Chaloey Sak (2010)

Revenge set in the late 1940s that later leads to love.
Both sides of the revenge are rootable and you cannot help but be torn about who you want to "win". A worthy watch with great leads, beautiful emotional OST in an elegant backdrop with its even more elegant leads.

STORY
Very fascinating story set up where the enemy lives under the same roof, where revenge agendas are directly revealed to the enemy rather than an undercover sort of revenge (unlike typical revenge stories in that regard), where characters interactions hold many layers, where themes of justice and morality are explored.
Here we have the shallowness of the rich who judge each other by status, yet the shallow polite first impressions they give each other and the viewer are later removed, unveiling their true character. Who at first was introduced as a neutral character may be darker than expected, while some may hide under a darker mask than their true nature. This unveiling of character is an interesting watch.
As a warning, the women in this drama are very stupid and irritating, it's only the female lead that's rootable and not a complete idiot. Later on, the idiocy of some characters becomes a farce, you can no longer take that part of the story seriously; however this doesn't affect the main leads too much so it doesn't ruin the story.

A great set up, but the execution falls short, still manages to be good, yet there was something missing. I felt like some of the pacing was off, with story beats that should've played out differently which would've made it all so much better. The very first episode was excellent 9.0-9.5 range material that immidetaly made made root for the three leads (female lead, male led and female lead's brother), but after that, the story didn't run as smoothly and dragged in some parts. The 10 year old boy also had way too many scenes, I'd rather they'd given the sister's adult brother more focus as well as more scenes to the OTP.
It was interesting to see the multilayered scenes where many characters were keeping secrets, those moments and the scenes between the OTP had the depth and automitically makes you analyze the character actions and their morality.Overall a deliciously very dark tone, but had a few funny moments too. Only a very few though, so stay away from this if you don't like dark plots/dark tone. The humor in this drama is more dark and farsical.

ACTING / CAST
The male and female lead casting was perfection, they truly suited each other as well as their respective characters. And the casting of the brother of the female lead was really great too. He was even likable in his evil moments, something which not many actors manage to pull off. Those three really made the story,  it's the reason I gave this lakorn an overall rating of  8.5 and not 8.0.
There was three really handsome men in the cast that very great as eye-candies, however they were also great in the acting department. The 10 year old boy character was annoying and had way too many scenes.

MUSIC
A really great emotional and beautiful track, but cannot give a full 10 in rating the music, only because while the music itself was great, they didn't UTILISE it in the right way.
Rather than playing different parts of the same song to vary it up, they kept playing the same part over and over, lessening the impact of the otherwise great song, even making it too repetetive. Especially a dramatic, emotional track like that isn't suited to be blasted in that overt manner, it only lessens its impact. They could've had more music tracks to play too for variation and better impact.

REWATCH VALUE
Don't take my rating of this aspect too seriously, I'm not that into rewatching dramas. Some of the character interactions where they're keeping secrets from each other could be rewatched and the OTP scenes, allthough those two should've had more moments together.

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