⚠ If you lose a person they're lost for good °Good°
Pucker Up.A chubadub… pardon… a sweet young man is ready for his career as an engineer to take off, but he lands in the hospital, with jaundice and hepatitis-A, before he can start his job. He's not contagious - that's hepatitis-B - as the nurse keeps telling people, but e'erbody is terrified to go near him, regardless. The cute little nurse ends up taking breaks at his quiet bedside because she's worked to death. Everything she does is cute to him. Lee Woo-Je (True Beauty) is patient Jang Hyeok and Chae Soo-Bin (Love in the Moonlight) is nurse Jung Da-Eun.
He's discharged against his will. Finally, he plucks up the courage to call nurse Da-Eun. To his surprise she tells him to come over. He's overjoyed! He can't wait to help her out. He cooks for her. He sees things that need to be done, like the light bulb that is out, and he takes care of it immediately. She's quite touched by his attentiveness.
He swears he'll lose weight. He will reinvent himself. Next we see a svelte Jang Ki-Yong (from My Mister-9.5 & The Atypical Family) as Jang Hyeok exercising. Hyeok has to work. An opportunity comes up for work that will better his career - in Seoul. The commute is sour - it's murder. He has a lot less time with his cutie. They start to fall apart under the heavy stress of work. At his new job, he is forced to put up with coworker, Han Bo-Yeong (Krystal from The Heirs-7.3 & Crazy Love-7.8). She's hotting up the place, but she's messy and eccentric, and he's been teamed up with her. His work will be as good as hers is. Their results are linked.
The light bulb’s out. The light bulb’s on. The light bulb’s blinking. It's sort of a status indicator of Da-Eun in the relationship. S&S is a tasty little study in irony that teaches us to treasure the people in our lives. There's nice camera work and cutting. The directing and acting are solid. Kim Mi-kyung, the ubiquitous mother, makes an appearance. I don't know how she does it. She's in everything.
Hyeok's life twists like taffy until things start to pull apart. When things happen, sometimes they happen fast. Sometimes they happen gradually but it seems fast to the person that has only been tasting the sweeter things of life, unawares. The film's decisive end has been building the whole time, but it zings the viewer and Hyeok. Gravel in his mouth, he won't hit the ground running again for awhile.
For the record, I got luv for the chubadubs. Gimme a teddy bear with a good heart over a perfect, but empty, body every day of the week.
QUOTE📢
If you miss a cab you can wait for the next one. If you lose a person they're lost for good.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬7 📝7 🎭7.4 💓5 🦋3 🌞4 🎨6 🎵/🔊5 😅3 😭4 🤔6 💤3 🔚8
Age 14+f💣 and other colorful linguistics + adult situations
Re-📺? It's worth 1 watch, not sure about a 2nd.
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
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°Avg° TransMOOT⛔Exit@ NEXT Stop~?~FMA Brotherhood 5.5
The only value in watching this movie is for a quick review of the story, only if you've watched Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood already, w/o having read the mangas (Japanese comics and graphic novels). Be warned, it's not worthy enough for even that.It will not give somebody unfamiliar with the story anything worthwhile in terms of appreciating this intelligent tale, which might be more akin to a complex philosophical metaphor. So don't bother, if that's what you hope to get.
The one element that's worth seeing for its own merit is the army of created humanoids that are powered by souls extracted from real humans. They appear with about 20 minutes to go in the film, give or take, and they're 5 minutes of cool.
FYI, FMA Brotherhood was made after the original source material was released. The original FMA animated series is very popular as well, but it's not currently available via general (non-niche) streaming services, (if at all) so I haven't been able to see it yet. Since it was crafted before the original source material was completed, it takes a fork in the road and ends up at a different destination, per reports.
This story can't be coerced into movie length. A full outline likely couldn't be reviewed in 90 feature length minutes. Skip this, and jump on the train to excellence: FMA Brotherhood is fantastic. That's the one to watch.
Originally 〰️🖊 April 2022
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⚘Peeping Beauty & The 6 Bloomin' Pretty Prunks⚘ °Good°
Alas! What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? It Is The East, And Enrique Is The ☀.This charming little romance brings together the 🌞 and the 🌚, the dark bitter coffee and some silky white cream, the earthy tea and bright lively 🍋, and the girl with social anxiety meets a boy who hates to be alone.
Duk-mi (Park Shin-hye) is a book editor and hermit. Since she works from home, she rarely goes out. She can go weeks, 📆 months even, without leaving her building. She brings the outside world in through her binoculars.
Her apartment is special. Miserly Duk-mi is able to afford it as no security deposit is required, but if she is late even 1 day with the rent, she’ll be evicted. That’s the rules. Given it’s a very good deal, she mostly has happy neighbors. Every day there's a note with a drawing and a warm hello stuck to her delivered milk. She doesn't know it, but her next door neighbor. Jin-rok, a cartoonist (more specifically, a web-toonist) by trade, is stuck on her, and leaves her notes daily.
Duk-mi is stuck in a variety of ways. One of them is that she's stuck on the handsome doctor in the bldg across the street. She even enjoys peeping at his dog, so she peeks over at him more than she should. The doc really is handsome, but he seems dull. Spying is all that interests Duk-mi. As a recluse, she avoids all interaction.
The doctor’s younger brother, game designer Enrique, comes to stay with his brother in SK indefinitely, from Spain, where he’s been living for years. Enrique catches Duk-mi doin her thing one morning and runs across the street to confront her. That /terrorizes/ her. Neighbor, Jin-rok comes to her defense. Thus, 🌺BND leaves the building and starts chuggin down the street.
16 episodes allows Duk-mi a long time to come around, and that's how they play it. She can be a little frustrating. Isn’t that like true life, though? We almost always expect others to change on a dime, while at the same time, we give ourselves all the time in the 🌏. We’ll find out more about what caused Duk-mi’s trauma. She’s a metaphor for how bullies can crush the weak.
My niece told me once that we should never judge someone else's pain. I had just been complaining about a family member that's been wearing-hurt-on-sleeve for decades. It makes the person difficult to be around. I was wrong. Niecie was absolutely right. We expect everyone to handle things as well as we do, often even better. Why would we?
What do we /really/ know about someone's:
🌩Past, when sometimes that person can't even remember it because they've suppressed it?
🤰Genetics? Perhaps it's near impossible for someone to lose enough weight to make the 'mob' happy because it's just not in their genetics. We are not born with the same capabilities.
🎈/😭 Raw material. Some people can blow off everything and just keep going forward, and some people cannot. Sensitive, smart, intelligent, and caring people, like Duk-mi, can be hurt more easily and more deeply.
🌺BND is a cute & warm little series. There’s nothing going on but a bit of escapism. It’s actually appropriate for younger teens, which could be the group that appreciates 🌺BND the most, though it’s fine for every age.
As the show progresses, Duk-mi's next door neighbor (Oh Jin-rok is played by Kim Ji-hoon) finally works up the courage to pursue her. He’s been holding back out of deference to her anxieties. Along comes Enrique, who is joy in a jacket. He’ll bring joy to the girl. He doesn’t know the word “no.” He’s SO happy🎉 and charming, though, who would want to tell him “no?” Jin-rok will now have to scramble to catch up.
Jin-rok also begins a new webtoon about unrequited love, and it's a hit. However, everytime he and his partner go to their editor & manager, she’s frazzled and yells at them. Her eyes wide over deep dark circles from a stressful job and lack of sleep, she can be erratic. It’s not her best part, but Kim Seul-gi is always awesome. She shines in Oh My Ghost-10, which is a masterpiece in the romcom genre.
The soundtrack🎶 is terrific. The acoustic number: talkin bout love, by J Rabbit, is my favorite. The acting is solid, none of it detracts from the show. Park Shin-hye is wonderful, as always. Duk-mi is not an easy role. (PSH is her most amazing, imo, in Sisyphus as an eye-rolling kicka$$). The plot is simple and there are no substandard elements that impede significantly on the whole, which is why it remains a pleasant escape. That’s all they're going for, and they aptly succeeded.
That’s not to say it could not be improved upon. There should be more looking through their windows. They look out every now and then, but it seems it should have been a much stronger ongoing theme. They utilized an ending technique with comics/hand drawing over the business fronts and background. It is so good that I'm wondering why they didn't do more of it along the way. They certainly leave us wanting more. We don't get much info on Ji-rok's background, which is hinted at, but never resolved. We don't see his webtoon, and we never get to see any of the games that Enrique designs - We don't even get info on their storylines. It would have been fun to insert those details here and there: Lost opportunities mostly comprise the improvements list, along with its weak, substandard side plots.
If you are wondering about 🌺BND, it’s light, pleasant, fragrant, and vibrant. It will make you smile, it won’t challenge your brain much, (though it’s good for emotional intelligence) yet, it’s warmth cheers the ❤. Give it a peep👀, my Peeps!
🌼QUOTES🌼
🌹There are too many people who are rude about others' scars.
💐 I thought love was giving up half of yourself and filling it up with her half. She was afraid of love because she was afraid of her dark and gloomy half. She finally realized that love is two incomplete halves coming together. {Enrique}
🌺 Love is a wind-up clock. When it is new it'll give you the exact time. When the time passes, and you forget to wind the springs, the clock will break and stop. He started winding up the springs, so the clock wouldn't stop for a long time.{Duk-mi}
🌻 One person cannot change the world but you can become the w🌏rld for one pers☀n. {Enrique}
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬7 🎭 8 💓7 🦋5 🤔6 🎨6 😅4.5 ☀8 🎵8 🔚9
🌸Age 11+ 🗣topics: The lasting effects/damage that bullying can inflict. Practice kindness and patience with people that seem odd, as odd, annoying or strange behavior is often due to pain. Respect others.
PS.
They have recycled Kdrama tr♻pes, or plot devices. At this point it's almost a laughable lack of originality (Yet I'm still helplessly hooked on Asian programming, sigh).
♻MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome. The onset is after a couple comes together “forever.” Kdramas often insist on separating them for weeks, months, or even years before they’re afforded a Happily Ever After. It’s usually awful. Once Duk-mi starts healing, MSS provides needed time for her to grow on her own. That’s what is best for her, so there’s no “foul” here.
♻♥🔺 It's near ubiquitous, just edging out CEOs. In fairness, many romances have ♥🔺. Even the queen of them all: Pride And Prejudice. But enough already! Beside any of that, the brilliance of Kdrama scriptwriters shines through frequently. They can often easily do better. FBND seems to want to be a little goofy. They just tikted it a little far, but romantics will like it, and e'erbody will love Enrique.
〰️🖊 April 2022
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✒⌛ A Clump of Frump °6.3° °good - not bad, but not VG, either°
Here's a romcom that doesn't have enough R💓M or C😅M to make it anything special. It has its youthful vigor at times, however. There's more immature things out there, but Hello Me is stunted when it should thrive.It has recycled pl♻t devices. The rich dad kicks out the spoiled, lazy, good-for-nothing son without any help whatsoever. It happens in My First First Love (8-VG fun) & Revolutionary Love (5.7-very avg). In HM something magical happens due to deep regret - also seen a handful of times in recent yrs. Recycled plots can go either↔way; the important factor is the execution. Here, the delivery is mediocre.
HM is a 2021 release that is rated 88 on AWiki. Screenwriter Yoo Song Yi is just getting started. Director Lee Hyun Suk has shown his capabilities in The King's Affection-8.3. Choi Kang Hee (Queen of Mystery) is 37 y/o Ban Ha-ni. Kim Young Kwang (Call It Love-8.4, Pinocchio) plays ML, Han Yoo Hyun, & the marvelous Lee Re (Memories of the Alhambra-7.4) plays 17 y/o Ban Ha-ni.
We open up to Ha-ni in a 🐙suit. She's dancing, while trafficking samples at O'mart. She's living a pathetic life. In HS, she was Ha-ni-Hot-Stuff & everybody was in love w/ her. But she peaked too early & has been on a skid since the age of 17. Now she's turning 37.
Without an intervention, Hani37 will live out the remainder of her life in isolation, consumed w/ regret & guilt over a tragedy that occurred on >that< day, when she was 17. She made a big blunder & fate was not kind. She imploded & has lived the past 20 yrs in the shadows. Fickle fate decided to intervene again in the form of her 17 y/o self materialized like an infestation in her 37th yr. She doesn't merely have to live w/ herself, she has to babysit, feed, clothe, & raise herself. She must pose as her own mother to be able to walk the open air w/ herself. {She is dragged into a conversation-under-examination: Q: At what age did you get pregnant? Her answer is vague: Well, I was young. Q: Who's the father? A: I don't know. The response: I didn't take you for that kind of girl. A: I've lived a carefree life🙄} The scene is a mini moment of fun.
There are diverse characters in the show. A common theme is men-going-for-the-GL💫RY. There is one pair of bros who are always attempting a world record for some ridiculous thing & another pair who are always betting on everything. The betting was not revisited for the balance of the show, which is a disappointment; those lines could have 📝 themselves. Then there's the couple who can only show love, at least in the presence of others, by spatting at e/o. They think they've kept their affection on the down-low, but many of their coworkers are “on” to them.
Sadly, Ha-ni looks like Jody from Family Affair, but in the form of a forgotten rag doll that's been dragged out from underneath the cabinet in the corner. The problem is NOT weight or looks, but rather the horrible fit of the dingy clothes & the unflattering hairdos. She's mousy, dowdy & defeated. Why do they keep her in a state of frumpiness? As things start to improve for her, why don't her hair & clothes look better? Looking at her in that degraded condition grows more wearisome w/ each episode. Can we reach through the 📺 & yank her to the hairdresser? Even after she goes to the salon & spruces up a bit, her hair color is awful & she has bangs in her eyes. They put her in jackets big enough to create the appearance of a troll's body w/ a little freckled head sticking out. When she isn't wearing a XXL coat, she's in an unflattering, ill-fitting suit. She looks downright chunky. (Is it a poor metaphor for the weight of ⛓s?). Initially, her dejected look has a purpose, but as the show progresses, her appearance & manner should as well. This is to defend the actress, not to criticize her. She could be so much cuter than the way they have her looking onscreen. When the show is nearly over, she's a cute, tiny little thing in jeans.
