Kinnporsche Season One Reaction
Jul. 10th, 2022 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestsofpineHad a six hour drive to get home today (well, yesterday now) and accidentally fell asleep around 8 PM, only to wake up again at 10 PM. I've been lying in bed for the last two+ hours chewing over the Kinnporsche finale instead of falling back asleep, so I finally decided to just give up on sleep for now and start writing some thoughts down, even though it is past midnight. The cat will almost certainly wake me up demanding his breakfast around 4 or 5 AM, so I'm sure I'll regret this life choice. 😅
[Update: Finally fell back asleep around 1:30 AM, and the cat woke me up at 5:15 AM, just like I expected, lol. Please excuse any incoherence on sleep deprivation, since this was written half at midnight and half in the early morning.]
If you're unfamiliar with it, Kinnporsche is the title of a hit BL mafia drama from Thailand that premiered April 2, 2022. It's also the smushname of the drama's main ship. To avoid confusion, I'll put the title in italics and leave the ship smushname normal in this post. The origin story of this drama is nearly as wild as its actual plot, which involves, among other things, a great deal of violence, a lot of outrageously hot sex scenes, and some of the most hilarious product placement I've ever seen. Season one finished airing July 9, and season two is reportedly being developed.
Here's the trailer for the show:
Here's a good 'why you should watch' thread on Twitter and a fun fandom primer (Tumblr-focused).
The full uncensored episodes are available by subscription on iQIYI, as well as on the usual 🏴☠️ suspects for Asian dramas.
These thoughts are all based on just one complete watchthrough, although I've watched a bunch of my favorite scenes multiple times. I do plan to go back and rewatch the show in full from the beginning to catch some of the details I missed the first time through, and that might change some of my opinions.
For better and worse, season one of Kinnporsche went hard on everything it did. Overall, it was a ton of fun and did some stuff very well, but wasn't without flaws.
Some quick positive thoughts:
On the other hand:
I'm going to run through some thoughts about the three main ships in order from favorite to least favorite.
⚠️MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL 14 EPISODES AHEAD
Vegaspete
I'm one of the people who ended up most invested in Vegaspete, which is funny because for the longest time I didn't get what all the fuss about Vegas was for. He was objectively hot and a fun villain, but that was about the extent of my investment until he electrocuted Pete's balls and Pete laughed in his face. Pete, I should mention, has been my favorite character since he was introduced and that scene reduced my brain activity to one long string of exclamation points, from which it has yet to fully recover, tbh. The revelation in episode 13 during the bathtub scene with Porsche of how consistently Pete was masking his true thoughts and personality for the first 10 episodes of the show also hit me like a brick dropped from a fifth story window and is a big part of the reason a full rewatch of the show is going to happen sooner rather than later.
From an acting perspective, I thought Bible and Build did great, which was all the more impressive to me since it was Bible's first role like this. The writing of their relationship was a little uneven at time, but good enough that it was the most satisfying of the three romance storylines for me. The progression from ball electrocution to tender wound bandaging and noodle making in episodes 10 and 11 was fast but very effective, imo. In particular, the scene after Vegas finds Pete unconscious and bandages his wounds where they talk about their fathers was one of my favorites in the show. I thought their storyline in episode 12 faltered a little, as I felt the escape attempt and return happened a little too quickly. However, the sex scene was worth the hype - beautifully shot and acted, just like Kinn and Porsche's major sex scenes.
Despite my minor quibbles with episode 12, I did end up pretty happy with how their relationship played out in episodes 13 and 14. In episode 13, Pete finally getting angry was excellent, and the scene of him falling apart back at the main house while holding his own throat in a near-perfect imitation of Vegas choking him was so tasty I could eat it. Edit: some tumblr meta about Pete in episode 13
Their scenes in episode 14 were just as delicious - beating the shit out of each other and then kissing with bloody mouths, Vegas begging Pete to be the one to kill him if he has to die (reminiscent of one of my absolute favorite scenes in The Untamed also), Pete explicitly and deliberately renaming himself as Vegas's pet and the callback to Vegas's earlier attempts to feed and care for him ("Because I'm hungry" ~dies~), Pete screaming in rage and despair and shooting his own coworker before collapsing over Vegas's body.... God, it was all so, so good.
