Second watch after maybe 18 months. I understood what was going on better this time, but still found it severely lacking in coherence. There is very little in the way of explanation for the WHY of so much of the behaviors/actions of the two main chararcters.
Decent acting except for the constant use of cigs and gum as actorly crutches. Terrible direction. Showing no expression conveys dullness, not depth. Cigs and gum don't evoke deep thinking.
So this guy came back to right this wrong in his head, yet he had NO plan, had contacted no one to help, had done nothing at all to execute this revenge. If not for the intervention of a random hookup he would have had the shit beaten out of him in a pool-hall bathroom. He's a sullen, rude, robotic, douchebag with a chip on his shoulder. He's been nursing his victimization from a violent past incident like the treasured child it is, yet I suspect he has ALWAYS been an angry person and will remain one. Worse, the hookup, who seems well-adjusted, friendly, positive and kind, is for reasons unknown powerfully attracted to this asshole and follows him all over Seoul. The dumbest part was taking part in a dangerous, potentially violent foot-chase on behalf of someone you just met who treated you like crap three or four times already. I guess the nice guy is a masochist. But that's not explored either.
Lee Yi Kyung is a very good actor but this is the second role I have seen him in in which he smokes constantly. I have no problem with smoking onscreen as some kind of moral or ethical problem; I just think it's a lame crutch too many actors lean on. People smoke WAY more in movies than in real life, especially in Korean movies. Smoking lets you play with a lighter, squint your eyes when you light up, let the cig dangle dramatically from your lips while talking, blow smoke out of your nostrils, hold the cig with your middle finger and thumb like a tough guy, throw the butt to the ground when pissed, grind it with your foot for emphasis, etc. Sometimes I'm moved to laughter when yet ANOTHER actor in a Korean movie lights up in an intense scene, or better yet, while waiting on a city sidewalk for some other character to show up. SO movie-ish!
Well-produced fail. Even my Lee Yi Kyung can't save this one.
Me, too. The last scene in which Won Gyu stares at the phone means he is on the verge of calling Tae Joon. And…
Wow. I think Won Gyu is DEEPLY emotionally/psychologically ill, and Tae Joon is too, as demonstrated by the fact he is so deeply attracted to someone who is so obviously severely, severely damaged.
Their feelings are anything but "pure." They're twisted af.
I'm not dissing the film for portraying the above. It did so very well. But yeah, I've no delusions this is a romantic story of pure love. lol
Turama! I was traumatized watching a traumatized man drag a good guy with his own baggage into his trauma full…
I agree with the gist of your comment, but I'd consider arguing that the "good guy" is even more disturbed than the possessed robot guy. I saw NOTHING about the robot, other than his good looks, that was attractive. He is hostile, rude, uncommunicative, angry, sullen, doesn't answer questions...ever, continually walks away without answering when engaged, etc. all of which indicates major psych problems, which our hero mentioned as being the case early on, and yet our "good guy" is powerfully attracted to him and chases him all over Seoul like a sad puppy.
So good guy digs other guys who are deeply f**ked up. This is not a healthy way to conduct one's personal life.
My biggest problem with this film is that it doesn't tell us WHY either one is the way they are. So much of what we get about "good guy" makes him seem healthy, optimistic, realistic, funny, nice, etc. And yet he follows this catatonic sex-addicted zombie all over Seoul.
Totally disagree. I enjoy dramas and movies that challenge my assumptions and push me toward the outside of the…
Isn't "hot sex" still hot sex, regardless of what anyone participating in it has or has not done prior to the hot sex? Is a beautiful painting created by a brutal killer any less beautiful because it was created by a brutal killer?
Is it that you felt "enticed" into feeling something you didn't want to feel? Doesn't EVERY piece of art in any medium "entice" its audience to feel emotions of all kinds?
"They seem to share your ability to experience that kind of programming without any sense of distaste." I'm getting a judgmental/self-righteous vibe from this statement. Tell me if I'm wrong. It seems to imply that people like me and the commenters you mentioned above are at a lower level of moral expectations than are you.
What, exactly, caused you "distaste?" The fact that murderers can have hot sex, or did have hot sex after killing someone? They should have stopped having sex after killing someone to punish themselves? What?
Wow ... I absolutely love the first two episodes. The slow burn is delicious! The script and acting are on point,…
Totally disagree. I enjoy dramas and movies that challenge my assumptions and push me toward the outside of the envelope I live in. Can a "demented murderer" also have intensely tender feelings of affection and love? Can TWO murderers truly love and care for each other in some kind of relationship that works for them? Can a person kill a defenseless victim and also be capable of great tenderness toward another human being?
