James Ma is back on screen since his portrayal of Dr. Sattawat in When a Man Loves a Woman– which made me want to pull my hair out no less – but I was still excited to see his face. Arkom (Magic) is a story about James Ma’s character that comes back to life after a deliberate bomb that hits the airplane containing his whole family. A mysterious sorcerer not only gives him a second chance in life but also teaches him magic in order to seek retribution on a group of rich men who are complicit in the murder of both their families. It’s very much similar to a superhero type storyline where the hero has another identity and hopes that friends and love interest from his ‘previous life’ don’t recognize him or complicate his revenge plan.
Margie Rasri plays James’ love interest who has a superhuman power all her own. She was born with the ability to sense the source of a person’s physical pain and heal it. Alex Rendell is her younger twin brother and their twin bond is heightened in such a way that they can communicate telepathically or what seems to be little conversations in each other’s head. Their connection is interesting because they are affected by each other’s deep moods, one would warn the other to stop sorrowful thoughts because it could overpower the other’s mood. So with Margie’s character’s natural abilities, she goes into medicine and becomes a doctor while Alex’s character becomes a cop. The twins are product of an affair and get reintroduced into their father’s family life at a young age but are forbidden to acknowledge him as their dad. For this reason, they are their own little family unit with a very special bond.
Even after five years, Margie continues to mourn the death of her love, James’ character. But a masked man in black who enters her life brings back the false hope and desire that her love may have survived a plane crash. Reporter by day, masked man in black by night – James’ character gets roped back into the past that he vowed to forget.
The premise of the show sounds and could be promising if you’re into fantasy, magic, superhero type plots. The problem that I see with this show from the get-go is the lack of introduction and backstory to the hero’s past life, which makes it challenging for me to get sucked into his revenge story because I’m not emotionally invested. Let me provide an example, we open with James’ and family experiencing the plane crash, then the sorcerer revives James back to life and essentially gives him magic. Meanwhile Margie’s character cries on the gravesite, blaming James tombstone for not following through with the promise to come back to her. And five years later he’s back and exacting revenge one by one with the executives. It feels a little rushed.
In addition, James and Margie have no chemistry on screen so far. Their characters aren’t given an emotional backstory to hook me, so when they reunite (in false pretense of course) there’s a lack of spark. It’s unfortunate because it’s one of my favorite things about hidden identity storylines. I’m sure there will be flashbacks etc, but it’s just not the same. While the twins’ bond on the other hand is quite cute and I do like Alex and Margie’s sibling interaction, however even Alex’s love story seemed too pieced together.
I’m sad that this is another TV Scene lakorn that I’m going to drop, I don’t recall the last one that I’ve finished completely. Even James Ma’s face couldn’t rescue this show for me, and it’s such a pretty face too. But maybe this is my exhausted brain talking. I should be called zombie lakorn mom instead of lovefia. #firstepisodefatigue. Maybe I need rescuing! Man in black mask, come rescue me from myself!
