I did a zippy rewatch of Our Blooming Youth to date, looking for indicators of when Jae-yi falls for Hwan and how she shows it. To my surprise, what I saw instead was: Myung-jin knows everything about everyone, and has all along.
I haven’t done the rewatch yet but I’d been thinking something along the lines of this from when he didn’t Jae-yi in disguise off the bat. For someone with such keen observation, enough to work out that it was Jae-yi solving mysteries and not her brother, how on earth is he supposedly so oblivious to what is going on in front of him?! It just doesn’t seem in character!
Night of Love with You: Candy, is that you? You look different somehow!
“My parents died, I owe millions of yuan, I was forced to drop out of school, I have heart disease, and I have to support my younger brother’s schooling.”
I quite liked Night of Love with you and was glad that it was a short drama because it avoided all unnecessary stuff. With cdramas you really need to experiment. There are tonnes of good dramas there but since so many dramas are made there are not so great ones too.
I put a chair, a cup of tea, and my laptop into a corner of my kitchen. Then I mopped myself into the corner. For the next 15 minutes, there’s nothing but the peace and enforced relaxation of watching the floor dry.
I’m heading to H-Mart for some Korean cooking supplies and for a split second, as I was making my shopping list, I thought “Oh, I should ask the Beanies if they want me to pick up anything for them while I’m there!” 😄
😂😂😂 Hunger frequently overcomes politeness for me! Sadly they were out of original Melona again but they still had other flavors. And all the different Bibigo frozen dumplings always make me think happily of A Business Proposal.
I ate my last one yesterday too! Sometimes the Asian store has them and sometimes they don’t. But I picked up a large gochujang, the kind ai really like. And lovely fresh snow peas. Wish we could all ahare!
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow: I’m probably going to have a lot more to say tomorrow but a couple of the magical gimmicks CGI’d into the last two episodes were so lightweight they reminded me of this:
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow: It’s super annoying how many spoilers and hints for the finale are in the latest flurry of behind-the-scenes stills and the long prerelease video for ep. 10:
The stills of everyone except Go Yoon-jung holding their final scripts, the funereal photos of the senior couple, and especially the prerelease, which is literally all sunshine and flowers. I know tvN is likely trolling us to some extent, but everything points to a non-happy ending, whether tragic or merely bittersweet, and why can’t they just roll on and carry the viewers along with it without all these hints? After that kind of setup it would be an amazing twist if the show DID have a happy ending and I don’t believe the Hong Sisters would be able to resist the well-trodden path of building everything up in the first part of the episode for triumph and glory and then making tragedy and separation for the protagonists the price of victory.
Oh yeah, here’s my final scenes prediction: With CY’s consent, Wook voluntarily gives up the ice stone and it falls into Lake Gyeongcheondaeho to end the drought and restore balance to the world. He and CY, gazing into each others’ eyes, dissolve into magic dust and are blown in a swirl of sparks up to the heavens, where Wook is transformed into the real King’s Star and CY falls like snow. Master Lee has another storytelling session with the kids on the lakeshore in which he points out the King’s Star shining down on the snow in Daeho, alludes to their sad tale of heroic sacrifice and eternal love, and hints that someday the star and the snow will be together on earth again. Blah.
I’m choosing to think that them not posting Go Yoon-jung holding their final scripts is because she was dressed as assassin Naksu. They are keeping it as a surprise for us. #PLEASELETTHISBETRUE
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow episode 7 just made it under the wire for 2022 Kiss of the Year. Holy smokes. And LJW’s slightly open eyes 👀 – this man knows exactly what he’s doing.
Because of this extended sizzling kiss, I temporarily forgave show for messing up with the storytelling (shallow me I know but who wouldn’t after such crazy kissing footage 🤪). Now they just need to give these two a happy ending please 😬
I actually thought they were gonna go there and yanno have sexy times. Literally thought they’d make a baby so Naksu/Bu-Yeon wouldn’t have to go back to Jinyowon!
I haven’t finished watching ep 8 yet ,so avoiding spoilers but yeah THAT KISS!
2022 Roundup
31 – Freestyle – Happy First Dramaversary to Me.
My Netflix history says I watched episode 1 of some new-to-me thing called “Crash Landing On You” on December 24, 2021. Since then I’ve completed 63 kdramas, dropped 15, and am currently watching 6 more. I accumulated 19 beans to plant in the new year (posters of my 2022 shows below). I’ve watched a handful of Korean movies and Japanese and Chinese shows, too. Finding Dramabeans in February enormously increased both my watching hours and my appreciation. I’ve read thousands of recaps and comments here, written over 1,000 comments and posts, and spent hundreds of enjoyable hours on YouTube and down other online rabbit holes in pursuit of this obsession.
I appreciate the beanies who have been my guides and companions on this crazy voyage into the dramaverse. If the Later Pandemic Era had any high point, it’s you guys. See you (and lots of dramas) in 2023! 💜💜💜
Wow, you’ve only been watching kdramas for a year? What a learning curve. I’m sure we’ll continue enjoying your insights on the recaps and fanwall! Congrats!
Congratulations! since the beginning you have sounded like an old k-drama hand with all your brilliant comments, so lucky for us that you found this new obsession ahem, hobby 😉
Kdrama Life List LOL – as of 23 January 2023. Two ongoing shows not included. Completed:
1. A Piece of Your Mind
2. Alchemy of Souls
3. Are You Human Too?
4. The Beauty Inside
5. Because This Life Is Our First
6. Beyond Evil
7. Blue Birthday (short)
8. Bottom of the 9th with 2 Outs aka 9 End 2 Outs
9. The Boy Next Door (short)
10. Business Proposal
11. Chief Kim
12. Crash Landing on You
13. Dal-ja’s Spring
14. Extraordinary You
15. The Fabulous
16. Fanletter, Please
17. Fated to Love You (2014)
18. The Forbidden Marriage
19. Gaus Electronics
20. Glitch
21. Goblin
22. Good Job
23. The Great Shaman Ga Doo-shim
24. Healer
25. Hometown Cha-cha-cha
26. I’ll Go to You When the Weather Is Fine
27. It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
28. Just Between Lovers/Rain or Shine
29. KBS drama specials (short)
30. Kiss Goblin (web short)
31. Kiss Sixth Sense
32. Link: Eat, Love, Kill
33. Love In Contract
34. Love Is for Suckers
35. Lovestruck in the City
36. Master’s Sun
37. May I Help You?
38. My Liberation Notes
39. My Love from the Star
40. Night Light
41. One Dollar Lawyer
42. 1% of Something (2016)
43. One Spring Night
44. One Sunny Day (short)
45. Our Beloved Summer
46. Page Turner (short)
47. Romance Is a Bonus Book
48. Search Query: WWW
49. Secret Garden
50. She Would Never Know aka Sunbae … Lipstick
51. Sh**ting Stars
52. The Sound of Magic (short)
53. Soundtrack #1 (short)
54. Splash Splash Love (short)
55. Suspicious Partner
56. Thirty But Seventeen
57. Tomorrow
58. To My Beautiful Woori (web short)
59. Tracer
60. Unlock The Boss
61. W – Two Worlds
62. Wednesday 3:30 PM
63. What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim
64. While You Were Sleeping
65. Wok of Love aka Greasy Melo
66. You Are My Spring
67. You Drive Me Crazy (short) Dropped or dipped into only a few episodes:
68. Absolute Boyfriend
69. Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol
70. Encounter aka Boyfriend
71. Eun-joo’s Room
72. Ho-gu’s Love aka Fool’s Love
73. The Liar and his Lover
74. Man to Man
75. Move to Heaven
76. My Secret Romance
77. Nevertheless
78. Something in the Rain
79. Summer Strike
80. Touch Your Heart aka Reach of Sincerity
81. Woori the Virgin
82. Would You Like a Cup of Coffee
I was inconsistent about whether I counted the little web shorts I watched here and there, and I didn’t count as ‘dropped’ a few shows where I watched less than one full episode.
