Transmigration isn’t a new genre, but I Feel You Linger in the Air puts a refreshing spin on it with stellar acting and excellent cinematography.

Trigger Warning: mention of sexual assault

The plot so far follows Jom (Nonkul Chanon), an architect working on renovating a century old house. While exploring the house, he hears a disembodied voice call his name and gets a vision of himself in the same place but in a historical setting, in bed with a man he can’t recognise. What is weirder is that his other self seems to sense him as well. Shaking off the visions, he gets back to his life, eagerly waiting for his boyfriend to return from his studies abroad. However, in a severely unfortunate turn of events, his boyfriend unceremoniously dumps him while announcing that he is engaged to his pregnant fiancée, he gets sexually assaulted, and gets into a car accident which causes him to fall off a bridge.

He is rescued by an unfamiliar person and wakes up in a Thailand which isn’t even Thailand yet, having transmigrated close to a century before his time. Pretending to have amnesia, he tries to navigate his new surroundings while trying to find a way back home, and in the process, he meets Yai (Bright Rapheephong), the young master of the home he landed up in, which is coincidentally (I doubt) the same house he was working on before he transmigrated. Yai also happens to be the man from his vision. The mystery only deepens when Jom finds people he knew in his own life, such as his ex-boyfriend and his sister, here in the past, except they are completely different people and don’t know him at all.

It seems that Jom and Yai have their destinies connected after all, and his ‘coincidental’ transmigration to this particular period and place is actually anything but. What we think to be a simple (relatively, I mean) transmigration plot where Jom travels to the past and falls for Yai, turns out to bring a deeper connection between the main leads. The vision Jom gets at the very beginning of the first episode is shared by Yai in the second episode, begetting the question of how much more their lives have perhaps already been entangled before they even meet.

At the end of the second episode, I was left with many questions- how did the transmigration even happen (which might not be answered in the show), and how did the two of them share the same vision across timelines (which probably will).

Jom and Yai have barely shared a few scenes together so far, but their chemistry is still palpable. Their romance hasn’t even started yet, and I am already excited to see how their story moves forward, especially with the plot possibly having period-typical homophobia.

A big factor that makes or breaks a show for me, apart from the plot and acting of course, is the general ambience, or to be more specific, how the cinematography works with the setting of the show to convey the plot. The cinematography has already got my interest, especially in the parts that are intended to be mysterious and confusing, such as Jom and Yai’s visions, where they use an interplay of light and shadows to immerse Jom (and us) into the visions.

I am eagerly awaiting each episode as they come, if the first two episodes are any indication, this is going to be a banger of a show.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Where to Watch: Gagaoolala/YYDS Entertainment YouTube Channel