These are a Few of my Favourite Things: Monsters and Music

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things on January 15th, 2021 by

It’s finally happened again! I found a K-Drama that I love enough to want to enthusiastically recommend it to all and sundry despite its (very few, very small) flaws. It combines two of my favourite things: monsters and great music–and is therefore more greatly beloved. I’ve tried to figure out exactly why it is that I love monster stories So Very Much–is it the high stakes? the way pretence is stripped away from real life so that only what’s real remains? the different ways characters are able to show bravery? the way monsters are usually combined with real life?–and I still don’t have real answer.

All I know is that by the time the camera was panning over the breath-taking sight of monsters free ranging in the cityscape outside the apartment block where our heroes are trapped, with Imagine Dragons’ Warriors howling in the background, I was well and truly hooked. I already knew it was my bag–monsters!–but I hadn’t expected how very good the sound track would be. I’m currently writing to that soundtrack most days; it elevated an already amazing series from being heart-wrenching and thought-provoking to breath-taking and tear-inducing as well.

What is this glorious series, you ask? It’s the Korean series Sweet Home, the first season of which is on Netflix and has ten hour-long episodes. I’m currently waiting with bated breath to know that there will be a second–and for those who, like me, may not be able to wait, it’s based on a webtoon that actually is complete. Whether or not you can find it in English, however, is entirely another matter.

the basic premise

The residents of Green Home Apartment Building wake up one morning to discover that the lower floor is entirely shut up; lock, stock, and barrel. They can’t get out.

Someone unknown, for reasons unknown, has separated the residents of Green Home from the world outside, and they have no intention of letting them get out. The half of our protagonist group that is on the bottom floor spend almost the entire first episode just trying to get out and then discovering that…maybe they don’t want to.

Up on the higher floors, the other half of our protagonist group, comprised of a suicidal young man, a gangster ballet girl, an actual gangster bloke, and the coolest old bloke with a hard-wired crutch are all variously discovering that something big and nasty and bloody is roaming the halls. And that something may have come from one of their apartments.

To my joy, there are as many female as male characters, and they are all people! Not all strong in the same way, but allowed to have their own story in their own way. I loved being able to contrast the physical strength of one of the girls with the mental and spiritual strength of one of the others. Unlike many kdramas, the female characters aren’t relegated to the background, and they aren’t forced to be butt-kickers to be acknowledged.

the monsters

Don’t get me wrong. The monsters are both amazing and terrifying: I caught my breath several times, something which rarely happens with me. They were very well done in terms of CGI in my opinion.

However. The most terrifying thing about these monsters is that they were each, one and all, once humans. It’s not too much of a spoiler; you discover it pretty quickly. But this chilling fact leads on very quickly to another discovery–namely, that anyone in the building is liable to turn at any minute, and no-one knows why, or how, or if it can be stopped. Is it infectious? Is it rage? Can it be stopped once it starts? What does one do in order to survive and protect the people one loves when one of the group starts to turn monster?

As Twenty-One Pilots says in Ride— “Would you ever kill?”

That’s the truly terrifying proposition here.

the problems

For me, there are very few problems with this series, but there are a few problems. The first one is that if you don’t care for bad language, you’re going to have to look away from the screen a few times. The translation team often translated an f-word where one didn’t exist, but every now and then it didn’t translate one that was there, so it runs fairly even. There is definitely bad language in this one, and slightly more in English than there would be in Korean, due to some of the swears being automatically worse in English than the Korean counterpart.

The second problem is all with the editing: there were several episodes where it felt as though a chunk of story was just…missing. Characters got from up on the top floor to the bottom floor with no problem and no onscreen representation of the same, although we know it’s hard and dangerous to do it. Little things didn’t quite match up. At first, I thought this was a clue, and due to a few different things that also might have been clues, had a conspiracy theory to go along with it: turns out it was either just bad editing or perhaps there are cut scenes after the credits that Netflix cut off before I saw them. I’m going to do a rewatch so I know which it was.

overall

This was a solid, riveting watch for me: I finished it in a few days, even trying to pace myself. It wasn’t just that it was solid: it caught my heart and soul and dragged me in, made me love the characters, and killed some of those characters. No one is safe from death; no one is safe from turning monster. No one knows what will happen.

And I loved every gloriously soundtracked second of it. 100/10 recommend. (BTW, check out the Imagine Dragon’s song I linked above: it’s also a trailer for the series, and it’s a pretty good indicator of what to expect.)

KDRAMA REVIEWS: 귓속말 (Whisper)

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews, Reviews on October 16th, 2019 by

I’ve been trying to write a review of this drama for a while now, and just keep putting it off. Reason being, it’s so extremely hard to review. Like the K2, it started out with a bang and devolved into a hot mess, but unlike the K2, it managed to keep some form of structural integrity while it did so.

