A Fluttery Slow Dance☂Pumpkin Patch Parenting☂Good Girl Disease & Jung Hae-in's Superp☀wer 8.6
Here's to breaking taboos; it's harder than you'd think.
SITR is all prancing in puddles & laughing for the 1st few eps. Enjoy it. Lightening, thunder & pain are in the forecast. This duo is going against the norm, & mom is not merely the norm, she's a veritable Joseon. HER daughter (Son Ye-Jin from Crash Landing on You, is Yoon “Jin”-a) will marry a 🔝 prospect from a MO💲T respectable family. He (Jung Hae-In, from While You Were Sleeping-7.3, is Seo Joon-”Hee”) is all abt breaking taboos. He means dating his noona. His declaration is loaded, as taboos are being hacked to pieces & falling all around Jin. She can't make a move w/o stepping on something.
SITR is aka Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food - A Noona is an older sister by blood or close relationship. In Asia, age is status. It's a big deal, but this isn't a May/Dec tryst; it's more of a June/July one. The early eps cover the intros & how they fall in love. The rest are the fallout between them & everyone they know. Especially her mother. Then it's the fallout between the 2 of them from the fallout. The 1st part of the show is wonderfully warm fuzzy-fun, & the 2nd part is soul-crushing. My main complaint: How dare they give us a 30-second wrap-up & leave so ma wind⁉ Are we meant to infer everything? I don't want to! I felt absolutely robbed at the end. They need a follow-up movie to complete this story.
Jin & her brother, Seung-ho, grew up friends w/ the Seos, Hae & his older sister, Kyung-seon/SKS (Jang So-yeon, who is excellent). When the Seos are orphaned, the Yoons quasi ”adopt” them, so they're practically part of the family. Hae moves to the States for work. In ep1 he's back. Jin has been rising up the ranks of the coffee shop chain that employs her, while her friend, SKS, manages one of the chain's stores.
Hollywood has truly forgotten how to do romance. They traded it in for cheap titillation long ago. In SITR they percolate slowly. He's probably had a thing for her for yrs, but she's just realizing he's a man. She has to get beyond seeing him as that little boy. Hand holding took until ep3's close. The buildup is beautiful. Masterful. They long to touch & alternate posing hands where the other might take notice. He makes a few halting & failed attempts to put his arm around her. They don't just strip off their clothes & jump in the sack: That's anti-romance; it's just lust. There's a difference between lust & wanting to do it w/ somebody w/ whom one is deeply & emotionally connected. One robs you & one nourishes you. He says: "I'll never let you go. It took ages to hold your hand." People! LADIES! Is it worth the wait? It's up to you to decide, but you won't know unless you've tried holding back until the emotional commitment is there.
Next, they're running around hiding like kids. She's sneaking out at night & stuffing her bed to make it look like she's still there. It's cute. They got to know each other as kids. It's all in the family, so acting like kids could almost be expected, & she gets a taste of the childhood she was denied. It's also portentous. She is afraid of her mother. She is not free.
That drops us off at the show’s themes. Foremost is the toXic mother. She thinks parenting is about her. The 1st time we meet Oma, she's soaking Jin in acrimony. Mom's friends brag about their kids’ friends & spouses, while her own daughter hasn't given /her/ anything to brag on. “All your friends are married & look at you. What's wrong w/ you?” “Maybe their mothers were nicer to them,” is Jin‘s acerbic response. The acid leaks out more often as the show goes on. As long as the dude is rich, Oma doesn't care what happens to her daughter. In SITR, marrying a CEO is NOT the happy ending; SITR features anti-hero Hae.
Stand By Your Man repeats In the background. Everybody sees him as the kid-brother’s-kid-friend. She grows to respect him as a man, but she must stand before she can stand-by-her-man. I haven't unlocked why that man, Jung Hae-In, is SO delish. No doubt he's handsome, but not the most. It's not like we can smell pheromones through the 📺. Can we? It seems that his superpower is shooting pheromones over the TV waves. That's a cool superpower. He's not even my type. All I can do is smh. The 1st words he says are: ‘while you were sleeping’. That's just adorable.
Writer Kim Eun also has One Spring Night to her credit, & Ahn Pan Seok directed both. These two incorporate a complexity of symbolism & insight into their work. All that rain… Is it the tears she never let herself cry? The rain is crying for them. Crying for the upbringing she's suffered & for the Seos who were orphaned. Do we love her? No. She's not honest, she soaks up the love but doesn't return it, & she has a big selfish streak. She's on her way to adapting Oma's values, b/c she's never had the energy to fight them. When he comes into her life, everything happens at once. Things tip sideways, a deluge overflows the spout, & it's more than she can process. I wanted to take her head & pound it into the ground when she doesn't simply free herself. The director might have been illustrating how we lose patience w/ people. We often fail to offer the lowest common denominator of understanding. It's reminiscent of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Gregor isn't doing much, other than lying around & being contemptible, so, bring out the Raid! We're reminded to be honest but patient. Growth takes time.
“Toxic" simply means narcissistic. Now that the condition has been categorized correctly, it's easy to spot 〰It's everywhere〰 I have friends & family w/ deep wounds from narcissistic parents. Pride is a homewrecker & a sneaky liar. The better we have it, the higher we believe we are floating. Mom married a man who had moderate success. That small taste gave her appetites that could never be satisfied. I learned in the pumpkin patch how easily parents succumb to the power & pride delusion. On a school trip, my 3 y/o picked a small crooked 🎃. Oh, no. “Put that down.” I directed him to chubby round ones; but that wasn't what he wanted. I checked myself: “It's just a 🎃. Why do I care? What am I doing right now?” Pivoting, I told him to pick whatever 🎃 he wanted. This time he selected one that was smaller, more crooked & part green. On the bus back, I overheard how other moms oversaw their kids’ 🎃 selection. Once home, I sat him on the front step & took his picture holding it up. He was beaming. His dad commented that he is compassionate & identifies w/ the small outcasts. And what's wrong with that? I almost smooshed that part of him. Parents must give direction & at times rule by fiat - but only when absolutely necessary. At every opportunity, we should allow kids to make choices & grow into their own personality. It is not about YOU. You are supposed to be raising them to LEAVE. Your job is to develop a useful, caring, responsible & independent member of society.
Jin is none of the above. She's out in the rain alone. The blind date her mother fixed up isn't there. No ☂. No shelter. No warmth. That's where her mother’s path will leave her. Why does she put up with it?
Good-girl disease.
There was never a way for Jin to withstand mom's steamrolling. She had to subjugate herself & put up a front. All she knows is phoniness & being controlled. So, Jin can't stop lying. Everything's fine, is what she projects, as she's fraying at the seams. She can't hold up the ACT anymore, but she's such a chicken. Oma immersed the whole family in her acid rain. Seung-ho & dad attend to mom during one of her fits while saying: “It sucks to be a man”. It sucks to be in a relationship w/ anybody who abuses power. Women hate it when men do it, but it is no less destructive when women seize power in the family & abuse it. Next, Jin starts to treat Hae like she treats herself. She's pounded herself down to nothing to fit into the space her mother allowed, & she unconsciously expects him to do the same thing. What unfolds between Jin & SKS, and also mom & the Seos is agonizing. Jin's brother will admit he’s contemplated suicide. The pressure Koreans put on their kids has manifested itself in the highest suicide rate, by far, in the developed world. Instead of pushing our kids to bring us glory, we should simply teach them to never stop improving themselves. Consider Iiving a small life. Have enough, but not too much. Take time to enjoy family & friends, because that is living. Practice gratitude & contentment as they will lead to true fulfillment.
No matter the upbringing, we are responsible for our actions. We are born 100% selfish. Maturity is learning to become unselfish, & maturity is not in fashion these days. Many western kids have no idea what humility is. They think it's some vague malady. Our self-absorption leads us to be too forgiving & generous w/ ourselves while we turn a harsh view to the outside - other people's problems always seem easy. We should be exactly the opposite. Nothing is level. There is no horizontal existence. Not really. We all have different DNA, gifts, deficiencies, talents, challenges, parentage, upbringing… nobody is coming from the same place. There's really nothing to compare. We exist in lies we tell ourselves, we chase after meaningless & empty things, & we generally lack compassion because we love to feel superior to others by comparison. As Solomon said: It's all vanity.
Director Ahn utilizes ☂ of varied colors as messages. ☂ Red/Stop (passion?) ☂ Green/Go (grow?)… In the end, umbrellas are cast aside like bad taboos. They'll brave the elements and rising pressure together. Let it pour!
QUOTES📢
Passion is necessary in a relationship; without it, it would be disrespectful to the other.
Being nice isn't something to be proud of. It's rather a flaw, you idiot!
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬9 📝9 🎭9 💓8 🦋9 🌞6 🎨8 ⚡1 😅3 🤔8 🎵/🔊8 😭7 😱1 🤢0 💤3 🔚5
Age 14+ sex, lang F💣x2
Re-📺? 👍🏽
⛔Mini Spoilers follow⛔
The greatest irony of all is when mom accuses the kids she previously claimed as her own of being morally empty because they have no parents! At the end, it's all crumbling away. There is nothing more important than the lie Oma tells herself about her own importance.
I know people want the big blow up with the mother. That's her mother. She fed her, carried her in the womb, & took care of her as a baby. That's a debt that can't be repaid. It's good that she's leaving, but it's good that Jin's leaving on positive terms. The blow up would have had her mom's back up. The way she left has her mom sobbing. The guilt’s flooding her. It's too easy to judge mom. She's entirely responsible for toxifying her family. However, mom is showing the residue from being brought up the same way. Mom was truly kind to the Seo siblings. She had true affection for them, but her pride would not allow a marriage. Pride is the nastiest flaw, that everybody has, that no one admits.
We live in a world where people want to express their rage. Rage feeds rage. Now people will rage at others for not being as rageful as they themselves are. That's not everybody's way. Frankly, rage doesn't do anything. It just makes everybody upset. If one truly wants results one will try to use methods that actually work. Sometimes the softer touch will bring about change more than backing someone into a corner and almost forcing them to push back.
One Spring Night is done by the same creative team. It isn't as good as SITR, but it's a worthy folow up as it continues with similar themes. It's like a stamp without fresh ink, so it looks the same, just slightly faded.
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✒Not endorsed by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce °7.5° °VG°
HKWSS could be considered a public service. It reminds us to not get snookered. It explores the downside of Hong Kong life and by extension, human existence in general.Most stories are one episode long while a couple occupy a second episode. Ep1: “What do Chinese people love most? Gambling. Taking risks. Even when they lose, they numb themselves as if they've won the process.” So the ML is told by his buddy who is urging him to consider a career change from insurance sales to bookie. He ends up becoming an even worse shyster - a pet telepathist. His career change starts as revenge against his gf who broke up with him after he criticized /her/ pet telepathist, to whom she had just paid 5k to try and find her cat, Tofu. The ML did nothing to help her find Tofu, she points out. Revenge turned lucrative: He's getting paid and laid. He's loving life until he realizes, in ep2, that his choices will keep him from getting what he wants most. The last story features a family of 6 who live in a 380sf apartment: Mom & dad, 2 grown sons and their wives. The couples share bunk beds, and the story is outrageous. The only other Hong Kong show I've seen is The Defected-8.2. Both of these shows are good, they are both rough, and they both have a coldness to them. Hong Kong seems like a tough place.
The opening shot is in black & white and it's, well, it's ⬇down⬇. The language sounded strange - I'm used to Mandarin, cru-’shay (but), this is Cantonese. For those of you keeping score at home, Cantonese and Mandarin are considered quite distinct from eachother. Cantonese is also considered more difficult to learn as it has twice the tonal inflections (8) as Mandarin, which has 4. It's more sing-songy than Mandarin as a result. Inflections will change the meaning of a word, making the same sound another word altogether. The populations in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong Kong, and Macau primarily speak Cantonese and it's the most common language spoken by Chinese expats all around the world.
HKWSS is a 2018 release that is rated 7.5 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 12 “30-minute” episodes. Some of them are barely more than 15 minutes sans the credits. They pack a punch for the time investment. Also Known As: Hong Kong Stories, episodes are linked by characters as we drop off one protag and pick up another. Stories are also linked by deception. Nevertheless, When They Met in Taipei 1 (ep6) is sweet. Don't let down your guard, though. These aren't happy bedtime tales.
The actors are terrific. Director Nero Ng has a keen sense of irony, and he has no mercy on the weak and downtrodden. A common thread in these stories is how people get scammed because they overestimate their own importance while wanting everything to fall onto their laps with minimal effort (gambling mentality?). Not only do we need to remain wary of others, but we always need to be working on ourselves. Many of the protags in these tales aren't the most attractive, but even the beautiful people trip themselves up. There's very few truly ugly people - Most of us are average. The sexiest thing in the world is confidence. The beauty that comes from within is the one with staying power, but that beauty eludes those who sit around wallowing in misery or looking for quick & easy solutions while never trying to improve. Keep working on yourself. Your efforts will never betray you.
The music is quite good and augments an amusing, almost lighthearted air. These people may be screwing up their lives, but they aren't taking the viewer down with them. Viewers who have an excess of empathy, like me (Charlie Brown always made me fight back tears), might feel slightly down or uncomfortable watching these short stories, but they are worth the time investment. Episode 12 actually ends on a hopeful note. Life will go on, so get along, open your heart, and love those around you.
QUOTES📢
When people lack analytical thinking for a long period of time,.. They obey the intelligent ones and do everything they're asked to do.
Do you know what humans are good at? Self-deception.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.5 📝7.5 🎭8 💓2 🦋1 🎨6 🎵/🔊6 🔚8.3 ▪ 🌞0 ⚡4 😅2 😭6 😱4 😯4 😖4 🤔8 💤0
Age 17+ for hard R-rated Language (F💣s), sex acts, and violence are depicted. Rated R - restricted
Re-📺? It's not that it isn't rewatch-worthy, but I don't think I want to go through these trials again. Once is enough. But maybe…
Recommendations: A Beautiful Life-7.4, Don't Go Breaking My Heart-7.7, Hello, Love, Goodbye 7.7, 🇹🇼Age of Rebellion-9.5
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✒ Time Must Start Again ⏰ °7.7° °VG °
🕰Timing in life is everything; so the adage goes. In Hong Kong, time is G💰LD. As long as you move you'll live. Once you stop you'll starve. Over 200,000 Filipinos work in Hong Kong. It's most common to have a 2-yr domestic helper contract as Filipinos are not allowed to do anything else - unless they manage to become a citizen. Therefore, when Joy loses her job because her employers can no longer pay her, she takes an illegal waitressing job. The cops, inevitably, will come by to check IDs. When Joy sees them, she busts a move and runs. She ends up running right into the handsome bartender and 😙busts another move. She uses him as camouflage to hide from the po-po. Cops rarely bother a couple snogging in the alleyway, afterall. It's done so often in movies you might think that they would start checking, even if a duo is rounding first and headed for second, but it always seems to work.The Filipino community in Hong Kong is small. Everyone is within 1° of separation, but it's large enough to support a Filipino radio station. (They have a nifty microeconomic system in place as well.) Joy thinks she got away scott-free only to wake up the next morning to a radio announcement about her! Ethan, the bartender, is looking for Joy so that she can return the kiss that she stole from him! Joy's friends go insane.
