I don’t know about you, but when I saw the flash of lightning and heard thunder outside the window,
and then saw Hyun Bin standing outside in the rain,
I had flashback of “Memories of the Alhambra” (MoA). I thought that HyunSeok was going to spring out nowhere and slash him with that sword again.
I liked MoA, and so far, I’m liking CLoY, too. We all know that they’re nothing alike and since I already started to comment about their differences in one of my comments, I might as well continue and give you my take. I did this sort of comparison for “Hotel del Luna” and “Goblin” with @growingbeautifully.
I’ll limit myself to three points because I’m pressed for time. I’ve to finish another post…
First, the kdramas had a different focus.
“Crash Landing on You” is your typical kdrama about love relationships. We have a tsundere South Korea woman meeting an idealistic North Korean soldier. She has a capitalist heart while he has an unyielding and inflexible one. They go through the typical meet-cute, the adjustment period, the falling-in-love phase, and now the separation stage.
Now, don’t get me wrong here. Just because something is “typical” doesn’t mean I dislike it. There’s something comforting about love stories that follow the expected trajectory. For one, I don’t have to stress myself out that a horrible crash landing will happen in the finale (well, the crash occurred in the beginning, anyway) or that the writer will deliver an open-ending.
In contrast, “Memories of the Alhambra” is a kdrama that lends itself to intellectual musings. As I said in the comment section somewhere, the fantasy element of the kdrama was primarily used as a backdrop to explore questions about man’s existence, like “Who am I?” “What’s free will?” “Why am I here?” Then, as the plot increasing blurred the line between the Augmented Reality world and reality, the viewers were forced to discern what makes something real and unreal. The romantic element took a back seat to these philosophical exigencies.
The difference in the purpose of the kdramas is the reason I can easily list the tropes in CLoY, but I couldn’t in MoA. The tropes in CLoY are easy to spot because they’re conventional in romcoms. Thank goodness, however, that the writer(s) of CLoY are able to recast them in new and diverting ways.
Take for instance, in Episode 8, that soju-drinking/spill-the-beans scene between Dan’s mom and Chi Soo. Look: there’s always a scene in kdramas when a secret admiration is accidentally confessed by a lover in a drunken haze. And sure enough, in this kdrama, there’s a secret love revealed (i.e., Seri and JungHyuk’s relationship) by a drunk lover, Chi Soo. (Well…I suspect that Chi Soo is secretly love with Seri, too. He has love-hate relationship with her.) For good measure, he even told Dan’s mom to write the information down.
But what made this absurd is Dan’s mother had no recollection of what they’d talked about, because of her alcoholic black-out.
And her scribbles became came out as cryptic as military codes.
I laughed so hard at this scene, I almost had the “giggle incontinence.”
Second, the settings of the kdrama produced different outcomes in the story.
In both kdramas, the characters originally met in a foreign land. Alhambra was integral to MoA, and as was Switzerland, and North Korea (or Mongolia because apparently the NK scenes were filmed there) for CLoY.
But while Alhambra brought out the chaos and even deaths to a number of characters, Switzerland brought healing. Seri had flown there, thinking that it was nice to spend her final moments in a place with beautiful scenery. Instead, she found her consolation.
Then, in her second encounter with JungHyuk, Seri landed herself in North Korea/Mongolia. In this strange land, she was forced to go back to basics — or to be grounded in what’s real. Mixing with the ahjummas and JungHyuk’s squad, she had to get rid of her airs and to appreciate simple pleasures.
Although I understand that this kdrama whitewashes the harsh realities of living in a totalitarian state, I commend the efforts of this kdrama to emphasize the similarities, and find humor in the differences of these two countries. Innate goodness can be found in people anywhere and everywhere, in the same way that corruption and social climbing aren’t only endemic in a capitalist country like South Korea.
Lastly, flashbacks were used differently in these two kdramas.
Although both kdramas employ flashbacks extensively, they have different functions.
In “Memories of the Alhambra” – and viewers totally didn’t get this – the flashbacks were meant for viewers to VIRTUALLY experience what Jinwoo was going through. It was a very clever trick.
