The thread is now open for our rewatch of W: Two Worlds, Episode 2.
Growing_Beautifully, Cleopatra, Welmaris, WEnchanteur, Janey, Fern, FGB4877, and Carolina are doing the rewatch.
Usual time: 14:00 UTC
09:00 am EST
06:00 am PST
10:00 pm Singapore, Philippines
09:00 pm Indonesia
04:00 pm Greece
03:00 pm in Paris
10:00 am in Caracas
Have you decided what time to have the rewatch next week? Daylight savings starts on March 13 so we’ll “spring ahead” one hour.
Let’s enjoy the rewatch!
Thanks @pkml3.
I was thinking, can we just stick with what we have. As it is easier for me to speak in terms of my time that will not change…can we keep to the Singapore 10pm start time? So does that mean some countries lose an hour… will it be 10am EST?
Thank you @pm3
I am good with either 6 am or 7 am.
I would prefer California to stick with 1 time but alas, it cannot be. Would prefer to stay 6AM like @Carolina but that will be 11PM for @GB and may be too late?
I also have to remember to adjust all my meetings with Asia. Sigh…
So far we haven’t been affected by daylight savings.
As I have said to @GB before, for now, I am okay with 16:00 our time.
If there are general problems though I can go back to 15:00 our time.
@Janey, if you prefer 6am Pacific Daylight time, that works for me as well. For others not on daylight savings time, that would mean reverting to the meeting times we had before we started W. I’d be interested to hear the opinion of someone whose start time is late at night.
I’m confused. If we follow the daylight savings time, those in the PST start one hour later? Is is still called 6am or 7am? But I will start at 11pm, is that right?
Or do I revert to starting at 9pm the way we did for Goblin?
If the majority prefer to follow the Daylight Savings time, then I can still join in. Is there anyone else who starts watching late at night on Saturday?
I will stick with your decision, @PM3 and dearFriends. Personally living all the year round with the same hour makes the concept alien to me, but your 10 am EST will be exactly 10 am CCS so it will be a plus for me (8-9 am CCS is when we have water so displacing the watching hour will make for a less busy morning).
Anyway I stop my watch a lot to read all of you, follow Old DramaBeans recaps (when JaveBeans and GirlFriday were on the helm), and do home chores. So at the end of the day I can adapt.
Hi there @FGB! Daylight savings can’t be more alien to you as it is to me. 😅 😂
To be clearer, it seems like yourself, @Cleo and I are okay for either Option A or B (as laid out by @pkml3 in the other thread).
https://bitchesoverdramas.com/2022/03/11/w-two-worlds-start-time-for-rewatch-ep-3/
The decision seems to rest then on those who have to wake up early, while still losing the hour. 🙂
Kalispera Chingus!
How are you?
Hi there @Cleo!!
I”m great! How about yourself?
It’s time to start… let’s go!
Am I by myself?
Should I start?
Hey @GB Unnie!
I am okay. I have a headache but I took a nap. I do hope that it will not come back while we watch our Episode.
@Cleo, FGB should be here too. I hope @WE remembers!!
Lee Jong Suk’s visuals are used so well as the comic figure of Kang Chul…
@Cleo, I, too have been having headaches on and off. Fortunately they go away on their own. I took a short nap just now to be more awake now LOL.
The voiceover recap by Yeon Joo was good to get us up to the current moment.
LOL Soo Bong is so frustrated with her.
Hello chingus and agapimenes!!! I’m here for the rewatch!
Good morning, all! I’m here, but running a few minutes late. Spilled my tea and burnt my toast. Hope those aren’t omens about the rest of my day.
@GB,
I saw that you were talking to our friend @FGB! I do hope @WE remembers and @Welmaris and @Janey will join us too!
Also, Yeon Joo is talking to Su Bong and he doesn’t believe her…
Galileo Galilei…Should we call the Queen!?
Hi there @Janey!!
Please confirm if you’d like Option A or B on the other thread (link above). I think we’ll go along with your choice since those of us without Daylight Savings are fine with either Option.
I am starting now, how do you do dear Friends? 😀
Hey agapimenes @Janey and @Welmaris! :*
So, we get to know that Yeon Joo’s mother divorced her dad and forced Yeon Joo to become a doctor and not an artist…
Hi @Welmaris, how’s you poor hand? Take your time and no more accidents!!!
@Welmaris,
Did you have an accident? Get well soon!
When Oh Sung Moo is lying to his daughter Yeon Soo that he drew those two chapters. When in reality he didn’t.
