deft, realistic love story

How is it possible to tell a true love story in only 4 eps of 30mins ea.? So often BL is limited to this size. Let Ninomiya Takashi show you how: deftly, economically, realistically, beautifully, with two supertalented actors and one hell of a screenwriter. Watch, watch this.

Only one caveat and a stupid one because so much has to be intimated and inferred in such a short piece; I cannot think of any portion of this I would like to excise in order for Itou to truly seek forgiveness at a certain point, but for Nishi's sake I wish I could.

First posted on Viki May 29th 2024

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Espionage done right, a balance of style, grit and gore.

Wonderful show. Espionage done right, a balance of style, grit and gore. Murky office politics, alliances that break and are reformed and just enough of the lone wolf, Nam Koong Min, stubbornly struggling to understand himself and to find the perfect mole. Very nice plays on the genre. Lots of fights. I like them but you may not. My favorite things: 3 fully characterized female colleagues sharing the screen time, none of them all good or all bad. NM, as a stoic muscular handsome beast, both puzzled and pugnacious.
My warning, requires as much intellectual fortitude as much shorter novels or movies but for 12 hours. You Must Take Breaks, or you risk breaking your mind. Eps 13-14 are a prequel set in the 20teens.

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Gong Yoo and Namkoong Min in the same frame, but bellowing all over the place

Total soap opera ca 2006. Good character-driven script, broken and blended family theme with an obsessed incestuous stepbrother/half brother tormenting the FL. 2 surviving families, 5 siblings. The ML, adopted, is without a blood tie.

Reasons to watch: Namkoong Min, Gong Yoo, the streets of Seoul still modest and fresh in '06, a great escapist ocean theme -- deep saturated blues and greens, an aquarium workplace, mostly shot on sunny days in Seoul and partly in Sydney. NKM and GY are in their 20s, fluffy-haired, with widelegged pants draped over the arches of their shoes.

Reason not to watch: Korean male-bellowing to obtain control of a conversation is omnipresent, not confined as now to peripheral characters in dramas, but even between the leads(!), and no one seems to notice. The wrist-grabbing and dragging is pretty awful too.

I have read that My Girl in 2005 was a watershed in the depiction of strong independent FLs. I think that in MG the Hong sisters also reduced the amount of corrosive manipulation by the MLs as well, at least that is what I infer when I watch this show in which the MLs are not so restrained.

The so-called post '05 "stronger" FL still struggles, from 2006 through now in 2024, to find a space in which she can actually have agency and where her efforts are recognized and respected.

So often what a script represents is a space in which what the FL wants to say is completely delegitimized, so much so that she subsides in tearful confusion over and over again, silently. Her only freedom is to say no, or to refuse to make choices which are forced upon her.

In this show and in My Girl the FLs actually speak in a reflective manner, and they freeze only in order to have time to think. How did it become ok for so many heroines after this to suffer silently? or to talk incessantly as a form of avoiding having to speak sincerely?

first posted on viki sept 19th 2024

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a ghost story in a shopping mall -- what's not to like?

The Hong Sisters' 9th script, standard length -- 16 eps at +- 1hr ea.

A good drama from an emotional standpoint if you can hang in there for the first few episodes. A proper Chaebol/CEO story combined with ghosts in a shopping mall (sounds good doesn't it?) and a disheveled psychic who is utterly terrorized by said ghosts. Gong Hyo Jin is creepier than the ghosts to start off with, and the CEO constantly saves her even though he wants nothing to do with her. Do not watch this just after watching The Greatest Love -- this pairing only superficially resembles those fabulous characters.

The script and soundtrack are more powerfully romantically affecting than Gong Hyo Jin's admitted acting skill and the charm of Jo Si Seob (he went onto success as a romantic lead after this). The revelations of their slow and prickly romance are fueled by another of those complicated structures of allusion and jokes which the HS can produce, and which are frustrating to guess at from the subtitles.

A total guess on my part, but most of the subtitles of MSappear to be so literal (i.e.close to the meanings of individual words in Korean) that I think the translators decided to try to give a taste of the verbal humor and play in that way, throwing caution and pronouns to the winds.