You see, when you’re playing a videogame and you die while in combat, you’re logged out of the game and have to start all over. Similarly, when Jinwoo encountered an impasse or a checkmate, the game would terminate, and he needed to start all over. When this happened in the show, the viewers vicariously experienced his reboot by watching a flashback.
In short:
Gamers start all over = the flashback in MoA = reboot the show
MoA’s approach to flashback is unique to the show.
Typically, in kdramas like “Crash Landing on You,” the flashbacks are just intended to be informative. They reveal a new element of character’s history. For instance, in Episode 6, because of the flashback, we can organize the timeline better.
We now know that:
JungHyuk was in Switzerland in 2007 since that was the year on his application form; he registered for the school year of 2007-2008. That was 12 years ago (I’m using 2019, not 2020, as reference point). In 2009, Seri formed her Seri’s Choice company.
Then in 2012, JungHyuk’s hyung passed away. Dan’s mother complained that they’ve been in mourning for seven years.
That’s when his and Seri’s paths crossed. If we did a quick accounting, we’d figure out that he’d been in Switzerland five years, and Seri’s company had been operational for three years when they met in Switzerland.
Additionally, flashbacks typically provide insight into the character’s current mindset.
For instance, from Seri’s flashback, we see her personality BEFORE she met JungHyuk. She ditched her boyfriends ruthlessly. She didn’t like to wait for anybody. She saw Christmas as a commercial opportunity. She lacked an interpersonal relationship with her employees, unlike with the fab squad and the ahjummas. I highly doubt that she ever went on a company dinner with her workers at Seri’s Choice. But she gave JungHyuk’s squad an award ceremony before she left, and she even sang for a song for them.
Also, flashbacks typically shed light on a conflict. For instance, in Episode 8 at 1:14:13, Seri’s secretary said that “She’s not the birth mother.”
Insurance guy: …Let’s visit her mother. She gave birth to her. She’ll definitely recognize her daughter’s voice.
Secretary: She’s not the birth mother. I found out not too long ago.
Insurance guy: Then how about the chairman? He’s her biological father, right?
Secretary: (pause) Have you finally gone crazy? How could we possibly meet him?
Again, they quickly assumed that the dad’s the biological father and that he would save Seri if he knew where Seri was. Even Brother #1 accused the mom of wanting to abandon Seri. “Mom, when Father brought her home, you probably wanted to abandon her if no one was looking.”
But if that’s the case, then why is it that only Seri and her mother shared the flashback of that scene in the empty beach when she had been counting for somebody to come? In order for Seri and her mom to have a shared the same flashback, the mom would necessarily have to be with her, too, and witnessed her counting by herself in the beach. But where was the dad?
We still don’t know how that beach moment ended. For now, all we know is that Seri thought she’d been all alone when her mom was there, and heard her counting in the dark.
The mystery of her illegitimacy is to be continued.
To me, the director and writer of CLoY utilized the flashbacks in the usual way. There was nothing revolutionary or avant-garde about them.
Flashbacks be like, “Been there, done that!” 🙂
In contrast, MoA had a novel approach to flashbacks. Apart from emulating the game mode of Augmented Reality, the continuous flashbacks aimed to fracture the viewers’ sense of time and to add to their confusion. The flashbacks were unsettling.
Rather than being self-explanatory, the flashbacks replicated for the viewers the very subjective world of Jinwoo. For instance, the non-stop flashbacks interrupted our concept of time — just like Jinwoo’s world became disjointed. Also, the story stopped and started at odd times – just like Jinwoo became increasingly confused between what was real and not.
Then, Jinwoo lost all awareness of time passing. Minutes became hours, days, weeks, months. Because he was so intently focused on a mission to conquer the game, a year went by quickly. When he came back, he was still stuck in game mode.
Similarly, the internal clocks of viewers were screwed by the flashbacks. Every time there was a flashback, viewers were thrown in a loop. They felt, “Wait a second. Haven’t I seen this before? When did I just see this?” Because they were in a constant repeat cycle, they too lost track of the sequence of events. Before they realized it, the show’s become too confusing for them to follow.
To me, the surest sign that the viewers got lost in time was when they couldn’t keep up with increasing complexity of the game rules. When they couldn’t follow the game, they couldn’t follow the show’s logic.