HLG is about what decent, but poor, people must do to survive: It is all about hard choices. It is also about the nature of love. Joy & Ethan. Ethan + Joy. She resists him, but she can't for long. The problem is that she's leaving. She's definitely leaving. She has a nursing degree that she can't use in Hong Kong. She's going to be a nurse in Canada. That's her dream, and n🅾thing's going to change her mind. N🅾t a thing/budkis/pist🅾🅾za/larkaflark/nuffink/jack squat/NATTY. Joy is no wimp. She has a will of iron. She warns Ethan to not get attached. Yet they allow themselves to fall in love. Every day they push the knife in a little deeper.
Their story is sweet and these protags are likable. He says he can handle it and he won't get in her way, but as that 🕰 approaches the pressure ratchets up. Because, ‘when you love, it's all or nothing. If you hold back, then why love it all?’ Ethan has a point. ‘There are questions inside of me that only I can answer,’ Joy insists. Joy has goals, a mission, and an ironclad agenda. She will not be swayed. Not now.
L💘VE. What does it look like? To Ethan it's: “If you loved me enough you would stay.” ♻ To Joy it's: “If you loved me enough you would want me to go.” Later, Joy asks the universe: “When a woman gives too much of herself, she's stupid, but when she prioritizes herself, she's bad. Where do we need to place ourselves? Is love only expressed through sacrifice?” Why so often, indeed, does every option, for women especially, seem irreconcilable? Love can teeter from selfish to selfless. Perhaps love always starts down in the selfish zone, but the more we sincerely love someone, the more selfless we should become. Leaving the shallow end and diving down deeper should elevate our love higher. If not, we must question how much in 💓 we are or how selfish we actually are. A young person should never be expected to throw away h/h future for a relationship, particularly a relatively new one. Talk about creating a debt for regret - No sane person would endorse that. Joy agonizes over this unexpected timeout from the race she's been running. Either option is valid. Her choice is hers alone. HLG tells young girls that their personal development and future is every bit as important as love.
Befitting a modest budget, most of the filming is on the street or in contained spaces. There's a couple of wow shots. They take a day off to go up into the mountains. On a cliff looking down on the city, the buildings are uniformly white. While they look like bad dental work there's also an ethereal beauty to the vista. The effect is otherworldly.
HLG is a 118 minute, 2019 release that is rated 8.2 on MDL. Overall, this is a well put together production. The writing, directing and acting all blend to make a great product with few flaws. This is a 🇵🇭Filipino production and I am looking forward to seeing more of their works. I've seen 2 🇭🇰Hong Kong productions, The Defected-8.2 and Hong Kong West Side Stories(7.5). Both of them are good but also dark, edgy, sad, and a display of the worst elements of humanity. The group that is the most downtrodden in Hong Kong seems to have a brighter outlook. Between the 3 productions, one wouldn't think it's the same place. HLG is well worth the time to get a peek at life in Hong Kong from the view of the hard working, overlooked Filipino community. We🇺🇲 have alot to be thankful for.
QUOTE📢
Choice is only for the rich.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣78 📝72 🎭79 💓70 🦋67 🌞71 🎨70 ⚡30 🎵/🔊78 😅23 😭47 😱30 😯49 😖20 🤔45 💤0 🔚70
Age 12+ Adult situations kissing - mild. Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested
Re-📺? Not opposed
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
Historical/Period:
Overlord 8.4,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1 (there's a minor fantasy element),
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in the style of ancient Chinese opera),
Ruyi's Royal love in the palace (episodes 1 - 49 are a 9.3. While looking up it's historical accuracy, I learned how heartbreaking the rest of the show is. It's over 80 episodes, so that's a hella-lotta hurt. I am not up for it now, so I stopped at episode 49, which is a perfect ending. I cannot recommend episodes 1 - 49 enough. It's near perfect).
K:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
The Kings's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
Fantasy - Heavenly realm:
Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain 7.5;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome siblings 8.7;
Heavenly Sword 9 (Kung-fu!);
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Eternal love 8.3 + its sequel Eternal Love Of dream/Three Lives, Three Worlds, 10 Miles Of Peach Blossoms 7.7 (I watched these in the wrong order, which was a shame. EL is not without flaws, the FL being the biggest issue, but overall it's outstanding. The sequel was not originally planned. EL actually tells the same story as ELOD as a secondary romance, and the show was so popular that they did the sequel and changed quite a bit).
Love and Redemption 10
China excels at period and fantasy pieces. There's no Action or Modern Day Chinese features for me to recommend. There are a few that I've enjoyed, but they pale when compared to Korean shows, some of which are listed here.
K Modern Day romance:
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;
K Action:
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
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
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Schadenfreude The Pride Monster & The Helicopter Clash °9° °irony laden excellence°
In the end, it always comes back to the parents. In the end, S🏰 is a masterpiece.Oh, these people are vile. “They say they love me, but they should be honest and say they need something to brag about,” says one kid. What's a rich, narcissistic, vapid, entitled mom to do?
‘What do I do now? What do I do if the word gets out?’ A woman's less than what's-considered-respectable past (her father sold beef offal) is in danger of being exposed. Smoke & mirrors are everything to these people. It's all vanity. How much effort do we put into being phony to impress people that we don't even like? Y'all normies are insane. Meanwhile, the woman who knew her when they were growing up together is thinking: “I've only heard about collective selfishness. Now that I've experienced it, I realize that it's a nightmare.”
S🏰 is a 2018 release that is rated 88 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 75-minute episodes. It's about the human tragedy of pride. Pride is a liar, pride is the opposite of love, and pride destroys. In ep15, everything ratchets up.
The themes are parenting, motivating kids to be their best, what that means, and most of all, pride. S🏰 features extreme competition, the same thing that motivated the author of Squid Game-8.4. “I've never let loose and had fun. I've never played any games in my entire life. We've never gone on vacation,” says one top student. Everything has been about one goal. “Those women use their kids to fulfill their greed. They can act all high and noble, but to me, they're nothing,” an outsider opines. This is why SK has the 4th (now the 3rd?) highest suicide rate in the world. “Competition to get into college ends up killing so many kids every yr. But our society isn't changing at all.” This is a country where its residents are under so much pressure it literally is too much., It makes one wonder why people don't rise up & demand change. I guess that takes too much energy.
S🏰 is an upscale gated community. There's a new family moving in. They're decent folk. The rest of the families are hyper-competitive moms and, though successful professionally, worthless men as fathers. Then there's others around the edges who prop up the horrible, oppressive charade w/ everything they have.
Yeom Jung Ah plays Han “Seo” Jin / Kwak Mi Hyang. She's a woman who ruthlessly got what she wanted when she married. Her daughter, Yiseo, excels. She MUST be accepted at the best medical school. We eventually meet Seo's mother i/l and realize that she, herself, is a big disappointment. She's using her daughter to get her mother i/l's approval. It's very sad. The actress is phenomenal, as evidenced by my escalating stress over the fact that I couldn't strangle her. She would run over Buddha to get her daughter into medical school. Nothing can turn her. Not if the world were to burn down would she change course. Pride makes us that delusional.
The new neighbor (Lee Tae Ran portrays Lee Soo Im) doesn't fit in at all. She's genuine. She doesn't put pressure on her son b/c he's self-motivated. She wants him to be /happy/. The 1st thing she does is disrupt Book Club, quite inadvertently. She couldn't be more strange if she was a reptilian alien w/ a forked tail. Her husband, a surgeon, was plucked out of obscurity to (hopefully) run the dept. All the other denizens of S🏰 are seething w/ jealousy. They've all been reduced to 2 emotions: gloating smugness & rageful jealousy.
Yoon Se Ah plays Noh Seung Hye. I thought she was really good in My Sassy Girl-8.5, an underrated show, imho. This performance only cemented my opinion. She's fantastic. .Since 2005. most of her features round up to 8 with nothing under 6.9.. She's been fitting in at S🏰 & acquiescing to her husband, who excessively preens to compensate for his innate feelings of inadequacy combined w/ his yeasty ego. Personally, I think this dame can act her butt off. Her husband, Cha Min Hyeok, is a Law professor. He's smart, but not as smart as he fashions himself. That's the trap so many intelligent people fall into - believing they know everything. He runs Book Club, which is often just him and the toxic egotist, Kang Yiseo (Kim Hye Yoon) bantering. Her lens is so thick that she interprets everything she reads as an affirmation of her egocentrism. She's the worst type of person, & Cha is an insufferable know-it-all. He has no insight at all but gives us a nice demonstration of philosophical gymnastics. ‘What is being selfish?’ Cha queries. “It's doing something that will help you reach your objectives,” answers egotist, Yiseo. Prof. Cha concurs, asserting that being completely selfish is how you become selfless. (!?) All this is complete tosh, of course. It's what narcissists say to justify how they are. Selfishness is being self-focused to the neglect of others & what they want, & it usually involves a lack of empathy. It's being an @$$hole. It's also existing in lies.
Oh Na Ra has quietly been in some of the best stuff ever. She usually plays a sweetheart, but here she begins as the most shallow and toxic sort. She's has room for growth and she will grow during S🏰. Kim Seo Hyung plays Kim “Joo” Young, an austere academic coach. She's a supreme ice queen. She's wonderful in Mine-8. Stern, and rigid, she's all-business. In ep10 she has a fit of laughter and it's actually a bit chilling. Her smile is terrifying. It's oily and creepy, too. She should do horror.
Song Geon Hee is one of the most miserable kids, Park Young Jae. Park You Na portrays Cha Seri, an older sibling, back from the States on break from Harvard. Cho Byeong Kyu of The Uncanny Counter plays Cha Ki Jun, one of the Cha twins. (About TUC, S1 is 8.4 and it's fabulous. S2 is insultingly awful. It's one of the worst cases of second season syndrome that I've ever seen).
Kim Bo Ra is Kim Hye Na, a classmate who Woo has his eye on. She's a cutie. She was also in My Only Love Song-8.7, a hilarious show that I adore. Director Jo Hyun-Tak gave us The Atypical Family & Snowdrop, while writer, Yoo Hyun-Mi penned Snowdrop & The Bridal Mask. I'll watch anything of theirs. Every shot, the decorating, the lighting, the costume ~ everything ~ is carefully orchestrated in S🏰. The use of music is also skillful. Endless Night is particularly sad. They found a balance between decorating the houses with upscale decor and making them look institutional and impersonal. Everyone seems to have partition walls in their house. Does it signify cages, division, and the illusion of privacy? These partitions are beautiful but we can see right through them.
The Cha household is excessively dark and there's prison bar imagery everywhere. Hye & Min are in a tense argument over the design of the Study Room and have a showdown. He has already cut up her credit cards. He sits for dinner. It's instant ramen. The dining area is underlit shades of industrial grey & almost every element is a straight vertical or horizontal. We're in a very rigid household. His drab jacket is the color of excrement. She's spectacular in a form-fitting scarlet lace dress. The revolutionary? They work out a deal. The tea kettle 🔊💨 in the background. “Enjoy your dinner.” Magnificent.
There's a touching moment in ep6 when a mom cuddles her son and admits that she's not sure if all the pressure she's been putting on him is the right thing. “There's no answer,” she (too casually) surmises. The camera pans out & we finally see what the blue & white figurine really is. There's overly bright shots that are not flattering to the skin. I can't tell if that's deliberate or not, but I suspect it is to show that under the bright lights we are all flawed. None of them are as perfect or special as they believe. Despite the heavy subject matter, they even manage quite a bit of humor. Many such touches make for superb filmcraft.
The pyramid. Life is a pyramid for Prof. Cha. Only 1 reaches the top. He's done okay, but he wants his kids to surpass him. Pyramids can be a scheme. Education has become a pyramid scheme. Large student loans enslave graduates. Colleges believe they have a monopoly and they have resorted to chain restaurant mentalities. They are overpriced, they serve up junk food, and they also are quite the propaganda machines. Education is vitally important, but that isn't what's going on at most colleges. They are doing everything but teaching useful skills and critical thinking, and they are bankrupting us at the same time. If your child is interested in tinkering with h/h hands, don't discourage it out of hand. Plumbers, electricians, and other handy people are the new millionaires. There will always be a need for them.
“Do you know why God gave us kids? You should learn that there's something you can't always control.” Control. It's the biggest illusion of them all. One family reached the point where someone had to give in or someone had to die. “I don't want to be your son anymore… I don't want to live in hell anymore.” “We've wasted our lives,” yells dad. “Love one another. As I have loved you. So you just love one another. John 13:34,” reads the plaque on the wall. It's interesting that the person who committs suicide receives a Christian funeral. We're to infer that s/he didn't even believe s/he was going to get another chance. People who ascribe to reincarnation are often shown as using suicide for a reset. It makes it even more tragic, from one perspective, b/c this person had given up all hope.
“There's no such thing as friends. There is only self & self-achievement.” He spent a fortune on a test prep booklet, & his sons shared this info w/ their mates. “You mindless idiot, they're your competitors. It's the same as sharing your bullets w/ your enemies! Didn't I tell you to think of your school as a battlefield? Everyone beside you is the enemy!” By the end he was screaming. “I don't agree w/ your dad,” their mom tells them later. “You did the right thing. Competing w/ others makes you lonely. I believe true success is living a life that's not lonely.”
If one puts too much pressure on the kids they will be driven underground, we'll see. Oh the irony! In ep9 a father is exultant with celebratory pride. The /truth/ wiĺ devastate him. But the other S🏰 denizens enjoy their schadenfreude, or a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people. “I know people in Washington who will cut off your life support in order to charge their cell phone,” I read once, and find it totally believable. These people embody that coldness. They're absolute ghouls. There's no tragedy that they don't think about turning to their own benefit. And it all comes back on them, ironically.
