2024 Thai Drama Challenge

(is this Isan? there's mor lam) very Thai nonsense, but centered around a very unlady-like young woman

This is so well done, both as youth work and as well-written television. Multi-layered, intense, compact five episodes looking at the damage social media enables. They clearly took great care over every bit of this, it's amongst the best-crafted work I've seen and articulating a powerful and important message.

The first half focuses on village life, Nak and Mak meeting and their early married life. The second half is a mix of comedy-horror, supernatural and tragedy. The copy I found to stream was (re)dubbed and included space-age sound effects and much later music.
The end, where they stopped speaking, I found more affecting. I'd very much like to see this with the original sound though that may no longer exist.
Overall though, it was worth watching as part of the history and glimpses into early Thai cinema and how, in 1959, they presented life in the previous century.

Slow, quiet coming of age focused on high school girls trying to find their way into adulthood. The visual story-telling is so strong I'm struggling to find adequate words. Patience required but highly recommend.

More of a traditional Mae Nak than I anticipated going in, quoting abundantly from Nang Nak. They threw in some fun twists to generate its own suspense.

The first four episodes are pretty perfect as sweet, gentle BL thanks to the leads. It goes a bit odd in the last two as they have to explain things and tie up lose ends. The writer made it more difficult, and far weirder, than needed but otherwise good.

High concept, high angst, high confusion.

Gentle, sensitive film about a kind boy who befriends a ghost. There are a couple of effective jump scares and good use of horror music around the students making fun of the new one but it's not horror. Perhaps the best coming of age film I've seen from Thailand so far.

It's an odd mix of serious and silly. The best parts were the traditional medicine. Leads aren't the best actors but they were well matched to each other. Interesting in how it emphasised the importance of women's medical knowledge and practice through food, whilst not dismissing the patriarchal hierarchy of the society they lived in.

Fluffy university GL which turns into something else, dark, sad, twisting and stressful. That shift came at the wrong time in my night and week, so I couldn't stay with it. The twists will make for powerful emotions if you can.

Closing monologue seems to make out it's about moral hypocrisy but it's more of a descent into madness. More psychological than horror, with small moments of black humour. I thought it was going to be a boiled frog one like The Medium but it was on a smaller scale and less graphic.

Sweet and more than a little goofy and doesn't take itself seriously except for the emotions. Those were real. Very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. Even if I did start it a bit late. I just meant to take a wee peek I swear.

Needed something gentle to offset a lakorn, searched for Nice Male Lead and found this... charisma and kindness, good music, and a sweet, beautiful, touching story which ignores physical reality but gently encompasses big emotions.

Liked the beginning, got bored for several episodes (3-6ish i think) and then it started to get better and better. Complicated impossible story well-explored. They did something I wish they hadn't, had a difficultly realistic wife managing a man's emotions situation for the parents, and left a main character redemption arc until late - which made some of its development feel like it was going to be unearned - but the story came through in the end. Writers and actors did a great job. My favourite was Jinny who loves as big as she whines :)

More staged violence than plot but the fighting was well done. Some Thai humour splashed about. Watched for the Challenge and because it kept coming up in algorithms so it seemed a good one to learn a bit more of the pop-culture with. Mission accomplished.

The parts of a lakorn I probably wouldn't like compressed into 4 hours. It was well done for what it is but too much for me and the conclusions meant to give meaning didn't hold up to the facts of the story. Now I have an idea what the Club Friday series are like and know to give them a miss.

Fun but also touching. I like the balance they got with it all. Great use of music.