Nice!!!!! I think I only watched 18 dramas in my first year of watching, but I also hadn’t made the jump to like, solely or almost solely Asian Ent at that point (2015). I also didn’t start live watching till late 2016!
I am SO curious as to what you think of several of these, but let me know if I’m being annoying or this conversation is too one sided, and you want to ask ME annoying questions HAHAHA
Okay.
I have only seen about 46 of these, including the ones I dropped/hiatused.
And only 2 or 3 of the remaining 36 am I actually likely to ever get round to watching/will remain on my watchlist.
And you have such a broad selection! Yet for all of that, only 4 of these are in my top dramas: Healer, JBL, 30b17, and You Are My Spring, and only 2 in my top 10- (although the bottom half of my top 10 is rather flexible lol) Healer and 30but17!
(Page Turner and SSL used to be, they’re a bit lower down now, but I still enjoye/d them a lot, and My Love From The Stars is a Perpetual Honourable Mention, uncategorisable, because it’s the only drama I’ve EVER cried in. Yes. I know. LOL.)
So. The dramas I would love hear your thoughts on, don’t care what kind of thoughts either, since most of these I have my Trademark Controversial Opinion on anyway, are:
A Piece of Your Mind
Extraordinary You
Sunbae Don’t Put on Your Lipstick
I Will Go To You When the Weather is Nice
Tomorrow
Move to Heaven
Chief Kim
and Goblin
I haven’t actually seen the latter three, and likely never will, although MTH is still a MAYBE, but they were all big so I’m just curious anyway.
And take your time! I’m used to it, and don’t like being on here for long periods atm anyway~~~
Thank you for indulging me, lmao.
Ahem. The below is off the top of my head and in some cases it’s been months since I watched the show in question. Extraordinary You
[Pretending I’m not aware of your opinion of Rowoon. 😈 ]
Cosmos: I think this show attempts A LOT and it doesn’t succeed at everything, including crucially the mechanics of its manwha-based world or a consistent through-line on what determines the fate/allows defiance-of-fate of its characters, but what it does do is fascinating and gorgeous. Predestination vs. self-determination? Authorial direction vs. autonomous evolution of characters? Bring it on! Explore it at length, with charismatic kids and dazzling visual effects and think-piece dialogue. And then frustrate me by not being able, within the bounds of conventional kdrama, to resolve a dozen interesting questions. The poorly-CGI’d intercosmic portal between the manwha and real(?) worlds is representative of this show’s ambitions and ultimate inability to deliver. In the meantime, there is SO MUCH to look at and think about. It probably helped me a lot (and was kind of cheating) that I had the DB and Bitches Over Dramas (I know, I know) discussions while I was watching, but those also likely biased my assessment.
Goddamn, this just skyrocketed into my top five for sheer thought-provokingness. 😅
Cast: LJW’s can’t-look-away performance as an asshole struggling to grasp that he’s just written that way is the second-best part of the show for me. I kept expecting to be annoyed by Kim Hye-yoon’s bounciness, and then her purity and joie de vivre and sheer grit won my cynical heart. Controversial opinion: Rowoon’s beauty and his very ~blankness~ serves his manwha-come-to-life character well, and one of the pleasures of the show for me is watching his pretty face closely for the moments when the character becomes self-aware: the unobtrusive glimmer of attention he suddenly shows, a hint in his body language that his stillness is intentional and not merely unconscious. Does he do that perfectly? No, but well enough. All of the actors except Kim Hye-yoon were babies anyway. This show does not add up to the sum of its parts but the parts are so freaking fascinating that for me it makes it worth the watch anyway. (W but in high school, I see you.) And this from someone deeply averse to high school stories.
Color: I loved the tone shift from on-stage to off-stage. Did I mention that it’s abso-fucking-lutely GORGEOUS? I’m no artist, but I am a craftswoman and this pushes every aesthetic button I have. The flowers and the manwha scenes are like tapestries. The English, French, and Korean book titles on the library shelves made me spend so much time on pause, greedily sucking up words and the stories behind the spines. The sunlight through stained-glass windows is the light I have tried to capture in photos or sketches in every dim Romanesque chapel ever.
EY cont’d
I found the ending appropriately uncertain but also very unsatisfying. They’re only together until the next time the writer notices them or ends the story? There really is no way to break free of the manwha? Then tell me why you bother to try! Explore that!
This show makes me struggle more with Concept vs. Execution than any other, and you’ll have figured out by now that you and I are Not The Same on how much weight we give to each. I gloss over the draggy repetitive mid-episode plottiness and the inadequately explored trope-poking by secondary characters because I am entranced by everything this is and wanted to be.
Sunbae Don’t Put on Your Lipstick
I wanted to smack everyone by the end. Kindly refer to my Rant: On Kissing.
And to my mini-rant on centering a drama on Perfect Boyfriend. I gave this a B at the time, but in hindsight it’s sunk to C at best because no doubt there are many much worse dramas but I avoided those, unlike this mush. Also, viewer is clearly supposed to like side couple (sister and director), but I find them annoying as fuck. Also, I am VERY TIRED of rich people. This (and drunk scenes) may be my insurmountable problem in kdramas.
I Will Go To You When the Weather is Nice
I kept wondering:
Did Philip Larkin write this drama? (They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.)
Do people in SK really go to jail for each other?
I’ve said this elsewhere but:
(a) I watched Are You Human Too? and this show in close succession and it’s easy to distinguish when Seo Kang-joon is a robot and when he is a Real Boy because the robot smiles more.
(b) I dislike PMY’s character and that sours a lot of the drama for me. I’m kinda done with her.
(c) LJW is so freaking adorkable no matter what he does. Everyone in this drama should have just been scuttling ahead of him strewing flowers in his path.
(d) Despite my dissatisfaction, this show lands some of its themes better than 90% of the dramas I saw in My Year One of Dramas Ever, vis.: flawed people are flawed, but can learn to cope and to help each other. Snow is not as romantic as it looks. Bookstores are the beating heart of the community. Take your pharmacist’s advice. (Missing in this list: LOVE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THERAPY, but I may die of superannuation before a kdrama admits that.)