They give good reasons for Hani37 turning out so timid & frumpy. There's no flashes of her true personality 20 yrs later. She's lost herself at the bottom, somewhere. Unfortunately, her character drags the entire show down. A steady stream of unsupported comments blather on about Hani37 & Hani17 looking & acting alike. They don't resemble each other much. The actress playing Hani17 is just another amazing Korean child-actor. Their craft is such pleasure to behold. I'll call out these Kdramas when it comes to skin color. A fascinating thing about many of these child actors is that they often have darker skin than the grown up version of the person they're playing. These talented kids probably can't get work once they grow too old to play a school kid, b/c Korea doesn't hand out many roles to actors darker than Tom Brady. That's just wrong.
Regardless of skin color, Korea does have some of the most attractive male leads in the world. Hyun looks like an Olympian swimmer w/ a Mr. Korea sweet-as-sweet-potato smile. He's a cutie. Mops & water go together, I suppose. Unfortunately, they fail to sell the romance. It doesn't rise to the level of made-for-network-TV standards.
I was enjoying HM in the opening eps, so I hung in there w/ alot of subpar elements. Over time, the issues pile up. A smattering here & there doesn't matter, but the show becomes increasingly worse as it matures, ironically. It gets as bad as a typical Hollywood feature. Issues are resolved easily w/ 2D emotions. They obviously didn't have a large budget - aside from her wardrobe being a disaster, many of the sets are minimal. Silly chases, bland scenarios, & over-overing abound. Our logic is insulted: ‘I'm giving all my 💰 away to the poor. Now I'm gonna travel the 🌏,’ one character decides at the show's 🔚. It begs the question: ‘How will you afford it?’ One greedy monster is forgiven too easily, receiving too much for too little. Hani17 encourages an adult to apologize, while Hani37 admits that she didn't apologize yrs before b/c she lacked the courage to do so. It's presented w/o any acknowledgement of the hypocrisy she's embodying. That's sloppy. They cut a lot of corners. And why would she give that bratty younger self the bed while she sleeps on the floor? I would never. I don't like the idiot I used to be at all; I'd take the 🛌. It's all in good fun… until it gets old. (Sleeping on the floor is often preferred in 🇰🇷, to be fair).
There are worthy elements in HM. "As you live life, you'll come across painful moments that you just can't run away from. When that happens, close your eyes and count to 3. When you open your eyes again, you'll realize that you've become a little bit stronger," says Grandma. It prompts viewers to find the courage to revisit our expectations & aspirations. Part of that is accepting who we are, & not just the good points, but also our shortcomings, our past mistakes, & the things we need to work on. The newest world record holders word it well: “Challenging ourselves to new things everyday gave us strength & courage. It doesn't matter even if you collapse or fail every day. When that happens you tell yourself this: ‘You're doing well. You're the most magnificent star in your life’ - #only if you refuse to give up & get back on your feet once again.”
Hani17's interaction w/ Chun-sik, which sounds like "chum sick," is truly amusing. He's an adult & he's a Super⭐, but when she learns who he is (an underling she always made fun of in HS) she treats him just like she did when they were in school together. And he LETS her! His manager is astounded. It's the cutest thing about the show.
Hani17 is terribly entitled & self-centered. That's common for teens - we all are born 💯% selfish. Maturity is learning to not be selfish, & maturity is not in fashion these days. When we are young, adults may tell us that they ‘knew everything when they were younger’ & the ‘older they get, the less they know’. The unfortunate irony is that young people can never comprehend this. Hani's younger self, being the way she was, is what led to all the problems. Who among us wouldn't want to shake the younger version of ourselves & tell h/h to wake up? I would smack the brat I used to be & tell that bo+ch what's what, b/c learning by hitting bottom is so painful I'd do anything to avoid it. I also desperately want to save those I love from the same agony. Hani17 is also happy, outgoing, optimistic, & undaunted. No matter how mature we become, we shouldn't let those qualities entirely slip away.
So, is HM worth watching? It's not an easy call, only b/c Lee Re is so fantastic. For her performance alone, I'd say “yes,” it's worth checking out. If the early eps aren't doing it for you, then just move on. HM doesn't improve w/ age.
QUOTES📢
The joy is doubled when shared.
"Money is always the problem, whether you have it or not."
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬6.3 📝6 🎭7.3 💓5 🦋2 🌞6 🎨5⚡3.5 🎵/🔊7.2 😅3.9 😭4 🤢2 🤔4 💤4.5 🔚7
Age 14+ we'll see a person dying on the street after being hit by a truck. The blood from their head is washing away in the rain. She poses as a single mother who cannot identify the father of the child. It all spurts out under high-pressure emergent situations. PG-13 language. Out of nowhere, at the beginning of ep 8, we hear the word prick + a F💣
Re-📺? Not likely
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may like:
Oh My Venus 7.4;
Crazy Love 7.8;
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
Her Private Life 8;
Romance is a bonus book 7.9;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Saimdang 8.5;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
For romance junkies only:
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
The Bride of Habaek 7;
Heirs 7.3;
That Winter, The Wind Blows 7;
Something in the Rain 9;
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine;
Find Yourself 8.9; A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5.
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Eun-sang & The 3 Heirs ~ To Heir Is Human ~ To Have ☮ ♥️ & C☯ntentment Is Divine
[Spoilers are quarantined at the end]It's not what you think: Let's zoom out to look at Heirs from a broader angle.
Viewers are divided over its appeal. Admittedly, with this production team, H should be better. It falls a touch short, yet it has worth. H has 🅾 new- It did "plagiarize" Boys Over Flowers, just a tad ~ Rich▪guy▪meets▪poor▪girl▪elite▪family▪run▪sch⚙⚙l▪same▪male▪lead▪ smh. Fine. Period Romances never run out of dukes, & Kdramas will keep trotting out CE♻s. I wish they'd retire or take a long vacay. Give a 👮 a 🎰. By & by, it's the 📣, 📝 & 🎭 that forge the path to excellence. Furthermore, beyond the nearly identical premises, the ying☯yang.
Now to what H has, besides CEOs. In ep1 we greet Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) & Cha “Eun”-sang (Park Shin-hye). Tan's the 2nd son of Chm Kim. H displays an extreme setting that is sadly plausible in an ultra-conservative & patriarchal society. Tan's family is (pause) complicated. Dad's got:
1. A deceased wife - son, Won, is Tan's older brother.
2. A legal wife -Ji-sook, on 📃 /only/ is wife & Tan's legal mother. Her office has moved, but she has her title. To the 🌏 she's Tan's mother, yet she's openly contemptuous of him. She runs the HS, & makes the family public SHOWings. In 1 painful scene, Tan's in her office for causing trouble. Others look on curiously while she treats him like a bug in need of a foot.
3. Ki-ae, the cloistered wife-tress & Tan's true Oma, has all the material trappings her ♥ could ever want, but she's ▫trapped▫. No one can know that Tan is illegitimate, or even that she e✖ists. Imprisoned💔, she is a material girl no longer. Additionally, though Tan adores Won, Oppa will always see Ba$+ard-Tan as a threat. He makes sure Tan is sent to a Calif HS. Won intends that Tan never return. Consumed w/ anger before he left 🇰🇷, Tan created the bullicracy @ school, but was able to mello out 🏄 in CA (laughably spot-on, right?).
Eun is in HS. She lives w/ Mom & works all the jobs she can. As Mom is a mute w/ few options (she's literally silenced) she works as a maid. They're poor. Older Sis, at sch⚙⚙l in Calif, sends word that she's getting married. Elated, Mom empties her $avings for sis. This is Eun's chance for escape! She decides to deliver the 💰 herself. Even though she can't reach📞Sis, she still flies to CA, only to be ⚡broadsided😳⁉ when she discovers Sis is ⤵
🚫 getting married
🚫 in school
🆘 in squalor 🏚
🆘 w/ an abuser
Reeling, Eun can't react when Sis: 🎤C'mon, takes the 💰 &🏃💨-Wu! Wu-woo🎶🎸🎶 (Ty, Steve Miller). The debacle plays out like Live@5 multiplying the humiliation. Tan saw it all, t👀. Long~📖~short, Tan puts up Eun @ his cliffside digs & Tan's "digs" are scary. He claims he's a 💊dealer when he's not claiming to be an illegal organs broker. He thinks her 😲 is adorable. For a few days, it's chats, scrapes, a family visit, a run in w/ Tan's (arranged) fiance, Rachael (she didn't like Eun) a family gathering, school tours, & pancakes. Eun doesn't know who Tan is. Doesn't (want) to care. Hmph. She'll never see him again, anyway. Esp after meeting his dour relations &horrid fiance.
Back in 🇰🇷, Eun finds Mom is now a live-in maid. So, Eun is now ▫️confined▫️ in a ▫cramped▫ room w/ mom. She helps w/ tending to Lady Ki-ae. She sees Ki-ae's agony. It's meant to pain us. Ki-ae is deeply 😞 & bitterly demanding🍷 - until she brightly announces that her son, Tan, will return‼
😳Whaa?
Eun is able to avoid Tan for days, but as denizens of the 🏰, they are both sent to that elite HS. Day 1 is a blunt primer on the rigid 🕸castes🕸
🥇Old💲 mega-rich
🥈New💲 stock$
🥉Well off/🔝position$ (Eun's BFF since childhood is a🥉)
Last+least are scholarships↪bully🔍 fodder. Eun keeps her 👁👁 ⬇ but those heirs invariably f◻rce interaction. It 🏍 from there. Since Tan is home, Eun tries to avoid him, too, but Tan works to see Eun at all 🕘s.
H's theme is 🔳CAGES🔳
▪ Cages of power: Bosses, parents, bullies, -ALL people w/ power spread misery for their own sadistic satisfaction.
▪ Cages we allow: Enduring cages to hoard wealth & status saps the spirit.
▪ Cages we lock on ourselves; what one wants can be a cage, ref: Ki-ae.
▪ Inflating our own importance (pride) is a self-snare. Talk abt fantasy! ▫Pride▫ will blow up all of one's relationships b/c it gushes out of self absorption. {▫Greed▫ sprouts up from ▫pride▫ (Going for more, for the win, b/c U deserve it) &/or ▪emptiness▫ (using $ to fill spiritual & emotional needs). Forget you. Go help a poor soul..}
▪ Poverty is a cage
▪ Wealth is a cage. Greed, family, boards, the public, & 'keeping it phony' in their rigid circle, confines the rich.
▪We also see how the 🌭 is made, or rather, how the voracious zombies are spawned, as H's theme is actually: The Choices ☑ We Make once ▫Caged▫.
Time to, as w/ Ki-ae's empties🍷, clear out some of H's mess: Without doubt, Heirs has H-err😞rs. It's unfocused, it wanders, it stalls. More grave, are the Heir-etical logical 🕳s that could have easily been smoothed. Intermittently wonderful & sloppy writing smells of: "1st draft▶Now▶Tequila🍹🎉". A smidge more mental exertion would have sent H 🚀🌌. H has blown chances. It even feels choppy at times. (Perhaps it's 'blunt like Tan'?) Tan's Blondie-whiteboy-bro causes unease at H's start - He painfully can't 🎭, but fo-sho seems 😜 to hang with. H's pace is relaxing for the more flexibly ranged. If you are one whose ⚪👟are always 🥛⚪, you'll likely find it has too much SN 😴 😴Z💤.
Look at the team. Scripter Kim Eun-sook is proven talent: Mr. Sunshine, Goblin, Descendants o/t Sun, etc. H's directors have 0 duds. The 🎭 is Excellent- really. Is a mediocre romance the best they could pull off? NO! H is more, & it's by design. It's a fact that ▶They tell us◀ the 💘 is bland thru Hyo-shin: "You both continue to shoot your boring romance..." (Me: Spontaneous L😆LS). But wait a sec. W🅰Du🅿🅿⁉ Where did /that/ come from? It's so 🎯. Is it a marker? Is the love story a chalk outline? N🅾thing here; ↗l👀k↕else↖where?
Why⁉ H😮w❔
🤔: "What am I missing?"
H is, as its title indicates, abt ✳The Heirs✳ It contrasts Tan, Won & Yeong-do. Won's shocked agony from an unexpected knife in the heart & Yeong-do's ground in, long suppressed pain that's now popping the pressure valve are arresting. Tan's function is the maypole. H rev♻lves around him. Tan chooses love over the cage of wealth & status. He displays tremendous courage & 0 hesitation to dive 'all in' for Eun. Once he finds Eun, it's Peace🕊Out! He's finally found a home. Eun tries to remain 😑 while pursued by Tan, who commits 1st & fully. No looking back. They'll all have to catch up to Tan. Yeong-do eventually demonstrates the profound courage of internal honesty. There's hope for Yeong-do, while Won faltered, falters again, & chickens out.
Won grew up secure, certain the company is his birthright. His self-worth is🕸in it. N🅾_one's_gonna_wrest_it_from_him. That another option could ever tempt him is beyond his limited imagination. For 20 entire yrs Won watched Ki-ae. Once she got what she wanted, she saw it morph into her cage. Won 👁, but didn't learn. Yeong-do's father is abusive & hyper-critical. His mother left many yrs ago. YD, in turn, is a cruel bully at sch⚙⚙l 😬. He comes to understand his choices & their implications during H.
