☸ Rong is Right ⛩️ Pei is the Way ☸ °8.3° °excellent°
As TPR opens, the kingdom is in shambles and our Princess is very ill. She /knows/ her husband, Pei Wen Xuan, has poisoned her. She orders her minions to kill him as everything fades to black. When she wakes, she has time-slipped 20 years back to age 18. She's alive once again, and no one in the palace has ever heard of Pei Wen Xuan.Another chance? How will she handle things and avoid disaster this time around?
TPR is a 2024 release that is rated 8.2 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 40 fantastic 45-minute episodes. One thing about Chinese historical dramas is that they will make a person happy to be a commoner. Nobody wants to hang with these noxious royals. Soon, Rong will learn that Pei did not kill her. She will never guess who the real murderer is.
TPR is not in the later episodes what it seems like in the earlier ones. Towards the end, the cesspool of the human heart is uncovered and the stench permeates. The show leads up to Rong's pained and impassioned soliloquy: “All of you were really disgusting. How evil. Father and son weren't real father and son, siblings weren't real siblings, couples weren't real couples, and friends weren't real friends. Everything in the past was just a rotting swamp filled with disgusting pus… The ruler showed no mercy to his family. The successor neglected ethical values. The officials plotted rebellion. People's lives were just pawns.” It really is heartbreaking.
Zhao Jin Mai (A Little Thing Called First Love-8.6, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love) is Li “Rong”., Her acting is stellar. She's a woman who's lived over 40 years but is now back in her 18 year old body. Her demeanor says mature. She actually has a tired air about her. She's measured, she's never in a rush, she's always composed, and she's pensive. Zhang Ling He (Love Between Fairy and Devil-8.9, Story of Kunning Palace) is “Pei” Wen Xuan, Rong's husband. She wants to marry “Su” Rong Qing, who was her best friend in her prior life. They loved eachother, but he had been castrated, so they remained as friends. When Rong’s father holds a banquet to get a look at potential suitors, Su will not engage with her. She ends up being stuck with Pei again. She quickly learns that he traveled back just like she did. He insists that he didn't kill her. He's certain that Su did. Ouch. That hurts. Chen He Yi (Till the End of the Moon, Summer Again) portrays Su, who is a Minister of Justice. His Long pensive stares make us wonder what's on his mind. The wheels are clearly turning and churning.
He Qiu (Xiangbei Regret) is Qin Zhen Zhen, the girl-warrior who has captured the heart of the crown prince. Rong's mother is simply hateful - she's the most wrong character of the show. Zhao Pei Lin (Go Ahead, Hi Venus) is the Empress and Shangguan family devotee. Cheng Guo (Married, The Lord of Losers) is the spritely Rebel Shangguan Ya. She's always donning peasant clothes and sneaking off to gamble. When important work needs to be done, she's a go-to resource. In the first go-around, she married the crown prince. When we meet her she's awesome. She's in a pleasure house, disguised as a man, and slapping down cards while yelling out drink orders. Her personality shifts rather quickly though. She's one of the oldest members of one of the most powerful families, and ambition takes over. The way her character goes is a little bit disappointing. Will she make a comeback?
The tensions between the noble families and the common folk is what's driving politics. At one point, the emperor, who truly wants to help the people, can't even look at his wife. Her elaborate jewelry would feed so many poor if they sold it. “Do you know what's the scariest thing about wielding power? It's when it corrodes one's heart. The person whose heart is almost corroded to the core cannot feel anything at all,” Rong will point out. That describes the privileged families and it's no different from what we see today.
“If an emperor thinks he's incompetent, the sense of shame will drive him mad.” Part of the problem with the past is that Rong's brother ended up being a terrible ruler. He's a tenderhearted boy who wants to do the right thing, and he doesn't even want to be king. All the above turns into bitterness when he gets no assistance and feels completely isolated during the course of his reign. He becomes spiteful and cruel. Liu Xu Wei (The Glory) plays crown prince Li Chuan. “Do you know what the hardest thing about being a ruler is? Everyone around you may be deceiving you. While anyone else can obtain the truth easily. As the emperor, I have to search for the truth in the middle of a trove of lies. What's more, the truth often consists of the half lies they tell me…. I was born with free will, yet I couldn't live freely,” laments the king. Yet, for his son, Chuan, it's much worse.
This time around, Pei & Rong know that power won't satisfy, but wielding it for good, will. They know a simple life of love is what makes it all worth it. “Only the incompetent ones need to use the weakness of their wives to prove themselves. What I desire is for my wife to achieve her aspirations… My love for my wife is not about trapping her in a gilded cage but about being able to offer her opportunities to do whatever she desires without restraints.” Pei wants a partner, not property.
I don't have many nitpicks. The cadence is relaxing but it flirts with dragging at times. It's a slow paced show. It is methodical and elegant, but I suspect some won't like the pace. Pei’s lipstick is too much in many scenes; positively Maybelline Plum #3. At the very end, they go ahead 3 years but don't show us any kids. In the context, they should have. None of the needs-improvements stack up against the filming, which is beautiful. Cinematography and costume designs are exquisite. The wardrobe is wearable art. The sets are opulent but not overdone, with the rich colors serving as a balm to the eyes. The music is lovely. There's several fights and skirmishes. Fight scenes are largely typical but also graceful and exciting. The sword fight in ep 40 is riveting.
The acting is top tier. There's a stunning love confession in the rain. No kiss, though. Since the confession comes earlier than expected, I guess they can't jump into things too quickly. They eventually generate some lovely, well-above-average romantic moments. It is even funny at times. The blemishes are few; this show is magnificent.
TPR gives the viewer plenty to consider. We see people chasing after power and privilege with nary a whim about what they'll do with it. Helping the poor and disadvantaged never occurs to them! Most fall on their own swords, in the end. There's no better last words than this: “I also went through so much to finally understand that my whole life should be dedicated to my righteousness.” We shouldn't save those thoughts for last, though. The sooner we work on acting and thinking “right” the better for us, and everyone else.
Things split and go in unexpected directions In the last 7, or so, episodes. We hear more about the past from 2 or 3 different perspectives, and it's shocking. It's sad, all around. Rong is confronted with a huge dilemma. But, Rong is going to Pei. He will figure it out. Pei is the way.
QUOTES📢
The worst thing women can do is pin their hopes on men.
The essence of power is understanding people.
People only have the right to choose when they are strong enough.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.9 📝8.5 🎭8.5 💓7 🦋6.7 🎨9 🔚8 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡4.9 😅2 😭4.2 😱3 😯2.8 🤢3 🤔4.8 💤1.5 🤗5
🎵/🔊7 Shazams: 藏心 (电视剧《度华年》情感插曲) by Ye Xuanqing & 执爱 (电视剧《度华年》情感插曲) No English title is available.
📝Original Creator Mo Shu Bai (Destined)
📝Screenwriter: Rao Jun (The Journey of Flower, Ancient Love Poetry-8.6)
📣Director: Go Yik Chun (The Empress of China)
Age 13+ mild sexual content, moderate violence
Re-📺? Would
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C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine;
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K🇰🇷 :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
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🎎 -
C🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
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The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
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Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl 8.5;
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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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⚠️ Act like your life is on the line °7.7° °excellent°
Testosterone is back!It opens Hard Boiled 🥊🤾♂️🔩 ~ Chow Yung fat would be proud. I recently watched Oldboy-9, and it seems like we're back in the same hallway fighting under that ghoulish green light. We only get a peek at the extreme violence. A man and woman look at eachother at opposite ends of the hall. He starts fighting his way over to her. Blood splatters. Then we jump back in time.
It's 1994. They're both getting into a car and discussing her next assignment. She's being transferred to the Security Division; she's law enforcement. Her whole family are cops. The photo on the living room wall showing everyone in the uniform, except for Mom-in-a-Hanbok, is proof of that.
It's obvious that the family doesn't think that Mr. Park “Jun” Mo (Ji Chang Wook from the wonderful Lovestruck in the City-7.3, The K2-8 and the average Backstreet Rookie-6.4), the lowly detective, is worthy of their family member, his wife, Yoo “Ui” Jeong (Im Se Mi from Wonderful World-7.8 & My Dearest Nemesis). She doesn't agree. She says her brothers are jerks. Her mother's been in the hospital, long-term, and that keeps the family in more regular contact then usual, unfortunately for Jun.
Wi Ha Joon (Bad and Crazy, Midnight) is DJ Jung “Gi” Cheol. He's not living disrespected. He's appreciated. Adored, even. He wishes the gangsters didn't like him so much, though. They're pushing him to take over a nightclub. ‘Why would you want to keep working as a DJ for a club when you can own one?’ It's tough to refuse the kinds of offers that they make. We pop over to 1995 and see that he settled into the role quite naturally. Fast forward to current day, and he's a mob boss running several businesses along with a large criminal network. He has maintained every bit of his natural charm, to boot.
Jung Man Shik (Vagabond-8, Iris-8) as Jang Gyeong Cheol was born to play a gangster. In one scene he's mostly naked and his body is covered in tattoos. It's impressive. When Gi suggests they sell drugs at the nightclub, he has a fit. But Gi and his boys need to make more money. Gi recruits a rival organization to take over Gangnam together. He's settled on pushing out his overlords. Soon, authorities from Japan and Korea are discussing the influx of drugs from Korean gangs to the streets of Japan. They're going to need an insider to root out the problem. One of them has an idea for the best candidate. Some might think he's a lowly detective, but he's actually got a wild side. Jun doesn't want to do it ~ at all. But this might be his only chance for a promotion.
Undercover it is.
TWoE is a 2023 release that is rated 93 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 53-minute episodes. Gi is now a top-tier gangster. He's ruthless, and he's a brilliant strategist. This assignment will take everything Jun has. Jun poses as the cousin of Tae Ho, Gi's lifetime BFF whom he lost in a turf dispute. The way Jun gets inside the gang is written well.
It doesn't take long for Jun to learn that Gi grew up with his wife. They were in the same church youth group. Things are tangled. After Gi sees his childhood sweetheart hanging out with Jun, he wants to talk to Jun about her. ‘Why did she marry some small town bumpkin cop?’ He was able to get a photo of her husband pulled from the police department. Fortunately, they had already substituted Jun's photo with someone else's. (Moves and counter-moves splatter the show). “Who's more handsome, me or him?” “You are, boss,” Jun mumbles.
Nobody likes the new guy being in tight with the boss so quickly. It creates friction in the organization. Soon, Jun is asked to murder someone to maintain his credibility. No matter what he does, suspicions abound. He's constantly on the move to maintain his cover.
Gi has success in (all kinds of) business, so now he's ready for success in love. Seeing Ui again causes him to remember how much he cares about her. The department learns how he feels about her and starts to use her to distract him while other things are going on. Jun is losing his mind over that.
Cha Rae Hyoung (The Good Detective,12.12: The Day) & Im Sung Jae (Newtopia, Extraordinary Attorney Woo) make fantastic thugs. One is cold, thin, and ruthless, while the other is emotional and rotund. BIBI (Hopeless, Gangnam B-Side) is impeccable as Lee Hae Ryeon, a beautiful, stylish, and very dangerous woman. She's actually the best thing in the show. I love her look, her manner, her voice… I want to see her in everything. (Girl crush?) Yoon Kyung Ho (Team Bulldog: Off-duty Investigation, A Birth) is slimy and gross as Det. Hwang Min Gu.
Ye Soo Jung (An Old Lady) gets to play a Korean female Walter White! She usually portrays a good person. My first look at her was as a nun in the show, Mine-8, and she's fabulous in it. Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7 should be much better, but one thing that makes the show worth watching is her performance. She's having a blast and it's quite obvious. Here, she's the "Professor", and she cooks meth. Seo Yi Ra (Connection, Moving-8.5) portrays Wendy, a junkie. She does a really nice job. The screenwriter is Jang Min Seok (Secret Reunion, Maundy Thursday) and the directors are Han Dong Wook (New World, Man in Love) and Park Geun Beom (Adulthood, Girl on the Edge). None of them has done very much in the last 10 years. Looks like there's a story there.
Ever see a date where both parties check to make sure their guns are operational first? Jun and wife, Ui, are on mirroring journeys. She has to play nice with the mobster (Gi's also a man she sincerely cares about) and he ends up having to play nice with a Chinese drug supplier who's taking a fancy to him. Both of the extramarital relationships are on the fast track, and the 2 couples must socialize, at times. This is a world where trust is the rarest commodity. As these people fall in love, they still acknowledge they might have to shoot their beloved.
It would be rare for a feature like this to not have its foibles. There's more intricacy - more moving parts. One shooting I heartily disapprove of - I don't like what they did with about 10 minutes to go. It's bitter. One could make the argument that TWOE is just a touch hokey, but the same applies to most Hollywood features, and most of them are much dumber than this.
There are more quality touches than shortcomings. When Gi's friend is stabbed in ep1, the blood stain on his shirt looks almost black. It augments the horror and the darkness. Like any undercover cop drama, this can get tense. Jun is under constant pressure. His immediate superior wants to pull the plug on the investigation, but the chief smells a big win and decides to gamble with Jun's life. There are heartbreaking repercussions. One of the gangsters actually makes reference to Chow Yung Fat, Taiwanese 80's action star. I saw a couple of his films, back in the day, and recognized the early call-outs immediately.
This show is much more violent than any other Kdrama I've seen, except Moving-8.5 and The Man From Nowhere-8.9. (Oh, let's not forget Oldboy-9. That film is in its own category). Gi brings Ui to the office. Another gang shows up, and it's war. Jun is hacking attackers apart. He's covered in blood. His suit had been white. Now it's red, brown and black. Ui can't unsee that.
“Do you think that we can go back to who we were?” Jun's wife wants to know. In this line of work, particularly undercover, there's no way to do the right thing at every moment. It's all a balancing act and a series of choices. Jun does the best he can to make the best choice in every situation. He does better than his bosses, who are willing to trade their underlings for their own ambition. In the end, one could argue that the police brass are the worst. Maybe on paper, their acts aren't the worst, but the way they abuse their privilege and position is. Many criminals have limited choices. I think that we should punish white collar crime with stiffer penalties than we do regular street crime. People who have been given the most by our society, and yet still abuse it, are more depraved, yet we give them a pass. “I may be a sinner, but you used my trust against me. Isn't that a sin too?” Gi poses a valid question.
Choices. Gi always maintains a moral superiority over his fellow criminals. We learn his mother was devout and he was raised in the church, which is where he met Ui. Gi is likable. Truly. But, Gi made bad choices. Jun faced difficult choices and nearly slipped into the abyss. The police brass made selfish choices and it led to tragedy. In the end, Gi was offered a chance for a renewed life. Changing course will lead to freedom and disperse regrets. Not changing course will lead to regrets so heavy only death will provide sufficient relief. What choice will he make? TWoE tells us that it's never too late to switch course and do the right thing. TWoE encourages viewers to make the right choice. Consequently, watching this show is the right choice for most.
QUOTES🗣
Whether it's meat or people you have to weigh them yourself.
Not knowing your place is also a disease.
If the law fears the underworld then our children will have to live in barbaric times.
