looking for Thai & JFilm friends

I *really* like how slow and unhurried Thai movies can be.

The best way for me to watch a lakorn is one episode whenever until it grabs me, then binge to get carried along on its energy. Maximum three episodes a day though. Unless the political enshittification of the world is having an especially bad spasm and somewhere to hide for a few days is useful.

Don't be surprised if a seemingly weak woman in a lakorn turns out to be skilled in martial arts or shooting a gun.

The number of episodes it takes for a lakorn to grab me is not necessarily an indication of how much I will enjoy it by the end. Episode 7 is the current record.

If it feels like a Thai series hasn't completed certain plot lines with the correct sort of detail to satisfy western audiences, that just means the real story was elsewhere.

The real story will probably be centered in the emotions. Get those right, give them some grounding and the rest can have as much nonsense as they want to give it and it will still work.

I really like GMM singing to camera or into the distance OSTs circa 2016-17.

My mental health is significantly better when my viewing is majority Thai and minimally everything else, with some exception for Japanese films. This probably has to do with cortisol and how different cultures pace or mitigate tension and stress in their stories.

This is not what the majority of western viewers want or expect, so my only successful Thai recommendations have been ones which went up to or crossed my limits. Except for Moonlight Chicken. This is very isolating and complicates or excludes me from most conversations.

If there's a ghost it may be vengeful but it may mean grief is a significant theme somewhere along the way. This does not mean it will be a sad story.

Or maybe they just wanted to include ghosts. Thais will never meet a genre they can't put a ghost in.

MDL's "horror" genre tag is uselessly broad to suit Thai media.

Series with trauma and grief narratives don't have to be dark and traumatic.

Did I mention how much I like the refuse to be rushed pacing of Thai movies? They will get wherever it is they're going when they get there and it will be the right place for the story and the right time.

This is just something I wrote as a reply to someone's question on MDL. Don't read it if you haven't seen Century of Love as there are significant spoilers. Enough I'm going to cut AND hide it :) Parking a copy here because it will get lost on MDL soon enough and I won't remember it next week.


( CAUTION - SPOILERS AHEAD )

Realised part of what annoys me about one of the main leads in Fish Upon the Sky....

Putting the character's romance arc into chronological order, rather than back story we find out late, it amounts to something like

you did something nice for me once so now I'm going to chase you until you love me back...

Which feels a hell of a lot like the way women are forced to manage some men's emotions and negotiate safe passage through the situations created by said men's inability to manage their own. Except it's Jittirain BL, so the happy ending is a male lead red-flagging in episode 11 and they get/stay together because that's what the genre demands.

I know it's a trope. When a healthy relationship grows out of it, it can make sense for why one character initially notices the other and then notices more things they like about them. Sometimes it's lazy characterisation. Sometimes it's lazy characterisation which combines with other lazy characterisations to create a very unhealthy situation.

Just finished The Shipper (GMMTV, on their youtube channel of course) and the OST won't leave my head. It's so full of twists and turns I'm not sure how to squee about it or even recommend it without giving things away. It's goofy and intelligent, silly, over the top, ridiculous, oh my god you're not doing THAT, and heartwarming. Relevant in its messaging. EVERY emotion is magnified, sometimes through outlandishness, often through changes in the arrangement of the music, always through the acting.

The acting is pitch perfect. All of the cast gave exactly what they needed to in each moment, no more, no less. This was an early one for many of them as well, how can they be THAT good THAT young? (And Jennie. OMG. She was brilliant. Must find more outrageousness from her.) Credit to the director/screenwriter and whoever made the casting decisions for bringing this out of them. And for negotiating an over the top complicated plot that turns itself completely around every episode.

( More about the acting, so some possible spoilers. If you're going to watch it, come back to this after. )