The cadence is a msg. The entire show is mostly 1 tempo, especially at sch⚙⚙l. The episodes come & go with us tagging along. It's easy to like Tan+Eun & want them to thrive. They do have wonderful moments. But when the 🎼 reaches emotional crescendos, it's for Won & Yeong-do's critical times, not E & T's. After a repeat round of clobbering ea/other @ sch⚙⚙l, YD & Tan are tasked w/ listing the other's faults. The 🎥 pans round. We watch them gravely _Staring_Thinking_Reflecting. In front of each is 📑&🖋 ~ Are we waiting to see who picks up the 🗡 1st? But neither one of them 📝 anything. What they know about eachother includes PAIN. They've seen the other's pain. Is their emoting🌋 even about hate? Or anger, maybe? Projected anger? The scene, the circling 🎥 & the acting is all weighty. Tan & YD have crossed the threshold into the forward-progress zone.
All the 🎭 is✨ - No one wriggles the chin like Park Shin-hye. In Sisyphus, she proves her range by time-traveling, stompin bad guys, & rock-shockin 💔s. Honestly, she ✨ as an 👁rolling kicka$$. LMH does his usual. ▪Kim▪W👀▪bin▪Just▪Steals▪The▪Show▪ as Yeong-do. Kim Ji-Won (My Liberation Notes/Diary-8.9, Lovestruck in the City-7.3), as Rachel, also stands out. With Grace-Kellyesque carriage, Ms Kim is a military surgeon in Descendants Of The Sun-8.3. Choi Jin-hyuk (💘 him in Tunnel-8.1, loathed Rugal-3.7) plays Won with depth, slowly revealing that his ice cage has fissures. A thaw has begun.
But Wait! There's more!
Fashion. Fashion. Oh, it's 💰 w/ 👁-🍬. Smart & amusing reparte↪it's fun hanging w/ these heirs. One duo gets adaww-able quicklly. Mom gets better&better&better w/ Ki-ae. The family 🆚 business chess game 🕸viewers, holding 👀2📺. At the end, H has an amazing dream scene. It's fab, dahling.
Kdramas regularly deconstruct parent-child relationships. Pressure on their society is so oppressive that they, shockingly, have the 4th highest suicide rate in the 🌏, w/ students & elderly @ top risk. In 🇺🇸, we've a glut of 👶-dults all snug @home w/ M&D. Their mindset is a tragedy. Our loose ways are eating our kids alive via "kindness." A bit too strict is better than excuses, ☑victimization & willful 🙈blindness. Balance takes determination and less self.
Will you like H? Re: fantasy, humans populate a -10 realism ↩to↪ fantasy +10 scale. We +5s & ⬆⬆ like H, as it's into our zone. Realists will shame us by trashing our 📺. Don't be bullied! Don't deny your core programming‼ And NO calling H a 'Guilty Pleasure'! A GP is a feature that's awful - no one likes it, but you just /do/). GP has become a soft slur of romances skewed fantasy+ w/o regard for quality. Dings aside, H contains ⚙⚙dles of g⚙⚙d stuff. It isn't remotely awful. Granted, the + msg is t⚙⚙ garbled, which botched H u67u6y66y the delivery. But w/o doubt: WE, in the +zone, are being repressed‼😠 Say it LOUD: "I love Boys O' 💐 & Heirs‼ S😤 what⁉" My peeps, It's okay, it's really just fine, to 💘 Heirs. It's mostly Good➡VG, & at times, it's superb.
See YOU & your goals honestly. Adjust. 🚫 caging you or others.
QUOTE🗣
I struggled all my life to capture the most critical moment. But every moment of life... is critical.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7 💓6 🦋6 🎨7 〰🖋8 🎵8 🎭8.7 🤔7 😅3 ☀7 🔚 9
👀📺again? 👍
Age 13+ (Illegitimacy) should like H. H is not one bit raunchy. Topics to 🗣: values, what truly matters, contentment, showing respect, courage & forgiveness. Internal honesty↪Yeong-do shows a level of honesty, re his motivations, that's pretty rare. Pride▪greed▪anger▪hate▪unforgiveness▪bitterness are burdens that we carry. When we let them go, ahh. Pe🕊ce.
〰 Live🕊Free. Thrive🌾 〰
⛔️SPOILER SECTION ⛔️
Chm Kim's pride spins it all. He has the 🌏, but no ♥. He's caged Won, Tan, Ji-sook, & Ki-ae (and Tan had begun to cage others). When Mr. Kim is on his deathbed, #2Ji-sook gathers the extended family & board mbrs to attempt a hostile takeover. To think that the wife he tossed aside would remain thankful & loyal proves Chm Kim's hubris. He imagines he's thriving, but self-deception became self-delusion, & his isolation allowed full absorption, which led to mummification. Ditto for the other Heir-etical parents. In reality, such parents (at all income levels, don't kid yourself) would die leaving wreckage in their wake. {Quick ad: Sit your heirs down, write your wishes on 1 page, & have them all sign it, even if you have a will. That could save your family after you're gone}
Won chose the company long ago. It's /his/ by /birthright/. His self-worth is ▫mired▫ in it, & hatred for Tan emanates from his latent anxiety that someone will gut him by stealing HIS position. His identity & security, his 1st (& last) 💘 is the company. That another option could ever tempt him had been beyond his limited imagining. Yet, he let himself fall in love w/ a commoner - An orphan! His choice is still never in doubt. 20yrs. Won has seen Ki-ae, only seeing human trash. Once she got what she wanted, he 👀 it morph into her cage, but he never learned. To save the company from Ji-sook, Won has to give up 💘 & marry a woman who will never be a wife to him. Even worse, his children could very well be her BF's & not his. Will he have the guts to get DNA tests? No matter. She will provide the ☑votes he needs. Gutted in the end anyway, he never augured this. Did he gut the rest of his life? Who will marry the woman HE 💘? He cries bitterly. Fade to ⬛
Yeong-do's father's abusive & hyper-critical. His mom left yrs ago. YD, in turn, is a cruel bully at school. He's odious, when we meet him; a typecast villain. He falls for Eun & sees a new way. He opens up enough for light to filter in. He matures sufficiently to u/s his past choices. YD has yet to choose his future path. His father is in ▫prison▫ which gives him the chance to change course & thrive. What will he do? 1st: He finds his mother. There's promise of a better future life. He even admits to Tan that he took his anger out on him - it's truly impressive baseline honesty. When a person starts the journey of internal truth, rather than trying to look good, we all benefit. YD demonstrates it by progressing from oppressor to confessor. If someone were to say that H is YD's story, I wouldn't argue. Post CA, he may have more screen time than Tan. His story is powerful; his growth, inspiring: H's resolution passes b/c ▪Kim▪Woo▪bin▪Just▪Steals▪The▪Show▪ as Yeong-do. Now I want to 👀 him in everything. ✳H is worth 👀ing for him, alone✳
How did the outline of the body start? Whether it was Tan's pain for his friend or not, Hyo-shin's suicide attempt insures its relevance for yrs. Pressured to the brink; Emotional cries for help; Emptiness; Hollowed; Crushed; Pushed⤵ off the edge: Parents of every economic level can be guilty of pushing their kids too far. Sure, kids need a push at times. Here's the test: Is this for my child's benefit, or abt appearances? We're in a time when increasingly more parents think parenting is for fueling their own pride. That's self-involvement & likely narcissism: It ain't parenting. You're there to correct your child's wrongs, not to screech at the 🌏 that your child does no wrong.
Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022
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✒ℹ️ Workin the Grey Area °6.8° °good°
One of them is intense and too serious. The other is a party boy and too carefree. But they're both good cops and they are gonna have to work together.B&W is a 2009 release that is rated 95 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 24 55-minute episodes. Per Wiki: “The drama was nominated in 2009 for 11 awards at the 44th annual Golden Bell Awards, winning 5,” and “Two prequel films centering around Chao's character, titled Black & White Episode I: The Dawn of Assault, and Black & White: The Dawn of Justice, were released in 2012 and 2014 respectively.” At times the acting is flat and the dialogue uninspired, but overall, it's respectable, as long as one doesn't take it too seriously. The plot is pretty good; there's plenty of intricacies. In the final analysis, it maintained my interest when others shows, at the same time, did not.
Is B&W alittle silly? Yup. My family asked what I was watching and mocked Chen Zai Tian's hair. I pointed out it's a 15 year old show. I think his hair is nice, except it's heavily metrosexual and requires lots of product. B&W is on a certain level. It's slightly corny, cheesey, inept, with occasionally somewhat stiff and unnatural acting, and it seems unpolished and low budget. It's also fun. The cast is quite attractive (even with one of the FLs looking like she's 14) maybe that helps. Looks won't hold a viewer's interest for 24 episodes, though - not most viewers. I've seen shows where I couldn't make myself watch anymore. I haven't actually dropped many shows but I have dropped shows unofficially by letting them play on while I simply stopped watching - because I couldn't force myself to any longer. B&W successfully kept me tuned into every episode. There's something to be said for that. Every time it made me roll my eyes it made me do it with a wink and a smile. It doesn't take itself that seriously. The effect is light and fun.
B&W it's based on a compilation of true life cases with its own fictionalized spin applied. In the closing credits it says that “the case is known as “Troy military fraud” and… Over 1000 officials were charged... The accused include the minister of national defense, chief of the southern district PD, Senate Speaker, and the Military Committee chief… key persons in this case… died unnatural deaths one after another, while the secret training program by the ministry of National Defense was revealed following the murder of Lan C-Yin. However, all the relevant records vanished…” I did a goog but didn't find anything - I guess the records really did vanish! No matter what they show on the screen, I always assume the truth is worse. Much worse.
B&W is one of 9 Taiwanese shows I've seen; all but one are on the 2009-12 timeline. The same actors often show up in these features. Vic Zhou (Danger Zone: The Dark Night, Mars) portrays the half-cop-half-playboy Chen Zai Tian - “Shrek”. Xiu Jie Kai (Light the Night, They Kiss Again) is Ma Xiao Ming / Huang Shi Kai, one very interesting hot dog vendor. Mark Chao (Eternal Love, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity) is the uptight and fussy Wu Ying Xiong. He's a good looking guy and his acting is pretty seamless up until ep29, when he really impressed me in an emotional scene. He killed it. Ning Chang (Banquet) is Lan Xi Ying. Here she's coldly analytical. She's in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (I rate eps 1-49 at 9.3, but I stopped there, at a happy ending. I learned what was coming and didn't feel up to the rest of it). There, she plays an emotionally charged concubine. She's fantastic. Ivy Chen (Midnight Foodstore, More Than Blue) is Chen Lin - she actually looks like the man who plays her father. Sonia Sui from The Fierce Wife-8 shows up. She's terrific. The screenwriter & director is Tsai Yueh Hsun (Mars).
There's love in the air, but it doesn't all work out. The interpersonal relationships and romances are handled nicely. The characters are distinct and thoroughly fleshed out.
As for the art and filmcraft, there's plenty of nice touches. They dress in black and white often. Several mysteries are rolled out in the early episodes. There's a mysterious fax machine with cryptic tips - now, that ain't weird… Another weirdness is how our playboy tests positive for dreamer, a new illegal hallucinogenic. He appears genuinely stunned and seems to have no clue why it's in his system. Ep11 has a strange and unexpected twist; the plot is getting thicker. Our two leads and a third good guy try to take down a big paramilitary bad guy in episode 24 and they can't do it. I kind of like that. Our leads are real people, not machines. There's a killer moment in which a bad guy sits in his car at the docks, waiting to flee 🇹🇼Taiwan. Another car pulls up and squares off at him a few hundred feet away. Slowly the window opens, a hand emerges and places the police siren on the roof. 🎵Rock and roll music cranks. It's a well done scene.
One assassin talks about behavior modifications made while he was training. They tried to eliminate all compassion and empathy so that he would feel nothing, even for children. It didn't take. So he quit. Don't think things like that are fiction. They are already trying to meld man with machines.
They put a lot of effort into the plot. There's twists and turns and additional levels of complexity. Who's worse, the corrupt cops or the triad? It's a gray area. The production, overall, is closer to B movie work then the top of the line. However, I think it's respectable overall. People who like strict realism will not like this show, just be warned.
As the credits roll, we are told revenge is being plotted. 🔄The cycle continues.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝6.7 🎭7 💓🦋🎨6 🎵/🔊6 🔚7 🤗4.5 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡5.6 😅2 😭3 😱2.5 😯3 🤢4.5 🤔4 💤0
Age + violence; Language: $h!+. Rated TV-15
Re-📺? Highly doubtful, but once was fine
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
⚡/😱 -
C🇨🇳: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber 9-Kung-fu!;
K🇰🇷:
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Glitch-8,
K2 8;
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
Private Lives 8.1;
Inspector Koo-8.4,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Vagabond-8,
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Beyond Evil-7.4
The First Responders-8,
Why Her?-8,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
Signal 8.6;
Iris-8,
D.P.-8.4,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man From Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
🇭🇰Hong Kong
A Beautiful Life-
Don't Go Breaking My Heart-
The Defected-8.2
Hong Kong West Side Stories-7.5
🇹🇼Taiwan
Age of Rebellion-9.5
The Fierce Wife-8
Two Fathers-7.5
💓K🇰🇷 :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch Your Heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
Japanese🇯🇵 lite romcoms: Maid Sama-10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo-7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions-8.4, Toradora-8.5
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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
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Ignore That Guy With The Sword ⚔ Relax & Have a Croquette °7.5° °VG°
SG is a quiet celebration of the joy of food. Here, a retired corporate drone gets to slice and dice that corporate mold and kick back with a 🍺 and a coquette. Early in his retired life he discovers that small plates create a big appetite for new experiences. It's the small things that season life to perfection. The episodes, at 15 minutes each, are barely longer than a commercial break. (Ask your grandparents what a commercial break is. It's like waiting for that "skip ⏭ ads" button, just longer). Each episode is its own small plate.Without a ⏰️ to punch, Takeshi Kasumi (Sincere. Warm. Optimistic. Cute. Played by Naoto Takenaka), has no idea how he should spend his time. He starts wandering… aimlessly. Eventually, he gets hungry. So, he stops for a bite to eat in the middle of the day, when most people are stuck in a cubicle. One of the other diners ordered a beer! Smack dab in the middle of the day! ~❗⚡❗~ Like the entire city of Pittsburgh, here's a guy that understands how well 🍻 goes with food. TK decides to indulge; something he never would have done when he was working. He almost feels like he's committing a crime. He looks up and sees a samurai sitting a few tables over. It's his imagination, isn't it? The samurai is tough, he orders freely, eats with gusto, and doesn't let rude patrons intimidate him. ✂⛓ - He's /not/ decisive. The samurai /is/. TK is inspired now. He becomes positively ravenous to go out and bravely try new restaurants and new foods ~ like a lone wolf… ummm… lone samurai.
