50FiftillidideeBrain

✒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,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
Call It Love-8.4,
Anna-8.1,
Parasite-9

Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4

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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Ignore That Guy With The Sword ⚔ Relax & Have a Croquette °7.5° °VG°

SG is a quiet celebration of the joy of food. Here, a retired corporate drone gets to slice and dice that corporate mold and kick back with a 🍺 and a coquette. Early in his retired life he discovers that small plates create a big appetite for new experiences. It's the small things that season life to perfection. The episodes, at 15 minutes each, are barely longer than a commercial break. (Ask your grandparents what a commercial break is. It's like waiting for that "skip ⏭ ads" button, just longer). Each episode is its own small plate.

Without a ⏰️ to punch, Takeshi Kasumi (Sincere. Warm. Optimistic. Cute. Played by Naoto Takenaka), has no idea how he should spend his time. He starts wandering… aimlessly. Eventually, he gets hungry. So, he stops for a bite to eat in the middle of the day, when most people are stuck in a cubicle. One of the other diners ordered a beer! Smack dab in the middle of the day! ~❗⚡❗~ Like the entire city of Pittsburgh, here's a guy that understands how well 🍻 goes with food. TK decides to indulge; something he never would have done when he was working. He almost feels like he's committing a crime. He looks up and sees a samurai sitting a few tables over. It's his imagination, isn't it? The samurai is tough, he orders freely, eats with gusto, and doesn't let rude patrons intimidate him. ✂⛓ - He's /not/ decisive. The samurai /is/. TK is inspired now. He becomes positively ravenous to go out and bravely try new restaurants and new foods ~ like a lone wolf… ummm… lone samurai.

He meets with friends, fellow retirees, and family - including his petulant niece, an aspiring band member (her parents are getting desperate: "Would you talk some sense into her?"). He also revisits places he loved as a child, all on the hunt for food. He even becomes a movie set extra for the free lunches. He's upset to learn from a professional extra, who's had 120 appearances, (thank you very much), that today's caterer is subpar. Thank goodness some locals volunteered to make pork soup for the cast, which made the long day nearly worth it. Got a doctor's appointment? That's an opportunity for a 🍱 out. Ya gotta eat, right? The samurai is always there, watching from the shadows, giving him strength. The biggest drama in the series is when a grumpy chef scolds some foreigners for putting pepper on “his” food before they even taste it. Our corporate dude is mortified at the rudeness, but another customer manages to smooth out the situation nicely by putting pepper on his yakitori and declaring it /amazing/.

It wasn't immediately clear if the woman that he lives with, Shizuko (Honami Suzuk), is his daughter or wife. Apparently she's his wife, so he's doing alright. We find out that she's a little bit younger than him; she was in middle school when he was in college. When the sales clerk hands him shampoo his wife asked him to pick up, and then starts pitching the shop's men's product line, he may run away. But still, he's doing alright.

He does need more of that samurai spirit, however. A samurai isn't afraid of sales clerks or ordering a beer for lunch, and a samurai isn't afraid to tell customers to be quiet because they're loudness is disturbing others. I must say that the burly samurai is attractive. He's that friend who saves you from becoming too “normal”. Mundane. PHONY. In a buttoned-up society that must feel daring. "You're trying something new?" His wife recognizes the shifting attitude. "That's nothing compared to the first person who tried sea urchin." TK's already looking at things in a new light. Afterall, in his mind, he just watched the samurai be the first ever to guzzle a spiky urchin and proclaim it delicious.

Apart from safety, food and drink are life's most fundamental needs. They also happen to be one of great life's greatest pleasures. It's quite wonderful that spinal taps and walking on glass are not one of life's fundamental needs. We all know this world is deeply flawed, but food is evidence that the world is a wonderful place, too. Food is comfort, a connection to others, a way to unite and spend time: Food brings us together.

Not only is food one of the greatest pleasures in life, but it is strongly connected to memory. It has the power to transport us to our youth. Just a few decades ago, ingredients were limited and there was less exposure to the wide 🌎 of culinary delights. (I remember, in the early 70's, when lasagna became a big deal, and how my family first made it with cottage cheese! Not only did we have no knowledge of ricotta cheese, but it wasn't even available for purchase at our suburban grocery store.) Food also has powerful emotional connections for us. While my grandmother made delicious food, some of it was unappealing. My grandparents, like everyone, loved some foods, not because they are inherently delicious, but because they grew up on them. Now that the whole 🌏 🌍🌎 of cuisine has been opened up to most, we demand things be taste sensations. People, nowadays, have access to the most delicious food in the history of the world. We eat better than royalty did 100 years ago. Manga!

Simple clothes, a simple, small house, an uncomplicated & respectful relationship… & croquettes. Somehow, that plain potato croquette he ate in that one episode has haunted me. It looked so crunchy. It sounded so crunchy. I could have sworn I /smelt/ it 😛. I want to go to Japan just to get 🍘ne. SG is a reminder that it is not luxury and Michelin star restaurants that create happiness. Happiness and contentment come from within, which allows the simple things from without to make life special.

Our protag is infused with the samurai spirit. He boldly goes to new destinations and boldly orders new fare. In the last episode, he tries getting a little more samurai with his wife. I wonder how that will work?


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬7.6 🖊〰7.6 🎭 77 🌞7 🎨66 🎵/🔊68 😅4 😭2 🤔45 💤25 🔚8

Age - there is nothing inappropriate for elementary school kids. It is a matter of their interest. The ML is warm to the watch. The show radiates comfort.

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The Neurotic ☯ The Dust Bunny & The Vac Matchmaker ~ It's Clean-Cut ☯ Opposites Heal °VG°

Collapsed & feeling swept neath piles of dirty laundry, I looked for pure, brainfree fun. After some googs, CWPFN seemed the perfect rinse&repeat. To come clean, the chance to tell frenz & fam that I'm so wiped I've resorted to watching a show abt a woman (a bit of a foodstained mess, really) who ends up in a ❤🔺 w/ her OCD oppressed boss & his psych 😆. How much fun is that, before the shift starts, even? {🚫 sneers @ Kroms & silly plots. Know: What they do, our USA does too, ie: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes '78; Weekend at Bernie's '89; Return to Me '00; Sisterhood-Traveling Pants'05; & the splendiferous Being John Malkovich〰> loved, all. Now those are #crazy premises}

O-sol (OS) has been struggling for balance ever since her mom died in a disputed construction crash 6 yrs ago. As the victims never rec'd justice, it's an open wound, still. She limped thru college to then full-steam-on job hunt (including the nec research/interview practice) but she rarely gets a face-to-face. OS sees ⬆📶 hurdles as her strength & will steadily dilute. Facing lil bro & dad she /acts/ bleachy clean. They all /act/ that way, dingily drudging thru _ since_mom_.

OSol-O-Mio🎶 Is also eked out over her dusty college crush. He acts like his cruddy soap will dissolve in her pail, sorta. He's certainly friendly💭 She's snagged like an old rag & sinking to the sludgy bottom. Despondent, she's ceased efforts to deterge, sponge off, or 🛀 (esp her hair). She's slowly morphed from hygiene-2-bye-giene.

Ironically, the only job she can scrape-up is w/ a cleaning co. That'll be as new for OS as her pink coveralls. As Mr. Jang (Yoon Kyun-sang), the CEO, is an OCD sufferer, cleaning is his passion. Dirty, messy things terrify him. Before long, OS will terrify him to😵♒💢. He'll never buff away the scorch she's left.

Build-up in the early eps sees OS falling from 🗑 to rubbish heap. She hangs onto her job by a feather in her duster. Mr. Jang takes time to remediate her 'black mold' complaining clients. He finds OS has a clean slate & takes her side. Always kind & refreshing (or too apoplectic to react) Jang, unawares, becomes protective of her. He'll be her bioshield, baby. OS bonds w/ her crew & mops /up/ on the job.

One day, she tips & spills from a ladder as Jang brushes by. Jang's scrubbed-in reaction is: ⛔Flee❗ Afterall, OS is filthy: Dirt, sweat, greasy hair + who knows❔ Yet he sprints & catches her. 🕒▶nothing◀🕞 He's FINE. Gently holding her like a baby🐢, he asks: R U O K? Onlookers hold their breath, waiting for the 💣 that never💥. Looks like Jang's plunged thru a clog. Here's one dust bunny that he'll tolerate.

In a spot, OS must hide her J. O. B. From D. A. D. A lifelong janitor, he's adamant that his kids live streak-free. In the interim, dad's rented the rooftop room to a handsome jobless man who's cozy & unstarched w/ the fam - OS's the one who really spruces him up. He's /Dad's/ rooftop 💕prince. Dad wants OS to have the right job for *marriage. OS's 💓 longs for her pitiful boss to heal. He's such a neat guy. Thus, is ground-floor CWPFN. It gets down & dirty and into the crevices from there.

CWPFN's not a stinker a'tall. Filmcraft is sprayed round like Jang's sanitizer (It's ok! It's safe for humans!). Comedic timing is spot-on, which takes director, actor & editor teamwork, proving their spotless business plan. Kim Yoo-jeong, as OS, gleams. Maybe it's forced perspective, but she looks part Paulina-Porizkova- (ref. 80's Vogue part Bratz-doll next to Jang. He should sweep her up & drop her in his 🗑bag, not kiss her‼ She is a tiny "microbe-she"❕ Beginning grungy, w/ every ep OS looks cuter. One of her crew loves hugging her while smelling her hair. Jang, -steamed- threatens to break dude's fingers & astonishingly snatches dude's hand off of OS -sans GLOVES. O. C. D. Takes a back seat to O. S. O. L.

The 🎭 is smooth & glossy. Yoon is authentically shammy-shined as Jang; his luster is natural & he excels at raising a single brow (OooLaLa). Lee Do-hyun, as lil bro O-dol, is a steamy 🚿, ahem, w/ a 💦 of hi-kick-hits. He gets a satisfying dab of 💌. Kim Won-hae (dad) gets around so much, he might be overlooked, but he's talented. I love him as Crazy Dog in Black-9, a cop troubled by anger. Ms Kim (OS) has her🥇moments. She's darling when they start dating. (They should have had more happy times before the slime started oozing up & out of the drain). In ep11, Jang is tipsy & OS helps him to bed. Once they've flopped on & he's out, she watches him as her face balances multiple expressions. It's a tidy bit of acting.

But for all that, if you think they sop up the laughs by showing a severe OCD sufferer, suddenly kissed by his employee, who is pretending she has a BF in front of her musty crush, after which poor OCD guy faints (🆘-ol❗) landing in the 🏨… then 😅 away, you calloused meanie. If you further snicker at how he's then mottled w/ mind-splatters of her winking at him while puckering her germ-laden 💋, causing spasmatic screaming, to the point that his assistant calls a psych, go ahead & yuck it up at this poor guy's expense. Is this really funny? In the most stoopid way, uh-huh, it is, especially if OCD is in the fam or if you just need some safe space where you can roll your eyes & smile. (Oh, that's dumb. I can't believe I laughed. Well, nobody has to know🙄)

🤖 CAM❕ The vacuum gets screen time as a side character. We swab along @ vac level, & shake heads when Jang's talking to it, as he is wont to do, given the affection they share. I feel the same way about Florence (Flo), my 🤖vac.

Some of the subtitles are by "Charmy". Isn't that sweet? Love it.

CWPFN burnishes this truth: There's no shame in cleaning for a living. Do you know the names of the cleaning people at your office? Aren't you thankful your trash is removed? How much better would the world be, if we could treat each other w/ friendliness & dignity? 🗑thy pride. During the worst of covid, folks, instead of dismissing, began thanking "The Help" who were stocking shelves. Let's normalize that trend. Working won't be miserable if people chose to be decent; especially bosses. That swept to the side, SK job contracts seem brutal, creating pressure that's truly caustic to well-being.

Now to spot where CWPFN may fail inspection❎

While in the aquarium, OS muses abt baby turtles who follow the stars to the ocean. Artificial light misleads them. OS wonders: "Am I following the Starlight or the artificial light?" That's an unblotted metaphor. YET, in failing to soak viewers in OS's love of ocean life early on, the scene didn't wash well. It could have been immersive. Instead, it floats in the air like fine dust.

Fear-of-failure is what motivates Jang's g/father, exerting a stronger down-drag than a desire to win could normally surmount. Pain from loss is more intense than the fleeting beauty of gain, as is evidenced by the stingiest rich. Sadly, g/father's story arc is toxically simple. Jang's arc is rushed, too. (Abruptly it's: "I'll make you fall for me").

Some harradin contaminates their space, demanding to see rooftop man while pulling Dad & Bro's hair as they meekly cry for help. Silly? Sure. Not their best scene, it's sillier than Jang tweezing that single hair off of the carpet. Kdramas are panned for overdoing, to which I say: "Compared to what?" Scour that one again - SK society is highly⛓pressurized. We have plenty of stuff as nutty or worse, we're just used to seeing our stuff. We should be aware that sneering & affectionate poking are different, that's all. The rooftop stud starts acting goofy in the later eps for no reason other than time-filler. As is, it feels like the floor-buffer is shimmying off on its own.

CWPFN could benefit from retraining. Too much repetition can ruin the finish, & CWPFN has its share of Kdrama 'misting chambers' that are set to repeat. Refer below:

🚿 Ep1s are abt extremes. He's extremely OCD. She's extremely dirty.

🚿 The ❤🔺 again. To be fair, it works well enough in CWPFN, though the device is dingy from overuse.

🚿TIAMF: This is about my friend. In this series, as Jang pathetically has no such friend, the fun is watching secretary Kwon try to Swiffer her expressions.

🚿WKEWY: We knew eachother when young. My acronym: I say the "K" is silent, & it's pronouced: "Whey," which in Korean, is why. WHYY?!! So overdone. Not needed.

🚿TBU: The breakup. Usually just for one ep, CWPFN goes into breakup OT & is overly sad.

🚿MSS: Mandatory Separation Syndrome (Couples are physically separated once they commit). It's nearly ubiquitous & it's usually awful. CWPFN drags MSS out painfully long & clutters up Eps15&16, which are sad enough to permanently tarnish the series.

At the end of the job, however, CWPFN stands bright & shiny. Some will 💖 it, some may declare the whole series a waste @ the 1st spot of grime on the white glove, but CWPFN is a tidy little show w/ smudges here & there. I like the tempo & I can veg to it, so I give it a 7. Next shift: Let The 🤖Vac Do The Work While You Give Your Body & Mostly Your Mind A Break. Rest with passion for now.


