Love Destiny

LUAT and LD They are incomparable, LUAT is much better. Went DOWNHILL after 5th Episode

Sorry but I needa Drop out of this mess.
You'll get my initial views as well as my changed views of this drama in this review, I'll try to separate themm.
I gave the acting and cast a higher rating because this is August and Leng's first drama together, so it's understandable that their kissing scenes felt a bit awkward. However, I really wish they had shown some improvement.
They honestly need to take notes from the youngsters or recent Chinese BL actors on how to deliver a good kiss scene.
They still could've done much better, honestly their kiss scenes looked forced and uncomfortable..

*Positive review*

I've watched many historical and time travel dramas, I thought I would get extremely bored if I try this one, I thought it would have very similar other storylines and the actors I thought would not be that professional.

This series is so good, not that different though, but it's watchable and nice, I don't mind watching something similar but not exactly the same..
Even though it's quite similar to Love Upon A Long Time, suddenly after some incident both the characters time travelled to recover the past mystery.
And then fall in love with someone in the past, someone they bicker with..

But honestly I understood stuff in this series much better, it's conveying every stuff clearly, actually LUAT the characters talked in a beautiful poetic harmonious manner, I don't really understand them well so, I wasn't able to understand many parts.
Well, those lines sounded very beautiful but sometimes they were quite hard for me to catch up.

The language used in this series is much more simpler, and the storyline is extremely romantic, the way P'Muen was blushing aww that was so cute, I loved his reactions after getting picked up by Gaew ( Great ) .
They always bicker, and from inside adorer each other..
Great and Gaew do they even have a thing in common except for their faces. I don't think so!
Gaew, something wrong with him, how can he do those things to those people who raised him like their own son. He's arrogant always getting into trouble, bringing shame to his own people.. Getting into fights, troubling P'Muen, arguments with elders, what good about himm
That was stupid, him literally trying to drown the boat..

It's so damn similar to Love Upon A Time.
I want more of the main couple really, there are many irrelevant stuff, Great is literally the exact opposite of Gaew, about personality, manners, talking and everything even eating.. Great is extremely perfect to be a member of that family, cooking, medicines he's so good at everything..
I like the way Dech is discovering his own heart, the way he feels his heartbeat and hide his thoughts, even though he likes it he won't ay so instead he would hide them to save his auraa or you can say self respect. He's blushing every time he's around Gaew.

Great is doing so well between them, making the people around so shocked about this drastic change, in his personality.

About the servants honestly I secretly ship them, umm they look so good together, their chemistry's fireee, so, I couldn't help myself much. Don't mind me, but I'm already getting a feeling that they'll fall in love and we'll see some of their scenes together.

Lady jumpa is so annoying I know Gaew was type of a thug only butt howw that Great is here she still blames him unfairly, using unfair tactics. She is still picking on Great, aww I feel so bad for Great, he's always trying his best, and I'm sure Dech likes this version of Gaew the best and the most adorable..

I don't know I'm getting kind of evil vibes from that Constantine, he had a very good relationship with Great but looking evil. He killed that person, when Great was asking for his help as he was caged because he was the one who was the biggest suspect of killing that person, I thought he wouldn't help instead put the whole blame on Great only, but I was pretty shocked when he came to confess everything was his doing and Great has nothing to do with it, gave the cops all the truth and got Great out, I didn't expect that much from him though...

The visuals are great and the setting is incredibly beautiful.
Historical methods of doing things are mentioned in here, extremely different and funny. They use herbal medicines and traditional way of eating, cooking, utensils and clothes they're using, old practices.
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*Negative review*

Everything was going welll, and suddenly all those unwanted storylines entered, it's nothing but a waste of time..
I take my words back, I really liked it initially but now I really want to end as soon as possible.. it already went downhill..

The whole thing went out of syllabus, they started the story about Sriprach's love, which was really unnecessary, his love never succeeded though.

Even the servants had more screen presence that the main leads tbh. I don't know why why they suddenly moved the whole story upside down.
Even the kisses looked so fake, unprofessional to be specific, pretty forced and uncomfortable.

