very cool, very classy
This is a great series. If you have waited to binge, you are in for a great ride. 2025, 12eps. at 1hr 10mims ea. Very cool, very classy. Makes M&A seem thrilling (evil, huh?). Really really good actors doing great work throughout. Even though Le Je Hoon is a genius, I want to list half-a-dozen others but I really cant without feeling guilty towards the rest of the cast.Technically perfect. Everything contributes to the the enjoyment of the plot and of individual episodes, color and lighting choices, camerawork, sets -- nothing jars or distracts (unless you are completely addicted to ballad-based soundtracks, nice in their way but inappropriate here).
LJH emanates a deep sadness and careful balance. His character makes his way towards a difficult goal amidst the minefield of survival in SK corporate culture. Not unrealistically crazy corporate villains per comedy, but proper thriller villains.
The soundtrack, not meaning ballads or music but the sounds, is super interesting -- it makes you want to watch closely and quietly like a friend whispering discreetly in your ear. The opening song is fire and it gets better each time you start a new episode.
Dont miss out.
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A truly great largescale romantic history drama
A truly great largescale romantic history drama. Never cheesy, always intelligent, never lazy, it takes nothing for granted and never spends useless screen time. It will cause a storm in yr heart regularly every few episodes. Binge warning: you may end up with major sleep deprivation because you cannot stop watching. 21 eps at over 1hr ea. REMEMBER THERE IS A PART TWO. I am reviewing both here.Favorite things:
*The total coolness of a narrative frame where a rejected manuscript from the state history annals is reinvestigated (by the series!) and deemed too unusual to be true. Implied is that the narrator is a pansori singer, Rang Eum, played by a lovely 23yr-old actor, who is in one-sided love with the ML.
*Lots of battle but no big set pieces (hate them).
*Theme...the vulnerability of women when social structures break, their disposability in war and their invisibility afterwards.
*Confucian and other ethical questions... what do the just do in an unjust situation, how do people like us survive in the chaos of history?
*Sigh...the house by the stream with a fence of forsythia branches is my favourite set -- wait for it!
Namkoong Min's face and attitudes(s) are the magnetic north of a tonal structure which knits together the larger political frame and the emphasis on the individual life. He is completely brilliant playing a jaded melancholy outsider who falls very very very hard for the young, spirited daughter of a comfortable provincial family. Ahn Eun Jin matches NM's subtlety with a steady powerful presence; changes in the young Gil Chae happen so slowly and always so late that they sneak up on you. She gets equal closeup camera time , deservedly. The essence of the central relationship, very Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, will drive you just as crazy as that couple did in the dark ages, and for over half the drama!!! about 15 hrs -- N.B. GWtW was only 2.5 hrs.
first posted on viki may 27th 2024
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This will blow you away
Enjoy this show once, twice, a thousand times! This show is what drew me into Asian drama and cinema.In this show the realm of the gods is very much xianxia, while the Demon Lord's world and Orchid's recreational vehicle between worlds seemed very different. It wasnt the world-building that hooked me, it was the dialogue as soon as silly Orchid came onscreen. It was very irreverent and the more I watched the funnier it became. The soundtrack was amazing. The cinematic intelligence in LBFD was way above and beyond any USA production. What makes this show so perfect, funny and awesome? I wanted to know.
When I heard that Esther Yu, a strong woman in her own right (as opposed to her role as Orchid), greatly influenced the LBFD production with constructive ideas drawn from kdrama, I had to find out more. I learned eventually and happily that although fantasy combined with irony in western cinema is not always successful, it is a fully mastered and developed style in asian cinema of all kinds.
So.....watch and laugh and cry (the ending is amazing).
ps. This review is a perfect illustration of my review philosophy -- we write as a group and my chosen parameter is not to be a judge of works I dont like, but a cheerleader for those I do. There are so many great reviewers with beautiful prose and good analytical skills who work on shows like this. I have chosen to define my contribution as an attempt to amuse and entice people who like my style to watch great shows.
first posted on viki april 27th 20214
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This is not a romance. It is about love.