The moms are held in direct contrast. “You can't stand by and do nothing while your kids are being tormented. You have to protect them.” says the unselfish mother; the one who only wants fulfilled happiness for her family. “I cannot give up on your life... No matter who yells at me or throws stones at me… I will do anything," says a mother who has been singly obsessed w/ her child's college admission. Her child is melting away in front of her, yet she still believes her own lies about herself, what she wants, and what /really/ motivates her. Meanwhile, her progeny is fast becoming NOT her disciple. For just a moment, her child paused & started to appreciate what really matters while realizing how revolting their values are.
Two characters start to channel Reverend Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter. Their guilty consciences are eating them alive. “Cut out the rotten parts now. You must do it while you still can.. life is long… Think about 10 or 20 yrs from now. University? … it's no big deal. But the guilt of {spoiler🚫} will haunt her …You reap what you sow.” In the wake of his own family tragedy, rather than schadenfreude, this speaker tries to help his friend avoid mistakes.
“When will you stop obsessing about what other people think of you?” A grown man demands answers of his mother, because this problem is multi-generational, and continues into adulthood. Pride is always hungry. It's never sated. “How can you call yourself human?” When one hears that from 2nd and 3rd parties, one should stop and reflect, croche? Don't dismiss all feedback on autopilot. “I thought I was a rational person, but I found out that I was very biased,” we hear one character reason out. We see the first cracks in their inhumane resolve. Finally.
“After this incident, I realized that being able to eat together w/ my wife & son is enough to make me happy.” Once they drop the pretense they can merely love one another. “That's why I'm going to try my best to be a good dad, & a good husband, & a good son. I don't want to end up regretting anything in the future.” 1-by-1, the parents see how off-course they've gotten. The theme is, ultimately, regret. All the above leads to regret. Pride is radon w/ no color, odor, or taste. We can't see how it poisons us. But it does poison us & makes us blind to all our stuff. It isolates us. Isolation doesn't make a good life.
“I believe true success is living a life that's not lonely.”
QUOTES📢
The Supreme Art of War is to subdue the enemy w/o fighting. ~Sun Tzu~
What kills you in the desert isn't the heat or your thirst but your anxiety.
You and I have lived our lives wrong. Stop being so greedy.
Tareso. Good job. You did a good thing, honey.
Please let your guilt go. I'm really okay now.
IMHO〰🖍
📣9 📝10 🎭9 💓4 🦋3 🎨8.5 🎵/🔊8.5 🔚10 🤗4.8 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡4 😅3.5 😭7 😱2 😯6 🤢2.5 🤔7 💤0
Rated TV-PG-13 for violence, suicide, & themese not suitable for younger children
Re-📺? Absolutely
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Racket Boys-8.3,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Reply 1988-8.6,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
Call It Love-8.4,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Revenge of Others-8.6
Itaewon Class-8.9
Law School -8, Why Her?-8,
Misaeng-9.1,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Mine-8,
Blood Free-8.5
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
Anna-8.1,
Something in the Rain-8.6,
Wonderful World-7.8
Awaken-8.7
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Eye-Roll ✋️ The 6-billion-Won Flopper °2.8° °Dude, it's Awful!°
What did anyone ever see in this?R is the show that severed my commitment to finish all of a feature before I write a review. I made myself sit through the whole thing, but I can't figure out why. It was /painful/ and I gained nothing from the effort. In fact, I think I emerged from the experience partially split, as if the show is some kind of mind experiment.
Choi Jin Hyuk (Tunnel-8, The Heirs-7.3) portrays our lead, Kang Ki Beom. I like Choi Jin Hyuk, just not in this show. He's an unappreciated cop. There's a home invasion. His wife is killed in a brutal gang slaying and his eyes are gouged out. Hospitalized, he's ready to die, but instead, he's recruited to be in a special-bionic-biometric-super-cool-force team, thing. From there, it's transhuman experiments (he gets bionic eyes), some of the experiments are brutal, there's gangs, cops who are worse than gang members, inner fighting, personal struggles, grief, and wheels within wheels within more wheels. Take those wheels and roll away. Watch anything else. Rugal is ruinous.
Kang Cheol Woo is the director who brought us Mouse, So I Married an Anti-Fan-6.8, and My Secret Romance-7 (which I actually love, despite its shortcomings). Screenwriter Do Hyun has no other credits. Mina (Jung Hye In) is tiny; Teeny-tiny. Yet she takes down 2 or 3 thugs at a time with no modifications, whatsoever. She's in an elite fighting unit comprised of modified humans, but she's an 80lb powerhouse - no enhancements needed🙄. They wasted her looks in R too: They have her in a mullet. She's drop-dead gorgeous in Sisyphus-8.
R has everything it needs to be good - great cast, a winning concept, an adequate budget - it has everything except directing and writing. That's like saying a person has everything s/he needs to live - except air. I consider it unwatchable. That's because I couldn't watch it, even when I was determined to do so. The conflict within me spilled out into ADHD riddled notes that make no sense, though some are funny. Here's a sample of my notes as evidence of the toll this show took on me:
So bad.
Worse.
Cartoonishly simple.
Progressively nosediving.
Now painful.
Cheap deaths that fail to evoke a sense of tragedy, and thus, degrade humanity.
Failure to make an emotional connection with the audience.
Failure to humanize the characters because they created them as hollowed out shells with nothing in the inside.
Where, oh WHERE is the humanity??? Did empty flubobs make Rugal? That could be cool....
Oh! Right. Focus.
Some of the music is fun. Cheesy fun, but not bad.
Failure to create a bond within the team.
It's cold.
It's corny!
Eyes rolling.
It's on, but I'm not watching. I keep forgetting to.... It's pain avoidance! Now I feel anxious about the pain....
Is everybody gonna die? Eh, I don't care what happens to any of them at this point.
His eyes are cool! But why him? Choi Jin-hyuk- I've always liked him. He was good in Tunnel.... Ya know, Tunnel is really GOOD. I wanted to show it to my son when he visited, but it disappeared from Netflix! How dare they?! I can't believe the number of features listed on IMDB with ratings over 8 that aren't available for streaming. Should I get Roku?
Oh, wait, that stupid show's still on. What's happening? They're all shot again? I don't care. I CAN'T care! I refuse to CARE that I don't care.
It hurts us, my precious! Ya know,,,, it's been awhile since I've watched The Lord of the Rings. Maybe I should put that on… Rugal?? It's awful.
blehkkk ehh... is this a love triangle? Seriously?
Grrr..ahh... Hmmm... Should I rewind? Go back and see some of the stuff I missed? Perhaps I should, in good conscience. Great. Now I'm in a conflict of conscience. Rugal evokes deep thoughts: Thoughts of pain and escape.
Did they actually use the same fight scene twice? Huh?
Is all of this merely a prelude to the killer robots? The GREAT cleanse? Tapping might help with the anxiety...there's some great videos about it on youtube….
Oh, just die. You die too. Die in a way that's interesting. Do anything to help me.
Die! DIE! You die too!
Get outta here!
/What!/ They're still 41 minutes to go!? I won't make it. I'm not going to make it.
There's no meaning! There's no point to any of it! How utterly bleak.
Welcome to my nausea. (breathe, try.. 2.breathe)
Self-preservation mode. Shut down.
QUOTE🗣
Koreans can put up with anything but slow internet.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬2 📝2 🎭6 💓2 🦋0 🌞3 🎨6⚡ 6 🤢8.7 🤔2 💤9 🔚? Couldn't do it. It wouldn't be prudent.
Age - don't even think about it
Re-📺? I'll opt for Barney reruns. 😑
Recommendations:
Watch /anything else/. Signal-8.6. Tunnel-8.1. Sisyphus-8, Stranger Things-8, Frequency, DP-8.4. Inspector Koo-8.4 is fun the whole way through. Peaky blinders. Ozark. Watch a YouTube on how to make homemade body lotion. The Expanse is one of the best sci-fi features I've ever seen. Bosch is a great cop drama. It's like those 70s cop shows. Skip the last season though. Oh My Ghost-10 is a masterpiece though it doesn't get the credit for it because it's a rom-com. Everybody knows Crash Landing On You-9.1 is great fun. Oh My Venus-7.4, and A Witch's Love-7.8 are worth the time. The Romance of Tiger and Rose-9.8 couldn't be any cuter. Love and Redemption is a 10 among the tens. I had to go to pop a Xanax but I couldn't stop watching. You like edgy cop stuff? I rewatched Se7en-9 not long ago. It gets better every single time. It's magnificently horrific. Parasite-9. If you thought you'd like Rugal then you would love Parasite. The Umbrella Academy-9.5 is shocking and brutal in a superbly snarky way, but not gory and the acting, directing, & script are just raining down excellence. It could hardly be better. My Mister-9.5 will wreck you. Black-9 is a complete mind-r@pe and I'll watch it every year - except it doesn'tseem to be available anywhere right now😡. Start anime. Trollhunters is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. The Dragon Prince-8.7 is great. It's made by the same people who gave us Avatar the Last Airbender-10. Demon Slayer-9.3 for sure. Fill up on Fullmetal Alchemist-10, or Jujutsu Kaisen-9. Anime has some top tier romances. Maid Sama-10 could not be improved upon. Yo! Mare of Easttown-8.5 is an excellent small town crime story. It's official: Kate Winslet is an Artisan Among The Artisans. Squid Game-8.4. Of course, Kingdom-8.3. It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, Rocket Boys-8.3, Mind Hunter, EX Machina-8.2, Archive 81-7.8 if you can bear it. It would take years to list all the features that are better than Rugal. The short list is the ones that are worse: Greenland-1. I'll watch Reefer Madness 16× in a row before watching this again.
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⚠ If you lose a person they're lost for good °Good°
Pucker Up.A chubadub… pardon… a sweet young man is ready for his career as an engineer to take off, but he lands in the hospital, with jaundice and hepatitis-A, before he can start his job. He's not contagious - that's hepatitis-B - as the nurse keeps telling people, but e'erbody is terrified to go near him, regardless. The cute little nurse ends up taking breaks at his quiet bedside because she's worked to death. Everything she does is cute to him. Lee Woo-Je (True Beauty) is patient Jang Hyeok and Chae Soo-Bin (Love in the Moonlight) is nurse Jung Da-Eun.
He's discharged against his will. Finally, he plucks up the courage to call nurse Da-Eun. To his surprise she tells him to come over. He's overjoyed! He can't wait to help her out. He cooks for her. He sees things that need to be done, like the light bulb that is out, and he takes care of it immediately. She's quite touched by his attentiveness.
He swears he'll lose weight. He will reinvent himself. Next we see a svelte Jang Ki-Yong (from My Mister-9.5 & The Atypical Family) as Jang Hyeok exercising. Hyeok has to work. An opportunity comes up for work that will better his career - in Seoul. The commute is sour - it's murder. He has a lot less time with his cutie. They start to fall apart under the heavy stress of work. At his new job, he is forced to put up with coworker, Han Bo-Yeong (Krystal from The Heirs-7.3 & Crazy Love-7.8). She's hotting up the place, but she's messy and eccentric, and he's been teamed up with her. His work will be as good as hers is. Their results are linked.
The light bulb’s out. The light bulb’s on. The light bulb’s blinking. It's sort of a status indicator of Da-Eun in the relationship. S&S is a tasty little study in irony that teaches us to treasure the people in our lives. There's nice camera work and cutting. The directing and acting are solid. Kim Mi-kyung, the ubiquitous mother, makes an appearance. I don't know how she does it. She's in everything.
Hyeok's life twists like taffy until things start to pull apart. When things happen, sometimes they happen fast. Sometimes they happen gradually but it seems fast to the person that has only been tasting the sweeter things of life, unawares. The film's decisive end has been building the whole time, but it zings the viewer and Hyeok. Gravel in his mouth, he won't hit the ground running again for awhile.
For the record, I got luv for the chubadubs. Gimme a teddy bear with a good heart over a perfect, but empty, body every day of the week.
QUOTE📢
If you miss a cab you can wait for the next one. If you lose a person they're lost for good.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬7 📝7 🎭7.4 💓5 🦋3 🌞4 🎨6 🎵/🔊5 😅3 😭4 🤔6 💤3 🔚8
Age 14+f💣 and other colorful linguistics + adult situations
Re-📺? It's worth 1 watch, not sure about a 2nd.
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
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Somewhere I Don't Want To Go °5.4° °avg, & not a romance°
Xue Tong's father died a hero as she was preparing to enter college. “I found a new burden being added onto my shoulders,” she explains. “I must score well in exams because I'm the hero's daughter. I have to be considerate all the time because I'm the hero's daughter. I can't afford to make any mistakes because I'm the hero's daughter. I can't bring shame to my heroic dad… I realized that this burden has become a part of my personality. For the past few years I've been a timid coward. Today, I decided to put down that burden to become a brave yet ordinary person. Only by doing so can my dad's bravery bring light into my life.” She's crafted an extraordinary manifesto.Xue Tong was framed. All she did was pick up a piece of paper. But the exacting exam monitor, Mu Cheng He, accused her of cheating. XT's Professor knows she's not the type to cheat, so he does not render a verdict, but rather takes time to look into the issue. Ep1 is about how she goes on a quest to clear her name & find the true culprits, but even moreso, it sets up a clash between her & Mu. She “doan” like him. Notta bit.
Li Ting Ting from Unique Lady plays FL, XT. Without a sense of style, she's no fashionista. More Sporty-Spice than any other, she walks, talks, & quacks like a jock, but they didn't put her on any team ~ other than the infamous dorm room 323. She is smart, down-to-earth, & she's girl-nextdoor cute. Protect yourself & hit the mute button when she sings. She & her two beasties, Bai Lin (Baby-Spice) & Song Qi Qi (Surprise-Spice) remind me of the 3 friends in the amazing 💘anime Maid Sama(10). The FL is a tough, smart overachiever, then there's the studious, bespectacled QiQi, & finally the ponytailed fan-girlie, Bai Lin, who always seems to make trouble. Unlike the rule-enforcing Misa from MS, XT is not a great rule follower. She's downright disruptive sometimes.
At some point they get Scary-Spice as a roomie. She's a model, she looks like Joan Jett, & she's as cool as her too. They are in their 3rd year. 21 year old XT is really popular this year. All kinds of guys are approaching her - to pass messages & gifts to her new super-hot rommie, Zhao Xiao Tang. As it turns out, the guy XT is interested in only sees her as a buddy. Tang is his kinda tangy, he thinks. But, YO! Tang is totally Tangsta.
