Beanie level: Rooftop room dweller
4
0
5
0

All credit to #kdramafeed
The problem is the sizing.

https://www.tumblr.com/kdramafeed/678451299944153088

5
1

My delivery service has closed. I\’ve been promoted!!!! I\’m on the rooftop. Everyone is invited for Korean BBQ. BYO soju and makgeolli. Let\’s party 🎉🎉🎉🍖♨️🔥🥩🥓

27
24

A new generation of anti-feminism having an impact on the South Korean election held today.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60643446

1
5

    “Me first” as the antifeminist answer to “Me too” makes me both want to cry and to kick those idiots in the shin. Yikes!

    5
    1

      Just read that Yoon Suk-yeol has won the election. His campaign was based on an appeal to those “me first” entitled voters. He has also obstructed the reform of the prosecution (refer to Forest of Secrets). I’m fearing this won’t be good for South Korea’s journey towards gender equity and accountability. I hope I’m wrong.

      2
      1

From The Korea Times on excessive drinking in dramas.

https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=324758

5
0

Juvenile Justice – looks interesting. Kim Hye-soo always delivers.
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=323319

4
8

    It has Lee Sung-min too.

    1
    1

      Yes. He seems to be in everything. I thought he was wonderful in Misaeng and The Spy Gone North.

      0
      0

    I have such strong feelings about this based on what we now know about brain development that I need to wait for the reviews.

    1
    1

      Interesting. So are you saying approaches to youth crime should be more progressive. This is something I know nothing about. I’m ready to learn.

      1
      1

An interview with the writer of Our Beloved Summer
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=323191

6
2

    Her understanding of and take on on her peers come through OBS with authenticity.

    1
    1

      She “got” her characters really well. They were idiosyncratic but understandable. I loved the humour.

      1
      0

Credit to ircnx

7
0

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). ✞ 🪦⚰️

5
2

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 🎄 ❤

6
11

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

    1
    1

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

      1
      1

        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.”

        2
        1
9
1

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

7
0

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

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

7
1

# 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

12
0

#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

9
4

    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…

    1
    1

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

      0
      1

        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.

        1
        1

          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…

          1
          0

Extraordinary You, the trumpet creeper that means yearning

9
4

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)

13
7

    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)

    4
    1

      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.

      0
      0

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

    2
    1

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

      0
      1

        Basically: less is more 🤭🤭🤭🤭

        2
        1

          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.

          3
          1

            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 🤣🤣🤣🤣

            1
            0

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 fiancée, 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.

4
4

    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.

    3
    0

    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.

    2
    2

      Hell bent on seeing her revenge plan through its end*

      1
      0

      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.

      3
      0