Elisheva

Look on opensubtitles.org for subs.

It's been so long since I've seen a war movie (and comparing anyone to Kurosawa isn't exactly fair) I don't feel adequate to reviewing this. Watched for a challenge for a movie from every year, so a 2000 Mek Winai worked. These are some thoughts.

It is very much a war movie, and violent. Vignettes of villagers and fighters, family life. Intimate mixed with epic. Had to pay attention to keep track of who was who and what was going on, but it certainly kept my attention. Didn't feel like two hours. IMO worth giving it a go and seeing how you get on with it.

So this is basically a rom-com where the comedy is a piss take of lakorns then. It has a good heart too :D
Edit: It's about mums and luks, making mistakes and figuring things out. Enormous heart. The first section is still a rom-com piss take of lakorns as well.

opensubtitles has Eng subs. i don't remember where i found the movie itself.

Biloba's list is the best resource I've found for what has English subs on Thai PBS
https://kisskh.at/list/4a6QB0e1
Thai PBS and their vipa.me streaming service can be tricky to negotiate, and they made changes a few months ago which broke some direct links to the subs. Won't try to explain that all here, but if you're ever interested in a title and can't find subs, feel free to ask me for help. If it's been subbed, I will find them :D
Or at least leave a note on the page - if anyone who knows happens to see it, they'll be happy to help.

Dech and Malai only had one night together before the khun luang was overwhelmed by his jealousy re Dech and forbade it from continuing. The weird gaping plot hole is why she feels it's her fault for not becoming pregnant when it has everything to do with the lack of opportunity.
Yeah, it only took once for Ramphoie (w/ Dech, there was that interrupted encounter with the khun luang before that), but that served the story.

It's VERY tropey. The most cartoonish villains are straight, some are homophobic. One gay character seems a bit of a prop, but no worse than the lakorn's het props (by the end they pretty much all have more going on and it does end up being emotionally quite rich).
The central gay character is horrible and selfish, but not because he's gay. His selfishness is clearly because he's entitled and privileged in a class-based society. He's also traumatised by a horrible father and being closeted in a homophobic environment*. He's spiraling out of control, and very OTT because tropey lakorn, but the lakorn does build up complexity of motivation and psychology for him.
There's also a central very het female character who is selfish because she is selfish, zero complexity in motivations there, only in late-stage consequences. She exists in the story solely to make trouble. There's another who is selfless because she is selfless.
*It's mostly set in 1920, so it's both critiquing out-dated attitudes, including men controlling women, masters controlling servants, and mining them for melodrama.

Thanks for writing. I was so hoping that at least Ai Di would be able to have a better life free from the abuse he'd been enduring. That's not a HEA.

Predominately het lakorn with two gay characters and many love triangles. That one is gay drives much of the plot but it's not a gay story, if you know what I mean.
Worth watching? Maybe, but only if you're already a fan of lakorns and know the tropes. Even then, there are better ones.

Don't understand why it's on Gaga, maybe they equate Thailand with BL like so many western viewers do? It's definitely not BL.

half way through the 41 episode version and uff. i appreciate the characterisation of the khun luang as someone both spoiled, entitled and traumatised, all of which leaves him unable to cope with anyone refusing him. would drop if it weren't for hints of the time shift coming up.

Yes.

Some. I don't know if it would satisfy an itch for the romance genre though. It's brilliant story-telling though and very much worth watching.
There's a lot of caring amongst the four primary characters, all very different, and it's so gentle with the difficult bits.

if anyone is paying attention to when (hopefully not if) it's uploaded with subs onto one31 or GMMTV's youtube, would you kindly let me know? this page will just get more dangerous to look in on as it progresses. thanks.

So this is basically Club Friday - BL Industry. My question is about the depictions of social media. Are fans really like that? I've happened into enough to think maybe that part was condensed but not necessarily exaggerated.
The exploitative (of both artists and fans) business models of most entertainment industries is beyond difficult to change, though it could be done, but fans putting all this additional pressure on actors, why is that tolerated?

Would you kindly consider adding a spoiler please? My wondering was whether or not to begin watching it. But now I'm putting it on the back burner in hopes I forget what I know. Cheers for that.

This explanation is worth being put into the discussion section so it's not lost. Thank you for writing it.

it's on GagaOOLala

i want to be surprised by this all over again. it's so good.

It's not just the world they live in that's homophobic. In Woo and the film are as well, also misogynist. This isn't gay romance or BL at all. There aren't even any gay characters, just two men in a strange situation.