LottieCooper

Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

The only goal of this review is to explore spiritual themes and messaging in Mr. Plankton. I'm not analyzing on any other level, so if that's your thing, let's get into it.
The story begins with the fulfillment of two curses, previously spoken by the leads over each other at the end of a very unpleasant breakup. Jae Mi tells Hae Jo that he'll die alone in the street and Hae Jo tells Jae Mi that she'll never be a mother. Unseen, the forces of darkness leap to bring about the circumstances necessary to enact these words and several years later, on the same day, in the same hospital, Hae Jo is diagnosed with a terminal case of tangled blood vessels in his brain, and Jae Mi is told she's entered premature menopause.
Hae Jo is the more intuitive of the two and seems to understand that the road to redemption is through Jae Mi, so he kidnaps her from her wedding. Her wedding is a farce, a play where everyone is playing their part no matter how ridiculous. Jae Mi has no real self-esteem and has built a house of cards with her fiancé that will come crashing down the moment his family realizes she's not pregnant nor likely to be in the future. Hae Jo recognizes that she is not being honest with herself because of her desperation for family. What he doesn't recognize is that his own repeated abandonment of Jae Mi is a different reaction to the same desperation.
A series of adventures begins in which Hae Jo looks for his father and drags Jae Mi along with him. The story bounces back and forth between outrageous shenanigans and moments of genuine connection and soulfulness. In a particularly moving scene, Jae Mi asks Hae Jo to sing her a song. "You were made to receive the greatest love. You'll feel it in every part of your life." He sings life over her. Not an exact reversal of the original curse but powerful nonetheless.
Later in the story, when Hae Jo has flatlined once and seems near to death, Jae Mi decides to sneak his unconscious body out of the hospital. It's completely ridiculous, but in a moment of desperation she finally tells him she doesn't want him to die. She pulls back a corner of the curse blanketing him and he awakens. She buys him some time.
Unfortunately for this story, and the swollen eyed writer of this review, neither Hae Jo no Jae Mi ever fully understand the power of their own tongues. Reversing a curse requires repeated application over a period of time and so we're left with a story of limited redemption and a pretty heart wrenching ending. Here's hoping that radical, destiny changing, curse reversing redemption becomes increasingly common in future endeavors in storytelling in Kdramaland.

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This is not a love story.

Episode 1 starts with that ominous statement and it's true. If you watch this drama thinking that it's a love story, you're likely to be very disappointed. However, if you remove your love story glasses and replace them with "dissociation" glasses, this story is so rich and insightful. It's like a treasure trove.

While Eun Ho is the only one with the official diagnosis, the majority of characters in this story are actually displaying some kind of splintering. Eun Ho's splintering seems to come from a wound related specifically to isolation. Losing her parents at an early age and not trusting the grandmother who took her and her sister in seemed to plant early seeds of fear regarding a lack of social safety net. It's why she seriously overreacts to the possibility that Hye Ri will be isolated if she doesn't push herself to attend the school trip. She's transferring her own fear onto her younger sister instead of recognizing that her sister has a completely different threshold for social needs. The loss of her sister and grandmother is bad enough, but when the man she's imagined sharing her life with walks away without any warning, it's enough to push her into a crisis caused by the full realization of her worst fears. So she creates a second self, another character in the story of her life. By doing this she finds partial escape from the crushing burden she feels and simultaneously alleviates the guilt she carries in regards to the part she played in her sister's disappearance.

Kang Ju Yeon has completely dissociated into his second self when Hye Ri meets him. He has put to death all of his own plans and desires to step into the life he believes his brother would have lived. He's empty and miserable and angry because of it. His first few interactions with Hye Ri showcase glimpses of the resentment and anger just below the surface. But then she says something life changing. She's glad he's alive. And the part of him that he had buried with his brother begins to awaken. And he's lovely. The viewer can't help but want happiness for him. Kang Hoon does a fantastic job of conveying the appeal of the character he plays. For the first time since his brother's death, Ju Yeon allows his real self to want something and it's Hye Ri. Because she's the only thing he's allowed his true self to want, his desire for her is out of proportion to the time they've spent together or the relationship they've built. But she's his best proof that he's still alive. He's willing to leave his entire life for her, because he sees her as a gateway back into his true self.