IMHO〰🖍
📣8 📝7.5 🎭8.2 💓5 🦋4.5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚🤗4.5 ▪ 🌞3.4 ⚡7.3 😅2 😭5.3 😱4 😯5 🤢7.3 🤔4 💤0
Age 18+ Language: R-rated F💣s. Machetes, baseball bats, clubs- /substantial/ violence. Rated: 18+
Re-📺? I probably won't because it makes me sad
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Itaewon Class-8.9,
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Cheese in the Trap-7.7,
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⚡/🚀 -
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Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
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Vagabond-8,
Why Her?-8,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
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Han River Police-7.4,
Law School -8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Anna-8.1,
Taxi Driver-8.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
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D.P.-8.4,
Iris-8,
The Cursed 8.3,
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Awaken-8.7,
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The Wailing-8.8,
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Oldboy-9,
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Acting Alone Is Nonexistent ❣ It's Not Love, Anyway °6.7° °good, bad, & bitter°
No man is an island ❣Entire of itself ❣
Every man is a piece of the continent ❣
A part of the main ❣….❣ Any man's death diminishes me ❣
Because I am involved in mankind ❣
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls ❣
It tolls for thee.
~John Donne~
Is that love? Yes, it is.
‘I wanted to carry the burden alone,’ many characters in WIL say. Is that love? If you choose to act alone, you are choosing to be alone. Before you act alone, remember that you don't act alone: No man is an island. Everything we do has an impact on others, and every one of us is a role model, whether for good or less-than. "By the time I realized I'd pushed you away, it was too late," is another line we hear. Again, was acting alone, love?
‘Why would you drop out of college with just one semester to go?’ Long pause. This rom-dram, with some smiles mixed in, opens up to our FL, “Noh” Ae Jung (Song Ji Hyo from My Wife’s Having an Affair This Week & The Witch's Diner). She's in a job interview at a movie studio. Her voice is a rich Alto. Finally, she blurts out that she had to drop out to have a child. Her daughter's now older, so she's ready to pursue her dream of being a movie producer. She was hired immediately. Wow, that was easy! When the owner of the studio disappears, she learns that he tricked her into cosigning for his debt! The debt collector is a really scary looking dude. She needs to make money fast or risk losing limbs.
Noh frantically rifles through the studio in search of anything that can generate quick cash. She comes across a contract to adapt ‘Love Is Non-existent' to film. It's the fledgling novel by a now enormously famous author. Jackpot. She arranges a meeting and is pleasantly surprised when the reclusive writer agrees to it. When she arrives at the pre-arranged location, she understands why: She's met this author before. He's never posted pictures of himself publicly, and he writes under a pen name, but this wordsmith, Oh “Dae” Oh (Son Ho Jun from Go Back Couple & The First Responders-7.8) is her ex. Right here. Right now. Right in front of her disbelieving eyes. They had been very close, but was it love? I'll tell you what it is now: It's hate. No matter how much money is involved, this is a man she won't work with. Lo, and behold! HE says the same thing about her! He'll never agree to work with /her/ on /anything/.
Noh has the script’s rights, and she's desperate, so she's thinking about forcing through with the project. In the meantime, Dae looks for comfort and support. He reaches out to the couple's closest college friend, “Ryu” Jin (Song Jong Ho of Arthdal Chronicles & A Korean Odyssey-7.2). Ryu, a now famous actor, has his own agenda, however. As the project goes forward, things will get quite messy with the 3 of them.
Not as messy as it is with Dae and his daughter, Hani, though. Once again, we see a superb Korean child actor. She's been longing for him her whole life. He didn't know she existed. Dae’s first interaction with the kid is darling. It's loaded. There's tension, they spat, they look alike, they act a little bit alike, yet she also acts like her mom. Hani may seem inconsistent. She's looking for her father, but when she finds him, she's reluctant to accept him. She's lived 14 years without a father, she tells him, so she doesn't need one. It's understandable that she would be self-protective and cautious before opening up her heart to this man whom she's just met, but the toxicity is frustrating. Is that love? Not yet.
Kim Mi-kyung is the every-other-mother. She's in every other feature as the mom, it seems. Somebody should let that woman out of the kitchen. In Saimdang-8.5 she plays a sophisticated Gallery owner, and she does it well. Even though she's always playing a mom, that doesn't mean that she's the same in every feature.
When things get a little more serious, the actors shine. They get to show off their skills. That is part of what hurts. I'm behind in writing reviews. Sometimes, the way I see a show changes over time. My first impression isn't always the lasting one. The more I recall WIL, the less I like it. The more I look back on it, the more bitter it is. WIL is a difficult pill. What it does well, it does really well; but the negatives are what stays with the viewer. There are things in this show that I didn't merely dislike, but actively loathed.
First of all, some characters don't come around quickly enough. It's frustrating.
Secondly, Noh committed so many no-nos! They will show the couple's falling out. Dae became obsessed with the many things pressuring him between school and career, He turned dismissive, unappreciative, and inattentive towards Noh. He was horrible. He was wrong. She, in turn, separated herself and never told him he was a father. Not when she started showing. Not as the due-date neared. Not after the birth. Not at the first birthday, or the second. Count to 14. Fine, to that. I don't agree, but she was really angry at that jerk. But we'll also learn that /Hani/ was tortured at school over not having a father. They had to frequently move due to the intolerance from outsiders. Hani had trouble making and keeping friends. Hani longed for her father. Noh sacrificed her daughter to her anger. Her feelings were more important than her daughter! Was that love? HAIL NAW! This isn't up for debate: Noh was wrong.
That's a worthy message rolled into WIL. “Stop before you end up doing something you regret, like I did. Some things just weren't meant to be,” we hear. No one is guilt-free in this show. Everybody thinks they're running in a straight line. We're all going after our prize. However, none of us are capable of running in a straight line. Society is a web, a tangle, and endless knots. In WIL, most of the characters make decisions on their own without a care to verify the facts. Is that love? More often than not, when we think we're acting alone, we're lying to ourselves. We're not running a straight path, we're always weaving and intruding into other lanes. We choose to ignore that and keep the focus on us, what we want, & our own pain. Instead of the wide world around us and loved ones closest to us, it's our bitterness, hate, and anger that drives most people. Nowhere is this more true than with parenting. "It was my choice to have her, but it wasn't hers to live this way," Noh sobs (yeah, it was). She's in the middle of her mother and her daughter. Mom is saying that she'll take on all Noh's burdens because that's what a mother does for a child. Noh slowly takes in the fact that, ultimately, burdens must be borne - nobody can /walk/ our path for us. It's much easier with support, if we can get it. Regardless, the toll must be paid. She realizes how the whole situation has put a very heavy burden on her daughter, while she had blinders on. She refused to see it. Was that love?
Parenting is the main theme of WIL. The teacher's mother wants to protect her son, and therefore, tries to take over his life. Is that love? Ironically, she got the exact opposite of what she wanted. She distanced herself from her son. If she had just been natural with him they would have been close. ‘I'm a single parent, so I'm your mom and your dad,’ is Noh's attitude. That's asking the kid to enter a pact of lies. No matter what a parent says, kids know when they have another parent out there, somewhere. I have people close to me with a parent who claimed s/he would be two parents. The kids knew it wasn't true; all they felt was betrayal from the parent that wasn't there, and they underappreciated, with a little resentment mixed in, the parent that was there. Because nobody can fill two roles. We should merely fulfill our responsibilities to our utmost ability and love. Kids always want a mom and a dad, but no one can be two people, we can each only be one. Tell them you'll do everything you can to make up for the lack. Tell them that you're in this together. It's important that they know that things don't always work out the way we like in life. It's usually a bad idea to lie to kids. Most of our lies are for ourselves, not others, anyway. (Even many white lies are about making us feel more comfortable, not about looking out for the other person, who might improve if s/he heard the truth in kindness. Is that love?) Most of all, we lie to ourselves first. You can get through anything with your kids by cherishing them and always keeping communication open and flowing. Claiming "I'm your mom and your dad," as opposed to saying I will do everything I can to make up for what you haven't been given in life,” are not the same thing. As one character in WIL says: 'it's not enough to fill the void in her heart."
Thirdly, he ends up wanting to scrap his book, change his pen name and start over to write the true story. He claims the 1st one was a lie. It wasn't a lie, it was the truth as he knew it. I think a better idea would be to write the sequel from her perspective. He can't scrap the book anyway, it's already out there.
Finally, the dreaded, no good, very bad MSS - Mandatory Separation Syndrome. It's a tired-out plot device in which, once a couple commits, they are separated for an extended chunk of time. I can't believe that after 14 years of separation they still did a 2-year MSS. Just pretend it didn't happen. Yeah, sure, he had to go do what he had to go do, and she needed to do what she had to do, but no contact? I can't stand it. How could they bear to be separated, and how could he leave his daughter for another 2 years? Is that love? Nope. This is utter nonsense in any culture.
There are many worthy elements. The childrens’ relationship mirrors the adults. It's charming. “Why do bad things always come all at once?,” Noh wonders. Apparently suitors come all at once, as well. It ain't a Kdrama without a ❣⛰. First blood: They each got a paper cut early on in the show; they are linked. The cool camera work during some of the kisses makes the viewer feel how dizzy it must have been for them. They aren't going for all-out laughs, but there's plenty of amusing moments and characters in the show. Director Kim Do Hyung does a nice job. The Issues don't stem from the technical side. The directing is solid. The acting is tremendous. It's just enough to string the viewer along for the big letdown. The weakness in WIL is with the writing, more than anything else. While It isn't without merits, we are left with an emptiness that hurts. I'm not in love with it.
QUOTES🗣️
There's something more dangerous and hurtful than a knife, a gun, or an ax. It's the words that come out of your mouth.
Loving someone when you can't protect them leaves us vulnerable, because love makes us vulnerable.
I don't know how many knots there are, but let's start on tying them one by one.
Love has no revenge. There are only lingering feelings that feel like revenge.
I wanted to stay by your side and protect you, but I was just being selfish. It wasn't love.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬6 📝5 🎭7.7 💓5.5 🦋6.5 🌞3 🎨7⚡3 🎵/🔊6 😅3 😭5 🤢2 🤔5 💤2 🔚4
Screenwriter: Lee Seung Jin (Cinderella and the Four Knights-5.6)
Age 14+ starting 25 minutes in, we have a string of R-rated language, Including a couple f💣s. It's scattered through the series here and there. There's blood and death around level 2.5/10
Re-📺? Sorta wish I skipped the 1st viewing.
After So Long, It's YOU:
My First First Love-8,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Sisyphus 8
Hospital Playlist 9 (give it 3 episodes to get warmed up),
Itaewon Class-8.9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
More Than Friends-8,
Awaken-8.7,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Something in the Rain-8.6,
C🇨🇳:
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Hidden Love-7.8
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Pawnshop Ghost & Garbage Girl: Dark Knight On Fire. °8.9° °outstanding °
He came outta nowhere… TMFN opens to a 2 month police sting in which only the police get stung.Won Bin (Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War) is Cha Tae-Sik, the “Pawnshop Ghost”. He lost a wife and child. A child ended up finding him. Kim Sae-Ron (Heaven's Garden, Bloodhounds) portrays Jung So-Mi, the child - Garbage Girl. She's yet another brilliant K-kid actor. Her performance is world-class. We are treated to some truly scary psycho bad guys, regular Joe cops, and some Kpop hairdos. Screenwriter & director, Lee Jung Beom, also brought us Samjin Company English Class.
TMFN is a 2010, 119 min release that is rated 90 on AWiki / 💯 on RT. My son has only seen a couple Kdramas. He joked in the beginning of this show that many Korean actors in this film look like Michael Jackson - or perhaps MJ was trying to look Korean? (Korea does have the most beautiful male leads in the world, imo). He quickly settled into the story, though, as the film is fantastic.
So-Mi has a mom who is only 25% there. Most of the time, she's turning tricks and taking drugs. So the little girl often visits the guy at the pawn shop. He doesn't talk much, and he doesn't seem overly friendly, but she knows he's decent. He frequently feeds her and buys all of the random junk that she sells him. So-Mi's mom doesn't trust him, though. It's obvious that there's something a little different about him.
That police sting? Just when the police were on the brink of making a huge arrest, a rogue criminal element came in and took everything from both parties, the police and the target of their investigation. These criminals got away with lots of drugs and ALL the money. Now, everyone's after them. The police and the jopok (mafia).
So-Mi's mom is caught up in the net and dies while she's being questioned by jopok thugs. They haul off So-Mi to child traffickers. It's heart-breaking. All of these kids are put to work. Some are sold. Some of them are used to harvest organs. Stories like this are worldwide. Millions of children go missing every year. It looks like this all really goes on.
Tae-Sik learns what's happened to So-Mi and he hits the trail to find her and bring her back. From this point, the film is reminiscent of the excellent movie, Man on fire, starring Denzel Washington. The bad guys have no idea who's coming for them. We're all gonna find out.
The craftsmanship is excellent. Film is a visual medium, and this is a man and a film of few words. The story is mostly told visually. You'll have to put down your phone! When he agrees to “run an errand”, things suddenly take on a blue glow / turn a neon blue outside. The director uses a blue filter over some scenes. The color blue is associated with trust, dependability, and stability in Korea. The color palette is, otherwise, heavy industrial grey. It suits the subject matter. Handheld camera work in the action scenes builds tension and excitement. We follow him right through a 2nd storey window down to the street. Hold onto your hat!
TMFN is the perfect Friday night flick. It's inspiring, scary, exciting, and fulfilling. It's an excellent choice as an introduction to Korean programming for your unexposed friends and family.
As the film ends, the sun is coming up in Seoul. Warm light bathes the screen. Strength lends strength. So-Mi's life will never be the same.
QUOTES📢
The ones living for tomorrow get f💣d by the ones living for today.
I only live for today. I'll show you just how f💣d up that can be.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣9 📝8.2 🎭8.5 🌞3 🎨7.5⚡9 🎵/🔊6 😅0 😭6 😱5 😯5 😖8.7 🤔5 💤0 🔚8
Age 17+ for Rated R language; Drug trade torture; Torture of a woman in front of her child; A body that was organ-harvested. Rated R - restricted
Re-📺? Did
~ you may also like ~
My Mister 9.5;
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
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Santa Seoul vs Ancient Curse-Castor 〰 A ♥️ For The Ages °8° °Excellent°
Let's Brew Laughs & Some Abraca〰Boom〰Shakalaka.Herein is a cauldron of romcom excellence. Is it a bit silly? Absolutely, but in a familiar sense. There's enough good directing, acting, and writing to balance it out. (Just look at the team!). Poof! This is a potion of loves, laughs, & crackling sparks of electricity far exceeding my low expectations. It all makes AW💘 fly.
There's no boil, boil, trouble or toil about it. If a viewer doesn't like AW💘, then that viewer doesn't like simple romcoms that are a happy lift to life's drudgery. If you don't like rom-coms, why are you even watching this? I can't make sense of its rating, particularly in comparison to worse shows that are rated higher. AW💘 just does it for me. I don't understand why What's Wrong With Secretary Kim-6.8 is rated higher. I don't understand why someone would like Abyss-4.7, 100 Days My Prince-5.5, or Bring It On Ghost-4.6, more. But we are all different. I am of the firm opinion that AW💘 Is under appreciated. We tend to overrate our gateway Kdramas and this is one of mine. I decided to pick off an episode here and there again to see if I still felt the same way. I do. These two are superb actors & they connect. They connect like a giant puzzle made out of hot water bottles. Everything fits snug and cozy and warm. The heat just radiates. I wish I could think of a better term than chemistry, but when they look at e/o I can feel it. Even with her bad hair and too much makeup, I can feel the connection. That's literally chemistry at work, given it's a hormonal response. I guess there's no better term. On paper it's mostly standard stuff, but the execution is well above average. I attribute it to the 2 leads; it's not something I can argue out with words, it's more the way they make me feel, but we'll give it a go anyway.