In short, if you’re wondering whether or not to watch it, DO. It’s fantastic and I love it. It also has a few things that bug me as a foreign viewer of some Korean romance tropes.

Here we go!

For starters, I don’t think the English translation of “whisper” really does justice to the drama in terms of conveying what it’s about. If you translate it literally, the meaning is “a word in the ear”, and that is a much closer approximation of what makes this drama tick.

Because this is a story about bribery, back room deals, and corruption that takes just a word in the ear of a friend or family member to send a man to jail falsely or bring one out unjustly.

So. Main Characters:

MMC: Lee Dong Jun (played by Lee Sang Yoon) an upright judge who is well aware of his lofty ideals and slightly pretentious in his uprightness.

MFC: Shin Yeong Joo (played by Lee Bo Yeong) a police section chief whose father has been set up for murder to take the fall for someone else, and who is driven by a strong moral code of her own.

Other Main Cast: Park Se Yeong, the daughter of the head of Taebaek Law Firm (played by the always amazing Choi Soo Yeon), Kang Jung Il, son of the Chairman of Bo Gook Industries (played by the terrifying Kwon Yul), Choi Il Hwan (Kim Kap Soo) and Kang Yoo Taek (Kim Hong Fa) fathers of Se Yeong and Jung Il respectively.

The story:

Judge Lee Dong Jun has a problem. He is an upright judge who never bows to pressure or takes a bribe (which is not his problem, btw) and he is rather proud of that stance of his. He stands arrogantly against his corrupt father, who wants him to marry into Taebaek Law Firm by the expedient of writing a ruling the way the head of Taebaek Law Firm wants him to write it (aka, find an innocent man guilty of murder to clear someone else).

He refuses to do it, of course, but the problem is that Taebaek Law Firm really wants a judge in their pocket. And they’re willing to do everything, including frame Lee Dong Jun for everything from corruption to sexual assault, to do so.

Lee Dong Jun, after steadfastly resisting temptation with the rather smug idea of being better than the people who are trying to bribe him, is at last faced with a choice: be righteous and be condemned as an evil man in the sight of the world, or be actually corrupt and look good in the eyes of the world.

To my extreme disappointment, he becomes a villain so he can keep looking good. I was also a bit shocked, but it was telegraphed there–the writing was excellent. His righteousness wasn’t more than a certain arrogance and a lack of real testing, though his morals were originally good.

The man he condemns is the father of Shin Yeong Joo, who had trusted him to be upright and rule rightly, and who gave him information to the effect of her father’s innocence just before Dong Jun condemned him.

This sets Shin Yeong Joo, who has found out that she can trust neither the judges nor her own colleagues in the police department, on a quest to prove her father’s innocence. She does this in an extreme way that I can’t agree with, but do understand. Having gained a spectacularly dreadful leverage on Dong Jun, who has been incorporated into TaeBaek Law Firm, she uses that leverage to put herself into the law firm as well, intending to bring about its downfall and the downfall of every corrupt person in it–including Dong Jun.

The Good:

The stakes were high, the drama fantastic, and the characterisation was delightful. I legitimately hated Lee Dong Jun for at least half of this drama, but I’m so glad it was good enough to keep me watching and waiting, hoping for certain outcomes. The outcomes I got weren’t the ones I’d originally hoped for, but they were good. The music is great, the character’s wardrobes are amazing, the themes they explore are fulfilling and enthralling, and there’s a sense of rich fullness to the whole drama (except for those odd and completely out of place product placement inserts!)

Consequences! So many consequences, followed right to the bitter end. So well done! Consequences for the bad guys, consequences for bad things done by the good guys. Justice done, corruption uprooted. Delightfully uplifting.

Consequences from good actions as well as bad, which is not as commonly shown. Matched up against the consequences for the bad actions, they showed up in high relief. Fantastic.

The Bad:

Smug looks. SO irritating! Half the first ten to twelve episodes were shots of one of the four MCs one-upping another and looking smug about it. I’m of the opinion that if you’re a good person you shouldn’t be smug at the expense of the bad guys. Just put them in jail, don’t get smug with me. I wanted to smack a lot of faces.

The product placement. SERIOUSLY bad in this one. The Subway ads, the facial products that they had to introduce a fluffy sort of romance to try and make work–just. Ew.

Speaking of the romance, just–also ew. The whole of first half of this drama was the MMC and MFC doing legitimately awful things to each other to get leverage on each other, one for good, the other for evil. When they begin to trust and rely on each other, it’s beautiful. And also slightly edgy, because we don’t yet know that one won’t betray the other.