Physical touch/sexual attraction and the psychic invisible phenomena are the concepts which are constantly played with (the two words are"sound-alikes" in Korean, hehe). The pair discusses invisibility as part of selfishness -- she was so needy she couldn't "see" him...he is stuck in a mirroring past experience and couldnt see her real self.

The title Masters Sun and her name Tae (means sun) refer to another set of metaphors -- she is a shining light (sun) to ghosts in their world, so they flock to her like moths, but in the outer world she fears she is a darker light.

This attraction of total opposites is compared to a children's fable or book about a wolf and a goat. It sounds like when in Aesop the lamb tries to escape through fancy talk but the wolf cuts in with realpolitick and eats her/him, enough so that the viewer is quite worried about how it will all end.

ps. The CEO calls Seo inguk charater "Candy Kang" with great relish. It looks like a loosely attached Korean POV reference to Seo In Guk's rap stylistics at the beginning of his career. I cant read whether the HS wanted to characterize the CEO as sophisticated (or ignorant as it would be from a US POV). It may just have made cinematic sense to joke around about a truly terrifying young male black ghost trope common in a certain subgenre of hiphop, an image derived from a film/novel of the 80s/90s (look at yourself in the mirror and call the CANDYMAN 5x and he will appear!

first posted on Viki Sept. 23rd 2024

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imaginary history but still tugs at yr heartstrings

I cried tears of happiness at the ending -- one through-line from pansori to kdrama! The drums, some poetry, flashbacks, magical events, a family reunites and right on cue, we weep!

A great watch, imaginary history of course with a nice back-and-forth between the "invention" of the second great pansori tale, the Simcheongga, which involves a dragon-king under the sea and a noble self-sacrificing maiden with a blind father, and the plot of this movie, involving a blind daughter, a mother kidnapped to be used as slave labor and a poet-singer father. Not to mention a gosu drummer, a very shabby monk, an aristocrat in disguise as a drunk and many good pansori village audiences. Eolsigu! (yippee!) Jalhanda! (well done!)

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lyrical but a little confusing

On the south coast of Taiwan, Kenting's beaches are remarkably beautiful in this short and evocative film, so for those who love visuals the most of all, this will please. It is a romantic and sad love story (BL) although the two struggle with unequal levels of perception and understanding of their feelings, and it is a road movie although the real action happens via letters and books. The actors are excellent, it is not complicated action-wise and has a small vividly drawn cast of characters. Nevertheless those who lean more towards the judgemental and analytical may want to give it a miss. I was happy to be awash in perceptual bliss yet I really couldnt tell you what actually happened (and I probably dont care). A suicidal Hong Kong writer struggles with unjustified accusations of plagiarism and hies off to Taiwan to seek an imaginary beach described by a child he once exchanged letters with via two paired red wooden letterboxes, which are about the size of birdhouses. The most helpful thing I can say is that it is not uncommon in those who live a life based on the imagination to struggle with confusions between desires, reality and memory.

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Kele Sun, and is it cdrama or kdrama

Fluff. Utter fluff, but addicting Cdrama fluff. You wont be able to stop watching Kele/Sun Ze Yuan. A 10star for the pleasure of watching him, altho this drama is about a 8/9 w/o him. Ke Le has that camera charisma which cannot be learned and when onscreen for 16 hours is so charming you cant get it out of yr head.

24 eps at 40 mins ea. New Cdrama structure? A good one for a lighter work. Possibly an innovation but for which audience? Internal, over seas chinese speakers, or the international one? this is a review I'll take down in a few months, a long one, more abt the genre than the show.

Standard idol drama -- young petty romance actor inexperienced in love (for good reason, who would want this guy) accidentally cohabits with smart pretty woman-- ooh it must be cdrama, she is the smart one of the pair and from a good family that's not even a chaebol -- but oh its kdrama formula, she has psychological problems.

The secondary characters are fun and goodlooking, but somewhat sterotyped. However the entertainment industry frame is always so pleasant: the managers, the investors, the rival actors who will stop at nothing to destroy each other, the problems of the internet age and fame, it's all good.

I enjoy a modern Cdrama for five reasons -- literary skills are desirable and respectable in characterization, there is more skinship in romances, modern financial fictional circumstances, less predictability than a stylized kdrama, and overall it is a nice break from the same.

