So when I first watched it, I was 14, pretty easy to shock and I had no knowledge of Thai dramas. The concept of slap-and-kiss was totally unknown to me.
I both loved and hated it. I loved it because the slap and kiss was new and spicy to me, because the male lead was a great actor, because I loved to him scheming in the second part of the Lakorn and also being extremely in love with the female lead.
However, there were things that I hated : I was very shocked when he raped the female lead and although this is very common in Thai lakorns, rape is totally unacceptable where I come from so I had a big problem with it. Moreover, the female lead was too weak, took an incredible amount of slaps and I know a lot will disagree with me, but I think Aff is off to me. Nevertheless, this Lakorn hold a special place in my heart, probably because it was my first slap and kiss and my first thai dram.

And then, recently, out of curiosity, I watched the previous versions of this story (this is based on a Thai classic novel that is still extremely popular).

And now, this version totally lost its value to me.

In the original novel, there’s no rape between the leads, something that relieved me but also made me disappointed with the 2008 version because then, I don’t see why they added this unnecessary plot (and rape is unforgivable so they should stop presenting it as if it is). More importantly, in the original novel, Harit and Soraya come to really form a true bound and to fall in love much before he realizes her true identity so their love makes much more sense (he even releases her before knowing who she is because he wants her to go back to the one he thinks she loves : and she’s very sad to leave him but keeps writing to him so that they wouldn’t be completely parted)
However, here, this is just hate and torture and BIM ! he realizes she’s not Sansanee after raping and suddenly decides he’s in love with her even though we didn’t see much development in their relationship, and what’s more, this is even more senseless coming from Soraya after everything he put her through (and again, no development : I don’t see when or how she fell in love with him but BIM ! she says she loves him).
And finally, Soraya and Harit are smarter and more interesting in the novel : Soraya intentionally lets him think she’s Sansanee to protect her (something I can understand), being smarter and logical than this new Soraya who just keeps screaming she’s not Sansanee but burns a picture of the real one that might save her from Harit.

So, to put it simple (because I actually might go on for hours) : now that I have more experience in Thai dramas, I’d say that the 2008 version revamped the story in a way they shouldn’t have because the original material was much more interesting and consistent and now that I’m grown up, I don’t see why this had so much success. It’s nice to watch but it’s not epic