Quotes🗣

The famous writer Stendhal said that when you are in ❤, what you 💘 is Not the other person, but the narcissistic state of Euphoria. Socrates said that ❤ is an irrational desire that paralyzes judgment. Nietzsche said that ❤ always leads to Madness. Plato said ❤ is an act of divine being.

❤ makes everyone crazy.

You only learn your lesson after you fall.

Your efforts never betray you.


IMHO〰🖍

🎬7.5 🎭7.5 💓7.5 🦋6.6 😅7.3 🤔6 🎨7 🔚5.6.

Age 14+{fetish u/wear scene}

👁📺again? ☑maybe

Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022

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✒Out For Blood: ⚰ Hybrid Theory °4.8° °below avg°

Meet the vampires. These immortal beings don't kill humans. They borrow just enough blood to get by on - a half cup or less - they make due on half empty! Maybe the real monsters are all human. Hey, it Isn't just vampires who suck blood. Immortal beings used to freely walk this earth, and at times it was humans who hunted them down to drink their blood and obtain immortality.

H is a 2023 release that is rated 88 on AWiki, because Kdrama fans are very kind and appreciative. It is 1 season consisting of 16 60-minute episodes. By ep9 I considered abandoning the show. It's something I don't do, but have decided I probably should start. H is bloodless with no vitality whatsoever. Even though I had it on, I couldn't focus. It became the walking dead to me. I like the FL, and the ML isn't bad. The show sorta hangs around like a bat and never actually goes anywhere. It's lifeless and cold to the touch. The leads cannot overcome its issues.

Ok Taec Yeon (Vincenzo, Save Me) plays vampire Seon “Woo” Hyeol. His ears don't seem to have ridges inside; in some shots they look like pancakes. Anyway, he wants to be human. He's never had a beating💓. He goes to Cat Man (Kim In Kwon from Hot Blooded Detective, The King's Affection-8.3, The Cursed-8.3, and Mr. Queen-9) for advice. Cat Man managed to become human himself, afterall. Catty tells him to sleep in a Hawthorne Coffin for 100 years; but Hawthorne is highly toxic for Woo. “Only by facing death” can he embrace life, Catty insists. Down he goes.

That brings us to present day where we meet Joo In “Hae” (Won Ji An from A Year-End Medley & Hope or Dope). She's in the middle of the housing crisis. Just in time, she inherits an old house from her father. It's OLD. It's Victorian. It's creepy🏚creeky. /And/… There's a ⚰Coffin⚰ in the basement! She just can't help herself - she opens it. It's been 99 years and 364 days. Woo's not human yet! He's not a vampire either! He's a mixture - a hybrid.

Woo is livid. He comes at her in his anger and she attacks first (she's a toughie). How can Woo complete his transformation? He was so close, and he suffered for those 100 years. He doesn't want to do /that/ again. How did this even happen from the beginning? Most human girls wouldn't have been able to open the lid, Cat Man observes. Hae's no ordinary girl. A string of anomalies leads Woo to believe that if Hae falls in love he'll complete his transformation. Great. With him… with some other dude… as long as she falls in love he's golden. So he goes to work, and Hae's really thrown off by this. Woo has to stop her from making a police report over the anonymous 💐 that have been showing up on the doorstep.

Woo starts to vacillate his strategies. While this is going on, they decide to start a B&B to earn money with the old house. Money is a big problem. Enter Park Kang Hyun, who plays Shin Do Shik. It's his first drama. He will be the 3rd corner of the 💘🔺. Do Shik wants to help.

Ko Kyu Pil is Park Dong Seop, another vampire. They have him in a horrible hairdo. I think he deserves better. I've seen him in Mother-8.8, Sweet & Sour-7, Another Miss Oh-7.5, Vagabond-8, Crash Landing on You-9.1, The King's Affection-8.3, The Cursed-8.3, and he really enjoys himself in the hilarious Crazy Love-7.8. He enhances every show he's in, but he can't make a difference here. Yoon Byung Hee (Our Blues-8.5, Sweet & Sour-7) portrays Lee Sang Hae, the other vampire in Woo's circle. Kim In Kwon (Parasyte: The Grey-6.9, Mr. Queen-9) plays Ko Yang Nam, the "Cat Man”. Yoon So Hee (Witch's Love-7.8, Marriage, Not Dating) is part of a 2nd 💘🔺 as Na Hae Won / Yoon Hae Sun. Unbeknownst to her, she has a history with Woo. The directors are Lee Hyeon Seok of the lackluster Hello, Me-6.7 and the outstanding The King's Affection-8.3, along with Lee Min Soo (Drama Special S13). This is the fledgling effort of screenwriters Jung Seung Joo & Kim Ha Na.

The romance is mediocre with some flashes of cuteness. Their relationship is constant static, usually over money. They don't get a look at eachother until the end of ep1. Sparks do fly, in that scene, at least. I like their interaction immediately. Their first argument is after he goes shopping. He's been sleeping for 💯 years. Fashion has changed. Not long after he wakes up, he's walking down the street while alittle perturbed at her over their last interaction. He wanders into a mall. There's a fountain inside! He's utterly astounded by the splendor of modern-day commercialism. He buys up half of a clothing store and then panics when he doesn't have any money. Until he remembers he has her wallet! When he walks through the door laden with 🛍, the REAL baggage makes an appearance: She freaks into a real monster. Then they have an argument about whether it's right to live for money & security, or is it better to ‘follow your heart and live for today’. He tells her not to worry; he's got a stash of gold bars hidden away. Alas! They have disappeared! Whoops. Then one day their lips lock inadvertently and the attraction can't be denied.

The show is cute but is draggy. I found it pleasant as I neared the halfway mark, but not much was happening. It's ‘malcontent’ - They don't have sufficient content for all the episodes. They also failed, largely, to generate many sparks between the primary duo. The end of ep10 is very sweet, so I tried to get back into it. I just couldn't. I sat through every episode but was 80% tuned out. Watching this show Is a waste of time because there are so many better ones out there. The older catalogue of Kdramas is a treasure trove of gold standard works, and they're pumping out masterpieces all the time.

Before you sink your teeth into this, check out some of these titles.

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Unexpected roomates:
Mr. Queen-9,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9
My First First Love-8,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,

Interspecies/wildly unaligned love:
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
Oh My Venus-7.4K,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Oh My Ghost 10,
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Sisyphus 8,
Black 9

Modern Day Romances -
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Hospital Playlist 9,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9

Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8


Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5


〰🖍 IMHO

📣5.3 📝4.5 🎭7 💓5 🦋4.5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚6.5 🤗3 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡4 😅2 😭2 😱3 😯2 🤢3 🤔3 💤4

Shazams: Heart Race, by Byeol Eun & I'm Always By Your Side by JEON SI HA. The fun retro style monster mash music is darling.


Age 12+

Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned.

Re-📺? The first time was a mistake.

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40-Wink Links ⛓ Real Or Illusion ⛓ Slumber&Wonder ⛓ Hibernate2Prognosticate °7.3° °VG°

And 💭 A Little Nightmare For Me...

WYWS is a snoozie Krom w/ some fantasy, some bad guys that need some taking down + some good stuff going down (food) & a director that's wonderful w/ some comedy. Want some?

Out-of-work reporter, Nam Hong-joo, helps her mom run a small eatery. The intro reveals that her dreams are REAL. Not every dream, just the ones like visions. They /feel/ real. Viewers get to experience one: Thru a car window a man holds a 🚬. She only gets glimpses. His face barely visible, he flicks a lighter which unveils a bandaid on his hand. The car explodes. Snow falls softly.

She rouses & races to 〰🖊 all she can recall & re-stations it to her BR window. Copious 📝 predate this recent one - It's HJ's routine - since she's been a kid. She memorizes the details & looks for these victims. But she's never saved anyone, not even her dad. Even the few times the date, time & place, were revealed, she wasn't able to save 1 soul. One day, Band-aid-man stops his car right in front of her! She rushes to him, pleading: 'Don't smoke, you're in danger!' Gruffly barking at her to leave him alone, he drives off ~> to his death. ❄ falls.

Devastated. She's devastated. A 'target' stopped right in front of her & the outcome was the same. It's a tenet of her life: She can't alter fate. She's Cassandra.

Her father was killed b/c he chose duty over duration. He chose to show a warm 💛 to a troubled stranger rather than to keep his own 💓 beating. ~>He chose work over family<~ It's a good reminder for us. He KNEW HJ's dreams come true. Yet, he still went to work & didn't leave the 🚌 when a disturbed looking soldier boarded. Duty, muscle memory & routine can be a problem if we institutionalize ourselves. 🛑 & 👁

Current day is yrs later. HJ has a horrible vision of an accident that leads to her imprisonment & her mom's death. Not seeing when or where, she changes trivial things, like her hair, hoping it will buffet fate. Otherwise, she can only ⏳. Fate is fate, but HJ will restlessly work to change it. In order to rest easy, she's compelled to do /something/.

Jung Jae-chan's police chief father was shot & murdered. JC 😶 it all. One of their last discussions was abt JC's future: Dad wants JC to achieve a higher station than his own (9th-level civil servant). JC promises he will. Promises. At the time, JC was being tutored. It wasn't going well, & his tutor's the one to blame. In suggesting they cheat, so they'll look good, teach reveals his lousy character. JC said he wouldn't 💭 of cheating, to which the response is: "If you don't, I will & if discovered, I'll accuse /you/ of doing it," which all came to pass. JC hates tutor, Lee Yoo-beom. He hated him then, & he hates him now.

It's just JC & his little brother, Seung-won, whom JC has cared for while working+working×working hard - all the time. He's kept his schooling up, kept his grades up, kept his sleep up, & attained his #1goal of law school admission. Once graduated, he marches to the DA's 🏛. Locking criminals away is his pipedream (+ DA's are over 9th levels). He is determined to save other fathers from dying & making more orphans like him & Seung-won.

"Newbie" is his rank & name at the DA's. There's plenty of razzing, as well as subtle pressure to fit in. Most of the others are, in part, like mirages. All that they think & like is fake in order to cozen the boss. Newbie wouldn't 💭 of that, either. He doesn't play well w/ others. 🔜 Sickle in hand, he hits the turf hacking out his own path. Ipso facto, his job is never done. The 🗂 start 🗃 piling up, b/c he's going to bring them ALL to justice. JC ALSO has dreams that seem like visions. They feel real. He sees a woman getting into an accident & knows it will ruin her life. His vision reveals the when-&-where: He /knows/ #when, #where, & #how this woman's life will be /ruined/. But it's none of his business… He just got a new job… Besides, he has to care for Seung-won...

Han Woo-tak is a rookie police officer. He's crossing the street when he sees a 🚘 coming right at him. It's going to hit him - why now?, after all the hard work, finally he's living his dream of being a policeman. He realizes: "I am going to die now..."

These 3 will team up as 3 parts of a whole. They'll save lives.

That's the set-up. The protags & side characters are well written, directed & portrayed. The 'good' ones are likable; the "bad" ones are sufficiently diabolical. WYWS is absent of complexities or deep sleep inspirations, with mostly ⬜/⬛ players; only a couple side characters get a true arc. It's a wind-down & catnap kind of show.

Evidence of the gorgeous filming in WYWS is in an aerial shot of them in perfectly smooth damp sand, but for 👣 leading to the center, where they're embracing so tightly, from above they look like one person. Two halves of a whole. It's a metaphor, & it's hypnotic. A few scenes take place in the 🏨. Some feature a little boy who patrols the halls doing spot legal consultations. This hospital-bound lawyer's son 💭 of being well again. There's not many scenes this adorably written & acted out. That kid is spectacular.

Lee Sang-yeob is perfect as the refined, yet sleezey under-bellied Lee Yoo-beom. Kang Ki-young so often plays a buffoon (To me he'll always be Min-Soo from Oh My Ghost-10). He transforms in this role to ruthless killer. Lee Jong-Suk (JC) is no other word but: Pretty. Slap a wig on him & you get Helena Bonham-Carter - from her "Room With A View" days. He's masculine in the role, despite the beauteousness. Jung Hae-in, as Han Woo-tak, definitely has a dreamy quality. Watching him eat & w/ the others, he seems yummy himself. He'd likely look delicious just sleepwalking. Bae Suzy's always adding to her dreamland resume. Here's another Kdrama that features food as fuel for comraderie. As HJ's mother runs a restaurant, folks gravitate to her home & business, as both are equally 🔥.

Director, Oh Choong-hwan, evinces his brilliance w/ comedy. He's good. I 😅 spontaneously a few times. A sample is whilst this pair i's awakening to their mutual attraction. They haven't yet confessed it to ea/other, nor admitted it to themselves. After a sedate 🏖 day, they stroll thru a meadow. It's idyllic... BUT FOR an all-cozied-up couple stopping a scant 11ft away. They're completely & nauseatingly lovey-dovey. (Ohh. Whaa? Uh-oh👀). JC & HJ grow steadily more uncomfortable. Situational pressure curls them up around attempts to emulate the other duo (awkwardly) until the other couple asks if they'll take their picture? JC clomps away w/ a brisk: "I /don't want/ to." The women's look of shock & waking outrage is sublime. Whoever that actress is, she can act. Altogether, it's a ✨ comedic scene.

WYWS has its 'nightmares'. It could be improved upon. Yet again, a cat is killed. Violence against cats is a chronic problem in filmed media. Dogs fare much better. Columnist Anne Billson, addressing this problem, wrote the article: "Why does Hollywood have it in for cats?" Also, ‘hard-hitting reporter’ doesn't fit HJ at all. She displays her lauded high level logic once only. Her career & behavior are in conflict, dragging down her ill-defined persona. The worst mistake of WYWS, is a failure to establish rules for this dreamworld & sticking to them. They then shoveled that 🕳 deeper by being wildly inconsistent w/ it. Rules stated in the 2nd part of WYWS violate what had already occurred. Such sloppiness is a major flaw. Really, how /could/ they? Were they in REM💤 when they did that? Mistakes like this are undecipherable. Also note that WYWS is a mystical thriller 1st & romdram 2nd, by far.

WYWS sounds alarms on critical issues, esp domestic violence & respect in the workplace. The condescending gossip we listen to about women on the judge panel is straight 1960's. The tradition of absolute respect for seniors gives leave for a sadistic professor to physically abuse his students & to use them as slave laborers. While the idea of respect has largely been dropped in the West, {actually, it's the idea of showing respect that's rapidly being forgotten. Everybody out there certainly wants to be respected - to the extent they have /specifics/ in mind when they envision proper treatment of themselves} the maxim that a person deserves respect based on DOB is other-end-of-the-spectrum-bad. While 🌐 foundational manners & baseline respect for every human life serve as WD-40 on society's moving parts, the upward levels of respect are not born to, but earned.