I wanted that romance. It was beautiful. It was understated.

Instead, as the romance progressed, it turned into a fluffy kind of giggling thing that served to shoe-horn in another product placement of some kind of face cream. It was sickly and giggly and completely out of context with the gritty, sharp-edged feel of the rest of the drama.

What I wanted:

As mentioned earlier, I hated Dong Jun’s guts for a long time. I wanted him to fall utterly (he’d already lost all my respect) and I wanted to see the Evil MMC turn good.

I wanted that so much! It would have been amazing. And I could see that it was almost edging there. Honestly, Kwon Yul’s face always legit terrifies me–he’s so pretty and always so evil–but I wanted him to be redeemed.

I wanted the romance to stay thin-edged and trust-based, not fluffy feelings. I wanted to see it grow naturally.

What I got:

For a start: Song Tae Gon (aka, my squishy) Love that he got his storyline.

Alas, all the good guys remain good guys, and nearly all the bad guys remain bad guys. The good are redeemed (which is amazing) and the bad are shown to sink further into their corruption with a logical and terrifying trajectory (which is also amazing).

There are shaky alliances, one particularly delightful bad guy who was redeemed, and the complete destruction of every poisoned thing in the drama’s ecosystem. It is delightfully cathartic.

Last Thoughts:

In the end, I wanted Whisper to be more than what it was. I wanted it to be different. I was still happy with the way it went (apart from the ridiculous and unlikely style of romance it grew, and the utterly shoe-horned-in PP) but I loved the direction I saw it could have gone in, and didn’t.

I loved the themes of real righteousness versus outward righteousness; the juxtaposition of the budding trust relationship of the MMC and MMC against the lust-born, selfish relationship of the other two MCs that consumed itself. I would caution that there are themes of adultery and other adult themes in this drama, but they aren’t glorified or consequence-less. Consequences follow through right to the end–one of the biggest things I love about this drama.

Overall, definitely better than K2. K2 was more visually beautiful and the music was far better–plus those FIGHT SCENES, seriously! But the fluffy romance was worse in K2, plus consequences were just…missing. And in Whisper we don’t have that dreadful thing where the Evil MFC was shown to be not so evil in the end (thus making the Good MFC to be, well, kinda unhinged in her actions).

Ultimately satisfying and very well worth the 17 hours of storytelling time in 1 hour increments on Netflix.

Miss Marple Gangnam Style–well, KDrama Style, anyway…

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews on July 22nd, 2019 by

I’ve been watching a fair bit of Kdrama (as usual), but I’ve not been posting a lot of reviews because although I’ve been watching a lot, I haven’t been finishing a lot.

The reasons for that are varied and somewhat longwinded–and briefly touched upon in my 10 Things I Love/Hate About Kdrama posts (Love Pt 1/Pt 2 and Hate Pt 1/Pt 2). But they basically boil down to the fact that when I get bogged down in certain hated tropes, I go on to a new Kdrama by way of a palate cleanser while I wait to be ready to go back to the previous one.

미스 마: 복수의 여신 (officially translated as “Miss Ma: Nemesis” but literally as “Miss Ma: Goddess of Revenge) is one of those palate-cleansing Kdramas, though not for the usual reasons. Technically speaking, it’s not as well written as the one I was taking a break from, but it really appealed to me and I ended up finishing it before the technically better drama (which, by the way, is 죽어도 좋아: roughly, “It’d be great if you’d just die”–though translated as “Feel Good to Die”–and you should definitely watch it).

Miss Ma: Nemesis features an older-than-usual heroine (love it!), who has been imprisoned for murdering her daughter. Obviously she’s not guilty, so obviously she needs to escape. It also features a middle-aged cop with a very cool face and an obstinate chin, and a slightly chubby gangster with dimples who is my one and only squishy in the entire drama. Alongside the usual village suspects, there is also a slightly suspicious young lady who saves Miss Ma’s bacon for her own reasons.

She’s basically an ajummah and I love it so much!

The storyline is slightly convoluted, but not deterringly so. At the beginning of the drama, Miss Ma is already in prison, and gearing up to escape. We’re given some backstory, but not too much. We know that she is clever, resourceful, and has only recently begun to pay attention to the world again. We also know that she has been working out a lot. Miss Ma, in fact, has revenge on her mind.

After the inevitable escape, Miss Ma finds herself in a small village town, seeking information from a recluse who lives there. Through the progress of several episodes, she somehow becomes a part of that odd little town, bit by bit. It helps that she’s just about as unusual as anyone else in the town.

