randomthoughts

he became a gangster (and established himself as the top/near top) before he spiralled into alcoholism. so whatever personality we see now, is not what he would have had before.

lol, are there legal gangsters? they have to be pulling something shady to be gangsters. in this case I think it's the money they're making from the host bars/gambling joint places... tax fraud amongst other things? they've never delved too much into it obviously, what he does in that world was largely irrelevant for the past 12 episodes except as something he was running away from/avoiding the hell out of.

curious as to how you're counting the years though! why 2-3 years of timeskip? feel like I missed something lol I even skimmed back through the ep cause a few people mentioned 2-3 years. it seemed like just 1.5 year of skip (as in mr. gu's scenes are 1-1.5 years after he left).

my guess is the alcohol dependency but also what seems to be lack of sleep/insomnia + malnutrition, all of which makes one feel way colder than average, plus would lead to a general jitteriness/tremble. Consistently when he's outside in this episode, we see him shivering even as other characters aren't, not just in the beginning.

that stroller is such a great shot! it be one thing seeing a baby in such a place, but the empty stroller has a greater I think. like the dude just left the stroller wherever to go drink. and it hits home what the bartender said s- "it must have been like a bird flew in" cause the workers care for the baby and are so taken by this child in the midst of the environment their in.

that twist was tragic.

omg lol me too

I think it’s a bit of both. We probably do like the idea of Kimmon & Copter more than the actual to a certain extent… but I see the potential in them as actors and think they’d have the ability to carry off a good script with more serious characters. I don’t think I’ve liked a single script they’ve had so far, but that tells me there’s something about their acting that convinces me enough to stick with their shows. But yes, regardless of skinship amounts, I’m so done with overly immature cutesy characters and at this point.

I totally get that this is a parody and meant to be somewhat absurd and exaggerated… but there are well done method of doing so and then this. Feels like they wanted “so terrible its hilarious” and landed up with “so terrible”. Which is such a pity because kimmon and copter can do so much better

started this show for ahn bo hyun but kept watching and finished it for Kim woo seok. I don't think I can get over how amazing he was in this show.

and the writers did the best job with his character too, in my opinion, and actually managed to write a believable and acceptable redemption arc for noh tae man. I appreciate how much they committed to fleshing out his character growth from all angles, with giving away bolt and company shares, working at a dog shelter, and also the letter for se na (and I especially like that we don't see her read it, or even receiving it).

not me just randomly re-watching all the History series and wondering why the one friend in MODC and CTY looked so familar only to realize Shi Cheng Hao plays Li Gong here lol. Cheers to him getting a main role! Been enjoying the show and his (and Max Lin’s) acting in it so far

Haha fair!

kinda late to respond to this, but I believe it was left out because of audio issues while filming, probably something they didn’t realize till the post-production, so they coudn’t re-shoot the scene

Second Chance The Series. It’ll come up in mydramalist if you search for it. He plays the character Paper in that one.

And in TharnType he plays Thorn (Tharn’s older brother), and in KinnPorsche he plays Tankul (Kinn’s brother, the crazy one that loves watching dramas)

yep, TT is TharnType, where Tong play the male lead's older brother (fairly minor role), while in Second Chance, Tong is one of main characters. Both are BLs

hmm I'd actually say it is quite logical. In English, if you just have a stand alone phrase with "'A' over 'B'", it implies the choosing of one over the other, and not a comparison ('A' is like/unlike 'B') per se.

One could easily say, "music over boys" or "football over girls" -- in both cases we're putting two unlike things (playing/listening to music or playing football over pursuing boys/girls), and the clarifying verbs ("playing" and "pursuing") are excluded, but we can contextualize the preceding verbs to understand that this person is saying they prioritize that activity/hobby/whatever over romance. To use your example from the piece, one could certainly say "mothers over boys" and it would be understood as " prioritize your relationship with your mother rather than with boys" or "love your mother more than you love that boy."

That all said, I agree that "meteor garden" is far prettier of a title, as well as that BOF loses out on the cultural significance/idiomatic expression of the original title. There are certainly better ways of conveying the actual idea, but it's still a logical title.

((thought this was a really great article though!))

totally! I mostly don't like and avoid shows set in high school but I'm glad I decide to watch second chance anyway. It was sweet and Tong managed to pull off playing a young character really well, which I remember being surprised by at the time

so many great things so far, but I don't think any of it can surpass how fabulous of a job Tong has done with his character. The range of acting he's shown from just three roles (TT, Second Chance, and now this) is incredible!!

ok but like damn kim woo seok basically stole the show for me, I'm so impressed by his acting, particularly through ep 14, in the direct aftermath of what happened. also glad about noh tae nam's character trajectory, this is probably one of the most believable turn arounds of a character I've seen, eap considering he starts off so evil (though I don't think he's completely redeemed, if that kind of thing is even possible.)

on another note, there were some questionable scenes/plot lines in earlier episodes and overall I wasn't loving the writing, and TBH i mostly skip through scenes (except no tae nam’s) cause it pretty flat and predictable, but the writing/direction specifically in eps 13 &14 were really good. It sometimes feels like no tae nam’s story is the one they really wanted to tell but they cushioned with the more standard plot and characters

unsurprisingly, very high quality. such great cinematography and I was rather impressed by the acting (initially mixed feelings in the trailer but was totally wrong, they did a great job, and had great chemistry). highly reccommend, and it’s def worth just getting iQiyi. Despite limited budgets/being from smaller production companies that can’t put out their work on free networks, they’re making genuinely top tier work.

hmm, could be too optomistic, but so many crazy problematic story lines actually seem likes maybe they were going for a dark comedy / satire piece? Even the choice of Sammy and Yacht who have been on the periphery of countless BLs in comic roles as the “narrators” of this seems to fit that. i don’t expect anything decent from this, but am hopeful that it’s at least an intentional attempt at satire and funny self awareness as opposed to an intentional attempt at romanticizing toxic / criminal behaviour.

Also, writing aside, I liked the lighting, overall filming style, and thought the acting was good with a lot of potential! I really hope they can secure a budget for their full script

So based on what I’m reading, the original, longer script is really set in the whole 6 years later time frame, and they took a small section of that which would have been a flashback part or something into the past and used it as the script for the 4 eps, and then added a really short epilogue episode 5 set in the “present”. I did a rewatch with that in mind (frankly its so short that this was doable lol) and it did make it less confusing.

I think the issue was that they may have integrated flashback scenes in the original script, but instead of smoothly stitching then together and writing more content for this as a stand alone work, it feels like it was just cut and pasted from the longer script without realizing that its lacks cohesiveness and jumps too much. And yet…. I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it was intentional, and that they were perhaps actually going for the very arthouse feel, with disjointed flashback-esque jumps…? Not just lazy writing. Because I see the efforts put in it otherwise so it seems like a discrepancy for the writing to have simply been lazy…

I think you need like 10-14 days post surgery before you can put on a prosthetic limb though, and it doesn't seem like two weeks went by? idk, if they really wanted to sell the amputation plot line, they should have worked it in better with a proper timeline, seemed more absurd rather than a plot twist.