SK was actually a military dictatorship from '61 until Pres Park's assassination in '79. That era saw women routinely, physically & otherwise, abused at home, school & work. Police routinely sexually assaulted detainees & women were enslaved in prostitution - a nightmare that is still worsening, 🌎wide. No recourse afforded, women had few rights. That + the multi-millenia embedding of patrial hierarchy red-lighted SK's progress w/ regards to uniform rights until the 80's.

The ultimate morality test is in Ep11. They must make a choice between obtaining an autopsy on a brain-dead victim to prove a difficult, but 💔 murder case, or allowing his organs to save the lives of 7 patients. Only 2 people in the office know how tragic this dilemma is. We see one character make an agonizing decision. That person's take on the situation is inspiring. It's the moral height of the series.

Are you woke to the fact that, as its rating shows, this is a VG view? Don't dream your life away, but a catnap w/ WYWS will refresh & It won't put you to 😴.


QUOTES🗣

The law is always distant & fists are always close.

When I bet, I don't look at the pot, I look at the probability.

I know in my head I shouldn't, but a person's heart is always so sly.


IMHO〰🖍

🎬7.5 🎭7.8 💓6.5 🦋6⚡7 😅8 🤔7.5 🎨8 🔚7
Age 14+

Originally 〰️🖊 March 2022
Originally 〰🖋 3/2022

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The Captain & The Car Wrecker ♡ A Pretty One & A Favorite Son °8.3° excellent

DOTS is a romance in which the two leads have an immediate attraction & the balance of the show is logistics & obstacle courses. Kang Mo-yeon is a doctor. Capt Yoo Si-jin is special forces. Dr. Kang Mo-yeon is businesslike. Capt Yoo Si-jin is always joking to deflect the heavy weight of his occupation; fallen comrades being one stressor. They each take their deadly-serious professions seriously.

They smeet in Seoul. In the opening sorties, they aren't able to get a full drill (date) in, as one of them is liable to get an emergency call (usually him). Capt Yoo gets a pick-up from one of these emergencies - in a, HELLO, helicopter on the 🏥 rooftop. But for all that, inexplicably, Mo-yeon declares she can't live like this & places Si-jin on leave. Permanently. She thinks. She will ultimately reject him 3 times. He never loses focus of his mission. Her heart wasn't really in that third rejection, anyway.

While all of this is getting off the ground, Mo-yeon is being disrespected at work. Though best qualified, she's passed over for a fellowship in favor of a less competent Dr. W/ a much better catalogue of connections (& the empathy of a human trafficker). Mo-yeon had her💓 set on that gig. Reeling from disappointment, Mo-yeon is summoned to t/t the hospital director. Expecting an apology, or at least an explanation of the indignity foisted upon her, she enters the top corner office. Here's the jist: She can have the position & benefits she wants via a strategic benefits-for-benefits (🛏) exchange. Her immediate rejection of him lands her the position of director,,,, of the hospital's humanitarian mission to the (ficticious) Balkan state of Uruk.

Of all the UN relief joints in all of the globe, why did HE have to be assigned to her base of operations? Never retreating, their attraction continues from the prior engagement jump-off point.

The next wave is philosophical differences. Mo-yeon struggles, particularly when it comes to their occupations. Everything about her work is saving lives, while Capt Yoo kills for a living, or so she perceives. Mo-yeon tells the Capt that it just can't work, so they each go on w/ their lives. Sort of.

Oddly, this UN hot button zone is a place that affords them much more quality time than Seoul ever did. Quality time includes: An incident w/ a Saudi Royal that escalates to an international relations crisis that puts both the Blue & White Houses on alert, harrowing skirmishes w/ arms dealers, human traffickers, minefields, earthquakes, & diamond smugglers. No thing in the show suffers more abuse than any wheeled transportation w/ which Mo-yeon comes into contact. She left 3 or 4 cars & 1 wheelchair totaled in her wake. Not every life is safe around Mo-yeon.

In the same arena are members of the medical team along w/ military forces & medical. Capt. Si-jin's best friend, MSG (Master Sergeant) Seo Dae-yeong, is part of his unit. His love interest is 1st Lt Yoon Meong-joo, a military surgeon. Her father happens to be Special Forces CDR (Commander) & he does not approve of their relationship. Therefore, the ever dutiful MSG Seo has been evading Lt. Yoon. Their story is every bit as touching as the primary duo's. Yoon Meong-joo doesn't care what her father thinks. Like she'd let /him/ choose her spouse, anyway. Despite her cool & professional demeanor, she is always tracking Seo to express her love. He is her prisoner & she refuses to let him escape. When not deployed, MSG Seo earned renown as the toughest drill instructor in the military. Yet, as a non-commissioned officer, he doesn't think he's worthy of Lt Yoon. He certainly doesn't want to mess w/ the CDR either. So, he retreats while she advances. Besides all that, the CDR does /his/ best to keep them apart. Somehow, they manage (or blunder, depending on perspective) to snag overlapping assignments to the compound in Uruk. It only took an earthquake.

This show has the feel of a 20th Century romance in the best way. The men are manly, which not only means that they are strong, responsible, protective, & respectful, but they also love their women completely. The women, on the other hand, are both doctors. They are smart, tough & brave. These women don't feel the need to surpass the men, & visa-versa. Viva la difference; This is how classic M/F romances are made, & SK cranks out more of them in 1 yr, than Hollywood has in years & years. Si-jin, ends up rescuing Mo-yeon from several varied perils. Meanwhile, she rocks the OR, even at gunpoint, even when the OR is rocking,rollin,shaking,quaking. She starts to see Si-jin for what he is: A protector, not a killer.

DOTS is the complete package w/ love, laughter, lots of thrills, & a decent amount of food. There's a particularly cute dynamic between the 4 of them, including crissXcross comparing of notes & furtive calls. Rounding it out are a solid soundtrack, beautiful filming, & frequent stops to watch the soldiers on their daily, often shirtless, runs. Thus its rating.

Since MSG Seo is the toughest grader of the bunch, here's what he might nitpick at:

Song Hye-kyo, who plays Mo-yeon, is too wooden in much of the show. I'd only seen her in That Winter The Wind Blows-7 as Oh Young, a blind, emotionally stunted woman. She was excellent in that role. However, she's playing Dr. Kang the same way, which is seriously out of sorts. There's only small flashes of a personality, until the 2nd half, when she livens up. It's not clear why the director had her acting that way. Perhaps she went from down, suspicious, & self-protective, to resolved, confident, & loved? Good concept, bad execution.

They drag out a political/medical drama for too long. There are unnecessary delays. In fact, quite a few scenes are too drawn out, w/ overly-sappy sap. Part of the problem is the editing. While the tempo is off, a handful of times, most of the series has a good cadence.

We're all used to our onscreen heroes who, though getting shot, knifed, & beaten, keep fighting. That trend has been so out of control for so long that anything else would feel amiss (What a nancy-pants: There's not a scratch on him!). DOTS takes it to a new height, (or a new low, maybe?) when Si-jin shuffles the length of the hospital to diffuse a hostage crisis, a mere 30 seconds after being shocked back to life from cardiac arrest - due to blood loss from gun shots wounds, already! My health then became compromised due to a hypertension spike. Fortunately, moments like that were brief and scattered, like landmines shifted by an earthquake.

In view of this, your assignment is to give DOTS a view & a shake. The leads are all beautiful people, but one cannot help but note that the 2 male leads… well, they represent their country well.

IMHO〰🖍

🎬7.6 🎭7.7 🤔 6 💓9 🦋7 🌞8 💤4 🎨8 🔚8

Age 14+

Post Script Screed ~Optional~

Racism is depicted in DOTS. This is not the first Kdrama to incorporate some callous treatment ala Caucasians vs Asians. Before you reflexively think: They are too sensitive. I'm sure it's not that bad. They are excelling, so why do they care? Consider the following:

°They didn't pull it out from nowhere. Sincere hurts lead to these portrayals.

°Asians put a high premium on manners & respect.

°As is always the case, people forgive their own tribe before they'll forgive a foreigner. No one wants to👂what their /own/ did.

°Our duty to be polite & respectful transcends any inconsistent reactions on others' parts. To think otherwise is juvenile.

°USA citizens have one of the world's worst reputations for bad manners.

°If you received such treatment. How would /you/ feel? Go ahead, clutch those pearls and gasp. Why does it always seem that the worst offenders are the most offended when their behavior is turned back on them? (Psst: b/c they think they are so special).

°Racism can be either proactive (aggressively initiated) or RE-active (defensive). Proactive is exponentially worse. Think about it.

°Know that if you reject all such claims reflexively, there's a likelihood that you're subconsciously presuming your own superiority. It's connected to pride, which is insidiously sneaky.

°If you think you are superior based on what you've been given, such as good looks, physical ability, that lucky promotion, or wealth, you are delusional. More is expected of you, not less. (Btw: the $tandard of living for USA citizens often reaches the top 5% globally. We /are/ rich).

°Things don't change overnight. The offender always thinks the aggrieved should move on in the time it takes to pour milk on cocoa puffs, however, tell us, please, where that's ever happened in the history of the wide world? There's ethnic groups that have been slaughtering each other for millennia, tit-for-tat. We expect those we offend to be angels. Frankly, that's downright offensive.

°Common courtesy is free, & not trading tit-for-tat is mature (you know, 2 wrongs, an'all).

Look, this is not about hating-on anyone who's made mistakes. From personal experience, I can report that once one begins a journey of internal honesty, which is often a byproduct of hitting the bottom, the internal horrors never ceasefire. Just because we tell ourselves we're good ~nothing to see here~ doesn't make it actually true. Turning the light to that dusty cobwebbed thinking in the back corner is what's needed to clean house to spec. These issues are complex, not simple. Take time to consider & think it all through. Then, suddenly, it's quite simple.

In the meantime, please learn the basic please-&-thank-yous of the countries you may visit. Be polite, even if others aren't in return. Be the adult, and refuse to tit-for-tat, which only escalates situations. Scientists and theologians agree that we all descended from a single woman. We are all family, indeed, and there's nothing as bitter as a family squabble. Let it go.

TTFN.

I love You All To Uruk And Back 😘

Recommendations

Crash Landing On You 9.1,
My Mister 9.5,

🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9

⚡/🚀 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4

Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8


Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5

Originally 〰️🖊 February 2022

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Buda-bust: The Education of Kim Hyun-Jun & The Evolution of Lee Byung-Hun °Excellent°

"In Greek mythology, the river that flows in front of Hell is Iris." Mega-talent Lee Byung-Hun (Mr. Sunshine-9, Our Blues-8.5, Squid Game-8.4) is Kim Hyun-Jun. He looks so young! "Keep an eye on him, or he'll turn into a terrible monster," the lead behavioral scientist warns. I also say, keep your eye on him - Yes, he's gorgeous, & he goes through he!! Lee Byung-Hun is a world-class talent. My first look at him was In Squid Game-8.4. All he does is take off a mask and look at someone, but I was smitten-on-the-spot by his talent. That doleful, pensive stare said volumes. He's that good.

"You have a solo mission. Just like Hungary played a pivotal role in the reunification of Germany, you'll be able to play the same role in unifying the Korean Peninsula, if you succeed in your mission." For anyone not familiar with Korean politics, that's no trifle. Hyun-Jun does succeed in his mission but he's shot and stranded in Hungary, left hungry for the support he needs to escape. He holds up at the safe-house. The cheerless black-suits are closing in. Things go slip-shod; fade to black. Next, the filtered light creates a dreamy quality. We are with Hyun-Jun on a lush college campus in another place and time. We're back at the beginning.

Iris is a 2009 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 2 seasons consisting of 41 60-minute episodes, with only S1 available to stream on Netflix, currently. Ep1 has a Hollywood action feel and jumps from the present to the past. We don't get caught back up until ep4. The Budapest mission becomes Buda-bust. Something is terribly wrong. The rest of the series will be devoted to up-ending things that have ‘turned’, as many things have started to go the wrong way.

Kim Tae-Hee (Welcome to Samdal-ri, 99 days with the Superstar-7) is The Girl, Choi Seung-Hee (SHee). She totally shoots ‘like a gurl’, but she is beautiful and capable. They meet on the first day of college; she's smarter than he - sort of. He wows her with his photographic memory. She out-drinks him. He wakes up alone… She isn't in class... He's ghosted. He learns from the prof that SHee was just auditing at the request of the DOD. In the last third of the show SHee changes, becomes frumpier, and gets alittle irritating. I believe that is designed as a plot device to make her less attractive, but it doesn't play well.

Jeong Jun-Ho (SKY Castle, The Tale of Nokdu) is Hyeon-Jun's buddy, Jin Sa-Woo. He meets SHee somewhere else and also falls for her instantly. The guys don't know they've fallen for the same girl. As it turns out, she's no ordinary girl and she's a much harder 'get' than either of them realize.

Kim Seung-Woo (Basics of Love, Their Embrace, Late Night Restaurant, 71: Into the Fire) is NK agent Park Cheol-Yeong, and he's a fabulous presence. Kim So-Yeon is NK agent/sniper, Kim Sun-Hwa. She has the look, hair, and gravitas to play a badass agent anytime, anywhere. By the end of the show I preferred her. Maybe it's the hair... Other successful roles for Ms Kim are Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938, Two Weeks, and The Penthouse series. The directors are Yang Yun-Ho (Grand Prix, Criminal Minds) and Kim Kyu-Tae (Our Blues, That Winter, The Wind Blows-7). There's 3 writers: Kim Hyun-Joon (Secret Royal Inspector & Joy, Ho-Gu's Love-7.4), Jo Kyu-Won (Different Dreams), & Kim Jae-Eun (Korean Ghost Stories & Bad Boy).

You might think the training is extreme. I've read about Korean congressman fainting from intensive training /videos/ in the last part of the 20th. (Apparently, politicians aren't built for sacrifice, pain-for-gain, or inner strength anywhere in the world). Iris is superb through 16 episodes. As there's an excess of Kdramas that start out great but unravel before ep10, that is commendable. What's wrong is that Iris just had to be 20 episodes long, and eps 17-20 feel tacked-on. They aren't nearly as good.

