First off, I watched 'Manee Yard Fah', where young Willie McIntosh looked really hot. What can I say, men don't look the same nowadays. Given that I still rated the older version 6.5, with the cast and chemistry included, story was probably not much. "No wonder" it got remade. Yeah, I only remember that I understood perfectly why the princes was all alright with staying with him as a humble civil servant wife;-)

As for Yaya, the pretty girl with poor taste in men (she dates him in real life, apparently), I only started to respect her as an actress after 'Kleun Cheewit' (partly) and 'Leh Lub Salub Rarng' (fully). Now, was this done before 'Leh Lub Salub Rarng', or after? Let me check... AFTER. That's good, then. So I tried this despite my obvious aversion to both Nadech & princess themes...

Adorable people like Yoghurt Nattasha or Freud Chatphong are in badass roles, which is... cute. Well, if Nadech can, then anyone can:) Also Yaya's princess is badass. Though, this cannot surpass her 'Leh Lub Salub Rarng' role, where her being this badass had a credible reason. LOL. Sara Legge and Cindy Bishop are cast as fellow princesses. They're quite acceptable. Nhing Nirut as king even more so. Yaya somehow actually doesn't look aristocratic at all, something about her, perhaps the full lips. She does make a goodlooking princess though, of course.

Episode runtime is pretty long. Thankfully, there's lot of entertaining action & main girl-main guy interactions, though neither the girly faced main guy nor the manly faced female bodyguard were my eyecandy. Watching this, I started to remember the 'Manee Yard Fah' story... Though princess themed, I didn't dislike it. I moderately enjoyed it here too, except looking at Nadech. But Yaya, besides being attractive, IS perfect in whatever (badass, proud, vulnerable...) she wants to portray. She really owns her acting now.

In the older version, the island part was longer and then I mostly remember them staying in one house. Producers definitely spent more money on this version. Still, it doesn't make up for the main actor to look like... Well, Nadech Kugimiya. I just wanted the princess to ditch him somewhere and then go on another adventure with someone else. Indy Intad looks silly and about as credible as prince as my street's dustman, but this series, with his average looks he's the main male eye candy. This sets the level of this show despite the production values.

As for female eye candy, Yaya has some competition in Yoghurt Nattasha and very, very cute Reindeer Parisaya. I'm enjoying Yaya's acting the most, though. She is the main value of this show:) She's just adorable with the glasses (subtle, inexpensive, and bit geeky). I wouldn't expect that. She's making it way more intriguing than Anne Thongprasom (yeah, she's better than her! wow:) Plus, when we got to the stage when they become "married couple", I reckoned now I will be able to stay mainly with the "housewife" and skip Nadech's separate scenes comfortably:) Either way, his mission is to succesfully convince his surroundings that he suddenly married an ordinary girl. Prying, gossiping army wives dig and suspect a lot at first, but in the end of the day, the most convincing reason IS he just fell madly in love with her. And with Yaya, who wouldn't?:)

But! When we are already settled in the situation where princess plays the common wife, it does not continue as cute rom-com I remember from the older version. We still deal mostly with princess enemies investigating and palace politics. Which proves a mistake (rom-com is at least less stupid than fictional kingdom stuff), again ironically because this time they had bigger budget. We see many naive machinations and feeblemindness of practically all the royal characters. We see no army wives or other funny side-characters for whole episodes 4-5.

No, instead we suffer through more demented action and watch Matthew Dean. Ugh. As for the main two, their romance is nice. Despite his looks, Nadech's character acts very manly, and never ceases to be the white knight for "his" princess, with the right whiff of sadness that she isn't really his. It's the same only reversed for the second couple with Indy Intad (prince is stupid and needs to be protected by girls). Either way, things the main couple deals with are so big it's ridiculous when they discuss them in their humble fake-marriage house. The house looks so very similar to the one in older version, btw. The difference is that one operated on a small scale, where domestic romantic comedy/drama was played most of the screentime. Here, the characters might be standing in the kitchen but are still discussing serious issues that affect international relations.

Though I did not find the older version a very memorable lakorn, I do remember I appreciated it for being able to create a successfull couple rom-com despite being princess themed. Else I would not rate it higher than 5.0 (which I rate any mildly enjoyable romance). This version - full of grand palace events, high officials gatherings, press conferencess and big actions scenes - actually works worse. No matter how adorable Yaya is as the "princess turned army wife", she and her mission-marriage plays the second, if not the hundredth fiddle to all the big bang.

