Quietly and seductively steals your heart

Solid script, light soundtrack and a director who knew just the right balance between coziness and a little cross-cultural leavening. Overall not as wildly unpredictable as classic romedies nor as melancholy, but it nevertheless seductively steals your heart. The whole cast were brilliant professionals, wait til you meet little Yeondu! The musical precision with which they hit their marks, neither over-playing nor underplaying their parts, made me so happy.

The joy of watching formulaic drama is watching how the variations are used and guessing what they will be; actually advancing the formula is a long slow collective process but if one person can normalize happy and mildly suggestive scenes in bed it is Jung Hae In. Even his back radiates joy as he disappears behind a kicked-closed door. Anther personal favourites...Jo Han Chul (an excellent villain in other shows) blew my socks off as a true sweetheart dad.

I think an underlying theme of respect for women's career choices and aspirations (whatever they might be) is a key to understanding the script, non-dogmatically. Each person in a brilliantly nuanced way works through various aspects of this dramatic nexus, from the acknowledgement of changes in the arranged marriage trope (usually performed by older women) to undercutting the high-school take on sexuality trope. For ex., the FL obviously weighs changes caused by her health but also her lack of a support network in the USA, and her decision is to return to SK and find a new career, even tho it means facing her mom's fury. In another way, this is developed comically into the amazing and funny devolution of Jang Young Nam, as Seungho's mom, from elegant diplomat back to her roots in the group of high school friends known as Lavender.
Seukryu's mom, played by the great Park Ji Young, is living happily bec of her success in raising a successful daughter, and her stubbornness is a sign of her strength of character, a traditional trope, altho pretty heavy for a western audience. Her character arc as she adjusts to the new family reality is one of the mostheartbreaking if looked at this way. Take a look at all the others....

Two problems for me: I almost didn't make it past poor Seokryu being actually beaten by her mom. Threats would have sufficed for the comic lift. I had also a serious problem with architectural mismatches in shooting locations, which I am not usually fussy about.

Read More

storytelling as a way of understanding personal experience

If you havent watched this yet, you should. 6eps at 1hr ea. Memories of a love affair in Japan from both ex-lovers. Meditative and beautiful, not for those who need action and a fast-moving plot. It is a story about writers and about storytelling as a way of understanding personal experience.

In Japan, sublety in small spaces, a soundtrack devoid of balladry, mostly piano. Nice contrasts in perceptions of the past. In Korea, in the present tense of the drama, more open views, bigger spaces because the two ex-lovers are now successful grownups and have a better perspective.

Lee Se Young is more beautiful than I have ever seen her -- I think the director let the individual beauty of each actor shine through by releasing the cinematographer of the iron chains of kdrama beauty standards. Her voice-overs give her character more interiority than she normally projects. Via voice-overs, both actors 'author' the narrative in turns as it moves along.

I am glad I watched this on air. The experience depends so much on one's own sometimes slow realizations, understandings and intellectual or emotional resolutions of the events. One episode a week was hard to wait for, though. My advice would be to pace your viewing on your own and savor it.

ps.I am not sure how the cinematographer did it but while in Japan, I felt I was seeing visually what a Korean woman looks like in that setting, and while in the Korean setting, the same thing occurred with Mr. Sakaguchi's visuals (in RL he has attracted a lot of attention in Korea).

Their miscommunications were represented as being due to their youth, but also the two characters participated in intra-culturally-specific stereotypical behavior which in each case produces miscommunication: the strong and soulfully silent Japanese guy who cannot articulate feelings and the soulful, dramatic Korean woman who talks around the salient point as if she is silently expressing her real true feelings by that empty space in the middle of her discourse.

Read More

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. Including PK (the pig) and the elusive CEO, 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 kept an eye on her all along ever 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 demi-deity; 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.

first posted july 31st 2024 on Viki

Read More

goofy and tender

BL, 12 eps at 45mins ea. A great binge. Sweet Huai'en and Xiabao overcome personal and political problems, includes some redflag beginnings, NOT PG13. An adequate fantasy production with good depth in characterization, a little underbudgeted, but overall a good sign of hope for future productions in the newer forms of BL.