Let's deal with eps 1-16 first. The budget was in excess of 40 billion won (US$34.97 million) and it shows. One thing that stood out is that communist agents look the same on film whether they're Korean, East German, or Russian: Straight-laced, severe black garb, cheerless. (If you want the full flavor of living in a surveillance-laden, clamped-down, cheerless society, watch Chernobyl-10). There's excellent writing, acting, and directing that make a near perfect spy thriller. It is one of the most Hollywood-feeling K-features I've seen. The cadence is perfect: They have 20hrs; they can take their time, but it's not slow. The second unit didn't cut any of their film school classes - the action is exciting. I would not hesitate to confidently recommend this to the action hounds in my sphere. In fact I did recommend it to my niece when I was on ep8. She ended up finishing it before me and came at me demanding answers. Whoops! Knowing what I know now, I still would recommend it - but I would slap a warning label on it.

Maintaining integrity is one of the themes. "He could become a monster." "I fear whether we will become monsters, in the end," we hear. But then there's this: "A man who lets his conscience or sense of responsibility weaken his ambition can never achieve anything." So says one of the brass at the agency. Sounds like a lofty statement to cover sleazy undertakings. Hyun-Jun loses his way for a time & makes a directional change that hurts. There are understandable temptations, and he was misled, but it's still a difficult pill to chew on.

In the aftermath of 911, the way the CIA operates came under discussion. Some wanted to cut ties with any slimy characters while others argued that in the world of intelligence, agents, assets, and the pay-for-info crowd, that is all there is. One can't deal in trading classified information without brushing up on slime. In Iris, the world of secret agents gets convoluted. Around the midpoint we have two agencies working against eachother. The supposed “good guys" have an agent who's actually trying to facilitate the nuclear attack, while the “bad guys” have a guy who's working at stopping it. Who are the good and bad guys? It gets muddy. It depends on the way the wind is blowing on certain days. The mid eps through ep16 are crazy CRAZY good.

Another theme is the shadow power behind the power. Yep, another conspiracy piece. Conspiracy theories are a blast. They can't all be true, but it's naive to think there are NO conspiracies in the world. That's not the nature of power. I, pretty much, believe that politics is a big distraction, and that we effectively have the illusion of choice. The money and effort we put into political leaders, who don't deserve our love or respect, would be better spent elsewhere. They're all good at pointing out problems. Oh, how they excel at that. It's solutions (actual ones, not words) that give them trouble. The only thing politics has accomplished in the last 40 years is that we all hate eachother. Having said that, don't skip the show's quote at the end of this article.

The soundtrack is excellent. It ranges from instrumental, to rap, to Kpop. Dreaming Dream (Kim Tae Woo) is VG. Their trip to Japan is just wonderful and romantic. He gets in trouble for not remembering "White Day". On March 14, in Korea, men are expected to show appreciation for the chocolates they received on Valentine's Day by giving women candy. SHee expects candy. Hyun-Jun is from Mars, so he doesn't get what the fuss is about. There's quite a few more people with tans in this show than the average bleached out Kdrama. Unfortunately, most of them don't end up in a great place. East Asia needs to rethink their shallow skin color preferences and diversify more. Ditto for the rest of the world.

Eps1-16 are as good as it gets. Now for the last 4 eps. This show would probably have been perfect at 16 episodes. Ep17 is sort of a pause, recap, and flashback episode. Okay... The main plot did just have a conclusion of sorts. The last 3 eps aren't /bad/ (perhaps they are, slightly), but they feel tangential. They definitely don't augment the show - they bring it down a notch. I rate eps1-16 at 8.6, for example. S2 sees a big drop in the ratings and eps17-20 give us a preview of the decline. The 2nd half of ep20 is really good. BUT, with 5min to go, something feels ominous...

My word of warning to all is: Consider stopping at the end of ep16. I doubt anyone will heed my warning, but there it is.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣8 📝8 🎭8.5 💓7🦋7 🎨7.5 🎵/🔊7.4 🔚6 ♦ 🌞3 ⚡8 😅2 😭5 😱5 😯3.5 😖4 🤔4.3 💤0

Poli-wagging - 2/10. The NK agents are humans in a difficult place. The REAL DEVIL is the Japanese agent. What 2 countries in this world have the worst opinion of Japan? Korea and China, based on some brutal history that won't be overlooked any time soon.

Age 14+ violence, sexual situations

Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned.

Re-📺? Name, rank, and serial number only

QUOTE📢 In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. ~Franklin Roosevelt~

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Mad For Each Other-7.8 ~silly fun;
Crazy Love-7.8;
Love to Hate You-8.9;
Romance is a bonus book-7.9;
Crash Landing On You-9.1;
Oh My Ghost-10;
Private Lives-8.1;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9;
Love Struck in the City-7.3;
When the Camellia Blooms-8;
K2-8
Tunnel-8.1;
Signal 8.6; Sisyphus-8
My Mister-9.5;
The King's Affection-8.3;
Mr. Sunshine-9
Squid Game-8.4;
Kingdom-8.3;
Flower of Evil-8.9;
D. P.-8.4,
The Man from Nowhere-8.9;
The Cursed-8.3;
Black-9

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♟️ Tails, we win ♨️ Now Pay the Tab °8.7° °Outstanding°

I'm a rock. Go ahead and sear me. I won't budge an inch because I'm a rock. Go ahead and beat me up. I'm solid rock. Go ahead and leave me in darkness. I'm a rock that shines all alone. I don't break, ash, nor decay as I go against nature's way. I survive. I'm... I'm the diamond.

IC is the story of a man on a mission. Park “Sae” Ro Yi has been cruelly abused and tossed in the trash bin. He makes it his goal to beat his enemies at their own game ~ He's the /tenacious/ type. He has a 15 year plan. Ain't nothing gonna turn his head to the right or the left. He will not bow to anyone - his knees don't work that way… Until she changes everything.

Smack dab in the middle of Seoul, Itaewon is one of the wealthiest streets in one of its wealthiest sections. IC, which takes place there, is a 2020 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute episodes. There's 3 whole episodes of set up, & in ep4 things start to roll. And it's magnificent. It's rough: Business is a snake pit. It's a satisfying watch, and in the latter episodes, when so many features resort to padding, bad writing, and a general overall dip in quality, IC sprouts wings (and claws) as it becomes stronger and more forceful, with newfound depths. It opens to a counselling session.

Park Seo Joon (Gyeongseong Creature, Kill Me, Heal Me, Midnight Runners) is our ML, Park “Sae” Ro Yi. He looks completely different with that hair~squared. In What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8, he's quite beautiful (WWWSk has an excellent cast, excellent interaction and many wonderful moments, but suffers from the occasional directing and writing miss). In IC, he's more rugged. He's manly. He's controlled on the surface & seething underneath, while exuding pain from every pore of his body. He's a star for a reason. In IC he gets to show his gravitas. He has scores to settle with Chm Jang & his son Geun Won. He decides to start a pub across the street from theirs and beat them at their own game. The Chm will not allow him to survive.

Kim Da Mi (Our Beloved Summer, The Witch: Part 1 The Subversion-7.6) is one of the best characters anywhere, ever, Jo Yi Seo. She's got a dangerously high IQ and a dangerous amount of snark. She's been described as a psychopath. She's the type of girl to decide her future with the flip of a coin. “If it's heads, I'll live the life my mom wants. If it's tails, my mom will cry…” She decides to work instead of going to school: She's matriculated in the Itaewon Class. As the show goes on, her part gets better and better and better and better. She's Omazing. Sae has never once disappointed her. She's decided she really likes him. “I'll kill everyone who's been bothering him.” She declares for team Sae. He should be very frightened, but he just doesn't know it yet.

Kwon Na Ra (Suspicious Partner, My Mister-9.5) portrays Oh Soo Ah. I've only noticed her in Bulgasal: Immortal Souls-6.1, which should have been better, but its problems didn't emanate from her. Yoo Jae Myung (Stranger, Prison Playbook, Portrait of a Family) plays chairman Jang Dae Hee. He's horrid, but his backstory is heartbreaking. He was the oldest of 4 and lost all his siblings to the food shortage and poverty. That's a dark part of Korea's history that is mentioned in features every now and then. (Uncle Samsik-8.4 uses it as a more central theme. The very name Samsik means to eat 3 meals a day and he got his power by first feeding the hungry people). His part seems like he's just a typical 2D psychopathic CEO and derelict father, but his character takes on extra dimensions in the double digit episodes. It's quite moving. He does a press conference in ep10 and his performance Is stunning.

Ahn Bo Hyun is the chairman's spoiled son, Jang Geun Won. He's so good at playing a jerk that you wouldn't know how adorable he can be if you haven't seen some of his other stuff. In Flex X Cop-8.5, he's cheerful and irrepressible. In Her Private Life-8, he's earnest and determined. In My Only Love Song-8.7, a comedy I adore and have watched a couple times, he plays the big silent type. I've also seen him in Descendants of the Sun-8.3, My Runway-7.5, and the subpar My Name-5.7. He's completely different in everything, so he's as versatile as he is good looking - and he /is/ a specimen. This is the first time I've seen him play a loathsome bully, and he is thoroughly loathsome. He only ends up serving as a great motivator.

Kim Dong Hee (A-Teen, Extracurricular) is Jang Geun Soo, a part-timer who has a relationship with the Chairman. He makes a very disappointing decision. As the show went on his acting skills failed to impress, but it could be the role he had to play. Lee Joo Young (Something in the Rain-8.6, Times) plays Ma Hyun, the DanBam Chef who is dealing with major changes. Her character is a lovely human being. Hey, not everyone is going to agree on everything all the time. I mean, 4% of people don't like ice cream. We do, however, have a moral obligation to treat every human being with kindness, dignity, respect, and care.

IC gets the award: It's the first Kdrama I've seen to feature an actor with skin browner than a paper bag. Chris Lyon, who is of obvious African ancestry, plays Kim Toni, a DanBam part-timer. He also sings and plays guitar. He's an American born actor who made friends with some Korean exchange students, visited Korea, and that led to some acting and music gigs. He hasn't gotten alot of work yet. He should. He's wonderful and projects a sense of genuine warmth and care. The comely Park Bo Gum (Record of Youth-5.8, Reply 1988-8.6) makes a guest appearance. Cho Kwang Jin (Cabriolet, Roppongi Class) is the screenwriter, and the directors are Kang Min Gu (May It Please the Court) & Kim Seong Yoon Young (Actors' Retreat). Good team.

IC is great drama, really good romance, and an overall philosophical treatise on pride, revenge, success, and what is really worth living for. The theme is: Happiness. “Beliefs. Ambition. They're words used by those who have nothing but their ego. If you gain nothing, that's just being stubborn and foolish,” says the most morally degenerate character of the show. But, wait a minute, let's define GAIN first, before we sign on to any philosophy. Is successful revenge GAIN? Sae thinks so for most of the show. Living a life based on hatred is really difficult, we learn. Sae tries to live a life motivated by hate and revenge, all while maintaining his moral principles. He keeps it up for a long time but finally must let it go. He finds he's lost nothing.

Leadership style is a theme. One Chairman asks an employee why s/he continued to devotedly work for a hated boss? “It's servility,” the Chairman explains to the blank stare facing him. “You've been tamed to my taste. I pressure everyone around me with the power to tame them like that. It's easy to control them, and I despise them.” The Chairman is held up in direct contrast to Sae, who elevates everyone around him except for the slobs he's trying to bring down. Sae picks up nobodies and takes them to the top WITH him.

Pride is a theme in most Kdramas. ‘It's about The Company.’ ‘The COMPANY provides for my family.’ ‘Ultimately it's about my FAMILY,’ we hear. No.it.isn't. It's about pride. These are the utterances of a person who is probably genuinely self deceived. Speaking of pride, that's what's up between Sae and the Chairman. “Will life be better if I get on my knees?” Sae is fed up. “Why is everybody obsessed with putting me on my knees?” Pride: It always lies. It's what makes us lie to ourselves. ‘Bow to me,’ Sae hears every few episodes. (What does that even do other than provide a temporary illicit thrill?) In the end, Sae understands what's really important. Then, nothing else matters. It's important to maintain dignity, but pride never does anyone any good; it's only a roadblock to living free.

“I'm nothing as bad as /that/ person... There are people going through /worse/… I should be grateful… Do you know what sympathy is? It is this wasteful emotion where you look down on someone and get comfort from it.” There's a gem from Yi Seo, who can be hard and cold. She's analytical, not touchy-feely. Sae is a caring mush and rigidly principled, which is contrasted with Yi Seo, a pragmatic utilitarian. Life is about balancing both sides: Both feelings and logic must be present, and balanced, or we fall into error. Her interactions with Seo transform Yi Seo because she is not only smart, she is wise. She quickly understands what true fulfillment is.

Yi Seo and the Chairman are contrasted. If she hadn't ended up falling for Sae she would have been /worse/ than the Chairman, who had the blessing of Sae's dad but learned nothing, and just took advantage. Wise Yi Seo chose a better life over mere financial gain. She ended up with all of it, but she chose the right path first; the rest followed.

“You can't gain anything with your conscience,” says Chairdad. Bad dad = bad son. A man with all the wrong values ended up raising a destructive monster. No surprise. “Everyone is just born evil. You know the evil nature principle. The theory that human nature is fundamentally evil. But if people stick to their instincts, society will collapse. That's why people repress themselves with manners, consideration, morals, and the law. Repression? It's stress.” Now that's a tantalizing quote. Hmmmm. Theologians would point out, about now, that we are born in the image of God, but we are fallen. Therefore, we know what is right in our hearts, but we are, tragically, unable to do it on a consistent basis. It's a subject worth giving thought to. Doing the right thing is never the easy thing, but it shouldn't cause undo stress. I would avoid anyone who claims it does. Speaking of evil, sometimes it's a matter of opportunity. Rich people do heinous things because they /can/.

IC isn't perfect, but it isn't far from it. One character pulls an Anakin Skywalker and goes too evil too easily. Yes, it's sad, but it's also cack-handed. They should have built up to it better. There's no dead zones or padding. I don't have many criticisms.

There's oodles of tasty treats, though. They serve chicken, and they can play chicken. Watch and see. Two women are vying for a man. One really loves the guy while the other seems to love the attention and sense of importance and control she feels from his devotion. The first girl puts everything into her love, while the 2nd woman never put an iota of effort in. Only one of them is worthy of his love. Sae happens, unexpectedly, to be out together with these 2 women, though he's unaware of anything when it comes to love and sex. When he leaves the table they have a riveting discussion. It's unforgettable. There's laughs and good cheer. Sae is actually pretty funny, he's such a rigid dunderhead in some ways. “What don't you like about me?” Geun Won thinks he can win over Yi Seo. Her answer: “Let me see… Your face, the way you talk, your voice, your pupils, teeth, eyelashes, pupils… Did I say that already? I don't like anything about you…” She is totally self-actualized, until Sae… “What's going on? Are you sure you're okay?” 🤣 Yi Seo doesn't have the answer for once. The soundtrack is GRADE A. Soft guitar and vocals augment the scenes with an almost indie vibe.

