I don’t know if many of you are still tuning into this weekend sitcom, aka lakorn from OneHD, but Rak Fun Thalop has concluded its eighth, final episode this Saturday. Show presents two best friends – Priew and Risa – who embark on a road trip to nineteen temples in order to wash Risa of her bad luck and find a husband. They must accomplish this in two weeks, before their shared birthday, otherwise Risa risks living alone and atoning for her past sins forever. Along the way they offer a ride to a man named Peet, whom they found attractive because he’s backpacking to Doy Samur Dao in order to preserve the promise he made to his late girlfriend, and to start over. The trio have a shared destination so they decide to journey together, but things get chaotic because the two besties place a wager as to who would gain Peet’s favor. Cue hijinks, inner monologues, and slap stick background sounds.
Show is in Risa’s perspective, so her best friend’s and Peet’s reactions are seen in Risa’s eyes. Her clueless thoughts will lead us to think one way, and because what we see aren’t actually Priew or Peet’s thoughts, it makes for an interesting watch because we’re not getting the full story, just everything that’s going on in Risa’s brain. This creates open-endedness to the ending that I find unique. I wasn’t compelled to tune in weekly (it lost steam after episode 3) but I did find episodes 7 and 8 quite poignant. People can interpret the ending in many ways, but based on what we have seen and know, I’ve come up with some inferences. And I think that is the whole purpose behind the show, you can take away whatever you find meaningful in this story.
My guess is that Priew, after finding out that her fiancé is a cheating liar, and her friend kidnaps her on a temple hopping excursion, she’s about had it. The biggest shocker to her system is that her best friend Risa thinks she has given up all of the men to her, and that this all has to do with her poor karma. So Priew set out to challenge her friend in a war of hearts, they both will pull out all of the stops in order to win Peet over. If one of them loses, then she cannot be angry. Priew tries to show her friend HOW to flirt with a guy, but Risa takes it the wrong way and thinks Priew really has gotten over her ex and likes Peet now. So Risa thinks that she should pull tricks or use her womanly charms, in order to win a man. In a desperate moment, she tells Priew’s ex (who had been traveling all over the country looking for her) regarding Priew’s whereabouts. She KNEW it was a bad move, but she did it anyway in the heat of the moment, and regretted it immediately.
This drives the two best friends apart, Priew rushes back to the city while Risa sadly goes through the motions in the provinces, being convinced by her boss that she should try to win over her future husband first and then make up with her friend later. But upon staring at a painting in the temple, she realizes that the love for her friend is much grander than pursuing a man. She also knows the best way to make it up to her friend: action speaks louder than words, in order to show her friend how much she loves her, she rushes back to the city without a second thought. The breakup and make up between Priew and Risa were so touching. I didn’t think I cried, but the tears just kept falling. To me, one of the saddest moments in life is losing a friend, so I really felt for them when they fought, and the inevitable fear that things may not go back to the way they used to.
We have seen Peet through this show and know that he’s not a stupid man. Risa’s actions touches Peet and he does see her differently. He also has a connection with Priew too. But throughout the show, we don’t actually KNOW what he’s thinking. Again, it’s because we are watching from Risa’s perspective. We also don’t know if Priew is teasing her friend by pretending to be interested in Peet (that’s my guess) and she wants to show her friend that if you GIVE UP pretenses to win the man and just be yourself, you win so much more than that.
When the girls make up and Risa tells Priew that they still have one last temple to visit before her curse is lifted and then there’s the issue of Peet.. so they opt to go back and complete their journey. In the final scene, Priew did ask Peet which girl he likes, because by now, he should know that they are interested in him. I am still of the belief that Priew isn’t totally interested. But has invested and competed so she still wants to know, and she wants to make her friend nervous. Peet tells them that they will find out in three months time: after his travelogue has been published. I don’t even NEED to see the book, if a guy is making you wait three months to tell you that he likes you, he’s just not that into you.
But the girls waited, and I kinda love their reaction. They both decided that they really didn’t want to know. Hahaha. Or they were too scared to know, so they left the book on the bench and took off for a lunch date together instead. It’s pretty awesome. The wind blew through the pages and at the very end, we see the same image of the couple that made Risa realize her love for Priew. Based on what Peet wrote, we can infer that he did not choose either of them. He likes them both in their own way, but the time they spent together is too soon to tell, but what is obvious to him and to everyone is that Risa and Priew’s love for one another is evident even without saying it.
And I think he’s spot on. This is not the standard lakorn format with the romantic love. We know that Risa and Priew will go on to be best friends forever, and they will always argue and fight, but at the end of the day, the love they have for each other will make them stronger as they encounter more challenges. And that to me, is a great love story in and of itself.
I feel like it’s one of those shows that you can miss out on and be totally ok with it. But I did like that Show is realistic, the focus is on the friendship anyway and the guy was just a carrot dangling between the two so that they can realize what truly matters. I think they were competing for the sake of competing and not really for the guy – because I was baffled as to why three girls were chasing after a guy that was just ‘meh’ – I mean, he’s no Mick Tongraya – but at least Show didn’t make him choose either of them. Because then, that will make him look even more of a carrot. I appreciate the open-endedness, and Show does manage to make me live vicariously through the beautiful scenic drive and temple hopping. Now I just need to go on an excursion to Thailand myself. WAIT, maybe THAT is the purpose of this show.
Tagged: Ruk Fun Thalop
Love the recap Fia , I would never watch this type of drama ( self-discover I’m so not ) but just love reading your recap , almost like reading a book and they say the book is always better than the movie lol thank god me and my best friend taste in man are totally different , I’m attract to guy who have a sense of humor and open-minded ( you have to when you want to deal with me ) and she love the philosophy , serious , everyday-is-a-chance-to-improve-ourselves one , I can never be serious even if my life depend on it , like when people talk about Newton and gravity all I can think of is that he lucky he not Asian , sit under a jackfruit or durian tree then he’ll find out gravity is not as important as the need of a helmet , people read ‘the old man and sea’ and think deep thought , I read it and think “small boat , big fish , this guy is too greedy should have caught a smaller fish or better yet get a bigger boat” been watching Samee Tee tra the character sometime make me mad but Ploy acting is excellent , know this is a remake and Ann is a good actress but for some reason I think Ploy owing this role , can not imagine anybody else in it and Pope too , loving this couple hope they have more lakorn together soon
Ha, I don’t know if I could compete for a man with my best friend. Perhaps tastes are different, but for some reason, if my friend happen to crush on a guy, it’s like an automatic turnoff for me because I immediately see the guy as off limits. Maybe my brain is conditioned that way.
I feel like Ploy has great chemistry with any actors she is paired with. I have not seen STT remake, but the original was great, though I’m always a little sad when I watch a story about friends who have to backstab each other to get the man. Can we all lift each other up? There are more than one fish in the sea.