Whoa. Great binge. 2025, 8 eps at 50mins ea. An elegant piece about the universally crazy search for love when we are very young. Some people are found by love, others are not, others really make a mess of things. A BL but it might be a bit too toasty for the Aunties who like mostly the cute little BL romances. Definitely for grown-ups and literary fans, this is not, I repeat not a romance. It is about love.Excellent cinematography, script and cast. One of the choicest things-- this series exactly and economically fits into its 8 ep. frame, unlike several other shows lately who shall not be named. This one neither bores nor confuses.
The frame is classic -- a young writer transmutes his/her own personal love life into great fiction. The voice-overs as the series follows his stories are just right -- not too intrusive, but they follow his evolving perspectives. The story is set in Seoul and the writer is a young gay man, Go Young, played brilliantly by Nam Yoon Su.
The series is not an ensemble cast. The three other 'princesses' are his drinking buddies for troubles and joys, but in the show they function as a chorus, not individually. They can be very funny -- a 'visit' to Go Young in the hospital is a classic. Mi Ae (his friend and roommate at university), his lovers one by one, they all come onstage and then off they go. Go Young experiences so many almost-love-but-not relationships; look for the live-in lover blues, a form of marriage fatigue. You will love or hate each of four-plus love stories -- really icky, the leftist who wanted to hide the relationship away --but most are not two-dimensional characters. Go Yeong (as the writer, and the writer's alter ego) is almost too perceptive.
Nam Yoon Su is one of those actors whose face the camera adores, all angles and mouth and eyes. He uses his lanky frame well, too -- the shambling choreography with the wonderful Jin Ho Eun was great. NYS is so good at vulnerability, at sulkiness, at joy -- what good memories I have from this show. Just wonderful. Nevertheless there is a lot of pain in the show. Family division and homophobia, HIV (the crisis may be somewhat past but for those who have contracted it it's a real cross to bear) complicate the decisions Go Young and his friends have to make. In essence this is a realistic portrayal of a place and time.
I prefer to think that Go Young ends up ready for true love, after having gone through all of these negative experiences (some of his own making!). Ever the optimist I hope it will be Gyu Ho who comes shining in the door.
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cool, soon-to-be classic
A gem. 10 episodes at 1hr ea. and the first really brilliant kdrama in the new international streaming formats.Woo Do Hwan was born to play this role: a tragi-comic loner with a big heart and a mordant sensibility. No other current leading drama actor could have carried off this character's combination of sensuality and innocence in the squalid universe in which he lives. In the Korean context his theory of the life of a drifter as an essential micro-organism in the life of society is fundamentally radical. As a runaway from the psychologically unbearable life of a 'good son' in the Korean upper middle class he also has the chameleonic-like ability to insert himself into varying social strata which is necessary to a conman, but he uses these abilities to help others (for big bucks of course).
An original script which combines generic expectations from kdrama (romedy and crime) and from the common international cinematic universe (road movies, riches to rags sociological commentary). These serve to maintain dramatic interest and emotional involvement while still streamlining out some of the more baroque parts of lengthier classic kdrama.
As a road movie, relationships are developed and memories are dissected by two characters at a time, in the intimate space of the two front seats. Theatrically, the setting in the fluid life of the underclass in a time of extreme social stratification, has been an eternally fascinating subject, whether in the cinema of mid-century US and Europe or in 21st century Korean films and drama.
The farce-like stock characters of kdrama (and some less common ones) set up expectations in the viewer which are quietly subverted as their pasts and present are slowly revealed. And some of my favourite stock memes still remain: a funny love triangle, an end-episodes reintegration of the small band and bonds of the main characters, standard and wickedly funny gang involvement, fields of onggi and often a vaguely familiar mysterious character, here John Na, a sunglass-cool bodyguard.