They realised the whole thing too late, and taking the move was done by the top, why didn't Great take the move first as he was from modern period, he should've been more open to P' Dech.

At least things actually made sense in Love Upon A Time, atleast they forced on the main couple, maintained a time line for both the couples.

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Decent and doesn't deserve the hate its getting.

Everyone keeps comparing this to other series with a similar plot, and while I get it--I don't think that Love Destiny deserves the amount of hate it's getting.

Tbh I was stoked to see Leng back on the screen in a main role after the shit he went through, and August is so fkn handsome, I think they had great chemistry. I will admit the script was a bit weak. I think, given a better story, these two could make something great.

All in all I enjoyed the series, but I think after Love Upon A Time people had higher expectations. Which is totally valid, but we can critique a series and compare it to others without absolutely dogging on it.

The NC scene was really nice, I loved the atmosphere, and I wasn't expecting it. The ending, however, felt rushed, and I would have liked to see a better reunion between the two. The way they left things felt unfinished.
That being said I would love to see these two in more in the future.

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It streched like molten cheese and was ended in a heartbeat...

Hmmm... I'm not a fan of LUAT with the misrepresentation of gay live 400 years ago in Thailand. Here they handled it much better, but on the other hand LUAT tried very hard to use time-accurate speech while this series did not invest in that. The storyline is convoluted, there is much going on, but there are episodes where nothing much is happening which makes the series dull and boring.

The servant couple is just an afterthought and I guess the comic relief, but thai comedy does not really work for me. And then we have a finale where it felt like they cut two episodes out of the series because they run out of money or time. They wasted so much time on trivial things or the Kings wife and Sriprach storyline. But in the end, we don't know what happens to the bad noble. We only see a flashback to "Dech" in his time, some stupid bantering in the "now" and the final scene is suggestive he does remember. That's it.

Leng and August together do not really work. Even when it's their first job together, it seems both did not "click" and so the chemistry is lackluster. Some scenes are really akward. Besides that, production quality was high and the rest of the cast was good, but when the main couples does not work, the series does not work.

While LUAT was not good, this was even worse and I was surprised it could end up like that. The problem with the series is not that it's so bad, it's just soooo boring. At least for me, it made it hard to watch at all and that's the reason why I'm late with my review, because I had no motivation at all to watch this. So, when you don't want to waste your time, watch something else.

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GREAT 9 episodes.... questionable last episode.

I loved this series all through out it and all the actors have done a phenomenal job. I was introduced fully to leng and august (?) Hope i got that right. Last episode i was like thats all?? Even after the credit thing the last like 15min i was like huh... if this is a novel maybe i should read it instead but this ending just missed with me. Maybe i need to rewatch later on again but right now i think im good. But maybe if there is like a special episode or something ill come back and watch that... but i did have to come back and look to make sure there wasnt any episodes added. I dont always need a happy ending but this ending didnt exactly feel finished either so.. yeah.
P.s. the one dude that shot at them in the end he really needs to play a vampire...

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The concept was good, but not enough to save the storyline this time.

Yep.
There was nothing awful about it, but it definitely isn’t memorable.

The idea, the atmosphere, the humor (even though I didn’t always understand everything), and the dynamics between Great and Dech are awesome-tier.
The yearning of Dech? OMG (heart emoji)

What kept this show from being a home run for me is the direction the plot took. What kept it from being a ten-star show is the direction the plot went. Actually, I don’t know whether to give it a 6.5 or be nice and round it up to a 7.

I can’t really explain in detail all the ways it didn’t meet my expectations without spoiling it, so I’ll just say that the last 50% of this left me disappointed. I just wanted more interaction between the main characters and less of everything else. At a certain point in the story, I realized things were just… happening. Events occurred because the plot required them to, and there wasn’t a strong motivation tying the moments together. Characters made decisions because the story needed them to, not because it particularly made sense for them. And I really hoped for more interaction between the characters in the “present.”

This wasn’t innovative, super emotional, or particularly dynamic, but it was fun and (sometimes) sweet. Even though it wasn’t for me, I think it would be a great introduction to the transmigration genre.

