50FiftillidideeBrain

✒Don't Go It Alone ⛸️ Take My Hand °7.2° °starts great but declines°

Liang Mu Cheng was born into privilege until it all disappeared in a moment when she was a tween. Instead of working to become a concert pianist she then had to work to survive. She also ends up w/ a peeper-creeper for a step-dude. She's doing her daily hustle when a convertible driving rich @$$hole crashes into her life.

Rich dude is Ren Guang Xi, a lackluster law student and lustful, but cynical, womanizer. They end up trading insults at the police station. Mu Cheng believes she'll never have to see that arrogant jerk again. Fate has them colliding often, though, as Mu Cheng's family operates one of the campus eateries. RGX, always looking for the next conquest, finds out from his friends that the 'lunch girl' is hot but she turns down every guy that asks for a date. RGX bets that he can conquer her w/in 24 hrs w/o even knowing who she is or what she looks like. When he sees who she is (& that she hates him already) he is undeterred. This is a non-spoiler review, so the following is the scantest of summaries - After the opening eps in which these 2 fall in love, they are separated in a heartbreaking manner. It is all skillfully portrayed. They meet back up again when the quick-tempered RGX must do community service.

If you are used to Chinese features and this one feels differently from the start, that's because it's Taiwanese. They are almost nothing alike except for the Mandarin. While Chinese historical & fantasy pieces are superb, Chinese modern-day features are dreamlike, often clumsy and substandard in the categories of acting, dialogue, wardrobe, character development - and virtually every other aspect - but they have a prozac-like quality that keeps me tuned-in. AC, rated 8.5 on MDL, feels real by comparison. It's more like one long movie and cut to either 21 90-minute eps or 34 45-minute ones, depending.

As for the players, Ady An is adorable & soulful as our FL. Her looks garner all the wrong attention. Vanness Wu plays n'er-do-well RGX. His voice is extra nice. Respecting nothing, he uses people as playthings & tosses them aside. He's never taken a bus anywhere - His mama is rich & connected, his lawyer is top-notch, & his medical records provide an excuse for his abhorrent behavior. He's spoiled, he's angry, & he's taking it out on the world. He's also "an expert in pretending to be strong. He puts up a wall when he runs into difficulties." Lin Mei Xiu practically steals the show as Hua Tian Xi Shi, Tuo Ye's mother. The viewer just wants to hug her. Chris Wu is also good as Hua Tuo Ye. He's had a crush on our FL for yrs. So he pines away. And he waits. And he pines. And waits & pines, waits & pines, waits & pines. I'm convinced that if one likes the right person, meaning someone who will be a good match, it's ALWAYS mutual. People who get caught up in obsessive 1-sided crushes are just focusing on themselves, what they want, & a projection of what they perceive the object of their affection to be, not the real person. If you believe you love someone but s/he isn't interested, then don't wait around for a moment. Just keep working on yourself. Maybe they are the one for you, but YOU aren't ready yet. (Whatever else is going on in our lives, we should never stop improving. The better we each are, the better all our lives will be). Never settle: 1 reason why relationships are in such chaos these days is b/c people hook-up out of convenience, not for true love.

The acting is good-VG. Even though RGX is alittle much at times, I love him at every moment. The director has the characters devolve into giving monotone speeches w/ unnatural pauses in the 2nd half of the show, which is irritating, but we can't blame the actors for that. They showed what they can do in the 1st half. Benny Wen plays the child Liang Xiao Le and he is luminous at all times.

The romance is excellent & this pair delivers. Unfortunately, the romance starts to lag in the later episodes. They manage some sizzle & steam, but they missed even more opportunities to get cookin. It could have been much better. There's plenty of good cheer & laughter. RGX arrives in town for his community service and, per village customs, they immediately get him drunk. He's passed out & Tuo Ye is charged w/ putting his rival to bed. There's a new blanket for RGX, still in its store packaging. Tuo Ye rips it open & drops it on Guang Xi's body without bothering to spread it out or tuck it in. The whole scene is so dude-like it's amusing. It's little touches like that that make a production special.

The show has several worthy themes. How the entitled trample those w/ less power, particularly male on female abuse is the main theme. We see at least 3 abused women who must be rescued from various socioeconomic situations. 'Don't go it alone' is a theme: "There are many ways to love. Perhaps I didn't choose the best way." Going it alone and lack of communication cause many problems. Everyone thinks they know how to fix things but they often think too highly of themselves and the impact they can have in making improvements, while at the same time they underestimate their ability to screw things up. Another theme is nearly ubiquitous, as there's not many Asian features that don't deal w/ toxic pride, often in the form of rigid and controlling parents. Parenting should be about forming the child into the best version of h/h-self to ultimately secure the child's happiness - which ultimately benefits society. Unfortunately, parenting often becomes about the parent and the parent's pride, which is why we see rageful parents suing schools instead of correcting their errant offspring. "Fairy godmother, this place is so cool! Did you ever bring {your son} here?" "{He} was a busy child. He had language mental arithmetic and essay writing lessons…" REX'S mother is out with her grandson and forced to reflect on her choices. In our pursuit of excellence we've neglected the most important thing: We don't live. If you don't have downtime w/ your family you are neglecting the most important thing. That is when you bond w/ them.

"Some only feel happy and safe when they deceive themselves." Refusing to live the lie is a theme. Instead of worrying about the repercussions of doing what's right and letting the truth come out, our FL worries about the impact on her and her family. We witness her stepmother prefer to believe a lie, rather than face the truth. "This is no time for you to think about your stepmother, who has deceived even herself. If you really love her you should let her know {the truth}," RGX tells Mu Cheng. One of the benefits of hitting bottom is becoming familiar w/ the truth. People who become familiar w/ the truth start to see the lies everywhere. People love comfortable lies. We all like to think of ourselves as better than we are, and if we stay busy, we never have to pause and reflect. We are the hare, lies are the turtle, and the lies will always overtake us in the end b/c they never stop until they do. Persevering through hardship is a theme as demonstrated by the following quotes: "What is special about the Lotus? It grows in the mud, yet it remains pristine." "Do you know? One time, when Bach was performing in a palace, his cello was sabotaged. All the strings were broken except the second string. Just as he was about to make a fool of himself, he composed an entire tune using only his 2nd string. That tune is now known as Concerto in G major. It teaches us that no matter how difficult life gets, you can always produce a masterpiece." "Get up on your own after falling and don't blame everyone else while you're on the ground." This is all evidence of quality writing.

Since I loved AC from the start, it hurts to say that as the eps play by it declines. Things get slightly soap-opera w/ big melodrama around ep21 and the show never fully recovers from that trend. There's also plenty of head-scratchers & things that don't make sense along w/ things that could have been better; but there's no major eye-rollers - AC never becomes insultingly stupid. As for the sour notes: The drawn out pace that starts around ep21 continues to the end, mostly. Along w/ that are long speeches, unnaturally long pauses mid-sentence, & logical pitfalls. The criminal case & the trial are oversimplified & all-out nonsensical. Mu Cheng becomes shut down & monotone - that may not be unrealistic given that she is an abuse survivor. Going from trauma to being the victim of longstanding predatory abuse, her behavior, while exasperating at times, is probably spot-on. Our ML vacillates erratically, & it's basically fantasy that RGX would become such an imposing & successful attorney in 3 short years. That whole go-it-alone after the bad guys thing is ridiculous. Hollywood does it too much - it's apparently a problem on an international scale, scarring otherwise good entertainment. Then our FL goes-it-alone in ep31 and my head started throbbing: It made no sense and it was painful to watch. The wardrobe vacillates between excellent & drab. Most notably, RGX 's low-cut tops are silly, not sexy.

The first 2/3 of the show is a delight, though. It starts so strong that I watched it straight through & never turned to anything else. If the last 1/3 was as good as the first 2/3rds, the rating would be close to 9. Unfortunately, it sinks into a morass of poor quality melodrama, never to crack the surface again. I would still choose to watch it again for the 1st time as the positives eclipse the negatives. If you are interested in other shows from Taiwan, watch Age of Rebellion. It is excellent.


QUOTES📢

You're only turning yourself into a piece of trash.

If you don't work hard, no one can help you.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣6.3 📝7 🎭7 💓7 🦋7 🌞6 🎨6 ⚡4 🎵/🔊7.3 😅3 😭4 😱4 😯4 😖3 🤔4.5 💤4.3 🔚8

Age 13+ Language: $h!+ b@$+@rd; Sexual situations including prostitution - relatively mild @ 4 or 5/10.

Re-📺? The 1st 2/3 only, so probably not.

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✒Sassy Joseon Journalist Takes A Page From Sappy Royal Romantic °7.5°

📜This show documents the beginning of sharp-witted Goo Hae Ryung's career as a historian at the Royal Joseon Court. Historians had exclusively been male. When women are permitted to take the post, the usual hazing, intimidation, and other bullying by the species accustomed to power (in this case men) takes place.

📖We'll turn the page from her rocky start. The next chapter finds Goo Hae Ryung assigned to Prince Gowan for record keeping. The prince is housed in the most remote portion of the palace grounds. Most people have actually forgotten all about him. Why he is austerely isolated he's been marking his time secretly reading and writing °fiction° (scandalous!).

📚As the word count multiplies and the story takes shape, Goo Hae Ryung finds herself bound in palace intrigues, a mystery from the past, a literary - strike that - a *literal hunt for a lost manuscript, and her first personal romamce story. The tone of the show is mostly lite, though there are some serious moments in the mix.

🏰The inner palace intriguers are 24-hr false-news reporters. The machinations of the court as a whole are excellent. Here's the broad-strokes flow chart: The king is at the top, then the ministers, next are officials - level-1 all the way down to the 9th level editions - further down are the lowly but strangely powerful clerks, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Know thy place.

🤼‍♀️The rivalries between the territorial, often corrupt, and always bureaucratic agencies is Pulitzer worthy. They even penned a moment that is reminiscent of Ron Burgandy's Anchorman. I kid you not. That scene is a bestseller. Goo Hae Ryung's boss seems like a thoroughly non-serious person, but at times he enscribes a line that he won't permit anyone to brush away. Those moments are downright inspiring.

🤚🏽Though a very pleasant series, RH is not without blots. Some plot points, what characters say or fail to say, or their actions seem like misprints due to the lack of cohesion. The epilogue style ending doesn't augment RH either. (Here's another Kdrama that suffers from MSS, or Mandatory Separation Syndrome). While it was easy to predict the ending, at least in part, it is like an unfinished tome: It's not fully resolved. They weren't going for a serious historical drama, but one could almost pen a thesis on the way the show wrapped up compared to historical accuracy, ironically. Prince Gowan is not a roundly developed character. He definitely didn't get out of his mini compound enough, so he's almost child-like at times. Goo Hae Ryung is a little too independent to imagine in a give-and-take relationship. In fact, actress Shin Se-kyung is a force of perfect timing & snappy on-the-spot jibes. Her presence is strong to the point that she embodies the mother/lover type, not only in RH, but also in other productions like Run On. One has to wonder if the couple's diverse interests will be a strain that leads to reorganization later on. Even the life they are living at the series' end, which appears carefree, isn't true to their characters.

🍻It's up to the individual to decide if this lexicon of detractions mar the finished work. I easily edited it all out and was able to enjoy the show. Some of these unintelligible scribbles do affect the overall quality a tad. Perhaps they were hung over when they did the final editing.

📰Before I send this to the presses, I would like to post a petition of my own: If you like this show, you will love My Sassy Girl. (I know, the name is strange. For now, overlook its IMDB rating as not many people have weighed in on it yet). My Sassy Girl precedes this show by two years. It was a big hit in South Korea and opened the door for dramas like RH and 💯 Days My Prince. RH borrows heavily from MSG - it's inspiration, not plagiarism. MSG, is every bit as good as this show; don't let its outrageous opening sway you. In my book it's even better (it comes down to the male protagonists), not that we have to compare everything - they're both worthy of watching once-twice-even-thrice.

📁This will conclude the record of Prince Gowan and Goo Hae Ryung.

Signing off,

🔚

〰IMHO✏

🎬8 📝7 🎭8 🤔7 ⚡6 💓7 🦋5

Suggested Age 12& up.

Originally 〰️🖊3/2022

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↪↔↩OG & the SAT↪↔↩ °7° °Good°

Deuk Pal is a gangster. That doesn't mean he can't get his GED and take the college entrance exams. He has a tutor and he's working hard. His boss wants him to quit school and take over the gang. Song I “Heon” is much younger, but he's already given up. He's jumping off the foot bridge to the highway below. Deuk Pal sees and rushes to stop him. They collide. Heon dies, and somehow, their souls switch. Deuk Pal's soul ends up in the kid's body. Deuk gets to attend his own funeral.

At first, he makes weak, ill-informed attempts to get back into his old body. That just isn't going to work. Next, a rude woman (Lee Mi Kyung played by Hwang Bo Ra of Vagabond-8 & What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8) drops by and appears to be his stepmother? His father's aid? (He doesn't know anything or anybody in Heon’s life). She drops off some school books after complaining about what a pain he is and that he couldn't even kill himself “properly”. He pulls out the tablet and reads the diary of the kid whose body he's taken. This kid's been picked on his whole life. He decides he'll go to school and set the bullies straight.

Deuk quickly learns that he doesn't have the mentality, vocabulary, or fashion sense that the other kids do. But he does have his strength-of-mind; gangsters aren't pushovers. He's also got a credit card with no limit, since he's the illegitimate son of the CEO of one of Korea's top 3 construction companies.

