Kannadin

NOTE : This was originally a comment I edited which I decided to erase and post in the review section since as of now, there’s only one review about this show and the comment was overly long.

Note 2 : If it’s too long for you, skip to the conclusion.

LONG A** REVIEW AHEAD

Apart from the very draggy middle (a staple for Lakorns apparently) , I think this drama's biggest flaw is how cartoonishly evil the Uncle is. He's so one-dimensional, at some point my irritation level got so high, I had to remind myself, this was a drama, and I could drop this if I wanted.
After all no one held me at gun point, there was no need to subject myself to voluntary raise my blood pressure IN MY FREE TIME.

BUT, since I’m an idiot, and I’d already dropped ALL the thai dramas I tried to watch since last December, I held on. As mentioned, I am an IDIOT after all.

Otherwise it's actually a pretty good show compared to most lakorns I've attempted to watch. Notice that I’ve wrote “compared to”.

I think their storylines are interesting as long as you're not allergic to toxic MLs but they always include some draggy meandering nonsense in the middle.

The ML is not toxic here but let's just say, there's quite a number of romanticized problematic behaviors in lots of Lakorns (to be fair MOST romance in fiction almost always include some problematic behaviors especially in Asian media, it's just that I find it's even more the case for Thai content compared to their Chinese/Japanese or Korean counterparts)...

I'm a sucker for toxic MLs IN FICTION ( gotta stress that one really) so fine by me but I have more trouble with the draggy additional useless plot points that often comes with the genre.

I think this explains why the overall ratings here is 7.5.

Also, the romance aspect is mostly during the first half of the series... Once Mind learns the truth, the series has a tonal shift and the romance just takes a huge step back. The Lakorn only focus on how they bring down the villain but almost all the romance is out the window... Which is too bad because both actors had great chemistry in the beginning, and I think most people would tune in for the tension between the lead especially during the period where Mind doesn’t know who he is…

They could have made such a great enemies to lovers story there… With Mind being attracted in spite of herself to her nemesis, believing he’s her mother’s murderer and the son of her fiance’s killer, as well as Pat believing the love of his life betrayed him for money and had decided to join his murderer’s family when he literally crossed the ocean to get her back. It could have been SUCH a powerful inner conflict (to be fair, the drama gloss over it… when it should have been the most important conflict – and appeal - in my opinion).

SUCH.WASTED.OPPORTUNITY.


It could have been a great thriller with romantic tension... and instead we spend most of our time with the evil uncle and his evil assistant so it ended being a poor attempt at both genres.

I love Film though and it was my first time watching Min. Both were great in their roles… which is why I’m really saddened we didn’t get more of the sizzling tension of the first 4 episodes.

The character of Emika… was very well written up to episode 15… and then she took a turn for the worse. While given the circumstances, one can understand why she made that choice… needless to say, the Uncle and his right-hand man Phasu were already irritating enough, I don’t think we needed a good character to play against their own team for some last ditch plot point to lengthen this overly long series especially when this choice of hers led to heavy consequences which could have easily been avoided if she hadn’t acted so selfishly.
There’s nothing wrong with a good character being flawed… but the way she’d been written by that point, guilt should have driven her to quickly change her stance as soon as faced with the heavy consequences of her action… But contrary to how she’d been portrayed i.e a caring and loving wife who’d stand by her husband no matter what even if she didn’t understand his choices, she felt no guilt and kept on her charade. Funny how she turned as controlling of her husband’s nasty piece of sh*** of a father once she understood things would not go her way. Again she had a good reason for it, but it ran contrary to her character. Fortunately, the drama was almost finished by then so that last ditch nonsense was quickly resolved before they had the chance to make stray too far.

#You_ruined_Emika_but_I’m_so_tired_already_I_don’t_care

This character deserved better. But I guess, they needed to ruin her image a bit so that we could root guilt-free for the main pair to get together by the end… as if they needed that for us to root for them but whatev.

Ah yeah, almost forgot… There’s a second couple nobody gives a fudge about. I don’t even understand why they tried to force some romance between both these characters if it wasn’t to deliver on it after but whatever… I guess it made the episodes longer. These two had literally NO chemistry whatsoever. Maybe they wanted to add another couple to try to justify the romance tag… Because I sure didn’t get my dose.

It's quite a stressful watch though albeit predictable. Some stuffs made me raise my eyebrows to my hairline as well (such as one character being hurt at the head and being shown being "operated on" [the whole intervention looked SO FAKE]… on his belly with no head wound visible) but as the first reviewer wrote “It’s a Lakorn so why not”… so errr. OK I guess.

Not like this series was really aiming for coherency in the first place. It’s a “just watch, enjoy the ride and don’t ask too many questions” type of show.