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Fish Kiss, Zero Chemistry, Started Strong, Lost Momentum…

Never in my life have I seen fish kiss in a Thai BL, this is the first. So, let me start by saying this series did break a record for me, albeit a bad one, but yeah.

Now, I won’t say much, I feel like the title already pretty much spoils what this review is about.

That’s it, that’s all, but to put it in simpler terms, THIS ONE SUCKS!

There’s nothing to watch, that’s how I can put it, plot is bland, romance is?? romance? what romance? The only memorable part in the series would be at the end of episode 5 (modern day doctor-nurse scene) that’s it, that’s all. There’s nothing else worth remembering.

As I’m even writing this, even though I just finished the latest episode, I’m starting to forget what I wanted to say about it. Yeah, that’s how unmemorable it is.

Watch it if you feel like wasting your precious BL binge time.

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Loved the Story line. But What happened to the Finale

I loved the storyline, and time travel is one of my favorite themes. The two main leads didn’t have much chemistry, but given the timeline, that made sense. I followed the series all the way to the end, and then episode 10 happened. I still can’t understand how the season ended there—with unanswered questions and such an abrupt conclusion. It felt like we missed a few episodes leading up to it, because it just doesn’t make sense to have a finale like that. so many couples still not knowing if they got together at the end or not.

Did the director or writers run out of budget to finish the series? Or did the main leads have a dispute that caused it to end suddenly? At this point, we’ll never know. It’s just sad that so many of us were invested in this series, only for episode 10 to rob us of a satisfying season finale.

Also, nobody tells you to keep watching after the credits are rolling. There was another 10 minutes of show after the credits rolled. Most episodes had more to show after the credits were rolling after every episode. For those who did not watch the remaining few minutes after the credits totally are even more in the dark. Episode 10 had another 10 more minutes after the credits. This episode was so poorly done

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Love Destiny — When Destiny Arrives Before the Story Is Finished

I loved almost everything about Love Destiny. That is what makes the ending so frustrating. For nine episodes, the series looked as though it knew exactly what kind of drama it wanted to be: romantic, historical, funny, visually luxurious and respectful enough of its source material to preserve the world of Bupphesanniwat while rebuilding its central romance around two men. The actors were excellent, the villain worked, the sets and costumes looked far more cinematic than I expected, and the entire production had the confidence of a proper period drama rather than a BL simply borrowing historical clothes. Then the finale arrived and suddenly it felt as though somebody had looked at the remaining story, checked the clock, and decided that most of it no longer mattered. That is particularly strange because this was not a team unfamiliar with the material. Director Phawat Panangkasiri also directed the hugely successful 2018 adaptation of Bupphesanniwat, so he already knew this world, its rhythms and the historical figures surrounding the romance. The original series became a genuine Thai cultural phenomenon, and part of its appeal came from how comfortably it mixed romance, comedy, domestic life and the political atmosphere of King Narai's reign. The 2026 version had an even more polished visual identity and a much more concentrated ten-episode structure, but that concentration eventually became its greatest weakness. The original 2018 drama had fifteen very long episodes; this version had only ten episodes of roughly fifty minutes. That is an enormous amount of historical and character material to compress.

The adaptation itself is clever. Great, a modern surgeon, enters Kaew's body and has to repair the reputation of a man almost everyone despises, while Dech gradually discovers that the person in front of him is no longer the same man he once hated. Changing the central relationship from heterosexual to male-male does not destroy the original structure because the real foundation of Bupphesanniwat was always transformation, fate and someone from another time learning how to live inside Ayutthaya society. Great's modern knowledge, his medical skills, his different attitude toward servants and social hierarchy, and his attempts to correct Kaew's past all fit naturally into that framework. The BL element therefore feels integrated rather than forced. August Vachiravit and Leng Thanaphon carry that transition beautifully. Leng has to make Great recognisable even while he is physically living as Kaew, and his mixture of modern reactions and gradual adaptation makes the time-travel premise enjoyable rather than ridiculous. August gives Dech exactly the restraint the character needs. He begins from suspicion and dislike, then slowly allows curiosity, respect and affection to replace them. Their relationship works because the emotional change feels gradual enough to believe. I never felt that Dech suddenly became attracted to Great simply because the story had decided it was time for BL. The rest of the cast also helps the drama feel larger than its central couple. Luke Ishikawa as Constantine Phaulkon was particularly effective because Phaulkon should never feel like a cartoon villain. Historically and dramatically, he represents ambition, foreign influence, court politics and self-interest in a world already becoming unstable. Luke has enough charm to make him believable as someone who could gain enormous influence, but also enough hardness to make that influence feel dangerous. He is the kind of antagonist who works because he can smile while creating problems rather than announcing himself as evil every time he enters a room.

