Beatrice

Cultural identity, Scars of colonial trauma, and Globalization

It's always refreshing to see horror films that aren't based around the Christian frame work because everyone is influenced by the same Hollywood movies and western colonization. It's an even more impressive feat considering the director himself is Christian also. I really enjoy that the film is rooted in cultural knowledge that specifically the Korean audiences would be familiar with and doesn't do any exposition to handhold international audiences, because it doesn't have to. I see so many reviews that are so entitled to being catered to. There's a lot of cross cultural motifs in the film perhaps alluding to the past unease of forced mixing of cultures during the wartime versus the modern world where there are cultural exchanges through globalization with various soft powers. The cursed rich family hiring the shaman are Korean American, their ancestor unfortunately worked with the colonial Japanese military, and the geomancer's daughter marrying a German husband, even the Christian character Young Geun who assists in the geomancy and the shamanic rituals and does Christian prayers for his cohort who had been attacked by a Japanese curse demon.

The film opens with the shaman Hwa Rim being spoke to in Japanese by an Asian flight attendant on a flight of different ethnicities sitting around them. While Hwa Rim responds to the attendant's question in perfect Japanese, she also clarifies that she's Korean. Her cultural identity is important to her. She and her shaman assistant Bong Gil travel to St. Joseph's hospital to assess baby Joseph who is the latest first born son or remaining son afflicted of the family curse. St. Joseph is the earth father of Jesus, so Joseph carries the theme of the patrilineage. Hwa Rim clocks that the troubles stem from the grandfather who the characters later discovered the big family secret is that he was a high ranking officer who worked for the Colonial Japanese during that era, which is how recent it still is in the historical timeframe. Aside from weapons and atrocities, there was Japanization to force Koreans to remove their culture. The iron stakes refers to an urban legend that the Colonial Japanese installed them in specific places to break the spirit of the Korean people. No matter how loyal the grandfather was to the occupiers, they used him even in death for their scheme to protect the giant demon version of the iron stake made from a big sword and different pieces of bodies. His nameless, abandoned grave, turning him into an aggressive spirt that murders his own bloodline. The sparing visions of the ghost was more effective than dancing his tango loving daughter in law to death which was pretty silly. The ghost learned human technology really fast, using the phone to fool his grandson into ignoring the actual Sang Deok at the door. That's kind of silly, but points for flipping the script on the door banging being from the actual Sang Deok. They make sure to show that they had no choice, but to cremate the body on a rainy day to save baby Joseph, and so the guy who worked for the Japanese Colonial power will not have a good afterlife.

The cgi foxes could have been done better, but the human headed snake that screams was an effective creepy design, as was the reveal there is a vertical grave underneath the grandfather, and the giant demon shogun that feasts on humans that emerges from it. It was clever to have Geomancer Sang Deok's explanation about how his field revolves around the elements of wood, metal, fire, air, and water come back around by using wood and his own blood in place of water to defeat the monster comprised of metal and fire. Hwa Rim's fluent Japanese implied to be possibly related to her shamanism field requiring at least some knowledge of the shamanism from there with Japanese ghosts behaving differently on the danger scale, comes in clutch to understand what the shogun says and wants. Bong Gil manages to survive his encounter with the shogun by being covered mostly in tattoos of the Buddhist script, leaving the demon only being able to stab the liver area which was an unfortunate blank spot. Hwa Rim realizing this leads to a funny scene where she, Sang Deok, and Young Geun are covered in temporary tattoos of the Buddhist script while having to speak to the traffic controller at a stop to go back into the mountain area. The rag tag team defeat the evil, but they are still are still affected by their experiences, similar to how South Korean is still affected by what had happened to the country during the colonial rule. The team is bonded though surviving the trauma and Sang Deok incorporates them into his new blended family along with his German son in law in the the big family photo.

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The leads got shortchanged

Shin Min Ah absolutely shines as Son Hae Yeong who in the hands of another actor would probably be a very misunderstood character. I love her range from being organically cute without any over acting like in the scene she's munching away on the kimbap with her chair pushed back out view in the car and does her little moo to breaking my heart when she confronts the pain that her parents caused her. Genuine foster parents are very important, but I agree with the advice for people considering fostering that if their biological children can't handle it well then fostering is not a good fit for their household. Hae Yeong was just a child who still needed to be cared for and they put their own needs to be saints above their daughter. It also hurt her every time someone who became family would leave her. All she wanted was a stable homelife and to be loved in return, she doesn't even hate the foster kids. She fiercely loves the sisters that came back and stayed. Sadly the show also put the happiness of all the side characters above Hae Yeong.

