Review – Sunset Dramaland

Falling for “Why I Dress Up for Love”

Note: I briefly outlined the plot for this show in one of my previous posts, so I won’t go into too much detail on synopsis here.

Once upon a time, Japanese dramas were my bread and butter. I was a big fan of Japanese pop and Japanese idols as a kid, and that naturally led me to Japanese dramas. From your high school classics Hana Yori Dango and Hana Kimi to thrillers like Bloody Monday and Liar Game, and tearjerkers like 1 Litre no Namida, I latched on to everything. But as legal streaming became the norm and my go-to websites were drowning in ads, I started to gravitate more towards Korean dramas, which are so much more accessible and had much larger communities to fangirl with.

Since then, I’ve only watched a smattering of Japanese dramas, but seeing a user over at Dramabeans posting about last year’s Why I Dress Up for Love piqued my interest and I decided to give it a go. A cute romance seemed right up my alley right now, and with the relative shortness of J-dramas (10 episodes in this show’s case), I had nothing to lose.

And I’m so glad I gave this show a shot! It’s seriously cute, and reminded me of all the reasons I loved watching J-dramas.

And did I mention that there is an equally adorable dog!?

At its core, Why I Dress Up for Love is about very different people learning to come together and care for each other during the ups and downs in their lives. It seems simple, almost cliche, but the show is filled with such earnestness that it was like a breath of fresh air.

Our heroine, Mashiba Kurumi (Kawaguchi Haruna), enters a share house run by her friend Kouko. Living there are food truck owner Fujino Shun (Yokohama Ryusei), Shun’s cousin and telehealth psychiatrist Terai Haruto, and aspiring artist Hase Ayaka. All of the boarders have very different personalities, leading to conflict early on in the show, especially between “maximalist” influencer Kurumi and the “minimalist”, technology-shunning Shun. But of course, they find themselves growing closer and closer as the show goes on, learning to appreciate each other for their differences.

Yep, that’s right. A cohabitation opposites-attract romance. SIGN ME UP.

I have to admit, I was skeptical at first. The defining factor of how I’ll feel about a romance drama is almost always how infuriating I find the male lead, and Shun has so many infuriating characteristics in the first couple of episodes that I was almost turned off. He comes across as pushy, judgmental, and annoying… but gosh darn it, he’s so charming I found myself being won over by the end of episode 3. He makes you roll your eyes to no end, but he’s so sincere with his feelings that you can’t help but fall for him.

From the beginning I worried that the whole show would be about making Kurumi see that her worldview was wrong and his was right, but that’s not what the show does at all. With both the romance and the platonic relationships between the housemates, we see characters have real conversations about their values and their dreams, and we see them begin to understand and appreciate the other because of their differences, not despite them.

I think my favorite part of J-dramas is the conversations between characters. They don’t always sound natural, but I often find them comforting. It’s nice to hear characters openly communicate with each other, probably because it so rarely happens in real life. The conversations, the solutions to conflict, and the friendships and relationships here are almost like a fantasy. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mean that as a criticism at all. I found myself aching to live in that house with them! It really makes me wish I lived in their world, and it gives me hope that even someone as introverted and averse to starting conversations as me can make meaningful connections. The conversations here gave me similar vibes to The Full-Time Wife Escapist, which is a huge compliment by the way. That was probably the last romance J-drama I watched, and I adored it.

This show is a bit more dramatic than the aforementioned drama, but never as hugely dramatic as I feared. You know when you watch a drama and you start to get apprehensive, thinking the show is going down the most cliche, aggravating path possible, and then it ends up pleasantly surprising you? That happens so many times in this show that I lost count.

It’s hard to trust a drama’s writing when you’ve been burned so many times before, but by the end I had complete faith in this writer. I went from hating the inclusion of the second male lead, terrified that he would be nothing but a nuisance, but I was so happy to find that my worries were mostly unfounded. Yeah, he does the whole annoying “I realized I like her because someone else likes her now” thing, which I ABSOLUTLY HATE, but I ended up not minding his character. He tries to win over our heroine at first, but after a while, when he realizes that she really does like Shun, he backs off. Thank goodness.

My other quibble with the show was probably Kurumi’s work in general. I found myself confused when they made her stop updating her social media in the beginning, but I also loved how supportive they were of her at the end. I felt like the show didn’t really know what they were doing with her workplace storylines. Nevertheless, I adored how they portrayed her as an influencer. There is this image most people have of influencer being ditzy bimbos, and Kurumi is not that at all. She has a very pure desire to show her life and the things she loves to her audience.

My opinion on social media has certainly soured in recent years, but I really do believe there are people out there who use it because they want to be a bright, happy spot in their followers’ everyday lives. These people might be rare, but I know they exist, and it was lovely to see such a character portrayed here. The show has her reexamine her dependence on social media and her phone, but it never shames her for placing value in the connections she has made to people online.

Both Kawaguchi Haruna and Yokohama Ryusei are new actors to me, and I was so pleased with their chemistry here. Yokohama just oozes charm as a romantic male lead, and I could watch him watch her all day long. Kawaguchi is a natural as a leading lady and I have my eyes set on her currently airing drama Silent that is getting rave reviews. I’ll definitely be checking out both of their other works in the future, and I hope to see them reunite at some point because I found them lovely to watch together.

The same can be said for the drama as a whole. While Why I Dress Up for Love may not have been perfect, the very fact that it left me wanting more in the end is a testament to the show’s quality, I think. The shorter length of Japanese dramas means that they very rarely overstay their welcome, unlike some Korean dramas, and I do believe I’ll be watching some more as the year winds down. If anyone has some recommendations for some enjoyable Japanese dramas I would love to hear them, because I am very much out of the loop. And if anyone out there is looking for an easy, light watch with moving conversations between characters, I really do recommend Why I Dress Up for Love. It’s a pleasure to see characters from all walks of life getting together and learning to appreciate one another, and it will definitely help you keep warm this winter.

Revenge of Others: First Impressions

I find it interesting that most of Disney+’s choices for Korean originals are so… un-Disney.

It makes sense to me that they’ve decided to put these on Hulu in the US (but when are they gonna give us the licensed shows?! Sigh…). I’m not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but Disney in the US seems to have made a choice to put their more “adult” fare (or, honestly, everything that isn’t Marvel or Star Wars) on Hulu rather than Disney+.

After I watched the first episode, it seemed to me that Revenge of Others wasn’t really very adult–in fact, it often seems straight-up juvenile–but the plot (orphan girl from Busan moves to Seoul to attend the high school where her twin brother was murdered) doesn’t exactly click with the likes of, say, High School Musical the Musical the Series.

After episode 2, however… well. I totally understand the 18+ rating.

Without giving too much away, the first episode did not prepare me for the violence that came with episode 2. Not gonna lie, seeing the original poster alongside the synopsis for this show as an American was a bit disconcerting. I genuinely thought this was going to be the story of a teenage girl going on a lethal rampage at her brother’s school, which would definitely hit way too close to home for me.

That is not what is happening here, but that honestly doesn’t make it much easier to watch. I’m definitely not someone who particularly likes gratuitous violence in my TV shows. I know that South Korea has a bullying problem, and I’ve seen plenty of other shows tackle this topic, but I want to prepare everyone for the fact that this show is not flinching when it comes to showing the horrors of high school bullying.

One thing that I will say in the show’s favor is that unlike some other shows that try to be edgy by showing sexual violence, Revenge of Others spares us from seeing those scenes, instead mostly focusing on the violence towards those who “deserve” it. The bullies, the rapists. There are some exceptions, though, and I really don’t think we needed to see the bullying experienced by So-yeon.

Despite all the violence, I do have to say that I’m intrigued. Episode 1 had me thinking that Shin Ye-eun didn’t have the gravitas to suck me into this type of story, but I think she proved me wrong in the second episode. It is Lomon, though, who is really bringing his A game here. I definitely considered him to be one of the strongest links in All of Us Are Dead, and I was pleased to see him show up here. He has quite the range for a fairly young actor, and I’m excited to see what he does next.

There were a number of surprises for me in episode 2, and that is enough for me to stick with it through next week to see if it has anything else to throw at me. I’m still not on board with the excessive violence, but curiosity is getting the best of me.