Kang Chul’s self determination sucked Yeon Joo in and the W manga world took care all the other things… with *to be continued*
When Oh Sung Moo is lying to his daughter Yeon Soo that he drew those two chapters. When in reality he didn’t.
Kang Chul’s self determination sucked Yeon Joo in and the W manga world took care all the other things… with *to be continued*
Decided to splurge on Saturday and prepared cookies with oatmeal, mashed bananas, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sugar 😉
Ooops! How did my comment post twice? Sorry about that friends!
Jakkanim Sung Moo will try to kill Kang Chul by poisoning him.
@FGB sounds like a substantial lovely, sweet breakfast. Enjoy!
We get to see the will of the “false” jakkanim going against the will of the “right” one…
True @Cleo, the battle of the wills of the artists/creators of KC. However at this stage in my first watch, I was asking what was going on. Why YJ kept getting pulled into the mamhwa world, what the logic was for her going and returning, etc. That kept taking me out of the story.
Now YJ realises that her father too had been aware of KC’s coming to life and his self-awareness. She is the one who determines that KC’s life matters because it is she who terms killing him murder.
If not for YJ, I’m guessing even KC’s desire to remain alive might not have saved him.
Thanks for the reminder, I will reply in the W time choice thread. Glad either options are ok with all of you.
I like the recap in the first part. So YEon Joo is into the arts but the mom forced her to be a doctor? Probably does not want her to follow the footsteps of his dad.
The actor for the dad is a good villain. I abhorred him in Mr Sunshine as a Korean traitor.
Yeon Joo was sucked in the Manga’s world again because what she was saying to her father is right.
He will kill Kang Chul who is alive on the manga’s world. That’s murder!
My last comment finally brings me belatedly to the thought that when KC was in extremis, he reached out to his creator. It was a prayer to be saved and his self-determination enabled him to reach past the laptop screen to actually touch YJ, to bring her into his world. How did I miss all that before?
@GB Unnie,
That is true you wrote. Yeon Joo was the one who kept him alive, because as I have said to the other thread, she was the truthful jakkanim.
That’s why her WILLPOWER is stronger than her father’s. The W world listens to her and not to him any longer.
I didn’t have problems because I was aware of the fact about self determination and for me that was clear the moment I was watching it.
Dear @Welmaris, when that happens I offer a cheap bottle of water to god Murphy so he gets a sacrifice and leaves satisfied. When I was doing my Master’s Thesis I had a corner in my Lab with paper towels full of spills (thankfully no broken glass equipment) in a corner as Murphy’s Shrine XD .
Please take those accidents with humour and hope you have a uneventful, lovely rest of the day 😉 .
@Cleo, yes that’s right. YS who had the greatest right and investment in KC as his original creator, by her concern for her creation, gets sucked into KC’s world each time he faced annihilation.
LOL how she pretends that she’s with KC just because she was passing by. Such a bad liar, she is.
@GB,
She is a bad liar that is true but that is also her charm…*winks*
@Everyone… do you think KC keeps saying that she was not beautiful because he didn’t want So Hee to be jealous or because he didn’t want people to think that he was a player?
In the end, I felt that he wanted to protect YJ from being found by the police so the sketch given of her (according to So Hee) was so unlike her.
I think I love her mom’s friend 😀 .
@FGB, why do you like the mum’s companion? I think that’s her sister.
@GB,
I think deep inside what he told that she is the “key to his existence” was not wrong. He knew that she was important to him, but he didn’t know in what extent.
That’s why she used the world “insticts” right now…
Father tries to gaslight his own daughter about what happened.
It’s cute about the instincts thing. He mentioned it in Ep 1, she read it and uses it in Ep 2, then he confirms it here as well.
She promises him that she’ll be back when he is discharged… so is that why she gets sucked in again later on in the episode, exactly 2 months later when he’s out of hospital?
Her promises to the main character become a rule that she has to follow, even when she is in the real world?
The more they are interacting. I mean Kang Chul and Yeon Joo the more she will be sucked in his W: world.
We get to see that bus stops are important in the W: world.
They are a portal to the real world!
Correction, she did not return but remained for 2 months in his world, because nothing happens in the manhwa unless KC does something in his world. She ends up skipping to 2 months later but it’s only half an hour for her in her time.
And KC can actually reach her by phone.
sorry i’m late! here =)
@GB unnie, please remember I am watching this for the first time with you! 😀 . She delivers cold truths to FL’s mom and does it like someone who talks about the weather. She also recognizes that the FL feels like a fish out the water in her University Hospital.
Hey @Carolina!
@GB Unnie, she didn’t know that of course at the time. She will find out with the hard way. The fun part starts now…LMAO!