My only small complaint with their scenes in the finale was that I would have liked to see a bit more of the progression towards the happy domestic scene with Macau after the timeskip, as it read a little like an ending for them and I'm now not sure what to expect for them in season two. I always worry about my favorite ships getting stuck with some horrible manufactured drama like a stupid jealousy plotline to keep them "interesting" after they get together. On the other hand, Macau's grin after he woke up and caught them kissing was delightful, and Pete's happy smile as he got embraced by both of the brothers said it all, so I will try and have faith in their happy ending in the meantime and hope for lots of good fic about them exploring their kinks together. 😇
Kinnporsche
I ended up with mixed feelings about the main couple.
As with Vegaspete, I was impressed by the acting, especially considering Mile's inexperience. Mile and Apo's chemistry was out of this world and the sex scenes between them included some of the hottest I've seen onscreen in years. I even enjoyed the more ridiculous ones, like the infamous bread kiss (seriously, the product placement in this show is hilarious) and the scene in episode 8 where Porsche rips his own shirt open so eagerly you can literally SEE the buttons go flying. Despite Kinn and Porsche's bumpy relationship and poor communication (some good meta I found on their early communication issues), Mile and Apo managed to pull off some extreme levels of cuteness in other scenes and the blatant, open adoration between them made me go "awww" against my better judgement more than once.
My mixed feelings came mainly from how the more "problematic" elements of the ship were handled. These elements didn't bother me in and of themselves (on the contrary, they were part of what made it interesting!), but I felt like they were brushed under the rug too easily in the final few episodes. I prefer problematic romances to be self-aware about the unhealthy elements and at times it seemed like the show was consciously playing them up, but there was no payoff or resolution to those moments of discomfort and by the end of the finale I was left wondering if the payoff would come in season two or if I'd simply read too much into certain acting and dialogue choices.
For example, Episode 11 was one of my favorites because of the way it seemed to lean into the power dynamics between Kinn and Porsche with scenes like Porsche being dragged in front of Korn to get interrogated about his feelings for Kinn in front of Kinn himself, Korn, Gun, Chan, and half the bodyguard squad, as well as Porsche's visible discomfort when Kinn, Tay, and Time were joking about him becoming Kinn's "love slave".
Somebody made a short fanvid cut entirely from episode 11 clips that played up the parallels between Pete's literal captivity in that episode and Porsche's implicit captivity.
⚠️ canon-typical violence, abuse, and torture, visual triggers
But starting from the helicopter blowjob near the end of episode 11, I felt that most of these hints of their imbalanced relationship either disappeared or were played for laughs. I still genuinely enjoyed a bunch of Kinn and Porsche's scenes together in the final few episodes and it did at least feel like Kinn was trying to communicate better and be more considerate of Porsche's feelings, but I would have liked to see Porsche get mad one more time and come out with anything half as powerful as Pete's "I'm a human, Vegas. I have feelings." speech in episode 13.
Edit: Aha, I found some meta on Tumblr that I think might convey what I'm trying to say more clearly. As that post says, Kinn and Porche have this repeated cycle of being happy and sweet together, then some external tension breaking them apart because of their poor communication and trust issues, then overcoming some obstacles and reconciling (usually through sex instead of communication), and re-entering their honeymoon phase without adequately dealing with the underlying issues. I felt like the final few episodes left them with a stronger relationship than some of their earlier cycles, but still at the beginning of another honeymoon phase and not at the end with the achievement of true tranquility. Hopefully season two will help them work through those last issues.
It bothered me doubly because Kinn and Porsche's relationship re-entering its honeymoon phase (for the third? fourth? time) at that exact moment kind of hit them both with the idiot bat. Especially Porsche. We saw Kinn briefly question where Pete was and Porsche, Pete's roommate and supposed friend, was the one who talked him out of investigating further? And then Porsche also seemed to lose interest in Porchay's emotional state and apparently didn't even notice that he was hurting after discovering the truth about Kim's identity? Tankhun had many great moments throughout the show, but I've rarely appreciated him more than when he marched in and called them both morons to their faces over Pete's disappearance.
