Beanie level: Errand boy

Bo sends to @sicarius (in sympathy) comfort for the expected loss of bead boy (dunno if he has left us or not, not up to that episode yet). ✞ ðŸŠĶ⚰️
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To Cookie @mmmmm I’m in NZ. I haven’t seen any knok-em-down sheep yet, but I saw a rabbit yesterday and it looks like super fun. Hope u hav a fun 🎄 ❤



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    From Cookie to Bo, I’ll answer you soon. Now I’m having dinner. Have you eaten a rabbit yet?

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      Btw, Cookie said why you so cute? She also wanted to go to NZ.

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        Bo, leaning against a tree, twirling his mustache in raffish fashion, “Why Cookie, come on down. We can run together on the green fields and chase rabbits. He he. When your mum isn’t watching, we can look for the knok-em-down sheep. Wink, wink.”

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#2021 Round Up
No 6 contd
And the OST for Beyond Evil, especially this track
Both on a loop, every day

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#2021 Round Up
6- The OST you are obsessed with.

Lost: for the yearning
Beyond Evil: for the darkness and the noir vibes

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# 2021 Round Up
5- That drama that will always live in your memory.

Lost for the yearning, the detail, the slow burn, the beauty, and for the leads as actors and as a feast for the eyes
D.P. for the contemporary relevance about bullying in the military
Move to Heaven for the way in which people’s lives were re-assembled and given closure out of the bits and pieces they left behind
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#2021 Round Up

4- That mess you watched and you still wonder why.

In putting this together, I suddenly realised why I hated these: not for the poor story, not for the crappy lines, not even for the unconvincing actors, but for the terrible female characters who were made to do and say senseless things, who were full of insecurities and crippling self-doubt, who had been armed with a weapon to show they were “strong”, who were written with no respect for them as women.

Nevertheless: I really don’t know why and the longer time passes I know even less why I bothered to watch this
Lovestruck in the City: well, tbh, it was for Ji Chang-wook crying
Sisyphus: the Myth: and for Cho Seung-woo as Han Tae-sul making the best of a bad thing and not even getting a decent kiss out of it
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    I didn’t include LITC because that one scene of JCW crying convinced me it was worth the drama, and surprisingly considering how little I liked FL, I liked the ending… wow…

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      I understand, but I’ll never get over her cruel deception. I wanted to strangle her.

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        Me too. If I had been Jae Won I would have never forgotten her. I could understand what she went trough but she had lots of opportunities to redeem herself but she didn’t until she was discovered. I really hated her, but somehow the drama managed to make them back together in a way it made sense, and after all I am not Jae Won, so when he accepted her it was not because it was written that way but because it made sense.
        I think the main problem of the drama is that it spent too much time with the flashbacks. I really think it benefits from binging, because when live watching you have no other option but to hate FL.

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          It’s all a dim memory now, I must confess. He never let go of the person he “knew” she was. I do remember the rejection that led her to “be another person” but her discarding him out of shame never made sense to me. It was so callous. Like I said…

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Extraordinary You, the trumpet creeper that means yearning
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It’s 1730 hours on the 3rd of December here, so I’m posting
#2021 Round Up
3- The drama with the best costumes.
The King’s Affection: Rowoon as Jung Ji-woon, pretty in pink – gender reversal
Mr Queen – the binyeo details
Red Sleeve Cuff – bath scene, nothing like fine, fine (wet) linen/silk (?)
Bossam – perfect/fitting for the characters
Squid Game – OTT and contagious (globally)
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    Love it how you sneaked the bath scene in this category 🤣
    Of all the Crown Prince baths, this one in RSC is one of the prettiest, because: Junho. Which just reminded me that there’s also an epic CP bath scene in Empress Ki (Ji Chang Wook made the pettiest and prettiest CP ever)

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      My heart still aches for Ji Chang wook’s CP. I swear JCW is extra-exceptional when he cries. Maybe I should try to get this bath scene into everything.

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    Junho in the bathtube deserves a place in the wall, but as for best costume, I have to agree with Lord Cobol…

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      I haven’t seen what Lord Cobol is saying yet. Laters.