Earlier YS kept saying “he is just a character, he can die” but later recognized that KC is alive and accused her father of committing murder. So she does not even need to be touched or close to the portal (dad’s drawing board) to get sucked back in W. Whoa- that’s a big jump in concept and cannot be explained.
LOLOL I’m laughing so hard over YJ’s reaction to KC’s question about how she’s been. It’s been only 30 minutes since she last saw him… and then his expression and his saying ‘Aigoo!’ because she just cannot respond and her facial expressions were so weird-cute. *Still giggling.*
@Janey,
It can be explained. She is the one who created Kang Chul in the first place. It is not shown yet, but that is the truth. That’s what we were discussing with @GB Unnie above. Her willpower outruns her Father’s.
LOL YJ’s thinking and her expressions are so good… so funny. Ah here comes the slap!!!
And then the kiss! Love all her voiceovers and her expressions.
The voice we hear summarizing Kang Cheol’s life and the published (versus as created by Writer Oh) storyline: that’s Yeon Joo isn’t it? This voiceover retelling appears both at the end of Episode 1 and the beginning of Episode 2. If it is YJ (who I think it is), I believe this is significant. Writer Oh wants to kill of KC because they aren’t in agreement as to the storyline, and KC has proven himself the more powerful because his version of events has been prevailing; Writer Oh isn’t the powerful god of creation and destruction he wants to be. [SPOILER] But because he wasn’t the original creator of Kang Cheol and the world of W, Yeon Joo was, it is in Kang Cheol’s very essence to act in the manner in which he was created–by YJ–and that is with a strong, built-in sense of self-preservation.
Writer Oh is a pessimist. In real life he’s a depressed alcoholic who was devastated by the breakup of his family and still hasn’t gotten over his divorce. I don’t know what issues arose in his marriage that his wife couldn’t bear, but his philosophy boils down to: “I’d rather eat, than be eaten.” I win, you lose. He doesn’t seem to have room in his heart and mind for both sides to be winners (or losers). To defend himself, Writer Oh goes on the attack, seeking to destroy rather than develop an alliance. He has little love for himself, and that makes him less likely to love anyone else. Lacking love, Writer Oh lacks empathy.
Yeon Joo is an optimist. She struggles with confidence in her medical skills, yet she persists in her studies because she believes she will develop competency. (Perhaps it is important that becoming a doctor wasn’t her idea, but she pursues that career at the insistence of her mother. YJ does like cardiothoracic surgery, eager to put her studies into practice.) She doesn’t give up just because it is hard. She sees beyond setbacks to eventual success. As a child she must’ve been hurt by her parents’ separation, yet has maintained a loving relationship with both.
All this relates to Kang Cheol. He was created by an optimist. When the one who co-opted him, Writer Oh, tries to destroy what Yeon Joo created, her creation follows her heart, not Writer Oh’s. The love and optimism which Yeon Joo instilled in Kang Cheol resists Writer Oh, because that pessimism goes against his character.
That scene was so funny.
First she slaps him, then she kiss him!
Hi @GB, @Janey, @Cleo, @FGB
So I had so many questions, but this episode seems to clear those up. The lingering one is regarding creation/creator. But I’ll ask a little later as we watch.
@Welmaris exactly!
Hi @Carolina! Glad you can join us!
I wish @WEnchanteur was here.
The price of the dress was in thousands of dollars??? Jaw-dropping!
The female lead is having Chuang Tsu’s Butterfly Dilemma out of the coffee shop.
AAAhhh @Welmaris Thank you sooooo much.
You answered my main question. That was fun to read. I’ll follow up later with something else lol
This is like your creation has a life of its own and that’s frustrating for the dad who is the creator. W just writes itself – it probably attempts to change the storyline and now that YS is there, the more powerful it’s self determination gets. She believes KC is alive and W world exists.now the creator is different.
Thanks @Cleo for the note and reminder! I feel like Im watching this for the first time again. I’m having senioritis!
Honestly, even though I watched this already. I feel i’m watching it for the first time. I dont remember much plus the first time around the creator/creation part was a bit confusing for me.
@Janey,
For me is the perfect example of the philosophical issue about Self Determination. That’s why I liked it in the first place.
Kang Chul chose to become “free” and decide by himself.
It must have been a terrible and creepy thing for Sung Moo to see that his creation has taken a life of his own, independently of his drawing and against his will. It becomes understandable why he wants to kill KC.
However the way he tried to do it, was wrong. Just like the way he fired his team. He didn’t lay the groundwork for the death of KC except to try to get him to commit suicide at first, but it was in reaction to the death of his family by a killer who actually didn’t exist, who was just a deus ex machina. That was bad story writing on Sung Moo’s part. So his attempts to get KC killed failed.