XT's thing is languages. She's an English major, but she's also learning Russian. When she shows up to her first Russian class of the semester, guess who's filling in for the professor who is out of town? The show teaches us about the alveolar “al ‘vee lar” trill, or rolling of the r’s. Those w/ ankyloglossia (tongue-tied) aren't able to do it, but ethnicity is not a risk factor for that condition. Asians simply aren't used to making that sound. (How many of us in the USA can reproduce most of their consonants? According to Google translate I'm hopeless). Anyway, XT's alveolar weakness is exposed promptly. Extra homework. Mu will be keeping a close eye on her. She ends up as the class representative. She'll be in his office daily…
Zhang Chao is ML, Mu. He looks like Michael Crawford's Cornelius Hackl from Hello Dolly. He's not a bad guy, he's just a physics major. They're precise & rely on what they see. He's been skipping grades since he was young, So he's always been surrounded by people older than him. Nobody played w/ him when he was little. “I didn't care. I don't need others to play w/ me. Because I knew in my heart that physics was the most interesting topic,” he insists. When he wants to speak romantically it might be something like this: ”Time is irreversible in general relativity. The only ruler of time is the transfer of heat. But when the heat begins to pass, What happened can no longer be erased.” Just fan yourselves, ladies, before you pass out! Left-brained folk aren't known for their touchie-feeliness. As a physics PhD student & teacher, Mu is in a position of authority at school. He & XT end up clashing many times. He even has to pick her up at the police station. So when he needs to break into the lab, who's he gonna call?
SOWK is tagged as a romance, but it's more a college drama about XT & her roomies. The romance is low-sizzle. This isn't where you get your dopamine fix. (For that I recommend Well-Intended Love-7.5, which is rom-porn. Just be warned that the ML pulls a very offensive stunt. The two best modern-day Cromances I've seen are, A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5 & Find Yourself-9.2) The show sort of acts like a scientist in that we observe these characters more than identify w/ them; our emotions are not fully pulled in. The viewer might get irritated w/ Bai Lin, but our feelings are not subjected to intense wind resistance. This isn't hot love, it's cool fusion.
While XT remains oblivious, the viewer sees Mu start to smirk at her. Next, his gaze lingers on her. She's been helping him as a way to apologize & say “thank-you” in the aftermath of their various run-ins. He invites her to the planetarium. She's in bummy pants & a t-shirt w/ an oversized plaid button shirt hanging like a moo-moo over the ensemble. She skips & scampers from one exhibit to another. When she sees all the tweens making a model she wants to do it, too. She just had her heart bruised by being placed in friend-zone by another dude, yet here she is doing it to Mu. Or is she? Soon it's obvious that they are each attracted to the other & they are self-aware. They aren't people that talk about feelings though. They keep it lowkey.
For a nerd, he does a nice confession. Once they are dating, XT gets frustrated because he's slower than the sea turtles they observed while diving. Not only is he a scientist, but he's 10 yrs her senior. Who can blame him for moving slowly? Her youth & inexperience make her look like a bomb to him. Does she really love him? Will another guy catch her eye? Is she going to stay? That coupled w/ his old-fashioned tendencies & the deference he shows to her don't pave the way for anything hot-&-heavy. In fact, when they go on their trip, the couple next-door to them asks for a condom & he claims he doesn't have any. Is he even attracted to her? Little does she know, they are one good scare away from getting much closer, until… “He can't accept anyone in his world.” When his experiment runs into problems, He becomes obsessed. He abandons XT on Mars.
Thematically, there's no central message here. To the extent that there is a central theme, it's growing pains. “Your life belongs to you. People like your parents, best friends or even your partners can't be held responsible for your life.” QiQi may have the hardest time w/ that concept. For a girl w/ her nose always in a book, she perhaps has the strongest emotions & the toughest time sorting through them.
XT is upset at one point because she & one of her close friends will have to compete for a scholarship. Her friend’s been going through hardship & XT almost prefers to lose. The pragmatic Tang breaks it down: “You are not showing kindness by avoiding the problem. That's hypocrisy. If I was your competitor, the way you were behaving now would only make me think that you were looking down on me.” In the USA, individualistic nature makes us think that we have more importance & influence in situations & we actually do. We have a drive to fix things. Before we act we should look at our intentions from all sides.
There's lightly sprinkled quality tidbits. In ep15 he says they can brave the rain together. He's talking about the weather, but it feels portentous… They go on a trip to Malaysia & it's gorgeous. They even take out a transparent kayak. Mu Hai (Li Jiu Xiao) proves that hair does make the man. Bai Lin is disappointed by yet another guy. She's on a school outing so she climbs up the mountain. It's an overcast morning. One of her classmates close out to her & she raises her head. “Look, the clouds have parted! “ Maybe the one who won't disappoint her is right behind her. Or is something else going on? It's a nice little scene. The music is well above avg but I couldn't find any of it by way of Shazam or spotify.
Here's a quote from the show: “Scriptwriters these days aren't reliable at all.” Just as Voyager 1 will soon run out of battery & transmissions to earth will cease, SOWK ends up doing the same thing. SOWK isn't deeply flawed, but these characters don't draw the viewer in sufficiently to make up for what it lacks. We don't dislike them, but are they likable enough? There was a promise of more. I'm writing this as ep20 closes. 20 hours in & I'm starting to feel disappointed. The show hasn't given me enough to compensate me for my time. Instead of floating higher, it's gotten water-logged. Now I'm looking at 4 episodes to go, & I'm already done.
Update: At ep23’s close I started to actively dislike SOWK. XT is hard to read - does she care at all? It's impossible to tell. At times I think she's horrible. She goes too toxic on one character without sufficient reason. I'm starting to find her distasteful. Bai Lin is frustrating. The urge to slap her is making me frustrated. (To be fair, she does mature before the credits roll). QiQi is a big disappointment. SOWK has a low degree-of-difficulty. There's no buildup or foreshadowing or meaning to it. It doesn't make for high quality entertainment. Many viewers love it - for more than half the show I thought I did, but it slipped out of my orbit long before its allotted time.
QUOTES📢
There are many kinds of love but there is only one kind of breakup.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause & reflect.” -Mark Twain. (Amen).
〰🖍 IMHO
📣5.8 📝4.8 🎭7.5 💓4 🦋3 🎨5 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚6 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡3.3 😅3 😭5 😱3.5 😯2.5 😖1 🤔4 💤3.5
Age 14+ Violence, sad situations, adult situations
Language: he!!×2, b@$+@rd+1 pr!ck×1 d!(khe@d×1
F💣×1
Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-📺? SOWK is fine for one go-thru but it's largely forgettable, & like a college elective, there's no reason to go back again. I wouldn't opt to watch it again for the first time w/ the benefit of hindsight.
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
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°Avg° TransMOOT⛔Exit@ NEXT Stop~?~FMA Brotherhood 5.5
The only value in watching this movie is for a quick review of the story, only if you've watched Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood already, w/o having read the mangas (Japanese comics and graphic novels). Be warned, it's not worthy enough for even that.It will not give somebody unfamiliar with the story anything worthwhile in terms of appreciating this intelligent tale, which might be more akin to a complex philosophical metaphor. So don't bother, if that's what you hope to get.
The one element that's worth seeing for its own merit is the army of created humanoids that are powered by souls extracted from real humans. They appear with about 20 minutes to go in the film, give or take, and they're 5 minutes of cool.
FYI, FMA Brotherhood was made after the original source material was released. The original FMA animated series is very popular as well, but it's not currently available via general (non-niche) streaming services, (if at all) so I haven't been able to see it yet. Since it was crafted before the original source material was completed, it takes a fork in the road and ends up at a different destination, per reports.
This story can't be coerced into movie length. A full outline likely couldn't be reviewed in 90 feature length minutes. Skip this, and jump on the train to excellence: FMA Brotherhood is fantastic. That's the one to watch.
Originally 〰️🖊 April 2022
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⚘Peeping Beauty & The 6 Bloomin' Pretty Prunks⚘ °Good°
Alas! What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? It Is The East, And Enrique Is The ☀.This charming little romance brings together the 🌞 and the 🌚, the dark bitter coffee and some silky white cream, the earthy tea and bright lively 🍋, and the girl with social anxiety meets a boy who hates to be alone.
Duk-mi (Park Shin-hye) is a book editor and hermit. Since she works from home, she rarely goes out. She can go weeks, 📆 months even, without leaving her building. She brings the outside world in through her binoculars.
Her apartment is special. Miserly Duk-mi is able to afford it as no security deposit is required, but if she is late even 1 day with the rent, she’ll be evicted. That’s the rules. Given it’s a very good deal, she mostly has happy neighbors. Every day there's a note with a drawing and a warm hello stuck to her delivered milk. She doesn't know it, but her next door neighbor. Jin-rok, a cartoonist (more specifically, a web-toonist) by trade, is stuck on her, and leaves her notes daily.
Duk-mi is stuck in a variety of ways. One of them is that she's stuck on the handsome doctor in the bldg across the street. She even enjoys peeping at his dog, so she peeks over at him more than she should. The doc really is handsome, but he seems dull. Spying is all that interests Duk-mi. As a recluse, she avoids all interaction.
The doctor’s younger brother, game designer Enrique, comes to stay with his brother in SK indefinitely, from Spain, where he’s been living for years. Enrique catches Duk-mi doin her thing one morning and runs across the street to confront her. That /terrorizes/ her. Neighbor, Jin-rok comes to her defense. Thus, 🌺BND leaves the building and starts chuggin down the street.
16 episodes allows Duk-mi a long time to come around, and that's how they play it. She can be a little frustrating. Isn’t that like true life, though? We almost always expect others to change on a dime, while at the same time, we give ourselves all the time in the 🌏. We’ll find out more about what caused Duk-mi’s trauma. She’s a metaphor for how bullies can crush the weak.
My niece told me once that we should never judge someone else's pain. I had just been complaining about a family member that's been wearing-hurt-on-sleeve for decades. It makes the person difficult to be around. I was wrong. Niecie was absolutely right. We expect everyone to handle things as well as we do, often even better. Why would we?
What do we /really/ know about someone's:
🌩Past, when sometimes that person can't even remember it because they've suppressed it?
🤰Genetics? Perhaps it's near impossible for someone to lose enough weight to make the 'mob' happy because it's just not in their genetics. We are not born with the same capabilities.
🎈/😭 Raw material. Some people can blow off everything and just keep going forward, and some people cannot. Sensitive, smart, intelligent, and caring people, like Duk-mi, can be hurt more easily and more deeply.
🌺BND is a cute & warm little series. There’s nothing going on but a bit of escapism. It’s actually appropriate for younger teens, which could be the group that appreciates 🌺BND the most, though it’s fine for every age.
As the show progresses, Duk-mi's next door neighbor (Oh Jin-rok is played by Kim Ji-hoon) finally works up the courage to pursue her. He’s been holding back out of deference to her anxieties. Along comes Enrique, who is joy in a jacket. He’ll bring joy to the girl. He doesn’t know the word “no.” He’s SO happy🎉 and charming, though, who would want to tell him “no?” Jin-rok will now have to scramble to catch up.
Jin-rok also begins a new webtoon about unrequited love, and it's a hit. However, everytime he and his partner go to their editor & manager, she’s frazzled and yells at them. Her eyes wide over deep dark circles from a stressful job and lack of sleep, she can be erratic. It’s not her best part, but Kim Seul-gi is always awesome. She shines in Oh My Ghost-10, which is a masterpiece in the romcom genre.
The soundtrack🎶 is terrific. The acoustic number: talkin bout love, by J Rabbit, is my favorite. The acting is solid, none of it detracts from the show. Park Shin-hye is wonderful, as always. Duk-mi is not an easy role. (PSH is her most amazing, imo, in Sisyphus as an eye-rolling kicka$$). The plot is simple and there are no substandard elements that impede significantly on the whole, which is why it remains a pleasant escape. That’s all they're going for, and they aptly succeeded.
That’s not to say it could not be improved upon. There should be more looking through their windows. They look out every now and then, but it seems it should have been a much stronger ongoing theme. They utilized an ending technique with comics/hand drawing over the business fronts and background. It is so good that I'm wondering why they didn't do more of it along the way. They certainly leave us wanting more. We don't get much info on Ji-rok's background, which is hinted at, but never resolved. We don't see his webtoon, and we never get to see any of the games that Enrique designs - We don't even get info on their storylines. It would have been fun to insert those details here and there: Lost opportunities mostly comprise the improvements list, along with its weak, substandard side plots.
If you are wondering about 🌺BND, it’s light, pleasant, fragrant, and vibrant. It will make you smile, it won’t challenge your brain much, (though it’s good for emotional intelligence) yet, it’s warmth cheers the ❤. Give it a peep👀, my Peeps!
🌼QUOTES🌼
🌹There are too many people who are rude about others' scars.
💐 I thought love was giving up half of yourself and filling it up with her half. She was afraid of love because she was afraid of her dark and gloomy half. She finally realized that love is two incomplete halves coming together. {Enrique}
🌺 Love is a wind-up clock. When it is new it'll give you the exact time. When the time passes, and you forget to wind the springs, the clock will break and stop. He started winding up the springs, so the clock wouldn't stop for a long time.{Duk-mi}
🌻 One person cannot change the world but you can become the w🌏rld for one pers☀n. {Enrique}
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬7 🎭 8 💓7 🦋5 🤔6 🎨6 😅4.5 ☀8 🎵8 🔚9
🌸Age 11+ 🗣topics: The lasting effects/damage that bullying can inflict. Practice kindness and patience with people that seem odd, as odd, annoying or strange behavior is often due to pain. Respect others.
PS.
They have recycled Kdrama tr♻pes, or plot devices. At this point it's almost a laughable lack of originality (Yet I'm still helplessly hooked on Asian programming, sigh).
♻MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome. The onset is after a couple comes together “forever.” Kdramas often insist on separating them for weeks, months, or even years before they’re afforded a Happily Ever After. It’s usually awful. Once Duk-mi starts healing, MSS provides needed time for her to grow on her own. That’s what is best for her, so there’s no “foul” here.