“Are you sure it's an exclusive?” They both put on school uniforms, even though they are each over 30. Ban’s coworker looks concerned, “What's my nickname?” She's practically carefree. “The Witch!” She gives him an evil look as she corrects: “Gwanghwamun Antenna!” Her target today is an actor (soon-to-be politician). He looks like the perfect man, but he's actually got a side piece and an illegitimate daughter. He's at the school for a political appearance, but he's also there to see his 2nd family. Ban is a reporter spying undercover - school uniform and all. She & her assistant end up being chased by school security - and he was paying attention during the morning's self-defense class put on by the police. He's gaining on them! She's desperate.
In the meantime, our ML is a saint. He's spending his day in a Santa outfit handing out toys to disadvantaged kids.
How would these 2 ever meet? She steals one of the kid's bikes. That's how. He chases her… for miles. He's tenacious that way. There they go, on one of Seoul’s 16-lane thruways; her pedaling, him running. It's White Day in Kcountry. The radio jockey proclaims: On a day like this, never make a woman angry. Ever. White day is for sending ‘thanks-yous’ for Valentine's Day treats received. Thanks for nuthin.
AW💘 is a 2014 release consisting of 16 60-minute episodes. There's pithy repertoire. Screenwriter Ban Ki Ri also wrote the excellent Missing: The Other Side-8.3, and this director, Lee Jeong Hyo, gave us a string of hits including Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9 and Crash Landing on You-9.1. Uhm Jung Hwa (Our Blues-8.5, Doctor Cha) is our FL, “Ban” Ji Yun. She's even more beautiful now than when this show aired. Her character is ruthless and without empathy. She tells the children, who by now our ML gathered in her employer's lobby, that there is NO SANTA! (The sooner they learn about the big, cold world, the better.) Park Seo Joon (WWW Sec Kim, Itaewon Class-8.9) is our delish ML, Yoon Dong “Ha”. He looks so young in this! In the 2013 show, I Summon You, Gold!, he's the 4th listed of 5 leads, so this show is his first romantic ML role and seems to have spring-boarded his career. In AW💘, he starts out in the 🎅 suit, until she yanks off his beard & hat, thus exposing the lie of 🎅 to the kids. They'll then proceed to dismantle their very lives.
“If Santa's not real, how about witches?” Ha still hasn't given up. Her response is emphatic: “What's wrong with a witch? It's better than Snow White who only depends on others and causes a nuisance. An independent witch is 💯×s better.” So Ban declares, while standing under the ‘Trouble Maker Magazine’ sign designating her place of employment. Naturally, these 2 loathe e/o from the start.
After the 🎅 Incident, she overhears her coworkers snickering about her. “A witch like that can never get married!” Well, she's 39 and no one's nibbling. They could have a point. Her mother tells her to get married -daily- but it's had nil effect. She could die alone in her apartment and it could be weeks before anyone knows! Her fish would die! The subject of marriage takes her to a dark place. She almost got married… Her fiance, No Shi Hoon (Han Jae Suk of Should My Tears Show & Check in Hanyang), disappeared. Now, Oma is near panicked: “You're almost too old to have a baby!” Yang Hee Kyung, from Sunny, If You Wish Upon Me, does a nice job as Choi Jung Sook Ban's mother. So mom's a regular at the Shaman's. Officially, the shaman says that Ban lacks yang energy, but unofficially: “Your daughter is “a dirty witch with the energy of a viper!” - This shaman is on point!.
One might expect that when she took that elevator away from him, the kids, and the lobby, that they wouldn't see e/o again anytime soon. Fate intervened later that /very/ night, though. She's at a company dinner and he was invited out by a friend of his. He sees her get embarrassed 〰 very publicly 〰 and he, the 🎅-soul that he is, takes pity. It's a kissing contest. They share a doozie.
Looking simpatico, they leave together, but as soon as they are out of sight, she's arguing. She doesn't appreciate feeling like a charity case. She's already deduced that her work friends hired the man who embarrassed her. Ha points out that they must have felt very harassed by her if they took the drastic step of banding together to strike at her. He's definitely more mature than her in this scene - & most scenes. As it unfolds, we learn that she has no friends. The one friend she has (Ra Mi Ran of The Good Bad Mother & Reply 1988-8.6 portrays Baek Na Rae) married a guy she hates (Lee Sae Chang from Let Me Be Your Knight). It is so weird to see Ms Ra playing a giggly woman! She's usually authoritative. She's clearly having a blast. She even acts cute with her husband. It made me chuckle, and it made me uncomfortable at the same time. They have a wonderful time together, the 4 of them, at Na-Raes’ restaurant.
Next day: Mom drags Ban, under protest, to the shaman's. Handyman Ha happens to be in another room working on some repairs. He hears it all, particularly mom's sobbing over her daughter's lonely existence. (Narsha is a cutie as the shaman, but she doesn't get much work). After the literal beat down at the shaman's, Ban goes and gets drunk. “All of her relationships started when she was drunk,” we hear from Na-Rae? Ha has /already/ headed out to help her 〰 a bad habit he formed rather quickly. He finds & helps her. She helps herself to /him/. Then she sees his resident card… And his DOB. She is 1.4 decades older than he. 😱
OUT! GET OUT!
What she doesn't know is that he's now living right next door to her, with a friend. He also ends up in a dispute with her company which lands him as her assistant as part of the settlement. They won't be able to avoid e/o. At the same time, she's made an enemy. The actor she exposed is really ambitious. He sued her over her story, but things like that don't work against Ban, so he's resorted to more drastic (violent) measures. Ban’s boss has charged her new assistant with keeping her safe. She can't shake this kid.
That balance of the show is them drawing closer, her being in bigtime denial, and the fiance popping back up making a mess of things. There's a couple of cute 2ndary couples and there's lots of hanging at Na-Rae’s place.
The show does go beneath the surface a few inches to examine how society views older women and younger men. Even Ban's mother, who starts a thing with a man 5 years her junior, has to go through a gut-check when she thinks about her daughter with a man who's 14 years younger.
Society is actually like cat fur. It stands on end when we see something too unfamiliar. A fundamental problem, beyond the darkness that inhabits the human heart, is a lack of exposure. The biggest obstacle to a couple who doesn't fit into the everyday mold is the pressure put on them by everybody else. If you're about to go into an atypical relationship, be willing to leave family and friends behind. You'll likely be able to reconcile, in time; if not, then your F&F are entirely too controlling, and leaving was the right move anyway. These issues are for the couple to work out. Why do the rest of us need to have any opinion on it?
As with every relationship, it depends on the two individuals. People born on the same day at the same time might be the worst couple ever. People born 20 years apart might be a very comfortable fit. Doesn't appeal to you? No one is making you do it. After the movie Harold Maude, I can hardly be shocked at this one. In the movie, Leon The Professional, Natalie Portman plays a 12-year-old girl whose family is slaughtered. She, alone, is alive because Leon rescued her in the nick of time. They were strangers & he took pity on her. The bad guys are determined to eliminate all witnesses, so she has to rely on Leon for safety. She falls into keeping the home. They never kiss: If they had a sexual relationship, he should go to jail. However, as it stands, would I separate these two? Never. There are relationships forged in combat that are stronger than any other bond possible; deeper than most romances. These 2 are different ages, but they have the same sort of pain,and pain does not know an age. With all that being said, a big age gap is nothing compared to looks or weight disparity. If a good looking guy marries a woman who doesn't seem his equal (or visa-versa) there'll be no end of damaged people making damaging comments.
There are many quality touches in AW💘. Over a romcom-style ridiculous misunderstanding, Ban gets into a fight with a woman in a hotel lobby. They don't show the fight. They show a scant second before, and then how everybody's disheveled and miserable at the police station later. I like the way they did it. “Cut out the scar and the flower will blossom again”: The mostly dead plant is a metaphor for their love lives. There's numerous scenes of them in the iconic and comforting courtyard of her apartment complex. It creates a cozy feeling.
Speaking of cat hair, early on Ban’s hair looks awful. Cat lovers know that, depending on a cat's mood or current state of mind, their coats can change instantly. Her hair seems to do that. In the beginning of the show it looks dry with split ends and severely parted in the middle. It's unattractive. As time goes on it gets softer and silkier looking. It's a nice touch. She looks pretty amazing most days. Some of her outfits are dreadful ~ in any culture. But most of them are artful and many of them are sexy. AW💘 is also shoe p0rn. She's got a set of black spike heeled platforms with a hot pink platform bottom. Oh, I L😍VE them.
The office could have been better. Her coworkers are cartoonish. Apparently, in Korea, they love corporate shucking and jiving - more accurately shucking, tucking and ducking. They opted for something simple-minded. The storyline with her ex is almost boring, but that might be by design. Her interaction with Ha is exciting and the contrast is palpable. It's quite sad, though. Especially for her ex. He got a bad deal. His own passiveness, more than anything else, is what caused his misery. They couldn't avoid MSS, or mandatory separation syndrome. After they commit, she just has to go away for a year. It actually fits in fine, here. In most shows it's disastrous.
2 weddings are canceled. The 1st time, it ruins her, the 2nd one brings her back to life. When she's back to work after the wedding is canceled, she's alive again, but her hair is back to matted down and straight, with no personality. It's a severe look. It starts softening back up again when our duo slowly starts to get together again. She's definitely a cat
It's the romance that makes AW💘 worth watching, though. Mr. Park went on to super-stardom because he is adorable. Ms Uhm's laugh is fantastic. Their kissing is hot. The way he holds her face in his hands is sexy & intimate. They feel intimate. For a plant or hyacinth metaphor, the viewer can feel roots growing between them.
Don't watch the show and go on your merry way, because there's a few “don'ts" to be gleaned from these 16 episodes. Don't stare. Don't lose control of your facial expressions. Don't forget to be kind and considerate. Don't try to control anyone. Don't ask the obvious questions that this person(s) has fielded 1000 times already. Don't point the finger at them, even if they're different. Don't be another @$$hole. Mind your own business.
Stay Sexy, Seoul!
QUOTES🗣️
She must have saved the country in her prior life
Regardless of east or west, clothes are your wings.
Actually, I was mad at myself, not you.
The important thing is not the proposal but your heart.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬8 🖊️〰7.7 🎭8.3 💓 8.3 🦋8.7 🌞 8 🎨7.6 ⚡4 🎵6.5 😅8.4 🤔4.8 🔚8.4
Shazams: Hello, by Joohee
Age. 15+ Language: b@$+@rd; @ they almost have a one night stand until she sees his driver's license. The scenes hilarious. A ref to watching porn. Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
👁📺again? Did
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♠️ The Old Dame Plays Bingo °8.2° °excellent°
TD is a good old cop drama. Many of the best cop dramas start with the buddies (comrades? cronies?), then the crime, the crookedness, and finally, court… fade out to the harmonica~> country. There's impossible supervisors, unbridled ambition, coworkers who are brothers while others are enemies, departmental friction & competition, blame-gaming, the truthless press, confidential informants, depraved criminals, criminals that are more likable than some cops, and families that are left behind. Every decision and action is second-guessed. Some of the characters are all bad, & nobody is 100% pure. It's an impossible job. Let's not forget, on top of it all, there's corruption.Benjamin Yuen is HK police detective, Sing: He's got the failed romantic relationship (He's always working) and the kid who longs to see him more often to prove it. His baby-mama (whom he wishes was his wife) was told by her uncle that there's 2 kinds of cops: The greedy (or ambitious) and the wicked. Sing's ambition prevented their marriage.
Sing appears first and he certainly is the main protagonist, but Bingo might match him in terms of significance. Bingo's story arc is the most interesting. He was a recruit who Madam selected to go undercover and she basically used and abused him until he was tarnished beyond repair. Now he's a thief with the heart of a cop. All he wants to do is take care of his mother who's suffering from dementia. While everyone on the force sees him as scum, the viewer must watch him, time and time again, in difficult situations trying desperately to do the right thing. As I'm writing this I'm on episode 21. I don't know what's coming for him. He's a fascinating character and I'm rooting for him.
Ben Wong plays "Samuel”. He's a straight shooter who does not bend easily. He's fair-minded, does not play favorites, and, of course, is the perfect internal affairs officer. Wheelchair bound, he was paralyzed from the waist down in the line of duty. His current wife is a work rival's ex-wife (Kan). His dream is to clean up the force and revamp it. He's a good guy. What he needs to learn are people skills and a little bit of flexibility. While in the wheelchair, Sam gets an action scene. It's amazing!
“It seems I'm not the only one with life imprisonment,” says one criminal to Madam. Kara Wai is Madam Man, the police director. She's better at being a toxic narcissist and bully-boss than a director or a mother. I've known destructive bullies with the exact same smile. The show's opening is her with a post-apocalyptic, scorched earth background. The more we watch her the more it makes sense. Narcissism is merely unbridled pride. Madam has truly convinced herself that Hong Kong is better with her in it. It might fall apart without her! This gives leave for her to do all kinds of things to maintain and augment her power. Would that this was an unusual thing, but it's the norm. Thus that adage about power & corruption and whatnot. In that way, pride is deceitful. It encourages us to lie to ourselves. Pride is probably the most destructive /vice/, but since it's everybody's worst problem, society has decided to collectively ignore it. We don't like narcissists - we can all agree on that - but we excuse our own selfish actions and words. Pride shows up in other ways: Self-absorption (even if it's self-loathing, it's an obsession with self), constant comparing and competition, unforgiveness and bitterness, constantly being angry or offended, and gossip, to name a few. Every society has a pride problem, but in Asia it's weaved into the fabric of society like no other place, it seems. The tragedy is that living a self-first life only leads to one's own misery and the misery of every poor soul around one. {PSA: Stop lying to yourself. Let it go. No one is as important or flawless as we like to believe. The answer is to forget ourselves, but never stop working on ourselves - that and go volunteer or help someone less fortunate. Take a vacation from you; it's quite freeing.}
In typical fashion, management is quite sympathetic to their own perceived plight while looking at underlings as mere ants. Madam is given multiple chances - more than any ordinary employee would be granted. She squanders them all, opting to plunge the knife in deeper.
Madam’s oldest son was murdered by the Beast in an undercover operation a few years back. Her obsession with vengeance against this drug lord has driven her to steamroll her remaining son, Matt, who has turned into a rigid dogmatist about the rules. He takes over as Sing's supervisor. There's constant tension between them over sticking to the ⚫&⚪ script, or doing the right thing (on paper) vs the thing that will actually work and bring about right results. Sound familiar, anyone? There's nothing new about the concept of child sacrifice to ensure success. Joshua pronounced a curse on the rebuilder of Jericho (“he shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest he shall set up its gates”) that was later recorded as fulfilled. GRRM includes child sacrifice in the conclusion of A Dance with Dragons. {Theoretically, we'll read about the end of Stannis & Princess Shireen Baratheon's time together on earth in the Winds of Winter. WoW may never be released, but I digress.} In modern society people sacrifice their kids in more genteel, but equally destructive ways.
