FUCK YOU.......but I still love you very much, 25/21

I'm absolutely livid at that last bit they showed at that ep finale!!! Why the fuck would you rub salt on my wound??? I'm never recovering from this betrayal ever. All that fan theories I read and held on to with the biggest hopes have been dashed.. ARGHHHHHHH I'm so miserable...

DEEP BREATHSSS

There was a big moment that stood out to me from ep 16 (apart from that nasty bit at the very end)...The scene in between the episode in the tunnel where they thrash out their issues. It felt so real and emotional I almost forgot I was watching a show. I've never ever felt that the stuff I was watching was actually being played out in real life. It was really a strange feeling to lose it for a few seconds. I truly believed in that moment where they were breaking up and then Heedo asks Yijin if he ever loved her and he is incredulous and angry at the question. Then as she leaves, he calls out to her twice. That entire scene was brilliant.

I don't want to make this all about the fucking finale but I do want to say that despite my deep anger and desire to curse the writer/director this very moment, I think they are amazing and I loved this show with all my heart. After a slew of uninspiring, boring shows that I have been watching recently, this one was excellent and jam packed with all that makes a drama beautiful, loved and enduring.

Kim Taeri, I have loved you ever since I watched Little Forest and The Handmaiden. Nam Joohyuk, I thought you were just eye-candy and I'm sorry I didn't respect your talent apart from enjoying your work in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Soo. 

Now I think you both are the greatest thing since sliced bread. The characters of Na Heedo and Baek Yijin are tailor made for you. 

I love all the other characters - Go Yurim, Moon Jiwoong, Ji Seungwan.  I love the fan/rival/friend relationship between Heedo and Yurim. I love the friendship of Jiwoong and Seungwan. I loved how Heedo's mother was such a career woman. I loved Yijin's mom being so openly and deeply in love with her husband. 

The writer/s did an amazing job taking us back to the time of the South Korean financial crisis and showing us how it impacted the people there. There's a lot to unpack here about this but I will leave it to people who know about this better and can articulate it.

I can't write anymore because my heart hurts and I'm angry about the ending. But let me put on my mature and subjective hat on for this sentence and admit that the story did not NOT make sense. Not every love story gets a happy ending and that's okay.  I just have never wished so hard for a Korean drama to be cliche. I will never ever take that for granted now. 

Let me go back to crying and mending my broken heart.

My kdrama fan heart hurts

I don't have much to say at this stage except I will just never recover if this is all we get of Heedo and Yijin. I feel sooo invested in a romantic relationship after a really long time. I better get my happy ending!!! 

PLEASE!

I want to be Han Yeo-jin

 

Name a power duo better than Hwang Si-mok (Cho Seung-woo) and Han Yeo-jin (Bae Doo-na).

I love Han Yeo-jin so much. She is the epitome of cool, chill, relaxed, smart, and all the best adjectives I can bestow on her. I urge everyone to watch Stranger (both seasons are available on Netflix). I'm too lazy to write about the drama but everything about it - story, acting, direction, pacing, music - is brilliant.

SKY Castle - educating viewers about the futility of secondhand dreams

Finished watching SKY Castle and all I can say is 'it is a must watch'. 

This is an important show not just because we can learn about the crippling competition in South Korea's education system, but the universal emotion of parental expectation and how many children's lives are being ruined by having to carry this burden. The show also explores the relationship dynamics between couples and other parents as they direct their children's education and life plans. There are layers to unravel and deeper emotions to unpack.

Education is very important because learning is important. Let us not relegate education as the foremost tool to getting 'forward' in life. Families who mistakenly believe they know what's best for their children and then proceed to unload their personal ambitions on their offsprings can cause more harm than good. It is human to err but we are also blessed with emotional intelligence so let us try to learn from mistakes and examples.

The show has some fine quality actors. I swear I was oscillating between pitying the characters and then wanting to punch the same people in the space of two episodes. Every time I saw some of the characters smirking, I had to pause the show and go rant to my friend. My blood pressure must have shot sky high!

The drama is excellently written, the characters are well fleshed out, the pacing is great. There is angst, there is black humour, there is passion, there is tenderness, and there is pure comedy gold. 

Viewers can assume some characters could be caricatures of the helicopter parents we read about but honestly, the characters are very well written with their own personalities and stories. 

