Another kdrama remake.Remember You (2021) airs August 16, 2021 two days a week and should have around 24 episodes. This lakorn is a remake of Hello Monster (2015), and stars Paopetch Charoensook (Social Syndrome (2018)), Kemisara Paladesh, Aun Witaya and Tawan Vihokratana. The teaser certainly looks dark and mysterious enough, lots going on in it. This lakorn is coming to Netflix, so yeah, I’m definitely planning to watch this.
Synopsis: A genius detective teams up with a colleague to investigate a case that hits close to home, but the duo becomes entangled in a cat-and-mouse game. (Source: Netflix)
More. More. More. Another Thailand lakorn with a pra’ek with special powers, this time it seems like our hero can read minds. The Mind Game (2021) stars Bank Thiti (Bpai Hai Teung Duang Dao) and Peak Pattarasaya (Leh Ruk Bussaba (2018)) and will air June 14, 2021 on channel GMM One, so it may be english subbed.
Credit: one31s yt channel
Synopsis: When he became a suspect in a robbery case, he had to do everything he could to prove his innocence. Meet a young man with special powers and his special team to go out and pursue real criminals! (Source: MyDramaList)
The nang’ek looks older the pra’ek here in the above teaser. But there seems to be two pra’eks, the other one is played by Oab Oabnithi and he looks good in the 2nd teaser, paired with Patty Phetii I believe. This lakorn seems based on an older one called Chit Sanghan (2002). I like the poster and this might be interesting, so we’ll see if it gets English subbed.
I just recently complained about Thailand’s lack of mystery/thriller/detective lakorns here, so naturally of course, Thailand chooses to release a new lakorn featuring a female investigator?!!! and her teaming up with other cops (and love interests maybe?). Lhong Klin Chan (2021)) stars Thanwa Suriyajak (Song Naree (2019)) and Anyarin Terathananpat (Talay Duerd (2021)) and just started airing May 26, 2021 on channel 7. Thippy should be subbing this one and I’m so ready for this and Voice 4! The teasers really look promising! I just hope Thailand keeps more lakorns of this genre coming.
Credit: Ch7HD’s yt channel
Credit: Ch7HD’s yt channel
Synopsis: Warnruk, a female investigator, gets transferred to her small hometown in order to investigate the homicide of Chankrapor, who was murdered and buried underneath a Chan por tree. There she meets the forensics doctor of the area, who although likes to question her intelligence, also teams up with her in order to find the murderer. Together with them is Trichai, a young and handsome lieutenant, who is always ready to help. However, the catch of this case is that the deeper you search, the thicker the fog becomes. (Source:thaidramatic_update; Edited by Soju at MyDramaList) (Source: MyDramaList)
Been lovin’ me some mutant, apocalyptic survival dramas ever since watching 2020’s fantastic Sweet Home, and this kdrama seems like it might be a worthy entrant to the genre. Dark Hole (2021) is an action, mystery thriller drama starring Kim Ok Bin (Children of a Lesser God), and Lee Joon Hyuk (Stranger 2) as they fight to survive against mutants. This thriller airs on OCN starting April 30, 2021 two days a week and should be English subbed on Viki and elsewhere.
Source: OCN’s yt channel
Synopsis: About a group of survivors who have to fight for their lives against mutants that are created when humans breathe mysterious dark smoke from a sinkhole. Lee Hwa Sun is a police detective in the Seoul regional investigation unit. Lee Hwa Sun’s life is turned upside down when she receives a phone call from her husband’s murderer, telling her to come to “Mujishi.” However, the people in Mujishi have been transformed into monsters after breathing in a mysterious dark smoke. Lee Hwa Sun must not only fight to survive but also battle her fear in order to capture her husband’s murderer. Yoo Tae Han is a native of Mujishi and a wreck car driver. He has a carefree personality and likes to joke around, but he has a strong sense of justice. He quit being a police officer due to a scandal caused by a misunderstanding, but he is proud of his days in the force. When he meets Lee Hwa Sun in the chaos of Mujishi, he devotes his life to saving others from danger. (Sources: Naver, Soompi)
Wow! Intense. Riveting. The teaser for the new JTBC show,Undercover (2021) really hooked me. Ji Jin Hee, from 2019’s Misty, plays the undercover hubby married to Kim Hyun Joo‘s character (WATCHER). Both actors starred together inI Have a Lover (2015), so this will be a reunion for them. The thriller kdrama is directed by Song Hyun Wook, a favorite of mine (The Beauty Inside, Marriage, Not Dating). It starts airing April 23, 2021 two days a week on jTBC, and hopefully someone will English sub it.