Sacrifice is a theme, but the #1 theme in TD is: Don't pi$$ off a woman too much. Madam goes off the rails in ep23! Let's just call ep23 ladies domnificent. “What does macho mean?” Sing gets this question after he told his daughter he used to not care about her mother as much as he should. He was too “macho” then. “Uhhh, macho means a bad guy,” he responds. (The little girl playing Sing's daughter is utterly precious). Treating women (and others) with dignity is one of the worthiest themes.
Sing and detective “Happy Kok" are BROS. Yes, one of the characters goes by the nickname “Happy Kok”. It's attributable to culture disconnect, and it's innocent. No matter how conservative you are, if that doesn't make you chuckle a tad, you probably have let your sense of humor dry up. What isn't happy, though, is how Madam did a number on him, too. Furthermore, the woman he fell in love with while undercover is being used up by mob bosses. He can't rescue her.
Some characters are oversimplified, like Benz Hui's smarmy Kan Sir, head of narcotics. He's waaaay out of line, making it too easy for the viewer to see what his character is. More subtlety would be better. Some vignettes and scenes are oversimplified as well. This watch, as a whole, is not. There's an educational benefit to watching: One of the baddies they are after has symphorophilia, or the love of disasters. Per Shortform, It's “a condition in which people find se×ual pleasure in witnessing an accident. In some cases, the condition has driven people to destructive acts.” He also has paraphilia~> He's a freak, and se×ually gets off on dark stuff.
“Am I a cop or a thief? Sometimes I can't even tell.” We follow confidential informants and undercover cops. It gets a little fuzzy telling the difference due to the translation. It seems that their system is a little different than ours in that criminals can become part of the force. To a certain extent, the viewer has to ride along with it. Things aren't 100% parallel to Western ways. In the show, the word “defected" is used to describe confidential informants who have gone rogue. They “can do anything,“ Sing says. They are the “worst criminals.” After a mission that might be deemed a success, but for the tremendous casualties, Sing's focus shifts to Bingo. Sing believes he has correctly pieced together what went wrong and believes Bingo is responsible. His mission becomes: Finding Bingo. He doesn't know that all of Bingo's wrongdoings were ordered by Madam.
Crime, and fighting crime, is shown as a bitter war of attrition. More in the world of crime than the world of law enforcement, Bingo finds himself forced one day to explain to an 11 year old girl that her father is dead, his body won't be claimed, therefore he'll be cremated and labeled “unclaimed remains” and buried in an unmarked grave. She needs to mentally prepare herself because there will be nowhere to go to mourn her father. It's a powerful scene. The outcast cops end up forming a motley crew. “Between cop and criminal, see if there is another option,” Bingo pleads. “I thought I would be receiving flowers from him, but here I am the one buying the flowers.” Just after a man confesses his love to a woman, after she waited for so long, she has to bury him. The show starts to break our hearts.
Based on a true story, TD is a 2019 Cantonese language release that is rated 7.5 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 30 45-minute episodes. Considering the population of Hong Kong (7.346M) this is an impressive production. The budget betrays itself most with the sound quality, which is very 20th century. Once the viewer gets to the last third of the show, s/he has to remind h/hself that this is based on actual events. It gets pretty outrageous. Viewers might think they have an idea of the way the show will go, but there's a plot shift 1/6 of the way in. As the show goes on, the action ramps up and it gets exciting.
This was my 2nd Hong Kong show. Both, though VG, have a coldness. It's too early to tell if that's reflective of the culture. Still fairly new to (and very much enthralled with) East Asian dramas in general, it's weirdly reassuring to see that fundamental human behavior is the same world-wide. Characters who are noble, angry, shifty, and happy are no different at the world's antipodes, but for nominal cultural differences. Sarcasm, love, hatred, joy, and rage look largely the same there as they do here. A mother sobs when she loses her son in Hong Kong the same way she would in New Jersey. Couples bicker the same way too. “Madam” is the perfect queen b!+ch / toxic mother on a crusade for revenge. We root for Bingo (Philip Keung). Some of us have keenly felt the tug-of-war between work and family time, like Sing. The “Beast” looks authentic, not overdone. The girl informant defrosts our hearts and Loony… well, we've all seen terminators depicted on screen before… there aren't many of him, thankfully. As if Loony isn't entertaining enough, Yeung Chiu-hoi is superb as triad psycho, Kong Ching-lung. The acting is truly excellent. All the elements are well done. It's a worthy story told in a worthy way. This is SO worth it!
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.2 📝8.5 🎭8.5 💓5 🦋3 🎨6 🎵/🔊6 🔚8.5 ♦ 🌞5 ⚡8,2 😅2 😭7 😱5 😯5 😖3 🤔7 💤0
Age 15+ violence, scary, adult situations
Re-📺? I wouldn't hesitate to show this to someone else
Recommendations:
🇭🇰Hong Kong ~
A Beautiful Life-7.4,
Don't Go Breaking My Heart-7.7,
Hong Kong West Side Stories-7.5
🇹🇼Taiwan ~
Black & White-6.8 (it's really pretty good),
Age of Rebellion-9.5
🔮🐉 -
C🇨🇳 ~ Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
⚡/😱/🚀 -
C🇨🇳 ~
The Kings avatar-7.9,
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
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☕️ Son of Privilege ♻ Son of Disgrace °6.5° °trope sampler°
Ah, food. We love to watch it sizzling, basting, bubbling, and we love to watch people enjoying it. Nothing says comfort like food. And what's the deal with chocolate? It's the most comforting food of all. Cha needs chocolate when she's feeling low.Now also serving: lowkey melodrama. He's a surgeon who injures his hand, she's a cook who loses her sense of taste. They quietly navigate life's numerous heartbreaks and keep trudging on. “I've been running for a long time to come to you. There were times when I wanted to stop. At times, I wanted to flop down and collapse… But because of you, I could come this far.” Our 2 leads have had many encounters over the years.
But first, let's go back to the beginning.
1992: Wando. Not far from Jeju, this cozy little fishing community is all the way at the bottom of Mainland South Korea. When a little girl comes by the restaurant trying to eat what's set aside for the cows, he /has/ to feed her. He invites her back the following day by promising to make her chocolate Shasta. Later that day, his deceased father's rich family comes by. He and his cousin get into an all-out brawl and end up in the hospital. Her family has to leave early and she isn't able to keep her promise to come back the next day, anyway. We see that neither one of them has a settled home life.
1993: Wando. The little girl finally comes back, but the biy has moved to Seoul. Apparently his daddy had run off with the maid's daughter and died not long after he, their child, was born. The privileged family had decided to collect their grandson.
2012: Seoul. He is an adult honoring his mother on her death day. Both parents gone, he's been abandoned in a snake pit. His aunt, uncle, and cousin Joon see him as a threat, and his grandmother, the matriarch, is a cold-hearted authoritarian. The family owns a hospital. He had wanted to be a chef, but he's a doctor. As a patient, she runs into him at the hospital and thinks she remembers him. He doesn't recognize her.
2013: Seoul. Inspired by him all those years ago, she's now a chef. He's been sent to Libya by his hateful aunt and uncle. He almost doesn't survive.
A couple years later, he comes home from Libya and she's dating his friend. Once again, she recognizes him, but he doesn't recognize her. Now that she's seen him again, she knows she can't stay with his friend. Cha has been in love with Kang since the day he fed her. When she breaks up with his friend for “no reason”, Kang is disgusted with her. Cha runs away to Greece.
C is a 2019 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 65-minute episodes. Yoon Kye Sang (Malmoe: The Secret Mission, The Kidnapping Day) is ‘he’, Lee “Kang”. We have to wait until deep into ep15 before we see Kang genuinely smile. He spends most of the show looking much like Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh. Ha Ji Won (Secret Garden, Empress Ki, Portrait of a Family) is ‘she’, Moon “Cha” Young. She spends the whole show acting like a trauma survivor, which she is. She never shows much spark of personality. In fact, each of the leads is so low and depressed that one feels sorry for them, but it's difficult to bond with them. They aren't unlikable, but they are a tad uncomfortable.
The ultra attractive Jang Seung Jo (Snowdrop, Death's Game-7.8) is Kang’s cousin, Lee Joon. His father is a fatuous imbecile, while his mother is smart, but conniving & ruthless. He's been pitted against Kang most of his life. I rather enjoy the relationship journey that these two men take. In the waning episodes Joon asks his parents why he even did that? Do they have to hate e/o? He's starting to get tired of it all. This is especially true because he learned of a dark family secret.
Kim Won Hae plays Hospice Director Kwon Hyun Suk. He has 133 credits on MDL. He's everywhere. I've seen him in Signal-8.6, While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Black-9, Clean with Passion for Now-7, The Hymn of Death-8.4, Start-up-8, Awaken-8.7, & Revenant-7.4 as well as his guest appearances in 8 additional features. He is like MSG; he makes every feature more delicious.
Min Jin Woong (My Father Is Strange, Nobody Knows) plays our FL's ne'er-do-well brother, Moon Tae Hyun. She has to get a job to pay off his debt instead of returning to Greece. He continues to plague her for the entire run of the show. He picks up on the vibe between the two leads early on and never fails to make suggestive jokes or comments to them, much to her horror. Once again, there's several child actors who are amazing; Woo Sung Min & Lee Chan Yoo stand out. Screenwriter, Lee Kyung Hee, also brought us Thank You & Uncontrollably Fond. Her first credit is from 1997, and this is her most recent work. The director is Lee Hyung Min of Strong Woman Do Bong Soon & Miss Night and Day.
Even as late as ep9 I was enjoying this. While it's not the masterwork that My Mister-9.5 is, I rather enjoyed the relaxation. Their aimless wandering left nowhere for the show to go, though. The romance trudges along and then sorta happens, with little fanfare. For the most part, the characters are engaging and relatable, while the sedation is the biggest reward. The romance is the weakest part of the finished product. It isn't a great romance. It is debatable as to whether it's good at all. All that can be said is that it should have been better. As a chef, managing heat is her profession. But this romance has no heat.
The show is heavy handed with melodrama, like a triple-thick ganache. It smothers everything. He is giving her a ride and there's an accident. He operates on her to save her life but, in doing so, ends up waiting too long to be operated on himself and his hand doesn't work right afterwards. He can't be a surgeon anymore. At this point, he still hates Cha, so it's a bitter pill for Kang. The family sends him to run the hospice center, where she works already, and she can't quit until her brother's debt is cleared. She loses her sense of taste and smell after an angry patron shoves her and she strikes her head. Given their past traumas, together they make a whole person, I guess. One patient is blind and her case becomes a bit of a situation. One of the cooks at the facility has Alzheimer's, so she's losing her mind - she's out of touch. It almost seemed like there was an overarching message about the five senses, the will, and the brain, but nobody goes deaf, so there can't be. We are left scratching our heads. The taste is Hershey's, not Godiva.
Then they threw in the jellies, nougats, caramels, cherries and toffees - they made trope goulash. Terminal illness. Rich family. Poor family. Missing or absent parents. Toxic parents. Competition. Debt collectors. WKEWY, or we knew e/o when {we were} young. I don't know why I thought they wouldn't do it, but with around 25 minutes to go, they just couldn't help themselves. They brought in the MSS trope.
MSS, or mandatory separation syndrome, is an overdone Kdrama plot point in which a pair, once they get together, are separated. ('I love you! Finally, we're together! Now I'll catch you later...' Huh?). Presumably this is to show that what is between them is true love that stands the tests of time and distance. A generous 15% of the time, it's a good thing and usually shows a lack of originality and poor implementation skills. It's common to see shows that are especially well written take a dive for an episode or 2 in order to wedge in something like this. In C, the MSS is awful. Sure, she's got stuff to work through, but running away is nonsensical. It also made the entire show look like a checklist tutorial on useless overdone tropes. The final episode could have done much to tie the show up nicely and redeem its shortcomings, but it was a disappointment and took things further south.
The writing is C's weakness. It's like a standardized modular home. They brought in that chunk and this chunk and tossed in another chunk and made a GMO melodrama. The acting and directing aren't bad, but they aren't enough to elevate the production. The soothing cadence with the soft strumming soundtrack in the background make it mostly watchable, but the poor wrap up left a bad taste in my mouth.
Once again, here's a Kdrama showing competition killing the soul. Kcountry is a highly pressurized society. Common entertainment themes are toxic parents putting pressure on the children, severe competition, the detachment of those who are privileged from those who are not, and in-fighting among families who are privileged. Kang's father ran away with the maid. He was a son of disgrace. Kang loved his life in Wando but the family came to collect him. It will come out that he is not the only son of disgrace in the family. Many of these patterns are cyclical and many people appear to have everything are not everything they appear to be.
C always circles back to food. Kang was given chocolate by his mother's paramour when he was young. It made a big impression. His mother was on the way to purchase him some chocolates with the plan to take them and Kang back to Wando, but she died in an accident. When Cha was young she waited hours for her mother to meet her at the mall, but mom never showed. What did happen was that the mall collapsed and Cha was stuck there for days. A woman who was trapped and dying under the rubble gave her chocolate. Cha believes it saved her life. Yet she was merely existing until Kang gave her hope for the future. Chocolate (and food, in general) represents warmth, memory, caring, and love; all comforts that were too scarce in our leads’ lives. Together, they learn how to combine the sweet and the bitter into their own special recipe.
QUOTE📢 Everyone is terminally fated to die from the moment that they're born. They just tend to forget that when they're living.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.3 📝5.7 🎭7.3 💓6 🦋4.5 🎨6 🔚5 🤗3 ▪ 🌞5⚡3 😅1 😭4.5 😱2 😯2.5 🤢2 🤔4 💤1
🎵/🔊 7.7 Shazams: Just Look for you, by Ailee; Always be here by Jung Jin Woo; Special, by 유빈; The credits song is You & I (feat. 문형준), by ID:Earth
Rated TV-15 just for language: F💣, $h!+, but there isn't much of it.
Re-📺? Once is enough
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☄Incompatible☄: A Little Bit of Nonsense ✴6.8✴very cute✴
Here's to the long-distance relationship. Sometimes Love is incompatible. At times, it's downright impossible.The handsome Fukushi Sota is Toyama Mitsuru, an alien who has been stuck on earth for 400 years. Like The Highlander, he doesn't age, so he has to set up new identities every half generation or so, and he has accumulated enough wealth to live /comfortably/. He actually has enough to live like a movie star, and he lives /exactly/ like one - A popular actress just moved in next door. Together they occupy the entire 30th floor. Sota has many extra-human powers, from spoon-bending to stopping time. He keeps them well hidden - mostly by maintaining a low profile.
Yamamoto Mizuki plays celebrity Sasahara Tsubaki, and she's a universe away from low-profile. Sure she's somewhat spoiled and entitled, but she's actually a decent person, Her mother helps keep her that way. Mom is such a selfish and narcissistic pill that Mizuki doesn't want to be anything like her. Nevertheless, for Sota, who is more like Dr. Spock than not, Mizuki is irritating. She's the type to stumble into his place uninvited, while drunk, and pass out on his couch. He is still drawn to her against his will… She is so like that human girl he was compelled to rescue all those centuries ago. As a college prof, he is NOT drawn enough to her to put up with her stuff, though. When she returns to school to boost her image, he doesn't hesitate to give her a zero for plagiarism. (To think, she paid /good/ money for an originally written paper, too!).
