Surprisingly good on rewatch

When watching Thai Lakorn (if it’s not BL), people must realise it’s made for domestic audience, just like Indian over the top serials, Korean Makjang and Pakistani dramas. As such these programs will infuse a lot of local traditional beliefs, local biases. They could be more conservative for people or could be very non relatable for people. But International audience must realise that not everything is made for their consumption unlike big budget Korean dramas.
My advice to drama writers and directors, try viewing in your drama in a serialised way just like how viewers watch it. Things which make sense if you binge watch it versus when you drip feed is very different. I have been binge watching now and it’s a much more enjoyable experience. If you don’t want to do what Netflix does which is release them all at once, you need to find a way to make each week interesting and not lump all story conclusions at the end. It puts people off.
When i rewatched this drama, so many things make sense. The sheer emptiness the female lead feels which is why she passively went along. The negativity shown shown by the mom towards the adopted child is a very realistic and honest portrayal about how women sometimes treat children who are not their own in traditional societies. Women have to bear the burnt of child raising and they project all their angers on undeserving children (according to the stepmoms). In the 1990s we had many Bollywood movies with the same concept the most famous being the very hit movie “Laadla”. Showing a mirror to a society in how people behave like the toxic mom in something in the rain or this step mother makes for a very uncomfortable watch but these things happen in real life.
I really like the little details which make this drama so likeable for me, like the shipping route shown in ep 3 from China to Poland etc. the production team and the writing team did their homework and it shows in the well constructed scenes and the sets around them.
Overall this drama retains some key hallmarks of a Thai Lakorn but it’s very watchable if you binge watch it… A solid 8.5 from me

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What just happened to such a good drama

At the beginning this was an amazing drama. Very thoughtfully written. This drama seemed to be breaking stereotypes and showing us the journey of a woman who was finding herself after years of very subtle abuse (read subtle here). But then this drama became a total mess.
The writers focused on giving us cliches after cliches. The character growth and arcs did not happen. The same story kept being repeated over and over again. The same scenario (the lady needing transplant) repeated again. People’s emotions and feelings (when they got hurt) were trivialised and passed off as comedy. The cheator and the people who did wrong things (well nothing happened to them).
I am just angry with myself for even watching this drama.
PS : the acting of all of the cast is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful

I thought this drama might be the “Anupama” of Korean dramas but alas we got something really really banal.

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Finally settled on a 9!!!

So basically this is my third review for this drama. First review was a glowing 10 just after watching 14 episodes. Then right after I watched the rushed last 2 episodes (which were not great by the way) I gave it a 5.5 and got angry with some plot elements in ep 24. I cooled down since then and now I am giving in a 9. This score because it not perfect has many logical flaws in writing so it cannot be a 10.
Now onto why I am giving it a high score third time around, the leads chemistry was out of this world. I have seen lomon in high school roles with lots of action and very innocent romance. Here he was an adult with a real love hate relationship with a woman and it was hot to watch. Super hot… almost like reading a book. The scenes where he is the female lead, or when he becomes himself and goes up to her for a face off, were very compelling and like I said quite hot. Generally k dramas are sweet and not sexy at all, so it was refreshing.
The female lead was charismatic and the scenes where she was the girl boss, makes you actually hate her (wow how many East Asian actress would step out of their comfort zone to do that). When she got emotional you could almost put yourself in her shoes. Amazing actor. Wonder why she is getting side roles. I hope you get lead roles.
The drama itself had a trio of three musketeers and they were hilarious and I loved them.
Many issues were tackled in the drama which is not usually done in k drama, corporate greed, gender identity, extreme alcoholism and s@x positivity and this makes it a very avant- garde drama.
My final verdict watch it watch it please.

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Oh my god oh my god!