They give us a satisfying wrap up, something missing from too many Kdramas, though recently, that bad trend is dying out. At the end of all the years and all the junk, we learn: He who bows last bows most. So don't start the bowing game and make enemies in the first place! Live in peace, because “Living is a difficult thing to do”.

QUOTE📢

You have no right to determine my value… I'll do anything I need to… My life has just begun

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everybody takes responsibility, only the brave can do that.

Life is repetitive, you know… And it's predictable.

I'm doing it now… I'm not going with you… I have a date.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣8.6 📝8.8 🎭9 💓8 🦋5 🎨7.5 🎵/🔊8.5 🔚9 🤗8 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡5 😅3 😭5.5 😱3 😯4.5 🤢4 🤔7 💤0

Shazams: Still Fighting It by Lee Chan Sol & Kang Kyoung Yoon, & Say by YOON MIRAE


Age 14+ violence
Language: There are scattered occurrences of @$$h0le, SOB, F💣s -
The benefits far surpass the liabilities

Rated TV-15

Re-📺? Must

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

The one you love is right in front of you:
Crazy Love-7.8,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9,
Something in the Rain-8.6.


Modern Day -
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Cheese in the Trap-7.7,
Mine-8,
My Mister 9.5,


🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9

⚡️/🛸 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Why Her?-8,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4

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✒MK Ultra ⚗ Korea Edition °8.7° °Excellent°

“If you take one more step, you will see something so terrible that you will never forget it.” Too late, I'm pretty much there. DANGIDY DANG. This show is good. It's the watch that can't be wrong. 🅰 is a 2020 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute episodes.

↪Wakey💥wakey↩

28 years ago, under a burning orange conflagration, it opens. There's fire, mayhem, & bodies, strewn everywhere. A boy wanders through the chaos appearing oblivious to the carnage. White Night Village is no more. “I did this...” the boy declares. “I have partial amnesia just like you. All I know is something terrible happened there,” we later hear from a survivor.

The next scene is current day insanity involving 3 box trucks and a police chase. Apparently, some nefarious unknown tipster (“The Architect”) has been auguring about what's about to go down. He appears to be behind a series of 17 robberies. The robberies are funding his next endeavor: Murder. Someone's going to die at a party at a nightclub tonight, the note reads. The police aren't able to stop that, either. Is it murder, though? These guys are killing themselves. They weren't suicidal, and they're killing themselves in very strange ways, often by the method most frightening them, personally. Oh, and there's the warning notes. The deaths always follow the cryptic missives. The police believe it's murder.

Namkoong Min (My Dearest) is Do Jung “Woo”. “I see a deep darkness in your eyes,” one cellie opines. He assumed he was talking to another criminal. Woo is a police officer, he's just a little different. He likes to catch a nap in the holding cells every now and then. I haven't seen this actor before. I want to watch something else he's been in to see if he sports that I'm-cool-slouch all the time or not. Someone get this guy a good dentist! He must go through a dozen 🍭 a day. (With Supt. Do around, the bad guys will all be licked). Strangest of all, when Woo causes trouble, why does the General Secretary of the Blue House get involved? Woo is associated with the #113. K-writers don't randomly assign ###; there's always a deeper meaning. 113 is associated with progress, optimism, communication, personal freedom, curiosity, intelligence, adventure, self-determination, sensuality, and self-reliance.

Lee Chung Ah (Because This Is My First Life-7.7, Celebrity, Northern Limit Line) plays the OCD afflicted Jamie Leighton, a special investigator/criminal scientist from 🇺🇲 If you aren't used to East Asian programming, it's common for them to feature people, supposedly from 🇺🇲 who clearly speak with a heavy accent. Her English is completely unconvincing, but that's a minor thing to have to ride along with. She suspects Woo immediately. His intuition is so good that he's more likely to be the culprit. Woo says: ‘Rightbackatcha, babe. That's just what I was thinking about you.’ It's obvious they are drawn to e/o as well, though not on a conscious level at first. On top of that, they each have lost memories from childhood, they are both orphans, and they each have a darkness inside of them. Her # is 114, which extends to family, Independence, exploration, focus, harmony & self-reliance.

Kim Seol Hyun (Summer Strike, My Country: The New Age) portrays Gong Hye Won, one @$$-kickin girl. I love her. She loves Woo, & she actively resists this truth. When she starts to suspect him, she has a conversation with her father, who replies, “We can never truly understand the minds of people… You can't truly know someone, so believe what you want to believe. People's hearts can't be fixed. It's not like your heart does exactly what you tell it to do. Based on every decision we make, everything keeps changing. When people say that everything in life changes, I don't think that it only applies to good things. Even bad things change. If you believe in someone, that can turn a bad man into a good man.” The more I think about that, particularly in the context, the more interesting it gets. The first half of the statement is shown to be entirely true in 🅰, the rest, only partially so. Yoon Sun Woo (Hot Stove League, Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart) plays Ryeo Moon Jae Woong/127, a # associated with great intelligence, Exploration, Self-determination, Independence, Self-reliance & Teamwork. He goes through lots of changes and the actor handles them well. Kim Won Hae (Revenant, Black-9, Signal-8.6, Sunny, and so much more) gets to play angry police brass - Deputy Chief Hwang Byeong Chul. I'm a fan. I don't believe I've ever seen him rant on screen before. It was a new look. Baek Ji Won (Be Melodramatic-8.7, Mad for Each Other-7.7, Dream) is Lee Taek Jo, Info Mgmt Director. She gets lots of work because she's good as a strong career woman - not the type to be trifled with. Choi Dae Chul (Ssanahui Sunjeong, Vagabond-8, Inspector Koo-8.4) plays one of the cops. He impressed me enormously in The Golden Spoon-8.1. Lee Shin Young, the pretty boy from Crash Landing on You-9.1, is also on the squad as Ofr Jang Ji Wan.

Choi Jin Ho (The Heirs-7.3, Beyond Evil-7.4) is Son Min Ho. He usually doesn't play a good guy, so it's no surprise he's a big baddie here. Kim Tae Woo is the high level government official of the series, Oh Jung Hwan. He improves every production he's in: He's so SO good. I've seen him in That Winter, the Wind Blows-7, Black-9, The Spies Who Loved Me-4.5, Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9 & Mr. Queen-9. He always impresses. Ahn Shi Ha (The King: Eternal Monarch-8, Longing for You) plays Ms labcoat, Jo Hyun Hee. Well. She's creepy. The actress indwells her roll to the point of the viewer's unease They actually seem to blacken her eyes in some scenes to make them look like black holes. In ep14 as it closes, she shows up in a vampire red coat. It's super-duper icky. I think it's a law in Korea that Woo Hyun appear in ½ of the shows made. He plays Jung Soon Gu here. The directors are Jo Soo Won (Pinocchio, Doctor John) and Lee Soo Hyun (Sh**ting Stars). The screenwriter is Shin Yoo Dam of Marry My Husband-7.5.

One theme is that it's the quiet ones you need to watch the most, but the main theme is that we cannot trust powerful people. Power invites corruption and a feeling of superiority. The rules don't apply to superior people, do they? This goes double for politics. The powerful have a discussion on how to distract the public from the truth: “Get this off the trending news and pull down the blinds!” “Then, even fools will know that something is off. If all the information they were reading disappears, it will backfire and they'll become obsessed with it. We are currently managing all the posts on active online forums. It's important to make them think that they're seeing everything. We'll gradually take the related items off. Once they are off the list, we'll make sure no one can access them online. We can distract the people without making it look so obvious… Making this story disappear should be easy. There's so much else to see.” And the show is titled: Awaken. A work of fiction? Not all of it. History is riddled with stories (and proof) of heinous corporate and government programs. We'd like to think that's all in the past, but is that truly the nature of people and power? Ask some Africans. They will tell you illegal drug testing on children is a regular occurrence there, they firmly believe.

I grew up firmly believing the 🇺🇸 was a force for good in the world and people are basically decent. I'm not convinced anymore, though. Most people have a sense of decency, but too many don't. The world is full of sociopaths, psychopaths and damaged individuals who hurt others. I'm currently undergoing a serious reevaluation of how I see government and the world. There's so many rumors, reports, and recollections like the ones in this show. People also love attention and love a good story - they'll lie for attention. It really is difficult to sort it out. “Ominous feelings are never wrong,” the show reminds us. The world feels ominous.

🅰 goes even deeper, right into lucid dreams: Believing dreams are real and reality is a dream. Is the author trying to tell us something? “Dreams were meant to be achieved,“ we hear from one of the most coldly /eee-ville/ players. The kids escape the island by using lucid dreams. By causing the adults to believe they were dreaming they opined that some adults would actually want to let the kids go, that they would know what was happening to the kids was wrong and actually help them ~ in their /dreams/ at least. But these adults had let themselves become so depraved, they'd forgotten about the kids long ago! What they were concerned about was resentment and hatred over their own hurt pride. When they thought they were dreaming, they started attacking eachother! It's a very interesting look at the evil side of human nature. It doesn't feel like fiction.

From science and physics and dreams, how can we leave out faith? “Faith is deemed unscientific. But the question is what separates the scientific from the non-scientific? In 1814, Laplace said that if someone could determine the location and momentum of every atom, using physics, they'd explain everything that happened in the past, what is happening at the present, and what will happen in the future. The areas which most people deem unscientific are considered to be within a realm of science to the people who realize this. That's why I'm going to take a scientific approach.” 🅰 covers it all, primordial soup to lollipops.

There aren't many survivors of the fated inferno that wiped out the facility 28 years back. Woo meets one who is in dire need of medical treatment. “I'd rather die than have them take me back,” she moans. The underlying premise of the show is heartbreaking. One of these poor, lost children decides to be an enforcer for his oppressors when he's older. He's decided to side with power; what he thinks is the winning side. “You decided to become their hunting dog,” Woo accuses. 99 is associated with this person and corresponds with humanitarianism, compassion idealism & tolerance. Will this person change course? He's become a plantation overseer. Unfortunately, this mentality is too common for weak and selfish minded individuals. If we all stood up together against evil, it wouldn't have a chance. Weak decision makers like this are those who enable evil. “You gave up seeing right and wrong. Who's going to respect that?” Our ML doesn't parse words.

When 2 individuals with a combined IQ north of 350 have a conversation, we might learn a new word or two. 🅰 teaches us a great new word: floccinaucinihilipilification, which is the estimation of something as worthless & making something worthless by evaluating it as such. For u word geeks out there: “floc·ci·nau·ci·ni·hil·i·pil·i·fi·’ca·tion” or “floxy noxy nih hill ih pill ih fih ‘cay shun”. I can't wait for the chance to use it! There's some laughs, though probably not enough. They have typical fun with typical jokes about the ME and the autopsy room. “Can we disregard rank for a moment?” Woo’s underling wants to know. Then she slugs him😅. There's a love story tucked in there. It's beautiful.

🅰 isn't beautiful, but it's deep, layered, and meaningful programming - the good programming meant to counter the bad programming. I recommend a heavy dose.

QUOTE📢

Death is the only thing that's fair to everyone.

Once you decide you're going to lose you don't get mad at anything, anymore.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣8 📝9 🎭8.5 💓6 🦋🎨7.5 🎵/🔊8.4 🔚8 🤗6 ▪ 🌞3 ⚡6.8 😅3 😭5 😱8 😯3.5 🤢5 🤔10 💤0

Age 16+ The subject matter is very serious and could be disturbing, especially for kids.

Rated TV-15


Re-📺? All-in


In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

💘:
Mad For Each Other-7.7,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Law School -8,
Anna-8.1,
My Mister 9.5


⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Big Mouth-7.4,
K2 8,
Han River Police-7.4,
Private Lives 8.1,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Sisyphus 8,
Beyond Evil-7.4,
Tunnel 8.5,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Signal 8.6,
Why Her?-8,
Mine-8,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Mother-8.8,
Iris-8,
Parasite-9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4


Dark government programs -

🇺🇲:
Zoolander,
Stranger Things-8.6 (S1-3)
Split-7.8
Gattaca
Altered Carbon S1-9

🇯🇵:
Assassination Classroom-9
Psycho Pass-8.6

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✒Long Hair ⚖ Short Hair ☀ Long Romance ⚖ Short Engagement °6.5° °good°

Let's get this out of the way. The plot line is a little silly, like cheap romance rag silly. And that's what it's meant to be. This is a dimestore (dollar store, for you GenZees and younger) romance novel committed to screen. If you don't like that sort of thing then you won't like this show. If you do enjoy all kinds of romances, it's actually pretty well done. In the first third of the show I thought it was just passable, but the plot picked up just enough in the second third.

M☀ is a 2015 release that is rated 7.9 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 32 45-minute episodes. They play it out as a heavy melodrama, but it never goes far below the surface. Here's two people nearly stunted by the pain of their failed relationship, yet they're still in love with e/o. One difficulty for the viewer is how, for half of the show, our FL Mosheng only sports pained looks and often has her head downcast while she says nothing. Everybody has a line between something that works and something that becomes silly. Mosheng manages to stay on the working side of the line for me, but her act, early on, brushes up against the line like a cat who walks by and lets the tip of two hairs touch you. It comes very close to that line. The fact that I had to stop and think about whether it was too silly and too melodramatic says something.

It opens quite a bit like Here to Heart, from 2018, which I didn't get to finish before it left Netflix. Ep1-18 I've rated a 3.9, though it does have lovely romantic moments. M☀ works quite a bit better than HtH. Though HtH has higher highs, it is caked up with bad acting, directing, music, costume, and dialogue. M☀ has a much more natural feel.

Mosheng has a crush on He Yichen, the #1 desirable in the law department. Not only is he the best looking, but he's the smartest. He also doesn't reciprocate interest in any girl that approaches him. Mosheng is not daunted by statistics (it's doubtful she understands them at all). Her brain tends to be more artsy. She approaches Yichen again and again. He brushes her off less and less - in micro degrees. It's subtle. One day it's the usual tit-tat / back-n-forth it seems, but /he's/ decided they're going out. (His plan was to wait til after college, but since he met the right one, he says he doesn't see why he must delay). Mosheng is utterly shocked when he tells her.

After awhile. they have a sudden and painful break up. Mosheng doesn't know why he's so angry, so she escapes🇺🇸 (It appears to be over drama related to their parents, but they don't handle the breakup well. The viewer remains confused). She's there for 7 years and bonds with her next door neighbor who is in an abusive relationship. When her neighbor goes to jail for stabbing her husband, she asks Mosheng to look at her son and protect him from his father.