I loath all the side pairings which also has the worst characters Gyu Hyun and U Jae, both of whom are scumbags who abused Hae Yeong in a professional setting with Gyu Hyun the creep who both spammed Ja Yeon with hate comments as well as making his secretary do it then demoting Hae Yeong out of spite because she's married to his father's extramarital child and U Jae who dumped her to marry up, creepily stalked her after he's married, and stole her work and keeps failing upward. It's so much worse that the show chickens out and makes it that Gyu Hyun did not write the worst hate comment, they don't even let his character growth count for anything. He also never rectified what he did to Hae Yeong. He should have given her all the money she wanted for her start-up as compensation. The lip service to the polyamory storyline ends in the most heteronormative way with Hee Sung marrying the one guy and having the child instead of getting an abortion and being the independent person she wanted to be.

I did enjoy Hae Yeong and Ji Uk's romance. He knew who she was, but truly got to know here as they gradually built up their rapport through their interactions at the mini-mart and supporting her schemes. I also like how their first meeting made sense because it's her house that he was staying at and was trying to walk by to avoid her while she was contemplating smoking for the first time and he just so happened to have a lighter which foreshadowed their future as co-schemers turned lovers. He actually looked better with his longer hair, it frames his face very nicely. Ji Uk's story was also swallowed up by the annoying side characters. I would rather see his friendship and brotherly/fatherly relationship develop with that guy that was formerly the Bok family secretary and settle his angst with his birthmother. Hae Yeong and Ji Uk deserved their fantasy ending being happy in love, snuggling with their cat Baby and her with a successful business venture instead of ending on a kiss after reuniting post a long separation.

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Despairsm

There is a constant change up in the status quo through out the series that keep up the pace of the episodes. The portrayal of the endless pit of poverty is brutal, where everyone is subjected to the fires of desperation in this morally complex and ethically ambiguous exploration and study of characters. The supernatural entity in the form of an halmoni selling magical golden spoons to people desperate enough to see her, (though Joo Hee seems to be the exception to carry out an errand for her) is no guardian angel, but rather an agent of chaos offering opportunities to sew discord and mayhem to any type of person, regardless of their intentions. All the customers receive and cast the fates that they forge for themselves and their victims. It is pretty convenient of her to forget to give out all the rules at once, so everyone only knows more if they revisit her or someone who knows informs them.

Seung Cheon gave up his family in order to satisfy his ambitions with the excuse to help them in the way that money only can but though he loves them, he loves being elevated from being poor more. Tayeong who is the unwitting victim of the non-consenting life swap chose to stay as Seung Cheon to be with the "best parents in the world" but a lot of his choice is also colored by him not retaining direct memories of his life as Tayeong which are supplanted to those of Seung Cheon's and can't even parlay the skills he retains into a way out of poverty until the far future where it's also because of the years of monetary help set up by Seung Cheon for their parents to have a business and residence with cheap rent.

I like how the show kept it ambiguous as to whether Tayeong killed Joo Hee's father or not because although he held on to Seung Cheon's hands until the latter slipped into the river, but he did leave him for dead before changing his mind mid being driven away by his driver Moon Gi. Tayeong could have had a moment of weakness or even a mere accident that he had forgotten. I never thought he was the school shooter though, which turns out to be his step uncle Jun Tae who is Yo Han's biological son. It's strange that Yo Han/ new Hyeon Do didn't do the math and figure out that one at all though he knew that Jun Tae is his second wife Sun Hye's son and not brother. Her never acknowledging Jun Tae as his mother even when he already knows the truth was pretty cruel though he's a murderous sociopath.

There is a loud omission to how Joo Hee survived with just a few bills in her pocket. She is an idealistic, naive heiress who worked at a convenience store for fun and believed that money is not important until all she had to inherit was her murdered father's debts and 500,000 in leftover slush funds that her selfish brothers gave her that was quickly stolen from her and she kept looking for in the 10 years time skip when she already has her own apartment and is employed full time as a journalist. What did she do for money and housing as a high school senior and college student? Did Seung Cheon secretly help her from afar as well? She also doesn't really challenge Seung Cheon on ethics of his choices which seemed like she was a character that was set up to do. Even though she gives some lip service to Yu Jin, insisting Seung Cheon will go back to his own life.

