☘ Big Mouse >VS< Big Brother ☠ Rolling With It °7.4° °VG°
When I woke up I was a different person: The most despicable louse in the world” He was already an attorney, how much worse could he be😜? Anyway, thus ep1 closes. B👄 opens, however, the night before. It was a dark & stormy night…
We get a brief look at our leading couple as they celebrate their anniversary. Just as the ML, Park Chang-Ho (Cho), is getting into a car accident we jump 7 days back to see how things have been unraveling. “He's got an exceptional mind, he just doesn't get alot of work.” He's the kind of guy who can never quite clear the bar. His pole will snap, or his laces will come untied. He has no connections. His win rate is less than 10%. He was scammed & lost their money.
A week ago, they lost their court case against scammers that had taken their savings, & Cho was representing the plaintiffs. Another loss. As the defense counsel & judge were changed at the last second, things look as kosher as marinated crab legs. The wife (Lim Yoon-A is Go Mi-Ho) is… displeased…
The “D” word comes up. “Divorce”. “I'd have to choose to live w/ Chang-Ho,” dad explains. “You're strong. You'll be fine. But he can't survive without me.” ”But you're MY father!” Mi-Ho really can't comprehend the reasoning.
We're lurched back to now; his car is flipping & by the end of ep2 Cho's life has flipped completely. He was set up to take the fall for the real Big Mouse. He's imprisoned. Everyone thinks he's B🐹. Some want to befriend him, more want revenge. He's been beaten several times & almost killed once. He wants to die. Living ain't easy & sometimes dying isn't either. The crazier he acts, the more the other inmates fear him & the safer he is. His fortune has always been to live a long & unlucky life. Very unlucky. He follows the crumbs & eventually decides the safest thing is to live in prison as B🐹.
“What!? The LAW!?! Flowers that look beautiful from afar. But when you get close, they are growing on the edge of a cliff. The moment you grab onto that flower, attempting to survive, you'll fall off the cliff to your death. A vicious flower planted by those in power. That's what the law is.” ~B🐹~ B👄’s charm is in the everyday couple getting yanked to the world of crime & somehow going Toe-to-Toe w/ these nefarious masterminds. They've got the everyday problems: Debt, bills, hard jobs, losing cases, tough bosses, & they can't afford to have a child. But when pushed into the corner, they manage to outwit criminal syndicates. B👄 shows us how people fundamentally want to follow a strong leader. They prefer a #good strong leader, but people gravitate toward any strength. Power abides where perception resides. Power is basically the result of a group of individuals agreeing (consciously or not) on where & what it is. It's usually 80% illusion.
This show is not issue free; we'll get into it later. Detail oriented left-brainers may get fed up & jump off the wheel. In the balance, B👄 works. The acting is fine. Some of the performances are right on the line but I could 🥐 w/ it. The actor who plays B🐹 did a particularly nice job. Our FL, Lim Yoon-A, is in K2-8.1 - among my 1st Kdramas. I 💘 the show & was blown away by Song Yoon-A's performance as the congressman‘s wife. In K2, Ms Lim's part is one of the weak points. I thought she was mad & remember being stunned that the male lead is attracted to her. To be fair, her character had been through alot. It just didn't play well. She's fine here. In the snake pit, DA Choi Do-Ha, is very Michael Corleone to his Sonny counterpart, Kong Ji-Hoon. Oh Eui-Sik is our ML's aid. I'm a fan. I first saw him in Oh My Ghost-10, a superb show. With 18 credited works on IMDB, he also plays the guitar & sings beautifully. He must be made of pixie dust b/c they are all good shows. Familiar Wife-8.5 was a particular surprise. If you see his name in the credits, it's going to be a good show, pretty much. Who else could play the CAT, I mean, the elder, but Jeon Gook Hwan? He plays the-menace-under-the-controlled-exterior like few others. Ok Ja-Yeon, as hospital director, Joo-Hee, exudes calmness to the point where I settle down alittle just by looking at her, yet she's also a tad scary. She was quite different in Mine-8, to her credit.
Kraft-cheese-wise, um, craft-wise, B👄 is solid. There's just a few holes. Director: Oh Choong-Hwan brings us nothing but hits, like Hotel Del Luna-8.4. There's excellent filming of a person driving while drugged, & a nice shot reflecting off of a black statue. The final shot of ep7, in the dreaded white hall, is perfection. The current trajectory had slowed significantly by then, & things take a hairpin turn just in time. Ep9 is a blast. It Looks like they used the same abandoned pool in ep14 as the one in The Flower of EVIL-8.9. If they did, I love the call out. Midway thru ep15 there's another little tasty twist. The music augments an air of excitement.