♻♥🔺 It's near ubiquitous, just edging out CEOs. In fairness, many romances have ♥🔺. Even the queen of them all: Pride And Prejudice. But enough already! Beside any of that, the brilliance of Kdrama scriptwriters shines through frequently. They can often easily do better. FBND seems to want to be a little goofy. They just tikted it a little far, but romantics will like it, and e'erbody will love Enrique.
〰️🖊 April 2022
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✒⌛ A Clump of Frump °6.3° °good - not bad, but not VG, either°
Here's a romcom that doesn't have enough R💓M or C😅M to make it anything special. It has its youthful vigor at times, however. There's more immature things out there, but Hello Me is stunted when it should thrive.It has recycled pl♻t devices. The rich dad kicks out the spoiled, lazy, good-for-nothing son without any help whatsoever. It happens in My First First Love (8-VG fun) & Revolutionary Love (5.7-very avg). In HM something magical happens due to deep regret - also seen a handful of times in recent yrs. Recycled plots can go either↔way; the important factor is the execution. Here, the delivery is mediocre.
HM is a 2021 release that is rated 88 on AWiki. Screenwriter Yoo Song Yi is just getting started. Director Lee Hyun Suk has shown his capabilities in The King's Affection-8.3. Choi Kang Hee (Queen of Mystery) is 37 y/o Ban Ha-ni. Kim Young Kwang (Call It Love-8.4, Pinocchio) plays ML, Han Yoo Hyun, & the marvelous Lee Re (Memories of the Alhambra-7.4) plays 17 y/o Ban Ha-ni.
We open up to Ha-ni in a 🐙suit. She's dancing, while trafficking samples at O'mart. She's living a pathetic life. In HS, she was Ha-ni-Hot-Stuff & everybody was in love w/ her. But she peaked too early & has been on a skid since the age of 17. Now she's turning 37.
Without an intervention, Hani37 will live out the remainder of her life in isolation, consumed w/ regret & guilt over a tragedy that occurred on >that< day, when she was 17. She made a big blunder & fate was not kind. She imploded & has lived the past 20 yrs in the shadows. Fickle fate decided to intervene again in the form of her 17 y/o self materialized like an infestation in her 37th yr. She doesn't merely have to live w/ herself, she has to babysit, feed, clothe, & raise herself. She must pose as her own mother to be able to walk the open air w/ herself. {She is dragged into a conversation-under-examination: Q: At what age did you get pregnant? Her answer is vague: Well, I was young. Q: Who's the father? A: I don't know. The response: I didn't take you for that kind of girl. A: I've lived a carefree life🙄} The scene is a mini moment of fun.
There are diverse characters in the show. A common theme is men-going-for-the-GL💫RY. There is one pair of bros who are always attempting a world record for some ridiculous thing & another pair who are always betting on everything. The betting was not revisited for the balance of the show, which is a disappointment; those lines could have 📝 themselves. Then there's the couple who can only show love, at least in the presence of others, by spatting at e/o. They think they've kept their affection on the down-low, but many of their coworkers are “on” to them.
Sadly, Ha-ni looks like Jody from Family Affair, but in the form of a forgotten rag doll that's been dragged out from underneath the cabinet in the corner. The problem is NOT weight or looks, but rather the horrible fit of the dingy clothes & the unflattering hairdos. She's mousy, dowdy & defeated. Why do they keep her in a state of frumpiness? As things start to improve for her, why don't her hair & clothes look better? Looking at her in that degraded condition grows more wearisome w/ each episode. Can we reach through the 📺 & yank her to the hairdresser? Even after she goes to the salon & spruces up a bit, her hair color is awful & she has bangs in her eyes. They put her in jackets big enough to create the appearance of a troll's body w/ a little freckled head sticking out. When she isn't wearing a XXL coat, she's in an unflattering, ill-fitting suit. She looks downright chunky. (Is it a poor metaphor for the weight of ⛓s?). Initially, her dejected look has a purpose, but as the show progresses, her appearance & manner should as well. This is to defend the actress, not to criticize her. She could be so much cuter than the way they have her looking onscreen. When the show is nearly over, she's a cute, tiny little thing in jeans.
They give good reasons for Hani37 turning out so timid & frumpy. There's no flashes of her true personality 20 yrs later. She's lost herself at the bottom, somewhere. Unfortunately, her character drags the entire show down. A steady stream of unsupported comments blather on about Hani37 & Hani17 looking & acting alike. They don't resemble each other much. The actress playing Hani17 is just another amazing Korean child-actor. Their craft is such pleasure to behold. I'll call out these Kdramas when it comes to skin color. A fascinating thing about many of these child actors is that they often have darker skin than the grown up version of the person they're playing. These talented kids probably can't get work once they grow too old to play a school kid, b/c Korea doesn't hand out many roles to actors darker than Tom Brady. That's just wrong.
Regardless of skin color, Korea does have some of the most attractive male leads in the world. Hyun looks like an Olympian swimmer w/ a Mr. Korea sweet-as-sweet-potato smile. He's a cutie. Mops & water go together, I suppose. Unfortunately, they fail to sell the romance. It doesn't rise to the level of made-for-network-TV standards.
I was enjoying HM in the opening eps, so I hung in there w/ alot of subpar elements. Over time, the issues pile up. A smattering here & there doesn't matter, but the show becomes increasingly worse as it matures, ironically. It gets as bad as a typical Hollywood feature. Issues are resolved easily w/ 2D emotions. They obviously didn't have a large budget - aside from her wardrobe being a disaster, many of the sets are minimal. Silly chases, bland scenarios, & over-overing abound. Our logic is insulted: ‘I'm giving all my 💰 away to the poor. Now I'm gonna travel the 🌏,’ one character decides at the show's 🔚. It begs the question: ‘How will you afford it?’ One greedy monster is forgiven too easily, receiving too much for too little. Hani17 encourages an adult to apologize, while Hani37 admits that she didn't apologize yrs before b/c she lacked the courage to do so. It's presented w/o any acknowledgement of the hypocrisy she's embodying. That's sloppy. They cut a lot of corners. And why would she give that bratty younger self the bed while she sleeps on the floor? I would never. I don't like the idiot I used to be at all; I'd take the 🛌. It's all in good fun… until it gets old. (Sleeping on the floor is often preferred in 🇰🇷, to be fair).
There are worthy elements in HM. "As you live life, you'll come across painful moments that you just can't run away from. When that happens, close your eyes and count to 3. When you open your eyes again, you'll realize that you've become a little bit stronger," says Grandma. It prompts viewers to find the courage to revisit our expectations & aspirations. Part of that is accepting who we are, & not just the good points, but also our shortcomings, our past mistakes, & the things we need to work on. The newest world record holders word it well: “Challenging ourselves to new things everyday gave us strength & courage. It doesn't matter even if you collapse or fail every day. When that happens you tell yourself this: ‘You're doing well. You're the most magnificent star in your life’ - #only if you refuse to give up & get back on your feet once again.”
Hani17's interaction w/ Chun-sik, which sounds like "chum sick," is truly amusing. He's an adult & he's a Super⭐, but when she learns who he is (an underling she always made fun of in HS) she treats him just like she did when they were in school together. And he LETS her! His manager is astounded. It's the cutest thing about the show.
Hani17 is terribly entitled & self-centered. That's common for teens - we all are born 💯% selfish. Maturity is learning to not be selfish, & maturity is not in fashion these days. When we are young, adults may tell us that they ‘knew everything when they were younger’ & the ‘older they get, the less they know’. The unfortunate irony is that young people can never comprehend this. Hani's younger self, being the way she was, is what led to all the problems. Who among us wouldn't want to shake the younger version of ourselves & tell h/h to wake up? I would smack the brat I used to be & tell that bo+ch what's what, b/c learning by hitting bottom is so painful I'd do anything to avoid it. I also desperately want to save those I love from the same agony. Hani17 is also happy, outgoing, optimistic, & undaunted. No matter how mature we become, we shouldn't let those qualities entirely slip away.
So, is HM worth watching? It's not an easy call, only b/c Lee Re is so fantastic. For her performance alone, I'd say “yes,” it's worth checking out. If the early eps aren't doing it for you, then just move on. HM doesn't improve w/ age.
QUOTES📢
The joy is doubled when shared.
"Money is always the problem, whether you have it or not."
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬6.3 📝6 🎭7.3 💓5 🦋2 🌞6 🎨5⚡3.5 🎵/🔊7.2 😅3.9 😭4 🤢2 🤔4 💤4.5 🔚7
Age 14+ we'll see a person dying on the street after being hit by a truck. The blood from their head is washing away in the rain. She poses as a single mother who cannot identify the father of the child. It all spurts out under high-pressure emergent situations. PG-13 language. Out of nowhere, at the beginning of ep 8, we hear the word prick + a F💣
Re-📺? Not likely
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may like:
Oh My Venus 7.4;
Crazy Love 7.8;
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
Her Private Life 8;
Romance is a bonus book 7.9;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Saimdang 8.5;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
For romance junkies only:
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
The Bride of Habaek 7;
Heirs 7.3;
That Winter, The Wind Blows 7;
Something in the Rain 9;
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine;
Find Yourself 8.9; A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5.
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Eun-sang & The 3 Heirs ~ To Heir Is Human ~ To Have ☮ ♥️ & C☯ntentment Is Divine
[Spoilers are quarantined at the end]It's not what you think: Let's zoom out to look at Heirs from a broader angle.
Viewers are divided over its appeal. Admittedly, with this production team, H should be better. It falls a touch short, yet it has worth. H has 🅾 new- It did "plagiarize" Boys Over Flowers, just a tad ~ Rich▪guy▪meets▪poor▪girl▪elite▪family▪run▪sch⚙⚙l▪same▪male▪lead▪ smh. Fine. Period Romances never run out of dukes, & Kdramas will keep trotting out CE♻s. I wish they'd retire or take a long vacay. Give a 👮 a 🎰. By & by, it's the 📣, 📝 & 🎭 that forge the path to excellence. Furthermore, beyond the nearly identical premises, the ying☯yang.
Now to what H has, besides CEOs. In ep1 we greet Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) & Cha “Eun”-sang (Park Shin-hye). Tan's the 2nd son of Chm Kim. H displays an extreme setting that is sadly plausible in an ultra-conservative & patriarchal society. Tan's family is (pause) complicated. Dad's got:
1. A deceased wife - son, Won, is Tan's older brother.
2. A legal wife -Ji-sook, on 📃 /only/ is wife & Tan's legal mother. Her office has moved, but she has her title. To the 🌏 she's Tan's mother, yet she's openly contemptuous of him. She runs the HS, & makes the family public SHOWings. In 1 painful scene, Tan's in her office for causing trouble. Others look on curiously while she treats him like a bug in need of a foot.
3. Ki-ae, the cloistered wife-tress & Tan's true Oma, has all the material trappings her ♥ could ever want, but she's ▫trapped▫. No one can know that Tan is illegitimate, or even that she e✖ists. Imprisoned💔, she is a material girl no longer. Additionally, though Tan adores Won, Oppa will always see Ba$+ard-Tan as a threat. He makes sure Tan is sent to a Calif HS. Won intends that Tan never return. Consumed w/ anger before he left 🇰🇷, Tan created the bullicracy @ school, but was able to mello out 🏄 in CA (laughably spot-on, right?).
Eun is in HS. She lives w/ Mom & works all the jobs she can. As Mom is a mute w/ few options (she's literally silenced) she works as a maid. They're poor. Older Sis, at sch⚙⚙l in Calif, sends word that she's getting married. Elated, Mom empties her $avings for sis. This is Eun's chance for escape! She decides to deliver the 💰 herself. Even though she can't reach📞Sis, she still flies to CA, only to be ⚡broadsided😳⁉ when she discovers Sis is ⤵
🚫 getting married
🚫 in school
🆘 in squalor 🏚
🆘 w/ an abuser
Reeling, Eun can't react when Sis: 🎤C'mon, takes the 💰 &🏃💨-Wu! Wu-woo🎶🎸🎶 (Ty, Steve Miller). The debacle plays out like Live@5 multiplying the humiliation. Tan saw it all, t👀. Long~📖~short, Tan puts up Eun @ his cliffside digs & Tan's "digs" are scary. He claims he's a 💊dealer when he's not claiming to be an illegal organs broker. He thinks her 😲 is adorable. For a few days, it's chats, scrapes, a family visit, a run in w/ Tan's (arranged) fiance, Rachael (she didn't like Eun) a family gathering, school tours, & pancakes. Eun doesn't know who Tan is. Doesn't (want) to care. Hmph. She'll never see him again, anyway. Esp after meeting his dour relations &horrid fiance.
Back in 🇰🇷, Eun finds Mom is now a live-in maid. So, Eun is now ▫️confined▫️ in a ▫cramped▫ room w/ mom. She helps w/ tending to Lady Ki-ae. She sees Ki-ae's agony. It's meant to pain us. Ki-ae is deeply 😞 & bitterly demanding🍷 - until she brightly announces that her son, Tan, will return‼
😳Whaa?
Eun is able to avoid Tan for days, but as denizens of the 🏰, they are both sent to that elite HS. Day 1 is a blunt primer on the rigid 🕸castes🕸
🥇Old💲 mega-rich
🥈New💲 stock$
🥉Well off/🔝position$ (Eun's BFF since childhood is a🥉)
Last+least are scholarships↪bully🔍 fodder. Eun keeps her 👁👁 ⬇ but those heirs invariably f◻rce interaction. It 🏍 from there. Since Tan is home, Eun tries to avoid him, too, but Tan works to see Eun at all 🕘s.
H's theme is 🔳CAGES🔳
▪ Cages of power: Bosses, parents, bullies, -ALL people w/ power spread misery for their own sadistic satisfaction.
▪ Cages we allow: Enduring cages to hoard wealth & status saps the spirit.
▪ Cages we lock on ourselves; what one wants can be a cage, ref: Ki-ae.
▪ Inflating our own importance (pride) is a self-snare. Talk abt fantasy! ▫Pride▫ will blow up all of one's relationships b/c it gushes out of self absorption. {▫Greed▫ sprouts up from ▫pride▫ (Going for more, for the win, b/c U deserve it) &/or ▪emptiness▫ (using $ to fill spiritual & emotional needs). Forget you. Go help a poor soul..}
▪ Poverty is a cage
▪ Wealth is a cage. Greed, family, boards, the public, & 'keeping it phony' in their rigid circle, confines the rich.
▪We also see how the 🌭 is made, or rather, how the voracious zombies are spawned, as H's theme is actually: The Choices ☑ We Make once ▫Caged▫.
