My Week in Dramas 27 October 2025
Remember Me, Galileo, Typhoon Family, The Resurrected
Thai dramas are seldom on my radar and I tend not to go looking in that direction for all kinds of reasons. However, when a remake of Hello Monster/I Remember You popped up on my Netflix feed, my curiosity was piqued right away. The original has been a favourite and still arguably the best role a younger Park Bo-geum has made his own. 10 years on certain aspects of it will inevitably come across a tad dated. The original wasn’t a show that appealed to me immediately but I grew to love it once I persevered past the cringe factor and clumsy romance set-up. The line-up was also stellar and it also included Seo In-geok in the lead role, Jang Na-ra as well as the accomplished Choi Won-young.
The Thai version, simply known as Remember You, is overall a faithful adaptation with some tweaks and tightening around the edges. In general the performances are competent and the storytelling… once it kicks in (it does plod), immersive. I’m not averse to the romance as some others seem to be. In fact I liked it more here than in the original. It could be that now that I’m older, I’m better able to see why the romance is warranted in a show about serial killers.
Like its source material, the male lead is a consulting profiler late of the FBI and he’s returned to his home country — in this case, Thailand — to unravel mysteries that have haunted him for over a decade. Thanwa (Paopetch Charoensook) is tasked with assisting the Special Investigation Bureau but manages to rub everyone the wrong way on his first day at a crime scene where a woman has been brutally murdered. There he meets Aiyada (Belle Kemisara Paladesh), the only female member of the team. She is left reeling by the encounter and wonders if he’s not the perpetrator come to revisit the scene of the crime. She remembers him too as the prodigious boy she followed around their neighbourhood and also later when he grows up to be a rockstar criminologist-writer. Unfortunately for her, he doesn’t remember her. At least not immediately.
Old habits die hard and Aiyada continues to follow Thanwa around trying to understand his modus operandi. Their dynamic is initially that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson (in the older film tradition) but as their interactions spill outside of work hours, they begin developing feelings for each other. To say that the mercurial Thanwa doesn’t work well with the people around him is an understatement. Members of the Special Investigation Bureau don’t think much of his propensity to thumb his nose at them. Fab (Vivid Bavornkiratikajorn), a senior detective, takes great exception to the newcomer and deems him suspicious for the longest time. The antagonism there goes far too long for anyone’s comfort. It certainly doesn’t speak well of the Fab character’s ability to be impartial.
One of the perennial mysteries that haunts Thanwa is the disappearance and alleged death of his younger brother, Meena. As children, their detective father was murdered in the family home and Meena was never to be seen again — presumably dead. There are also gaps in Thanwa’s memory. He recalls his father’s last case involving a notorious serial killer, Pathomkarn (Patarapon To-oun) and some of his own interaction with Pathomkarn but there are crucial pieces of the puzzle missing from his memories.
The heart of this series lies in Thanwa’s journey to find the missing fragments of his past. Part of this journey lies in his relationship with Paytai, an openly hostile, ubiquitous young lawyer and the department’s coroner Dr Kong. As Thanwa delves into the weeds of various cases, these two men signal an interest in becoming friends with the aloof and anti-social consultant. Furthermore his blossoming romance with Aiyada is also about coming to terms with the demons that have plagued him for the longest time. Thanwa holds himself responsible for his brother’s supposed demise and laments over the fact that he hasn’t tried harder over the years to find out what happened. On top of that the thought of Pathomkarn still wandering free, committing more crimes is also another bugbear for the emotionally closed off Thanwa.
Thematically Remember You is comparable with the more recent Queen Mantis. Instead of Mummy issues, it’s Daddy who is in large part the catalyst for many things that went wrong for Thanwa and Meena. As a child, Thanwa was deemed a “monster” after a hasty diagnosis from scraps of evidence. On that occasion Dad is struck by a bad case of the Frozen syndrome and locks the boy up in the basement to ensure that the boy Thanwa would steer clear of the footsteps of bogeyman Pathomkarn. Except that (with no lack of irony) Pathomkorn becames the person that he does because he was shunned and ostracized as a little lad.
All of this begs the question: are murderers born or made? After much consideration, the script falls with no lack of certainty in the “made” camp. Most psychopaths aren’t walking axe murderers and not everyone who murders is a psychopath. The drama is at pains to demonstrate that the human heart is a complex mishmash of distorted desires, well-meaning intentions and inexplicable uncontrollable passions . Without guidance and intervention of the right kind, far too many are led astray.
A long time before South Korean dramas became an integral part of my viewing habits, I devoured Japanese dramas routinely and especially the ones of the crime variety. Galileo was a series that I followed religiously when it first aired. These days it’s readily available on Netflix. I am revisiting it and note that it’s high on the cheese factor but aside from the Brits and Americans, no one does crime stories like the Japanese which is not surprising considering how much they love Arthur Conan Doyle. This drama is based on a series of short stories created by Higashino Keigo.
Of course the main reason to watch Galileo is for the attractive male lead, Fukuyama Masaharu who prior to being a tv star was a beloved singer-songwriter in the Jpop scene. He’s immensely likeable in the title role and that voice… Yikes… is guaranteed to send women everywhere crazy. Galileo is the nickname of Professor Yukawa Manabu, an eccentric physicist who is dragged into solving mysteries with a so-called paranormal angle by the heart-first Utsumi Kaoru (Shibasaki Ko). Although he loudly maintains disinterest and indifference to the human side of crime, the professor is inevitably drawn to find a scientific explanation for the oddities in each case. When he’s not out and about with her, he’s poking around in his lab proving his theories. As soon as the good professor is hit with a brainwave he starts scribbling algorithms on any available surface at hand — a signature quirk that Utsumi learns to embrace soon enough.
It’s a light hearted watch with appropriate moments of seriousness. There’s no romantic development even though it’s brimming with tension between the leads. Yes, it’s another instance of Sherlock and Watson but in terms of the plot mechanics I’m reminded of the wonderful UK series Jonathan Creek, a crime series rich in detail and wry humour.
Another one that came up on my feed was The Resurrected, a newish Taiwanese drama about two women looking for justice after their daughters fall prey to a human trafficking and voice phishing ring. I’ve seen about 4 episodes so far and have mixed feelings about the way this is unfolding. The approach is certainly novel — the leads steal the body of the perpetrator after his execution and revive him using a unnamed religious cult in some unknown location. Their mission is to get him talking and cough up the big bucks he made exploiting youngsters before getting his just desserts. However it seems unfair to them that his mother and sister are living the high life while the victims and families have to pick up the pieces with no compensation. The women are way over their heads trying to handle everything on their own — the show doesn’t skirt that — but it did cross my mind that with all the coin they raised to nab the body, they could have all that to move on with their lives. Failure doesn’t seem to be an option but the business they’ve embroiled themselves in is very messy.
The tone is bleak and messaging about the elusiveness of justice no doubt resonates. It’s no Taken though. Neither of them have the appropriate skills for such an undertaking. I suspect that much of the problem I’m having is that I can’t shake that nagging feeling of incredulity as the narrative continues to unravel. The premise is unique but I can’t help wishing that one of them is a trained investigator or has a military background to make the whole thing more plausible.
I’ve also dipped my toes into Typhoon Family partly because it’s set in an era that I lived through as a young adult and partly because I am sure that my conversational partner absoluteM would be watching it for Jun-ho. I like it so far for its aspirational themes and there’s a lovely horticultural angle that’s refreshing. I’m sure I’ll have more to say in our next podcast. And when I’ve caught up with all the existing episodes.
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