Now, we have Kang Chul realizing that Yeon Joo is indeed the key to his life and he will realize that “something” is not going well to his world.
Someone wants him dead.
Why?
Because he decides for his own life now. It was his decision to stay alive!
In the attempt to kill KC using once again a thing of no proper origin, the TOD, Sung Moo is pitting himself against the will of KC to stop what is happening. KC’s will is so strong that his world literally pauses in time, giving him the chance to move himself out of the way of the TOD.
The horror of seeing his drawing rebelling against him hit’s Sung Moo.
Not only that, but of his drawing getting out and addressing him directly… breaking the 4th and 5th wall LOL.
Actually it’s really scary if something like that happens. No wonder SM fell backwards.
The other thing is, KC was envisioned by his real creator to be super smart, full of good instincts, etc so he seems to keep making those leaps of understanding that are not explained in the show.
I used to be so upset at not getting any explanation LOL.
I have forgotten how I loved this story when I watched it the first time around. I really like it for all the reasons I have written above on the first episode’s thread.
Time passes by so very fast and the episode ended.
@Cleo, I still somehow feel that giving KC great instincts/intuition so that he just knows stuff was kind of a lazy way of moving the story along. I could never figure out until much later, why he should think YJ the key of his life. It was too far ahead a leap for a first time watcher. There were things like these that kept upsetting me.
Yup, @Cleo, it ended for you and me but I believe our friends are still watching. Pity @WE was not able to join us today.
I’m about to shift over to 25, 21!!!
@Carolina me too… watching it again still feels like it’s the first time. So much that I don’t remember. So much insight that I failed to get.
@FGB I had to look up that butterfly effect! LOL… I believe you’re right.
@Janey, you too? Me too and Carolina too.
OK 25,21 is up!!!
I have a question but it’s for ep 3, so I’ll save it for later.
@GB I agree with you that his intuition is too advanced. First time around I just went with it that he leap to all those those conclusions.
See you all next week. Enjoy your day ladies.
@GB,
I didn’t stay focused on that one. I got it as a drive for the plot to move forward…
Hence, I wasn’t so confused about it…
Enjoy watching 25,21!
Episode 3 will be a turning point…
@FGB,
Should I add Descartes into the mix?
“I think, therefore I am…”
“Cogito, ergo sum.”
I will say bye for now!
Read you laters! Enjoy your weekend!
Yes it feels like watching it for the first time! Seems fresh. That slap/kiss on o make a sensational cliffhanger webtoon episode!!! LOL!!! YS looks like a crazy woman. Now W wants a love story. LOL!!! Maybe it was supposed to be a love story.
Dad will use all tropes to get KC killed like poison and truck of doom. Hah! Lazy writing… But KC breaks the barrier and asked the creator “who are you?” And the underlying question of “why are you trying to kill me?”.
Thanks for the rewatch ladies and gent! Hugs for now. See you next week.
@GB, I’m off to 25/21 in a bit!
She is such a bad liar she is cute…
What Writer Oh does to his own daughter is classic gaslighting. She knows the truth about what is happening with W. Her father knows the truth. Her questions to her father reveal to him that she knows the truth. But Writer Oh responds in such a way to make it seem YJ is crazy to believe that truth.
“It’s so toilsome. It’s so cloying that I’d rather hurry up with it and rest. Let’s talk next time with our hearts at peace, okay?” The character of Kang Cheol and the storyline of W is not to Writer Oh’s liking. After ten years of publishing W, despite his great success, Writer Oh would rather destroy Kang Cheol and the world of W than find a way to live in harmony with it.
I don’t know the original words used in Korean, but these are the meanings of the words used in the English subtitles.
Toilsome: involving hard or tedious work.
Cloying: excessively sweet, rich, or sentimental, especially to a disgusting or sickening degree.
Writer Oh has a poor attitude. Yes, that’s a judgmental thing for me to say, but his words show he considers the problems in his relationship with Kang Cheol and W to lay entirely in others, not in him. They bore him. (Continuing to create the story is tedious.) They disgust him. (He doesn’t like them, and how dare they make him feel bad?) Writer Oh does not want to change his outlook to form a happy alliance with Kang Cheol: tired of exploiting Kang Cheol for financial gain, he’d rather kill Kang Cheol than rework his attitude.
