Tae Pang Korn (2017)

This larkon can be divided into three arcs.

ARC 1: Episode 1 to 4

The first lifetime where a freshly England returned Thai prince Khun Chai Yai gets told that he is engaged to a Thai princess, Wilailayka, but ends up falling in love at first sight with a Lao princess, Jao Nang Noy, who is staying under his father's guardianship while she completes her education.

Obviously from the synopsis you all already know that Chai Yai and Jao Nang get married and Jao Nang dies on the same night of her wedding from being poisoned in their marriage house. Khun Chai Yai dies soon after as well from a broken heart, staying faithful to his dead wife until his last breath.

What I loved about this arc was the unwavering love and commitment Chai Yai had to Jao Nang. From the moment he fell in love with her, it was just her (granted he didn't even care for his fiancee even before he saw Jao Nang). He made it extremely clear to both of his parents that he was going to marry Jao Nang and no one else, and no amount of pressure from his mother made him give in even for a minute in his intentions. I liked that. A lot.

ARC 2: Episode 4 to the first half of episode 19

Ultimately this is where we see our FL after her rebirth, 20 something years later. Because of the war, her mother dies and she and her father (who is a chief police officer or something) move to the more prominent parts of Thailand where she earns herself a job as an English teacher in a school. This is where she meets the spirit of Khun Chai Yai who has been waiting all this while to see the rebirth of his love.

A lot of things happen in this arc:
1/ Our female lead , now called Rachawadee, remembers her past life
2/ Meets and falls in love with the spirit of Chai Yai
3/ Gets another engaged man fall completely in love with her
4/ Ends up being ordered by Wilailayka (who is quite old now) to live in her palace and serve her

Again, I'm sure you must all understand through practicality that a human and a ghost love story... just does not blend well. Therefore major changes had to occur for both of our main leads.

Personally, I thought this arc was stretched way too far then it needed to. A lot of the major plot points could have been dealt with a lot faster, there was no need for almost 16 episodes to take care of all the things that were taken care of. 10 episodes would have done perfectly without beginning to feel like a drag.

ARC 3: Episode 19.5 to 21

In this arc, Khun Chai gets reborn as our second male lead's son & Rachawadee gets reborn as her best friend's youngest daughter.

I have to say though, 2.5 episodes to wrap up a happy ending? I am disappointed. There was just not enough time to develop the story as much as it could have developed. They could have made a very beautiful arc if they had just managed to shift at least 5 episodes from arc 2 into this arc.

Still, we did get our happy ending . The over-all story left me with a warm feeling in my chest when I was done. Ofcourse, there was disappointment but there often is disappointment when it comes to me. I'm always unhappy about something in a drama. Regardless, the fact that this drama made me feel warm inside trumps all.

Overall, a drama that should not be slept on. Give it a go if you're intrigued !

P.S. Be prepared for the second male lead's wedding night scene. Trust me.
P.P.S. 21 episodes and we finally have a kiss between the main leads. Thank the directors!

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Whelp this is gonna be long, but I like to express my thoughts and I have a lot to say about this. I think this is the first lakorn I've watched mainly for the story and curiosity of how it all ends. That doesn’t mean the romance is not a big factor here, and there were lots of cute OTP moments that kept me going on and accumulating into their well deserved HEA, though not without some bumps along the way.
This lakorn is divided into three timelines, with the second being the main storyline. I'd like to review each timeline as a means for better organizing my thoughts.

Timeline 1: This was a weird one for me because it felt kind of rushed, with the love story between Tan Chai and Maan Kaew not developed properly. I felt like I missed out on the development of their relationship (mainly on Maan Kaew's part) and was caught off guard by the sudden devotion both had for each other. This was a love at first sight thing for Tan Chai, which I suppose explains his passion but also feels like a cop-out (tho I admired him for fighting for his love, breaking off his engagement and never yielding to his mom's demands). Maan Kaew was kinda boring and I felt she didn't really offer anything in the relationship. What I liked about this timeline was how the hate/misinformation you give people creates this negative domino effect (think Tupac's THUG LIFE). This is apparent in the mom engaging her son to some girl he never met; because of her selfish actions, she lost everything and unwittingly unleashed two lifetimes worth of misery. I'd say all the terrible things that occur in this lakorn started because of her, tho she couldn't have imagined that the girl she thought was ideal for her son would turn out to be a total monster.

Timeline 2: Tan Chai is still here tho he is a ghost, while Maan Kaew is reborn as Rachawadee (R). Honestly I love R's character so much; she is assertive but still sweet, and for the most part is smart about what's going on around her (don't even talk about the part where she got sick, I was really disappointed there). I especially love that she stood up for herself in front of Tan Ying and told her off for being such a b****. Ghost/human love stories tend to be doomed from the start, but here that added to how precious and sweet the two lead's relationship was. Every moment between them was lovely and were the breadcrumbs that kept me watching. However, him being a ghost meant that he couldn’t do much so it was mainly R that was carrying this timeline.
What surprised me about this timeline was how the characters were straightforward with their thoughts and actions eg Tan Chai commenting on Chai Yuths indecisiveness, R not immediately going to serve Tan Ying because she knew she hated her, and Tan Ying telling Ying Wan to be patient in getting Chai Yuth or she’ll lose everything (in front of Chai Yuth). Like I’m surprised the characters aren’t too dumb? This made the episodes easier to zip through and engaging, the story not losing its momentum or being boring (for the most part). Having said that tho, there was way too much time spent in this timeline; I felt like everything could’ve been resolved in less episodes and more should have been spent on developing the third timeline instead of the draggy “who dunnit” parts. I felt like it would've been more interesting to see how the leads find each other and their past in the third timeline since the male lead is a ghost and not much can be done. Also Tan Chai wasn’t as great here as he was in the first timeline; granted he’s a ghost but seriously, he asked for forgiveness way too much for someone who doesn’t deserve it.
I also have to talk about Tan Ying. Honestly, I felt sorry for her at first since her honor and rep was basically destroyed because of Tan Chai’s mom and no one would want to marry her because of that. But instead of moving on with her life, she obsessively tried to make everyone around her miserable and is driven to crazy revenge. She’s incredibly short-sighted and self-absorbed and it boggles my mind that Tan Chai, his descendant and R’s descendant all beg her for forgiveness. I mean she killed you all! Granted she didn’t live a good life and didn’t reincarnate when she died, but even till the end, she only saw her suffering couldn’t look past it to see how it was making others suffer.

Timeline 3: I really wish more time was spent here, and tbh I wasn’t into these reincarnations as I was with Tan Chai and R. What pissed me off the most was that they still begged for forgiveness from Tan Ying’s ghost, saying they’ll do merit and all but she killed your previous life forms!!! I don’t think they owe her anything, but I guess it all had to come full circle here. I do like that the Tan Chai and R of this timeline were finally able to be together and certainly didn’t disappoint with the chemistry and affection. Like dang, I really want another lakorn with these two leads.

Overall I liked the story and the two leads. The music was pretty good here and although there wasn’t much OTP moments as I would’ve liked, I felt like the story made up for it. I don’t think I’d rewatch this except for some moments. Would recommend to watch.

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