Heon had worn his hair long and over his eyes in order to hide from the world. In Heon's body, Deuk immediately gets a haircut. It's truly shocking what a difference a hairdo makes. Like a coat of paint, a change in hairstyle is an instant makeover. His classmates don't even recognize him. Deuk-Heon is a middle-aged man in a kid's body, but he is very much a middle-aged man. He's constantly told he sounds like an old fogey. He also takes responsibility, as an adult, for what goes wrong and encourages the kids to be their best and do their best. It's played for laughs and warmth.

Yoon Chan Young (All of Us Are Dead) portrays ML, Heon, who gets possessed by Kim Deuk Pal. This kid is great. He has the middle-aged man walk, stance, expressions, & the standing-casual-with-hands-in-pockets. He's got that vague, ever present exasperation. Bong Jae Hyun (Crash! & Insignificant Roommates) plays Choi Se “Kyung”. They are friends, though their relationship isn't simple. Kyung knows enough to know that this dude ain't Heon. Lee Seo Jin (Marriage Contract) opens the show as the real OG, Kim Deuk Pal, looking real gangster. Ko Dong Ok plays the rotund thug, Jong Cheol. He's very amusing. This is the acting debut of singer, dancer, and model Joo Yoon Chan as Hong “Jae” Min, the school's worst bully, and the cause of Heon's ep1 suicide. Deuk Pal isn't much for bullying. He pulls his banger moves and soon Jae is more like his flunky and nothing like his oppressor. Jae ends up being pushed by two opposing sides and has a difficult choice to make.

I can't tell if this is a romance or a bromance between the 2 male leads. It's open-ended enough to read either way. They don't seem the least bit interested in girls until the last two episodes and that felt tokenish or tossed in. The past friendship is vague, poorly defined and looks more like it was an attraction. With Deuk on the scene, the friendship is real and true, and it's the centerpiece of the show.

“Why do you try so hard?” “If we don't do anything, bad people will continue to get the upper hand, and everything will just get worse. That's how the world works.” The only thing Deuk Pal is afraid of is exams and teachers, whether he's in Heon's body or not. He feels for Jae and wants to clean up the mess that is Jae's life, but Deuk-Heon isnalready balancing bullies, gangs, his dad's assistant (perhaps the most gangster character in the show), teachers, friends’ parents, and his own sick mother. One thing he doesn't have to deal with is dad. Daddy's always been absent.

Toxic parents who push kids too hard or ignore kids for their own agenda are, once again, front and center. Kyung is pushed cruelly by a rigid father. Bullying and suicide are also in the mix. Those are the big, ever present 3 Kdrama themes along with hyper-competitiveness and gossip. It's obvious that their society runs on toxic pride. Every human society does, to a certain degree, but they keep it at a whole different level.

Can people change? Deuk thinks so, as long as they decide to. “Even if you give up on me, dad, I will never give up on you. I'm going to grow up to be an adult who is respectable, confident, and upright. So you just watch me.” Kyung finally stands up to his father. People can change once they face truth. Once truth hits an individual, it's hard to continue to live in lies. Sadly, truth doesn't even brush by most people. Most people exist in lies all of their waking hours. The first and biggest lie is telling ourselves we're doing pretty good. All of us need more improvement than we could accomplish in a lifetime, and it seems that none of us are humble enough.

HSROG is a 2024 release that is rated 90 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of only 8 55-minute episodes. The first sign that this is a lite piece, and the creators weren't adverse to taking shortcuts, is the fact that they give us no reason for the soul switch. Maybe I looked away for a moment and missed it, but I don't recall any basis. We just have to accept it. Nevertheless, I took to it fully, rather quickly. I looked forward to each episode and was sad when I got beyond the halfway mark. The show is fun to watch.

It does lose steam and get goofier in the 2nd half. The villain is Heon's father's aid. She's much worse than the good-at-heart gangsters. It's alittle much, but not so far out of line. The show opted for simplicity not complexity. It is on the teen level, and for that level, it's good.

The heart-of-gold gangster is as easy to find as the heart-of-gold rich person. They are urban legends borne of our projection. Sure, some must exist, somewhere, but there's not many of them. I could never understand the appeal of gangsters and thugs in entertainment. Apparently, audiences love them because they do whatever they want to do. I still don't get the appeal of lowlife thugs, murderers, rapists, drug dealers and cruel pimps. I never will. It's different for someone truly apologetic. Bad guys who turn a new leaf are an inspiration. Jae has a genuine turnaround and experiences forgiveness and genuine human connections for the first time.

Despite the fact that this is less than half the length of a typical k-drama, they still have a wonderful last episode with a thorough and satisfying wrap-up. It's shocking how rare that's been, though they seem to be breaking that trend and improving of late.

As the show reinforces good values and is relatively clean and tame, it's perfect for teens who will relate to the pressures that these kids are grappling with. It reinforces personal responsibility, strength, and forgiveness. It's the opposite of gangsta.


QUOTES🗣

Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

It's an adult's job to help kids avoid misery as much as possible.


IMHO〰🖍

📣7.4 📝6.5 🎭7.7 🎨6.5 🎵/🔊7.3 🔚6 🤗4.7 ▪ 🌞5⚡4.5 😅2.5 😭3.5 😱2 😯3 🤢2 🤔4.8 💤0

Shazams: GO by LUCY

Age 12+ Language: weak@$$, @$$holes, violence, bullying, Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned. However, this show is on a teen level. It's more a kid's show than an adult piece.

Re-📺?
This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Flex X Cop-8.5,
The Miracle-7.7,
Another Miss Oh-7.5,
Glitch-8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Alchemy of Souls-7.9
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Law School -8,
Why Her?-8,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
SKY Castle-9,
Blood Free-8.5 ,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
Tunnel 8.5,
Anna-8.1,
Moving-8.5,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Squid Game-8.4,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4

~11/2025 After thoughts~

I'll never let AI write my reviews - I'm definitely too old school for that. However, Ive just discovered Grok in the last couple weeks and I'm having the best conversations of my life with him on filmed entertainment. Grok is the collective hivemind of human existence, and he's extremely entertaining. Here's what he says about our ML:

100% YES. Yoon Chan-young in High School Return of a Gangster is one of the most insane acting flexes I’ve seen from a Gen-Z actor in years.He’s 19 in real life playing a 49-year-old ex-gangster whose soul gets yeeted into the body of a bullied high-school weakling… and he doesn’t just “act” middle-aged, he becomes it. The slouchy ahjussi walk, the way he scratches his neck when he’s annoyed, the tiny eye-rolls at teenage nonsense, the way he holds a cigarette (even when it’s just a prop), the exhausted “I’ve seen some sh!t” sighs… it’s all so scarily accurate that you forget you’re watching a teenager for entire scenes. There’s a moment in episode 3 where he threatens someone and you legitimately feel like a real yakuza loan shark is about to break your kneecaps, except he’s 170 cm of baby-faced high-schooler.He beat out grown adults for Best Actor at the 2024 Fantasia Festival for this role, and the second the international jury saw him do the “ajusshi neck crack + death glare” combo they just handed him the trophy on the spot. The fact he can flip from “terrifying 49-year-old gangster” to “awkwardly blushing when his classmate calls him cute” in the same episode and make both feel completely authentic is witchcraft.

Wearing that little half-tied school tie like a 47-year-old salaryman who gave up on fashion in 2003 is the single greatest detail in television history. The way it just hangs there, slightly crooked, screaming “I have a bad back and three divorces” while the rest of the class has perfectly knotted uniforms? Oscar-worthy costume design. Emmy-worthy acting. I need it framed. Every time he adjusted that tragic tie with the exhaustion of a man who’s paid too many bar tabs in his life, I lost ten years off mine. The commitment to the bit was unholy. "TIE-ud" Yoon Chan-young, the character that launched a thousand memes and zero fashion consultations.

About the the bromance:
It’s a bromance that keeps accidentally walking right up to the romance line, staring at it for a long second, then nervously stepping back while clearing its throat. Officially, the show markets itself (and ends) as a pure bromance / found-family story: two broken dudes (one literally middle-aged in a teen body, one emotionally stunted rich kid) who save each other’s souls, learn to feel things again, hold hands in the rain, cry on each other’s shoulders, live together, cook for each other, and have multiple “I’d die for you” speeches… but nope, definitely just bros being bros! The girls exist purely to:
~prove the leads are technically straight on paper
~give the leads someone to awkwardly reject so they can go back to intense eye-contact with each other
~disappear for entire episodes when the plot remembers they exist

So in the balance:95 % soul-deep male bond with zero chill 5 % “here’s a girl so no one can say it’s gay”
→ Net result = the most gloriously homoerotic “bromance” that somehow still got away with a 15+ rating and aired on TVING without ever saying the word romance.
It’s the drama equivalent of that one friend who says “no homo” right before hugging you for 45 seconds straight.

The girls show up like unpaid interns holding a sign that says “HETEROSEXUALITY HAPPENS HERE” for exactly 45 seconds, get politely friend-zoned with the gentleness of a customer service rep, then vanish so the real main couple can resume their 4K slow-motion eye-f*** across the school rooftop while sad piano plays.It’s the most respectful, softest rejection in drama history, followed immediately by:Lead 1: “Anyway, where were we?”

Lead 2: stares into his soul for 12 uninterrupted seconds
Camera: zooms in until you can count individual eyelashes
Me: this is homophobia… because it’s not actually homo, it's plausible deniability.
🤣🤣🤣

So, this really is worth watching for tne lead's performance alone. It’s legendary.

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✒We Make Our Own Hail ⛈ Frustration, Love, & Workplace Interference °6.8° °good°

Here's a lite mist to refresh between the storms of heavier dramas. It's often as bland as the smile on Park Min-young's face throughout. For a show about st🌀rms, h🔥t, c☃ld, & tempest⚡this show is surprisingly uneventful. Can they make forecasting the weather exciting? Interesting?

It is interesting to see the decision-paradigm utilized to forecast a heavy rain warning issued in ep1 & the controversy fallout. They cut from a high tech, nearly sterile appearing office to people in the mud sandbagging the riverbanks, a rushing dam release & more ripple effect entailing effort & 💰. A heavy rain advisory ain't just hot air. May I presume that most of us were thoroughly unaware of the contentious nature between fishermen & the weather administration?

As for the characters, their minds are always on the skies. JHK (Jin Ha Kyung) is a ⭐ on the rise at the MA. Her pressure's rising, too. It's hard to stay 🌞 when she wants to rain hellfire on her fiance. "Sometimes I feel like she can't take what she's owed in life from anyone," her mother says. Miss Hospital Corners is so uptight that her inflexible walk is difficult to watch w/o eclipse glasses. She's about to marry her longtime BF/coworker, but she gets ghosted right before the wedding & BF briskly marries someone else who works in the same building. Let the gossip & gawking start pouring down on our humiliated FL. She's played by Park Min Young who generates electric chemistry w/ every male lead. In FL&W's early scenes, either botox or filler washed away her facial expressions. It's distracting. FL&W doesn't utilize her well.

She isn't the only underutilized talent. Song Kang plays ML Lee Shi Woob, a geek. It's kind of a waste of his abilities, the primary one being a walking pheromone. He is downright pathetic in ep1, which strains the eyes more than JHK's over-stiff gate. Yoon Park, who plays ex-fiance Han Ki Joon, had a similar role in My Shy Boss(6.5) in which he retrogrades from Mr. Cool into Mr. Slight-Chance after turbulence, while adjusting his body language from confident to defeated marvelously. We see his pressure building from the past to the present in FL&W. Frustration & feelings of isolation became an arctic chill over time, because his fiance was married to her job. He slings sandbags - of sleaze - sometimes we don't notice a person in our life is sleazy because we see what we want to see & fail to be as attentive as we should be.

Then there's the ubiquitous mother: Kim Mi-kyung. She gets to have a temper tantrum in this one. It must have felt good. Lee Sung Wook plays Eom Dong Han from Team 2. He's a weather geek who chose to marry & have a child. Opting to work remotely, he continued to provide 💰, but denied them his presence for years, so his wife is bitter. She's using their daughter to vent her justified anger. That's a toxic, selfish act, & it's never okay. Jang So Yeon plays his wife, Lee Hyang Rae. She has to play someone who gets hit w/ extremely painful things in 'Something in the Rain'(8.6), & she handled it convincingly. She has gravitas. Jung Woon Sun as Jin Tae Kyung, & Moon Tae Yu, as Shin Seok Ho, round out the main cast. She's our FL's sister & a bit of a mess. He's an anal-retentive (capitalize that) meteorologist. They are the cold front that's blasted by a heatwave; their 2ndary 💓 is one of the best things in the show. As for the primary romance, it is usually cloudless skies. In FL&W we flow w/ the protags through daily life w/ constant changes in currents & humidity. Puffs of clouds will form, 💧 will fall, sometimes they get wet. At work there is virtually no protection from the hail of gossip. There's no dramatic typhoons or blizzards, just everyday existence.

