The 9th episode was filler. Which is weird when you know that there is so much for the show to do: close the cases of Sirin and Wa's deaths, get the main couple together, let us know about the baby's daddy, give the old perv his comeuppance. And I think the writers forgot about the second couple, but that's ok. I don't understand why thai dramas always have the same problem with pacing. No matter how well made a show is, it will always find a way to drag in the middle and rush at the end...
Sometimes due to the purpose of airing more series they will end it quickly and leave viewers questioning more.…
I really don't know why I would need a second series of this show though. I mean they have chemistry but thats not enough to keep my attention. I'm still watching merely for closure because we all already know about Sirin's disappearance.
I wonder if I'm the only one who see it so I'm just asking out of curiosity: is Gul Ameena (Khemika) wearing wigs in her dramas. In Game Saneha I thought maybe it was for the role, but now too it seems like her hair may be a very nice, well made wig. Are my eyes tricking me?
I'm going in for the spoilers here but do they really drag out the "cousin thing" with the kids?
Well yes and no. Let's just say it's not really a big deal except towards the ML who only finds out their identity towards the last fourth of the show.
Thai dramas seem to have a problem with length. It's always too long or too short somehow. Or it drags so much…
Also was disappointed by the ending, very middle of the road type. First of all it didn't make any sense, Thing is not haunted, he's a reincarnation of Phak, so how could he be still living when Phak's soul went to heaven. Also, most importantly, it's a boring ending. They should have made a choice to give us a real happy ending, cooked up a few reasons to explain things and kumbaya! I was willing to suspend my disbelief this long, I would have done it till the end.
Thai dramas seem to have a problem with length. It's always too long or too short somehow. Or it drags so much that the ending is always a bit rushed. This is the case here. When I started it, I was happy to see that it was only 13 episodes, I thought it wouldn't be too draggy. Well I was wrong haha. At first it's a really nice change to see a FL on top of her game, the concept of humanitarian pilotes is interesting too, I was okay with the young people too. But there was a major problem because very early on you can guess who the bad guys are, and you spend most of the drama waiting for the characters to find out. It could be better if it wasn't repetitive and draggy. The romance kicks up a notch around episode 7 or 8 but then it's back to gun fights and running around. I don't understand why Thai dramas makers don't seem to have their ducks in a row, or maybe is it just my luck with choosing dramas?
To me, Pear is the only good thing in this show. I always thought she was a great actress, very pretty and extremely talented. Now I also know that she's a great comedian. She's so funny. She doesn't try to always be pretty, she just goes for whatever nonsense the scene calls for. Her last scene at the police station was great! I feel bad that her performance had to be in this poor excuse for a drama. At the same time it goes to show how great her talent was that she was able to still be funny in this thing. I really hope she soon gets to star. I don't know why they need her to always play the evil girl.
I think they were trying to do a parody on lakorns but the way they did it made a lot of people unable to see…
Your review is so reasonable, I feel like you really gave an unbiased but informed opinion. It's hard for me to remove my feelings from this drama because I actually feel betrayed and attacked by the writers. Haha strong words, I know, but hear me out. As you said, the drama appeared to wanna be a parody of the genre, but in the end turned into the worst of what it intended to make fun of. Real Slap/Kiss lakorns like Sawan Biang may be hard to swallow for most of us, but it also has a quality that this drama lacks: authenticity. Yes, they do follow a formula, yes, they are full of clichés and rarely have anything new to show. But at least when I watch those, I don't feel manipulated.
Mia Jum Pen was cooked up by a bunch of men's rights activists who wanted to teach women a lesson. They gave us a fake premise with VERY interesting female characters, and then when we were interested (at least I was), they went ahead and meticulously chipped away at those characters by chunks. In the end, the only female characters who remain unsullied by tragedy are (1) the fragile, pure AKA virgin, and CHAIR BOUND Noi, and (2) the also pure, subservient and unassuming Jiew. The FL only finds happiness when she is broken and the shadow of what she used to be, and even then, the ML needs to be told by other people that she was untouched by her rapist. In the meantime, we have major redemption for the pimp/drug peddler/wife beater/wanna be rapist Banleng, and also Yadfah's crook of a father. But for women, the littlest faults lead to hell (I can't believe they actually gave Yadfah AIDS, and they made reformed, saintly Banleng laugh while telling her). These writers are women haters. There's no doubt about it if you read the subtext: they tricked us and gave us poison.
