Premier: Nang Tat (Slave Girl)

Air date: March 10, 2008 CH7 (Mon-Tues)
Genre: Drama Boran (Period drama)
Starring: Vee Veerapat, Kob Suwanant, Jui Jiranan, Pok Piyatida, May….etc
English Title: “Slave girl”

Plot:
Nang Tatis a remake of an early 1990s lakorn by the same name. I remember watching it but never completing it.

Nang Tat is a drama set at a time when slavery was still legal in Thailand. Nang Tat tells a story about a young slave girl who loses her rights to be a mother. The main character isn’t born into slavery, she is sold into it. She comes from a poor farming family. When her family endures a rough rice harvest season, they are forced to sell her to make ends meet. When her father gambles their money away, he sells her in order to settle his gambling debts.

She is sold to a handsome landowner with two wives or three?. The landowner has everything, wealth and respect in the community but he can’t produce a heir. His first/ proper wife can’t produce a child after years of marriage so she allows him to get another wife. His second wife has the same problem.

When n’ek enters his household, he is drawn to her fighting spirit. His first wife allows him to take her as his 3rd wife to produce a heir. His second wife is not too happy about it. She is jealous and doesn’t want to share the status of a wife with a slave girl. I remember a lot hair pulling, cat-fights between the two.

N’ek and first wife becomes pregnant at the same time. Everyone in the household is overjoyed but the second wife. She is afraid to lose her status in the household because she can’t produce a child.

When n’ek enters labor so does the first wife. The first wife gives birth to a stillborn boy and n’ek gives birth to a daughter. The first wife is devastated that she lost her child and the midwife decides to give n’ek’s daughter to the first wife. At first n’ek agrees because she saw the first wife as an older sister and she thought they would raise the child together. N’ek would be recognize as the mother and the first wife would be recognize as the “second” mother. When it was said and done, the first wife took n’ek’s daughter as her own and discarded n’ek as the mother.

For years, n’ek achingly watched her daughter being raised and loved by another while she could do nothing. When she couldn’t produce another child, her status was demoted back to regular slave.

In a typical lakorn, there is usually a p’ek and a n’ek. In this lakorn, Vee may play the main male lead but he is just the sperm donor. There is actually no male leads. They exist but are more like wallpapers. Nang Tat is more of a woman’s story. It’s an emotional tale of a woman who loses her rights to her child and also depicts the inter household dynamics of women who share a husband. In front of him, his wives are cordial to each other. When he leaves all hell breaks loose.

I don’t remember how it ended. I think the daughter finds out who her real mother is when she is grown up and is about to get marry.

—When I watched the original, I remember n’ek watching her toddler daughter fall and she wanted to go help her daughter out but she restrain herself from doing so. It was so sad, she stood there watching others console her daughter as she hid in the corner. In the shadow, she watched her daughter grow up.

First wife.

Second wife.

Fourth wife.

Characters
credit to Spicy forums by noiki

Vee Veeraparb…Praya Sihayotin
Kob Suvanant…E-Yen
Pok Piyatida…Khun Ying Yaem
Yui Jiranan…Salee
May Orawansa…Boonmee
Sarawut Maikhun…Kloy
Benz Mananya…Jun-In
Chanapol Suttaya…Tub
Som Thansinee…La-Or
Bebe Tunchanok…Oun Reun
Duangdao Jarujinda…Fuk
Prab Yuthapichai…Praya Apaironarit
Rachaya Rukasikorn…Khun Ying Yim

Teaser: