A Recital Of Love, Thrills, Action, Laughs & So Many Tears.➰ Stay Hydrated °9.1° °Superior°
Look what the tornado dragged in.
Here's an effort to acknowledge the craft that went into CLOY while gliding around any spoilers.
Some of the themes are:
🍫Survival in an oppressive, despotic situation
🍫Survival in a wealthy, greedy, love-starved, viper pit of a family
🍫Misery, love, loneliness, & warmth are often w/o respect to wealth or social status
🍫Overcoming fear in order to do right
🍫Politics won't beget love
🍫The meaning of true family
{🤔Who said this?: "That's why I never go to Olive Garden - They treat you like family" /True family/ is not about DNA. It illustrates the highest ideals: Loving, providing, protecting, happy over the good stuff, & distressed over the bad stuff life brings to our loved ones.}
🍫Korean women sure do love a tall man with broad shoulders (don't we all?)
〰Visual Metaphors🦅
In CLOY's very first shot, there's a hawk gliding above the valley. It's emblematic of freedom, but also taking to the skies. Hawks are always looking to swoop down & catch prey. Is Se-ri a hawk, not a swallow? Hmm. Ri's got the🔫, but is he the prey?
When Se-ri fails to exit NK, Ri loses his temper, so she exits the room. Next, Ri overhears how Se-ri bravely saved his life, & has been nonstop😭. As he ponders this, we hear the rain start 〰 titit'tat↗⚡↔ 📢CrrAAckk⚡🔊 〰 We can /hear/ it on his face: ‘Oh, no. I'm in trouble.’
〰Visual Contrasting & Crisp Editing⛪/🏚
The church/phony prayer scene contrasts with the NK villagers, who seem sincere about their beliefs regarding their country & the outside world (compartmentalization?). Freedom & prosperity engendered greed & twisted the faith of the SKs. The message isn't about who's better. Rather, it's a c⚠ution for those of us living in wealthy countries. It's a reminder that it isn't poverty or politics that degrades a person's humanity as much as one poor choice after another does.
In Ep4, we go from the warm🔥clambake in rural NK to one of SK's most lavish domiciles where family is plotted round the table in 🌬ice cold scorn. What is the 1st true family experience that Se-ri has ever had, we wonder?
They just hadda put the villain in that creepy, over-compensating hat. The director & writer even manage to humanize bad guy Cheon Su-bok. We can feel the pain in his gasping voice as he recounts that he was an orphan with nothing. It's juxtaposed with the 2 orphans who appear in the show. These adorable children are in danger of walking his path.
Pyongyang's 🌆 opulence is grotesque against the debasement of the little village. Children are starving, & people are struggling to live up to peasants' standards. Let's not guess about the ominous absence of any cats or dogs in the village.
〰Wordplay🏓
One of the soldiers is playing video games at the internet café. We see him type: "I request an alliance." Cute.
Swallow vs 🦅
“Type” is used in more ways than one. They each know what ~✳WHO✳~ rather, their 'type' is.
Did Se-ri crash, fall, drop, or descend? My vote: Swooped✅.
Se-ri talks about Ri feeling 'pressured'. Given their then tense situation, the way she uses the word is high comedy.
Se-ri sleepily mumbles it's the "liking" that's giving her a headache. Does she mean liking the idea of going home, or is she liking her head on his much coveted shoulder? Hmm.
〰Repeated Words & Themes For Impact & Foreshadowing🤹
Was it... is it 〰 Des↙T↘inY? That word descends like 🌨 over the entire series, along with:
meant t❄ be… It must be fate… Again❄again it's DESTINY.
The word 'bodyguard' dutifully works shifts. Ri bristles when he first hears it, but he had been doing the pedal work already, anyway.