I also didn't feel like Porsche's conflicted feelings about his involvement with the mafia were resolved in a satisfactory way. It's never really explained why Porsche agrees to come back to the main family's complex with Kinn after their brief escape to his own childhood home, for example, and then in the finale he seemed to accept being named the head of the minor family with no issues at all. There were hints throughout the show that he was acting and thinking more and more like part of the mafia (when he offered to kill Vegas for Pete in episode 13, for example, and then later sold Vegas access to Pete in exchange for information without regard for Pete's wishes), but also moments when he rejected the mafia life and its philosophy (i.e. when he decided not to shoot the man who supposedly killed his parents in the crash), so having him step seemingly happily and willingly into the role was a little jarring. I'm not sure at this point if he felt he had no choice (which, fair, given what we know and can guess about Korn) and is trying to make the best of it or if he really did take it on willingly and has plans. Or it could be a bit of both! Either way, I don't see it as a happy ending for him or Kinn, especially not while Korn has the power.
Gun was a bad dude, there's no doubt about that, but I'm much more inclined to believe his version of the circumstances of Porsche's father's death than Korn's, and hopefully season two will be about learning the truth behind all Korn's manipulations. They certainly hinted at that with his line about history being written by the victors, and I'm not convinced that Nampheung isn't faking her amnesia and will come forth with the truth once she feels that she and her sons are safe enough for her to do so.
So yeah, I'm hoping this will all be explored more in season two and am looking forward to seeing how it all plays out once the story is officially finished, but meanwhile, the sweetness of most of Kinn and Porsche's interactions together in the last few episodes felt out of step with what was actually happening in the story and I'm a little uncertain if they tried to go feel-good with their ending at the expense of some emotional continuity or if things are still exactly as fucked up as I think they are and it's all a setup. Like, I'm pretty sure it's a setup? But there's that lingering bit of doubt, you know?
Kimchay
Of the three main relationships, this was the one I was least invested in, mostly because Porchay was such a sweet kid that I wanted him as far away from the mafia as possible.
Kim, on the other hand, was a fascinating cipher and I wish that season one had answered more of the questions it raised about his goals with his investigation. I assume he will likely have a bigger role in season two, since my impression is that it will focus on finding out the real truth about everything that happened between Korn, Gun, and Namphueng.
In regards to Kimchay, I thought they had the worst chemistry of the three main ships, but also got the impression that this was at least partly a deliberate choice due to Kim's whole deal. I've seen some people in the fandom compare Kim to a predatory animal suddenly confronted with the existence of feelings and being not quite sure what to do about it, and this struck me as pretty accurate. I just about died when he showed up in a t-shirt literally labeled "human" in episode 13, and it was extremely fun to get to see the glimpses of the predator coming out in the warehouse scene after Porchay was kidnapped and the bar fight scene in episode 14, which was one of the highlights of an episode that had a lot of highlights, tbh. Kim is easily the scariest of the five Theerapanyakul boys and I really hope we'll get to see more of him in action in season two.
They might be able to sell me on Kimchay in the future, but for now I'm much more interested in seeing Kim killing/beating up more people (if he wants to continue leaving their dead/unconscious bodies around for Porchay to find like a cat trying to encourage its baby to hunt, I cannot lie: I would not object to that despite wanting Porchay to stay as far away as possible from all the mafia stuff, lol) and Porchay getting his education so he'll have an escape route from the mafia that Korn has quite effectively denied his brother.
Anyway, despite my quibbles and lingering questions, I thought Kinnporsche was quite a fun and addictive ride. Similar to Word of Honor, it was a passion project, and it shows in the love and attention to detail it received from cast and crew alike. I hope for more good fic now that season one is finished airing and I've already seen some other great edits and vids, so I'm sure I'll have more recs soon!
[Update: Finally fell back asleep around 1:30 AM, and the cat woke me up at 5:15 AM, just like I expected, lol. Please excuse any incoherence on sleep deprivation, since this was written half at midnight and half in the early morning.]
If you're unfamiliar with it, Kinnporsche is the title of a hit BL mafia drama from Thailand that premiered April 2, 2022. It's also the smushname of the drama's main ship. To avoid confusion, I'll put the title in italics and leave the ship smushname normal in this post. The origin story of this drama is nearly as wild as its actual plot, which involves, among other things, a great deal of violence, a lot of outrageously hot sex scenes, and some of the most hilarious product placement I've ever seen. Season one finished airing July 9, and season two is reportedly being developed.
