Hello Love! (Cambodia Mini-Series)

Cambodia doesn’t produce much BL content, and if this is the standard for future releases, I am happy to pass. It sounds harsh, I realize, but the premise of everyday people finding love in mundane settings requires a compelling core to actually succeed. Because both the leads and their romance are so generic and flat, the show fails to engage anyone with even a moderate amount of experience watching BL or gay content. Fortunately, the series is only five episodes long, with each one lasting twenty to twenty five minutes, so it avoids dragging on longer than necessary.

To teach them about the cultivation and processing of rice and to foster an appreciation for what makes Cambodian rice unique, a professor assigns a project to a group of students. During their fieldwork, the group meets Sal, a resort manager who offers to guide them, primarily because he had a dream about one of the students, Sam, and seeks a reason to be near him. An immediate romantic and sexual tension builds between Sam and Sal, as the feelings between them are clear from the start. As they spend more time together, their bond deepens, leading them to agree to stay in touch once the project ends. After a few days pass, Sam finds himself missing Sal and decides to visit him at the resort. However, when a female friend of Sal’s arrives for a visit, Sam becomes visibly jealous; he eventually blurts out that he actually loves Sal and flees before Sam can even respond. In a predictable turn, Sam tracks him down later to admit he feels the same way, and the two end up happy together, closing the story with a kiss.

It is obvious that this is a low budget production, and the attempt to cram too much into a short runtime is palpable. While the drone footage of the countryside and rice paddies looks nice initially, the repetitive shots quickly become tiresome. Although the cinematography is well done, these sequences feel like filler due to the thinness of the script. Even the two leads lack significant charisma; while their chemistry is okay, I simply could not bring myself to care about them as a viewer. The story’s direction becomes predictable within the first few minutes. Interestingly, the opening two episodes devote a surprising amount of time to explaining how different rice varieties are grown and distributed, which was somewhat interesting on its own, but it isn’t what I look for in a BL. It feels as though the creators mashed together a travel documentary, an educational piece, and a boys love story because they couldn’t decide on a single direction. During that final kiss scene, the actors’ discomfort was clearly visible on screen. To hide how awkward the moment felt, they filmed it from weird angles. This might work if you are new to the genre, but for a seasoned BL viewer like me, getting through this was a real slog.

Ultimately, this BL suffers from a thin story, awkward chemistry, and an excessive amount of rice education. (3.5/10)