In the 🇺🇸 at the same time is Mr Ying. Mosheng is completely unaware of it, but he's indebted to her because she invested in his company when he was about to go under. That money made the little difference that turned everything around for him. Now he's an internet billionaire and about to bring his search engine back to 🇨🇳.

They meet at a time when she's desperately in need of help. As a single woman with limited income and no parental or family connections, Mosheng has no legal standing to help her friend or her friend's son. When Mr Ying hears about what she's going through, he offers to help by way of a sham marriage. It's obvious that Mr Ying only agrees to this because he's starting to fall for Mosheng. Now she has the mom's recommendation, the husband, and plenty of money. They adopt the child until his mother is released. Ying is always hopeful the marriage will become real, but Mosheng is still hung up on Yichen. When that chapter of her life concludes, they get a divorce and Mosheng returns to 🇨🇳.

As a wildly successful attorney, He Yichen is the most eligible bachelor in town now. True to form, he never dates women. It's not long before Mosheng sees Yichen again. He /hates/ her. It becomes clear that he hates her and he's obsessed with her. When he's suddenly paying attention to Mosheng, it creates quite a stir. Ya know that Ying is gonna head back home too. He makes it his mission to win Mosheng over. This sets up a Clash of the Titans. The secondary romance might be more fun. The male character in the 2ndary takes alittle getting used to, but the female is one of the best characters in the show.

Tiffany Tang (Blossoms Shanghai, The Princess Wei Young) is the girl, Zhao Mosheng. She claims she has a preference for things from the past. One of those things is her lifelong (since college) love for Yichen. (In their backstory, I think he's horrible. She shoulda stayed gone, imo).
She's headed home after 7 years abroad. Her first stop: A job interview at Treasure Mag. Mosheng is said to be average, all-around, by onlookers. She's actually quite adorable. Her haircut is dreadful looking like a weird 1960s space helmet and meets an Egyptian wig. Her helmet hair is so bad in the opening episodes that it caused me physical pain. When she gets it cut she looks better. She should have gone even shorter, her face is beautiful. When they fast forward a few years she has long hair. It looks nice, but this actress's best look would probably be super short hair. The wardrobe isn't very good either. Mosheng changes for dinner and emerges wearing the same oversized graphic tee and leggings that she wore to go shopping the other day. It was completely out of place. All she wears is graphic tees, mostly oversized, every one awful. All those bad t-shirts are like her: Cute & uncropped. Besides her face and slender figure, Mosheng is sincere and loving. Yichen tends to brood. She does brighten him up. She is his ☀. Men don't always want the hottest, smartest, most beautiful, or most exciting girl. Many men want a woman that feels like home. The best men do. Mosheng feels like home.

Mosheng has some baggage to clear out, though. Even when I started to like the show in the teen episodes, I got tired of her hanging her head low. She's acting like an abuse survivor. They did show significant neglect on the part of her mother, but she was close to her father and had him around until her teens. I'm not trying to minimize what she went through, but a woman who's had a very positive relationship with her father usually holds her head high, with dignity. I don't like her subservience and the way she cowers all the time. She's reminding me of the female lead in the show Love 020-6.8. One of the problems with that show is that the female lead is too demure. Too demure is okay for half the show, but for it to work, a FL should lighten up gradually. Mosheng does brighten up in the last quarter of the show, which is a relief.

Wallace Chung (The Sword and the Brocade-8.6, Adoring) portrays He Yichen. He's actually 50, now. When he did the show he was over 40 and he Looks more like 30. Her first credited work is 1993! Tan Kai (Sweet Guy, Blossom) plays Ying Hui. He's impressive, particularly his voice. I'd pay for his podcast just to hear him speak. He's manly, too. He's far better than the dour ML, imho. Screenwriters sometimes come in teams: Gu Man (Love O2O, You Are My Glory-5.9), Mo Bao Fei Bao (One and Only, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, Go Go Squid!), She Fei Xian (One Smile Is Very Alluring-5.7) & Jin Guo Dong (Boss & Me-7) round this one out. The director is Liu Chun Chieh (Lighter & Princess, Boss & Me-7).

The viewer is expected to ride along with them on a pretty bumpy road. For the longest time, it's unclear as to why he broke up with her in the first place. They each have amorous hangers-on that take things alittle too far. In the meantime, he hates her, but he loves her, and when she's debating with him as to whether they should even see each other he says he'll give her an answer in the morning and struts off. The next morning he shows up and tells her to get in the car. They're getting married. Off to City Hall for the most perfunctory marriage ceremony ever seen; it was somewhat angry, too. After City Hall, Yichen immediately goes on a trip for a week. He makes no attempt at physical contact. Who gets married and sleeps in separate rooms? They don't even try to touch e/o? He only takes her on a honeymoon when he finds out from Mr Ying that the divorce may not be official. This is a weird romance. It works well enough, though.

The music is above average - it's excellent, really. Featuring mostly mellow piano, there's some contemporary pop mixed in. Some of it has an indy vibe. Shazam didn't recognize any of it but I brought the whole playlist up on Spotify. In Yichen's office there's a crazy bumpy ramp instead of a staircase. I love it.

The last couple episodes have an extended sequence in which they revisit their dating experience and then get into some “what ifs” all reenacted by the adult cast. Then we get the final wrap up showing them going forward. Don't worry, they look like they may have forgotten about the other couples, but the viewer gets a peek at them in the final episode. It's about what you'd expect: an exasperated mess😂. In the final analysis, M☀ should shine brighter. I can't decide if I would opt to watch it for the first time, given sufficient foreknowledge. If you go into it, just know that the forecast has plenty of warmth but heavily scattered clouds as well.


QUOTES📢

The two things that are most sacred, constant and ever-changing, that are most surprising and shocking, are the starry skies above and the moral law in our hearts. ~Kant~

The actual English version is this:
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”


〰🖍 IMHO

📣6.6 📝6.5 🎭7 💓5 🦋5 🎨5 🎵/🔊8 🔚6 🤗4 ▪ 🌞4 ⚡2 😅2 😭2.5 😱2 😯1 🤢1 🤔3 💤2


Age 13+ A pregnancy from a ONS; PG-13 language, but not much of it

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

💓 -
C🇨🇳:
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1;
Wait, My Youth-8.4

Romance junkies only: Accidentally in Love-6.5 ‘18 B-level scripting, acting, and directing, but still fun/strangely relaxing to watch,
Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine but many object to an outrageous stunt the ML pulls,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
You are my destiny-6.8 cute and sweet and 1/2 padding,
Meteor Garden-7.4 - 70% flowing 30% dragging and BOF is better,
Hidden Love-7.8

K🇰🇷 :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch Your Heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;

🎎 -
C🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9

🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10

Japanese🇯🇵 lite romcoms: Maid Sama-10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo-7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions-8.4, Toradora-8.5

Taiwan: The Fierce Wife-8 & Two Fathers-7.5

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✒⌨ 2D Love °5.9° °good° ?%?

Gamers don't need a dating website because they can make good matches while gaming. Our protags are fans of the RPG (role playing game) Chinese Ghost Story/CGS. FL, Wei Wei, even has an in-game spouse - until she gets dumped. She won't be in the dumps for long, though: Her white knight is in the wings.

Computers don't just facilitate hook-ups; they make identity theft pretty easy, too. While Er Xi may not have stolen Wei Wei's ID, she did borrow Wei Wei's CGS game character, which leads /Wei Wei's/ crush to pursue /Er Xi/ in the game, thinking he's hanging out, virtually, with Wei Wei. It also leads men at Er Xi's summer internship to believe that SHE'S the top female CGS player. Er Xi, unawares, is getting all kinds of attention in the name of Bei Wei Wei, and Bei Wei Wei wouldn't have it any other way-way-way.

That's the same paragraph I used for the show review because, in curious fashion, 2016 saw a show and a film released that were based on the same story. I watched the show first and find myself unable to assess this film without comparing. It feels like a completely different story in many ways, thankfully. But the core programming is identical:

Xiao Nai is the school ‘s supreme catch. Not only is he finishing up school, but he's designing a new game with his buddies. They are marketing it to companies and will run into all kinds of sleaze👾 in the business world. He's also a serious gamer and CGS is his 2nd home. He witnesses the top female player being game-divorced and decides it might be nice to pick her up as a game-wife. He's also glimpsed Wei Wei playing CGS at an internet cafe 😍. He's making 2D and 3D moves on her. Wei Wei is “The Belle of the Computer department,“ but her paths haven't crossed much with Xiao Nai ~ she /thinks/. She's been hanging with him on the CGS servers, she just doesn't know who her game spouse is IRL/in-real-life. In the meantime, Er Xi uses Wei Wei's alternate ID to play the game and ends up being mistaken for the top female player in CGS. This brings her into virtual contact with a guy chasing Wei Wei IRL. He thinks he's flirting with his crush and Er Xi believes she's developing a new virtual relationship that could become a real world fling. One of them is more wrong than HE would guess and the other is so wrong, but so right.

That's the setup. They are meeting in the game and building impressions in their imagination. Next, they will face and deal with the IRL implications.

Both the show and movie are watchable and enjoyable for romance fans. I don't think either feature does anything but toss lite snacks to the romance fan base. They aren't going to please any other watching group. So, you romantics out there, this is worth watching for the first kiss; it's swoony. The romance is mutual. Xiao Nai is “The Man”. He only plays for keeps.

I know my rating makes it seem like I didn't like the film. I did - it's definitely over the line of demarcation. It has some great moments along with its corresponding problems. Until recently, China consistently put out (arguably) watchable, relaxation-inducing, but mindless drivel under the guise of modern-day features, while at the same time they cranked out all-world fantasy and historical pieces. I have my theories about this… China's modern day features have been cluttered up with wooden acting, inane dialogue, and lazy plotlines. Things started changing noticeably around 2018. Now, there's many modern-day Chinese features I have been able to watch and not just enjoy, but LOVE - without wincing in pain at all. Coincidentally, many characters in these new-and-improved contemporary Chinese works will mention watching Kdramas. It's like China got a memo. They've responded well.

As for a comparison, the film is 100 minutes and the show is nearly 1400 minutes. The show should be better. The movie has more natural looking people and a more natural feel when it comes to interactions between the characters. It's so loose and free feeling, compared to most Chinese modern-day features (2016 & earlier), that I double checked to make sure it wasn't a Taiwanese film. Because of that, the film feels differently from the show, even with some of the same scenes. From the start, the characters feel real; this movie is part of the positive jump forward. There are minor pacing issues, though, where things almost drag.

The FL isn't awful in the show, but she's just better in the film, being feisty and active in the relationship. She isn't shy. She becomes part of the team, not a piece of fluff on the side. It makes more sense how the film has Wei Wei actively involved with the company and making the game. She is a computer major, afterall. In the show she acts more like a liberal arts major and soon-to-be 50’s housewife. One of the show's deficiencies is how Wei Wei remains too demure. A confident and capable Wei Wei would have been a welcomed sight.

Er Xi in the show is said to be homely, when she's definitely north of an 8. She's one of the show's assets. I rolled my eyes every time they denigrated her character's looks. (The show focuses on looks too much. It gets wearisome). Show Er Xi could play Tinkerbell, she's so cute. Movie Er Xi is perky and would qualify as less than a 7 based on looks alone, though the actress beams an uplifting carefree air. I'm only commenting on looks because it's a theme in the story - perhaps the main theme. The truth is that there are very few ugly people, and confidence is the sexiest thing. The rest of the movie-friends get alot less play due to the 1300 minute differential. They didn't utilize the friends well in the show, either.

As the credits start to roll we hear about one of the guys falling in love with a female game character who turns out to be a man. It's a bit that got alot of screen time in the show and was handled particularly well, except for the wrap-up.

Overall, the flick has higher highs and lower lows than the show. The characters are solid and there's great moments. It is quick & abbreviated, with light drama that is resolved too easily. Just keep that in mind.


QUOTE📢

If you go outside the wall an inch, I'll move the wall an inch. If you go outside a foot I'll move it ten feet.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣5.5 📝4 🎭7 💓6 🦋7.6 🌞5 🎨7⚡5 🎵/🔊6.5 😅2 😭2 😱0 😯2 😖0 🤔1 💤2.5 🔚6

Age - there's nothing objectionable and nothing about which to make an age caution. As soon as kids can keep up with the subtitles they are good-to-go with 0-2-0.

Re-📺? Doubtful

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㊙️ The Most Evil Deal ⚔ °7.4° °VG°

Revenant; definition: A person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead.

“People around you will die. People you don't like or wish would disappear will die. Evil spirits are said to grow by fulfilling a person's desires.” The folklore prof looked very serious when he said this. (He must be insane!)

Next thing, the guy who scammed their family hung himself.

Let's get this out of the way: There's too many unexplained things out there for all of them to be a coincidence. Whether it's supernatural or super dimensional (perhaps there's no difference between the two) any fair-minded person who looks at the evidence would agree that there's quite possibly, even probably, more to our existence than this 3D plane.

Lost time, memory lapses, purchases she doesn't remember, things she doesn't remember saying or doing… Ku San Young is increasingly confused and disturbed. Is it multiple personalities? D.I.D? Drugs? Nope. It's possession. Most cultures in the world have lore, myth and/or downright belief that possession exists. There's psychologists, and other highly educated people who do - because they've seen it, like Dr. Richard Gallagher, Ivy League grad, board-certified psychiatrist and Columbia/New York Medical College professor.

San Young doesn't deserve this. She's not an evil person. An evil spirit shouldn't want to hang out with her, right? Sure, she was thinking about killing herself, but she pulled back. The scammer had taken everything. Her mother is impossible to deal with... She /didn't/ jump, though. The woman on the /other/ side of the road did. And then the evil spirit left the woman across the road and latched onto her. Now, Su Young can see spirits, AND this weird folklore professor is texting her, approaching her, and saying all kinds of weird things to her, like everybody around her is going to die. Another thing he says is that doors are the passageways between worlds. If someone knocks at the 🚪, make sure you know who it is before you open it.

® is a 2023 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 70-minute episodes. What a creeptastic opening. Watch the opening credits. They are short in length and tall in imagination. To get right to the point, ® is good, but not great. Its greatest failure is that the characters don't completely possess its audience. We remain on the outside and never fully bond with the protags. Don't wait around for love: They just tease us. Perhaps they are looking at a S2? Nothing has been announced.