In fact the development of the character arcs is the heart of the drama so I have to stop here to avoid spoilers. GO RIGHT NOW TO THE SHOWPAGE and start watching with a fresh and happy mind open to this wonderful tear-jerker of a romedy-action-road drama.
A Netflix original show, with the composer Kim Taesong. Writer -- Jo Young.
simultaneously posted on viki
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about making movies and the crazy pressures of being a female celebrity.
A great watch, a good binge, lots of fun at 12 eps of 50mins ea. A workplace drama set in the film industry with an ensemble cast of 4 to 9 actresses (depending on where you are in the plot). Not a female-buddy show or a 9-to-5 show. Two main themes are that life is too short to hold grudges against friends or to reject sincere romantic love. As so often in shows placed in the entertainment world (perennial crowd-pleasers), those who work at creating illusions and dreams do not often have an easy time in their private lives.A nuanced script creates 3-dimensional characters, imperfect, often funny, struggling as we all do to balance work and love, to live a human life. The estrangement and reconciliation of the friends who are the two main characters ties the show together. The plot's focus moves through the whole ensemble cast, starting with a coming-of-age story about the youngest actress and ending romantically for another. In between 2 women rescue fading careers, 3 people retire and 1 comes back from retirement, there are 2 or 3 divorces, 2 breakups, 2 affairs, 2 true love stories and, all the actresses learn and grow in their careers and as persons.
The frame is the the intense rhythm and stress of directing and producing two movies in sequence by a husband and wife team. The work ethic of these successful actresses means that their personal lives are put on hold during shooting and once the films wrap they have to deal with whatever problems have arisen meanwhile at home. The movies are plays-within-plays, their plots reflecting these women's lives superficially. The show concentrates on what happens behind the scenes.
My favourite out of these 9 equally talented actresses and their characters is Cheryl Yang as Chou Fan, living in semi-retirement in a filthy hotel room. She is brittle and difficult, unfiltered and vulnerable. She was the offender in the wedding debacle that caused the rift with her best friend, she is past-her-prime (maybe) and unknown to a younger generation. My favourite scene? Her, standing in a dumpster, receiving an impulsive confession from a younger guy standing in the adjacent dumpster. Of course.
I feel as if saying that women might enjoy this show more is like saying that The Hunt For Red October is best appreciated by men and enlisted personnel. However there is very little bromance (there is one cute scene though) in the show as opposed to the central group of female friends frequently letting off steam over snacks and drinks. Imagining being the lover of a fabulously beautiful actress but meeting up with a real person instead of the fantasy is an underlying theme which is easily accessible to men, and the mess an affair can make of one's life is of universal interest. In the end this is a very good show about friendship, about making movies, and about the crazy pressures of being a female celebrity. I predict it will be a future classic in this genre.
simultaneously posted on viki
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absurd, wonderful and heartbreaking
The Korean Odyssey/Hwayugi is the 11th script of the Hong sisters. 2018; 20 eps at 1hr20 mins ea. Hwayugi (HW) was one of the first few kdramas I ever watched. It is absurd, wonderful and heartbreaking; an indelible memory. The comedy/romance/supernatural fusion combined with sophisticated filmmaking and an absurdist/surreal panache was enchanting but difficult to ease into; it made me an instant fan, obsessive and curious about the Korean industry and its history.And yes, I bawled buckets the first time... and the second....and...
Please, please give it a try and become a Hong Sisters fan too!
I was amazed at this remake of/take on the chinese buddhist novel Journey to the West (one of the six classic pre-modern chinese novels), whose characters permeate pan-asian cultural products of all kinds.
That premise is essentially a comic set-up. The 3 companions from the novel, the monkey King, the pig, and the fish king are like Homer Simpson -- they are driven by human appetites to constantly get into trouble. It is the job of this motley crew to protect the Monk, Sam Jang (Tang Zang/Xuansang), on his journey to the West, but even he cannot save them from their own idiocy.