Source: JTBC Drama’s YT channel
Synopsis: “Undercover” depicts the story of Han Jung Hyun, who has been hiding his identity for a long time, and Choi Yeon Soo, a human rights lawyer who becomes the first head of the Senior Civil Servant Corruption Investigations Unit to fight for justice. A fierce battle begins to protect love and justice from the huge forces that dominate and shake the country for profit. The drama expects to dig into the reality of power and closely follow the story of human multifacetedness hidden in it and discuss what is right and wrong.
Ji Jin Hee’s character Han Jung Hyun is an agent at the Agency for National Security Planning who has been hiding his identity for a long time. He’s known for his extraordinary quickness and boldness, and during his top-secret mission, he falls in love with Choi Yeon Soo and eventually marries her. However, his secret life gets caught up in an uncontrollable whirlwind when his wife becomes nominated for a post at the Senior Civil Servant Corruption Investigations Unit.
Kim Hyun Joo’s character Choi Yeon Soo is a human rights lawyer who has lived for justice and truth. In recognition of her lifelong beliefs and abilities, she becomes nominated as the first head of the Senior Civil Servant Corruption Investigations Unit. Little does she know that her new position will force her to face a shocking truth. (Source: Soompi) ~~ A remake of the BBC One television series of the same name.
You know how you watch one drama, really like it, so you try to find similar dramas to it? Yep, that’s me in a nutshell. So I’ve been on a thriller/mystery kick since February really, and thus I don’t really have much to write about since I do try to focus mostly on lakorns and there’s really not a lot of lakorns in that genre. So I found myself at a loss of things to write about. I mean, there are still lakorns I need to finish, but… the heart wants what the heart wants and now I want to watch mystery/detective/thriller dramas.
So I’ve decided to do another deep dive into lakorns. If you didn’t catch my first dives, I looked into lakorns here (in particular romance) and here I took a deep dive into the world of slap and kiss lakorns. But what does that mean, a deep dive? Well, it means looking into lakorns as a genre and finding statistical evidence to either prove or disprove common assumptions/questions about them.
So I’ve had several assumptions and I wanted to see if my deep dive into lakorns supported them or not. These are some of the assumptions and questions I have about mystery/thriller genre.
Are there many detective lakorns, ones set in a police station that is? What about mystery or thriller lakorns?
What percentage of mystery lakorns are there overall?
How does that compare to other countries?
Has this genre grown or decreased in recent years?
Methodology: I’ve found that you can get slightly different numbers based on how you sort when you search so I decided to just use the results that I got when I sorted by release date. This data is what I got when I wrote this post, so it may differ if you try to get the same results later on. And English subbed lakorns are more likely to have better and more accurate tags then non subbed lakorns, and the same thing is true of newer lakorns vs. older lakorns, so please keep in mind this is by no means completely accurate and true, but hopefully it is accurate enough to let us derive some assumptions from the data.
112 lakorns were classified as mystery/thriller genre. 11 lakorns were classified as ‘detective’ and 27 lakorns were also ‘investigation.’ Naturally, a lot of the lakorns are classified as more than one genre. Voice 2019 for example, genres are listed as mystery, thriller, detective and investigation. But I suspect there are many more lakorns that have cops/detectives in them and should feature one of those four genres, but because they’ve not been subbed, and/or there is no synopsis, the lakorns are just classified under ‘action.’
Take for example this 2017 lakorn, Diamond Eyes (2017) starring Chahkrit Yamnam. (Isn’t this a wonderful poster?)
Diamond Eyes (2017) synopsis: The series follows Police Captain Petch Phumthai’s story. He was attacked and lost his left eye. Luckily, someone donated an eye, but to his surprise, it was a special eye that can see ghosts. He uses it to solve police investigations and prove cases.
