#patrick rangsimant

After more than two years of sitting in the post-production limbo basement after filming wrapped on 19 March 2023, Mystique In The Mirror has been announced to be coming soon on iQIYI Thailand or iQ.com.

Synopsis: Alan is an ordinary young man with memory trouble. His life changes when he begins seeing the ghost of a strange old man every time he looks in the mirror. Alan's dad thinks what he's seeing are hallucinations and sends him for treatment at a psychiatric hospital. There, Alan meets Darwin, the guy in the room next door, and the two develop a bond. However, no matter what, Alan's doctor isn't able to rid him of his hallucinations. Alan begins to suspect what he's seeing aren't hallucinations; rather, he suspects he's being haunted. If so, it means there's something in the past—something Alan isn't remembering—linking him to the ghost of this old man. With Darwin's help, Alan begins to look into his own past. The issue is, Alan comes across a document that reveals his father has long since passed away. Adapted from the novel "Mystique in the Mirror" (ใครในกระจก) by Patrick III Rangsimant (รังสิมันต์).

In a now-deleted IG story, Tou Sedthawut accidentally revealed that Mystique In The Mirror will have its first premiere on October 1 (most likely a hybrid press con/first episode preview event like My Stand-In Premiere, followed by an official release 2 or 3 weeks after)

Mystique In The Mirror was originally hinted to be aired on WeTV, as its teasers/fitting videos were uploaded on WeTV website and also had its own WeTV page. However, plans with WeTV might have fell through so here's Mystique In The Mirror moving houses to iQIYI.

Unrelated but this kinda reminds me of the story of how I Feel You Linger In The Air was first announced as a WeTV series, then moved house to Youku, and now it's been announced that the Special EP will be distributed by WeTV 🤡 The thing both these series have in common: involvement of Insight Entertainment (China-oriented entertainment content import/export company in Thailand) to some extent. 😒

EDIT to add: YYDS Entertainment showing themselves up in the equation aka the production house for Insight Ent Artists aka the same company that helped I Feel You Linger In The Air moved house to Youku after WeTV 😁 YYDS was founded by former WeTV content producer Wan Thabkrajang, who's now exited YYDS to be a freelance producer. YYDS Entertainment has close ties with both iQIYI Thailand and WeTV Thailand.

The writer Patrick, whose novel upcoming bl Last Meal Universe The Series is based upon, shared some insight intro creating the story (it's in english), and here are the two most interesting things imo:

Info for foodies:

1. The food presented is intended to be something that can be made anywhere in the world if the novel is translated into English (or any other language) and foreigners read it and want to try it. They should be able to make it just by going to an Asian supermarket. The ingredients are available and not too complicated to prepare, so I didn't include any overly intricate dishes.

Happy but open ending warning:

2. The novel ends on an open note, like a cliffhanger because at that time, I wanted to see if there was interest for a continuation from the readers. If there is, I will start writing season 2. So the ending that seems to set up for a continuation (but ends happily) is intentional.

This write-up will contain complete spoilers. I know not that many people watched 7 Days Before Valentine, but I think you might still be interested in how things were adapted from page to screen, so the basic premise of both is that a guy who just experience a breakup gets visited by a 'cupid reaper' for seven nights, who gives him the chance each night to erase someone from existence in the hopes of changing things enough to make the breakup not have happened. Ultimately it's a story about acceptance.

Overall I'm actually calling this for the series, because the novella is very short, but the series is able to flesh everything out and really delve into the characters and the implications of the character's choices on everyone at large.

7 Days Before Valentine is based on a novella by the same title by Patrick Rangsimant. I've also read My Ride, I Love You and My Imaginary Boyfriend by him. I enjoy his writing and he's actually a doctor so you can tell from his writing that he's experienced a lot of things in life and his work tends to have a philosophical bent. This work was definitely the serenity prayer as a BL. He tends to write mostly dialog and introspection, a bit like I write actually. It's straightforward and a bit bare, so the vibes of the story and the series are very different. The overall ominous weirdness of the series came from the director/screenwriter, but I think the way it's very theatrical did suit the talky/thinky source material.

The series is also based on another novella, 7 Days Before Halloween, but that one doesn't appear to have an English translation or maybe hasn't even been published yet. The story we get for Q in the series (who goes by the slightly less cute 'Cue' in the novella) is all in there so I can't say how close that was to what we got in the series. Cue doesn't go into his backstory in the series.

The narrator of the novella is nameless and definitely feels like more of an Everyman compared to Sunshine. He's a little blase about erasing people from existence but feels like he could be anyone struggling to accept a major life change, which is the point. I don't remember him being described physically at all and we don't get any details of his life. This makes him way less frustrating than Sunshine, who begins the novel as a self-absorbed and selfish actor, but also not particularly memorable as a character, and it's less that the narrator experiences general character growth and more that he learns to deal with this specific life crisis.

There's no flower shop/bar in the novella. I was hoping we'd get some explanation for that guy who seems to be another supernatural entity like Q, but nope. Also, having the kid from the flower shop as a character gave the show the chance to point out that romantic love isn't the be-all-and-end-all of love, which is pretty unusual for a romance series and was a nice touch.

There also isn't any exploration of what erasing a person means for the world at large. For example, in the novel erasing the politician the couple argued about just doesn't work to fix things, while in the show Sunshine manages to create a whole dystopia. I think that aspect worked well in the series. Both do have the main character fixing things by wishing himself out of existence, only to be brought back by someone else's wish, but of course we don't get the explanation of that in the novella the way we do in the show.

There is a little romance between the narrator and Cue in the novella, but more just that they meet at the end and recognize each other. Yes the show was a slow burn, but I did like the way Q in the series progressed in his attitude, from antagonism to protectiveness to love towards Sunshine, and the way they both opened up to each other. The climax of Sunshine wishing Q out of existence in order to release him from being a reaper was just so perfectly devastating. In the novella it's much less dramatic since the narrator gets the opportunity to make a normal wish and wishes for Cue to be happy. In both cases this does lead to them having a new meet-cute as regular mortals, it's just 1000x more satisfying in the show both because they'd already fallen in love and lost each other at this point but also because we got to see how things clicked into place with a reaper version of Sunshine having been the Q to mortal Sky, who needed to learn his own lessons about loss and regret and letting go.