Beanie level: Fan club president

So, LT, you finally finished Habaek. How does it feel?
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Episode 7 and episode 8 of Beyond Evil decided they needed to be separate posts. So episode 7 is here. Please feel free to comment on the blog!

Open Thread: Beyond Evil Episode 7

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For the first time I grabbed a notebook and took notes. And when episode 6 started I had to throw them away because that’s when it all flipped over
Beyond Evil OT Ep5&6

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    Another great recap. I’m well ahead, so I can’t say much. What you say about Han Joo-won is something that I did not appreciate keenly enough. Dong-sik is very smart and a match for him. While their parry and thrust is dangerous for both, I get the feeling they are becoming addicted to it. In the early episodes, I loved the see sawing effect as various people came under suspicion. KJM is remorseless.

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These two are a stepbrother twist away from being a Chinese BL
Vincenzo
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    Lolo. I’m not sure if there’s a shade, but I will take it as a shade to Chinese BLs out there. Lolol.

    Make it at least a Taiwan BL, coz we want skinship. 😀

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      Chinese BL is aggressively sexual, disturbingly so.
      Oh unless you count the bromances that sprung up after the censorship crackdown. I don’t.

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        Oooh. Really, now? Now I’m intrigued. I might do research in some of them.

        I am only familiar with few Chinese BLs, and most of them are in recent years. So yeah censorship.

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          I know a lot of people would disagree with me but shows like The Untamed aren’t really BL. They’re bromances that invite viewers to read romance into them in an act that is either subversive or not depending on your POV.

          The most famous Chinese BL is of course Heroin/Addicted. If you watch that, you’ll get a sense of classic Chinese BL but also see the roots of much of the genre in Thailand and Taiwan as well.

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            I know what you mean about The Untamed, I do hesitate to call it a BL as well. There was longing. There was plenty of intense eye actions. Yet the drama overall is not BL. It does have pretty good looking cast and some of the best behind-the-scenes chemistry I’ve ever seen.

            Addicted, I’ve seen episodes here and there, never actually finished. Before The Untamed, that’s the one I’ve heard mentioned a lot.

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            TBH, Addicted is disturbing as hell and when I watched it back I thought it was quite a fascinating study of a dysfunctional relationship. Later, I had to walk this back once I realised that it has been written – and mostly read – as a romance. That changed my opinion on it quite radically.
            A lot of the older Chinese BL were cheap web dramas and it can be hard to find them, let alone find them translated. They certainly didn’t get a Netflix pickup. But like 2015’s Falling in Love with a Rival, they have a lot of sex in them and strongly embody Seme/uke dynamics. But also terrible production values, a lot of them are quite unwatchable (FILWAR is one of these for me). There’s another one that was quite popular, the name of which escapes me, about a guy who falls for his neighbour at University. It even got a feature film sequel. I’ll see if I can remember its name.

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            Yep, first time I’ve heard of them. if it’s difficult to find, yeah i might not watch. It needs to have a good story and characterizations in order for me to watch, even if their production value is quite old.

            Also, will for sure be turned off if the relationship is toxic. It’s bad enough that I will have to ignore certain technical issues, but I can’t waste my time if story is not meaningful.

            Though, now with current Chinese BL, I can’t seem to watch it either as the story is not about the love of the leads. It does have epic world in them, but that’s not what I’m there for. 🙂 If I want to watch epic and grand costume, I will watch Nirvana in Fire or The Longest Day in Chang’an anytime.

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2018 was the best drama year
Discuss

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    inar yep

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    I’d say My Ajusshi is enough.

    I thought Stranger was 2018 too, but discovered it was a year previous. Instead, Lee Soo-yeon’s Life happened in 2018, which is also good enough. Oh, and Live was 2018 too!

    I know there’s an APAD fan club here too, island of neutrality notwithstanding. I haven’t managed to go beyond ep 1 of that myself 😂

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      Totally! My Ajusshi alone is worth it, and then Live plus Life – a cool year of introspective

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      Yesss, My Ahjussi is enough. ^^

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    Oh, no question, it was the best year.