Tomorrow
I seriously just watched for the pretty and the scenery-chewing and it delivered on those counts. Nearly complete suspension of judgement was required and it had several moments that unsuspended my suspension. I have no expectations about dramas handling mental health, suicide, or any related issue well and it’s no worse than many on that count. Some storylines I found truly moving, some were dumb, and then there was the military/nationalistic propaganda to which I as a wartime military brat am immune, so my reaction to that was eye-rolls, not tears. I colored my hair pink after I watched. There’s a deep bucket of dramas that I enjoyed while they were running, am not sorry I watched, and will never revisit (except maybe for pink hair). This is in that bucket. You’d probably hate it. Move to Heaven
I can’t deliver much of an opinion because I only watched the episodes with LJW and there aren’t many since he is a doomed character who spends most of his scenes in a coma, embodying a psychic wound for the protagonist. I hate boxing with a passion (I used to love watching it when I was young and then realized it is the only major traditional sport where the object is to injure your opponent, and that was it for me). LJW is heartbreaking in the bits where he’s alive/conscious; I don’t even remember the other actors/characters. I can’t disentangle the hateful, horrible illicit boxing matches from the drama itself. Wow, that was a lot of words for a drama on which I have no opinion.
A Piece of Your Mind: more later, possibly. Chief Kim and Goblin: THOUGHTS. More later.
Sunbae mini-rant (copied):
I binged She Would Never Know this week, too, and found it … meh. It started better than I expected and the tension with the two-timing boss felt pretty real, but once the OTP romance really got going and Rowoon turned into an improbably perfect boyfriend, it started to go flat. The business with the FL trying to woo the ML near the end was childish and cringey. I’ve already ranted on my fanwall about the kissing – although admittedly the last kiss showed improvement. Overall: B.
And now it’s my turn to take several days to reply! haha
And I wont be able to respond to everything but I enjoyed reading your thoughts anyway.
So what you’re telling me is that you went and watched everything with Lee Jae Wook in it because of Lee Jae Wook… *teehee*
However, you missed Memories of the Alhambra, s o tsk tsk, not good enough 😂😂 Jk jk.
Although now I want to see you watch MOA. Partly because I want to see what you’d think of it since it’s by the same writer as W: Two Worlds, and partly so you can read my shitposts (the OG of all shitposts) alongside watching it so I can get a live time reaction to both because that would be hilarious.
“[Pretending I’m not aware of your opinion of Rowoon. 😈 ]” Hey I didn’t watnt to punch him back then, remember… 🤭🤭
I think your comment about Concept v Execution is interesting. If you stalked the recaps then you probably happened upon my comment on this show early on about satire, and becoming the thing it satirizes. Not sure if you remember that.
Execution IS very important for me, you are right 😂 because I just can’t sink my teeth into a concept that is delivered badly! (On the other hand, my issues with EY surpass execution alone heh)
Sunbae- I wanted to smack everyone in it too. But for the entire ride and not just by the end lmao
2022 Roundup
30 – Freestyle – Best Fuzzy Purple Sweater:
I’ve already documented my love for Kim Young-dae’s and Lee Jung-shin’s matching sweaters in Sh**ting Stars, so I’ll have to give the award to another sweater: the one worn by Yoon Jong-hoon in ep. 5. A person could fall headlong into that sweater and never get out. Runner-up: Choi Woo-shik’s in Our Beloved Summer ep. 10. Fuzzy sweaters are among my favorite things in kdramas (although not in real life), and those two shows had many of the best of the year.
Purple 💜 was the 2022 color in kdramas, and I wish I had time to do an extended pictorial of all the ways it brought me joy. Maybe I’ll get around to it in 2023.
2022 Roundup
28 – Freestyle – Most Original Use of the Color Green: the empty soju bottle collection in Mr. Gu’s room, emitting its unearthly glow/batsignal in My Liberation Notes ep. 6.
2022 Roundup
27 – Freestyle – The moment I should have dropped this drama – but in a good way. Business Proposal: at ep. 11, with the bedroom scene. No suddenly out-of-character grandpa, no timeskip, no BS, just the Happy Ever After we were promised all along. Kiss Sixth Sense: at the end of ep. 10. There were some loose ends, but enough of the OTP connection and other plot threads were visible that it was easy to fill in the blanks, and we’d already seen all of the delicious, HOT namesake kisses that mattered. An episode 9 epilogue with a 2-minute exposition of the childhood connection would have been enough. Love Is for Suckers: at 12 (or sooner). Many torsos had been displayed, our OTP had finally gotten together, and we wouldn’t have had to suffer through the FL’s blank faces and weird squirming in the bedsheets while the ML cooked breakfast. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have seen the best of John and Ji-wan, the true OTP/secondary couple of the year, so (in the absence of space lasers) I still have mixed feelings about when to end. Love in Contract: when Sang-eun and Gwang-nam got married. She’d have had the next 15 episodes to learn to appreciate him and he’d never have known that Madam Yoo even existed, let alone made him buy special tomatoes. Win-win.
Each of those dramas felt like they’d wrapped up the main story at those points and it was easy to guess what would happen in the remaining plotlines; if I’d stopped watching then, I’d have gotten almost all of the fun out of them while avoiding the majority of the letdown, and that would have left me feeling like I’d seen a better drama.
Counterpoint – Our Beloved Summer: Before I started. I kept waiting and wanting to like it and never did, and meanwhile it teased me with a lot of frustrating might-have-beens. I did love the scenes where it was gradually revealed that Ung was actually a famous, successful, really good artist and not the slacker he seemed (and that Yeon-soo thought he was), but I’d sacrifice that to avoid all the other frustration.
2022 Roundup
26 – Freestyle – Worst wardrobe – male:Kim Jae-young as Hae-jin in Love in Contract. Maybe his oversized shirts, baggy trousers, and bizarre prints were intended to be a disguise, but show never explored that – it just enveloped him in layers of loose yardage. Special Mention for Yeo Jin-goo as Gye-hoon in Link – his clothes were actually quite nice … for an 80-year-old harabeoji. I still wonder if Lee Bom’s line “you look like a grandpa!” was an ad libbed reaction to what he was wearing in ep. 10. In both cases, there’s an attractive human somewhere inside those draperies and smothering knits, but all that’s visible is Sad Face peeping out like a turtle from its shell.
Ugh, it had to be 50% of why I could never take Hae Jin seriously as a character, those frightening clothes and his sad droopy hair. I would say out loud to the screen “where do they even find these clothes???” For the female version, I nominate the FL in Love is for Suckers. They both hurt your eyes.
2022 Roundup
25 – Freestyle – Best Poster. Tie: the main Our Beloved Summer poster and the One Dollar Lawyer Namgoong Min vending machine. (If only it existed!) Alchemy of Souls 1 and 2 and Love Is for Suckers had great ones, too. More proof if we needed it that poster appeal and drama quality are uncorrelated variables.
As a newly minted and on-the-lam Wrongly Accused Fugitive, I wish all of you a happy escape from the grip of corrupted plots and boring sidestories into the dramaland of your dreams!
I’ve said before that I’d watch an entire spinoff featuring LJW’s hands. There are some short compilation videos on Twitter and YouTube, but someone needs to make a double-episode-length edit of him *doing things* with his hands. I replayed him interlacing his fingers with Go Youn-jung’s in part 2 episode 6 at half speed at least 10 times.
