"The dominating presence of Im Yoon Ah, IU, and Suzy has caught the netizens' eye, and the trio have been named 'Yoon Ji Ji' in recognition of their fame."
MDL have replaced the Korean trailer with the international one. The Korean trailer made the drama look fun, the international one looks like some sort of bland, Hallmark made-for-TV movie π Is that what they think international audiences want?
Seriously, they shouldn't even unlock the option to rate until at least, say, four episodes have aired. Low ratings early from people who drop the show after one or two episodes put potential viewers off (arguably unfairly).
I thought Park Sung Woong had been miscast (there is no reality in which he could pass for a man in his 30s), but them I realised he's playing a smartphone, so... sure ππ€·π»ββοΈ
I have a lot of thoughts about this drama.After a rocky start (what the heck were episodes 3 & 4 doing?), I thought…
And the pacing? Jesus. Talk about whiplash. Too much screentime dedicated to minor backstory elements, and one entire episode that was pretty much a recap of a previous, uneventful episode. And then you hit Episode 16 and it's a sprint to the finish, trying to wrap up a bunch of storylines that were never properly fleshed out to begin with π€¦π»ββοΈ And the timelines jumped all over the place, but they only sometimes made it clear they were doing so (meaning that the times when they didn't, the viewer is left thinking this is a timeline progression: cue confusion). Either make it clear you're jumping back in time, or just show events in the damned order they happened!
The montage at the end fell really flat for me, because the characters and their struggles hadn't been built up for me to care. Heartfelt messages with golden hour lighting and pretty love songs need substance, or it's just... colour by numbers, I guess.
I probably could have gotten really invested in Chef John and Ji Wan, or Dae Shik and Hye Jin, or Chae Ri's deep psychological scars, but none of them got enough airtime for that. They cast the net of character and story too wide. 6/10.
After a rocky start (what the heck were episodes 3 & 4 doing?), I thought LIFS had found its mojo by about the halfway point. It was never going to be a 9 or 10/10 drama, but maybe a solid 7.5 to 8 range?
The longer it went on, though, the more it became apparent that the writer doesn't know how to build character, wasn't clear on the story she wanted to tell, has no idea how pacing works, and struggles to sufficiently build tension. The last one is how you get viewers invested: create a difficult situation (be it UST between the leads, an injustice or misunderstanding to be cleared up, an imminent disaster to be averted), and keep the story focused on it, maybe add some additional complications, but DON'T immediately resolve it. The writer here created momentary tension, and then either quickly resolved it, or dropped it in favour of another storyline. The result? Scattered/diluted attention, and viewers who don't really care.
Whew, okay. On one hand, my boys JHI and GKP are in a drama together and I'm here 100% for it. On the other hand, Miike Takashi's work is often too dark and disturbing for me, and EVERY SINGLE SHOW I've got excited for this year has let me down, so π π
mourning period this week, because of the tragic event last weekend. For musicians and others in the entertainment…
@TWOTHOUSANDANDTHREE Culturally, it's seen as poor taste/behaviour to broadcast entertainment programs after a huge loss of life, and advertisers also don't want to be seen to be pushing sales during the mourning period. This is pretty common in many Asian countries.
(In Japan, all that was aired on TV for a week or two after the 2011 earthquake/tsunami were news reports, and a series of public service ads reminding people to be kind to the elderly and polite to their neighbours. I think something like this might have happened in Korea after the ferry disaster in 2014, too...?)
Oh , no.. It's such a tragedy...I don't understand why, especially in South Korea there is no Policemen or some…
I'm saying this as someone who was once stuck in a similar stampede during a music festival many years ago (where one girl died and a large number of people were injured): once a crowd that big has formed, police and security really can't do anything. You have to stop a crush like this forming in the first place, by setting up hold points along the route (before the event begins) to thin out the crowd, and blocking off streets into the area to reduce the number of people coming in.
My country learnt this the hard way, but it completely changed how we prepare for large public events. And I also remember something similar happening when I lived in London, during morning rush hour at some Tube stations - they'd pull the shutters down on the station entrance until the crowd inside had cleared.
When you're in a crowd like that, you're incredibly vulnerable. You have no lines of sight (unless you're extremely tall), no way to get to safety, no fixed objects to hold on to and steady yourself if someone next to you loses their balance. If they go down, then you'll likely go down, as will the person in the direction you're falling. And that's exactly what happened here.
ngl, would love it if kang chae ri turned out to be pulling strings and playing mind games with a yeo reum/jae hoon endgame in mind... that's probably not how it'll pan out, but damn, that'd be a solid plot twist.
It's a pity the rating is so poor, but this is a surprisingly gritty drama with complex themes that require a relatively robust understanding of the doctrine/scripture of various major religions, Korean society's relationship with extreme religion and cults, (group) psychology, neuroscience, the discourse of faith versus rationality, and even a bit of philosophy in order to truly appreciate it. Frankly, there may be even more concepts buried in there that I'll either catch on a re-watch, won't pick up at all.
The me that started watching kdramas 16 years ago would've dropped it after an episode or two. The more widely read, better educated, life-experience-laden older me freaking loves this drama. Particularly my girl JYB, who I've fangirled since Melo Is My Nature (another underrated gem that the young-and-shallow crowd called boring and slow).
The kind of viewers who watch kdramas as a switch-your-brain-off-and-look-at-the-pretty-people activity won't like it because they can't grasp what's going on, which makes them write it off as ugly and boring. Their loss, I guess. I'm up to Episode 9 and am very pleasantly surprised by the sheer depth of the material.