Hyeon O is leading two completely separate lives. At work and in his past relationship with Eun Ho he's the golden boy, handsome, talented, on the rise. At home, he's a boy who was abandoned by his mother and raised by social outcasts and outlaws. The reason he can't marry Eun Ho is that he can't bear any crossover between his two worlds. If that happened, the people who admire him would know that deep down, he's really that abandoned, unloved little boy with a strange family that can't help him keep up the pretense he's created. He has deep, deep shame and it causes him to lash out cruelly when anyone gets too close to seeing that side of him, even blaming Eun Ho as the source of his embarrassment. Shame always points the finger outwards to distract from the inward wound. He also can't perceive Eun Ho's pain and splintering because of his own. His cruelty in the story is difficult to stomach, and it's understandable that viewers make a villain of him, however, all of his behavior makes sense (not to be read as is excusable) within the context of shame and dissociation.

Ji On may be the only whole character in the story and he serves as a kind of interpreter for Hyeon O, helping him to perceive and understand Eun Ho's behavior and motives.

Hye Yeon is also splintered, divorcing sex from genuine relationship on the one hand and pursuing a man who has no interest in her on the other. Je Yeon's statement that a person only has one heart is both a warning to her and to himself. He can't grow his brother's heart inside his chest to help him want the life his brother might have lived. He only has his own heart. She can't give away slivers of her heart to men who don't cherish them and retain wholeness at the same time.

All of this is set in an industry where people are expected to develop an on air persona separate from their own personality. Eun Ho's disgrace at work happens when her true reactions and personality bleed through into that on air persona. No one has an issue with her having multiple personalities. Her coworkers only cared that she kept the lines between them iron clad. Like Hyeon O. Jeon Jae Yong is another example of a strange kind of splintered personality, where he's a total goofball when he's not behind a camera, but a surprisingly capable anchor in front of it.

We still have two episodes to go, so we'll see how the writers wrap things up. Overall, this story has been fantastic, and the lighting, sound effects, music, and dreamy atmospheric tone all create a sense that the story itself is reflecting the characters urge to splinter in moments of pain and humiliation.

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A Story That Barely Moves

Impossible to Imagine is the story of a woman who has contentedly painted herself into a corner in her life. She's running a business that has been handed down from generation to generation within her family and is on the verge of becoming obsolete due to the cultural and demographic changes in Kyoto. At the recommendation of a friend, she hires a business consultant to try and salvage the family business. He is half Japanese and half Australian and immediately offends her with his openness and willingness to examine what might be going wrong with her business. FL is a rigid traditionalist from the very first scene and to think of doing anything differently than she's always done it is offensive to her. But her desperation drives her to invite him back and continue to work with him. He offers some very workable solutions and she begins to cater to a more foreign born customer base. He serves as translator and emotional support when it's all too much for her, but he also creates the occasional problem by handling conflict in ways the locals find unacceptable. Despite this, they work well together and form an attachment that works for a while.
Eventually, his need to look to the future and to make changes and explore begins to feel like a constant threat to her need for everything to remain the same. The movie finishes with her and her father continuing to run the business with the added changes, but she breaks things off with the ML. Her complaint when they were together was that he wanted change to happen too fast. My complaint after watching the movie is that the character development was infinitesimal and story arc was pea sized. Maybe that was the director's point, to explore the cultural resistance to change that some areas in Japan are internally battling with, but man oh man, I wish there had been a more fruitful exploration. Imagine if the characters had learned that fear is the root of rigidity and that creativity can be employed to both preserve the loveliness of unique cultural expression and develop plans for adaptation to changing cultural tides. Imagine if she had taken the hand that offered to help her out of the corner she was painted into. Ugh. She denied the call to adventure and chose the safe and predictable option.
All that to say, the actors did well. They seemed like regular people that might actually exist. The technical side of the film was fairly amateur, but it didn't intrude into the story.

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I'm siding with the Primordial Force