See you next week, Revenge of Others.

First Impressions: Twenty Five Twenty One (Episodes 1-2)

“This, too, shall pass.” That sentiment seems to be the driving force behind tvN’s new retro drama Twenty Five Twenty One, a tale that chronicles the life of a young fencer as she navigates the IMF crisis.

I was looking forward to Twenty Five Twenty One, but didn’t have any grand hopes for it. I was just hoping for a nice, light, youthful drama with a dose of 90s nostalgia, but what I ended up getting was that and much, much more. From the beginning of the show, I knew we might have something special on our hands. Most dramas have shied away from mentioning the pandemic, at most giving tongue-in-cheek comments like Vincenzo or inserting a throwaway line about masks or viruses like When the Weather Is Fine.

Twenty Five Twenty One, on the other hand, uses the reality of our present day in a much more direct way than any other dramas have. We the audience enter the life of our heroine, Na Hee-do, through her daughter, a passionless dancer who seems at a loss of what to do with her life in the the era of COVID-19. After running away to her grandmother’s house and discovering her mother’s old room and belongings from the 90s, we are transported with her to 1998, just as the IMF crisis is hitting South Korea, and just as Na Hee-do is beginning to grow up.

Kim Tae-ri absolutely sparkles in the role of Hee-do, and her optimism at the beginning of our story for her future is infectious. As she bounces around town, proclaiming how the impending crisis doesn’t affect her because she’s young and has nothing to lose, I believe her with my entire heart. I can see the disappointment she will face so clearly, and yet even within the first 10 minutes I am so wholly captivated by her and her spirit that I have no choice but to believe in her.

This is real. This is not CGI. Kim Tae-ri really speared the apple. I have no choice but to stan.

But of course, that’s not how life works, and Hee-do is forced to deal with reality very quickly. When her fencing club is disbanded, she pours all of her passion and energy into… getting kicked out of school. This was one of my favorite bits in episode one, and there’s nothing funnier than watching little innocent-looking Hee-do trying to start fights and seeing her fail miserably. What can I say? Everyone loves Kim Tae-ri.

Everyone except, perhaps, Ko Yu-rim (Bona). The relationship between these two characters is easily the best part of the show, and I just absolutely love how they are given the treatment that is usually reserved for romantic couples in dramaland. Slow-mos, childhood connections, dramatic misunderstandings, the most adorable meet-cute ever. The list goes on and on. They get the works! The umbrella scene immediately shot to the top of my favorite scenes in any drama premiere ever. Hee-do’s love and admiration for Yu-rim as her most ardent fan is so sweet to see, and the way their friendship crumbles before it even begins when Hee-do joins Yu-rim’s team is just heartbreaking.

Name a couple with a better meet-cute. I dare you.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of sapphic love stories and was lowkey obsessed with all the lesbian characters in dramaland last year, but I actually don’t get romantic vibes from these two at all. I don’t ship them romantically (and I don’t think we are meant to), but they are so, so compelling as a platonic rivalry that I don’t care. I know there was a lot of criticism from drama fans of this writer and director’s previous work Search WWW about alleged queerbaiting between two of the female leads (I haven’t seen the drama so I just know what others have said), but I don’t feel that here. It doesn’t seem like queerbaiting at all, it’s just that we are getting a drama where the platonic relationship is given more weight than the romantic relationship. I expect this to change slightly as the series progresses, but I really hope we don’t lose this thread, because there is so much potential for something truly delicious here. I sincerely hope that Twenty Five Twenty One can be for platonic female relationships what The Lord of the Rings is to platonic male relationships. We deserve it! Na Hee-do and Ko Yu-rim deserve it!

The scenes between our two girls are heightened thanks to the directing (shout out to PD Jung Ji-hyun, who directed my much-loved You are My Spring last year!). Everything from the color palette to the settings to the music are pitch-perfect, and the director seems to have such a clear vision for the story he wants to tell. The music and slow-mos are used so effectively and never overdone, which is something that so many dramas get wrong (I’m looking at you, Lee Eung-bok!). Nothing seems cheesy, and everything about the show seems so fresh and vibrant. The story beats between Hee-do and Yu-rim elicit such an emotional response from me from the very first episode, and I’m just in awe over how this show has sucked me so thoroughly into its world so quickly.

Aside from our frenemies, one other thing I love about Twenty Five Twenty One is how, despite having such a magical, bright tone with an equally magical, bright heroine, it doesn’t fall into the “just work harder and your life will improve” narrative. Through the character of Back Yi-jin (Nam Joo-hyuk) (no clue why his surname is spelled like that in the Netflix subs but I’m rolling with it), we see how the times can be so suffocating and change your circumstances to such a degree that no amount of hard work can improve your situation. Seeing Yi-jin’s family lose their fortune and seeing his life change in the blink of an eye was heart wrenching, and the scene where he is denied the job he so desperately needs because he is “overqualified” really hit home. Sometimes there really is just no way to win, and your hard work has nothing to do with it. Ko Yu-rim is another character who, despite her success in fencing, is struggling financially, and it’s a key point of tension between her and the more well-off Hee-do.

Even with this heavy dose of realism, though, the drama never feels too heavy. It retains its bright spirit throughout both episodes, in large part thanks to Yi-jin and Yu-rim’s interactions with Hee-do. Admittedly, I didn’t feel much chemistry between Kim Tae-ri and Nam Joo-hyuk in the first episode. I was so wholly invested in the relationship between Na Hee-do and Ko Yu-rim that I couldn’t bring myself to care about the romance much, but that changed by the end of episode 2. The scene with the two of them playing with the school yard faucet with reckless abandon was just happiness in a bottle for me.

The show still isn’t portraying their relationship as romantic yet, which I actually appreciate, because I am not usually a fan of the insta-love trope. I’m really looking forward to seeing their friendship grow, and I don’t expect any real romance to begin until the characters are, well, twenty-five and twenty-one. It’s easy to envision how Hee-do’s presence will change Yi-jin and Yu-rim’s lives for the better, because she’s just such an endearing whirlwind of sincerity and emotion.

Tough times call for strong support networks, and I’m hoping to see our characters learn to rely on each other. Hee-do grew on Yi-jin so quickly, and I’m sure Yu-rim’s guard will fall as well–hopefully sooner rather than later.

I didn’t know how to end this post so here is Hee-do fencing with an umbrella and oh my god how perfect is Kim Tae-ri’s form?!?! (I know nothing about fencing)

Film vs. Webtoon: Love and Leashes

When Love and Leashes was first announced, there was quite a lot of hullabaloo about it. Everyone who’s anyone knows that Korean films are a totally different ball game than Korean dramas when it comes to sex, but BDSM? Now that is something we’ve never seen touched upon before in the K-ent sphere. And with former goody-two-shoes SNSD member Seohyun in the starring role! How scandalous!

Based on the webtoon Moral Sense (which is also the Korean title of the film), our story centers around a mortifying mistaken identity mishap leading to our heroine, Jung Ji-woo (Seohyun), opening a package containing a spikey dog collar belonging to Jung Ji-hoo (played by the absolutely adorable Jun). In the webtoon, an utterly embarrassing situation occurs where Ji-woo has no idea it’s not for an actual dog until Ji-hoo blabbers on and on about how grateful he is that she’s so cool and understanding about his, ah, preference. This, we quickly come to find out in the webtoon, perfectly exemplifies how Ji-hoo operates (seriously, how hasn’t he spilled the beans before now?). In the film, the scene plays out differently, as Ji-hoo discovers what the collar is really for when a flyer for the shop it’s from falls out of the box.

The movie is full of these little changes that, for the most part, I don’t mind. The Ji-hoo in the film acts more realistically and like less of a… well, webtoon character, but he still retains the same spirit. In fact, what I find most impressive about this adaptation is how right it gets the characters. Jun is simply fantastic as Ji-hoo, and is exactly how I imagined the character in my head. Ji-woo comes across as something of an ice queen, not one to mince words or be afraid to let someone know that what’s wrong is wrong. She’s perfectly complemented by Ji-hoo, who in the film takes her side in an argument at work about having an openly homophobic guest on their educational TV show. Ji-hoo may be a puppy who is super passionate and gets way too caught up in his feelings, but he’s no wimp.