In the end, Seung Cheon cannot escape the cycle of greed that the golden spoon enables, barely escaping death when the gardener switches lives with him and dies in his stead. He no longer has his own memories and becomes a different person until Joo Hee found him. She continues to love him for the person he was when they first met, ignoring the greedy, selfish person he became that throws friends under the bus, rationalizing everything along the way. Seung Cheon's mother and sister should have been able to know the truth as well and make their own decisions as to how they feel about his and Tayeong's choices. He deserves a thrashing by his sister for sure. His father who always felt guilty for not being able to monetarily support his family and apologetic for being Seung Cheon's father still felt rightful anger at Seung Cheon for abandoning his identity to be a rich kid with different parents though in the end accepted his decision that Tayeong chooses to be his son and his birth son doesn't.

It's fun that both of the To My Star leads had supporting roles in this show as the bully Jang Goon and the driver Moon Ki. They both make it to the end with Jang Goon as Yu Jin's husband and Moon Ki as Seung Ah's husband who watches along with the rest of the family of Tayeong's rise as an successful webtoon author writing about The Golden Spoon, which seems awfully dangerous to give an how to guide for a very real supernatural object that the granny entity continues to sling to anyone willing to ditch their parents and steal someone else's life.

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Queen of endless villain meetings

The drama boasts an exorbitant runtime that's around 90 minutes per each of it's 16 episodes but it's filled with constant meetings of the villains planning, enacting, or going over what they did for their schemes instead of strengthening the relationships of the characters, the most important one being the main pair Hae In and Hyun Woo. Their chemistry really fluctuated as to when the writing really understood them as characters with history, which the scenes when they are at odds at each other capitalized the most well on, giving them pathos informed by their shared traumas, whereas it's the weakest in the romantic sections where the writing and direction portrays them like teenagers dating for the first time rather than estranged spouses whose years of resentment (that lead to Hyun Woo to the point of celebrating the news of Hae In's terminal illness) stemmed from shared overwhelming grief over a miscarriage and miscommunication. There are moments where their current romance reflects on moments in their dating past that gives their current relationship a bit more depth, but otherwise there is this astronomical void that is never reconciled so Hae In and Hyun Woo falling in love again, all the sweet scenes, and emotional declarations feels hollow. It doesn't matter if they kept meeting each other throughout their childhood into their adulthood and elderly Hyun Woo is the one visiting her grave in Germany after she has passed from old age in the future if the biggest obstacles that utterly destroyed their love for each other is never addressed properly.

The most affecting relationship of the show is Soo Cheol and Da Hye. Soo Cheol is a comically petulant man child who can't do anything right, but he understands that he's been sheltered and stunted by his parents and wants to step up to be a good husband and father and he absolutely is. His pure unconditional love and acceptance for his wife and child even after he's discovered that Da Hye had scammed him and he's not the biological father of his child and every moment that he will do whatever it takes to protect them are the most powerful emotional parts of the show. The key moments are Soo Cheol waiting endlessly until Da Hye logs in to the game not to confront her, but to send her their son's shot records, not allowing his parents to speak down to his wife, learning to ride a bicycle so he can teach his son, learning to take hits and to box to protect his wife, calling her over the lost and found speaker, him choosing to recontextualize her confessions of picking on him when they were little in the sweetest way, and waiting for her release from prison. It's so sweet the both of them share a genuine enjoyment of gaming together. We get to see Da Hye have very good knife skills, chopping up copious amounts of vegetables swiftly. It would have been nice if we could have seen Da Hye and Soo Cheol work together for a business for themselves or something instead of the endless villain meeting scenes.

Kim Soo Hyun did a good job portraying Hyun Woo from his sweet vulnerable side to his cold combative side. Kim Ji Won's Hae In was most effective as the past version where she manages to be balance being cocky and romantic in a charming way. None of Hae In's supposedly comedic moments hit as funny in the current day portions. Hyun Woo's friendship with Yang Gi and the lawyer crew as well as Secretary Na being the closest thing to a best friend that Hae In has were also enjoyable. It would have been nice seeing Hae In explore her friendship with Secretary Na some more. It was trippy to see Sebastian Roche show up as one of the German doctors and seeing the German nurse station where they gossip about the situation, filmed in that specific kdrama style. Hae In's rare brain tumor being magically healed with no resulting issues other activating an amnesia plotline is also another wasted opportunity in the writing. There's a lot of potential in this drama, it's a shame that they couldn't edit the show down and focus in the writing stage to the more important parts to keep a good momentum and give more substance to the story of the main leads recovering from their broken relationship.