Source: mydramalist.com
Only ‘action,’ ‘horror’, and ‘crime’ are listed as genres, but ‘investigation’ genre definitely fits and ‘mystery’ or ‘thriller’ as well probably. And of course, that’s not the only example. Just a casual look at the 480 lakorns that are listed under the ‘action’ genre reveal that Mue Prab Khao Saan Sek (2020) should be classified as ‘detective’ andLah Dup Tawan (2016) could also have more genres added as well. All of this is just to say that while these numbers are not accurate, hopefully they can still help us get some idea of what the mystery/etc. genres look like in lakornland.
OTHER COUNTRIES
Of the 11 detective lakorns, two are remakes of Korean dramas, lol. There’s a reason for that. Korea has some great dramas, in fact 58 ‘detective’ dramas according to mydramalist. But Japan far exceeds that number with 270 ‘detective’ doramas, and much to my surprise, China isn’t far behind, 130 dramas.
Police Jub Kamoi (1996) Two cops chase a psychotic criminal, who escaped from prison. – This synopsis reminds me of many other cop shows like The Good Detective (2020), which started me on my recent craving for detective dramas.
If we search for ‘thriller,’ there are 77 Chinese dramas, 94 Japanese doramas and 173 Korean dramas. If we include ‘mystery,’ well, those numbers go up even more. But going back to the ‘detective’ genre, Korea has detective dramas from 1989. Japan has them from 1957?!!!!! Daiyaru 110-ban was supposed to be inspired by US tv show Dragnet, and had 364 episodes! 😲 China had shows starting in the late 1990’s. When we compare that to Thailand, they started detective shows around that time too, the late 1990’s to early 2000. So compared to Korea and Japan definitely, Thailand was a little late in introducing ‘detective’ shows, look at this cop show from 1996,Police Jub Kamoi (1996).
More Mystery/Thrillers?
So is there a growth in mystery/thrillers/detective genre in Thailand? My first guess would be yes there is, with the more cable/digital channels like True4u, GMM25 and so on, there are more opportunities to have more diverse programming since there are more channels to watch from.
But let’s look at the actual data. Going back to that small number of 11 ‘detective’ lakorns, 4 of them (2 are Korean remakes) are from 2019, The Seer, Bangkok Vampire, Tunnel, and Voice. Out of 110 lakorns, 10 of them came from 2020, 7 from 2019, 11 from 2018. If we looked back at 2010, only 1 lakorn counted as a mystery, Leum Prai Lai Ruk which seems too low since 2009 has 4 lakorns, 2008 has 4 as well and 2007 has 2. What does this mean? There does seem to be an increase in the mystery genre, so hurray!
What I’m Watching/Watched
So it all started with The Good Detective (2020), which I started in 2020, but really got into in February 2021. I loved the bromance between the leads and how the characters grew stronger, even if some of the female leads got on my last nerve. After that, I looked for more detective dramas and hit upon 365: Repeat the Year, oh my gosh. Twist upon twist, with likeable characters, this drama went by so fast for me, so of course I looked for more.
Looking to Netlfix for convenience’s sake, I found Voice 2 (2018) which I enjoyed, but spoiler alert, it ends on a cliffhanger really. You have to watch the sequel. Which, wasn’t on Netflix. So instead, I saw they had Thailand Voice (2019) and now I’m currently watching that. I’m also watching and loving Memorist (2020). I really like the leads’ focus on their work, and how much they care about other people. I encourage people to check them out if they’re in the mood for something different, give it a chance!
What are some other questions you think we should address?
There’s a rather intriguing upcoming mystery Japanese dorama coming soon called Borderless (2021). I really love the mood and lighting in the teaser and the whole aesthetics of the dorama and even the cover poster. With 4 separate stories that are somehow connected to each other, this is very much a girl centered drama, look at this main cast list: Morita Hikaru, Hayakawa Seira, Watanabe Risa, Hamagishi Hiyori, Endo Sakura, and Saito Kyoko. The dorama starts airing March 7, 2021 on dTV, and hopefully someone will English sub it.
Source: ひかりＴＶ’s YT channel
Synopsis: Nao, a high school girl living a self-proclaimed “normal” life, is one day approached by her mysterious classmate Kiri in the school library. Kiri invites Nao to come with her to visit a scene of a murder in Kiri’s neighborhood which she’s using as inspiration to write a novel.
Meanwhile, sisters Baeru and Kei, witness their father being beaten by someone on their mountain cottage. The sister flee, only to be chased by the attacker.