But in Hwayugi, Son Oh Gong (SOG) tricks a little girl who sees spirits into releasing him from heaven's punishment of imprisonment. So heaven punishes her by forcing her to take on the dharma of the Monk in modern times. Is this fair, no. Is this a tale of the supernatural, yes, so fairness does not pertain.
The monk in the novel is looking for texts, but in Hwayugi she/he has become a sort of "sin-eater" who has to bear the burden of human evil. Her flesh still has the monk's fragrance of lotus flowers and even a tiny bite of it grants immortality. Meanwhile she grows up plucky and resourceful and turns her spirit-seeing ability to good commercial use as a real estate agent.
The Bull (Demon) King, Ma Wang (MW), who had sent her on the original errand and gotten her into the situation with the Monkey King, ends up remorseful when they all meet later on, He is no longer the novel's villain, but a more ambiguous figure, a media mogul, a celebrity show host. The group moves into his house, SOG (the monkey king), PK (the pig) and the elusive CEO (the fish king). They all pity her but also cannot stay away from her fragrance. Thus the comedy.
Even SOG is uneasy at what they have done; he refuses to admit it but has probably kept an eye on her all along eve,r since she was a child when he tricked her and lied to her. Deities are fundamentally different from us -- but the Monkey King is a demideity; in an ambiguous position, he can fall in love and he does so unwillingly.
There are some cool props: the slave-love bracelet the Geumgango; the Onggi of prophecy in the little shop--as soon as the FL lifts the lid out of curiousity, a pandora's box situation occurs; the Doom Bell and the Love Bell. Spoiler alert, there is no HEA.
ps. The scriptwriting duo of the Hong sisters set the bar if not the entire tone for the kdrama industry renaissance overseas -- not primarily in the West, mind you, but across South, East and West Asia. They are famous for being consistently commercially successful.
Each HS drama stands on its own, rarely repeating genres. The HS use literary tropes and texts with abandon, reinventing them, combining them, with a mastery that is hard to describe. Not only do they always catch the wave of audience interest with their creative wildness, but they also appeal to all different sorts of viewers who can tune into the dramas at differing levels of meaning and complexity.
A Studio Dragon Show with the composer unknown. Writers -- the Hong Sisters.
first posted july 31st 2024 on Viki
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A planned series is in the works with the same leads and same director. Best of luck. Dramas are not movies and vice versa as we are learning now with shorter series which stumble between intimation and explication.
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beautiful and delicate -- do not be afraid to watch this movie
A great, delicate movie. 2019. Gong Yoo as a very worried husband trying to do his best for his wife and daughter. A very beautiful Jung Yu Mi, made up to not look as if she were made-up, as a woman worn out from the wild 24 hr effort it takes to be a baby's main caretaker and the main housecleaner.The character Kim Ji Young, whom JYM plays, begins occasionally when very tired or stressed to speak in the voices of other women in her family, articulating the lives they have led as they connected to hers. Her memories in her dreams and while she is awake slide into these dissociative states, which are realistically seen from the outside by her confused husband and/or family. Honestly, most of the sexism is nothing new in the west for older women, but the beauty of the film is that KJY makes a powerful unconscious connection with that community via familial memories.
She is not alone -- she sees friends occasionally and slowly begins to wonder if she can return to work. Everything seems to conspire to make it so hard for her, for mothers, to work, to take leave, to come back to work. Everywhere all over the world this is a long slow hard change to make, and it is individual people in every family who slowly one by one make those incremental steps happen.
She suffers from postpartum depression, however the focus of the film is not clinical, but on the delicate shifts of relationships. I wept when her brother turned and said, next time I will bring you cream buns. You will know why if you watch the film. There is nothing, nothing like the masterful way emotion is handled in Korean cinema.
I often say that what I love about SK cinema is its absurdist edge, but the surrealistic european heritage which is drawn on was never just about absurdity, it was always about art's journey through the subconscious of society to rescue the strengths of dreams and nightmares. The sheaves of our daily life are always interleaved with our dreams and only the very best cinema can come this close to depicting that.