I like being asked to hold two or more seemingly opposing emotions or beliefs at the same time. Do I want a killer to escape justice for their crime just because they're in love with another person and treats them beautifully and kindly? No. But can I experience wanting two killers to be together even though I don't want them to escape the law? Yes.
I want them to be together and have a beautiful life AND I want them to go to prison. Doesn't have to make sense. We humans often want what we can't have, and desire that which is not good for us or anyone else. I like experiencing the conflicting, angsty emotions of messy stories that challenge me with all this...stuff.
Lee Yi Kyung is an exceptionally talented actor. He carried this film all the way.
But all supporting performances were just as good, especially from Jung Yeon Joo as the young mother. Her acting in that final scene was perfection and I'm fine with that ending. Asian films have taught me I don't always have to have a beautifully wrapped and decorated ending that answers all my questions for the future. Not knowing what comes next is OK with me if it's done right, which this one is.
I wish it was the other couple from history 4 instead.
What did you find "problematic" about the older/younger couple in History3:MODC?
As for the step-brothers, they were the most intriguing and challenging, thus dramatic, part of History4:CTY. Good drama is often built on gray-area behavior and character actions that test our boundaries. Do you want to see everyone doing nice things all the time? Boring.
The only "problematic" thing those two did was moving in with the parents at the end. Crazy. And if their loving relationship is stable and both are happy after all the getting-together dramatics, why shouldn't they give relationship advice to others? I'd say they are MORE qualified to dispense advice BECAUSE of what they went through, and yet they prevailed.
Lots of people become a couple under trying circumstances and end up forming a solid bond of love and respect.
After looking at the cast and reading comments below, I want to thank everyone for helping me to not lose even one brain cell by watching this drama, yet another POS out of Thailand. How do directors who make vomitously bad dramas obtain jobs directing yet another POS? Are shows like this successful on TV in Thailand?
It's really too bad how Thailand BLs have become a joke/punch line. I got my BL start with Lovesick, Make It Right, Together With Me and other Thai BLs that touched me deeply. But now it seems every f**king show out of Thailand is just awful and embarrassing. I still try at least the first episode of each drama before I trash it and drop. Haven't watched a Thai BL in full since Moonlight Chicken.
I want a bl with both of them as the main characters or a part 2 of the movie where maybe they become a couple…
Me too! Except I didn't cry at Titanic AT ALL, which is weird because I cry easily at movies that touch me. But something about DeCaprio's performance left me cold. He seemed like Kate Winslet's little brother, not her lover.
A friend and I saw Titanic in an opening day matinee where we were almost the only people in the seats. After it ended, I turned to him and said "well, that's going to bomb." oops! lol
A message to an MDL friend after finishing this flick:
Went back and finished "Marry My Dead Body" just now and am very glad I did. Not sure I would have without a nudge from you.
Cried like a child for at least the last 20 minutes. The writers/director did a great job of combining comedy, both emotional and physical, with tragic drama here and the actors made it all work beautifully. What happened before was that I got to just short of midway and it felt like the focus was turning from the gay/straight/ghost marriage stuff, which I found hilarious, to another lame "who dunnit?" exercise during which the hot detective would solve the crime with the help of the ghost, but I didn't feel anything compelling about that, which is when I took a break. When I came back I discovered that only for about ten minutes while that transition was made did the film spin its wheels a bit. I was laughing my ass off again soon and loving the interaction of the dead guy and the hot detective. The way he came around to gay-friendly felt plausible, especially since he wasn't like a raging, spittle-flinging fag-hater to begin with.
I would rate this as one of my favorite cops and robbers comedy/sad drama with nice endings I've seen, especially among the gay ones.
ALL the acting was good. Especially impressed with Greg Hsu as the detective. I know I've seen him elsewhere and am going to check his bio/filmography after leaving this message to find out where. Turns out the other actor who played the dead guy, Austin Lin, co-stars in the film below, Anywhere, Somehwere, ,Nowhere, which I dropped. I spent the entirety of the half of that film I watched wondering where I'd seen that guy too, but didn't expect it to be that I'd just seen him the night before in MMDB, lol. But his face has changed enough in 9 years that I wouldn't have put the two together.
