❣ She Got the Chance ❣ To Live Like She Was Dying ❣ °7.8° °VG+°
Even if you aren't a country fan, the song, Live Like You Were Dying, contains universal human truths. The singer meets a stranger. It goes alittle something like this ▫▫>🎶▪ He said: I was in my early forties ▫ w/ a lot of life before me ▫ When a moment came that stopped me on a dime ▫ I spent most of the next days ▫ Looking at the x-rays ▫ & talkin' 'bout sweet time ▪ I asked him: How's it hit you ▫ When you get that kind of news? ▫ Man, what'd you do?" ▪ & he said: I went skydiving ▫ I went Rocky Mountain climbing ▫ I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu…
❣ & I loved deeper ❣ & I spoke sweeter ❣ & I gave forgiveness I'd been denying ▫ I was finally the husband ▫ That most of the time I wasn't ▫ & I became a friend a friend would like to have ▫ Well I, I finally read the Good Book, & I ▫ Took a good, long, hard look ▫ At what I'd do if I could do it all again
❣ Someday I hope you get the chance ❣ To live like you were dying ❣ 🎶
CL goes alittle like that as well. Our FL Shin-a, is in a similar situation.
🎶 ▪ How’d it hit Shin-a ▪ When she got that kind of news? ▪ Man, what'd she do? ▪ She went social climbing ▫ She did some crazy driving ▫ She hole-punched the h3!! out his seven favorite suits ▫ (& she said: I'm not dying this way…) ▫ She chopped up his cacti & ▫ Force-fed him fish fry ▫ & pelted onions at his head to boot
❣ But it only led to: ❣ She loved deeper ❣ & she spoke sweeter ❣ & she gave forgiveness she'd been denying…❣ 🎶
Lee Shin-a works for a horrible boss. Noh Go-Jin could be described as coldly cruel but he's actually highly intelligent & hopelessly left-brained. Feelings? Nonsense. It translates to his being intolerant of incompetence. But next to him, /everybody's/ incompetent. His genius has no equal & it's gone straight to his ego. (He's such a heartbreakerrrr - trill those R's!) Shin-a failed her teacher's audition at Noh's academy. Those who don't make the cut get the “honor” of being Chairman Noh's personal secretary. It's the company's way of getting them to quit. Nobody has made it more than 3 mos. She has endured 12 months. Shin-a/needs/ this job. She'll endure b/c VP Oh Se-Gi gives her regular doses of positive re-endorphins. When she's at her lowest from Noh's worse, VP Oh always picks her back up. He's the best.
Ep1 sets up Shin-a's horrible situation. She gets particularly bad news from the doctor. Those headaches? That is a brain tumor. She's going to die. Yes, severe stress can open the gates for cancer to take hold. She's likely dying from stress. Noh, that rat-b@$+@rd, is killing her. Shin-a decides she ain't going out alone. Just like the (rightfully) disgruntled ex-employees of Noh, she will make sure he gets what he has coming. It's HAMMER TIME! Enacting her plan leads to a crazy ⛓ of events, & Shin-a is in the right frame of mind to step off a cliff to see if she can fly.
“Try harder to remember. You MUST remember!” Bedside at the 🏨, e’erbody thinks she's pleading out of 💘 for him, but in reality, she desperately wants Noh to remember how she stood up to him before his accident. “No way I'm dying like this.” She won't be able to die in peace unless he remembers that she clobbered him & then quit. Good old amnesia is an overdone Kdrama trope. Here, they borrow from the excellent comedy, Overboard. Shin-a claims they were secretly engaged prior to the accident. The interesting thing about amnesia is that when people forget all of their past bad choices & the previous offenses they've suffered, they forget to be miserable. They totally forget to be @$$h0!e$. Ignorance truly is bliss. Shin-a remembers it all, though. She decides the best thing to do, as she waits for the cancer to take her, is to take him through He!!. Vengeance is HERS.
Noh, in the meantime, hasn't thought of being mean. He may not remember his “fiance”, but he certainly grows used to having Shin-a around. She's going behind his back setting up expensive company dinners (you all deserve beef! Make sure to use all your vacation time before the end of the year… & start leaving on time!). It's not easy being mean, at least it's not easy being mean to someone who is always nice, & Noh is always nice, anymore. She knows the doctor expects a full recovery. When this genius (IQ 190) finds out what she's done, what will happen? In addition, Noh may be new & improved now, but his enemies don't know that. His enemies don't care; & he's made a lot of enemies.
Several characters have to show personality shifts & hidden sides. This isn't a serious show, but the acting is still quite good. Krystal (Heirs7.3, Bride of Habaek7) is excellent at putting on some antics, esp in one scene that would flop w/ most actor/writer/director combos, but they make it work. I cringed in anticipation of pain when she started ranting, but I ended up grinning, & fairly relieved. They could have done alittle bit better w/ fleshing out her character, though. What is her passion? Why did she fail the audition? How smart & capable is she? How hard has she worked to get to where she is? Getting more personal w/ her would help the audience relate to her more. She remains a tad distant from us, emotionally. That is the writing & directing - Krystal is great.
Kim Jae-Wook (Her Private Life-8) is Noh. HPL was a big surprise for me. The premise sounds like a low IQ show, but it's actually wonderful fun. Now that I'm getting a 2nd look at Mr. Kim, it's obvious that he is quite talented. His comedic timing is excellent. He sells his character both as an insufferably toxic narcissist & as an innocent, confused amnesiac. He can dance! In ep8 he puts on a show! Ha-Joon plays VP Oh. He's completely different as a teacher in Black Dog-8. Ko Kyu-Pil (Crash Landing on You-9, The King's Affection-8) is a PI. He's clearly having a great time. He's funny.
CL is VG & it narrowly misses excellent marks. Given that this is a new director/Kim Jung-Hyun & writer/Kim Bo-Gyeom I am very excited to see what they do next. I think we have some winners here. Overall, the romance is VG, but it could have been even better. This probably goes back to the fact that we don't know Shin-a as well as we should. They share a great first kiss. He lies to himself about what he does to keep her by his side. She's oblivious to what's going on in his head, as she's been keeping her head down & just moving forward.
They run into some small logical stutters. Nothing too ‘crazy’. Some of the drama in the later eps is a bit ham-handed, but again, it's not too ‘crazy’. The show isn't intended for anything but fun escapism, & it shouldn't be over-analyzed. The good by far overshines the substandard. They end up providing enough plausibility for ?s that arise. The director is skillful in handling the part of Baek Soo-Young, Noh's ex. In the beginning of the show she seems impossibly beautiful. As the show goes on she looks less so. Her clothes don't fit her right & the makeup & camera work are less complimentary. Woody Allen did the same thing w/ Scarlett Johansen in Match Point. Is it stretching to think their names are an English language pun? His name sounds like “No-go Shin”. It's close. She's definitely decided to “go” & the doctor told her, unfortunately, that soon she'll be go-ing, but he's there, & his name says “No-Go”. ‘No-Go-Shin’.
CL is plenty funny, She hates him. She really hates him. She hates him so much. So why is she sad? She turns on the TV to forget him, & there's his commercial: "Make your decision NOW.” He's pointing thru the screen at her! While everyone around her assumes the opposite of what is true, the overhead camera will look down at her face from a side angle & her eyes will tilt up sideways as she's lying. She often comments that way to the camera directly. Then he starts doing it in later eps. It's skillfully played for laughs. By mid show I became a fan of the director. The little things add up to something bigger.
CL features a horrible boss b/c that isn't exactly a rare thing. A horrible boss is almost always a person caught up in h/h own power. It's an offshoot of pride. Psychology teaches that people who get ahead tend to presume they deserve it, which leads to them assuming that those beneath them are truly °beneath° them & deserve to be so. These things aren't mysterious. Everyone knows that power is corrupting, yet nobody ever sees their own corruption. Pride is the worst liar & we are blind to our own stuff. Practice kindness: It takes determined effort.
Also featured is online gang mentality. Tech allows us each a voice. That is power. Virtual pitchforks are no different than horrible bosses. We should be slow to judge & be constructive when we criticize. CL's online lynching leads to a suicide attempt; a particular problem in 🇰🇷 (highest rate in the developed world). We have too much of it in 🇺🇸, too. People will take that pain & go the other way as well, becoming abusers themselves. If you want to live w/ a free conscience, then practice kindness. It costs you 🅾.
The wrap-up is excellent. They tied & trimmed all the 🎀. “Life can be shorter than we think it should be. If you're sorry, say you're sorry. If you're thankful, say you're thankful. Try something again. You never know.” At one point Shin-a's anger abates. She reflects on life & what is most important as she is preparing for her final exit. She decides to forgive & release her rage. She realizes that all humans are merely flawed humans. In the end, crazy love made her sane again. 💘, afterall, is the answer.
QUOTE📢
I've been ignorant. I had no idea those in my life were precious. & so, I've never appreciated them at all.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.8 📝7.6 🎭7.9 💓6.7 🦋6 🌞6 🎨7.4 ⚡4 🎵/🔊7 😅7 😭3.5 😱3 😯2 😖3 🤔4.8 💤0 🔚8
Age 14+ PG-13 Language An unmarried couple is pressured to have a baby.
Re-📺? 👍🏽
Funny shows:
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Flex X Cop-8.5,
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This review may contain spoilers
Family Marriage & Sex In The City Seoul °7.7° °VG°
Boo-hoo, Ji-hoo❕We meet her when she's face-to-face with complete failure; a bona fide low point.
Raised by a patri-to❌ic father & a sympathetic-on-the-sly mom, she needs relief now. What she getz is this: Though she's a talented script writer, the TV station wants to credit her work to a known entity, in order to boost viewership. She needs fair recognition NW.
She lives with her brother. /She/ paid the depo$it / mainten-cent$ / expen$e$ / replaced appliance$ & more↗. While she was mandatorily sequestered at writer #1's office crunchin a deadline, her brother married his preggos GF. Nobody told Ji-hoo that GF-now-the-Mrs has moved in. Upon her return, when she innocently poked her head into her brother's room to say 'hi', Ji-hoo found ☢ut the hard-☹-way. Given that 🗻Dad🗻 is thrilled that Ji-hoo is about to be an aunt - the aunt of a #nephew (IT'S A B✨Y!!), she knows it's Game Over. There will be no getting that won back. She needs =equality=]> RIGHT N✴W.
Even after she'd been sexually harassed at work, she was asked to "Just work with us." They won't give her equal rights N⏱W. "Your time will come. We promise." She needs a new J.O.B. N⭕W.
She quits. N✴W❗
now she can't afford her rent
She.needs.aff⚙rdable.h⚙using.n⏱w#
$he absolutely, most direly needs affordable housing tonight
Engineer Se-hee is a self-isolated loner who has trapped himself in a rigid life, devoid of joy. His only goals are to maintain his strict schedule, save up $, and pay off his home mortgage asap. Nothing is going to work out for him without a roommate, though. He ran those calculations years back. The rental income is required in order to keep his journey to financial Buelah Land on track. ⭕ of his roommates ever work out, though. He even had to call the police on the last. He needs a compatible roommate N☹W…
Right on time, here come their bands of buddies. Se-hee's friends & Ji-hoo's friends are linked thru Ho-rang (Rang) & Won-seok, who have been dating the better part of a decade. None of the women have met the men yet. Based on names alone, each gang assumes they have a perfect landlord-tenant match-up for their bud. They weren't /trying/ to create a coed dorm, which is not as acceptable in conservative K-country . Well, didn't /they/ stumble onto something??
Thus is the show's opening. Ji-hoo & Se-hee are planted within 15ft of eachother with the cat going back and forth between them as a fluffy emissary. It grows from there. As it turns out, they are very✨compatible. Se-hee's ex-roomies never came close to the competence of Ji-hoo-roomie. It's several days of co-habbing before they even meet, due to conflicting schedules. When they discover the "setup", they plan to separate. But... well… things are working out so well...
So well, in fact, that Se-hee, who works for the App: ‘Don't 'Marry, Date', pulls a reverse play & proposes! They should get married! ? !WAIT! That's wrong. He PR⛔-Posed. He wants to marry for 'Not Love'. No one will question their living situation if they do. That way, his parents won't continue nag him about marriage, plus his dad has offered to pay off his mortgage when he marries. Ji-hoo benefits as she'll have the affordable housing she needs to stay in Seoul, rather than go home to live with M&D. CEO Ma always says that 2 are better than 1. Coincidentally, Ji-hoo had just finished writing: A Dork's Love. Is she about to marry a dork?
This writer is a clever devil. Going into the real-but-fake ceremony, Jihoo's mom talks to her about love & marriage in the bridal chamber and causes Ji-hoo to S⛈B. The unfeeling, ever practical Se-hee comes looking for his missing bride and finds her in that state. He says these words to Ji-hoo: "You can't stop crying? Then, we'll go together. It's all right if you cry. Come with me. I'll stay by your side. I will be with you." Sounds like a vow; an intimate vow between the 2 of them, alone in the bride's chambers. It's not yet ♥️. It's genuine friendship & comraderie + a promise of loyalty. It's not a fake marriage. Not really.