Add to the mix many deaths, a slightly suspicious husband, a self-serving writer who looks exactly like Miss Ma, a perhaps dodgy young lady pretending to be Miss Ma’s niece, and the adorable gangster who is NOT used to being garrotted by a woman with circular knitting needles, and you have a delectable mix of drama, humour, and murder.

My squishy–tho unfortunately the dimples are not in evidence ㅠ ㅜ

Fascinatingly, some of the episodes directly mirror cases from Miss Marple (the drama writers/directors worked directly with an official Agatha Christie organisation), but Miss Ma always feels like its own thing. The nods to Christie are a fun extra.

If you possibly can, check this one out. There are many reasons to enjoy it, and I may yet end up buying it–I’m certainly hoping for another season, at least!

Recommendations: Namesake, Misaeng (미생), and Day6

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things on August 21st, 2017 by

This is technically a Favourite Things post. So I guess, have the proper pic?

Here ya go:

The problem is, I have about three new favourite things I want to share with you.

The first, as you might have guessed from the name of the post, is Kate Stradling’s new book, NAMESAKE.

Somehow I managed to miss both the tweet announcing its publication AND the blog post (I blame the flu. I am sick, and tired, and incredibly stupid) so I was hugely excited when a random Amazon search showed up Namesake.

I’ve now finished reading Namesake, and have joined in a discussion of its linguistic and thematic excellencies over on Kate’s blog in the comments section, where she announced the release.

I would normally do a proper review here, but the fact is that I was reading and reviewing Kate’s books before I actually knew her, and then I discovered that she had in fact read and reviewed mine, which makes things awkward. (I don’t review under my author name, and it was a mistake far too easy to make.)

So now I don’t so much review her books as scream “BUY THIS BOOK IT’S FLAMIN’ FANTASTIC AND YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO STOP READING IT”.

(For the record, I’ll have it be known that I was her fan first.)

(Also, read Namesake. It’ll be the best book you read this year.)

Misaeng. Ah, Misaeng!

Ah, those iconic Misaeng terrace scenes…so many…so good!

You guys probably know by now how much I love puppy dog heroes. I love being able to cheer wholeheartedly for characters, and I can thoroughly cheer for Jang GuRae. I was a little unsure at first, because the actor is the slender, pretty type that I don’t necessarily care for–but that character! Guys, the character! He’s a Baduk player (think a Korean sort of Chess) who at the age of 26 has been unable to continue playing Baduk from a necessity to earn money. He joins a company instead, sponsored by a mysterious benefactor–something that earns him the immediate ire and disdain of his coworkers.

This is basically Sales Team 3 in a nutshell. Mr Oh is wild-haired and mad, Mr Kim is slightly concerned, and GuRae has no idea what’s going on but lots of enthusiasm…

I love seeing the world through GuRae’s wide, idealistic eyes; and more, I love seeing how this drama shows the way the world sees GuRae. I love the changes he brings about because people come to see the world through his eyes–or themselves through his eyes. And it’s not just puppy GuRae; the rest of the characters are wonderful to watch. Because although I love Jang GuRae the best, I relate best to flawed, twisted, wrong-minded characters who stand on the knife’s edge of ruin. I know how hard it is to see yourself as you are, and how much harder it is to change when the change needs to come from within yourself. I know how easy it is to give up and blame anyone but yourself.

And this is pretty typical of all the interns. I love them all.

This drama does everything right character-wise, and it has one of the most beautiful ways with metaphor that I’ve seen since watching Beautiful Office. The episodes have flown by, though I’ve been trying to eke them out, and now I only have 7 left to go…

This one is going to be one I buy after I watch it on Netflix.

Okay, so the last thing that I discovered this week and immediately loved is the Korean group Day6.

Guys, I try really hard not to discover new Korean groups. I’m very happy with Jung Yonghwa, CNBLUE, B.A.P., and a smattering of BTS and GOT7 with assorted, much older faves. I don’t have the time or the energy (or the money) to be buying more Korean music. But somehow I ended up on the Twitter of Day6’s Jae–I don’t remember how, maybe it came up in my reccs–and there was Dwight’s face (yup, the Office’s Dwight) staring at me and a feed that I found pretty amusing. Which of course meant that when I went to Youtube and found a clip of Day6 mixed with other stuff, I thought, well, why not give it a listen.

I’m so glad I did. That first clip was Congratulations, which I loved the first time I heard it. Loving a song straight up is really unusual for me, because when I find a new group it usually takes a few songs for me to warm to them, and a few repeats for me to thoroughly love the music. I dunno. Maybe something’s broken in my music centre. Then I went on to 좋은걸 뭐 어떡해 (which translates roughly to ‘What can I do?’) and which I loved even more than Congratulations. So now I have a new band to listen to. I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS, GUYS. I DON’T HAVE THE TIME. On the other hand, Day6’s music is a great addition to my writing playlist, so there’s that…

Last but not least–and nothing to do with Favourite Things but more in the way of a general update–the cover for Memento Mori will be done in another week or two, after which there will be excerpts, cover reveals, special blog posts, giveaways, and other awesome stuff in preparation for Memento Mori‘s publication month!

