I also crave dramas with female friendships! Have you watched Ode to Joy or Age of Youth?
I plan on watching Ode to Joy but not Age of Youth. Tbh I prefer it when the friendship is a nice surprise element rather than the main theme. I find "friendship dramas" a bit self-conscious and not really relatable. I think friendship is something that should be able to fit into any kind of genre, any kind of plot, but relatively few dramas have decent portrayals of female friendships.
Strong Woman Da Bong Soon does show sistermance (that's what I call it lol) between FL and her best friend. To…
Thanks, that's good to know. :) I can't watch them though, because I'm not really interested in dramas where friendship is a side plot to romance. Btw I think the best female friendship I've found from Korea is Seonam Girls' High School Detectives.
I agree that the article is K-biased, but overall I like the message of it. "Pure romance" in the Korean style provides very little scope for well-written characters, male or female.
In particular I crave dramas featuring female friendship. "Bromance" is a thing. There's no significant female equivalent.
You should hide your comment as a spoiler, lolI could guess the end of ep.10 just with your sentence.
Saying there's a plot twist (obvious or otherwise) in a mystery/suspense drama isn't really a spoiler... If you guessed it from that you're just a good guesser. Like me, apparently. Since all the other comments seem to be expressing surprise.
1. Han Yang’s “withdrawal” (i.e. being Looney) isn’t actually withdrawal, it’s a conscious affectation.…
I think it was Min Chul who promised to give him a beating if he ever ended up in jail again... I want to see that. xD In the kindest possible way, of course.
1. Han Yang’s “withdrawal” (i.e. being Looney) isn’t actually withdrawal, it’s a conscious affectation.…
Thank you for reading.
1. Han Yang is the type that needs attention. Whether that's good attention or bad attention, it's all the same to him.
4. I think the real tragedy is that, despite all the friends and allies he made in prison, Han Yang never quite managed to learn to value himself. He went cold turkey in a structured environment, surrounded by those friends and with a goal in mind (life with Ji Won). But I think he realised that the outside world wouldn't be so easy, that nothing had really changed, so he wavered and needed the drugs. We saw him fixated on his mother's betrayal right up until his release, and I think that's what pushed him over the edge.
What Han Yang really needed was professional support. He should have been in rehab, not prison. He was doomed from the beginning. There was a lot of foreshadowing for the end, the most chilling instance being his request that Ji Won not wait for him outside the prison gates. But everything was in his nihilistic smile as he waved goodbye to Paeng and Song. Really beautiful acting from Lee Kyu Hyung.
Thank you! It was a little different to the others after all.
I don't give away any plot points (obviously), but I do give an idea of the contents of the drama, and probably a feel of its atmosphere. I think I wrote it a bit like you wrote your last article, only shorter. Does that help?
1. Han Yang’s “withdrawal” (i.e. being Looney) isn’t actually withdrawal, it’s a conscious affectation. There’s a line where he says “It’s withdrawal, please understand”. Granted it was in reference to an actual physical symptom (his shivers), but to me it was like an admission that he’s perfectly aware of the effect he has on other people. He milks it for the protection/comfort he receives from some characters, while the kicks he gets from the others only serve to vindicate the things he’s known/felt all along (his loneliness and low self-esteem resulting from a cold childhood).
2. This gets more interesting when Jung Woo arrives on the scene, because Jung Woo is the only one to challenge the little scenario Han Yang has created. Jung Woo sees through him in ways the others don’t, partly due to his personality, and also due to his prejudices (homophobia, his distaste for “weak” drug addicts, a bit of reverse snobbery). One of my favourite exchanges is Jung Woo confronting Han Yang and claiming he uses his withdrawal to be “touchy with people”. I agree with Jung Woo, though obviously I don’t see it with the same homophobic slant. But I thought it was such a perceptive, delicate bit of dialogue, drawing out both Jung Woo’s homophobia and Han Yang’s vulnerability when confronted with it. Even better that Joon Ho gave Han Yang a message of acceptance in the scene directly after.
