ShortCircuit

Dr. Kang's father is Kang Seong, the gardener. He was friends in college days with Yeo SunHo and Heo Il-Do. At least THEY (Dr. Kang and SDJ) shouldn't be siblings LOL.

Sooooo....

Crazy hypothesis no. 1: What if the DNA report was faked and SDJ actually is HID's son? Yeom manipulated HID into killing his unfaithful (and leaving him) lover because he thought she had YSH's son instead?

Crazy hypothesis no. 2: What if Mme Ji is actually ex-Mme Chu and she's also SDJ's mom? By now everybody and their mad aunt could claim to be his family and I'd believe them. (ETA Which would make him SeonWoo's brother and not TaeYun's. BUT - what if he's half-brother with SeonWoo through their mother and half-brother with TaeYun through their father, LOL? :D Wouldn't that make the whole family tree a complete mess? I'm voting for this twist!!)

Serious question no. 1 Why the hell is HID looking at YSH and NOT at Mme Chu instead, if he feels betrayed?! No but seriously, is there something heavily implied, what with the photo and this look of betrayal, between them?!

Serious question no. 2: So who's side is Mme Ji on?! Why would she go to Yeom and not keep trusting SDJ? Do she and SDJ have a full battle plan that involves her making Yeom help her unwittingly? I hope so, but it'll be damned dangerous.

Aaaaaah dammit the Kopiko PPL claimed a triple hit today LOL. Also the WToDTM made another appeareance (because why not, LOL) but this time they left the finishing job to HID. And he freaking DID IT!! That was the most suprising thing in this series, LOL. He actually had the guts (or red-seeing rage) to finally complete a hit. Wow. Good on you, HID... I guess.

So they had DNA testing in '98 but now it's 2025, we don't do that anymore? :D SDJ, grow a freaking pair and take the test, for your mind's peace if for nothing else.

From tomorrow's ep preview I guess we're heading back into action, let's go, I've been missing a good rage-driven, fight-rearing SDJ :D

Well now, SDJ for nation's son...

Also, I was pretty certain HID didn't have what it takes. Guess this proves me wrong.

Now her father has an armour and doubled it with Fu YunXi, she's out of the house/family and probably won't go back, she hates (or seems to hate) FYX, and the idiot is still poisoned himself with no antidote in sight.

She's going to partner with him, probably, as she has no other option, and he'll probably still not tell her he's in full process of dying by poison. And we're well past the halfway mark, if there was an antidote (and not just a brief mention of it) it would've come into discussion by now. I don't think FYX would just lay around waiting to drop dead.

For what it's worth, that VERY long doomed-lovers-death-scene took way too long, LOL. I was not invested in the mother's first love story, the best scenes of her were when she was hysterically (pretend) evil, but now that's that. At least her death is giving HanYan more fuel for vengeance.

This might be my favourite CDL drama so far, she's showing some skill there. Still can't really emote during pain-crying scenes, IMHO, but can do a great job when she's supposed to suffer while keeping it inside. And the character is pretty smart (except when she isn't), and CDL is doing her justice.

Also, Xin YunLai, wow, he's doing also an amazing job!! I went into this drama for him, stayed for the pretty dark romance (hopefully both are alive at the end, though TBH I don't trust much that it'll be a HEA), but his character too is amazing. Two good people turning villains walk into a bar and this drama happens LOL.

I need to take a little break, there are only a few eps left and finishing all that are aired already will put me in the waiting craze :D

After 18th... I may have miscalculated - this doesn't end well, does it?

That was all of ep1, you're on 6th.

Ah, whatever.

Ever Night (fighting).
Nirvana in Fire (secret identity).
Nirvana in Fire 2 (bestest big bro in any cdrama ever.)
Blossom (rebirth).
Under the Microscope (because Zhao RuoYun and Wang Yang, together through the whole drama.)
Under the Skin (not a costume drama - but Tan JianCi is smol. You need to see this to believe how smol he is. He belongs in /r/illegallysmolcats that's how smol. )

These gems are not hidden. They're all in the open for all to see. Try them.

"Do what you do best!"
"...?!"
"...Acting, I meant ACTING!!!"
"...Oh".

...Was THAT what you were thinking of? Because that was what I was thinking of :D

edited.

You know what? Nevermind.

YeonJoo (Sister Agnes) was in the car with him. They didn't meet until he came to her family's house, so the parents in the car are not his bio parents, but the adoptive family. The kids survived and were taken in by Madam Pi.

PS The adoptive family isn't YeonJoo's bio family either, completely - her mother married Mr. Ko, but YeonJoo's father is Professor Lee (still alive but overseas right now. He's the one who SDJ thought was his actual father who rejected him, so he made himself go through business school and planned to take over DaeSan to show off to his "dad").

He was a freaking torturer in the (not so back) days before SK became a democracy, why would he change?! A leopard doesn't change his spots. I think he IS supposed to be a despicable human being. Well, kind of a human being. You can see that's what he's like from how his wife always seems gone into cuckooland everytime he's around.

The adoptive parents died in the car (the Ko family, YeonJoo's parents). SeongHyeon came to their house and they just took him in. His mother is AWOL, presumably KIA, LOL, but we're not sure yet.