He meets with friends, fellow retirees, and family - including his petulant niece, an aspiring band member (her parents are getting desperate: "Would you talk some sense into her?"). He also revisits places he loved as a child, all on the hunt for food. He even becomes a movie set extra for the free lunches. He's upset to learn from a professional extra, who's had 120 appearances, (thank you very much), that today's caterer is subpar. Thank goodness some locals volunteered to make pork soup for the cast, which made the long day nearly worth it. Got a doctor's appointment? That's an opportunity for a 🍱 out. Ya gotta eat, right? The samurai is always there, watching from the shadows, giving him strength. The biggest drama in the series is when a grumpy chef scolds some foreigners for putting pepper on “his” food before they even taste it. Our corporate dude is mortified at the rudeness, but another customer manages to smooth out the situation nicely by putting pepper on his yakitori and declaring it /amazing/.
It wasn't immediately clear if the woman that he lives with, Shizuko (Honami Suzuk), is his daughter or wife. Apparently she's his wife, so he's doing alright. We find out that she's a little bit younger than him; she was in middle school when he was in college. When the sales clerk hands him shampoo his wife asked him to pick up, and then starts pitching the shop's men's product line, he may run away. But still, he's doing alright.
He does need more of that samurai spirit, however. A samurai isn't afraid of sales clerks or ordering a beer for lunch, and a samurai isn't afraid to tell customers to be quiet because they're loudness is disturbing others. I must say that the burly samurai is attractive. He's that friend who saves you from becoming too “normal”. Mundane. PHONY. In a buttoned-up society that must feel daring. "You're trying something new?" His wife recognizes the shifting attitude. "That's nothing compared to the first person who tried sea urchin." TK's already looking at things in a new light. Afterall, in his mind, he just watched the samurai be the first ever to guzzle a spiky urchin and proclaim it delicious.
Apart from safety, food and drink are life's most fundamental needs. They also happen to be one of great life's greatest pleasures. It's quite wonderful that spinal taps and walking on glass are not one of life's fundamental needs. We all know this world is deeply flawed, but food is evidence that the world is a wonderful place, too. Food is comfort, a connection to others, a way to unite and spend time: Food brings us together.
Not only is food one of the greatest pleasures in life, but it is strongly connected to memory. It has the power to transport us to our youth. Just a few decades ago, ingredients were limited and there was less exposure to the wide 🌎 of culinary delights. (I remember, in the early 70's, when lasagna became a big deal, and how my family first made it with cottage cheese! Not only did we have no knowledge of ricotta cheese, but it wasn't even available for purchase at our suburban grocery store.) Food also has powerful emotional connections for us. While my grandmother made delicious food, some of it was unappealing. My grandparents, like everyone, loved some foods, not because they are inherently delicious, but because they grew up on them. Now that the whole 🌏 🌍🌎 of cuisine has been opened up to most, we demand things be taste sensations. People, nowadays, have access to the most delicious food in the history of the world. We eat better than royalty did 100 years ago. Manga!
Simple clothes, a simple, small house, an uncomplicated & respectful relationship… & croquettes. Somehow, that plain potato croquette he ate in that one episode has haunted me. It looked so crunchy. It sounded so crunchy. I could have sworn I /smelt/ it 😛. I want to go to Japan just to get 🍘ne. SG is a reminder that it is not luxury and Michelin star restaurants that create happiness. Happiness and contentment come from within, which allows the simple things from without to make life special.
Our protag is infused with the samurai spirit. He boldly goes to new destinations and boldly orders new fare. In the last episode, he tries getting a little more samurai with his wife. I wonder how that will work?
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬7.6 🖊〰7.6 🎭 77 🌞7 🎨66 🎵/🔊68 😅4 😭2 🤔45 💤25 🔚8
Age - there is nothing inappropriate for elementary school kids. It is a matter of their interest. The ML is warm to the watch. The show radiates comfort.
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The Neurotic ☯ The Dust Bunny & The Vac Matchmaker ~ It's Clean-Cut ☯ Opposites Heal °VG°
Collapsed & feeling swept neath piles of dirty laundry, I looked for pure, brainfree fun. After some googs, CWPFN seemed the perfect rinse&repeat. To come clean, the chance to tell frenz & fam that I'm so wiped I've resorted to watching a show abt a woman (a bit of a foodstained mess, really) who ends up in a ❤🔺 w/ her OCD oppressed boss & his psych 😆. How much fun is that, before the shift starts, even? {🚫 sneers @ Kroms & silly plots. Know: What they do, our USA does too, ie: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes '78; Weekend at Bernie's '89; Return to Me '00; Sisterhood-Traveling Pants'05; & the splendiferous Being John Malkovich〰> loved, all. Now those are #crazy premises}O-sol (OS) has been struggling for balance ever since her mom died in a disputed construction crash 6 yrs ago. As the victims never rec'd justice, it's an open wound, still. She limped thru college to then full-steam-on job hunt (including the nec research/interview practice) but she rarely gets a face-to-face. OS sees ⬆📶 hurdles as her strength & will steadily dilute. Facing lil bro & dad she /acts/ bleachy clean. They all /act/ that way, dingily drudging thru _ since_mom_.
OSol-O-Mio🎶 Is also eked out over her dusty college crush. He acts like his cruddy soap will dissolve in her pail, sorta. He's certainly friendly💭 She's snagged like an old rag & sinking to the sludgy bottom. Despondent, she's ceased efforts to deterge, sponge off, or 🛀 (esp her hair). She's slowly morphed from hygiene-2-bye-giene.
Ironically, the only job she can scrape-up is w/ a cleaning co. That'll be as new for OS as her pink coveralls. As Mr. Jang (Yoon Kyun-sang), the CEO, is an OCD sufferer, cleaning is his passion. Dirty, messy things terrify him. Before long, OS will terrify him to😵♒💢. He'll never buff away the scorch she's left.
Build-up in the early eps sees OS falling from 🗑 to rubbish heap. She hangs onto her job by a feather in her duster. Mr. Jang takes time to remediate her 'black mold' complaining clients. He finds OS has a clean slate & takes her side. Always kind & refreshing (or too apoplectic to react) Jang, unawares, becomes protective of her. He'll be her bioshield, baby. OS bonds w/ her crew & mops /up/ on the job.
One day, she tips & spills from a ladder as Jang brushes by. Jang's scrubbed-in reaction is: ⛔Flee❗ Afterall, OS is filthy: Dirt, sweat, greasy hair + who knows❔ Yet he sprints & catches her. 🕒▶nothing◀🕞 He's FINE. Gently holding her like a baby🐢, he asks: R U O K? Onlookers hold their breath, waiting for the 💣 that never💥. Looks like Jang's plunged thru a clog. Here's one dust bunny that he'll tolerate.
In a spot, OS must hide her J. O. B. From D. A. D. A lifelong janitor, he's adamant that his kids live streak-free. In the interim, dad's rented the rooftop room to a handsome jobless man who's cozy & unstarched w/ the fam - OS's the one who really spruces him up. He's /Dad's/ rooftop 💕prince. Dad wants OS to have the right job for *marriage. OS's 💓 longs for her pitiful boss to heal. He's such a neat guy. Thus, is ground-floor CWPFN. It gets down & dirty and into the crevices from there.
CWPFN's not a stinker a'tall. Filmcraft is sprayed round like Jang's sanitizer (It's ok! It's safe for humans!). Comedic timing is spot-on, which takes director, actor & editor teamwork, proving their spotless business plan. Kim Yoo-jeong, as OS, gleams. Maybe it's forced perspective, but she looks part Paulina-Porizkova- (ref. 80's Vogue part Bratz-doll next to Jang. He should sweep her up & drop her in his 🗑bag, not kiss her‼ She is a tiny "microbe-she"❕ Beginning grungy, w/ every ep OS looks cuter. One of her crew loves hugging her while smelling her hair. Jang, -steamed- threatens to break dude's fingers & astonishingly snatches dude's hand off of OS -sans GLOVES. O. C. D. Takes a back seat to O. S. O. L.
The 🎭 is smooth & glossy. Yoon is authentically shammy-shined as Jang; his luster is natural & he excels at raising a single brow (OooLaLa). Lee Do-hyun, as lil bro O-dol, is a steamy 🚿, ahem, w/ a 💦 of hi-kick-hits. He gets a satisfying dab of 💌. Kim Won-hae (dad) gets around so much, he might be overlooked, but he's talented. I love him as Crazy Dog in Black-9, a cop troubled by anger. Ms Kim (OS) has her🥇moments. She's darling when they start dating. (They should have had more happy times before the slime started oozing up & out of the drain). In ep11, Jang is tipsy & OS helps him to bed. Once they've flopped on & he's out, she watches him as her face balances multiple expressions. It's a tidy bit of acting.
But for all that, if you think they sop up the laughs by showing a severe OCD sufferer, suddenly kissed by his employee, who is pretending she has a BF in front of her musty crush, after which poor OCD guy faints (🆘-ol❗) landing in the 🏨… then 😅 away, you calloused meanie. If you further snicker at how he's then mottled w/ mind-splatters of her winking at him while puckering her germ-laden 💋, causing spasmatic screaming, to the point that his assistant calls a psych, go ahead & yuck it up at this poor guy's expense. Is this really funny? In the most stoopid way, uh-huh, it is, especially if OCD is in the fam or if you just need some safe space where you can roll your eyes & smile. (Oh, that's dumb. I can't believe I laughed. Well, nobody has to know🙄)
🤖 CAM❕ The vacuum gets screen time as a side character. We swab along @ vac level, & shake heads when Jang's talking to it, as he is wont to do, given the affection they share. I feel the same way about Florence (Flo), my 🤖vac.
Some of the subtitles are by "Charmy". Isn't that sweet? Love it.
CWPFN burnishes this truth: There's no shame in cleaning for a living. Do you know the names of the cleaning people at your office? Aren't you thankful your trash is removed? How much better would the world be, if we could treat each other w/ friendliness & dignity? 🗑thy pride. During the worst of covid, folks, instead of dismissing, began thanking "The Help" who were stocking shelves. Let's normalize that trend. Working won't be miserable if people chose to be decent; especially bosses. That swept to the side, SK job contracts seem brutal, creating pressure that's truly caustic to well-being.
Now to spot where CWPFN may fail inspection❎
While in the aquarium, OS muses abt baby turtles who follow the stars to the ocean. Artificial light misleads them. OS wonders: "Am I following the Starlight or the artificial light?" That's an unblotted metaphor. YET, in failing to soak viewers in OS's love of ocean life early on, the scene didn't wash well. It could have been immersive. Instead, it floats in the air like fine dust.
Fear-of-failure is what motivates Jang's g/father, exerting a stronger down-drag than a desire to win could normally surmount. Pain from loss is more intense than the fleeting beauty of gain, as is evidenced by the stingiest rich. Sadly, g/father's story arc is toxically simple. Jang's arc is rushed, too. (Abruptly it's: "I'll make you fall for me").
Some harradin contaminates their space, demanding to see rooftop man while pulling Dad & Bro's hair as they meekly cry for help. Silly? Sure. Not their best scene, it's sillier than Jang tweezing that single hair off of the carpet. Kdramas are panned for overdoing, to which I say: "Compared to what?" Scour that one again - SK society is highly⛓pressurized. We have plenty of stuff as nutty or worse, we're just used to seeing our stuff. We should be aware that sneering & affectionate poking are different, that's all. The rooftop stud starts acting goofy in the later eps for no reason other than time-filler. As is, it feels like the floor-buffer is shimmying off on its own.
CWPFN could benefit from retraining. Too much repetition can ruin the finish, & CWPFN has its share of Kdrama 'misting chambers' that are set to repeat. Refer below:
🚿 Ep1s are abt extremes. He's extremely OCD. She's extremely dirty.
🚿 The ❤🔺 again. To be fair, it works well enough in CWPFN, though the device is dingy from overuse.
🚿TIAMF: This is about my friend. In this series, as Jang pathetically has no such friend, the fun is watching secretary Kwon try to Swiffer her expressions.
🚿WKEWY: We knew eachother when young. My acronym: I say the "K" is silent, & it's pronouced: "Whey," which in Korean, is why. WHYY?!! So overdone. Not needed.
🚿TBU: The breakup. Usually just for one ep, CWPFN goes into breakup OT & is overly sad.
🚿MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome (Couples are physically separated once they commit). It's nearly ubiquitous & it's usually awful. CWPFN drags MSS out painfully long & clutters up Eps15&16, which are sad enough to permanently tarnish the series.
At the end of the job, however, CWPFN stands bright & shiny. Some will 💖 it, some may declare the whole series a waste @ the 1st spot of grime on the white glove, but CWPFN is a tidy little show w/ smudges here & there. I like the tempo & I can veg to it, so I give it a 7. Next shift: Let The 🤖Vac Do The Work While You Give Your Body & Mostly Your Mind A Break. Rest with passion for now.
Quotes🗣
The famous writer Stendhal said that when you are in ❤, what you 💘 is Not the other person, but the narcissistic state of Euphoria. Socrates said that ❤ is an irrational desire that paralyzes judgment. Nietzsche said that ❤ always leads to Madness. Plato said ❤ is an act of divine being.
❤ makes everyone crazy.