The show is a maze. The creatures that are trapped in it scramble & thrash dramatically. Every movement reverberates through the whole system. There's a nice scene where they're underground & disturb a nest of rats that go scurrying. (Finally, rodents appear). The title is a play on words. To the Asian ear, “mouth” & “mouse” sound nearly identical. Cho's nickname is “Big Mouth”, & the notorious crime syndicate ruler’s moniker is “Big Mouse”. Mouse? Who wants to be vermin? A quick goog of mice in Kculture lumps them in w/ rats. Adjectives used are: intelligent, agile, clever, hardworking, & w/ the abilities of foresight. 🔜 “They think they are predators as they run at me, but I'm going to chew them up & kill them.“ It is Cho's big mouth that enables him to pose as Big Mouse.
The backdrop for B👄 burrows into how Korea developed into a first world country. Though its terrain, independent spirit, & relationship w/ China has kept Korea mostly independent, Korea was colonized & generally pushed around in & around the 20th century, particularly by Japan (but the West has dirty hands also). Once the Republic of Korea was formally established (15 August 1948), it remained a military dictatorship from 1961 through 1987. During that time human rights were scarce, but prosperity prospered. Plenty of older voters in K long for the old days, because they were never victimized, while the younger voters, who didn't grow up in the abject poverty their elders did, don't fully appreciate the value of a good economy. (Thus is politics - a never ending cycle of imbalance. Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong). The elder made his money the old fashioned way - by trampling on the rights of the poor. By now, he's created a pile of toxic waste that's on the verge of poisoning not only his empire, but the entire country.
It doesn't work like a perfect mousetrap. The bad thing about B👄 is how it walks the line between taking itself seriously & not taking itself seriously. I can't accuse it of either one of those things. Therefore, I always felt slightly off balance while watching. Should I roll my eyes 🙄 or should I roll 🥐 w/ this? Do they realize they're being silly here, or are we called upon to take that seriously? Nibble. Nibble. Nibble. Thoughts like that kept nibbling at me. The gnawing continued through ep11. In ep12, the show started to be quite a bit of fun. Up until then it wasn't bad, but the nibbling was distracting.
The show does have a couple wandering moles leaving stinky droppings here & there, but it's all tame. For one example, there's a prison escape attempt that is too feeble (groan) (🥐◻🙄☑) The evil doctors are so evil it's cartoonish. People like that, just caught up to the point of being consumed w/ self-satisfaction & unhealthy appetites, exist. (🥐☑🙄◻)
In B🐹, they set up a human being who can't possibly exist, so I was waiting to be somewhere between amused & disgusted by the reveal, but they didn't do such a bad job. It's all implausible, ridiculously so, but for all that, I found it in the range of acceptability. (🥐☑🙄◻)
The granting-of-favors-thing is horrible. He made no attempt to do anything. He was toying w/ people's pain. (🥐◻🙄☑)
Prison politics run on contraband & outside influence (especially the ability to intimidate loved-ones on the outside) as much as muscle. This is not a small logical gap. (🥐◻🙄☑)
False choice. Are you/are you not B🐹? These highly intelligent characters never seem to consider other options, even when it's obvious that if he's not B🐹 they must be connected in some way, given what he knows. (🥐◻🙄☑
The shift mid ep12 is awesome!(🥐☑🙄◻)👍🏿👍🏻👍
Whom do you least suspect? One character came to mind & I dismissed the idea too soon w/ a laugh. In the balance... Another person actually did entirely escape my radar (I top out at average when it comes to figuring things out. I'm usually more focused on artistry. Still, good for them). (🥐☑🙄◻)
One person under B👄 has a perplexing life placement as it nets the organization 🅾. Plot-wise, his double life ties alot of bows, but that's a stale prison roll w/o enough beverage-of-explanation to get it down w/o choking. (🥐◻🙄☑)
If I make it to ep12 of 16, Ima finish it. Despite legitimate criticisms, B👄 closes strong & ep16 is great. It is not low IQ, & intelligent features don't hand-feed viewers. One must walk the maze for several eps to arrive at answers, & they do answer most ❔s (🥐☑🙄◻). B🐹 is cheesy but, in the balance, they are simply having fun. A review of the writer's & director's cache of credibility bolsters that assessment. The left & right brain fight for dominance B🐹 generates does lower its degree-of-difficulty, but if you can just (🥐☑🙄◻) w/ it, B👄 is a fun, albeit bumpy, trek through the Habitrail.
QUOTES📢
You gamble based on your instinct, not on human relations.
Do you know where the perfect place to hide lies is? The truth.
Wait until we see the torso. Don't get worked up about seeing the tail.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝7.3 🎭7.5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚8.5 ♦ 🌞5 ⚡6.5 😅3 😭6 😱5 😯4.5 😖4.5 🤔4.5 💤0
Age 14+ violence, other very dark themes
Rated TV-15
Re-📺? It's worth watching once but for me that's probably it.
