“The school’s summer break is the time all teenagers are waiting for, when young hearts begin to throb in crazy tempo and the bubbling hormones compel teenagers to do crazy things, especially when it comes to love.”

Hormones(ปิดเทอมใหญ่ หัวใจว้าวุ่น;Pidterm Yai Hua Jai War Wun)is a 2008 Thai Comedy/Romance movie. It stars Charlie Trairat, Unsumalin S., Sirachuch Chienthaworn, Focus Jirakul and Sora Aoi. This film could be compared to Seasons Change as it is also film about teenagers learning the lessons of life: although in Hormones it’s all about love. Set in summer break when school is out, the film features 4 separate stories linked together with themes of teens being teens, and of course love. Each is bittersweet, yet still extremely funny throughout with an ultimately happy ending.

1) The first story follows two boys who are fiercely competitive with each other. Both are players, but things will change when they unexpectedly bump into an old childhood friend. They didn’t think much of her before, but she has grown cute since they last saw her two years ago. Both decide to go after her, which causes a rift in their friendship as they fight to win the girl. They decide that whoever gets her phone number first will have the girl, and the loser will have to admit defeat. But Nana may not be as clueless to this as she seems. In the end, she may be the one to defeat and change them. Or at least make them realise the importance of friendship. It’s not all about love is it?

2) The second story is about a geeky boy who loves the popular girl. Even though she’s known to be hard to get, love makes you do some crazy things that completely go against your personality. Relentlessly, desperately he pursues her trying to make her realise he doesn’t want to be the nice friend; he wants to be her boyfriend. No matter how embarrassing, he’s willing to do anything to make her realise his feelings. Although in this story, it’s about the boy realising they cannot be together and accepting it and moving away from it which is more unusual and actually makes this storyline slightly sad even if more realistic/believable.

3) The third story is the crazy-ist and most unrealistic of the four. It’s about a young girl who is completely obsessed with Didi, a gorgeous and popular Taiwanese pop-star, to the point she stands in the street and screams at a cardboard cut-out of him, spends huge amounts of money on imported CDs and then proceeds to take the cardboard cut out home and treat it like it’s the real thing. Yes, this girl is delusional. She even puts her all into learning Chinese to prepare herself for the concert of his so she can meet him and talk to him. But when his concert is cancelled, she falls into depression which allows her to see the reality of her situation. In her despair she sends Didi a video of her singing the basic Chinese she has learned, not expecting anything in return. But maybe she has a future with Didi after all… (and her running into Didi and him not thinking she’s crazy and delusional and kind of liking her is what makes this unrealistic I think)

4) The fourth story contains more mature themes, and an older couple. I think they are college students here. They are already established before the film begins, in fact their three year anniversary is approaching. Both are deeply in love with each and from the outset they seem like the perfect, happy couple. However now on their summer break the girl leaves to work outside of the city leaving her boyfriend behind. They agree that he will join her for a few days on their anniversary. Whilst she’s away he stays loyal to her. But he misses her and comes a day earlier, only to meet a gorgeous Japanese girl on the train. You see, he loves Japanese girls. And so he lies to his girlfriend and spends a wild day and night with the girl who he cannot help but be attracted to. She’s gorgeous, sweet and friendly (and Japanese). But when things get hot and heavy he realises he cannot go through with it, he loves his girl to much. So with renewed enthusiasm he sets out to see his girlfriend. But it’s already too late; she knows. Has he thrown away his relationship or…?

Each story is woven around the other, connected by a fantastic youthful OST (some really catchy pop rock themes ^^) and the feelings of each group as their stories go from light-hearted and funny, to serious and bittersweet before reaching the happy ending. The movie is downright silly at times, completely serious at others but overall so much fun to watch. I laughed so much during this movie. Even though sometimes the humour is blatant, it still works very well. What I also loved about this movie was the insight it gave into a teenager living in Thailand. Some films are so glamorous they don’t really count as a cultural insight, but in this film you could see a lot of ordinary Thai life: from Trains, to parties/clubs and bars etc. Not to mention ordinary teens and friendships… it just added something even more interesting to the film from a foreigner’s perspective.

Overall I highly recommend this. Although its primary audience may be teenagers, anyone looks for something fun that doesn’t require too much thought could enjoy this movie ^^