Here's the trailer for the show:
Here's a good 'why you should watch' thread on Twitter and a fun fandom primer (Tumblr-focused).
The full uncensored episodes are available by subscription on iQIYI, as well as on the usual 🏴☠️ suspects for Asian dramas.
These thoughts are all based on just one complete watchthrough, although I've watched a bunch of my favorite scenes multiple times. I do plan to go back and rewatch the show in full from the beginning to catch some of the details I missed the first time through, and that might change some of my opinions.
For better and worse, season one of Kinnporsche went hard on everything it did. Overall, it was a ton of fun and did some stuff very well, but wasn't without flaws.
Some quick positive thoughts:
- I was pleasantly surprised by most of the acting, especially given that it was the first drama for some of the actors. It's really obvious that the cast was having a blast and their enthusiasm for each other and their roles raised the whole project up a level.
- The cinematography was absolutely stunning. If you're familiar with any other Thai BLs, it's the same cinematographer who worked on I Told Sunset About You.
- The major sex scenes for both Kinnporsche and Vegaspete were gorgeously shot and edited, hot as hell, and integrated in a way that progressed the story and deepened the characterization instead of existing purely for titillation.
- The action scenes were consistently fun and exciting.
- It's the type of show that's great fun to watch with your brain turned off, but also fun to dig into the deeper themes and symbolism it uses.
daltoneering's rec got me to try Kinnporsche originally and they've been maintaining a Google Doc with links to meta about the show, and writing some excellent meta of their own. Check out their Kinnporsche meta tag on Tumblr if you'd like to explore. (⚠️ major spoilers for all aired episodes)
On the other hand:
- The humor was heavy on cringe elements, and the level of secondhand embarrassment in episode two nearly drove me to drop the show entirely. Fortunately, it toned down after that, but still returned periodically to turn me into the NOPENOPENOPE octopus meme. I have low tolerance for secondhand embarrassment, so YMMV.
- Because of the combo of cringe humor, romance, and mafia drama, there's some issues with tonal whiplash at times.
- The pacing was overall decent, but not perfect. There were some parts I would have liked to see given a little more room to breathe, including the early development of Porsche and Kinn's relationship and some parts of Pete's progression from tortured captive to voluntarily returning to Vegas's side, and some others that I thought went on a bit too long.
- Only three named female characters in 14 episodes?
I'm going to run through some thoughts about the three main ships in order from favorite to least favorite.
⚠️MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL 14 EPISODES AHEAD
Vegaspete
I'm one of the people who ended up most invested in Vegaspete, which is funny because for the longest time I didn't get what all the fuss about Vegas was for. He was objectively hot and a fun villain, but that was about the extent of my investment until he electrocuted Pete's balls and Pete laughed in his face. Pete, I should mention, has been my favorite character since he was introduced and that scene reduced my brain activity to one long string of exclamation points, from which it has yet to fully recover, tbh. The revelation in episode 13 during the bathtub scene with Porsche of how consistently Pete was masking his true thoughts and personality for the first 10 episodes of the show also hit me like a brick dropped from a fifth story window and is a big part of the reason a full rewatch of the show is going to happen sooner rather than later.
From an acting perspective, I thought Bible and Build did great, which was all the more impressive to me since it was Bible's first role like this. The writing of their relationship was a little uneven at time, but good enough that it was the most satisfying of the three romance storylines for me. The progression from ball electrocution to tender wound bandaging and noodle making in episodes 10 and 11 was fast but very effective, imo. In particular, the scene after Vegas finds Pete unconscious and bandages his wounds where they talk about their fathers was one of my favorites in the show. I thought their storyline in episode 12 faltered a little, as I felt the escape attempt and return happened a little too quickly. However, the sex scene was worth the hype - beautifully shot and acted, just like Kinn and Porsche's major sex scenes.