Link if you want to read more: On flashbacks (By the way, I never published the answer. The hedges were from Blenheim Palace in England. The hedges were trimmed to spell out “Blenheim.”)
Question: So which flashbacks do I like better?
I’ll admit that I’m enjoying the flashbacks in CLoY because they’re less cerebral. Or less “artsy-fartsy” as my philistine friends would say.
Note: this doesn’t mean that flashbacks in CLoY can just be taken at their face value.
For instance, didn’t you notice that in Episodes 7 and 8, Jung Hyuk’s flashbacks came to him in dreams about his brother? To me, his flashbacks expressed his psychological state of distress. He’s repressed his memories of his brother. But in his weakened state, these memories appeared to him in dreams…which, in turn, the viewers see as flashbacks.
For instance, in Episode 8, he remembered giving his brother the watch as a gift before he left for abroad. This was a typical flashback; it showed what actually happened when he left home 12 years ago.
But when he turned back to look and he found his brother suddenly gone, that scene wasn’t a flashback anymore.
That was his repressed feelings of losing someone and being abandoned. To me, these emotions were triggered by the goodbye scene with Seri that had just happened.
Same with the flashback moment in Episode 7, while he was unconscious. He was dreaming of that time he heard news of his brother’s death, prepared to leave for home, and played the piano for the little girl who could be his “last” audience.
But if I was to analyze this flashback, in conjunction with his flashback in Episode 8, I’d say that he was replaying these scenes, unconsciously, because he was feeling the same sense of loss with Seri’s parting. At that time, he thought that Seri had gone on board that flight. He didn’t know that she missed her plane.
So while, in his dreams, he was playing the music in memory of his brother who left him for good, he was also unconsciously thinking of Seri who also left him for good. His feelings of loss for Seri have been sublimated, or re-channeled into his remembrance of losing his brother.
Both times, he was dreaming of his brother (and we’re getting flashbacks of his brother) because he just went through an emotional goodbye with Seri. Parting with her here,
and here,
triggered his flashbacks.
See that? Both kdramas used flashbacks but their objectives were different.
Okay, I’ll end here. I must limit myself to three differences between “Memories of the Alhambra” and “Crash Landing on You” or else I’ll never get on with other posts.
My point here is that “Memories of the Alhambra” and — so far — “Crash Landing on You” are both good kdramas. Just because one is more accessible and penetrable than the other one, doesn’t make it stronger (or weaker) than the other one. I believe that ultimately, it is our own perception and insights that create meaning for these shows.
Next up: Seri’s choice versus JungHyuk’s no-choice. 🙂 Did you see the difference?
I believe that ultimately, it is our own perception and insights that create meaning for these shows.
Well said, but when I read your perception and insights though, it’s like magic! 😉
So it seems that I jumped to conclusion again about Seri’s background. I’ll wait for the continuation. 🙂
I didn’t mind MoA except for the thunder bit and when HS comes out with a sword again and again. hehehe If you didn’t review it and told me to stay, I would have been gone on first episode. I was glad I stayed though because it had a lot of things to say about faith and hope. 🙂
De-lurking to say that I enjoyed this post immensely. I find it hard to believe I didn’t subconsciously hear the game music when it started to rain: a sign that my brain has moved on from MoA, with which I was besotted (at least in the lobe that is reserved for kdrama fixation). CLOY and MoA are both second watches for me from writers who responsible for other shows that I enjoyed immensely: The Producers and W respectively.
Anyway, it seemed like a good moment to thank you for your writing and insights. An unusual impact is that I recently used your blog as inspiration for which cdramas to watch ahead of a trip to China. Without /Go Go Squid!/ I would have been infinitely less reassured to walk into a convenience store and see the shelves stocked with Li Xian juice (image search 李现 果汁 to see the brand in question).
When I studied Neuroscience at University, I found great joy in what I called my “light- bulb moments”. These were moments when a concept finally made true sense – in it’s entirety- after some hard work. I’d imagine neurons in my brain light up like fireworks with comprehension and the sheer joy it brought (mad though this sounds, this is actually how the brain works. Memory recall and new learning both take place via “neuronal fireworks”). You bring such light- bulb moments again @pm3 ! Thank you so much for bringing that joy again if only through dramas !