Furthermore, ® is scary, but it's much sadder than merely scary. It's loosely tied, with many fine working elements that come together to make an interesting, imminently watchable show that leaves one feeling quite morose along with the sense that it could have been better. Ep12 runs into problems - Stupid people, stupid actions, stupid plot turns. It's mostly confined to 2 scenes. They recover.

The show can get creepy. It isn't on the level of some of the darker Hollywood stuff, but it has bona fide chills. There's many deaths. The primary evil spirit is a child ghost. The ghost's backstory is horrifying. Anyone who finds child abuse to be a particular trigger may want to avoid ®: It took a toll on me. Child sacrifice is/was not as uncommon as we would like to believe. Child abuse is/was not uncommon at all. There were many moments when the show weighed heavily on me. The plain, oft repeated & proven fact is that a group of people can talk themselves into any action, no matter how heinous.

There's more good than bad to ®. We've got an all-star cast. Kim Tae Ri (Mr. Sunshine-9, Twenty-Five Twenty-One, Space Sweepers-7.6) is FL Ku San Young. She's fantastic. Young is a little woman who casts a big shadow. It's a shame she kills herself in ep1. Wait… that was the woman on the /other/ side of the bridge. Young caught herself in time. But her mom blew the money. They're wiped out. That didn't change. Yang Hye Ji (Sweet Home-8.4, Wonderful World-7.8, When the Weather Is Fine-9) portrays her BFF, Baek SeMi, who is put-off and often hurt by the recent changes in Young's personality. Ye Soo Jung (Mine-8, Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7) has a guest role as Kim Seok Ran, San Young's paternal grandmother. She's a fantastic actress.

Park Ji Young (Save Me, The Red Sleeve) plays Yoon Kyeong Moon, San Young's mother. As of ep5, I'm not in love with her performance, but she is a beautiful woman. She has to play a person who has been through severe trauma. Her backstory is rough. (We will see, I thought to myself early on). In the final analysis, her part drags the show down. She's annoying and she does irritating things.

Oh Jung Se (It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, Queen of Tears) plays ML Yeom Hae Sang. He's been following Professor Ku Kang Mo/San Young's father's career (Jin Seon Kyu of Space Sweepers-7.6, Kingdom-8.3) for a long time. The legend, Na Byung Hee, is his grandmother and CEO of Joonghyun Capital. Her first credit is from 1977. I've seen her in No Gain, No Love-7.4, Inspector Koo-8.4, Start-up-8, Hospital Playlist-9, Saimdang, Light’s Diary-8.5, & Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds-7.2, and I've just been watching since 2020. She can play the sweet grandmother, the frustrated mother, or the queen b!+ch. She's fabulous. In ® she acts possessed, or at a minimum, oppressed. Never seen her like this before - Her character is really dug into her evil - total commitment.

Both police officer roles, and the actors that portray them, are underutilized. That isn't about screen time. There's something missing from their character arcs. Kim Won-Hae (Black-9, Signal-8.6, and so many more) plays officer Seo Mun-Chun. He's terrific in every role. In ®, though he is a cop and deals with facts, his personal history is such that he knows there are supernatural phenomena out there. On one level he knows, on another level he refuses to accept it. This creates a lot of tension in him as well as an obsession with strange suicide cases and other unexplained phenomenon. Its only result is that it has garnered him the moniker ‘Detective Shaman’. He happens to be friends with folklore professor Yeom Hae Sang. Hong Kyung (Weak Hero Class 1, DP-8.4) is the other ML, Lee Hong “Sae”, a young detective. He had the highest score of his year on the exam. He's partnered with Sr. Ofr Seo Mun-Chun. Everything his senior says and does make Sae uncomfortable. This partner will say things like ‘As a detective he's supposed to be easing the grudges of the Dead.’ How can anybody say that in this age of science & globalism? Sae wonders how he got stuck with this nut. “Do you want to come with us?" Sae's asked by Professor Yeom & his senior. “No thanks,” is his clipped reply. “I'll conduct a more rational investigation.” The viewer is “in” on the inside joke and the over-the-top irony weighing down this statement.

The screenwriter is the highly talented Kim Eun Hee (Signal-8.6, Kingdom-8.3), and the directors are Lee Jung Rim (V.I.P) & Kim Jae Hong (Through the Darkness, Flex X Cop-8.5).

The main theme is: The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil + Money doesn't solve every problem. What is done for money (and food) in the show rivals documented dark histories and many horrifying conspiracy theories about what still goes on today. The realm of hungry ghosts is one of the Six Paths in Buddhism, we learn. Being hungry and thirsty, hungry ghosts always covet, and their realm was created by human desires. This basic template loosely shows up in anime, and the classic Chinese work, Journey to the West (A Korean Odyssey-7.2 is based on it). It isn't completely unlike Dante's Inferno, either. The writer has been sprucing up on her folklore.

There are a few amusing scenes. Our FL and the professor are conducting their own investigation while the police are rationally investigating “the facts”. They are working from completely different angles. Yet they still end up at the same places at the same time. It's probably the best element of the show.

Will you like this? ® is a show for fans of the horror and supernatural genre. It happens to be my least favorite genre- probably because Hwood's stuff tends to be so evil feeling, but I still like a good scare every now and then. I thought The Ring, for instance, was very well done. In my estimation, the good outweighs the bad, but ® is not on the watching level of The Cursed 8.3, The Wailing-8.8, or even Uncanny Counter S1 (S2 is horrible). Hopefully this provides some light in the darkness.


QUOTE🗣

Humans are more terrifying than ghosts.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7.3 📝7.5 🎭7.5 💓4 🦋5 🎨7.7 🎵/🔊7 🔚6 🤗4 ▪ 🌞4⚡5.5 😅3 😭5 😱5 😯4 🤢4 🤔5 💤0


Age 16+
The primary evil spirit is a child ghost. The ghost's backstory is horrifying. Anyone who finds child abuse to be a particular trigger may want to avoid this show.

Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned.

Re-📺? Highly doubtful


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,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
My Mister 9.5,

🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9

⚡/🚀 -
Glitch-8,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Mother-8.8,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4

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⛵ Fish Tale About An Angel⚓Fish Out Of Water ⛲️ °7.2° °VG°

🐚LOTBS is a dreamy onscreen excursion about a plunge into the pool of 💞. Roundabout there's beautiful scenery & other trappings that will hook a viewer. Based on a Joseon era fable, it tells the love story of a man, Heo 'double hooks' Jun-jae “JJ” (Lee Min-ho of Boys over Flowers-8.3 & Pachinko) & a mermaid, Shim Cheong “Shimmy” (Jun Ji-hyun from My Love from the Star & Kingdom: Ashin of the North-7.5) that is destined to end tragically. Even more tragic, is how they are fated to repeat this ♻ again, perhaps again-lessly.

⛵Ep1 sails to Spain, dazzling the viewer w/ refreshing scenery (though the 🎥 location is Palau). We meet JJ, who's in a sub-set of con artists. As if Lee Min-ho's looks aren't mesmerizing enough, JJ has the ability to spot hypnotize his 'marks' if quick lures are needed. He looks in a person's eyes while speaking softly & flicking his lighter. This is usually distracts the poor saps long enough for his gang of fleecers & scalers to work their agenda: Stealing pirate💰booty. These 'pirates' are all people as crooked as a barrel of hooks. As JJ& Co just steal ill-gotten 💴, their crimes cannot be reported to the police, nor the coast guard. Thus, these boys aren't so bad... They're just lovable scamps, really, like 🐬🐬.

⛲JJ's in Spain for 🏖 after a big haul. He's shocked to encounter a confused woman in his hotel room. She's a real strange 🐠. Shimmy cannot talk, has curious cuts & scrapes on her feet, & she's wearing one of his 👕, while looking quite the 🐡 out of water. He has the police take her away to cold storage. We learn, though, that this pair will not escape e/o. There are not plenty of other 🐟 in the sea for them. They're in a school of 2.

🐙JJ has a picture caught in his head of how pitiful "she" looked, & he can't 🐡 it out. She didn't try to con him, she didn't steal anything, or even 🐠 for compliments. Obviously, she has other 🐡 to fry. Most significantly, on her lovely wrist is a jade bracelet that could be worth over $6mil. That ain't 🐟 food. Swept off his feet in a tide of compulsion to care for her (or at least the $6M) he tells the police he won't press charges.

🐳Once she's released, he soon encounters her crouched under an overhang near the police station, looking utterly forlorn. It turned out to be a snag: He can't cut the line in which she & he are tangled. Before he snaps out of it, he's already fed her & taken her shopping for 👗 & 👠. Soon after, they escape from hitmen sent by a "victim" who wants JJ to sleep w/ the fishes. To hiss amazement, Shimmy is extraordinarily strong, & she can hold up in a tight spot. She's sort of pretty (scorchin hot) too... Hypnotized, his will drained, THE 🌊 crashes over him: He's amazed by her! He's catfish crazy over her! He takes the deep dive from a high cliff & crashes hard for this exotic, yet perplexing beauty.

🚣Like sunlight beams in water, when JJ is dreaming, we get flashes of past-life regression showing their woeful experiences in the Joseon era. Flashes later morph into flashbacks of past-life memories for JJ, along w/ several other characters that are being spun out & sucked back into the whirlpool alongside the two big fishes, our protagonists.

💦Things we learn about mermaids💦

💧Mermaid tears become pearls: In the Joseon version, a mermaid is locked up and forced to manufacture pearls.

💧Mermaids have super strength: This debones many situations.

💧Mermaids heal rapidly: This is also a lifesaver on occasions.

💧Mermaids are highly intelligent, learning at the speed of sonar: Shimmy teaches herself Korean by watching dramas all night. She picks up on culture along w/ pearls of wisdom, quickly surpassing JJ&Co regarding the latest looks, lures, & expressions.

💧Mermaids can wash away memories: We see several memory wipeouts.

💧When mermaids beach themselves for love & it's not reciprocated, they'll die. The same thing applies when they are separated from their love. It will kill them. Shimmy jumps in anyway, w/ 2 feet. She won't be like a cat that will eat a fish, but not get its feet wet. She commits fully.

🔥Things we learn about Jun☂jae🔥

☂His father's a Duke, um... I mean a CEO, & he's one cold 🐡. When JJ was young, his father cast out his mother in order to bring in a mistress, um, /new/ mistress of the ⛴. Once divorced, his mother abandoned ⛴, believing that JJ would be better off in his father's house, where he would want for nothing. She drifted away w/ very little salvaged from the divorce.

☂Stepmom turned out to be fishy. She's bait wrapped around poison. They needed her like a 🐠 needs a bicycle. His father is hooked, only seeing the bait. While in HS, JJ escapes the net & departs home to swim in other waters.

☂A chummy con man w/ a fish eating grin, Jo Nam-doo, takes him in (uses him for scams) & teaches JJ the trade (he teaches a man to fish🎣), as it were. Nam-doo may be friendly (most con men have "friendly" mastered before their first grift) but he's serious about his trade. From lips to tale he's hella serious about 💰. Don't be confuzzled on the subject.

☂While JJ has been looking for his Oma, she's been hiding 'under decks' avoiding detection, somehow believing that's better for JJ. (Big plot weakness).

🏊The show freestyles back to SK. We see our mermaid arrive in 🌇Seoul w/ no clue what to do. Her first friends are small 🐡: A bag lady, ahem, - excuse me - a /homeless/ woman, & a little girl instructer-&-scolder. It's as cute as it sounds. Eventually she learns to handle herself, including learning to 🍺 like a 🐟.

💦W/o ruining any big splashes, there's a tackle box of fun gear in LOTBS. There's chases w/ guns, flying 🐠 jumping off of cliffs, cons gone bad, cons gone good, & cons long gone. We're introduced to additional players from the Joseon era as the show unfolds. There's a secondary romance & other lively side characters. There's several shots of beautiful 🌊, water, & shore. We see escape on a 🚲, a An Affair To Remember moment, secrets & more secrets, messages in & on vessels from the past, & a backlit shot of an exquisite kiss while a fin fishtails dreamily. At the show's end, JJ has a 🐡 of another species dropped in his aquarium of friends - it's amusing.

🌅There is tension over the issue of fate & whether the repetition of the past & fate itself can be altered. The primary theme in LOTBS is, in the words of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 Judgement Day: "There is no fate but what we make". JJ will not accept the outcome that seems fated to be. At both ends of the fishing pole, the past & present, he works actively against fate, believing that his actions & his decisions determine his future🌄.

🦑We see a bit of a fashion show. They're far downstream w/ the couture. Shimmy is beautiful enough to make Jacques Cousteau come back from the grave, but if she's hungry, or if she just watched a Bruce Lee movie, or read Moby Dick, avoid her like a Great White 🦈. Ms Jun is swimmingly at ease, playing at first an awkward newbie-to-everything, & later a naturally & affably uninhibited woman. Her comedy scenes, such as when she's eating, are clean nets, unslimed by the juvenile, trash filled, slobbering pig humor we see Hollywood drooling out. This hottie can actually ACT. It underscores how condescending Hollywood is to their audience. Afterall, isn't their declining quality why we love Kdramas?

🏄Besides the regular obstacles, misunderstandings, & outstanding warrants, there's also criminal matters that must be investigated. They drop hooks w/ a tantalizing bit in which JJ injects himself into an investigation & starts ordering the detectives around. They start complying before they realize what's going on. It's straight Mcdonald's fish sandwich&🍟. So tasty.

🛥While LOTBS is mostly treasure, & as a romance it's on solid ground, pertaining to film craft, it's a bit out to sea, as follows:

🦀LOTBS is only trying to be a surfs-up-fun-in-the-sun romantic cruise, not a deep water expedition, so it has less depth than JJ's feelings for Shi-ah.

🌀It suffers from overdone, too oft seen Kdrama devices.

🔻MMP Missing/misplaced parent(s). Here's yet another show where parents (especially a mother) get separated from children. I haven't seen one Kdrama yet that has separated couples co-parenting. It must be frowned upon in Korea. No reasonable explanation is laid down for JJ's mother to hide. They should have been tidier w/ it.

🔻MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome, where couples, once they commit, are physically separated for a period of time). LOTBS suffers a minor shipwreck & takes on water due to MSS. Anyone familiar w/ Kdramas knows what I mean. This is one of the worst cases I've seen. It's that 4th day w/ houseboat guests. The show threw a few 🐟 too many into the aquarium, crowding it out & making the presentation worse, not better.

🍤But the worst thing about Ep21 is how they cut the line on nearly every mermaid rule they had reeled in earlier. It kept stinking more as time sailed on & freshness waned. That isn't good filmmaking. Just be warned that Ep21 could near filet you, if consistency is important to you.

