Thoughts on Kol Game Rak & Happy 2024!

First and foremost, happy 2024 to everyone! I wish for all of us to have a good, healthy, properous new year 🙏

2023 in terms of lakorns have been slow and no I don’t mean my pace of subbing 😅 but lakorns in general subbed or not subbed. A lot of them (in my opinion) didn’t really pull me in. There were some that were interesting but it didn’t really give me an adrenaline rush. And was it just me or did they have too many reruns? Especially from CH7. Their new broadcast schedule towards the end of 2023 was weird af. Hopefully they change that this year if they want to boost their ratings. Briefly, for lakorns I have subbed in 2023 that I did not do a recap on but did enjoy were Hak Lai My Lady (Euro Yotsawat & Prapye Ramida) and Kehas Nang Khoi (Boom Kitkong & Pinkploy Paparwadee). The rest of the lakorns I subbed were so so. Not bad but not great either.

But I did end 2023 with Kol Game Rak (Tricky in Love) and boy was this lakorn a surprise to me 😂 I have so much to say about this lakorn that my mind is going 100 mph lmao! Let me start from the beginning. When the channel announced that they were going to produce this lakorn- the remake of Ngao Rak Luang Jai, I was actually excited. Especially finding out that Mint was going to take on the female lead. I’ve watched her previous works and remembered saying out loud that the channel should promote her as lead because she has potential. She could go far. When fitting pictures came out, I’m going to be honest, I only knew Mint and Ice. IN MY HEAD AT THAT TIME, my mind was telling me that “Oh, Mint and Ice are the leads. Cool.” 😂😃 I never followed up with BTS of that lakorn. Forgot that they were even producing that lakorn until teasers and promos came out. When it came out, it looked interesting. Still thinking Mint & Ice are the leads bc who tf were the other two right? 😅😂 Then I remembered, this is a remake of Mark & Nadech’s debut lakorn and I vaguely remember that lakorn. I remembered that Nadech’s character was nice and Mark played the cold, mean jerk. So I went back to watch the teasers again for KGR and that’s when I noticed Ice’s character seemed super gentle and the new kid’s character seemed to be playing Mark’s character. I was like okay. He doesn’t look so bad but who the hell is he? Did a quick google on him (I didn’t know his name at the time 😅) Found out he’s fairly new. Like literally new to show biz. So the understanding of Ice-Mint pairing up was out the window. I hardly root for the second male lead anyway so I shifted my focus on the new kid lol. But some people still believed that they were endgame and I’m like nah lol. I was a bit worried I was going to have a problem with Au’s acting because bad acting can really ruin a good lakorn hahaha. Thank goodness, he did a decent job (in my opinion). There’s room for improvement though. I remember seeing the first spoiler clip of EP01 when Anon and Anda met and when I heard Au talk, his Thai was not clear at all. I was like hmm? Idk if anyone noticed it. So I did some research. Found out he graduated from a university in Washington. I said “Oh! Make sense now!” hahaha. But his Thai did improve as the episodes went on. The other new actress was Denise who played Lisa. I was shocked to find out she’s only 16! Like holy shit! This girl can act! The only problem I had with her was her age. She is a minor and Idk why the staff and even the director had her play these raunchy scenes. I know it’s just acting but it made me uncomfortable. I know I wasn’t the only one. I know she has two upcoming lakorns where she will be playing the lead actress and I hope it’s less raunchy because I know there’s going to be a huge age gap between her and her leading actors.

If I’m being completely honest, the storyline to this lakorn was outdated lol especially swapping identities and gullible believing someone could be your long lost daughter by two things and not wanting to take a DNA test lol. Like come on, we in 2023 with so many technologies. But like they say, it’s a lakorn where a lot of things aren’t realistic hahaha. So the plot to this lakorn wasn’t all that. But what kept me excited every week was probably seeing AuMint on screen hahaha. If I had not watched bts of these two, I don’t think I would have enjoyed this lakorn as much as I did. I’ve never seen two actors be so shy towards each other before 😂 The screen time with Anon and Anda were…I wouldn’t say little but most of the time they were always bickering compared to the screen time Anda had with Peem. It was cut short too! Anon became the underdog that a lot of fans were rooting for and at some point, I think people came to a conclusion that if he ended up alone, they would be fine with it. Anon carried so much of other people’s feelings before his that his character became pitiful. He hardly smiled and the only times he did smile was when he was with Anda and in the last episode lol. People were still confused as to who Anda ended up with. I knew she would end up with Anon because that’s the way the story was paving for us. Bickering couple, haters turn to lovers type stuff. If you watched a lot of lakorns, you would have known that too. 90 percent of Thai lakorns, the leads never seem to get along in the beginning but falls in love at the end. So I was confused when some people were so confident she would end up with Peem based on pictures. Like yeah sure, in pictures Mint was  always sitting or standing next to Ice but that doesn’t mean anything. Think about it, there’s no point to have Peem stand next to Lisa when they have no relation in the story. But the channel were doing promos for Anda and Anon a lot by having AuMint together and so were the staff, so that was a big hint that AnonAnda were endgame. But I must admit one percent of me was still unsure because it is a remake afterall. Anything can happen.

I do wish our leads had more sweet moments together. The situation with Lisa killing people and finding out that she wasn’t the real daughter could have been resolved two episodes earlier. I know they be cutting down screen time for a lot of scenes which I won’t get into because what’s the point of mentioning it when we’re never gonna see it? 😭 There are some deleted scenes that have been posted and I translated those on my Instagram account. You can check it out there. What I liked about this remake is that they didn’t kill off Ice’s character. Nadech died in the previous version and although Peem’s character was annoying af, I felt bad for the guy in the end because he didn’t get the girl. He wasn’t a bad guy but was just annoying most of the time lol. (Reasons why I don’t root for SML😅) Lisa’s character did not die in this version but became crazy which I think was fair for her ending. I do hope AuMint pairs up again because this lakorn was not satisfying for me. I also wouldn’t mind Mint and Ice too. Lastly, I hope 2024 has better lakorns for us to watch. Thank you all for supporting me and watching 🫶

P.S.: Update on Lom Phat Paan Dao, it will be on hold for now. The timing team that is helping me has been busy. So we shall wait until their return ☺️ I am also looking for a better video server that is free. If you know any, please let me know 🙂