Love Upon A Time (Thai Series)

The premise has a lot going for it: a modern-day skeptic, a vanished nobleman, and a murder that reaches across centuries. But the first four or five episodes left me so confused that I started drifting away, and the series never brought me back. Some moments worked, yet the whole story felt crowded with events. That was a lot to absorb across twelve episodes, each running between seventy and ninety minutes in its uncut version.

Nakhun is a twenty-year-old college student in Bangkok who dismisses superstition. On his twentieth birthday, though, one thing after another goes wrong, including his being mistaken for a thief. Later, while watching shooting stars and feeling low, he is sent nearly four hundred years into the past, to the Ayutthaya Kingdom. There, people take him for Master Klao: a young nobleman who looks just like him and disappeared without explanation.

To stay alive, Nakhun takes on Klao’s identity. He also wants to learn what happened to the real Klao and find a way home. Phop quickly suspects that the man before him is not quite “Klao,” setting off a prolonged game of suspicion that gradually grows more intimate. Their relationship develops against a historical setting shaped by corruption: smugglers, forged documents, and influential figures framing innocent people and manipulating justice.

That corruption connects the romance to the mystery. Phop’s father, Lord Preechapiban, is implicated in a false accusation; in the original timeline, it ultimately leads to his death. Nakhun does not initially know that his journey to the past has a purpose: to solve Klao’s murder and clear Lord Preechapiban’s name.

I wanted the show to work for me, but its similarities to “I am the most beautiful count” made it harder to get past my early disengagement. The cast was a real strength, particularly the actor playing Nakhun and Klao. His comic timing, reactions, and eye-rolls give the character charm, while he also makes Nakhun’s awkwardness in the 1600s and his more serious emotional moments feel convincing. Phop brings warmth and loyalty to Klao, with a deeply protective, green-flag quality.

A second couple also appears across the past and present timelines. The finale gives their wider story a meaningful resolution: in episode twelve, Nakhun understands that he needed to be in the past to repair a part of history that had left Jom and Kaew’s souls trapped and suffering. Once that is set right, an ancient portal opens in a cosmic moment, and Nakhun’s departure becomes inevitable, closing the loop of timing.

I understand why fans loved this show, even though it never clicked for me. (4/10)