Congrats on your new beanie level. Hopefully, you wont be running around too long trying to clear your name.
I agree these are great posters I have looked around for others and can’t find any that compare although I did like the one for Yumi’s cells 2 and Poong the Joseon psychiatrist.
2022 Roundup
24 – Freestyle – Most unexpectedly brilliant moment in an otherwise dull drama: the meditation on kissing in Love Is for Suckers ep. 8.
”They say the first kiss for mankind was between God and a human. He made a man out of dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He became a living being. If this Hebrew creation story is true, then it seems life flowed into our soul through a kiss. So how is it that we’ve come to give away our souls to just anybody?
I think this at times: At some point, kissing became an easy thing to do. Kissing became something I took for granted. The other person’s mood, restlessness, and breath are signals sent directly to you during a kiss. Your world is supposed to be shaken up at that moment. But why does it not feel like anything, oftentimes?
They say kissing is a behavior that lets you detect another’s genes instinctively. If that’s the case, if it’s a meaningless kiss, is there something wrong in the DNA?
Perhaps the kiss that used to be so sweet and radiant became something you score, evaluate, and judge, and sometimes you leave a boring romance behind. It became just a step on the way to sex. You barely even remember where you kissed and whom, or how you felt in your heart and mind. An everyday romance. At some point, kissing became something I took for granted. It became an easy thing to do.”
Wow. I have not watched that drama and I thought I wouldn’t watch it because of the bad reviews, but I have loved those script lines. Maybe I should give it a try.
I can’t really recommend the drama – the sad thing is that this was one of the few really good moments, but it’s not representative and it was one more piece of evidence that there was so much potential there that went largely unfulfilled. If you want to watch just that scene, it’s at the beginning of episode 8.
2022 Roundup
23 – Freestyle – Worst wardrobe – female:Lee Da-hee as Yeo-reum in Love Is for Suckers. Special Mention for Worst Garment: the ‘cold armpit’ sweater in ep. 7. She looked really uncomfortable in it, too – she kept tugging at it or hunching over to cover herself.
Elinor
March 25, 2023 at 12:51 AM
I did a zippy rewatch of Our Blooming Youth to date, looking for indicators of when Jae-yi falls for Hwan and how she shows it. To my surprise, what I saw instead was: Myung-jin knows everything about everyone, and has all along.
lapislazulii
March 25, 2023 at 2:09 AM
I haven’t done the rewatch yet but I’d been thinking something along the lines of this from when he didn’t Jae-yi in disguise off the bat. For someone with such keen observation, enough to work out that it was Jae-yi solving mysteries and not her brother, how on earth is he supposedly so oblivious to what is going on in front of him?! It just doesn’t seem in character!
lapislazulii
March 25, 2023 at 2:10 AM
i.e. it must all be a deception methinks….
Elinor
March 18, 2023 at 9:36 PM
Night of Love with You: Candy, is that you? You look different somehow!
“My parents died, I owe millions of yuan, I was forced to drop out of school, I have heart disease, and I have to support my younger brother’s schooling.”
Elinor
March 18, 2023 at 9:36 PM
I can’t normally tolerate Cdramas but this is hitting every self-aware parody note so far.
Reply1988
March 18, 2023 at 10:37 PM
I started watching, it’s really ridiculous, love it.
wapz
March 19, 2023 at 4:24 AM
I quite liked Night of Love with you and was glad that it was a short drama because it avoided all unnecessary stuff. With cdramas you really need to experiment. There are tonnes of good dramas there but since so many dramas are made there are not so great ones too.
Elinor
March 15, 2023 at 12:47 PM
I can relate – this is how I feel about laundry, too:
owl
March 15, 2023 at 7:19 PM
My dryer broke on Tuesday.
Elinor
March 15, 2023 at 7:22 PM
😥 I’d probably run away from home if mine did.
owl
March 15, 2023 at 7:25 PM
A friend offered to look at it, could be the belt. Or not.
beffels
March 15, 2023 at 10:28 PM
I refuse to iron my husband’s shirts. I do all the other laundry but if he wants ironed shirts he can do it 😄 ironing is the worst.
dramadillo
March 16, 2023 at 2:53 AM
Hahah I am the same with ironing!😊
Netsuke
March 23, 2023 at 8:13 PM
If I could look at him while ironing, I probably wouldn’t mind ironing. Then again, my mind wouldn’t be on the ironing.
Elinor
February 21, 2023 at 12:08 PM
Oh dear. Looks like I’m going to be busy for the next five years or so. And my feet were already sore, darn it.
bbstl
February 21, 2023 at 4:34 PM
Congratulations! 🛵 Drive safely and watch out for large white trucks!
Reply1988
February 21, 2023 at 4:54 PM
Congrats have fun and enjoy the journey. It may not be as bad as you think.😊
owl
February 21, 2023 at 5:00 PM
I have to say, i did not think id be running errands for this long. Db is a tough taskmaster, but we shall prevail!
ladynightshade | lee bangwon’s fan
February 22, 2023 at 3:33 PM
Congratulations! Nice to have another errand boy with us on the long, long journey.
korfan
February 22, 2023 at 11:11 PM
Congratulations! I know you’ll have fun! 🙂
Eazal
February 25, 2023 at 8:32 AM
Congrats!! I was an errand boy only for six months, but alas… I’ve been an entertaining in training for almost two years now.
Elinor
February 18, 2023 at 3:02 PM
I put a chair, a cup of tea, and my laptop into a corner of my kitchen. Then I mopped myself into the corner. For the next 15 minutes, there’s nothing but the peace and enforced relaxation of watching the floor dry.
Love, February
mmmmm
February 18, 2023 at 7:53 PM
This is lovely, and thanks for continuing Love Feb even after the V Day!
Elinor
February 18, 2023 at 8:34 PM
I’ve been meaning to mop the kitchen for the last week! So it’s just a late Valentine to the ideal of cleanliness. And peace.
Elinor
February 9, 2023 at 10:57 PM
Monday, you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday, stay in bed
Or Thursday, watch the walls instead
It’s Friday, I’m in
Love, February
Elinor
February 6, 2023 at 12:06 PM
I haven’t done everything, but I’ve done all I can do *today.*
Love, February
Elinor
February 4, 2023 at 12:51 PM
I’m heading to H-Mart for some Korean cooking supplies and for a split second, as I was making my shopping list, I thought “Oh, I should ask the Beanies if they want me to pick up anything for them while I’m there!” 😄
Love, February
neener ~ Inside the Magic Shop ~
February 4, 2023 at 12:59 PM
Melona for me~! Thank you~!!
