lietk12

I must've missed the k.will reference, where/what was it?

i hate to be the bearer of upsetting news but uhhh












it's an open ending
(but given that the ending is what it is, maybe we can choose to see it ending as optimistic and happy in its own way, by examining the question of what it means to be happy in a life filled with ups and downs? after all, real life is also an open ending; the alternative is to die, which is maybe somewhat unsatisfactory for building a life narrative, and which anyways was already attempted in episode 4.)

this scene (and the shots before it) remind me of the ending scene (on a pedestrian bridge) of the third chapter of Hamaguchi Ryūsuke's "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy"!

this is the eat-half-a-packet-of-wasabi-in-one-bite challenge.

there's some interesting visual symbolism in the composition of this shot! to say any more would be a spoiler.

(possible visual allusion to the shot of Fai and Po-wing dancing together in Wong Kar-wai's 1997 film "Happy Together"? compare with https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1100/format:webp/1*rwbOSBr0-3nA1YAmCzoj-w.png )

According to Wikipedia, episodes 1-2 were directed by Son Tae-gyum while episodes 3-4 were directed by Hur Jin-ho! Episodes 5-6 (directed by Hong Ji-young) introduce closer close-up shots of faces, while episodes 7-8 (directed by Kim Se-in) have a lot more long-take shots (both hand-held and static) than the previous episodes to build various moods...not sure if that's what you meant by "theater like shots". But if you're not a fan of how the shots are composed so far, you might get different vibes in later episodes! I personally found the cinematography more interesting and beautiful starting in episodes 3 (with a few stunning shot compositions) and 4 (with a few long takes in an observational style in the direction of slow cinema for some key emotional moments, and some really beautiful shots).

In the credits for episode 5 there's an insert song listed as "Erotic Joke" by 수란: 작사 수란 홍지영 수비 / 작곡 수란 방달 . I'm guessing that this is an original song made for the drama.

In the credits for episode 3, the song is listed as "안녕 여보세요". It's on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAtxQenFxYc

I just realized that episode 1 alludes to Madame Bovary, in an essay prompt for the students to discuss "the meaning of love and longing" regarding Madame Bovary!

Here's the timeline:
- Yeong and Mi-ae have a fight. Yeong leaves the apartment and ends up calling Nam-gyu. Yeong has a much more "final" breakup conversation with Nam-gyu. They part - maybe permanently this time. Nam-gyu doesn't send Yeong any more text messages.
- 10 months later, Yeong and Mi-ae catch up on each other's lives over a phone call. After the phone call ends, Yeong sees a message on his phone notifying him about Nam-gyu's death.

it sounds like you feel a need to vent some anger about the Genre Discourse ! my impression is that each time it happens the same arguments and counterarguments are made, and this cycle repeats across the comments sections of many gay-themed dramas upon release hahahahhaa🫠

I personally think the more interesting path is to destabilize strict categorizations, in the spirit of queerness-as-a-political-way-of-seeing/doing. For example, wouldn't it be more fun and less frustrating to talk about how different works (both those traditionally tagged as "BL" and those traditionally tagged as "non-BL gay stuff") push boundaries and take creative risks by expanding beyond what is traditionally expected, and how they say something special through those choices? But I guess people do see some practical usefulness for communicating viewer expectations by instituting BL Media vs. Gay Media as The Two Genders of lgbtq-themed media, even at the risk of inflicting Genre Discourse on everyone by re-litigating those arguments over and over and over and over and

From your summary, it sounds like Get Real's ending is bittersweet in an optimistic/hopeful way - I consider the open-ended bittersweet ending of Love in the Big City to be similarly optimistic/hopeful. It's a "life goes on, there will continue to be things which suck and things to feel grateful for" kind of optimism, and I was left feeling confident that the MC will not suffer as intensely as his most psychologically distressed point in the series (episode 4). At least in my opinion, it feels like about as good an ending as one could reasonably expect in a non-fantasy world.

I'm not familiar with those films, but this drama was adapted from a novel which one reviewer described as "a comic alternative to the queer novel of tragic seriousness" (to quote https://yalereview.org/article/sang-young-park-queer-fiction ). I think the kind of exasperatedly-bemused/unserious humor (as illustrated by excerpts in that review) is more prominent in the first half of the drama adaptation, but it does continue throughout the whole series (e.g. with the mattress subplot in episode 7).

I would summarize the emotional journey of the drama's plot by quoting [translated] lyrics of Epik High's song BRB: "days tangled with tears and laughter". There is suffering (often something less serious than suffering), there is joy (often something less serious than joy), and they're all mixed together (and often continuous with each other, e.g. with a sense of suffering in recognizing the impermanence of everything). To me, the most prominent theme of the story is change. If you're looking for heavy spoilers, I discuss these themes and the ending in more detail in https://kisskh.at/758821-love-in-the-big-city#comment-19176854 . If you only want lighter spoilers...if you've watched Wong Kar-wai's film "Happy Together", this drama will cover familiar territory, but it has some parts which feel much more tragic and also many parts which feel much more joyful. For me, this drama's ending feels a bit more celebratory and a bit less lonely than Happy Together's ending.