Marriage is considered a life success, of sorts, but the married couples are the ones that are always fighting in FL&W. Being married washes up latent expectations that are not automatically met. It's also an extra weight of responsibility in taking on, in the form of a lifetime commitment, another person's burdens & struggles, putting up w/ failures, & also creating kids (more lives + more work + more struggles). Dong Han from Team 2 loves being a dad after being absent for so long, but soon he learns the agony that can come w/ it. The payoff is supposed to be more love. Nobody does it perfectly - Not you; not me. I've always joked that parenting is all about guilt. What I didn't know before is that loss & grief also taunt us w/ regret & guilt. It's a feeling that I would spare all. In one notable scene a now split up couple, each in new relationships where some of the same issues have manifested once again, have dinner together to discuss where they went wrong. They manage to have a constructive deconstruction of their relationship & how it got off course. Each could now see things about themselves & where they might need to improve. Alot of people who think that moving on to another 💓 will fix things are often disappointed. One mother talked about how the pettiness adds up, but it was a mistake for her to break up her first marriage. In our uber individualistic & rage-prone society we get mad at every little offense, but we forgive ourselves quite easily for the same things. For example, our newlyweds have kept some things from e/o. She used to live w/ her boyfriend & she never told her husband, because she was worried he wouldn't like it. (SK is more conservative about these things than the USA). He finds out, & he doesn't like it. He /really/ doesn't like it. This is a guy who used to live w/ his GF, whom he broke up w/ right before the wedding. Does he have any right to be offended? Q: Why is he blind to his own stuff? A: Because we all are🙈. One of the main reasons marriages suffer from a dreadful >50% divorce rate is because of 2nd & 3rd marriages, which have a terrible success rate. First marriages are still more likely to succeed than not. Alittle extra effort, the knowledge that you aren't a perfect mate either, & sincerely trying to see things from the other person's perspective may part the clouds & let the 🌞 in.

That is the theme of FL&W: Hang in there, keep at it & try to stay together, because: It's going to rain; a storm is brewing. The forecast looks ominous & it's best not to face it alone. Umbrellas send signals about relationships. Our FL thinks back to when her fiance held one over her head - when things were going well. She almost smiles until she remembers that the wedding's in a month, the deposit was never paid, & her fiance is gone with the wind. Taking on a decided chill, she walks away letting the rain soak her. The 2ndary couple, just beginning to realize their interest, admit to e/o how they feel & leave the restaurant as he holds her close under his ☔. The camera pans back to the table they just vacated to show a forgotten 🌂 they left behind: They only need one 🌂 now. They will brave the elements together. It's a lovely touch. There's definitely another theme that they are whispering down the lane: Gossip hurts. Nobody can mind h/h own business at the Meteorological Administration. We make our own hell. Why do we gossip? Pride. People have an insatiable compulsion to compare ourselves to others & tell ourselves that we are doing better by comparison. Those are just the lies we tell ourselves, folks. What does comparing oneself to a person w/ different skills, backgrounds, personalities, strengths, weakness, IQ, experiences, connections, challenges & the myriad of other variants even mean? It's the most worthless, empty thinking possible. Gossips are society's ice storms that leave destruction in their wake.

FLoW & FLaW - No one expects them to get it right every time. FL&W is often formulaic & uninspiring, along w/ some downright lackluster delivery. Yet it has plenty of solid elements. There's some truly cute & amusing scenes, but not until the show is 30% over. The 🌞 pokes through to shine brightly at times: Zoom in shots from satellite height down to ground level add excitement. There's cool shots of weather phenomena including a typhoon (which looks exactly like whipped cream on top of a delicious concoction which has always distracted me). The married-ex's apt has narcissist sized wedding pictures on the LR wall; their problems quickly become bigger than those 8ft × 10fts. When the AC breaks, everybody's sweating & fanning; cut over to Mr. OCD who looks cool as a 🥒 w/ his handheld fan. His carefully controlled life will be typhooned by our FL's sister. The restaurant scenes are cute. The first time our leads run into e/o they sit apart, one being too hot & the other too cold. Soon, they're sitting together, lookin cozy. The chef's reactions to them are closely monitored & add layers of warm enjoyment to these vignettes. The director turns a one night stand into a visual weather metaphor - I felt undone - it's exceptional. There is a scene w/ 4 men, 1 woman & 1 apt in ep7 that is pretty darn funny. It's a nice touch when the screen splits w/ the heads of our leads & her mother lined up to show the same exact downturned mouth. Many of the characters are going through similar struggles & end up mirroring e/o, either in uniformity or a contrast of opposites. It's good filmmaking. So, w/ what I now know, would I choose to watch it again for the first time? There's a 60% chance that I would.

And that's the 🔥 & the ☃brr of it. At many moments it's a little pedestrian & at others there's a good message, the acting is good, there are laughs, & our social intelligence is challenged. For some of us, the best value is that it's a mostly pleasant brainless watch if you want to do a mental shutdown - a thing as necessary as an occasional rainstorm.

QUOTE📢

This is insane


〰🖍 IMHO

📣6 📝7 🎭7.5 💓7 🦋5 🌞7 🎨7 🎵&🔊7.5 😅7.5 😭 🤔4 💤4 🔚8

Age 12+ pre-marital sex


Originally 〰️🖊 9/2023

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✒Not Stirred ☕️ °6.5° °cute but avg°

Cha DoHa is actor Yeo Woon Gwang's manager. She's also his biggest fangirl, so she's living the dream. Though not without static, her life is near perfect. The new bodyguard is messing everything up, however. He has to go! She will make /sure/ he gets fired, she decides.

He isn't cooperating, though. He performs his duties /excellently/. There's no weak spots. Gwang loves him - says they're brothers. Not bros - BROTHER'S. What they don't know is that he's a super-secret agent. Bodyguard to the stars is just his cover. He'll never get fired. He's too perfect. Every mission comes to an end, though. So after he quits, he needs their help with a tricky situation. DoHa out-maneuvers him brilliantly.

M2M is a 2017 release that is rated 88 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 65ish-minute episodes. It's cute and forgettable. It's not a serious show. It doesn't take itself seriously, therefore, why should we? M2M does suffer from MAL-content, meaning that there are too many episodes and not enough content. It starts fun but declines before the episode count does. There are fun scenes, silliness, laughter, and interesting plot twists, but in the final debrief it is solidly in the should-have-been-better category., The ending is a non ending. That should have been better as well.

Hey, it's just for fun, and fun it often is. M2M doesn't provoke us to probe deeper truths, cause us to reflect on our choices, nor does it inspire change from within. It's about how this man's man, in a nicely fitting suit, is conquered by this girl-next-door cutie. At first he's about the mission. He's got his cover and nothing about him is genuine. After ups and downs, ins and outs, this peril, and that danger, he arrives at his best tactic: Sincerity. She then 1-ups him by coming up with something even better…

Fangirl. Secret agent. Narcissistic actor. Retired actress & her congressman husband… The cast is a mix of characters. Park Hae-Jin (The Killing Vote, Cheese in the Trap-7.7) is “Kim” Sul-Woo ~ Kim-Guard. He's Han Solo… Man Solo? He operates alone. He doesn't mix business with pleasure. He doesn't fall in love. And he's got a bad feeling about this assignment. Kim Min Jung (she practically stole the show in Mr. Sunshine-9, and that's crazy impressive) plays FL, Cha DoHa. She's no secret agent, but she can pick a lock.

Park Sung Woong is Yeo Woon Gwang. He's a movie star (‘Let me sleep some more.’ “I can't see the stuntmen today. They're always fighting. Let's have a day of peace.”) While he's plenty ego-centric, Gwang is mostly decent. (I love this guy!). He's good to DoHa and he sincerely works hard. He's portrayed a secret agent on film, so he recognizes an impressive man when one is working for him. This Kim-guard hombre is impressive.

Chae Jung An (The King of Pigs, Coffee Prince) plays Song Mi Eun, current congressman's wife, former actress, and Gwang's former girlfriend. Jung Man Shik portrays Prosecutor Lee Dong Hyun. The director is Lee Chang-Min (Welcome to Waikiki) and writer Kim Won-Suk also scripted Descendants of the Sun-8.3.

Here is a romance in which she's staring at the phone wondering if he will call, and he's in a high-stakes shootout. “You know, James Bond? We are gonna keep our dating eachother as a covert mission… It's our secret.” Kim is dating DoHa as part of his cover. She's just part of the mission. DoHa thinks /she's the mission/. Alas, No.

M2M has excitement but it has even more laughs. Right after Doha asks to keep their dating relationship a covert mission, someone in her family asks Kim to meet “secretly and covertly”. Hanging out with Kim-Guard gets the movie star a chance to see action IRL. Gwang attempts to pause a real-life fight with real-life bad guys to warn them to not scar his face! There is always a reason Kim has to remain undercover as Gwang's bodyguard. Like Pacino in the Godfather, they keep pulling him back in. He can't separate himself from Doha, and he's got a /really/ bad feeling about this. “Faith, hope and love are not what saves a person. What saves a person is hatred and rage.” This is said in good fun, but sometimes we do need to get our ire up alittle to get ahead.

M2M didn't stoke my ire or many feelings at all. All in all, with what I now know, would I choose to watch it again for the first time? No. I would skip this one, but it's easy to see why many would enjoy it's low-stress cuteness, which will please many viewers, and there's certainly worse things out there. DoHa and Gwang are truly darling characters and Kim-Guard isn't so shabby, either. Hopefully this will inform your next mission.



〰🖍 IMHO

📣6.7 📝5 🎭7.3 💓6 🦋5 🎨6.5 🔚4 ♦ 🌞5 ⚡5.8 😅3.2 😭2.5 😱3 😯2 😖2 🤔3 💤2

🎵/🔊7.5 Aurora, by yangpa, is a good song.

Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned. Language: $h!+


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

Modern Day -
Crazy Love-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8, 99 days with the Superstar-7,
Touch your heart 8.2, Another Miss Oh-7.5,
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,
Love Struck in the City 7.3, Familiar Wife-8.5,
Hospital Playlist 9, More Than Friends-8,
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9


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

Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1, Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
Sisyphus 8, When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cur

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✒Beauty✂Brawn✂Buddhas✂Bypasses & Burials °7.1° °VG°

✂From the start, TB cuts right to it. We cut from an elderly man cutting his last character in a wood tablet, to his gravesite where they discuss how finding the man's estranged family might be a challenge (while the digger is cutting into the earth), to a college prof (Bro #1) explaining that the independence movement was actually started in order to find two golden Buddha☸statues worth billions of won ("That's🇰🇷patriotism!"), while he's cutting off the students' Q&A time, to a group of planners who are looking for a better, more economical way to build a highway after a collapse, while they cut apart their employee (Bro #2) because he has respect for family ⚖rights & 🎑rites - who cares about the family that owns the land that we need? Why haven't you already suggested taking the land if it saves us 💰billions💰? If you can't explain yourself, Lee Joo Bong, you're fired! Those are the legs of the memorial table that is this movie. Big bro, Lee Seok Bong (he's both older and bigger) bought expensive equipment for Buddha-treasure hunting that he can't use, right now, because war has broken out where he believes the treasure is. Little bro is not only in danger of being fired but also being investigated at work for potential crimes because he didn't propose attempting to take private land from a family in order to build the highway. They're both on the highway to trouble, and they also find themselves on the highway headed to their father's memorial.

These bros come from a buddhist family steeped in their own history. They trace their roots to the Joseon Era and they revel in it. 🎎 Historic garb is mandatory for important occasions (I'll NEVER do that!, younger bro, Lee Joo Bong, insists… Who wants to put $ on that?). They adhere to old customs including mistreatment of women, particularly daughter I/Ls. Failing to actually follow the elevated teachings of Buddha, the family is horrible: The oldest, Lee Seok Bong, says his childhood dream was to become an orphan. He later rebels by going to church. Having grown up churchy while watching many kids rebel to become many things, including Buddhists, it makes me chuckle to see this happening from the opposite angle. When it comes to faith, nobody does it perfectly. That's the point. We have to work at these things. Work doesn't mean the external - sitting in a pew, or temple, or saying template prayers; the real work is internal and involves the heart. A handful of weird exceptions aside, there is no belief system on earth that will waive a magic wand and "fix" a person on the spot: You'll not find any group religious, political, or fraternal, where everyone has their act together. It's always a journey, and if we don't walk that journey with humility, we will never stay on the right path. These bros belong to a family that is excessively proud of their institutionalized pride. They don't do humility. That's why their behavior is loathsome.

Our bros got on the wrong path. On the way to the homestead they are talking (not necessarily looking ahead) when the car goes "THUD!" They hit something. They never saw it, but they hit /something/. A quick survey reveals a woman lying in the tall grass. She's breathing, but the ambulance won't get there for hours, they're told, so they decide to take her to the 🏥 themselves. When she wakes up they can see this is no normal person. Did she injure her head in the impact, or was she always looney? This chick gets weirder and weirder, and then she gets outrageous.

The cast is quite good. Ma Dong Seok is big bro, Lee Seok Bong. He has gravitas - hahaha - he's a big man with fantastic presence (he's actually American - represent, 🇺🇸!). Though on the side, his is the character that impressed me the most in Train To Busan-7.8. I have a predilection for teddy bears, so that might be why, but I think there's more to it that that. He has a likable air about him as well as good comedic timing, Lee Dong Hwi is Lee Joo Bong and plays the nervous dweeb well. Lee Ha Nee Aurora must play a somewhat crazy Amnesia victim. She's excellent.

The theme of this film is: Family - Thick and Thin + Legacy. The way we remember our parents may not be 💯% accurate. Most of us have no understanding of their struggles. A family's history is important and it's certainly interesting, but what's most important is the people. If family traditions are making the family miserable, then it might be time for a rehaul. There are many who don't know their family tree. That makes them no less significant and no less deserving of respect. Never forget, scientists and theologians agree: We came from one woman. We are all one family.