Thanks @pkml3. It was great fun doing the Goblin vs Hotel (de la) Luna comparison.
I second @arihsi. Reading you brings happy light-bulb and firework moments. I wish I had the energy, etc to use my brains for dramas, but I seem to have little left to spare! LOL.
Take care now!
😂 Go Go Squid!! How did you like the hero there? Wasn’t his frown classic? I can imagine it right now and I’m grinning.
😂 yes, wasn’t that post fun? It was one of our many collaborative posts in the past.
Are you doing okay? Have you been busy lately?
💡 lightbulb moment? I was invited to speak at a neuroscience class … on the use of recreational drugs, and the current cultural, moral, and legal standards.
Cannabis is gaining significant social acceptance. But there’s too much disingenuous misinformation going around that ignore scientifically proven facts that chronic and habitual marijuana use alters brain structures (those neuronal fireworks!) and impacts emotions, critical thinking, memory retrieval, mood regulation, to name a few.
I see oppa-fans (cough.cough. TOP. cough) defend their Oppas’ drug use because “it’s just marijuana!” and “they’re not harming anybody!” and my eyes roll at their dimly-lit brains. They’re in need of lightbulb moments.
😂🤪
@packmule3 I loved this post so much! Contrary to what a lot of viewers thought, I really liked MOA till maybe the penultimate episode. MOA was what had origi3brought me to your blog too 🙂 That hospital scene with the rain and thunder outside reminded me so strongly of MOA that I almost expecting to hear guitar notes amd a bloody Dr.Cha outside the door 😛
That analysis of the use of flashbacks by both directors was great. I’m still thinking about Seri’s real parents and how that fits into the story. Her childhood has clearly made her the cold hearted person she grew into, till her encounter with Jung Hyuk.
Oh yes… that guitar music. I feel sorry for the composer because whenever I hear that music, I’m going to look over my shoulder to see if Mr. Cha is coming after me with his sword.
As for Seri, it would be funny if her real birth mother or father is somebody from North Korea. GASP!!
No. You weren’t jumping to conclusion because the secretary DID tell the other guy/insurance guy that Seri’s mother isn’t her birth mother.
But I’m just not buying it. I think there’s more to their story.
Like when the father announced at the board meeting that Seri was dead, why was the mother looking at him resentfully. Shouldn’t she be happy? If Seri was her husband’s love child, then she should have looked pleased that the the “illegitimate child” wouldn’t take over her husband’s company.
I don’t know. Her reactions weren’t the reactions I’d expect from a mean non-biological mother.
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I did noticed Mom’s face at the announcement of Seri’s death. She didn’t look pleased at all. I think you’re right, there has to be more to it.
I wonder what happened to the watch when she got kidnapped.
I’m not much into Park Bo Young but I don’t mind her at all. I did watched SWDBS but I didn’t like the ending. 😁
Episode 12, when they show JungHyuk battling on the computer, the accompanying music is, of course, “Memories of Alhambra” by Tarrega. This is a direct nod towards his other drama, which is all about gaming.
P.S. yes i am very proud of what i found, and hope that others have found it as ưell. rip mr. cha
The following comment is going to be very long 🙈 and quite disjointed from the rest because well, I made the mistake of back to back CLoY followed by MoA. Bad choice. However, I needed to rant about a particular aspect of MoA that bothered me a lot. So here it goes with comparison to CLoY.
JH of CLoY is not alone. He has his gang, his parents and of course, Seri. Even the village ajhummas seem to care about him. Compared to that,Jin Woo is desperately alone. About three people seem to care about him, his secretary being the most convincing.
Seri is a very hands-on partner compared to Hee Joo. Seri was ready to buy whatever money can for him, took a bullet for him and tried her best to send him back to NK even when it meant never seeing him again because that was the best for HIM. In the end, she didn’t sit around waiting for him either. She started fellowships, gave ads in multiple languages and made regular trips to a foreign land looking for him – year after year. She was proactive in her love.