I’ll have preorder links to share, too, so keep an eye out. And let me know about your Favourite Things discoveries this week!

K-DRAMA REVIEWS: The Suspicious Housekeeper (수상한 가정부)

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things on December 13th, 2016 by

Every now and then you come across something that is an instant classic with you personally. You know what I mean: it’s nearly perfect, though not quite perfect, and even its imperfections are familiar and loved friends by the time you’ve finished watching/reading it.

That’s how I felt about The Suspicious Housekeeper by the time I finished the first episode. I still feel like that. It’s far from perfect, but even those imperfections are an integral part of what I like about this odd-ball, not-this-nor-that South Korean Drama.

What is unusual about me loving this drama so much is that it deals with a couple of things that I will almost never watch, but found were dealt with in a beautiful way. In fact, there were a lot of things about it that, had I known in advance, would have stopped me from watching it altogether.  Themes such as adultery, suicide, teenage rebellion carried to extremes, and little children in emotional pain are not things that I would typically watch for amusement. The Suspicious Housekeeper does them in such a way, however, that I found them not only surprisingly moral, but enthralling.

The title refers to a Housekeeper hired by father Sang Chul after his wife dies, to look after his children and the house. It’s not, you understand, that she is suspicious of someone (though she is, later on). It’s more that everyone finds her suspicious. But really, it could go either way and work just fine.

The plot

-ish. It’s kinda hard to condense HOW MUCH FLAMIN’ PLOT there is in these 20 eps down to a paragraph or two. The essentials, however, are as follows:

*Sang Chul’s wife died in an accidental drowning before the beginning of the drama–or did she? The children are reeling from her death already, though Sang Chul is less sad.

*Sang Chul is less sad because he wasn’t really ever in love with his wife, and had, in fact, been having an affair. Normally, this would have stopped me watching the series immediately. This time it didn’t, because knowing a little bit about K-Dramas now, I was very well aware that in a drama of this calibre, cheating would never be shown to be okay, or rewarded. I was right, and I’m happy I was right, because this show is so worth watching!

Sang Chul’s mistress. Oh, I hated her! Her ending, however, I completely loved. Well done, the writers.

*Basically, by the end of the first couple episodes, everything is on fire. The children are no longer sure of anything. They know their dad cheated on their mother. They don’t know whether or not he loves them because he’s a truthful (if wishy-washy) man, and can’t commit to tell them he loves them when he isn’t sure he does.

*The children take over the house and refuse to let Sang Chul back in until he agrees that he will never again meet with his lover. This is, again, something that would normally make me stop watching something: I have no love for children being taught that it’s okay to dishonour their parents. But again, the way this drama dealt with it was so poignant and beautiful that I can’t really fault it.

*Toward the middle, after Bok Nyeo has more or less settled things with the children (if not with Sang Chul) we meet with a VERY SCARY MAN who Bok Nyeo is sure she knows, but that man is supposed to be dead. This is where the drama goes from family drama into psychological thriller, including a crooked cop, a stalker, and layer upon layer of conspiracy. The children by this point are firmly on Bok Nyeo’s side, and fiercely love her, so there is the constant threat of danger to them as well as Bok Nyeo.

That’s all I can say without major spoilers, so on to the characters!

The Characters

This is Bok Nyeo. She doesn’t smile. She very rarely shows any emotion, as a matter of fact, even guilt. When Sang Chul asks her how she could do a certain thing that she’d done, and asked her didn’t she feel any guilt/responsibility, her response is: “I threw that away somewhere.”

What Bok Nyeo does do is cook exactly like the childrens’ mother did, keep the house impeccably clean, and…follow orders. I mean, really follow orders. Without hesitation, without second thought, without remorse, and without ruth. (Yeah, I could have said ‘ruthlessly’, but it wouldn’t have matched, okay?!)

This, with the four children also giving orders, could and does become dangerous. And yet, each time, when I hoped for the best from the children, they invariably showed me their best (after a little while in the case of some of them).

Bok Nyeo is a truly amazing character, played by a truly amazing actor.

Sang Chul, the childrens’ father. His life is unravelling, one awful lie after another. Weak, wishy-washy, and yet absolutely truthful with his children once the biggest, dreadful truth is out there. It’s like he lied to himself and everyone else so much that now he won’t even lie when his children want to hear that he loves them and he doesn’t think he does love them.