You only learn your lesson after you fall.
Your efforts never betray you.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7.5 🎭7.5 💓7.5 🦋6.6 😅7.3 🤔6 🎨7 🔚5.6.
Age 14+{fetish u/wear scene}
👁📺again? ☑maybe
Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022
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✒Out For Blood: ⚰ Hybrid Theory °4.8° °below avg°
Meet the vampires. These immortal beings don't kill humans. They borrow just enough blood to get by on - a half cup or less - they make due on half empty! Maybe the real monsters are all human. Hey, it Isn't just vampires who suck blood. Immortal beings used to freely walk this earth, and at times it was humans who hunted them down to drink their blood and obtain immortality.H is a 2023 release that is rated 88 on AWiki, because Kdrama fans are very kind and appreciative. It is 1 season consisting of 16 60-minute episodes. By ep9 I considered abandoning the show. It's something I don't do, but have decided I probably should start. H is bloodless with no vitality whatsoever. Even though I had it on, I couldn't focus. It became the walking dead to me. I like the FL, and the ML isn't bad. The show sorta hangs around like a bat and never actually goes anywhere. It's lifeless and cold to the touch. The leads cannot overcome its issues.
Ok Taec Yeon (Vincenzo, Save Me) plays vampire Seon “Woo” Hyeol. His ears don't seem to have ridges inside; in some shots they look like pancakes. Anyway, he wants to be human. He's never had a beating💓. He goes to Cat Man (Kim In Kwon from Hot Blooded Detective, The King's Affection-8.3, The Cursed-8.3, and Mr. Queen-9) for advice. Cat Man managed to become human himself, afterall. Catty tells him to sleep in a Hawthorne Coffin for 100 years; but Hawthorne is highly toxic for Woo. “Only by facing death” can he embrace life, Catty insists. Down he goes.
That brings us to present day where we meet Joo In “Hae” (Won Ji An from A Year-End Medley & Hope or Dope). She's in the middle of the housing crisis. Just in time, she inherits an old house from her father. It's OLD. It's Victorian. It's creepy🏚creeky. /And/… There's a ⚰Coffin⚰ in the basement! She just can't help herself - she opens it. It's been 99 years and 364 days. Woo's not human yet! He's not a vampire either! He's a mixture - a hybrid.
Woo is livid. He comes at her in his anger and she attacks first (she's a toughie). How can Woo complete his transformation? He was so close, and he suffered for those 100 years. He doesn't want to do /that/ again. How did this even happen from the beginning? Most human girls wouldn't have been able to open the lid, Cat Man observes. Hae's no ordinary girl. A string of anomalies leads Woo to believe that if Hae falls in love he'll complete his transformation. Great. With him… with some other dude… as long as she falls in love he's golden. So he goes to work, and Hae's really thrown off by this. Woo has to stop her from making a police report over the anonymous 💐 that have been showing up on the doorstep.
Woo starts to vacillate his strategies. While this is going on, they decide to start a B&B to earn money with the old house. Money is a big problem. Enter Park Kang Hyun, who plays Shin Do Shik. It's his first drama. He will be the 3rd corner of the 💘🔺. Do Shik wants to help.
Ko Kyu Pil is Park Dong Seop, another vampire. They have him in a horrible hairdo. I think he deserves better. I've seen him in Mother-8.8, Sweet & Sour-7, Another Miss Oh-7.5, Vagabond-8, Crash Landing on You-9.1, The King's Affection-8.3, The Cursed-8.3, and he really enjoys himself in the hilarious Crazy Love-7.8. He enhances every show he's in, but he can't make a difference here. Yoon Byung Hee (Our Blues-8.5, Sweet & Sour-7) portrays Lee Sang Hae, the other vampire in Woo's circle. Kim In Kwon (Parasyte: The Grey-6.9, Mr. Queen-9) plays Ko Yang Nam, the "Cat Man”. Yoon So Hee (Witch's Love-7.8, Marriage, Not Dating) is part of a 2nd 💘🔺 as Na Hae Won / Yoon Hae Sun. Unbeknownst to her, she has a history with Woo. The directors are Lee Hyeon Seok of the lackluster Hello, Me-6.7 and the outstanding The King's Affection-8.3, along with Lee Min Soo (Drama Special S13). This is the fledgling effort of screenwriters Jung Seung Joo & Kim Ha Na.
The romance is mediocre with some flashes of cuteness. Their relationship is constant static, usually over money. They don't get a look at eachother until the end of ep1. Sparks do fly, in that scene, at least. I like their interaction immediately. Their first argument is after he goes shopping. He's been sleeping for 💯 years. Fashion has changed. Not long after he wakes up, he's walking down the street while alittle perturbed at her over their last interaction. He wanders into a mall. There's a fountain inside! He's utterly astounded by the splendor of modern-day commercialism. He buys up half of a clothing store and then panics when he doesn't have any money. Until he remembers he has her wallet! When he walks through the door laden with 🛍, the REAL baggage makes an appearance: She freaks into a real monster. Then they have an argument about whether it's right to live for money & security, or is it better to ‘follow your heart and live for today’. He tells her not to worry; he's got a stash of gold bars hidden away. Alas! They have disappeared! Whoops. Then one day their lips lock inadvertently and the attraction can't be denied.
The show is cute but is draggy. I found it pleasant as I neared the halfway mark, but not much was happening. It's ‘malcontent’ - They don't have sufficient content for all the episodes. They also failed, largely, to generate many sparks between the primary duo. The end of ep10 is very sweet, so I tried to get back into it. I just couldn't. I sat through every episode but was 80% tuned out. Watching this show Is a waste of time because there are so many better ones out there. The older catalogue of Kdramas is a treasure trove of gold standard works, and they're pumping out masterpieces all the time.
Before you sink your teeth into this, check out some of these titles.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Unexpected roomates:
Mr. Queen-9,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9
My First First Love-8,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Interspecies/wildly unaligned love:
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
Oh My Venus-7.4K,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Oh My Ghost 10,
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Sisyphus 8,
Black 9
Modern Day Romances -
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Hospital Playlist 9,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
〰🖍 IMHO
📣5.3 📝4.5 🎭7 💓5 🦋4.5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚6.5 🤗3 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡4 😅2 😭2 😱3 😯2 🤢3 🤔3 💤4
Shazams: Heart Race, by Byeol Eun & I'm Always By Your Side by JEON SI HA. The fun retro style monster mash music is darling.
Age 12+
Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
Re-📺? The first time was a mistake.
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40-Wink Links ⛓ Real Or Illusion ⛓ Slumber&Wonder ⛓ Hibernate2Prognosticate °7.3° °VG°
And 💭 A Little Nightmare For Me...WYWS is a snoozie Krom w/ some fantasy, some bad guys that need some taking down + some good stuff going down (food) & a director that's wonderful w/ some comedy. Want some?
Out-of-work reporter, Nam Hong-joo, helps her mom run a small eatery. The intro reveals that her dreams are REAL. Not every dream, just the ones like visions. They /feel/ real. Viewers get to experience one: Thru a car window a man holds a 🚬. She only gets glimpses. His face barely visible, he flicks a lighter which unveils a bandaid on his hand. The car explodes. Snow falls softly.
She rouses & races to 〰🖊 all she can recall & re-stations it to her BR window. Copious 📝 predate this recent one - It's HJ's routine - since she's been a kid. She memorizes the details & looks for these victims. But she's never saved anyone, not even her dad. Even the few times the date, time & place, were revealed, she wasn't able to save 1 soul. One day, Band-aid-man stops his car right in front of her! She rushes to him, pleading: 'Don't smoke, you're in danger!' Gruffly barking at her to leave him alone, he drives off ~> to his death. ❄ falls.
Devastated. She's devastated. A 'target' stopped right in front of her & the outcome was the same. It's a tenet of her life: She can't alter fate. She's Cassandra.
Her father was killed b/c he chose duty over duration. He chose to show a warm 💛 to a troubled stranger rather than to keep his own 💓 beating. ~>He chose work over family<~ It's a good reminder for us. He KNEW HJ's dreams come true. Yet, he still went to work & didn't leave the 🚌 when a disturbed looking soldier boarded. Duty, muscle memory & routine can be a problem if we institutionalize ourselves. 🛑 & 👁
Current day is yrs later. HJ has a horrible vision of an accident that leads to her imprisonment & her mom's death. Not seeing when or where, she changes trivial things, like her hair, hoping it will buffet fate. Otherwise, she can only ⏳. Fate is fate, but HJ will restlessly work to change it. In order to rest easy, she's compelled to do /something/.
Jung Jae-chan's police chief father was shot & murdered. JC 😶 it all. One of their last discussions was abt JC's future: Dad wants JC to achieve a higher station than his own (9th-level civil servant). JC promises he will. Promises. At the time, JC was being tutored. It wasn't going well, & his tutor's the one to blame. In suggesting they cheat, so they'll look good, teach reveals his lousy character. JC said he wouldn't 💭 of cheating, to which the response is: "If you don't, I will & if discovered, I'll accuse /you/ of doing it," which all came to pass. JC hates tutor, Lee Yoo-beom. He hated him then, & he hates him now.
It's just JC & his little brother, Seung-won, whom JC has cared for while working+working×working hard - all the time. He's kept his schooling up, kept his grades up, kept his sleep up, & attained his #1goal of law school admission. Once graduated, he marches to the DA's 🏛. Locking criminals away is his pipedream (+ DA's are over 9th levels). He is determined to save other fathers from dying & making more orphans like him & Seung-won.
"Newbie" is his rank & name at the DA's. There's plenty of razzing, as well as subtle pressure to fit in. Most of the others are, in part, like mirages. All that they think & like is fake in order to cozen the boss. Newbie wouldn't 💭 of that, either. He doesn't play well w/ others. 🔜 Sickle in hand, he hits the turf hacking out his own path. Ipso facto, his job is never done. The 🗂 start 🗃 piling up, b/c he's going to bring them ALL to justice. JC ALSO has dreams that seem like visions. They feel real. He sees a woman getting into an accident & knows it will ruin her life. His vision reveals the when-&-where: He /knows/ #when, #where, & #how this woman's life will be /ruined/. But it's none of his business… He just got a new job… Besides, he has to care for Seung-won...
Han Woo-tak is a rookie police officer. He's crossing the street when he sees a 🚘 coming right at him. It's going to hit him - why now?, after all the hard work, finally he's living his dream of being a policeman. He realizes: "I am going to die now..."
These 3 will team up as 3 parts of a whole. They'll save lives.
That's the set-up. The protags & side characters are well written, directed & portrayed. The 'good' ones are likable; the "bad" ones are sufficiently diabolical. WYWS is absent of complexities or deep sleep inspirations, with mostly ⬜/⬛ players; only a couple side characters get a true arc. It's a wind-down & catnap kind of show.
Evidence of the gorgeous filming in WYWS is in an aerial shot of them in perfectly smooth damp sand, but for 👣 leading to the center, where they're embracing so tightly, from above they look like one person. Two halves of a whole. It's a metaphor, & it's hypnotic. A few scenes take place in the 🏨. Some feature a little boy who patrols the halls doing spot legal consultations. This hospital-bound lawyer's son 💭 of being well again. There's not many scenes this adorably written & acted out. That kid is spectacular.
Lee Sang-yeob is perfect as the refined, yet sleezey under-bellied Lee Yoo-beom. Kang Ki-young so often plays a buffoon (To me he'll always be Min-Soo from Oh My Ghost-10). He transforms in this role to ruthless killer. Lee Jong-Suk (JC) is no other word but: Pretty. Slap a wig on him & you get Helena Bonham-Carter - from her "Room With A View" days. He's masculine in the role, despite the beauteousness. Jung Hae-in, as Han Woo-tak, definitely has a dreamy quality. Watching him eat & w/ the others, he seems yummy himself. He'd likely look delicious just sleepwalking. Bae Suzy's always adding to her dreamland resume. Here's another Kdrama that features food as fuel for comraderie. As HJ's mother runs a restaurant, folks gravitate to her home & business, as both are equally 🔥.
Director, Oh Choong-hwan, evinces his brilliance w/ comedy. He's good. I 😅 spontaneously a few times. A sample is whilst this pair i's awakening to their mutual attraction. They haven't yet confessed it to ea/other, nor admitted it to themselves. After a sedate 🏖 day, they stroll thru a meadow. It's idyllic... BUT FOR an all-cozied-up couple stopping a scant 11ft away. They're completely & nauseatingly lovey-dovey. (Ohh. Whaa? Uh-oh👀). JC & HJ grow steadily more uncomfortable. Situational pressure curls them up around attempts to emulate the other duo (awkwardly) until the other couple asks if they'll take their picture? JC clomps away w/ a brisk: "I /don't want/ to." The women's look of shock & waking outrage is sublime. Whoever that actress is, she can act. Altogether, it's a ✨ comedic scene.
WYWS has its 'nightmares'. It could be improved upon. Yet again, a cat is killed. Violence against cats is a chronic problem in filmed media. Dogs fare much better. Columnist Anne Billson, addressing this problem, wrote the article: "Why does Hollywood have it in for cats?" Also, ‘hard-hitting reporter’ doesn't fit HJ at all. She displays her lauded high level logic once only. Her career & behavior are in conflict, dragging down her ill-defined persona. The worst mistake of WYWS, is a failure to establish rules for this dreamworld & sticking to them. They then shoveled that 🕳 deeper by being wildly inconsistent w/ it. Rules stated in the 2nd part of WYWS violate what had already occurred. Such sloppiness is a major flaw. Really, how /could/ they? Were they in REM💤 when they did that? Mistakes like this are undecipherable. Also note that WYWS is a mystical thriller 1st & romdram 2nd, by far.