We get a brief look at our leading couple as they celebrate their anniversary. Just as the ML, Park Chang-Ho (Cho), is getting into a car accident we jump 7 days back to see how things have been unraveling. “He's got an exceptional mind, he just doesn't get alot of work.” He's the kind of guy who can never quite clear the bar. His pole will snap, or his laces will come untied. He has no connections. His win rate is less than 10%. He was scammed & lost their money.
A week ago, they lost their court case against scammers that had taken their savings, & Cho was representing the plaintiffs. Another loss. As the defense counsel & judge were changed at the last second, things look as kosher as marinated crab legs. The wife (Lim Yoon-A is Go Mi-Ho) is… displeased…
The “D” word comes up. “Divorce”. “I'd have to choose to live w/ Chang-Ho,” dad explains. “You're strong. You'll be fine. But he can't survive without me.” ”But you're MY father!” Mi-Ho really can't comprehend the reasoning.
We're lurched back to now; his car is flipping & by the end of ep2 Cho's life has flipped completely. He was set up to take the fall for the real Big Mouse. He's imprisoned. Everyone thinks he's B🐹. Some want to befriend him, more want revenge. He's been beaten several times & almost killed once. He wants to die. Living ain't easy & sometimes dying isn't either. The crazier he acts, the more the other inmates fear him & the safer he is. His fortune has always been to live a long & unlucky life. Very unlucky. He follows the crumbs & eventually decides the safest thing is to live in prison as B🐹.
“What!? The LAW!?! Flowers that look beautiful from afar. But when you get close, they are growing on the edge of a cliff. The moment you grab onto that flower, attempting to survive, you'll fall off the cliff to your death. A vicious flower planted by those in power. That's what the law is.” ~B🐹~ B👄’s charm is in the everyday couple getting yanked to the world of crime & somehow going Toe-to-Toe w/ these nefarious masterminds. They've got the everyday problems: Debt, bills, hard jobs, losing cases, tough bosses, & they can't afford to have a child. But when pushed into the corner, they manage to outwit criminal syndicates. B👄 shows us how people fundamentally want to follow a strong leader. They prefer a #good strong leader, but people gravitate toward any strength. Power abides where perception resides. Power is basically the result of a group of individuals agreeing (consciously or not) on where & what it is. It's usually 80% illusion.
This show is not issue free; we'll get into it later. Detail oriented left-brainers may get fed up & jump off the wheel. In the balance, B👄 works. The acting is fine. Some of the performances are right on the line but I could 🥐 w/ it. The actor who plays B🐹 did a particularly nice job. Our FL, Lim Yoon-A, is in K2-8.1 - among my 1st Kdramas. I 💘 the show & was blown away by Song Yoon-A's performance as the congressman‘s wife. In K2, Ms Lim's part is one of the weak points. I thought she was mad & remember being stunned that the male lead is attracted to her. To be fair, her character had been through alot. It just didn't play well. She's fine here. In the snake pit, DA Choi Do-Ha, is very Michael Corleone to his Sonny counterpart, Kong Ji-Hoon. Oh Eui-Sik is our ML's aid. I'm a fan. I first saw him in Oh My Ghost-10, a superb show. With 18 credited works on IMDB, he also plays the guitar & sings beautifully. He must be made of pixie dust b/c they are all good shows. Familiar Wife-8.5 was a particular surprise. If you see his name in the credits, it's going to be a good show, pretty much. Who else could play the CAT, I mean, the elder, but Jeon Gook Hwan? He plays the-menace-under-the-controlled-exterior like few others. Ok Ja-Yeon, as hospital director, Joo-Hee, exudes calmness to the point where I settle down alittle just by looking at her, yet she's also a tad scary. She was quite different in Mine-8, to her credit.
Kraft-cheese-wise, um, craft-wise, B👄 is solid. There's just a few holes. Director: Oh Choong-Hwan brings us nothing but hits, like Hotel Del Luna-8.4. There's excellent filming of a person driving while drugged, & a nice shot reflecting off of a black statue. The final shot of ep7, in the dreaded white hall, is perfection. The current trajectory had slowed significantly by then, & things take a hairpin turn just in time. Ep9 is a blast. It Looks like they used the same abandoned pool in ep14 as the one in The Flower of EVIL-8.9. If they did, I love the call out. Midway thru ep15 there's another little tasty twist. The music augments an air of excitement.