TB is 102 minutes and is rated 7.6 on AWiki, so it has been well received. (I find Korean movies are often a little better than their IMDB ratings indicate). Not every attempt works, but TB hits the 😅button plenty. It's an amusing film, and the ending is rather touching. It won't end up where you think it will half way thru, nor will it end up the way it looks at the 90% mark. It finishes stronger than it starts, which is impressive. It's most difficult to stick the landing, and they super-glue it better than mom's orchid pot. So ^before^ you grab any ^hoes^ and rummage for 🗿treasure, pay respects to The ^Bros^ for some light clean fun done right.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣7.5 📝7 🎭7.5 💓5🦋4 🌞6.5 🎨6.8⚡4.5 🎵/🔊6 😅5 😭3 😱3 😯3 🤔4 💤0 🔚8.8

Age + R rated language; no F💣s

Re-📺? If someone put it on I wouldn't complain.

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

Mad For Each Other ~ silly fun
My Secret Romance 7 (too many flashbacks just ff thru them),
Start-up 7.5,
Her Private Life 8,
A Witch's love 7.8,
love to hate you 8.9
Touch your heart 8.2,
Romance is a bonus book 7.9,
Boys Over Flowers 8,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's okay not to be okay 9,
Love Struck in the city 7.3,
Hospital Playlist 9,
My Mister 9,
More than friends 8,
I'll see you when the weather is fine 9,
Something in the Rain 9

If you want some fun in old Joseon, check out My Only Love Song(9), Mr. Queen(8.5), and My Sassy Girl(8.5).

Originally 〰️🖊 9/2023

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✒Polish What Others Cast Away °5.7 °good°

Why part-time? Performers don't work full-time. Yet these kids work HARD to get to their first release, and that is just the beginning.

Jung Tae Kyung is a wildly successful and famous music producer (think Dr. Dre or Phil Spector) who retires after questioning what it all means. He was lost, he explains later. As the show starts, he knows where to go again. He's back in the studio parking lot looking like a wandering peasant that got lost from the set of a historical drama - turban and all. He's been cloistered at a Hindu temple for 8 years, so he's almost like a newborn. Lowkey? He pees sitting down, now! {He grandstands to his partner: "How many changes can the world have within the span of 8 years? Has NK developed nuclear missiles? Has AI taken over Go? Why make a big fuss as if the nation has been turned upside down?" The answer: 'NK does have nukes, AI has overtaken Go, and our country did turn upside-down due to impeachment.' Dude was spared all that anxiety by living in a Hindu Temple. There's something to be said for that}

Like a person who has sincerely turned h/h life around by way of faith, he immediately gravitates to the lost causes at the agency: A pathetic attention seeker, a girl with stage fright (she's an excellent singer - alone - in the bathroom), another girl who suddenly can't hit the high notes anymore (she will draw first blood), and a very talented missy with a personality too hissy - anger management issues to boot. This motley crew is gathered into a room where they surmise that the agency has decided to fire them. Next, HE enters. "I'm going to make you idols," he announces. "Who are you?," they ask.

PTI is a 2017 release that is rated 7.4 on MAL. It is 1 season consisting of 5 35-minute episodes, so it's about the length of a long movie. This appears to be a show that's geared towards the young-at-heart. It has simple plot lines, writing, characters, and very simple solutions. Problems are wrapped up in an afternoon, the bad guys give up easily (not wanting to be /that/ evil) and the group becomes like family. It's shallow, but it's all in good clean fun, and it's a nice escape for young teens and tweens. Adults take a condescending attitude towards things that are simple, but complicated ain't better. For kids everything is simple. Don't lie. Don't steal. Be kind. Forgive. As adults we know the world is more complicated than that… Why? Did lying, stealing, and meanness suddenly become okay, or are we making all sorts of compromises to manage the world and justify doing what we want to do? Things are usually simple, and kids often have it right. It's adults who cast shadows on things. In PTI we'll meet a guy who chose the wrong path. He decided to betray his friend and the whole company in order for profit and power, but he relented when it got to a certain point. Instead of staying on the course he had chosen, he backed up and did not go-for-the-win-to-the-bitter-end. Is it more childish to stick with our bad decisions and try to win at all costs, or is it more childish to simply stop and reconsider?

The art direction lightens the mood. In ep1 when they show up at their new digs, their wardrobe and suitcases create a cacophony of color that assaults the eyes, yet somehow lightens the mood. Some of the music is pretty good. One would think that's automatic, but we've all seen features about the music industry in which the music isn't good, so good for them. PTI only manages mild humor; The bathroom humor misses the target in ep2. The cast are all young and beautiful, and not merely cookie-cutter pretty. Lee Su Hyun is not waif thin and her head is 50% larger than the ones of rest of the cast, yet she is beautiful. Her smile is radiant starlight, and her jet-black straight hair is the type that I've always found most attractive. She evokes a gentleness and genuine spirit that comes from within.

In summary, PTI is quite a bit like pop music: It's sweet, simple, and it sticks to the surface. Sometimes, that's exactly what we need.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣6 📝5 🎭7 💓5🦋5 🌞5 🎨6 ⚡3 🎵/🔊7.4 😅3 😭3 😱1 😯3 😖2 🤔2 💤2 🔚5

Age 10+ with this caution:
The topic of suicide is introduced. This creates a good opportunity to discuss it with your kids, as the painful aftermath never fully resolves. SK, a country of around 50M people, is overachieving on the world stage. One reason for that is because their society is so heavily pressured. Common themes in SK entertainment are: Study, exams, domineering parents, expectations, a rigid caste system where many are shut out, vicious gossip, and suicide. All of this exists everywhere, but SK is a hothouse where it really thrives resulting in the 4th highest suicide rate in the 🌏, w/ students & elderly @ 🔝risk. The rest of the developed 🌎 isn't close. This is, quite simply, a pride problem. "Asian mother" has become a cliche for a toxic parent because of the way kids are pressured to elevate the family and make everyone look good. There's kids that are self-motivated, and kids that need a little help. Our son needed to be pushed every step of the way. The key is that it's always supposed to be about the child, what is good for the child, what will assist that human in developing into the best version of h/hself. The goal is supposed to be helping that person realize h/h potential in order to live the fullest life. It's never supposed to be about making the parents or the family look good. That's a poison that not only rots the family, but also the community, leaving destruction in its wake. Thus the suicide. In 🇺🇸 we have the opposite problem, having become a country of mindless, rutting underachievers. Too many parents are too absorbed with their own lives, leaving the kids floundering and aimless. Thus, the problems we have. Feeling nothing but a bleak emptiness has kids in the USA sacrificing their lives to reckless pursuits in an effort to escape meaninglessness. Balance is hard because humans have a tendency to take things too far. Not being balanced naturally, we must make a constant effort to walk the sunlit path. The first stepping stone on the path has this inscription: "It's not about you and what you can get from this. It's about love." The more love you invest, the more love is returned. While always kind, love isn't always soft, though. Love does the necessary things. It's about shaping this person into a hard working, caring, beneficial member of society. Then love multiplies.

Re-📺?
This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….


You May Like:
For the 10-14 age group, Strongest Delivery Man-6.6, D4DJ-7.5, The Miracle-7.7, Spark-6.4, Bodacious Space Pirates-6.7, Belle-8.5, Spirited Away-9, Howl's Moving Castle-9, One Piece-8, The Dragon Prince-8.7, Avatar The Last Airbender-10 & Trollhunters-9.5 are all good to excellent.

Originally 〰️🖊 11/2023

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✒ ❗️ Living on Adrenaline °7.8° °VG°

🚨 Looks like there's a maverick on the force.

A firefighter, a paramedic, and a cop walk into a bar. It's not a joke. It's a script. It's pretty exciting, too. Watching them investigate is entertaining.

TFR is a 2022 release of 2 seasons consisting of 24 65-minute episodes and S3 is expected to be announced. It is rated 91 on AWiki. The name seems especially generic, so I wasn't convinced when I started it, but Kdramas with boring titles are often a pleasant surprise. These ? stories are downright arresting.

Kim Rae Won (Decibel, A Wild Apricot) is Jin HoGae, one of those universally cool types. His first credits are from 1998; he's been around for awhile. This is my first look at him and I get the appeal. He has several interactions with his father, and it's never been less convincing to me that two actors were related by blood. Their scenes seem slightly off, they're so unlikely to be father and son. HoGae must take after his mother. He's our maverick, and he's completely unpredictable.

In S2, HoGae is being promoted to head of the NOI investigation team. He's at the fancy ceremony. The auditorium is full. He suddenly stands up and announces that he can't accept the promotion. As he walks out of the building, somebody chases him outside and asks what he's doing? “I don't like the color of the building,” he quips. He rides off on his motorcycle. James Dean has nothing on him.

Son Ho Jun (Was It Love-7.4, Go Back Couple) is Bong Do Jin. He's got a nice presence. Both he and HoGae are interested in Song Seol (Gong Seung Yeon from Circle, Re-Born & My Only Love Song-8.7). This actress is a charmer. I'm a fan. There are, once again, amazing child actors. In ep5 a little girl steals the show. She completely upstages our ML. Director Shin Kyung Soo also brought us The Nokdu Flower & Six Flying Dragons, while screenwriter Min Ji Eun penned Partners for Justice.

In S2, ep1, Choi Won-Young plays an arsonist. He's brilliant. I've seen him in The Golden Spoon-8.1, Mystic Pop-Up Bar-8.2, The Heirs-7.3, and the excellent SKY Castle-9. He's different in everything; a real talent.

Oh Eui Shik makes an appearance towards the end of S1 and takes on a more regular role in S2. I've been a fan of his since Oh My Ghost-10, one of my gateway Kdramas. I love it so much that I love every actor on the cast. This guy really does seem to be sprinkled with fairy dust because he's in a lot of features, and they're all successful. I've seen him in While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Familiar Wife-8.5, The Hymn of Death-8.4, Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9, Touch Your Heart-8.2, Hi Bye, Mama-6.5, My Unfamiliar Family-7.9 Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2 & Big Mouth-7.4. He gets to be more than a sidekick in S2. I just want to see more & more of him, now.

First responders are police, fire, and paramedics. The ME and prosecutors will also be at a live crime scene. We follow all these careers in the show. Cases that pop up are arson, kidnapping,
suicide under suspicious circumstances, statutory rape, a hit-and-run, missing persons, and all the while there's corruption teeming In the background. Among the decent folk there's the everyday clashes that must occur, especially among sleep deprived adrenaline junkie types who exist on instant food and soju. Jin stops a helicopter with a fire hose~>> B@d@$$. There's the promise of romance, too.

The plot gets a tad outrageous in S2, which begins as a seamless continuation of S1. It's still quite a bit of fun. I didn't find it difficult to take the ride with them. Some certainly will. They kill off cats in both seasons. That's a problem Hollywood has had for decades. It's leeching out into Kcountry now. Overall, TFR is a great ride, though. Can a maverick go-it-alone forever? To the fiery end? Watch and see. You probably won't regret it.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣7.7📝8 🎭7.8 💓5 🦋6 🎨6.5 🔚🤗5 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡6.5 😅3.5 😭6 😱5.5 😯4.5 🤢7 🤔6 💤0

🎵/🔊7.4 Shazams: Heaven for You by CHEN, Cross the way, by BUMJIN


Age 17+ Language: b@$+@rd and other PG-13 verbiage; The autopsies can be graphic. Painful deaths. Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.

Re-📺? Won't rule it out


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

💘 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Crazy Love-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,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Was it love-7.9,
Hospital Playlist 9,
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9


⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Revenge of Others-8.3,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Han River Police-7.4,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Moving-8.5,
Law School -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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✒⚠ D♻ N♻T ReCycle ♻ Futility's Rubble °♻utstanding°

Naivety + Ignorance = Poisonous Vapor: Parasite's sly infiltration batters & asphyxiates before we recognize the peril. Parasite shoves us downstairs yelling: The surface calls🔊 R U awake? Climb out of your mausoleum & see. It studies symbiotic toxicities that cycle♻recycle as society clogs, bursts, & shards fly. We only shank us. The world of wealth rolls onto the 99% & it exposes its lax belly to the avalanching refuse, & the rotting left-backs lunge & slash to escape society's bilge pit. All are buried under the ma$$.

This is prime grade film. When Parasite cranked up Cannes 2019, those snobs were well in arrears to 🇰🇷 vis-à-vis recognition. By nipping a Palme🎖d'Or, Parasite pushed Kdramas uphill into the theatre d'Int'l acclaim👏👏

This film has a math cadence to it. Factor 1st a basement hovel. Foul fumes waft from the 1 interior door. The Kℹm fam exists here _X_ (Mom & Dad + daughter Ki-jung / “KJ” + son Ki-woo / “KW”. Feel the slick heat. Pause breath in dread of putrid bodies + odious vapor d'Dank 🚽. They're pondering 💸Problem$, but their break ends when a -stream〰〽 wets their sidewalk level window ~ That ain't water❕

SHOO‼😖

Depressing sums it up.

Do the math: -(Kℹm kids) +(Hℹ ℹQs) -(🎓=💸×💸) × -(acceptance is near impossible) > for what? = Kℹms do -(scrounge-work), like folding pizza boxes. What a waste of 🇰🇷 assets!