RaOnAh loves Jay B 💚
February 4, 2023 at 2:31 PM
Me too! 😋
neener ~ Inside the Magic Shop ~
February 5, 2023 at 1:08 PM
how rude of me to not say please TT__TT
Elinor
February 5, 2023 at 3:25 PM
😂😂😂 Hunger frequently overcomes politeness for me! Sadly they were out of original Melona again but they still had other flavors. And all the different Bibigo frozen dumplings always make me think happily of A Business Proposal.
neener ~ Inside the Magic Shop ~
February 6, 2023 at 6:37 AM
xD the original melona is the best~! frozen dumpling is a good choice as well!
bbstl
February 4, 2023 at 4:19 PM
Chocopies, please! Just ate my last one yesterday 😋
owl
February 4, 2023 at 8:34 PM
I ate my last one yesterday too! Sometimes the Asian store has them and sometimes they don’t. But I picked up a large gochujang, the kind ai really like. And lovely fresh snow peas. Wish we could all ahare!
nilsche
February 4, 2023 at 8:12 PM
banana kick hana juseyo
mmmmm
February 4, 2023 at 10:46 PM
Ingredients for Sundubu-jjigae, pls!
Elinor
February 5, 2023 at 3:16 PM
This is one of the things we’re making tonight!!!
Elinor
January 8, 2023 at 8:09 PM
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow: I’m probably going to have a lot more to say tomorrow but a couple of the magical gimmicks CGI’d into the last two episodes were so lightweight they reminded me of this:
parkchuna
January 8, 2023 at 10:39 PM
I miss his sword fights, it’s not much in S2.
Elinor
January 7, 2023 at 5:07 PM
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow: It’s super annoying how many spoilers and hints for the finale are in the latest flurry of behind-the-scenes stills and the long prerelease video for ep. 10:
Elinor
January 7, 2023 at 5:08 PM
The stills of everyone except Go Yoon-jung holding their final scripts, the funereal photos of the senior couple, and especially the prerelease, which is literally all sunshine and flowers. I know tvN is likely trolling us to some extent, but everything points to a non-happy ending, whether tragic or merely bittersweet, and why can’t they just roll on and carry the viewers along with it without all these hints? After that kind of setup it would be an amazing twist if the show DID have a happy ending and I don’t believe the Hong Sisters would be able to resist the well-trodden path of building everything up in the first part of the episode for triumph and glory and then making tragedy and separation for the protagonists the price of victory.
Oh yeah, here’s my final scenes prediction: With CY’s consent, Wook voluntarily gives up the ice stone and it falls into Lake Gyeongcheondaeho to end the drought and restore balance to the world. He and CY, gazing into each others’ eyes, dissolve into magic dust and are blown in a swirl of sparks up to the heavens, where Wook is transformed into the real King’s Star and CY falls like snow. Master Lee has another storytelling session with the kids on the lakeshore in which he points out the King’s Star shining down on the snow in Daeho, alludes to their sad tale of heroic sacrifice and eternal love, and hints that someday the star and the snow will be together on earth again. Blah.
Linarrick
January 7, 2023 at 8:27 PM
That sounds about right lol. The Hong Sisters first drama was about reincarnation so I’m expecting part 3 Alchemy of Souls: Reborn
I’d figure the lead for Jang Uk would either be Song Joon-ki or Lee Jun-ki since they are already familiar with the concept 😁
lotus
January 7, 2023 at 10:22 PM
I’m choosing to think that them not posting Go Yoon-jung holding their final scripts is because she was dressed as assassin Naksu. They are keeping it as a surprise for us. #PLEASELETTHISBETRUE
Elinor
January 1, 2023 at 12:16 PM
Alchemy of Souls: Light and Shadow episode 7 just made it under the wire for 2022 Kiss of the Year. Holy smokes. And LJW’s slightly open eyes 👀 – this man knows exactly what he’s doing.
Elinor
January 1, 2023 at 12:17 PM
But why is his ear so red? Was this the umpteenth take?
Also, anyone else shipping Yun-ok with Jin Mu at this point?
purplefall
January 1, 2023 at 2:58 PM
Because of this extended sizzling kiss, I temporarily forgave show for messing up with the storytelling (shallow me I know but who wouldn’t after such crazy kissing footage 🤪). Now they just need to give these two a happy ending please 😬
Linarrick
January 2, 2023 at 6:09 AM
I actually thought they were gonna go there and yanno have sexy times. Literally thought they’d make a baby so Naksu/Bu-Yeon wouldn’t have to go back to Jinyowon!
I haven’t finished watching ep 8 yet ,so avoiding spoilers but yeah THAT KISS!
Elinor
December 31, 2022 at 9:47 AM
2022 Roundup
31 – Freestyle – Happy First Dramaversary to Me.
My Netflix history says I watched episode 1 of some new-to-me thing called “Crash Landing On You” on December 24, 2021. Since then I’ve completed 63 kdramas, dropped 15, and am currently watching 6 more. I accumulated 19 beans to plant in the new year (posters of my 2022 shows below). I’ve watched a handful of Korean movies and Japanese and Chinese shows, too. Finding Dramabeans in February enormously increased both my watching hours and my appreciation. I’ve read thousands of recaps and comments here, written over 1,000 comments and posts, and spent hundreds of enjoyable hours on YouTube and down other online rabbit holes in pursuit of this obsession.
I appreciate the beanies who have been my guides and companions on this crazy voyage into the dramaverse. If the Later Pandemic Era had any high point, it’s you guys. See you (and lots of dramas) in 2023! 💜💜💜
Ally
December 31, 2022 at 2:35 PM
Wow, you’ve only been watching kdramas for a year? What a learning curve. I’m sure we’ll continue enjoying your insights on the recaps and fanwall! Congrats!
miso
December 31, 2022 at 3:08 PM
Happy Dramaversary! Hope you watch and find delight in just as many shows next year!
owl
December 31, 2022 at 4:17 PM
Keep beanin’ on in 2023! Kdrama ❤️
bbstl
December 31, 2022 at 5:56 PM
Congratulations! since the beginning you have sounded like an old k-drama hand with all your brilliant comments, so lucky for us that you found this new
obsessionahem, hobby 😉wonhwa
January 1, 2023 at 11:21 AM
Welcome to the obsession!
Elinor
January 23, 2023 at 4:21 PM
Kdrama Life List LOL – as of 23 January 2023. Two ongoing shows not included.
Completed:
