Elisheva

My brain is happiest when it's full of Thai. I love intelligent coming of age & youth series, two hour Thai movies with a ghost which turn out to be about grief, two hour Thai movies in general, Nang Nak adaptations, Japanese films, Thai PBS and melodrama. Lakorn addict. Will give two hours to nearly anything Thai with a ghost. Or mor lam.

Currently maintaining the Thai Drama Club lists. I'm the one geeking out on traditional arts and mapcarta links for locations. Probably the only one who really cares about that, but it's been excellent for getting a handle on Thailand's geography.

When my health allows, I'm writing a lakorn-esque novel set in Thailand. Or more properly, the Thailand depicted on their television. In other words, as accurate as I can make it but if Thais are cool with it on their telly, and it fits the emotional arcs of my story, I'm not going to fuss =D 

Big fan of the Thai way with a story - like the unrushed pace of their two hour movies where they take all the time they need to wander around exploring their wee world, gently layering in things we need to know before they shift into the story's poignancy. As emotionally satisfying as any other country's films, but so much more relaxing to get there.

Or their refusal to give much heed to the limitations of tidy western genre boxes, their skill at embedding trauma and grief narratives into comedy and keeping it light but still rich and true, and the way a story's emotional arcs are always given priority.

Some of the cast from Ch 3's Matalada: Coco Gokgorn, Pompam Niti, Orm Kornnaphat, Amanda Obdam, Ryu Vachirawich, Ton Arch, Toey Jarinporn, James Jirayu

My viewing orientation is pan and mostly Thai. Give me a good story and surround the big emotions with warmth and kindness.

Top 3 series: The Broken Us (Thai PBS), Moonlight Chicken and He's Coming to Me.
Top 3 lakorns: Sroi Sabunnga (A Tale of Ylang Ylang), last 2/3rds of Game Prattana (Rivalry), but not the first several episodes, my relationship with lakorns is often complicated like that; Khun Chaai (To Sir, With Love).
Top 3 movies: Don't make me choose =D =D =D

I watch for oxytocin not cortisol and thus rate high. 9s and 10s from me are mostly (there are rare exceptions) a combination of respect for how well I think they achieved what they set out to do and how I much I loved the experience of spending some time in that world. I'm also careful what I start.

Chronically ill and often bed bound.

If you've never seen a lakorn: Khun Chaai on one31's official YT (for all that western audiences look to it for the gay romance, it's primarily a story about women).

Recommended movies because PTWs are full: Teacher's Diary, One Day, Low Season (delightful comedy horror), May Who?, Nang Nak and then Pee Mak, Suddenly Twenty, The Undertaker, Dek Hor, The Library, Present Perfect: If You Could Turn Back Time, Bad Genius (last three directed by Baz Poonpiriya).

Feel free to poke around my custom lists for favourite series and films, thoughts on what I'm watching now (mostly the yearly Thai Drama challenge, JFF Theatre online) and more.

When I began watching BL a couple of years ago I was delighted by how quickly it broke down conditioned heteronormative assumptions like who the couple(s) were in series. I also liked how relationship dynamics were sometimes more equal, though sexist het dynamics recast with young men will always irk me. Why perpetuate those and deepen their normalisation?

And now I'm really attuned to the ways BL reinforces heteronormative conditioning to make women secondary to men. Even the best BL with say, a supportive female friend or a possible female love rival who isn't interested for her own reasons, plays into this.

I still hope for greater acceptance and real equality. Some of Thai television feels like a country having conversations with itself around that. May they have much success in this.

My Thai Drama Challenge 2024 post

Collecting lists from other users of things I might want to watch. There are more in my TDC 2024 custom list.

GL recs, have found some really good ones through this, of what i've watched the shorter ones are better.

Thai PBS lakorns   Thai not lakorn, not BL/GL

Thai dramas styles, the differences