Twins The Series Review
Most stories focusing on identical twins tend to emphasize on polar-opposite personalities despite all the surface similarities, however, Thai series “Twins” is about two brothers who are both athletes, hot-headed, and self-centered. One of them is just a LOT more happy-go-lucky than the other, while the other is asocial, and exceedingly arrogant for no apparent reason.
Directed by Pro Siwasit Phondongnok and Ball Kanathorn Tabvilai, “Twins” is a 12-episode sports-themed romantic drama. Frame Ritchanon Sriprasitdacha portrays both Sprite and Zee, estranged twin brothers and athletes in their respective disciplines. Sprite, a cheerful jiu-jitsu champion, and Zee, a dedicated rising volleyball star, have their worlds collide when goons, targeting Sprite, mistakenly attack and injure Zee. To safeguard Zee’s sporting future, their mother persuades Sprite to assume Zee’s identity, leading to a challenging double life.
For a sport-themed show, there’s a good amount of volleyball throughout the episodes, although, a lot of it looks quite stages, but to the creators’ credit – it all looks a lot more believable than some of the other Thai series featuring sport segments. Ritchanon Sriprasitdacha is quite cute as both Sprite and Zee, but the characters aren’t fleshed out well, so it becomes confusing to differentiate between the twins in the second-half. The title leads one to believe you’d see enough of both brothers, but there’s a lot more focus on Sprite’s struggles to fit in the volleyball team and juggle jiujitsu along with it.
While Zee has a crush on a girl called Salmon (Mimi Ruethaiphat Phatthananapaphangkorn), Sprite begins to fall for volleyball player First (Ryan Panya Mcshane) while pretending to be Zee. Prior to Sprite secretly taking Zee’s place, Zee didn’t get along with any of his team-mates, least of all with First. So there’s a decent amount of comedy generated by a happy Sprite replacing the grumpy Zee, leaving the volleyball team bewildered over his improved friendly attitude but worsened volleyball skills. While Zee is transparently mean-spirited, Sprite who seemed to be the better of the two, turns out to be a bigger jerk by the end of the show, as he causes a lot of confusion and pain to the unsuspecting First, when the two brothers start swapping their places once Zee recovers from his injuries.
There are two more secondary couples in “Twins”, one follows Sprite’s best-friend Thun (Pooh Phiangphor) falling for the cute volleyball player Sam (Team Tatchanon Thongpao), although the latter has a huge crush on Zee. Another romantic sub-plot involving Zee’s teammates could’ve been completely removed from the show, as their story does nothing but serve some steamy scenes while the primary pair’s romance is still in the incubation period.
For a series with an “enemies to lovers” trope, “Twins” is entertaining in parts, but becomes a pain to watch in the last few episodes. The show should’ve been condensed to a eight-episode drama.
Rating: 5 on 10. Twins is available on GagaOolala.
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