BTIMFL sets out with a light-hearted tone~>> a couple's friends eventually meet & interest sparks. The characters are rounded off nicely. There's a generous amount of Mars & Venus (man/woman) misunderstandings. No relationship in the series is w/o static. The romance between Soo-ji and Ceo Ma is the most fun. He's a catch - he even does a musical number! She finally comes to see who he is. The side characters greatly enhance the series.
Like ♥️, BTIMFL hurts sometimes. What's unnecessarily ♥️-rending is how Ji-hoo leaves and stays away - for what looks like weeks, maybe more. While the cutting with the snappy sounds is generally a fun touch, this later sadness is resoundingly out of sync with the quirky elements. Why would she cause such unnecessary pain to Se-hee? There's a clip of her having a good old time with her friends, while his world falls apart. She knows she's returning to him, while at the same time, he's demolished by heartbreak. The viewer feels his pain.
The show became so sad that the ending didn't lift me back up. It comes close to ruining the series, and it didn't even make sense! It's an example of awful Kdrama MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome: An overused Kdrama device in which the couple is separated by distance after professing love, but prior to their Happily Ever After). MSS is routinely awful. While there are times it's for the best, usually, MSS is detrimental to a series. How could a couple that has just come together, often after many struggles, bear to be apart? Why, oh why, are they compelled to write it in? Furthermore, in the emotionally wrenching letter Ji-hoo's mom wrote to Se-hee, she asked him to stay by Ji-hoo's side when she cries. Ji-hoo dumps him cold, allowing him to despair alone. What ugly irony.
The primary theme of BTIMFL is equality for women in a hyper-patriarchal society. Ha-rang wears a shirt that says "Raise girls and boys the same." We'll see a 2nd woman sexually harassed while trying to build her career. BTIMFL addresses this tired out, but still "what's happening now" indignity competently - 1 flagrant scene is like a horrible sexual harassment training video that the cubicle overlords foist on their employees. {If that's what's still going on in SK, they definitely need to tweak the power balance somehow. Women's rights were stalled there due to a military dictatorship (1961-1979) that solely focused on maintaining power, giving no thought to protecting the vulnerable.}
BTIMFL features The Disease: Good Daughter i/l Disease, in which dtr i/l's are
treated as slaves by the in-laws. That ain't healthy. Ji-hoo's mom is able to read it between the teas when the family's meet. She didn't want her daughter living her life as a slave to the In-laws. Still, the show is a little cynical about family life. It is entirely appropriate to prevent a mother i/l from bullying a young wife, but it's usually not a reason to withdraw from all family interactions. Their agreement to holiday separately is highly questionable. If a set of their parents is not respectful of them or their marriage, separation is appropriate. Apparently i/l's abusing their kid’s spouse is a pro-sport in K-country, so the writer is proposing a viable solution. We can hope that the separate holidays will rejoin if they have children. That all serves to drag down the production, which is outstanding through 13 episodes.
No show is without flaws. Besides MSS, the last three episodes end the show on a more sour / less sweet note. BTIMFL is amusing until around Ep14, where long, overdone, and wearisome shots framing Ji-hoo's pain-gripped face keep the series from continuing forward. The pacing is otherwise steady. Without that drag, the show's easily an 8+.
The poetry in BTIMFL, the discussions of literature, and "Room 19" add depth. "Room 19" is now part of my consciousness and vocab. This series tricks us into thinking it will be a lite piece, only to punch us later with surprising depth. Some notables are:
▶"We don't even know ourselves, so how could we know the dark sides of others?" 5✨
▶"When a person comes, it is in fact a tremendous thing. That person's entire life comes with them - Because it's fragile, so it may have been broken before - the heart that's close."✨
▶"A heart isn't something that is taken or grabbed. It comes to you." ✨
We can all applaud that, can't we?
Overall this is a VG view. One of the best things can can be said is that it leaves plenty for discussion. Spare us the mindless pap, which this show is not. My favorite FAVORITE takeaway from watching this is when Soo-ji declares: "I'd rather be a crazy bℹtch than a pathetic wench." Amen.
QUOTES⚜️
If I were to tell the 20 old me, would that punk believe me?
Ji-hoo! You should go out and get pregnant tonight. We're going to a club! (Soo-ji. Woman of action.)
Perhaps, if you have some time, would you marry me?
〰 IMHO 〰
Directing 7
Writing 8
Acting 7.5
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 5
Art 6
Excitement 5
Laughs 5
Thought provocation 8
Ending 4
Age 14+
Watch again? ✅ twice and counting…
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Duet. Exit. °8.4° °Excellent°
“I beg to differ.” Our ML only reached out his hand and said: “It's nice to meet you.” Our FL isn't an easy dame. He needs a female lead for his play (Oh Eui-Sik looks dreadful in a dress) but she turns him down flat. When he acts like he doesn't care, she says she'll do it after all, but only if she can sing. She will also quit if things appear dangerous.Dangerous? Tokyo isn't exactly safe for Koreans in 1921 - nor has it been in most of history. The police thugs barge in for an impromptu search. A group of students? That makes the police suspicious. Kim Woo-Jin will not cower and almost gets shot. “At first, I thought you were reckless. I thought it was foolish to rebel against something you can't win. But I don't think that way anymore. It's fine even if we can't change anything. The fact that we're trying something with hope is what matters… Thank you for changing the way I think.” Now she begs to differ with herself. Her initial distaste has dissipated; FL, Yun Sim-Deok, seems to fall for Kim Woo-Jin rather quickly. He's rich. Really rich. She's poor. Really poor. Yet they have alot in common. Their family situations are more alike than different.
1926 starts the show, but we quickly go back to 1921, Tokyo, and the troupe will eventually return to Korea. The Joseon empire technically fell at the turn of the 20th century, but our protags still refer to home as Joseon. They've been thru war, occupation and loss. “Ten years ago, we had freedom. But today in this land, freedom no longer exists.” Though the script had been censored and approved, as they tour through Korea, Kim Woo-Jin is locked up due to the play anyway - for that entirely accurate line. For reference sake, these events roughly take place between 10-20 years after the time period of the show Mr. Sunshine.
HoD is the real-life story of singer Yun Sim-Deok, who recorded Korea's first “pop-song”, and playwright Kim Woo-Jin. Sim-Doek recorded her biggest hit, “In Praise of Death”, in 1926. They were unable to create a life together in the tumultuous 20’s. Japan had taken control of Korea and things were cooking up towards WWII. While every generation brings change, the changes going on in Korea at this time were dramatic - Out-of-hanboks-and-into-hose dramatic. Some women ditched the traditional robes and started wearing slim skirts and nylons. The show opens with the two having just committed suicide, so the viewer won't have to worry and guess about what's coming next or whether the couple will to work things out. HoD is a 2018 release that is rated 93 on AWiki. It is a short series consisting of either 6 35-minute episodes or 3 60-minute ones, depending. Either way, it's the length of a long movie.
Lee Jong-Suk of Romance is a Bonus Book (7.9) and While You Were Sleeping (7.3) fame plays ML Kim Woo-Jin. His mother died when he was 5 and his domineering father went on to marry 3 more times. He has some superb moments in HoD and hands in an overall excellent performance. He's completely different in WYWS and not so similar in RIABB, which is evidence of his range. The couple only has 1 or 2 deeply romantic moments in the show (they keep it chaste) but he is at his romantic best in these scenes. He is a playwright, but since he was raised in “privilege“ he has responsibilities. His father never wants to see him pick up the pen again, except to sign documents pertaining to running the family business. His traditional family has exerted control over every inch of his existence. There's always a contrast between generations, but the contrast between old-fashioned and modern in HoD is striking. We see near-flappers next to hanboks. Our male lead prefers something more modern.
Yun Sim-Deok, the FL is played by Shin Hae-Sun who is completely different in everything, such as the lead in Mr. Queen (hilarious) and support in Legend of the Blue Sea (broding) and Oh My Ghost (sweet and shy). Yun Sim-Deok comes from a poor family and is the sole breadwinner, due to her father's disability. Her younger siblings are relying on her for their education. Kim Won-Hae is Yoon Suk-Ho. He improves every production in which he appears. The compelling Lee Sang Yeob is reunited with Lee Jong-Suk after doing WYWS together. He plays Kim Hong-Ki, who is rejected by Yun Sim-Deok (like any woman would reject him! That's gotta be the only time). Oh Eui-Sik, who always does a great job, is another player in the troupe.
Does true love take unsparingly or give unsparingly? HoD explores that question. In terms of romance, we view it from a mile up in the air and only get intimate once or twice. Here are two people crushed by society. They were pushed and pushed and pushed. If they had never met, maybe they would have survived, but once they tasted true love, nothing else would ever be good again.
When there is life there is hope. Suicide is not the answer. In the show, My Liberation Notes-8.9, a character talks about those who unsuccessfully attempted jumping to their deaths. Every single survivor said they regretted their decision 3/4 of the way down. Before I went through emotional, physical and financial devastation all these topics were academic and easy for me. Those who easily judge another's pain have not felt excruciating pain. Only faith and my ironclad pre-determined ideal, that taking one's life is never the answer, kept me here. The show doesn't glorify suicide, but it doesn't comdemn it either. What the viewer should reflect on is the pressure and pain that we put on others. Kim Woo-Jin’s father exercised complete control at all costs, and he never saw the bill for the ultimate cost coming. We cannot (accurately) judge another's pain, therefore, we should always be gentle with others and only work on controlling ourselves.
HOD has the feel of a BBC production- that's a compliment. It also feels like the recounting of a true story. They don't squeeze every tear from the viewer and they also don't spring anything on the viewer. The pain is tolerable. They are reciting facts even more than dramatizing. I looked it up to verify the truth of the story because of the real-feel. I suspect that they didn't exercise much dramatic license out of respect, as the show is quite respectful of the subject matter. To judge it as a drama alone isn't entirely fair, since the ghosts of the past do possess the atmosphere of the production. All-in-all, HoD is well worth the 3 hour investment for the walk back in time. At this time it is not available for streaming, but it is bound to pop up somewhere.
QUOTE📢
Passionately, I listen to the curses put on my fate. She was the only Safe Haven in my life besieged by the devil. ~11/26/21 Trace of Heart~
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝8.2 🎭8.3 💓6.7 🦋7.3 🌞5 🎨8 ⚡4 🎵/🔊8 😅2 😭6.6 😱3.5 😯6.7 😖2 🤔6 💤0 🔚6
Age 12+ Language - b!+ch × 1
Re-📺? I wouldn't oppose one day down the line
Tie-in shows would be: Romance is a Bonus Book 7.9 (same male lead) ; Oh My Ghost 10 (superb romdramcom, and HoD's FL is a side character) ; Mr. Queen 8.5 (same FL and she's hilarious); Saimdang 8.5 (another true story with a fantasy tie-in to modern day and a similarly less-than-satisfying ending, but an excellent show nonetheless); The King's Affection 8.3 (another person forced into an impossible situation); and Mr. Sunshine 9 (a show about a love affair with one's country that further chronicles Japan's aggression toward Korea).
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No sustained objections ◇ The Preponderance Of The Evidence Supports an "A" °Excellent°
The following is my brief with respect to this series. LS is, beyond a reasonable doubt, guilty of being a supreme legal drama.This could almost be labeled a law school "fantasy" series, as unviable as that sounds. Fantasy shows don't appeal to everybody; some prefer realistic dramas. There are many more that hate procedure, or predictability: They want to be surprised by a last-minute reluctant witness. This show should satisfy most people, including most everyone in these groups, but the web of lives, the condensed degrees of separation, and the tangle of grudges and motivations wouldn't be admissible in a true-to-life drama. It is a strain to think of professors at an ivy league level school being as caring as the profs in this drama are. Identifying the right suspect is not as predictable as it is slightly erroneous. Astute viewers may still be able to pinpoint the killer with ease and declare it too predictable... To which I say: "Quash all of that. Who cares?" LS is not guilty of contempt. They've put together a winning case.
⚖Suspend your skepticism and examine all the evidence yourself. The jury must watch the whole show prior to deliberations, so we are remanded to get on the roller-coaster and enjoy LS. This show is written, directed, and edited with a habile hand (I just looked "habile" up and decided to use it… pretty cool word, right? I hope it impresses the judge and jury).
LS follows the lives of law students along with some of the professors - their struggles and triumphs, families, friends and foes, along with their growth as they navigate through the fraught chambers of their lauded institution. Prof Yang and Kang Sol A are fabulous characters. I could listen to Kim Myung-Min (Prof Yang) talk all day. His voice is divinely masculine and deep. It would have been tossed out if he couldn't act or take command of the courtroom, but he can, and very well at that. The director sustains the tension throughout the series. It's high mystery in classic whodunit form. The taut editing and soundtrack sequester the audience in a state of suspense. If you reason that you know who the culprit is in ep3, you might waiver by ep8. The evidence keeps our minds in motion, turning like a bottle being spun on a table.
