Me, myself & Thai

A new Thai drama that I have been anticipating for a month now is finally coming on Monday December 4th. I'm super excited! Check out the trailer here.

So this got me thinking back on the old Thai dramas that got me really into Thai dramas. I'm so going to talk more about these in the future. If I were to rank dramas that I really like based on country it would be Korea> Thai> Chinese> Malaysia. I know... I'm a Malaysian and I rank my own country drama in the last place. If only you know... The dramas are so repetitive and predictable. Sometimes, I'm guilty of that too. But that's not my point here. I want to talk about Thai dramas.

So, my first taste of Thai dramas was ages ago. Way back before I know kdramas. As I recall, I was nine at that time and the local cable channels aired lots of interesting Thai lakorns (dramas). E-pring (2002) was my first and I watched it with my mom. It's been more than a decade so not much is found about it anymore. I could barely find a decent jpeg.

I was really young and this lakorn is basically about a woman named E-pring (played by Mai Charoenpura) who's been married like five times I think (I was young and my mind was filled with Totally Spies & Disney). You must be thinking, what was my mom thinking watching a show like that with a poster like that jpeg. Well, my mom is not your average mom. Whatever she watches, I would watch it too. Including telenovelas, soaps and lakorns. Even ones like E-pring because seriously, she has a LOT of escapades with men. As I'm able to recall. I don't remember liking it. But I watched it anyways. We don't have internet back then. So the television is my world and I'm not very outdoorsy. But it's Thailand so the love scenes are just implied with camera going out of focus or the screen fades to black. So it's actually very tame. Even the passionate kiss scenes in telenovelas were edited out. Still are actually. But my mom was very direct to me about those stuff. It's her way teaching sex ed at home. I don't mind, really. So my taste is shows has been very mature since I was young. Plus, I turn out good. Unlike what some people think. It's all about proper parental guidance, folks.

So, back to lakorns. One that remembered semi-clearly was Phoenix Blood (Luerd Hong). The show was aired in 2001 in Thailand but our local channel aired it 2 years later. This lakorn was so memorable because my mom and her colleagues just couldn't stop talking about it. It was basically a national phenomena back in 2003.

It has the usual tropes in Asian dramas; the classic baby switching, Mary Sue female lead (played by Namthip Jongrachatawiboon), two guys in love with said female lead and super-bitch second female lead. But the hot topic of the year was the second female lead named Apatcha played by Organ Wacharapolmek. If you can't tell, she's the one with the sexy look and dark lipstick in the poster. My mother and her friends would not shut up about her and her hair. Her friend's daughter has similar hairstyle to Apatcha so we said she has Apatcha's hair. I know this because my mother is a teacher and I studied in the same school. Since she work office hours, I have to stay with her and we would all watch this show at 1500 hours in the office lounge. Ahhh... those were the days. The simpler times, you know. But enough with the cliché.

The third lakorn that I really want to talk about is called Love Chain (So Sanaeha) the 2003 original version not the 2017 remake.

I really love this lakorn. The original is always a win for me. The remake, not so much. This lakorn was starred by Aum Patcharapa and Oil Thana Suttikamul (seriously, I don't know whether the Thai people know the meaning of the words when they choose it as their nickname. I mean, Oil?). But odd nickname aside, he's just so handsome. Okay, my opinion is biased because back then he's the only male Thai actor that I really care about. The first two lakorns doesn't count, okay. Puberty has not hit me yet at that time. This lakorn I think was aired in between 2005 and 2006. So yeah, he's hot and my hormones were raging.

This lakorn is about Aum's character; Pralee who is a model with mommy issues (for a good reason). When she was in school, her mom had an affair with a younger guy when her dad was ill and he died soon after. Then, her mom married that guy (I think) but he's actually very shady. He almost raped her but her mom doesn't believe it and because of that incident, she wishes to severe ties with her mom. Enter our hero; Ramet. He's a rich guy who is easily manipulated by his mom. Coincidentally, his mom has a grudge againts Pralee's mom for stealing her man (a.k.a Pralee's dad) years ago.

First few meeting between Pralee and Ramet was not very pleasant and they both dislike each other immediately. Things get worse as Pralee happens to be friends with Ramet's younger brother (who also secretly has a crush on her); whose name I don't remember. They also have another female friend who's kind of nerdy (don't remember her name too). Things get weird when Ramet's mother posted an ad looking for a woman willing to carry her grandchild with Ramet (and a lot of money will be given). At first, I was like ...

But based from my limited understanding, Ramet's mom was one paraplegic manipulating bitch. Yup! If I remember this correctly, she has three adopted children (Ramet is one of them) and she loves him the most. She basically abuses her adopted daughter and ignores her other son. So we wants a grandkid from Ramet but don't want him to get married because she's worried that her wife would steal all the attention that Ramet gives her. And Ramet was on board with this because that's just how easily he was manipulated. It's a case of feeling indebted. Pralee saw the ad and figured she could use the money to sever the ties with her mom. So, she took up the job not knowing that the guy that she's supposed to be the baby incubator to is Ramet. While Ramet's mom, figured out who Pralee is after seeing her résumé immediately took it as the perfect opportunity to get back at Pralee's mom.

The thing I don't get about the story is that, instead of using artificial insemination, Ramet's mom decided to send both of them to a private island where they could make a baby. I guess they don't believe in modern methods. But they decided to ship them to a romantic location where things bound to get messy. So they had a rough start at the island discovering each other's identity but fell in love in the process. The cutest part is when she made him dance in a hula skirt. *squeal* Man, woman and everything romantic. These are the ingredients chosen to make a baby. They're both two very attractive people on one of the most romantic location. They're both two very attractive people on one of the most romantic location. I'm not going to go into details. I'm probably going to make a separate post about both versions of this lakorn. If you're interested in watching this, it's no longer available on Youtube. Thankfully, I have all the episodes minus subtitles. But I still watch it for the sake of those two. So, if you want it just comment.

Aum was one of the top actress back then (still is, I think). Check out her ig, she's almost 40 and still hot. This lakorn is the earlier lakorn that I genuinely loved because it is just romantic and the leading pair is just so good. I wish they would do another project together. She and Oil were like the OTP back then and Thai lakorn productions have this habit of repeating hit leading pairs. So they both were reunited once more but the lakorn was bad. So bad that I couldn't find a full episode online. I figured what the story is about based on its wiki page and Youtube comments. Based on those, it's just really bad. Regardless of that, I want to see this pair on screen again. I think they still got it. I mean, look at them!

I really wish they reunite in a new project. They both still look so good. What's their secret? Fountain of youth?