WYWS sounds alarms on critical issues, esp domestic violence & respect in the workplace. The condescending gossip we listen to about women on the judge panel is straight 1960's. The tradition of absolute respect for seniors gives leave for a sadistic professor to physically abuse his students & to use them as slave laborers. While the idea of respect has largely been dropped in the West, {actually, it's the idea of showing respect that's rapidly being forgotten. Everybody out there certainly wants to be respected - to the extent they have /specifics/ in mind when they envision proper treatment of themselves} the maxim that a person deserves respect based on DOB is other-end-of-the-spectrum-bad. While 🌐 foundational manners & baseline respect for every human life serve as WD-40 on society's moving parts, the upward levels of respect are not born to, but earned.
SK was actually a military dictatorship from '61 until Pres Park's assassination in '79. That era saw women routinely, physically & otherwise, abused at home, school & work. Police routinely sexually assaulted detainees & women were enslaved in prostitution - a nightmare that is still worsening, 🌎wide. No recourse afforded, women had few rights. That + the multi-millenia embedding of patrial hierarchy red-lighted SK's progress w/ regards to uniform rights until the 80's.
The ultimate morality test is in Ep11. They must make a choice between obtaining an autopsy on a brain-dead victim to prove a difficult, but 💔 murder case, or allowing his organs to save the lives of 7 patients. Only 2 people in the office know how tragic this dilemma is. We see one character make an agonizing decision. That person's take on the situation is inspiring. It's the moral height of the series.
Are you woke to the fact that, as its rating shows, this is a VG view? Don't dream your life away, but a catnap w/ WYWS will refresh & It won't put you to 😴.
QUOTES🗣
The law is always distant & fists are always close.
When I bet, I don't look at the pot, I look at the probability.
I know in my head I shouldn't, but a person's heart is always so sly.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7.5 🎭7.8 💓6.5 🦋6⚡7 😅8 🤔7.5 🎨8 🔚7
Age 14+
Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022
Originally 〰🖋 3/2022
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The Captain & The Car Wrecker ♡ A Pretty One & A Favorite Son °8.3° excellent
DOTS is a romance in which the two leads have an immediate attraction & the balance of the show is logistics & obstacle courses. Kang Mo-yeon is a doctor. Capt Yoo Si-jin is special forces. Dr. Kang Mo-yeon is businesslike. Capt Yoo Si-jin is always joking to deflect the heavy weight of his occupation; fallen comrades being one stressor. They each take their deadly-serious professions seriously.They smeet in Seoul. In the opening sorties, they aren't able to get a full drill (date) in, as one of them is liable to get an emergency call (usually him). Capt Yoo gets a pick-up from one of these emergencies - in a, HELLO, helicopter on the 🏥 rooftop. But for all that, inexplicably, Mo-yeon declares she can't live like this & places Si-jin on leave. Permanently. She thinks. She will ultimately reject him 3 times. He never loses focus of his mission. Her heart wasn't really in that third rejection, anyway.
While all of this is getting off the ground, Mo-yeon is being disrespected at work. Though best qualified, she's passed over for a fellowship in favor of a less competent Dr. W/ a much better catalogue of connections (& the empathy of a human trafficker). Mo-yeon had her💓 set on that gig. Reeling from disappointment, Mo-yeon is summoned to t/t the hospital director. Expecting an apology, or at least an explanation of the indignity foisted upon her, she enters the top corner office. Here's the jist: She can have the position & benefits she wants via a strategic benefits-for-benefits (🛏) exchange. Her immediate rejection of him lands her the position of director,,,, of the hospital's humanitarian mission to the (ficticious) Balkan state of Uruk.
Of all the UN relief joints in all of the globe, why did HE have to be assigned to her base of operations? Never retreating, their attraction continues from the prior engagement jump-off point.
The next wave is philosophical differences. Mo-yeon struggles, particularly when it comes to their occupations. Everything about her work is saving lives, while Capt Yoo kills for a living, or so she perceives. Mo-yeon tells the Capt that it just can't work, so they each go on w/ their lives. Sort of.
Oddly, this UN hot button zone is a place that affords them much more quality time than Seoul ever did. Quality time includes: An incident w/ a Saudi Royal that escalates to an international relations crisis that puts both the Blue & White Houses on alert, harrowing skirmishes w/ arms dealers, human traffickers, minefields, earthquakes, & diamond smugglers. No thing in the show suffers more abuse than any wheeled transportation w/ which Mo-yeon comes into contact. She left 3 or 4 cars & 1 wheelchair totaled in her wake. Not every life is safe around Mo-yeon.
In the same arena are members of the medical team along w/ military forces & medical. Capt. Si-jin's best friend, MSG (Master Sergeant) Seo Dae-yeong, is part of his unit. His love interest is 1st Lt Yoon Meong-joo, a military surgeon. Her father happens to be Special Forces CDR (Commander) & he does not approve of their relationship. Therefore, the ever dutiful MSG Seo has been evading Lt. Yoon. Their story is every bit as touching as the primary duo's. Yoon Meong-joo doesn't care what her father thinks. Like she'd let /him/ choose her spouse, anyway. Despite her cool & professional demeanor, she is always tracking Seo to express her love. He is her prisoner & she refuses to let him escape. When not deployed, MSG Seo earned renown as the toughest drill instructor in the military. Yet, as a non-commissioned officer, he doesn't think he's worthy of Lt Yoon. He certainly doesn't want to mess w/ the CDR either. So, he retreats while she advances. Besides all that, the CDR does /his/ best to keep them apart. Somehow, they manage (or blunder, depending on perspective) to snag overlapping assignments to the compound in Uruk. It only took an earthquake.
This show has the feel of a 20th Century romance in the best way. The men are manly, which not only means that they are strong, responsible, protective, & respectful, but they also love their women completely. The women, on the other hand, are both doctors. They are smart, tough & brave. These women don't feel the need to surpass the men, & visa-versa. Viva la difference; This is how classic M/F romances are made, & SK cranks out more of them in 1 yr, than Hollywood has in years & years. Si-jin, ends up rescuing Mo-yeon from several varied perils. Meanwhile, she rocks the OR, even at gunpoint, even when the OR is rocking,rollin,shaking,quaking. She starts to see Si-jin for what he is: A protector, not a killer.
DOTS is the complete package w/ love, laughter, lots of thrills, & a decent amount of food. There's a particularly cute dynamic between the 4 of them, including crissXcross comparing of notes & furtive calls. Rounding it out are a solid soundtrack, beautiful filming, & frequent stops to watch the soldiers on their daily, often shirtless, runs. Thus its rating.
Since MSG Seo is the toughest grader of the bunch, here's what he might nitpick at:
Song Hye-kyo, who plays Mo-yeon, is too wooden in much of the show. I'd only seen her in That Winter The Wind Blows-7 as Oh Young, a blind, emotionally stunted woman. She was excellent in that role. However, she's playing Dr. Kang the same way, which is seriously out of sorts. There's only small flashes of a personality, until the 2nd half, when she livens up. It's not clear why the director had her acting that way. Perhaps she went from down, suspicious, & self-protective, to resolved, confident, & loved? Good concept, bad execution.
They drag out a political/medical drama for too long. There are unnecessary delays. In fact, quite a few scenes are too drawn out, w/ overly-sappy sap. Part of the problem is the editing. While the tempo is off, a handful of times, most of the series has a good cadence.
We're all used to our onscreen heroes who, though getting shot, knifed, & beaten, keep fighting. That trend has been so out of control for so long that anything else would feel amiss (What a nancy-pants: There's not a scratch on him!). DOTS takes it to a new height, (or a new low, maybe?) when Si-jin shuffles the length of the hospital to diffuse a hostage crisis, a mere 30 seconds after being shocked back to life from cardiac arrest - due to blood loss from gun shots wounds, already! My health then became compromised due to a hypertension spike. Fortunately, moments like that were brief and scattered, like landmines shifted by an earthquake.
In view of this, your assignment is to give DOTS a view & a shake. The leads are all beautiful people, but one cannot help but note that the 2 male leads… well, they represent their country well.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7.6 🎭7.7 🤔 6 💓9 🦋7 🌞8 💤4 🎨8 🔚8
Age 14+
Post Script Screed ~Optional~
Racism is depicted in DOTS. This is not the first Kdrama to incorporate some callous treatment ala Caucasians vs Asians. Before you reflexively think: They are too sensitive. I'm sure it's not that bad. They are excelling, so why do they care? Consider the following:
°They didn't pull it out from nowhere. Sincere hurts lead to these portrayals.
°Asians put a high premium on manners & respect.
°As is always the case, people forgive their own tribe before they'll forgive a foreigner. No one wants to👂what their /own/ did.
°Our duty to be polite & respectful transcends any inconsistent reactions on others' parts. To think otherwise is juvenile.
°USA citizens have one of the world's worst reputations for bad manners.
°If you received such treatment. How would /you/ feel? Go ahead, clutch those pearls and gasp. Why does it always seem that the worst offenders are the most offended when their behavior is turned back on them? (Psst: b/c they think they are so special).
°Racism can be either proactive (aggressively initiated) or RE-active (defensive). Proactive is exponentially worse. Think about it.
°Know that if you reject all such claims reflexively, there's a likelihood that you're subconsciously presuming your own superiority. It's connected to pride, which is insidiously sneaky.
°If you think you are superior based on what you've been given, such as good looks, physical ability, that lucky promotion, or wealth, you are delusional. More is expected of you, not less. (Btw: the $tandard of living for USA citizens often reaches the top 5% globally. We /are/ rich).
°Things don't change overnight. The offender always thinks the aggrieved should move on in the time it takes to pour milk on cocoa puffs, however, tell us, please, where that's ever happened in the history of the wide world? There's ethnic groups that have been slaughtering each other for millennia, tit-for-tat. We expect those we offend to be angels. Frankly, that's downright offensive.
°Common courtesy is free, & not trading tit-for-tat is mature (you know, 2 wrongs, an'all).
Look, this is not about hating-on anyone who's made mistakes. From personal experience, I can report that once one begins a journey of internal honesty, which is often a byproduct of hitting the bottom, the internal horrors never ceasefire. Just because we tell ourselves we're good ~nothing to see here~ doesn't make it actually true. Turning the light to that dusty cobwebbed thinking in the back corner is what's needed to clean house to spec. These issues are complex, not simple. Take time to consider & think it all through. Then, suddenly, it's quite simple.
In the meantime, please learn the basic please-&-thank-yous of the countries you may visit. Be polite, even if others aren't in return. Be the adult, and refuse to tit-for-tat, which only escalates situations. Scientists and theologians agree that we all descended from a single woman. We are all family, indeed, and there's nothing as bitter as a family squabble. Let it go.
TTFN.
I love You All To Uruk And Back 😘
Recommendations
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
My Mister 9.5,
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡/🚀 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Originally 〰️🖊 February 2022
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Buda-bust: The Education of Kim Hyun-Jun & The Evolution of Lee Byung-Hun °Excellent°
"In Greek mythology, the river that flows in front of Hell is Iris." Mega-talent Lee Byung-Hun (Mr. Sunshine-9, Our Blues-8.5, Squid Game-8.4) is Kim Hyun-Jun. He looks so young! "Keep an eye on him, or he'll turn into a terrible monster," the lead behavioral scientist warns. I also say, keep your eye on him - Yes, he's gorgeous, & he goes through he!! Lee Byung-Hun is a world-class talent. My first look at him was In Squid Game-8.4. All he does is take off a mask and look at someone, but I was smitten-on-the-spot by his talent. That doleful, pensive stare said volumes. He's that good."You have a solo mission. Just like Hungary played a pivotal role in the reunification of Germany, you'll be able to play the same role in unifying the Korean Peninsula, if you succeed in your mission." For anyone not familiar with Korean politics, that's no trifle. Hyun-Jun does succeed in his mission but he's shot and stranded in Hungary, left hungry for the support he needs to escape. He holds up at the safe-house. The cheerless black-suits are closing in. Things go slip-shod; fade to black. Next, the filtered light creates a dreamy quality. We are with Hyun-Jun on a lush college campus in another place and time. We're back at the beginning.
Iris is a 2009 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 2 seasons consisting of 41 60-minute episodes, with only S1 available to stream on Netflix, currently. Ep1 has a Hollywood action feel and jumps from the present to the past. We don't get caught back up until ep4. The Budapest mission becomes Buda-bust. Something is terribly wrong. The rest of the series will be devoted to up-ending things that have ‘turned’, as many things have started to go the wrong way.
Kim Tae-Hee (Welcome to Samdal-ri, 99 days with the Superstar-7) is The Girl, Choi Seung-Hee (SHee). She totally shoots ‘like a gurl’, but she is beautiful and capable. They meet on the first day of college; she's smarter than he - sort of. He wows her with his photographic memory. She out-drinks him. He wakes up alone… She isn't in class... He's ghosted. He learns from the prof that SHee was just auditing at the request of the DOD. In the last third of the show SHee changes, becomes frumpier, and gets alittle irritating. I believe that is designed as a plot device to make her less attractive, but it doesn't play well.
Jeong Jun-Ho (SKY Castle, The Tale of Nokdu) is Hyeon-Jun's buddy, Jin Sa-Woo. He meets SHee somewhere else and also falls for her instantly. The guys don't know they've fallen for the same girl. As it turns out, she's no ordinary girl and she's a much harder 'get' than either of them realize.
Kim Seung-Woo (Basics of Love, Their Embrace, Late Night Restaurant, 71: Into the Fire) is NK agent Park Cheol-Yeong, and he's a fabulous presence. Kim So-Yeon is NK agent/sniper, Kim Sun-Hwa. She has the look, hair, and gravitas to play a badass agent anytime, anywhere. By the end of the show I preferred her. Maybe it's the hair... Other successful roles for Ms Kim are Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938, Two Weeks, and The Penthouse series. The directors are Yang Yun-Ho (Grand Prix, Criminal Minds) and Kim Kyu-Tae (Our Blues, That Winter, The Wind Blows-7). There's 3 writers: Kim Hyun-Joon (Secret Royal Inspector & Joy, Ho-Gu's Love-7.4), Jo Kyu-Won (Different Dreams), & Kim Jae-Eun (Korean Ghost Stories & Bad Boy).
