This review may contain spoilers
TL;DR - A good one to watch if you are the type that only cares about the OTP. It does get kdrama-esque near the end, but you will still finish the lakorn feeling satisfied. Arthit's dad is MVP.
It has been a hot minute since I've watched a channel 3 lakorn and I saw that this was considered one of the best in 2020, so I decided to give this a go. After finishing it today, I was left feeling pleasant and satisfied. While I have no regrets watching it, there are some issues I did have that brought this down lower than I expected. I will first discuss what I enjoyed.
The main thing I enjoyed was definitely the character development of our leads, with Paeng being obvious but also Arthit surprisingly near the end. I had a love-hate relationship with Arthit tbh; his bullying of Paeng, while warranted in the beginning, got too much to the point of grotesque and I was very close to writing him off. But eventually, he does get his comeuppance later on and with that he mellows out and matures. I also liked how his character was consistent; sometimes with these possessive types, their moods go up and down like crazy and their actions are all over the place. But with him, it was always consistent and even with all his ridiculous actions, it never felt out of character (I just want to shout out at how he legit threw up when he heard Paeng and Non were dating; on anyone else it would seem like overreacting but with him it felt like something he would do and I found a lot of humor in that).
I also loved how this was set in the countryside and how beautiful the scenery was. Sometimes, I would pay more attention to the background (and admire it) then the actual scene at hand haha. It definitely gave a different, more homey feel than if this was set in the city.
This show was mainly focused on our leads and I have to say, it's a good thing they casted the right people for them. I think Kao and Mark did a pretty good job with their characters; even when they were being terrible, they were still watchable. You could understand their motivations and although I did not agree with some of the actions they took, I could understand why. Their transition from hate to love was very well done and I loved their proposal scene and wedding at the end.
Another thing is the MVP of this lakorn which is Arthit's dad; if you know, you know. He was the best character out of the entire lakorn with how understanding and awesome he was, and I kinda wished he could be my dad.
Now for some issues I had. First is that because this was focused heavily on the leads, it left almost no development or time for the secondary cast. They had more presence in the beginning, but pretty much faded out in the third part of the lakorn. Even if they did show up, they were used as a tool to move the plot forward or a means to get the leads together. In particular, I have to comment on our 2nd leads, Non and Ling. While I'm glad they weren't terrible, they were essentially used to propel the romance of our main leads, and I really couldn't care less about them or their romance. Their story was very stereotypical and a huge turn off for me, so I ended up skipping their moments. They had an interesting conflict near the end with Ling's infertility, but that was pretty much resolved in 10 minutes and added to my disinterest of them.
Another issue I had was a logic inconsistency, in which characters would take a certain action that didn't make sense. There were a lot of moments while watching where I thought "If character A was like so, they would take action B instead of C", and it wasn't something I could ignore. An example I'll give is when Non was preparing to propose to Ling. You would think with how much he loves Ling and fought to be with her, that he would plan his proposal to her. Instead, he gets Arthit and Paeng, who've largely been dealing with their own issues, to plan it out which is weird. Most of this was done to again push our leads together or out of convenience, which I couldn't help but be a little turned off by.
Finally, I have to say that the last third of the lakorn felt very drawn out and was very reminiscent of an old-style kdrama, where the mom intervenes in the relationship and they have to break up bc of that. Firstly, they could've cut down those episodes and secondly, it annoyed me that Paeng was being a noble idiot and bringing about unnecessary drama and angst. I hate the noble idiot route and personally find it better when both leads fight for the relationship. I don't want them to force it, but they can certainly work on convincing the mom instead of getting teary eyed and wishing eo well when you know damn well they will get together in the end. To me it's a waste of time, and I wished this was filled more with romance instead.
All in all, I still came off happy watching this and enjoyed myself for the most part. Music was good and played appropriately. I don't see myself re-watching this as a whole, but I would come back to specific moments in the lakorn. If you were wondering if you should watch this lakorn, and don't mind that the leads are the main focus, I would totally say to give it a watch.