Including 'Bodyguard,' over & over we hear: "That's just like a 📽," or "This isn't a 📽, that won't work," or "This is just like a 📺 from the South." A soldier obsessed with SK entertainment was able to explain or predict /everything/ based on what he learned by watching 📺 on the outpost's 💻. So, we'll hear: "The dramas in the South always {__X__}." Kim Ju-meok solves for X every time (esp with the "L💘verboy" shoutout😂). That gag never gets old! He was making connections betwixt Ri+Se-ri+dramas almost immediately, much to Ri's unease. It strikes a chord with Kdrama fans🤗
😐Ri: 'I'm okay'.
😔Se-ri: 'You always say that' ...😌... If nothing else, Ri is consistently on tempo.
〰Reciprocity🔃🔄
They play CLOY on the black & white 🎹. The series has a paradigm shift in the 2nd half, treating us to a tour (or review) of everything Ri did for Se-ri from a new perspective, like when…🙊❕🔇spoiler order in effect🚫 〰 We don't know who is👂❕
〰They Understand Romance💓🦋 These 2 are keyed into eachother. The way he looks at her really is wistful. She knows when he's feigning sleep, even when his comrades don't. Each tries to turn pages for the other. Each looks to protect the other. Later, protectee will yell at protector for exposing h/hself to danger. Their actions, over the course of the show, mirror eachother like base & treble. Early on, however, they just can't read the other's sheet music. Watching each of them struggle to understand the other is hilarious. He's usually at a loss over her fine distinctions. Once each of them verbalizes "10 nice words," the contrasts become manifest. Afterall, beautiful harmony comes from complimentary keys, not uniform ones.
😶The grim discipline that Ri has practiced in recent years is palpable. He admits he's resigned; he never expects happiness. The only tell that he's getting worked up is some moderate fist clenching. Early on, it's difficult to imagine him striking the wrong key: He isn't one for breaking the rules or crossing the 🚧line. He seems so stodgy that it almost shocks when, like an eagle, he soars into immediate-&-decisive-action-at-PRECISELY-the-right-moment. We are treated to his silent frustration as well as confusion over the descending realization that the rule-breaking may never end, now 🙃. Ri’s last of the '10 nice words' is the 1st step in his healing.
🎭Hyun Bin's acting as CPT Ri is prodigy level. When Se-ri declares that Park Kwang-beom is the most “handsome one of them by any criteria," Ri has subtle, but clear, disappointment on his face. When he sees the ♥patch on his uniform, one corner of his mouth twitches up & his eyes soften. His command of expression is virtuoso. He's a Kpop idol fo-sho.
📑Son Ye-jin is also exceptional as the loquacious Se-ri. She had 💯 lines to learn for every 1 Hyun Bin did:)
🔗The show used consultants from North 'OZ' to ensure accuracy. This series provides a glimpse of the deficiencies and documented wretchedness, but also the humanity.
😷The system in NK is suffocating. Similar to Se-ri's family, everything is based on currying favor with superiors. As demonstrated, it extinguishes love & deceny. When Col Kim was arrested, the ladies of the village were terrified to be seen helping his wife out lest they also get /arrested/ (⁉). Families are encouraged to turn /eachother/ in, or face prosecution😳. We see a father whose son almost died, but all he worries about is his position! Jun Gook-hwan, btw, is perfect as a stern father & unflappable official.
⚕The 🚑 has nothing in it. It's just a hollowed out 🚐. The hospitals don't have blood for transfusions. Even Pyongyang suffers multi-hour rolling blackouts. Supplies are scarce but there's never a shortage of little bullycrats demanding to see 🆔.
🗃There's such a profusion of rules, regulations, & records that /everyone/ is guilty. They get you when they want to. Besides actual rule-breaking is the institutionalized corruption: When Ri was brought in for questioning, he was told that he's guilty of whatever they ☑say he's guilty of. Human life is not cheap there, it's disposable.