First of all, this drama is really, really good and well rounded. It's also a bit of a cautionary tale against lakorn culture. In other lakorns, we would have resolution around ep10, when they admit their love to each other, and the bad girl leaves them alone. But here, it goes on and you can see that the ML's macho attitude is actually a problem in their married life. He's super jealous and impulsive, basically the normal P'ek. Then you realize that P'ek make okay boyfriends but really bad husbands.
What I like about the show: +The themes: I like when a show has a lesson to teach me and does so in fun and somewhat suprising ways. Of course the main theme here is anger and its consequences. But there's also the lesson that you "you reap what you sow"... From the very beginning, we see that the ML is in a messy situation partly because of his longtime behavior that made it easy to believe that he could snap and hurt people. But the most important lesson might be about the power of forgiveness: EVERY character does something messed up and has to ask for forgiveness at one point or another. +The romance:There's not a lot of skinship at all, only a few artfully angled kisses. Yet you absolutely can feel the love and the attraction, especially on the guy's part. And this ML is great, he leaves no doubt as to whom he likes. +The ML is human and opens up about his feelings and insecurities. +The bad people were compelling and had their (bad) reasons. And there's no over the top evil craziness, everything is pretty normal behavior. Amazingly not too many shrieks!! +The mystery. Till the end you really wonder what happened to Siri.
What I didn't like: -One unnecessary death in this show. But that's a common trait of lakorns. -The ML messes up till the last episode. I like my last episode to be more of an epilogue type, but I never get it with lakorns anyway. -The actress who plays the FL is a bit weak, almost tired. Another commenter said "detached". She's like the female version of Andrew Gregson. Fine, except if your character is supposed to be a hard living party girl!
All in all, you can tell by watching this lakorn that whoever made it doesn't hate women. Here women are people, not monsters. Sex doesn't define them, some are having it and others aren't, and that's life. Also they are all rational people, even the big meanie is a normal person.
So... I just finished it by skipping 8 full episodes to get to the point. I thought if I watched the end, it would give me an idea of whether or not I should invest my time in this. The answer is yes, but not now. In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty standard slap/kiss lakorn with a very stupid ML. But there are many redeeming qualities to the lakorn: +There's a great sismance between the FL, her sister and their friend Pink. I was happy to see this rare (in thai dramas) female friendship. +Really good representation for women: the ML's mom is probably THE best mom I've seen in lakorns so far, and his sister is also great; she's not the usual spoiled little sister. Or maybe she's spoiled but also remarkably smart. There are two bad women in the drama (the FL's love rivals) but I felt that they were pretty compelling, especially the final meanie. +The FL is actually not as weak as people here say. From the beginning I was really surprised to see how clever and discerning she was. Yes she was conned by the ML, but he was so charming (in the beginning) that I bet I would've been conned too! After that I saw her give as well as she got, she slapped and insulted a lot and it was pretty funny to see the shock on the ML's face time and time again.
The problem I have with this lakorn though is that the chemistry wasn't enough to me. I think Slap/Kiss often comes with a certain level of passion and skinship (even without real kisses) that make it kind of worthwhile, unfortunately in here we don't have this. So I was left with a bland feeling.
Currently watch Sanaeha Sunya Kaen and wondering why I've never seen such a great actress before. Turns out she got married and I guess focused on family. I hope she's able to come back to acting one day if she ever wants to because she's a great actress.
Lakorns don't have the best story telling or production value, especially compared to Korean or Chinese dramas. What lakorns have that others don't are: (1) the best settings/scenery, (2) the most delicious looking food and (3) the prettiest eye candy. Unfortunately this drama is set in Vienna, meaning that we have to forgoe the first two strong points of lakorns from the get go. As for the eye candy, all the leads are okay looking in my humble opinion, but when you try to pass off a 42 year old man for a 20 year old student, there's a little bit of a problem.
The drama had to rely heavily on story telling, unfortunately this was a pretty boring tale. I counted that the main leads are not seen together for 4 whole episodes (!). The ML is weak, and all the secondary characters are super boring, except for one of the women chasing the ML, who is unfortunately not fleshed out enough to make a compelling character. All in all, the story might have been a good read back in the days it was written. But put in contemporary era, and with a small budget, this wasn't a pleasurable watch at all. I gave it a 5.5.
I don't understand why thai dramas always have the same problem with pacing. No matter how well made a show is, it will always find a way to drag in the middle and rush at the end...
I don't understand why Thai dramas makers don't seem to have their ducks in a row, or maybe is it just my luck with choosing dramas?