🚤One final caution: In Ep1, subtitles can fly by too quickly, especially when JJ is doing the hypnosis. After a couple times early in Ep1 it rarely, if ever, happens again. Don't be thwarted by that.

🏝To summarize, for cute escapism, LOTBS is like riding some perfect waves until we hit a bit of chop at the end. w/out the quality dip in eps20-22, LOTBS is easily in the middle to high 8s. The last thing we see, as LOTBS pulls up ⚓ & 🚢 away, is a couple sitting on a bench watching the turquoise 🌊 from a snowy beach, in a lovely & serene bon-voyage. It's been a good trip.

Quote🗣

I regret nothing❕ 〰homeless (I'm no bum) lady〰

IMHO〰🖍

🎬7 🎭7.7⚡6.5 🤔5 💓 7.5 🦋7 🎨8 🌞5 😅5 🔚5.

Age 12+

👁📺again? Eps 1-20✅ then w/⏩️

Loving someone from “another world” - In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Mr. Queen-9
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Live Up To Your Name-7.6;
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek 7,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9;
Oh My Ghost-10,
Heirs 7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows 7,
Something in the Rain 9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
You are my destiny 6.8 cute, sweet & 1/2 padding,
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5,
Find Yourself 8.9

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So Simple ☕️ But Soo-joon Will Make You Swoon °6.8° °good°

WWWSK is a mini romantic getaway. A just-for-fun romcom, there's nothing else going on. The leads are special actors. Park Min-young. (Secretary Kim) always delivers. Once again, she is quite lovely in this show. She wears fluid tops, feminine outfits, soft colors, and she always looks good. Park Soo-joon seems to be having a corkin time playing an egotistical boss. He actually makes the show. WWWSK is a 2018 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. WWWSK is 1 season consisting of 16 60ish-minute episodes. The directors are Park Joon-Hwa and Yoo Jong-Sun, & it's based on writer Jung Kyung-Yoon's novel. The filming is lighthearted & breezy. Animation accents add to the whimsy.

The setting is at a large company. The current CEO, Lee Young-joon, works for his father, chairdad. He's comically arrogant. He's not the least bit mean-spirited, however; he just seems a little silly. Secretary Kim is his personal assistant, and has been for 10 years. In ep1, she gives notice.

He's a bit surprised but tries to act cool. Gradually, we see that things aren't cool with him at all. He tries to fathom how she could leave such a wonderful boss as he. To understand what her struggles and concerns are, we must get to know her more, & he will have to get to know her quite a bit more. He also has a lot to learn about the complex world of interpersonal relationships. It's certainly no spoiler to say that they get together rather early in the show and the rest of it is trying to work out some of the struggles that they've had from back to the time they each were children.

Their first struggle in dating is how they fall back into the old habits of boss and secretary. She's making the reservations, when they're eating she's taking care of all his needs: His handkerchief, cell phone, making sure everything's laid out right. The restaurant employees look at each other and say: 'Wow, she seems more like a secretary than his girlfriend'.

He wants to spend more time with her, so he starts to lighten her load at work. He goes to makes his own copies, and the other employees almost have a stroke😮. Once his task is completed, and he goes back to his office, he peeps out to her sitting at her desk in the foyer area. He points at the copies. He points at himself. He's /so proud/ of himself. It's cute.

He tries to take her places that she would enjoy, which lands them at an amusement park. He gets his first 🎢 coaster ride. Through the entire thing he sits upright, arms crossed, chin up, looking like he's on the bow of a ship. E'erbody else is squealing. It's good for some chuckles.

The supporting story arcs and romances are even more fun. Hwang Chan Sung (True to Love, My Holo Love-6.8) is the frugalmiser, and Go Gwi Nam & Pyo Ye Jin (Taxi Driver) plays the observant Kim Ji Ah. Hwang Bo Ra (Vagabond-8, Arang and the Magistrate) is the Kewpie-faced, curly-locked Bong Se Ra (she's a cutie) and Kang Hong Suk (Hotel del Luna-8.4) portrays Yang Cheol, a big-ol teddy bear. One guy in the office knows absolutely everything. He doesn't share any of it until precisely the correct time. When they're all standing around talking and wondering about something, he'll be the resource of all information. It's a funny running bit, especially given how assured and authoritative his character is when he's giving out information. Fabulous child actors help light up this production.

WWWSK suffers a smidge from what I've labeled “MAL-content”. They don't seem to have enough content to fill up the whole show. It starts to wander about two-thirds of the way in and loses focus. The plot isn't tight; it's a little sloppy. Some of the personality changes are too fluid.
8.1? This is rated 8.1 on IMDB, 8.3 on MDL, and 85 on AWiki. I was so excited to watch it - I saved it for when I needed a “sure-thing" and didn't want to take a chance. So I couldn't help but be disappointed. It makes me feel lonely, because there is no day of the week WWWSK deserves such a generous rating. I get it - the show is cute, and it's better than most of the junk that loveless Hollywood puts out. Shows should not be rated on technical aspects alone as a show that doesn't touch the emotional core is missing something. Conversely, an emotional connection will cause us to overlook all kinds of faux pas.

New viewers to Asian programming will overrate the first couple things they see out of sheer joy that this entertainment wonderland has opened up to them. The leads are each fabulous, in their own rights. I saw WWWSK early in my Asian programming addiction. For a long time I just took notes but was suffering from an extreme illness and I got (almost hopelessly) behind on completing the reviews and posting them. I've since seen PMY in When the Weather is Fine-9 and Her Private Life-8, as well as a couple other shows in which her performance is better than the sum of the total production. Chemistry? She's Walter White - a walking chemistry set. She's fabulous in every role. I fell for Mr. Park from watching A Witch's Love-7.8. Additionally, I'm currently in the waning episodes of Itaewon Class. What an actor. He doesn't look the same at all. He has a serious and tragic part to play in IC, so it makes sense that he seems to be having the time of his life in this role. It makes sense that these 2 actors have beaucoup fans, and those fans are likely to view anything that they are in positively.

No doubt, WWWSK is a fun ride to take. But the romance itself is barely above average, it's IQ is medium-low, the plot has some weak points (particularly the backstory). There's lots of lesser known shows that are rated lower but are of better quality. Some examples are: Familiar Wife-8.5, Touch your heart-8.2, and Love Struck in the City 7.3 (I have to watch LSitC again. I liked it when I watched it quite a bit. Parts of the ending disappointed me, particularly with the secondary relationship, though I think they'll be fine going forward. It's stuck in my brain. I keep remembering it more and more fondly. I think there's something that my subconscious is telling me I missed. I'm going to have to revisit it and update my score eventually). These directors are capable and each have better shows. Park Joon-Hwa directed Touch your heart, Alchemy of Souls-8.3 and Because This Is My First Life (7.7 it's mostly exceptional but for the last 2 episodes), while Yoo Jong-Sun directed the fabulous Descendants of the Sun-8.3. Just go into this with your expectations set-to-mid and you shouldn't be disappointed.

In one sad scene, parents refuse psych treatment for a traumatized child. Saying “no” reflexively is a bad habit. Watching Kdramas is a good habit. WWWSK is imminently watchable - it's a good show. Romfans won't want to quit it early.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣6.5 📝6 🎭7.8 💓6 🦋6.4 🌞7 🎨7 ⚡3 🎵/🔊6 😅6 😭4 😱3.7 😯3 😖2 🤔4 💤3 🔚8

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Workplace Romances:
Crazy Love-7.8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,
C🇨🇳: Find Yourself-8.9,
Boss & Me-7


🌐Modern Day -
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Cheese in the Trap-7.7,
Our Blues-8.5,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
Something in the Rain-8.6,


🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9

⚡️/🛸 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Tunnel 8.5,
Why Her?-8,


💓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,

C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8


Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5

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✒Homo Gestalt 〰❇〰 Thwarted Takeover °6.9° °Good°

Homo Gestalt - goog it, and you'll get the following response: “In the novel, More Than Human, homo gestalt is a mature gestalt consciousness that is considered the next step in human evolution. The novel is about six people with extraordinary powers who are able to "blesh" their abilities together, acting as one organism.” That's similar to what we see in PTG.

It is a 2024 release, rated 91 on AWiki & 100/81 on RT, and consisting of 1 season of 6 60-minute brain-eating episodes. It's based on the anime, Parasyte the Maxim-8.9, which is based on the manga by Hitoshi Iwaaki. The anime is just so good. I saw it on Hidive via Prime, which is a mere $5/mo. Per Justwatch, it's currently on Hulu/Disney and Crunchyroll, which recently took over Funimation. I'm an Asian programming junkie, so I can say with authority that there's better shows out there. This is still quite good, and it's entirely watchable. It is just lacking in the high EQ, or emotional quotient that the best Kdramas have. It pales next to Kingdom-8.3, Sweet Home-8.4, The Cursed-8.3, The Wailing-8.8… I could (and probably will) go on. I strongly recommend checking out the anime first for a solid footing on the landscape, here.

Jeon So-nee (Our Blooming Youth, Soulmate) plays Jeong Su-in. When her mom left, her father took his anger out on her. As a tween, she finally called the police on him. Kwon Hae-hyo (Flex X Cop-8.5, Forecasting Love and Weather-6.8) plays Ofr Kim Chul-min. They've shared a bond ever since that day. Su-in believes she was just born rotten to suffer such ill treatment. Koo Kyo-hwan (Extraordinary Attorney Woo, DP-8.4) portrays Seol Kang-woo. This guy is special. He has that “it” factor, and IT has nothing to do with looks.

Lee Jung-hyun (Legend of Ambition, The Admiral: Roaring Currents) portrays Choi Jun-kyung who is one of the government leads charged with handling this scourge of parasitic beings with a high protein diet. She's alittle extra. As the show went on, I thought she dragged it down a touch. She's better in the later episodes. I really thought her gloves were going to come off and reveal some secret, but alas, they're just wardrobe props.

Kim In-kwon (The King's Affection-8.3, Mr. Queen-9) is Kang Won-seok, Ofr Kim's junior. Jeon Hui-jeong (Boyhood) is the voice of The Grey Agent. Yoon Hyun-gil (Yumi's Cells, One Dollar Lawyer) portrays Seol Kyeong-hee, sister to our ML but not anymore - she's been taken over. The actress is fantastic in her stoicism. Lee Hyun-kyun (The Guest, Flower of Evil-8.9) plays a parasite leader, Kwon Hyeok-joo. Screenwriter & Director, Yeon Sang Ho (Kcountry's Stephen King who brought us The Cursed-8.3 & Hellbound-5.5 - both w/ S2 in the works, Train to Busan-7.8, & Psychokinesis) converted this manga to Kanga along with the help of screenwriter, Ryu Yong Jae (Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area).

Courage. Overcoming fear. In the face of an alien invasion, which is what this is, fear takes over and people just want to kill. Rationality gets tossed out. Maintaining the balance of rationality and compassion is the theme. We see duplicitous humans: The police force has a quisling. As always, the politicians are looking out for the people. (No music festival?! The mayor will be running for president! This is his last big event as mayor!! No matter what threat there is, we /have to/ have it❗). The parasytes take on more complexity as they incorporate themselves into our world. “Do you remember the command given to us at birth? Take over a human brain. I believe that means more than take over the brain physically, but to take over the great, living human organization.” Dang. The fake pastor actually sounds like a theologian.

The theme music for the opening credits is boss. The action is killer. The effects are impressive. PTG is good, but it's far from the best K-action thriller I've seen. Episodes 4&5 drag slightly, but ep6 is really good. Perhaps it's a whiff of big budget disease. Big budgets blunt the beating hearts of too many features.

I love the callout to the anime at the end. That's the most important factor. If you've seen and liked the anime, PTG is almost mandatory. If you like action/zombie/alien thrillers, this is easily in the top half of them. If you aren't used to Kdramas, which will only raise your standards over time, don't be scared - you'll definitely gobble it up.


QUOTE📢

Whether you like it or not, you are not alone.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝6.5 🎭7 🎨8 🎵/🔊7 🔚8 🤗4 ▪ 🌞4⚡8 😅1 😭5 😱4.5 😯4.5 🤢5 🤔5 💤1


Age 15+ violence, gore, cruelty, and language that is occasionally R-rated w/ F💣s. Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.


Re-📺? Probably not.

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:


⚡/🚀/😱 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
Glitch-8,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Revenge of Others-8.6,
Moving-8.3,
Signal 8.6,
Beyond Evil-7.4,
Iris-8,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Mother-8.8,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4,
Parasite-9,
Oldboy-9,

As of today, PTM is available on Hidive. Some dubbed titles worthy of a visit of Hidive are:

Maid Sama 10,
Made in Abyss 9 {currently the 3rd movie and S2 are not dubbed. Per Hidive: “Since MADE IN ABYSS: Journey’s Dawn… and MADE IN ABYSS: Wandering Twilight… are compilation movies, you can either watch MADE IN ABYSS season 1 or just the two movies before moving on to the MADE IN ABYSS: Dawn of the Deep Soul…, the third movie is NOT optional”}
Parasyte the Maxim 8.9,
The Eminence in Shadow 8.8,
No Game No Life Zero 8.8,
RahXephon 8.6,
Akame ga Kill! 8.6,
Princess Principal 8.6,
Chihayafuru 8.5,
Girls Last Tour 8.5,
CR Chaika The Coffin Princess 8.4,
Love Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4,
Special A Class 8.2,
Food Wars 8.2,
Land Of The Lustrous 8.1,
Girls Und Panzer 8,
Reincarnated as a Sword 8,
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU 8,
Gate 7.9,
Ao-chan Can't Study 7.8,
Beyond the Boundary 7.8,
You're Under Arrest 7.8,
Pet Shop of Horrors 7.8,
Hakkenden 7.7,
Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun 7.7,
Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? 7.7,
Flowers of Evil 7.7 (not dubbed),
Farming Life in Another World 7.7,
Princess Resurrection 7.6,
Akiba Maid War 7.5,
Real Girl 7.5,
School Live 7.5,
Kokkoku 7.5,
Needless 7.5,
Senryu Girl 7.5,
D4DJ 7.5,
Iria 7.5,
Kokoro Connect 7.4,
Aura Battler Dunbine 7.4,
Pet Girl of Sakura Hall 7.3,
After the Rain 7.3,
BToom! 7.3,
Ice 7.3,
Armed Girl's Machiavellism 7.1,


Honorable Mention: Wasteful Days of High School Girls,
Blue Seed, Patlabor, Get Backers, Clannad, Tsurune, Tada Never Falls in Love, Kino's Journey, Lupin III.

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