Eldest daughter Han Gyul. Angsty, bereft at her mother’s death, and furious with her father for cheating, she is an explosion of bad decisions waiting to happen. I actually kinda disliked her for a long time, but I could really see why she was behaving the way she was behaving, so I was willing to give her some slack.

As the eldest girl, Han Gyul gets not only a big part in the proceedings (both family drama and thriller), but her own little story-line complete with a couple of love interests (one of whom manages to be even MORE ANGSTY than she is, which is, frankly, incredible.) Kim So Hyun was as amazing as ever in this part, but then, I’ve never seen her anything but amazing.

Eldest brother Doo Gyul–AKA, my squishy. I loved this kid! He was my favourite of all the kids, despite me loving clever cookie Si Gyul and adorable Hye Gyul. I actually started out by hating him: mostly because he slapped Bok Nyeo, and that really got up my nose. Before too many episodes were over, however, I had begun to love this messed-up little kid.

Doo Gyul actually makes this face (or variations thereof) A LOT. That’s because he’s always doing something daft.

Why, you ask? A number of reasons. The first and foremost of these is because of his big heart. The second is his stupidity. He rushes in where angels fear to tread, stuffs things up majorly, and tries his stupid best to protect and serve the people he loves. Mostly he does this by doing groan-worthy things that a moment’s reflection might have told him were bad ideas, but that just made me love him more. He’s quick-tempered, hasty, and really not very bright. The thing that cemented my love for him was the scene where he and the other children sneak up on Bok Nyeo at the amusement park, where she has a meal set up for someone else. Doo Gyul sits down angrily, grabs one of the burgers, and stuffs it in his mouth, saying: “These are ours now!” He’s just adorable.

Clever cookie Si Gyul. Oh, this little baby! He’s dealing with mum’s death, bullies, and the fact that he has to pass his tests. He made me cry. This whole drama made me cry so many times, but Si Gyul was the first who made me cry happy tears because I was so proud of him. That’s right, I cried because I was proud of A TOTALLY IMAGINARY PERSON. Si Gyul is such a little darling.

Darling, pig-tailed Hye Gyul. An emotive little girl who just wants someone to love, and a stable family. Hye Gyul made me cry heaps because she’s always getting knocked down and having to get up again–always having to deal with things that are far too big and old for her to deal with.

Bok Nyeo doesn’t show much emotion, but when she does, you can guarantee that Hye Gyul is the cause of it, somehow.

Honestly, most of the tender Bok Nyeo moments were because of Hye Gyul, and Hye Gyul is the primary mover in Bok Nyeo’s eventual restoration.

Hye Gyul is the one who brings back fear, love, slight happiness, and tenderness into Bok Nyeo’s scarred, cold life. When Bok Nyeo’s freakin’ scary stalker sees them together, in fact, the first thing he does is go off into a mad rage: “I saw a mother’s look on her face again? Why is there a mother’s look on her face?”

Which brings us to scary stalker guy, Seo Ji Hoon. This guy legit terrified me. Gorgeous face, and the most frightening eyes I’ve ever seen. He creeped me out every time he appeared on the screen, and he just got scarier and scarier as the episodes went on.

One of the scariest things about Ji Hoon? His ability to portray absolute fragility.

His utter ruthlessness in going after what he wanted, his boy-like adoration, his terrifying tenderness–this guy just really freaked me out. First rate job, Song Jong Ho. You’ll always be my litmus test for creepy stalker guy.

You’re never in any doubt that this man is a Very Bad Man, but you can’t stop watching with your mouth open.

Flaws…

I loved this so much, guys. I really did. Go out and watch it, and you’ll see why. You’ll come to me with tears on your face saying: “W.R., why?? Why all the feels?? Why did you make me cry?”

And yet, it wasn’t perfect. I’ve come to the conclusion that perfection in this case might have made me love it a little less. I love this imperfect, messy, emotion-tugging drama.

And yes, okay: the camera does tend to pan over each of the children’s faces to get each of their reactions every time something particularly bad or good happens. It’s campy but the kids are such good actors, and it’s done so often that it’s more of a quirk than an actual flaw. Maybe a quirky flaw.

And it’s too long. Well, not exactly too long. But the storyline doesn’t quite know what it is–is it a family drama, a psychological thriller, or a story of redemption through pain?–and this means that it has three rather uneven acts. Again, it’s more of a quirk than a flaw, and I admire this story for pushing out of the mould and being what it wants to be. It also means that you get satisfaction on all counts and all threads: the family drama is brought to a close, the thriller ends with a bang, and the redemption is lovely. It’s just…odd.