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        Basically: less is more 🤭🤭🤭🤭

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          Oh, I did see that and I am in complete agreement. Why do I suspect the list (#17 and #20) has been constructed to showcase someone in particular for maximum exposure?? Looking forward for the days to come.

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            I wasn’t the one who suggested 17, but it will not be who you are thinking.

            I had very clear who 20 would be, but since last week 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Don’t read if you want to avoid spoilers. While Reflection of You was about forgiveness, I came away with a feeling of sadness, in part influenced by the OST, but also the sense of terrible damage that lack of forgiveness perpetuates and a sense that the cycle of harm had not been broken. People made terrible mistakes, or if they weren’t mistakes, they did terrible things to each other. Jeong Hee-joo ran away from her husband with Seo Woo-jae, who was engaged to her best friend and artistic mentor Gu Hae-won. Gu Hae-won, who had probably lost a child before it was born or had an abortion or was maybe even simply planning a family with Woo-jae, could not forgive her friend who had betrayed her, and Hee-joo was never able to ask for forgiveness either because, in her words, she was afraid of losing everything she had. The two women subsequently tore each other apart, jealous of each other, unable to forgive.

In the previous generation, it was the same, the mother-in-law, Park Young-sun, had never gotten over her husband’s betrayal of her, and she spent her whole twisted life punishing him to his dying day and poisoning the lives of her children and grandchildren with her vicious self-defensive bitter controlling behaviour.

While the vengeance seems remorseless, we are shown a way out. Hee-joo’s brother, Jeong Seon-woo, had carelessly and accidentally killed his friend in a car accident and was dogged by the friend’s mother, who was determined to never let him forget what he had done. In a glimmer of light, at the end, provoked by Hae-won’s words, the mother lets go of him because she is able to acknowledge that her son would not have wanted his friend’s life to be steeped in the misery that she is exacting.

In another instance, Yoon Sang-ho, the bar tender, has learnt from bitter experience what it means to forgive. His wife had wasted their life savings and lost their home, presumably conned by Hae-won’s mother’s “partner”, and while he was bent on locating the perpetrator, to make them pay, the wife ended up in a coma in hospital (or was she dying of cancer? I’ve forgotten). In a further glimmer of forgiveness, once Gu Jeong-yeon realises that she is partly responsible for the damage inflicted on Yoon Sang-ho and his wife, she informs the police and attempts to make amends by at least apologising, but not to his face. Yet he still has trust in her that she will return and face him.

In spite of these glimmers of forgiveness, the cycle of revenge grinds on. Ahn Min-seo, Hee-joo’s sister in law, is exacting her own revenge against her husband who has taken the frustrations and humiliations inflicted by her family and especially by his mother in law out on her by physically beating her. Now the husband is helplessly disabled, she has complete physical control over him and he is at her mercy. There is no forgiveness on the horizon there. Some may argue she is justified because he was a monster to her, but at every point in the drama, we learnt that unforgiveness and revenge changes the person who exacts it as much as the person who is the target (no matter their egregious actions).

Finally, we never get the full picture of Woo-jae, who is both perpetrator and victim. He walked out on his fiancÃĐe, was sedated by Hee-joo, run over by Ahn Hyeon-seong so that he was in a coma for three years, lied to by Hae-won who wanted to keep him by her side and make him suffer for what he did at the same time, lied to and set–up by Hee-joo, who did not want him to spoil her family life, is stabbed and disappears forever when he is thrown into the lake in a suitcase. He appeared more and more to be selfish and even self-deceiving, for although he believed he loved Hee-joo, he told her husband he was bored with her and she had been an easy conquest. He is also physically violent and most probably had raped Hee-joo.

There may be some glimmers of relief, but there is not much light in this drama and this is reinforced by the colours and shadows in the scenes. Like I said, the overall feeling was sad – it left a bad taste, even though Hae-won survived the stabbing from the girl’s father and ended up having her own solo exhibition, I wonder if she was still a sad and self-pitying person and not her radiant former self before the betrayals. Certainly, she wanted to start again and we are told by Hee-joo that her story had just begun, but we don’t see it.

