I was going to leave it vague lol but that was originally the intent haha I wouldn’t trust anyone to hold me or myself rather to stand on that one hand and not fall flat on my face 🤣🤣💀
I decided to rewatch after reading the book just to slowly process the details I missed watching Khemjira the…
Another would be Rampueng’s flashback reveal of her suffering, the time she placed that curse upon them and the descendants 400 years ago. What I liked from the book that was somewhat briefly explained in the drama, was how on the day she confessed her injustice, it is said that not only was the whole family present, some high ranking officials part of the branch, along with their subordinates was also there. They all knew she spoke of the truth but couldn’t go up against the first wife so they abandoned Rampueng. Those present on that day, all happened to be reincarnated into that exact same lineage as descendants year after year including any slaves and servants who belittled her, the men couldn’t survive past 19 (in the book or 21 in the drama), and the women would be separated from her loved ones experiencing heartbreak. Rampueng had even trapped some of those deceased descendants as servants, forever bound to her as she wished, and the husband and first wife is stuck somewhere in hell paying for their karma and couldn’t reincarnate. She made no exceptions for Khem or his mother, since Khem was Krongkwan and his mother was the third wife, whom both personally witnessed her son being thrown into the lake and could’ve been alibis, forgetting they were ever kind to her in the past and still is, after her death. Had the drama included these dialogues, it would’ve magnified the situation, her thirst for vengeance tenfold, making the audience understand that it wasn’t solely because of the curse alone but that she wanted the whole family because of who they were and Khem’s identity was essentially the ‘last’ one.
The finale and takedown was done very well, I liked how they rewritten and wrapped it that way. I sort of wished they had borrowed more from the book though, involving more kathas and ‘painful’ aftershocks of bleeding eyes, and vomiting black blood from Pharan than what was shown. The weapon in question was turned into a holy weapon from the Naga’s treasure instead of grandfather Sek black magic knife suspected to be the same one he used to cut his hand to help Khem when he was a child in the 2nd ep. The knife was really interesting as it depicts his grandfather involvement in the dark arts during his youth and why he always constantly warmed not to meddle in someone’s karmic debt and not touch into black magic. Pharan cleansing the knife amidst all this chaos was super cool too.
The anklet heirloom whom the third wife has especially passed down in hopes to return it to the owner would’ve made Rampueng’s end in the drama more bittersweet and not abruptish after she learnt that Luang Por Kasem was her own son. I think the book’s final touch with her spending some time with him in her world was a more fitting closer than Rampueng being reminded of her baby, awoke out of her misery and all of a sudden, want to repent after all these centuries.
I decided to rewatch after reading the book just to slowly process the details I missed watching Khemjira the first time around as there was so many things happening one after another and really, to just savour and point out who’s doing what in the background compared to the book. 🤣
Such as Charnwit who’s appearance is introduced in the first ep alongside Jet and Khem, but the camera doesn’t linger on him for more than a sec so it almost appears insignificant but it’s just to flash the character to the audience since he’s the other lead, and that he really has kept an eye out for those 2 lol.
I never thought there would ever be a day I would say the drama is actually a lot more fleshed out better than the book, and I’m only just talking about the main 37 + prologue/epilogue chapters with an overall snippet look into the ending as per the side chaps relevant to the drama. It is a close 85-90% adaptation of the book, meaning you can totally read the chapters alongside watching the show if you want to as it’s linear enough.
In saying that, why do I think the drama is better than the book as an avid reader who most often than not, like the book better than its adaptation? The book no doubt is one of its kind, incorporating reincarnation into a love story with a shaman, involving magic, real kathas, religion, and BL set in the countryside where these topics are most prevalent in their culture. However, everything was too short, too fast, little descriptive words and more straight to the point story telling, the pacing for each event is a bit off and sometimes, paragraphs just doesn’t translate well into English. Maybe I’m not used to a very short and concise story written from Thai authors, I do feel the later half of the book was written a lot better than the first though.
Henced why I like most of the changes done here for the drama. In just the first ep alone, Por Kru intro of him being a shaman reciting kathas, doing rituals out in the community rather than staying at home for them to come by, and even the coach incident where he astro projected to help Jet rid of the ghosts showed him to be more proactive in protecting the community, turning words from a page into action like the director wanted it to be.
Khem being able to see ghosts from a young age was very convenient to bond with Jet and those around him when they met and that he knew and understood well of this type of world and could handle it better than he did in the book who just cries and is frightened at every single encounter as he neared 19 years of age and experienced every kind of unexplained events right then. The coach incident shows him to be very brave and sacrificial as he was already aware and especially awake during this scene, though still unable to help Jet, they turned his flaw around from the book into someone who can brave it all. Even his past life was fleshed out, creating more emotional depth into why that particular time period was so important to him and Pharan and couldn’t just let go of his feelings for Pharan.
