Qi Pao (2012)

Well, this one looked I am going to drop in episode 1:) To tell the truth, I just opened it with intention to close it after a quick while, as I have ZERO interest in ghost stories. 'Sarp Phusa' was a pain for me. But right at the beginning, I enjoyed Anne & Krissada dynamics when she mistakenly took him for a thief, so I stayed. I tried to more or less ignore the ghost element which was surprisingly easy, one more reason that kept me on... I just took it she looked like his dead girlfriend, and that was it. Not that such story should have much of an appeal for me either, but it was delivered surprisingly well, too. I liked all the main duo's following interactions and what I appreciated the most, was he told her right in episode 1. Not only told her, he SHOWED her. Everything, photos, videos... He described their relationship. Anne's character KNEW from the start and the fact she resembled someone from his past so closely was NOT used as a "shocking" revelation after god knows how many episodes. All that earned my plus points. So, having watched many mind-numbingly stupid ghosts shows in the past, I allowed one more to bother me, for - hopefully - the last time:) I kept watching.

Supporting cast is good in comedy. That helped, too. Also there was a funny moment in second episode where Anne's character believed that pra'ek murdered his previous girlfriend. And was now after her, lol. With more episodes, the screentime devoted to ghost stuff, the past and the annoying side-characters plotting against the main girl for some silly reason or other, and their long side-stories started piling up, so I began skipping. But I stayed and watched scenes with Nhing Nirut, as watching him is enjoyable no matter the role.

But then - besides the added ghost stuff and the revenging family stuff - even long flashbacks, featuring many side-character's past stories AND Anne portraying the other (now dead) girl, were added. When they started to take up most of each episode's screentime, I began considering dropping this. There was now too many elements I wanted to skip. It all started to remind me of 'Yok Lai Mek (2009)' and that was a suffering of a watch I didn't want to repeat.

This was my last chance of watching Krissada as pra'ek (I've watched all his other subtitled lakorns already) so I did not want to drop this one... But, even those rare pra'ek-nang'ek scenes that were free of any past/ghost/revenge/villain bullsh*t were not spared from the hysterics of yet one more side-character, a super-jealous batsh*t crazy secondary female, thus spoiling rare "normal" scenes of Krissada-Anne. Episode 5, they DO get to enjoy 2 minutes alone, which results in fake CHEEK kiss (they needed to fake a kiss on the cheek, even) and Anne's character being immediatelly abducted by a secondary villain male. Oh yes, in case we did NOT have enough elements disrupting the romance genre, there's a little dose of "action/kidnapping", too. Just EVERYTHING but romance.

Episode 6 there is a proper slap/kiss. I mean the oldfashioned kiss followed by a slap then followed by even longer kiss... So we get the oldfashioned camera angle and kissing right beside the mouth, of course. The more awkward it gets the sooner it is interrupted by the hysterical secondary female, once again.

Episode 7 on Anne's character who's alive investigates who killed the dead one... Since then, there's practically nothing to keep my interest... Krissada & Anne were adorable together, else I wanted to skip 90% of the runtime. I really had ZERO interest in the plot.

The whole hong-kong setting was corny. The title "qipao" everyone was in such awe with was an usual kitchy chinese flower dress. The family jade bracelets looked absolutely ridiculous I couldn't imagine even a child wearing them (reminded me of 'Yok Lai Mek', again). As can be expected from anything chinese-related (would prefer if thai dramas remained in Thailand). Music was annoying the hell out of me. The family drama was tedious as hell. I wasn't interested in character's lengthy history. I didn't care who killed the dead girl. The series felt very long even with only 13 episodes. Episode 10 already felt like a 100.

Saying all this, you can imagine how much I fastforwarded in the end... I tried not to get too nauseated by all the murder and corpse bride stuff. Such idiocy cannot be saved by having a gay character. Krissada was cute but honestly the heoine would be better off not meeting him, lol. Especially because she would have never left her thai office with the funny side-characters and never traveled to h-k. She could have spared the audience SO much.

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A Good Suspense; Not A Good Horror

Based on the author Dr. Pongsakorn's installment of "The Cursed Fabric Series, the lakorn "Qi Pao" is a cursed Qi Pao that has beautiful peony details, signifying its previous owner.

When I first began watching this lakorn, I had just completed its prequel "Sarp Phusa" and had thus gone in expecting a horror revenge drama. This was not the case, and I was slightly disappointed.

Yes, the qi pao holds the spirit of the original owner, who bears facial resemblance to the FL, "Pink". However, much like her personality when she was alive — her spirit is soft and pink, simply crying and asking for help in order to solve her murder mystery and bring her justice the correct way. She does not possess people, scare, or threaten them.

Therefore, I think this is more of a murder mystery with a pitiful ghost who appears here and there sometimes.

If you go in with the mindset that this is a suspense drama with some bits of a ghost appearance, you will be very happy with the outcome as the suspense really was well written. I had not known who the killer was until a few moments before the reveal.

In addition to my above words, I think the ML was also non-toxic. He was kind, gentle, and supportive of the FL. This was much needed because the FL was fiery and sharp-mouthed.

There were layers of complexity within the supporting cast. For example, the ML's father's second wife and her affair, the ML's uncle and aunt's tumultuous marriage and how negatively it was impacting his aunt, and never forgetting the ML's deceased older brother's sexual orientation and sad love story because of his family's lack of acceptance.

Aside from this drama being a disappointing horror drama, I think the suspense and everything is quite enough to make up for it.

Give it a go.
8.5/10

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