I think what many people expected when they read this synopsis was essentially a Korean Fifty Shades of Grey, and that’s not at all what we have here. And yes, I mean beyond the girl being the dom and the guy being the sub. I haven’t seen those films or read the books, but Love and Leashes is a surprisingly chaste film. Despite the subject matter, nothing really happens that would make it unsuitable for airing on television. We never even see them have sex.

I’m extremely uneducated when it comes to BDSM. Before reading the webtoon, all I knew about it was that it involved people who get off on pain (and doling out pain to others), as well as the classic dominatrix and slave imagery. Ji-woo is similarly naïve, and quite shocked when she searches online and is immediately greeted with hardcore porn. But as Ji-woo starts to learn more about it all, so do we the audience. BDSM isn’t inherently sexual, and the less extreme examples the show gives us allow us vanilla folks to slowly understand our hero’s proclivities. Well, okay, maybe understand isn’t the right word, but we learn not to pass judgement on him. In many ways, a BDSM relationship seems more “normal” than the romantic relationships you see in some dramas. Love and Leashes does a good job at assuring audiences that the key to true BDSM is consent. The experience is meant to be both thrilling and safe for both parties involved, and it does a better job explaining consent than any “vanilla” piece of media I’ve ever come across.

Pretty much nothing about the film is copy-pasted directly from the webtoon, which is a good idea, but the standout scene from both works to me was when Ji-hoo gives Ji-woo high heels and she asks if she should step on him. Ji-woo is hesitant, but curious, and I think seeing Jun wanting Seohyun to step on him is something that we all feel deep in our bones. “Step on me” has become such a common phrase, especially in stan culture, and it’s brilliant to let the audience in on the experience with something so familiar.

Most importantly, both the film and webtoon deal with the subject with so much humor without making people who practice BDSM the butt of the joke. I honestly can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard watching a movie. Ji-woo and Ji-hoo are just so hilarious yet sweet with each other. Watching this on a cold winter night, the warmth these two gave me was more than welcome. You can tell these two had an absolute blast filming.

Of course, I can’t talk about the film without talking about Lee El, who plays Ji-woo’s friend Hye-mi. Hye-mi is something of a mixture of two characters in the webtoon, Ji-hoo’s friend the bar owner and the female sub that works at the bar. In this, Hye-mi is both bar owner and sub. While I think Lee El was underused in the part (she’s underused in ALL the things–give this woman more lead roles!), and while I love the original characters from the webtoon, I also loved Hye-mi. She’s a sub, but also absolutely badass, and she delivers one of the best lines in the film: “Just because I’m perverted doesn’t mean you can treat me like shit.” Yeah, I LOVE her. Later on in the film, she also asks a sulking Ji-hoo, “Does your life get any better when you keep hating on yourself?”. Hye-mi is confident in herself and her desires, even after finding herself in dangerous situations, and I think we could all learn from someone like her.

One of the changes between film and webtoon that I have sort of mixed feelings about is the portrayal of Ji-hoo’s ex-girlfriend, Hana. The webtoon gives us a conceited, self-assured woman who takes advantage of Ji-hoo but doesn’t actively put him down for being into BDSM. In the film, Kim Bo-ra serves to make Ji-woo’s positive qualities even more obvious. She’s quick to judge and is just so cruel and mean towards Ji-hoo about his love for BDSM. She broke up with him as soon as he came out to her, and yet still chooses to torment him on the phone and in person. She’s really one-note and quite annoying, and I wish they’d made her character more interesting.

However, thanks to this character, we do get a great line from Ji-woo in the film where she says, “I don’t understand”, and Ji-hoo immediately thinks she’s talking about BDSM and you can see him just deflate. But Ji-woo continues, saying, “If she loves you and this makes you feel alive, couldn’t she just go with it?”. Of course, if someone feels genuinely uncomfortable after trying something, that’s one thing, but she never even gave him a chance and yet chose to judge him and act hateful and spiteful towards him when he had the courage to be honest with her. That is, of course, the big difference between Ji-woo and Hana, but I really don’t think the film needed to paint Hana as such an absolute villain in order for us to see how empathetic and understanding Ji-woo is. We already knew that, even without Hana’s involvement in the story.

Let’s be real, all I really wanna see is Ji-hoo constantly being amazed by Ji-woo

But nevertheless, Love and Leashes retains the best of the webtoon’s themes even when pared down and simplified to fit a film’s runtime. If anyone watched this movie and wished to spend more time with the characters, I highly recommend reading Moral Sense. The longer format of the webtoon really lets the author flesh out the characters, and we spend some time with loveable (and hateable) side characters that get shafted or don’t really exist in the film. It’s a light, fluffy read, and my only complaint is that the fan-made English translation doesn’t seem to be finished. Hopefully this film putting it on peoples’ radars means a complete translation is coming soon! (edit: I’ve just been informed that Naver Webtoon is in the process of putting up professional translations! Hooray!)

Love and Leashes isn’t the type of film to stick in your head rent free forever, but I’ll definitely think fondly of it (and the webtoon) whenever I hear a mention of BDSM, and I think that’s a win for the community. I think it’s certainly a better alternative to the Fifty Shades series, and it’s a pity that this surprisingly sweet film didn’t reach as wide of an audience.

Drama vs. Webtoon: Nevertheless,

NOTE: Spoilers of both drama and webtoon will be present in this post.

Dear Nevertheless,,

What was even the point?

My advice to anyone considering watching Nevertheless, would be to stop now because all it will make you feel is gross, tired, and confused.

Kind of like how Na-bi looks whenever Jae-eon touches her

I’m honestly so sick of webtoon adaptations. 90% of the time when I compare the show to the source material, it just makes me… angry. What do these studios get out of taking something and bastardizing it so thoroughly that it becomes painfully clear they either didn’t understand the appeal of the original in the first place or they just don’t care?

To give you all a little background, the webtoon Nevertheless, was created by writer Jeongseo in 2018. The series concluded the following year (two years before the drama began airing on JTBC). It follows an art student, Na-bi, who has just come out of a traumatic breakup with her longterm boyfriend when she meets an infamous playboy on campus named Jae-eon and becomes infatuated.

Much of the webtoon’s success stems from the way the drama follows the internal struggles of a girl whose fears and hesitations about entering a new relationship end up being true. In the webtoon, we only receive Na-bi’s thoughts, not Jae-eon’s, but that’s more than enough. Na-bi sees the warning signs every time she’s with him, but Jae-eon insists on his sincerity to her, even falling to his knees in front of her to try and prove his feelings.

But in the end, she was right: Jae-eon was playing with her, and the already vulnerable Na-bi becomes thoroughly traumatized by the betrayal. The last chapter of the webtoon chronicles Na-bi’s attempt to start a relationship with the sweet and honest Do-hyeok, but she can’t even trust him anymore. As Do-hyeok is approached by two fans of his YouTube channel, Na-bi’s thoughts become frantic as she goes back and forth between paranoia that Do-hyeok will cheat on her just like her ex and trying to comfort herself by insisting that people can change and that Do-hyeok isn’t that type of person. The story closes with Na-bi encountering Jae-eon again at a bar–with a new girl. The scene perfectly mirrors their first meeting, with Jae-eon explaining to the girl, “Butterflies look free, but actually they travel on the same paths forever.” The girl tells him that she feels sorry for them, and he replies, “Really? I think they should just enjoy it.”

The Nevertheless, webtoon, while short with underdeveloped supporting characters, boasts a fully formed heroine and fairly tight, concise writing with a clear theme. It takes the trope of the kind, warm heroine changing the philandering hero’s ways and turns it completely on its head. Most bad boys are just that: bad boys. They’re not hiding a heart of gold, and one girl can’t change them. Considering how omnipresent this trope is in dramaland, I was so excited to see a story like this adapted for television. Finally, something different in the romance drama landscape!

…Sigh.

I found the first few episodes of the drama adaptation to be promising. While a bit slow and meandering, I was so happy to see how the directing played into and amplified Na-bi’s thoughts and feelings. I hadn’t read the webtoon at this point, but I’d heard plenty about it and was aware of how it ended. In my mind, the slow-mo and the swelling of romantic music when the leads were together reflected how Na-bi was able to so easily fall for Jae-eon’s trap. I was so confident at the beginning that the show wasn’t saying this relationship was something good, something to aspire to, but was instead trying to demonstrate how someone can fall so hard despite the blaring warning signs in their head. I even went on rants about how people weren’t understanding the show on multiple platforms to multiple people. Yes, I feel like an idiot now.