You might think the training is extreme. I've read about Korean congressman fainting from intensive training /videos/ in the last part of the 20th. (Apparently, politicians aren't built for sacrifice, pain-for-gain, or inner strength anywhere in the world). Iris is superb through 16 episodes. As there's an excess of Kdramas that start out great but unravel before ep10, that is commendable. What's wrong is that Iris just had to be 20 episodes long, and eps 17-20 feel tacked-on. They aren't nearly as good.
Let's deal with eps 1-16 first. The budget was in excess of 40 billion won (US$34.97 million) and it shows. One thing that stood out is that communist agents look the same on film whether they're Korean, East German, or Russian: Straight-laced, severe black garb, cheerless. (If you want the full flavor of living in a surveillance-laden, clamped-down, cheerless society, watch Chernobyl-10). There's excellent writing, acting, and directing that make a near perfect spy thriller. It is one of the most Hollywood-feeling K-features I've seen. The cadence is perfect: They have 20hrs; they can take their time, but it's not slow. The second unit didn't cut any of their film school classes - the action is exciting. I would not hesitate to confidently recommend this to the action hounds in my sphere. In fact I did recommend it to my niece when I was on ep8. She ended up finishing it before me and came at me demanding answers. Whoops! Knowing what I know now, I still would recommend it - but I would slap a warning label on it.
Maintaining integrity is one of the themes. "He could become a monster." "I fear whether we will become monsters, in the end," we hear. But then there's this: "A man who lets his conscience or sense of responsibility weaken his ambition can never achieve anything." So says one of the brass at the agency. Sounds like a lofty statement to cover sleazy undertakings. Hyun-Jun loses his way for a time & makes a directional change that hurts. There are understandable temptations, and he was misled, but it's still a difficult pill to chew on.
In the aftermath of 911, the way the CIA operates came under discussion. Some wanted to cut ties with any slimy characters while others argued that in the world of intelligence, agents, assets, and the pay-for-info crowd, that is all there is. One can't deal in trading classified information without brushing up on slime. In Iris, the world of secret agents gets convoluted. Around the midpoint we have two agencies working against eachother. The supposed “good guys" have an agent who's actually trying to facilitate the nuclear attack, while the “bad guys” have a guy who's working at stopping it. Who are the good and bad guys? It gets muddy. It depends on the way the wind is blowing on certain days. The mid eps through ep16 are crazy CRAZY good.
Another theme is the shadow power behind the power. Yep, another conspiracy piece. Conspiracy theories are a blast. They can't all be true, but it's naive to think there are NO conspiracies in the world. That's not the nature of power. I, pretty much, believe that politics is a big distraction, and that we effectively have the illusion of choice. The money and effort we put into political leaders, who don't deserve our love or respect, would be better spent elsewhere. They're all good at pointing out problems. Oh, how they excel at that. It's solutions (actual ones, not words) that give them trouble. The only thing politics has accomplished in the last 40 years is that we all hate eachother. Having said that, don't skip the show's quote at the end of this article.
The soundtrack is excellent. It ranges from instrumental, to rap, to Kpop. Dreaming Dream (Kim Tae Woo) is VG. Their trip to Japan is just wonderful and romantic. He gets in trouble for not remembering "White Day". On March 14, in Korea, men are expected to show appreciation for the chocolates they received on Valentine's Day by giving women candy. SHee expects candy. Hyun-Jun is from Mars, so he doesn't get what the fuss is about. There's quite a few more people with tans in this show than the average bleached out Kdrama. Unfortunately, most of them don't end up in a great place. East Asia needs to rethink their shallow skin color preferences and diversify more. Ditto for the rest of the world.
Eps1-16 are as good as it gets. Now for the last 4 eps. This show would probably have been perfect at 16 episodes. Ep17 is sort of a pause, recap, and flashback episode. Okay... The main plot did just have a conclusion of sorts. The last 3 eps aren't /bad/ (perhaps they are, slightly), but they feel tangential. They definitely don't augment the show - they bring it down a notch. I rate eps1-16 at 8.6, for example. S2 sees a big drop in the ratings and eps17-20 give us a preview of the decline. The 2nd half of ep20 is really good. BUT, with 5min to go, something feels ominous...
My word of warning to all is: Consider stopping at the end of ep16. I doubt anyone will heed my warning, but there it is.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝8 🎭8.5 💓7🦋7 🎨7.5 🎵/🔊7.4 🔚6 ♦ 🌞3 ⚡8 😅2 😭5 😱5 😯3.5 😖4 🤔4.3 💤0
Poli-wagging - 2/10. The NK agents are humans in a difficult place. The REAL DEVIL is the Japanese agent. What 2 countries in this world have the worst opinion of Japan? Korea and China, based on some brutal history that won't be overlooked any time soon.
Age 14+ violence, sexual situations
Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
Re-📺? Name, rank, and serial number only
QUOTE📢 In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. ~Franklin Roosevelt~
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Mad For Each Other-7.8 ~silly fun;
Crazy Love-7.8;
Love to Hate You-8.9;
Romance is a bonus book-7.9;
Crash Landing On You-9.1;
Oh My Ghost-10;
Private Lives-8.1;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9;
Love Struck in the City-7.3;
When the Camellia Blooms-8;
K2-8
Tunnel-8.1;
Signal 8.6; Sisyphus-8
My Mister-9.5;
The King's Affection-8.3;
Mr. Sunshine-9
Squid Game-8.4;
Kingdom-8.3;
Flower of Evil-8.9;
D. P.-8.4,
The Man from Nowhere-8.9;
The Cursed-8.3;
Black-9
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♟️ Tails, we win ♨️ Now Pay the Tab °8.7° °Outstanding°
I'm a rock. Go ahead and sear me. I won't budge an inch because I'm a rock. Go ahead and beat me up. I'm solid rock. Go ahead and leave me in darkness. I'm a rock that shines all alone. I don't break, ash, nor decay as I go against nature's way. I survive. I'm... I'm the diamond.IC is the story of a man on a mission. Park “Sae” Ro Yi has been cruelly abused and tossed in the trash bin. He makes it his goal to beat his enemies at their own game ~ He's the /tenacious/ type. He has a 15 year plan. Ain't nothing gonna turn his head to the right or the left. He will not bow to anyone - his knees don't work that way… Until she changes everything.
Smack dab in the middle of Seoul, Itaewon is one of the wealthiest streets in one of its wealthiest sections. IC, which takes place there, is a 2020 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute episodes. There's 3 whole episodes of set up, & in ep4 things start to roll. And it's magnificent. It's rough: Business is a snake pit. It's a satisfying watch, and in the latter episodes, when so many features resort to padding, bad writing, and a general overall dip in quality, IC sprouts wings (and claws) as it becomes stronger and more forceful, with newfound depths. It opens to a counselling session.
Park Seo Joon (Gyeongseong Creature, Kill Me, Heal Me, Midnight Runners) is our ML, Park “Sae” Ro Yi. He looks completely different with that hair~squared. In What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8, he's quite beautiful (WWWSk has an excellent cast, excellent interaction and many wonderful moments, but suffers from the occasional directing and writing miss). In IC, he's more rugged. He's manly. He's controlled on the surface & seething underneath, while exuding pain from every pore of his body. He's a star for a reason. In IC he gets to show his gravitas. He has scores to settle with Chm Jang & his son Geun Won. He decides to start a pub across the street from theirs and beat them at their own game. The Chm will not allow him to survive.
Kim Da Mi (Our Beloved Summer, The Witch: Part 1 The Subversion-7.6) is one of the best characters anywhere, ever, Jo Yi Seo. She's got a dangerously high IQ and a dangerous amount of snark. She's been described as a psychopath. She's the type of girl to decide her future with the flip of a coin. “If it's heads, I'll live the life my mom wants. If it's tails, my mom will cry…” She decides to work instead of going to school: She's matriculated in the Itaewon Class. As the show goes on, her part gets better and better and better and better. She's Omazing. Sae has never once disappointed her. She's decided she really likes him. “I'll kill everyone who's been bothering him.” She declares for team Sae. He should be very frightened, but he just doesn't know it yet.
Kwon Na Ra (Suspicious Partner, My Mister-9.5) portrays Oh Soo Ah. I've only noticed her in Bulgasal: Immortal Souls-6.1, which should have been better, but its problems didn't emanate from her. Yoo Jae Myung (Stranger, Prison Playbook, Portrait of a Family) plays chairman Jang Dae Hee. He's horrid, but his backstory is heartbreaking. He was the oldest of 4 and lost all his siblings to the food shortage and poverty. That's a dark part of Korea's history that is mentioned in features every now and then. (Uncle Samsik-8.4 uses it as a more central theme. The very name Samsik means to eat 3 meals a day and he got his power by first feeding the hungry people). His part seems like he's just a typical 2D psychopathic CEO and derelict father, but his character takes on extra dimensions in the double digit episodes. It's quite moving. He does a press conference in ep10 and his performance Is stunning.
Ahn Bo Hyun is the chairman's spoiled son, Jang Geun Won. He's so good at playing a jerk that you wouldn't know how adorable he can be if you haven't seen some of his other stuff. In Flex X Cop-8.5, he's cheerful and irrepressible. In Her Private Life-8, he's earnest and determined. In My Only Love Song-8.7, a comedy I adore and have watched a couple times, he plays the big silent type. I've also seen him in Descendants of the Sun-8.3, My Runway-7.5, and the subpar My Name-5.7. He's completely different in everything, so he's as versatile as he is good looking - and he /is/ a specimen. This is the first time I've seen him play a loathsome bully, and he is thoroughly loathsome. He only ends up serving as a great motivator.
Kim Dong Hee (A-Teen, Extracurricular) is Jang Geun Soo, a part-timer who has a relationship with the Chairman. He makes a very disappointing decision. As the show went on his acting skills failed to impress, but it could be the role he had to play. Lee Joo Young (Something in the Rain-8.6, Times) plays Ma Hyun, the DanBam Chef who is dealing with major changes. Her character is a lovely human being. Hey, not everyone is going to agree on everything all the time. I mean, 4% of people don't like ice cream. We do, however, have a moral obligation to treat every human being with kindness, dignity, respect, and care.
IC gets the award: It's the first Kdrama I've seen to feature an actor with skin browner than a paper bag. Chris Lyon, who is of obvious African ancestry, plays Kim Toni, a DanBam part-timer. He also sings and plays guitar. He's an American born actor who made friends with some Korean exchange students, visited Korea, and that led to some acting and music gigs. He hasn't gotten alot of work yet. He should. He's wonderful and projects a sense of genuine warmth and care. The comely Park Bo Gum (Record of Youth-5.8, Reply 1988-8.6) makes a guest appearance. Cho Kwang Jin (Cabriolet, Roppongi Class) is the screenwriter, and the directors are Kang Min Gu (May It Please the Court) & Kim Seong Yoon Young (Actors' Retreat). Good team.
IC is great drama, really good romance, and an overall philosophical treatise on pride, revenge, success, and what is really worth living for. The theme is: Happiness. “Beliefs. Ambition. They're words used by those who have nothing but their ego. If you gain nothing, that's just being stubborn and foolish,” says the most morally degenerate character of the show. But, wait a minute, let's define GAIN first, before we sign on to any philosophy. Is successful revenge GAIN? Sae thinks so for most of the show. Living a life based on hatred is really difficult, we learn. Sae tries to live a life motivated by hate and revenge, all while maintaining his moral principles. He keeps it up for a long time but finally must let it go. He finds he's lost nothing.
Leadership style is a theme. One Chairman asks an employee why s/he continued to devotedly work for a hated boss? “It's servility,” the Chairman explains to the blank stare facing him. “You've been tamed to my taste. I pressure everyone around me with the power to tame them like that. It's easy to control them, and I despise them.” The Chairman is held up in direct contrast to Sae, who elevates everyone around him except for the slobs he's trying to bring down. Sae picks up nobodies and takes them to the top WITH him.
Pride is a theme in most Kdramas. ‘It's about The Company.’ ‘The COMPANY provides for my family.’ ‘Ultimately it's about my FAMILY,’ we hear. No.it.isn't. It's about pride. These are the utterances of a person who is probably genuinely self deceived. Speaking of pride, that's what's up between Sae and the Chairman. “Will life be better if I get on my knees?” Sae is fed up. “Why is everybody obsessed with putting me on my knees?” Pride: It always lies. It's what makes us lie to ourselves. ‘Bow to me,’ Sae hears every few episodes. (What does that even do other than provide a temporary illicit thrill?) In the end, Sae understands what's really important. Then, nothing else matters. It's important to maintain dignity, but pride never does anyone any good; it's only a roadblock to living free.
“I'm nothing as bad as /that/ person... There are people going through /worse/… I should be grateful… Do you know what sympathy is? It is this wasteful emotion where you look down on someone and get comfort from it.” There's a gem from Yi Seo, who can be hard and cold. She's analytical, not touchy-feely. Sae is a caring mush and rigidly principled, which is contrasted with Yi Seo, a pragmatic utilitarian. Life is about balancing both sides: Both feelings and logic must be present, and balanced, or we fall into error. Her interactions with Seo transform Yi Seo because she is not only smart, she is wise. She quickly understands what true fulfillment is.
Yi Seo and the Chairman are contrasted. If she hadn't ended up falling for Sae she would have been /worse/ than the Chairman, who had the blessing of Sae's dad but learned nothing, and just took advantage. Wise Yi Seo chose a better life over mere financial gain. She ended up with all of it, but she chose the right path first; the rest followed.