She's not listed in https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/236956/cast?language=en-US , so it might be incorrect information on MDL. Same goes for Seo Tae Woong, who's listed on MDL as an unknown part. If TMDB is correct, then https://kisskh.at/people/32769-kim-tae-jung should be added as the actor for Lee Jun-ho (Mi-ae's husband),

According to https://yalereview.org/article/sang-young-park-queer-fiction , in the original novel the character gave his HIV the nickname of "Kylie Minogue", after the gay icon. I'm guessing they changed the name in the television series for legal reasons.

In the credits for the episode there's an insert song listed as "Erotic Joke" by 수란: 작사 수란 홍지영 수비 / 작곡 수란 방달 . I'm guessing that this is an original song made for the drama.

Fun fact: the writer, Park Sang Young (https://library.ltikorea.or.kr/writer/202071), makes a cameo as a photo of himself in an interview article titled 송윤규 작가 『이따금 한 번씩』, “투잡 뛰며 집필”……………… 젊은작가상의 결실을 맺다 (translated in the subtitles as "Interview with Song Yoon Gyu, Author of 'Once in a Blue Moon'"), which Yeong reads around 9 minutes into episode 6. Google Translate's transcription of the first three paragraphs of the article is as follows:

2010년 첫 출간 후 3년차부터 현해 1500부품 나가던 이 소설은 2년전 느닷없이 한해 판매량 7000부를 넘 어섰다. 그러더니 올해 1분기엔 5만부기 발려나갔다. 현재까지 총 판매량은 15만부다. 1만부를 찍어도 베스 트셀러로 올리시는 오늘날의 출판시장에서 이런 이변이 또 있을까

'이따금 한 번씩'은 생명의 탄생과 소멸 과정, 그리고 관계와 사회가 만들어낸 죄의식에 대하여 이야기 하고 있다. 그러한 관계의 영상을 사회적 문제와 연관 속에서 헤아리는 것이 이번 소설의 특징이다.

송작가는 "나에게 상처와 시련을 준 모든 것들을 사랑한다. 그들이 헤집고 상지 낸 자욱들이 그대로 활자에 새겨지고, 그 할지가 다른 누군가의 패인 상처로 가서 아은 틈을 예꿔준다는 것이 얼마나 감사하고도 진귀한

The last paragraph in this transcription quotes the fictional author, and his language sounds very beautiful even filtered through Google Translate: "I love all the things that hurt and tried me. How thankful and precious it is that the marks they made and the wounds they left are engraved in letters, and that they go to someone else's wounds and heal the gaps."

My interpretation: Gyu-ho packed his clothes and left in anger (maybe after a fight, since the magic of being on vacation had faded for their relationship when they returned to Seoul) but didn't have anywhere to go, so then he went on the dating/hookup app to see if anyone could host him for the night. But he couldn't/didn't find anyone he was willing to stay with, and by then his anger probably cooled - so he returned to the apartment and silently unpacked.

So I think that part of episode 6 is like an inverted echo of the middle of episode 2, where Yeong leaves the apartment in anger after his argument with Mi-ae, looks for someone to spend the night with at the club, and finally contacts his ex Nam-gyu because he doesn't have anyone else to ask.

It looks like the final three texts Yeong received from Nam-kyu (shown on Yeong's phone at Nam-kyu's funeral in the latter half of episode 2) are:
1. A quote from George Eliot (I think this was received and translated in episode 1)
2. "If obsession isn't love, then I've never been in love yet" (received and translated early in episode 2)
3. An announcement that Nam-kyu died around 13:00 on December 16, 2016; and the location of the funeral home.

I haven't read the book, but here are my heavy spoilers+explanation for the ending of the drama (copied and adapted from a reply I made to a more recent sub-comment):

I think a major theme of this drama is the idea that nothing in life lasts forever, and chasing after certain ideals about how we think life "should" be tends to distract us from appreciating and feeling gratitude for what we have in the present. The series depicts how people who matter to us will eventually die, or else they will leave, or else we will leave; new people will come into our lives; our relationships with family members will change, and they can change for the better; our friendships will change; where we live will change; our health (and disability status) will change; etc. I personally felt the film's depiction of how the characters experienced these events resonates a lot with the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering), especially in the final episode and its scenes in Thailand.

Along these lines, the final episode ends with the main lead enjoying fireworks (which is an especially impermanent thing) and happily celebrating friendship together with his three close gay friends, who are all roughly single again at the same time for the first time in a decade. These friends are together and support each other throughout the whole series. On the other hand, the main lead's romantic life is left open-ended & bittersweet: the relationship between Yeong and Gyu-ho has ended for over a year, but there's also a possibility of restarting it in the future. The main lead narrates that his romantic relationships have all ended in failure so far and he still doesn't know much about love; but the series shows us that life can go on even when things don't go our way, and we can always appreciate what we do have. Visually, this is reflected in how the film ends by showing a flashback memory of the main character being disappointed while watching (together with Gyu-ho) his wish (for Gyu-ho, for love) on a lantern fall out of the sky, and then transitioning from that flashback to the main character in the present-day happily watching fireworks shooting into the sky with his friends. So I consider it a "life goes on, life continues to have ups and downs" ending rather than a strictly sad ending.