Refreshing. I think the balance worked -- chinese plot and costumes, tenderness and moral elevation of Thai-style dialogue and acting (in Mandarin, so Taiwanese actors?) and a smodge of kdrama goofiness.

It started off with a note of midcentury camp (situational then and now to our currently absurd world politically)....then a tasteful moment of tenderness and we were in a 10Star swoon by ep 3!

Enough said, addiction gears engaged. And yes, the show is pretty funny in the charming way of romedies, watch Wang Yun Kai tripping over his long skirts! The swordfighting is really terrible, just skip it..

first posted sept 2024 on Viki

Read More

Cool show. FL Nam Ji Hyun has great acting chops and suitably gets max camera time (for once in kdrama!!!). Favourite shot -- a woman from behind her car window watches her adulterous spouse domestically affectionate in a glass-walled elevator coming down to the first floor. Double lenses of inspection and consideration.

This is my kind of cinema. A friend in NYC in the 70s said that the only signs of nature in the city are the human beings; in this show I feel as if the intimate architecture of these tall buildings are the forest glades and hills where the human denizens spend their days and nights.

Super interesting topic of divorce with lots of relationship to wonder over. Adore it so far. Am pretty sure I will feel the same at the end so why wait to recommend? Watch this! You will have a good time!

Added 22/09: The script was truly excellent. You could feel that tightening of the heart and then its slow release over and over again. Heart and intellect were consistently engaged in tandem. Super-talented writer.

ps i stubbornly classify ep 5 as a dream sequence; why else would the broad highway end up as a nightmare trek up a mountain path only to find the case to be an illusion and a dream of lifelong love to be real?

first posted on viki July 20th 2024

Read More

masterpiece in new kdrama international formats

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 or while dashing in and out of roadside eateries. Theatrically, the setting i sthe fluid life of the underclass in a time of extreme social stratification which has been eternally fascinating 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 in-jokes, for ex. a vaguely (not!) familiar, mysterious korean-american character -- here a bodyguard who wears sunglasses to hide his tears. Mr. Landi, dont cry!

In fact the slow and subversive 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.

Read More

sensuous semi-historical costume drama with great script

I am writing this without finishing the watch bec although I was cut off about 2/3 of the way through by its removal from viki's list in my area, I still wanted to record the powerful impressions it left me with before they fade. Therefore I can only recommend it provisionally, but since it is a very literary adaptation of a novel with amazing actors and fascinating visual detail, I can do so with confidence.

It is the first cdrama I have seen set in the 19th century/Qing dynasty. It is set in Suzhou, one of the largest non-capital cities in the world in the pre-modern historical era prior to this story, just south of Shanghai now, whose production of silk fabric boomed in the 19thC (although foreign export was still banned) along with huge family businesses devoted to it. Although this show may superficially resemble Blossoms in Adversity it is of an entirely different genre. It is not episodic, not light entertainment and definitely not set in a generic fantasy-ancient china, so it supports much less anachronism of the simple and clear sort found in fantasy.

The drama starts at the central cause of the story, the disappearance of the titular head of a silk-producing family business. The main characters are vividly established at the very beginning. Events leading up to that moment are flashed back to as each character comes into focus at different points, and character development unfolds beautifully in sequence.

Appropriately for a family engaged in the fabric trade the costuming is awesome. Natural fabrics, cotton, linen and raw silk with woven and dyed patterns in loose rather baggy combinations of vests, overcoats and over tunics look very chic and modern in the present moment. The long undertunics, often of raw silk, have nice neck detailing in their closures. I also have never seen such a flock of handsome men careering about in Manchu tonsures and beautiful long queues (although closeups of the artificial hairpieces on backs of their heads should have been avoided).