Talking about hearts at peace sounds like a reference to death, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what is often said about someone who has died, that they’re finally at peace? It’s not the survivors who are at peace, because they’re usually grieving. Writer Oh resists considering the pain he’ll cause others–his daughter, his staff, fans of W–by killing off Kang Cheol. Yes, he’s frightened by the self-determination of Kang Cheol, but he’s been living with it through ten years of publishing, and it hasn’t caused him harm. In fact, Writer Oh has become much better off financially because the public loves the stories being published. But Writer Oh knows he’s a fraud. The stories others love, from which he benefits, have not been created by him but despite him.
I note that YJ’s mother seems to be a realist. She split from her husband and became a single mother even though she might have been more comfortable materially if she’d stayed in the marriage. She lives by the decision she made, not looking back in regret.
YJ learns from Assistant Soo Bong that Writer Oh is planning to poison Kang Cheol to death. When YJ is talking to herself outside Bonjour bakery, she tries to be a realist, like her mother. “I should stop caring. Dad came home safely anyway. It’s a comic. Just a comic. Whether he lives or dies, he is the main character of a comic.” But YJ can’t bring herself to accept either the pessimist’s (her father’s) or the realist’s (her mother’s) mindset. She can’t give up on Kang Cheol, doing nothing while her father kills him.
“Why? Why do you need to kill him?…Why must he die when he hasn’t even done anything bad? It’s unfair! He even promised himself that he would catch the culprit! Why must the main character die when he was solely focused on finding the culprit and getting revenge for ten years?”
I thought perhaps Writer Oh was motived by concern for his daughter to kill off Kang Cheol. If in creating Kang Cheol and his story when she was young, YJ made herself the culprit in the deaths of KC’s family, she might be at risk when meeting the flesh-and-blood Kang Cheol. Why would YJ be the culprit? Because she didn’t develop the character of the killer. As a plot device, he was a shadow of herself, the inexperienced storyteller. So Kang Cheol would logically want to take revenge on Yeon Joo. This may be why when Writer Oh learned his daughter had entered the world of W, his first impulse was to ask if she was okay.
However, I think Writer Oh and his negative energy have always been the true culprit behind the deaths of Kang Cheol’s family. He may not have written the first draft of W, but I suspect Yeon Joo wrote it in response to the pressures she felt within her own family. Her mother may have left her father after years of being hurt by his “my way or the highway” personality. She finally chose highway, leaving Writer Oh feeling deeply hurt and abandoned. He then narrowed his mantra to “my way, or I end you.” Kang Cheol, who is self-determining and able to overpower Writer Oh’s will, was considered by Writer Oh to be a threat worthy of elimination. “That’s why I need to end his life right this instant.” Yeon Joo called destruction of a self-aware person murder.
It was when Yeon Joo sided with her creation, her wished-for hero, against her father, the destructive force, that she went back to Kang Cheol’s world.
Is Kang Cheol the alter ego of Yeon Joo? She infused him with what she felt she lacked at the time she created him: natural abilities, good looks, confidence, excellence acknowledged by society, financial abundance and stability, etc. But I don’t think Yeon Joo imagined herself becoming that person: she wanted such a person to be her hero, to come save her from her bumbling, hesitant, overlooked self.
I’m going very slowly through this episode because I’m wrestling with the messages and meanings behind the story. For the moment I need to take a break because my mind is getting foggy. I’ll come back and read everyone else’s posts, then resume my watch and commentary. I hope we can continue our conversation about this episode through the week, as I need time to ruminate.
Thank you for all of your posts, everyone. I couldn’t watch but have read them now, late at night.
Finally Finished!!! 😀 . Will read you tomorrow and answer you properly.
This is kind of an Alice in Wonderland situation as she enters a world where her Prince Charming lives, but it is also Chuang Tsu’s Butterfly Dilemma as the female lead has a palpable reality, albeit with bent continuity laws.
Sorry I couldn’t be there. Power outages, and internet down in my city for two days. Fate struck!
I still watched the episode at 3pm! Alone, without being able to connect.
Some comments…
First the end of the Kang Chul montage of episode 1 only in the script of episode 2.
Warning, rather bad translation.
_________________________________________________
C#14. Kang Chul crossing the bridge, dissolves and cuts from cartoon sketches.
YEON JOO – (E) Who knows Kang Chul’s desperate need? At least not in the world Kang Chul lives in.
C#15. Large bookstore (daytime)
Dozens of W books are piled up in the comics corner of large bookstores and bestseller stands,
Seeing people running around and picking them up.
In the advertisement on the wall, there is a close-up cut of Kang Chul along with ‘Exceeded 10 million copies sold, W, final episode published in July!