I think we can all thank Greg Hsu and the director for the gratuitous and mouth-watering butt shot during the scene where he had just settled in to watch porn and jerk off when he started hearing weird noises and got up to investigate. lol WHAT a butt! Afterwards, I was thinking they may have missed an opportunity there...it would have been hysterically funny and also pervy-hot to somehow have the ghost-husband make his presence known in that same room where Detective was masturbating, in a slow-reveal kind of way where he slowly somehow becomes the object of the Detective's masturbatory fantasy onscreen without the cop realizing it at first. OR...he could have just appeared over his shoulder and handed him a few tissues right after he came. :D Regardless, I thought sure Detective's computer was going to revert somehow to gay porn while he was beating off, as some side-connection to the ghost having been there. That would have been funny too.
The near-last scene in the hospital room where Detective reconciled ghost-son and father as intermediary by asking the dad questions so ghost boy could hear the answers. So moving. The dad and the cop were excellent in that scene.
I'm like you: I enjoy the English first names most Taiwanese entertainers give themselves, with an alternated Sino first name for their gigs on the mainland.
And I keep forgetting to say how much I love Taipei Tower, which I believe is the name of that tallest-by-far skyscraper on the Taipei skyline. So very Asian and distinctive without being cheesy.
1 
1 
Decent acting except for the constant use of cigs and gum as actorly crutches.
Terrible direction. Showing no expression conveys dullness, not depth. Cigs and gum don't evoke deep thinking.
So this guy came back to right this wrong in his head, yet he had NO plan, had contacted no one to help, had done nothing at all to execute this revenge.
If not for the intervention of a random hookup he would have had the shit beaten out of him in a pool-hall bathroom.
He's a sullen, rude, robotic, douchebag with a chip on his shoulder. He's been nursing his victimization from a violent past incident like the treasured child it is, yet I suspect he has ALWAYS been an angry person and will remain one.
Worse, the hookup, who seems well-adjusted, friendly, positive and kind, is for reasons unknown powerfully attracted to this asshole and follows him all over Seoul. The dumbest part was taking part in a dangerous, potentially violent foot-chase on behalf of someone you just met who treated you like crap three or four times already.
I guess the nice guy is a masochist. But that's not explored either.
Lee Yi Kyung is a very good actor but this is the second role I have seen him in in which he smokes constantly. I have no problem with smoking onscreen as some kind of moral or ethical problem; I just think it's a lame crutch too many actors lean on. People smoke WAY more in movies than in real life, especially in Korean movies. Smoking lets you play with a lighter, squint your eyes when you light up, let the cig dangle dramatically from your lips while talking, blow smoke out of your nostrils, hold the cig with your middle finger and thumb like a tough guy, throw the butt to the ground when pissed, grind it with your foot for emphasis, etc. Sometimes I'm moved to laughter when yet ANOTHER actor in a Korean movie lights up in an intense scene, or better yet, while waiting on a city sidewalk for some other character to show up. SO movie-ish!
Well-produced fail. Even my Lee Yi Kyung can't save this one.
6/10
Their feelings are anything but "pure." They're twisted af.
I'm not dissing the film for portraying the above. It did so very well. But yeah, I've no delusions this is a romantic story of pure love. lol
So good guy digs other guys who are deeply f**ked up. This is not a healthy way to conduct one's personal life.
My biggest problem with this film is that it doesn't tell us WHY either one is the way they are. So much of what we get about "good guy" makes him seem healthy, optimistic, realistic, funny, nice, etc. And yet he follows this catatonic sex-addicted zombie all over Seoul.
Is it that you felt "enticed" into feeling something you didn't want to feel? Doesn't EVERY piece of art in any medium "entice" its audience to feel emotions of all kinds?
"They seem to share your ability to experience that kind of programming without any sense of distaste." I'm getting a judgmental/self-righteous vibe from this statement. Tell me if I'm wrong. It seems to imply that people like me and the commenters you mentioned above are at a lower level of moral expectations than are you.
What, exactly, caused you "distaste?" The fact that murderers can have hot sex, or did have hot sex after killing someone? They should have stopped having sex after killing someone to punish themselves? What?
I like being asked to hold two or more seemingly opposing emotions or beliefs at the same time. Do I want a killer to escape justice for their crime just because they're in love with another person and treats them beautifully and kindly? No. But can I experience wanting two killers to be together even though I don't want them to escape the law? Yes.
I want them to be together and have a beautiful life AND I want them to go to prison. Doesn't have to make sense. We humans often want what we can't have, and desire that which is not good for us or anyone else. I like experiencing the conflicting, angsty emotions of messy stories that challenge me with all this...stuff.
But all supporting performances were just as good, especially from Jung Yeon Joo as the young mother. Her acting in that final scene was perfection and I'm fine with that ending. Asian films have taught me I don't always have to have a beautifully wrapped and decorated ending that answers all my questions for the future. Not knowing what comes next is OK with me if it's done right, which this one is.