Dont be afraid to watch this film. There was a lot of interesting fuss in Korea about it and about the book it was made from, but the film stands on its own.
The MDL list has everyone there, for once, from the cinematographer to the writer. So, take a look; the director is Kim Do Yung, the composer is Kim Tae Seong, and the writer is Yoo Young Ah.
ps. I try hard not to say this sort of thing but SK is no better or worse objectively than the west or anywhere else in asia; its just a shock to see men so entitled as to publically try to shame women back into the Stone Age. In SK women fight and dream just as we all do.
Another show, Because This Is My First Life, was the very first show where I had ever seen the fact that women are given less to eat as children enacted. I knew it was a fact, perhaps in the past for developed societies but definitely part of demographic data about childhood mortality. Even with that viewpoint, it was a still a shock to see it on screen. I dont know why. Anyway, just saying...cinema can still shock us!
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trembling brilliantly between realism and romance
Wonderful and recommended although frequently difficult to watch. Something new. Possibly a milestone in the new romance formats.32eps at 45mins ea. = 24 hrs watch-time. Set in fabulous Chongqing and Hong Kong, written and directed by the Taiwanese director Chu Yu Ning.
3 warnings:
1/ Fastforwarders, you will miss the point entirely if you cannot endure with Sang Yan and Yi Fan thru difficult times. The story shuttles back and forth via flashbacks from before the lovers' six years of separation, then through it - even though this is clearly marked by an endless timeline superimposed on cable cars crossing that crazy city, you cant possibly keep up.
2/ As a binge it is dangerously heroic -- many stayed up all night to see it all this month, lots of sick days ensuing.
3/ It does NOT EVEN REMOTELY resemble Hidden Love, altho based on the same novel and sharing some characters with HL.
If HL is like Switzerland, all clarity and public spaces and teen angst, then FF is like Rome, darkness punctuated by light and vision, a story of lovers well-past their college days. Yi Fan and Sang Yan emerge as timeless characters that you will never forget.
At the edge of realism and romance drama. A thoughtful and intelligent piece following the reconciliation of highschool sweethearts separated for six years due to hidden trauma. From their first interaction in the apartment they 'accidentally' share, it is clear that the FL is a survivor of SA -- every time the ML awkwardly and often bitterly tries to provoke an emotional reaction from her, triggered, she hastily shutters herself and quietly flees while saying something empty of meaning. This is still a classic romance story in that the beautiful and woebegone Yi Fan (played by Zhang Ruo Nan) still instinctively wants to trust her prince Sang Yan (played by Bai Jing Ting) -- but with certain reservations. He wants to protect her, she wants to be independent and strong.
In the first few episodes, both actors were so startlingly powerful without being able to make any connection with each other that at first I thought they might have been miscast or misdirected. Although BJT's repertoire of mannerisms hasnt changed, his voicing, his timing and his physical work expand his range enormously. He is broken and awkward, proud and needy. ZRN acts almost entirely with her eyes, her emotions so close to the surface that it was excruciating to watch her tight self-control. The character Yi Fan uses almost all her emotional energy for what is most important to her, to live well with a bright public face at her job, so ZRN's portrayal is of a walking absence in intimate situations.
With almost no kdrama voiceovers, interior monologues, or revelatory conversations between best friends, the emotions of the main leads are enacted bit by bit onscreen. There is a classic kdrama second couple for the welcome counterpoint of comic relief, who have a funny romance with some family troubles which they solve so that a heartwarming corporate family resolution occurs. On the other hand, the FL's family criminally abused her, neglected her and abandoned her and in the present are still gaslighting her. You, I, and she will never forgive them, ever. Cdrama's moral clarity is such a relief.