That is why his unfinished ending is so irritating. The original 2018 adaptation did not simply allow Phaulkon to disappear once his political usefulness was exhausted. His final fall was treated as part of the emotional and historical conclusion, including his arrest, his last meeting with his wife and children, and the approach of his execution. That material mattered because Phaulkon had spent so much of the story accumulating power. Watching that power collapse was the completion of his arc. The 2026 version spends considerable time building him as a threat, involving him in court politics and giving him enough screen presence to make viewers expect a proper conclusion. Then the political storyline simply loses momentum at exactly the point where it should explode. The finale reaches the destination of the romance but seems to forget that the series has spent hours telling us that the romance exists inside a much larger historical crisis.

Sriprach suffers even more. His storyline contains tragedy built into the source material and into the historical legend surrounding Si Prat: exile, political vulnerability, accusation and death. Rompaeng deliberately incorporated the Si Prat legend into Bupphesanniwat, even though she herself has explained that parts of that construction belong to legend rather than firmly documented history. In the 2018 drama, Si Prat's death was also not turned into a long execution spectacle, but his fate was given emotional consequence: he returned in a dream to say goodbye to his father, and his loss directly affected the family and the final episodes. In the 2026 adaptation, I felt as though his story was simply cut off. That is the difference between an off-screen death and an unfinished storyline. A character does not have to die in front of the camera for the death to matter. What matters is consequence. Show us the exile, the danger, the accusation, the family's reaction, the political meaning of losing him, or the devastation left behind. Give the character's death enough narrative weight that the audience understands why we spent time with him in the first place. Instead, Sriprach feels as though the series suddenly remembered that history required him to die and checked the box. That is not enough. It is even stranger because the finale's problems were not simply my reaction. Viewers discussing the final episode immediately complained that the political material had been dropped, that several past-timeline characters received little or no resolution, and that the ending felt as though another episode should exist. Some described it as one of the most rushed finales they had seen, while others specifically questioned why so much time had been spent building Phaulkon and the royal conflict if the series was not going to complete those threads. And I agree with them.

Two additional episodes could have changed everything. One episode could have dealt properly with Sriprach, Phaulkon and the collapse of the political world surrounding King Narai. Another could have allowed the romance, the side couples and the modern consequences to settle naturally. The series did not need thirty episodes. It simply needed enough time to finish the story it had already chosen to tell. That is what frustrates me most: the original novel already provided a structure. Rompaeng spent years researching the period before writing Bupphesanniwat, and the historical figures were never random decoration. She specifically chose the final years of King Narai's reign because the period was politically rich and colourful enough to support the romance. The historical material was part of the identity of the story from the beginning. A BL adaptation did not need to preserve every heterosexual relationship or every exact narrative detail. Of course things had to change. Great is not Kadesurang, Kaew is not Karakade, and Dech's romantic arc necessarily becomes different. But changing the gender of the central pairing does not require abandoning the historical spine that made the original story work. In fact, I think the BL version proves how adaptable the novel really was. The basic themes remain intact: fate, identity, redemption, social hierarchy, modern knowledge colliding with the past, family expectations and the question of whether love can alter a life that seems already decided. Great and Dech fit those themes perfectly. The side couples also demonstrate that the same Ayutthaya setting can accommodate several different forms of love without the series feeling modernised beyond recognition. Visually, I may even prefer this version. The 2018 drama has enormous charm, but it is unmistakably a Thai television production of its period. There is a certain theatricality to the lighting, staging, humour and sets that I personally find very Thai and very lovable, but also somewhat kitsch. The 2026 remake looks considerably more expensive and controlled. The costumes, hair, architecture, interiors and outdoor photography have a richer cinematic quality. Contemporary promotion specifically emphasised how much had been invested in the sets, costumes, makeup and overall visual production, and that effort is visible on screen. That polish makes the rushed conclusion even harder to understand.

