Dong Poo Dee (2019)

Nice to watch but not extraordinary

This was nice (I discovered promising actors that I wish would be with a more important channel) but I didn’t like the fact that despite having a (nice) girlfriend, the male lead still fell in love with his (fake) niece. For like 27episodes, he refused to admit his feelings for Kom and kept dating Roong, even though they often fought because he cared more about Kom than about Roong. So it felt like the male lead was in love with 2 women, that he was fickle and not sincere with Roong, who was really nice and strong (for once, the male lead has a girlfriend who is nice before meeting the female lead). I honestly felt bad for Roong because she deserved better than a man whose heart wasn’t entirely with her.
And then, the writers killed her. So awful ! It seemed like the writers wanted her to give free way to the leads but didn’t find any better to do this without making the leads look like a cheating couple. They could have allowed her to walk away freely from this suffering relationship and Kom and Chartsiam could have been together with her blessing and she would have had her chance to be happy. But no, Until the end, her relationship with Chartsiam would have brought her more suffering than happiness. I cannot believe he dared to ask her « to make him forget about Kom » : so cruel ! And to think this was their last conversation before she died.
Kom herself was annoying sometimes (even though I don think her character was to blame for that love triangle with Chartsiam and Roong : she did her best to not ruin her relationship but Chartsiam is the one who persevered in being with Roong while being in love with Kom). But she tended to be quite immature and impulsive sometimes, even selfish. She ran away from home so many times that I stopped counting at some point. And this didn’t feel like someone rebelling against her persecutors but more like someone running away from her problems, not caring if those who love her might worry.
Moreover, the story was a bit cliche : a poor orphan girl mistreated by her current guardians (stepmom, half-sister, etc.). The only part that was a bit original is that the one mistreating her the most was actually her biological father but even that was a bit predictable. Moreover, I found it a bit ridiculous that after everyone discovered that, they were all like « Come on, forgive him, he’s your biological father after all, it doesn’t matter if he’s been mistreating and beating you for the past 6 years ». I can understand that Rangsan’s feeling for Kom changed when he realized she was his daughter but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t wrong to mistreat her when he thought her to be the daughter of his wife’s lover. And yet; that’s what they seemed to imply when they said « He didn’t know you were his daughter ». I don’t agree on that : they should have let him pay his karma (saying that but I actually felt sorry for Rangsan but that was probably due to the actor’s great performance).
And finally, the last episodes and the ending felt rushed and frustrating :it’s like the writers realized too late that they only had a few episodes left to write the end of the story and they were like « let’s just wrap this up very quickly ». Besides, the ending of each character unsatisfying : I actually would have wished Rangsan to spend a bit more time with Kom before dying (I know, pretty contradictory with what I previously said) ; like I said, Roong’s ending felt sad and unfair ; I also wished for Ratirot, Kom’s Nice sister, to end up with the kind Ram who always took care of her rather than with that butthead Rat who kept acting on impulse and hurt people around him, more especially those he pretended to love ; Ratirot felt sometimes a bit too easy to persecute and too weak (I can’t believe she tried to kill herself just because Rat didn’t like her) ; that brat Podjanee changed from a spoiled brat to a strong and smart girl way too quickly and that didn’t feel natural, furthermore, we wished to have seen her being punished a bit, as she was really intolerable sometimes (preach to the actress by the way) ; and her romance with Ram seemed forced, like the writers wanted to give nice Ram a consolation prize after having failed twice to get the girl he wanted. We just don’t see when and how they fell in love. And finally, Bunga’s karma was only mentioned too briefly : after all the awful things she’s done, we wanted to see more of her punishment.

So after writing this review, it probably gives the impression that this lakorn is absolutely awful. However, it is not : it is nice to watch to spend time, if you like the good old recipes from Thai dramas and you’ll discover great actors. I have nothing to say against the cast : Nutcha Jeka is very young but she already has charm and talent. I just find it sad that these talented young actors waste their time with Channel 8, a channel that is not bad but that doesn’t produce many lakorns.

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Krissada repeating the same role 10 years older

Okay, so our pra'ek is now 42, and they made him remake the same old thing with a new girl, who remains 20. Is this sexist or what? LOL. Okay, I get the story is about raising some sort of fosterdaughter... But it's a pitty that if the producers had Nan Krittaporn at their disposal, they didn't think to use her as the lead.

I haven't seen the 2009 version, that never got subtitled. So I won't compare. What WAS probably better about it though, was number of episodes was 15 and not TWENTY EIGHT. It's shorter runtime but still. My patience might run off before reaching the good point.

So far, watching Nonny Nutcha's forehead covered with pimples and Krissada's middle aged face is not doing it for me... Apart from these two, there's a large load of side characters (never a good sign) and none of them interests me. Let's see if with time this develops into enjoyable story... or if I drop it.

Epi 8... Scene of nang'ek & pra'ek playing on the beach. They look totally like lovers, lying there together in the sand.. Gah! Then the camera shows us detail of their faces. It's actually some middle-aged uncle with his... niece? Startled me:) Seriously, I'm kinda having trouble watching this. I watch lakorns because I seek out romance, but this couple makes me cringe. And it's only watching them, or 100 people around that are extra. So many I got them confused. So I did not bother. James Ruangsak is better looking and better acting than Krissada but it's not him who got cast as an overly aged pra'ek... Result being, I skipped all the scenes featuring the side-characters. But then I had to watch the main couple and I wanted to skip that, too... Where do I skip TO, here?? Only option, next lakorn.

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