Time to, as w/ Ki-ae's empties🍷, clear out some of H's mess: Without doubt, Heirs has H-err😞rs. It's unfocused, it wanders, it stalls. More grave, are the Heir-etical logical 🕳s that could have easily been smoothed. Intermittently wonderful & sloppy writing smells of: "1st draft▶Now▶Tequila🍹🎉". A smidge more mental exertion would have sent H 🚀🌌. H has blown chances. It even feels choppy at times. (Perhaps it's 'blunt like Tan'?) Tan's Blondie-whiteboy-bro causes unease at H's start - He painfully can't 🎭, but fo-sho seems 😜 to hang with. H's pace is relaxing for the more flexibly ranged. If you are one whose ⚪👟are always 🥛⚪, you'll likely find it has too much SN 😴 😴Z💤.
Look at the team. Scripter Kim Eun-sook is proven talent: Mr. Sunshine, Goblin, Descendants o/t Sun, etc. H's directors have 0 duds. The 🎭 is Excellent- really. Is a mediocre romance the best they could pull off? NO! H is more, & it's by design. It's a fact that ▶They tell us◀ the 💘 is bland thru Hyo-shin: "You both continue to shoot your boring romance..." (Me: Spontaneous L😆LS). But wait a sec. W🅰Du🅿🅿⁉ Where did /that/ come from? It's so 🎯. Is it a marker? Is the love story a chalk outline? N🅾thing here; ↗l👀k↕else↖where?
Why⁉ H😮w❔
🤔: "What am I missing?"
H is, as its title indicates, abt ✳The Heirs✳ It contrasts Tan, Won & Yeong-do. Won's shocked agony from an unexpected knife in the heart & Yeong-do's ground in, long suppressed pain that's now popping the pressure valve are arresting. Tan's function is the maypole. H rev♻lves around him. Tan chooses love over the cage of wealth & status. He displays tremendous courage & 0 hesitation to dive 'all in' for Eun. Once he finds Eun, it's Peace🕊Out! He's finally found a home. Eun tries to remain 😑 while pursued by Tan, who commits 1st & fully. No looking back. They'll all have to catch up to Tan. Yeong-do eventually demonstrates the profound courage of internal honesty. There's hope for Yeong-do, while Won faltered, falters again, & chickens out.
Won grew up secure, certain the company is his birthright. His self-worth is🕸in it. N🅾_one's_gonna_wrest_it_from_him. That another option could ever tempt him is beyond his limited imagination. For 20 entire yrs Won watched Ki-ae. Once she got what she wanted, she saw it morph into her cage. Won 👁, but didn't learn. Yeong-do's father is abusive & hyper-critical. His mother left many yrs ago. YD, in turn, is a cruel bully at sch⚙⚙l 😬. He comes to understand his choices & their implications during H.
The cadence is a msg. The entire show is mostly 1 tempo, especially at sch⚙⚙l. The episodes come & go with us tagging along. It's easy to like Tan+Eun & want them to thrive. They do have wonderful moments. But when the 🎼 reaches emotional crescendos, it's for Won & Yeong-do's critical times, not E & T's. After a repeat round of clobbering ea/other @ sch⚙⚙l, YD & Tan are tasked w/ listing the other's faults. The 🎥 pans round. We watch them gravely _Staring_Thinking_Reflecting. In front of each is 📑&🖋 ~ Are we waiting to see who picks up the 🗡 1st? But neither one of them 📝 anything. What they know about eachother includes PAIN. They've seen the other's pain. Is their emoting🌋 even about hate? Or anger, maybe? Projected anger? The scene, the circling 🎥 & the acting is all weighty. Tan & YD have crossed the threshold into the forward-progress zone.
All the 🎭 is✨ - No one wriggles the chin like Park Shin-hye. In Sisyphus, she proves her range by time-traveling, stompin bad guys, & rock-shockin 💔s. Honestly, she ✨ as an 👁rolling kicka$$. LMH does his usual. ▪Kim▪W👀▪bin▪Just▪Steals▪The▪Show▪ as Yeong-do. Kim Ji-Won (My Liberation Notes/Diary-8.9, Lovestruck in the City-7.3), as Rachel, also stands out. With Grace-Kellyesque carriage, Ms Kim is a military surgeon in Descendants Of The Sun-8.3. Choi Jin-hyuk (💘 him in Tunnel-8.1, loathed Rugal-3.7) plays Won with depth, slowly revealing that his ice cage has fissures. A thaw has begun.
But Wait! There's more!
Fashion. Fashion. Oh, it's 💰 w/ 👁-🍬. Smart & amusing reparte↪it's fun hanging w/ these heirs. One duo gets adaww-able quicklly. Mom gets better&better&better w/ Ki-ae. The family 🆚 business chess game 🕸viewers, holding 👀2📺. At the end, H has an amazing dream scene. It's fab, dahling.
Kdramas regularly deconstruct parent-child relationships. Pressure on their society is so oppressive that they, shockingly, have the 4th highest suicide rate in the 🌏, w/ students & elderly @ top risk. In 🇺🇸, we've a glut of 👶-dults all snug @home w/ M&D. Their mindset is a tragedy. Our loose ways are eating our kids alive via "kindness." A bit too strict is better than excuses, ☑victimization & willful 🙈blindness. Balance takes determination and less self.
Will you like H? Re: fantasy, humans populate a -10 realism ↩to↪ fantasy +10 scale. We +5s & ⬆⬆ like H, as it's into our zone. Realists will shame us by trashing our 📺. Don't be bullied! Don't deny your core programming‼ And NO calling H a 'Guilty Pleasure'! A GP is a feature that's awful - no one likes it, but you just /do/). GP has become a soft slur of romances skewed fantasy+ w/o regard for quality. Dings aside, H contains ⚙⚙dles of g⚙⚙d stuff. It isn't remotely awful. Granted, the + msg is t⚙⚙ garbled, which botched H u67u6y66y the delivery. But w/o doubt: WE, in the +zone, are being repressed‼😠 Say it LOUD: "I love Boys O' 💐 & Heirs‼ S😤 what⁉" My peeps, It's okay, it's really just fine, to 💘 Heirs. It's mostly Good➡VG, & at times, it's superb.
See YOU & your goals honestly. Adjust. 🚫 caging you or others.
QUOTE🗣
I struggled all my life to capture the most critical moment. But every moment of life... is critical.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7 💓6 🦋6 🎨7 〰🖋8 🎵8 🎭8.7 🤔7 😅3 ☀7 🔚 9
👀📺again? 👍
Age 13+ (Illegitimacy) should like H. H is not one bit raunchy. Topics to 🗣: values, what truly matters, contentment, showing respect, courage & forgiveness. Internal honesty↪Yeong-do shows a level of honesty, re his motivations, that's pretty rare. Pride▪greed▪anger▪hate▪unforgiveness▪bitterness are burdens that we carry. When we let them go, ahh. Pe🕊ce.
〰 Live🕊Free. Thrive🌾 〰
⛔️SPOILER SECTION ⛔️
Chm Kim's pride spins it all. He has the 🌏, but no ♥. He's caged Won, Tan, Ji-sook, & Ki-ae (and Tan had begun to cage others). When Mr. Kim is on his deathbed, #2Ji-sook gathers the extended family & board mbrs to attempt a hostile takeover. To think that the wife he tossed aside would remain thankful & loyal proves Chm Kim's hubris. He imagines he's thriving, but self-deception became self-delusion, & his isolation allowed full absorption, which led to mummification. Ditto for the other Heir-etical parents. In reality, such parents (at all income levels, don't kid yourself) would die leaving wreckage in their wake. {Quick ad: Sit your heirs down, write your wishes on 1 page, & have them all sign it, even if you have a will. That could save your family after you're gone}
Won chose the company long ago. It's /his/ by /birthright/. His self-worth is ▫mired▫ in it, & hatred for Tan emanates from his latent anxiety that someone will gut him by stealing HIS position. His identity & security, his 1st (& last) 💘 is the company. That another option could ever tempt him had been beyond his limited imagining. Yet, he let himself fall in love w/ a commoner - An orphan! His choice is still never in doubt. 20yrs. Won has seen Ki-ae, only seeing human trash. Once she got what she wanted, he 👀 it morph into her cage, but he never learned. To save the company from Ji-sook, Won has to give up 💘 & marry a woman who will never be a wife to him. Even worse, his children could very well be her BF's & not his. Will he have the guts to get DNA tests? No matter. She will provide the ☑votes he needs. Gutted in the end anyway, he never augured this. Did he gut the rest of his life? Who will marry the woman HE 💘? He cries bitterly. Fade to ⬛
Yeong-do's father's abusive & hyper-critical. His mom left yrs ago. YD, in turn, is a cruel bully at school. He's odious, when we meet him; a typecast villain. He falls for Eun & sees a new way. He opens up enough for light to filter in. He matures sufficiently to u/s his past choices. YD has yet to choose his future path. His father is in ▫prison▫ which gives him the chance to change course & thrive. What will he do? 1st: He finds his mother. There's promise of a better future life. He even admits to Tan that he took his anger out on him - it's truly impressive baseline honesty. When a person starts the journey of internal truth, rather than trying to look good, we all benefit. YD demonstrates it by progressing from oppressor to confessor. If someone were to say that H is YD's story, I wouldn't argue. Post CA, he may have more screen time than Tan. His story is powerful; his growth, inspiring: H's resolution passes b/c ▪Kim▪Woo▪bin▪Just▪Steals▪The▪Show▪ as Yeong-do. Now I want to 👀 him in everything. ✳H is worth 👀ing for him, alone✳
How did the outline of the body start? Whether it was Tan's pain for his friend or not, Hyo-shin's suicide attempt insures its relevance for yrs. Pressured to the brink; Emotional cries for help; Emptiness; Hollowed; Crushed; Pushed⤵ off the edge: Parents of every economic level can be guilty of pushing their kids too far. Sure, kids need a push at times. Here's the test: Is this for my child's benefit, or abt appearances? We're in a time when increasingly more parents think parenting is for fueling their own pride. That's self-involvement & likely narcissism: It ain't parenting. You're there to correct your child's wrongs, not to screech at the 🌏 that your child does no wrong.
Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022
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☠ What Lies in the Forest °8.3° °Excellent°
Well, this certainly exceeded my expectations. I'm not familiar with the director, but I've seen writer Yeon Sang-Ho’s other works, Hellbound-5.5 and Train to Busan-7.8. I like T2B very much, but consider HB to be half good/half bad which adds up to average. A Stephen King type, Mr. Yeon started with webtoons and anime but is just getting warmed up when it comes to live action. His inspiration for TC was an actual ritual. What I appreciate about TC is that they aren't trying to 1-up every previous occult horror feature. They go for authenticity, and the effect is truly chilling. They set out to tell a good story in a quality way - They pitchforked it with gusto and tossed it with great verve. Well executed.This show opens with a brief look into the past and how our younger FL’s childhood formed her womanhood. This child’s gift has brought her nothing but horror. Ep1 is a decent set up. Ep2 gets ghoulish in more ways than one. Episode 3 turns the screws alittle more. So far, so pretty good. TC is a 2020 release that is rated 79 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 60/70-minute episodes. The director is Kim Yong-Wan. His first credited work is the movie Champion. Since then he's put out the film, The Cursed: Dead Man's Prey, and shows, The Whirlwind and If You Wish Upon Me, along with this show. All his works have solid ratings, and he's just starting out. TC displays his competence at every turn.
Sung Dong-Il (Sisyphus-8, Reply 1988) plays “Jin” Jong-Hyun. I don't know why, I just like the guy. Watching him as the embodiment of evil is not my favorite look on him, though. He's the type of actor who can play a bad guy, a truly loathsome one, that the viewer, somehow, cannot completely hate. In TC he is dragged into a ritual by his mother. He doesn't even want it, but he exits the back-end forever transformed. (Mom opened doors that should have remained closed). I do feel sorry for him. That aside, Mr. Sung is not the perfect fit for the role. This is an excellent show, and the only thing that feels off is him. Jung Ji-So (Doom at Your Service, The Glory, Parasite-9) is Baek SoJin, the younger of the 2 FLs. She must play a cheerless girl that has had a bitter life. She sells it with every cell of her body. She gets a crying scene and she's amazing in it. Im Jin-”Hee”(Little Women) plays reporter Uhm Ji-Won & Jung Moon-Sung is her policeman husband. He was investigating the Forrest Company and her investigative reporting led her to look into them as well. Within mere hours, it seems, they are both told to abandon these efforts and work on something else. Mr. Jung plays a painfully subservient and obsequious doctor in Hospital Playlist-9 (an excellent show with a slow start. Give it 2-3 eps minimum). This is a completely different role which showcases his acting ability. Jo Min-Soo is the shamaness, Jin “Kyung”. At first glance, in ep1, I didn't think much of her… but /wowie/. She slays that part. She slays alot of things in TC. Kim Min-Jae plays Forest CEO, Lee Hwan. He's close to magnificent. He is the diabolical-part-psychopathic CEO. So convincing. Though it's a relatively small part, Kim Shin-Ro, as So-Jin's mother, does an excellent job.
Badguy Jin is the Chairman of Forest which is about to launch their IPO. One of their subsidiaries is “weird.” It's a consulting Co led by Shaman Kyung who is also Jin's spiritual guide. When one of their compatriots ends up dead in a twisted, cursed heap, she is able to reverse-engineer how it happened. From there, they form defensive and offensive strategies. Now they are on the hunt to eliminate their enemy who resides in the shadows.
Who is their enemy? Our 2 FLs have formed an alliance - the reporter/Hee and the HS shaman/SoJin. One demonstration (that dead-twisted-curse-heap) is enough to convince Hee, just as it's enough to alert their enemies.
They seek out expert help on spirits and hear: “At first, it heals the sick and helps women get pregnant to show off its magical powers and make believers out of the monks. And once it succeeds in that, the evil spirit steals the souls of the monks and kills them.” That's a better description of evil than we get in Western entertainment. We should always remember that the evil are liars.
TC's main focus is curses, & not all these curses are supernatural. It draws a parallel between cursing someone to death by way of evil spirits and cursing someone to death through cruel behavior. It draws a parallel between human behavior and demons. Each person must choose whether to emulate angels or demons. Regardless of your belief system, people know what the right thing to do is, yet the right thing to do is rarely the easy thing. We're all drawn to the dark side. Moral strength is much like physical strength. We must exercise it regularly or it will wane. We need not teach our children to lie or lose their temper or think about themselves. We need to teach them goodness, and we need to practice it ourselves. Then it gets easier.