The drama doesn't only depict the competitive nature of education in S.Korea and the burden this places on children but goes on to show the ways it can adversely affect families. Some actions have irrevocable consequences. Yet, we can easily continue on the path to destruction assuming WE are stronger than THEM, that WE make better decisions than the ones who walked the same path before us. This is a way of thinking most of us are familiar with.

Watch SKY Castle for the fantastic storyline and the amazing actors. It holds up a very honest mirror to society. Whether you live in South Korea or some other part of the world, you will be able to understand the futility of chasing your dreams through someone else.

Director Jo Hyun-Tak and writer Yoo Hyun-Mi have done so so well. I look forward to more of their work.

P.S.- SKY is an acronym for the top three universities in the country - Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University,  where the nation's best compete to enrol.  

is there anything left? anymore coming?

Once in a while I sit and wonder sadly if I've reached peak Korean dramas and what if there's nowhere to go from here. What if this is it?

Because I've already watched, laughed, loved and cried over Reply 1988, Misaeng and My Mister.

This seriously hurts.

REPLY 1988

MY MISTER

MISAENG

best of the best K dramas

just a list of a handful of Korean dramas that I have really really loved.

• Reply 1988

• My Mister

• One Spring Night

• Goblin

• Misaeng 

• Reply1997

• Something in the Rain

• Miss Hammurabi

• Reply 1994

• Just Between Lovers

• Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo

• The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

'My Mister' is an amazing show

Oh, how much I wanted this to be a 'love' story!

'My Mister', the title, doesn't really sound appealing. Judging by the name alone, it sounds to me like it could be a weak Korean drama. But you must take a look at the synopsis before you cast it to the back of your mind, dear reader.

Before jumping to the show, I want talk about something else. I often wonder about the beautiful poetic lines that Korean dramas throw at us. Do the writers really write these lines or is it all thanks to the translators? This one has lines such as 'i liked all the sounds you made (flashback to talking, crying, etc.) and i liked listening to the sound of your footsteps (cut to him from the back walking alone at night).' What a beauty. I also particularly liked another line where Ji-an says something like how she will always look back at the company affectionately because this is where she met Dong Hoon who was so kind to her. And for Ji-an to say something like this is amazing.

'My Mister' is about two unlikely people who affect each other in the most positive ways. It is about love - romantic love, familial love, and friends wala love. It is about kindness, about struggling to be a good person doing the right thing, about redemption.....The show also gives us a good look at the Korean corporate culture in Korean and the sunbae-hoobae (senior-junior) relationship.

Let me tackle this last bit first. The sunbae-hoobae relationship can be familiar for all those who come from Asia. Basically, it is about showing respect to one's elders (whether they deserve it or not). But I found it frustrating here in many levels. Another show 'Miss Hammurabi' had a similar scene and I'm getting these scenes mixed up together so I am going ahead with whatever comes to mind, regardless of which show the scenes are from. At one point, the higher ups arrive just as the lift comes to the floor where the lower ranking employees are waiting for the lift. But then the higher ups get in first and some of the lower ranking employees have to wait for the next one because the lift has reached maximum capacity. The employees also hold the door open for their sunbaes. Ugh so annoying.

But I digress.

Park Dong Hoon is a structural engineer who has been the good, solid one all his life. He is in his 40s and the second of three brothers. His wife is a lawyer and his young son studies abroad somewhere. He has been living a not-so-happy life with his emotionally absent wife at home and shit bosses at work. Dong Hoon is essentially a loner. He is quiet, not as expressive and loud as his brothers. It feels like he is carrying the burden of being the responsible son, the good man.

His life is slowly transformed when he meets Lee Ji-an, a temp worker at his office. She is a sullen 21 year old who never smiles, is not polite, and can be aggressive. As we see more of her life, we come to empathise with her. Ji-an is paying off a huge loan that her irresponsible mother took from loan sharks. The mother ran off (and died) without paying off the loan so the loan shark would regularly come to Ji-an and her deaf and mute grandma's house and beat them soundly. One day, she kills the man when he starts beating up the grandma. Now it is the loan shark's son, Lee Kwang-il, who comes around to threaten and beat up Ji-an for the money. She is regularly covered in bruises and she has broken fingers when she fights back Kwang-il.

Ji-an is a resilient soul. She has never had anyone to really depend upon. She works hard to pay off the loan and saves money by eating left overs from the restaurant (where she works part time) or just drinking tea (sachets stolen from the office) for dinner.