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Fantasy justice and criticism for real world laws

Justitia is an extremely educated demon, having not only learned demon laws, but apparently all of the law and procedures of the South Korean court system in addition to memorizing the Christian bible and who knows what else. I do wonder if it was also a form of torture for her to endure in addition to being the heir to Bael, but whatever the lore about that, her skills makes her uniquely suited to play the system to her own ends. Manipulating humans while dealing with new feelings that her human body sends her is another issue. She did not understand how crushes causes dangerous impulses like fluctuating with wanting and not wanting the attention of a guy by taunting the police with dead bodies that would lead back to her being a glaring suspect. It's so ridiculous that she knows how the investigations work, but she still leaves the bodies with an extremely unique stamp on the forehead of the bodies around. Her cases draw attention to how the system both in the show and in real life can give slap on the wrists for the most horrific crimes and even in the case of serial killers, they can become "innocent" by just waiting out the clock on the statute of limitations, as well as corruption from the rich and powerful in the justice system.

Although Justitia falling for Da On is a big turning point, it's merely one part of her softening towards humanity. Her heart also pains for other people and she sheds tears for them as well. The Satan hunting Demon charity volunteer group leader and demon crime scene cleaning crew shows that this is a danger and possibility for all demons to become sympathetic to humans, so it's not only Da On causing this in Justitia. I really like that when she asks for 3 years in the human world, it's not to play house with Da On, but to live as an actual human judge full time. She's not at this point centering her life around this man at all, so I'm fine with the romance. The awkward immobile closed mouth kiss scenes never look good, directors need to wake up and accept the fact. The actors show in a much later kiss scene that they can do a normal kiss scene just fine. Also the interrupted kiss gag is also never funny, especially when it's multiple times. The ending has Justitia suddenly given another deal about killing 10 killers to remain human forever and also there is the fate of the original human Judge Kang Bit Na uncertain. It seems to suggest a second season rather than closing out cleanly with room for more, which would have been better as there is never any guarantee for a second season, especially for asian dramas.

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Encapsulates the best kind of kdrama feelilngs

I really enjoy the lead characters and their journeys individually and together as friends and as a couple. The conceit of the gaming mechanics guides them to grow their relationship organically. I really like how though there are general goals and issues to resolve, it's still up to Myung Ha how he proceeds and how he treats Yeo Woon and everyone else. It's so refreshing to see the two actually spend time as a couple and that they have the tasteful amount of kisses and physical intimacy. The handholding is always so warm and cute.

The opening episodes while Myung Ha is learning the ropes of his situation are so hilarious and I love how the stakes are tangible and that's what drives the angst rather than ridiculous misunderstandings that a lot of other stories drag out the story with, no matter the run time. I really like how the internal lore explains the situation that Myung Ha is in as well. I love how the ending lets both Yeo Woon and Myung Ha make their own choices, such a lovely ending of second chances to live life with love, romantic, platonic, and familial.

The show has very nice editing, sound, lighting, and cinematography, being cinematic without being distractingly ostentatious. The show definitely makes the best use of it's probably small budget. At 8 episodes and half hour runtime, the show makes use of every second and is streamlined to all the most important parts of the storytelling. This does mean only lightly delving into the side characters and the stalker subplot, but it doesn't detract from the story at all. I'm here for the main characters and there is enough character interactions with the others to build the world.

The pacing is fantastic and the developments makes it very easy to binge like all the best of kdramas are. Definitely worth a watch for anyone in search of a good drama.

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Bait and switch premise

The show has a brilliant visual and romantic chemistry match up with Victoria and Song Wei Long as He Fan Xing and Yuan Song, but their relationship is basically relegated to being an afterthought side story that also has to share time with a litany of various side stories and you wouldn't even know Song Wei Long is the male lead as his screen time is more like that of a supporting role while a whole other character is treated like the male lead and is the one that spends most of the time with the female lead. I hope Victoria and Song Wei Long will star in different drama that
does legitimately feature both of them as the actual leading screen partners throughout the whole show.

