Mystery of the Spirit (2024)

Objectively speaking, it's not that good, and yet I strangely really enjoyed it.
The story itself is pretty stereotypical. A house full of ghosts, secrets and conflicts under the ancient era of Thailand. Some deaths that wait to be granted justice, karma that needs to be paid, identities that need to be cleared and fights that need to end with one winner and one loser...
And yet, the writing and setting succeed in making it somehow fascinating, bewitching as we unravel the secrets of the house of Marques Thammanurak, "Tham", and his family : his mother, KhunYing Khae who's constantly fighting with her daughter-in-law that she never approved, his wife Sroi, beautiful but obviously evil scary and, her children Santhit and Saengjan, a pair of cruel twins and Butsabong, a pretty, innocent orphan girl and servant that KhunYing Khae cherishes for some unknown reason and who gets caught in their fights. Within the house, there are two names that often come back : Ratree, Khun Tham's wife who died a long time ago, but most important, Malee, a mistress of Khun Tham who died drowning with her baby and whose ghost is haunting the place. Malee's name in particular seems to raise a lot of conflicts and contradicting stories
When Saengjan's fiancee, Kuea, comes back from his studies abroad, he quickly becomes fascinated, even obsessed, with the mysteries behind this house. His fascination may come from his love at first sight for beautiful Butsabong. He then decides to secretly investigate, along with Butsabong who somehow starts to feel that her background may be related to the secrets of the house, especially to Malee.
So the viewer unravels the mysteries of this family with these two. Although it is actually quite easy to guess what happened in the past, but just like Kuea and Butsabond, we find ourselves caught and bewitched by the mysterious atmosphere, and eager to find out the details of the past and how the conflicts between the two sides of the house will conclude.
One of the things that I liked the most is that most of the characters reveal us many sides. They would not be pure evil or pure good. Most of the villains would reveal themselves to have a part of goodness : for example, even Sroi will sometimes inspire us pity for some of the things she went through and make us feel that she may not have turned so bad, if it wasn't for Khun Ying's mistreatment and snobbism towards her or her obsessional love towards her husband (that you will eventually hate even more than her, trust me). Sroi is someone who can be very generous and loving and mainly desired being with the man she loved : but she is ruthless and cruel to those she considers her enemies, failing to see the line between right and wrong. However,it will be clear for the viewer that her karma, sufferings and the hell she eventually fall into are mostly the result of her own actions.
Another example would be the children of Sroi, Saengjan and Santit. Although they first appear evil, you eventually realize that they're mostly victims of their parents' karma and that they mainly lacked proper guidance. Trust me, you will eventually feel great pity for these two. I also want to give a great praise to the actress praising Saengjan who did a stunning job despite her very young age. She becomes more attaching when you see her falling in love with the male lead, not realizing his true identity, thinking he's a simple peasant, and revealing a new side of her, cute, loving, smiling, unlike the jealous, violent and aggressive girl we had seen until now.
Even the "good" characters will not be flawless : two good examples would be KhunYing Khae, Sroi's mother-in-law, and Malee, the vengeful ghost haunting the house. It is sometimes quite hard to decide whether we should be or not on KhunYing's side. Most of the time, we feel she's been quite cruel towards Sroi and unfairly judged her simply based on her background and personal prejudices. But on the other hand, when you see how quickly Soi's love for Khun Tham turned her evil, you can't help but wonder if Khun Ying was really wrong in her judgement towards Sroi ... Anyway, it is sometimes hard to tell if we should like or despise Khun Ying. There's also Malee herself : Malee is probably the character that you will pity the most in the story as she clearly had good reasons to become a vengeful ghost, after all the awful things and injustices she went through not long before her death. However, when her vengeance later involves some innocent characters, one in particular, you can't help but blame her, despite knowing her sufferings.
Also, I like the fact that in this industry of thai entertainment that tends to promote rape culture, this lakorn definitely points rape as a sin, something despicable, even it is done in the name of "love" and that rapists should expect a retribution.
Nevertheless, I admit that the story does have some flaws
I'd say the biggest flaw is the lead couple, the main characters, Kuea and Butsabong. First, Butsabong. Butsabong is clearly there only to fulfill the purpose of a nang ek : being beautiful, innocent, inspire pity to the viewer for all the bullying she goes through the villains' hands yet never saying a bad word against them and having the "lucky halo" of the female lead. No blaming on the actress though : Aheye is very young but I think she did very good with what she had, despite having a very passive role, the kind of role that is actually the hardest to play (to play a passive character and make it natural, not boring or annoying is very hard). She's very cute and graceful, and the rare scenes where she gets possessed by Malee's ghost were also great and prove she is totally able to play more than a one-dimensional, stereotypical female lead. Nevertheless, her character is still very boring and cliche. Her natural acting succeeds in not making her intolerable like it would be with some. However, I think it is a great flaw that the writers so obviously didn't bother giving a real personality to that female lead, except being endlessly kind, even to her bullies. Next to her, her rival, the nangrai, Saengjan, seems much more interesting or attaching
Her male lead, Kuea, isn't much better. Although his interest for her family helps the story move on, it can be hard to understand why he feels this need to investigate the personal affairs of a family that is barely anything to him. Like I said, we can suppose it originates from his love for the female lead, but at first, it seems more about him simply being noisy or curious about others' personal affairs. But I think we can let that one pass as it serves the story. However, just like the female lead, our male lead lacks real personality and character. Just like her, he's obviously only there to be the male lead, serve as a romantic interest of the female lead, investigate with her the mysteries of the story (and also being one of the ultimate victories of the female lead against the nang rai, Saengjan). Also, I was kinda surprised at first to see Tee Thanapon, the actor, so unnatural and boring. But then, like I said, this kind of passive part is actually the hardest to act, so come to think of it, it is actually not surprising that he had a hard time playing this. Finally, the two characters being quite bland and boring, their love story is the same : you feel no chemistry between these two and their love for each other seems forced, obviously being only to fulfill the purpose of being there, as you don't see where it comes from. Compared to that, it is quite easy to root for Saengjan ending up with Kuea rather than Butsabong. Her story with him seems much more intriguing and her love to him is much more touching, as like I said previously, it reveals a new side of Saengjan. Besides, you can't help but feel a bit of grudge towards as he's supposed to love only Butsabong yet it sometimes seems that he's been flirting with Saengjan, leading her on and giving her fake hopes
Another thing : the writing gave the impression that the reason why Malee was so angry at Khun Tham was not because he had raped her and made her his wife against her will, and being overly jealous and possessive of her in the name of "love" (a behaviour that reminded of a lot of traditional male leads from old lakorns, except it was clearly presented as wrong here and not making excuses like it does in lakorns), but because of the sado-masochistic games he put her through. I felt like the writers had inserted this trope because they somehow feared that in this industry full of rape culture, viewers would feel like having done what many male leads had done wasn't enough to justify Malee's anger and hatred against Khun Tham as a vengeful ghost. But I thought this was useless, kinda clumsy and indirectly doing a disservice to one of the morales of the story that rape is wrong, no matter the "love".
So, in conclusion : A good writing, interesting characters, and a beautiful setting. Some little flaws, of course, but that I think can easily be overlooked. Like I said, I think that the biggest flaw is the lack of personality and chemistry of the lead couple. This can also be a bit predictable (especially with all the big spoilers that I gave you, sorry about that ?). There are some other little flaws that I can’t mention because the website doesn’t allow me that many written characters ?)
However, if you can overlook these last two flaws, I think this can be quite enjoyable to watch. Maybe not the hit of the year but you can still have a good time to watch, especially if you like drama, conflicts and ghost stories.

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