So, the fake husband & wife leave their army provided marriage-house (in which they spent the majority of the old version, as I remember) soon as beginning of episode 6. They share an emotional scene, which is good. She finally shows him weakness and he clearly accepted his mission to protect the princess to the end, no matter the consequences to his life or career. She lost her adorable glasses, though. I would so wish we could go back to the end of episode 3 and continued the domestic fake-marriage rom-com (which barely started). Instead, we go on another road movie... Then stop at mountain village where they stay instead of the military base. Episode 7, she's even on her way back to her fictional country to claim her fictional throne. Not much room for their blooming romance was left...? Then, she's suddenly back in the military house with her glasses... Oh, she just wants to spend there her last day as civilian, before leaving for her kingdom. She starts to reminiscence her first day in there, which is funny because it's like it was almost also her last day, they left the place so fast. Like I mentioned, the military base marriage-house was where almost entire runtime of the original version of this series took place. The couple of Anne Thongprasom & Willie McIntosh sure had many memories there. Not this couple.

That moment pra'ek's mother appears, very suspecting of a new "wife" of her son. She seems to have high position in the military, but probably not much common knowledge to know the face of the princess at least from the internet. Therefore, she reacts just like in the old version, and just says to her that she'll monitor closely whether she really married her son for love:) This would have its place in the story had the princess still plan to remain in the fake marriage and was not just about to leave it. Nevertheless, we see the mother consulting the other army wives. This reminds the old version, only in this version things don't happen organically as the couple's "domestic life" got repeatedly interrupted, with them attending the big stuff or leaving so far it didn't look they are to ever come back. Also both "husband and wife" acted so suspicious that even though the mother did not know immediatelly she is not an ordinary citizen, she suspected it right away. Things were not to last for so long as in the old version... No, here it all soon escalates into yet another action plot.

Just like the two main characters here are unable to act as common husband and wife, the whole show cannot resist the "blockbuster" scenes. So as the result, we just cannot watch the fake-relationship drama in peace.

I watched the 13-episode "master edition", but that didn't change it... Even all the secondary couples had their time mostly cut short by all the action stuff, or leaving abroad. Yuan Nithichai, who was about the only one of the whole cast looking credible as bodyguard, clearly could make a georgeous couple with the other princess, portrayed by Sara Legge. Sadly, she had to spend most of her time with the lame Matthew Dean. Looked tragic when HE was supposed to be the main villain, looked COMICAL when it was supposed to be the fake-bearded Peter Corp Dyrendal. Overall, Kate's character went from interesting to ridiculous.

The only one who does not disappoint in this drama is Yaya, who indeed surpassed Anne Thongprasom, and truly does her character justice. Watching her, you really believe she is a princess and a person worthy of sacrifice, beautiful inside and out. Also, no matter the story, her character's interactions with Nadech's character were very enjoyable, even though I don't like Nadech. Then of course, she shines in the action part of the series, which maybe should be called the majority part... Someone obviously forgot who is supposed to be protected one and who the bodyguard, lol. Still I admit it's Yaya's action fighting scenes (episode 8) that steal anyone's thunder. She looks SO badass, lol. Who cares about it making sense. I remember watching her action scene in 'Leh Lub Salub Rarng' (also episode 8) over and over, and this was something similar.

And in the end, after watching so much of Nadech, I even started to like Indy Intad lol. It was him with Yoghurt Nattasha who made the couple I could enjoy watching, even if there was not much of it.

In conclusion, to compare this with the older version, where the princess theme almost vanished into domestic rom-com, this was very princess-y till the end. It was more majestic and also more tiring to watch. The characters were mostly portrayed exquisitely. But, it WAS ridiculous having psychopatic killer right there in the same house the whole time. I had to laugh in some scenes. It was all stupid from the country name/royals names to the minor details. And I did mention, Nadech Kugimiya is far from my dream guy lol. Because else, if this focused only on the problem of a royal marrying a commoner, I think that is actually a good theme. After all, real life royalty knows such marriages, and their stories are far from boring. Even without psychopatic killers, lol.