As the drama went on, my opinion fluctuated nearly every episode because I wasn’t sure where it was headed. The drama had to add a lot to fill out the 10-episode runtime, and it did little except lose the threads of the plot and the characters. If the drama had ended the same way as the webtoon, I think I wouldn’t have judged it too harshly because it might have been interpreted that that’s how toxic relationships are: everything gets so tangled up, and you end up being burned in the end.

But, of course, that’s not how it ends.

The Nevertheless, drama decided that instead of having the story be about the victim of a manipulative jerk, it would be about a toxic relationship where the girl plays into the boy’s game, and maybe the boy isn’t so terrible after all? As a basic concept, I have no problem with this. Making the story a little less black-and-white creates potential for something more complex and interesting. The problem is, the drama never actually says anything meaningful about toxic relationships… or, if anything, it’s saying that love will triumph in the end even between two people who seem to be able to do nothing but hurt each other over and over again.

While watching the finale, I was reminded of the film Very Ordinary Couple. Starring Kim Min-hee and Lee Min-ki, Very Ordinary Couple chronicles the very toxic on again/off again relationship between two coworkers. The movie was well-received by critics and a box office hit, but I have never really been able to get into it. Despite great performances and chemistry, the ending message of the film left me a bit cold. Kim Min-hee’s character makes a documentary about their relationship after their climactic breakup, and a bunch of her coworkers show up to the premiere at a movie theater. She glances around the theater as the movie starts, looking for Lee Min-ki’s character, and when she doesn’t see him she gets out of her seat and walks out to the lobby. Of course, he’s standing right there, and the two begin talking again, smiling, laughing, and leave the cinema together. The camera follows the two as the walk down the street, joking around with each other, and Fin. The movie ends.

With Very Ordinary Couple, I took the ending to suggest that a couple like this is never going to change. They’ll get together, they’ll fight, they’ll break up, and they’ll do it all over again. The film doesn’t really paint that as a good or bad thing, just something that happens with these types of people. It’s not about a whirlwind romance. It’s not about destiny. It’s just about two people with terrible judgement who can’t seem to stay away from one another. Yeah, not super uplifting.

But Nevertheless, is a kdrama, and it seems a kdrama just can’t help but kdrama. Like so many shows, of course the finale depicts Na-bi and Jae-eon as a thing of fate. Not only that, but of course Jae-eon is painted as Na-bi’s savior, helping her finish her art project after it gets destroyed. Of course Na-bi realizes that Jae-eon saw her and fell in love at first sight on the day her ex completely humiliated her. Of course they reconcile at an art exhibition with her saying, “I hate you and how you toy with other peoples’ feelings but I love you and please stay by my side forever”.

And of course, there goes that happy, cutesy romantic music. And they kiss.

(Also, as they’re kissing, she’s like “Do you have a fever?” and he says “I don’t feel sick when I’m with YOU” and I just think it’s hilarious that they thought this line was cute in the middle of a global pandemic.)

Jae-eon and Na-bi are smiling because they’re anti-vaxxer psychopaths who are delighted by the idea of their twue wuv causing a COVID outbreak

My god, what is the POINT of this? What is the point of the writers completely twisting the entire meaning of the source material? If you’re going to go out of your way to change it, why even base it off of a webtoon in the first place? I just can’t understand it. I have seen people say that they’re making it into “just another kdrama”, but I can’t think of any other kdrama relationship that has made me grimace and gag the entire way through their “happy ending”.

This show takes everything that people complain about with romance dramas and just dials it to 100. It erases everything that made the webtoon worth reading in the first place. The scene at the art exhibition is just baffling. Who watches this in the context of the whole show and thinks it’s romantic? It almost feels like a parody to me, to be honest. If I didn’t know better, I would think the writer was making fun of Na-bi and Jae-eon.

The weirdest, most inexplicable scene, though, is the very last one. Na-bi and Jae-eon are walking and holding hands when she sees Do-hyeok in a window and slides her hand out of Jae-eon’s grasp. Jae-eon asks what’s wrong and she just smiles and grabs his hand again and says, “Nothing. Let’s go!” and they walk off into the metaphorical sunset. As they walk, they pass a kitten on the street, and Jae-eon asks, “Should we raise a cat?” and Na-bi says, “Haha, no more pets for YOU!” “Not even butterflies?” “Nope”.

Hahaha, isn’t it hilarious how they’ll never be able to trust one another? Hahaha!

Until the very end, I genuinely have no idea what the drama is trying to say. Are they saying that Do-hyeok was the cause of all of Na-bi’s insecurities regarding her relationship with Jae-eon? But that was very clearly not the case at all throughout the whole drama! If anything, she was just using Do-hyeok to figure out her feelings for Jae-eon. But if that’s not what the scene means, then what on earth DOES it mean? Is it trying to do the webtoon thing where it shows that Na-bi is going to struggle to trust anyone again, even though that makes no sense with the way the drama chose to take the story? And for some reason they’re trying to make it comical? Is it all just a big joke?

Honestly, by the time the credits rolled, I just didn’t care anymore. Why would I care? What reason did the drama give me to care? I don’t care about Na-bi anymore. I never cared about Jae-eon. Do-hyeok is better off without Na-bi anyway. I don’t even care about any of the side charac–

Just kidding my babies Sol and Ji-wan are the only good thing to come out of this mess. We got a happy, canon lesbian couple in a kdrama. And when happy lesbians can’t even make me care about the drama, you know something went wrong.

I’m sorry SolJiwan, it’s not your fault that your drama is stupid

But whatever. It’s over. It’s done. It was only 10 episodes, and now I’m free.

I just never want to see that stupid tramp stamp on the back of Song Kang’s neck ever again.

Love Alarm – Season 2 Review

Welp, it’s finally here.

NOTE: So I know I said I was planning on writing reviews for all the dramas that premiered a few weeks ago, but, well… time got away from me. And there were a LOT of dramas, okay?! But I’m taking Love Alarm as a chance to restart, and I definitely plan on doing a slew of reviews for next week’s premieres (Joseon Exorcist, Navillera, and Oh! Master). I promise!

SONG OF THE DAY

Tearliner – A Man for All Seasons (feat. Zitten)

(I thought of starting this little feature including songs in posts to kind of set the mood. Most of them will probably be OSTs for the drama if available, but if there ever aren’t any OST songs released when I put a post up then I’ll get a little creative.)

I watched season 1 of Love Alarm back when it was first released in 2019, and I liked it more than I probably would have if I had watched it at any other moment in time. Despite a pretty silly premise, the first season of Love Alarm was surprisingly angsty and a little bit dark. I, too, was feeling pretty angsty at that time, so many parts of the show and Jojo (Kim So-hyun)’s internal dialogue spoke to me. That said, after I finished watching I never felt a particular sense of attachment to the show and never really understood the hype surrounding it. Originally I wanted to rewatch the first season before the second was released, but again, time got away from me, so I decided to just dive right in to season 2 when it dropped.

If you’re reading this review, you probably already know that there is quite a bit of ~controversy~ surrounding this season. Again, I don’t have any stakes in this as I’m not exactly a fan (although I did have strong opinions on the male leads in season 1… we’ll get to that later), but I thought I’d give my two cents and weigh in. Please note that this is definitely not going to be an unbiased review, so if that’s what you’re looking for you might be disappointed.

So let’s just get right to it and address the elephant in the room right away.

THE LOVE TRIANGLE

Have I mentioned how much I dislike love triangles? I’m not a big “shipper” and prefer to just go with the flow of the story most of the time, but there are times where one of the leads just… gets to me. In a bad way. I think I should make it clear that I’ve never been a fan of the poor, sad, jerk chaebol character, especially in a romance. Because of this, I’ve never felt much sympathy for Sun-oh (Song Kang). In season 1 I recall finding him irritating and possessive, and the one thing about him that I liked was that he made Jojo laugh and smile occasionally. He struck me as the typical male lead of ages past, and I just wasn’t into it. The show tried to make the viewer sympathize with him, but his issues just never seemed quite big enough to excuse his behavior for me, especially when contrasted with Jojo’s past.