It has been a hot minute since I've watched a channel 3 lakorn and I saw that this was considered one of the best in 2020, so I decided to give this a go. After finishing it today, I was left feeling pleasant and satisfied. While I have no regrets watching it, there are some issues I did have that brought this down lower than I expected. I will first discuss what I enjoyed.
The main thing I enjoyed was definitely the character development of our leads, with Paeng being obvious but also Arthit surprisingly near the end. I had a love-hate relationship with Arthit tbh; his bullying of Paeng, while warranted in the beginning, got too much to the point of grotesque and I was very close to writing him off. But eventually, he does get his comeuppance later on and with that he mellows out and matures. I also liked how his character was consistent; sometimes with these possessive types, their moods go up and down like crazy and their actions are all over the place. But with him, it was always consistent and even with all his ridiculous actions, it never felt out of character (I just want to shout out at how he legit threw up when he heard Paeng and Non were dating; on anyone else it would seem like overreacting but with him it felt like something he would do and I found a lot of humor in that).
I also loved how this was set in the countryside and how beautiful the scenery was. Sometimes, I would pay more attention to the background (and admire it) then the actual scene at hand haha. It definitely gave a different, more homey feel than if this was set in the city.
This show was mainly focused on our leads and I have to say, it's a good thing they casted the right people for them. I think Kao and Mark did a pretty good job with their characters; even when they were being terrible, they were still watchable. You could understand their motivations and although I did not agree with some of the actions they took, I could understand why. Their transition from hate to love was very well done and I loved their proposal scene and wedding at the end.
Another thing is the MVP of this lakorn which is Arthit's dad; if you know, you know. He was the best character out of the entire lakorn with how understanding and awesome he was, and I kinda wished he could be my dad.
Now for some issues I had. First is that because this was focused heavily on the leads, it left almost no development or time for the secondary cast. They had more presence in the beginning, but pretty much faded out in the third part of the lakorn. Even if they did show up, they were used as a tool to move the plot forward or a means to get the leads together. In particular, I have to comment on our 2nd leads, Non and Ling. While I'm glad they weren't terrible, they were essentially used to propel the romance of our main leads, and I really couldn't care less about them or their romance. Their story was very stereotypical and a huge turn off for me, so I ended up skipping their moments. They had an interesting conflict near the end with Ling's infertility, but that was pretty much resolved in 10 minutes and added to my disinterest of them.
Another issue I had was a logic inconsistency, in which characters would take a certain action that didn't make sense. There were a lot of moments while watching where I thought "If character A was like so, they would take action B instead of C", and it wasn't something I could ignore. An example I'll give is when Non was preparing to propose to Ling. You would think with how much he loves Ling and fought to be with her, that he would plan his proposal to her. Instead, he gets Arthit and Paeng, who've largely been dealing with their own issues, to plan it out which is weird. Most of this was done to again push our leads together or out of convenience, which I couldn't help but be a little turned off by.
Finally, I have to say that the last third of the lakorn felt very drawn out and was very reminiscent of an old-style kdrama, where the mom intervenes in the relationship and they have to break up bc of that. Firstly, they could've cut down those episodes and secondly, it annoyed me that Paeng was being a noble idiot and bringing about unnecessary drama and angst. I hate the noble idiot route and personally find it better when both leads fight for the relationship. I don't want them to force it, but they can certainly work on convincing the mom instead of getting teary eyed and wishing eo well when you know damn well they will get together in the end. To me it's a waste of time, and I wished this was filled more with romance instead.
All in all, I still came off happy watching this and enjoyed myself for the most part. Music was good and played appropriately. I don't see myself re-watching this as a whole, but I would come back to specific moments in the lakorn. If you were wondering if you should watch this lakorn, and don't mind that the leads are the main focus, I would totally say to give it a watch.
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