This is not a drama that looked cheap for nine episodes and then predictably collapsed. It looked like people cared. The cast was strong. The historical world was carefully reconstructed. The romance had time to develop. Secondary characters received attention. Political threads were deliberately introduced. Then the ending behaves as though all that work suddenly became optional. It feels like ninety-five percent of a very good drama and five percent of someone saying, “That will do.” But the final five percent matters enormously. A beginning makes us interested. A middle makes us invested. An ending tells us whether everything we invested in had a purpose. That is why I cannot simply say, “The rest was excellent, so who cares?” I care precisely because the rest was excellent. If the whole drama had been mediocre, I would have shrugged at a mediocre finale. But when a production spends nine episodes convincing me that these characters, political conflicts and historical events matter, I expect the tenth episode to respect that investment. The main romance at least survives the rush. August and Leng created enough emotional foundation that I still cared about Dech and Great even when the surrounding story started collapsing. Their scenes have warmth, humour and attraction without losing the period atmosphere, and the physical intimacy feels like a culmination rather than something inserted because a BL audience expects it. That part works because the actors had already done the emotional work. The historical characters deserved the same consideration.

Final Thought

Love Destiny came extraordinarily close to being one of my favourite large-scale Thai BL adaptations. It took a beloved Thai story, respected its historical identity, gave it a more cinematic visual language and successfully rebuilt the central romance around two men without making the whole thing feel like a novelty remake. August and Leng were excellent together, Luke made Phaulkon memorable, and the surrounding cast gave Ayutthaya enough personality that I genuinely enjoyed living in that world for ten weeks. Then the story reached the finish line before the storytelling did. Sriprach deserved more than being dispatched as an obligation to history. Phaulkon deserved the conclusion that his entire political arc had been building toward. The royal conflict deserved consequences. The secondary couples deserved closure. Even the central romance deserved a little more room to breathe after everything it survived. The frustrating part is that none of this required rewriting the entire series. Much of the work was already done. The source material was there. The original adaptation had already demonstrated how these historical threads could be brought to a conclusion. The 2026 production simply needed enough time to finish what it had started. That is why the finale does not make me dislike Love Destiny. It makes me disappointed in it. There is a difference. A bad drama fails because it never convinces you it could have been great. Love Destiny convinced me for almost its entire run. Then it stopped five minutes before the story was actually finished.

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Was there supposed to be another episode!

Sound design needs a smack! Who decided to add that weird beeping on and off through the episodes, do you know how many times this show has had me checking to see if the fridge had been left open, or the washer was finished! How often i paused to check, is it the show, or the fire alarm on low battery! Is it symbolic for Great's condition? I really don't know, but it was very unnecessary and kept taking me out of the show.

Anyway, on with the show! The acting was good, and i genuinely enjoyed watching everyone, felt invested in their relationship, although i was a bit disappointed with the later episodes that felt a bit lacklustre, and just not enough drama happening for me.

Its an easy to watch show, but be prepared, the last episode, is fine up until the last 5-10 minutes where you feel like 'what the heck'. It actually ends in a way that makes you feel like the footage for the last episode accidentally got deleted and the team just decided to release it anyway.

Don't go into this expecting LUAT, you will be disappointed, the actors do a good job, and the story is easy enough to watch if a bit flat. I recommend the show if you want easy no stress watching, but it desperately needs a special episode releasing to actually finish the show.

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Good at the start let down at the end

I really wanted to like this episode because, overall, the storyline of the series was interesting and the acting was good. There were moments throughout the series where things felt a little rushed, but I could overlook that.

Unfortunately, the final episode completely lost me.

I understand that this is a time-travel story and that things aren’t supposed to be simple or straightforward, but the ending felt rushed to the point where it barely made sense. Too many things were left unexplained, and the whole thing felt unfinished. It’s one thing to leave the audience with questions; it’s another to leave them feeling like the story simply wasn’t properly finished.

