Writer: Florey DM

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Watch this if you liked: “I Fine..Thank You..Love You”, “Mr. Hurt”

The Good, the Bad and the Big Brother:

Those with siblings can easily relate to the story, because who hasn't felt like they're living in the shadows of their more successful siblings or felt like crawling into a hole thanks to the embarrassing things their more carefree siblings get up to.

In "Brother of the Year", Sunny Suwanmethanont stars as Chut, the titular brother, while Urassaya Sperbund plays his sister Jane and Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul is Moji, her Thai-Japanese fiancee.

This plays out how love triangles usually do in rom-coms, girl wants to marry guy of her dreams but another guy interferes and spoils the romance, though this time it's brotherly love that gets in the way of the couple's relationship.

The movie doesn't waste time establishing Chut and Moji's relationship, it doesn't get dragged out because like the title indicates, the focus is on the (very overprotective) brother here and how he reacts to the situation at hand.

Of course, having two bankable male leads, the movie does try to lengthen Nichkhun's screentime, so there are moments that the movie gives the couple more room to be alone, stretching out their scenes just a bit more so that fans can swoon longer over the K-idol's good looks (for the uninitiated, Nichkhun is a member of Korean boyband 2PM).

Soppy romances aside, there are plenty of laughter to be had from this movie, mostly due to the squabbling siblings. In all its goofiness, the movie still does a pretty good job of examining the relationship between polar opposite siblings. Chut dislikes his sister's overachieving attitude, which puts him in a very bad light seeing that he hardly excels in anything. Jane dislikes her brother's incompetency and wishes she has a more reliable older brother.

What leaves her in despair the most, though, is Chut is way too capable at the one thing that he does very, very good - driving away her love interests. His staunch refusal to accept Moji into their family forms the core of the trio's complicated relationship.

Chut's character arc shows him improving from being a man with no directions in life to someone, well, better. And at least the writers didn't feel obligated to shoehorn a romance for him too, so it doesn't undermine the more substantial tones of Jane and Moji's relationship, which explores the obstacles faced by couples from different countries, especially when marriage comes into play and one half of an expat couple will have to uproot and adapt to a different environment.

Movies starring Sunny are often box office hits and this one is no exception, with the chemistry between the three leads and the funny (yet hefty) storyline, this movie is a fun watch - whether watched with friends or siblings.

Trivia:

• In the movie, Sunny and Yaya play Thai-French characters while Nichkhun plays a Thai-Japanese, in real life Sunny is of Thai-Singaporean-French descent while Yaya is Thai-Norwegian and Nichkhun is an American-born Thai-Chinese.

• Nichkhun also had to speak Japanese in his film debut, where he played a prince named Lawrence in 2012 Japanese school comedy, "Ouran High School Host Club".

Cinema Online, 27 June 2018