As we get to know them more, we see that their fates may have been intertwined for a long time. Could she really be the reincarnation of that woman he saved so long ago?
MLFTS is a 2022 release that is rated 7.4 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 10 40-45-minute episodes. After the credits roll, there's commentary and actor interviews and deleted scenes.
The Bad guy, Imai Tsubasa, is a pop idol IRL. He'd never played a bad guy before. He's almost unrecognizable in his post-show interview; that's some nice acting. The screenwriter is Seki Erika, and this was adapted from Park Ji-eun's original work for the Kdrama, My Love From Another Star, which was released in 2013. Ms Park is also screenwriter for Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 and Crash Landing On You-9.1. Good stuff. The director is Matsuki Tsukuru, whose most popular piece is the film, Rika: Self-Proclaimed 28 Years Old's Pure Love Monster. Ima plan to watch that. I love the title.
Actresses' lives are loaded with drama. Sota, though he doesn't know why, helps Tsubaki out of a scrape. Then he helps her with another. Now, it's a habit. A rival ends up dead… It looks like a suicide, but the police get involved. Tsubaki is the top suspect. Soon the police are wondering: Who is this strange man appearing and disappearing on the surveillance footage? As part of the investigation, they've examined all the relevant footage. The most suspicious thing they've seen is Sota, because they see him, then they don't see him, and then he appears somewhere else.
A drawback to love is that Sota is allergic to human blood and saliva. Another trifle Is that his ship, after 400 years, is returning with the comet in 3 months. He's headed back home. He's allergic to human blood in saliva, but they make no mention of sweat… it's not optimal, but I think we can work with that. In the anime Fruits Basket, the “men” will transform if a human girl merely hugs them. There's no making that work.
Another obstacle is that he's not very social. “Don't give. Don't receive. And don't expect. That way, you'll never be let down,” he muses. She doesn't understand that philosophy. “Isn't that kind of lonely?” She may not be a good student at school, but she's a better student of life than he. Another roadblock to love is her attitude. “I understand why other people turn away from you. You're simplistic and impulsive.” He forgot to mention that she is fairly self-involved, as well. Unfortunately (or not) for him, his argument is logical but his heart has already boarded and strapped in for the ride.
This is a simple show meant for turning off the brain and relaxing. It is nicely done for that effect, but such simplicity does lower the degree of difficulty, and thus the top score. It also has its outright shortcomings. They're sloppy with the rules that govern his existence. Human blood and saliva make him sick, but he, otherwise, seems completely human. Springing new ideas and developments on the viewer without laying down sufficient hints, foreshadowing, or other elements that constitute good filmmaking is something they rely on. The effect is that it seems like they are making some of it up as they go. It's not a show where nitpicking will make a difference, as there's little mental exertion required to watch and enjoy. Thinking will actually ruin it. Turn off your brain for this one. Just don't look for thoroughness, clarity, or explanations.
The fun factor outshines any problems. Some of the fashion is wonderful and some is weird. Her jewelry is snazzy. There's an excellent sort of frozen kiss in one of the later episodes. She makes an allusion to Hunter X Hunter, my absolute favorite anime, so I appreciated the show from that point on.
Will these 2 reach the point where they soar? Or will they crash to earth? Sota is a natural problem solver, and he's decided the 30th floor is close enough to heaven (and the heavens) for him. He's lost enough, and he refuses to lose Tsubaki or anything else. He's going to iron out this warped drive.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝6 🎭7.5 💓6.5 🦋5 🌞5 🎨6.3 ⚡4.9 🎵/🔊6 😅4 😭3 😱3 😯3 😖2.5 🤔2 💤0 🔚7
Age 12+ PG language; A pregnant woman dies and thenpolice must investigate whether it's suicide or murder alongmwithnither violence
Re-📺? Who knows? I have no strong feelings about it. I do want to see the Kdrama, which is immensely popular. I'm still working through the Prime, Hulu, and Netflix inventory before taking the Viki premium plunge. We're talking months until that happens, not years. I've already got my watchlist stacked up.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day:
Mad For Each Other 7.8 ~silly fun;
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Her Private Life 8;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Romance is a bonus book 7.9;
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
More Than Friends 8;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Something in the Rain 9
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⭐The Outlier ✴ Xin doesn't have enough Qi ☄ °good°
“I suppose it's not rational to be happy.” There's a point where that's how Xin feels.TRL opens irrationally. First, there's an irrational client. We also meet an irrational young woman who wants to bail on her commitments so she can go live with her BF overseas. She steals the business's assets and flees from her partner.
Qin Lan (Story of Yanxi Palace) portrays “marriage-is-the-tomb-of-love” Shen Ruo “Xin”. She's an attorney. She's rational. She's calculative and precise. She comes over as cold, but she's not. She's also 33 and slipping into that middle-aged weariness since her youthful delusions are being popped one after another. She's been going out with her boyfriend (Cui) for about 3 months. Let's be precise, shall we? It's been a hundred days. Apparently, she only dated him on her mom's insistence. It's obvious that these two aren't on the same wavelength, and as soon as things don't go his way, Cui shows an ugly side. Free commercial: if you're dating someone and they get testy the moment they don't get their way, do a Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail and run away. Run away! Run AWAY! It's better to be solo than to be with a manipulator.
Xin has nobody in her life who understands her. Xin's BF certainly doesn't understand her. He didn't last for long. Even though her mother (Pan Hong from Yangtze Town's Springtime) divorced her father, mom is the one who is bitter and lonely. Her best friend (Lin Xin Yi of Drunk to Love You-7 is “Si”) married well enough, where she doesn't have to work, but she's idle and discontented. She is going through her own changes and the two friends' lives are now nothing alike.
At work, Xin is confident but disliked over appearing inflexible. Her elevated skills seem to be threatening to others. She uncovers fraud by a client who is suing the company and manages to settle a problematic case for pennies on the dollar. She should have been promoted, but when that irrational client gets a social media campaign going against Xin, her boss seizes that opportunity to transfer her to another unit. Everybody knows she's being pushed out.
Xin gets strength from her hobby of stargazing. “In the 1990s, a space probe took a picture 4 billion miles away from Earth in space. The Earth was like a tiny blue spot in the dark. Later on, an astronomer, Sagan…said that all the happiness and sadness, all beliefs and knowledge… all of it only exists on a speck of tiny dust floating in the sunlight. So, compared to this bright starry sky, all of our troubles are insignificant.” A department change is not going to change her orbit. She will continue to go forward… Until she starts to fall for a guy over a decade younger than she, that is. Now, THAT could be a problem.
Dylan Wang (Love Between Fairy and Devil-8.9 & Meteor Garden-7.4) plays “Qi” Xiao. He excels at playing a damaged, testy, uber-masculine ML. He still makes his characters appealing; he's able to walk that line and counterbalance his characters’ deficiencies with intense sincerity. In TRL his character is more understated and supporting - with awful hair. Qi is smart, resourceful and intuitive about human psychology. He went to law school in order to make money, but his real love is designing jewelry. His business was doing well, but his partner irrationally absconded with all the money so that she could go overseas with her BF. Qi's roommate (Chen Peng from Love and Destiny is Wan Li) knew that he would need a little push, so roomie submits job applications for each of them as he is job hunting himself. This lands Qi next to Xin. The office wasn't the first place they met, however. She ended up in the middle of his pursuit of that fleeing partner, and it wasn't pretty. She refuses to interview him, at first, but as things play out, he ends up being helpful to her and she decides to hire him on a probationary basis. He's now in the administrative department with her; it's sort of like the 13th level basement. They are pariahs.
Dylan Wang is a tad out of a character playing the eager puppy type, though he does it well. He's usually the toxic male who's not /really/ toxic; underneath it he's always a loving guy. Even as a puppy type, he makes this show better. As his love rival is gaining points, he's in the background rolling his eyes. It's pretty funny. “After working at a big company for a long time, in getting used to a comfortable but restrictive vibe, you'll become systematic. It's only a matter of time before your inspirations disappear.” Qi's friend is trying to warn him. But the dude doesn't realize that Qi's only in it for his boss.
“You're practically a succubus,” Si teases Xin, when it looks like the much younger Qi has a thing for her much older friend. She's the kind of best friend we all wish we had. That teasing only holds up until the new boss, Jie, shows up. Calvin Li, from Hand in Hand, is Xu Ming “Jie”. He's strict and regimented. He likes the finer things in life. When he sees Xin, he /knows/ what he's looking at. It's all work related stuff, but he's finding ways to take up all her time: Dinners, parties, trips... Qi is going out of his mind.
Rounding out the main players is one of Qi's college friends, Song Zi Yan, who has been working with Xin for about a year. The perky cheerleader type, she's always had a thing for Su, Qi's roommate. So, we've got the beautiful smart but overlooked career woman, the upstart fresh faced recruit, his supportive friend and roommate, and the perky cheerleader (the 2ndary couple), plus the rich and powerful boss as a romantic rival (rounding out the triangle). Let's not forget the toxic mother. Yep this is all looking familiar.
TRL is a 2021 release that is rated 8.2 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 35 45-minute episodes. The drama, Find Yourself-8.9, precedes it by a year. It isn't too hard to imagine that this show was made because of Find Yourself, which is an exceptional show featuring an older woman and a younger guy. TRL feeds off of it, but it's still its own production. Xin is even wearing a revamped men's shirt in one scene, which is a wardrobe staple for Fan, FL of Find Yourself. Some of Fan's are good, some are passe. Xin's is spectacular.
Office politics and vicious gossip are a topic of the show. Xin has this advice: ”Do you know how to remain undisturbed? Whether you're favored or disliked, remain undisturbed. Don't worry what people say about you. Know your goal. Stay on target and achieve it.” Notice how she says don't believe the good stuff either? Our hearts want to believe the good feedback and discount the negative. Everything should be on the Bell curve. Take the compliments with the grain of salt, and do the same with the criticisms, but never dismiss criticisms out of hand. Always pause and reflect on whether there is some truth to it. Many times there is, and each one of us has room for improvement. That's the key, don't look to the left or the right, look straight ahead, and never stop improving.
The isolation of a successful woman is dissected. “Girls marry high, men marry low. The old saying is true. If a woman has a master's degree, the man should at least have a doctorate.” TRL balks at the idea of having it all. Does anyone actually believe that anymore? Women are always squeezed into a small space. The women in the show are pushed into marriage & having kids or they're denied opportunity /because/ they're married and either have kids, or are expected to get pregnant at any moment. There's as many ways for a woman to live her life as there are women out there. There's no one right answer. Many different people make many different things work. That's the key: Does it /work/? Marriage and children are optional. They're both intended to be lifetime commitments so they shouldn't be taken lightly.
Xin may be the boss at work, but in her private life, she can't shake her mom-boss. Xin did promptly dump that BF. She never liked him anyway. She broke his heart, but, forget him - She /really/ broke her mother's heart. Her mother is caustic about it and cannot accept the breakup. She keeps pushing Xin to get married. “I feel sorry for any guy that tries to date you.” “/He/ got married. You should be so lucky.” Mom has a 1-track mind! “Time is ruthless for women.” That's how Xin's mom says ‘Happy Birthday’. Mom don't let up. Once mom learns about Qi, it's: “You are much older than him. You should be more rational.” Mom wants Xin married, but not to a kid! Next, it's:“Don't mistreat my daughter!” Mom freaks out when she finds out that Xin has been harassed by one potential mate. Ironically, no one is hurting & upsetting her daughter more than Mom, though. She pushes and prods, forces and manipulates, she bullies and throws tantrums. This isn't being a good parent. It's fear coming out as poison.
Mom finally forces her into a blind date service. Here's the type of advice she's given before her first blind date event: 1. “PU” means partner’s uncertainty. On blind dates, it's important to lower his PU and pique his attention. The lesser the uncertainty, the stronger the confidence, and he will make more moves. 2. It's unrealistic for those in their 30s to have zero experience. The best answer {as to how many relationships she's been in} is 1-3 relationships. Don't say more than 3. 3. What is “MV”? It's mate value. A woman's MV is not in terms of success at work. It's whether you can be a good wife and mom in the future. So for your hobby, you must mention baking, painting, and flower arranging. These three are the safest. If you say that you're preparing to study child psychology, trust me. I'm sure he'll be attracted to you. 4. Reasons for breakups...That's the most dangerous question that increases PU. It's best to say that it was due to geographical reasons. 5. Don't forget: Don't show your aggressive side. Don't ever say you like going to bars. It's suicide. Not only does it increase PU, but it also clears out MV. “Plooffffff!” Yep, the date counselor said: “Plooffffff!” Xin can't help but wonder if that would still even be her? Why would she put on such a show that she can't keep up indefinitely?
It's not like getting married fixes all of one's problems. Si is married and she's having a tough time. Si admits that she got married to escape her horrible job at the bank. She's been taking it easy at home but that is getting boring. In the first third of the show she's frustrating. She left the workforce and she's now over 30, so nobody wants to employ her. She does find her niche. This is almost always the answer: Don't sit around and wallow in your feelings. Go do something. Better yourself, find something you're interested in, get a hobby, learn something, volunteer.
Si's mother i/l is always nagging the couple to have a baby. She's pushy and controlling. Si and her husband had agreed to not have kids, but he's gone back on his word (probably due to interference from mom) and he is now pressuring her to do so. She thinks she's unhappy with her husband, and she certainly does have valid complaints, but it appears that she's truly unhappy with her empty life and her own emptier self. Chinese shows are very generous to older people who make horrible mistakes and behave terribly. The couple goes to exhaustive lengths to have a sincere discussion with Mom about their feelings on the subject. Frankly, I think a better solution would have been that every time mom asked them to have a baby they leave while saying “You're right Mom we're going to try right now.” Eventually, mom will know that mentioning it is only going to make them leave. People who don't have clean motives but still pry in your life aren't entitled to answers. We shouldn't give in to such behavior because we're just emboldening them to do it to the next person. Somebody has to put the brakes on.
TRL drags a tad in the latter half. It would have been better suited for 20-25 episodes. It's simple. Conflicts arise and melt away as if it's kids programming. The romance lacks fire, as well, casting as much heat our way as the stars do. I liked it despite its flaws, but it should have been better. There's more positives than deficiencies, still. The music is very nice.
The “confession scene” in ep27 is pretty good, and later, in ep33, they discuss their relationship with her mother and what they like about e/o. It's lovely. Ep35 sees them acting adorably as a couple. They really do get cute. Two birthday parties are contrasted. One features professionally done decorations and food. It's the best that money can buy. The other one is put together by friends and it comes from the heart. It's not even close, which one the birthday-girl prefers.
The mothers of our leads end up meeting and becoming friends. The first time the four of them eat together it is so warm and lovely. As they're talking and laughing it fades into lilting music and the viewer can sense that this is not the last time they're going to eat together. They'll be eating together as a family. They're already acting like one.
QUOTES📢
What's wrong with kids nowadays?
I feel like the older you get the more aggrieved you are.
Raise your words not your voice.
Love may be the universe's unimaginable miracle.