9/10
As I do with every BL, I'll at least check out the first episode before sticking with it or dropping it.
This synopsis sounds like it was stolen from the Thai BL POS assembly line and camouflaged with a "Made in Taiwan" label.
As for the step-brothers, they were the most intriguing and challenging, thus dramatic, part of History4:CTY. Good drama is often built on gray-area behavior and character actions that test our boundaries. Do you want to see everyone doing nice things all the time? Boring.
The only "problematic" thing those two did was moving in with the parents at the end. Crazy. And if their loving relationship is stable and both are happy after all the getting-together dramatics, why shouldn't they give relationship advice to others? I'd say they are MORE qualified to dispense advice BECAUSE of what they went through, and yet they prevailed.
Lots of people become a couple under trying circumstances and end up forming a solid bond of love and respect.
How do directors who make vomitously bad dramas obtain jobs directing yet another POS? Are shows like this successful on TV in Thailand?
It's really too bad how Thailand BLs have become a joke/punch line. I got my BL start with Lovesick, Make It Right, Together With Me and other Thai BLs that touched me deeply. But now it seems every f**king show out of Thailand is just awful and embarrassing. I still try at least the first episode of each drama before I trash it and drop. Haven't watched a Thai BL in full since Moonlight Chicken.
Dropped
1/10
Thanks for the explanations.
Except I didn't cry at Titanic AT ALL, which is weird because I cry easily at movies that touch me. But something about DeCaprio's performance left me cold. He seemed like Kate Winslet's little brother, not her lover.
A friend and I saw Titanic in an opening day matinee where we were almost the only people in the seats. After it ended, I turned to him and said "well, that's going to bomb." oops! lol
Went back and finished "Marry My Dead Body" just now and am very glad I did. Not sure I would have without a nudge from you.
Cried like a child for at least the last 20 minutes. The writers/director did a great job of combining comedy, both emotional and physical, with tragic drama here and the actors made it all work beautifully.
What happened before was that I got to just short of midway and it felt like the focus was turning from the gay/straight/ghost marriage stuff, which I found hilarious, to another lame "who dunnit?" exercise during which the hot detective would solve the crime with the help of the ghost, but I didn't feel anything compelling about that, which is when I took a break. When I came back I discovered that only for about ten minutes while that transition was made did the film spin its wheels a bit. I was laughing my ass off again soon and loving the interaction of the dead guy and the hot detective. The way he came around to gay-friendly felt plausible, especially since he wasn't like a raging, spittle-flinging fag-hater to begin with.
I would rate this as one of my favorite cops and robbers comedy/sad drama with nice endings I've seen, especially among the gay ones.
ALL the acting was good.
Especially impressed with Greg Hsu as the detective. I know I've seen him elsewhere and am going to check his bio/filmography after leaving this message to find out where.
Turns out the other actor who played the dead guy, Austin Lin, co-stars in the film below, Anywhere, Somehwere, ,Nowhere, which I dropped. I spent the entirety of the half of that film I watched wondering where I'd seen that guy too, but didn't expect it to be that I'd just seen him the night before in MMDB, lol. But his face has changed enough in 9 years that I wouldn't have put the two together.
I think we can all thank Greg Hsu and the director for the gratuitous and mouth-watering butt shot during the scene where he had just settled in to watch porn and jerk off when he started hearing weird noises and got up to investigate. lol WHAT a butt! Afterwards, I was thinking they may have missed an opportunity there...it would have been hysterically funny and also pervy-hot to somehow have the ghost-husband make his presence known in that same room where Detective was masturbating, in a slow-reveal kind of way where he slowly somehow becomes the object of the Detective's masturbatory fantasy onscreen without the cop realizing it at first. OR...he could have just appeared over his shoulder and handed him a few tissues right after he came. :D Regardless, I thought sure Detective's computer was going to revert somehow to gay porn while he was beating off, as some side-connection to the ghost having been there. That would have been funny too.
The near-last scene in the hospital room where Detective reconciled ghost-son and father as intermediary by asking the dad questions so ghost boy could hear the answers. So moving. The dad and the cop were excellent in that scene.
I'm like you: I enjoy the English first names most Taiwanese entertainers give themselves, with an alternated Sino first name for their gigs on the mainland.
And I keep forgetting to say how much I love Taipei Tower, which I believe is the name of that tallest-by-far skyscraper on the Taipei skyline. So very Asian and distinctive without being cheesy.