Ever wanted to redeem a sociopathic rapist? Boy, do I have the thing for you!
The only explanation is that the angst of Bu Bu Jing Xin fried my brain because I am not watching any of my drama backlog, but instead watching Sawan Biang, the infamous Thai lakorn starring Ken and Anne. I can't claim I have no idea what I am getting into - not only do I know the plot, ages ago, I watched the last third of it.
Well, now I am watching it from the start, because I am insane. This drama is exceptional in that it has the worst, most psychotic hero in anything I've ever seen by about 10 orders of magnitude. When I just watched the last third, I didn't get the full brunt because it was after he reformed and was being super-nice to heroine. I mean, I still was going 'stab him on principle' because the reason he was so sweet was because he fell in love with her and thus was awfully sorry for mistreating and raping (!!!!!) her but at least he wasn't doing anything horrible in the episodes themselves.
Not so here. I cannot think of a single redeeming or even neutral characteristic for this man in the entirety of the first episode (unless shocking good looks count). Ummmmm, he hasn't raped anyone yet? (1) When a girl confesses to him she likes him, he tells her she's hideous and he loathes her. (2) When his stepmom decorates a place for his birthday, he tells her it's hideous and if she wants to lick his Dad's shoes, not to do it at his expense. (3) When stepmom gets killed in a car crash, he goes ahead with the birthday party because what does the death have to do with him? He wants to party. (4) He tells stepmom's bro that he is so happy the woman is dead and it's karma. I have to say, so far the main impetus for my watching is a horrified fascination to see what awful thing he is going to do or say next.
Can you say, dream lover?
The only person to tell him to fuck off is the heroine.
And clearly, the psychoness runs in the family as the main reason hero is like that is due to his father, who changes wives like gloves (way to teach him to respect women, old dude!), couldn't care less if his son keeled over and never did even when hero was a kid, and tells him things like "I am your Dad but even I can't love you."
Ummmmm yeah. I want to take the heroine far away from this nest of maniacs and get the male lead therapy. In a maximum security jail.
Oddly, I don't have the same 'made by lunatics' problem with this drama as I did with Defendant of Love, mainly because Kawee is portrayed as out-of-control violent trainwreck not a supposedly normal person who just thinks it's OK to kidnap, torture and rape people (like the hero of DoL, who we were supposed to think is a solid citizen). I mean, I think hero should be nibbled to death by snails, but the drama agrees with me, so it helps. The whole 'and then he redeems himself and goes through hell to get her to like him again' is problematic because I can't see how she get over the raping, but at least SB acknowledges that the woman is going to hate your guts after this and it's something you should redeem yourself for, unlike DoL where heroine's reaction pretty much was 'yeah, you tortured and raped me, but you thought I was someone else and you say sorry and are hot. Luuuurve' and the drama didn't seem to think anything more than 'ooops sorry' was needed.
I make no excuses for watching this trainwreck. But I can't stop, even as I have to muffle my screams of rage so as not to wake Mr. Mousie. I just think I am not ready to be emotionally committed to another drama, after the devastation of BBJX, so this is how I decompress.
Have a non-rapey MV, mainly to show that Ken and Anne are very pretty together (though I rec Oum Ruk for their stuff, as there is no raping, and his character is an utter sweetheart).
Well, now I am watching it from the start, because I am insane. This drama is exceptional in that it has the worst, most psychotic hero in anything I've ever seen by about 10 orders of magnitude. When I just watched the last third, I didn't get the full brunt because it was after he reformed and was being super-nice to heroine. I mean, I still was going 'stab him on principle' because the reason he was so sweet was because he fell in love with her and thus was awfully sorry for mistreating and raping (!!!!!) her but at least he wasn't doing anything horrible in the episodes themselves.
Not so here. I cannot think of a single redeeming or even neutral characteristic for this man in the entirety of the first episode (unless shocking good looks count). Ummmmm, he hasn't raped anyone yet? (1) When a girl confesses to him she likes him, he tells her she's hideous and he loathes her. (2) When his stepmom decorates a place for his birthday, he tells her it's hideous and if she wants to lick his Dad's shoes, not to do it at his expense. (3) When stepmom gets killed in a car crash, he goes ahead with the birthday party because what does the death have to do with him? He wants to party. (4) He tells stepmom's bro that he is so happy the woman is dead and it's karma. I have to say, so far the main impetus for my watching is a horrified fascination to see what awful thing he is going to do or say next.
Can you say, dream lover?
The only person to tell him to fuck off is the heroine.
And clearly, the psychoness runs in the family as the main reason hero is like that is due to his father, who changes wives like gloves (way to teach him to respect women, old dude!), couldn't care less if his son keeled over and never did even when hero was a kid, and tells him things like "I am your Dad but even I can't love you."
Ummmmm yeah. I want to take the heroine far away from this nest of maniacs and get the male lead therapy. In a maximum security jail.
Oddly, I don't have the same 'made by lunatics' problem with this drama as I did with Defendant of Love, mainly because Kawee is portrayed as out-of-control violent trainwreck not a supposedly normal person who just thinks it's OK to kidnap, torture and rape people (like the hero of DoL, who we were supposed to think is a solid citizen). I mean, I think hero should be nibbled to death by snails, but the drama agrees with me, so it helps. The whole 'and then he redeems himself and goes through hell to get her to like him again' is problematic because I can't see how she get over the raping, but at least SB acknowledges that the woman is going to hate your guts after this and it's something you should redeem yourself for, unlike DoL where heroine's reaction pretty much was 'yeah, you tortured and raped me, but you thought I was someone else and you say sorry and are hot. Luuuurve' and the drama didn't seem to think anything more than 'ooops sorry' was needed.
I make no excuses for watching this trainwreck. But I can't stop, even as I have to muffle my screams of rage so as not to wake Mr. Mousie. I just think I am not ready to be emotionally committed to another drama, after the devastation of BBJX, so this is how I decompress.
Have a non-rapey MV, mainly to show that Ken and Anne are very pretty together (though I rec Oum Ruk for their stuff, as there is no raping, and his character is an utter sweetheart).
Click to view