#BEST THAI NETFLIX ORIGINAL OF 2025

[arminthada]

MAD UNICORN - a Riveting Rags-to-Riches Saga Inspired by Thailand’s First Unicorn Startup

Santi, a driven young entrepreneur who transitions from a life in the mountains to the high-pressure world of express delivery. As he navigates betrayal and fierce competition, themes of ambition, resilience, and redemption emerge, painting a vivid picture of his quest to make his business succeed in Thailand.

In Mad Unicorn, Ice-Natara Nopparatayapon (One for the Road, Delete) stars as Santi, the ambitious protagonist who dreams of lifting his family out of poverty. Armed with fluent Mandarin taught by his mother, Santi spots an opportunity in the express delivery industry and launches “Thunder Express.” When a ruthless tycoon, Kanin, portrayed by legendary actor and musician Ek-Thaneth Warakulnukroh (The Sea is Watching), betrays him, Santi teams up with a sharp-witted financier, Xiaoyu (Janeyeh Jiranorraphat), and an antisocial coding prodigy, Ruijie (Dr. Palang Rocksilp).

Mad Unicorn weaves a narrative rich in cultural authenticity and innovation. Set against the backdrop of Bangkok’s dynamic business landscape, the series takes viewers on a wild ride through the world of express delivery services.

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Fun facts about the series/Ice Natara I picked up from listening to actors/director interviews

The project began when producers Keng Jira and One Vanridee heard a YouTube show about Flash Express CEO who went from being a hill tribe child to building Thailand's first unicorn logistics startup. They invited Kai Nottapon who specialises in making documentaries to to interview the CEO, eventually asking him to direct the series. Mad Unicorn is Kai Nottapon's first solo directing project for a series.

The series had 78 days of filming (74 planned filming days, plus 2 extra days and 2 reshoot days) and 128 locations over five months.

Kai's documentary background influences his directing style, particularly his strong attachment to realism, which means he prefers realistic sets and avoids green screens (i personally thought his comedy screenwriting experience from Suckseed and May Who? also came through in this script).

The series aims to inspire viewers and convey the message of daring to try, to fail, and to persevere, like Santi who repeatedly starts from zero to reach his goals.

Director Kai reveals that the story is so inspiring that after finishing the script for Mad Unicorn, one of the writers in the screenwriting team felt inspired to quit her GDH screenwriter job and start her own company. The screenwriter Kai referred to is Tang Pattaranat Phiboonsawat who founded LOOKE with Boss Kuno to make GELBOYS 🤣

Casting Santi was difficult due to the need for high acting skill, character suitability, and Chinese language proficiency. Director Kai Nottapon said that Ice Natara was the only choice, as the producers believed he could overcome the language barrier.

Ice didn't know a single word of Chinese and he had only 2 months to learn enough to speak fluently and convincingly for business contexts because 50-60% of his dialogues are in Chinese.

Ice Natara disappears all the time is because he's so dedicated to his roles and he spends almost all of his free time doing homework and preparation for his next role.

Ice puts all his works onto his website portfolio icenatara.com and he believes that his portfolio can speak on his capabilities without having to be on social media.

For Gasohug, Ice had to played a Lahu tribe gas station attendant who spoke Thai imperfectly. So to prepare for his first acting role, Icewent to the Lahu tribe in northern Thailand, recorded a local guide's voice to practice the accent, and listened to it daily, spoke with the accent for three months and interned at a gas station for a month, working shifts to learn how to refuel cars, check tire pressure, and clean windshields.

For The Collector, Ice had to play a starving cartoonist and had to lose a lot of weight for the role so he limited his diet to one guava a day and lived like the character for 4-5 months, wearing character-like clothes and glasses, and spending only 6,000 baht (184 USD)/month for months straight (so by the end of filming, he said he unintentionally saved up a lot of money. He's so into the character that one time they had been filming a scene where his character is all bloodied and bruised from being assaulted, he went home in that character's makeup and got pulled over by the cops, Ice explained that he was an actor filming a series but they didn't believe him and asked him to take a urine test. He searched up his own name on the internet to give to them and they still didn't believe and asked him to do the test =))))))))))

Ice considers Santi in Mad Unicorn to be the most challenging role he's ever had to play. He insisted on performing a wheelie on a motorcycle for a scene, even buying a motorcycle and hiring a national wheelie champion as a coach after the director initially said no (the fact that he did all this for one big action sequence in the final episode) just so that he could do it himself without using stuntmen.

Ice also went to a logistics warehouse near his house, asked to intern for them and went on delivery routes with local riders to understand the business from an operational perspective for Mad Unicorn.

Unrelated to the series but when Ice Natara was a model in South Korea, he trained with Nam Yoon Su (Love In The Big City) and under the same modeling agency.