Pretty reminiscent of early K dramas of the early 2000s ( I remember Memory loss being so overused back then, it became a private joke between K drama aficionados)

I wouldn't recommend that one unless you're the type of person who doesn't mind fast forwarding episodes.
I’m not… so I’ve watched every single second of that show at normal speed, and I can tell you, past episode 6, it starts to slow down and after that It’s a draggy journey to the finish line.

By the time I finished the drama I was just exhausted of the whole ordeal with none love left for the show.

Also not the kid's fault but I hate whenever he had to talk. It's very obvious he was reciting his lines. When you have to make such a young child act, it's better to avoid making them talk too much. He's supposed to be endearing, yet he just comes out as being irritating and whinny…

The whole “Mommy” and “Daddy” thing... when It’s obvious, this kid doesn’t speak a single word of English, was reaaaaaaaally awkward. That didn’t help the ordeal either. He speaks entirely in Thai anyway. Let him call his parents แม่ and พ่อ like every Thai, that would have been way less cringe.

I almost skipped his scenes all together.


In spite of me writing more about the bad points, the show had this going for them: It definitely was not boring. Most episodes were around 50 minutes instead of the usual 1hour 10+ minutes episodes I’ve seen in quite a lot of Lakorns so that made the series more easily accessible.

It’s not that there was nothing happening. Rather TOO much happening, for absolutely NO overall progression plotwise. As written above, it was a whole lot of meandering nonsense which only point was to show how evil and manipulative the Uncle is… but the main conflict which was… how to bring down the villain, goes round and round 13 episodes out of 18.


CONCLUSION


So… Would I recommend that one?
NO.

Not even to pass the time. Main issue is: It’s too draggy for a suspenseful thriller and there’s not enough fluff for romance lovers.

It fails at both.

The only reason I would recommend this show is if you’re a die-hard fan of Film or Min or you’re really into Korean Makjang.

You know the type. Old family dramas of the 2000s, with secret births, lots of twists and turns that go nowhere for 50 episodes, villains getting away with literally everything and a whole lot of suspension of disbelief needed. ( I assure you though… the main culprit here get what he deserves… BUT some characters who contributed to his ascension literally get a free pass… and one who was especially vile even get some form of sympathy pass from the drama [YEAH… SURE]).

Makjangs are not necessarily bad… But the issue is if it’s a lot of twists and turns only for the sake of shock value but without any or little progression plotwise for too long, the audience can grow tired and end up disconnected from the show… Which is what happened to me here.

This being said, there’s efforts made to keep viewers entertained… I haven’t seen enough Lakorns yet to judge how it fares compared to others… but compared to K dramas (not the makjang type)…

Well… Even being generous… It’s difficult for me to rate that one above 6,5 . AND… I don’t feel generous at present. So that’s a 6 because of how I got a whole bunch of nonsensical plotpoints and not enough fluff between the leads to make this whole ordeal worth the 18 hours of my life I wasted.

If it was a K dramas… I’d probably rate this between a 3 and a 4.5… Or rather I’d probably have already dropped it by episode 11/12. Only reason why I hung on was because of my “language quota” (long story).

But Thai productions, albeit for a few exceptions, are not yet on par with China, South Korea or Japan… so I feel it would be unfair to rate them based on the same criteria…

Also I have read it somewhere else but somebody suggested an "enjoyment" bar should be added to the ratings on MDL because you don't need a masterpiece to have a good time and while I found this show overly draggy, I still enjoyed myself enough to finish it because both main actors really made me root for their characters.
That's the only reason I ended up not being too harsh on this show. The overall suggested ratings here is 5... But considering the most important criteria for me which is "enjoyment", that's definitely a 6... There were times when it dropped to a 4... But no matter how much I think about it, I don't want to give it less than 6... because yes it was draggy, but at least they tried and resolved all the plot points they threw at us by the end of the show... Something, lots of dramas fail to do betraying their audience.

I’d probably would have rated it a 7 or 7,5, if we had 10 less episodes… But I guess it wouldn’t be a Lakorn otherwise.

THIS BEING SAID, I hate Makjang in general (unfortunately there’s no « Makjang » tag on MDL otherwise I’d have avoided this show). If you’re the type to appreciate the genre…
You’ll probably enjoy this so don’t let my long rant deter you for giving it a try…

However if you’ve started this and you feel the same as I by episode 7/8…

Well, just so you know. It doesn’t get better, so trust me, and save the remaining time for a better show.


PS: Also... Dunno who is the stylist, I usually really don't pay attention to fashion overall but I did notice that Min's clothes were just all the time pretty gorgeous and fitted her figure pretty well. Gotta give credits when it’s due.

PS2 : As per usual in most Thai dramas I’ve watched… the sound quality was awful especially when characters were shouting. I don’t know the expression in English but the sound felt « saturated ». There were even times when when characters talked, you’d have some additional parasitic sounds on top which was even more noticeable when you had music in the background.

PS3: Also Thailand… Can you please stop casting dark skinned actors only in negative roles? My God, I’m so tired of all that Colorism nonsense.