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Intergenerational Friendship

The drama has deuteragonists 23 year old aspiring ballerino Chae Rok and 70 year old Deok Chul whose love for ballet was re-ignited when he saw the former practice, but it's mostly centered around the journey of the latter. Song Kang's 6 months training really shows in the scenes that fully show his face while gracefully dancing. The dance teacher Ki Seung Joo was smart to assign Deok Chul as Chae Rok's manager exchange for Chae Rok teaching Deok Chul to dance. It intermingles their dynamic which is already complicated by the very age hierarchical culture even more so. Even the teacher had to stop yelling at the students when the newest student of the studio, but the eldest Deok Chul asks him to. Deok Chul is at once a sunbae/teacher and a grandson like figure, even more so after he meets Deok Chul's wife Hae Nam who will always have him sit down for dinner with them and sweetly includes him in the yearly family citron tea gifting. We see Deok Chul as a young man looking upon the aged, hunched back back of his elderly father that he then scrubs in the bath house as his own is being scrubbed by Chae Rok. He's able to give a lot of perspective for Chae Rok as well as Ho Beom, both of whom had suffered misguided abusive punishment from Chae Rok's father who was their soccer coach, a mis step that he had been jailed for. They were both able to make peace with what had happened and the changed person their former coach had become in order to move on with their own life and ambitions. I love that at no point do they push a romance on Chae Rok with Deok Chul's granddaughter Eun Ho who was previously his co-worker at the cafe before she was let go and he quit to focus on ballet. They rather learn from each other how to cope with the difficulties and their shared love for Deok Chul instead. I hope he had saved up enough money to live on because it didn't make any sense for the his teacher Li to get angry for him holding down a part time job when even though he waived any school fees for Chae Rok, he's not housing or feeding him. The guy has been having to pay his own bills since his dad went to jail and his mom passed while he was still in high school.

Both Chae Rok and Deok Chul are outrunning time in their respective points in life. Chae Rok needs to get into a professional ballet company as soon as he can as he already started 10 years later than most ballet dancers, despite being pretty much a natural prodigy quickly picking up ballet in 1 year, he's already 3 years in and ballet dancers retire very early for various reasons. His own teacher was forced to retire early due to a career ending injury. Deok Chul is outrunning his deteriorating mind from Alzheimer's. He had watched his friend decline and die and have attended many funerals of his peers. One of his episodes led him to Chae Rok, which lit the spark in him to finally soar like he had seen his first ballerino when he was a child. Chae Rok refers to Deok Chul as grandfather, which is a way to refer to an elderly man, but he has absolutely taken on the responsibility of a grandson to care for Deok Chul as best as he can once he tearfully finds out through Deok Chul's notebook, even if it breaks him a bit as taking care of a person who suffers from Alzheimer's is intense for anyone. He tries to respect Deok Chul keeping the information to himself until the symptoms become too severe and he reveals it to Deok Chul's youngest, the 40 year old doctor who hasn't recovered from his ptsd from a patient death. All of the adult children's issues are tied back to and resolved with Deok Chul well, strengthening their understanding and relationship with each other and each other. Although his wife and two eldest children were emotionally violent in their refusal to accept his ballet dream, his youngest, his children in-law, and his granddaughter thought were impressed, and everyone else eventually came around to supporting him, especially after his symptoms could not be kept from the others any longer. Deok Chul was able to realize his dream with the support of his entire family and Chae Rok right beside him and Chae Rok is able to leave the airport towards his own dreams with the love of his father, his best friend, his ballet teachers, and Deok Chul plus the family members that tagged along.

The ending is very touching as 3 years later, Chae Rok made top dancer within a year as teacher Ki predicted returns to visit Deok Chul who is fully in Alzheimer's state and Deok Chul remembers ballet through muscle memory as he sees him. It's kind of sad his wish to be living in a nursing home while he was still lucid wasn't respected as he's at home under the care of his also elderly wife who has a hard time keeping an eye on him at all times. His daughter and son in law offered to care for him too, but they're not around. Deok Chul wanders the streets delivering what he thinks are letters to the consternation of the people around the area and it looks dangerous as he walks to a train crossing where he runs into Chae Rok. The writing of the various friendships and familial relationships are good, but the pacing can feel pretty slow and Chae Rok didn't get as much focus, but all the ballet focused sections were fascinating.

