Until We Meet Again: An Introductory Post
Until We Meet Again: When SOOOOON Finally Became Now
Hello, again readers. I have been once again asked by
Kakashi to write something for the blog based on conversations she has seen on
twitter, and this one is about a new Thai drama, Until We Meet Again. See trailer. This has got to be one of the most anticipated Thai dramas of 2019!
I will be doing weekly updates in RAWR, but with the help of
my "BL Book Club" DM group (see members below) on twitter, I am going to do an introduction to the drama
here because there is too much backstory to do in the weekly RAWR.
I first heard about this drama in early January when friends
on twitter recommended the book to me; it was being translated online. The
novel by LazySheep is called The Red Thread. There were rumors at the time that
the novel was going to be filmed by the same director that had filmed Love By Chance, so of course we were interested in the novel. We even started the DM group on twitter, so we could talk about it without bothering everyone else.😁
Plot
The novel focuses on two college students, Dean and Parm,
and the link they have to each other in the present but also the how this
connects to their past. Dean is a third year college student, captain of his
university’s swim team, and basically the guardian of his two younger siblings:
uni sophomore Don, and incoming freshman, sister Del. Their parents are
frequently away on business, but he isn’t really close to his siblings because
his grandmother raised him until he was 18; there is some mystery about why she
took him out the house. He is a solemn young man who has always had this sad
soul and always seems to be looking for someone wherever he goes even though he doesn’t know why or who
that person is.
Parm is an incoming freshmen at the same university. He is warm and friendly with a close relationship with his mom and younger brother who happen to be in the United States right now. His father is dead. He loves to cook and wants to run his mother’s restaurants or open one of his own when he finishes school. He is excellent at making traditional Thai desserts. Everything about him is pretty normal except for the fact that he has these horrible nightmares about people he doesn’t know and whom he has never met who are so sad and longing for each other that he awakes sometimes with no memory but the sadness which often has him in tears. He also gets panic attacks when he hears very loud noises like a car backfiring. He’s been this way since he was little. No explanation for it.
When they meet, Parm doesn’t know why he feels excited but already so broken hearted, and Dean doesn’t know why Parm seems to be the person for whom he has been looking.
Perhaps it’s because these two are the reincarnation of
star-crossed lovers from 30 years ago! (I know, it is not a synopsis I would
usually fall for, but the novel sucked me in). Korn and Intouch/In meet each other in
college, too. Korn is from the Ariyasakul family who are known to be rich from being
loan sharks/mafia-types. In is warned away from Korn because of this, but In is
drawn to him because he is always alone at school and doesn’t seem to have many
friends. Of course they fall in love, and while we live in a society that
still has issues with homosexuality now, you can imagine the response in the
past, especially since In comes from a traditional and upstanding family in the
community. In fact, in the beginning, I couldn’t tell if his dad was angrier
about his son being gay or the fact that his son was in love with the son of a
gangster.
The two of them, being hopelessly, desperately in love, promise to be together forever and to look for each other if they ever have to
part, which is how this whole thing starts. Everyone watching dramas knows that when couples make promises like this, nothing good comes of it. They end up committing suicide—not a
spoiler. It happens in the first five minutes of episode 1.
In the present day, Dean is Korn and Parm is In. Their present day
love story is not just theirs alone but how they manage to find each other and
stay together as they unravel the tragic past in their family history. Can they
finally find solace not just for themselves but for the wandering souls of Korn
and In? That is the story of the novel and the drama.
The story is quite good with a myriad of emotions and questions about family, devotion, and the strength of promises kept and broken. I like the way the novel makes readers invested not just in the main couples (even though one ends tragically) but in the friendships that help sustain the new couple through the hardship.
The connections between them all is fairly complex, so I asked Rick from our twitter group to develop a chart. I will share the chart in the future. I had it here but was reminded by the crew that the chart revealed too many spoilers and things that we only know because we read the novel.
UPDATE: See chart in RAWR #278
The story is quite good with a myriad of emotions and questions about family, devotion, and the strength of promises kept and broken. I like the way the novel makes readers invested not just in the main couples (even though one ends tragically) but in the friendships that help sustain the new couple through the hardship.
The connections between them all is fairly complex, so I asked Rick from our twitter group to develop a chart. I will share the chart in the future. I had it here but was reminded by the crew that the chart revealed too many spoilers and things that we only know because we read the novel.
UPDATE: See chart in RAWR #278
The Director and Company: New Siwaj Sawatmaneekut
This director is the same director as Love By Chance and is working
with LineTV again, and he and the production company, Studio Wabi Sabi, sure know how to drum up the
fanbase and create new ones. They started feeding the buzz about the show early and
encouraged translation of the novel. They also started leaking information
about the casting of the show starting in March.
 |
| workshop photo |
 |
| learning to make traditional desserts |
Of course rumors started right away about the casting. I know that several of the people in my group
were concerned about it because the role of Parm, especially, was going require
an actor that was really good. This role needed a person who could be warm and friendly, scared, shocked, snarky, madly in love, and able to produce at least five different kinds of tears.
Let’s be honest, a lot of BL series charm is based on the likeability
of the actors not necessarily their acting prowess. They are also not routinely
super good looking in the way drama viewers have come to expect Korean drama
actors to be. They are good looking, but not necessarily the standard beauty.
They are often more like the good-looking neighborhood boy. I like how they often have braces or are gangly when they are supposed to be gangly. They have bad skin experiences and odd haircuts, looking more like the high schoolers and college students we know.
And don't get me wrong, the show has swim club members in it. There is quite a bit of eye candy for everyone.
They kept telling us that the show was “COMING
SOON” even when it was six months out—to the point where I doubted that they
even knew what the word “soon” meant. But they sure had us chomping at the bit.
Each of the actors has IG and twitter accounts, and the studio that is making
the show has a twitter account as well. They even started doing a daily countdown
once the last month appeared.
If nothing else, people should admire the way they promote this show. They could write a book on show promotion and hold
workshops. As a person who has both marketing departments and public relations
reporting to me in my regular job, I appreciate the mastery of their machine.
The show was already so popular before it debuted (on November 9) that they already had fanmeets and got a makeup deal for the entire cast and they already filmed and aired a commercial for the
makeup.
They also were also already selling show merch in August!
And best of all, they are simultaneously posting the show online with English subs on Line’s official Youtube channel as well as on Line’s official link at the exact same time they are broadcasting it in Thailand. That's how you build community!
Cast:
As I mentioned before, there was some concern about the
casting, especially for the role of Parm. However, everyone was ultimate
relieved because Fluke Natouch Siriportorn was cast, and he’s an excellent
actor as well as someone that can make other people feel comfortable in the cast. He was one of two actors I wanted to be in
the role, so I was happy. And I’m pleased with the other casting so far as
well, even the newbies on screen.
Because of the director, we also are going to get (and
already have had two in the first episode) guest appearances by seven members of
the cast of Love By Chance—another way to draw audiences in because that show
was so popular.
But what I think is the most impressive about the cast line
up are some of the veteran older actors that have been cast in this drama. BL
dramas seem to have their own casting group. By that I mean that actors and
actresses in traditional Thai drama/lakorns are almost never cast in BL dramas, and very rarely do you get actors and actresses who work in BL or even high
school dramas act in lakorns. However, older and well-respected actors have
more range but also they carry more weight and respect.
Acknowledgements:
I couldn't have done this (or survived the wait) without Opah (Rick), Tea Rex (Amanza), Nat, zgzgeonni, Beth, and our president, Caitlyn. Thanks guys! I know we are all going to be crying over the next month or so.