1. A Piece of Your Mind
2. Alchemy of Souls
3. Are You Human Too?
4. The Beauty Inside
5. Because This Life Is Our First
6. Beyond Evil
7. Blue Birthday (short)
8. Bottom of the 9th with 2 Outs aka 9 End 2 Outs
9. The Boy Next Door (short)
10. Business Proposal
11. Chief Kim
12. Crash Landing on You
13. Dal-ja’s Spring
14. Extraordinary You
15. The Fabulous
16. Fanletter, Please
17. Fated to Love You (2014)
18. The Forbidden Marriage
19. Gaus Electronics
20. Glitch
21. Goblin
22. Good Job
23. The Great Shaman Ga Doo-shim
24. Healer
25. Hometown Cha-cha-cha
26. I’ll Go to You When the Weather Is Fine
27. It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
28. Just Between Lovers/Rain or Shine
29. KBS drama specials (short)
30. Kiss Goblin (web short)
31. Kiss Sixth Sense
32. Link: Eat, Love, Kill
33. Love In Contract
34. Love Is for Suckers
35. Lovestruck in the City
36. Master’s Sun
37. May I Help You?
38. My Liberation Notes
39. My Love from the Star
40. Night Light
41. One Dollar Lawyer
42. 1% of Something (2016)
43. One Spring Night
44. One Sunny Day (short)
45. Our Beloved Summer
46. Page Turner (short)
47. Romance Is a Bonus Book
48. Search Query: WWW
49. Secret Garden
50. She Would Never Know aka Sunbae … Lipstick
51. Sh**ting Stars
52. The Sound of Magic (short)
53. Soundtrack #1 (short)
54. Splash Splash Love (short)
55. Suspicious Partner
56. Thirty But Seventeen
57. Tomorrow
58. To My Beautiful Woori (web short)
59. Tracer
60. Unlock The Boss
61. W – Two Worlds
62. Wednesday 3:30 PM
63. What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim
64. While You Were Sleeping
65. Wok of Love aka Greasy Melo
66. You Are My Spring
67. You Drive Me Crazy (short)
Dropped or dipped into only a few episodes:
68. Absolute Boyfriend
69. Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol
70. Encounter aka Boyfriend
71. Eun-joo’s Room
72. Ho-gu’s Love aka Fool’s Love
73. The Liar and his Lover
74. Man to Man
75. Move to Heaven
76. My Secret Romance
77. Nevertheless
78. Something in the Rain
79. Summer Strike
80. Touch Your Heart aka Reach of Sincerity
81. Woori the Virgin
82. Would You Like a Cup of Coffee
I was inconsistent about whether I counted the little web shorts I watched here and there, and I didn’t count as ‘dropped’ a few shows where I watched less than one full episode.
💜🍍☠️ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠️🍍💜
January 23, 2023 at 6:12 PM
Nice!!!!! I think I only watched 18 dramas in my first year of watching, but I also hadn’t made the jump to like, solely or almost solely Asian Ent at that point (2015). I also didn’t start live watching till late 2016!
I am SO curious as to what you think of several of these, but let me know if I’m being annoying or this conversation is too one sided, and you want to ask ME annoying questions HAHAHA
Elinor
January 23, 2023 at 6:23 PM
Oh, ask away!!! I have nothing but opinions and coconut Melona bars and time. Although as you’ve seen it sometimes takes me a few days to reply.
💜🍍☠️ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠️🍍💜
January 23, 2023 at 6:57 PM
Okay.
I have only seen about 46 of these, including the ones I dropped/hiatused.
And only 2 or 3 of the remaining 36 am I actually likely to ever get round to watching/will remain on my watchlist.
And you have such a broad selection! Yet for all of that, only 4 of these are in my top dramas: Healer, JBL, 30b17, and You Are My Spring, and only 2 in my top 10- (although the bottom half of my top 10 is rather flexible lol) Healer and 30but17!
(Page Turner and SSL used to be, they’re a bit lower down now, but I still enjoye/d them a lot, and My Love From The Stars is a Perpetual Honourable Mention, uncategorisable, because it’s the only drama I’ve EVER cried in. Yes. I know. LOL.)
So. The dramas I would love hear your thoughts on, don’t care what kind of thoughts either, since most of these I have my Trademark Controversial Opinion on anyway, are:
A Piece of Your Mind
Extraordinary You
Sunbae Don’t Put on Your Lipstick
I Will Go To You When the Weather is Nice
Tomorrow
Move to Heaven
Chief Kim
and Goblin
I haven’t actually seen the latter three, and likely never will, although MTH is still a MAYBE, but they were all big so I’m just curious anyway.
And take your time! I’m used to it, and don’t like being on here for long periods atm anyway~~~
Thank you for indulging me, lmao.
Elinor
January 24, 2023 at 9:53 AM
Ahem. The below is off the top of my head and in some cases it’s been months since I watched the show in question.
Extraordinary You
[Pretending I’m not aware of your opinion of Rowoon. 😈 ]
Cosmos: I think this show attempts A LOT and it doesn’t succeed at everything, including crucially the mechanics of its manwha-based world or a consistent through-line on what determines the fate/allows defiance-of-fate of its characters, but what it does do is fascinating and gorgeous. Predestination vs. self-determination? Authorial direction vs. autonomous evolution of characters? Bring it on! Explore it at length, with charismatic kids and dazzling visual effects and think-piece dialogue. And then frustrate me by not being able, within the bounds of conventional kdrama, to resolve a dozen interesting questions. The poorly-CGI’d intercosmic portal between the manwha and real(?) worlds is representative of this show’s ambitions and ultimate inability to deliver. In the meantime, there is SO MUCH to look at and think about. It probably helped me a lot (and was kind of cheating) that I had the DB and Bitches Over Dramas (I know, I know) discussions while I was watching, but those also likely biased my assessment.
Goddamn, this just skyrocketed into my top five for sheer thought-provokingness. 😅
Cast: LJW’s can’t-look-away performance as an asshole struggling to grasp that he’s just written that way is the second-best part of the show for me. I kept expecting to be annoyed by Kim Hye-yoon’s bounciness, and then her purity and joie de vivre and sheer grit won my cynical heart. Controversial opinion: Rowoon’s beauty and his very ~blankness~ serves his manwha-come-to-life character well, and one of the pleasures of the show for me is watching his pretty face closely for the moments when the character becomes self-aware: the unobtrusive glimmer of attention he suddenly shows, a hint in his body language that his stillness is intentional and not merely unconscious. Does he do that perfectly? No, but well enough. All of the actors except Kim Hye-yoon were babies anyway. This show does not add up to the sum of its parts but the parts are so freaking fascinating that for me it makes it worth the watch anyway. (W but in high school, I see you.) And this from someone deeply averse to high school stories.
Color: I loved the tone shift from on-stage to off-stage. Did I mention that it’s abso-fucking-lutely GORGEOUS? I’m no artist, but I am a craftswoman and this pushes every aesthetic button I have. The flowers and the manwha scenes are like tapestries. The English, French, and Korean book titles on the library shelves made me spend so much time on pause, greedily sucking up words and the stories behind the spines. The sunlight through stained-glass windows is the light I have tried to capture in photos or sketches in every dim Romanesque chapel ever.
Elinor
January 24, 2023 at 9:54 AM
EY cont’d
I found the ending appropriately uncertain but also very unsatisfying. They’re only together until the next time the writer notices them or ends the story? There really is no way to break free of the manwha? Then tell me why you bother to try! Explore that!
This show makes me struggle more with Concept vs. Execution than any other, and you’ll have figured out by now that you and I are Not The Same on how much weight we give to each. I gloss over the draggy repetitive mid-episode plottiness and the inadequately explored trope-poking by secondary characters because I am entranced by everything this is and wanted to be.
Sunbae Don’t Put on Your Lipstick
I wanted to smack everyone by the end. Kindly refer to my Rant: On Kissing.
And to my mini-rant on centering a drama on Perfect Boyfriend. I gave this a B at the time, but in hindsight it’s sunk to C at best because no doubt there are many much worse dramas but I avoided those, unlike this mush. Also, viewer is clearly supposed to like side couple (sister and director), but I find them annoying as fuck. Also, I am VERY TIRED of rich people. This (and drunk scenes) may be my insurmountable problem in kdramas.
