Nomadgroa

I discovered Haruma-san when I was checking out Yugo Kanno for a paper I was writing about Japanese composers. Apparently he'd written an awesome soundtrack for a show called Samurai High School. I discovered this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsrcFalzNs and thought I was watching the second coming of Toshiro Mifune. I would never have enjoyed the amazing world of Japanese entertainment were it not for Miura Haruma. RIP, lovely boy. Let the first video I found of you be my tribute.

I just read something about how this show became insanely popular in Japan. While visiting the country, was it Park Yon Ha? He touched off a riot of mostly middle aged fan girls, some of who got hurt? Yeah, I think so. Well now I have to check this drama out :)

I managed to find a version of this on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJLfCrVXzpU. Don't be put off that the main subtitles are in Hungarian. There's English subs peaking out if you look close! I love romance across cultures and I really liked this little love story. Park Shi Hoo is always an actor worth watching but damn if I didn't fall in love with Chen Ran as the female lead. She's adorable.

Hey, Doramaslover, you still there? Or did you finally just walk away in disgust? Let me buy you a drink, my friend, and we can celebrate the rule of law while everyone else lives and dies in the gladiator pit of public opinion. Btw, I found all these due process protections in the dumpster out back....want some Presumption of Innocence? Yeah, one of my favorites, too. Oh, lookee. Standards of evidence! I'll take preponderance and you can have beyond a reasonable doubt, okay?

Depressing how excited people get about big social stonings. Depressing how willing they are to destroy another human being's life base on vague feelings and assumptions and pure guesses. Pathetic how quickly the same people change their tune when they or someone they love is accused of a crime. But like I said, good that they left the actual court system to us! Goenbae!

I don't quite understand the whole Park Shi Ho scandal. An actress accused him of raping her while they were intoxicated, then dropped the charges and withdrew the accusation a handful of months later, right? Maybe withdrawing the accusation has a different legal meaning in Korea? PSH is drummed out of public life for a couple years, resumes his career, and has now starred in five new dramas since then, none of which seem to have met with the outrage displayed by people contemplating this particular new show.

Is there something I'm missing? Cuz when you start shrieking, "What's wrong with you," if I even express interest in Kingmaker, well, now I'm profoundly uncomfortable with that kind of bullying. Express your opinion freely, quote as much from the Book of Judge-y as your moral universe demands, but don't attack me or the "people of MDL" for coming to our own conclusions. There is nothing wrong with us, thanx.

Oh, and why does time stop when the characters travel between universes? String theory!

Theoretical physics posits that a point particle can be viewed as a brane of dimension zero, while a string can be viewed as a brane of dimension one. Thus simply put, when Lee Gon talks about that "space between zero and one," he's speaking of the multi-dimensional brane that serves as the pathway between universes. A single step on that pathway collapses these simultaneously existing worlds into one or the other, Schroedinger's cat is now definitely dead or definitely alive, and, voila, you're off to visit your parallel world girlfriend.

Assuming you really can step in the same river twice, of course. Ah, the sad romantic fate of two opposite spinning particles who love each other across space-time but are separated by the laws of physics. Which is why i don't have a pressing need to somehow artificially extract and remove romance from my sci-fi stories. Science is love. Life is love. If romance is ruining your drama, just hire a better screenwriter that can manage both with elegance. If novelists can do it, so can scriptwriters.

Now as far as the time stasis bit in Eternal Monarch, those branes include "closed timelike curves," and from there it's just good old Deutsch's Prescription, right? Yeah, I know there's issues with Deutsch's model, but the Eternal Monarch script suggests they're relying on Deutsch and not Lloyd's theories. Remember, Deutsch made the simplifying assumption that we can split the quantum system into a Subsystem A that operates outside a "closed time-like curve" and a CTC part. Also, he assumed that we can combine all the time evolution between the exterior and the CTC into a single unitary operator. This takes us up to the point where the Schrödinger choice happens.

From there forward it's hard to draw the algorithms but I'm just touching on the science we all know, right? That particle signature on the king's shoulder is pure Deutsch, so obviously the production was trying to keep quantum mechanics and time travel relatively simple. :D

But every comment I have just made about quantum mechanics I learned from reading sci-fi novels that all had a teaspoon of romance in them to make the science go down sweeter. Just sayin'.

So lay it on me, Xia! What do you think that emblem on Lee Gon's shoulder means?

Then you are gonna hate the J-drama Todome No Kissu, where every kiss between the main leads results in a quantum event. The romance peas and the thriller carrots are definitely touching on that dinner plate and the science only there as a plot device.

When I watch a K-drama like this, I don't torture myself longing for LMH to give me a power point presentation about collapsing quantum states and how Schroedinger's cat prefigures alternate universes. We sci-fi lovers are a puny demographic. We're never gonna get the cinematic gem we desire so badly. Dr. Who is about as good as it gets.

