Ngao Boon (2020)

The Shadow of Good Deeds

I N T R O D U C T I O N
It is believed that when you are human but have no faithfulness towards Buddhism, are a sinner, and like to engage in bad deeds after you die you become a beast in hell — consuming suffering and pity there for a long time. However, if your sin is too great, after your time in hell expires the remainder of your bad deeds result in the emergence of another form of life — to suffer and grieve in the human world until your karma ends. This form is called... Preta
- Ngao Boon, 2020

B AC K G R O U N D
I began watching this drama because of two things: (1) the plot grasped my interest, and (2) Primprapa. I saw that the comment section was sparse and only 28 people had rated this drama, but that did not deter me from taking a risk! Long story short, I'm glad I decided to invest my time in this. Not only was "Ngao Boon" educational but it was also very entertaining. Yes, it did have some very obvious inconsistencies (Eg: Juk's character changing from the actor's pre-teen self to child self all throughout the drama, or wounds suddenly disappearing and reappearing in the same scenes), but I decided to let that not affect me and just continued onwards with 50 fewer brain cells. ^^

T H E B A D
+ Post-production editing.
It was very inconsistent and it was obvious that the drama was in production over a very long period of time because of the child actor who played Juk.

+ T H E CGI
There was this one shot with the pretas screeching and towering over the temple which was repeated over and over again throughout the drama.

+ Lack of attention to detail.
Injuries were appearing and disappearing. Children were growing and regressing. An amputated hand clearly showed fingers underneath the bandage.

+ Evil people are the evilest people. You have to be tolerant, please.
+ Costume of pretas — extremely obvious that they were wearing a black bodysuit, kind of took away from the reality of it.
+ FL and ML lacked chemistry in my humble opinion.
+ The FL was very very very nice. To a sinner like me, it was very irritating. In my defense though, even the ML and FL's bestie were irritated.

T H E G O O D
+ Every evil person dies one after the other and becomes a preta.
+ You get to learn about Buddism. About Karma. And about Pretas.
+ The ghost child Juk and the main leads were very good.

+ The soundtrack is very nice. Trust me!
1. https://videopress.com/v/kts34Jlk
2. https://videopress.com/v/I9IQ6K7u

+ I loved the good characters. All of them were very lovable IMO.
+ The screening sound of the preta was probably so good because even one day after completing this drama, I'm still hearing them randomly in my head.
+ Happy ending

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Infidelity, Attempted rape, Domestic violence, Drugs, Violence

8.5/10

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