One thing I applaud is, at one point, a character no longer accepts the rules as they were laid out, and goes the other way with surprising results. It's a reminder to reevaluate your presuppositions once in awhile. For instance, we often see the separation of horror and technology, as horror is often connected to ancient things. It's so old fashioned, right? There's a growing body of work that depicts the forces of evil utilizing technology and the power structure of society to advance its cause. It actually makes sense. Archive 81-7.8 does it well.
KRISHKIM interviewed 📝Yeon Sang Ho, for Zapzee. “Director Yeon began writing TC with a subject of “Bangbup” curse that he found interesting since his childhood. He melted his opinions of the current world into his drama. He stated that “this society allows the people to detest others for their own justice and legitimacy.” He also added that the fact that the drama empathizes with the “hatred society” is the reason behind breaking the 6% viewer ratings.” I couldn't find anything else on the “Bangbup” curse to elaborate more, but the rituals depicted in the show feel entirely authentic. They have similarities to what is shown in the outstanding film, The Wailing, and the director of that movie claims strict accuracy. It heightens the creepiness.
The relationship between Baek So-Jin and Im Jin-Hee becomes more touching as the show goes on. Each fills a left by the other's tragic loss. There's some cool shots including off-eyeball reflections. The sets are full of detail. They put care and craftsmanship into the production. It's a thrill when they bring a variety of shamans in from all over the world. They created an array of looks and personalities.
The end of ep8 was a shocker. Where do they go from there? How will they fill 4 more episodes? They set it up in ep9 and manage a couple twists.
Immediately upon being possessed by evil, CEO Jin is inspired to start a new social media platform - Forest Co. What makes Forest different is the Forest of Curses, which enables users to curse someone. We will see a group of teenage girls inviting the evil spirits to come to them and curse their enemy. From the outside looking in, this practice is either a waste of time or opening doors that are best left closed. (So don't try it!) It may be more sophisticated to laugh this stuff off, but I do not. We are born 100% self-absorbed. Maturity is learning to be unselfish, but in this narcissistic society, most people never grow up. Thus, people think they can exert control over things of which they know nothing. Self-absorbed, immature people think too highly of themselves, their abilities, and their futures. Talk to a high-schooler. Most of them think the world is a place that will welcome them. They will be rich, successful, and contented. They don't believe they can be deceived.
They manage to be truly sinister. We see rituals that obviously link us back to past millenia. Worship of spirits is commonplace around the world, and it is commonplace in Asia. The occult is one way people attempt to exert control over their existence. But we don't have any true ability to control such things. Like UFO sightings (99% nonsense and 1% credible reports and occurrences that can neither be refuted nor explained) it's hair-raising. Have you ever been in a place where you felt an overwhelmingly horrible vibe, even if like me, you aren't one to get vibes? I've experienced it twice, and I'm normally oblivious to my surroundings. It was almost like I could feel the heavy air. I've accepted that my subconscious is picking up on a full spectrum of things that my oblivious conscious mind does not - both the supernatural and the mundane - and I've learned to trust that vibe and be wary.
Most people have a sense of the supernatural and eternity. Most believe there is more to existence than this 3D world. Many who scoff at these ideas are doing so to be welcomed into the “right” circles. They ignore anything that cannot be explained rationally and scientifically, but there's just too much out there that is unexplained, though - too much to be /certain/ that this 3D world is all there is to it. Don't overestimate yourself, don't let yourself be snookered, and don't open doors that are best left closed. Do watch TC. It's excellent.
QUOTE📢
There are things that cannot be explained by science.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝7.3 🎭8.3 🌞3.5 🎨8 ⚡7 🎵/🔊7 😅2 😭5.7 😱6 😯7 😖6.4 🤔6 💤0 🔚8
Poli-wagging 2/10. The shaman determines that no such evil spirit came from Korea. This one has come to them from Japan. Such evil lurks in Japan, not K-Kountry. The Japanese shaman is used to augment the creepy feel, particularly for Koreans. Korea will never love Japan. The history is too poisoned.
Age 16+ occult, gore, violence, language, horror
Re-📺? This is one I would pull up again to show to someone else, so yes, it's likely.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day:
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Her Private Life 8;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
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;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Historical/Period:
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
Saimdang 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
Action/Sci-fi/fantasy:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
The Cursed 8.3
Flower of Evil 8.9
The Man from Nowhere 8.9;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
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✒ℹ️ Workin the Grey Area °6.8° °good°
One of them is intense and too serious. The other is a party boy and too carefree. But they're both good cops and they are gonna have to work together.B&W is a 2009 release that is rated 95 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 24 55-minute episodes. Per Wiki: “The drama was nominated in 2009 for 11 awards at the 44th annual Golden Bell Awards, winning 5,” and “Two prequel films centering around Chao's character, titled Black & White Episode I: The Dawn of Assault, and Black & White: The Dawn of Justice, were released in 2012 and 2014 respectively.” At times the acting is flat and the dialogue uninspired, but overall, it's respectable, as long as one doesn't take it too seriously. The plot is pretty good; there's plenty of intricacies. In the final analysis, it maintained my interest when others shows, at the same time, did not.
Is B&W alittle silly? Yup. My family asked what I was watching and mocked Chen Zai Tian's hair. I pointed out it's a 15 year old show. I think his hair is nice, except it's heavily metrosexual and requires lots of product. B&W is on a certain level. It's slightly corny, cheesey, inept, with occasionally somewhat stiff and unnatural acting, and it seems unpolished and low budget. It's also fun. The cast is quite attractive (even with one of the FLs looking like she's 14) maybe that helps. Looks won't hold a viewer's interest for 24 episodes, though - not most viewers. I've seen shows where I couldn't make myself watch anymore. I haven't actually dropped many shows but I have dropped shows unofficially by letting them play on while I simply stopped watching - because I couldn't force myself to any longer. B&W successfully kept me tuned into every episode. There's something to be said for that. Every time it made me roll my eyes it made me do it with a wink and a smile. It doesn't take itself that seriously. The effect is light and fun.
B&W it's based on a compilation of true life cases with its own fictionalized spin applied. In the closing credits it says that “the case is known as “Troy military fraud” and… Over 1000 officials were charged... The accused include the minister of national defense, chief of the southern district PD, Senate Speaker, and the Military Committee chief… key persons in this case… died unnatural deaths one after another, while the secret training program by the ministry of National Defense was revealed following the murder of Lan C-Yin. However, all the relevant records vanished…” I did a goog but didn't find anything - I guess the records really did vanish! No matter what they show on the screen, I always assume the truth is worse. Much worse.
B&W is one of 9 Taiwanese shows I've seen; all but one are on the 2009-12 timeline. The same actors often show up in these features. Vic Zhou (Danger Zone: The Dark Night, Mars) portrays the half-cop-half-playboy Chen Zai Tian - “Shrek”. Xiu Jie Kai (Light the Night, They Kiss Again) is Ma Xiao Ming / Huang Shi Kai, one very interesting hot dog vendor. Mark Chao (Eternal Love, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity) is the uptight and fussy Wu Ying Xiong. He's a good looking guy and his acting is pretty seamless up until ep29, when he really impressed me in an emotional scene. He killed it. Ning Chang (Banquet) is Lan Xi Ying. Here she's coldly analytical. She's in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (I rate eps 1-49 at 9.3, but I stopped there, at a happy ending. I learned what was coming and didn't feel up to the rest of it). There, she plays an emotionally charged concubine. She's fantastic. Ivy Chen (Midnight Foodstore, More Than Blue) is Chen Lin - she actually looks like the man who plays her father. Sonia Sui from The Fierce Wife-8 shows up. She's terrific. The screenwriter & director is Tsai Yueh Hsun (Mars).
There's love in the air, but it doesn't all work out. The interpersonal relationships and romances are handled nicely. The characters are distinct and thoroughly fleshed out.
As for the art and filmcraft, there's plenty of nice touches. They dress in black and white often. Several mysteries are rolled out in the early episodes. There's a mysterious fax machine with cryptic tips - now, that ain't weird… Another weirdness is how our playboy tests positive for dreamer, a new illegal hallucinogenic. He appears genuinely stunned and seems to have no clue why it's in his system. Ep11 has a strange and unexpected twist; the plot is getting thicker. Our two leads and a third good guy try to take down a big paramilitary bad guy in episode 24 and they can't do it. I kind of like that. Our leads are real people, not machines. There's a killer moment in which a bad guy sits in his car at the docks, waiting to flee 🇹🇼Taiwan. Another car pulls up and squares off at him a few hundred feet away. Slowly the window opens, a hand emerges and places the police siren on the roof. 🎵Rock and roll music cranks. It's a well done scene.
One assassin talks about behavior modifications made while he was training. They tried to eliminate all compassion and empathy so that he would feel nothing, even for children. It didn't take. So he quit. Don't think things like that are fiction. They are already trying to meld man with machines.
They put a lot of effort into the plot. There's twists and turns and additional levels of complexity. Who's worse, the corrupt cops or the triad? It's a gray area. The production, overall, is closer to B movie work then the top of the line. However, I think it's respectable overall. People who like strict realism will not like this show, just be warned.
As the credits roll, we are told revenge is being plotted. 🔄The cycle continues.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝6.7 🎭7 💓🦋🎨6 🎵/🔊6 🔚7 🤗4.5 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡5.6 😅2 😭3 😱2.5 😯3 🤢4.5 🤔4 💤0
Age + violence; Language: $h!+. Rated TV-15
Re-📺? Highly doubtful, but once was fine
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
⚡/😱 -
C🇨🇳: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber 9-Kung-fu!;
K🇰🇷:
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Glitch-8,
K2 8;
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
Private Lives 8.1;
Inspector Koo-8.4,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Vagabond-8,
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Beyond Evil-7.4
The First Responders-8,
Why Her?-8,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
Signal 8.6;
Iris-8,
D.P.-8.4,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man From Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
🇭🇰Hong Kong
A Beautiful Life-
Don't Go Breaking My Heart-
The Defected-8.2
Hong Kong West Side Stories-7.5
🇹🇼Taiwan
Age of Rebellion-9.5
The Fierce Wife-8
Two Fathers-7.5
💓K🇰🇷 :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch Your Heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
Japanese🇯🇵 lite romcoms: Maid Sama-10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo-7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions-8.4, Toradora-8.5
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A Recital Of Love, Thrills, Action, Laughs & So Many Tears.➰ Stay Hydrated °9.1° °Superior°
Look what the tornado dragged in.Here's an effort to acknowledge the craft that went into CLOY while gliding around any spoilers.
Some of the themes are:
🍫Survival in an oppressive, despotic situation
🍫Survival in a wealthy, greedy, love-starved, viper pit of a family
🍫Misery, love, loneliness, & warmth are often w/o respect to wealth or social status
🍫Overcoming fear in order to do right
🍫Politics won't beget love
🍫The meaning of true family
{🤔Who said this?: "That's why I never go to Olive Garden - They treat you like family" /True family/ is not about DNA. It illustrates the highest ideals: Loving, providing, protecting, happy over the good stuff, & distressed over the bad stuff life brings to our loved ones.}
🍫Korean women sure do love a tall man with broad shoulders (don't we all?)
〰Visual Metaphors🦅
In CLOY's very first shot, there's a hawk gliding above the valley. It's emblematic of freedom, but also taking to the skies. Hawks are always looking to swoop down & catch prey. Is Se-ri a hawk, not a swallow? Hmm. Ri's got the🔫, but is he the prey?
When Se-ri fails to exit NK, Ri loses his temper, so she exits the room. Next, Ri overhears how Se-ri bravely saved his life, & has been nonstop😭. As he ponders this, we hear the rain start 〰 titit'tat↗⚡↔ 📢CrrAAckk⚡🔊 〰 We can /hear/ it on his face: ‘Oh, no. I'm in trouble.’
〰Visual Contrasting & Crisp Editing⛪/🏚
The church/phony prayer scene contrasts with the NK villagers, who seem sincere about their beliefs regarding their country & the outside world (compartmentalization?). Freedom & prosperity engendered greed & twisted the faith of the SKs. The message isn't about who's better. Rather, it's a c⚠ution for those of us living in wealthy countries. It's a reminder that it isn't poverty or politics that degrades a person's humanity as much as one poor choice after another does.
In Ep4, we go from the warm🔥clambake in rural NK to one of SK's most lavish domiciles where family is plotted round the table in 🌬ice cold scorn. What is the 1st true family experience that Se-ri has ever had, we wonder?
They just hadda put the villain in that creepy, over-compensating hat. The director & writer even manage to humanize bad guy Cheon Su-bok. We can feel the pain in his gasping voice as he recounts that he was an orphan with nothing. It's juxtaposed with the 2 orphans who appear in the show. These adorable children are in danger of walking his path.
Pyongyang's 🌆 opulence is grotesque against the debasement of the little village. Children are starving, & people are struggling to live up to peasants' standards. Let's not guess about the ominous absence of any cats or dogs in the village.
〰Wordplay🏓
One of the soldiers is playing video games at the internet café. We see him type: "I request an alliance." Cute.
Swallow vs 🦅
“Type” is used in more ways than one. They each know what ~✳WHO✳~ rather, their 'type' is.
Did Se-ri crash, fall, drop, or descend? My vote: Swooped✅.
Se-ri talks about Ri feeling 'pressured'. Given their then tense situation, the way she uses the word is high comedy.
Se-ri sleepily mumbles it's the "liking" that's giving her a headache. Does she mean liking the idea of going home, or is she liking her head on his much coveted shoulder? Hmm.
〰Repeated Words & Themes For Impact & Foreshadowing🤹
Was it... is it 〰 Des↙T↘inY? That word descends like 🌨 over the entire series, along with:
meant t❄ be… It must be fate… Again❄again it's DESTINY.
The word 'bodyguard' dutifully works shifts. Ri bristles when he first hears it, but he had been doing the pedal work already, anyway.
Including 'Bodyguard,' over & over we hear: "That's just like a 📽," or "This isn't a 📽, that won't work," or "This is just like a 📺 from the South." A soldier obsessed with SK entertainment was able to explain or predict /everything/ based on what he learned by watching 📺 on the outpost's 💻. So, we'll hear: "The dramas in the South always {__X__}." Kim Ju-meok solves for X every time (esp with the "L💘verboy" shoutout😂). That gag never gets old! He was making connections betwixt Ri+Se-ri+dramas almost immediately, much to Ri's unease. It strikes a chord with Kdrama fans🤗
😐Ri: 'I'm okay'.