This one is predictable, and there are better versions out there with a similiar plot. Yet I adored this to the end. Confession time -- I am a kdrama fan, totally used to formulaic work, who enjoys over-the-top weirdness, surrealistic framing and absurd moments...so for me this was mild fare; a little too much in the middle between a K and a Cdrama. Too silly for a cdrama, too rational for a kdrama. But let not sentimentality hold us back, right now creators are working like crazy for international recipes and lets celebrate what we get on the way!

Don't tell me national economics don't persist despite the iron hand of the expected fictional romedy structure. Or at least the fictions about economic opportunity held dear nationally and/or creatively.

In SK the absolute financial inequality which is always an important plot element is exaggerated for drama but true enough if you take sociological factors into consideration and the lack of a proper social safety net.

In C the hopeful fiction of relative equality of economic opportunity (if you are smart enough and get good grades) always makes for a refreshing change but lacks the crazy cinderella element of kdrama. The C-audience's expectations are blended with the censors' so very difficult to tease out.

Ke Le/Sun Ze Yuan has a very confusing listing on different sites -- as far as I can tell the actor/singer is born 11.96, not 5.94. so not a secret athlete or scientist!

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famous cult show, Hong sisters' 5th

Recommended for sheer joy. 2009, 16 eps at 1hr ea. The Hong sisters 5th show, not a big hit on local tv, blew up in popularity on contemporaneous Japanese tv and thereafter online. It is has been a cult show for years. Smooth as silk kdrama, laughter and tears regularly provided. Essentially a teen love story about a teen band, mostly situated in their "dorm", an utter pop 60's fantasy piece of architecture, but all organic curves (what is this building??).

First hook-- a separated-twin story and a twin-masquerade story (in the West, 12th Night and The Menaechmi likewise floated to the frothy top of their respective cultural scenes).)

The opening scenes have a mediterranean feel, is it the "technicoloring", the nun costumes , the naked marble statues or the scooter jokes? Thereafter the show is about the emotional interactions of a small cast. So deceptively simple.

Second hook -- missing parents and other relatives provide the nec. structural mystery, and they and the antagonists swoop in and out of the 2 main sets as if they are making stage entrances.

In an HS script, look for what the HS do better, those places where their absolute bravura breaks through; not essentially in original plots or characters , but in how well they do them.

1. In this production, the use of what is essentially a chorus in ancient classical comedy/tragedy is wonderful. The fangirls who camp outside the company (afterschool?) wail and beat their breasts astoundingly and comment upon the action in silly ways. In the countryside visit the three old women are incredible, not only does their performance have perfect comic rhythm, but HS weaves in references to trot singers and specialized tv shows where the other half of Korea gets its impressions of entertainment. A quick meta to the history of music in SK, in an idol drama!!!

2. The recognition-of-the-lovers section comes a little later than expected, but when it does the carefully built-up system of metaphors and puns explodes as the characters deploy them in the service of conversations practically in code. The light of the "star" (and awfully, the moon as reflector of it/the sun) versus the light of the sun which blots out the recognition of others, darkness and light, hiding and paying attention, seeing and not seeing, showing and not showing. The ML has night-blindness, oh yes he does. The pleasure of the final tensions being resolved in poetic language is so intensely the HS' territory.

it is not useful to trace influence in a hectic renaissance time like this one where dramas run only for 2 months, performers and writers work for cheap for companies which have state monies to spend, and where many of the behind the scenes creatives have one of the excellent university degrees in theatre and film available in SK. The consequence of the hurly-burly is that any successful show is instantly imitated piecemeal by competitors looking for that secret sauce. Only those on the scene have any memories of what went into that creative process.

You're Beautiful is a show on par with Hwayugi in characters who are almost instantly recognizable after just the 1st episode. I loved Lee Hong Ki there as the unforgettable PK (and Lee se Young as his zombie friend Richie!) and I love him here as Jeremy, a character who reflects a prototype love-is-love theme. Jang Geun Suk rises from the ashes of HGD as a Heathcliff-ian ML. Yonghwa of the band cnblue is the 2ml in semi-love triangle!

