Thai Drama: Forever Sunshine, 1st Impressions

I think I’ve seen almost every great Thai Lakorn drama out there. It wasn’t hard. There are only around a dozen lol. Most Lakorn plots are nuts, or the leads are unlikeable, or the production quality is low, so I wouldn’t call most of them great. I watch the semi-bad ones anyway, when I’m in a bad mood, because for some reason they make me feel better.

It’s probably because my life looks pretty good compared to a typical Lakorn family where the wife has to raise the child of her husbands mistress, and the child is mistreated and messed up and comes back later to wreak vengeance on the family before being consigned to a contract marriage with a relative who they end up falling for.

My hope was that Forever Sunshine would not be mediocre, or worse, but would be a great Lakorn. It had a good shot since the lead Mark Prin has been Kleun Cheewit, one of the great Thai dramas. And Husband in Law, which I enjoyed. He is also cute AF.

The plot is fairly standard for a Lakorn. A family becomes indebted to someone and the debt they are expected to pay is irrational. It causes all kinds of problems and the male and female lead go through trials, tribulations, and slap kisses and I assume end up in love in the end.

I don’t actually know how it ends because I dropped it. For now. Or ever. I might revisit it when I’m in a really bad mood. Or miss Mark Prin’s bangin’ bod. Or both.

I dropped it because the female lead was supposed to be 16 and was trying to seduce a 20(?) year old. I assume nothing happened in the drama until they were both older, but ick. More importantly, the lead females actions, which were whiny and bratty, started to stress me out.

I realized I was feeling anxious while I watched this drama, which is not ok, since I watch dramas to de-stress. That’s when I turned the show off and watched Korea’s Love Revolution instead, which is funny, sweet and fun, and made me feel much happier, calmer and content.

Th-Drama: 2gether (8.4/10)

If you haven’t watched a Boy Love (BL) drama but love dramas, you are missing out. Honestly, throw you pre-conceptions out the window. They are truly some of the greatest dramas out there.

I love them because a lot of them remind me of 90’s American high school and college movies like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You and Never Been Kissed. The kind that are so fun to watch and always have happy endings, but have mostly disappeared. Thai Bl’s are helping fill this void.

2Gether is about a freshman college boy who is basically being stalked by a guy that has a crush on him. At this point the lead is sure he is straight and can’t seem to get the guy to leave him alone. He tries a fake girlfriend and when that didn’t work, he and his friends decided he needed a fake boyfriend instead. It is a little unclear why they went this route or why they picked the guy did, but it was a plot point they had to forward, so I guess it’s ok.

The guy the lead picks to be his fake boyfriend is a school heartthrob who plays in a band but is otherwise quiet, cold and introverted. The heart throb repeatedly turns the lead down until eventually giving in.

The fake relationship turns into real love, as it should since this is what dramas are all about. BUT this evolution isn’t formulaic, which is something I really liked about this show. The person doing the running after the other is unique, and the story behind it and the responses they get are mostly unexpected. There is also some time spent on the lead character trying to work through whether they really like their fake boyfriend or if they are just infatuated with having someone so hot and sought after next to them,

I should mention that the fake boyfriend is PRETTY. Every episode he got more and more attractive to me. Some study found that the humans that people find universally attractive are the ones with symmetrical features and this guys are pretty perfect. The character also turns out to be adorably shy versus conceited so it is too easy to ship this couple.

There are reviewers out there who didn’t love this drama, but I think that it depends on what a viewer is looking to get out of one. I loved it. It was light-hearted, sweet and romantic, I didn’t get too invested in the second lead love triangles, and I ended the drama feeling even happier as a person than when I started it. THAT is what I watch dramas for.

I highly recommend giving this show or other BL’s a try because they really can be adorable and sweet and funny – basically the perfect pick me up. Love by Chance, 2 Moons and Scotus 2 are my fav, and 2gether just got added to that list.

K-Drama: Itaewon Class (7.9/10)

This drama had promise. So much promise. If you have ever read my blog posts you know that I love Park Seo Joon’s acting. I will ride or die for him if anyone questions his artistic talent. That’s why it’s hard for me to say that despite his acting this drama made me mad and I wouldn’t watch it again if you paid me.

The acting by Park and the rest of the cast was good. The production value was also high. And the beginning was interesting and made it seem like the drama would be a good one. These are the reasons why I have rated it as high as I have.

Here is a summary of the show from Mydramalist:

Park Saeroyi’s life has been turned upside down after he gets expelled from school for punching a bully and his father is killed in an accident. Following his father’s steps, he opens a pub named “DanBam” in Itaewon and, along with his manager and staff, strive towards success and reaching greater heights.

What the summary fails to mention is that this show is about revenge.

The first quarter of the show centers on what happens that makes the lead character Park Saeroyi want revenge and who he wants it against. And his crush on a girl that he gets to know.

The next quarter is about how he works towards getting revenge which involves opening a pub that he staffs with a motley cast of characters, one of whom is in love with him.

The third quarter is about his growing revenge success and the forth is the culmination of all of this.

I was fairly into the show, although not addicted until quarter three when I wanted to throw it out a window. Basically the beauty of Park Saeroyi, that made him worth rooting for was that he was ethical and principled and would adhere to his principles no matter what it cost him. He loyally loved the same woman for over a decade, he stood up for anyone he felt was oppressed and he chose people over immediate revenge.

Then all the sudden he threw that side of him away, except that I can’t tell if that was meant to be a moral to the story. It doesn’t seem like it. More like the writers had him transition to be an unethical disloyal, revenge over everything type person while pretending he wasn’t. I haven’t read the manga it is based on, so I don’t know.

Worse than all of this, the lead/second lead female was AWFUL. I don’t know if I have ever disliked a character more, outside of some really evil sageuk ministers or evil moms of chaebols. She was described as a sociopath, which seemed right based on her behavior. She was a fairly bad friend, bigoted, although she would eventually see the error of her ways, but only because of Park Saeroyi who she was in love with.

It wasn’t really clear, minus his strong sense of ethics, why the ladies liked Park Saeroyi who wasn’t a great communicator and had one of the worst haircuts I’ve ever seen. And he didn’t disrobe like Park Seo Joon’s other characters have, so it wasn’t about his muscles. But they did like him – a lot. What is less clear is why anyone in their right mind would like this girl. She was a 20 year old running after a 30 year old, crossing serious boundaries to do it and being a godawful human the rest of the time. How any writer, director or producer thought that I would ship her with this guy or even root for her is beyond me. She is the kind of person that I cross the street to avoid IRL.

All I can say is that I ended this show after episode 14 of 16. Near the end of the episode I actually thought that I wouldn’t fault a guy for pushing Park Saeroyi into a street and in front of a speeding car. In fact, the show could have ended like that and I would have given it a better rating. That’s when I knew I was done.

I read the summary of the last two episodes, which helped validate that I made the right choice.

Breaking: Love with Flaws actor Cha In Ha, 27, passed away today

Rest in Peace Cha In Ha 차인하

In Ha who is known for acting in a number of K-Dramas (k-dramagraphy below)was found dead in his home today. His cause of death is still unknown and police are investigating.

He was 27, born July 15, 1992.

This is a statement from his agency (via Soompi)

Cha In Ha’s k-dramagraphy (via MyDramaList)

Here is an interview In Ha did in 2017. He seems like such a sweet and intelligent human being and he deserved to be here with us for whole a lot longer. 😢 😢 😢 .

My thoughts go out to all of his family, friends, colleagues and fans.