Netflix's Mad Unicorn is impossible to stop once you start watching the first episode, it tells the gripping story of Santi Saelee, a man driven by revenge and ambition in Thailand's cutthroat delivery industry. The series opens with Santi working in a sand mine, desperate to get rich, when he realizes that the powerful Kanin Group controls the market and forces small businesses like his to sell at unfairly low prices. Through flashbacks, we see his tough background - growing up poor in a Chinese family, learning Mandarin from childhood, and literally having to hunt birds and rodents to survive in the mountains. He was so broke he couldn't even afford to send a simple package of cookies to his family, which cost 50 baht.
Everything changes when Santi attends a business lecture by the Kanin Group where he learns about monopolies, inspiring him to convince other sand mines to raise their prices together. This bold move impresses his boss, who gives him money to start his own business in Bangkok. But the big city brings its own challenges - a con man tricks him into buying apartments next to a garbage incinerator that nobody wants to buy. Desperate and doing odd jobs, he somehow manages to impress the Kanin Group CEO with his delivery service idea: offering the same service that competitors charge 50 baht for at half the price, just like companies do in China.
Here's where the betrayal happens - the CEO pretends to support Santi's startup idea, then steals it and makes his own son the CEO of Easy Express instead. Now Santi is out for revenge, starting his own company Thunder Express to compete in an intense cat-and-mouse game. Will Santi's Thunder Express beat Easy Express in this cat and mouse game? That forms the rest of this gripping 7 episode revenge story. This show definitely has lightning fast pace and incredible dialogue that captivates you to support the hero within just the first 10 minutes. The series makes you realize how brutal and competitive the delivery space really is - something you'd never think about when simply ordering things online. It shows that raising funds and starting a startup in this industry is like a blood war.
Actor Natara Nopparatayapon's dedication is remarkable - he had only two months to master Mandarin dialogue, ensuring Santi sounded like a fluent speaker rather than just a Thai person speaking Chinese. But Natara's commitment went far beyond language. He transformed his appearance, studied the character's background, and even visited the remote Doi Wawee in northern Thailand to observe local lives. During script readings, Natara envisioned one of the most iconic scenes of the series - Santi leading his Thunder Express riders on motorcycles doing wheelies. He secretly practiced motorcycle skills and pitched this powerful idea to director Nottapon, resulting in a memorable scene where Santi commands respect and shows leadership through this daring motorcycle display. The scene became symbolic of his rebellion against Easy Express and his determination to beat Easy Express at their own game.
While "Mad Unicorn" creates this fictional revenge drama, it takes loose inspiration from Thailand's real delivery industry, particularly the success story of Flash Express - Thailand's first unicorn startup.
In real life, Flash Express started with a similar observation about expensive delivery services and the opportunity to provide cheaper, more efficient alternatives. Today, Flash Express is a massive success with over 1,300 distribution centers handling 2 million packages daily and 15,000 delivery vehicles offering free door-to-door service. They've expanded across Southeast Asia to Laos, Malaysia, and the Philippines, where they employ 12,500 people serving major platforms like Shopee and Lazada.
As Komsan, the real life inspiration for Santi, from Flash Express explains, "We are not just a delivery company - we are a provider of complete e-commerce services. We cater to the needs of online vendors and help them grow."
However, it's crucial to understand that Mad Unicorn is definitely not an autobiography or even semi autobiography of Flash Express or any real person's life. While both stories involve spotting gaps in the delivery market, the Netflix series creates its own fictional characters and dramatic situations.
The real Flash Express story shows steady business growth through teamwork and smart infrastructure building, while the drama focuses on revenge and corporate warfare. Flash Express themselves acknowledge they were "not an overnight success" - it took years of hard work, unlike Santi's dramatic stratagies. The show uses the competitive delivery industry as a backdrop to tell an entertaining story about ambition, betrayal, and revenge, but the specific characters, betrayals, and the intense cat and mouse game between Thunder Express and Easy Express are purely fictional, designed to keep viewers engaged rather than document anyone's actual business journey, yet still inspiring and is one of the best shows I've ever watched.
Watch on Netflix