It doesn’t help that the show made it seem like he started paying attention to Jojo simply to spite Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram), his good friend, and that’s just not a good look, bud. More than that, though, I just don’t like that as a foundation to a relationship. I think the show would have been a lot stronger if it spent more time focused on Sun-oh’s friendship with Hye-yeong than his romance with Jojo, to be honest. There’s definitely something interesting in their story and I think the writer could have mined something truly special out of it. But alas, that is not the story this show chose to tell.

Because of that foundation, Jojo and Sun-oh’s relationship always felt shallow and superficial to me. I always felt that he was the type of person a teenager would fall for, but if he didn’t grow up and change then I couldn’t see an adult Jojo putting up with him for long. So when the show jumped ahead to the future and she started to become closer to Hye-yeong, I was relieved.

That being said, I think the show’s biggest failure was how they jumped ahead again, not showing us any of the build-up in Jojo and Hye-yeong’s relationship. K-drama romances are all about the build-up, about the tension, and it struck me as odd that the show gave those moments to Jojo and Sun-oh but gave none of them to Jojo and Hye-yeong. I’ll be honest, I think a lot (but not all) of Love Alarm fans are a bit shallow, and they would have preferred Sun-oh to Hye-yeong no matter how it was written simply because they think Song Kang is prettier. However, I think there would have been less backlash if the show had bothered to try and win over the Jojo/Sun-oh shippers by showing key relationship moments between Jojo and Hye-yeong. I honestly can’t be too mad at the Sun-oh fans, because the writing definitely did drop the ball there.

From what we did get from Jojo and Hye-yeong, though, they are actually a sweet couple. Hye-yeong is definitely more my type. Jung Ga-ram isn’t super charismatic, but there is a warmth to his performance that I really like. And I love his smile! What bothers me most about Hye-yeong’s arc is that season 1 painted him as wanting to court Jojo the “old-fashioned” way, not bothering with the Love Alarm app. I really liked that sentiment and thought that the show was making a hard stance against our global society’s constant need to feel “connected”. It’s not something I entirely agree with, but it’s at least a consistent theme and message that I thought the drama was going for.

But season 2 kind of throws all that out the window, and here’s where I’ll dive into…

THE LOVE ALARM APP

I think we can all agree that the very concept of this app is a bit, well, silly. There are so many things wrong with the concept, and so many opportunities for the show to address them. In Korean I think it’s more clear that the app isn’t so much about love (사랑; sa-rang) as it is about like (좋아; jo-a), hence the app’s name (좋알람; jo-al-ram). With that in mind, I think the show’s idea that people no longer have to say “I love you” because the app does it for them is really weak. Communicating “I love you” in a relationship is completely different than simply letting someone know you like them.

This is why I’m kind of on the fence with the whole shield and spear concept. I think I understand what the drama was going for. When Jojo hid behind her shield, she stopped communicating with the people she loved. I think there’s something here about people needing validation to know their worth in a relationship–a concept that some other dramas, like Because This is My First Life, have also touched on. That’s why it’s such big deal when Jojo decides to use the spear on Hye-yeong. What makes Jojo and Hye-yeong’s use of the Love Alarm app different from other people is that there is intention and choice behind it so it has real meaning in a way that it wouldn’t for other people. For Jojo, her decision was the equivalent of saying “I love you”. But that’s simply not the case for the other users of the app. So what is the show trying to say about the value of Love Alarm when our main characters use it in such a different way from the general public?

By the end of season 1, the show seemed to have taken the stance of “Love Alarm bad”. In season 2, though, that has changed, and we now are told “Love Alarm 2.0 bad, Love Alarm good”.

Uhhhhhhh… what?

IS LOVE ALARM GOOD OR BAD, SHOW? WHICH IS IT? TELL MEEEEE.

Sigh.

There just seems to be a lot of inconsistency in this show’s messaging between the two seasons and it’s a real pity. It makes me wonder how differently everything would have turned out of this had been written as one 14-episode season instead of two. I guess we’ll never know.

One part that I did honestly love was the bit where Jojo bumps off of Hye-yeong’s “people who will love you” list. It provides some tension to the story, and the obvious reason is not immediately clear to the viewer: that she disappeared off his list because she now does love him. But everything else involving the app this season? Meh. It just seems meaningless to me.

JOJO

There is this feeling that dramas give me when they’re at their best that I’m always chasing when I watch a new show. That feeling where your heart seems too big for your chest, like it’s just going to burst. So many different emotions can cause this feeling in me. It can be something cute, something angsty, something sorrowful, something cool, you name it. Season 1’s angst so perfectly aligned with mine that I felt this constantly while watching, but I only felt it a grand total of one time in season 2: the scene with her and her younger self in the reed field.

I think one of season 2’s biggest crimes is making me forget who Jojo is as a character. I forgot everything that made Jojo who she is. I forgot all about her backstory. I forgot why she liked Sun-oh in the first place. I forgot why she hated herself so much. In this one scene, all of that came rushing back to me, and I wanted to scream. There was SO MUCH POTENTIAL in Jojo’s character development, and I feel like it was all rushed in the very last episode and condensed into this one scene. It was so affective, but it would have been so much better if, once again, we had some better build-up.

Instead, Jojo was weighed down by constant angst face throughout nearly the entire show, but with nothing to anchor it. I generally love Kim So-hyun as an actress, but I find Jojo to be the least charismatic role I’ve seen her play. She’s just a sad sack, and I understand why, but she doesn’t play it in a way that engages me. Looking at her just… makes me depressed.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE that Love Alarm turns the Candy trope on its head and gives us someone broken, dark, and scarred by her past rather than being effortlessly bright and cheery despite her situation. I just wish they had made a clearer connection between her stories from season 1 to season 2. It felt like the writer lost hold of who Jojo was and what defined her.

Not once during season 2 did I think that Jojo was learning to love herself again. Not a single time. If the show had showed us more of that and less of Jojo and Sun-oh just staring out into space looking like someone had just killed their puppies, maybe I would have felt something this season.

DIRECTING, TONE, AND LOVE ALARM IN 2021

I’m a huge fan of the director of season 1 of Love Alarm, Lee Na-jung, who also did one of my favorite dramas, Fight For My Way. When I read that season 2 switched out the director for Kim Jin-woo (who previously did dramas like Suits and Queen of Mystery), everything started to make sense. While I think the new PD did a pretty good job at maintaining the tone of the first season, I have a feeling some of the inconsistencies between the seasons are in part due to this director switcheroo.

While I like Love Alarm‘s moody, contemplative tone, I found that this season went a bit overboard with the slow-mos. Oh. My. Gosh. So. Many. SLOW-MOS. Now, these are nothing new in dramaland and pretty much every romance employs slow-mos to a degree, but you get some directors who just go ham with the lingering (I’m looking at you, Start-Up, and you, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God). It’s this sort of thing that really just highlights the superficiality of a story like Love Alarm, and makes me think that Love Alarm‘s brand of youthful romantic angst just doesn’t work as well for me in 2021 as it did in 2019.

Throughout this pandemic, I’ve reached towards a variety of genres: high-stakes thrillers, mind-bending sci-fi, silly comedies, sweet love stories, you name it. So I don’t mean to say that love stories have no place in 2021. However, I think what I like most right now is an escapist love story. Something that isn’t so riddled with angst. Something that’s more light, fluffy, and fun. When you give me a show like this where the biggest problems in the characters’ lives are their romances, and they act like oh god choosing between these two boys feels like the end of the world, I just can’t get behind your story. Not now, when the actual angst I’m feeling is rooted in something very, very different. But this is not as much the drama’s fault as the state of the world’s and the way I respond to it.

There are lots of “what could have been”s for Love Alarm‘s second venture, and I admit I become so hung up on its lost potential that I’ve kind of glossed over any parts that I found enjoyable. And there were parts that I liked! I thought Kim So-hyun and Jung Ga-ram were adorable together, and again, I actually LIKED that they ended up together. I liked that the show had the guts to develop its lovelines in a way that Korean drama viewers didn’t expect. I love that there have been shows like this and Start-Up recently that try and bend the rules of “first lead” and “second lead”. I just feel like the show really missed its chance to fully develop our OTP’s relationship and make it truly shine.