This series made my heart race. All of the dramas being aired right now are so so so cliche especially the Korean ones. They are the same formulaic ones which become super popular every year or so. Cast an a league actor who plays the same role over and over and an actress with a beautiful wardrobe and there you have it.
Anyways back to this drama, you can see this is low budget. But it’s got such a massive pull. This is my second girl love drama after GAP but this is miles better than GAP (which I also liked a lot, but did not love). The female lead, the older one, shows so much angst. It almost felt so real their love that one can almost touch it it’s so tangible. It’s also so non heteronormative where I am so tired of ajusshi type men chasing after young girls. Here the female lead who is older is actually holding herself back every step of the way since she is so much older. Her ethical and moral dilemma is so real and justified. And yes hats off to the writing to make it palpable. The younger girl is also so deeply in love and she is so charming. Every time I watched them on screen I smiled and then when the last episode ended I almost cried (I think I am too jaded for that but I legit got emotional for sure).
Love it love it love it.

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This is such a snoozefest

We all have this thing we anticipate a lot right? For me it’s usually books and dramas. I keep waiting and waiting for them investing so much time and money.
With books I go ahead and buy special edition versions and then imagine my surprise and disappointment when the book turns out to be a total dud.
This drama felt the same way. It was so dull. The same thing kept repeating onto infinity. Rowoon imbibed some love potion early on in the drama and keeps saying to the FL “I like you”. That’s it, that’s all their conversations. It was so dull. The mystery also took so much time resolving, by which point I could not care less. This show is so boring and dull, that even my rating reflects that. I could not even hate it enough to give it a 1 or 3 stars, I just chose the most boring number on the scale which is 5. If you suffer from insomnia, then this is the drama for you. Look no further.

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This is the best, it gave me butterflies ?

So I always like unconditional romances. I am tired of billionaire romances on BookTube and K drama land, where women just like the guy because he is a rich dude. It’s just I don’t know gives me a negative feeling. I don’t like to see “gold digging” ladies. Conversely I am also tired of tropes where the men are only in because the only female lead is a billion years younger and super good looking. Again it shows the shallowness of the guy.
Here the guy appeared poor and the girl was older. They both have amazing chemistry and the scenes are too cute. It was also a more passionate drama with more skinship than I have seen with JDramas. The female lead was so precious and cute… the male lead was more assertive and “cool” than I have seen in JDramas. It made for very interesting dynamic. Also each episode was only about 15 minutes so essentially it’s a short watch.
The coolest thing was that the guy turns out to be quite rich and this is a favourite trope of mine where the guy is a closet rich guy and the female lead did not know this. A lot of things makes sense when we realise that the male lead was rich for example his carelessness with money, his confidence and his faith (that he was a good match for the girl even when he was so much younger).
This drama felt like my most favourite romance book. I have rewatched it 5 times and it’s easily one of my favourites for this year.

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It’s good but something is missing

I liked this drama. I really did. But something was missing for me. Usually horror stories bring a sort of dopamine rush which was not there for this drama. The story was interesting and several plot lines were only revealed at the end. The pacing of the drama was good too and none of the episodes felt draggy or boring.
The acting of the characters whilst great, I could not be completely engaged. I think this was a stylistic choice by the author who decided to write a plot driven story not a a character driven story. This is why many characters save for the female lead felt very one note for example the mom was supper annoying that’s it, the grandmother was super evil that’s it. The back story of the ghost was tragic but somehow when it was being played out the scene did not land.
Having said that there was a fairy talesque vibe to the story. The folk practices were sometimes fun to watch and the cinematography was awesome. We usually don’t talk enough about the technical aspects of drama making, but to me the most fabulous job was done by the camera/ cinematography crew. There was a very solid technical team behind it. And I wish more people realised how great the people behind the camera could be.

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Love love love love love this.

I am squealing with happiness and joy. This is such an amazing wonderful gem of a drama. The female lead is so very very cute. She is a STEM nerd who is designing an AI program. This itself is so very rare in dramaland. There is a scene where she repairs a cycle by looking at its gears and suspension and I was bowled over. I felt like I will die of happiness for seeing such an amazing heroine. Plus she has this amazing group of real chill babes as friends and they are amazing too. Her mom is full of sass and is another super cute lady who is secretly dating. This drama gave me so many happy butterflies. The male lead is the same dude who acted in love and leashes and let me be your knight and he is super super super amazing. I love his acting range. In all the three shows I watched - love and leashes, this one and let me be your knight, his personality has been totally different in all the three. I wish he got a lot more recognition. His colleague at work is a bodybuilder dad who is a sweetie with three cute kids. Oh my god this drama. This would probably get 20 points for me if it was possible to rate it such.