I never rate dramas before I finish them, but I'm tempted to rate this upfront to boost the average. Two episodes in, this drama is better than a 7.8... Either someone's low-balled it, or MDL's got a technical issue on its hands.
Bean Pods in My Eyes... Smoke gets in yours, bean pods get in mine... fine lyrics awaiting (misheard lyrics are…
Bad translations are the reason I decided to learn Korean and Japanese... well, that and the fact that fansubs in the 00s used to take months to be released XD I was an impatient kid.
Obviously there's going to be a corresponding metaphor in the plot (there usually is - they don't just use an idiom in the title for funsies), but only Korean speakers will get the reference, hey? The rest of us are left with "but why bean pods, of all things?!".
Bean Pods in My Eyes... Smoke gets in yours, bean pods get in mine... fine lyrics awaiting (misheard lyrics are…
The upside to bizarre literal translations is that they prompt me to look up the idiom/proverb (or sometimes slang term), and I learn something new. For anyone who might be interested:
I say this as a relative kdrama veteran (have been watching for 16 years): stacked casts rarely result in great dramas, and some of the most enjoyable dramas I've watched have had few, if any, big names (though sometimes the end up creating big names).
I've been trawling through press releases, and none of the ones in Korean seem to say anything about it being only four episodes, and yet ALL of the English articles and drama databases reference it. Weird.
Where can I get a vet like Dr. Han? We don't grow them like him, here in the US. Um have you seen our vets? Usually…
Vet science has a really high attrition rate (and also a surprisingly high suicide rate). People go into it because they love animals, but end up faced with an abundance of mistreated/neglected pets, animals who have to be euthanised because their owners can't afford treatment, and also verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse from owners on the grounds of expensive treatment. It's an emotionally heavy profession.
Remember, governments don't subsidise healthcare for pets, and medical research doesn't spend as much time or money on animal ailments as human, so bringing the costs down is hard. Doctors generally specialise in one aspect of human health (gastroenterology, oncology, ENT, cardiology, etc.), but vets need to know the entire bodily system of a dozen or more different species. It's only fair they earn a decent income.
FTFY.
The montage at the end fell really flat for me, because the characters and their struggles hadn't been built up for me to care. Heartfelt messages with golden hour lighting and pretty love songs need substance, or it's just... colour by numbers, I guess.
I probably could have gotten really invested in Chef John and Ji Wan, or Dae Shik and Hye Jin, or Chae Ri's deep psychological scars, but none of them got enough airtime for that. They cast the net of character and story too wide. 6/10.
After a rocky start (what the heck were episodes 3 & 4 doing?), I thought LIFS had found its mojo by about the halfway point. It was never going to be a 9 or 10/10 drama, but maybe a solid 7.5 to 8 range?
The longer it went on, though, the more it became apparent that the writer doesn't know how to build character, wasn't clear on the story she wanted to tell, has no idea how pacing works, and struggles to sufficiently build tension. The last one is how you get viewers invested: create a difficult situation (be it UST between the leads, an injustice or misunderstanding to be cleared up, an imminent disaster to be averted), and keep the story focused on it, maybe add some additional complications, but DON'T immediately resolve it. The writer here created momentary tension, and then either quickly resolved it, or dropped it in favour of another storyline. The result? Scattered/diluted attention, and viewers who don't really care.
(In Japan, all that was aired on TV for a week or two after the 2011 earthquake/tsunami were news reports, and a series of public service ads reminding people to be kind to the elderly and polite to their neighbours. I think something like this might have happened in Korea after the ferry disaster in 2014, too...?)
My country learnt this the hard way, but it completely changed how we prepare for large public events. And I also remember something similar happening when I lived in London, during morning rush hour at some Tube stations - they'd pull the shutters down on the station entrance until the crowd inside had cleared.
When you're in a crowd like that, you're incredibly vulnerable. You have no lines of sight (unless you're extremely tall), no way to get to safety, no fixed objects to hold on to and steady yourself if someone next to you loses their balance. If they go down, then you'll likely go down, as will the person in the direction you're falling. And that's exactly what happened here.
The me that started watching kdramas 16 years ago would've dropped it after an episode or two. The more widely read, better educated, life-experience-laden older me freaking loves this drama. Particularly my girl JYB, who I've fangirled since Melo Is My Nature (another underrated gem that the young-and-shallow crowd called boring and slow).
The kind of viewers who watch kdramas as a switch-your-brain-off-and-look-at-the-pretty-people activity won't like it because they can't grasp what's going on, which makes them write it off as ugly and boring. Their loss, I guess. I'm up to Episode 9 and am very pleasantly surprised by the sheer depth of the material.
Obviously there's going to be a corresponding metaphor in the plot (there usually is - they don't just use an idiom in the title for funsies), but only Korean speakers will get the reference, hey? The rest of us are left with "but why bean pods, of all things?!".
콩κΉμ§κ° μλ€ (One's eyes are covered with bean pods): To only see good in someone after falling in love with them.
λμ 콩κΉμ§κ° μμλ€ (One's eyes are covered with a pea pod): To be unable to make an accurate judgement or think straight.
Remember, governments don't subsidise healthcare for pets, and medical research doesn't spend as much time or money on animal ailments as human, so bringing the costs down is hard. Doctors generally specialise in one aspect of human health (gastroenterology, oncology, ENT, cardiology, etc.), but vets need to know the entire bodily system of a dozen or more different species. It's only fair they earn a decent income.