I kept by expectations very low when watching this. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it isn't great either. This lakorn is essentially Hai Ruk Pimpaksa and if you want to watch a May-December romance, I'd say Hai Ruk Pimpaksa is the better lakorn to watch. Both lakorns have an older woman, younger man romance, an office rivalry with some big shot woman who is in love with the big boss, a widower boss who is helplessly in love with the female lead, the pra'ek has two useless friends that add nothing to the lakorn; you see, same lakorn, only Hai Ruk Pimpaksa does everything better and Karat Ruk has none of the fun.
People can say what they want but I see no chemistry between Anne and James. No part of their relationship made any sense to me and I still don't get why Ai fell for Karat. The love at first sight thing from Ai was unbelievable, it probably would have made more sense if he fell for her after getting to know her but for an early 20's adolescent to immediately see some 39 year old and fall head over heels in love with her felt pretty dumb. Not only that, but Karat was not a very likeable character. She was a bit rough for my tastes and while Anne did a good job as her, I didn't like Karat very much. I wasn't too fond of Ai either, he was a little too good to be true. James has been in so many good, strong roles that I think Ai is a pale comparison to his portrayals in Game Sanaeha, Neung Dao Fah Diew, Padiwarada.
Pretty much all the characters are unlikeable or annoying (minus the kid and Ai). They tried to make Pear's Venice character the bitchy chick that isn't all that bad like Pinky's Camellia but while Camellia was cool and had many redeeming qualities, Venice fell flat despite having so much potential to be much more and ended up being another annoying and sad character (WTH with her trying to rape Ai, isn't ch3 supposed to move away from these kinds of storylines?). Sam's character was just sad and one dimensional, he just kind of shows up, not even an attempt to humanize him other than he's a dad and the boss. How the hell did he even end up with Venice? I liked the chauffeur and wished he was the love interest for Venice, it would have made her more likeable and made for an entertaining sub plot for a brat like her to fall in love with her driver. Chakrit was also super one dimensional and simply just existed to be the ex that the viewer is supposed to hate. He was just a scummy person, that's all there was to him, not even one redeeming quality. The worst written character was Nita; no explanation on why she's such a bitch. No depth into her motivations or what caused to become such a horrible person. Her character exists just to be jealous of Karat and want to steal Chakrit away. Do we find out more about her? No.
Ever since ch3 went international, I feel a significant decline in their lakorn qualities. I feel like ch3 is very much catering to the international viewer and everything has to be 'woke'. There are parts in this lakorn that I find rather cringy and forcefully added into the lakorn. Like the part where Ai's parents lecture him on the use of condoms and the part where the boss and Chakrit meet at the store and talk about condoms. You want to appeal to international fans, that's fine. Lakorns are naturally corny, I get it, but this lakorn is ridiculously cringy. The first half of this lakorn was horrible and it was hard to watch. The second part was better but I couldn't say I was rooting for anyone. I also hated Ai's friends and I thought they were incredibly selfish and just downright rude. The way they treated Karat was horrible and it was uncalled for, they also didn't improve or change very much. I don't get why they are friends with Ai.
Perhaps it is just me, I am an old fashioned lakorn watcher. I am accustomed to very 'namnao' plots and old school ch7 type lakorns that I grew up watching. The new age in lakorns is a huge adjustment to me and I'm not getting with the times. I will forever be a 90's and 00's kid and have the same lakorn expectations that I did as a kid in those times. This lakorn is very reminiscent of what Anne did in that Mark and Mew lakorn which also had an epic cringe level of catering to international fans and the modern times. Yeah, I don't think I liked this lakorn very much. However