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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

King Gor Rah Kah Gor Raeng 2019 ~ Ginger is Spicy, Galang is Hot (Thai Drama)

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Episodes: 34

Main Cast:
Moo Dilok Thongwattana as Saranat (Pawee's Father)
Savitree Samipak as Rungthip (Pawee's Mother)

Synopsis:

Nit works as a reporter and has a fierce and strong personality and also has a strong sense of justice. One day, she accidentally wrote a wrong news article about Pawee’s father and this angers Pawee. When she tries to ask for forgiveness, Pawee did not give her that chance and instead looks down on her and disrespects her, then he caused her to lose her job. This caused a strong tension between these two strangers as Nit swore vengeance over what he has done to her.

Nit consulted with a nun who she depends on a lot. The nun brought her to the psych ward to meet someone. Here, she met Pawee again and had another misunderstanding which caused them to argue. Then, Nit found out that his mother is in the psych ward, who went crazy from Pawee’s playboy father while young, alive unlike what’s written in the news and was the same person, the nun wanted Nit to meet. Pawee’s mother took a liking to Nit immediately.

Nit also has a older sister, Nee who has a weak personality which was the reason for Nit’s strong personality to protect her older sister. Nee is also a mistress to Phen’s father.

Pawee actually has a girlfriend, Phen who he has dated for a long time and they both liked each other. Pawee’s mother did not like Phen and only liked Nit. Pawee’s parents then made him get married to Nit, which upsets Phen so he promises Phen that he will divorce Nit within two years. But he won’t get married that easily and continues to disrespects her and tries to humiliate her. Their life which is full of arguments and fighting, with more and more misunderstandings and problems, will they ever find love with each other, when Nit is determined to have her revenge on Pawee?  How will the relationship between these two stubborn people be?

My Thoughts:

First things first, the synopsis above is written by me to make sense and be true to the story since the synopsis I found wrote things that were not proved by the story or mentioned in the story. So, I rewrote my own synopsis, if there are any errors, I apologize beforehand. Now that's out of the way, I actually decided to watch this story more because of Pawee's mother because in the trailer she looked like she will be a super funny character and I truly did not made the wrong decision.

King Gor Rah Kah Gor Raeng in fact has three version, the version I am writing this review for is the latest 2019 version, the older ones were released with roughly 10 year gap in between but with pretty much the same storyline and characters. There were some troubles with the subber while watching this drama so I ended up watching a part of the 2006's version until the end because I could not stand the cliffhanger. I was not lost in the story which shows the story's essence is carried forward but this also shows how good the story because I could not stop myself from clicking next after next.

Talking about the characters, as mentioned above, the two leads always argued and it's pretty much their identity, liked the FL said, "The day when we are in harmony, that will be weird". They pretty much hated each other a lot and this kind of constant arguing works because none wants to surrender and are stubborn at that but somehow sometimes both of them are able to make the other surrender on some parts. What I loved about these two leads is seeing how they progressed from hating each other to death and seeing the effect Nit has on Pawee which slowly changed him into a better and sensible person, breaking apart both of their first impressions and then fall in love, though that's the thing I never really saw them fall in love, it's just as ML said, "I don't know since when, but when I knew, I have already fallen hard in love with you". Which kinda made me forgive the writers for not showing specifically how they fell in love. Another character to note and you must not missed out on her is Pawee's mother, my goodness, she was the bomb and the highlight of the show! She was crazily clever and knew well how to use the right methods and of course she's the most satisfying character of all.

On the casting, comparing both versions and also the tone of the story for this version, the casting was perfect. ML has the ability to show cute and clingy sides while the FL was born for the role with her looks that can easily look fierce and then easily be vulnerable. This created an interesting dynamic in their relationship compared to the previous version, though both versions has perfect casting. The most perfect casting would Pawee's mother, as I said I came to the drama because of her, since I have seen the actress in many other dramas so she had a very good reputation in my mind. In this drama, she completely did not disappoint and owned the role. Fun fact, she acted as Nit in the first version so I think this allowed her to perform her given role better. 

