Thai Supernatural Club

 Elisheva:

To Sir, with Love

I tried this one. Just as I tried Kleun Chewit (or whatever it is called: apparently everyone's gateway lakorn!). I dropped both after three episodes. OTT was too OTT for me! All that screaming and plotting and bulging eyes....I was somewhere between horrified, amused and incredulous!;-)

But I managed to finish Past Life, Present Love and The Miracle of Teddy Bear because in spite of very soapy plot, they also had that supernatural element which actually made them more palatable. That's why I thought I might ask for more supernatural lakorns...

I'll look up the others you mention. Thanks!

 Yebles:

OTT was too OTT for me!

Ok. This will complicate things. The least OTT lakorns I've seen aren't supernatural. Rhythm of Life is excellent youth lakorn (Thai PBS), though no one's interested because IDK, high school band kids or something.

Some of the amusement in a lakorn is intentional, like a villainess' sneer to end a scene of her scheming. It's tension release. Others are more obvious in their tension release than To Sir, with Love.

Maybe The Tipsy Mystery as an inbetween? (one31 YT)

The Death of Khun Phra too. Sort of lakorn-adjacent, murder mystery. Lead actors who are known inside the BL and GMMTV bubbles. (Thai PBS)

 Yebles:

Would that be right or do they fall into a different category altogether?

I've seen Astrophile but haven't gotten to the other two yet. The last 1/3rd of Astrophile moves into lakorn territory but the beginning is more series in tone IMO. It's directed by Koo Ekkasit who works fluidly with both and can move from one to the other seamlessly, though the end of Astrophile is clunky and not a good example of that. (I adore the first 2/3rds of it though. I should watch it again now that my brain understands what to do with lakorns.)

Happy Birthday was directed by Fon Kanittha - from what I've seen, she doesn't do lakorn but makes a different style of series than many with GMMTV and can get quite dark. Many of her titles are adaptations of Korean originals, that probably has some influence on the rest of her work.

PS I Hate You was directed by Tle Tawan - he has a pile of lakorn acting credits and many Ch 7 directing credits. At least one is probably lakorn, the rest look like they may be light lakorn? Or maybe more long series? I'm not sure, The Ch 7's I've gone looking for haven't been available to me so I don't know their norms. The synopsis for PS I Hate You reads like it's lakorn and it's 18 episodes so maybe. I don't want to say yes without seeing at least some of it though.

Tle Tawan directed Hide & Sis, which is the best I saw from GMMTV in 2025 by miles. I don't consider it to be lakorn, but it is lakorn-esque. It's arguably a grown-up version of the Weird Things Happening at an Oppressive School ensemble series (The Gifted, Home School). Except it's a family drama, which does tend to be lakorn. Maybe it's best considered a hybrid?

There are a lot of hybrids and ways of making hybrids, from distinct sections to lakorn plot with varying degrees and aspects of series styling to interwoven tapestries. I've never heard a name for them, only terms westerners come up with to try to talk about them.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear is 16 90 minute episodes which is on the short end of common for Ch 3 lakorns. The episode length in particular signals lakorn, but again I'd have to see it. One of these days. (Watching broadly means there's a lot of everything I haven't seen, even if I do stick primarily to Thai.)

I've been watching some youth lakorn with clear use of distinct series and lakorn styling in different sections, including a different style of background music. Clearest example is Clean and Jerk (Thai PBS, women-centred university weight lifting).

Hallmarks of a lakorn include multiple story lines (at least two, probably 3, 4 or 5) - some of which centre women, lighter moments interspersed amongst darker (series length hybrids can get quite heavy while full length lakorns tend to have a lot of zip and zing and energy, that's why I like them) and the kind of music used. Sometimes multiple story lines can be tightly intertwined, where the protagonist of one is the antagonist of another and vice versa (it is fascinating and compact story-telling, two for the price time of one). This is something to be aware of as a BL-centric viewer, coming from a genre where women are always secondary and seen in terms of whether they're supportive of the MM relationship or an obstacle to it.

Prioritisation of emotions (rather than event-driven as in western telly and films) is a given, but that's because it's Thai. Look for the emotional arcs and how the different elements work in service to them, those are the drivers for Thai story-telling (and a locus for a lot of misunderstanding and frustration from western event-orientated viewers).

I don't know how Thais would talk about this, where they might draw distinctions or if many would bother thinking that way at all. I think in general they'll be much less bothered by all of this than we are.  Fluidity in genre and tone is very much part of the country's norms for television and movies. These are just my observations as I try to understand their culture with limited language access. It's awkward to approach this with a western-orientated brain and all of our fine-grain distinctions, let alone try to communicate my incomplete understanding with others. I hope some of this is makes some sense.

 Yebles:

Wow! There is, unknown to me, incredible depth to Thai drama world, from lakorns to BLs and everything in between. After reading your post, I feel overwhelmed, realizing I had barely scratched the surface!

There is :D  I'm thinking we might want to branch this off onto its own thread so it's easier for others to find and so I'm not derailing my own 'club' thread =D =D =D

I'm not sure what to title that thread though? I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be limited to lakorns =D Any ideas?

MizMystixism:

Yada Narilya's supernatural horror-thriller film "Omukade" is coming to Netflix Thailand May 21st.

Giant carnivorous centipede would be a pass from me most of the time, but it's Yada AND Daung, so I'm going to have to try =D