Later in the drama we realize that Sang Yan, while waiting for Yi Fan to speak, has grown up enough to try to understand for himself what she has experienced. The series' ambiguous exposition of romantic love doesnt hide its obsessive side -- he had constantly stalked her by traveling to the cities where she had moved, to secretly look at her from afar. In the present tense when she disappears for six months he uses that knowledge as a guide to find out about what had happened back then in Yi Fan's world.
Sang Zhi, the heroine of HL, most importantly appears as her younger self at a new year's dinner. In conversation with Yi Fan she reveals the hinge of Sang Yan's story -- in true love the hero or heroine never gives up, they cross rivers and climb mountains, even if this geography occurs only in the heart. Sang Zhi says that only then did she realize that Sang Yan was a "character" she could relate to (!!). I felt the same way at the end...that I had slowly, struggling a bit, come to understand both of them, but the last one to finally make sense to me was Sang Yan.
Is this a cdrama in kdrama clothes? Is it a combination of the two? Is it about romantic love as obsession or as the healer of all trauma? What do you think?
Watch and see.
ps. i suffered a little whiplash from the contrast of camera styles between the opening kdrama arty shots through glass or around corners and the style of the later street scenes, especially the chases in Nanmu and the cafe scenes in Hong Kong,, where random strangers could even standstill within a static frame but bear no connection with the plot. Kdrama is so tightly patterned that it manages all yr expectations for you. The more realistic cinematography gained traction in the end and I came to see it as something more transparent, where various levels of understanding can be backgrounded if necessary.
I adored the distant night shots of both cities where the lights of cars or trains look like little gems on the necklace of bridges.
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Sizzling Tang romance
Beautiful and warm. The Tang Dynasty, southern weather, beautiful colors and amazing actors. Watching on air, I thought fondly about The Floral Envoy and Madam He, the plucky floriculturist (played by the talented actors Li Xian and Yang Zi, respectively) throughout the week as if they were flesh and blood. I havent read the novel but it sounds like Li Xian has improved the character he plays.Yang Zi's beauty puts all the bubbly-girls' looks to shame and, unlike in some of the recent female-centric Cdramas, her portrayal of female strength is professionally centered in the character itself. The plot so realistically depicts the fragility of the space in which any woman then and even now can/could flourish that dramatic tension is created by this alone. One worried constantly about all the ways in which jealous or threatened men (and one very jealous princess) could destroy her life or her business enterprise.
In Will Love in Spring, Li Xian seemed to have an innate fierceness, which here in the character of Jiang Changyang is transmuted into mischievousness. It enables ChangYang to reach out to Madam He at the same time as he steps back. He is completely smitten with her and it makes him so attractive in a movie-star sort of way.
Musicality and pure emotion are the secret greedy pleasures of Kdrama, while in Cdrama it is ethics and antiquarian concerns. The costuming and makeup in this show are so authentic that even scholars got their knickers in twists. The pleasure houses and gardens are great and the many sorts of performances, dancers, singers, puppeteers. Super interesting.
I dont want to say more about all of the four main actors' amazing skills and their characters, because, once again, mdl has published a great interview with the writer, who has said anything I might have wanted to, but better.
However, However. I was incredibly ridiculously disappointed by the lack of clear signals of intimacy at the very end. I really wanted these two lovers to be more serious, to look each other in the eyes and give us at least one lovely kiss.. I even actually contemplated a non-romantic ending where two good friends grow old together (Nah. Not these two.)..I D ID NOT KNOW THERE IS A PART TWO COMING!!!
Slow burn, sizzling, the strength of their attraction is there, and all the ways in which they physically and emotionally trust each other, from the beginnWng. She grills him dinner in her courtyard every night, he regularly shows up to save her just when all is lost, they put on a fake concubine-marriage for which they happily hang out several times in their pajamas together in a bridal suite in his mansion. He and she have drunk long-buried wedding wine...and now we have to wait . Urgh. Looking for other shows of theirs to watch, I guess...
ps. My take on mme. Wei Fang's interactions with Changyang so far is that she is not willfully obtuse at all. She really enjoys the attention and the flirting. This isnt an annoying juvenile and or damaged FL at all. Remember she is still a virgin, so protective and practical of her own value. And, obviously, a businesswoman whose enterprise is not at the stage where a child would not complicate her attention and energy. I think she balances her needs and responsibilities well. She cares for him, is attentive to his needs and his past wounds, but definitely creates a safe and clear boundary...soon to dissolve!!!