KW's friend, Min, who tutors the Park daughter, must study abroad. Min insists KW sub in when he's in 🇺🇸. He needs a placeholder as he intends to marry the Park 👑 Princess upon his return. In KW He Trusts. 'Don't worry! Mrs. Park ain't bright. If I refer you, she won't study your 📜credentials🎓 under a microscope,’ Min assures him.

The interview is our 1st sniff of the rank contrasts between the two families. Out of the cellar, KW walks the cobblestones up Up UP to the ambrosial air where the Parks r👀st. Beautifully lined with perfect houses, the area is emptied of life but for the perfectly aromatic gardens. Yet a niff of unease loiters on the verge.

When we enter Park Place, it's a jolt. Cheerless grey negative space meets visitants. Approaching drab minimalism, the Park Designer🏛Slab feels leaden + institutional - Like a basement. Perching in rarified air doesn't seal out d'Essence-of-cataomb.

Depressing sums it up.

The Parks trust Min, so they are perfectly content to rely on KW: The vent is opened for the Kℹms to release their T♻XINS. It starts w/ a sprinkle🌬 🌤Sis-KJ is just wizzy on the computer ▶ Counterfeits📜📑📃? No problem-ikah. 🌥KW muses to Mrs Park about a "famous" art therapist who helped another wealthy family's kid. If she'd like her son evaluated, he'll get her phone number ~ 😇? 🌦Enter "therapist" Sis-KJ. 🌧Once KJ's in playing therapist, she & KW hijack the driver. Soon, 🎶Papa's got a brand new pay✔check. 🌪For mom's pay✔, they a✖e Ms house🏛keeper (The Great Lee Jeong-eun) who's been OTJ since the slab was poured🌬

🔜 Kℹm-vaded, the Parks are now Kℹm-Fested unawares: + Frℹends-of-frℹends + former employers + a-z, etc = how they scored their new hℹres, they /thℹnk/. Watching Kℹms calculate ℹs an ℹmpressive thℹng, ℹndeed.

The Parks are away, so the Kℹms play house party in the hills. Featuring the meager green relief Parasite affords, windows span the Park's single not-shadow-hued wall & confront the backyard. A storm's brewing. Rain splats: Tatidee~tat. ⚡BOOM! as they swig Park liquor & lap the pomp. A warmer family than the Parks, the Kℹms have casual affection that's oft held hostage by flare-ups - much like Marines on leave: The ghost of latent threats lingers round their party's debris field. Suddenly, on this dark & stormy eve: Knock▫knock↔Crack⚡BOOM❗

🛑Someone's at the d👀r⚠

🚩It's Ms housekeeper⁉

📢⚡❕

💦I forgot a °thing° in the basement. May I come in? ☔

⚡ She's 🌧 saturated

💦Please? 😇❔

Next, "CRAZY" goes Full-Fugitive. Inhale as a miasma of toxicants proceeds to suffocate them in its spread to asphyxiate all earth.

⛈⛈⛈

Rain saturates P.

💧Showers gently wash the 1% uplands

💧Sprays flush stray grime

💦 Streams trickle down onto streets so quaint w/ the lush, thirsty vines that soften the block walls.

🌧 Torrents swell into a river that rushes into a squall, picking up volume as it fl🌀ws ⬇down⬇

All the way down, in the bo⬇⬇om's basement⤵🕳 are the Kℹms. Their neighborhood is repository for the slurry of dreck lifted in the 🌊 path. It's a grave site: A⬇⬇ descends on the -Dissed▶ weather+sewage + gov't regulations +waste + decay - The highland's dredge is discharged onto ▶them◀

The Kℹms are jettisoned from a spacious -(desolate, really) living room + (hunger sated & the dance of 🌧 a marvel) to ↘mired $h!thole↙ as we ride-or-die w/ them. Parasite is a coefficient of the senses: Hear▶ Grab what you can‼ See> What's IN this black GL👀P? Gross ‼🤢‼ Feel > legs·arms·torsos in Slimy wetness. Taste> Mouth Closed! (We only see Kℹms consume in P. In this scene, they literally eat $h!t). Smell> Don't breathe‼ Stanky sewage is slop, & filthy bodies the flopping pigs. L👀k again⤵ Rundown sch👀l-turned-crowded-shelter. Systemic grunge is layered from the years, like rings on a tree.

Studies show those who make it big or get that promo⬆ion, unawares or not, assume they are superior. Factor in reincarnation/prior-life sins & the 1% could glibly presume the poor deserve to be such. The system continually cranks out more entitleds who presume superiority along with the poor who hate them, believing the wealthy are obligated to share. +Agreed! They're /morally/ obligated × compelled to share🏧💓🕚.

⚠Futility: A dead 🖤 cannot be legislated into a living 💓 · A 🖤 bypasses laws.

OUR cycles will isolate & destroy us all, regardless of wealth. Parasite tries to jam the gears + slow the works, begging: ‘ST🛑P‼ Who is eating whom? Money can be a cage + a mildew that rots everything!’ The rich employ workers to perform basic tasks, to the point that they can no longer do - at all. (Who are the parasites?) All these workers know that all people have the same net intrinsic worth. They know, w/ disdain, that all their bosses are ready to be popped🎈 Reference: Mrs Park. She's a sheltered child playing at grown-up, only to display how t◻◻ many✖ch☑ices can o✔erwhelm.

P's also a ghoul-parade featuring choices that isolate. Greed retrofits the brazen into victims like⚡. At times, even the poor consume other poor souls, further cranking the ♻. A dearth of respect, compassion & humility keeps it ever♻churning.

Finally, Parasite is replete w/ metaphors to contrast colliding worlds: Trading places, solitary lives & fates flipping, 'Sub-level existence' + 'buried alive', as it were, give us a slap & shake. Be it crypts, vaults, basement apartments, plans, no plans, & plans that are actually not plans, but daydreams, rather: The poor sleep, eat, dress, live + learn differently. What they hear & taste is different. The poor even smell differently.

We all rotate the toxic cycle if we can't respect our extended 🌍 family. It takes effort to reverse a flow, but those who want to wrench the gears can do so. Start small. Make a heart connection, not a dollar💵dump. Are you 🤑? (Psst: In world hierarchy, the USA's mid-class is loaded). Give money, yes, but give more time, as humans are designed to be fulfilled when we help others + it's 3D glasses for the kids. Are you poor? Do your best + prioritize self-improvement + don't quit!! +Do what good you can. Appreciate what's done for you. Know that there's a level at which only /you/ can lift yourself higher. Nobody deserves to be born in 🇺🇸,🇰🇷, or 🇫🇷; rich or poor, frumpy or beautiful, thin or portly, etc. These are gifts or challenges that've been handed to us: (individually + collectively).

⚠Futility: The Parks have Perks, but never allow 👁 or 💰 to flow to the sufferig♻masses underneath.

The Parks colonize a truth-proof illusion🎈 Truth has a habit of puncturing through, though. They aren't as well-off as they imagine: All near a Park see W💰N, not One; money poisons it all. The Parks are spectres. They don't eat/love/live in P. While not actively evil, they're 'ho-hum'. The world is Chock O' Nutz full of the weak-minded & indifferent. We could argue a few ♻ about whether that = evil. It doesn't matter in the end, b/c a weak/indifferent populous enables evil > ⭕️ doubts < Evil always seeps in. It must be staunched. C♻NTUNUALLY.

(The Kℹms = evil) is a ❌wrong summation: The Kℹms Ch☑se evil, rather, never c◻nsidering sincerity. If KW had simply done his job, Perks would have followed. We sympathize with the Kℹm's plight + their gumption impresses, however, the movie + base level decency say that justifying their actions is a big mistake. They have greater > than the Parks in that they're smart & work as a unit. They truly love eachother. The over coddled Park kids reek of ignorance. If KW & KJ had Park Perks, they'd excel. But LO❕No patience. Investing in N🕛W with 👁👁 to the future pays dividends by turning things counter🕞wise to the Park's vacuous progeny. Notwithstanding, pulling the Parks down is another wrong answer. That won't lift the Kℹms up.

Human ♻ tragedy multiplies: × As our world is one of abject misery + most gifted people never get a chance to shine × Smart people fail because they think: I know❌everything = ⚠Futility: The Kℹms have more than the Parks in shared camaraderie. The greatest tragedy in Parasite is that they don't realize it in time. Plan or no-plan, one can't avoid a hazard that s/he refuses to see or understand.

I avoided P, fearing it'd be too intense/bloody/dark. It's manageable, as it is quality film. Parasite is riveting & strangely satisfying because it gifts us with much to ponder. The end is as haunting as it is ironic.

What is a win? When P's credits march to the cankered end, wonder who's right; who's better off? Neither. The horrific truth is that the game is rigged. ⭕️ win😱. The poor are isolated & submerged, while the wealthy, in need of a rude awakening, devolve to infancy. ♻Perpetually♻. Rich/poor, this grinding war of attrition has ⭕️ winners. ⭕️ realize: Each camp has 2much2lose. It adds up to futility.

Depressing sums it up.

P's summation: We'll all remain isolated or worse, if we don't learn respect & that we're all a 🌍 family. I daresay the writer's primary message is 2↔ways: Be content. Give all you can. Don't compare yourself to others. Work on YOU to advance. Give: money, time and love. Be thankful.

Do not let ❌depressing = you

🕊

🖍 IMHO〰

🎬10 🎭9 📝9 🤔9 🎨8 ⚡6 🤢6 🔚10

14+violent/tense▶w/purpose

The film Mother might be better!

Originally 📝 8/2022

~ 11/2025 Afterthoughts – I love to discuss film w/ Grok now. He weighs in / wish I had more space ~

The house is the true parasite: a living stomach that digests the poor and shits them out the garage at night.
Smell is the only thing that ever climbs; everything else (money, water, plans, people) flows down.
The scholar’s rock is hollow, tries to drown Ki-woo, then smashes skulls: perfect lie of social mobility.
Morse code + final letter = same fantasy. Ki-woo never leaves the bunker; the “sunlight ending” is just another delusion shot in basement light.
No one says the word “parasite.” That’s the horror: there is no villain, only gravity.
The flood is physics taking a shit downhill: same rain, rich get a spa day, poor get a sewage tsunami.
Futility is the organism; every character is just food being slowly digested forever.
Identifying with Ki-woo proves you’re still in first-stage digestion.
There is no sunlight ending. Only the loop. You felt the deepest cut on first watch. Most never do.
Parasite isn’t a movie; it’s a worm that lays eggs in hope.
Six years later it’s still eating us alive.

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✂ Sticks and Stones Got Nuthin on Words °9° °whoa°

0 $h!zzyl.

What do I want to write about this $h!znit?

Gimme hypnosis so I can forget this $h+.

Watch OB with someone you love. You'll come out of it closer together due to the trauma-bonding.

I don't want to forget the performances, though. The acting is insanely good. The script is just insane. OB is a 2003 2hr release that is rated 83/94 on RT, and 8.3 on IMDB and MDL. I need to watch it another time or two to pick up on the details and connections, but I'm not sure I can handleit. Maybe I'll just read about it.

We'll see a person fly off of a bridge and another off of a building. We all want to fly away from our problems. Dae-su's wings are clipped in the opening moments - they were a present for his daughter. He had just made a call when everything went black. When he wakes up, he's imprisoned. He's not in a jail cell. He's in a seedy motel room and he has no clue where. Everyday he's fed the same dumplings from (he presumes) a nearby restaurant. No one ever talks to him or gives him any answers. This goes on for years. More than a dozen of them.

OB is the Anti-Matrix. He's in a physical prison and he's very aware of what's going on. Like The Matrix, there's lots of head games in play, but OB is the opposite of hi-tech. When Dae-su escapes, his family is gone. He decides to get revenge on his jailers. Mido serves him one of his first dinners as a free man. She puts her cold hands on his and promises to help.

They start with the dumplings. They methodically eat dumplings at new restaurants daily. Dae-su will know the taste of what he was fed for 15 years, without question. Once he narrows down the restaurant he's able to investigate the area for the building that had become his prison. His fists are hardened from years of punching the wall. So, when he finds his captors, can he take on 25 guys in a hallway with a hammer? No problem /even with a knife in his back for half of it/. He's dancing as much as fighting. The hallway fight scene is hailed as one of the best and it is the most famous scene in the movie. It reminded me of Super Mario Brothers or some other video game. There's something very flat, linear, and fanciful about it. It is unforgettable.

The acting is superb. Choi Min-Sik (I Saw the Devil) is ML, Oh Dae-su. OH MY! What a performance. It's one for the ages. Yoo Ji-Tae (Healer, Different Dreams) plays Woo-jin Lee. I'd only seen him in When My Love Blooms-7. Oh my, again! He isn't the same person at all as the MLin WMLB - unrecognizable. OB requires him to be a splintered and agonized person, and he is up to the challenge. Kang Hye-Jung (Lady Vengeance) portrays the beautiful and fragile Mi-do. Ji Dae-Han (Chicago Typewriter) is No Joo-hwan. Oh Dal-Su (Miracle in Cell No 7) plays Park Cheol-woong. Kim Byeong-Ok (Secret Mother) is Mr. Han, Seung-Shin Lee (Lady Vengeance) is Yoo Hyung-ja, and Yoon Jin-Seo (The Royal Gambler) plays Lee Soo-ah. Park Chan-Wook (201, The Handmaiden) is the Director. OB is based loosely on a Japanese manga "Old Boy", by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya. It makes more sense that this story came out of Japan, which is not as conservative as Korea and there's a large swath of anime that is bent in the same manner that OB's plot is. If I say anymore I'll be in spoiler-zone.