3. Despite Jung Woo’s aloofness Han Yang is always successful in dragging him down into childish bickering. He’s a wind-up merchant by nature, but he finds particular pleasure in provoking Jung Woo (expressing this to Je Hyeok). I wonder if part of it is his way of getting his own back on the person who disrupted his routine. Ultimately I think Jung Woo had a significant effect on Han Yang’s self-image whist living in the cell. Jung Woo gave him the need to defend and reflect upon himself, unlike the others who all played into his scheme, either doting on or rejecting him. (I’m not sure I can say the same for Han Yang’s effect on Jung Woo, but I did find it incredibly heart-warming when Jung Woo asked for his advice and acted on it.)
4. I’ve watched Han Yang’s last scene several times and come away with a slightly different interpretation each time. During their last visitation he told Ji Won to wait at the restaurant, because “I don’t want you to see me walk out of prison”. From my reading of Han Yang up until that point, I do feel he could be manipulative enough to lie and leave the path clear to obtaining drugs upon release, though obviously that would be at odds with his efforts to quit whilst in prison. This ambiguity about him intrigues me more than the “Who set him up?” open ending. (That was left open right? Did I miss anything?)
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In particular I crave dramas featuring female friendship. "Bromance" is a thing. There's no significant female equivalent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR4KnfcgLm0
1. Han Yang is the type that needs attention. Whether that's good attention or bad attention, it's all the same to him.
4. I think the real tragedy is that, despite all the friends and allies he made in prison, Han Yang never quite managed to learn to value himself. He went cold turkey in a structured environment, surrounded by those friends and with a goal in mind (life with Ji Won). But I think he realised that the outside world wouldn't be so easy, that nothing had really changed, so he wavered and needed the drugs. We saw him fixated on his mother's betrayal right up until his release, and I think that's what pushed him over the edge.
What Han Yang really needed was professional support. He should have been in rehab, not prison. He was doomed from the beginning. There was a lot of foreshadowing for the end, the most chilling instance being his request that Ji Won not wait for him outside the prison gates. But everything was in his nihilistic smile as he waved goodbye to Paeng and Song. Really beautiful acting from Lee Kyu Hyung.
2. This gets more interesting when Jung Woo arrives on the scene, because Jung Woo is the only one to challenge the little scenario Han Yang has created. Jung Woo sees through him in ways the others don’t, partly due to his personality, and also due to his prejudices (homophobia, his distaste for “weak” drug addicts, a bit of reverse snobbery). One of my favourite exchanges is Jung Woo confronting Han Yang and claiming he uses his withdrawal to be “touchy with people”. I agree with Jung Woo, though obviously I don’t see it with the same homophobic slant. But I thought it was such a perceptive, delicate bit of dialogue, drawing out both Jung Woo’s homophobia and Han Yang’s vulnerability when confronted with it. Even better that Joon Ho gave Han Yang a message of acceptance in the scene directly after.
3. Despite Jung Woo’s aloofness Han Yang is always successful in dragging him down into childish bickering. He’s a wind-up merchant by nature, but he finds particular pleasure in provoking Jung Woo (expressing this to Je Hyeok). I wonder if part of it is his way of getting his own back on the person who disrupted his routine. Ultimately I think Jung Woo had a significant effect on Han Yang’s self-image whist living in the cell. Jung Woo gave him the need to defend and reflect upon himself, unlike the others who all played into his scheme, either doting on or rejecting him. (I’m not sure I can say the same for Han Yang’s effect on Jung Woo, but I did find it incredibly heart-warming when Jung Woo asked for his advice and acted on it.)
4. I’ve watched Han Yang’s last scene several times and come away with a slightly different interpretation each time. During their last visitation he told Ji Won to wait at the restaurant, because “I don’t want you to see me walk out of prison”. From my reading of Han Yang up until that point, I do feel he could be manipulative enough to lie and leave the path clear to obtaining drugs upon release, though obviously that would be at odds with his efforts to quit whilst in prison. This ambiguity about him intrigues me more than the “Who set him up?” open ending. (That was left open right? Did I miss anything?)