It's not political, it's makjang thriller. That means over the top everything (villains, plotlines, main leads, all tropes thrown in, nothing spared.) Pluses: amazing soundtrack, great-looking leads, some sharp (makjang, it bears repeating) turns and twists. Cons: the writer likes to f!ck with our heads, throwing us for loops each week. And the FL('s character) is very pretty (but very dumb). On the other hand, she IS very pretty.

And Kopiko PPL out of the blue. I guess they wanted in the money train, LOL.

I hope you can form your own opinion on it and not base everything on other people's words (including mine, LOL).

Nobody asked, but indeed, one's true preferences are their own and the manner they prefer to show those is also of their own choice. Everybody can watch what they like and not watch what they don't like, I thought that's implied and doesn't need to be stated. Don't take anything you read on the internet - including on this site - so personally.

This discussion is becoming pointless, IMHO, so I'll leave you all to it.

She was a club entertainer, if HID fathered her son, he would've been a student at the time and involved in the protests that took him to Yeom's dungeons. Maybe he wasn't around while she was pregnant. Or maybe there were other reasons not to get married - as in, maybe HID was already in love with CDH and didn't want to marry some other woman.

Yeah, logically it's obvious they dare not go there, but also it's kind of fun pretending what if :D

All the dramas you referenced is precisely one drama that was sold outside SK only after international fans clamoured it was good (and it is). I hope you're not trying to say that any and all dramas sold outside SK will meet success, based on a sample of one.

You keep changing the goals, first it was that int'l audience (ratings and views) are more important than the home ratings and views, then it's not about international audiences but about national ones and in the end it's about the amount of money made.

Again, by whom?! By the production teams? By the cast? By the c/rights owners?!

Have it your way. After all, neither of us lives in SK, nor are we in any way related to the industry (at least I am not). So you can believe whatever you want, true or not.

I thought your argument was that the exposure they get from dramas internationally will help them in the long run. Now we're only talking SK?! But that was what I was initially talking about, and you said it doesn't actually matter what SK ratings are since int'l ratings (or audience numbers) matter more. So I don't really see what you're trying to prove, actually. I guess you proved my point that home ratings matter more? But then, TBH, luckily for me, I don't intend to convince anyone of anything :D

So again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

... Because she herself was a kid when he wandered into their house, and nobody used his original name either. The name isn't that important to her now, and it was never important to SDJ as he didn't even remember ever being called that until he got the second amnesia. She just knew it was his original name, but there's no big fuss to be made over it - most important right there and then was to go see her brother and the rest can wait.

As to 1. yeah, NF puts a lot of money in it (and the other streamers also started doing it) and it kind of shows. You get all the horror series you'd ever want, you get some of the "provocative" (read as 18+) content you'd ever want, and you get big names (because money talks) and you lose the actual substance that ever made the Asian-based media so significantly different.

In other words, IMHO, they're in full process of killing their golden goose. But that's all their money so they get to decide what to do with it. All I can do is not watch.

2. It does bring a lot of exposure - and I'm pretty sure what matters most is not directly their asking price for any drama they might pick, but in the endorsements. Usually endorsements mean an iron-clad contract where the (rising or risen) star has to have an immaculate life free of scandals. While for the int'l audience, already used to the extra-bohemian lifestyles of "stars", any Asian-level scandal might not mean much... it's something that while bringing in the money doesn't allow for any uncontrolled move from the actual people involved.

While you might think it broadens up their horizons, in actual limits, no it doesn't. Western-world people don't go into cinema to watch an Asian star (that may be a super-star in their home country or Asia in general) - case in point, the biggest Asian movie star, SRK, is basically unknown in the States, though there's a small following in Europe, Africa and maybe South America too. LJG had only very small type-cast Asian roles in American movies (I struggle to remember, maybe some later-end Resident Evil?). Jing Tian, featured as a FL in The Great Wall didn't see much hype from that (in fact, the movie totally flopped, including in China). Mulan (feat. Liu YiFei) also didn't see much support (though that is probably in part due to the pandemics). The best placed (actually a star in his own country before trying it out in Hollywood) is probably Jackie Chan, followed by Jet Li and from the past, probably Bruce Lee (though he was born in the US and most of his better known movies are US-made). Maybe Lee ByungHun, for now (though not as main cast.) ETA Again, I refer only to people who are not of Asian descent that are actors in the Western world, but to Asian stars trying to make it into Hollywood or elsewhere.

In dramas - yes. Even in US dramas, people like Priyanka Chopra in Quantico. But not as huge audience-drawing names, nowhere near to the status they have in their home country.

And it's easily lost - see all the money scandals of Chinese stars (including Liu YiFei), or the drinking/drugs/underaged relationships scandals (of which one is blowing full-steam right now).

What I mean to say is - if they want to bank on the newly-found fame, it usually has to be still in their home country. So yet again... it's still the home ratings that matter in the long run.

3. I wish them all luck with well-written contracts that would allow them all to get royalties. (Though the last strike in Hollywood was EXACTLY because of very small royalties and residuals, and also about the lack of any residuals from streaming, IIRC. It also included the use of IA in faking actors that had their rights sold, including dead actors. So yea, I am not too certain streamers are all that fair with the kind of contracts they offer).

I guess we'll agree to disagree :)