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one of a kind, romantic and melancholic
Script is a wonderful fusion. Extremely funny, romantic and melancholic. Canada never looked so lovely. Did I say extremely funny? You havent lived until you weep from laughing at a gorgeous Grim Reaper and blindingly handsome Goblin warrior struggle with learning to use cell phones.Kim Go Eun is astounding -- watch this drama for her acting skills.
Her facial control and timing is incredible. You can see that she is a great film actress.
She doesnt overpower the charm of the others, but she rules the room in charisma.
She is absolutely enchanting as a 18 year old (k-reckoning 19) darting here and there -- very comical, unleashed innocence and knowledge all at once.
She is heartbreaking as a grown woman, as brilliant and shining as her Goblin often says she is.
Great physical attitude-visuals from the dashing duo of Lee Dong Wook and Gong Yoo. Yoo In Ah is in beautiful form here. Excellent and consistently funny supporting cast. A good year for fashion, the leads are very chic.
One of those great kdrama soundtracks that tells you with charming dominance what you must feel at every turn of the plot: squeezing out your tears, filling you with melancholy, calming your fears as only kdrama must, so that you will worry, watch so closely that you will drop snacks all over the couch and sigh with satisfaction and relief as lovely resolutions of the plot appear....
Guardian can be watched again and again without any loss of magic. And it is being watched right now, this very minute, by hundreds of viewers around the globe. So join their company and watch well!
A Studio Dragon Show with the composer Nam Hye Seung. Writer Kim Eun Sook.
first posted on viki oct 29th 2024
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This review may contain spoilers
fun, but with a realistic undercurrent of fear
Possibly the best, certainly the most interesting forced-cohabitation-sageuk you will ever see. Definitely the most affectionate and discreet 'first night' of married love ever. 2024-5, 16eps at 1hr10mins ea. Absolutely amazing, brilliant acting by both leads.Ever-evolving chapters of fiction and disguise. Im Ji Yeon's character, a runaway slave named Goodecki, lives in fear of what her discovery would mean -- the deaths of her entire household for harboring her. Choo Young Woo successfully carries off the role of an actor's lifetime -- he plays two separate characters, one the doppelganger of the other, both her husband, in sequence.
Epic cinematography, original and intensely theatrical plot. Experienced direc tor,irector Jun Hyuk, composer Chung Yea Kyung, writer park Ji Sook
The true lovers meet at a street fair in disguise. They comically destroy, by accident, a proposed marriage of the ML to Goodecki's obsessively cruel mistress . We follow Goodecki: brutal punishment, escape and mistaken recognition as the long-absent daughter of a noble family, the Oks, from a neighboring provincial county. The ML disappears for 2-plus episodes. He is a novelist/performer and a disgraced illegitimate son, Song Seo In (stage name Seung Hwi), It is a relief when he reappears. You will have longed for his merry presence to relieve the tensions of Lady Ok's new life.
The magistrate's son, Seong Yun Gyeom, whom the FL is forced to marry (because of one of those interfering royal edicts), looks exactly like the ML. Yun Gyeom is a closeted gay activist, needing disguise as much as she does. His projects result in danger for the FL, so Seung Hwi gives up his identity to become her husband in his place. True love indeed.
Over and over again Lady Ok faces disaster and survives. Im Ji Yeon deserves more credit than she gets. Her steady powerful performance is not as glitzy as playing doppelgangers but it is outstanding. An excellent supporting cast includes two second couples, one noble and one humble, who provide the comic relief and tears necessary for a satisfying romedy.