As for Hee Joo, I don’t know what she’s doing 90% of the time. There is never a “jump into action” moment. @pm3 did a post on this and no, I don’t mean she should start yielding guns. But she should definitely have done something. Heck, she isn’t even Jin Woo’s emergency contact. He’s passing out from exhaustion and injury all over the place in search of HER brother and she’s nowhere to the rescue. Unlike Seri, she doesn’t call out his lies of being okay and just goes with them as if that’s the easy option.
Till very late in the series, it was doubtful whether some details are Jin Woo’s hallucinations. Because Hee Joo doesn’t know a lot, she has to always decide whether she “believes him”. But you always feel that she had less evidence to do so and doubts his sanity now and then. In which case, she should have dragged him to a therapist. If nothing else, she knows he has become an alcoholic. One could argue that it was his obsession, but it was her responsibility to do something about it! But she does little else apart from crying. Seri on the other hand holds JH close and risks being trapped in a crazy country to save his life.
If Hee Joo didn’t know anything about the game before and hence couldn’t help, she could have done something after Seju came back. But no, she simply continues her cry fest. In Jin Woo’s own words, his journey to find Seju was long and lonely. He prays for it all to end. This is as late as EP 15/16.
Hee Joo seems a forced part of the story by now and Jin Woo’s loneliness becomes a sore point. It’s tiring to watch him suffer alone even after he’s been punished enough. Romance doesn’t need to be a part of every story. Hee Joo could have simply been a reliable friend who has his back. That’d have sufficed.
Lastly, I don’t know if I missed it but Hee Joo doesn’t thank him for his troubles to find Seju?? How is it that her character isn’t given that chance? Seri on the other hand, knows, shows and returns her gratitude.
I don’t even know if there is a clear sequence demonstrating that Hee Joo understood that she and her family were very much a part of Jin Woo’s fall, even if it came by his own hands.
Maybe this is what the writer wanted. To make it all about Jin Woo and his lonely journey full of loss and suffering. But come on, if Hee Joo the character exists, she deserves more substance and more action. And Jin Woo deserves her camaraderie, the comfort of her embrace and the warmth of her love.
HEEELLLLOOOOO!
It’s me again!
I came to read Arishi’s comments about MOA.
But first, I’d like to react to the Packmule3 article.
I managed to detect a detail, in your style.
I’m sure it’s also possible to make a comparison between CLOY and Starway to Heaven.
This drama is referenced in CLOY.
Not just by the dialogue and the meeting with the lead actress.
Look at this scene, LOOK AT THIS, BON SANG :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZRIQags_rI
This is the very first scene from “Starway to Heaven”.
The flashiest, most absurd romantic scene of all time.
The character’s house is at least 200 yards away, at the end of the beach.
That means he dragged his piano 200 meters into the sand!
All this while being completely ALONE.
All this to play a piece of piano while being pensive, alone.
All this to let the tide rise and be submerged by the ocean while continuing to play the piano in the water.
DAMN-IT!
It made me want to see the last episodes of “Starway to Heaven”… O^o
I’d given up around episode 10, so much drama wore me down.
I ended up half-crazy, in interminable fits of laughter.
During several episodes, nothing happens anymore except:
{REPEAT 10 TIME.}
The girl leaves the guy, and he runs after her everywhere.
Then the girl comes back to the guy.
The guy leaves the girl, and she runs after him everywhere.
Then the guy comes back to the girl.
{LOOP.}
This, along with the same music, has become mythical.
However, very good quality music.
EXAMPLE:
https://youtu.be/MYCojeZFOJ8?t=104
The guy runs down the street, he chases buses, he chases taxis, he chases trains, on foot.
If the heroin was on a plane, he’d be chasing the plane, too, on foot…
However, the actors are very good, and some of the reunion scenes are intense to tears.
Add to this the presence of Kim Tae-hee in one of her first roles.
A bitchy role, which suits her perfectly.
For those who haven’t seen this great classic, I can at least confirm one thing: The first two episodes are very good, and even a little too promising, in the very cruel makjang style.
There is also the actress Park Shin-Hye, when she was younger, which further enhances the interest of the drama.