I’ll leave you with this pic. It’s what I like to imagine the family looks like now. I love that they’re all smiling, even Bok Nyeo.

“Not Only Happiness…”

Posted under KDrama, KDrama Reviews, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things on May 24th, 2016 by

“Nothing lasts forever. Not only happiness, but also sadness will pass by, too…”

I’ve been watching this Thing.

It’s a wonderful, glorious, hilarious, sweet Thing. It is, by turns, a vast, overarching saga of corporate espionage, a tale of revenge and redemption, a supernatural thriller, a murder mystery, a deeply sweet and funny love story, and a triumph of the new man over the old.

Telling you all that probably makes it sound very dramatic and sweeping; and it is. But it’s also one of the funniest shows I’ve ever watched.

It’s a Korean Drama by the name of Beating Again; or, if you want the literal translation, Falling for Innocence. This post isn’t titled as one of my These are a Few of My Favourite Things blog posts (mostly because I love the quote above and wanted it to be first), but just in case anyone mistakes, I’ll put this right here:

Screenshot (45)

Because Beating Again is not just one of my Favourite Things when it comes to movies and tv: it is probably my FAVOURITE THING out of them all. I’m serious. It’s that good.

You look at the description and you think, Oh, rom-com. Well, I did, anyway.

“After enduring both business and family upheavals, a ruthless investment director has a heart transplant and finds a new way to look at love and life.”

FFI all three

Then you look at the opening credits and that impression is strengthened, along with an interest in the dude with the crazy hair, a faint interest in the one with a pretty face, and a brief worry that this cutesy-faced girl is going to be one of the annoyingly childish heroines who can’t make up her mind. (Spoilers: she’s not. She probably my all time favourite female tv character. EVER.)

It’s not rom-com. It’s a very deeply plotted tale of corporate espionage and redemption and love.

I will say this now: there are very few movies and tv shows that will make me cry. It happened when I was a kid and Matthew died in Anne of Green Gables. It happened a couple of years ago when I watch Guillermo del Toro’s Mama. It hasn’t really happened (that I remember) between those two instances. Maybe a slight sniffle toward the end of Princess Caraboo and a few throat-catching moments in The Hunger Games (you know when).

I cried twice during Beating Again.

So. The Premise.

As a boy, Kang Min-Ho saw his father displaced as chairman of the Hermia Company. He saw his uncle take his father’s place after charges of corruption and embezzlement. He saw his mother fight a losing battle to win back the honour of her husband; and, having failed, he came home at the age of ten to find his mother hanging from the ceiling of their house. That was twenty-five years ago. Now Kang Min-Ho is back…for revenge. The only thing that may stop him is his weak heart–and perhaps Kim Soon-Jung, a secretary of Hermia who doesn’t so much serve the chairman of Hermia as she serves the company itself.

Recurring threads to the base plot-line of Hermia’s gradual take-over by Gold Partners are a murder, Min-Ho’s swiftly failing heart, and the shenanigans at Hermia’s main factory. Also of great interest is the instant animosity between Min-Ho and Joon-Hee.

mad hair and beautiful face

As Min-Ho is battling to take over and sell Hermia from under his uncle, his heart fails at last. He manages to faint on Kim Soon-Jung (he does that quite often, actually: a bit tropey but fun, nevertheless) who rushes him to the hospital. Kang Min-Ho gets his new heart–and a heck of a lot of new emotions that he never expected.

Suddenly the heartless businessman has a heart. Emotions. Perhaps even a conscience. Is he going to be able to finish what he started? Does he want to finish what he started?

And why does he feel so sick whenever he sees Lee Joon-Hee’s beautiful face? Is it just because of Soon-Jung, or are there other reasons?

The Players.

Ma Dong-Wook

I list him first because I love him the most. He’s just sheerly wonderful. Okay, to be honest, if you smile like this, you don’t actually have to do anything else to make me fall in love with you:

Ma Dong Wook smile

But Dong-Wook does so much more. He’s the fiance of Soon-Jung, who is a secretary at Hermia. He’s a detective, and he is currently very interested in knowing who is behind the leaking of certain classified materials from Hermia (or the creation of fake documents, as the case may be). He’s also interested in beating up people who upset Soon-Jung, being a lovable guy, and what he calls ‘photosynthesizing’ (aka, sunbaking):

Ma Dong Wook photosynthesising

Ma Dong-Wook is full of odd sayings and solid wisdom for today. There is no tomorrow, he says. Today is all there is. He and Soon-Jung are possibly my favourite screen-couple ever, and are a couple for whom I break my ‘if-you’re-already-together-at-the-start-of-the-movie-I-don’t-care-about-you’ rule. Their chemistry is undeniable and completely delightful.

