Thailand's Itaewon Class remake changes who holds the power
GMMTV's Itaewon Class Thai Edition casts Sky Wongravee, Film Rachanun, and Nychaa Nuttanicha opposite Nok Sinjai as a female restaurant-empire chairwoman, flipping the Korean story's patriarchal antagonist.
The Goldscene Desk
GMMTV put Itaewon Class on its 2027 slate this week, and the casting already shows what kind of remake it wants. Sky Wongravee, the Thai actor from OMG! Oh My Girl, takes Park Sae-ro-yi's lane: a stubborn young founder who builds a restaurant to take down a food conglomerate. Film Rachanun, Asia Star winner at the 2025 Seoul International Drama Awards, plays Jo Yi-seo, the sharp strategist who runs the shop's brain. Nychaa Nuttanicha is Oh Soo-ah, the first love who works inside the empire. Jimmy Jitaraphol plays the heir who starts the blood feud. Mark Pakin, Surf Patchara, and Non Witchapohn fill out the crew around them, the ex-con partner and the chef a mainstream kitchen would rather keep off the floor.
The big rewrite is who sits at the top. In Park Seo-joon's 2020 JTBC original, Yoo Jae-myung's Jang Dae-hee ran Jangga Group as a self-made patriarch who demanded kneeling and treated money as proof he was right. In ITAEWON CLASS THAI EDITION (working title), that role goes to Nok Sinjai Plengpanich, a veteran of Thai lakorn and film who has played matriarchs for decades. Kakao Entertainment and SLL, which made the Korean series, both flagged the gender change when they confirmed the GMMTV deal after Tuesday's GMMTVNEXT: GENERATION HAPPY presentation in Bangkok. No air date yet. The Thai restaurant's neighborhood is still unsettled, though the teaser already leans on Bangkok night streets instead of Seoul's Itaewon.
The Korean class fight was built around a father. Sae-ro-yi refused to kneel to a chaebol dad, then spent years growing a small Itaewon bar into a company that could swallow the empire after the chairman's son killed his father. Give the conglomerate to a woman and the pressure points move. Jimmy's heir answers to a mother who holds the company. Nychaa's corporate climber works inside another woman's house, so her loyalty and betrayal have a female boss in the middle of them. Film's strategist still outthinks the room, and the person at the apex of that room is a woman. Thailand's major food and hospitality groups are often family holdings where women already run operations. A chairwoman can feel like local industry logic as much as a remake twist.
The series is the fourth TV version of Kwang Jin's webtoon after Korea, Japan's Roppongi Class, and Taiwan's HBO Max Fired Up!, which kept a male conglomerate boss. GMMTV is also coming off SLL's Thai SKY Castle remake on ONE31. The climb stays familiar: injustice, a small restaurant, a mixed crew, and a fight up the food chain. Who owns the chain is what Thailand gets to rewrite.