This is officially the worst Cdrama I've ever watched. So bad I had to suffer my way through to the end to see how it turned out and, let me tell, it's a doozy. Whoever wrote this story needs help. Almost every character is blindly, obsessively in love with someone who will never reciprocate their feelings, but they remain masochistically loyal unto death, basically. Where do I begin?
FL is a pleasant, sweet, and simple minded girl who enters the cold, calculating, cruel and self-righteous world of the sects after her father dies. She follows her father's instructions and seeks out a cultivator who is the leader of the sect on Mt. Shu. She finds him as he is dying, and he hands ownership of the sect over to her, a teenage girl. Okay. His options were limited. She was there and alive which made her the best candidate.
She then travels to a second, more powerful sect, with an idea of becoming a member and finding the man she had developed a crush on just after the death of her father. He helped her out for a few days and then disappeared, but it was enough to make her young heart beat for him and him alone for the rest of the show despite some way better options. He, of course, was an immortal in disguise and the master of the sect she decides to join. During the entry tests for this sect, he literally tries to kill her by destroying the chain bridge she was crossing from one outrageously high cliff to another. Somehow, despite her fear of heights, she climbs to safety and misses her best chance to run for the hills. This was truly a crossroads in her life, that, had she been able to read the room, could have saved her an unfathomable amount of future torture and humiliation. Sect leaders who casually attempt to kill their recruits are not worth learning from.
And so she joins the cult. Here she makes many friends for the first time in her life, and her openness and naivete make her a favorite of many of her peers. She also has a friend outside, Dongfeng, who decided he must marry her after seeing her topless and always seems to show up exactly when she needs help. He's probably the best character in the story, but of course the FL can't bring herself to love anyone that could possibly love her back. He also has a grudge against ML for killing his father and his revenge becomes an issue between him and FL later on.
Despite a rough start in her discipleship, she eventually gains momentum and becomes the only disciple to our disaster of a ML. They live together in his floating courtyard called Loveless. ML severed his emotions as a young immortal and is basically a block of wood that somehow still invites the obsession of not just our FL but also his fellow immortal and raging psychopath, Zi Xun. Her lines are often pedantic but spoken with great feeling. She has no interest in justice or helping the people of earth. She only pouts and bewails ML's lack of affection for her. She also decides to kill FL and makes multiple attempts on her life. She is never held accountable for this in any way. Eventually, her obsession drives her to degenerate and become a demon.
Another peach of a character is Ni Man Tian. FL's peer and the most arrogant, awful, hateful person in this whole mess. She is a bully who never should have been allowed to stay in the sect, but the leadership there are completely blind to the injustices around them. They also bully and terrify and hold their heads high in their own self-righteousness. It's painful to watch.
Undergirding the whole show is the premise that FL is destined to be ML's "calamity." Their magic rocks tell them so. So there is a sense of impending doom always lurking in the background and growing and growing until the watcher wants to scream, "Just get it over with already!"
Eventually they do, but it's not a singular event so much as a spiral of events that includes FL risking all of the earth to save ML who isn't even nice to her. She, with the help of her trusty friends, collect these magical relics that can open a portal into a dimensional prison where the Primordial Force was locked up by a conspiracy of sect leaders a long time ago. Supposedly, this Primordial Force could destroy everything if unleashed. For the world built in this story, that would be a mercy. There is no real righteousness, no justice, no accountability. There are petty fights and endless accusations. There is scheming and bullying and greed and revenge. With a few exceptions. Those who don't harbor ill intentions tend to position themselves as martyrs every chance they get. FL and ML being the biggest examples. Even Dongfeng gives into this in the end and sacrifices himself for FL. In fact, nearly everyone she cares about sacrifices him or herself for her. Including the leader of the demon sect, Sha Qian, a consistently warm and supportive character towards FL who is blamed constantly for things he didn't do. His sect is a mess though and his commanders regularly disregard his orders and invite the hatred of the other sects.
So FL releases the Primordial Force, but he puts his power in her first. ML then sneaks in and seals the power inside of her so that she won't be able to defend herself from the relentless waves of torture and punishment that await her. FL puts on her martyr mantle and is taken for judgment at her sect. She refuses to give the true reason why she stole the relics and instead lies and says she conspired with the demon sect. Once again, they are blamed for something they didn't do. A long and boring story arc begins where FL is tortured relentlessly and cast into some kind of desert netherworld. Dongfeng saves her at the cost of his 5 senses and his life. Sha Qian opens the gate for her to get back to earth and exhausts all his power and withers up and dies.
FL lurks around the edges of her former sect, stealing glances at her beloved Master while looking sad. Her face was badly burned by Ni Man Tian during the torture saga and she wears a weird fabric leaf cluster over the burns. ML occasionally remembers FL fondly but when he finally sees her he speaks cruelly and orders her to be punished. At some point he locks her up and hopes that she will start to care less when the people she loves die. Her friends break her out after a few years and are immediately killed in front of her. She degenerates into a demon at this point, and the Primordial Force is unsealed. She takes over the demon sect for a short time and tries to annoy ML a bit before setting him up to kill her. He happily complies and then has BIG REGRET. As he holds her dead body, finally everyone who is still living feels bad for her.
The last scene is unthinkably cruel. ML resurrects FL by sacrificing his friend and fellow sect leader Mo Yan (who was a POS but human sacrifice is still really bad) WITHOUT HER MEMORIES. They live together in a simple cabin and he carries her around like a big doll puppet that occasionally wakes up and speaks like the old happy FL, the one whose life and dreams and loved ones hadn't yet been destroyed by him. WHO WROTE THIS?! WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OKAY?!

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