We should overrule some of their arguments, though. There are things that seem judiciously obvious to the court at large that elude their brilliant minds. That always weighs a case down. I strongly object to the last moments of the show which are remitted as way too brief. We get very little discovery pertaining to what the characters went on to do or what the relationship is of the three that are walking together at the end. It resounded like a cracked gavel. That may be hearsay, however, the prosecution argues that it's pure negligence to wrap up a 16+ hour series with a 10 second consultation. Would that we could depose the director about that decision. In the balance, we can easily dismiss any such torts committed by the director. Indubitably, the director's curriculum vitae (resume) shows he's had a solid run, and has a high likeability factor. The overall quality of the piece is a mitigating factor taken into account in the sentencing phase: LS gets all the credit for time served, and remains released for all of us to enjoy.
I originally postponed the hearing on LS as I wasn't convinced that it would sway me. The worth of its collateral was evident once its docket came up on the calendar (my Netflix queue), and I sat in judgment. While I wasn't confident of its appeal, now that all the exhibits have been examined, Res Ipsa Loquitor: The thing speaks for itself.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this drama has acquitted itself laudably. The ratings prove what broad appeal it has. The preponderance of the evidence is that this show has prevailed in its effort to convince us of its credibility. So don't waiver: Watch as an interested party. I'm sure you will agree to stipulate the worthiness of the production.
IMHO...
Directing 8
Thought provocation 8
Acting 8
Suggested Age 12& up.
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Two Maddies Catch Some Baddies And Pi$$ Off The Condo ☑ Association Too! °7.7° °VG°
He's a cop with anger management issues. She's a fearful, paranoid mess.They run into each other on the street. She feels threatened and pepper sprays him, so you could say they didn't hit it off. Next they see each other at the therapist's office. Apparently they've been complaining to the same therapist about each other. And next they see that they live next to eachother. WHOOPS!
From that point on, it's the mayhem one could anticipate from two unhinged (but good, underneath it all) persons who each try to bend the other to their will, and in doing so, give no space for peace. They drive each other truly crazy.
Before the end, they'll get the gangsters and drug dealers involved, another neighbor will help Nah Hwi-oh dress up as a woman so he can go undercover while on suspension, thus, the cops jump in for a round along with the convenience store clerk, a deliveryman, parents, the condo association, and the neighborhood watch. High drama it ain't. It's meant to be fun and to make us smile. It is. It does.
They include a K-drama trope in the last couple scenes that usually is awful, and it is the same here: MSS, or mandatory separation syndrome. MSS involves couples, who once they get together, must separate. 'I love you! Finally, we're together! Now I'll catch you later...' Huh? Sometimes, it's a good thing - a generous 15% of the time. On top of that, most of these people are pushing 40. They ain't getting any younger. All flights appear to be grounded as well, because, even if the separation is 4 years, they never seem to visit each other in that time period. In MFE it is brief, we can let it go with a warning.
MFE is 13 half-hour episodes, so it is less than half the usual length of other Kdramas. So get the popcorn, sit back, watch, and grin.
Directing 8
Acting 8
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 6
Action 6
Thought provocation 5
Age 13+
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Kang-soo To The Rescue °6.6° °Good° +Family Positive+
Here's a fable for the underdogs.SDM follows the overlooked, everyday workers. They deliver when c☃ld in winter, and h♨t in summer, s⛈aked in spring, and through the lugubrious fall. They are sneered more than cheered. SDM finds them forming a supportive group that gives all of them a lift.
Kang-soo is the catalyst who turns friends and acquaintances into family. This is contrasted against several real families in the show that tear each other apart. The family we choose is often the best we get.
Kang-soo shows up in town and lands a job at Lively Handmade Noodles. From there, he deconstructs the whole delivery system and then rebuilds it, all while outsmarting the powerful corporate eateries.
The storyline is entertaining, though formulaic. I don't see formulaic as necessarily the worst criticism. Life, and our shared human experience can be formulaic. It's the journey that is most important. The journey you will take with this crowd is fun, like a Disney Channel show.
This would be a good show to watch with kids as soon as they can keep up with the subtitles. It reinforces hard work, honor, helping others and living right. Kang-soo is a perfect role model. He exemplifies all the above. He inspired Ji-yoon to follow suit. He makes loyal friends out of strangers by helping others.
The actual romance falls slightly flat. I'm not sure if the cause is the dialogue, the directing, or just a lack of chemistry. Perhaps it's a little of all the above. The secondary characters' relationship was a better story.
SDM is actually best suited for tweens and teens, and parents won't mind watching along. It is a simple story in the After School Special tradition, and solidly PG/PG-13.
IMHO...
Directing 7
Acting 8
Romance 5
Thought provocation 5
Suggested Age 10& up
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SASSY MEETS CLASSY Joo Won-nah See This! °8.5° °Excellent°
This show is adorable, with nearly every moment enjoyable. Like Bridgerton, they sometimes wink at historical seriousness and just go for a fun story.Visually, MSG is a treat. The sets, filming, and costumes are gorgeous. Its budget is clearly more than many historical dramas with its sophisticated fight scenes and costume after gorgeous silk costume.
The story features Princess Hyemyung (Hye) and scholar, Gyeon Woo (Gye). Back in time, we see Hye's mother, the queen, dethroned to open the show. Though assassins were sent to kill her, she was aided in escape and gave birth to Hye's brother, who was returned to the palace. The new queen is backed by the conspirators, and while Hye doesn't know /that/, she knows she hates the new queen. This explains why she grows up surly. Gye just returned from Qing (China) where he excelled. His moniker is: The Treasure of Joseon. Whatever. Hye couldn't care less.
Within days (hours?) of his return home, Gye runs into Hye. She's sauced. She burps in his face, leaving him gasping in her wake. He rounds a corner and there she is again! She's picked a fight with a horseback rider who almost hurt pedestrians. Gye helps diffuse that situation. Hye turns and pukes on him. He's horrified.
Gye has no idea who she is. Hye isn't allowed out of the palace, afterall. He is assigned to be the prince's (soon to be crowned prince) tutor. The prince and Hye are very close, so as soon as he shows up to work, he sees what he'll be dealing with. Of course, they can't stand each other.
It's good ol' plain fun to watch how Gye is thrown off by Hye. He declares her his enemy, but he can't shake her, & his pain is our gain. The device used to bring them together is her lost ring. She demands he help her find it, or he'll be in big trouble. That premise could be improved upon, but just roll with it. That enables her to introduce Gye to fermented skate, which everybody agrees, is some of the worst smelling stuff on the planet. She also feeds him chicken feet. While a somewhat weak premise got the two there, strong stomachs brought us these fun scenes.
Then it all starts. Look for the ring. Who is this wacky broad following Gye around? Gye complains to his friends that he can't shake a crazed stalker. One of them, a popular romance novelist, says they'll go from bring enemies to friends, and then to lovers. She meets his friends as Lady Hyemyung. They love her. They gamble and play a dare game at the lantern festival. She rocks all their worlds. Girls that are interested in Gye hate Hye, but Gye falls for Hye & she falls for him. Gye's parents want him away from that sassy princess! The king engages Hye to a prince from Qing. Gye has to stop that! And they finally tackle the mystery from the past.
It's tagged as a romance/comedy, but though it starts funny, this is no mere romcom. There's teary moments, intrigues and decent action as well. There's many Kdramas that start out like a romcom that go on to be very romdram. In order of importance, MSG is:
1. Romance
2. Drama (even though most of the drama comes later)
3. Comedy
~and to a lesser degree~>
4. Thriller
5. Action.
Do they have a name for a feature filled with all of that?
RomDramComThrAction?
Does simply everything have to fit in a mold? No, thank you.
The characters are well written and the acting is fantastic. Joo Won, as ML, Gye/Gyeon Woo, is astounding. He communicates with his eyes like few others. I loved him in this role. Go Na-eun, as Councillor King's daughter, Da-yeon, is fabulous at showing a calm (phony) demeanor while seething underneath. Yun Se-ah, as Queen Park, also gives a riveting performance. None of the performances detract from the whole. The directing is also top-notch. MSG has that lighthearted side, but it runs much deeper at times. The plot and dialogue are intelligent along with being amusing.
The court intrigues are done especially well. The king is weak, and he has deferred to his counselors for too long, his power mostly drained. The tension builds in the background and develops into full fledged drama in the second half of the show, when the past and present meet up. There have been forces at work against the present regime for decades.
Notes on historical context:
I watched MSG before I learned to not read any reviews prior to writing my own. Whenever I read before writing, my review would either reinforce one that I read, or I would rebut it in my review. I know now that I have to keep my head clear. In this case, I had read a review stating that the actors were too old for the parts. Per their bios, they were both born in '87, so that's fair, but they both did a great job, and I wouldn't trade out Joo Won periodt. Another complaint is that the court intrigues are nonsense in MSG. I decided to do a quick fact check on that claim (Wiki). Turns out, MSG is not inaccurate at all.
Per Wiki, "government officials were ranked in 18 levels. For much of the dynasty, a complex system of checks and balances prevented any one section of the government from gaining overwhelming power until the 19th century when political power became concentrated in a certain family or individual.
While the king commanded absolute loyalty from his officials and subjects, the officials were also expected to try to guide the king to the right path. Political struggles were common between different factions of the scholar-officials. Purges frequently resulted in leading political figures being sent into exile or condemned to death. The power of the bureaucrats often eclipsed that of the central authorities, including the monarch." Therefore, rather than a valid complaint, historical accuracy can be removed from MSG's liability column.
MSG was enormously popular in SK when it first aired. This led directly to making the much loved Rookie Historian (which also depicts fights within the bureaucracy) and 100 Days My Prince. Both of those dramas borrowed quite a bit from MSG. That's why the current rating confuses me, though less than 600 people have weighed in so far. Jun Suck Oh is a competent director whose works are all rated over "7" on IMDB except for this one. Two-for-two with me, he directed My First First Love(8), which is also lighthearted fun done right. I am confident the rating for MSG will climb when more people watch - as long as they give it a fair shake, meaning 2 episodes minimum. Ep1's in Kdramas are often set-up for the rest of the show, including introducing the characters as extremes of themselves. MSG is no exception. Princess Hyemyung is slop drunk when we meet her, and Gyeon Woo, though better than the sassy princess, seems 1 tick above a complete egghead. They get adorable with each other pretty quickly.
Gyeon Woo is, perhaps, the primary driver of the show's appeal. Not only is Joo Won enormously talented (MSG is worth watching for him alone) but once he decides what he wants, he works towards it, step by step, one challenge at a time, while being enormously brave and clever. So much for egghead, he can fight, too! With Hye around, that's a necessary skill. So, Don't be scared off by Ep1, and don't be afraid: Gyeon Wu is the only one suffering. Just avoid thinking about fermented skate and the rest should be a stroll through the garden.
Watch again? Did✅+would✅
IMHO
Directing 84
Writing 80
Acting 85
Romance 88
Flutters 76
Warmth 80
Art 80
Thought provocation 60
Ending 70 (due to MSS)
Age 12& up
MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome, an overused Kdrama trope in which couples, once get get together, must separate. 'I love you! Finally, we're together! Now I'll catch you later...' Huh? Sometimes, it's a good thing - a generous 15% of the time. On top of that, most of these people are pushing 40. They ain't getting any younger. All flights appear to be grounded as well, because, even if the separation is 4 years, they never seem to visit each other in that time period.
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✒⭐Grasp Those Stars & Hold Tight⭐ °7.8° °VG°
Here's a romance that's a warm and sticky sweet bun with a nice cup of chamomile tea. We're talking very low drama. Romance fans will find it charming and relaxing. I certainly did. Others might be underwhelmed. We meet Sang Zhi (Zhizhi) in middle school and follow her through several years of her life. In ep1 big bro brings his friend, Jiaxu, home. Zhizhi is smitten. Jiaxu is thoughtful and kind towards her. He always has time for her, which only fans the flames as the years roll by.HL is a 2023 release that is rated a whopping 9 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 25 45-minute episodes. Zhao Lu Si (Who Rules the World-7.5, I Hear You-7, The Romance of Tiger and Rose-9.8, Love Like the Galaxy) is FL Sang Zhi. I've liked her in everything I've seen so far, but my respect for her abilities took a leap forward with this show. Feisty and full of life describes most of her characters. Here, she's shy and demure (though she's capable of pulling some bold moves, we'll see). Even her body language says she's not fully grown. While in HS, her gangly walk is the pièce de résistance of her act. She's extremely impressive, particularly when one factors in how different she is from her other performances. I am a fan.
Chen Zhe Yuan (Our Secret, Handsome Siblings-8.7) play ML Duan Jiaxu. He's a sparky, mischievous brat in HS, a show that I love. In HL he's calm and thoughtful. Victor Ma (Detective Chinatown, Moments We Shared) is big brother Sang Yan. He may be the big brother, but he's a bit of a brat, always calling Zhizhi “Little demon”. The director is Lee Ching Jung (Go Go Squid!, Everyone Loves Me). The screenwriter is Ou Si Jia of Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities, and the original creator is Zhu Yi of the show, When I Fly Towards You-7.8.
