First and Likely Last Lakorn Experiment

Recently I stumbled across some videos that YouTube had suggested. They were music videos from the Thai drama "My Husband in Law". The actors were gorgeous of course and I liked the setup. Girl falls for boy young. He falls for her over time. Classic.

After some searching of valid sites with English subs, I finally hit play. The first thing I noticed was the language itself was so different than the Korean I was used to. Not a deal breaker but just something to get used to. The episodes were also really long. Almost an hour and a half each one. Normally that doesn't bother me but it felt like a lot of the episodes were filler.

As the story progressed some other things stood out. Domestic violence. Not in the main couple but a secondary couple. And I'm not talking a hit or a violent wrist grab. He beats her to a pulp several times. Rapes her. And eventually beats up her so much she lands in the hospital. While I never want to see this, if the aftermath was she leaving him and her family being supportive of that, maybe I could deal. But as most domestic violent cases, she doesn't leave him. Her father tells her she has to remain married to him even when he knows he beats her. Disturbing.

Another issue is the use of the word "rape". The married female used it twice to her husband. Wondering if it would be okay to rape him. If it was legal? Maybe this is something culturally acceptable to use that word, but for me, the word is a word that should not be used so casually. It's a serious word. A serious offense. Should be treated as such.

Even if I can put those issues aside, I just didn't like the acting. The style was over the top with a lot of over-reactions and screeching by the females. Just really silly a lot of the time. Mostly from the friends. The female had one female friend that reminded me of how a preteen would react to things.

The plot had a great premise but if I thought kdramas had the market on miscommunication boy was I wrong. The female lead loved the boy most of her life. She spent most of the drama trying to get him to fall in love with her and when he confessed, she suddenly decided it wasn't good enough and he didn't know her well enough. She had secretly planned to leave him and study abroad but found out she was pregnant and moved to another city in the same country. He found her and she refused to have anything to do with him because he needed time to figure out what he wanted. Huh? She then refused to see him or let him be around when she's pregnant. It was non-sensical.

By episode 12/15 I was basically hitting the 15 forward button for most of it. Mainly I wanted to see how stupid it would get. It got more stupid. Now we have pre-eclampia and she needs a kidney donor which of course the husband just happens to be a match.

Overall, it was just too much of everything. Maybe it was a bad script? Others maybe would be better but my feeling is this is typical. It's not for me. I realized recently that I just really love the kdramas format the best. I understand the language the most. I know the actors the best. I like the style and writing the best. So I'm gonna stick to what I know for now.