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Romance and Responsibility

Three years out from the first airing of this drama in 2021, the sitting president in 2024 announced martial law and was swiftly countered by immediate fierce protests of citizens who assisted elected officials who did everything they could including climbing over the fences and barricaded themselves against the military to get their votes in to lift the martial. It was a bipartisan unanimous vote. The martial law from 1980 is still very much fresh in the historical memory of the country and remains remembered through holidays and dramatized depictions like this drama. The atrocities portrayed is a mere fraction of what occurred but is still sickening and sad. The stories are led by Myung Hee, a nurse of three years, and Hee Tae who is a top student in the final year of medical school. It took me a while to get to this drama because of the actor's strong performances as siblings in another show, but they show off their acting prowess depicting a different chemistry as different characters here.

Myung Hee has the tenacity to work towards her dreams, but she's always beaten back by the hostile political atmosphere of the country. She's has the dichotomy where she's extremely capable at her job and can take care of herself around guys being a creep, but she lets herself be taken advantaged of by her co-workers to do the tasks they don't want and to give in to her friend rather than follow her own feelings due the event of her getting all the blame for political posters and getting kicked out of high school and her father who is later revealed to have been branded a communist after being forced to confess as one under torture by Hee Tae's villain father, telling her to accept it. She also has the dumbest little brother. He's 12 but has zero awareness or thinking skills beyond his own wants and needs. He doesn't care that she has her own dreams and wants to put her already many years deferred dream of going to school in Germany, partially because she sent back a lot of her hard earned money for his living expenses to watch his race. He doesn't care that there's no out running soldiers with guns, except for a family member to sacrifice their life by blocking the bullets with their body. He knows that's how his father died, but still goes off by himself causing his family to go after him. Myung Hee deserved better. I do enjoy how her older sibling kindness fared better with Hee Tae's half brother Jung Tae who saved her life by foiling the assassin from murdering her. She also gave perspective to Hee Tae regarding his brother that led to the brother's finally connection with some true familial love in that abusive household.

It was moving when a tied up and beaten Hee Tae accepts that his step mom isn't able to help him and pleads for her to get away with Jung Tae instead, which leads to her bravely setting him free and facing down her abusive husband for divorce. The actor who plays him is really good, he brings a realistic, chilling gravitas that is more found in Korean films than television show and the scenes where he acts against Lee Do Hyun as his son are excellent. It was so sad when Hee Tae revealed that the only reason he joined his father's step family was to not be alone. Myung Hee was going to be his family, but she was murdered. She did reconcile his relationship with his brother who he looked to have kept in touch with his whole life. I really enjoyed the scenes where they both worked together as medical professionals to help patients as more and more victims of the atrocities poured into the hospital. It unfortunately meant that they missed their window to get out of the city again and again until it was too late. Hee Tae really has a head and body of steel, he received head trauma by taking a blow to the head for her, then probably more head and body trauma from a hit and run, then more injuries being tied up and banging himself against the furniture and the floor to get help, and he just shows back up at the hospital up and running just fine.

The drama also showed the conscripted soldiers point of view, where they were forced towards violence regardless of their personal views and could only do so much to counter it. This reflects real life where the conscripted soldiers in the real life 2024 martial law event also seemed a bit confused as to what they were supposed to do. Hee Tae and all the other main players got to live out their life to modern day while Myung Hee's body was finally unearthed decades later. She deserved to live and find happiness the most. There's also the plot of the rich best friend who let Myung Hee go down alone during high school, totally compromising her ideals to force Hee Tae to marry her for her family's financial stability fulling using Myung Hee who she knows loves him and vice versa to convince him, and a cop dies for her, a cohort of hers is in love with her, and her family learns what it means to really contribute to helping the city by using all of their stores after her brother gets kidnapped and tortured just like the regular plebs. The wealthy and the privileged get to survive just fine in the story while Myung Hee and her dad who both suffered a lot in both poverty and politically and were the bread winners of their family of five die horribly. It's weird messaging.