Director: Hsu Fu ChunRock Records in Love
Screenwriter: Chen TongMake a Wish, Long Xiao ShanTang Dynasty Tour
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝7.2 🎭7.5 💓6 🦋5 🎨6 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚7 ▪ 🌞6 ⚡3 😅3 😭2 😱2 😯1 🤢1 🤔4 💤2.5
Age 12+ for occasional PG language, mild sexual situations
Re-📺? For the romance fan this is worth watching once, but I would like rather check out new content than revisit this crew.
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;
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 (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;
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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⛅ Follow the Light, If You Will ⛈ °8.6° °Outstanding°
Every night, she's sitting at the bus stop. He tried to assist her once, but communications broke down. The next night she was there with her suitcase, as usual. She's soaked. It's pouring. She says she's freezing and asks to go home with him. We see her later leave his apartment, suitcase in tow, blood on the walkway marking her path.At school, some girls are having a discussion. ‘You know there are students… selfies, photos, & video clips is where they show up, and nobody knows who they are. Every class has empty seats. I think that's where they're sitting. They have to be ghosts.’ Hyeon is mortified.
LS is a 2024 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of just 8 51-minute episodes. This is the fledgling directing effort of Kim Hee Won who had roles in many features, including Misaeng-9.1 & Moving-8.5. Screenwriter Kang Full co-wrote Moving-8.5, among others. LS is sleepy and hypnotic. It's also scary, but with a dreamlike quality that mutes the fright. It's not agitating. Straightaway, the opening credits are eerily beautiful. I think it's the way things look to the ghosts that haunt the alley. Ep1 is lite bites from varied small plates. It's a sampler. Ep2 is more of the same. They will tie it all together later. In eps1-4 we meet the players, dead and alive. In ep5 we'll meet the ghosts as they lived. Watch to the end. Ep8 is your reward.
“I never noticed the light shop during the day, but it really stands out at night as it's so bright. Are you always open this /late/?” “You could say that.” In between vignettes, customers are coming in and out of the light shop. Jung Won Yeong (Ju Ji Hoon from Kingdom-8.3) is the mysterious proprietor behind the counter in dark glasses. He's all perfunctorily business-like with the patrons until a schoolgirl enters. They're old friends. He offers Hyeon some candy. She mentions that his shop is the only reason she can walk on the street. Otherwise, she'd be too scared: There's rumors of a ghost there! He studies her quietly for quite a while. ‘It seems like you can see things that most people cannot,’ he cautions Hyeon. “It's important that you look at people very closely and if you see something that isn't ordinary, just act like you haven't seen anything. It's best to not let those that you shouldn't be able to see notice that you see them at all. But if they do, make sure you act like nothing important is going on and that you haven't noticed…”
One can't help but notice, it's an all-star cast, folks.
Park Bo Young (Oh My Ghost-10, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon) plays ICU nurse Kwon Yeong Ji. She had an NDE of her own. She's been to the light shop, as not only the dead pass by there, but also the nearly dead. She's met the proprietor. She does everything she can to guide her patients to the light and WILL them to live.
Lee Jung Eun (Oh My Ghost-10, Parasite-9, Our Blues-8.5) is probably my favorite actress right now. She portrays Jung Yu Hui, the mother of Hyeon (Shin Eun Soo from Twinkling Watermelon). Hyeon has an emotional scene with her mother, and she's fantastic. Ms Lee & Mr. Ju put on a non-verbal acting master's class in ep8. I teared up. I recently watched Ju Ji Hoon in Blood Free-8.5 as a romantic ML. He looks meaner, younger, overall completely differently, and it was released in the same year. Here, he looks more ancient and less handsome.
Park Hyuk Kwon (Wonderful World-7.8, Uncle Samsik-8.4) is a bus driver. His performance in Mine-8, is unforgettable. Kim Ki Hae (Duty after School) is a student who seems to be lost. Kim Dae Myung (Misaeng-9.1, Hospital Playlist-9) plays one cool but, according to the detective (Bae Sung Woo), very suspicious short order cook. Kim Seol Hyun (Summer Strike, Awaken-8.7) plays the woman with a suitcase. She spends almost the entire show with long wet hair. Uhm Tae Goo (A Taxi Driver) plays her fiance, Min. Kim Min Ha (The Call, Pachinko) portrays Yun Seon Hae & Kim Seon Hwa (My ID Is Gangnam Beauty-7.5, The Glory) portrays Park Hye Won. There's nowhere to go for them to feel comfortable in their relationship.
LS, on paper, may not be anything particularly special. The script is well written but perhaps not a standout on its own. What makes LS brighter than most offerings in the genre is the superb artistry and acting - it's expertly crafted. Sets, camera angles, cadence, crepuscular light & shadows - it's moving art. The light shop is, at the same time, warm but not too bright, with a variety of lights, lamps, and bulbs. Some are beautiful, some are common. It's hard to describe how the light shop makes me feel. Most of the shots feel closed in and close up. We got a couple pans around, but most shots feel linear and claustrophobic. All I can say is that it's both pretty and unsettling.
LS is old-timey and almost gothic. Is that because the street that the light shop is on is a set? It evokes Hitchcok, being mysterious & soporific. Its cadence is practically narcotic, but it breaks out with genuine scares. The tall lady ghost in ep2 is super creepy. At one point the detective's eyes are loose. He shakes his head and they move around- it's super freaky. (The Guardians of the Netherworld have reptilian eyes. It feels a little passe but we'll give them a pass). In an ominous touch, a shot of stormy skies fades out and a handprint or clasping fingers fade into a chilling effect. There's a big-budget bus crash, which is a big part of the plot.
We will frequently see the wet haired Lee Ji Yeong sewing, or weaving some stitches. The whole show is weaved together. Be patient because ep8 is the payoff. These beings are living solitary existences, for the most part. We find out that they're more interrelated than it first appears.
The will to live, or the lack thereof, is the theme. The funeral director looks at his assistant and asks: “Do you know why it is that we hold a three-day wake?” Koreans have had this custom for centuries, he explains. They want to give the dead 3 days to wake back up. It's their final goodbye, and a final chance to be reunited with the lost. “Not just the living say goodbye,” he surmises, “but also the dead.” The other theme, obviously, is to not let your light go out. As long as you are alive, let your light shine so that others may also find the way. This is embodied by nurse Kwon. She received a second chance at life and she's not going to waste it.
LS is no waste of time. It's got an old soul while still feeling crisp and fresh. It embodies the longing of humans and the persistent feeling that this life is not all there is. It also reflects the desperation of people living in a pressure cooker society that, with the 3rd highest suicide rate in the entire world, Korea currently is. Park Hye Won & Yun Seonones wish to stay in that dark, creepy alley. It's the first place where they can live together comfortably as a couple. It makes me sad to see people who have been so pressured that their dreams are small. The longer I live, the less appealing this world of woe is. When I think of eternity, I want to experience perfection. The end of misery, sickness, and death. If we'll shine as brightly as possible, perhaps we can get a better taste of the possibilities now.
QUOTE🗣 The light is nice.
IMHO〰🖍
📣8.6 📝8 🎭9 💓5 🦋2 🎨9 🎵/🔊8.5 🔚8.5 🤗7 ▪ 🌞5⚡5 😅1 😭6.5 😱3.5 😯3 🤢4 🤔6 💤0
Age 15+ Language: he!!, f💣, $h!+ - not much but with some regularity. Scary elements, violence, adult themes; Rated 15+
Re-📺? The performances call for it
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
🌐💘 -
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
My Mister 9.5,
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
Glitch-8,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
The First 1st Responders-7.8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Uncanny counter S1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
Daily Dose of Sunshine-7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
Moving-8.5,
Awaken-8.7,
Anna-8.1,
Hymn of Death-8.4,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Mr. Sunshine-9,
Oldboy-9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
Consider a 🇨🇳Chinese 🎎/🔮 fantasy feature: 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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❇☃✴Lost and Found ☸ Bring the 40's Back✳☃❇ °good°
Blame it on the snowHan “Jae” Hyun and Yoon “Ji” Soo have a record. He's getting out of prison in ep1 (he took the fall for the chairman), and she's explaining why she works menial jobs even though she /almost/ got her college degree (her family record is tarnished). They also have a record with eachother: They dated in college, but that was 20 years ago.
We get a few seconds in present day and then we're whisked back to 1993. They meet as the police are scattering a college protest on the 13th anniversary of the 1980 protests against the military dictatorship ruling Korea at the time. These events inspired the partly true/partly fictional film A Taxi Driver-8.4 (staring Song Kang Ho from Parasite-9), which depicts how around 3,000 Koreans ended up missing, dead, or presumed dead due to the government's brutal response to the Gwanju demonstrations. 13 years later, the government was still covering it up. Per Wiki “The movement preceded other democratic movements during the late 1980s that pressured the regime into democratic reforms and paved the way for the election of President Kim Dae-jung in 1997, the first opposition candidate to win the office.” From their meeting we toggle back and forth in time.
She pursued him. He was only interested in studies and activism. FF To 2020, he's gone to the dark side. He's a corporate big wheel, and was ‘rewarded’ with a ticket to the /big house/. Now out, and breathing the free air again, he claims he's only interested in enjoying his life as much as possible. In the toggling, we see history repeating itself in ring-theory fashion while their backstory unfolds gradually through ep11.
WMLB is a 2020 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 65-minute episodes. Who would like WMLB? One must be right-brain heavy, or moderately emotional (a self-described “romantic,” perhaps) to appreciate this show. Otherwise, all those pesky tears (not that I cried) will just grate the wrong way. WMLB is slow-paced and dripping with sentimentality from the script, to the facial expressions, to the soundtrack. The plot is soapy melodrama. They fall in love in college. She disappears on him. Well into the show, we don't know why this happened, though hints emerge to point at possible family tensions. He's been looking for her ever since she disappeared. At some point, though, he faltered and married the daughter of a chaebol. There are hints that he was in dire need of funds, but also other hints that his moves are not random.
20 years forward there's a pile of refuse that is keeping them separated. First of all, he's married. Secondly, he's married to the conglomerate that owns the business that she's actively protesting against. Third, it looks like if he walks away from his rich wife, he'll walk away with just his underwear. Finally, they each have a son, though she is divorced. Their sons happened to go to school together, and his son is a cruel bully toward her son, which is how they meet up again. The bullying is so oppressive that her son, Young-Min, finally throws a chair at his tormentor. This leads to the couple's reunion (in the principal’s office) and subsequent run-ins with Jae's family. His wife is outraged and wants to make a big deal out of it, while Jae insists they let the school incident slide.
“The fun in your life probably got cut in half,” she remarks, when she learns that he doesn't eat ramen much anymore. She's now cr@ppy-poor, and he's cr@ppy-rich. They're both alone and miserable. Just as Ji dogged his steps in the past, never looking to the right or the left, now that Jae has found her again, he's doing it right back to her.
Lee Bo Young is the FL, Ji. In Mine-8 she plays a cool Grace Kelly type who could dress a person down with precision. It's a good show and she's the best thing in it. In WMLB, she's been beaten down by life and is emotionally damaged. When we toggle back to her teens we'll see that her father was a cold-hearted tyrant. When her relationship with Jae was cut off, she ended up marrying the wrong man. Each heartbreak was like a sledgehammer to the head, so now she holds her neck stiffly, with head forward and slightly down-turned. She looks like she needs a cervical fusion. It may be good acting, however it's still unpleasant. I want to shake her loose. She starts loosening up a tad in ep11. That's a long way in.
Yoo Ji Tae from The Devil Judge & Oldboy-9 is the ML, Jae. “You seem like a different person than the one I used to know,” Ji remarks. Mr. Yoo, as Jae, is delish. The chairman‘s assessment of his daughter's husband? “ No one is better at getting rid of people.” He used to take the losing side, but now, instead of demanding justice, he specializes in neutralizing contrarians. His wife describes him as an Iceman who never smiles. He is stoic, indeed. His wife, Jang Seo-Kyeong (Park Si-Yeon from Birthcare Center-8.2), is the typical spoiled riche. She's beautiful on the outside, but her insides are rotted. They are married, but very much alone. He did his time alone. She decided to do his time NOT-alone.
There's several fantastic child actors in WMLB. The protags’ kids are played by Park Min-Su & Ko Woo-Rim and they practically give a masters class. Park Jin Young (The Devil Judge) & Jeon So Nee (Parasyte: The Grey-6.9 - She's fabulous) are the couple in 1993.
I love how comfortable they are together. It made me feel warm and comfy. One thing they bond over is the classic movie, Love Letter/Koibumi (1953). It was directed by a woman, Kinuyo Tanaka and is said to be technically excellent. We can thank JAPANONFILM for the write-up. “Briefly, an ex-sailor scraping by on the occasional translation is offered a job writing letters in English from Japanese women to the American soldiers with whom they slept during the Occupation... Eventually, of course, the woman he loved before the war comes in. His attempt to cope with his love on one hand and her past on the other occupy the rest of the movie, in a complex emotional relationship that is also in a subtle way quite political and racial. The issue for both of them is not just that she slept with other men but that she slept with Americans (she says only one, but a late meeting with a group of street prostitutes suggests otherwise).” Consequently, WMLB has the soundtrack and feel of a movie from the mid-20th. It's an old-timey melodrama, complete with violin music. The movie Love Letter deals with moral compromise out of necessity in post-war chaos, particularly what the ‘Have-nots’ must do to survive in the face of the indifferent oppression of the ‘Haves’. Same for WMLB.
WMLB shows us how anger and fear steal peace, love, and joy. ‘Does your heart have to run slowly?’ ‘Once it starts to run, it's not easy to stop it.’ That works in all directions: love or hate, joy or sorrow, fear or confidence, anger or contentment. Toxic and controlling parents are another theme. Their love was crushed when they were kids. I hate that her father dies right after he finally realizes he was wrong. Couldn't they have some nice years together? It's very bitter. Another theme is that one can't maintain a good relationship with a selfish human. “This is my way of love,” says Jae's wife. No doubt, she's selfish, spoiled, and grossly entitled. She's also a legitimate victim in this show. Being a victim doesn't always make a person right, and even a person who is right is never 100% right. No human ever is. Selfish people are keenly aware of the love they want to receive, yet it doesn't even occur to them to try and /give/ that sort of love.
It isn't perfect. WMLB is simple. Nearly everything works out in the end. Many of the bad actors want to do better, going forward. By ep7 it was clear that the show has too many flashbacks. I tried to roll with them, telling myself they intended a relaxing effect, but I had to start hitting the ff button. The chairman missed some background info about a key player until the trap had been sprung on him. It's an unlikely scenario, and it's problematic to the script.
WMLB keeps a steady temperature like a yogurt maker. It stays in that 97°-99° range, never getting too hot or cold. Am I calling it tepid? Perhaps a tad, but it is more good than not, and it's low anxiety. It's one of many shows that could have easily been better with a pinch better direction and editing, less flashbacks, and an inch or 2 of more depth. The acting is actually superb. This is my only exposure to this director, and when one looks at Son Jung Hyun's body of work, he's been steadily going in the right direction. His low marks are his first works and his highest rated works are his 3 most recent: Should We Kiss First?, Mental Coach Jegal, and Twinkling Watermelon @ a whopping 9.2 on Awiki. He has skills and he is getting better with age ~ just like the romance in WMLB. Screenwriter: Jun Hee Young is just getting started. For a 1st effort, this is good, and her work should bloom in the future, too.
QUOTES 📢
You win a fight by knocking down your opponent, not by holding out and enduring.