The suspension of disbelief is almost complete. You will ask yourself, how does Choo Young Woo make his two roles still feel like distinct characters? The moment where the doppelganger appears is so subtle-- Lady Ok cannot reveal her surprise, so you too hold judgement until you can figure out what is happening, thus neatly participating in the life that the main characters must lead in the dangerous circumstances of Joseon.
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a dishonorable but admirably stoic heroine and great smalltime crooks
2024 film. A temple holding secrets, a grilled fish and soju by the sea, women drinking whiskey and Ji Chang Wook hopping around, crazed and pantless. with tattooed thighs. These are a few of my favourite things. JCW is still charming even as a "mad dog covered in perfume". He made a very very good villain and I hope he does more such roles. He has a range and energy which should not be confined only to romance.An excellent movie, in the vein of many a british production, situated in the small-time underworld of characters with little compunction or shame who can be very entertaining nevertheless, without entering the world of slapstick
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Jeon Do Yeon is an ultimate action star, here as Ha Su Young, a dishonorable ex-detective who was cheated out of her promised payoff while in jail. JDY plays her as an uncomplicated and unfussy woman who knows what she wants and what her limits are. Admirable for her restraint and focus, she is a tenacious, hardened and powerful fighter whom the villains underestimate.
The lovely and duplicitous Jung Yoon Seon, played by Im Ji Yeon, an ex-lover of HSY's now deceased detective partnerand a peripheral part of the group of gangsters, becomes HSY's fan. When she hops out of the car to do an impromptu victory dance in the middle of a battle royal deep in the forests of Sokcho, you will want to dance in your seat too. When the shady detective sidekick exasperatedly asks JYS what she likes about Ha Su Young, she widens her eyes, laughs a little and says, "Everything!". Me too.
Wait for the monk who claps his hands when Mommy Dearest appears.
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Dark, idealistic, funny and romantic
An amazing watch. Ji Chang Wook 10 years ago, lanky and sweet, scrambling over rooftops when parkour was hot. 2014, 20 eps at 1hr ea. A perfect antidote to politics. Dark, funny, romantic, and in its way, even idealistic.On a cautious trawl through pre-2018 shows, the good ones mostly involve famous MLs, here JCW. Healer has the synergy of a good script, excellent central cast, non-murky cinematography with strong dark/light contrasts and great experienced directors, writer and music editor, which lifted it right into the stratosphere. Altho in 2014 it was not preproduced, it has a strong dramatic ending and only one glaringly odd self-video scene which goes nowhere.
The setting is partly in the media world -- television news/online news -- and partly in the criminal world where Healer and his partner work, so questions of truth and justice are important, but the central romance is between two people who, having lost their families, want to live a normal life together despite the enormous obstacles in their way.
The villains, large groups of 'security personnel', one really peculiar mastermind and a duplicitous brother, all somehow do not dominate the action. The focus is on the recovery of family history for the two leads who knew each other as children in a group of young activists running a pirate radio broadcast in the 90s. Both lost their parents and any other contact with the group, and are reunited when one (Healer) is hired to find the other.
Park Min Young, as Chae Young Sin, is able to take on yet another damaged FL role but to successfully foreground the character's toughness and ability to love. Yoon Gi Tae, playing a star reporter, does a nice slow crawl from falsity towards sincerity as the third child of the group. I think that the solid presence of Park Sang Myun as Young Sin's adoptive dad really anchors the found family which emerges. JCW's performance of vulnerability in love is something to behold, and the pair's sensuality is sharp and sweet.
There are some points midway through the series where the physical interaction of the lovers is so graceful it made me blink. The editing of a pas de deux sequence when they are sleeping (in pure white sheets) is amazing; one wakes, reaches for the other blindly and falls asleep again -- then the other wakes and reaches out in turn.,,, Sometimes as they walk past each other a hand stretches out grasping the air...
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