SINGAPORE – Popular actors team up for a variety of titles – a road-rage drama, true-crime retelling, thriller, fantasy buddy-comedy and spy caper – in the month of April. The Straits Times highlights five to check out.
Beef
Premieres on Netflix on Thursday
Oscar-nominated actor Steven Yeun (Minari, 2020) and stand-up star Ali Wong play enemies on opposite ends of the social-status spectrum in the 10-parter road-rage drama Beef.
His character is a contractor who struggles to pay the bills, while hers is a self-made entrepreneur. A traffic scuffle between the two ignites an ugly feud as they go to increasingly extreme ends to take revenge on each other. Writer-creator Lee Sung-jin drew inspiration for the show from his own experience of a road-rage incident.
Why it is worth the watch: Yeun and Wong’s combined dramatic and comedic potential make a strong pitch.
The Last Thing He Told Me
Premieres on Apple TV+ on April 14
In this adaptation of Laura Dave’s best-selling novel of the same name, Jennifer Garner plays Hannah, a woman who has to forge a bond with her stepdaughter (Angourie Rice) when her husband (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) suddenly goes missing. As she investigates his disappearance, she discovers that he is not who he seems to be.
Why it is worth the watch: The partnership between Garner and executive producer-actress Reese Witherspoon is a draw. Witherspoon and her production company Hello Sunshine have a proven track record with binge-worthy women-centric stories. Their string of successful adaptations of books by women include Big Little Lies (2017 to 2019), Little Fires Everywhere (2020) and Daisy Jones And The Six (2023).
Oh No! Here Comes Trouble
Premieres on iQiyi International on April 15
The genre-blending fantastical coming-of-age comedy stars Your Name Engraved Herein (2020) breakout star Tseng Ching-hua as a delinquent high schooler who gains the ability to speak to spirits after a serious accident.
With his new-found powers, he teams up with a policewoman (Vivian Sung from 2015’s coming-of-age romance Our Times) and a nerdy medical student played by Peng Chien-you, who had a small but memorably tragic role as Greg Hsu’s lover in Nowhere Man (2019), to rid the world of negative thoughts.
Why it is worth the watch: Aside from its headlining trio working together for the first time, the supporting cast has big names – Taiwanese stars Cheryl Yang and Joseph Cheng, plus popular Thai actor Nonkul Chanon Santinatornkul (Bad Genius, 2017).
Family: The Unbreakable Bond
Premieres on Disney+ on May 5
Two A-list Jangs of K-drama – Jang Hyuk and Jang Na-ra – play husband and wife in this new spy-comedy series, marking their third on-screen reunion since they first worked together in the classic K-drama Successful Story Of A Bright Girl (2002).
For years, National Intelligence Service agent and expert sniper Kwon Do-hoon (Jang Hyuk) has kept his job a secret from everyone in his life, including his wife Kang Yu-ra (Jang Na-ra), but she has an explosive secret of her own.
Why it is worth the watch: On top of it being another collaboration between seasoned screen partners, it seems like the perfect K-drama for anyone who enjoyed the hit comedy-thriller anime Spy X Family (2022 to present).
Love & Death
Premieres on HBO Go on April 27
Another television retelling of a true-crime tale, Love & Death is based on the true story of Texan housewife Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen), who is accused of using an axe to murder her friend Betty Gore (Lily Rabe).
The series tracks how two ordinary married couples – Candy and Pat Montgomery (Patrick Fugit), Betty and Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons) – go from good friends in a small town to being torn apart by an extramarital affair.
The pairing of Olsen and Plemons (Game Night, 2018) as illicit lovers is exciting, given how both can have a creepy, unsettling side to them.
Why it is worth the watch: Practice makes perfect? In WandaVision (2021), Olsen played a seemingly picture-perfect housewife on the verge of a mental breakdown; here, she takes on the role of a housewife-turned-axe murderer.
Correction note: An earlier version of this article stated that Nonkul Chanon Santinatornkul’s role in Oh No! Here Comes Trouble is his first Mandarin-speaking one. This is incorrect.