Jet’s immaturity is also toned down here, not crossing Pharan bottom line and Charn’s relationship with Jet is a lot more matured still with a hint of youth and freedom but added with past life connections introduced earlier than the book did which made their arc more enjoyable as they’re all experiencing everything together.
The same went for Grandma Si (and everyone else), who personally became acquainted to Khem and always helping her out on khwan rituals, especially at the ending arc where everyone specifically told Khem it wasn’t his fault that she ended that way. A very big change that made the drama better vs the book in creating this emotional depth between Pharan and Khem without extra tension caused other than Pharan’s promise to not meddle in other people karmic debts.
Does this mean the drama is without flaws? Of course not. Others have pointed out some inconsistencies already and I won’t go into details about the obvious whatever the ‘we can’t be together, I have a bestie who likes me’ arc which btw does not exist so thoroughly like the drama did but personally, I have a few flaws I’m nitpicking about that the book has done a tad better with.
Jet’s reduction in screen time as Pharan’s disciple. What do I mean by this? Of course we see him being his disciple. You just don’t see much of his independence or hard work, already extremely limited from how the author had written him, the screenwriter reduced his role in the coach incident eg, relying heavily on Pharan making him look kinda useless. Up against his sister who practices these arts and even have those dolls proven useful for the finale, the actual master’s disciple, written that way by default, still makes him look like he’s not doing much other than the basic stuff. Even when Charn also became a student, there wasn’t much scenes dedicating to learning from Pharan and what rituals and kathas they could’ve helped the community with and only showed a short while of scenes helping Khem out unlike the book though briefly mentioned.
Another would be Rampueng’s flashback reveal of her suffering, the time she placed that curse upon them and the descendants hundreds of years ago. (Spoiler)
The finale and takedown was done very well, I liked how they rewritten and wrapped it that way. I sort of wished they borrowed more from the book though. (Spoiler)
PS: I’m really glad DMD picked Khemjira up, and the casts got the roles because in all honesty, it’s a lot better than the previous ones and they blew up bc chemistry was insane!!
they did! ig you can count from the scene where he had the sheets blocking the public view of the Xu? familys arrest and they ‘reunited’ with their shadows, I was referring to the ending where he went to publically pick her up from the birthday banquet and bent down to grab her handkerchief lol I’m counting the back hug seen in the previews as the reunion
Zhao Ling in the heavy rain, walking slowly towards Tingyun, eyes filled with apology for coming late, for 5 years…
I was actually looking at the umbrella alongside it lol backlit with the light, you see every single raindrop spilling over that umbrella looking like it’s crying in his place
The crime shorts GY has been doing with his female costars lately are somewhat ok and/or all ended with the classic jail BE, I hope this one especially since it’s dual ml with one he’s actually worked before as BL wouldn’t end up the same fate, it looks a lot more promising.
The eight trigrams game = mazes with movable walls is actually not a bad concept for this celebration. Now the reason behind it is quite annoying but ZL won it in the end, ending this scene with a spectacular 💋 view.
Probably never since there’s no signs of a vertical one 🤣 I was noticing how mods are taking forever to even change the episode duration I have no idea why
diy ‘smoked whiskey’ + aftercare with an ashtray?? 🤣🤣
I really liked the push and pull going on in their relationship, especially the end of ep 2 with the bathtub. I’m actually quite interested in this counterfeit money case circling around. why do they need this guys business to circle these fake bills for and how involved is he 🤔
K-Drama 
1 
To walk on the human stool, you need immense foot balance and trust its stability won’t fail to hold you by your husband in front of the audience. 🥿🥿
I thought that it was because he used to be a bandit and just wanted to hold it that way, am I wrong? 🤣
The finale and takedown was done very well, I liked how they rewritten and wrapped it that way. I sort of wished they had borrowed more from the book though, involving more kathas and ‘painful’ aftershocks of bleeding eyes, and vomiting black blood from Pharan than what was shown. The weapon in question was turned into a holy weapon from the Naga’s treasure instead of grandfather Sek black magic knife suspected to be the same one he used to cut his hand to help Khem when he was a child in the 2nd ep. The knife was really interesting as it depicts his grandfather involvement in the dark arts during his youth and why he always constantly warmed not to meddle in someone’s karmic debt and not touch into black magic. Pharan cleansing the knife amidst all this chaos was super cool too.
The anklet heirloom whom the third wife has especially passed down in hopes to return it to the owner would’ve made Rampueng’s end in the drama more bittersweet and not abruptish after she learnt that Luang Por Kasem was her own son. I think the book’s final touch with her spending some time with him in her world was a more fitting closer than Rampueng being reminded of her baby, awoke out of her misery and all of a sudden, want to repent after all these centuries.