Elinor
January 24, 2023 at 9:55 AM
I Will Go To You When the Weather is Nice
I kept wondering:
Did Philip Larkin write this drama? (They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.)
Do people in SK really go to jail for each other?
I’ve said this elsewhere but:
(a) I watched Are You Human Too? and this show in close succession and it’s easy to distinguish when Seo Kang-joon is a robot and when he is a Real Boy because the robot smiles more.
(b) I dislike PMY’s character and that sours a lot of the drama for me. I’m kinda done with her.
(c) LJW is so freaking adorkable no matter what he does. Everyone in this drama should have just been scuttling ahead of him strewing flowers in his path.
(d) Despite my dissatisfaction, this show lands some of its themes better than 90% of the dramas I saw in My Year One of Dramas Ever, vis.: flawed people are flawed, but can learn to cope and to help each other. Snow is not as romantic as it looks. Bookstores are the beating heart of the community. Take your pharmacist’s advice. (Missing in this list: LOVE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THERAPY, but I may die of superannuation before a kdrama admits that.)
Tomorrow
I seriously just watched for the pretty and the scenery-chewing and it delivered on those counts. Nearly complete suspension of judgement was required and it had several moments that unsuspended my suspension. I have no expectations about dramas handling mental health, suicide, or any related issue well and it’s no worse than many on that count. Some storylines I found truly moving, some were dumb, and then there was the military/nationalistic propaganda to which I as a wartime military brat am immune, so my reaction to that was eye-rolls, not tears. I colored my hair pink after I watched. There’s a deep bucket of dramas that I enjoyed while they were running, am not sorry I watched, and will never revisit (except maybe for pink hair). This is in that bucket. You’d probably hate it.
Move to Heaven
I can’t deliver much of an opinion because I only watched the episodes with LJW and there aren’t many since he is a doomed character who spends most of his scenes in a coma, embodying a psychic wound for the protagonist. I hate boxing with a passion (I used to love watching it when I was young and then realized it is the only major traditional sport where the object is to injure your opponent, and that was it for me). LJW is heartbreaking in the bits where he’s alive/conscious; I don’t even remember the other actors/characters. I can’t disentangle the hateful, horrible illicit boxing matches from the drama itself. Wow, that was a lot of words for a drama on which I have no opinion.
A Piece of Your Mind: more later, possibly.
Chief Kim and Goblin: THOUGHTS. More later.
Elinor
January 24, 2023 at 10:02 AM
Sunbae mini-rant (copied):
I binged She Would Never Know this week, too, and found it … meh. It started better than I expected and the tension with the two-timing boss felt pretty real, but once the OTP romance really got going and Rowoon turned into an improbably perfect boyfriend, it started to go flat. The business with the FL trying to woo the ML near the end was childish and cringey. I’ve already ranted on my fanwall about the kissing – although admittedly the last kiss showed improvement. Overall: B.
💜🍍☠️ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠️🍍💜
January 26, 2023 at 2:52 PM
And now it’s my turn to take several days to reply! haha
And I wont be able to respond to everything but I enjoyed reading your thoughts anyway.
So what you’re telling me is that you went and watched everything with Lee Jae Wook in it because of Lee Jae Wook… *teehee*
However, you missed Memories of the Alhambra, s o tsk tsk, not good enough 😂😂 Jk jk.
Although now I want to see you watch MOA. Partly because I want to see what you’d think of it since it’s by the same writer as W: Two Worlds, and partly so you can read my shitposts (the OG of all shitposts) alongside watching it so I can get a live time reaction to both because that would be hilarious.
“[Pretending I’m not aware of your opinion of Rowoon. 😈 ]” Hey I didn’t watnt to punch him back then, remember… 🤭🤭
I think your comment about Concept v Execution is interesting. If you stalked the recaps then you probably happened upon my comment on this show early on about satire, and becoming the thing it satirizes. Not sure if you remember that.
Execution IS very important for me, you are right 😂 because I just can’t sink my teeth into a concept that is delivered badly! (On the other hand, my issues with EY surpass execution alone heh)
Sunbae- I wanted to smack everyone in it too. But for the entire ride and not just by the end lmao
“Missing in this list: LOVE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THERAPY”– okay well NOW I need to plug my IFWYTWIN essay lol: https://www.dramabeans.com/members/sicarius/activity/1034649/
Thank you for sharing, once again! x
Elinor
December 30, 2022 at 7:53 PM
2022 Roundup
30 – Freestyle – Best Fuzzy Purple Sweater:
I’ve already documented my love for Kim Young-dae’s and Lee Jung-shin’s matching sweaters in Sh**ting Stars, so I’ll have to give the award to another sweater: the one worn by Yoon Jong-hoon in ep. 5. A person could fall headlong into that sweater and never get out. Runner-up: Choi Woo-shik’s in Our Beloved Summer ep. 10. Fuzzy sweaters are among my favorite things in kdramas (although not in real life), and those two shows had many of the best of the year.
Purple 💜 was the 2022 color in kdramas, and I wish I had time to do an extended pictorial of all the ways it brought me joy. Maybe I’ll get around to it in 2023.
Eazal
December 31, 2022 at 1:11 AM
Such a good choice!!
Elinor
December 29, 2022 at 7:07 PM
2022 Roundup
29 – Freestyle – Most Flair with the Color Blue:
Jang Wook’s scarf-stealing swagger in Alchemy of Souls Part 1 ep. 8.
miso
December 29, 2022 at 7:44 PM
Still one of my favourite scenes. Just so much style!
bbstl
December 29, 2022 at 9:51 PM
Yeah, I was surprised that the anti-Naksu Blue scarves didn’t reappear along with the talismans in Season 2 when the people all feared she was afoot.
IsaGC
December 31, 2022 at 12:32 AM
Hands down my favorite moment in all that series (and the drama is a 7/10 for me, but I admit it has some great moments).
Elinor
December 28, 2022 at 8:19 PM
2022 Roundup
28 – Freestyle – Most Original Use of the Color Green: the empty soju bottle collection in Mr. Gu’s room, emitting its unearthly glow/batsignal in My Liberation Notes ep. 6.
PYC
December 29, 2022 at 12:50 AM
I love this scene! The colour and the execution.
Elinor
December 26, 2022 at 11:28 PM
2022 Roundup
27 – Freestyle – The moment I should have dropped this drama – but in a good way.
Business Proposal: at ep. 11, with the bedroom scene. No suddenly out-of-character grandpa, no timeskip, no BS, just the Happy Ever After we were promised all along.
Kiss Sixth Sense: at the end of ep. 10. There were some loose ends, but enough of the OTP connection and other plot threads were visible that it was easy to fill in the blanks, and we’d already seen all of the delicious, HOT namesake kisses that mattered. An episode 9 epilogue with a 2-minute exposition of the childhood connection would have been enough.