As you said, the drama appeared to wanna be a parody of the genre, but in the end turned into the worst of what it intended to make fun of. Real Slap/Kiss lakorns like Sawan Biang may be hard to swallow for most of us, but it also has a quality that this drama lacks: authenticity. Yes, they do follow a formula, yes, they are full of clichés and rarely have anything new to show. But at least when I watch those, I don't feel manipulated.
Mia Jum Pen was cooked up by a bunch of men's rights activists who wanted to teach women a lesson. They gave us a fake premise with VERY interesting female characters, and then when we were interested (at least I was), they went ahead and meticulously chipped away at those characters by chunks. In the end, the only female characters who remain unsullied by tragedy are (1) the fragile, pure AKA virgin, and CHAIR BOUND Noi, and (2) the also pure, subservient and unassuming Jiew. The FL only finds happiness when she is broken and the shadow of what she used to be, and even then, the ML needs to be told by other people that she was untouched by her rapist.
In the meantime, we have major redemption for the pimp/drug peddler/wife beater/wanna be rapist Banleng, and also Yadfah's crook of a father. But for women, the littlest faults lead to hell (I can't believe they actually gave Yadfah AIDS, and they made reformed, saintly Banleng laugh while telling her).
These writers are women haters. There's no doubt about it if you read the subtext: they tricked us and gave us poison.
What I like about the show:
+The themes: I like when a show has a lesson to teach me and does so in fun and somewhat suprising ways. Of course the main theme here is anger and its consequences. But there's also the lesson that you "you reap what you sow"... From the very beginning, we see that the ML is in a messy situation partly because of his longtime behavior that made it easy to believe that he could snap and hurt people. But the most important lesson might be about the power of forgiveness: EVERY character does something messed up and has to ask for forgiveness at one point or another.
+The romance:There's not a lot of skinship at all, only a few artfully angled kisses. Yet you absolutely can feel the love and the attraction, especially on the guy's part. And this ML is great, he leaves no doubt as to whom he likes.
+The ML is human and opens up about his feelings and insecurities.
+The bad people were compelling and had their (bad) reasons. And there's no over the top evil craziness, everything is pretty normal behavior. Amazingly not too many shrieks!!
+The mystery. Till the end you really wonder what happened to Siri.
What I didn't like:
-One unnecessary death in this show. But that's a common trait of lakorns.
-The ML messes up till the last episode. I like my last episode to be more of an epilogue type, but I never get it with lakorns anyway.
-The actress who plays the FL is a bit weak, almost tired. Another commenter said "detached". She's like the female version of Andrew Gregson. Fine, except if your character is supposed to be a hard living party girl!
All in all, you can tell by watching this lakorn that whoever made it doesn't hate women. Here women are people, not monsters. Sex doesn't define them, some are having it and others aren't, and that's life. Also they are all rational people, even the big meanie is a normal person.
In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty standard slap/kiss lakorn with a very stupid ML. But there are many redeeming qualities to the lakorn:
+There's a great sismance between the FL, her sister and their friend Pink. I was happy to see this rare (in thai dramas) female friendship.
+Really good representation for women: the ML's mom is probably THE best mom I've seen in lakorns so far, and his sister is also great; she's not the usual spoiled little sister. Or maybe she's spoiled but also remarkably smart. There are two bad women in the drama (the FL's love rivals) but I felt that they were pretty compelling, especially the final meanie.
+The FL is actually not as weak as people here say. From the beginning I was really surprised to see how clever and discerning she was. Yes she was conned by the ML, but he was so charming (in the beginning) that I bet I would've been conned too! After that I saw her give as well as she got, she slapped and insulted a lot and it was pretty funny to see the shock on the ML's face time and time again.
The problem I have with this lakorn though is that the chemistry wasn't enough to me. I think Slap/Kiss often comes with a certain level of passion and skinship (even without real kisses) that make it kind of worthwhile, unfortunately in here we don't have this. So I was left with a bland feeling.
Unfortunately this drama is set in Vienna, meaning that we have to forgoe the first two strong points of lakorns from the get go. As for the eye candy, all the leads are okay looking in my humble opinion, but when you try to pass off a 42 year old man for a 20 year old student, there's a little bit of a problem.
The drama had to rely heavily on story telling, unfortunately this was a pretty boring tale. I counted that the main leads are not seen together for 4 whole episodes (!). The ML is weak, and all the secondary characters are super boring, except for one of the women chasing the ML, who is unfortunately not fleshed out enough to make a compelling character.
All in all, the story might have been a good read back in the days it was written. But put in contemporary era, and with a small budget, this wasn't a pleasurable watch at all. I gave it a 5.5.