Such as Charnwit who’s appearance is introduced in the first ep alongside Jet and Khem, but the camera doesn’t linger on him for more than a sec so it almost appears insignificant but it’s just to flash the character to the audience since he’s the other lead, and that he really has kept an eye out for those 2 lol.
I never thought there would ever be a day I would say the drama is actually a lot more fleshed out better than the book, and I’m only just talking about the main 37 + prologue/epilogue chapters with an overall snippet look into the ending as per the side chaps relevant to the drama. It is a close 85-90% adaptation of the book, meaning you can totally read the chapters alongside watching the show if you want to as it’s linear enough.
In saying that, why do I think the drama is better than the book as an avid reader who most often than not, like the book better than its adaptation? The book no doubt is one of its kind, incorporating reincarnation into a love story with a shaman, involving magic, real kathas, religion, and BL set in the countryside where these topics are most prevalent in their culture. However, everything was too short, too fast, little descriptive words and more straight to the point story telling, the pacing for each event is a bit off and sometimes, paragraphs just doesn’t translate well into English. Maybe I’m not used to a very short and concise story written from Thai authors, I do feel the later half of the book was written a lot better than the first though.
Henced why I like most of the changes done here for the drama. In just the first ep alone, Por Kru intro of him being a shaman reciting kathas, doing rituals out in the community rather than staying at home for them to come by, and even the coach incident where he astro projected to help Jet rid of the ghosts showed him to be more proactive in protecting the community, turning words from a page into action like the director wanted it to be.
Khem being able to see ghosts from a young age was very convenient to bond with Jet and those around him when they met and that he knew and understood well of this type of world and could handle it better than he did in the book who just cries and is frightened at every single encounter as he neared 19 years of age and experienced every kind of unexplained events right then. The coach incident shows him to be very brave and sacrificial as he was already aware and especially awake during this scene, though still unable to help Jet, they turned his flaw around from the book into someone who can brave it all. Even his past life was fleshed out, creating more emotional depth into why that particular time period was so important to him and Pharan and couldn’t just let go of his feelings for Pharan.
Jet’s immaturity is also toned down here, not crossing Pharan bottom line and Charn’s relationship with Jet is a lot more matured still with a hint of youth and freedom but added with past life connections introduced earlier than the book did which made their arc more enjoyable as they’re all experiencing everything together.
The same went for Grandma Si (and everyone else), who personally became acquainted to Khem and always helping her out on khwan rituals, especially at the ending arc where everyone specifically told Khem it wasn’t his fault that she ended that way. A very big change that made the drama better vs the book in creating this emotional depth between Pharan and Khem without extra tension caused other than Pharan’s promise to not meddle in other people karmic debts.
Does this mean the drama is without flaws? Of course not. Others have pointed out some inconsistencies already and I won’t go into details about the obvious whatever the ‘we can’t be together, I have a bestie who likes me’ arc which btw does not exist so thoroughly like the drama did but personally, I have a few flaws I’m nitpicking about that the book has done a tad better with.
Jet’s reduction in screen time as Pharan’s disciple. What do I mean by this? Of course we see him being his disciple. You just don’t see much of his independence or hard work, already extremely limited from how the author had written him, the screenwriter reduced his role in the coach incident eg, relying heavily on Pharan making him look kinda useless. Up against his sister who practices these arts and even have those dolls proven useful for the finale, the actual master’s disciple, written that way by default, still makes him look like he’s not doing much other than the basic stuff. Even when Charn also became a student, there wasn’t much scenes dedicating to learning from Pharan and what rituals and kathas they could’ve helped the community with and only showed a short while of scenes helping Khem out unlike the book though briefly mentioned.
Another would be Rampueng’s flashback reveal of her suffering, the time she placed that curse upon them and the descendants hundreds of years ago. (Spoiler)
The finale and takedown was done very well, I liked how they rewritten and wrapped it that way. I sort of wished they borrowed more from the book though. (Spoiler)
PS: I’m really glad DMD picked Khemjira up, and the casts got the roles because in all honesty, it’s a lot better than the previous ones and they blew up bc chemistry was insane!!
The crime shorts GY has been doing with his female costars lately are somewhat ok and/or all ended with the classic jail BE, I hope this one especially since it’s dual ml with one he’s actually worked before as BL wouldn’t end up the same fate, it looks a lot more promising.
Tension is rising starting tmr.
Super excited for their reunion!
I really liked the push and pull going on in their relationship, especially the end of ep 2 with the bathtub. I’m actually quite interested in this counterfeit money case circling around. why do they need this guys business to circle these fake bills for and how involved is he 🤔