“You can't gain anything with your conscience,” says Chairdad. Bad dad = bad son. A man with all the wrong values ended up raising a destructive monster. No surprise. “Everyone is just born evil. You know the evil nature principle. The theory that human nature is fundamentally evil. But if people stick to their instincts, society will collapse. That's why people repress themselves with manners, consideration, morals, and the law. Repression? It's stress.” Now that's a tantalizing quote. Hmmmm. Theologians would point out, about now, that we are born in the image of God, but we are fallen. Therefore, we know what is right in our hearts, but we are, tragically, unable to do it on a consistent basis. It's a subject worth giving thought to. Doing the right thing is never the easy thing, but it shouldn't cause undo stress. I would avoid anyone who claims it does. Speaking of evil, sometimes it's a matter of opportunity. Rich people do heinous things because they /can/.
IC isn't perfect, but it isn't far from it. One character pulls an Anakin Skywalker and goes too evil too easily. Yes, it's sad, but it's also cack-handed. They should have built up to it better. There's no dead zones or padding. I don't have many criticisms.
There's oodles of tasty treats, though. They serve chicken, and they can play chicken. Watch and see. Two women are vying for a man. One really loves the guy while the other seems to love the attention and sense of importance and control she feels from his devotion. The first girl puts everything into her love, while the 2nd woman never put an iota of effort in. Only one of them is worthy of his love. Sae happens, unexpectedly, to be out together with these 2 women, though he's unaware of anything when it comes to love and sex. When he leaves the table they have a riveting discussion. It's unforgettable. There's laughs and good cheer. Sae is actually pretty funny, he's such a rigid dunderhead in some ways. “What don't you like about me?” Geun Won thinks he can win over Yi Seo. Her answer: “Let me see… Your face, the way you talk, your voice, your pupils, teeth, eyelashes, pupils… Did I say that already? I don't like anything about you…” She is totally self-actualized, until Sae… “What's going on? Are you sure you're okay?” 🤣 Yi Seo doesn't have the answer for once. The soundtrack is GRADE A. Soft guitar and vocals augment the scenes with an almost indie vibe.
They give us a satisfying wrap up, something missing from too many Kdramas, though recently, that bad trend is dying out. At the end of all the years and all the junk, we learn: He who bows last bows most. So don't start the bowing game and make enemies in the first place! Live in peace, because “Living is a difficult thing to do”.
QUOTE📢
You have no right to determine my value… I'll do anything I need to… My life has just begun
Everyone makes mistakes. But not everybody takes responsibility, only the brave can do that.
Life is repetitive, you know… And it's predictable.
I'm doing it now… I'm not going with you… I have a date.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.6 📝8.8 🎭9 💓8 🦋5 🎨7.5 🎵/🔊8.5 🔚9 🤗8 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡5 😅3 😭5.5 😱3 😯4.5 🤢4 🤔7 💤0
Shazams: Still Fighting It by Lee Chan Sol & Kang Kyoung Yoon, & Say by YOON MIRAE
Age 14+ violence
Language: There are scattered occurrences of @$$h0le, SOB, F💣s -
The benefits far surpass the liabilities
Rated TV-15
Re-📺? Must
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
The one you love is right in front of you:
Crazy Love-7.8,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9,
Something in the Rain-8.6.
Modern Day -
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Cheese in the Trap-7.7,
Mine-8,
My Mister 9.5,
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡️/🛸 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Why Her?-8,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
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✒MK Ultra ⚗ Korea Edition °8.7° °Excellent°
“If you take one more step, you will see something so terrible that you will never forget it.” Too late, I'm pretty much there. DANGIDY DANG. This show is good. It's the watch that can't be wrong. 🅰 is a 2020 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute episodes.↪Wakey💥wakey↩
28 years ago, under a burning orange conflagration, it opens. There's fire, mayhem, & bodies, strewn everywhere. A boy wanders through the chaos appearing oblivious to the carnage. White Night Village is no more. “I did this...” the boy declares. “I have partial amnesia just like you. All I know is something terrible happened there,” we later hear from a survivor.
The next scene is current day insanity involving 3 box trucks and a police chase. Apparently, some nefarious unknown tipster (“The Architect”) has been auguring about what's about to go down. He appears to be behind a series of 17 robberies. The robberies are funding his next endeavor: Murder. Someone's going to die at a party at a nightclub tonight, the note reads. The police aren't able to stop that, either. Is it murder, though? These guys are killing themselves. They weren't suicidal, and they're killing themselves in very strange ways, often by the method most frightening them, personally. Oh, and there's the warning notes. The deaths always follow the cryptic missives. The police believe it's murder.
Namkoong Min (My Dearest) is Do Jung “Woo”. “I see a deep darkness in your eyes,” one cellie opines. He assumed he was talking to another criminal. Woo is a police officer, he's just a little different. He likes to catch a nap in the holding cells every now and then. I haven't seen this actor before. I want to watch something else he's been in to see if he sports that I'm-cool-slouch all the time or not. Someone get this guy a good dentist! He must go through a dozen 🍭 a day. (With Supt. Do around, the bad guys will all be licked). Strangest of all, when Woo causes trouble, why does the General Secretary of the Blue House get involved? Woo is associated with the #113. K-writers don't randomly assign ###; there's always a deeper meaning. 113 is associated with progress, optimism, communication, personal freedom, curiosity, intelligence, adventure, self-determination, sensuality, and self-reliance.
Lee Chung Ah (Because This Is My First Life-7.7, Celebrity, Northern Limit Line) plays the OCD afflicted Jamie Leighton, a special investigator/criminal scientist from 🇺🇲 If you aren't used to East Asian programming, it's common for them to feature people, supposedly from 🇺🇲 who clearly speak with a heavy accent. Her English is completely unconvincing, but that's a minor thing to have to ride along with. She suspects Woo immediately. His intuition is so good that he's more likely to be the culprit. Woo says: ‘Rightbackatcha, babe. That's just what I was thinking about you.’ It's obvious they are drawn to e/o as well, though not on a conscious level at first. On top of that, they each have lost memories from childhood, they are both orphans, and they each have a darkness inside of them. Her # is 114, which extends to family, Independence, exploration, focus, harmony & self-reliance.
Kim Seol Hyun (Summer Strike, My Country: The New Age) portrays Gong Hye Won, one @$$-kickin girl. I love her. She loves Woo, & she actively resists this truth. When she starts to suspect him, she has a conversation with her father, who replies, “We can never truly understand the minds of people… You can't truly know someone, so believe what you want to believe. People's hearts can't be fixed. It's not like your heart does exactly what you tell it to do. Based on every decision we make, everything keeps changing. When people say that everything in life changes, I don't think that it only applies to good things. Even bad things change. If you believe in someone, that can turn a bad man into a good man.” The more I think about that, particularly in the context, the more interesting it gets. The first half of the statement is shown to be entirely true in 🅰, the rest, only partially so. Yoon Sun Woo (Hot Stove League, Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart) plays Ryeo Moon Jae Woong/127, a # associated with great intelligence, Exploration, Self-determination, Independence, Self-reliance & Teamwork. He goes through lots of changes and the actor handles them well. Kim Won Hae (Revenant, Black-9, Signal-8.6, Sunny, and so much more) gets to play angry police brass - Deputy Chief Hwang Byeong Chul. I'm a fan. I don't believe I've ever seen him rant on screen before. It was a new look. Baek Ji Won (Be Melodramatic-8.7, Mad for Each Other-7.7, Dream) is Lee Taek Jo, Info Mgmt Director. She gets lots of work because she's good as a strong career woman - not the type to be trifled with. Choi Dae Chul (Ssanahui Sunjeong, Vagabond-8, Inspector Koo-8.4) plays one of the cops. He impressed me enormously in The Golden Spoon-8.1. Lee Shin Young, the pretty boy from Crash Landing on You-9.1, is also on the squad as Ofr Jang Ji Wan.
Choi Jin Ho (The Heirs-7.3, Beyond Evil-7.4) is Son Min Ho. He usually doesn't play a good guy, so it's no surprise he's a big baddie here. Kim Tae Woo is the high level government official of the series, Oh Jung Hwan. He improves every production he's in: He's so SO good. I've seen him in That Winter, the Wind Blows-7, Black-9, The Spies Who Loved Me-4.5, Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9 & Mr. Queen-9. He always impresses. Ahn Shi Ha (The King: Eternal Monarch-8, Longing for You) plays Ms labcoat, Jo Hyun Hee. Well. She's creepy. The actress indwells her roll to the point of the viewer's unease They actually seem to blacken her eyes in some scenes to make them look like black holes. In ep14 as it closes, she shows up in a vampire red coat. It's super-duper icky. I think it's a law in Korea that Woo Hyun appear in ½ of the shows made. He plays Jung Soon Gu here. The directors are Jo Soo Won (Pinocchio, Doctor John) and Lee Soo Hyun (Sh**ting Stars). The screenwriter is Shin Yoo Dam of Marry My Husband-7.5.
One theme is that it's the quiet ones you need to watch the most, but the main theme is that we cannot trust powerful people. Power invites corruption and a feeling of superiority. The rules don't apply to superior people, do they? This goes double for politics. The powerful have a discussion on how to distract the public from the truth: “Get this off the trending news and pull down the blinds!” “Then, even fools will know that something is off. If all the information they were reading disappears, it will backfire and they'll become obsessed with it. We are currently managing all the posts on active online forums. It's important to make them think that they're seeing everything. We'll gradually take the related items off. Once they are off the list, we'll make sure no one can access them online. We can distract the people without making it look so obvious… Making this story disappear should be easy. There's so much else to see.” And the show is titled: Awaken. A work of fiction? Not all of it. History is riddled with stories (and proof) of heinous corporate and government programs. We'd like to think that's all in the past, but is that truly the nature of people and power? Ask some Africans. They will tell you illegal drug testing on children is a regular occurrence there, they firmly believe.
I grew up firmly believing the 🇺🇸 was a force for good in the world and people are basically decent. I'm not convinced anymore, though. Most people have a sense of decency, but too many don't. The world is full of sociopaths, psychopaths and damaged individuals who hurt others. I'm currently undergoing a serious reevaluation of how I see government and the world. There's so many rumors, reports, and recollections like the ones in this show. People also love attention and love a good story - they'll lie for attention. It really is difficult to sort it out. “Ominous feelings are never wrong,” the show reminds us. The world feels ominous.
🅰 goes even deeper, right into lucid dreams: Believing dreams are real and reality is a dream. Is the author trying to tell us something? “Dreams were meant to be achieved,“ we hear from one of the most coldly /eee-ville/ players. The kids escape the island by using lucid dreams. By causing the adults to believe they were dreaming they opined that some adults would actually want to let the kids go, that they would know what was happening to the kids was wrong and actually help them ~ in their /dreams/ at least. But these adults had let themselves become so depraved, they'd forgotten about the kids long ago! What they were concerned about was resentment and hatred over their own hurt pride. When they thought they were dreaming, they started attacking eachother! It's a very interesting look at the evil side of human nature. It doesn't feel like fiction.
From science and physics and dreams, how can we leave out faith? “Faith is deemed unscientific. But the question is what separates the scientific from the non-scientific? In 1814, Laplace said that if someone could determine the location and momentum of every atom, using physics, they'd explain everything that happened in the past, what is happening at the present, and what will happen in the future. The areas which most people deem unscientific are considered to be within a realm of science to the people who realize this. That's why I'm going to take a scientific approach.” 🅰 covers it all, primordial soup to lollipops.
There aren't many survivors of the fated inferno that wiped out the facility 28 years back. Woo meets one who is in dire need of medical treatment. “I'd rather die than have them take me back,” she moans. The underlying premise of the show is heartbreaking. One of these poor, lost children decides to be an enforcer for his oppressors when he's older. He's decided to side with power; what he thinks is the winning side. “You decided to become their hunting dog,” Woo accuses. 99 is associated with this person and corresponds with humanitarianism, compassion idealism & tolerance. Will this person change course? He's become a plantation overseer. Unfortunately, this mentality is too common for weak and selfish minded individuals. If we all stood up together against evil, it wouldn't have a chance. Weak decision makers like this are those who enable evil. “You gave up seeing right and wrong. Who's going to respect that?” Our ML doesn't parse words.
When 2 individuals with a combined IQ north of 350 have a conversation, we might learn a new word or two. 🅰 teaches us a great new word: floccinaucinihilipilification, which is the estimation of something as worthless & making something worthless by evaluating it as such. For u word geeks out there: “floc·ci·nau·ci·ni·hil·i·pil·i·fi·’ca·tion” or “floxy noxy nih hill ih pill ih fih ‘cay shun”. I can't wait for the chance to use it! There's some laughs, though probably not enough. They have typical fun with typical jokes about the ME and the autopsy room. “Can we disregard rank for a moment?” Woo’s underling wants to know. Then she slugs him😅. There's a love story tucked in there. It's beautiful.
🅰 isn't beautiful, but it's deep, layered, and meaningful programming - the good programming meant to counter the bad programming. I recommend a heavy dose.
QUOTE📢
Death is the only thing that's fair to everyone.
Once you decide you're going to lose you don't get mad at anything, anymore.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝9 🎭8.5 💓6 🦋🎨7.5 🎵/🔊8.4 🔚8 🤗6 ▪ 🌞3 ⚡6.8 😅3 😭5 😱8 😯3.5 🤢5 🤔10 💤0
Age 16+ The subject matter is very serious and could be disturbing, especially for kids.
Rated TV-15
Re-📺? All-in
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
💘:
Mad For Each Other-7.7,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Law School -8,
Anna-8.1,
My Mister 9.5
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Big Mouth-7.4,
K2 8,
Han River Police-7.4,
Private Lives 8.1,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Sisyphus 8,
Beyond Evil-7.4,
Tunnel 8.5,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Signal 8.6,
Why Her?-8,
Mine-8,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Mother-8.8,
Iris-8,
Parasite-9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
Dark government programs -
🇺🇲:
Zoolander,
Stranger Things-8.6 (S1-3)
Split-7.8
Gattaca
Altered Carbon S1-9
🇯🇵:
Assassination Classroom-9
Psycho Pass-8.6
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