Oh, what could have been!

Sisyphus – Ep. 1-2 Review

Oh, Sisyphus, Sisyphus, Sisyphus. We’ve been waiting for you, you know.

Ever since JTBC’s 10th anniversary drama was announced last year, drama fans have waited with baited breath for the premiere date. The reactions to the news varied considerably, with some fans excited for a high-concept sci-fi offering with an A-list cast and others more skeptical of the show’s premise and casting. I fell somewhere in between, but I’m always up for k-dramas stretching their sci-fi muscles, even if that means we end up with a stinker on our hands.

As for whether Sisyphus is a stinker or not, I think it’s too hard to tell just from the premiere. Conceptually, I think it has a lot of promise to at least be interesting and different, which can be a merit of its own even if overall execution ends up being… less than perfect. I would also classify it more as science fantasy than science fiction, which is fine by me. I’m a fan of both genres. Surprisingly, I’m not too keen on the directing style so far, even though I feel like I had positive feelings about the directing in PD Jin Hyuk’s previous works, like The Legend of the Blue Sea and City Hunter.

First, though, I want to talk about the writing. Specifically, that of our main characters. Character writing is often the most important aspect of a drama for me. If I’m really into the characters, I can forgive a lot about the plot, even in a show as high-concept as this one.

CHARACTERS

The heart of the story is centered around Han Tae-sul (Cho Seung-woo), a geeeeeeeenius engineer and founder of leading tech company Quantum and Time. Tae-sul and his brother, Han Tae-san (Heo Joon-seok), had a rocky relationship after the company’s founding, and Tae-sul’s attitude towards his brother before his death 10 years prior still haunts him to this day. He goes to therapy for this (yay!) and has an addiction to the drugs prescribed to him (interesting!) by his therapist, who is his… ex-girlfriend (booooo!)?

Clues lead him to believe that his brother’s death may not have been as simple as the police ruled, and that he may even be alive. Tae-sul’s burning desire to find out what exactly happened to his brother is what drives our center plot.

I quite like Tae-sul as a character so far. He is by far given the richer story of our two leads in the premiere episodes. He’s yet another arrogant, eccentric genius in dramaland, but Cho Seung-woo (who I loved in Stranger) plays him with such pathos, such vulnerability that I can’t help but like him. Sure, the things he does are ridiculous and unbelievable, as are many of the things in this drama, but I’m willing to suspend my sense of disbelief for a sci-fantasy drama that has the potential to be quite ambitious. Also, his secretary/bodyguard/whatever he is seems to like him, so I think that says something.

The first character we’re introduced to, however, is Seo-hae (Park Shin-hye), and her character is still quite a mystery at this point in the story. I really hope for Park Shin-hye’s sake that she’s given a decent backstory. All we really know about her so far is that she is basically a refugee from… the future? A different dimension? My gut instinct is to say future, but again, we don’t really know, and are only given snippets of information about where she comes from. But basically, she’s a badass, with immense fighting capabilities and the ability to somehow be invisible from soldiers in masks while sitting on top of a train. Oh, and she doesn’t know how to eat a banana.

I find it interesting that Park Shin-hye is really leaning into these action-y, kickass roles lately, starting with Doctors and continuing with films like #Alive and The Call (which I LOVED). It’s a big change from her characters in her older dramas like You’re Beautiful and Flower Boy Next Door, and even more recent ones like Memories of the Alhambra. I’m happy for her, to be honest, although I hope she doesn’t start getting typecast in these roles instead.

As an aside, I’m really hoping we’re not going down the romance path with these two characters, although revelations in episode 2 make me think we are. Sigh. I just think the romance angle is going to make this even cheesier and harder to take seriously, and I don’t envision Cho Seung-woo and Park Shin-hye having great chemistry. But hey, we’ll see.

DIRECTING

I think a director can really make or break a show like this. I mean, they can make or break all shows, but a director with a deft hand is even more important in sci-fi than in most genres. I’ve always been a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy books, but when played out on screen it can seem a bit, well, campy. That’s fine if that’s what the show is going for, but this show wants audiences to take it seriously. There are moments of humor but it’s clear that this show really want to be seen as a quality piece of science fiction. I have my doubts about that actually happening, and I know it’s already lost a lot of people, but a good director can help elevate even some of the worst writing there is.

Sadly, I’m just not really feeling it here. While I praised Han Tae-sul’s character earlier, I felt that was more because of the work Cho Seung-woo did as an actor than anything the director can take credit for. This show is very sleek and cool, but it lacks any sort of warmth that grounds the characters and the world they live in.

Also, I know the Men in Black chasing our heroes are supposed to be scary and imposing but all it did was make me think of this music video, and I just… I can’t take it seriously at all I am so sorry. I think the focus on immigration here and the creation of the “Control Bureau” which is basically ICE has some potential to be interesting, but another recent sci-fi venture, Space Sweepers, also tried to say something about immigration and just… didn’t. So I’m curious to see if Sisyphus actually does anything meaningful with this or any of the other themes it sets up in the first two episodes.

I think another part of the show that makes it hard to really become engrossed and invested is the use of music, which veers way too much on the melodramatic side of things for my taste. I found that scene where Seo-hae is gazing out at the greenness of Seoul (which is hilarious and kind of sad because Seoul is the most urban to ever urban) SO overwrought and overly long. That scene could have been a good 30 seconds shorter, thanks director. We get it. She comes from a world so ravaged by man (oh hey, another Space Sweepers parallel) to the point that she doesn’t even know how to peel fruit. We! Get! It! There were also some really odd music and editing choices in the flash forward to the wedding that made me just SCREECH with laughter at a totally inappropriate time, so fingers crossed the music and editing settle into something a bit more natural and subtle as the show goes on.

As the show stands, I find myself most drawn to the mystery of it all, which is unusual for me because, as I said earlier, I’m all about the characters and the plot is usually secondary for me. But in a show with this kind of premise and build-up, I have lots of questions and I’m hoping to get some satisfying answers out of the show. Where is Seo-hae from? Why did she come here? How many other people like her are making their way over, and how many of them survive the attempt? What exactly happened to Tae-sul’s brother and how is he connected to all of this?

Well, next week brings our characters to Busan to find some answers, and I’m thinking I’ll get a better idea of what this show is and where it’s headed after episodes 3 and 4. I’m not sure if I’ll continue doing reviews each week. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ll be doing that with any of these shows I’ve been reviewing. This whole blogging thing is still a work in progress for me, but I’m sure I’ll have something to say about this show eventually, whether it be next week or next month after it finishes. I’ll definitely be tuning in on Wednesday, so I’ll see you guys in Busan!

Hello, Me! – Ep. 1-2 Review

I always feel a little bit embarrassed for adult actors when they’re just totally outshined and outperformed by kids.

Hello, Me! is just getting started but I’m already dreaming about the future of Lee Re’s career. I wasn’t terribly excited when this drama was announced because I’m not a huge fan of either Choi Kang-hee or Kim Young-kwang, but the minute I found out Lee Re was going to be in it I was sold.

This review will be on the shorter side compared to what I did for River Where the Moon Rises and L.U.C.A.: The Beginning. While I did enjoy it, I simply don’t have as much to say as I did for the other two shows.

I love her freckles, no matter what anyone else says

37-year-old Bahn Ha-ni (Choi Kang-hee) is one of those classic k-drama characters: the down-on-her-luck Candy who’s just scraping by, forced to lower herself in order to keep a job that pays her pennies. The first thing the show does is kick her when she’s already down, just so we can all see how truly pathetic she is. I found this quite distasteful and trite when I first started watching, but once we’re introduced to 17-year-old Bahn Ha-ni (Lee Re), I become much more willing to see where the show will take us. Us so clearly seeing what Ha-ni used to be like in her youth piques my interest in how Ha-ni ended up being such a sad adult.

It makes sense that the shining star of such a premise would be young Ha-ni, who is played by such a sparkling young actress that it’s impossible not to like her. It’s easier to command the screen with such a bubbly character, and Lee Re is so fresh and bright that she lights up the screen whenever she’s on. I don’t envy Choi Kang-hee’s job, trying to make it so that her more grounded adult character doesn’t just kind of fade in the background when paired with her younger self. I don’t think she’s doing a bad job in the role, it’s just that at this point in the story it’s all too easy to write her off as bland and uninteresting. Judging by the direction I think this show is going in, I think this will change, but so far I find her very… meh.