Besides, if I want NdGT to lecture me on theories of quantum physics i'll just watch a TED talk or read any number of great parallel universe novels that authors have been churning out for the last three decades. Novels that also include the romance I personally find essential to any story worth spending sixteen hours of my life on. Seriously, why do human beings endure so much conflict if not for love?

But I hear ya. I do. I personally think the show is more compromised by structural and narrative problems than it is scientific accuracy but maybe it will pull itself together here at the halfway mark.

And when all is really said and done, I'm here to enjoy Woo Do Hwan.

Thanks for the intelligent thoughts! I'll look for your posts from here out!

What a lively discussion! Istiak, I think your points about the entertainment industry are completely valid, and you're absolutely not the first to question LMH's acting technique :)

The reason I described LMH's current role as a "tsundere" or "cold" type of character is that the King of Corea reacts pretty calmly to stress and keeps his temper well in check. If the role were more of a "berserker" character, Lee Gon would have an explosive temper and solve all problems with his fists. But like I said, I'm cribbing those descriptions from anime discussion boards and those Japanese words may not apply here. (Well, "berserker" isn't Japanese but anyway.)

I'd love to hear what you think of next week's episodes. Hope you keep posting!

Preach!

Funny story. My husband doesn't watch much foreign entertainment, but something about the latest episode of this show caught his eye. We're watching the first big scene where Jo Young meets his parallel alter, and my husband comments that he likes the bodyguard character, but the counterpart kind of annoys him. My husband even goes so far as to say, "It's more than just how the character is written. I think the actor on the right is just way better than the one on the left."

Hahahahahaha.....could there be a better testament to the power of Woo Do Hwan?

Here's my LMH theory. A lot of us first saw him in Boys Over Flowers and were captivated by the lanky rage-aholic named Gu Jun Pyo, but he's never really played a berserker character since. It's been all Tsundere/Yandere types, if you don't mind me borrowing Japanese descriptions for Korean actors. I think if he'd never done BOF, people might be less inclined to think of him as wooden and just accept him as a really beautiful man who likes to play the cold genius with the secret warm heart.

Just a thought :)

Of course, now I feel like I'm cheating on Lee Min Ho cuz like everyone else, I can't take my eyes off Woo Do Hwan.

And suddenly I have this hankering to watch some episodes of Dr. Who. Not sure why :)

I think this movie gets overlooked by western audiences because we can't imagine a Kurosawa film that isn't about samurai. It's too bad. It's an amazing, exciting film that I used to have to watch in movie art houses around Seattle when I was a kid, but it's now available for you to watch any time! And you should watch Dersu Usula, for the good of your soul! The scene where Dersu has to get creative in keeping both himself and the Russian explorer alive when they're caught on the icy tundra at night, it's stunning.

Hahaha. Love how they crush the red/blue pills and rail them

Classic Mifune. You must watch all three movies--Samurai I, II, and III. Many places to stream but try here. https://archive.org/details/SamuraiIMusashiMiyamoto.

I think this is the most satisfying K-drama out there to date. It's got everything. Fascinating history, revenge, big romance, a female lead you can adore, a screenwriter you can respect, and characters so real and likable and complex, you won't have to skim any of this drama. All of this and some stunning cinematography as well.

Just keep your eyes open for the unexpected comedy. As I mentioned, there's a talented screenwriter on this project so the humor is dry and witty and there's a surprising amount of it.

Enjoy! You have many hours of quality entertainment ahead of you.

P. S. So many great "K-moments" in this drama, but my favorite is Gu Dong Mae's impulsive gesture of frustrated passion. You'll know it when you see it. Oh! Well....I guess there's two gestures, but you'll like them both :)

What the hell???? I think I opened the wrong Japanese closet. This one's got a skeleton in it. Lol.

I'm not afraid to say I really enjoyed Call Boy. It's a Japanese movie, so it's about so much more than just sex. Curiously, some of the scenes end up being far more explicit simply because it is a soft porn style film and not hardcore. But it's all rather thrilling. If screen sex doesn't damage your chosen lifestyle and you don't mind the focus being hetero, then I'd say it's very worth watching. Erotic but deep-minded.

I came here to enjoy some Yosuke eye candy but stumbled on a great little movie with wonderful acting and a sweet message: Every new generation has the obligation to reject the racism of the old.

Who could object to that? I can't think of a reason not to watch this! There's even romance that doesn't end in death!

This turned out to be the movie I've waited for all my life! I adore stories where people fall in love despite barriers to communication. Language issues, physical issues like deafness, mental trauma, your boyfriend is a demon, vampire, alien, or robot, etc., there's quite a bit to explore. In Three-Iron, writer/director Kim Ki Duk has given me more than I asked for--a remarkable and satisfying romance conducted without a word being uttered between the lovers. Wow.

You must see this movie. Of course, there's much more to Three-Iron than just a unique tale of love. There are some scenes of domestic violence, for instance, that will have you yelling at the TV. Still, this love story between an abused housewife and an enigmatic younger man is all the more powerful for being conducted with absolutely no speech between the main characters. It's a work of art. Even the ending is perfect.