🚻Clearly, Ri's father toughened him up. Ri's mother, who is obviously loving, is the driver of the finer parts of his nature. Ri & his brother, Mu, exhibit exemplary qualities such as respect, integrity, loyalty & kindness. His unit, in turn, reflects his example. He's a natural leader. (They bungled their directives on the day Se-ri arrived, but that was destined).
🛂YET. As restrictive as Ri's upbringing plainly was, Se-ri's was /even more/ 🎢dysfunctional. Both of them are from influential families, yet hers, with all that freedom, is worse than his. Despite the odds, the NK siblings in CLOY are more loving than the SK ones. We need to be aware that freedom can corrupt us if we allow it.
🌞Se-ri, being her expansive self, was able to brighten the lives of the people she met in NK with her charm & skills. She even turned a committed Commie into a metrosexual with a bottle of shampoo! Skills, indeed. It's darling to see this little group form a true family.
💴Gotta love that budget. The special effects for the tornado are fabulous. We are treated to no less than 3 paraglides in the 🗻, all breathtaking. The second paraglide scene is especially gripping.
When act⚡ion is called for, they come correct. One scene is a shootout between a 🏍 & 2 armored 🚛. In practicing restraint, they boosted realism. It took as many as 7 bullets to blow up the gas tank after laying down the cycle. No magic bullets here. The effect plays out better than a typical action 📽. That.scene.is.straight.b@d@$$! 🎼segue into theme music🎼
🎶What a man, What a man, What a man🎶 Sing it, Salt n Peppa❕😜
CLOY has something for all the senses: Visual delights, a lovely soundtrack, the taste of fresh roasted corn, clams, & Soju (I could taste it), the hair that smells like flowers, & the feel of tears on our cheeks.
Watch it and sigh, laugh, & (s)whoop.
Watch it & weep, but no biting thru that🍫wrapper!
And remember, nothing comforts after a good cry like a creamy cup of hot Swiss🍵Cocoa.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬9 🎨9 🎵10 🎭9.5⚡8 🤔8 🌞9 🔚8.5
Age12+ 🗣 geo-poli awareness, honor, modern-day 🛡 knight
👁📺again? Did/Will
Here's an effort to acknowledge the craft that went into CLOY while gliding around any spoilers.
Some of the themes are:
🍫Survival in an oppressive, despotic situation
🍫Survival in a wealthy, greedy, love-starved, viper pit of a family
🍫Misery, love, loneliness, & warmth are often w/o respect to wealth or social status
🍫Overcoming fear in order to do right
🍫Politics won't beget love
🍫The meaning of true family
{🤔Who said this?: "That's why I never go to Olive Garden - They treat you like family" /True family/ is not about DNA. It illustrates the highest ideals: Loving, providing, protecting, happy over the good stuff, & distressed over the bad stuff life brings to our loved ones.}
🍫Korean women sure do love a tall man with broad shoulders (don't we all?)
〰Visual Metaphors🦅
In CLOY's very first shot, there's a hawk gliding above the valley. It's emblematic of freedom, but also taking to the skies. Hawks are always looking to swoop down & catch prey. Is Se-ri a hawk, not a swallow? Hmm. Ri's got the🔫, but is he the prey?
When Se-ri fails to exit NK, Ri loses his temper, so she exits the room. Next, Ri overhears how Se-ri bravely saved his life, & has been nonstop😭. As he ponders this, we hear the rain start 〰 titit'tat↗⚡↔ 📢CrrAAckk⚡🔊 〰 We can /hear/ it on his face: ‘Oh, no. I'm in trouble.’
〰Visual Contrasting & Crisp Editing⛪/🏚
The church/phony prayer scene contrasts with the NK villagers, who seem sincere about their beliefs regarding their country & the outside world (compartmentalization?). Freedom & prosperity engendered greed & twisted the faith of the SKs. The message isn't about who's better. Rather, it's a c⚠ution for those of us living in wealthy countries. It's a reminder that it isn't poverty or politics that degrades a person's humanity as much as one poor choice after another does.