I was struck in particular by some shared trends with western female dress of the 19C because it dovetailed with my impressions of literary concerns held in common. The detachable stiffened collars with embroidered or starched points radiate out from the neck to emphasize that middle parted and flattened hairstyle with a low bun shared also with women in this hemisphere at mid-century. So often in literature a woman's nobility of character is described in common with a 'noble brow' (forehead), and calm radiant expression, both of which were sought after by women and enhanced by similiar costume details.

The importance of the needs of an individual's soul is considered now to have first been extended via literature to women and children of this time period, and Marvelous Women uses a similiar focus on two major female protagonists who work towards a personal self-realization within the extreme pressures and responsibilities of their family crises. The very simple Rousseau-ean set-up of natural personal feelings opposing those dictated by an artificial society clearly informs the struggles over the young son born to a concubine who is technically the 'son' of the matriarch by custom.

I need to mention the incredible interpretation by Mao Zi Jun of a tragic man whose love brings one of the protagonists alive psychologically. He and Jiang Qin Qin (who plays Shen Cuiu Xi to his Wei Liang Gong) exchange true soul-to-soul glances as they fall in love. His (and others') aesthetic interest in operatic singing and painting are important to the story as all of these characters essentially 'paint' using embroidery or a brocade weaving technique. More time is spent on these aesthetic productions in the first third of the show, but as events move more swiftly in the central section the exposition of these recedes and I was sad.

I suddenly realized last week that the gardens in the show were not generic sets but parts of (or imitations of?) the real Suzhou Ming-era classical gardens, some of which remain today. I will just have to wait for the show to return to see which gardens the rockery and the waterfalls belong to.

So, there it is. This show is a feast for the senses in so many ways. The soundtrack is excellent, and although for westerners the style of chinese operatic singing is very unfamiliar, I think that listening with attention to it produces a provisional comfort and familiarity which one must needs cultivate as a matter of respect to such an important world cultural production. The acting is amazing, absolutely amazing. I feel like a reader/listener of Dickens anxiously awaiting a missed installment, while I wait for the rest of this great show. Hope I wont have to wait too long!

Read More

brilliant acting

How to romance your long-time boss and crush? So many boss and employee/intern romances, BL or hetero, yet this stands out. The back and forth of dialogue without an intrusive soundtrack is such a pleasure when watching jdrama. I was afraid that the feelings of these men in suits would not be respectfully treated (cupcake?). A ten-year age gap, a respectful relationship in a small office, and somehow the younger Togawa manages to give his friend and boss the gentlest and most patient push needed, to wake him up to love. Brilliant acting. My favorite shot -- Nozue's face sideways in bed, lit up by the screen as he reads missed texts from his friend -- the years drop away, his eyes and lips glow.

Read More

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.

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, who loves NM, played by a lovely 23yr-old actor.

Lots of battle but no big set pieces (hate them).

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.

Read More

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!

Read More

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.

Read More

Junho's baritone will shake your boots

A good watch, a romantic historical drama from 2021. Junho's baritone will shake your boots and the FL, Lee Se Young, always refuses to be a doormat (no midway sudden caving into passivity). A very very excellent script properly restrained by historical facts, which imagines real people struggling in a real world with love, responsibility and agency.

On a cautious search for oldies but goodies I found this and recommend it for 3 reasons. 1/ It makes really good use of the idol-actor Junho. 2/ It is the very best kind of pleasant sageuk -- real content, real problems, best outcomes possible within limits. 3/ A great example of 2 of the best features of asian dramas in general: the use of dramatic problematics (underlying social issues) and the humanization of villains -- especially in formulaic romantic and comic dramas.

1. Junho was brilliant in Just Between Lovers/Rain or Shine (2017), but for just a second or two I warily watched him here for King the Land signs of blandness; decided it is how the script and director use his talents that matters. As an ML who hesitates to be vulnerable Junho's stolidity works. As Crown Prince Yi San/King Jeonjo he is at his most masculine and charismatic -- that voice! The underlying problematic of the show is issues of consent, and without Junho this would skirt ugliness. With him it is a swoon a minute.