Despite my minor quibbles with episode 12, I did end up pretty happy with how their relationship played out in episodes 13 and 14. In episode 13, Pete finally getting angry was excellent, and the scene of him falling apart back at the main house while holding his own throat in a near-perfect imitation of Vegas choking him was so tasty I could eat it. Edit: some tumblr meta about Pete in episode 13
Their scenes in episode 14 were just as delicious - beating the shit out of each other and then kissing with bloody mouths, Vegas begging Pete to be the one to kill him if he has to die (reminiscent of one of my absolute favorite scenes in The Untamed also), Pete explicitly and deliberately renaming himself as Vegas's pet and the callback to Vegas's earlier attempts to feed and care for him ("Because I'm hungry" ~dies~), Pete screaming in rage and despair and shooting his own coworker before collapsing over Vegas's body.... God, it was all so, so good.
My only small complaint with their scenes in the finale was that I would have liked to see a bit more of the progression towards the happy domestic scene with Macau after the timeskip, as it read a little like an ending for them and I'm now not sure what to expect for them in season two. I always worry about my favorite ships getting stuck with some horrible manufactured drama like a stupid jealousy plotline to keep them "interesting" after they get together. On the other hand, Macau's grin after he woke up and caught them kissing was delightful, and Pete's happy smile as he got embraced by both of the brothers said it all, so I will try and have faith in their happy ending in the meantime and hope for lots of good fic about them exploring their kinks together. 😇
Kinnporsche
I ended up with mixed feelings about the main couple.
As with Vegaspete, I was impressed by the acting, especially considering Mile's inexperience. Mile and Apo's chemistry was out of this world and the sex scenes between them included some of the hottest I've seen onscreen in years. I even enjoyed the more ridiculous ones, like the infamous bread kiss (seriously, the product placement in this show is hilarious) and the scene in episode 8 where Porsche rips his own shirt open so eagerly you can literally SEE the buttons go flying. Despite Kinn and Porsche's bumpy relationship and poor communication (some good meta I found on their early communication issues), Mile and Apo managed to pull off some extreme levels of cuteness in other scenes and the blatant, open adoration between them made me go "awww" against my better judgement more than once.
My mixed feelings came mainly from how the more "problematic" elements of the ship were handled. These elements didn't bother me in and of themselves (on the contrary, they were part of what made it interesting!), but I felt like they were brushed under the rug too easily in the final few episodes. I prefer problematic romances to be self-aware about the unhealthy elements and at times it seemed like the show was consciously playing them up, but there was no payoff or resolution to those moments of discomfort and by the end of the finale I was left wondering if the payoff would come in season two or if I'd simply read too much into certain acting and dialogue choices.
For example, Episode 11 was one of my favorites because of the way it seemed to lean into the power dynamics between Kinn and Porsche with scenes like Porsche being dragged in front of Korn to get interrogated about his feelings for Kinn in front of Kinn himself, Korn, Gun, Chan, and half the bodyguard squad, as well as Porsche's visible discomfort when Kinn, Tay, and Time were joking about him becoming Kinn's "love slave".
Somebody made a short fanvid cut entirely from episode 11 clips that played up the parallels between Pete's literal captivity in that episode and Porsche's implicit captivity.
⚠️ canon-typical violence, abuse, and torture, visual triggers
But starting from the helicopter blowjob near the end of episode 11, I felt that most of these hints of their imbalanced relationship either disappeared or were played for laughs. I still genuinely enjoyed a bunch of Kinn and Porsche's scenes together in the final few episodes and it did at least feel like Kinn was trying to communicate better and be more considerate of Porsche's feelings, but I would have liked to see Porsche get mad one more time and come out with anything half as powerful as Pete's "I'm a human, Vegas. I have feelings." speech in episode 13.
Edit: Aha, I found some meta on Tumblr that I think might convey what I'm trying to say more clearly. As that post says, Kinn and Porche have this repeated cycle of being happy and sweet together, then some external tension breaking them apart because of their poor communication and trust issues, then overcoming some obstacles and reconciling (usually through sex instead of communication), and re-entering their honeymoon phase without adequately dealing with the underlying issues. I felt like the final few episodes left them with a stronger relationship than some of their earlier cycles, but still at the beginning of another honeymoon phase and not at the end with the achievement of true tranquility. Hopefully season two will help them work through those last issues.