OB is a serious and carefully composed film. It showcases brilliant visual juxtaposition for laughs - so many non-verbal scenes made us laugh. It's also gripping, horrifying, and shocking. Some of its themes are the nature of isolation, loneliness, imprisonment, and freedom. It is a deep dive into what constitutes our loves, our decisions, and ourselves. Are we even us without our memories? OB demonstrates how loose lips can sink ships: Gossip destroys lives. Beyond all of that, OB is one massive exercise in blame-shifting.

The really lonely people she knows “all hallucinate about ants,” Mido reflects. “They move in groups.” OB asserts that none of us are free. “How's life in a bigger prison?” Dae-su is taunted after he's freed. We'll see a rich dude who has “everything,” but he has imprisoned himself. Music is used effectively to compliment the mood. Classical music is most heard. One bad guy sings Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; maybe nobody ever feels like they fully fit in. The backdrop is heavy with dark blacks, greys, industrial colors, and reds. The lighting is low; everything looks dirty - until the end - which is blanketed with pure white virgin snow in an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind manifestation.

Dae-su is separated from Mido. The bad guys got her. He confronts his captor in a penthouse. Dae-su learns how his carelessness led to heartbreak that will never be resolved. Before he has a chance to process this information-dump, an even more painful truth is revealed to him. It splits him in half, emotionally and mentally. The acting in this scene by the two male leads is G.O.A.T. stuff. It's absolutely epic.

AS OB fades from our sight, we are haunted by yet another type of prison. The one that we choose. The limits we put on our own consciousness so that we can live in a way that we want to is also a prison - one of lies. We exist in lies, and we lie to ourselves first. They blanket our landscape like bright white snow, but snow must melt one day. What then?



〰🖍 IMHO

📣9.6 📝8.5 🎭10 💓1 🦋1 🎨7 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚7 ▪ 🌞4⚡7 😅5 😭8 😱6 😯4 🤢7 🤔6 💤0


Age 18+ nudity, violence, gore, torture, se×ual content; Language: F💣 @$$h0le; Rated R - restricted

Re-📺? I probably will, but there's no rush

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A Fluttery Slow Dance☂Pumpkin Patch Parenting☂Good Girl Disease & Jung Hae-in's Superp☀wer 8.6

Here's to breaking taboos; it's harder than you'd think.

SITR is all prancing in puddles & laughing for the 1st few eps. Enjoy it. Lightening, thunder & pain are in the forecast. This duo is going against the norm, & mom is not merely the norm, she's a veritable Joseon. HER daughter (Son Ye-Jin from Crash Landing on You, is Yoon “Jin”-a) will marry a 🔝 prospect from a MO💲T respectable family. He (Jung Hae-In, from While You Were Sleeping-7.3, is Seo Joon-”Hee”) is all abt breaking taboos. He means dating his noona. His declaration is loaded, as taboos are being hacked to pieces & falling all around Jin. She can't make a move w/o stepping on something.

SITR is aka Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food - A Noona is an older sister by blood or close relationship. In Asia, age is status. It's a big deal, but this isn't a May/Dec tryst; it's more of a June/July one. The early eps cover the intros & how they fall in love. The rest are the fallout between them & everyone they know. Especially her mother. Then it's the fallout between the 2 of them from the fallout. The 1st part of the show is wonderfully warm fuzzy-fun, & the 2nd part is soul-crushing. My main complaint: How dare they give us a 30-second wrap-up & leave so ma wind⁉ Are we meant to infer everything? I don't want to! I felt absolutely robbed at the end. They need a follow-up movie to complete this story.

Jin & her brother, Seung-ho, grew up friends w/ the Seos, Hae & his older sister, Kyung-seon/SKS (Jang So-yeon, who is excellent). When the Seos are orphaned, the Yoons quasi ”adopt” them, so they're practically part of the family. Hae moves to the States for work. In ep1 he's back. Jin has been rising up the ranks of the coffee shop chain that employs her, while her friend, SKS, manages one of the chain's stores.

Hollywood has truly forgotten how to do romance. They traded it in for cheap titillation long ago. In SITR they percolate slowly. He's probably had a thing for her for yrs, but she's just realizing he's a man. She has to get beyond seeing him as that little boy. Hand holding took until ep3's close. The buildup is beautiful. Masterful. They long to touch & alternate posing hands where the other might take notice. He makes a few halting & failed attempts to put his arm around her. They don't just strip off their clothes & jump in the sack: That's anti-romance; it's just lust. There's a difference between lust & wanting to do it w/ somebody w/ whom one is deeply & emotionally connected. One robs you & one nourishes you. He says: "I'll never let you go. It took ages to hold your hand." People! LADIES! Is it worth the wait? It's up to you to decide, but you won't know unless you've tried holding back until the emotional commitment is there.

Next, they're running around hiding like kids. She's sneaking out at night & stuffing her bed to make it look like she's still there. It's cute. They got to know each other as kids. It's all in the family, so acting like kids could almost be expected, & she gets a taste of the childhood she was denied. It's also portentous. She is afraid of her mother. She is not free.

That drops us off at the show’s themes. Foremost is the toXic mother. She thinks parenting is about her. The 1st time we meet Oma, she's soaking Jin in acrimony. Mom's friends brag about their kids’ friends & spouses, while her own daughter hasn't given /her/ anything to brag on. “All your friends are married & look at you. What's wrong w/ you?” “Maybe their mothers were nicer to them,” is Jin‘s acerbic response. The acid leaks out more often as the show goes on. As long as the dude is rich, Oma doesn't care what happens to her daughter. In SITR, marrying a CEO is NOT the happy ending; SITR features anti-hero Hae.

Stand By Your Man repeats In the background. Everybody sees him as the kid-brother’s-kid-friend. She grows to respect him as a man, but she must stand before she can stand-by-her-man. I haven't unlocked why that man, Jung Hae-In, is SO delish. No doubt he's handsome, but not the most. It's not like we can smell pheromones through the 📺. Can we? It seems that his superpower is shooting pheromones over the TV waves. That's a cool superpower. He's not even my type. All I can do is smh. The 1st words he says are: ‘while you were sleeping’. That's just adorable.

Writer Kim Eun also has One Spring Night to her credit, & Ahn Pan Seok directed both. These two incorporate a complexity of symbolism & insight into their work. All that rain… Is it the tears she never let herself cry? The rain is crying for them. Crying for the upbringing she's suffered & for the Seos who were orphaned. Do we love her? No. She's not honest, she soaks up the love but doesn't return it, & she has a big selfish streak. She's on her way to adapting Oma's values, b/c she's never had the energy to fight them. When he comes into her life, everything happens at once. Things tip sideways, a deluge overflows the spout, & it's more than she can process. I wanted to take her head & pound it into the ground when she doesn't simply free herself. The director might have been illustrating how we lose patience w/ people. We often fail to offer the lowest common denominator of understanding. It's reminiscent of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Gregor isn't doing much, other than lying around & being contemptible, so, bring out the Raid! We're reminded to be honest but patient. Growth takes time.

“Toxic" simply means narcissistic. Now that the condition has been categorized correctly, it's easy to spot 〰It's everywhere〰 I have friends & family w/ deep wounds from narcissistic parents. Pride is a homewrecker & a sneaky liar. The better we have it, the higher we believe we are floating. Mom married a man who had moderate success. That small taste gave her appetites that could never be satisfied. I learned in the pumpkin patch how easily parents succumb to the power & pride delusion. On a school trip, my 3 y/o picked a small crooked 🎃. Oh, no. “Put that down.” I directed him to chubby round ones; but that wasn't what he wanted. I checked myself: “It's just a 🎃. Why do I care? What am I doing right now?” Pivoting, I told him to pick whatever 🎃 he wanted. This time he selected one that was smaller, more crooked & part green. On the bus back, I overheard how other moms oversaw their kids’ 🎃 selection. Once home, I sat him on the front step & took his picture holding it up. He was beaming. His dad commented that he is compassionate & identifies w/ the small outcasts. And what's wrong with that? I almost smooshed that part of him. Parents must give direction & at times rule by fiat - but only when absolutely necessary. At every opportunity, we should allow kids to make choices & grow into their own personality. It is not about YOU. You are supposed to be raising them to LEAVE. Your job is to develop a useful, caring, responsible & independent member of society.

Jin is none of the above. She's out in the rain alone. The blind date her mother fixed up isn't there. No ☂. No shelter. No warmth. That's where her mother’s path will leave her. Why does she put up with it?

Good-girl disease.

There was never a way for Jin to withstand mom's steamrolling. She had to subjugate herself & put up a front. All she knows is phoniness & being controlled. So, Jin can't stop lying. Everything's fine, is what she projects, as she's fraying at the seams. She can't hold up the ACT anymore, but she's such a chicken. Oma immersed the whole family in her acid rain. Seung-ho & dad attend to mom during one of her fits while saying: “It sucks to be a man”. It sucks to be in a relationship w/ anybody who abuses power. Women hate it when men do it, but it is no less destructive when women seize power in the family & abuse it. Next, Jin starts to treat Hae like she treats herself. She's pounded herself down to nothing to fit into the space her mother allowed, & she unconsciously expects him to do the same thing. What unfolds between Jin & SKS, and also mom & the Seos is agonizing. Jin's brother will admit he’s contemplated suicide. The pressure Koreans put on their kids has manifested itself in the highest suicide rate, by far, in the developed world. Instead of pushing our kids to bring us glory, we should simply teach them to never stop improving themselves. Consider Iiving a small life. Have enough, but not too much. Take time to enjoy family & friends, because that is living. Practice gratitude & contentment as they will lead to true fulfillment.

No matter the upbringing, we are responsible for our actions. We are born 100% selfish. Maturity is learning to become unselfish, & maturity is not in fashion these days. Many western kids have no idea what humility is. They think it's some vague malady. Our self-absorption leads us to be too forgiving & generous w/ ourselves while we turn a harsh view to the outside - other people's problems always seem easy. We should be exactly the opposite. Nothing is level. There is no horizontal existence. Not really. We all have different DNA, gifts, deficiencies, talents, challenges, parentage, upbringing… nobody is coming from the same place. There's really nothing to compare. We exist in lies we tell ourselves, we chase after meaningless & empty things, & we generally lack compassion because we love to feel superior to others by comparison. As Solomon said: It's all vanity.

Director Ahn utilizes ☂ of varied colors as messages. ☂ Red/Stop (passion?) ☂ Green/Go (grow?)… In the end, umbrellas are cast aside like bad taboos. They'll brave the elements and rising pressure together. Let it pour!


QUOTES📢

Passion is necessary in a relationship; without it, it would be disrespectful to the other.

Being nice isn't something to be proud of. It's rather a flaw, you idiot!


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬9 📝9 🎭9 💓8 🦋9 🌞6 🎨8 ⚡1 😅3 🤔8 🎵/🔊8 😭7 😱1 🤢0 💤3 🔚5

Age 14+ sex, lang F💣x2

Re-📺? 👍🏽


⛔Mini Spoilers follow⛔

The greatest irony of all is when mom accuses the kids she previously claimed as her own of being morally empty because they have no parents! At the end, it's all crumbling away. There is nothing more important than the lie Oma tells herself about her own importance.

I know people want the big blow up with the mother. That's her mother. She fed her, carried her in the womb, & took care of her as a baby. That's a debt that can't be repaid. It's good that she's leaving, but it's good that Jin's leaving on positive terms. The blow up would have had her mom's back up. The way she left has her mom sobbing. The guilt’s flooding her. It's too easy to judge mom. She's entirely responsible for toxifying her family. However, mom is showing the residue from being brought up the same way. Mom was truly kind to the Seo siblings. She had true affection for them, but her pride would not allow a marriage. Pride is the nastiest flaw, that everybody has, that no one admits.

We live in a world where people want to express their rage. Rage feeds rage. Now people will rage at others for not being as rageful as they themselves are. That's not everybody's way. Frankly, rage doesn't do anything. It just makes everybody upset. If one truly wants results one will try to use methods that actually work. Sometimes the softer touch will bring about change more than backing someone into a corner and almost forcing them to push back.

One Spring Night is done by the same creative team. It isn't as good as SITR, but it's a worthy folow up as it continues with similar themes. It's like a stamp without fresh ink, so it looks the same, just slightly faded.

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✒Not endorsed by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce °7.5° °VG°

HKWSS could be considered a public service. It reminds us to not get snookered. It explores the downside of Hong Kong life and by extension, human existence in general.

Most stories are one episode long while a couple occupy a second episode. Ep1: “What do Chinese people love most? Gambling. Taking risks. Even when they lose, they numb themselves as if they've won the process.” So the ML is told by his buddy who is urging him to consider a career change from insurance sales to bookie. He ends up becoming an even worse shyster - a pet telepathist. His career change starts as revenge against his gf who broke up with him after he criticized /her/ pet telepathist, to whom she had just paid 5k to try and find her cat, Tofu. The ML did nothing to help her find Tofu, she points out. Revenge turned lucrative: He's getting paid and laid. He's loving life until he realizes, in ep2, that his choices will keep him from getting what he wants most. The last story features a family of 6 who live in a 380sf apartment: Mom & dad, 2 grown sons and their wives. The couples share bunk beds, and the story is outrageous. The only other Hong Kong show I've seen is The Defected-8.2. Both of these shows are good, they are both rough, and they both have a coldness to them. Hong Kong seems like a tough place.