YEON JOO – (E) Knowing his innocence,
C#16. On the bus (afternoon)
A few students in school uniforms sitting in the bus, reading the webtoon on their cellphones
YEON JOO – (E) Understanding the deep anger and sadness in his heart,
C#17. Prof Park Room (Afternoon)
Prof Park, the comic book fell in love with the samurai
YEON JOO – (E) Those who sincerely hoped for a comeback victory
C#18. Yeon Joo’s house Yeon Joo’s room (late afternoon)
Yeon Joo is sitting on the bed with a bunch of comic books and seriously thinking about it.
YEON JOO – (E) The only readers of this manga who have been watching Kang Chul’s life.
_________________________________________________
Soo-Bong dares to tell Yeon-Joo that he knows her father better than she does. This small detail gives an idea of the veneration he has for Oh Sung-Moo.
Another detail: Soo-Bong was about to eat Ramen.
The professor comes back, he says nothing, face dismayed. With a smart cut right there… To keep the suspense going.
Just a remark on this subject, I’ll talk more about it next time: whatever story you write, and no matter how good it is… What counts a lot is the way you tell it. You can go back to each scene and ask yourself if it’s cut at the right moment, when to tell the next one, what to put between, etc… All this with the aim of making each moment more addictive. The ideal is to end each scene with a hook, a kind of cliffhanger, a revelation, an important point.
Aunt/Mother Discussion. The part of the script where has a better detail that Yeon-Joo is doing medicine because of her mother has been reduced. Even though it is understood here quite well. It’s logical that the mother forced Yeon-Joo to follow a classical school curriculum rather than follow her father’s path. Easily explainable since they divorced when he was an unsuccessful, alcoholic, unknown author.
Line from the script:
SOO YOUNG – I guess she just wanted you to let her paint, unni. Are you forcing her to go to medical school for nothing?
Girl assistant: “He lost weight”. Here it’s something called I think (not sure of the name anymore) a red lantern. A false lead.
Other girl assistant: Yeon-Hee. The chubby girl. I’m using this character with a more prominent role in my W season 2 script. She fits well with the script, despite the little we see of her in season 1.
Unclear and awkward Father/Daughter discussion. Neither of them can admit the truth of what they have experienced. With the BGM “that’s your setting”, one of the very good ones. About the script. The scriptwriter Song Jae-Jung has an exceptional mastery, knowing when to detail and when to keep it short. Many scenes don’t have didascalies (brackets) specifying the reactions of characters. But in this one, there is a lot of subtext. Which means… people don’t say what they’re thinking, and physically react to make the audience understand something. And so, it’s more detailed.
Pretty bad translation, automatic, but understandable.
_________________________________________________
#10. Sung Moo’s Studio (Late Afternoon)
Yeon Joo, knocking and gently opening the door reveals the familiar back of her father.
Sung Moo, sitting deep in the chair in front of the desk, pensive in thought.
YEON JOO – Dad..
SUNG MOO – (without moving)
YEON JOO – (A little louder) Dad…?
SUNG MOO – (Looking back at that time)
YEON JOO – I’m here.
SUNG MOO – (Looking at her daughter as if she were a stranger, feeling strangely wrapped up)
YEON JOO – ….?
SUNG MOO – …. (belatedly) Yeon Joo You’re here.
YEON JOO – (Coming in just then) What happened? I was worried.
SUNG MOO – ……
YEON JOO – Where have you been? Why did you cut off contact?
SUNG MOO – I’ve been away for a while.
YEON JOO – (Looking) Where?
SUNG MOO – …… just. Here and there. (stupidly) Are you…?
YEON JOO – Yes…?
SUNG MOO – (Holding Yeon Joo’s hand) No injuries..?
YEON JOO – (Strange question) Are you hurt…? I don’t have Why
SUNG MOO – All right, it’s okay if nothing happens.
YEON JOO – ….. (Looking at) But Dad, there’s that W..
SUNG MOO – I heard it from Soo Bong (clears hands and hangs up immediately). You say you’re weird?
(Going through the data) I was trying to make a female character, but suddenly I couldn’t think of it, so I just set it up just like you. Because that’s easy. Is that weird?
YEON JOO – That’s what your dad drew..?
SUNG MOO – (Pause)
YEON JOO – The last two episodes. Is it really what your dad drew?
SUNG MOO – Then who draws..?
YEON JOO – No, that’s the truth…
SUNG MOO – (sharpening me) If not me, then who drew that?
YEON JOO – (Shocking)
SUNG MOO – What do you want to say right now?
Sung Moo’s eyes, burning coldly, are clearly refusing to ask questions.
Yeon Joo seeing her father’s eyes for the first time, frightened and frozen
Sung Moo Staring at him scaredly… A moment’s silence flows
YEON JOO – (I no longer have the courage to ask questions) No…
SUNG MOO – …..