Kim Soon-Jung

soon jung

She’s the character (apart from possibly one other) who has the hardest time in this series. Soon-Jung is a secretary (pretty much THE secretary at Hermia). In one of the most amazing female power-scenes I’ve ever watched, she faces up against Kang Min-Ho and his cohorts by bowing and very politely asking where their visitor’s badges are.

When they attempt to force their way past her, she simply holds up one hand in the most pleasant way imaginable, whereupon alarms go off and a bunch of Hermia’s heavies come out to Take Care Of Things. She does it without raising her voice, losing her cool, or becoming unladylike. And at the end of a very unpleasant scene, where one of the other secretaries asks her if she’s ok, she simply shrugs and says: “Why not? I even got a sticker.”

She is an anomaly: An actually, morally good female character. In her quietness and her reserve, as much as in her straight-talking, she does what is right. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a female character this much.

Evidently neither have either of the male leads in Beating Again, because both Crazy Hair Man (Kang Min-Ho) and Beautiful Face (Lee Joon-Hee) are in love with her.

not only happiness

Kang Min-Ho (aka, Crazy Hair)

FFI 1

It’s so hard to know where to start with this character. He’s such a beautiful, pitiful mess. I disliked him intensely when I first saw him. I thought he was going to be one of those really annoying K-drama ‘heroes’ who was a hero simply because of his scornful face and bad treatment of the heroine.

I’m so SO glad I was wrong!

We meet Kang Min-Ho as he is arriving in a party of one of Hermia’s majority stock-holder, Gold Partners. They are coming to call in loans and appoint a dispatched director, preparatory to taking over Hermia and selling it off. Min-ho is with them because he is seeking revenge on his uncle. When we first meet Min-ho, he is brittle, dangerous, and more than a little insane. He is also very fragile.

As the story progresses, we get to see the gradual changes that overtake his character. His fragility remains, but it is overshadowed by his growing emotions, and the transparency of those emotions–particularly when it comes to his newly budding love for Soon-Jung. Jung Kyoung-Ho, the actor who plays Min-Ho, has done such a stellar, nuanced job of this part, that all you can do is gasp at his completely child-like confusion as he experiences new things and grows in ways that he didn’t even realise existed before he was given a new heart.

The idea of new hearts, redemption, and the new man triumphing over the old is a very precious one to me, as a Christian. It’s a huge part of what I live and believe. And it was so refreshing to see it portrayed in this way. Make no mistake, I don’t believe this to be a Christian show. But this part of it in particular really resonated with me.

When you're tired

Lee Joon-Hee (aka, Beautiful Face)

FFI 2

So, so pretty. And you know right away that he’s Boy #2, a consistent K-drama trope. Boy #2 very rarely gets the girl. But he’s so pretty, and his suits are really lovely, guys!

Lee Joon-Hee is a director of Hermia, and at first it’s very clear where his loyalties lie.

The problem with Joon-Hee is that although we know he’s in love with Soon-Jung, and that he’s a company man, we don’t know whether or not he’s a murderer. That can be rather unsettling, because we watch all his tender moments and his insecurities and his triumphs. And all the time it’s in the back of our minds that this beautiful boy could be a murderer.

He and Kang Min-Ho do not get along well, but I suppose that’s to be expected since one is trying to bring down Hermia, one is trying to save it, and they are both after the same girl. This leads to one of my favourite scenes from Beating Again:

head smak 1 head smak 2

My one complaint: subtitles.

Guys. They translated stuff wrong. GUYS. I HATE THAT. I’ve seen enough of K-dramas now to recognise certain words, and to have learned their meanings. I have an affinity for languages, and I love learning them, so I try to pay attention when I come across shows I love in new languages.

And guys. They put swearing in where there wasn’t any. GUYS. This bugs me! Not only because it was an incorrect translation, but because seriously, if you think you have to put in swearing to appeal to a western audience–you don’t!

I ignored it because: a.) the original writers didn’t intend it, and b.) there was only one really bad swear. So if you’re someone who hates bad language, just watch out for the first episode where there’s one f-word randomly in the subbies, and don’t worry too much about the rest.

All in all:

My grateful thanks to Jung Kyoung-Ho, Kim So-Yeon, Yoon Hyun-Min, Jin Goo, Lee Si-Un, Jo Eun-Ji, Ahn Suk-Hwan, Nam Myung-Ryul, and a totally amazing writer, Yoo Hee-Gyeong. The acting and writing combined to make this a completely mesmerising sixteen hours of television.

And guys, I KNOW. It’s SUCH A LONG BLOG POST.

BUT I LOVED IT SO MUCH, GUYS. YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT, TOO.

(Also it’s on Netflix, so what are you waiting for?)

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