Talking about the romance, the two leads were very cute in their role and I really loved whenever there were scenes where they treat each other goodly and with lots of care. Towards the end, their arguements became sort of petty and childish fights and also had much emotional weightage as both have clearly loved each other already. This version was long with 34 episodes but given that much episodes, I expected their lovey dovey scenes were much longer because I loved this couple a lot but they did not gave me that so enjoy their scenes while it lasts, they tried to compensate with the epilogue but that only made me 40 percent happy since it was a cute epilogue, I will give you that.

I don't like the music whenever they have a fierce moment or was going to fight, I will tell you that, it's loud and abrupt. Though I loved the OST, it was nice to listen and truly captured the essence of the leads' story. Enough said.

In conclusion, really give this version or the 2006 version a try, both were great and many has testified to how good these two versions could be. If you want more testimonies on the bad and the good of this drama, head on to myDramalist for more. Both versions were great and also different in their tone and the way they tried to express and progress the story. Some scenes in the older version were cut, characters increased, scenes were revamped and redone better in the current version. I would like to take this chance to salute Neko Meow Meow who was the subber I depended on for this drama, despite her troubles while subbing this drama with her website, she still managed to finish subbing and subbed really fast as well. Go to her website to watch the current version subbed, she's amazing!

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Well Intended Love (Chinese Drama)

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Life, Youth, Drama, Family, Melodrama
Episodes: 20

Main Cast:
Xu Kai Cheng as Ling Yi Zhou
Simona Wang as Xia Lin
Ian Yi as Chu Yan
Huang Qian Shuo as Wen Li
Charry Qi as An Ran
Liu Jia Xi as Jia Fei
Yang Hao Ming as Nan Jin Tian

Synopsis:

A third-rate actress with leukemia becomes entangled with CEO Ling because she needs him for treatment.

In order to receive bone marrow transplant sooner and to continue her career as an actress, Xia Lin enters into a secret marriage with Ling Yi Zhou, the CEO of a company. Despite the conspiracies and misunderstandings they encounter, the two find true love. 

My Thoughts: 

Finally, I felt like giving a review and this is one very important drama I just could not not give a review immediately. Finally finished watching this drama after postponing for too long. It was I would say a really amazing and wonderful ride with this drama and just realized the drama's title really speaks for itself throughout the drama. With this drama, I hope to come back to reviewing dramas again after being on hiatus for a while.

Well Intended Love really made me love it from the start but the external problem with this drama as with other C-dramas is finding good subtitles, if you have the same problems, do comment below, I will help as much as I could since I changed subbers many times while watching through this drama. But, thanks to my own Chinese understanding, I could catch their meaning despite the broken subtitles. 

Okay, done ranting now on to the drama. Let's start with the romance, hello, be careful where you're treading, one wrong step and you will be intoxicated with the amount of romance this drama has to offer. It was so damn satisfying to watch, it's almost on the same level as Love O2O, another super great C-drama for the genre. I love the interaction between Ling Yi Zhou and Xia Lin especially when we reach the middle before all the drama happened. In serious fact, the plot is nothing unique but what really made the drama shined for me was the romance and the love between Yi Zhou and Xia Lin or Mumu. I like how he just simply gave her a nickname based on his understanding that lovers always have nicknames for each other.

Their journey in this love of theirs was interesting, there were many twists I wouldn't have expected if I didn't accidentally read about some spoilers. I expected everything to be honestly played out straightforwardly but they were some good twists indeed.

I don't know what else to say about this drama but if you are like me and would love to jump into a drama just because it's romance, then head on in. If you accidentally idolize the male lead then welcome. I just recommended it to my friend once and she completely liked the male lead a lot but once I showed Love O2O, she liked Yang Yang more instead hahahaha.... But still, it showed the impact of this drama's romanticness. 

In short, it is a very good drama, I will list it in one of my top romance Chinese dramas. I highly recommend trying it if you're okay with a lot of romantic gestures. Or if you're like me who can't stand romantic gestures but still like watching it, then go ahead, join the club. If you've already watched and would like to share your thoughts on it, let's discuss in the comments! Do take note, there's a season 2!