The show is a maze. The creatures that are trapped in it scramble & thrash dramatically. Every movement reverberates through the whole system. There's a nice scene where they're underground & disturb a nest of rats that go scurrying. (Finally, rodents appear). The title is a play on words. To the Asian ear, “mouth” & “mouse” sound nearly identical. Cho's nickname is “Big Mouth”, & the notorious crime syndicate ruler’s moniker is “Big Mouse”. Mouse? Who wants to be vermin? A quick goog of mice in Kculture lumps them in w/ rats. Adjectives used are: intelligent, agile, clever, hardworking, & w/ the abilities of foresight. 🔜 “They think they are predators as they run at me, but I'm going to chew them up & kill them.“ It is Cho's big mouth that enables him to pose as Big Mouse.
The backdrop for B👄 burrows into how Korea developed into a first world country. Though its terrain, independent spirit, & relationship w/ China has kept Korea mostly independent, Korea was colonized & generally pushed around in & around the 20th century, particularly by Japan (but the West has dirty hands also). Once the Republic of Korea was formally established (15 August 1948), it remained a military dictatorship from 1961 through 1987. During that time human rights were scarce, but prosperity prospered. Plenty of older voters in K long for the old days, because they were never victimized, while the younger voters, who didn't grow up in the abject poverty their elders did, don't fully appreciate the value of a good economy. (Thus is politics - a never ending cycle of imbalance. Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong). The elder made his money the old fashioned way - by trampling on the rights of the poor. By now, he's created a pile of toxic waste that's on the verge of poisoning not only his empire, but the entire country.
It doesn't work like a perfect mousetrap. The bad thing about B👄 is how it walks the line between taking itself seriously & not taking itself seriously. I can't accuse it of either one of those things. Therefore, I always felt slightly off balance while watching. Should I roll my eyes 🙄 or should I roll 🥐 w/ this? Do they realize they're being silly here, or are we called upon to take that seriously? Nibble. Nibble. Nibble. Thoughts like that kept nibbling at me. The gnawing continued through ep11. In ep12, the show started to be quite a bit of fun. Up until then it wasn't bad, but the nibbling was distracting.
The show does have a couple wandering moles leaving stinky droppings here & there, but it's all tame. For one example, there's a prison escape attempt that is too feeble (groan) (🥐◻🙄☑) The evil doctors are so evil it's cartoonish. People like that, just caught up to the point of being consumed w/ self-satisfaction & unhealthy appetites, exist. (🥐☑🙄◻)
In B🐹, they set up a human being who can't possibly exist, so I was waiting to be somewhere between amused & disgusted by the reveal, but they didn't do such a bad job. It's all implausible, ridiculously so, but for all that, I found it in the range of acceptability. (🥐☑🙄◻)
The granting-of-favors-thing is horrible. He made no attempt to do anything. He was toying w/ people's pain. (🥐◻🙄☑)
Prison politics run on contraband & outside influence (especially the ability to intimidate loved-ones on the outside) as much as muscle. This is not a small logical gap. (🥐◻🙄☑)
False choice. Are you/are you not B🐹? These highly intelligent characters never seem to consider other options, even when it's obvious that if he's not B🐹 they must be connected in some way, given what he knows. (🥐◻🙄☑
The shift mid ep12 is awesome!(🥐☑🙄◻)👍🏿👍🏻👍
Whom do you least suspect? One character came to mind & I dismissed the idea too soon w/ a laugh. In the balance... Another person actually did entirely escape my radar (I top out at average when it comes to figuring things out. I'm usually more focused on artistry. Still, good for them). (🥐☑🙄◻)
One person under B👄 has a perplexing life placement as it nets the organization 🅾. Plot-wise, his double life ties alot of bows, but that's a stale prison roll w/o enough beverage-of-explanation to get it down w/o choking. (🥐◻🙄☑)
If I make it to ep12 of 16, Ima finish it. Despite legitimate criticisms, B👄 closes strong & ep16 is great. It is not low IQ, & intelligent features don't hand-feed viewers. One must walk the maze for several eps to arrive at answers, & they do answer most ❔s (🥐☑🙄◻). B🐹 is cheesy but, in the balance, they are simply having fun. A review of the writer's & director's cache of credibility bolsters that assessment. The left & right brain fight for dominance B🐹 generates does lower its degree-of-difficulty, but if you can just (🥐☑🙄◻) w/ it, B👄 is a fun, albeit bumpy, trek through the Habitrail.
QUOTES📢
You gamble based on your instinct, not on human relations.
Do you know where the perfect place to hide lies is? The truth.
Wait until we see the torso. Don't get worked up about seeing the tail.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝7.3 🎭7.5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚8.5 ♦ 🌞5 ⚡6.5 😅3 😭6 😱5 😯4.5 😖4.5 🤔4.5 💤0
Age 14+ violence, other very dark themes
Rated TV-15
Re-📺? It's worth watching once but for me that's probably it.
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