Game Rai Game Rak (2011)

Oh. My. God. This show is so ridiculously bad, I'm not even mad anymore.

What's worse is that I think I actually may have enjoyed it instead.

Game Rai Game Rak, like almost all Lakorns comes with its fair share of bullshit. You've got an old Island crone whose eyes turn bright blue everytime she sees the future (which ofcourse is completely irrelevant to the plot), you've got a one-dimensional villain, a nasty insecure bitch of a relative who basically destroys lives left and right but somehow has a change of heart in the last ten minutes of the show, wins everyone over and sets off in the sunset without ever having to pay for her crimes.

You've got a selfless and highly forgiving damsel in distress who's constantly being sexually, physically and mentally harassed by our main lead who misunderstands her because of trusting the lies his worst enemy fed him.
Not the brightest tool in the shed, I tell you.

Ofcourse there is always that one guy who is like a brother to our heroine (however always conveniently having waaay more skinship than normal siblings have) who inspires jealousy and possessiveness in the male lead who then proceeds to humiliate the heroine by calling her a slut and whatnot. We also can't possibly forget the one or two or in this case, three other guys who're interested in the female lead and are so insignificant, they might as well be invisible.

Everything is overdramatic and over the top. Rape gets romanticized like nobody's business. People get shot and catch bullets on the daily. Corny dialogues flow out like bad breath everytime someone opens their mouth. Obnoxious music starts playing every ten minutes; effectively swiping away any sincerity that the show managed to portray. Scenes are constantly repeated and the plot-line soon gets derivative.
In short, it's an honest to God definition of a hot mess.

But then again, nobody watches Lakorns for a solid story, well developed characters or a good plot with lack of loopholes. No, people mostly watch Lakorns because they're the classic guilty pleasures and because they get the chemistry between characters spot-on.

Game Rai Game Ruk is no different, which is why despite everything, I still watched it to the end.

This is the third Thai drama starring Yaya, that I have watched and unsurprisingly she impressed me once again. Her acting is always a 100% genuine and the characters she brings to life are so hard not to love.

Game Rai Game Rak is very very similar to Kleun Cheewit; having an almost identical feel at times, but where Jeerawat was a fierce and fearless woman, Fahlada radiates innocence. She's pure, delicate and basically the classic good girl- all the while, successfully staying far away from the 'kind but dumb' category everybody hates.

However, as adorable as she is, I feel that if you don't like YaYa you might not like Fahlada either. In Kleun Cheewit, I started to love the actress because of the drama and her role in it but in GRGR, I liked the drama only because I loved the actress and if I had seen this drama first I might've never adored Urassaya as much as I do now.

After watching this drama I finally understand why Yaya and Nadech are such a big deal in Thai entertainment industry. Their chemistry is absolutely electric and while I did feel that Nadech has a short emotional range as an actor, I believe this was one of his best roles.

From start to finish, it's impossible to hate Saichon. Even when things get ugly and he acts like an ultimate creep by smelling Fah's hair when she isn't looking, taking pictures of her when she's unaware, spying on her with a telescope, tying her up again and again and degrading her, (there's always the unforgivable and romanticised implied rape and all the other times he makes her cry and do things without her will) the reason you can't hate him is because of their sweet as hell moments in the island and the surety that no matter how rotten he acts he still deeply loves Fahlada.

The ultimate on-his-knees groveling session at the end and the fact that Fahlada hits him quite a lot all the time really does help his case furthur and to be honest, even though I am highly unforgiving of assholes there was never a moment where I didn't root for them to be together.

So all in all, Game Rai Game Rak is the kind of show that you can only watch while being extremely lenient 'cause the moment you start to notice all that is wrong with it, you'll start hating it. While I reccomend this for a good time-pass, personally, I skipped and fastforwarded a lot of scenes because, as the show progresses the episodes begin to be filled with more of the same thing. So even if it is skipped a bit, it won't effect the over-all watching experience.

Your classic bad boy-good girl story that you'll love to hate and hate to love and unfortunately do both by the end.

Enjoy!

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