I'm usually lurking around the forum but I'm going to gather my courage and make a post because FJS is one of my favourite stories
Personally, I wasn't expecting too much from this adaptation of the novel given that it's by Ch7 so I suppose I'm not too disappointed with how it turned out but I wasn't extremely impressed by it either. The script still seems quite unpolished despite being in the works for 3 years and I am majorly pissed that they cast Tik Shiro as the villain. Every time Oman appeared on the screen and started screaming like a cartoon villain, I cringed. Tik Shiro just can't do subtle (at least, from what I've seen of him) and although Oman is a bit of a nutcase, he isn't
that much of a nutcase. It was one of the reasons I think the usurping plot ended up feeling flat and made it harder to take seriously as I remember Oman was actually a decent villain in the novel and musical that did feel threatening. I also thought they didn't portray the development of Michelle & Shariff's feelings for one another very well as one second they still appeared to dislike each other and the next they were madly in love (either that or I wasn't paying enough attention, lol). I don't remember feeling like that when watching the musical or reading the novel though. Also, I didn't like some of the plot changes like making them get married before heading into the desert (I mean, they're running for their lives and Michelle disguises herself as a guy - who cares about them not being married and do they have the time to bother with something like that?). The other change I didn't like was in the scene when Oman's soldiers found them and began interrogating Shariff who was acting like a poor Bedouin, telling them that Michelle was both deaf and dumb. In the book and musical the soldiers didn't believe him so they decided to test Michelle by firing a gun right next to Michelle's ear and she manages to act as if she didn't hear it. I thought that was a really good scene for Michelle to show she has a strong spirit but was really disappointed when I didn't see it in the lakorn. It seems like a minor thing but it was one of my favourite scenes. :weep:
Anyway, I think I've written too much so I'll finish this by saying that even though a lot of things bothered me about the lakorn, at least it let me relive the musical in some way (and Dao Neua is a great song
). I've been trawling Youtube for the past hour trying to find what I could of the musical and
here is a recording of one of the songs from the musical. Enjoy the love scene~