It bothered me doubly because Kinn and Porsche's relationship re-entering its honeymoon phase (for the third? fourth? time) at that exact moment kind of hit them both with the idiot bat. Especially Porsche. We saw Kinn briefly question where Pete was and Porsche, Pete's roommate and supposed friend, was the one who talked him out of investigating further? And then Porsche also seemed to lose interest in Porchay's emotional state and apparently didn't even notice that he was hurting after discovering the truth about Kim's identity? Tankhun had many great moments throughout the show, but I've rarely appreciated him more than when he marched in and called them both morons to their faces over Pete's disappearance.
I also didn't feel like Porsche's conflicted feelings about his involvement with the mafia were resolved in a satisfactory way. It's never really explained why Porsche agrees to come back to the main family's complex with Kinn after their brief escape to his own childhood home, for example, and then in the finale he seemed to accept being named the head of the minor family with no issues at all. There were hints throughout the show that he was acting and thinking more and more like part of the mafia (when he offered to kill Vegas for Pete in episode 13, for example, and then later sold Vegas access to Pete in exchange for information without regard for Pete's wishes), but also moments when he rejected the mafia life and its philosophy (i.e. when he decided not to shoot the man who supposedly killed his parents in the crash), so having him step seemingly happily and willingly into the role was a little jarring. I'm not sure at this point if he felt he had no choice (which, fair, given what we know and can guess about Korn) and is trying to make the best of it or if he really did take it on willingly and has plans. Or it could be a bit of both! Either way, I don't see it as a happy ending for him or Kinn, especially not while Korn has the power.
Gun was a bad dude, there's no doubt about that, but I'm much more inclined to believe his version of the circumstances of Porsche's father's death than Korn's, and hopefully season two will be about learning the truth behind all Korn's manipulations. They certainly hinted at that with his line about history being written by the victors, and I'm not convinced that Nampheung isn't faking her amnesia and will come forth with the truth once she feels that she and her sons are safe enough for her to do so.
So yeah, I'm hoping this will all be explored more in season two and am looking forward to seeing how it all plays out once the story is officially finished, but meanwhile, the sweetness of most of Kinn and Porsche's interactions together in the last few episodes felt out of step with what was actually happening in the story and I'm a little uncertain if they tried to go feel-good with their ending at the expense of some emotional continuity or if things are still exactly as fucked up as I think they are and it's all a setup. Like, I'm pretty sure it's a setup? But there's that lingering bit of doubt, you know?
Kimchay
Of the three main relationships, this was the one I was least invested in, mostly because Porchay was such a sweet kid that I wanted him as far away from the mafia as possible.
Kim, on the other hand, was a fascinating cipher and I wish that season one had answered more of the questions it raised about his goals with his investigation. I assume he will likely have a bigger role in season two, since my impression is that it will focus on finding out the real truth about everything that happened between Korn, Gun, and Namphueng.
In regards to Kimchay, I thought they had the worst chemistry of the three main ships, but also got the impression that this was at least partly a deliberate choice due to Kim's whole deal. I've seen some people in the fandom compare Kim to a predatory animal suddenly confronted with the existence of feelings and being not quite sure what to do about it, and this struck me as pretty accurate. I just about died when he showed up in a t-shirt literally labeled "human" in episode 13, and it was extremely fun to get to see the glimpses of the predator coming out in the warehouse scene after Porchay was kidnapped and the bar fight scene in episode 14, which was one of the highlights of an episode that had a lot of highlights, tbh. Kim is easily the scariest of the five Theerapanyakul boys and I really hope we'll get to see more of him in action in season two.
They might be able to sell me on Kimchay in the future, but for now I'm much more interested in seeing Kim killing/beating up more people (if he wants to continue leaving their dead/unconscious bodies around for Porchay to find like a cat trying to encourage its baby to hunt, I cannot lie: I would not object to that despite wanting Porchay to stay as far away as possible from all the mafia stuff, lol) and Porchay getting his education so he'll have an escape route from the mafia that Korn has quite effectively denied his brother.
Anyway, despite my quibbles and lingering questions, I thought Kinnporsche was quite a fun and addictive ride. Similar to Word of Honor, it was a passion project, and it shows in the love and attention to detail it received from cast and crew alike. I hope for more good fic now that season one is finished airing and I've already seen some other great edits and vids, so I'm sure I'll have more recs soon!
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