Love Is for Suckers: at 12 (or sooner). Many torsos had been displayed, our OTP had finally gotten together, and we wouldn’t have had to suffer through the FL’s blank faces and weird squirming in the bedsheets while the ML cooked breakfast. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have seen the best of John and Ji-wan, the true OTP/secondary couple of the year, so (in the absence of space lasers) I still have mixed feelings about when to end.
Love in Contract: when Sang-eun and Gwang-nam got married. She’d have had the next 15 episodes to learn to appreciate him and he’d never have known that Madam Yoo even existed, let alone made him buy special tomatoes. Win-win.
Each of those dramas felt like they’d wrapped up the main story at those points and it was easy to guess what would happen in the remaining plotlines; if I’d stopped watching then, I’d have gotten almost all of the fun out of them while avoiding the majority of the letdown, and that would have left me feeling like I’d seen a better drama.
Counterpoint – Our Beloved Summer: Before I started. I kept waiting and wanting to like it and never did, and meanwhile it teased me with a lot of frustrating might-have-beens. I did love the scenes where it was gradually revealed that Ung was actually a famous, successful, really good artist and not the slacker he seemed (and that Yeon-soo thought he was), but I’d sacrifice that to avoid all the other frustration.
Elinor
December 25, 2022 at 6:43 PM
2022 Roundup
26 – Freestyle – Worst wardrobe – male: Kim Jae-young as Hae-jin in Love in Contract. Maybe his oversized shirts, baggy trousers, and bizarre prints were intended to be a disguise, but show never explored that – it just enveloped him in layers of loose yardage. Special Mention for Yeo Jin-goo as Gye-hoon in Link – his clothes were actually quite nice … for an 80-year-old harabeoji. I still wonder if Lee Bom’s line “you look like a grandpa!” was an ad libbed reaction to what he was wearing in ep. 10. In both cases, there’s an attractive human somewhere inside those draperies and smothering knits, but all that’s visible is Sad Face peeping out like a turtle from its shell.
bbstl
December 25, 2022 at 7:37 PM
Ugh, it had to be 50% of why I could never take Hae Jin seriously as a character, those frightening clothes and his sad droopy hair. I would say out loud to the screen “where do they even find these clothes???” For the female version, I nominate the FL in Love is for Suckers. They both hurt your eyes.
IsaGC
December 26, 2022 at 2:42 AM
I see I am not the only one who sometimes would tear my hair out because of the clothing I see in k-dramas. I could write a long list of horrors.
korfan
December 27, 2022 at 6:33 PM
“…layers of loose yardage.”
Totally!
Elinor
December 25, 2022 at 12:57 AM
2022 Roundup
25 – Freestyle – Best Poster. Tie: the main Our Beloved Summer poster and the One Dollar Lawyer Namgoong Min vending machine. (If only it existed!) Alchemy of Souls 1 and 2 and Love Is for Suckers had great ones, too. More proof if we needed it that poster appeal and drama quality are uncorrelated variables.
As a newly minted and on-the-lam Wrongly Accused Fugitive, I wish all of you a happy escape from the grip of corrupted plots and boring sidestories into the dramaland of your dreams!
Linarrick
December 25, 2022 at 1:59 AM
I like the last poster from AoS. I think I’m developing a bit of a hand kink lol
Elinor
December 25, 2022 at 8:18 PM
I’ve said before that I’d watch an entire spinoff featuring LJW’s hands. There are some short compilation videos on Twitter and YouTube, but someone needs to make a double-episode-length edit of him *doing things* with his hands. I replayed him interlacing his fingers with Go Youn-jung’s in part 2 episode 6 at half speed at least 10 times.
There’s also that totally nuts thing he does when he sheaths his sword in the throne room:
https://twitter.com/woohyojoo/status/1604529956159377408
LJW was having fun with this.
TurtuallySarcastic
December 25, 2022 at 3:12 AM
Merry Christmas Elinor!
Reply1988
December 25, 2022 at 3:36 AM
Congrats on your new beanie level. Hopefully, you wont be running around too long trying to clear your name.
I agree these are great posters I have looked around for others and can’t find any that compare although I did like the one for Yumi’s cells 2 and Poong the Joseon psychiatrist.
korfan
December 25, 2022 at 7:43 AM
Congrats on the new level!
Elinor
December 23, 2022 at 7:13 PM
2022 Roundup
24 – Freestyle – Most unexpectedly brilliant moment in an otherwise dull drama: the meditation on kissing in Love Is for Suckers ep. 8.
”They say the first kiss for mankind was between God and a human. He made a man out of dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He became a living being. If this Hebrew creation story is true, then it seems life flowed into our soul through a kiss. So how is it that we’ve come to give away our souls to just anybody?
I think this at times: At some point, kissing became an easy thing to do. Kissing became something I took for granted. The other person’s mood, restlessness, and breath are signals sent directly to you during a kiss. Your world is supposed to be shaken up at that moment. But why does it not feel like anything, oftentimes?
They say kissing is a behavior that lets you detect another’s genes instinctively. If that’s the case, if it’s a meaningless kiss, is there something wrong in the DNA?
Perhaps the kiss that used to be so sweet and radiant became something you score, evaluate, and judge, and sometimes you leave a boring romance behind. It became just a step on the way to sex. You barely even remember where you kissed and whom, or how you felt in your heart and mind. An everyday romance. At some point, kissing became something I took for granted. It became an easy thing to do.”
IsaGC
December 24, 2022 at 12:32 AM
Wow. I have not watched that drama and I thought I wouldn’t watch it because of the bad reviews, but I have loved those script lines. Maybe I should give it a try.
Elinor
December 24, 2022 at 8:09 AM
I can’t really recommend the drama – the sad thing is that this was one of the few really good moments, but it’s not representative and it was one more piece of evidence that there was so much potential there that went largely unfulfilled. If you want to watch just that scene, it’s at the beginning of episode 8.
IsaGC
December 24, 2022 at 8:31 AM
Thank you 🙂
There are so many dramas in my Plan to Watch… I’ll give it a try but if I don’t like it, I’ll drop it and I’ll watch that episode XD
Elinor
December 22, 2022 at 10:12 PM
2022 Roundup
23 – Freestyle – Worst wardrobe – female: Lee Da-hee as Yeo-reum in Love Is for Suckers. Special Mention for Worst Garment: the ‘cold armpit’ sweater in ep. 7. She looked really uncomfortable in it, too – she kept tugging at it or hunching over to cover herself.
Reply1988
December 22, 2022 at 11:25 PM
🤣 that is hysterical as I would have gone for the boots in multiple colours but that really is the best and I had forgotten all about it.
Blue (mayhemf)
December 23, 2022 at 12:57 AM
😂😂 the choice of pictures. Gosh! I didn’t need to see that sweater again. Atleast you didn’t post the white boots 🙂
korfan
December 23, 2022 at 2:18 AM
The wardrobe was pretty bad indeed.
bbstl
December 23, 2022 at 9:26 AM
and she wore it foreeeeever. I said to the screen, “you’re still wearing that?” Oy, the definition of unflattering.
ladynightshade | lee bangwon’s fan
December 23, 2022 at 8:58 PM
How the hell this drama managed to give freaking Lee Da-hee a bad wardrobe needs to be studied in a lab.