Healing Dramas

 Oumaima Nick:

My healing dramas are :

I LL FIND YOU WHEN THE WEATHER IS FINE, 

A PIECE OF YOUR MIND,

 WHEN I WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL,  

Reply 1988, 

NEVERTHELESS 

Thanks for sharing!  What did you find healing about “Reply 1988” and “When I Was The Most Beautiful “?  “Reply 1988” was full of happy vibes—one of my absolute favorites.  So, I don’t recall the emotional trauma to overcome in that one.  Definitely, however, in “When I Was The Most Beautiful” the FL had her hateful aunt and that arrogant husband to contend with.  That drama made me so sad.  But, it had a calm vibe as well.  Visually, it was very pleasing too.

 Oumaima Nick:

The reason i chose reply 1988 is the fact that it gave me that sensation of  family no major problems just calme and happiness i loved the  simplicity the memories it brought maybe because i was born in 1994 so i had a glimpse of that period a period where everything was simple interesting and meaningful .

I chose when i was the most beautiful because of the way it was shot it had the same feeling as i ll find you when i was fine and A piece of your mind which i forgot to mention earlier the sceneries the  conversations everything was calming 

Ahhh, thanks for explaining.  Makes perfect sense.  Even just reading your descriptions of these of dramas is calming and pleasant ☺️.

0.5 no Otoko

Bara no nai Hanaya 

Imperfect Us  (little heavy with sad ending but i loved each characters journey)

call it love ( a touch of self destruction but it changes very quickly)

a poem a day (lighthearted and underrated not much trauma but the characters certainly have some pain points)

daily dose of sunshine

Tell me that you love me (kversion)

(im not adding the already mentioned titles which overlaps in my list)

For me, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, Hidden Love, Meet Yourself, The Best Thing, Love Me Love My Voice, Road Home, and Forever and Ever are my ultimate comfort dramas. 

 nolatoo:

Healing dramas, however, are a bit heavier, but can turn light at the end after the healing happens. Healing dramas involve some sort of loss, trauma, or deep angst, and then show a calm journey towards overcoming that sadness. You watch it and feel healed, calmed, and revived yourself.

Thai series and movies often have this way of surrounding difficult emotions in warmth and kindness. They have a different rhythm than other countries'. Maybe it will work for you as well.

 Peqa:

Yes, I love thai dramas, their culture and genre is very refreshing. I enjoy listening to their language. The only challenge is the platform to watch them , mostly illegal sites

This isn't true for all Thai series. Lakorns (evening soap operas big on melodrama) are harder to find legally, although one31 has several on their youtube with English subtitles (my list here, the calmest I've seen so far (before I got waylaid by Ch 3) is I Feel You Linger in the Air, cut on one31 YT, uncut on Youku's). Lakorn journeys tend not to be calm all the way through, but they're much better IMO at mitigating stress - rather than piling it on like most countries do, they break it with lighter moments, sometimes playful or humorous. I have to avoid most C- and K-drama because of their stress rollercoasters but I fare much better with lakorns.

Several small youth-orientated producers like LINE and Vibie put their series up on YT as well. The big one is GMMTV, who use YT as their official on-demand platform and include English subtitles for pretty much everything they've released in the last several years. A few are geo-blocked if a platform like Viki picks them up though.

Thai youth programming is best known amongst international fans for BL (boys love), which are often romances between high school or university students figuring themselves and their relationships out. There's a lot more too, though you might want to proceed cautiously with those centered around an oppressive school environment with something strange/supernatural going on.

I recommend youth series and films as an excellent genre for healing dramas in general (Japan in particular makes some superb youth films) and their qualities work especially well with Thai approaches.

Thai PBS has English subtitles for several excellent series on their free streaming platform (VIPA) too. Biloba keeps a list with direct links here. If those links don't work for you, look for another in the comments on the series page. Ones which look like this may work better https://www.thaipbs.or.th/program/TheBrokenUs/episodes/90259 (Feel free to ask me for help if you need it. I really love Thai PBS and am happy to help others navigate their website.)

My top Thai series (all free and legal) which best meet your criteria include:

The Broken Us, Thai PBS - This is one I want everyone to see but hesitate to recommend to anyone in particular because of a central subject. It is so delicately, gently told.

Moonlight Chicken, GMMTV - Found family amongst (mostly) gay men who have their difficulties but are always there for each other. Cinematography and music help it cradle their pain, and ours too, if we let it. This is an absolute must IMO if you're open to stories of loss and healing.

He's Coming to Me, GMMTV - Kind-hearted boy who can see ghosts befriends a lonely one and takes him to live with him at university. Touching and funny and heartbreaking and full of love. This and Moonlight Chicken are the ones I can never stay away from for long.

Astrophile, GMMTV - A kind, caring and gentle story about kind, caring and gentle people taking care of each other and learning to value themselves, imperfections and all. The first 2/3rds are so gentle and heartfelt, with a quiet substance. The last 4 or 5 episodes lose that gracefulness as they lean into lakorn and symbolism but the beginning is very much worth it.

Ghost Host Ghost House, Vibie - The gentlest of gentle Thai series. It looks like it's a fluffy BL but it's also about loss and grief. 

A Boss and a Babe, GMMTV - Quirky BL with uneven writing but worth including here as an example of the Thai way of integrating grief and trauma narratives into comedy without letting them dominant. In this case by making a lead an irrepressible force of nature with golden retriever energy who hides his own pain by making everyone around him laugh.

I've absolutely fallen in love with the Thai way of incorporating grief into the refuses to be rushed pace of their movies, where they spend the first hour or more exploring the world they've created before opening into the emotional core and poignancy of their story. They get wherever it is they're going whenever they get there and it will be exactly right. The older ones may need some searching; I have many links <3

 twinty:

I haven't watched any Thai dramas but might try some on your list if they have happy endings!

This is pretty much all of them :D Like seriously. Thais seem to have a low tolerance for sad endings in everything except Nang Nak, which is a deeply loved national treasure of a tragic love story, but it's still about healing. Be careful with series made for Netflix though (The Believers as a prime example), some of those are very not-Thai in how they do things.

I am adding The Best Thing to my list. It was truly healing .

 Kinara:

I am adding The Best Thing to my list. It was truly healing .

Absolutely!💯