I'm very entertained so far and like the main couple a lot, but how come Li Ni is always playing 12-dimensional chess yet somehow the provisions he's trying to steal for his army slip further and further away from him with each episode and the problems he needs to solve keep multiplying? Is he REALLY that smart if none of his schemes works out as intended?
I think people may not understand from the synopsis that the main lead is the groom’s brother. She falls in love with her prospective brother-in-law, who investigates her out of suspicion that she’s a gold-digger who’s after his family’s money (without realising that his brother is gay and offered to pay her to marry him because he needed a beard).
Perfectly paced romance with a charismatic heroine whose rough edges only make her more sympathetic, some hilarious set pieces (Yeongju’s expert performance as a jilted woman and Heecheol’s betrayed reaction every time his family sided with her were hilarious to me, with one such scene in particular being a masterpiece) and just enough sentimental moments for the viewer to sigh and say, “ah, this is where he falls in love. . . oh, so she’s in love with him too.” No sagging in the third act and a nice satisfactory ending too. Basically a perfect romcom.
The opening act was fine, even fun in its humorous exploration of the psychology of teenage girls, but the film forgot what it was about halfway through and didn’t have anything to say afterwards. The storyline was painfully banal after the premise was dropped and the love story was very poorly executed IMO.
What I like about this drama is that it treats class issues openly, like kdramas used to do years ago. You've got poor people thinking about money, and having their lives and personalities shaped by it and by their desire to better their circumstances, and you've got rich people likewise warped by their greed or stunted by their comfortable lifestyle, and you've got the lives of rich and poor intersecting in unexpected ways. All Korean soap operas used to follow this recipe, and it made for more intense storytelling, but in recent years weekend family dramas have gotten blander; they either depict the lives of the middle and upper classes exclusively or, if they're about poverty, they treat it as inspiration for the plucky hard-working protagonist to hustle harder, without ever descending into bitterness, and not as a real limitation on one’s life. But Live Your Own Life allows itself to get a little ugly and nasty at times. Again, it treats these themes with honesty approaching the mood of retro kdramas. You can see this in the SML too, who's clearly a creep. The characters seem more human and interesting to me, without sugarcoating.
I like both our main leads a lot and their dynamic is subtly engaging... I just want to fast forward to the part where they become more interested in each other and have more scenes together.
The FL's older brother's storyline seems promising too.
OK, Minhyuk may not be not the most well-adjusted ML out there (though I loved every trashy second of him being trash), but when he got mad at Yoojeong for pouring that other douche a drink and told her he couldn't allow her to lower herself like that. she should never ever kneel in front of another person again, and if someone had to kneel, he would do it for both of them, well, that was cool of him. Coming from such a proud person, the declaration that no matter the circumstances, he would gladly humiliate himself so that Yoojeong could keep her dignity was pretty romantic.
Still convinced this show would have been much better if the hot stoic widower who challenged Hae-ryung intellectually and supported her in meaningful ways, put his principles, his honour and her success above his own happiness, and had angsty reasons like his evil father and his dead wife to deny his feelings was the male lead and the airheaded prince who became infatuated with the first adult woman he met outside of the palace and pestered her for attention was the second male lead, but alas...
Sangeng wants to avenge his master so much but doesn't he know his master killed his father!!
I wish he knew too, and think he should have suspected it at least when he realised Captain Leng took him in after his dad, who’d never been close to Captain Leng, died in an incident they were both connected to. Sangeng knew Captain Leng was a man who understood moral responsibility and could distinguish good from evil, but also that he was capable of doing evil for selfish reasons. This alone should have tipped him off that Captain Leng was trying to compensate for wronging his father by being kind to him.
But the fact we wish Sangeng knew the truth doesn’t mean the writer made a bad decision by leaving him in the dark until the end. I think Sangeng’s ignorance is of vital importance to the identity he’s fashioned for himself as Captain Leng’s apprentice. I don’t know if he would be able to bear the knowledge that the man he loved and obeyed like a father killed his real father, to whom Sangeng owes absolute devotion. He allowed his father’s killer to usurp his father in his heart and remained ignorant of the truth while paying lip service to his father’s memory; this would crush him. Would he be able to go on living as the man Captain Leng made him, in the yamen, with Gui’er, etc., if he had to confront the truth? But what would he do otherwise?
We might wish to spare Sangeng this agonising dilemma, or we might wish to pacify his father’s restless spirit. But either way, this final unspoken/unspeakable secret serves to remind us that the truth can never be fully uncovered and the past can never be fully resolved. There’s always more pain and injustice buried beneath the surface, no matter how deep you dig for it. There’s no end to it once you start keeping track.
Last episode was kind of less impactful after strong 3 episodes. The mystery isn't resolved until then but somehow…
I think your confusion about the chronology of events will be resolved when you consider that Rikito WAS ALWAYS ANTISOCIAL. He didn't suddenly "become a hikikomori" after Chiho died the way people enter a monastery. He had always been a loner and he had always stayed in his room.
HOWEVER, as several of the people interviewed by Kaori and Mahiro said, for a brief period of time (i.e. while he was dating Chiho and while they were on a break) he tried to be more outgoing and hold down a proper job. He had a reason to try to be a "normal" member of society, namely to become a worthy partner for Chiho the big shot pianist.
