compelling: does she give up her vow of revenge and be thought of as a disloyal daughter? Or does she deny herself a chance at happiness and go through with her revenge plan?
Vicky, on the other hand, may be a spoiled, rich, high maintenance brat, but she isn't one-dimensional either: she is also a successful pastry chef and bakeshop owner, an assertive businesswoman, a loving daughter, and a hot, sexy lover. Even when she's throwing a tantrum or fumbling through hilarious training montages, Jessie and her Vicky are fun, funny, dramatic and constantly entertaining.
As we said before, both lead female characters are actual adult characters living adult lives making adult decisions and mistakes.
3. Give us something new. Yes, revenge plots and Romeo-and-Juliet types of forbidden love stories have been done before, but HeartCode brings something new and different to the genre of GL, action, comedy, and drama. It combines all these elements in one story, and manages to juggle and balance the tone all throughout.
4. Go beyond tropes. This is related to No.3. Yes, this series uses the K-Drama/GL trope of childhood best friends, but in this one, it feels organic and not too contrived: of course she'll eventually meet her sworn enemy, she literally trained as a cop to get close to him, so it doesn't feel too weird that she encounters him or his daughter. Another trope, the domineering, homophobic parent, is absent here, too. Even the main villain isn't a homophobe, and doesn't have an issue with the Capt. falling in love with Vicky. Oh, and it doesn't end in marriage (As Vicky said with incredulity and disgust, "I'm only 23! I want to do so much!"). Also, hey, no queer side couple. A breath of fresh air that the side couple is straight and exist to further the storyline and not launch another ship.
5. Less is more. When you have only seven episodes, it forces you to be more concise and creative with your storytelling. What is left is a tight, lean, clean narrative that doesn't have filler episodes and which moves at a fast-paced way, with no scene wasted and everything matters.
6. Don't be afraid to be original. What Monomax brought to the table was something new: a story that wasn't adapted from a novel that can, at times, be problematic (even toxic).
7. Get a good production team. Monomax got an awesome producer (check out her interviews on youtube). She got a good (non-problematic) director and a crew that really made the series less male gaze-y, not even too-GL-centric, but actually accessible and mainstream (because honestly, IRL, actual LGBTQIA+ people don't exist in a kind of gay utopian bubble and GL series should reflect that, too).
8. Performance. It isn't just visuals that matter. Good-looking actors are great, but good-looking actors that can act and deliver on what is expected of them? That's a challenge. Seeing Tungpang Pattaravadee Laosa's facial expressions cycle through love, adoration, exasperation, flustered speechlessness, to fierce determination, guilt, revenge-mode is a sight to behold.
DItto to Jessie Natsiya Prommart,whose comic timing is hilarious, and whose ability to be funny, pitiful, hot, gorgeous, sexy, especially during the training camp, as her character struggles while pining for Tungpang's Capt. Than is simultaneously cute, adorable, funny, exhilarating, relatable.
9. Actors. We love GL, and we understand Thai GL series fan culture/industry/shipping,etc. But the Tungpang/Jessie ship feels the least fan service-y, mostly because they've been friends for a long time, so a lot of their off-cam/BTS scenes feel organic and authentic. It could be they're better at this than the others, but it doesn't feel too contrived (less manufactured, like a product to be consumed, and more like a professional working relationship that just happens to be a friendship, too). TBH, we don't feel the need for fan service or shipping, and we don't really ship real people because a good story should be enough, but if we were to do so, we'd ship this friendship: their friendship is cute and adorable and we hope to see more of them in future projects - not necessarily in GL, but just in general.
There you have it, 9 things other studios could learn from Monomax. Hope their next series is just as good. Looking forward to it.