Park Shin Hye is one of those heroic kdrama actresses who started working at the age of 13 and is still going strong 33 dramas later. Although her trippy little dove-of-christ characterization made my teeth grind, I can believe that that sort of naivete existed somewhere before my own era--nowadays most nuns and novitiates after Vatican II are amazingly truehearted, practical and energetic persons. And of course, PSH's performance is a perfect, absolutely perfect, foil to the comedy (the term 'straight man' in reference to comic pairs is now unusable or I would use it).

Here is a question, are the Hong sisters basically insanely lucky in casting and directors so that their intelligent, flippant and tightly constructed scripts are thus given that HS stratospheric oomph?

first posted aug 12th, 2024 on Viki

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Combo hero-coming-of-age, wuxia, espionage and imperial intrigue.

Good watch. Prob'ly shot in 2018/9, 46 episodes -- only Part One of story! Combo hero-coming-of-age, wuxia, espionage and imperial intrigue. Many truly talented actors as supporting characters creates central focus on balancing nodes of power. The hero Zhang Ruo Yun/Fan Xian has excellent very masculine charisma and utter fidelity to his beloved.

A giant spy agency operating in the bowels of brutalist concrete architecture is balanced by the brilliant Chen Dao Ming as Dad the emperor puttering around with archery in slouchy white robes in his man-cave study, controlling his fractious family and state from afar. Fan Xian's story ties together this portion like the red string of fate.

Out of the city next, the fights get better (to my ignorant eye?) and the hero matures, fighting off various ladies' romantic overtures, and physical dangers, with aplomb, acting as ambassador to a northern country. Lots of cool 9th level masters and very dangerous enemies, and Fan Xian's faction starts to take shape.

To me the feminine rulers he grapples with in a northern enemy country seem like a cynical nod to then-fashion by the author or director (I am watching this during pride month which makes it feel particularly insulting) -- the northern emperor, obviously a woman, unacknowleged by plot (weird), is sismancing a great female martial artist, and then later suddenly one of the more politically ambiguous characters back home develops a bromancy henchman.

first posted July 2024 on Viki

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Big budget, lushly scored, epic romance all 10star.

17 episodes at 1 hr each puts this in classic weekend kdrama territory. Big budget, lushly scored, epic romance all 10star. The script is at least a 12. Unique use of the reincarnation theme. Normally Re-I is played for laughs or to solve a mystery. Here it is used as a frame for healing trauma -- the romantic tragic deaths of a pair of lovers from opposing families scars their communities, families and their hastily reincarnated selves who must work thru negative and positive attachment in order to live freely in their new present reincarnations. Great stuff. I count three amazing uses of this trope... 1. Inter-generational sorrow.. The original lovers (In and Korn: IK) suffered in the homophobic 90's and in the 21st C their reincarnations (Pharm and Dean: PD) in a BL friendly Bangkok struggle to believe in the utopian tolerance surrounding them. Y'all know what I mean, for ex. in the US weeping at gay weddings bec past fears rise in the throat. 2. IK vowed to find each other after death, so PD falls in love but they each live a life plagued with disturbing flashbacks and dreams. We learn more about IK as these increase in frequency, punctuating the narrative of the present love story with the unfolding of the original one. The astounding result is that IK and PD slowly become more distinct from each other, not less. PD cannot trust until they work thru the pain of the IK life, and this also works to support some of the ways in which Pharm, whose IK-suffering was extreme, needs to move slowly in love. 3. the families of IK were riven by the their deaths; PD reincarnated back into each others' families but we do not realize how damaged the families actually were until PD begins to reach out to introduce their loves..missing family members, changed names...so Re-I supports the reintegration motif usual at the end of longer dramas.
first posted on Viki spring 2024

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heart-poundingly wonderful sequel,

Rather than do 2 reviews this is about part 1 and 2. There is also a directors cut movie which I havent watched.

Leaves a powerful impact in your heart. The painful and stubborn refusal of one of these true lovers to move beyond a performative servility deprives the *beautiful man* of the love and acceptance he needs. Their constant quarreling overlays a stop-and-start rhythm of personal growth which (oh glorious dorama) results in harmonious equality. Pure beauty. The domestic aesthetic is very japanese. 6 eps of 25mins ea.

