Poster 2 of I Told Sunset About You. Credit to Nadao Bangkok, and Dramawiki.
Poster 2 of I Told Sunset About You. Credit to Nadao Bangkok, and Dramawiki.
One of the most memorable series that took Thai entertainment industry by storm, and set a truly high bar for avid viewers around the world.
This article is written in English.

Warning and Brief Explanation

Age Rating

Restricted (R)

Parental Guidance - 13 (PG-13)

MyDramaList listed this series in 15+ - Teens 15 or older category. As I adopted MPAA rating system, I decided to use Parental Guidance - 13 (PG-13) and Restricted (R), as I think contents in this series is not as wild to reach NSFW level, but certainly not suitable for people younger than 13+.

Brief Information

  • This review contains spoiler.
  • This series includes LGBT theme. It mainly revolves around homosexual couple (Boy x Boy), but there are some heterosexual couple too.

Details and Viewer Discretion.

Teaser or Trailer

You can watch the teaser here prior to read this review or probably watch the series later on.

I Told Sunset About You Teaser

I Told Sunset About You Teaser

Credit to Nadao Bangkok on YouTube.

Series Details
  • Title: I Told Sunset About You
  • Also known as (a.k.a)cited from MDL: BKPP The Series, แปลรักฉันด้วยใจเธอ (Bplae Rak Chan Duay Jai Ter), ITSAY, Interpret My Love With Your Heart.
  • Genre: Coming of Age, LGBT, Boy x Boy, Romance, School, Friendship.
  • Country of Origin: Thailand.
  • Studio Production: Nadao Bangkok.
  • Type: Series or Drama.
  • First episode aired on: Thursday, 22 October 2020.
  • Last episode aired on: Thursday, 19 November 2020.
  • Sequel: I Promised You The Moon (2021).
  • Special Clips/Videos/Media: There is a special clips released for free as "a bridge" between former season to latter season. Behind the scenes clips also released through Line TV first, following by YouTube few days later. Soundtracks also released through YouTube, Spotify and JOOX.
Notable People
Shooting Location

Phuket, Thailand. See more details here: I Told Sunset About You page on Wikipedia.

Platform or Where to Watch?
  • Thailand Viewers: Line TV
  • International Viewers: Vimeo. But it's only available for rent, for days or weeks around that time. Priced 15 USD for each episode at first, then reduced to 5 USD after second or third week. I am gonna return later to check this information.
  • Available subtitle: English, through Vimeo.
Viewer Discretion
  • Boy x Boy couple.
  • Peck (mild) between boy and girl in EP 1.
  • Firecrackers in EP 1.
  • Kissing on neck (quite wild) and chest groping near the end of EP 3.
  • Boy masturbation (not shown explicitly) in EP 4.

    • Will be updated with more details later.

More details can be read on IMDB, MDL, Drama Wiki, Wikipedia. Up till this year, this series has been nominated and won various awards nationally (in Thailand), and internationally. Whether as the series itself, or for individuals involved in the production.

TL;DR

I Told Sunset About You depicted how the “Coming of Age theme” supposed to be, especially in high-schooler students set, whose still virgin in love. Viewers will see how love blooms, unknowingly, in these two main (boy) characters.

My Review

Theme, Background

As stated above, this series mainly revolves around Coming of Age theme, but in set of high-school students, around final year. Both main characters is a boy, who knew each others from 1st grade, junior high school, grew up together, then became close. Due to a school play (first conflict for both) which resulted in an unresolved misunderstanding, they grew apart for five years, then met again in a extra class to learn Chinese. The story goes on from here then.

Probably another notable background is Teh is a smart students. He is good in Chinese already, which means he doesn't need to take that extra class. He also received a place in an uni already. Oh-Aew in the other side, is not that smart in Chinese, hence why he took that class, to improve his score for university entrance placement. This background also can be seen as the main motive behind this series later.

Characters, Story Flow, Dialogue, Point of View

Characters

There are two main characters here, Teh and Oh-Aew. All stories revolves around them. Support character that also shown in the series is:

  • Teh's Mom and Older Brothers (plus brother's girlfriend from Japan).
  • Oh-Aew's Mom and Dad.
  • Teh and Oh-Aew's group of friends, known as MoRaoYuLok.
  • Teh's girl friend, which Teh has crushed on for years, before...
  • Other than that, support characters consists of Chinese class teachers and students, school students, and other ordinary people in the series.

Story Flow

The story flow goes forward throughout the series, and only goes backward once, in early part of EP 1. This early part, told viewers background behind their first meet, and how they and MoRaoYuLok grew, and reason behind their long-unresolved-misunderstanding.

Dialogue

The series using Thai language, and some Chinese. As there is an English subtitle available, it's not hard to understand for international viewers.

Point of View

The series mainly told viewers from Teh's PoV. I barely recall any implicit PoV from Oh-Aew throughout the series.

Conflicts

Conflicts in these series honestly feels... Normal. As in it's a real situation that could happen, whether as a high-school students, or even as an adult. It doesn't feel too dramatised, hence why I enjoyed it till the end. Most of these conflicts are due to misunderstanding, ego, giving up too much, miscommunications, and more. Which practically what happened in our real life too.

