grapejuice

The Grandmaster's slash was just barely preceded by a wave that hit FX. Did that also help him to regain his Qi flow?. And before that, the emporer seemed to transfer enough energy to wake him up after his being wounded had rendered him unconscious.
Also how did you know that the emporer and FX practice the same style? I wonder how that could be.

Were there rumours that he wasn't returning and he's laying them to rest? Or is it really only a goodbye for now kind of statement? Also does that mean back for the third instalment of a trilogy? Or will there be more than three? People who know?

Mizoguchi! I'm more partial to Kurosawa but only by a hair. Kurosawa did so many things well. Ikiru is my favorite film of all. But Mizoguchi knew the depth of people's relationships in a way that Kurosawa could never even get close to. And Ozu is just his own thing. Gorgeous moving still life that makes you hold your breath while you cry.

But, you know, I laughed so hard at Lovely Runner that my next door neighbour demanded to know what was so funny. And I was surprised how much I needed and enjoyed that laughter. Humour is such an individual thing but it's like food for me, in the sustenance way but also in the variety way. I love all kinds. :-)

Anyway, peace :-)

I'm afraid that this is only your opinion. Even though you keep stating it as if it's a fact.

It's possible to enjoy and value the quiet, realistic slice of life dramas and also see the merits of dramas that are aiming for grand themes and resounding laughter.

Perhaps art house is just your preference and you don't see that humour, in particular, is also an exacting art worthy of equal appreciation. It's not an uncommon thing for some people to think that there isn't the same kind of quality in a production that is particularly funny.

Truthfully, there are many quiet, slice of life dramas that some of us will think are better in quality than First Love. I enjoyed it but I also thought that it was a little bit flat and a little bit ordinary. It certainly didn't move me nearly as much as many other quiet little Japanese dramas and films have done. In fact, if you truly want to see what quality slice of life looks like, try out the work of Yasujiro Ozu.

On the other hand, I haven't encountered too many dramas that have made me laugh as often or as deeply as Lovely Runner did. And, to me, that kind of rarity also implies quality. It just doesn't have the same prejudicial snob factor.

Oh come on now. They're not in different leagues. They're in different categories.

One is a fantasy rom-com heavy on the romance and the comedy. The other is a realistic romance drama heavy on the romance and the drama but with absolutely no fantasy and absolutely no comedy at all.

Within their respective categories, they're both excellent at what they're trying to do. But they'll attract and please different people; people who want and are happy with different things.

You don't have to find something excellent about LR. But why try to talk people out of the things that they thought were excellent?

Instead, you could tell them about First love - Hatsukoi and suggest it as a next drama for them to try. I don't agree with you that it's better than Lovely Runner. They really are too different to compare, especially on the comedy front.

But First Love - Hasukoi is a really satisfying drama and it might be a good choice for a lot of the people who enjoyed the fated love part of LR.

Can't people watch and be moved by both of these dramas; each for their own relative strengths? Why compare and put one down when they are both excellent in their own way?

I'll raise your low key to a high key. That's a great idea!!!

The quality has decreased, or it has gone in a direction that you don't like? You would have written it differently and so you are not as engaged?

Why is someone with these opinions here in the first place if not to be a troll among people who accept that kdramas reflect Korean culture; if not to give voice to their ethnocentricity and disrespect others? You can feel whatever way you want about my calling someone out on their prejudices. It's one thing to express shock but it's another thing to plainly put down a culture that is not your own. So it seems we must agree to disagree. Shall we stop it here?

This isn't about my defending a popular drama against the tiniest of criticisms. This has nothing to do with Lovely Runner, at all.

If you are going to watch kdramas, you kinda have to learn, acknowledge, respect and accept that there are cultural differences that you're not always going to appreciate. @kopiko_kdrama isn't criticizing the drama so much as she is critiquing the culture for being different than what she (as, presumably, an outsider) would want it to be.

Sometimes people don't realize the difference. They'll criticize aeygo because they don't realize that Koreans just really like cuteness when others may not. They'll criticize conservative attitudes or particular themes in kdramas without realizing that they are realities in Korea.

But @kopiko_ is an experienced kdrama watcher who should probably have realized the differences by now. And realize what her criticism is actually cutting into.

So, you don't think that's worth a counter-critique? Ok. But I do.

And yes we all have the right to express our opinions on an open forum which means that, once you've spoken, you have to expect and allow counter opinions such as mine since I also have a right to speak my mind.

Troll. Nobody here cares about or shares this opinion. So you should probably take it somewhere else. I mean, what are you even doing here? It's sad that you'd go so far out of your way to try to make trouble.

Yes. You're right! We'll be getting the romance and all the bromances too. That really is an excellent trip to look forward to :-)

Ah a troll is lost in the wrong place for people who think that Kdramas are cringe. This is humour. Not serious or cringe. They literally got together 5 seconds ago. This is the first anybody has heard or seen of it and he has a hundred condoms in his bag. LoL. Also, cultures and times differ ... so try to catch your thinking up to that too.

might you be in the wrong thread perhaps?

Same !!! How can it be this funny, this often and in every episode? It has shot to the top of my kdrama comedy list; leaving even Welcome to Waikiki in the dust behind it.

Ooooh. But how many times have you said that up to now? Before every new episode? And how often has it been right? Every time or, at least, most of the time? There has to be a lull coming up for us to catch our breath before the final episodes. I wouldn't even have thought this was possible. For each episode to be as good or better than the last. Every single time :-)

It doesn't matter what the teacher thinks though. He made a number of serious mistakes. To start, if there are two interpretations and answers for a question, you shouldn't put it on the exam. It's careless. It means you didn't fully consider what you're doing; didn't have full command of your subject.

So, if you make that kind of mistake, you should just quickly admit it, apologize to the students who were affected, take the opportunity to show to the whole class why both answers are correct and then gracefully move on to give full marks to everyone who gave a correct answer.

Digging further in to the mistake and blowing it up to be a huge war of wills just makes you look small and incompetent. And that's not to mention the fact that he put his hands on and pushed a visitor to the school. That's so far out of line that it's ridiculous; something that could get him fired especially if anything like it has ever happened before.

So, he made a fool of himself and made some enemies too. The students and parents were upset. But, worse, his colleagues and his superiors will all be resentful that he made them look bad in front of the academy teacher. And they have to do the exam all over again, which is a whole lot of work, when he could have done a better job in the first place or fixed the end result quickly and quietly.

He's definitely trouble.

Free, but mandatory, public schools, as well as the lesser private schools, and all of their teachers, are often dismissed and abused by parents and the academy system that's fuelled by parents who will spend a lot of money to 'improve' upon what the regular school teachers are doing. They are seen as being less professional and less able to produce results, so the academies most often get the credit for students being admitted to the big universities.

So, there is a huge pay gap and an increasingly large respect gap between teachers from these two environments, which means that the FL was, indeed, pushing her boundaries, and her luck, when she went into that argument, in a public school, with an older man who also happened to have more conservative and dated ideas than she did.

She kept trying to find out what the man's colleagues thought because she guessed, accurately, I think that he was out of step with them. He's obviously belligerent and unable to admit when he might be wrong. So, he blew the issue up out of all proportion because of his pride, inferiority complex and animosity.

But, then the school decided against his wishes, in favour of her argument and that just adds insult to injury. I wondered if he had been fired or put on probation but maybe he was just told to apologize. You can see where it's going though, either way. An enemy has been made and he'll most likely be back.

This makes a lot more sense. Accident, not murder.

But there's only one more day til we might find out ... :-) See you back here after the episode!