The day Zhizhi meets Jiaxu she has a dilemma. She's in trouble at school and her parents have been called in for a teacher conference. She somehow persuades Jiaxu to pose as her brother for the conference. He attends, explaining that the parents are out of town. Crisis deleveled. That favor creates a bond between them that will never be broken. Zhizhi ends up at college in Jiaxu's hometown, and he is the only person she knows there. Sang Yan asks friend, Jiaxu, to look out for his sister. Jiaxu does. Zhizhi was already looking at Jiaxu… and only him.
I watched HL back-to-back with When I Fly Towards You. They are similar - same author. They're relaxing, they really couldn't be sweeter, and they both lack depth. Other than a stalker connected to Jiaxu over a mistake his father made, the biggest problem the characters face in HL is Zhi's milk allergy. (The show presents the 5 year age difference as a big issue. It certainly is for teens, but once they are both in their 20's it isn't worth mentioning). That's okay; there's a nice big space with comfy couches for such wind-down watches. It does lower the degree of difficulty, though, and thus the maximum score. One the one hand, to do a slice-of-life feature in which not much happens, yet it is still a great watch, takes skill. On the other hand, for a feature to be in the high 8's and above, there should be complexity and these 2 shows have none. They can be every bit as enjoyable as, and the ones we rewatch before more highly rated shows. Entertainment that touches the heart is meritorious regardless of technical lapses. WIFTY gets a higher cuteness rating because the female lead’s character is ridiculously and relentlessly cute, while HL is more tranquil. It's almost plodding, but never boring. These shows are for romantiholics only, and look at the ratings - romance junkies are very satisfied. If you want to expose a friend, who is only a casual romance watcher, to a youthful Chinese romance, I suggest A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5 or Wait, My Youth-8.4.
HL may lack deeper shading but it has no flaws. Every element is done well. The music is quite nice, however Shazam only had titles in Mandarin. Some did pop up on Spotify. Modern-day Cdramas have gotten better. Before 2019 most are deeply flawed, though not without their charms. One of the best things about Cdramas is what I call their Prozac effect. They are designed to quiet the mind and calm the spirit. If anxiety is up, a Chinese modern-day romance like HL could very well help level the mood.
At one point Zhizhi pumps her fist in the air and gives Jiaxu the common Kdrama encouragement: “FIGHTING!” The most recent Cdramas have been acknowledging the popularity of Kdramas, and I suspect it's a call out to what has inspired their growth. I love it. I also loved HL. Will you? If you call yourself a romance fan, maybe. Probably. If you consider yourself a romance /junkie/ then there can be no doubt; check it out!
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.5 📝7 🎭8.3 💓7 🦋6 🎨6.5 🎵/🔊8 🔚7.7 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡3 😅3 😭3 😱1 😯2 🤢0 🤔3 💤0
Age 12+ for mild sexual content; Rated TV-Y7: Directed to Older Children
Re-📺? It's not impossible, but there's a long list of other shows that would precede it in a rewatch.
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
💓 -
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine;
🌐 I Hear You ‘19 7.3, so cute but with many flaws
🌐 You are my destiny 6.8 ‘20 cute and sweet and 1/2 padding
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1
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🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain 7.5;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Eternal Love 8.3,
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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?️ Matte & Flat °3.9° °poor° ep 1-18
Apparently when Netflix says that the 30th is the last day to watch a show, they really mean the 29th is the last day for viewing. I wouldn't have been able to finish HtH anyway, but I did intend to watch more than 18 eps. It doesn't matter, it was starting to feel like a chore, anyway.Our ML, Zhan Nan Xian, now CEO of a cosmetics company, and our FL, Wen Nuan, were in love in HS, but they broke up. We don't get the full story in the beginning. The show rolls it out in pieces. "You've been back for so many days. Do you want to keep hiding in your shell and stay there forever?" - Zhan Nan Xian queries his turtle. It's been 7 years. She's been in Europe and he's buried his head in work, but that doesn't stop the recurring nightmares. 7 years has not healed their hearts.
But ya gotta make a living, right? She's coming back to China, so when they offer her the job as his personal assistant, she takes it. This is typical of the emotional shortcuts one might see in a modern-day 🇨🇳Chinese drama. We'll get to talking about that in a bit. When Wen goes to work for CEO Zhan she gets a new office, new responsibilities, a new boss, and new enemies. One woman thinks Wen went and took HER job. Zhan Nan Xian's movie actress GF doesn't like it when she sees that wench, Wen, with her BF, either. Let the plots and underhanded schemes begin.
Zhan Nan Xian never stopped loving Wen, even when she broke up with him. He never understood what happened, but he's determined to win Wen back whenever he can. He keeps his GF, though... Wen is dating Zhu Lin Lu, who runs his own company. At least, they tell us they are dating, but this is a bizarre relationship. They don't see eachother much and they don't act the least bit romantic. Zhu Lin Lu's company is in direct competition with Zhan Nan Xian's, so Wen is put in awkward situations that are difficult to wend, and she is often caught in the middle. The greed and corporate espionage is ham-handed, but it's still fun, at times.
HTH is a 2018 release that is rated 91 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 48 45-minute eps. In the 18 eps I saw it has the distinction of being the 2nd-worst modern-day C🇨🇳 feature I've seen (Hot Girl-3.9 will be hard to beat for the worst) but it also has some exceptional romantic moments. The show creators waste all of the emotional currency. It feels like the show opens without a proper ep1 to lay the groundwork. We don't know these people, what motivates them, what led them to where they are, and why they are going where they're going. We don't know why it's a big deal that she's coming to work for him, we aren't invested in their love story, we don't know why she has another boyfriend who barely seems to be a boyfriend, and we don't know why she ran away to Europe. We get flashes of their past life but it's nothing that would lead us to cheer them on as a couple. It's fine to roll these things out gradually, but it is not okay to leave the viewer on the outside looking in. The viewer must be brought in, emotionally, to make the show enjoyable.
Speaking of enjoyable, HtH has its bright spots. Zhang Jian Jun Wei's song is very nice. There's a tasty kiss or two (after which it's strangely like nothing happened). Ep5 is beautiful. They sightsee in London. At one point they recite poetry to lovely background music, and it is magnificent. As they stroll around London, they stop to enjoy a street musician playing an acoustic cover of 'Free Falling'. It sounds pretty good, and it's obvious that the film crew stumbled onto the singer and incorporated the music into the show. It was a good move: The natural vibe is a jolting contrast to the rest of the show’s over-managed feel & under-developed characters, it's very like a ‘70s Mennen Skin Bracer slap-in-the-face ad. I loved ep5 so much I was going to rewatch it on the 30th. Thanks for the clarity, Netflix, sigh.
The C🇨🇳 excel at fantasy and period pieces and have put out some all-world, all-time stuff, save for some clunky special effects. (I'll take a well written, directed and acted low-budget piece over a big-budget bore every day of the week). Their modern-day stuff is as bad as their other stuff is good. HtH's stuffin’ is typical of C🇨🇳 modern-day features: ⚠In flashbacks they always have the same outfits on ⚠She's packing a small suitcase for a London trip. She holds up two trench coats, a tan one and a red one, and asks which one she should take. On the trip we see her in a grey trench coat and then a blue one, but not a tan nor red one. ⚠Is she wealthy? Does she have to work? There's conflicting evidence. ⚠Why does the ML keep his actress GF, and why does the FL keep her shallow, cheatin BF?
None of that makes sense except for this: Dream logic. Sometimes in a dream a person may look like someone else, but you know who it really is. Or it may look like one thing is happening, but you know what's /really/ going on; You just know. C🇨🇳 modern-day dramas use dream logic. You must accept certain things as so and skip forward. Otherwise - don't bother, they'll make you crazy - things will not add up. Even period and fantasy Cdramas will expect us to walk an invisible bridge from point A to F and not fuss about them filling in the gaps. Sometimes the simplicity seems to connect to the style of ancient plays, especially when the characters are excessively naive. Other times it seems lacking or lazy. The trade off is that the simplicity of these shows is relaxing. They are perfect for times when the anxiety is up. It's up to the individual to do the tally and decide if the trade balance is positive or not.
Zhang Han is ML Zhan Nan Xian & Janine Chang is FL Wen Nuan. Her hair is always messy in the early episodes which doesn't fit with her personality or her position. Are we supposed to like the FL's sister, who goes into work and acts like a b!+ch on wheels? I wanted to slap her. Zhu Lin Lu is the corporate & romantic competition, Jing Chao. He plays an attentive guard in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, but in HtH he is brash and irresponsible (and he looks like Tom Brady's leaner, meaner brother). {RRLITP is a perfect show thru 49 episodes. I almost never look ahead, but while reading up on whether it was a true story or not, I learned how heartbreaking it is in its second half, so I abandoned it at the point of a perfect ending. She (Ruyi) had already been through enough. Thru ep49, RRLITP is spectacular. The writing, directing, and acting are as good as it gets. None of that reaches the heights of its breathtaking visual beauty. It's not a true story, btw. It is inspired by a real monarch who suddenly put away his wife, never to see her again but there are no written records on the details - so the show is 90% artistic license.} Jenny Zhang plays a vapid actress and current GF of our ML. In Ancient Love Poetry(8.6) she's dynamite with a performance that is over-the-top, but appropriate for the role. The result is mesmerizing.
Anyway, C🇨🇳 modern-day features are designed for turning off one's brain. There's obvious political reasons for that, but we won't get into it. Reasons aside, there's always gonna be a need for such tranquilizers. One has to wonder if these actors can act as they appear so 2D in HtH, but Zhu Lin Lu and Jenny Zhang can ACT. Don't judge C🇨🇳 actors' capabilities based on a modern day show, as they aren't permitted to truly show what they are capable of.
The best modern-day C🇨🇳 shows that I've seen are: Meteor Garden-7.4 (it wanes next to Boys Over Flowers-8), I Hear You-7.3, & You Are My Destiny-6.8, which drags in the middle. The Oath Of Love was on track to be one of the best, but it left Prime before I could finish it. Love 020 series-6.8 and Accidentally In Love-6.5 get honorable mention; they pass the time acceptably. The very best one is King's Avatar-8, but it is about a RPG competition and contains no romance. That's all, folks.
QUOTES📢
If I should meet thee, After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears. 'Tis nothing that I loved so well. Yet did I love thee to the last as fervently as thou. Who didst not change through all the past. And can't not alter now. The better days of life for ours; The worst can be but mine. And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again. The loveliest things that still remain. Through dark and dread eternity. Returns again to me. And more thy buried love endearing. That aught except its living years. ~Lord Byron~
Rated PG-13: P’s Cautioned
Originally 〰️🖊 11/2023
ps. 5/19/24> Having recently seen a couple excellent C🇨🇳modern-day shows, I have to amend the record. NF seems to have fixed their issue, too.
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
💓 -
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 (Rom-porn/extra points for the dopamine);
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1
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🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (ancient 🇨🇳 opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain 7.5;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Eternal Love 8.3,
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
⚡/😱 -
C🇨🇳: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber 9-Kung-fu!;
K🇰🇷:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
The Man From Nowhere 8.9
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
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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Loveless & Childless Meets Love Shorn & Child Worn °6.7° °good°
39 and single. Like a ticking bomb. Something’s gonna blow. The most excitement she's had since The Vancouver Olympics (a decade ago) is the flasher that accosted her eyes in ep1. Ha-ri likes men… but Ha-ri LOVES babies. And kids. And more babies. She's made arrangements to freeze her eggs until she finds the right dad. But she's almost 40. She's now hardly producing enough eggs to get pregnant! Her situation is near desperate. And you know what they say about desperate times…And how could she fall for a guy who doesn't want kids? He flat-out refuses. ‘It will never happen,’ he insists. So he avoids Ha-ri. He avoids her like she carries contagions. Hey, ovaries and eggs aren't contagions! They're what keeps humanity afloat.
OMB is a 2015 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 65-minute episodes. Jang Na Ra (Go Back Couple) is Jang Ha-ri. She's adorable. Go Jun (The Fiery Priest) is Han Lee Sang. He's into trying things he hasn't done before. But he doesn't want kids. He never has. Not for a moment. Park Byung Eun plays Yoon Jae Young. He's one of the best things in Because This Is My First Life-7.7 and is also in the popular Your Honor. In OMB his character drags the show down, but it isn't the fault of the actor. Jung Gun Joo (Extraordinary You, The Secret Romantic Guesthouse) is the fresh-faced Choi Kang Eu-Tteum. Director Nam Ki Hoon brought us one of my favs - Tunnel-8.1, and screenwriter,Yang Hyuk Moon also penned Mirror of the Witch.
The Romance is mostly average. The focus is on their issues with having children while love takes a back seat to kids. Just like life. Unfortunately, the show suffers from a too common syndrome: Too many episodes, too little content. Around the 2/3 mark OMB slows down significantly and drags. The drama is still good enough, and the situation is compelling. Her childhood friend becomes a little irritating. It gets worse as we crawl towards the final episodes.