    Live, My Ahjussi, Mother, Thirty But Seventeen, Unnatural, Miss Hammurabi, Dele and the drama special Forgotten Season are all (to me) masterpieces, and then there’s Are You Human Too, Your Honour, Princess Jellyfish 2018, Hana Nochi Hare, Mistress, Come Here and Hug Me, and the awful but so enjoyable Grand Prince.

    Two of my favourite films came out in 2018, Swing Kids and Little Forest.

    Ah… This year DID birth the hideous monstrosity that was Meteor Garden 2018 though. And Queen of Mystery 2. And Fox Bride Star. And Let’s Eat 3. Thinking about it, a lot of terrible things came out too – I was just lucky enough to drop or miss most of them – but should that detract from all the wonderful things?

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    I don’t know…
    Life is in my top ten of all times, also A Poem a day, and My Ahjussi, Just Between lovers.
    I liked (although I don’t consider them as good as the previous ones) Are you human too?, Wok of Love, Twelve nights, Miss Hammurabi and Come and Hug me.
    2018 also gave me Prison Playbook, Matrimonial Chaos, Just Dance and I’m not a robot, but I watched them later, en 2019 and 2020.
    But 2018 was the year of Feel good to die, About Time, A Korean Odissey, Mr. Sunshine, Where the stars land, Children of a lesser god, Rich Man and Something in the rain…
    (To be this detailed, I checked the shows that aired in 2018!!!)

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      Oh, Just Between Lovers finished airing in 2018. And uff, Just Dance. What a charming, charming show. Oh heck yeah. We need another 2018.

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    The Last Empress happened. Best drama 2018!

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      Aw, yes 🙌 The making SSR drama I’m yet to watch! I owe you at least this in exchange for the CSW gifs. Although I’m wondering if Kairos is the better intro to SSR.

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VINCENZO tries to arrange a beating and instead gets the French Revolution, this show so far is brilliant. If he keeps it up (it won’t, will it?) it’ll be a favourite for this year.
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Vincenzo is suddenly a bad soft core BL and I can tick \”Taec tries to mount KDY\” off the list of things I never thought I\’d write.

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I’m going to get drunk and finish The Bride of Habaek and you’re all allowed to… wait, didn’t I already post this once before?
No, really truly this time. Truly for real.
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    That is your escape from Assault Rifle Barbie Sisyphus??

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      I feel like it’s clogging up my to do list. Also I’m 10 minutes into episode 13 and already unbelievably bored. This is a monumentally pointless drama. But I swore I’d finish it at one point and it’s been a year!

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      Oh God I take it back. It’s unwatchable. The annoying thing is, there’s a plotline about a half-human, half-God who’s stuck on Earth and struggling with his humanity and it’s a good plotline. If the drama was that plotline, I’d be here for it.

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        Yet another drama where the secondary (or is it tertiary? I’ve forgotten) thread just a lot more engaging than the one I’m supposed to pay attention to…sigh.

        Sometimes, surrender can be sweet freedom coming for you!

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I’m not sure how much more post-apocalyptic Barbie I can take
Sisyphus
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My new Open Threads continue with Beyond Evil Episode 3 and 4.

Open Thread: Beyond Evil Episode 3-4

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    “ Well, now, writing this sentence I’ve just convinced myself that he’s actually experienced trauma rather than being a perpetrator. ”

    You have wonderful instincts!

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Not sure how the plot of Love Alarm is going to work when the two male leads are actually in love with each other…
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🎶Another Suitcase in Another Hall🎶
Sisyphus
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Luckily, there’s still a lot of hair salons in this post-apocalyptic future.
Sisyphus
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What I want is another Circle. Why can’t they make another Circle?
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    Seriously why can’t they? I blame the ratings. I want to watch it again without knowing anything like we did the first time. So I should just get a memory erasing potion because they will not make another one like it anyway but more shows like Sisyphys.