YEON JOO – No. (Awkward smile)
SUNG MOO – …… (Looking down then) Isn’t it time to be in the hospital? what are you here for
stop go
YEON JOO – Yes…
SUNG MOO – (turning the chair back) I also have to start working.
YEON JOO – As soon as you come..? get some rest
SUNG MOO – (OL) It’s boring.
YEON JOO – (Face)
SUNG MOO – (turning on the tablet) I’m tired, so I want to finish quickly and rest. Let’s meet comfortably next time.
YEON JOO – …. Yes. Ok.
SUNG MOO – Is your mom okay?
YEON JOO – You’re always the same.
SUNG MOO – Say hello to Mom. don’t go out
YEON JOO – Yes. (Awkwardly aegyo) Cheer up, Dad. My professor is also a fan of my dad.
SUNG MOO – …. (Smile)
YEON JOO – I’ll go.
Yeon Joo goes out looking at Sung Moo’s back in a dreary mood.
Sung Moo, holding a pen and not looking back.
_________________________________________________
You can see that the scene that was shot captures this well. Including subtext is one of the most difficult things. Any writer knows that you have to think about it, but in reality, when faced with the page to write, it is easily omitted. And it requires situations that can produce it. You should reread the entire script with this in mind, on every scene, and check if it should be told this way. It is often better to remove many lines of dialogue and replace them with visuals.
As far as the script is concerned, the description in the center of “Sung Moo’s eyes…” contains information that you don’t often see in Western scripts because it’s explanatory, a bit like a novel. But Song Jae-Jung uses this regularly in the important moments, and requiring extra help for the director and the actors. It also makes the script more pleasant to read, without overloading it. This is an important point, because there are tons of screenwriting tips everywhere. And some people wrongly advise to restrict themselves to what is seen on the screen. If you ever write a script, remember to be concise and visual, but above all, don’t destroy your script by removing the subjectivity needed for the right moment and the right emotion.
This scene maintains mystery, the father is lying. But why? There are also other points, such as “Are you hurt?”, etc. However, the scene ends on a warm situation. Yeon-Joo doesn’t want to argue, and her father smiles at her at the end. She doesn’t leave in a huff like with her mother. And we quickly see that she cares more about her father despite his execrable personality.
“Soo-Bong, Do a research on poisons”. Another catchy, mini-cliffhanger end scene, making the drama addictive.
Chi-Foo-Mi mini game: both a comical scene, and used in order to send Yeon-Joo away from where she is (the hospital) during her working hours. It’s better that nobody sees her disappear, hey hey. A public place under the rain and a little deserted will be better, especially since there is more possibility to underline a change of scenery and to make understand that… it is not the same world anymore.
“He is going to kill Kang Chul again”… Here, no dialogue only thing. It goes straight to a scene showing the situation from Kang Chul’s side, and visually introduces the minor character of the nurse, becoming an assassin in spite of herself.
Then, very short scene going back to Oh Sung-Moo, then the nurse, to have the switch real image / drawing, beautiful.
Yeon-Joo/Father discussion on the phone. A lot of information. There is a logical repercussion of the previous events. Yeon-Joo mentions her outfit, and the fact that her father could not know that she was wearing this dress. Small detail, but it indicates that the scriptwriter thinks about the logic of each detail. It is a “pay-off”. Here passed under ellipsis to be introduced when it matters. It could have been mentioned in a previous scene, but was delayed at the right moment. Not easy to think of this because when you have the logical resolution, you first think of using it quickly.
The transition into the other world is indicated visually (the scenery behind Yeon-Joo changes), but also confirmed by the break in the phone conversation. This was useful for me the first time because I was focused on the subtitles, and I had not seen the change of background. Finally, confirmed by the heroine’s reaction and the TV flash!
Shot on changing the name of the hospital in the lobby, as well as Yeon-Joo’s infiltration with a team of doctors: added by the director, not in the script. I could have tons of examples like this, showing the director’s involvement to make this story better than it already is. We have two mega-brains working on it!!!
Oh Sung-Moo drinks his glass of whiskey, as I do mine. And… often when he does that, something impossible happens on the tablet. It’s kind of like Soo-Bong when he wants to eat his ramen, his phone rings. If the internet could be restored while I’m having my drink, that would be perfect!
Great transition Tablet/Images drawing themselves/Color rendering/Live transformation with Yeon-Joo.
We have a first indication of the regular… um… total… systematic… incompetence of Kang Chul’s bodyguards. He is really a debonair boss since he never fires them. What a nice guy!