There's not enough helium to fully inflate the balloons… What to name it? I think I'll call this syndrome, where there isn't enough content for the number of episodes, DIS-content… MAL-content, maybe? And it creates discontent in the viewer. There are so many shows that would completely transform with a good edit. MSS - mandatory separation syndrome: They use that trope, too: After a couple commits, MSS demands they separate for a time. It's usually awful, and it fails to enhance OMB.
“Who in this world doesn't have problems? No one is disqualified from loving.” Ha-ri decides she wants a baby but she's no good at relationships, so she's never getting married. When this show was made, a single woman wasn't /permitted/ to get a sperm donation in Korea. Ha-ri is later arrested when she meets with a private sperm donor! Compared to our open and free society, that sounds insane. “You and I have been full of ourselves all our lives, so our own lives came first, and we put our own feelings first. I still don't know what love is, but being selfish in love, as you and I were, can't be it.” We are used to getting everything we want, and Ha-ri wants a baby. It's impossible for parents to make decisions that will not affect the kids, and all kids crave a mom and a dad. It seems to be a deeply embedded human desire. There's plenty of amazing and successful single moms out there who have enriched our society through their hard work, but this stuff is HARD, not easy. Stats don't lie, and the stats for single mothering make it look like a problematic option as the poverty, crime, and illiteracy rates skyrocket compared to those of 2-parent families. There's nothing about being a single parent that sounds appealing to me, personally. Parenting is all-consuming hard work, often the thankless kind. It's hard to raise children WITH a dedicated and involved partner. We're so used to getting everything we want in our culture that we've forgotten to pause and think about the impact to others. This isn't to advocate any way of life but to encourage a 360° look at the issue. That's all. Ha-ri begins to take a 360° look around at potential bio-dads. Choi Kang Eu Tteum, her young assistant, Han Lee Sang, the failed blind date, and her childhood BFF, Yoon Jae Young are all potential candidates.
They handle the anxieties of parenthood and the sandwich generation with skill. Throwaway comments about nursing home and childcare center abuse are heartbreaking, but they mostly utilize warmth and humor. The end of ep2 is a beautiful scene with Ha-ri and her friend's baby girl, Do-Ha, having a moment. “Making sacrifices for the one you love is a bunch of bull$h!+. You simply lack confidence.” That's harsh, but unnecessary sacrifice is based and feelings of inferiority. We tend to overcompensate when we feel inferior. Just relax, it's not up to you to fix the world. Put that energy into working on yourself and making yourself better. That will actually make the world a better place.
OMB has some laughs. ‘It's your third baby! SHE'S A PATRIOT!’ Ha-ri is wearing a pregnancy suit and two women at the store misunderstand what is going on. Before she has a chance to explain, she's being whisked to the hospital by a kind stranger. (That isn't a stranger, though. It's the dude her friend tried to fix her up with years ago and they didn't hit it off. Ouch). Her BFF is hilarious (Lee Mi-Do My Father is Strange, Mother-8.8, My Dearest Part). She stops 🤚🏽. Why is it so QUIET? She /knows/ something is very, very wrong. Slowly she turns, raises her head, and sees that the twins knocked over a large bin of food. “You're turning 40. You should do something bad. You're unnecessarily proper.” (CHINCHA! Mom is pretty cool). “Don't complain later,” Ha-ri counters. Suddenly strange men - strangely competitive strange men - show up at Ha-ri's mother's senior aerobics class. They both want to be her son i/l. There's a funny bit with a gift certificate for a bed and breakfast. It travels more miles than any of the people passing it around.
“They say if you're into animals or figurines, you'll never get married.” This to eligible bachelor #1, Han Lee Sang. He collects Moai 🗿 from Easter Island. His place is cluttered with them.
{Educational timeout: To paraphrase Wiki - ‘Carved by the Rapa Nui of Easter Island, Moai / mo ‘ai (“MOH-eye”) are monolithic human figures from 1250 - 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but many have been displayed on stone platforms around the island. Almost all moai have overly large heads, accounting for 3/8 of the whole statue. With no legs, the moai are chiefly the living faces of deified ancestors. The tallest moai erected (Paro) is almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighs around 82 tons. One unfinished sculpture, if completed, would be approximately 21 m (69 ft) tall, with a weight of about 145–165 tons. Statues are still being discovered as of 2023.’}
Nevertheless, Ha-ri is still drawn to this man.
The director is magnificent at drawing the viewer to this FL. Not only is she simply darling, but I was sincerely hurting for her. Since I grew up around alot of women who adored babies and just loved being pregnant (I didn't fit in) I actually have an aversion to Ha-ri ‘s mindset. So, this director is skillful, as I still felt for her. Research has revealed that newborns emit a scent that is like crack for women. These baby-loving-moms are addicts! (It has no effect on me, my issues lie elsewhere). It just goes to show that people often don't fully understand themselves and their motivations. It's a good idea to actively turn the left-brain on to analyze what we are working on. “Life isn't a taxi. It doesn't go wherever you want…” Ha-ri eventually does see what she wants from all angles.
QUOTES📢
Being happy is the hardest thing to do.
We're adults. We can do NC-39 stuff.
Einstein said Common Sense is a collection of prejudices from before you turn 19.
IMHO〰🖍
📣6.3 📝6.8 🎭7.5 💓6.5 🦋5 🎨6 🔚7.5 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡2 😅3 😭5 😱1 😯3.5 🤢0 🤔4.5 💤3.5
🎵/🔊7.5 Shazams: Raindrops by Cheeze, Like a Star by Kwon Jin Ah
Age + $h!+ & other PG-13 language; Rated TV-15
Re-📺? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again…
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Crazy Love l-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Our Blues-8.7,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Nevertheless-7.6,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Mister 9.5
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,
You are my destiny 6.8 cute, sweet & 1/2 padding,
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5,
Find Yourself 8.9
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
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✒Spice Up Love ♨️ For All It's Worth °7.4° °VG°
“Is this a wedding invitation or an invoice?” Her friend muses as she holds the paper up to the light. Hae has always felt like she was getting cheated. She still does. Son “Hae” Yeong is a girl who had to share love with all the stray kids her mother always had a habit of taking in. She's at her ex's wedding, now. She would look weak if she didn't show. Cro-chi? The slide show celebrates the pair's 1 year anniversary of being a couple… Um, Hae broke up with him a mere 6 MONTHS ago. There he is: Happy, carefree, adored, getting the company's marriage benefits of cash, free vacation, & the honeymoon suite. All she does is transfer her hard earned money to coworkers for their weddings & babies. They are generally living more successfully than she. Hae HATES being cheated and her ex is a devil. She blows up the group photo - in her imagination. Pssshhh. She didn't like him anyway. Dating him was just killing time.NGNL is a 2024 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 65-minute episodes. It's got it all. Spice Up Our Love is a follow up 2-episode short that dives into one of Bora's novels and examines the 2ndary couple's romance further. That's pretty cute. NGNL is a trope salad: Fake marriage, lost son of the chairman, enemies to lovers (× 2), and total validation. It's a fairytale. It's not serious. It's simply fun escapism. And fun, it is.
It seems to Hae that everyone is wedding obsessed, right now. She can't get near the company president because she's single. The owners won't let any temptation around their son. All the secretaries and high level execs are MEN. If she was married (AKA, NOT a threat to the family bloodline) she would already have been promoted. She begins to wish she was married. On a night when she's feeling desperate, she asks the 7-11 clerk to be her groom. Hae's goals are purely financial. She has no interest in messy emotions. It's about what's in it for her - Cash envelopes, company stipend, and honeymoon time… she's gonna get what she has due.
The wonderful Shin Min Ah (Our Blues-8.5, Oh My Venus-7.4, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2,Tomorrow with You-7, born in 1984) is our FL. She is competitive. She hated the attention that her mother gave to the constant masses of foster children that flowed through their home when she was growing up. She despises unfairness (when she's subjected to it) and she's not above cutting corners. She doesn't value love or intimacy. Her relationships have been mostly shallow. Her BFF (Nam Ja Yeon / Yeon Bo Ra, played by Han Ji Hyun of the Penthouse Series) writes spicy romance novels. Joo Min Kyung (One Spring Night-7.8, Something in the Rain-8.6, Green Mothers' Club) is Cha Hui Seong, Hae Yeong's other friend. Both of Hae's BFFs “did time” in her home when she was growing up. If her mom hadn't taken in foster kids, Hae would be completely and utterly alone. She fails to recognize that.
Kim Young Dae (Penthouse Series, born in 1995) is Kim Ji Uk. He's an orphan, he works at a convenience store (he needs a better job) and he's a perpetual do-gooder - a saint. His halo stays polished. He's gentle and conscientious. He's looking for a nice, modest, respectful, quiet girl to marry. That ain't Hae. He's been watching her for 6 years. She's had alot of interactions with MEN in that mini mart. She's bought alot of condoms. But ‘the head is the domain of knowledge and our heart is where love resides, after all. He's actually more mature than she, despite the age diff.
Lee Sang Yi (Han RiverPolice-7.4, Youth of May, Bloodhounds, born in 1991) is the trust fund baby, Bok Gyu Hyun. Things are stiff at home, and he's doing his best to keep his parents happy and the company afloat. His mom loves Bora's novels. One day, the men in the family find out what's in /those novels/. Gyu Hyun decides he's going to destroy this author, this purveyor of smut. He's declared war on Yeon Bo Ra. I have become a fan of this actor. He has tremendous skill.
Lee Yoo Jin is Yeo HaJun, Gyu Hyun's secretary. I've seen him in Be Melodramatic-8.7 and Familiar Wife-8.5 - exceptional shows, both. His face is completely different now. It is much fuller. He looks good. Kim Hae Sook (Mr. Plankton, Under the Queen's Umbrella, Inspector Koo-8.4, Start-up-8, Hospital Playlist-9, Saimdang, Light’s Diary-8.5) makes an appearance as a grandmother. She's always fantastic. The screenwriter is Kim Hye Young who also gifted us with Her Private Life-8. Kim Jung Shik directed NGNL, Work Later, Drink Now, & So Not Worth it, among others.
Temporary physical satisfaction vs committed love is the theme. “My body and heart come together as a set,” our ML says to a h0rny and disappointed Hae. One of Hae's friends has been dating her boyfriend in a lackluster fashion for over 10 years. He mentions marriage and she realizes that she doesn't feel like marrying him. They decide to have an open relationship. Hae, not in the “know,” almost takes his head off one day when she sees him with another woman, which leads to an argument with her friend. (“You're a s!u+!” “/You're/ a prude!”) Life is complicated and it can be difficult to know the best course. We all chafe under too many rules. People have a habit of looking at short term gratification while ignoring long-term satisfaction. I don't know how many open relationships work out in the long-term, but I've heard lots of stories about them not working out. Jealousy plus feelings of betrayal and abandonment often take hold. The evidence is there that most of us crave an intimate relationship - one where we are the most important person in someone's life. Throwing that idea out for sex with multiple partners seems like a cheap exchange to me. If a person dates someone for years but doesn't want to marry, there simply isn't enough love there. There isn't a deep enough connection. I'm for cutting the cord and moving on. Why do people continue to date a person they will never commit to? Loneliness has to be the main reason. Casual sex, more often than not, ends up making a person feel lonelier and emptied out, though it's a slow process that may go unnoticed for a long time. As problematic as marriage can be, married people are less lonely and have more sex - more money, too. The high divorce rates are driven by 2nd and 3rd marriages. The majority of first marriages still don't end in divorce. I guess it comes down to whether sex actually means something or not. According to human history and most world religions it does. It seems to be a conjunction the emotional and physical at the very least, and in its highest form it is the union of the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Cheapening it down to a mere physical act could be robbing ourselves. The show’s plot reinforces that concept, in the end.
Another theme is living free and not being enslaved by others’ expectations. “{My father} wanted me to live the same life that he had and I thought it was my duty as his son to honor him. Now that he's gone, and I followed his will to the letter, you know what I've come to find out? It's pointless. It was a huge waste of time… I don't feel accomplished in the least. If I had disappointed him a long time ago and lived how I wanted to live then I would have been much happier… don't hand over your reins to someone else,” we hear from another character. People are by nature controlling. While parents and elders have lived longer and have seen more, so their advice can be valuable, no one has the right to rule your life. Always evaluate your presuppositions and what is spurring you on. Make sure you are doing /some/ things that make YOU happy and fulfilled. Never stop improving. Never stop working on yourself.
Craft and art-wise, the show is competent. The theme song is kitschy but cute. Miracle, by HEMIAN, is very nice. There is plenty of levity and some genuine laughs. ‘You really have to love someone to do all of this,’ Hae muses as she reviews a wedding checklist online. In ep6 people with a multitude of convoluted cross sections and undercurrents sit down to a meal - it's big fun. The primary romance is nice, but the 2ndary couple's story might even be better. That's why they get their own follow-up special. There's no pain in this gain, and there's a fair amount of spice, which is nice!