2. Sageuk is an unexportable Korean miracle due to the unique continuous history of Korea -- C-drama is similarly so. I absolutely adore the rationality/ethical concerns of Cdrama and I equally love the emotional royal family contretemps of sageuk. The soundtrack has a hopeful sweet lilt, factions at court and within the royal family are clear (no confusing three or four old ministers dressed the same with similar facial hair). True love eventually sort of wins but real social problems are not glossed over.

3. In historical or history-fantasy dramas, the dramatic use of modern problematics does not feel anachronistic; rather, it is used to deepen or heighten the surface emotional response of viewers to the basic plot. By problematics I mean underlying issues which are treated as recurring dramatic notes or nexus, not for exposition or persuasion. The issue of consent deepens our understanding of the sadness of the situation of the court ladies who are prisoners for life within the palace.

So many of the supporting characters in Red Sleeve have little perfect moments of lived life in the show, but especially the villains are treated as flawed human beings in an inhumane world. The old King, paranoid, ruthless and beloved by his grandson the ML, is developing dementia. Lee Deokhwa as the King is amazing, watch the good and the bad of his character unfold through the show.

Read More

Great watch but Pt2 may not be for everyone

Great watch but Pt2 may not be for everyone -- geek scifi and early modern history fans will perk up and smile. Qi-problems sideline our bold brassy boy from any martial action for much of Pt2; Fan Xian gets one truly spectacular, mistaken and vertiginous duel. The grandmaster system starts to become a subject for thought.

Much thinner, FX steadfastly makes his way forward now as a true insider in the capital city, once Dad-the-Emperor sort of acknowledges him. Exeunt the std hero plots, enter a sci-fi steam punk search for Mom's identity, while DtE uses FX to claw back control of Mom's seed projects: the Overwatch Council (and associ.ated govt agencies) and the Imperial Treasury. FX fights public corruption and sweet chubby-cheeks Fan Sizhe invents economic theory (I knew he could do it. Fangirl here).

The Dad-cabal still manages to fascinate -- adoptive-Dad, Dad-in-law, super-mentor-"dad", and somebody-else's-Dad (Yan Bing Yun has a future ahead) all joust with Bio-DtE over how their retirements will play out. Poor dears, always upended by some long involved strategy of DtE which is only recognizable via its final result.

FX begins to self-define as a grownup -- feelings are more important to him than they are or were to either parent, justice is his Mom's gift to him and he has clearly inherited his Dad's skillful, calculating and often violent strategic action. But will he ever get to settle down with his Wan-er? I hope so. However as an historian I can smell reform of the armed forces coming on ....

Most of Pt1 actors/charcters return and develop further. The irrepressible Elder Princess and the Second Prince (I feel a sneaking fondness for his little cat face and his pretty bare feet ) return but do not change. Most of the horrific violence occurs offstage to the suffering People, in the imperial family violence is a constant threat only rarely carried out.

Random thought: the constant shots of main characters' footwear seem not to have any poetic logic, and surely they arent ppl...

Read More

disapointing try at a short kdrama

8eps at 1 hr ea. Is it still kdrama if it isnt 16 eps long? If misunderstandings, anxieties, trips and subplots do not pile up in baroque patterns? Honestly I am not sure, because I love that exuberance so much. The only std. kdrama feature here are several lively side romances although one lonely and very very cute bachelor is inexplicably left on the side.

This whole piece is so gentle and relaxed...I dont think you would call this series a tone poem, exactly, because there is finally at the end a little development -- which cant be discussed as it would be a spoiler.

On the other hand, a great deal of time relative to the size of the show was spent on the slowly carefully negotiated change from their high school relationship into an adult love. The ML character was a bit dull but sweet, which works as an anodyne to an anxious woman.

I love Chae Jong Hyeop's fancy acting turn here as a big sad bear of a man. I love the belted old blue jean look.

I rooted for Kim Soo Hyun, but it was hard to see yet another FL who is unable to express what she wants clearly, constantly runs away when she should move forward and makes herself and her lover miserable. KSH doesnt write the scripts but its a shame that this one did not give her much leeway to stretch herself as an actress.

Sign me up on the justice for Sang-Pil wagon.

Read More