Dong Hoon and Ji-an do not start off on a good note. He receives a bribe which he nervously puts away in a drawer. He then notices Ji-an staring at him. Later that night, she steals the money to pay off Kwang-il but circumstances force her to get the money back. In the meanwhile, Dong Hoon has been accused of taking the bribe and could be facing serious legal issues but the money miraculously turns up in a trash can and he is saved. Dong Hoon had suspected Ji-an of taking the money but now he feels indebted to her as he feels she saved him by taking the money off his hands and throwing it in the trash can. Little does he know that she was actually stealing the money from him and thus throwing him deeper in trouble.

Anyway, they start an awkward strange relationship where he hesitatingly buys her meals and sometimes walks her home because they lives in the same neighbourhood. He doesn't really want to do this as he feels it could be viewed as inappropriate by people they know (because he is married and because of the 20 years plus age gap). There is a villainous CEO who wants to ruin Dong Hoon and enlists Ji-an to get closer to him. The plan is to develop an improper relationship between Ji-an and Dong Hoon, and get Dong Hoon fired amid a huge scandal. She puts a bug on Dong Hoon's phone and is privy to his entire life. And this is how a beautiful relationship starts.👻

She starts listening in to his conversations at work, with friends, his family and his wife. Unwittingly, she goes from Team villain CEO to Team unlikely hero Dong Hoon. She realises the gift that is Dong Hoon, how he does things without expecting anything in return, his sense of responsibility, his kindness, his innate goodness, how he comes to her defence. After living so much of her life devoid of kindness, the ice block around her heart starts melting and she is in loveeeee.💖

I don't want to get into the rest of the story because I am LAZY. I will just share the other highlights of the show.

• The bond shared by brothers will immediately jump out as one of the best things about 'My Mister'. Dong Hoon shares a beautiful relationship with his family and he is super duper close with his brothers. So close, in fact, that his wife is jealous of this bond. His elder brother, Sang Hoon, once worked in a big company but was fired and has two failed businesses behind him. He is now basically a bum, living with his mom and separated from his wife. He drinks a lot, has money problems and Dong Hoon often gives him money. Sang Hoon is emotional, cries easily, and loves his family. The youngest brother is Ki-hoon, a once heralded genius of the film industry. But his first feature film didn't really make it and he never made another film. He is also a bum, living at home with his mom and eldest brother. Ki-hoon is a hothead, emotional and loves his family. The brothers meet regularly and share everything with each other. They squabble but are protective  of each other. There are many moments in the show where you will want to be a part of 'this' squad.

• There has been a lot of talk about how this show depicts the life of the Korean middle aged men. I don't know how accurately they have portrayed it but yes, there is a lot of focus on middle aged men and their relationships. The brothers have the same circle of friends since their childhood and they meet often to play football or drink together. We see middle aged men struggling with their careers after they are fired. We see them start one business after another. We see them talk about women, their children, their dreams. It was nice to watch something focusing on them.

• Dong Hoon and Ji-an's relationship was beautiful and frustrating. I say this because I admit it was a beautiful relationship where they both brought out the best in each other and acknowledged how they changed each other's lives. But it was frustrating because I wanted ROMANCEEE. I don't care if that would make it a May-December relationship because they were just so wonderful for each other. Ji-an truly loved him and wanted the best for him even if that meant him being with his wife. I am confused about whether Dong Hoon has romantic feelings for Ji-an, though. I know he does miss her when she is not around and she makes him rethink his life and gives him strength. But should the viewers confuse that with romantic love or not? In the end, he chooses to continue to be the straight-laced guy that he is and go on with his life, despite being as lonely as he was before. Doon Hoon, you could have run off with Ji-an and lived happily ever after, you stupid man!!! But my frustration aside, theirs was a wonderful relationship and I am glad they met and had a chance at love.

• Dong Hoon and his team members also share a great bond with each other. They stand up for him and are immensely loyal. Dong Hoon also proves to be an amazing sunbae, leading his team to the best of his ability.

I feel like I am not doing justice to this drama by what I wrote above. There are many sublime things in this drama that I am not able to articulate well. All I want to say is you need to watch this show. When it comes to K dramas, I only ever watch the run-of-the-mill romantic ones because all I'm looking for is easy entertainment. Somehow the premise of this show caught my interest and I am happy to have watched it. The actors are really good. The music is good. The dialogues are good. Some scenes seem strange and some characters don't seem essential to the plot but overall a great drama.

Now, go watch it.🙏