Nang Ai (2016)

Underrated gem

It is a coming of age drama. You might feel the drama is moving slowly with all the school elements but that is the real essence of this show. Each event which might seem like childish issues actually steer the characters to their adulthood shaping their final characters. You will see a gradual but definite character growth for all the characters towards the end. There are a lot of different shades of friendship and comradeship. There is a lot of fun elements keeping the show lighthearted. The romance is slow burn which is a good thing here because the female lead is a schoolgirl and the couple has a kind of big age gap. It would have been awkward if the couple gets together fast.
The female lead is very adorable and her acting is really good. She makes a very believable naive schoolgirl. The male lead definitely shines even with less screentime. The couple had an amazing chemistry. The bickering between them was cute and funny to watch. I just wish the couple had more screentime. Rest of the cast too did a good job. I must say when I started watching this show I had low expectations but was pleasantly surprised by the plot and characters. Definitely give it a try and by the end of it the show and the characters would have grown on you so much that you will not be disappointed at all.

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The lakorn starts with the young "nang'ek" entering some kind of "convent" boarding school. One can instantly see it must be boring to death there, as the kids in it have very childish ways to amuse themselves. There are 3 girls desperately trying to play some kind of "queens" of the school: with all the girls wearing the exactly same clothes, having exactly the same hairstyles (yea, it's hard to look menacing while wearing two braids) and sharing the same drill, it is even more ridiculous than in your usual "school drama". For example, when all girls are assembled in the canteen, talking is prohibited during meals. All the nang'ek needs to do is happily abide:) She ends up spending time at the head nun's office, instead of sneaking out to watch the boys' football match (luckilly the camera takes us, the audience, there anyways:) Meanwhile, she discovers the convent does such things to the girls like making them all sleep in 1 room, or making them all "shower" while dressed. Is she really going to worry she'd get expelled from there?:) She's minister's daughter, she has her family to go back to. She's not orphan of Lowood.

Yeah, everything fades when it is revealed there is a boys school right next to the convent. So close the girls can walk beside the see-through fence and pass the strayed ball to the boys playing there. Still, most of the screentime is devoted to the girls putting all energy to just squawk among themselves. Or each of the girls has her own drama that takes up the whole episode.
But soon the nang'ek fails to follow whichever strict rule enough to get reprimanded in Grate Warintorn character's office. So at least that's that good for. Because it results in her regularly dropping by his quarters, calling him "uncle" (LOL). I wondered whether this is really going to be romance or not.

I more or less slept through first 7 episodes (I wasn't buying the "drama") untill there was some kind of sing-and-dance competition. I woke up, as I always say I wish for a dance scene in EACH lakorn:) Next episode, featuring just singing in the nun uniforms with many shots of the church and holy christ did not meet with such enthusiasm from me, LOL.

Generally I found the whole christian setting ridiculous and annoying. Watching a thai series, had they sticked to buddhism and refrained from talking to each other in ridiculous sounding english, I would have admired it more. I have read that this lakorn's romance is stored for the few last episodes only but frankly by that time, I was no longer even interested in it. I haven't developed true interest in the characters. The Grate Warintorn's character had an endearing butler, but that was it, LOL.

But I admit the last few episodes got better, the girls finally understood it's actually more intelligent to make friendships than the opposite (else, what to bring home from such "education"?), though I found the two closest girls to Nang annoying and probably would not befriend them even if they locked me up with them for several years.

Also, when they were all back in their respective homes I kinda felt the story has ended and still five or four episodes with very long runtime were left. As I didn't really care whether any of the main girls shall really end up with the guys they were obviously supposed to end up with, I was actually bored the same as the early stages. I admit some cute scenes did come, even if not sooner than one episode before last. It was almost a shock, but Nang and her former "uncle" turned out to be totally adorable together:) Nevertheless, again I wasn't buying the "drama" with her father that made zero sense... But the ending I liked. I agreed the feelings of the father giving his daughter away were important. I liked the happy end and there was no off-putting fake kiss despite leading actress' age. So, no more points down:)

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