Much of what is intimated in MBM 1 is articulated here. Quarreling and weeping, these two men discover a rough outline of what their life together will be; Hira begins to move forward towards a career and Kiyoi begins to be more patient with him. This is a heart-poundingly wonderful sequel, possibly even better than the first 6 episodes. Other reviewers have given such perceptive remarks -- thanks, I feel a little overwhelmed -- I need a couple of rewatches before I can calm down!4 eps at 25 mins ea. A total of about 4 hrs betwen MBM 1 & 2

first posted on Viki March 2024

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very literary depiction of powerful trust and desire

Cinematic gem. Jdrama BL. I love this show beyond reason. A tight focus on the interactions of two characters, like a stage play rather than a drama, but with sex as part of the character arc. Total concentration on a domestic relationship partially closeted in a real world setting -- subtle and super interesting . Great, great directing by the three women who also wrote the script. A good and very literary depiction of powerful trust and desire.
The classic "unreliable narrator" is the hook which draws us into the story, rooting for Yoh and fearing that he is being abused, a feeling which slowly slips away as we realize this long relationship is actually going through a quiet adjustment matching each other's needs as they change.
Non-verbal communication is important in this story. I advise taking the subtitles loosely as a key to meaning and to depend more on other meaning clues: body language, facial expressions and delivery, the cinematic frame of the dialogue's dramatic rhythmn, and the visual clues of the camera for emotion, especially color and light. 8eps at 25 mins ea.

first posted on Viki Dec 21st 2023

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This first kiss is both wonderful and hilarious

Thank you to Director Lim Hyun Hee and to Writer Lee Shin Won for this lovely, funny show. !Fighting!

My reactions: (E1-2) I am so happy! Laughing like a nutcase. This looks like it is going to be good. (E3-4) Great, great first kiss. Completely bananas long-haired lover! Nam Shi An bias. Main romance gets sunny cool house scenes, heart-wrenching-already second romance gets yellow streetlight in darkened backstreets. (E5-6) (holding myself back from spoilers) A lesbian bestie, smiles, tears, a seriously heart-fluttering hug and a heartbreaking embrace. Oh that ominous fitbit. (E7-8) Ouch, very very PG. Sweet as honey.

Some commentators seem puzzled -- I think because the show at the very last minute loses its surreal edge and comes down to earth (a very nice earth) with a tiny thud. I still go with 10stars for quality, cinematic intelligence, art, and for Nam Si An ripping up any official documents within reach (adorably).

This is standard kdrama sequence in mini-mini form (8 eps at 30 mins ea.), all the best bits condensed. Several annoying loose ends/teasers for poss. sequel. Confession as the main issue, and its relation to personal growth.

If immature behavior is a topic I will grab the chance to say that I think the young guy/young girl/cute kid/charley-chaplin comedy characters work in Jungian terms, igniting psychological needs or functions in us, the spectators. In this comedy the childish terrors of our doll-like protagonist Jin Woo make us laugh as he ineffectually tries to stop the no-boundaries Id-representing Gi Seop from entering his house. [As Jade hinted] in BL these men will blossom quickly into true lovers, like flowers in a desert spring. They enable us to remember/compare/hope for our own spring and gain emotional strength.

Maybe that R rating is because there is a lesbian character. Ooh so scary.

first posted on viki april 30th 2024

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magisterial, upsettong and complex

Auspiciously suspicious beginnings. One shot -- a line of stewardesses wends its way into the terminal, crossing the drop off lane, timed to synchronize with the taxi pulling up, in which the journalist who will bear witness is arriving. Like a fish on a line. Perfect opening credits follow sometime afterwards.

Wow. Magisterial, upsetting and complex. The script, acting and direction act as one gripping whole -- I cannot say much more (my rule, no spoilers). Against my will I ended up in love with Fei Ke, totally seduced by the sensitive curve of Jing Bo Ran's upper lip; inexorably I was forced to look at each character from at least two different points of view. This is a mystery/crime thriller, so perhaps I can say that we are also forced to confront whether or not truth and legal consequences compensate a viewer for what feels more real -- several human tragedies.

I would like to say that I loved the way Viki dropped one episode per day for 10 days -- a super experience -- just enough time to digest the previous episode and wonder what was going to happen next.

first posted on viki june 3rd 2024

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