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    The last scene was all Go Hyun Jung’s acting supremacy sorrounded by some great cinematography…..it was visceral. The church bells was chef’s kiss.

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    I like that you highlighted the bartender and the friend’s mom, two people who chose to forgave after a long period of anger and remorse, but unlike Hae Won they never pitied themselves for being put in that situation. IMO, they have found peace with the people who had inflicted the pain and also with themselves by reflecting on their actions and are at much better place than Hae Won who was hell bent on seeing it through her revenge plan.

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      Hell bent on seeing her revenge plan through its end*

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      I found the friend’s mum unforgiving and vengeful, under the guise of making sure he lived responsibly, until the very end when she let go. I agree with you about the bar tender. He knew the truth of forgiveness. And he’d gone past the point of self pity. He tried to tell Hae-won.

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# 2021 Round Up

2- ML you will never forget (for better or worse).
My two discoveries in 2021
Shin Ha-kyun as Lee Dong-sik in Beyond Evilfor creating a character torn by guilt and grief, full of anger and craftiness
Seo In-guk as Myul Mang in Doom at Your Service who plays the end of all things wanting to escape his colourless existence
And
Ryu Jun-yeol as as Kang-jae in Lost/Human Disqualification for bringing to life a character who is without meaning, cast adrift in a world without values, who comes slowly back to life when he falls in love









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#Round Up 2021
1- FL you will never forget (for better or worse).

Shin Hye-sun as Queen Cheorin in Mr Queen a woman playing a man playing a woman (!)
Jeon Do-yeon in Lost sublime
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Dramas I’ve Watched in 2021
Awaken
Fly Dragon/Delayed Justice
Mr Queen
Run On
Lovestruck in the City
Love (ft Marriage and Divorce) S1
Sisyphus: the Myth
Beyond Evil
Navillera
Vincenzo
Mouse
Law School
So I Married an Anti-Fan
Doom at Your Service
Move to Heaven
Bossam: Steal the Fate
Imitation
Racket Boys
Nevertheless
Devil Judge
You are My Spring
D.P.
The Road: Tragedy of One
On the Verge of Insanity
Hospital Playlist 2
Squid Game
My Name
Hellbound
Hometown Chachacha
Lost/Human Disqualification
Lovers of the Red Sky

Oldies
100 Days My Prince
Born Again
Find Me in Your Memory
About Time
Nokdu Flower
Princess Hours
Nobody Knows
Alice
Partners for Justice 1 & 2Angle’s Last Mission
High End Crush
The Moon Embracing the Sun
I Remember You
Shopping King Louie
Encounter
All about My Romance
Into the Ring
The Crowned Clown
Mad Dog
Life after Lie
The Boy Next Door
The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

Ongoing
The King’s Affection
Red Sleeve Cuff
Secret Royal Inspector and Joy
Melancholia
Inspector Koo
Reflection of You
Chimera
Mt Jirisan
One the Woman
Extraordinary You
One Ordinary Day

Films
Minari
Somewhere In Between
Recalled
Swordsman
Places in the Heart
Kim Ji-Yong Born 1987
Book of Fish
Oldies
The Divine Move
A Man and a Woman

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Force watching the last 2 episodes of One the Woman.

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One Ordinary Day



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    Those feet.

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    The synopsis is verbatim of The Night Of. Not sure who copied who. I should Google it

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      The k version is the most recent. It’s close so far, including the feet. Just from wiki. I’ve not watched either British or US versions. I only watched part of ep 1 of The Night Of.

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        The one with Riz Ahmed is really really good. But they used his ethnicity and religion as conflict there. Wonder what they will use in the kdrama version.

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          The failures of the justice system to start with: the incompetence and fallibility of the policing, the ambitions of the detective and the lawyer for the prosecution… All fairly predictable, but you can his chances of justice receeding incrementally in the face of a remorseless institution. I’m guessing the inequity of people before the law will also kick in. You can already see the humble family of a taxi driver pitted against the wealthy golf-playing step father. So definitely the class system. Be interesting to see what they make of it. Do you know how it was handled in the British version?

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In honour of David Dalaithngu

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@dncingemma

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An interview with the director of Hellbound and his explanation of what he wanted to achieve.
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=319621

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