Initially, I was forced to stop at Episode 2 due to the lack of time during its airtime; however, I eventually caught up to the end this Christmas break. Random thoughts.
1. Color contacts enhance certain faces like Chompoo; however, I thought they looked horrible on Janie. Janie's acting as Moonin, the posture, attitude, and speech was enough to illustrate confidence and intelligence, enough to do without the color contacts to enhance her beauty and/or individualism. Janie was already blossoming with beauty without the contacts; they were quite a distraction. I think contacts cannot fully channel out acting from the eyes unless the character is a ghost or something.
2. Ken's acting towards the end of the lakorn deserved some praises. Like Janie, in the beginning, I doubted Ken's ability to even portray such a simple character. However, as the lakorn progressed, Ken's mouth wasn't even a distraction anymore because the quality of his acting overshadowed the minor flaws of his face and speech. My favorite scene of Ken that showed major potential was at the beach mask party when he finally decided to support his family and break ties with Moonin. I was quite touched by his heartfelt and sad realization that he was just merely a pawn in Moonin's game.
3. Janie definitely performed extremely well as both Mootha and Moonin. I can totally see the difference in the twins. Janie's crying was superb; they had so much overflow of emotions and they dropped like rain. I really enjoyed Janie's Moonin because compared to Anne's, Janie was a lot weaker, had a lot more emotions, would pull back sometimes after realizing how much it hurted others, and couldn't execute things as coldly due to Veekit's ties. Janie's Moonin was a regular girl who happened to fall in love in the midst of revenge; she showed her innocence when she was secretly taking photos with Veekit when he fell asleep on the couch and sneaked a kiss when he slept over. Moonin was tough on the outside but the inside, she was completely pink and I loved how Veekit was able to extract those bubbles out of her all the time.
4. I have to say, they added more scenes to each character, sort of like a behind the scenes outlook into each one's situation, which built depth into each character. Tanya, no doubt, executed her role pretty well. I guess, people were saying how come in this version, there is so much more slapping, yelling, screaming, and market fighting? Isn't that the trend these days? Girls are no longer classy like a decade or two ago, if ever. If you're one to fight for your husband, I'm sure you won't be the quiet and classy type in the first place. The scenes of Nappa crying and in dire pain each time her husband neglects her for a mistress are raw and touching.
5. Pip's acting never improved; he remained the same throughout the entire lakorn, which wasn't that impressive.
I blame all three, Pope, Mootha, and Nappa. Pope for being the old pervert he was. Mootha for falling for someone who already had a wife and family regardless of how innocent and gullible she was, she should have had more morals and a backbone. You just don't go drinking and hanging out with a married man all by yourself; that's already commiting adultery. And you can't just boot out the old wife and become the new wife and mommy; that's just plain weird. I know that Mootha suffered from the lack of family love, but still, she's a bit shady deep down. Nappa for hiring all of those wife beaters and losers to hurt and kill both twins and public humiliation to the point of no return.
Overall, in terms of dialogue, the previous version was so much better hands down! I think this version was a bit too long; thus, it unnecessarily, dragged out. The previous version's dialogue was bam bam bam, hit home all the way. They words were strong and classy and it cut right to the chase without much jibberish in between.
However, in terms of the progression of relationships and building of each character, I would say, I prefer this version more. This version had more grace time to showcase each character deeper. I loved how Veekit's feelings for each twin was very clear and black/white. This was a pretty good remake! I enjoyed the new elements they added. Ken and Janie had good chemistry too. I still can't believe Janie is like a decade older than Ken; they suit each other quite well physically and seems like they grew quite close during filming too. I hope to see them pair up again in the near future.