Morales or Messages

You just... Never know when and who you will fall in love with huh...

Extended Review

As someone who watches various series or movies, which includes various elements, such as LGBT. This series is… one of the most beautiful one I have ever seen. The directing, the scripts, the music scores, the lighting, the properties, it’s just… blended into one masterpiece, that definitely set the bar really high.

Even though I had zero to no concern at first toward this series, but due to some accounts sharing interesting snippets on Twitter, I ended up deciding to watch this series too. And I definitely am not regretting that decision. Throughout the series, I just couldn’t see any scenes that felt like “a filler”. Everything feels thoroughly planned out from beginning to the end.

Every single thing shown or played, has its own meaning, which makes viewers enjoy the series, and doesn’t feel bored. Even though each episode is as long as one hour or basically as long as a movie. Viewers even analysed various things, and theorised various theories during it’s airtime.

The last time I felt so good and enjoyed a series like this was in 2014 or 2015-ish, which is Love Sick The Series (Season 1). The first season of Love Sick was smoothly enjoyable from the first episode till the end. Same as Love Sick, this one also smoothly flows from the first till the end. It just feels normal, which makes viewers crave for more and couldn't wait for the next one.

In short, this series set the bar too high, especially in LGBT theme, in Thailand industry, I think. As far as I know, both actors also skyrocketed to the top, shortly during the series airing, and after. Both also have received numerous awards, whether for themselves, or even for the series. Same goes on to other people involves in the production.

Unfortunately, like many other series, the sequel just couldn’t match the bar set by it’s predecessor. I for myself haven’t finished watching the sequel yet, as I feel quite bored and only finished till 2/5 episode only, yet. Some of my mutual friends on Twitter also expressed their disappointment toward the sequel, even though it seems like it ended “good”.

Worth to Read or More Explanations

When the series aired, there were various theories that came up from viewers, especially on Twitter, as it’s easier to share your thoughts there. Even after it ended, the production team of this series are still sharing tid-bit of various details placed or used throughout the series, and there’s a few studies too regarding this series.

Here are a few videos, or extended pieces that are worth reading, to understand more about the series, whether it’s about symbolizations used throughout the series, theories when the series was airing, their music scores, and more.

ITSAY's Improvised Scenes by cess 🌺 (@gunxoff) on Twitter
Unnoticed things in ITSAY EP 2 by Mint 🌺✨| ITSAY DAYYY (@bbylkins) on Twitter
ITSAY's Color Theory by afia (@bkppsitsay) on Twitter
Oh-Aew's Color Symbolization by yukicoco🌺🥥 (@yukicocoonut) on Twitter
Wardrobe selection by yukicoco🌺🥥 (@yukicocoonut) on Twitter
Khun Boss‘s interview about ITSAY by เจี๊ยบตัดยางเราทำไม (@OGTNAF) on Twitter
ITSAY and IPTYM Photobook by rory marie ; vote svt on mama (@hereforbillkin) on Twitter
ITSAY Book by shrush || dramatic era 🎭 (@BillkinsDimples) on Twitter

Extended Media

Music Playlist

Here are various playlist on various platform regarding I Told Sunset About You.

Original Soundtrack Playlist (Complete) - YouTube

This is a playlist contains all of the songs released as soundtrack through YouTube.

Original Soundtrack Playlist (Complete) - Spotify

This is a playlist contains all of the songs released as soundtrack through Spotify.

Original Music Score Playlist - YouTube

This is a playlist contains all of the songs released as soundtrack through YouTube.

Original Music Score Album - Spotify

This is a playlist contains all of the songs released as music score (instrumental only) through Spotify.

Video Galleries

And last, here is some videos regarding this series.

Behind The Scene Playlist

If I remember correctly, these behind the scene clips originally released on Line TV for Thailand viewers, following by Vimeo with English subtitles, and later on YouTube for free.

Last Twilight in Phuket

This is "a bridge" content, released prior to I Promised You The Moon.

Last Twilight in Phuket

Last Twilight in Phuket

Credit to Nadao Bangkok on YouTube.

I Promised You The Moon Teaser

Teaser for I Promised You The Moon (IPTYM), sequel of I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY).

I Promised You The Moon Teaser

I Promised You The Moon Teaser

Credit to Nadao Bangkok on YouTube.

Conclusion

Do I Recommend This Series?

Yes, Definitely.

I realised that this series is not for everyone as this topic is still a taboo, and there is a lot of matter regarding this topic and genre.

If you are okay with opening up yourself to other cultures, then YES. Definitely YES. This series showed how humans normally, how we struggle with feelings, some abstract thing that can’t be solved logically.

But, if you don't think you could watch LGBT shows, which heavily depicted in series like this, especially when both main characters are boys, then you’d better not watch this series. It’s okay, there’s other great series too aside from this one.

😄👍🏻 So Good

95/100 pts

That's all for now. Thank you for reading this review, and see you on another post. Bye! 👋🏻