It's probably not about how to endure it but how to accept it.
I poise myself on my toes, but I just can't see you. Sometimes my wait lasts longer, and I feel resentment towards you. High up in the sky, fleecy clouds drift away. What song should I sing to reach your ears? We didn't meet, so we can't be parted. Even though we are not parted, I still can't hold your hand. So when my wait lasts longer like this, I feel bigger resentment towards you. ~A Korean poem~
〰🖍 IMHO
📣6.8 📝7.3 🎭7.7 💓6 🦋5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7.8 🔚7 ▪ 🌞5 ⚡3 😅2 😭4.5 😱3.5 😯2 🤢2.5 🤔4 💤3
Poli-wagging 3/10
The soundtrack is beautiful. Shazams: Someday We Will Meet Again by KLANG; If You Just Love by Han Dong Geun
Age 12+ Rated TV-15
Re-📺? no
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day -
Crazy Love-7.8,
Racket Boys-8.3
A Witch's Love-7.8,
Live Up To Your Name-7.6
Our Blues-8.5,
Love to Hate You-8.9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Her Private Life-8,
Touch your heart-8.2,
Crash Landing On You-9.1,
Oh My Ghost-10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9,
Love Struck in the City-7.3,
Law School-8
Hospital Playlist-9,
Move To Heaven-8.4
Call It Love-8.4,
When the Camellia Blooms-8
Mine-8
Misaeng-9.1
My Liberation Diary-8.9
Mother-8.8
My Mister-9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine-9
Parasite-9
Historical/Period -
My Only Love Song-8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen-8.5,
My Sassy Girl-8.5,
Saimdang-8.5,
The King's Affection-8.3,
Mr. Sunshine-9
Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
K2-8,
Private Lives-8.1,
Sisyphus-8,
Tunnel-8.1,
Signal-8.6,
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8.3 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in the Rain-8.6,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5.5 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-8.9.9
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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⛩️ How To Almost Lose When You've Already Won ✍️ °7.4° °VG°
Falling Into Your Smile, The King's Avatar, Love 020 - the movie and the show… here we are again, talking about gaming. ELM is a romance first, though. The games are mainly played by the leads. ELM is a 2024 release that is rated 7.9 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 24 45-minute episodes. I enjoyed every one of them. Everyone (who is a romance fan) should like this show.Zhou Ye (Back from the Brink, Word of Honor) portrays Qian Ling, a novice artist who is on the brink of making it big. Lin Yi (Angels Fall Sometimes) plays Gu Xun, an intelligent but slightly misanthropic game designer. I never saw this actress before, but she's terrific and gorgeous. I've seen the ML in Put Your Head on My Shoulder-7.3, where he plays an even colder, more analytical type; PYHOMS is wonderful in the first half and struggles in the second half. Lin Yi is completely different here. He sells his attraction to Qian Ling so well we can almost taste it. As much as he loves her, he came close to blowing it. Totally. Here's how~>
They are both working at the same gaming company while finishing up at the same school. The company decided to build a new unit around Gu Xun (the 9th business unit) in order to deliver China's first AAA computer game, entitled Heroes Path. Many ups and downs precede this, but Qian Ling gets the opportunity to draw the hero of Heroes Path and design many of the weapons. For most of the show she tries to keep two jobs at the company. Her previous boss (Hong Yao from Story of Yanxi Palace) does not want to let her go. Not only is he competitive with Gu Xun, but Qian Ling is a special talent.
Qian Ling has known for a long time that she's totally into Gu Xun. He takes no notice of her, however. As a tall, good-looking, high IQ type, he's the recipient of female attention quite often. It's just that most girlie-girls are silly and boring to him. The girl who does not bore him is the one he hasn't met yet - in person, that is, ‘Dough Twist’ is one of his teammates in online gaming. Their group (Another Win) is ‘killing it’ together. They each play from home and talk through their 🎧. Dough Twist is fierce, feisty, and just lethal with a joystick, mouse, and keyboard. She's his kinda girl. He's got to get HER in his world.
His 🌏 drops one night when she mentions to the group that she likes a guy at work. He immediately sets out to give her “bad intel” (act cute! Be girlie!) in hopes that the relationship won't work out. He wants this pastry for himself. What he doesn't know is that HE'S the guy, and Dough Twist is Qian Ling.
There's layers of clever irony to the show. He has an online crush on online-her (doughtwist). She likes him (Gu Xun). Gu Xun is jealous of doughtwist's crush (himself). He's deliberately giving her bad dating advice so that it won't work out with his crush - and his advice is working! Gu Xun /can't stand/ Qian Ling. He's undermining his own romance! She's trying to win over Gu Xun by being phony, and Gu Xun hates her. She's completely herself with online him (campushunk), because she doesn't care, and (online) he's besotted with her. They are working (hard) at love without realizing they've already won. They just don't know it. All the wasted effort and longing gives me a tad of stress. It's amusing and delightful at the same time.
Melody Tang as Chen Xin Yi, + Jiang Yi Ming as Jiang Jun Nan are the secondary couple. He's Gu Xun's right-hand man and she's his new assistant. She has almost debilitating social anxiety. She's sweet and talented, and Qian Ling helps her come out of her shell. The actresses both did Love Like the Galaxy together and Ms Jiang starred in Story of Kunning Palace. The directors are Yu Chung Chung (Love Is Sweet, Once upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain-7.5) & Gia Lee (Hidden Love-7.8, Go Go Squid!). Screenwriter, Xu Ting, wrote Double Love, & Zhao Cong penned Hello Debate Opponent. The original creator is Qiao Yao (Only for Love, Love Scenery). At the halfway mark their charaters’ interactions are strong, entertaining, sincere and authentic - especially for a Chinese modern-day drama. The scenario is actually entirely plausible and heavy on the grins. It's a nifty piece of writing.
Qian Ling finally plucks up the courage to confess her feelings to Gu Xun at graduation. He only knows the phony Qian Ling, the one he created by way of his subterfuge. He gives her a very harsh rejection. THEN, she hates him. Hate? She LOATHES him. Actively. The act is dropped. She gives him a bitter taste of who she really is from that point on. Gu Xun pieces together that she's doughtwist and spends the rest of the show trying to win her back.
It has some minor bugs. The. Business machinations toward the end are, pretty much, nonsensical. When he meets her parents it's painfully goofy, but it doesn't last that long. The secondary romance looked more promising than it turned out to be. It isn't bad, but the first half was better than the wrap up, by far. It should have been better. The last episode was good enough but could be improved upon.
Artistically it's up and down. The Wardrobe is hit and miss but Stella (Yu Xin Yi from Catch Up My Prince) really puts on a fashion show. The FL has a couple pairs of star earrings that I like enough to buy. The music is dang near outstanding. It really soars in that category. Shazams: With Me (影視劇《別對我動心》插曲) by Fiona Sit & For You, by Ree Lax - that one is so good I shared it with my son. There's a lovely scene where he's on an upper floor balcony and she's walking by. He takes flower petals and tosses them out to fall around her.
Overall, the show works for me. The writing (even though it doesn't have a high business or tech IQ which makes it frequently sloppy in those areas) has a high EQ. It's the writing and the 2 leads that bring us Another Win.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.4 📝7.1 🎭7.5 💓7 🦋5 🎨7 🎵/🔊8 🔚8 🤗6 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡4 😅4 😭1 😱2 😯2 🤢1 🤔4 💤0
Age 12+ Language: b!+ch; Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-📺? won't say no
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Strikes, Balls, & Prison Walls °8.4° °Excellent°
No sleep. Bad food. Never enough hot water. Smelly, downright mean cell mates. It's cold. It's dangerous. The bullies are too much. Prison is not where anyone wants to be.Park Hae Soo (Six Flying Dragons, Squid Game-8.4, Yaksha: Ruthless Operations) is our ML, Kim Je Hyuk. He's brilliant. At ⚾baseball. He is, otherwise, a complete dunderhead. (“He's just acting dumb,” says his BFF. “No, he really is stupid about everything but ⚾,” insists his manager). He is capable of occasional flashes of brilliance. He's a simple man, and there can be a brilliance to simplicity. As a top-tier player he's living a top-tier life. Im Hwa Young (Signal-8.6, Birthcare Center-8.2) plays Kim Je Hee, his younger sister. Hyuk is found to have used unnecessary force when he defends Sis against an assault. He proceeded to chase the fleeing brute and smash a 🏆 on his head - fatality. Jail, it is.
There, he's killer at woodshop. I mean, he literally almost /killed/ the woodshop. They move him to gardening. Eventually they set up a training area for him. He has injuries to work back from, he'll be released in a few months, and he's a very popular player. Watch actor/Park closely: His facial expressions make the show. He'll look positively constipated and then spring into affability when forced into a corner. Up until the very last second, the viewer expects him to (maybe) go a different way.
PP is a 2017 release that is rated 90 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 90-minute episodes. All the acting in this show is a delight. We follow Hyuk through his prison odyssey, meeting cellmates and various officers, getting most of their backstories. Jung Kyung Ho (Hospital Playlist-9, Crash Course in Romance) is Lee Joon Ho/JHo. He's so wealthy, he's living a top-tier life among those who live top-tier lives. JUST KIDDING! He's a CO - corrections officer - one of the worst ways to make money on the planet. He's Hyuk's long time friend. In fact, he requests a job transfer so that he can follow Hyuk to another prison and keep an eye on him. Kim Kyung Nam (The King: Eternal Monarch, Connection) is Lee Joon Dol Joon, JHo's brother. Jung Woong In plays CO, Paeng Se Yoon. He has a gruff exterior, but on the low-down he helps the inmates more than anyone. I've seen this actor play a ruthless politician in My Sassy Girl-8.5. He's completely different here, much to his credit.
Let's meet Hyuk's cellies.
Jung Min Sung (Record of Youth-5.8, Racket Boys-8.3) is a white collar criminal, Doctor Ko. Dr. Ko was convicted of embezzling 10B won, but we see that his company is the true criminal element and they mistreated him horribly. He actually took the fall for a high level manager. Here's a guy who understands that the pen is mightier than the sword. He will not tolerate violations of the law, ironically. They only get chicken necks and their dinner? That's maltreatment. He files a petition. He needs a book that's not in the prison library? Petition. The guards are cursing at them and being rude? Human Rights violation complaint. Every prison has jailhouse lawyers. They have nothing to do but read the law books all day. Most of them are smarter than most of us. Doc Ko doesn't just hold /officers/ to the rules. He will recite them to his cellmates as well, which often gets him beat up by the most short-tempered of the cellies. In one scene a body comes flying in from off camera onto him. They do that as a running bit in the hilarious show, Arrested Development-10. No doubt, Arrested Development picked it up from cartoons.
Choi Moo-Sung plays a gangster doing a murder stint. He's big and powerful. I've seen him in Han River Police-7.4 (he's a bad guy) & Reply 1988-8.6 (he's a loving dad). In this, he's both. Good, bad, or otherwise, he's always a teddy bear. Jung Jae-Sung is the first cell leader we meet. 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, Pandora-3.9 & Big Mouth-7.4. He's different here. More polite and contained, but, appropriately, there's something /off/. Ahn Chang Hwan (Fiery Priest) as "Crony" is the perfect thug.
Lee Kyu Hyung plays goofy druggie, "Loony”. He's really funny. In Uncle Samsik-8.4 he portrays a beautiful (looking) man who is ‘beautifully’ corrupted and deranged. In Doctor John and Hi Bye, Mama-6.5, he has more serious roles. This dude is an ACTOR. The show wouldn't work the same way without him. He gets some of the best scenes and the best lines. He's childlike, and they all seem to understand that. He's also tired all the time, especially when he tries to break his drug habit. They all end up letting him sleep on their knee or their leg. He's like encroaching flood water, at some point they stop resisting and just let it flow.
Jung Hae In goes to prison. This actor's a national treasure, appearing in hits such as Something in the Rain-8.6, One Spring Night-7.8, D.P.-8.4, While You Were Sleeping-7.3, and so much more. He's a superb romantic ML. When we meet him in PP he's a volatile inmate - He's scary. There's nothing lacking in his performance, I just don't love seeing him this way. Is he my favorite? Not quite: Seo Kang-joon, Song Seung-heon, and Jo Jung-suk are occupying my top 3. Do I put him ahead of Song Kang? Hmmmm. I have a special place in my heart for the teddy bears, too, like Ma Dong-Seok… Well, he's definitely a top 5 for me. In fact, regardless of where I place him in my personal order, his raw natural power of attraction is indisputable. I'm thinking of changing how I refer to him to something like: ‘Jung Hae In…um-Um-UM’ and shaking my head slowly every time I say or write his name😜. Jung Moon Sung plays his brother. He doesn't have any scenes with his Hospital Playlist co-star here, but in HP, all of his scenes are with Jung Kyung Ho.
Krystal Jung (Sweet & Sour-7, The Heirs-7.3, The Bride of Habaek-7, and the enormously fun Crazy Love-7.8) plays Jihoo, Hyuk's ex. They never told his family they broke up, so she's brought into the loop-of-crisis-management and she gets into the habit of visiting him. They broke up because she was convinced she was the only one in love. (Hyuk isn't good at expressing himself. He's just good at curveballs). She's at her cutest in this show. Their relationship is as sweet a thing as I've ever seen. Their theme song is nice, too.
The oft seen Ye Soo Jung is Je Hyuk's mother. I've enjoyed her most in Train to Busan-7.8, the Along With the Gods films, & Mine-8. I'm currently watching her play a Walter White style meth cook in The Worst of Evil. She is fabulous. All visits are one-on-one. Mom and Jihoo pretty much ask exactly the same questions: Are you sleeping? Did you eat? Are you cold? He gives each of them exactly the /opposite/ answers. He lies to his mom about everything and tells Jihoo the truth. Mom is an easy con, but sis? “Do you think I'm a fool?” His sister is perturbed. “Put some thought into your lies!” She isn't as readily fooled.
“Looks like it's going to rain,” (as Hyuk heads to court for the appeal). “Don't let your uniform get wet, it's unlucky.” “See you soon” Chief Jo says. We just learned, guards aren't supposed to say that. The signs are there that Hyuk's several months stint may not get cut short by appeal. The filming is loaded with quality segues & other connections like that. The director is the amazing Shin Won Ho who gifted us with Hospital Playlist & the Reply series. All these shows have the same original creator: Lee Woo Jung. Screenwriter, Jung Bo Hoon, also 📝 Racket Boys-8.3, an adorable family show that fell on the PC sword merely because a player gets booed in Indonesia. The punishment seems to be worse than the crime; RB is wonderful.
The whole prison is abuzz that they have a celebrity in their mix. Hyuk's presence stokes awe, love, snark, and jealously. The warden fawns on him. The Warden's cheerless #2 would prefer to give him solitary for the balance of his stint as Hyuk's mere presence is throwing off the flow. The Warden wouldn't allow that, however. Eventually, Hyuk's band of theives, eh - brothers start helping with his recovery. “How many pitches did he throw?” Dr. Ko, the accountant, is keeping account. He's grilling guard JHo about the particulars. JHo becomes uncomfortable over his lack of detailed observation. “How many minutes did he weight train? You don't even remember that?” How many balls did he throw in the afternoon? What kind of pitches, mainly? What weight were the dumbells? And how many times did he lift them? You kept count, right? You weren't counting?”