😔Se-ri: 'You always say that' ...😌... If nothing else, Ri is consistently on tempo.
〰Reciprocity🔃🔄
They play CLOY on the black & white 🎹. The series has a paradigm shift in the 2nd half, treating us to a tour (or review) of everything Ri did for Se-ri from a new perspective, like when…🙊❕🔇spoiler order in effect🚫 〰 We don't know who is👂❕
〰They Understand Romance💓🦋 These 2 are keyed into eachother. The way he looks at her really is wistful. She knows when he's feigning sleep, even when his comrades don't. Each tries to turn pages for the other. Each looks to protect the other. Later, protectee will yell at protector for exposing h/hself to danger. Their actions, over the course of the show, mirror eachother like base & treble. Early on, however, they just can't read the other's sheet music. Watching each of them struggle to understand the other is hilarious. He's usually at a loss over her fine distinctions. Once each of them verbalizes "10 nice words," the contrasts become manifest. Afterall, beautiful harmony comes from complimentary keys, not uniform ones.
😶The grim discipline that Ri has practiced in recent years is palpable. He admits he's resigned; he never expects happiness. The only tell that he's getting worked up is some moderate fist clenching. Early on, it's difficult to imagine him striking the wrong key: He isn't one for breaking the rules or crossing the 🚧line. He seems so stodgy that it almost shocks when, like an eagle, he soars into immediate-&-decisive-action-at-PRECISELY-the-right-moment. We are treated to his silent frustration as well as confusion over the descending realization that the rule-breaking may never end, now 🙃. Ri’s last of the '10 nice words' is the 1st step in his healing.
🎭Hyun Bin's acting as CPT Ri is prodigy level. When Se-ri declares that Park Kwang-beom is the most “handsome one of them by any criteria," Ri has subtle, but clear, disappointment on his face. When he sees the ♥patch on his uniform, one corner of his mouth twitches up & his eyes soften. His command of expression is virtuoso. He's a Kpop idol fo-sho.
📑Son Ye-jin is also exceptional as the loquacious Se-ri. She had 💯 lines to learn for every 1 Hyun Bin did:)
🔗The show used consultants from North 'OZ' to ensure accuracy. This series provides a glimpse of the deficiencies and documented wretchedness, but also the humanity.
😷The system in NK is suffocating. Similar to Se-ri's family, everything is based on currying favor with superiors. As demonstrated, it extinguishes love & deceny. When Col Kim was arrested, the ladies of the village were terrified to be seen helping his wife out lest they also get /arrested/ (⁉). Families are encouraged to turn /eachother/ in, or face prosecution😳. We see a father whose son almost died, but all he worries about is his position! Jun Gook-hwan, btw, is perfect as a stern father & unflappable official.
⚕The 🚑 has nothing in it. It's just a hollowed out 🚐. The hospitals don't have blood for transfusions. Even Pyongyang suffers multi-hour rolling blackouts. Supplies are scarce but there's never a shortage of little bullycrats demanding to see 🆔.
🗃There's such a profusion of rules, regulations, & records that /everyone/ is guilty. They get you when they want to. Besides actual rule-breaking is the institutionalized corruption: When Ri was brought in for questioning, he was told that he's guilty of whatever they ☑say he's guilty of. Human life is not cheap there, it's disposable.
🚻Clearly, Ri's father toughened him up. Ri's mother, who is obviously loving, is the driver of the finer parts of his nature. Ri & his brother, Mu, exhibit exemplary qualities such as respect, integrity, loyalty & kindness. His unit, in turn, reflects his example. He's a natural leader. (They bungled their directives on the day Se-ri arrived, but that was destined).
🛂YET. As restrictive as Ri's upbringing plainly was, Se-ri's was /even more/ 🎢dysfunctional. Both of them are from influential families, yet hers, with all that freedom, is worse than his. Despite the odds, the NK siblings in CLOY are more loving than the SK ones. We need to be aware that freedom can corrupt us if we allow it.
🌞Se-ri, being her expansive self, was able to brighten the lives of the people she met in NK with her charm & skills. She even turned a committed Commie into a metrosexual with a bottle of shampoo! Skills, indeed. It's darling to see this little group form a true family.
💴Gotta love that budget. The special effects for the tornado are fabulous. We are treated to no less than 3 paraglides in the 🗻, all breathtaking. The second paraglide scene is especially gripping.
When act⚡ion is called for, they come correct. One scene is a shootout between a 🏍 & 2 armored 🚛. In practicing restraint, they boosted realism. It took as many as 7 bullets to blow up the gas tank after laying down the cycle. No magic bullets here. The effect plays out better than a typical action 📽. That.scene.is.straight.b@d@$$! 🎼segue into theme music🎼
🎶What a man, What a man, What a man🎶 Sing it, Salt n Peppa❕😜
CLOY has something for all the senses: Visual delights, a lovely soundtrack, the taste of fresh roasted corn, clams, & Soju (I could taste it), the hair that smells like flowers, & the feel of tears on our cheeks.
Watch it and sigh, laugh, & (s)whoop.
Watch it & weep, but no biting thru that🍫wrapper!
And remember, nothing comforts after a good cry like a creamy cup of hot Swiss🍵Cocoa.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬9 🎨9 🎵10 🎭9.5⚡8 🤔8 🌞9 🔚8.5
Age12+ 🗣 geo-poli awareness, honor, modern-day 🛡 knight
👁📺again? Did/Will
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✒The Ladle Will Knock ♧ The Cradle Will Rock °8.1° °Excellent°
Trade your parents for other ones?Sadly, in these overgrowth-of-narcissism days full of self absorption, more & more kids wouldn't find that idea unappealing; but for most of us, it sounds preposterous. A non-starter.
Even so, Lee Seung Chun (SC) is so over being poor. So over his worthless father. So over kimchi stew. So over being bullied by rich punks. He's smart - smart enough to attend an elite school on scholarship, but there's a wall between him, in his convex existence, & the /other/ side - the concave side where the rich reside. He's doing everything he can to gouge a hole through, so he can get to that other side. But he feels like he's digging through rock w/ a dull spoon. He feels banjaxed. Knackered. Downright desperate. Stick a spork in it.
TGS opens pretty hot & very sad. It's really rough for the poor kid (SC), & it's even rough for the rich kid (Tae). Each of them is scraped on different sides of the grater. TGS is a 2022 release that is rated 80 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 80-minute eps. Early on, it proceeds slowly (but steadily) w/ only a couple hiccups. The early eps are the appetizer, & the main dish emerges around ep9 or 10 when alot of other shows stutter. I appreciated it more as the eps rolled by.
The acting is quite good & at times, excellent. The actress who plays Tae's stepmother, Son Yeo-Eun from Band of Sisters, is amazing in a couple of scenes. Yook Sung Jae (Mystic Pop-Up Bar-8.2, Goblin) is ML, SC. They have him in long bangs which means less of his face is showing. Therefore, his lips look absolutely massive. He's a dishy looking guy, but all I see is lips when I look at him. He does a nice job. The beautiful Yeonwoo (Dali and the Cocky Prince) is schoolmate & general interferer. Lee Jong Won (Knight Flower, S2 Hospital Playlist-9), plays Hwang "Tae" Yong. Jung Chae Yeon (My First First Love-8) is the sweet Na Ju Hee (JuH). The 3 forge a tangible bond & seem to be perfectly casted. SC's dad is played by Choi Dae Chul. He has an emotional scene in ep14 that took my breath away. I was astounded to learn, after dipping into his credits, that I'd already seen him in Inspector Koo-8.4, Hello, Me!-6.7, Vagabond-8, When the Camellia Blooms-8, & Revolutionary Love-5.7. I'll never overlook him again. Competence shows: The director is Song Hyun Wook of The King's Affection-8.3 & Another Miss Oh-7.5, & screenwriters, Kim Eun Hee (Live Up to Your Name-7.6) & Yoon Eun Kyung (The Snow Queen) all have proven records.
"Golden Spoons" & "Dirt Spoons" are Korean adages referring the "haves & the have-nots". SC is painfully poor. His family is a slotted dirt spoon - whatever money they do get just drops right through & is lost. It hurts all the time. At his elite HS, none of the other kids have any inkling of what that's like. They're all rich, spoiled & entitled. SC's best friend understood, but he commits suicide along w/ his family in the early minutes of ep1. (Ouch) Next, the rent collectors are back. SC's family is on the verge of being homeless.
'Who wants to be rich? Buy a Golden Spoon & get rich...' It was the right day for the crone to scoop him up w/ these words. SC stops at the weird old lady's table of goods & studies the golden spoon. (Korean spoons are shallow & perfectly round - they're very cool looking). 'Eat 3 meals at someone's house w/ it & you will switch parents w/ that someone.' Right then, SC didn't value his parents. He's tired of the plastic utensil life. Hello Tiffany's tableware! By the end of ep1, SC had eaten at Tae's place twice. Tae is... think Gu Jun-Pyo from Boys Over Flowers-8.3. He's the tippity-top. He's the most elite HS student in Korea. But it doesn't look like SC will ever get invited back for that 3rd meal. It's looking like convenience store fare for the balance of his life. For the record, I hate the way he finagles the 3rd meal. The way he got the 2nd one should have been the way he got the 3rd one. As it plays out it's clunky. But he gets the deed done & the food eaten. The switcheroo is complete. Magic is real!! Now his own parents don't know him, & Tae looks so So SO HAPPY w/ his new family.
In a way, it feels like the writer is a mother bird that pre-chews the food for the viewer. The moral choices are quite easy the way the writer stacks it up & ladles it out. Tae makes a horrible mistake which makes eating that 3rd meal (effectively stealing Tae's life) almost justifiable. As it turns out, SC is much better suited for the Hwang family, just as Tae is a better fit w/ the Lee clan. SC has the brains & moxie to be a player in the financial world, while Tae is a sweet & artistic soul who loves piano & drawing. He misses his mother, most of all, so after the switch he will keep repeating that he can't believe he has a mom. The viewer will also find out how profoundly dysfunctional the Hwang family is. One night SC spies on the Lees, his real family. They are cozy together, like birds in a nest - they're practically spooning eachother! The family is so happy /without him/. Dad is SO PROUD of Tae's artwork. JuH likes Tae. Well, she actually likes SC, but now Tae is SC. Tae likes JuH. That works out, right? WRONG! SC likes JuH! It wasn't enough to take everything Tae owned. He wants the girl, too. Most things roll out gradually - there's over 20 hours of programming, afterall. SC helps his family from behind the scenes, & he checks on them frequently.
'Whoops. I forgot to tell you about a rule. If one of you runs into his real parents on your birthday, you'll switch back.' That's in the note from the old lady. Switching back is possible. It's possible at 1mo, 1yr, & 10yrs. Apparently it's a danger on every birthday as well. SC ends up scrambling at a birthday party to keep real Tae from running into his bio-dad.
'Don't tell me you wouldn't trade your poor parents for rich ones in a heartbeat.' SC (in Tae's shoes) is incredulous. Tae had everything, but he's happy - very happy - w/ SC's poor, pathetic family. 'I love my parents more than anything in the world. No matter how much money, I would never trade them,' Tae (in SC's shoes) insists. He then drops this dollop on top: 'I don't like your parents at all. I'd rather live in my poor house than in your suffocating one.' He means it. SC is speechless. Next, it's Tae's dad that is jealous of the love SC's family has. He doesn't respond well to such feelings, so he wants to prove a point about the value of money to SC's father. What he doesn't know is that his own son has already chosen to be poor, alongside this poor man, rather than be rich w/ him.
TGS scoops out quality elements generously. They're stroon, eh - strewn - everywhere. Some flashbacks & memories in partial B&W & have a washed out feel. It's a refreshing & effective technique. As of ep3 I couldn't be certain who will end up w/ whom - except big sis, Lee, is definitely destined for Munki. They can run a mixed martial arts studio - ep3 has a couple of dazzling fight scenes. One is amusing & the other is professional & smooth. The way SC looks, after a cooling off period in the USA, is hilarious. That's how they see us. It's fair. In the background is slightly stylized pop music; it's not bad. Answer, by Yeji Kim is very nice, as is Falling by Jeon Sang Keun. They can be found on Shazam & Spotify.
Just when I started to wonder if things were getting stale, there's a mid-show shift! A biggin. There's another big twistaroo at the close of ep13. The ending is yet another excellent double-take.
'Desires are always for something we feel we lack.' "Your choices weren't always right, but I still think you're a good man." The theme is wants vs needs, how what we want may not bring us happiness, & how people that become powerful & successful tend to become stingy & believe that they really are better than those less fortunate. Power is corrupting & corruption starts in the heart. The history of the world is the history of a few that have too much, & the many that have too little. Hard work is a great equalizer, but even hard work cannot overcome a corrupt & flawed system. It's not right to blame someone for working hard & becoming successful. However, once a person becomes successful, what is h/h obligation to society? We should all give back, right? Nobody gets a pass on this. Before you judge rich people too harshly, realize that if you are even lower middle class in the USA, you ARE rich by world standards. I had to look at myself at one point & ask if I was as guilty as the ones I despise. Generosity is not taking someone else's money & giving it away; we all have a duty to give. If you don't have a dime to spare, maybe you have something worth more - time. The funny thing is that humans seem to be designed to feel blessed when we give to others. So give to receive! That kind of selfishness is the good everyday magic.
QUOTES📢
The weak always fight amongst themselves, while the true enemy is someone else.
The truth doesn't pull people together, but rather makes them hate eachother.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7.9 📝8 🎭8 💓7 🦋5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7.7 🔚8.2 ▪ 🌞5.3 ⚡5.8 😅3 😭4.5 😱3 😯3.5 🤢3 🤔5 💤0
Age 13+ Language, violence, some blood
Rated TV-15+
Re-📺? ☑
⛔Mini spoilers follows⛔
It seemed that the writer was setting up a situation in which it would come out that Tae's dad had switched places w/ SC's father, years back. They do come up w/ a passable twist, but it is not as good as the father switch would have been. The fact that SC is so much like Tae's dad and visa versa is wasted, and it makes a poor red herring. We are in a day when surprises and subverting expectations are valued above quality, sadly.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day -
Crazy Love l-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Heirs-7.3,
My Mister 9.5,
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Call It Love-8.4,
Anna-8.1,
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Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
K2 8,
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Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
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The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
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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