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I don’t know what to say

So I usually love a story with a glittering beautiful heroine with issues and her love story with someone who is a commoner or not the same level as her. Some of my most iconic ones are Roman Holiday (Audrey Hepburn), Notting Hill (Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant), Indian Woh Lamhe (she is a damaged star just like Doona and this is a tragedy). To summarise many of these stories do not have a happy ending but for Notting Hill, and I like in this genre, tragedies, comedies and melodramas too.
If I compare this to woh lamhe, that was so raw, the heroine in that was so damaged and did so many things but the male lead also equally matched her.
Here in this drama, it was just showcasing the female lead and if you read MDL comments, you realise many just watched this drama because she looks great. That’s exactly what should not have happened, this should have shown the damage. Also the male lead is such an amazing actor usually but here he was so flat. Even if you compare with queens gambit for instance and Anya Taylor is very beautiful in real life, in none of the scenes was her looks highlights so much as her emotional trauma and her love for chess.
I just fast forwarded this drama. Again woh lamhe I watched first in 2007 I think and I still remember it shot by shot. This is not memorable to me, and bogged down with poor acting (male lead), poor direction too since the director chose to focus on the female lead without brining out the best in everyone else.

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The most unethical drama I have watched!

The reason why I am giving this so low, is because of the extreme callousness towards brain tumor shown by the writers. The male lead has tumor which supposedly cannot be operated. Did the writers even do any research, for brain tumors which cannot be operated strong chemotherapy with radiation is actually the line of treatment to treat it. The prognosis with ratiation is actually quite good at 30 percent for 10 years. The tumor is actually very new (since it did not metastasis into other body parts) hence at most was stage 1 or stage 2, even then the doctor was like don’t treat it? Does that even makes sense.
At no point was the lead ahead shaved and he was given targetted radiotherapy why? Also, being so active is just not possible if one has tumor, since it can expand slowly and damage the occipital lobe (eye part of the brain) and motor functions. So goodness knows what type of tumor it was.
Also the comments of the doctor was very ableist where they said that if I operate your brain you may get cerebral palsy? Seriously? We have Paralympic gold medalists like yip pin xiu who suffer from muscular dystrophy and still carry on. Which doctor will ever say I will not save your life since you may get disabled as a result of the treatment?
I got so frustrated with whatever the writers were trying to say. Tragedies upon tragedies heaped upon people and so much violence.
I actually liked the drama but for the way the brain cancer was treated was pretty unforgiving. What if a cancer patient was actually watching this drama? What is the message? Their life is over or they don’t deserve to receive treatment since they may get disabled?

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It’s a guilty watch

I usually love noona dramas. I am so tired of the age old cliches were the male lead is much older decades even. But heroine is always young and beautiful. Chinese dramas do the reverse age gap very well. Thankfully the Chinese douban ratings also seem to love / like reverse age gap so it’s cool. Having said that, the age gap was a bit too much, I prefer if it’s 10/12 years at most. Anything more, can lead to awkward moments with the cast. Here the director was quite skillful so that camera angles did not focus on the lead during those awkward moments. So some scenes were not as enjoyable.
Separately both the female characters and both the male chacarcters acted well. The slimy husband really felt very slimy. The story was also very cliche. Anyways I did enjoy watching this but not as much as I had hoped.

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Love this but still got angry nonetheless

So it’s a pet peeve of mine when I watch Asian dramas especially Thai dramas. Somehow people who like s@x are always shown as villains especially for women. The female lead is shown as a saintly Madonna who just puts up with s@x for the man she loves. The anti female is one who like s@x but she is a super villain. Why are we still perpetuating these myths. I also think these are so very ableist. As someone who has stayed with people (women especially are prone to suffer from chronic pain a lot more) who have fibromyalgia or anything else, this attitude is just more upsetting for people who are unable to be more active even if they wanted to. And this is also harmful to women especially since I am a south Asian and I know how these stereotypes have hurt women including acid attacks or honour killing.
Rant aside, the leads had amazing chemistry. I don’t mind fake kisses since I am south Asian and I do understand how actresses or actors may have boundaries regarding shooting certain scenes and I totally respect that. But the actress was very good with showing affection for the male lead and vice versa and it was cute. Most surprising though, I loved the sweet granny the most.
Another note to myself never judge by the cover. Watching Korean dramas where actors are sometimes chosen for looks and they cannot act (example Song Kang, Suzy Bae, Shin Se Kyung) it’s interesting to see Thai actors who are gorgeous also act well. The male actor did a really good job. Another girl who did an amazing job was the very beautiful British Thai girl in Gap. This has taught me not to assume actors who are good looking wont be great at acting. That’s why I am enjoying watching Thai dramas more since the actors combine looks with talent and it’s refreshing to watch.