“Happy Reform”, the sign says. The theme is prison life and the dignity of every human being. One of the show’s potential weaknesses is that several of these inmates aren't guilty of much, if anything at all. There's 6 men in the cell block and at least 3 of them are innocent, counting our ML who arguably suffered a miscarriage of justice. Even one of the thugs ended up in jail because he was caught up in another man's mess, and well he's committed plenty of crimes, he didn't actually commit the crime for which he was convicted. There are definitely innocent people in jail - But not half of them. We all need to constantly focus on improving, but innocent people don't need reform. Sadly, very little true reforms happen in prison.
Prison is a small world. Every little thing gets magnified, because most days, not much is happening. When things are happening, it ain't good. So we go from one small but overly magnified incident to another. There's the incident of the embellished watch. The sports festival. The smuggled cigarettes. Trivia night. The singing contest! (The winner gets a day of leave!!! But who is the inmate practicing My Way? They can hear him. They can't see him. He's the one to beat). Ironically, when something significant and deadly serious does occur, it's normally kept under wraps and few even know about it. There's a steady supply of laughs. When Hyuk puts the fork in his mouth at his first jailhouse meal, he's relieved that the food doesn't taste bad. Yes, the cook is pretty good, despite the fact that he's a four-time murderer and guilty of dismembering corpses, his cellmates inform.
Two inmates who are 20 years apart in age discover that they've been writing to the same woman. She told the older one she's 33 and the younger one that she's 25. Neither one of them can give her up. This starts a bitter competition.
Prison ingenuity! A CO once told me that 1/3 of criminals are idiots, 1/3 are very intelligent, and the rest are something else. There were a couple inmates that were so brilliant the officers weren't allowed to talk to them - because the state supreme court always found in their favor. PP shows some stellar prison ingenuity. People, they can make toilet wine out of bread and fruit scraps! If you want to lose a couple hours on your phone, check out The After Prison show on YT. They do recipes more than anything else. Any prison show that doesn't show impressive prison ingenuity is cheating us - There's no way they did their homework.
Good news: They have a TV! Bad news: They only get one channel. When the electrical engineer fails to change the channel with scavenged copper wire, chewing gum, and a jerry-rigged soldering iron, another saves the day by pilfering a remote from the Warden's office. Teamwork. Just like baseball, prison is better with it.
Oh, no! Hyuk gets a case of the yips. He can't hit the strike zone, all of a sudden. They overthink the cure. He's just not that complicated. Jihoo knows exactly what to do.
One thing I've learned from watching Kdramas is that Korea is no fan of Japan. On trivia night, there's a question about the 1995 Murayama statement, in which Japan's PM, Murayama, apologizes for Japanese atrocities committed during the Japanese imperialism period. To para-quote Wiki, the Japanese army was responsible for the deaths of millions. Actions include a wide range including torture of prisoners of war, forced labor, biological warfare, looting, rape, and the use of comfort women. The contestant got it mixed up with The Kono Statement of 1993, which was an apology specifically regarding the rape and forced prostitution of women by that regime.
More than anything, PP is heartwarming. It's prison; they do show violence and fights, bullying and sexual advances, tensions and heartbreaks, but they keep it fairly tame. Hyuk has to pull a Jamie Lannister. If you don't know what that means, I ain't tellin, but PP tells its audience that if we keep stubbornly plodding away, just like Hyuk, we can come back from anything. Hyuk inspires us to believe that.
QUOTES📢
It's been so long since I've felt like a human being.
Call the whole CPRT team. If there's a riot tonight, let's give them the warden and run.
Flexibility is essential for this place to operate properly.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.5 📝7.8 🎭8.3 💓7 🦋4 🎨6 🔚8.7 🤗6 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡4.5 😅3.5 😭4.5 😱4 😯3 🤢3 🤔4.5 💤0
🎵/🔊8.5 The soundtrack is gorgeous. My Way by The Sinatra makes a showing. Shazams: Would Be Better by Heize; Like A Dream by Park Boram; Bravo, My Life, by Eric Nam; The Door, by Kang Seung Yoon & MINO. The sound of heavy footsteps ends many episodes particularly if drama is looming. It's effective.
Age 15+ with the following cautions: R-rated language including F💣s. Violence and references to sex and violence, but it's nothing like a Hollywood feature. Rated TV-15
Re-📺? 👍🏼
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♥️ Someone Should Love That Lonely Black Dog °8.2° °Excellent°
In HS, “Ko” Ha-neul's life is saved by a teacher who lost his own life in the process. It's an asteroid that changes the trajectory of her life. Years later she's back at school… to teach.“Every grass seems a weed if you look at it with hatred. Every person is a flower if you look at them with kindness,” Ha-neul muses to herself. Earlier in life, she was told the opposite. “You shouldn't raise a black dog,” Ko is told by a petshop owner when she's young. “It's unlucky. They're {unlucky} from birth.” “That black dog probably continued to waive its tail as soon as it felt someone's presence, with the hope that someone might show it some affection,” we hear as Ko exits with her new fluffy /white/ dog. “But what happens if someone shows interest in the black dog that has always been alone?” That forlorn black doggy made me tear up, and I'm more of a cat person. Cats and dogs are easier to love than humans, but humans need love even more. Much more, actually. Pet owners know their ‘babies’ thrive on love; a small investment yields ample returns. Humans take more effort and more patience, and the results are not guaranteed, but the rewards can be incredibly satisfying.
Rumors are churning, however. Someone was hired via connections. Ko has done everything on her own, though! She didn't ask her “connected” uncle for help. Nevertheless, she encounters an early frost at her new job.
BD makes the mundane moving. A 2019 release that is rated 88 on AWiki, it is 1 season consisting of 16 80-minute episodes. Most entertainment takes us to places that are more dramatic than life. BD features everyday mini dramas that flare up in life and work. It's the stuff that is stressful to all of us, even though it's the same-old-same-old. What makes it engaging is the acting, scripting, and directing. I recognize the importance of education (it is the 2nd most important thing in society, right behind a decent and moral populous), but education in Korea doesn't interest me significantly. I stuck with this show because journeying with these characters is not only enjoyable, but emotionally moving.
BD sniffs out the politicking involved behind the scenes in the educational system. Most of the teachers are doing their best, paddling against the current and sincerely attempting to make a difference. Seo Hyun-Jin (Dr. Romantic, You Are My Spring) is Ko. She's precariously kind. Coming into BD, I'd only seen Ms Seo in the romcom Another Miss Oh-7.5, in which she's wonderful as a wide-eyed new teacher who wants to fit in & do good, while working to minimize the friction between her idealistic dreams and real life. Ra Mi-Ran (Reply 1988-8.6, The Good Bad Mother) plays Park Sung-Soon - “Why did you cause a commotion at the interview?” “I'm the crazy b¡+ch around here, I needed to remind them.” She reminds me of Manager Oh in Misaeng-9.1: You wouldn't pick her out of a lineup as anything special, but she makes the show. Ha-Joon is Do Yeon-Woo. He plays a friendly person in Crazy Love-7.8. He's almost unrecognizable here, which is a testament to his acting skills. The director is Hwang Joon-Hyeok (Song of the Bandits) and the writer is Park Joo-Yeon.
“It seems like cheaters have better lives, nowadays… Is the Republic of Korea the land of civil complaints?” It's the same in the USA. People always take advantage and abuse power. Freedom creates an environment where everyone has some power, so abuse becomes rampant. Freedom grants powers of pushing back and complaining. That's also a power that gets abused. With all its problems, freedom is still preferable to tyranny, but freedom only works when people are decent. A lack of decency, both ways, leads to a rageful, complaining, abusive, and cold society. It's lonely to be the one to try and stop the cycle. It takes courage… and humility. Wisdom is knowing when to speak up and when to let things slide.
We must set aside our pride, sometimes, for the greater good. When Ko acquiesces to a bully teacher, she's asked: “That's your way, Miss Ko? I don't like fighting, but I don't like not fighting either.” Her response: “It's not losing… I just thought about what my priorities are. If we keep fighting for power, who ends up suffering the most?” Our pride is usually not the most important matter.
Cultures are different, but people are the same everywhere. There's a myriad of reasons that our educational system is in disarray, but one of them is that, generally, the very best students go on to high paying jobs and don't teach. Before women were permitted in the workplace, teaching was one of the few options available to them. Thus, some of the smartest people, who happened to be female, were teachers. Going back to the mid-20th century isn't the answer, but what we have currently is a mess as well. It's obvious that politicians do not want to fix anything. They love their political footballs and they hold onto them tighter than Lucy does when Charlie Brown is trying to kick them. Instead of dumping money into politicians in the hopes that one of those narcissists will grow a conscience and try to do some good rather than solidifying their power, the people need to step up. There have been studies to indicate that merely getting rid of the bottom 5% of teachers, the worst performers, could turn our schools around. Students who are performing satisfactorily sometimes never recover after encountering a bottom level teacher. I am not attacking teachers. I come from a family of educators. That's how my father put food on our table. Every profession has poor performers and bad actors. They should be released to go on and do something they are actually good at.
Some countries have mandatory military service. Anything mandatory won't work here, but programs to promote voluntary service, with student loan and tax benefits as well as future job holding/placement, could be an answer - Maybe some volunteers will stay and teach as a career. There are some wonderful programs out there already- a good start. For those who must work a regular job, volunteer tutoring programs might be useful. While not always easy, volunteering can be fulfilling and provide profound satisfaction. Attracting our best to spend a couple years teaching (or other forms of community services) could turn our schools and our society around. Paying taxes and leaving it to the government bureaucrats does not work and it never, ever has.
Ko navigates the school year with its troubled students, difficult coworkers, super-difficult college entrance administrators, extremely difficult parents, The Great Banana Scandal, and some difficult goodbyes. “You can't cover up the sky with your hand,” says the principal to a teacher, meaning you can't force all the kids to see things your way, particularly when you're wrong. Ko rarely is the one who is wrong. When things get most problematic are the times when she believes the students are right and the administration is wrong. Ko sees how people gravitate to the prettiest, the smartest, and the wealthiest - to the opposite direction of the black dogs. Therefore, looking out for those that are less fortunate takes more energy and more character as it's swimming against the current. “It actually hurts you, in the end, to live with convictions. You just make more enemies of the people around you,” she says in despair, one night. This is true, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Stubbornly proceeding to do the right thing will cause friction, but in the end, with some decency and perseverance, right can prevail. Can Ko prevail?
In ep1 she tries to board the train and stumbles in the rush. She also falls in the school cafeteria. At the end of ep1, she boards the train with /determination/. Ko will prevail because she has /decided/ that she will. Now, she just needs to pass that spark along to the kids.
QUOTES📢
If you're in complete, pitch-black darkness, all you can do is to keep your place until your eyes are accustomed to the dark.
People with overly unwavering conviction are difficult to deal with. The world they live in is so sturdy, so they refuse to step outside of it.
There's something called the 2-6-2 rule. If you enter a room with 10 new people, 2 will like you, 6 will have no interest in you, and 2 are bound to hate you. It's a rule of nature.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝8.3 🎭8.5 🌞6 🎨6 ⚡2 🎵/🔊7😅3 😭4 😱3.5 😯4 😖2 🤔6.5 💤0 🔚7.5
Age 11+ Language: b!+ch. Rated TV-15
Re-📺? not against it
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↩↖⬆↗↪ Who Wrote The Map of Love? °very cute°
Go on a short trip with travel agents. They know how to get around.Aoi Wakana is Honjoji Rika - she's a bit of a cartophile. She doesn't mind being alone. Not one lil bit 〰 All she needs is a 🗺. Sato Kanta plays Ohara Takuya. Both leads are good, but he makes the show. He's so earnest, and it's adorable. Kamo is a cat that he rescued. Kamo had been abused and she's only recently started turning her back to show her tail to him; a sign of trust. So when their workplace announces that somebody #single would be selected to head up the new Anchorage branch (ALASKA!?), he couldn't bear the thought of taking his 🐱 there. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving her with someone else, either.
In the meantime, Rika looked up all the stats for Anchorage and studied it on the map. It's over 5000km from Japan... She ain't going there! When she runs into Takuya on their day off, she suggests they enter a fake engagement and start planning their wedding. That way, they will no longer be considered single, and as such, they won't be forced to move to The Wall, um, I mean Alaska.
Planning a wedding is much like planning a trip, anyway. Rika begins mapping it out. She doesn't just map out the wedding but the whole relationship, rather - dates, cover stories, places. Travel agents? She shoulda been CIA. These 2 are positively brilliant (mostly Rika). They are navigating flawlessly! ~/except for/ that one time at work when somebody overheard them discussing their dastardly plans~ Now they are anonymously being threatened with exposure. OH NO!!!
Forget that! Even WORSE - Their parents found out (half of) the truth. They think their kids are engaged!
Rika and Takuya are socially awkward and withdrawn (they each portrayed trees in school plays). Rika has true grit. She will hunker down and handle situations that arise. He's a big marshmallow. Together, they are just cute. This show is adorbs.
As they get deeper into their ruse, they are forced to get deeper into their ruse. “What!? You are going home and not taking Rika?“ The office is scandalized (if they only knew). Rika ends up going home to meet Takuya's family. They have to act like they are living together and invite the work friends over. Suspicions still aren't entirely diffused so they are forced to scurry for 10 episodes. They scurry so much they hardly realize what's happening to their hearts.
MFTW is a 2022 release that is rated 7.4 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 10 30-40-minute episodes. Kanome Keiko & Takaishi Akihiko are the screenwriters. It was adapted from the manga "Kekkon Surutte, Hontou Desu ka? - 365 Days to the Wedding" by Wakaki Tamiki, whose most popular work is: The World God Only Knows. The director is Miyawaki Ryo.
“When I was little I thought adults were good at everything… But the older I get, the more confused I am about how the world works.” As they spend time together, Takuya gradually opens up to Rika more. Always reserved on the outside, Takuya has no clue that his endearing authenticity is crumbling Rika from the inside out. She's one to chart things out and lay down parameters. With all the sincerity he can muster, earnestly trying to roll with Rika’s crazy ideas, watching Takuya is… Simple and cute… I feel like a hot cocoa, about now.
It gets more endearing as the episodes trek by. He's shy, but he can rise to the occasion. She's terrified of her feelings and simply being /touched/, but she's falling for him. She's quite a bit like Kamo.
MFTW is intended to be simple escapism. The pithy soundtrack augments the lite mood perfectly. It is relaxing and sweet. Some will find too simple, but sometimes that is exactly what we're looking for. It's a purrrfectly comfortable excursion.
There's final content after the credits roll in ep10.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.7 📝7.4 🎭7.6 💓6.5 🦋5 🌞6 🎨6 🎵/🔊6.8 😅3.7 😭1.5 😱2 😯3 🤔4 💤0 🔚7.8
Age 12+ Language: $uck; Marital troubles a kid looks for a missing dad, adult situations
It's all tame but probably not meant for elementary schoolers.
Re-📺? Toss up. It's relaxing and cute
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Japanese lite romcoms: Maid Sama (10), Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo (7.8), Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions (8.4), Toradora (8.5)
Korean Modern Day:
Mad For Each Other 7.8 ~silly fun;
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Her Private Life 8;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Romance is a bonus book 7.9;
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
More Than Friends 8;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Something in the Rain 9
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