QUOTE📢
The nation's strength relies on integrity at home.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.5 📝7.3 🎭7.8 💓7 🦋6.8 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚7 ▪ 🌞6 ⚡2.5 😅4 😭2.5 😱3 😯2 🤢2 🤔4 💤0
Age 15+ Language : R-rated w/ F💣s; The international peace sign is waived (middle finger salute) Sexual content 4/10; Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
Re-📺? Unlikely, but not impossible
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
😵Uncomfortable pact/gig:
🇰🇷K: 99 days with the Superstar-7,
Mr. Queen-9,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Business proposal-7,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
The King's Affection-8.3,
🌐Modern Day -
🇰🇷K: A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Hospital Playlist 9,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
My Mister-9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
💘Romance junkies only -
🇰🇷K: 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, but the ML pulls an offensive stunt
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
You are my destiny-6.8 - cute and sweet and 1/2 padding,
Find Yourself-8.9,
Hidden Love-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Tw🇹🇼: The Fierce Wife-8 - worth sticking with
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✒♥️True Power °8.5° °Excellent°
“You're retired.”When powered people are “retired,” it's meant to be permanent. Someone is making sure they are gone for good. He has a list. He's checked it more than twice.
M is a 2023 release that is rated 91 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 38-58 minute episodes. I've never seen a KDrama open like this… with astral vision, a hard landing, and a harder awakening. The ample budget is showing. It starts in HS. We follow kids with mysterious powers. Before long, we are in the backstory of their parents.
The backstories are /rough/ - Like pull-your-fist-back-and-take-a-moment-to extract-your-opponent’s-teeth-that-got-embedded-under-your-skin-after-a-powered-punch rough. Next, there's a HALL FIGHT!!! Fists of Flame!!! Dooooooood, it's awesome!!! And that episode is titled “The Romanticist”. Then it gets even more violent. It is alittle much- among the most intense I've seen. Clearly, they broke the budget on ep11.
Lee Jung Ha (Nevertheless-7.6, The Auditors, Rookie Historian-7.6) opens the show as the lightweight, Kim Bong “Seok”. Lightweight? More like weightless, at times. He has to wear a weighted backpack to keep himself from floating away like a lost party🎈balloon. This town, that town, new school: To avoid predators, his mother has kept them moving constantly. He's sweet, likable, winsome, and pretty much adorable. Han Hyo Joo (Happiness, W, Blood Free-8.5) is his mother, Lee Mi Hyeon and Zo In Sung (Escape from Mogadishu, That Winter, the Wind Blows-7, It's Okay, That's Love) is his father, Kim Du Sik - He's just killer in the role.
Go Youn Jung (Alchemy of Souls-8.3, Sweet Home-8.4, The School Nurse Files-7.6) is his new schoolmate, Jang “Hui” Su. She's a transfer student, and she's pretty, yet she strangely befriends Bong Seok. I just finished watching AoS-2, in which this actress takes over as the FL. M follows a year later, yet she looks 5 years younger. I wouldn't have recognized her if I hadn't checked the credits. The funniest scene, early on, is when Seok brings her home. His mother's reaction is precious. At first, she's nonplussed. “You're a girl…” is what haltingly comes out. “A girl who's a /friend/…” Hui adds, trying to aid with the processing. “But you're pretty…” Mom is still working on it. When it finally clicks with Mom that her son has brought a pretty girl home, she gets too happy. Too friendly, too. The whole thing is really cute. Ryu Seung Ryong (Portrait of a Family, The Painter of the Wind, Kingdom-8.3) is Hui's father, strongman Jang Ju Won. He is marvelous as well.
Cha Tae Hyun (Team Bulldog: Off-duty Investigation, Brain Works) is the electric Jeon Gye Do. Ryu Seung Beom (No Mercy, Solitude) portrays a very creepy hitman named Frank. Kim Hee Won (Pawn, Han River Police-7.4) is one of the teachers, Choi Il Hwan. Moon Sung Geun (Falsify, Vagabond-8) is the vile governmental department head, Min Yong Jun. The director is Park In Je of Kingdom S2, and the screenwriter is Kang Full from Pain, Love Never Ends.
This production has it all: 💘Love, 😅laughter, 🌞warmth, 😭sadness, 🤕pain, 💥action, and ⚡excitement. The fight scenes are exceptional and put quite a few Hollywood features to shame. The hitman/hunter is Steven Segal; H2K ~ Hard to Kill. They do a great job in speeding up the action in places in a way that multiplies the excitement. They are really showing off. The soundtrack is mostly average but not bad. Alone again Naturally, by Gilbert O'Sullivan circa 1972, unexpectedly showed up.
To be different is to be alone. To be normal is to accept the compromise of conformity which can be difficult to distinguish phoniness. That is the theme as well as the nature of power and what is most important.
“Hero? …What do you think power is? Empathy is what real power looks like. Having the ability to care and understand the emotions of others. What kind of hero breaks other people's hearts? …You acted like you were better than him. What you did wasn't admirable at all… a hero has compassion towards others.” Seok had showed off at school and his classmate was hurt when trying to imitate him. His mother is not impressed. Seok has never fit in. He watched a kid jump off the jungle-gym, claiming he could fly. All the kids cheered. Seok couldn't help but go and show them what his lighter-than-air self could do. But later, the first kid was badly hurt in a fall. His mother is right, but he's just a kid and he wants to fit in. It's a bitter lesson, and it underscores how isolated Seok is. The NK fighters are so sad. They were tortured into what they are. The human brain is terrifying. They are powered, yet still powerless.
M is powerful. It isn't the typical sweet and tame Kdrama. The language is rough (is that Hulu's influence, I wonder? Regardless, it isn't unrealistic) and the violence is jarring at times. This isn't for kids. They are keeping the story moving: S2 is in the works! No early retirement here.
QUOTE📢
Crying becomes a habit. A habit becomes a weakness.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.5 📝8 🎭8.5 💓6 🦋5 🎨8 🎵/🔊7.3 🔚? 🤗6.5 ▪ 🌞5 ⚡7 😅2 😭4 😱4 😯3 🤢8 🤔5.5 💤0
Age 15+ Violence - an episode on bullying is very emotional and difficult, gore
Language: R-rated w/ many F💣s
Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.
Re-📺? WOULD
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2
Racket Boys-8.3,
Reply 1988-8.6,
The school nurse files-7.6,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
Law School -8,
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
⚡/🚀 -
Glitch-8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
K2 8,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Private Lives 8.1, When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Sisyphus 8,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6, Iris-8,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9, The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
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✒⚗Smart Patches Diabolical Minds & Victims' Circles °3.9° °disastrous°
The 1-sentence review: Don't let the snazzy opening fool you. Keep the lid shut on this show or suffer.Pandora, in legend, was created by the gods as payback for people obtaining fire from Prometheus. As the 1st woman, she carried a jar (or box) that contained all evil. When opened, evil & misery entered the world. Therefore, the title only serves as a metaphor for the show. Open this “jar,” & misery will follow.
Need convincing? We'll keep going.
Introducing Clover, a neural implant smart patch. It's a revolutionary medical device brought to us by Hatch. It allows direct input of data into the brain. No more studying! The chimp they've been testing on, “Red”, has an IQ of 120. After the demonstration that opens the show, Hatch is primed to make gazillions.
What could go wrong here?
The viewer is tipped off that things will go horribly wrong in many ways. The filming is dark & near psychedelic at times, while the soundtrack is heavily portentous. ‘This isn't going to be a lite feel-good watch,’ I was thinking. That woulda been OK. The problem is that 🅿 is patched together worse than Hanul Psychiatric Hospital's worst attempt at reconstructing Frankenstein.
🅿 is overrated at 89 on AWiki, which is just shocking to me. The IMDB crowd is at 6.2. It gets off to a hot start. The opening eps are fantastic. I love how Tae, the main protag, wears a very heavy gold chain that's wrapped around her neck twice. It's emblematic of being shackled. At times the action is great, especially early on. They promised the audience more, but their promises were unfulfilled. The filmcraft is outstanding - truly stunning, at times. (It's a shame that it was wasted on this effort). “So far, I don't understand the low ratings,” thought I. Turns out, the crowd is overly generous & must have weighed in before completing the show, b/c 🅿 is a disaster. It just doesn't become obvious until the 2nd half.
Gradually, it comes into focus that there is no focus, no cohesive plot. They bring up tantalizing possibilities w/o follow-through. 🅿 is not an assassin or girl-kicks-butt thriller; it's not a political nor a science thriller. It dips his toes into varied waters but never dives in. Characters haphazardly shift their allegiances. There's also gross over-acting. Bottoming out at downright insulting, it's so thoroughly incompetent that it really is breathtaking.
These people, who seem so happy, sure do turn on eachother.
The women:
Lee Ji Ah is FL Hong “Tae” Ra. On paper her life is perfect but she has no memory of her past. She's starting to get creepy flashbacks. The actress plays someone who inspires disgust in My Mister-9.5, a show that all should watch. Here she's relatable, which speaks to her skill. She's a victim. Her family life ended when her parents were killed in a car “accident “ that may not have been an accident. As an orphan, her victimization intensified.
Jang Hee Jin (Flower of Evil-8.9) plays Ko Haesoo “HSoo,” a reporter who is also a victim. Her husband & Tae's spouse head up Hatch. Her father is a former president who was assassinated & the crime has never been solved. Heartbreak drove her mother to suicide. HSoo's also an irritating lunatic. It's hard to root for a person who is that toxic & self-absorbed, even if she's been through legitimate trauma. She acts like she's the only one who has suffered loss, but none of these protags still has both parents. Something true of mentally ill people is replete self-absorption. HSoo is unhinged & blind to everyone else's pain. What's more tragically ironic is that too much self-focus only leads to despair, & HSoo crossed that threshold long ago. She's also raising a monster, so we can't even give her credit for being a good mom. Later on, they try to turn her into some kind of mastermind, but it isn't convincing, nor is it emotionally satisfying as she's still so tediously odious.
Han Soo-Yeon is Tae's sister& business partner Hong Yura. She has a new bf, but she's cryptic abt him. She seems perfect ~ at 1st glance. Soon we see that she's horrible. Yura ends up a victim as well. Kyeon Mi Ri is HSoo's mother i/l. She is often the rich mom in shows like Revolutionary Love-5.7 & Backstreet Rookie-6.4. She's a cutie, but she's distasteful in most of 🅿. Shim So-Young (Alchemy of Souls-8.3) plays the loathsome mental hospital director, Kim Sun-Deok. Her laugh is really too much; even for a heavy show, her part is over the top.
Let's hear it for Red, she really wowed the crowd before she becomes a victim.
The men:
Lee Sang Yoon (Lovestruck in the City-7.3) plays Tae's husband, Pyo “Jae” Hyun. They are deeply in love, & he seems unfazed by her shrouded past. He's preparing to take a sabbatical as Hatch CEO so that he can run for president. He's a victim. His mother was killed in the same accident that took Tae's parents.
Park Ki Woong/KiW (The King's Affection-8.3) is Jang “Do” Jin, the other half of the Hatch helm & HSoo's husband. Early on we see that KiW is not the devoted partner that Jae is. When we meet his toxic parents, we understand: He's a victim caught in his family's web. Bong Tae Kyu plays the nerdy creative force behind Hatch"s success, “Koo” Sung Chan. He's weak, which turns him into more of a victimizer. Hong Woo Jin (Squid Game-8.4) is Jang Kyojin/”Kyo”. He's a victim. He's been comatose since a motorbike accident that was prob NOT accidental.
Jung Jae-Sung is politician Han Kyung-Rok. Actors from Korea do the arrogant “knowing laugh” better than anyone in the 🌏, & he's among the best. (A funny guy I know always does a mock-up of the “knowing laugh,” so while it used to make me want to strangle the person inflicting it on my eardrums, now it just reminds me of him doing it for fun, so I giggle instead. Humor is the best medicine, indeed). He's often casted as an @$$h0le w/ power. I've seen him in Hospital Playlist-9, Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency-7.4, My Mister-9.5, Clean w/ Passion For Now-7, The King's Affection-8.3, & Big Mouth-7.4. He's been in many other wildly successful shows that I intend to get to asap. On MDL, his only sub-7 show is The Interest of Love at 6.8. He must have eaten magic beans that make him entirely distasteful but wildly successful to be in that many stellar features.
This is Screenwriter Hyun Ji Min's 1st credited work. The director is Choi Young Hoon of One the Woman, & the original creator is Kim HSoon Ok of The Penthouse series.
The theme is Victims. Sadly, most of us have been victimized in small or big ways. Being victimized leaves a person w/ a choice: Heal & move on, or let the pain rule (and ruin) your life. Healing must, at some point, involve forgiveness. (That has nothing to do w/ justice; for the benefit of society, crimes must be punished). HSoo personifies the concept that becoming a victim does not a saint create. Being victimized will tempt a person to wallow in anger, hatred, unforgiveness & bitterness. It's understandable, but in the end, those dark indulgences will only rot us out from within. Almost every character in 🅿 has been victimized, & almost every character chooses the path of bitterness & revenge. A mess it does make.