In Ep4, we go from the warm🔥clambake in rural NK to one of SK's most lavish domiciles where family is plotted round the table in 🌬ice cold scorn. What is the 1st true family experience that Se-ri has ever had, we wonder?
They just hadda put the villain in that creepy, over-compensating hat. The director & writer even manage to humanize bad guy Cheon Su-bok. We can feel the pain in his gasping voice as he recounts that he was an orphan with nothing. It's juxtaposed with the 2 orphans who appear in the show. These adorable children are in danger of walking his path.
Pyongyang's 🌆 opulence is grotesque against the debasement of the little village. Children are starving, & people are struggling to live up to peasants' standards. Let's not guess about the ominous absence of any cats or dogs in the village.
〰Wordplay🏓
One of the soldiers is playing video games at the internet café. We see him type: "I request an alliance." Cute.
Swallow vs 🦅
“Type” is used in more ways than one. They each know what ~✳WHO✳~ rather, their 'type' is.
Did Se-ri crash, fall, drop, or descend? My vote: Swooped✅.
Se-ri talks about Ri feeling 'pressured'. Given their then tense situation, the way she uses the word is high comedy.
Se-ri sleepily mumbles it's the "liking" that's giving her a headache. Does she mean liking the idea of going home, or is she liking her head on his much coveted shoulder? Hmm.
〰Repeated Words & Themes For Impact & Foreshadowing🤹
Was it... is it 〰 Des↙T↘inY? That word descends like 🌨 over the entire series, along with:
meant t❄ be… It must be fate… Again❄again it's DESTINY.
The word 'bodyguard' dutifully works shifts. Ri bristles when he first hears it, but he had been doing the pedal work already, anyway.
Including 'Bodyguard,' over & over we hear: "That's just like a 📽," or "This isn't a 📽, that won't work," or "This is just like a 📺 from the South." A soldier obsessed with SK entertainment was able to explain or predict /everything/ based on what he learned by watching 📺 on the outpost's 💻. So, we'll hear: "The dramas in the South always {__X__}." Kim Ju-meok solves for X every time (esp with the "L💘verboy" shoutout😂). That gag never gets old! He was making connections betwixt Ri+Se-ri+dramas almost immediately, much to Ri's unease. It strikes a chord with Kdrama fans🤗
😐Ri: 'I'm okay'.
😔Se-ri: 'You always say that' ...😌... If nothing else, Ri is consistently on tempo.
〰Reciprocity🔃🔄
They play CLOY on the black & white 🎹. The series has a paradigm shift in the 2nd half, treating us to a tour (or review) of everything Ri did for Se-ri from a new perspective, like when…🙊❕🔇spoiler order in effect🚫 〰 We don't know who is👂❕
〰They Understand Romance💓🦋 These 2 are keyed into eachother. The way he looks at her really is wistful. She knows when he's feigning sleep, even when his comrades don't. Each tries to turn pages for the other. Each looks to protect the other. Later, protectee will yell at protector for exposing h/hself to danger. Their actions, over the course of the show, mirror eachother like base & treble. Early on, however, they just can't read the other's sheet music. Watching each of them struggle to understand the other is hilarious. He's usually at a loss over her fine distinctions. Once each of them verbalizes "10 nice words," the contrasts become manifest. Afterall, beautiful harmony comes from complimentary keys, not uniform ones.
😶The grim discipline that Ri has practiced in recent years is palpable. He admits he's resigned; he never expects happiness. The only tell that he's getting worked up is some moderate fist clenching. Early on, it's difficult to imagine him striking the wrong key: He isn't one for breaking the rules or crossing the 🚧line. He seems so stodgy that it almost shocks when, like an eagle, he soars into immediate-&-decisive-action-at-PRECISELY-the-right-moment. We are treated to his silent frustration as well as confusion over the descending realization that the rule-breaking may never end, now 🙃. Ri’s last of the '10 nice words' is the 1st step in his healing.