Lee Re has been on my radar ever since seeing her play the firecracker of a sister in Memories of the Alhambra, where she similarly stole the show from Park Shin-hye and even Hyun Bin whenever she graced the screen. She stuck out less to me while playing Kang Han-na’s young counterpart in Start-Up, but I blame that more on writing than anything else. She didn’t really have much to do. Here, though, she’s back in full form, and I adore it. She and her adult counterpart both strike me as a bit dumb, but I find such behavior much easier to excuse in a 17-year-old than a 37-year-old, because OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU LITERALLY THROW OIL ON A FIRE YOU PYROMANIAC?! DID YOU WANT TO PAY FOR ADMISSION TO A BURN UNIT WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE NO MONEY????

Deep breaths… deep breaths… it’s fine… it’s just a drama…

The first episode of the show tried very hard to be funny, but none of the humor landed for me until the second episode when the fish-out-of-water hijinks ensued. I think part of this, besides the lack of Lee Re, is because the character driving most of the comedy was Han Yu-hyeon (Kim Young-kwang). I have to admit, Kim Young-kwang has never done much for me. I don’t think he’s necessarily a bad actor, but something about him just always rubs me the wrong way and I find he overacts too much for my tastes. To put it bluntly, he annoys the crap out of me. This is only heightened in this show, where his role is one of my least favorite archetypes: the clueless, spoiled rich boy.

I’ve had my reservations about these types of characters in the past. Louis in Shopaholic Louis is a perfect example, as is Ra-ra from Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol. Sadly, Kim Young-kwang as Yu-hyeon just as none of the easy warmth and charisma of Seo In-guk or Go Ara in their respective roles… at least, not yet. He, like our heroine, has plenty of room for growth, so I’m willing to see where his story takes us. For the moment, though, his character just turns me off. There’s only so much of “I’ll pay you back later” I can take. Nevertheless, I had similar thoughts at the beginning of Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol with Ra-ra essentially using Jun as her piggybank and ended up really enjoying her character and performance, so I’m willing to be proven wrong!

I feel like my words so far have been a little harsh, but I actually did enjoy the second episode of this premiere. I think it has a lot of potential to be poignant and heartwarming. I think everyone can relate to feeling like a failure and not living up to your own expectations for life. Imagine being confronted with your younger self, all your flaws and failures in life on full display for them to see. It makes the down-on-her-luck poor Candy story much stronger, because it’s not just about her and some guy, but a story about coming to terms with your past and learning to love yourself–literally.

I do find it a bit questionable that someone so full of herself would be so popular, as that kind of near-narcissism is often a turn-off for people, but I hope little Ha-ni’s confidence will remind big Ha-ni of who she used to be, and maybe still is. I look forward to seeing what Choi Kang-hee ends up bringing to the table, and I’m relieved that this premise likely means that the show will avoid doing what so many rom-coms do in making the second half of the show all about the male lead. Despite the inclusion of a love interest, this seems poised to be a very heroine-centric drama, and I’m psyched to tune in again next week!

River Where the Moon Rises – Ep. 1-2 Review

Wow, am I finally getting over my sageuk allergy? I was already looking forward to River Where the Moon Rises despite my aversion to the genre, mostly because of how badass Kim So-hyun looked in the teasers. She’s one of my absolute favorite former child actresses, and I think she has done the best job of transitioning to more adult roles compared to her contemporaries. Her mini-drama Page Turner captured my heard back when it aired, and I was psyched that she was finally reuniting with Ji Soo!

I’ve never had a great relationship with the sageuk genre. In the past I have often found them boring, whether they were fusion or more traditional, and found myself snoozing at all of the palace politics. Thankfully, though, River embeds enough action and heart in its premiere to keep me interested and the episodes flew by. I still have some reservations, but I’m a huge fan of the fantasy genre, and this show manages to exude a sense of magic without having a whiff of actual magic in its premise, and I totally dig it.

River Where the Moon Rises manages to be both epic and humorous in a more traditional manner than the previous sageuk I watched, Mr. Queen, which was more jarring in the way it blended comedy and melodrama. It has just a touch of whimsy that I adore, and the plot elements and character dynamics are chock full of some of my favorite tropes without seeming ridiculous. I mean, a princess-turned-assassin exacting revenge on those who wronged her with the help of a soft fool who may not actually be as dim as he makes people think? Sign me up!

While I am optimistic, it’s rare that a sageuk can hold my attention for 20 episodes, so fingers crossed this one keeps the momentum going and gives me more of everything I love. I would like to point out to sageuk fans that this show is much more fiction than fact, but I think if you take it for what it is–a very loose modern-day take on a famous legend–there’s plenty for both sageuk fans and non-fans to enjoy.

BACKGROUND

Before I discuss the show, I want to contextualize it a bit. As I said above, this show isn’t based on hard historical facts. The legend of On Dal the Fool and Princess Pyeonggang is centered on verifiable historical figures, but the details are generally regarded as fiction. The story goes that Princess Pyeonggang was a tearful child who exasperated her father so much that he threatened to marry her off to On Dal the Fool, a young commoner whose stupidity was so legendary that it even reached the ears of the royal family. When she grew older and her father made plans for her to get married to a nobleman, Pyeonggang resented the marriage and left the palace to actually marry On Dal. While simple, On Dal was also known to be kind-hearted and devoted, and with Pyeonggang’s help eventually became a celebrated general.

River Where the Moon Rises is based on a novel released in 2010 titled Princess Pyeonggang. The author, Choi Sa-kyu, sought to make a story centered on Pyeonggang where, rather than the crybaby princess she was in the original tale, she was instead a woman ahead of her time who commanded an era. Choi had many questions about the legend that he wanted to answer. After all, why on Earth would a member of the royal family in Goguryeo circa-500 AD ever choose to marry so far below her social class? What circumstances would lead to such a thing happening, and what would the outcome of that be? That’s what the novel and this adaptation focus on.

REVIEW

I looked forward to this solely for Kim So-hyun, and she does not disappoint. In the first episode, Kim plays not only Princess Pyeonggang/Yeom Ga Jin, but also her mother. While she does not seem believable to me as the mom of 13-year-old Heo Jung-eun, who plays young Pyeonggang, she does give off an impressive, commanding aura as both the queen and her princess-turned-assassin daughter. Kim So-hyun as an assassin is something I never knew I needed, and my heart stopped multiple times while watching the first episode because OHMYGODSHESSOHOT. Seriously, I got goosebumps watching her in that first assassination scene after the time jump!

From that scene alone, we immediately get a good idea of who Ga Jin is as a character. As badass and capable as she is, she isn’t a monster. She falters when tasked with killing a noble mother and her innocent newborn child, something that helps explain her refusal to kill On Dal once he sees her face despite knowing that she should. Giving us a reason for her actions outside of “Well, he’s the male lead so of course he can’t die” lends credence to a story that could easily seem ridiculous. She may be an assassin, but in her mind only the corrupt, greedy Goguryeo nobles deserve to die. She’s not as ruthless as she seems on the surface.

One other thing that I love about Ga Jin is the vulnerability that Kim So-hyun imbues in her performance. She manages to do it in the littlest ways that do not at all take away from her ferocity. Like I said, I’ve always really enjoyed her as an actress, but this role seems poised to show her growth in a way that we haven’t seen before and I’m so excited to witness it. I’m sure Kim isn’t done with the Love Alarms that will be thrown her way and she should definitely take advantage of her youth at this point in her career, but this drama shows that there’s so much more goodness to come from her in the future.

Ji Soo, on the other hand, has always been a bit of a hit-or-miss actor for me. I found him so endearing as the loveable goof in Page Turner and yet so terribly dull in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon. My expectations for him in this were fairly low, but I take it all back! His casting in this is pitch-perfect! Maybe he should only play the comic to Kim So-hyun’s straight man from now on, because I found all of their scenes together so charming and reminiscent of all the best things about their interactions in Page Turner. Ga Jin is so perplexed by On Dal and his “mother”‘s silly banter and I LOVE IT. I am not afraid to admit that the cold girl falling for the foolish guy who makes her laugh is one of my favorite tropes, and it looks like it will be on full display here–with some tragedy and heartbreak sure to come because, of course, this is a sageuk.

