Theptida Pla Rah (2021)

Pretty good lakorn!

Tl;Dr - This series was awesome! I'd recommend it!! If you're looking for a light-hearted, well scripted & greatly etched characters - this is the show for you! It made me laugh, ponder and root for characters!

Now, let me break this down into sections -

Story: The plot is actually quite tight, for a rom-com-ish Thai lakorn. Our male lead, Mahatsajan's, father sends him to the village to learn about life in general. There he meets Baimon(Female Lead) and Kamloy(Female Lead's Best Friend) and they don't get along, to say the least. Baimon & Kamloy's parent's farm lands get swindled while the same forces are working to swindle Mahatsajan & his family out of all their assets. The story revolves around bringing justice to the impacted people, learning about the importance of kindness and not being prejudiced about anyone.
I like that they spent time on the rural section and then the city. The story gave time for all characters. The villains and how they scam the leads' families is quite interesting in itself. In many other Thai drama, I usually fast forward the villains plotting and being sleezy. This one kept me riveted, though. I hated the villains, but did watch through all their scenes. And, I absolutely heart the two best friends - Baimon and Kamloy! Those are friendship goals! And I also loved how Baimon, Kamloy & Kamloy's boy friend worked hard and persevered to achieve their goals and dreams! The story had some beautiful messages about friendships, family & being kind without being preachy. I liked Mahatsajan's character growth! I also enjoyed watching him slowly fall in love with Baimon! I just wish they spent a little more time showing us Baimon falling in love with Mahatsajan. And, why oh why did they have to do that alter ego bullshit in the last episode?! I'd have preferred more time spent on them being all lovey-dovey.

Moving on to Acting - Everyone was awesome!! Well, everyone except the ML's mom. I don't know why - but I hated her! She was so screechy that I had to lower the volume of the video or mute it to shut out her voice and extra acting! I think the actress playing the ML's mum could have toned it down a bit. But, apart from that - I really loved every one! Special mention about the villains - they did a very believable job! They were creepy and gross - and made me hate the characters. The FL was kickass! I really loved her - she lived that character! :) The ML was pretty good too! There were parts were I thought he could have emoted better, but I was very ready to forgive these transgressions!! The two leads had good chemistry. Not the greatest that I've watched, but good nonetheless.

Music (and bit about editing): The music was okay. It kind of went with the scenes. My biggest complaint - What the hell was going on with the editing department? huh! There were many scenes where the music was amping up and there was an abrupt cut to a different scene. This was very jarring - Hence my overall 7.5 as opposed to a 8.5 or 9.

This show is definitely re-watchable! With that, I'm going to re-watch some of my fav scenes! :D

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