Kotone, works at a coffee shop run by her father, after failing the entrance exam for music college. She works with her childhood friend Kazushi, and the atmosphere iw pleasant. Her younger sister Kanon, is worried about Kotone, but spends her days devoted to her band.
A mysterious girl stands on her balcony in the rain. What is beyond the gate that looks at? These four stories will intersect, as the boundaries between each girl gradually become borderless… ~~ Adapted from the novel “Borderless” by Tetsuya Honda
I’ve already posted about Talay Luang or It All Begins at the Sea (2021) (which is such a generic name, I’m gonna keep calling it Talay Luang. But this time, the teaser is out and we have an airing date, January 26, 2021. This Channel 7 lakorn stars Mik Thongraya (Jark Sadtroo Soo Hua Jai) and Sammy Cowell (Lhong Ngao Jun(2019). I like both actors and look forward to this pairing. I think Thippy and Muse will be English subbing this lakorn.
Source: Channel 7’s yt
Synopsis: A strange man with amnesia appears on an island; there he meets Moya, begins to fall in love and starts building her an island resort. Against the warnings of her best friend, Moya starts to fall in love with him too. However just as their love blooms, a pregnant woman arrives claiming the man is her husband. She takes him back. So Moya tries to forget him, but he returns with memories intact as a player. (Source:thaidramatic_update)
More suspense on the way with kdrama Awaken (2020) coming soon. Kdrama Awaken (2020) starts November 30, 2020 on tvN channel and airs two days a week on Monday and Tuesday. The story revolves around cops who look into a mysterious incident that occurred 28 years ago. Namgoong Min (Doctor Prisoner) takes the lead here, along with Lee Chung Ah, Kim Seol Hyun and Yoon Sun Woo. Hopefully, someone will English sub this!
Source: tvN drama’s yt channel
Synopsis: About a series of mysterious incidents that are connected to an incident that took place in a village 28 years ago. Do Jung Woo is a capable and legendary team leader of a special task force at the National Police Agency. He has messy hair, a constant slouch, and sucks on a lollipop all day like a kid, but he has a mysterious secret behind his sly exterior.
Gong Hye Won is a passionate police officer who does not let anything get in her way. Behind her pretty face is a hot temper that won’t cool down unless she says what she needs to say. She is one of the strongest and best fighters on her team, and can drink the others under the table, but she also has a surprisingly clumsy side. Jamie is a detective on loan from the FBI. She was adopted as a child with almost no memories of her life before, but she returns to Korea to solve the serial killer case that is related to those lost memories from 28 years ago. (Source: Soompi)
(Source: mydramalist.com
There is a solid team behind the cameras as well as in front of them. The director is Jo Soo Won who also directed Doctor John, Thirty But Seventeen and the mega popular I Hear Your Voice. The screenwriter, Shin Yoo Dam, wrote only two dramas before, High-end Crush and Go Ho’s Starry Night and neither of those were mysteries, but still a good team. I also like Namgoong Min’s new look, he’s a great actor and very versatile.
Mik Thongraya has already had 2 lakorns come out in 2020, the newly airing Jark Sadtroo Soo Hua Jai (which is being subbed by Neko and Muse) and Sapai Import (subbed by Muse), but there’s always room for one more, right? Talay Luang (2020) is an upcoming Channel 7 lakorn starring Mik Thongraya and Sammy Cowell (Lhong Ngao Jun(2019). I like both actors and look forward to this pairing. No word yet on who will sub this, but both actors have their fan groups, so I’m hopeful it will be English subbed.
Synopsis: A strange man with amnesia appears on an island; there he meets Moya, begins to fall in love and starts building her an island resort. Against the warnings of her best friend, Moya starts to fall in love with him too. However just as their love blooms, a pregnant woman arrives claiming the man is her husband. She takes him back. So Moya tries to forget him, but he returns with memories intact as a player. (Source:thaidramatic_update)
(Courtesy: mydramalist.com)
I was wondering whether this is a new pairing, but apparently Sammy Cowell and Mik Thongraya have been in two series together, Paragit Ruk Series and The Fire Series, but they weren’t a couple in either one. This seems like it could be a remake of Prince Turns to Frog (2005), where a man with amnesia falls for a girl, but no, a Thailand remake of that drama is already in the works at GMM called Rak Woon Wai Jao Chai Kob (2020) so this may just be an original story. Regardless, I do like this type of story, so I’m looking forward to when it airs.
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