I just sent you an email, but then discovered that I can comment on your posts if I go to my own blog. So that’s how I am now able to follow you. I love the way you analyze these dramas. You find depth that I have failed to discern. I’ll read this post more carefully later, and keep reading your posts as I watch the dramas you’re writing about. I can’t comment on “A Piece of Your Mind” yet because I can’t watch it yet for free in Germany, where I live. Bit I will.
Thanks for your blog,
You’re welcome.
Please remember that these are my “reflections” and you’re free to use them as jumping off points. 😂 I hesitate to call my posts a “reflection” because the word suggests that my writings are loftier than what they actually are.
But in the sense that my posts mirror my worldview and my preferences, then yes they are my reflections.
Of course, credit must also be given to the other posters who frequent this blog. Like it’s written elsewhere: as iron sharpens iron, so one man — or bitch, in our case — sharpens another. The blog is more interesting because of the views and comments of my friends here. 🙂
The ladies here are currently obsessing over “A Piece of Your Mind.”
But I unfortunately have to wait with this until it is available for free in my country. I think that means several weeks still1
And oh! I’m notoriously bad at checking my emails. Unless somebody gives me heads up that I’ve incoming mail, I check my inbox about twice a month. 😂
In your blog, you say that those unable to comment can send you an email, so that is what I did. Would you prefer me to send you my comments and questions again in this way, now that I am indeed able to comment on your blog?
I’m very late to this party, but I’m so glad this blog and this post exist! I’m new-ish to the world of k-drama and, like millions of others, I recently watched CLOY, and loved it. It checked a lot of my favorite rom-com trope boxes, was adorably cheesy/sweet and was just the thing I needed to overcome the mental exhaustion of 2020.
While watching CLOY, I found myself reaching out to touch Captain Ri’s face through my screen an alarming number of times. So given my Hyun Bin-shaped problem, I started watching Memories of the Alhambra.
I have so many thoughts about MotA, and why it’s probably unfair to compare it to CLOY in any way. You’ve already captured most of those thoughts here, so I won’t bother to duplicate them, but thank you for articulating it all so well!
I started MotA with relatively low expectations. Someone had described it to me as Ready Player One meets k-drama, and that didn’t seem like a thing I’d like. But I was pleasantly surprised right from the first episode. The overall plot was a bit of a hot mess, but also really novel and well-conceptualized. The pacing of the show was terrific too. I was on the edge of my seat for much of the series, and especially for the first half. It’s hard to maintain that level of tension over the entire run, so I think the writers deserve a lot of credit (maybe to offset all the criticism they’re getting for the finale?)
Kudos to the writers too on Jin Woo, who I think is a far more compelling and interesting character than CLOY’s Captain Ri. Nothing against the good captain, a proper officer and gentleman who deserves a world of credit for being kind, loyal, and just a little bit innocent. But Jin Woo is in another league (and props to Hyun Bin, who is in nearly every scene of MotA, and who must have been absolutely exhausted by the physical and emotional demands of the role. It’s a much better showcase for his acting talent than CLOY, at least in my opinion).
Jin Woo starts out as your standard-issue Obsessive Tech Bro, a little arrogant, a lot cynical, and sort of emotionally distant. As the show progresses and he’s plunged into this escalating nightmare, he’s still Obsessive Tech Bro (and maybe still sort of emotionally distant), but he’s now willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. There’s a proper hero’s journey in Jin Woo’s story that made the whole series so much better than it might have been.
The only downside seems to be that the other characters are severely under-developed. This is particularly obvious with Hee Ju. She’s stuck in the selfless caregiver box and never gets to break out of it. Indeed, she seems to exist only as a plot device to provide Jin Woo with an emotional (and sometimes literal) crutch when he’s at his most desperate and vulnerable. It’s too bad that she’s not a more developed character because the actors have really good chemistry and I enjoyed the snarky banter between the characters when the show made time for it.
I actually enjoyed the ending of MotA, even if much of it was profoundly sad. Jin Woo’s sacrifice was worthwhile. He safe Se Ju, the game, and his company, and Hee Ju at least has hope that Jin Woo isn’t lost forever. Maybe there will be a Season 2 where she gets to be the primary focus of the show?