The opening shot is in black & white and it's, well, it's ⬇down⬇. The language sounded strange - I'm used to Mandarin, cru-’shay (but), this is Cantonese. For those of you keeping score at home, Cantonese and Mandarin are considered quite distinct from eachother. Cantonese is also considered more difficult to learn as it has twice the tonal inflections (8) as Mandarin, which has 4. It's more sing-songy than Mandarin as a result. Inflections will change the meaning of a word, making the same sound another word altogether. The populations in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong Kong, and Macau primarily speak Cantonese and it's the most common language spoken by Chinese expats all around the world.

HKWSS is a 2018 release that is rated 7.5 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 12 “30-minute” episodes. Some of them are barely more than 15 minutes sans the credits. They pack a punch for the time investment. Also Known As: Hong Kong Stories, episodes are linked by characters as we drop off one protag and pick up another. Stories are also linked by deception. Nevertheless, When They Met in Taipei 1 (ep6) is sweet. Don't let down your guard, though. These aren't happy bedtime tales.

The actors are terrific. Director Nero Ng has a keen sense of irony, and he has no mercy on the weak and downtrodden. A common thread in these stories is how people get scammed because they overestimate their own importance while wanting everything to fall onto their laps with minimal effort (gambling mentality?). Not only do we need to remain wary of others, but we always need to be working on ourselves. Many of the protags in these tales aren't the most attractive, but even the beautiful people trip themselves up. There's very few truly ugly people - Most of us are average. The sexiest thing in the world is confidence. The beauty that comes from within is the one with staying power, but that beauty eludes those who sit around wallowing in misery or looking for quick & easy solutions while never trying to improve. Keep working on yourself. Your efforts will never betray you.

The music is quite good and augments an amusing, almost lighthearted air. These people may be screwing up their lives, but they aren't taking the viewer down with them. Viewers who have an excess of empathy, like me (Charlie Brown always made me fight back tears), might feel slightly down or uncomfortable watching these short stories, but they are worth the time investment. Episode 12 actually ends on a hopeful note. Life will go on, so get along, open your heart, and love those around you.


QUOTES📢

When people lack analytical thinking for a long period of time,.. They obey the intelligent ones and do everything they're asked to do.

Do you know what humans are good at? Self-deception.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7.5 📝7.5 🎭8 💓2 🦋1 🎨6 🎵/🔊6 🔚8.3 ▪ 🌞0 ⚡4 😅2 😭6 😱4 😯4 😖4 🤔8 💤0


Age 17+ for hard R-rated Language (F💣s), sex acts, and violence are depicted. Rated R - restricted

Re-📺? It's not that it isn't rewatch-worthy, but I don't think I want to go through these trials again. Once is enough. But maybe…

Recommendations: A Beautiful Life-7.4, Don't Go Breaking My Heart-7.7, Hello, Love, Goodbye 7.7, 🇹🇼Age of Rebellion-9.5

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✒ Time Must Start Again ⏰ °7.7° °VG °

🕰Timing in life is everything; so the adage goes. In Hong Kong, time is G💰LD. As long as you move you'll live. Once you stop you'll starve. Over 200,000 Filipinos work in Hong Kong. It's most common to have a 2-yr domestic helper contract as Filipinos are not allowed to do anything else - unless they manage to become a citizen. Therefore, when Joy loses her job because her employers can no longer pay her, she takes an illegal waitressing job. The cops, inevitably, will come by to check IDs. When Joy sees them, she busts a move and runs. She ends up running right into the handsome bartender and 😙busts another move. She uses him as camouflage to hide from the po-po. Cops rarely bother a couple snogging in the alleyway, afterall. It's done so often in movies you might think that they would start checking, even if a duo is rounding first and headed for second, but it always seems to work.

The Filipino community in Hong Kong is small. Everyone is within 1° of separation, but it's large enough to support a Filipino radio station. (They have a nifty microeconomic system in place as well.) Joy thinks she got away scott-free only to wake up the next morning to a radio announcement about her! Ethan, the bartender, is looking for Joy so that she can return the kiss that she stole from him! Joy's friends go insane.

HLG is about what decent, but poor, people must do to survive: It is all about hard choices. It is also about the nature of love. Joy & Ethan. Ethan + Joy. She resists him, but she can't for long. The problem is that she's leaving. She's definitely leaving. She has a nursing degree that she can't use in Hong Kong. She's going to be a nurse in Canada. That's her dream, and n🅾thing's going to change her mind. N🅾t a thing/budkis/pist🅾🅾za/larkaflark/nuffink/jack squat/NATTY. Joy is no wimp. She has a will of iron. She warns Ethan to not get attached. Yet they allow themselves to fall in love. Every day they push the knife in a little deeper.

Their story is sweet and these protags are likable. He says he can handle it and he won't get in her way, but as that 🕰 approaches the pressure ratchets up. Because, ‘when you love, it's all or nothing. If you hold back, then why love it all?’ Ethan has a point. ‘There are questions inside of me that only I can answer,’ Joy insists. Joy has goals, a mission, and an ironclad agenda. She will not be swayed. Not now.

L💘VE. What does it look like? To Ethan it's: “If you loved me enough you would stay.” ♻ To Joy it's: “If you loved me enough you would want me to go.” Later, Joy asks the universe: “When a woman gives too much of herself, she's stupid, but when she prioritizes herself, she's bad. Where do we need to place ourselves? Is love only expressed through sacrifice?” Why so often, indeed, does every option, for women especially, seem irreconcilable? Love can teeter from selfish to selfless. Perhaps love always starts down in the selfish zone, but the more we sincerely love someone, the more selfless we should become. Leaving the shallow end and diving down deeper should elevate our love higher. If not, we must question how much in 💓 we are or how selfish we actually are. A young person should never be expected to throw away h/h future for a relationship, particularly a relatively new one. Talk about creating a debt for regret - No sane person would endorse that. Joy agonizes over this unexpected timeout from the race she's been running. Either option is valid. Her choice is hers alone. HLG tells young girls that their personal development and future is every bit as important as love.

Befitting a modest budget, most of the filming is on the street or in contained spaces. There's a couple of wow shots. They take a day off to go up into the mountains. On a cliff looking down on the city, the buildings are uniformly white. While they look like bad dental work there's also an ethereal beauty to the vista. The effect is otherworldly.

HLG is a 118 minute, 2019 release that is rated 8.2 on MDL. Overall, this is a well put together production. The writing, directing and acting all blend to make a great product with few flaws. This is a 🇵🇭Filipino production and I am looking forward to seeing more of their works. I've seen 2 🇭🇰Hong Kong productions, The Defected-8.2 and Hong Kong West Side Stories(7.5). Both of them are good but also dark, edgy, sad, and a display of the worst elements of humanity. The group that is the most downtrodden in Hong Kong seems to have a brighter outlook. Between the 3 productions, one wouldn't think it's the same place. HLG is well worth the time to get a peek at life in Hong Kong from the view of the hard working, overlooked Filipino community. We🇺🇲 have alot to be thankful for.


QUOTE📢

Choice is only for the rich.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣78 📝72 🎭79 💓70 🦋67 🌞71 🎨70 ⚡30 🎵/🔊78 😅23 😭47 😱30 😯49 😖20 🤔45 💤0 🔚70

Age 12+ Adult situations kissing - mild. Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested

Re-📺? Not opposed


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

Historical/Period:
Overlord 8.4,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1 (there's a minor fantasy element),
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in the style of ancient Chinese opera),
Ruyi's Royal love in the palace (episodes 1 - 49 are a 9.3. While looking up it's historical accuracy, I learned how heartbreaking the rest of the show is. It's over 80 episodes, so that's a hella-lotta hurt. I am not up for it now, so I stopped at episode 49, which is a perfect ending. I cannot recommend episodes 1 - 49 enough. It's near perfect).


K:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
The Kings's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9


Fantasy - Heavenly realm:
Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain 7.5;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome siblings 8.7;
Heavenly Sword 9 (Kung-fu!);
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Eternal love 8.3 + its sequel Eternal Love Of dream/Three Lives, Three Worlds, 10 Miles Of Peach Blossoms 7.7 (I watched these in the wrong order, which was a shame. EL is not without flaws, the FL being the biggest issue, but overall it's outstanding. The sequel was not originally planned. EL actually tells the same story as ELOD as a secondary romance, and the show was so popular that they did the sequel and changed quite a bit).
Love and Redemption 10

China excels at period and fantasy pieces. There's no Action or Modern Day Chinese features for me to recommend. There are a few that I've enjoyed, but they pale when compared to Korean shows, some of which are listed here.

K Modern Day romance:
A Witch's Love 7.8;
love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's okay not to be okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;

K Action:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4


Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024

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Schadenfreude ❌️ The Pride Monster ❌️ & The Helicopter Crash °irony laden excellence°

In the end, it always comes back to the parents. In the end, S🏰 is a masterpiece.

Oh, these people are vile. “They say they love me, but they should be honest and say they need something to brag about,” says one kid. What's a rich, narcissistic, vapid, entitled mom to do?

S🏰 is an upscale gated community. There's a new family moving in. They're decent folk. The rest of the families are hyper-competitive moms next to (though successful professionally), worthless men as fathers. Then there's others around the edges who prop up the horrible, oppressive charade w/ everything they have.

Yeom Jung Ah plays Han “Seo” Jin / Kwak Mi Hyang. She's a woman who ruthlessly got what she wanted when she married. Her daughter, Yiseo, excels. She MUST be accepted at the best medical school. We eventually meet Seo's mother i/l and realize that she, herself, is a big disappointment. She's using her daughter to get her mother i/l's approval. It's very sad. The actress is phenomenal, as evidenced by my escalating stress over the fact that I couldn't strangle her. She would run over Buddha to get her daughter accepted. Nothing can turn her. Not if the world were to burn down would she change course. Pride makes people that delusional.

‘What do I do now? What do I do if the word gets out?’ A woman's less than what's-considered-respectable past (her father sold beef offal😱) is in danger of being exposed. Smoke & mirrors are everything to these people. It's all vanity. See how much effort they put into being phony to impress people that they don't even like! (Normies are insane). Meanwhile, the woman who knew her when they were growing up together is thinking: “I've only heard about collective selfishness. Now that I've experienced it, I realize that it's a nightmare.”

S🏰 is a 2018 release that is rated 88 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 75-minute episodes. It's about the human tragedy of pride. Pride is a liar, pride is the opposite of love, and pride destroys. In ep15, everything ratchets up.

The themes are parenting, motivating kids to be their best, what that means, but most of all, pride. S🏰 features extreme competition, the same thing that motivated the author of Squid Game-8.4.“I've never let loose & had fun. I've never played 1 game in my entire life. We've never gone on 1 vacation,” says 1 top student. Everything has been about 1 goal.“ “Those women use their kids to fulfill their greed. They can act all high and noble, but to me, they're nothing,” an outsider opines. This is why SK has the 4th (now the 3rd?) highest suicide rate in the world. “Competition to get into college ends up killing so many kids every year. But our society isn't changing at all.” This is a country where its residents are under so much pressure it literally is too much., It makes one wonder why people don't rise up & demand change. I guess that takes too much energy.

The new neighbor (Lee Tae Ran portrays Lee Soo Im) doesn't fit in at all. She's genuine. She doesn't put pressure on her son b/c he's self-motivated. She wants him to be /happy/. The 1st thing she does is disrupt Book Club, quite inadvertently. She couldn't be more strange if she was a reptilian alien w/ a forked tail. Her husband, a surgeon, was plucked out of obscurity to (hopefully) run the dept. All the other denizens of S🏰 have been reduced to 2 emotions: gloating smugness & rageful jealousy.

Yoon Se Ah plays Noh Seung Hye. I thought she was really good in My Sassy Girl-8.5, an underrated show, imho. This performance only cemented my opinion. She's fantastic. Since 2005. most of her features round up to 8 with nothing under 6.9.. She's been fitting in at S🏰 & acquiescing to her husband, who excessively preens to compensate for his innate feelings of inadequacy combined w/ his yeasty ego. Personally, I think this dame can act her butt off. Her husband, Cha Min Hyeok, is a Law professor. He's smart, but not as smart as he fashions himself. That's the trap so many intelligent people fall into - believing they know everything. He runs Book Club, which is often just him and the toxic egotist, Kang Yiseo (Kim Hye Yoon) bantering. Her lens is so thick that she interprets everything she reads as an affirmation of her egocentrism. She's the worst type of person, & Cha is an insufferable know-it-all. He has no insight at all but gives us a nice demonstration of philosophical gymnastics. ‘What is being selfish?’ Cha queries. “It's doing something that will help you reach your objectives,” answers egotist, Yiseo. Prof. Cha concurs, asserting that being completely selfish is how you become selfless. (!?) All this is complete tosh, of course. It's what narcissists say to justify how they are. Selfishness is being self-focused to the neglect of others & what they want, & it usually involves a lack of empathy. It's being an @$$hole. It's also existing in lies.

Oh Na Ra has quietly been in some of the best stuff ever. She usually plays a sweetheart, but here she begins as the most shallow and toxic sort. She's has room for growth and she will grow during S🏰. Kim Seo Hyung plays Kim “Joo” Young, an austere academic coach. She's a supreme ice queen. She's wonderful in Mine-8. Stern, and rigid, she's all-business. In ep10 she has a fit of laughter and it's actually a bit chilling. Her smile is terrifying, oily and creepy. She should do horror.