The actor did a good job with what they were given, but unfortunately, the storyline let them down. After investing time in the series, the ending was probably the worst way they could have wrapped it up. It had potential, but that final episode really ruined the experience for me.

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Strong start and great yearning, but the lost writers...

Plot wise, the story had great potential! The coup, K'Great changing the timeline (which, tell me, HOW ARE THERE NO REPERCUSSIONS!), the poor linking of the past with present-day, and the obvious comparison this show has with LUOAT due to the similar time period (LD being set in 1036, and LUOAT in 1038), and having aired just a couple months apart.
I wish they had stuck with just one or two prominent plot points, and explored those throughout the series instead of throwing the characters in different scenarios. At one point, the characters weren't causing the plot progression, bt rather, the plot was happening to them just because there were episodes to be filled in my opinion.

The finale was very choppy. The sudden odd pacing, juming from one scene to the next, the weird pre-credits ending, leading to us thinking there might be a 2nd season...

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the show alot, and infact, at the time of its airing, this was the only ongoing thai bl I was looking forward to every week, and anticipating what would happen next (futile though), but after a while I feel the writers didn't know what to do with so much they had set up. And that finale was just...
Like I mentioned earlier, the coup happening with Falcon, his love marriage with K'Marie (which I don't see happening as she has very different thinking and morals by the end of the show), then the murder attempt on Falcon as well. Did they ever actually resolve that? I don't remember anymore...
To top it off, Falcon is apparently working with the French to overthrow the govt as well. Then there is K'Siri, a renowned poet. His story also gets unfairly treated, with the writers killing him off in the penultimate ep. The issue is that we didn't get to sit with his death. Yeah we saw how everyone reacted, but there should have been more to it than just them being sad, and crying, and the king killing the ruler of the other province who killed him.

Then there's the matter of K'Great changing the history inexplicably by telling people what to do and what not to do w/o any repercussions which I hated.

But, as a love story it was nice. The yearning, the pining! Absolute peak! I have to say, I'd have loved to see more of the recent day timeline, or at least more of K'Reung and Dr. Wad/Dr. Rit and nurse Wayu. The fact that the second couple got together before the main couple, and even the servants being in a relationship sent me laughing like crazy! Really enjoyed that unexpected turn of events!

I wished that this show would have treated gay love as normal, cuz I remember a friend of mine had said that the laws on same-sex weren't there (or as strict, I'm not entirely certain since this was a couple years back) back in the 1670s . So no threat of prison, execution, or any of that. I had wished for it in LUOAT, and here as well, but alas...

Cinematography: Stunning!
Chemistry: Really good!
Costumes: Really good!
OST: Absolute bop!
Makeup and props: Wonderful!

Characters:
Past-
K'Gaew: A kind-hearted idiot who doesn't care about the consequences of spoiling the timeline, but lovable nonetheless
K'Dech: Good suspicious, but could have questioned K'Gaew straightup, even if he realised it wasn't his Gaew.
K'Reung: This man had me pining for his love!
K'Wad: A bit of a prik at the start, but you grow to love him! kinda...

Present-day-
Dr.'Great: one of the worst surgeons I have ever scene! Can never forget screaming at my screen in ep one for him to continue with the heart massage, instead of turning around, looking at his collegue, and declaring death!!!
Dr.'Rit: Same as K'Great. Some great docs they are!
Dr.Duncan: Didn't get to see much of him, but same critic of whatever we did see of him.
K'Wayu: Bro is a little bean! You go punish your man when he humiliates you due to his own fear!!!
Wish we'd gotten to see Rit/Wayu a whole lot more! I need their story! How did they start! what lead them to e/o! So much potential! And the chemistry muah! chef's kiss!

LUOAT did great with juggling the story b/w the present and the past, the side characters, and even the multiple romance plots going on, whereas this left a lot to be desired. I'm still not sure how to rate this actually cuz I did enjoy it while it aired, but when thinking back to the entire story progression, it fell down real fast, which is a real shame.

Honestly, with that ending before the credits rolled, I expected a 2nd season, but unfortunately (or fortunately lmao) that won't happen cuz they fixed that conundrum up real quick...

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