In ep2 we go back 15 yrs. The president is being inaugurated… & assassinated. Flashes of this past jolt Tae. A furtive missive, delivered by an untraceable tattooed motorcyclist, entices her to come to the Hanul Psychiatric Hospital, a visit that breaks the lock on her past. Soon we are looking at shades of the show Hanna-7, which is about teen girls being turned into assassins. This isn't the first time such a plot has come out of hiding: The 1990 film, La Femme Nikita, also involves young Iron Maidens. Bridget Fonda starred in 1993's Point Of No Return, which was Hollywood's version of the same film. (The French one is better). Let's not forget the absolute bang-jammy of the dudette insurgent bunch - Kickass. Ooo, the Swedish version of The Girl w/ A Dragon Tattoo (+2 sequels) is also as good as it gets. Once again, skip Hollywood's variant of these flicks. When thugs come at Tae, muscle memory kicks… then punches, slashes & tosses. It's SO (swordless) KILL BILL - for a scant moment, but that excitement goes away & never reappears. Whaaaa?
There's too many logical gaps, eg: It makes no sense that enemies seem to have unfettered access to a helpless person who has suffered a stroke. There's a USB that supposedly contains research files but it's inexplicably necessary to run Hatch's programs. Jae's campaign should have been dead after a voice file was released, but the problem evaporates. It's alittle too easy for enemies to sneak up on Tae, who's flawless until the show renders her impotent to push the plot. It's inconsistent & sloppy: Is she a female terminator, or a pathetic woman in distress? When we are introduced to Tae, we should have seen her vigorous workout routine. It would bolster credibility when she starts kicking butt out of the blue. In ep13, CEO Kummo is sent a packet of shocking evidence. He's elated. The problem is that all of it had already been on the national news - as reported by his own daughter i/l.
In the last half, I no longer cared what happened & rolled my eyes at every development. Eps14-16 status: ‘Officially offended’. This is when they attempt to manufacture emotion w/ some deaths, but it all falls flat. They attempt to wrap it up w/ pretty bows, but it's too little too late. While ep16 is not as painful to watch as the previous 4, it's painful, still the same, w/ a sacrifice that is unnecessary & plain silly. Not that I cared who lived or died by then. Kill ‘em all. Ease my pain.
Another thing that will ease my pain is by helping anyone who stumbles onto this review avoid that pain altogether. Try It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9, Law School -8, My Mister 9.5, or Blood Free-8.5 instead.
〰 IMHO
📣4 📝3 🎭5 💓3 🦋2 🎨8 🎵/🔊5.5 🔚2 ▪ 🌞3 ⚡5.5 😅0 😭4 😱4 😯4 🤢2.5 🤔1 💤4
Poli-wagging: 3/10. They make politicians in, general, look bad. That's fair.
Age 15+ for graphic, heavy violence; Language: R-rated $h!+, b!÷ch F💣s
Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only. Not that any mature person would enjoy this.
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Law School -8,
Call It Love-8.4,
Anna-8.1,
My Mister 9.5,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
Mine-8,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Parasite-9
Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
Private Lives 8.1,
K2 8,
Vagabond-8,
Blood Free-8.5
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9
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⚖ Grandma Knows Best ⛓ °4.5° °below avg° ep 1-30
Jie doesn't like men who don't know how to treat a lady right. Jie doesn't seem to like men at all, actually.IP is a 2011 release that is rated 7.6 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 84 43-minute episodes. EIGHTY-FOUR. People really don't know when to stop.
Annie Chen (Tears on Fire, Endless Love, Love Now-3.6) is FL, Song Yi “Jie”. She's a self-described mean person. She's very unpleasant to bad people, especially men who take advantage of women. A legal assistant, she's failed the bar. More than once. More than twice. More than thrice, even. Chris Wang (The Fierce Wife-8, Love Is Science?) plays Ke “Wei” Xiang who is running the family business, so he never has time to date. Furthermore, even if he does try to date, his grandmother insists that he's engaged from before birth by a legally binding agreement. Arranged? That's understating it. They have a bona fide written & signed contract. The only problem is that they've lost the fiance. No one kept track because only Grandma took the deal seriously from the start. Wei would like to be in love. Jie is skeptical of love. She just wants to be an attorney. But every time she tries to take the bar, something goes wrong. It's like a curse. Unbeknownst to Jie, Grandma's been looking for her.
Can Chris Wang act? Absolutely ~ He's the perfect stiff in a suit 😁. All I can say is that this is the second show in which I've seen him, and I'm not tired of watching him on screen yet - probably because I liked The Fierce Wife-8 so much. Annie Chen has lots of fans. She is certainly a cutie. I don't mind her, but I will gently point out that she's not a very good actress. In addition, the overly nasal tones in her voice are wearisome. The better looking a person is, the less talent s/he needs to be successful. For lots of viewers, looks are enough; others need an emotional or even an intellectual connection. It's like actors have stones composed of their assets (attractiveness and abilities) and viewers have buckets that must be filled in order for them to enjoy the performance. Every viewer's bucket is a different size, and some have holes that stones of a certain variety will fall right through. Therefore, every person will perceive them differently. Annie & Chris may not draw me to a feature, but they won't stop me from viewing it either.
Eh, scratch that. I wrote that too early. That is how I /want/ to feel. Honestly, this is my second Annie Chen feature, and I was underwhelmed by her in the first, but other things were so bad it took the focus off of her. In IP, I really can't stand her character. I loathe her character, and I actively dislike her performance. Annie Chen in the lead might be a non-starter for me when making future viewing decisions - at a minimum, I'll take a long pause before hitting “play”. That makes me sad. I don't want to feel that way about any actress. But d@m, Jie is annoying.
As for the rest of the cast, it's a mixed bag. Kunda Hsieh (Meet Me @ 1006, You Go! Girls!) is Ke Wei Cheng, Wei's trouble-making brother. Puff Kuo (20 Years Promise, Light the Night series) plays Li Er, Wei's troublesome childhood friend. Jennifer Hung (The On1y One, Dear Mom) portrays Ke Yan Ni, Wei's oft troubling sister, & Chris Lee (Marry My Dead Body, The On1y One) plays Wang Ke Fan, her oft troubled husband. Unfortunately, the acting is largely substandard. I attribute the flat performances to the directing. The screenwriters are Lin Pei Yu of Kiseki: Dear to Me & We Best Love series, and Shao Hui Ting of HIStory.
Jie is not a pleasant character. She's bossy, overly aggressive and has anger issues. The only likable thing she does is help out a woman whose spouse is cheating. She handles that aggressively, too. Even mom and grandpa have a hands-off approach to her. She's no fun at all! Before ep10 I was aggravated with her dramatic outbursts. Her trust issues are near pathological. They show her at work and she's /scary/. We see her cross examining her OWN clients and then denying them representation - right in front of her boss. It's not going to happen IRL. Aggressive-agressive Jie is in dire need of anger-management. She is always angry at Wei. She's rarely in the right, though. She had no right to fume at him over a promise that he made and was unable to keep: It was entirely out of his control. Everything that happened was Jie's fault, anyway. She's hacked-off all the time, at everyone, in the get-to-know-you episodes. . Combative, too. The word is: Termagant. Wei says he would want to marry someone like Grandma: Someone optimistic, brave, strong, and also very kind. Jie is all of those ~ once in a great while ~ She's just not kind to Wei - or any other man.
The show opens with them happening upon e/o in atypical circumstances. They each read the situation wrong and draw unfavorable conclusions about the other. Yet they keep running into e/o. But wait! It gets better! Jie's land is part of a parcel that Wei's company wants to buy. Jie's family is holding out - JIE is holding out - Mom & grandpop don't care. Fate certainly dropped the net over these two. There's a chain of circumstances and run-ins that keep them colliding. But Jie is no simple girl. She's not going to give up her deceased father's house. She pranks Wei which causes him embarrassing exposure. He decides to prank her back. They think they hate e/o at this point. They can't see how they've been pulled into a vortex, spinning and slowly pulling closer.
Grandma is pushin hard for this marriage. Here's another TwDrama where the matriarch drives the plot. Of the 6 I've seen, Autumn's Concerto-7.2 has a difficult mother at its core, Love, Now-3.6 happens in part because of Grandma pushing for marriage, Love You-7 is very much a woman-centered show and has a mother who drives the plot in the last third, and The Fierce Wife-8 is all about girl power. I'm sensing a pattern… Grandma's got a way of piling on the guilt. The backstory is sufficiently compelling. Jie's grandfather saved their lives one day. They entered into the contract on the spot as a way of thanking him. Then they later lost track of them. “We wouldn't be here without them," she moans. Grandma's also got a bad wig, btw. It's a little distracting.
“Why are they so adorable?” That's what Wei asks himself after meeting Jie's mother and grandfather. And they really are adorable. The whole scene is charming. It's no spoiler that they do go through with the marriage. They could have handled the steps leading to that decision much better. As hateful as she is to him, Jie blows a stack if she thinks he's having an affair (even though he's not allowed to touch her). Wei must endure a wife who has temper tantrums, is never kind, never does anything thoughtful or nice, but rather actively tries to /harm/ him. She acts unhinged.
After marriage (they skipped love) will there come a baby in the baby carriage? That's what Grandma is expecting. In the meantime, Wei Cheng's brother is messing up and getting into his own trublems - what's worse, it's triad-trublems. Another snagger is Li Er, Wei Cheng's childhood friend. She found out the marriage is fake and she wants the groom for herself. She starts working around the edges for wedges to put between them. Some of it is embarrassingly silly and some of it works. The storyline with Wei's Sister and her friend, Jia, is draggy. Most of the wardrobe is nauseating.
I got to the point where I couldn't pay attention pretty quickly. I had it on… I tried… but I found myself ‘double-tasking’ to a level where I was only checking in on the plot. Most of this show is padding - empty fluff to fill too many episodes. Shows like that can be relaxing, but no one can relax around Jie. Or Wei's obnoxious sister. Or Grandma, for that matter. Coincidentally, I began watching Prince of Tennis at the same time and was having the same issue, only to a lesser degree. PoT is extremely relaxing to watch, and while it's a constant stream of nearly redundant tennis matches (whooda thunk?) so it feels somewhat fluffed, it's still unequivocally superior to IP. Around this time I was also watching My Sunshine-6.8, Love You-7 (or Drunken To LoveYou), Boss and Me-7, The Princess Royal, and even the arguably silly Black & White, with no problems.
These are technical criticisms. Everyone seems to have h/h own brand of guilty pleasure - we all luv us some awful entertainment when it pushes the right emotional buttons. There's nothing here to break the peace over or feel defensive about. IP had the /opposite/ effect on me, so I consider it both a technical and EQ failure.
There are praiseworthy elements. Say, that is one EPIC first date. They later go fishing and the pond is beautiful - Great filming. The soundtrack is the best of the TwDramas I've seen so far. Most of it is too-repetitive carnival style music, but they flash-out once in awhile. Shazamed: 不是你的錯 - Only the Mandarin characters came up - by Della Wu.
I wasn't able to finish this show before it left Netflix. I intend to get a Viki subscription but I'm putting that off until I watch more of what's available to me with my current options. If IP comes back to Netflix would I start watching it again? I just might. I'm a little curious as to what happens and if it gets better. I'd be up for one or two episodes a week to give it another shot. I won't be determined to watch it until the end, though. I did that with Love Now-3.6, and it was the wrong decision. On the other hand, I found The Fierce Wife-8 (same ML) highly questionable in the earlier episodes, but stuck with it, and ended up loving it. If I ever circleback, I'll report back.
Age 15+ references to bra size, adult situations
Rated TV-15
Re-📺? With the benefit of foreknowledge, I wouldn't choose to watch it for the first time.
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
Taiwan🇹🇼:
Age of Rebellion-9.5,
The Fierce Wife-8,
Two Fathers-7.5
💓 -
C🇨🇳:
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1;
Wait, My Youth-8.4
Romance junkies only: Accidentally in Love-6.5 ‘18 B-level scripting, acting, and directing, but still fun/strangely relaxing to watch,
Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine but many object to an outrageous stunt the ML pulls,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
You are my destiny-6.8 cute and sweet and 1/2 padding,
Meteor Garden-7.4 - 70% flowing 30% dragging and BOF is better,
Hidden Love-7.8
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🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
🔮🐉-
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 Song of Fire & Flower ♧ Ode to the Toxic Mother & the Emptiness Within °6.4° °good & bad°
AOL opens to a goddess giving birth & this is one angry goddess. Wronged by the baby-daddy, she commands everyone to keep the birth of her dtr, Jimni, a secret. Auguring a disaster in Jimni's first 10,000 years, she forbids her successors from allowing Jimni to leave The Flower Realm and also gives Jimni an elixir that blocks love: Love will only give her daughter pain. Zifen, the goddess, passes away on the birthing bed leaving a rift between The Flower Realm & the heavenly one. The flowers have disappeared from heaven & relations have faded. Raised as an orphan w/ lots of supervision but no family, the loquacious Jimni is lackluster in her cultivation & unmotivated in her studies. Jimni wants /escape/. She also wants to revive her lost friend, who was murdered. Jimni has preserved her spirit in a small potted plant, believing a supreme being in The Heavenly Realm can restore her fallen loved one. These are her wishes on a meteor Jimni sees shooting through the sky one night. Wait. That meteor is headed right at her! A partially roasted bird, that she takes for a crow, is all that Jimni finds at the sight of the crash. It's actually the emperor 's son, Xufeng, who is a phoenix. Jimni renders him assistance (of sorts) & finagles a ride w/ him back toThe Heavenly Realm where she's an instant hit.Don't judge Jimni too harshly. She's actually weak b/c her spirit has been blocked. No matter how much she practices, she can't get ahead. Over time, this has corraded her resolve & she's given up a bit. The Heavenly Realm is a new setting that injects fresh hope into Jimni. People there are exceedingly wealthy when it comes to spiritual prowess, & some of that begins to trickle her way. She begins leveling up by doing favors in exchange for power. She's totally cheating. Bully for her!