🎭Hyun Bin's acting as CPT Ri is prodigy level. When Se-ri declares that Park Kwang-beom is the most “handsome one of them by any criteria," Ri has subtle, but clear, disappointment on his face. When he sees the ♥patch on his uniform, one corner of his mouth twitches up & his eyes soften. His command of expression is virtuoso. He's a Kpop idol fo-sho.
📑Son Ye-jin is also exceptional as the loquacious Se-ri. She had 💯 lines to learn for every 1 Hyun Bin did:)
🔗The show used consultants from North 'OZ' to ensure accuracy. This series provides a glimpse of the deficiencies and documented wretchedness, but also the humanity.
😷The system in NK is suffocating. Similar to Se-ri's family, everything is based on currying favor with superiors. As demonstrated, it extinguishes love & deceny. When Col Kim was arrested, the ladies of the village were terrified to be seen helping his wife out lest they also get /arrested/ (⁉). Families are encouraged to turn /eachother/ in, or face prosecution😳. We see a father whose son almost died, but all he worries about is his position! Jun Gook-hwan, btw, is perfect as a stern father & unflappable official.
⚕The 🚑 has nothing in it. It's just a hollowed out 🚐. The hospitals don't have blood for transfusions. Even Pyongyang suffers multi-hour rolling blackouts. Supplies are scarce but there's never a shortage of little bullycrats demanding to see 🆔.
🗃There's such a profusion of rules, regulations, & records that /everyone/ is guilty. They get you when they want to. Besides actual rule-breaking is the institutionalized corruption: When Ri was brought in for questioning, he was told that he's guilty of whatever they ☑say he's guilty of. Human life is not cheap there, it's disposable.
🚻Clearly, Ri's father toughened him up. Ri's mother, who is obviously loving, is the driver of the finer parts of his nature. Ri & his brother, Mu, exhibit exemplary qualities such as respect, integrity, loyalty & kindness. His unit, in turn, reflects his example. He's a natural leader. (They bungled their directives on the day Se-ri arrived, but that was destined).
🛂YET. As restrictive as Ri's upbringing plainly was, Se-ri's was /even more/ 🎢dysfunctional. Both of them are from influential families, yet hers, with all that freedom, is worse than his. Despite the odds, the NK siblings in CLOY are more loving than the SK ones. We need to be aware that freedom can corrupt us if we allow it.
🌞Se-ri, being her expansive self, was able to brighten the lives of the people she met in NK with her charm & skills. She even turned a committed Commie into a metrosexual with a bottle of shampoo! Skills, indeed. It's darling to see this little group form a true family.
💴Gotta love that budget. The special effects for the tornado are fabulous. We are treated to no less than 3 paraglides in the 🗻, all breathtaking. The second paraglide scene is especially gripping.
When act⚡ion is called for, they come correct. One scene is a shootout between a 🏍 & 2 armored 🚛. In practicing restraint, they boosted realism. It took as many as 7 bullets to blow up the gas tank after laying down the cycle. No magic bullets here. The effect plays out better than a typical action 📽. That.scene.is.straight.b@d@$$! 🎼segue into theme music🎼
🎶What a man, What a man, What a man🎶 Sing it, Salt n Peppa❕😜
CLOY has something for all the senses: Visual delights, a lovely soundtrack, the taste of fresh roasted corn, clams, & Soju (I could taste it), the hair that smells like flowers, & the feel of tears on our cheeks.
Watch it and sigh, laugh, & (s)whoop.
Watch it & weep, but no biting thru that🍫wrapper!
And remember, nothing comforts after a good cry like a creamy cup of hot Swiss🍵Cocoa.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬9 🎨9 🎵10 🎭9.5⚡8 🤔8 🌞9 🔚8.5
Age12+ 🗣 geo-poli awareness, honor, modern-day 🛡 knight
👁📺again? Did/Will
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