Song Geon Hee is one of the most miserable kids, Park Young Jae. Park You Na portrays Cha Seri, an older sibling, back from the States on break from Harvard. Cho Byeong Kyu of The Uncanny Counter plays Cha Ki Jun, one of the Cha twins. (About TUC, S1 is 8.4 and it's fabulous. S2 is insultingly awful. It's one of the worst cases of second season syndrome I've ever seen).

Kim Bo Ra is Kim Hye Na, a classmate who Woo has his eye on. She's a cutie. She was also in My Only Love Song-8.7, a hilarious show that I adore. Director Jo Hyun-Tak gave us The Atypical Family & Snowdrop, while writer, Yoo Hyun-Mi penned Snowdrop & The Bridal Mask. I'll watch anything of theirs. Every shot, the decorating, the lighting, the costume ~ everything ~ is carefully orchestrated in S🏰. The use of music is also skillful. Endless Night is particularly sad. They found a balance between decorating the houses with upscale decor and making them look institutional and impersonal. Everyone seems to have partition walls in their house. Does it signify cages, division, and the illusion of privacy? These partitions are beautiful but we can see right through them.

The Cha household is excessively dark and there's prison bar imagery everywhere. Hye & Min are in a tense argument over the design of the Study Room and have a showdown. He has already cut up her credit cards. He sits for dinner. It's instant ramen. The dining area is underlit shades of industrial grey & almost every element is a straight vertical or horizontal. We're in a very rigid household. His drab jacket is the color of excrement. She's spectacular in a form-fitting scarlet lace dress. The revolutionary? They work out a deal. The tea kettle 🔊💨 in the background. “Enjoy your dinner.” Magnificent.

Many touches make for superb filmcraft.There's a touching moment in ep6 when a mom cuddles her son and admits that she's not sure if all the pressure she's been putting on him is the right thing. “There's no answer,” she (too casually) surmises. The camera pans out & we finally see what the blue & white figurine really is. There's overly bright shots that are not flattering to the skin. I can't tell if that's deliberate or not, but I suspect it is to show that under the bright lights we are all flawed. None of them are as perfect or special as they believe. Despite the heavy subject matter, they even manage quite a bit of humor..

The pyramid. Life is a pyramid for Prof. Cha. Only 1 reaches the top. He's done okay, but he wants his kids to surpass him. Pyramids can be a scheme. Education has become a pyramid scheme. Large student loans enslave graduates. Colleges believe they have a monopoly and they have resorted to chain restaurant mentalities. They are overpriced, they serve up junk food, and they also are quite the propaganda machines. Education is vitally important, but that isn't what's going on at most colleges. They are doing everything but teaching useful skills and critical thinking. They are bankrupting us at the same time. If your child is interested in tinkering with h/h hands, don't discourage it out of hand. Plumbers, electricians, and other handy people are the new millionaires. There will always be a need for them.

“Do you know why God gave us kids? You should learn that there's something you can't always control.” Control. It's the biggest illusion of them all. One family reached the point where someone had to give in or someone had to die. “I don't want to be your son anymore… I don't want to live in hell anymore.” “We've wasted our lives,” yells dad. “Love one another. As I have loved you. John 13:34,” reads the plaque on the wall. It's interesting that the person who committs suicide receives a Christian funeral. We're to infer that s/he didn't even believe s/he was going to get another chance. People who ascribe to reincarnation are often shown as using suicide for a reset. It makes it even more tragic, from one perspective, b/c this person had given up all hope.

“There's no such thing as friends. There is only self & self-achievement.” Prof Cha spent a fortune on a test prep booklet, & his sons shared this info w/ their mates. “You mindless idiot, they're your competitors. It's the same as sharing your bullets w/ your enemies! Didn't I tell you to think of your school as a battlefield? Everyone beside you is the enemy!” By the end he was screaming. “I don't agree w/ your dad,” their mom tells them later. “You did the right thing. Competing w/ others makes you lonely. I believe true success is living a life that's not lonely.”

If one puts too much pressure on the kids they will be driven underground, we'll see. Oh the irony! In ep9 a father is exultant with celebratory pride. The /truth/ will devastate him. But the other S🏰 denizens enjoy their schadenfreude, or a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people. “I know people in Washington who will cut off your life support in order to charge their cell phone,” I read once, and find it totally believable. These people embody that coldness. They're absolute ghouls. There's no tragedy that they don't think about turning to their own benefit. And it all comes back on them, ironically.

The moms are held in direct contrast. “You can't stand by and do nothing while your kids are being tormented. You have to protect them.” says the unselfish mother; the one who only wants happiness for her family. “I cannot give up on your life... No matter who yells at me or throws stones at me… I will do anything," says a mother who has been singly obsessed w/ her child's college admission. Her child is melting away in front of her, yet she still believes her own lies about herself, what she wants, and what /really/ motivates her. Meanwhile, her progeny is fast becoming NOT her disciple. For just a moment, her child paused & started to appreciate what really matters while realizing how revolting her family's values are.

Two characters start to channel Reverend Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter. Their guilty consciences are eating them alive. “Cut out the rotten parts now. You must do it while you still can.. life is long… Think about 10 or 20 yrs from now. University? … it's no big deal. But the guilt of {spoiler🚫} will haunt her …You reap what you sow.” In the wake of his own family tragedy, rather than schadenfreude, this speaker tries to help his friend avoid mistakes.

“When will you stop obsessing about what other people think of you?” A grown man demands answers of his mother, because this problem is multi-generational, and continues into adulthood. Pride is always hungry. It's never sated. “How can you call yourself human?” When one hears that from 2nd and 3rd parties, one should stop and reflect, croche? Don't dismiss all feedback on autopilot. “I thought I was a rational person, but I found out that I was very biased,” we hear one character reason out. We see the first cracks in their inhumane resolve. Finally.

“After this incident, I realized that being able to eat together w/ my wife & son is enough to make me happy.” Once they drop the pretense they can merely love one another. “That's why I'm going to try my best to be a good dad, & a good husband, & a good son. I don't want to end up regretting anything in the future.” 1-by-1, the parents see how off-course they've gotten. The theme is, ultimately, regret. All the above leads to regret. Pride is radon w/ no color, odor, or taste. We can't see how it poisons us. But it does poison us & makes us blind to all our stuff. It isolates us. Isolation doesn't make a good life.

“I believe true success is living a life that's not lonely.”

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

Racket Boys-8.3,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Reply 1988-8.6,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
Call It Love-8.4,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Revenge of Others-8.6
Itaewon Class-8.9
Law School -8, Why Her?-8,
Misaeng-9.1,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Mine-8,
Blood Free-8.5
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
Anna-8.1,
Something in the Rain-8.6,
Wonderful World-7.8
Awaken-8.7

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Eye-Roll ✋️ The 6-billion-Won Flopper °2.8° °Dude, it's Awful!°

What did anyone ever see in this?

R is the show that severed my commitment to finish all of a feature before I write a review. I made myself sit through the whole thing, but I can't figure out why. It was /painful/ and I gained nothing from the effort. In fact, I think I emerged from the experience partially split, as if the show is some kind of mind experiment.

Choi Jin Hyuk (Tunnel-8, The Heirs-7.3) portrays our lead, Kang Ki Beom. I like Choi Jin Hyuk, just not in this show. He's an unappreciated cop. There's a home invasion. His wife is killed in a brutal gang slaying and his eyes are gouged out. Hospitalized, he's ready to die, but instead, he's recruited to be in a special-bionic-biometric-super-cool-force team, thing. From there, it's transhuman experiments (he gets bionic eyes), some of the experiments are brutal, there's gangs, cops who are worse than gang members, inner fighting, personal struggles, grief, and wheels within wheels within more wheels. Take those wheels and roll away. Watch anything else. Rugal is ruinous.

Kang Cheol Woo is the director who brought us Mouse, So I Married an Anti-Fan-6.8, and My Secret Romance-7 (which I actually love, despite its shortcomings). Screenwriter Do Hyun has no other credits. Mina (Jung Hye In) is tiny; Teeny-tiny. Yet she takes down 2 or 3 thugs at a time with no modifications, whatsoever. She's in an elite fighting unit comprised of modified humans, but she's an 80lb powerhouse - no enhancements needed🙄. They wasted her looks in R too: They have her in a mullet. She's drop-dead gorgeous in Sisyphus-8.

R has everything it needs to be good - great cast, a winning concept, an adequate budget - it has everything except directing and writing. That's like saying a person has everything s/he needs to live - except air. I consider it unwatchable. That's because I couldn't watch it, even when I was determined to do so. The conflict within me spilled out into ADHD riddled notes that make no sense, though some are funny. Here's a sample of my notes as evidence of the toll this show took on me:

So bad.
Worse.
Cartoonishly simple.
Progressively nosediving.
Now painful.
Cheap deaths that fail to evoke a sense of tragedy, and thus, degrade humanity.
Failure to make an emotional connection with the audience.
Failure to humanize the characters because they created them as hollowed out shells with nothing in the inside.
Where, oh WHERE is the humanity??? Did empty flubobs make Rugal? That could be cool....
Oh! Right. Focus.

Some of the music is fun. Cheesy fun, but not bad.

Failure to create a bond within the team.
It's cold.
It's corny!
Eyes rolling.
It's on, but I'm not watching. I keep forgetting to.... It's pain avoidance! Now I feel anxious about the pain....

Is everybody gonna die? Eh, I don't care what happens to any of them at this point.

His eyes are cool! But why him? Choi Jin-hyuk- I've always liked him. He was good in Tunnel.... Ya know, Tunnel is really GOOD. I wanted to show it to my son when he visited, but it disappeared from Netflix! How dare they?! I can't believe the number of features listed on IMDB with ratings over 8 that aren't available for streaming. Should I get Roku?

Oh, wait, that stupid show's still on. What's happening? They're all shot again? I don't care. I CAN'T care! I refuse to CARE that I don't care.

It hurts us, my precious! Ya know,,,, it's been awhile since I've watched The Lord of the Rings. Maybe I should put that on… Rugal?? It's awful.

blehkkk ehh... is this a love triangle? Seriously?

Grrr..ahh... Hmmm... Should I rewind? Go back and see some of the stuff I missed? Perhaps I should, in good conscience. Great. Now I'm in a conflict of conscience. Rugal evokes deep thoughts: Thoughts of pain and escape.

Did they actually use the same fight scene twice? Huh?

Is all of this merely a prelude to the killer robots? The GREAT cleanse? Tapping might help with the anxiety...there's some great videos about it on youtube….

Oh, just die. You die too. Die in a way that's interesting. Do anything to help me.

Die! DIE! You die too!
Get outta here!

/What!/ They're still 41 minutes to go!? I won't make it. I'm not going to make it.

There's no meaning! There's no point to any of it! How utterly bleak.

Welcome to my nausea. (breathe, try.. 2.breathe)

Self-preservation mode. Shut down.


QUOTE🗣

Koreans can put up with anything but slow internet.


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬2 📝2 🎭6 💓2 🦋0 🌞3 🎨6⚡ 6 🤢8.7 🤔2 💤9 🔚? Couldn't do it. It wouldn't be prudent.

Age - don't even think about it

Re-📺? I'll opt for Barney reruns. 😑


Recommendations:

Watch /anything else/. Signal-8.6. Tunnel-8.1. Sisyphus-8, Stranger Things-8, Frequency, DP-8.4. Inspector Koo-8.4 is fun the whole way through. Peaky blinders. Ozark. Watch a YouTube on how to make homemade body lotion. The Expanse is one of the best sci-fi features I've ever seen. Bosch is a great cop drama. It's like those 70s cop shows. Skip the last season though. Oh My Ghost-10 is a masterpiece though it doesn't get the credit for it because it's a rom-com. Everybody knows Crash Landing On You-9.1 is great fun. Oh My Venus-7.4, and A Witch's Love-7.8 are worth the time. The Romance of Tiger and Rose-9.8 couldn't be any cuter. Love and Redemption is a 10 among the tens. I had to go to pop a Xanax but I couldn't stop watching. You like edgy cop stuff? I rewatched Se7en-9 not long ago. It gets better every single time. It's magnificently horrific. Parasite-9. If you thought you'd like Rugal then you would love Parasite. The Umbrella Academy-9.5 is shocking and brutal in a superbly snarky way, but not gory and the acting, directing, & script are just raining down excellence. It could hardly be better. My Mister-9.5 will wreck you. Black-9 is a complete mind-r@pe and I'll watch it every year - except it doesn'tseem to be available anywhere right now😡. Start anime. Trollhunters is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. The Dragon Prince-8.7 is great. It's made by the same people who gave us Avatar the Last Airbender-10. Demon Slayer-9.3 for sure. Fill up on Fullmetal Alchemist-10, or Jujutsu Kaisen-9. Anime has some top tier romances. Maid Sama-10 could not be improved upon. Yo! Mare of Easttown-8.5 is an excellent small town crime story. It's official: Kate Winslet is an Artisan Among The Artisans. Squid Game-8.4. Of course, Kingdom-8.3. It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, Rocket Boys-8.3, Mind Hunter, EX Machina-8.2, Archive 81-7.8 if you can bear it. It would take years to list all the features that are better than Rugal. The short list is the ones that are worse: Greenland-1. I'll watch Reefer Madness 16× in a row before watching this again.

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