bayanoh

I don't think plagiarism would've been an issue here since most (if not all) people wouldn't have made the connection between the book and the drama if they didn't know that it was inspired by it, and there is no copyright to claim. I think they chose to use the title because they wanted everyone to make the connection so that they can enjoy the drama more as they watch it while keeping the book in mind.

Haha. From the looks of it, they are not faithful to the book, and I don't think they would go that way because it's pedophilic or at least frowned upon in this era, but I think you should mark your comment as spoiler though, just in case. xp

Yeah, I thought it was going to be rich man pretending to be poor/poor girl type of drama but with two women.

Never liked when they turn episodes into "projects" and they would drag them for a month, but I like that the new PD made it so that the episode would have a closure and it's entirely a different concept the next week. I was worried she would follow Chul Min PD's footsteps. It's always bad when you don't like an episode and you know it would be the same next week. I never looked forward to an episode he made. I liked this week's episode. It was well done, especially for a horror episode which are rarely fun, and everyone was funny.

If anyone is wondering where to watch the episodes with English subtitle after VIU stopped uploading new episodes on their website, it's on KBS World's YouTube channel, I don't know if it's geo-restricted though.

The next main PD is the woman whose place Jihyo used to hide her nametag in the latest episode.

I totally agree. I found out who was the director after I already watched the movie, then it made sense that it was that bland. I know that some people would find this emotional, but I always get duped by his movies "looking emotional" thinking they will be emotional but end up questioning if I have any. I am a person who can easily empathize with people and characters, and I rarely do with his characters. It seems like he likes to force emotions out by making viewers listen to the characters' conversations, see them walk and stare at each other, and with the seemingly depressive colors of the scenes. His movies look sad but they hardly are.

He already established a character as "the chatterbox" in his first appearance. He likes to talk a lot and he seems very interested in the information given. He referred to some of them in Running Man. He's been doing variety shows for more than 15 years so he is able to adjust himself to each show's concept pretty quickly.

I think it's about it being mostly an American production. Snowpiercer for example wasn't allowed to be here for some reason, even though the director and the main cast are Koreans and it was mostly a Korean production. I don't agree with this categorization, but I think there should be a clear rule on what makes an American Korean production qualified to be in MDL. I'm not sure what you are referring to in your comment when you implied that people are being ignorant because I didn't read the other comments, but Minari was considered in some American awards shows to be "a foreign movie" even though it was fully produced in the US and there was only two Korean actors in the cast as I recall. So, a clear rule on what makes a drama or a movie Korean is something that should be really looked into. Is it the story? where it's filmed? the spoken language? the majority of the cast's nationalities? the main cast's nationalities? the director's nationality? the writer nationality? the production team's nationalities? It's very confusing.

When you are 18+, you wouldn't want to be limited to kids' stuff just because you don't appreciate sex scenes. A drama can be rated 18+ because of violence, profanity...etc, using sex scenes as fillers is annoying because it limits who I watch the drama with and how comfortable I am watching it or recommending it to someone else without adding to the storyline. I personally don't mind what Korean dramas are doing now, but I can sense that they are gradually adding more and more and I don't want them to be like American TV show where sex scenes are overdone.

I don't have a strong opinion on this matter, but I personally don't like the westernization of Korean drama, not even in remakes. I have been watching Korean dramas for 15 years which is about half of my life, and I have different moods, if I wanted some clean good quality TV series or movie I watch Korean media, and if I wanted something to pass time or to have fun I watch American media, and I don't like for both American and Korean media to be exactly the same. Sex scenes, regardless of whether we like them or not, reduce the quality of media, especially if they were overused or not tastefully done. Add to that, the fact that age is not the only factor that makes someone not appreciate sex scenes, there are also cultural and religious views, and the fact that sex scenes make it uncomfortable for most people to watch it with their family. There is plenty of natural things that people don't like to watch, "going to the bathroom" is very natural but it doesn't mean everyone would be okay watching someone doing it on TV. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcZ-a7fzpAH3B56QqtucDR72zbGYaWtJF
I'm not sure if it's restricted.

There is now a section in the info at the top of the page that tells you where to watch the drama.

They said she wasn't feeling well the first time she didn't appear on the show.

I meant I guessed who the real criminal was, not the mental illness part. I liked the mental illness part but I didn't consider it a twist, I thought of it as just part of the story, since I wasn't surprised that the magician was mentally ill, I didn't guess it I just wasn't surprised, because if you think about it there were only two options, either he is a real magician or he thinks he is which implies that he is mentally ill.

I wasn't surprised at any point. I thought there wasn't really any other explanations than the one given, I thought "yeah, who else would it be!" when they "revealed" the criminal. The magic though was mesmerizing and the part about his mental illness was sad and interesting, would've been a lot better if they focused on that.

She got thinner too. I also think she looks different, she has a more mature look now. She used to have a round cute face, but she's always been pretty.

That was maybe the second or third Korean drama I watched, I really thought she was a boy till they mentioned her actual gender which means she really did a great job imitating a boy, I've been a big fan since. You rarely see a Korean actress acts like a woman trying to be viewed as a boy, in most other gender-bender dramas, the actresses try so hard to appear cute and feminine even when they are dressed like a boy, it just doesn't make any sense when you are trying to hide your identity.

If you can't read Arabic, you might find this interesting:
In the 603rd episode's second mission, the members were asked to write their surname with the language picked by the roulette. Coincidentally, the members who drew Arabic were the only ones who got their surnames mistranslated in the roulette. Song Ji Hyo who got the shortest end of stick, got the translation of the word song "أغنية"which is more difficult than the spelling of her surname Song "سونغ" in Arabic. Impressively, she got it almost right, with a common mistake that modern native Arabic speakers make. Her mistake didn't change any letters of the word, she only used a different variation of the first letter, it was like writing david instead of David, it's a mistake to write a name without capitalizing the first letter, but it is still readable. Yang Se Chan on the other hand got the translation of the word determination/firmness "الحزم" (I'm glad they didn't pick the Arabic translation of sheep which is yang in Korean and used as an insult in Arabic), and this is in my opinion a relatively simpler word than the spelling of his surname Yang "يانغ", but despite them calling it correct, it wasn't really correct, because he omitted the line that connects the letters together, the third letter which is romanized as 'h' became 'd'. To put it simply, it was like writing hrown instead of brown which didn't make sense.

I loved the production and the musical part of the drama but I wasn't really into the story. It was very predictable and typical, high school bullying, sexual harassment, pressure of studying, suicide, neglectful parents, poverty and debt. Nothing you haven't seen before in a Korean drama. I think it would've been a lot better if they focused more on the fantastical part. I've never seen a drama that felt like a Disney movie, and I liked how unusual that was.