AOL is a 2018 release that is rated 8.2 on IMDB. It is 1 season consisting of 63 45-minute eps. Based on the novel, Heavy Sweetness Ash-like Frost (2009) by Dian Xian, AOL & the book it's based on seems to provide inspiration for 2 novels that were also made into shows: Ancient Love Poetry-8.6, & Love & Redemption-10. For that, I'm eternally thankful. As the latter two seem to be standing on AOL's shoulders, comparison isn't entirely fair. In the realm of personal taste, L&R currently holds 1st place as the best thing I've ever seen - despite the often clunky special effects. ALP takes the viewer on a painful journey & flirts w/ being over the top, but they pull it off. It's magnificent. Director Chu Yui Bun also has Who Rules the World & Under The Power-8.6 to his credit, along w/ other popular shows that are all on my watchlist. I want to see everything he's done - his work is of the highest caliber. His shows are technically outstanding but even moreso, they touch the heart. He may or may not have been involved w/ AOL. On most sites Cheng Feng is credited as the director; consistently 1 or 2 steps behind, he hasn't caught up to Chu Yui Bun yet, but he is successful nonetheless.
AOL is a great story, but not perfect. It has pacing issues, it lacks crispness & actually drags. It floats on the surface & does not delve into the depths. That's fine - not every show has to, but one reason Shakespearean tragedies are so popular is that they are cathartically satisfying. Real life is heartbreaking enough. I don't want to watch something that's going to grab my heart, stomp on it, and leave it to bleed out. I'll be straightforward & say that I didn't like AOL very much. Some parts I loved, but overall the show pales next to other fantasy pieces. I'm already spoiled. Seeing how popular AOL is, I feel quite out of place. I want to like it. I tried to like it. However, AOL is not congealed well. It languishes & drags, the plot isn't tight, the characters aren't engaging enough so it fails to pull in the viewer fully from an emotional standpoint and it doesn't sell the romance. Furthermore, what occurs is heartbreaking, yet my emotions remained 70%... detached? Suspended?. It began to feel like a pile of compost. It kept accumulating and nothing cleared it away. That's how AOL became a weight on top of me that provided no release. It ironically does to the viewer what Zifen did to Jimni! AOL takes a loooong time to pick up steam. eps1-9 are mostly set up that tickled the interest but failed to grab it.
When Jimni has to "do time" in the mortal realm, north of ep20, things get more interesting. Typically, earth is where all the fun is in a fantasy Cdrama. Quite often they mention the bland food in heaven & how Earth's food is much more savory. {This is reminiscent of how, in the West, we think of Heaven as sitting on a cloud w/ a harp. We just can't imagine it. I'll say to people of faith that if you believe God made this world w/ all the beauty, love & laughter in it (despite all the evil - that's another topic) you should be able to believe that if God says Heaven is better, it is better.} Anyway, in the human realm, Xufeng is a king & Jimni is a healer. Since the king has never taken a wife nor a consort she believes him to be impotent. He takes special exception to that rumor and he lets her know what's what. As he's falling for her and tries to win her over, he and his general liken the process to war, which leads to countless amusing analogies. Around halfway they provide fascinating backstory.
Back in heaven, though, it starts to drag again. I believed it would come together & be wonderful based on what I had read. It didn't. I ended up forcing myself to watch the final 20 eps 1-at-a-sitting to complete the deed. This is not to criticize anyone who loves AOL. Emotional connections are based on a myriad of factors, none of which have to do w/ technical excellence. There's plenty of awful stuff that I love to watch. Everyone is entitled to h/h own form of mindless entertainment. Technically, though, AOL is not at the level of Ancient Love Poetry, Love & Redemption, Love Between Fairy & Devil-8.9, The Romance of Tiger & Rose-9.8, The Sleepless Princess-9, Eternal Love-8.3, its sequel - Eternal Love of Dream-7.4, the action thrillers Handsome Siblings-8.7, Duoluo Continent-9.1, or Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber-9, & it's not on the level of the period dramas The Rebel Princess-9, Under the Power-8.6, The Sword & the Brocade-8.6, The Rise of the Phoenixes-9, or even Overlord-8.4. I'll go out on a limb & say that even Once Upon a Time in Linglian Mountain-7.5 is better. With the benefit of hindsight, I would not choose to watch AOL for the first time, while I would watch any of the above shows again, & some I already have.
The characters are as likable as generic vanilla ice cream. The viewer cares about them, but those feelings are limited & the emotional investment tops out at mid-range. Many of these characters are irritating & I'm not very irritable. They're either too weak, too blind to the faults of those they love, too forgiving of evil when it suits them, too naive, or too quick to accept false choices. We see this in every drama, & the last two are common tropes in Cdramas, but there's a delicate balance between what one is able to brush aside & what starts obstructing enjoyment. Yang Zi is Jimni. She's got a dry quality that shows up in The Oath Of Love, one of the better modern-day Chinese shows. (China leads the world in imaginative fantasy, but their modern-day stuff is almost as bad as their fantasy & historical features are good). Simply likable, Yang Zi carries OOL. Going into AOL w/ such positive feelings about her carried me through many eps before I realized that I don't like her character very much. She isn't cute, she's not smart, she's not diligent, she's only marginally brave, & she's mostly bland. Just don't blame it on the actress.
Now for some Mosts: Wang Yi Fei plays Sui He, the empress's niece & the woman who feels that she's most entitled to marry the soon to be Crown Prince, Xufeng. She has the most beautiful eyes. She's an iceberg & adept at playing a loathsome character. Speaking of loathsome, Kathy Chow is queen b!+ch, Tu Yao / the Heavenly Empress. She's perfect for these roles. In Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber, she plays a most domineering martial arts sect leader & she kicks butt! Most of her work was in the 80s & 90s. Chen Yu Qi is the most likable character as Liu Ying, the Bian Princess. You should see her in Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber - She's fantastic. The character that tugged at my heart the most is Runyu, the Night Deity (Luo Yun Xi). His story is tragic; he never gets a fair shake. He becomes more and more like his father. It's understandable that Runyu gives up, but he certainly pulls an Anakin Skywalker: Once steeped in bitterness, he goes real bad real quick (that's a mini spoiler, but one can see it coming eps ahead of time. They painstakingly build his resentment. The dam cracks here & there, then it breaks. Does he stay that way? Not telling…). He Zhong Hua is Tai Wei, the Heavenly Emperor. He plays a completely different character, though also a ruler, in Love & Redemption. He looks quite a bit different (older) as well. Talk about most in-demand, since 2011 he's appeared in 3-6 shows/yr, and he's usually in a movie or two as well. How is that even possible? Cloning program?
Deng Lun is Xufeng/Phoenix/Fire Deity. He mostly looks like an Italian kid from South Philly. No complaints about his looks or his acting; he's solid. His character runs out of the baselines, however. The way Xufeng hangs on seems deranged. He pursues Jimni as if he's entitled to her w/o regard for his brother. While he's not wrong (Jimni does not love Runyu) his sense of entitlement & lack of perspective or empathy for Runyu is icky. Runyu's descent into a bitter quest for revenge is heartbreaking. If a story is going to break my heart, I need something back in exchange. AOL creates an unpaid debt to the viewer. The way Xufeng defends his mother is off the righthand path. We should be true to family, friends, & most of all our parents, but we should be most true to what is right. Otherwise, it's selfish indulgence. The emperor lived for selfish indulgence and, later, his sons did the same in their own ways. Xufeng acts like he owns Jimni and he expects his toxic, downright evil parents to be respected regardless of the heinous things they've done, while Runyu wants to kill everyone that crosses him, as is the case w/ most that obtain power. Being wronged doesn't make a person right. Wallowing in victimhood leads to the bad 7: discontent, ingratitude, anger, unforgiveness, hate, bitterness, & misery. They will turn the victim into the victimizer.
Emotions are much stronger than logic, but if we don't check them w/ a humble perspective they will create chaos & misery. Pretending a person's dirty is clean is just existing in lies. It all leads to Xufeng 's regret. He and his father drove his mother to act out. She is still fully responsible for her own stuff, but he contributed. Is there such a thing as loss w/o regret? Doubtful. It's very tricky: Taking on ALL the fault would be overstating his own importance which is another form of self-absorption.
Narcissistic mothers & toxic women drive the plot of AOL. The ambitions of the Heavenly empress for Xufeng have everything to do w/ what she wants & nothing to do w/ her son. They taint her outlook like mud smeared glasses. All she can see are things related to her, for her, & against her. Her niece, Suihe, is her disciple & follows suit. Runyu's birth-mother is near sadistic as she plots her devastating revenge. Zifen, Jimni's mother, utilized extreme measures to exert control as she left the world. Even the floral realm has a harshness to it, though their motives are mostly pure. One way people pass down trauma to their children is by overreacting to it & exerting hyper-vigilance. Not only does that hand a knife to the children (if they want to hurt their parents, they know exactly what to do) but it keeps a family enslaved to the ongoing pain.
Women & men are equal - they are equally guilty of toxic self-absorption. In AOL, the emperor is ultimately to blame. He married for power & pursued what he wanted every step of the way. He speaks of love, but he only loves himself. He never checked the empress b/c he couldn't be bothered. He created the incubator for the disease that spread later.
Narcissists tend to develop from imbalance - from spoiled or neglected children. Narcissistic behavior is handed down generationally & only results in bitter misery. It's a trap, & those who fall into it are enslaved and, in turn, enslave those in their sphere. Self-involvement is like a whirlpool: It's hard to escape once we get spinning inward. It creates appetites that can never be satisfied, leading to the bad 7. We don't need to love ourselves: We need to accept ourselves (imperfection is reality) & always strive to improve. Suihe is a good example. She wastes her life wanting something that clearly won't be hers. At the same time, instead of focusing on self-improvement which will lead to the right mate & true happiness, she works towards what she wants. One thing getting older has taught me is that people don't want the right things. I never wanted the right things. All I want now is to help others avoid some of the regrets that I have. A simple life of love & contentment w/ enough - but not too much - is the best we can hope for. Don't let wanting the wrong things rob you of love, peace & joy.
AOL is a visual banquet. Some of the sets are excessively busy; Flowerworld is almost too colorful, but there's no denying that they labored on the art of the show. What is fascinating is what looks like 1930's streamline design in the heavenly realm. Streamline is simplified Art Deco. The Russian designer, Vladimir Yourkevitch, birthed this look when he crafted the design for the SS Normandie. I don't know if the AOL set designers relied on traditional Chinese motifs or if they incorporated western elements, but there are objects of stunning and familiar detail in the show. Even traditional Greek block scrolling design lines many heavenly structures. (Evidence of a common human origin?). The mosaic lights at the bird realm are my favs. In one masterfully innovative shot, faces are reflected off of a drop of wine. They mention that something is made from ancient mithril - That's from JRR Tolkien's works! That connection gave me a thrill. The big battle scene is impressive. The soundtrack, particularly Sa Ding Ding’s song, is beautiful.
The viewer will smile here & there. He's a phoenix, son of the emperor & the most popular boy in the heavenly realm, but she calls him a magpie. That's once she generously stops calling him a crow. Unfortunately, there aren't many laughs. What goes on in AOL is very bitter. It gets dysfunctional, and we aren't provided with any elixir to help us manage it.
QUOTES📢
You judge me from a villain's perspective.
{She} involves her preconceived ideas in her words, which is a bit biased.
You know yourself least.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣68 📝68 🎭75 💓67 🦋71 🌞49 🎨65 ⚡60 🎵/🔊68 😅35 😭55 😱40 😯40 😖35 🤔44 💤48 🔚73
Age 12+ Language: hell &darnn; violence; references to sex & abusive situations; we see the start of a sexual assault - the woman is dragged away from the camera as she grabs at the ground.
Re-📺? No
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
Historical/Period:
The Romance of Tiger & Rose 9.8,
Overlord 8.4,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1
Fantasy:
Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Love & Redemption 10;
Heavenly Sword 9.
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