This was an aberration from his usual routine. He did not go to university or find a full-time job after high school. He did not have friends. He only went out to feed the cats at the local shrine (and that's where he met Chiho).
He wasn't a hikikomori in the strict sense of never leaving his room, but he was a NEET, i.e. someone not in employment, education or training, and he did not fit in socially. When Sara told him that she wished Chiho would have seen him that day, she was just playing on his insecurities about living with his parents, being looked down on by his younger sister, not having a proper job (he was still a part-timer at the factory), etc. In Sara's eyes, Rikito was always a pathetic loser, and that's how she was saying he would have appeared to Chiho if she had seen his home life. It doesn't mean he had already become a hikikomori by the time of Chiho's death. For Sara, there was no difference between Rikito the complete and total recluse and the old Rikito; they were both the same person she despised and wanted to distance herself from.
In any case, this is all immaterial since Sara was, as usual, lying. We know/suspect that she deliberately caused Chiho's accident. If I remember correctly, she saw the light change right before she urged Chiho to cross the street. She told Rikito that she had just wanted to bring Chiho over, but that's probably because even while she was taunting him she lacked the courage to confess that she had killed his girlfriend.
Re. the exact chronology of events, even though we see Rikito looking at the newspaper article about Chiho's death on the day when he killed Sara, in reality several months or even a year must have passed between the two tragedies. The newspaper was shown for dramatic effect IMO.
Viki is saying episode 12 will be "available in 1 day," but it already aired in China. Are they delaying it for some reason, or can we expect it today?
I was rewatching episode 2 again and noticed the longer nail on his pinkie! You can see it very clearlybas he…
I was also thinking Captain Yi had to be involved somehow because of his beard, but the bearded man did tell the fortuneteller in episode 11 that the beard was fake when the fortuneteller asked him why he looked different. Presumably he's Magistrate Wei, whom the fortuneteller recognised as someone from the past in an earlier episode.
Remember also that when Gui'er visited Lin Siniang in the brothel, LSN told her that her fake facial hair was obvious, and fake facial hair has to be done differently from eyebrow makeup.
I think we might find out that LSN was involved in the bearded man's disguise.
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I like both our main leads a lot and their dynamic is subtly engaging... I just want to fast forward to the part where they become more interested in each other and have more scenes together.
The FL's older brother's storyline seems promising too.
But the fact we wish Sangeng knew the truth doesn’t mean the writer made a bad decision by leaving him in the dark until the end. I think Sangeng’s ignorance is of vital importance to the identity he’s fashioned for himself as Captain Leng’s apprentice. I don’t know if he would be able to bear the knowledge that the man he loved and obeyed like a father killed his real father, to whom Sangeng owes absolute devotion. He allowed his father’s killer to usurp his father in his heart and remained ignorant of the truth while paying lip service to his father’s memory; this would crush him. Would he be able to go on living as the man Captain Leng made him, in the yamen, with Gui’er, etc., if he had to confront the truth? But what would he do otherwise?
We might wish to spare Sangeng this agonising dilemma, or we might wish to pacify his father’s restless spirit. But either way, this final unspoken/unspeakable secret serves to remind us that the truth can never be fully uncovered and the past can never be fully resolved. There’s always more pain and injustice buried beneath the surface, no matter how deep you dig for it. There’s no end to it once you start keeping track.
HOWEVER, as several of the people interviewed by Kaori and Mahiro said, for a brief period of time (i.e. while he was dating Chiho and while they were on a break) he tried to be more outgoing and hold down a proper job. He had a reason to try to be a "normal" member of society, namely to become a worthy partner for Chiho the big shot pianist.
This was an aberration from his usual routine. He did not go to university or find a full-time job after high school. He did not have friends. He only went out to feed the cats at the local shrine (and that's where he met Chiho).
He wasn't a hikikomori in the strict sense of never leaving his room, but he was a NEET, i.e. someone not in employment, education or training, and he did not fit in socially. When Sara told him that she wished Chiho would have seen him that day, she was just playing on his insecurities about living with his parents, being looked down on by his younger sister, not having a proper job (he was still a part-timer at the factory), etc. In Sara's eyes, Rikito was always a pathetic loser, and that's how she was saying he would have appeared to Chiho if she had seen his home life. It doesn't mean he had already become a hikikomori by the time of Chiho's death. For Sara, there was no difference between Rikito the complete and total recluse and the old Rikito; they were both the same person she despised and wanted to distance herself from.
In any case, this is all immaterial since Sara was, as usual, lying. We know/suspect that she deliberately caused Chiho's accident. If I remember correctly, she saw the light change right before she urged Chiho to cross the street. She told Rikito that she had just wanted to bring Chiho over, but that's probably because even while she was taunting him she lacked the courage to confess that she had killed his girlfriend.
Re. the exact chronology of events, even though we see Rikito looking at the newspaper article about Chiho's death on the day when he killed Sara, in reality several months or even a year must have passed between the two tragedies. The newspaper was shown for dramatic effect IMO.
Remember also that when Gui'er visited Lin Siniang in the brothel, LSN told her that her fake facial hair was obvious, and fake facial hair has to be done differently from eyebrow makeup.
I think we might find out that LSN was involved in the bearded man's disguise.