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    Exactly.

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    I just recommended this show to a newbie kdrama group. I’m upset that I already watched it. Seriously, why does no one listen to us??? A second season has already written itself!

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After a hiatus, I’m trying something a bit different and have started an open thread for Beyond Evil. Just episodes 1 and 2 at the moment but more to come.

Open Thread: Beyond Evil Episode 1-2

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I can’t decide whether Shin Ha-kyun’s scenery chewing is deliciously over the top or just plain over the top.
Beyond Evil
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Me three minutes into a crime thriller.
“That’s him. That’s the perp. Roll credits.”
Beyond Evil
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After flip flopping on whether this show is bad, unwatchably bad, or so bad it’s good, I’ve come down on the side of gleefully terrible.
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Taking bets on whether the Thai remake of Bring it on, Ghost will be a mediocre shot-by-shot remake or similar but just more rapey.
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Art and the Artist: Am I justified in maintaining my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer despite the ongoing revelations about Joss Whedon?
Art and the Artist

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    I wrote this long and inspired piece defending your right to hate the artist and not the art, but then my phone died and I lost it all. The moral was thus: talent is never given to the most deserving, it’s just given. (A lesson my daughter learned early from her more talented, but much lazier and apathetic older brother.) Be in awe of the talent. Separate it from its owner. Be in awe of the tenacity and hard work that made you aware of it. It’s there to be admired.

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      Oh dang I wish I’d read the whole piece!
      Thanks, Ally.

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        Joss Whedon is a genius. A friggin’ genius. You can’t deny that when you see any of his works. Geniuses, in my limited reading and experience, are only one step away from insanity in many instances and have many demons. They’re rarely “people pleasing,” socially acceptable, or very pleasant to be around, unless they are those charismatic sociopaths that end up charming people into their own deaths. Pleasant, huh?

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    I only fell in love with Buffy last year – I’ve barely had any time to love it, so I refuse to let hate cloud it now. I may not be able to finish Angel, though. I already knew Joss Whedon was a sadistic bastard, and while that’s made for some great TV, I don’t feel like watching him torture Charisma Carpenter.

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    I love almost every single thing Josh Weddon has done for tv: from Buffy to Angel, from Firefly to Dollhouse (as creepy as it was sometimes).
    It’s hard to learn so many geniuses are partially monsters, but… maybe that’s the reason they are geniuses. I can’t stop loving Polanski’s movies, Michael Jackson’s music or Picasso’s paintings. I try to look aside because art is art, but sometimes I find it difficult, so I take a break, and then I take a break from the break and let my heart love them again, maybe not for long, but enough to enjoy their art.
    I’ve been a Buffy fan for more than 30 years. I think I will be a fan for 30 years more.

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    Great post. It’s not just about art, many great works have been done by idiots. If one of them discovers an amazing and useful thing we could hardly ignore this new finding just because the inventor was a jerk. As long as the work itself doesn’t show the creator’s moral issues I’m fine still liking them.

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    @LT I understand what you feel. However, as the Beanies below have pointed out, you can still love/appreciate Whedon’s work without feeling that in doing so you are condoning his actions.

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    I watched Buffy, Angel and Firefly back in the day and Angel was actually my favorite until they destroyed Cordy in Season 4. There were rumblings back then about what a bastard JW was and after re-watching the shows over the years, I could see all the problematic elements I had missed the first time around. But there was genius there as well. I have a hard time separating my feelings about JW from his works, but I don’t think you or anyone else is wrong for maintaining your love of the art.

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    My plan is to continue to enjoy artistic endeavors that involve a group of people in spite of the presence of one insufferable pr**k. I do though tend to throw the whole thing out when there’s a rapist in the mix.

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    All the more poignant with the Ji Soo / bullying stuff going on… Will anyone be able to rewatch his dramas without wincing?

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