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A misunderstood anti-fantasy about success

None of the characters are the pure, impeachable morals type. Tae Oh is the brains, smart and can make things happen, but he's afraid to make any specific type of goal or happiness for himself. He waffles with the women in his life, both his own mother and Hye Won, who he constantly pushes away though he loves them on the inside. Hye Won has a terrible debt ridden gambler mother and with In Ha throwing himself at her, she sees a relationship and eventual marriage with him as a lifeline to a financially stable life though she's also smart and talented at what she does. In Ha was always the insecure bully that Tae Oh first met, lording his connection as an illegitimate child of a rich man over everyone. They find common ground in wanting to climb the ladder to success. I liked the parts where the drama showed how tenuous the friendship was, with In Ha noticing that Tae Oh withholding information from him like Hye Won being Tae Oh's neighbor from across the street. Tae Oh keeping entire shares and assets from In Ha and In Ha having his own minions that Tae Oh didn't know about. Also of course when Hye Won and Tae Oh make out after she's engaged to In Ha. They also should have shown more genuine friendship moments that would give any sense of angst with the betrayals and why they would keep talking to In Ha at the end of the series when he has done the most heinous thing including intentionally getting Tae Oh's stepfather released, directly leading to the death of Tae Oh's mom who was abused and dies from her abuser harassing her.

A huge weakness of the drama is that they have only two characters that have the strategic brains that make the scheming any fun to watch and it's Tae Oh and CEO Kang Joong Mo and they both get taken out of play by jail and heart attacks and the drama goes back to the boring meetings of the other characters. Once Tae Oh is settled in jail and he begins to use his brains to control things from the outside, he doesn't finish that out because he's taken out of jail suddenly. Tae Oh is THE smart guy, but his major blind spot is that he doesn't take In Ha seriously as a psycho. In Ha is not smart, but he he will destroy and harm others. He literally had his own half brother and a random woman killed to frame Tae Oh who doesn't account for that even though he barely escaped a prison hit on his own life before CEO Kang saved him. CEO Kang is a guy who's making his own kingdom and Tae Oh helps him see his vision and eventually becomes a son like figure that In Ha wished he could be to his father and becomes the final heir. They show Tae Oh implementing a children's foundation at the end, but again his ultimate goals was never stated aside from wanting power. It's just power to have power. Neither Tae Oh or Hye Won are together, going toward their ambitions as movers and shakers of the world instead, and In Ha has offed himself in failing spectacularly in his life goals that he could have had if he had just trusted Tae Oh without being jealous and hating Tae Oh for being the person he could never be. It had always been a toxic friendship to it's core, with Tae Oh enabling In Ha fake his way to the top, with Tae Oh puppet-ing him to success. Tae Oh is the perfect successor to CEO Kang because he doesn't have anything else but to put everything into the Kangoh empire.

The sister Hee Joo feels wasted in what she can offer the drama. Her whole point was to be ridiculously obsessed with Tae Oh so that she can find and save her father from drowning in the hot tub. It would have been more interesting if she was an active player helping Tae Oh in his schemes. Same with the rest of the surviving Kang family members. The debt collecting gangsters becoming Tae Oh's cartoony buds felt too silly in tone for what's going on in the rest of the drama. Tae Oh's north korean defector, (Italian?) speaking hacker was pretty fun in just the right amount of wacky and edgy though. Him turning the situation with shooting and schooling his cohort that was bribed by In Ha was fun. The ending is pretty dark, Tae Oh is on the top of the world, but has no family, no love, and no friends. Is it cathartic, no, but it's a pretty interesting route to go for a mainstream drama that requires a bit more contemplation for appreciation, but that's not a popular thing for the mainstream audience to do alas.

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One step forward, two steps back

It's nice to see Chinese bl, especially costume wuxia drama with a reasonable budget find it's way to being made uncensored through international cooperation and online distribution, but it's also going backwards to the time before the complete ban on Chinese bl that had a ton of romanticized domestic assault. I know that this story is already toned down from the original story, it would have been great if it was just removed entirely. Just Huai-en murdering innocent people and chopping hands off in a blind rage got the point that he's messed up just fine. There's already plenty of interesting psychology to explore with all the birth secrets and horrific way Huai-en was raised. The chaotic doctor guy was fun and I think it's good there wasn't too much of him and his childhood lover minion guy, but the scenes that they had could have been better expressed than they were.