But describing On Dal as simply a fool would be a disservice to the character. On Dal is shown in the beginning of the premiere as a boy who never seems to be able to impress his father (played by the FANTASTIC Kang Ha-neul). His father is relentlessly harsh on the poor kid, eager to make him into a capable fighter like himself. Later on, however, after being imprisoned and facing certain death, the father changes his tune, telling his son to stay safe and live quietly as a fool. The scene is quite moving, in no small part thanks to Kang Ha-neul’s effortless performance.

On a side note, one thing about this premiere that just did not make sense to me was On Dal’s nanny’s decision to blind herself. Is there a historical/cultural reason for this that I’m missing? Because it just did not make sense to me, especially when she tells On Dal that she will be his mother from now on and will have to provide for him. Please, someone, make this make sense to me. Another thing that kind of made me giggle was when On Dal was somehow able to take down a few armed soldiers with nothing more than his bare hands. But, well, this is a legend, I guess. I’ll let you have that one, drama.

Regardless, On Dal and Ga Jin are sure to bond over their shared tragedy once they realize and remember who the other is, and I’m so looking forward to it. Their subtle attraction to each other despite not being aware of their past connection makes sense to me. On Dal is clearly a bit smitten with her after she saves his life, and Ga Jin also seems interested (if a bit reluctant) when he returns the favor. There is so much rich potential in their relationship and I’m really hoping the drama lives up to it. Please don’t let me down, writer! I’m begging you!

While I’m totally down with our main characters and the actors who portray them, I am less pleased with some of our supporting characters, specifically Pyeonggang’s father the king and baddie Go Won Pyo. Both of them overact in that way that so many older supporting actors do in k-dramas, and it just takes me out of the story and makes me laugh when I shouldn’t. They seem so cartoonish and I can’t tell if it’s the writer’s fault or the director’s. I’m hoping the actors tone it down in future episodes, and fingers crossed they end up being more than just caricatures. I’m very rarely satisfied with villains in k-dramas, however, so I’m not exactly holding my breath.

I haven’t seen too many dramas set during the Goguryeo period but judging from this show alone, I think I prefer it over Joseon. The sets and costumes give me a feeling of grandness that I don’t really get from Joseon, but perhaps it’s just because I’m not as used to them. They’re splendid while also seeming somewhat unpolished and alien, which really adds to the more fantastical atmosphere of the show.

But as grand as the sets are, the drama makes some blunders in the visual effects department. There were multiple scenes in episode one that just screamed GREEN SCREEN and it was so distracting, especially considering so much of the rest of the drama is so beautiful to look at. Then there’s that scene where On Dal falls into the water, which was so poorly shot it was almost funny. I also found the fight scenes to be similarly inconsistent. For the most part I really enjoyed them, but I wish there had been more wide shots. The close-ups sometimes seemed a bit messy and staged.

That’s really a very small complaint, though. I enjoyed watching Kim So-hyun absolutely kick ass, and I hope she continues to be so bold and intense. As much as I love the cold woman, soft man trope, I just hope he doesn’t make her too soft. I want to see her grow without becoming helpless. So far the drama has allowed her to save him and then him to save her, and I’m really hoping they get to continue that back-and-forth.

Normally I wouldn’t be very hopeful about the show continuing to balance the main characters well, as so many dramas turn into a man’s story in the end, but the source material for River Where the Moon Rises makes me a bit more confident. The author of Princess Pyeonggang took a legend centered on a man and turned it into a story about a woman, and there’s no reason the writers of the drama can’t stay faithful to that. I have hope.

Space Sweepers – Film Review

Please enjoy Kim Tae-ri in aviators because it’s only downhill from here

As a sci-fi fan, I always get excited when I hear about upcoming genre projects in Korean television and film. I enjoyed Circle when it aired (still holding out hope on a season 2) and will forever mourn the never-made City of Stars, which I don’t think will ever get out of production hell. So when Space Sweepers, Korea’s first space opera, was announced, I was ecstatic!

Sadly, any hopes I had came firmly crashing down as the film’s two hour runtime crawled by. Despite sporting a pretty solid main cast and relatively ambitious visuals, Space Sweepers suffers from lazy characterization, endless exposition, and a script that lacks focus in virtually every area.

You’d think it would be easy for a film with leads as charming as Song Joong-ki and Kim Tae-ri to make you care about the characters. Sadly, even the combined charisma of these two talents can’t make something out of nothing, and that’s what they’re given to work with: nothing. Tae-ho (Song) is a former child soldier turned adoptive dad who loses his daughter and spends years trying to find her. This is a storyline that should easily tug at the heart, but his (and everyone else’s) backstory is revealed in such clunky, poorly placed exposition that it’s hard to feel anything–even during his interactions with Kot-nim, the other child(/android) in this movie.

The most enjoyable moments of the film, however, occur between Kot-nim and our ragtag crew. The actress who plays her is simply adorable, and a scene between her and robot Bubs where she calls Bubs “unnie” and it’s revealed that the male-voiced robot actually wishes to receive skin graft surgery to have the body of a human woman was my favorite part of the film. Sadly, we spend little time with that story thread, and instead are forced to watch and listen as it’s revealed that Tae-ho has a shoehorned past with our caricature of a villain played by…

Wait for it…

Richard Armitage.

Yes the villain of this film is Thorin Oakenshield

James Sullivan (Armitage) pretty much represents every problem I had with this film. 90% of his screentime consists of him monologuing about everything from conservation to capitalism to eugenics and ultimately making no sense at all. It’s through his exposition that we learn almost everything about our main characters and the world they live in. But by the end of the film, I still don’t quite understand what his motive for anything was.

Armitage absolutely chews the scenery here, spewing hilariously corny supervillain lines, and he ends up performing only marginally better than the other foreign actors in the film. I’m used to seeing terrible non-Korean actors in k-dramas, but there’s something especially jarring about seeing them in a big-budget blockbuster like this. You’d think if they bothered to get an actor as big as Armitage for the film they could pick up a few Hollywood D-listers as well, but apparently not. Instead we get the usual cast of international actors who are probably actually just expats looking to make a few bucks and have no other film experience. I swear I saw bathrobe man from I Am Not a Robot for a few seconds. The one good thing here is that most of them are speaking what I’m assuming is their native language instead of being French men not even trying to pretend to be Americans.

Oddly enough, the worst CGI in the film isn’t during the outer space action sequences. In fact, considering the fact that this is not Hollywood and it’s Korea’s first foray into the space opera subgenre, those sequences weren’t that bad. I actually thought some of them were pretty impressive all things considered. The worst was the blatant greenscreen and terrible pale, hazy filter used in Armitage’s eugenics paradise Eden. My eyes hurt during every scene in Eden, and I was relieved to get back to our dirty cyberpunk spaceships.

I actually love dirty cyberpunk spaceships though. That was not a dig at the film at all. The aesthetics were unambitious and unoriginal but totally my style.

Any shot of Kim Tae-ri with a gun or blaster is a good shot

But even with the bad acting, mediocre CGI, and massive infodumps, I think what disappointed me most about the film was about its themes. What did this movie want to be about? They had so many opportunities to do progressive takes on environmentalism, adoption, family, immigration and citizenship, genetics and eugenics, but all of those topics got nothing more than a surface-level feature in this film. There were so many chances for the film to really go somewhere, ANYWHERE, and they failed to take advantage of those opportunities every. Single. Time.

With how many sci-fi shows seem to be in the pipeline in dramaland for this year and next, I hope they can do what Space Sweepers did not and satisfy this sci-fi-loving k-drama fan. Science fiction as a genre is so thematically rich, and the way it deals with what it means to be human is so compatible with the way Korean entertainment deals with what it means to be human. Surely at least one scriptwriter can recognize this and bring us something brilliant, making us forget that this first endeavor into the Korean space opera went so poorly?

I can only hope.

Well, Space Sweepers, at least you gave us super hot Kim Tae-ri in aviators. And, of course, a transgender robot.

Long live Bubs.