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I absolutely loved this drama. Off late I have been used to watching very lame and juvenile dramas such as my beloved summer. I usually love a sweet slice of life such as fight for my way or reply 1997 but since 2020 we get dramas where all the characters have Peter Pan syndrome. Characters who act like tantrummy toddlers and behave in such a non adult way. They throw tantrums and cry and break up. There is no real intimacy in short a story right of a Disney movie. This drama was such a refreshing genre breaker. Real life is often exactly like this. People sometimes get drawn to each other because they are physically attracted and then it graduates to something deeper. Most dramas show heroines like wooden dolls admirable characters but people with zero physical desire. The character portrayal of nabi was so on point. She was a passionate soul as was evidenced by her amazing talent as a sculptor but she was so conditioned by the social culture which tends to put labels on people as sl#t shame them. This drama was about her awakening and navigating through it all.
Also in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffry E, consent has become so important and no drama usually do that well however this angle was explored beautifully with no characters ever crossing boundaries. I feel that some of what women go through with their bodies and the physical pain that they feel at specific times was also such a healthy thing to show. I wish more Korean dramas did that. I have seen a few Chinese dramas show this such as put your head on my shoulder (I love that drama) and I always love it when these things are addressed.
The redemption arc of main lead was awesome since he did not have a linear path but he went back and forth, sometimes slipping on his path to being a better person till he could find his Center. I think that was beautifully done. He also received his comeuppance since he realised that lot of people actually did not like him and were hurt by his actions. I feel that both the hero and the heroine fit like two imperfect peas in a pod.
My only beef with this drama was that this drama showed clearly rich kids since no one seem to have any financial problems and that was unrealistic. How were they thinking of earning money and what were some of the avenues they wanted to do beyond college. I wish that was addressed since I think before love, what concerns a college person is how will they earn and make a living in this world. And I thought that this bit was very poorly done. There should have been some focus on this. It felt too easy peasy for people to earn money, like hey I will open a noodle shop and hey I will earn pots of money, hey I will make metal sculpture and I will earn pots of money that is so unrealistic and unreasonable

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Guilty pleasure like a tub of my favourite ice cream (I am lactose intolerant ?)

Did I like the drama? Yes… Does this drama make any sense ? No… Do I still like it? Yea… Why do I like it? I don’t know it just somehow made me happy happy. It was cute… There was no boring moment.
Is this drama problematic in its portrayal of LGBTQ? I don’t think so. Since the drama shines a light on people’s perceptions within the drama world and universe. We see Thai dramas and assume Thai society would be accepting. But clearly this perception is idealised and in real life prejudices exist.
I sometimes like content which is very simple and not deep but entertaining and this is to me.
To me it’s very difficult to watch tearjerker nothingness like the “end of the moon”. Life in general is hard so I like my fluffies when I watch a drama.
I can only bring myself to read sad novels like “A little life” by hanya yanagihara or Tolstoy books but content to watch, I just can’t.
This is the happiest fluffiest drama I have watched in the past month.

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This drama is so so so very bad that it’s actually good. :D :D :D. That’s all I have to say. It’s a masterpiece of ham acting and super absurd plot lines. What else can I say. This reminds me of the 1975 pulp classic Rocky Horror Show Susan Sarandon. The story is nowhere close but the camp value and absurdity is very similar. This is really a masterpiece drama. Especially in scenes where the drama was trying to be serious, I kept erupting into peals of laughter while watching them. Never have I enjoyed myself so much. The dowager queen was such a beautiful caricature and the absurd things she did oh my god. It’s been two years since I watched this drama but remember so many things.

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