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Yes man vs No man

Both lead characters Jin Woo and Ki Sub are very neurodivergent coded with very different coping mechanisms in relation to their respective family members that are directly responsible for raising them. Jin Woo being an isolated regimented perfectionist out of from his childhood habit of earning perfect scores to hopefully get his father's attention to spend time with him. Somewhere along the line he's shifted to thinking that he will never have his father love him more than his father loves his work, but he continues living life the way he always had with everything precisely planned out. Ki Sub never turns anyone down so as to not disappoint them, but he does so anyways when whatever he agreed to inevitably falls apart because he doesn't care like the other person does, which includes relationships with both women and men. He has a mysterious heart condition that his school doctor or nurse sister has been monitoring him for since he was a child and he never wanted to create conflict with her, so just agreeing to everything asked of him. Whatever it is, the show never goes into, but I truly hope his love is truly the miracle medicine needed for his heart to heal.

Ki Sub went through life sublimating all of his desires, but his subconscious seemed to finally fight back with the timeline of spending time with the person he's been unconsciously crushing on since he started college before he immigrates to the U.S. It's absolutely unhinged the way he barges into Jin Woo's home and life. It's interesting how Ki Sub immediately points out Jin Woo likes him and asks him why he won't confess and Jin Woo has witnessed all of Ki Sub's campus confession acceptances and heartbreaking to know where it goes to not want to confess. Ki Sub going through Jin Woo's things is extremely rude too and not right to do and his contract making can be seen as a desperate move he's doing to stay close to Jin Woo before his brain and heart finally connect the dots as to the reason why. His consistent presence is something Jin Woo actually needed, that Ki Sub isn't just going to accept his confession without any meaning. Thanks to modern technology and the culture of filming people without the consent, which also yikes, Ki Sub can see himself outside of his own body how he looks at Jin Woo. He's so used to seeing how people look at him when they like him, he can finally understand what his own feelings are.

Kim Hye Jin is the bi and self aware queen who becomes besties with her perfectionist habit twin Jin Woo who called Ki Sub out on behalf of her friends and crushes and finally finds someone of her own. No notes. Meanwhile Balg Eum is a self conscious wreck to the point that he lashes out physically and emotionally at In Ho he never deserved being abandoned wordlessly in high school and definitely not being treated so violently when he finds Balg Eum again. With the way Balg Eum was punching In Ho, it was like the latter betrayed him or something, but the poor guy was innocent of everything! Balg Eum was just embarrassed that his family is bankrupt while In Ho's seem to be financially stable enough for him to pursue piano and he can afford to buy an expensive watch as a gift in present day too. Though it's not delved into, he could have just saved up for it too, we don't get to know too much about In Ho except that he truly loves Balg Eum unconditionally. I'm glad Balg Eum became self aware at last that it's his own ego problem and he definitely needs time and distance to be a better person, but he really put In Ho through hell. He wasn't even working so much to pay off debt for his family, it was just to save up money to save face for when he one day meets up with In Ho again.

Although Jin Woo and his father finally come to an understanding that the latter threw himself into work as a coping mechanism for the grief of losing his wife and Jin Woo's mom, it was also such a heartbreaking moment when his father offers going home to spend time with Jin Woo and both understand it's too late and not what either needs anymore. It was so civil and such a crushing blow to the heart. Jin Woo is already all grown up, lives on his own, and now has Ki Sub as his companion to enjoy and experience life with. I hope he and his father figure out a way to connect differently eventually. Although we don't get a meeting scene between Jin Woo and Ki Sub's sister, Ki Sub made it pretty clear who is the one that makes his heart beat and calm, so he's pretty much out to his sister and I'll take his word for it that his family is happy for him to make decisions for his own happiness. Jin Woo and Ki Sub's public New Years celebration kiss and no one making any sort of deal about it is so sweet. The little epilogue that they have crossed paths before in high school as they walked in opposite directions during winter time is a lovely little closer too. They always had a magnetic pull towards one another even with a brief glimpse that probably neither even remembers.

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Dull Paradox

The first four episodes follows Lee Tang bumbling his way into being an accidental vigilante with an uncanny ability to kill people that turn out to be murderers or other vile offenders while leaving no evidence of the kills is the most kinetic and interesting comparatively to the second half of the series which pretty much grinds to a screeching halt to focus on the beleaguered detective and delusional serial killer with Lee Tang running hiding from the police as a b story. What a waste of time to not develop and focus on the guy with the supernatural powers who can identify actually guilty people upon contact, even a brush through layers of winter clothing. There's gratuitous, explicit nudity as well, one of which is for a crime.

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