The Yeon-Joo/Kang Chul conversation. Comical because of Yeon-Joo’s blunders. I have a similar scene in W s2 episode 4. But of course, impossible to reproduce something identical… You have to push the limit… much further!!!
Inset with the view on Oh Sung-Moo and…… the piano music boosebump!!!
I had said it in another post but copy it here …
If I had to summarize the kdrama in one element:
GOOSEBUMP : https://voca.ro/1muiiA45xrV2
Court encart avec la présentation des personnages comme sur la page de manhwa, il fallait y penser, notamment à cet instant. Le drama pense toujours à briser n’importe quelle monotonie de cette façon. Coupure de scène, courte transition puis retour, élément imprévu survenant, visuel, etc.
Musique guitare drôle, chaque fois que Yeon-Joo fait quelque chose de bizarre…
We learn in passing that Kang Chul has a super instinct (in addition to a super intelligence and super will), a bit normal for an action hero. Even if the drama shows us quite a lot this aspect because of the density of other things to show. The action-hero side will be touched quickly in episode 9, and also episode 5 during a montage.
One of the strange points here (and this will be said later also episode 3): Kang Chul is unable to know if Yeon-Joo is beautiful. He was created to be an action hero, without any romantic story. Similarly, episode 6, it will be hinted that he had girlfriends. But since all this has no reality in the manhwa, it turns out to be false. And Episode 7, it will confirm that he knows nothing about women. Episode 8, the way he talks to Seo-Hee confirms it again. Although the drama presents him as a romantic hero among others (and certainly very appreciated by the female audience because it’s Lee Jong-Suk on top of that), he is a rather boorish guy because of the manhwa’s scenario. A mixture of a charming, considerate and kind guy, but also quite rough with women.
The main security guard succeeds in his only mission in the whole drama… to accompany Yeon-Joo outside. He earned his salary for these 16 episodes. lol!
Yeon-Joo at the bus stop. Just in 2 seconds why I love the actress in this. She can do everything from clowning to tragic parts. Here, the scene where her phone rings and she’s jumping up and down gibbering anything. In a very natural way. Good attitude comedy.
Time acceleration: again a good attitude comedy. And a situation that puts the pressure on in general. The clock ticking fast, kind of like an interlude from Alice in Wonderland.
Romantic cliché: he puts his seatbelt on her. “Woo!”
Kang Chul puts on his glasses… Ai-goo!!! Nice placement… what a weird chick… So much for that… I’ll have to endure her.
Yeon-Joo in the booth. Lots of monologues, voice over, thoughts in the drama: something difficult to do for the actors.
Now, certainly the best scene of the episode. Which exploits the high-concept process, in a humorous way. Slap then kiss… episode 2!
Kang Chul’s reaction to the slap is priceless! “Why do I get hit to buy you clothes”.
I subvert this scene in my own script… A hijacking… hey hey.
Soo-Bong is having a conversation with Oh Sung-Moo… except he’s doing the questions and answers by himself!! ahaha. Just by seeing the drawing on the screen…
Then, Oh Sung-Moo’s reaction on the phone, really someone not convenient at all!!! ARRASSEO?!!!
Oh Sung-Moo fires the two assistants… and Song jae-Jung the secondary characters. lol! No mercy.
Oh Sung-Moo says he is a God in his manhwa. This will have a correlation with the end of the episode, and later in a scene in episode 6.
(quick) philosophical reflection… in front of a story, an author is only the relay of the story… which exists with its own dynamics. Oh Sung-Moo, no more than Song Jae-Jung or other authors are gods to their story. (And those who insist on being so produce rather bad stories, and this is very common). It would be the other way around. SJJ talks about this very briefly in an interview… The autonomous dynamics and logic of the story. This is in the direct line of the script of W. At most, the writer works to connect things as well as possible and make it the best way possible. But the story decides its own way. The writer works, the story creates.
Kang Chul au téléphone avec Seo-Hee. Bien sûr, aucune considération pour ses sentiments hypothétiques… Il lui demande de faire le boulot dans l’intérêt de sa future petite amie Yeon-Joo. En plus, il lui révèle que maintenant il la trouve jolie. Et enfonce le couteau dans la plaie sur “key of my life”. Tout pour mettre Seo-Hee mal à l’aise. Haha, ce gars ne doute de rien…
End cliffhanger: not the one in the script, but better. In return, the cliffhanger of the script will be better than the one of the drama in episode 3.
Oh Sung-Moo takes two seconds to drink his glass… and of course…. !!!!
Kang Chul’s thoughts at the end… straight to HIM!
Oh Sung-Moo collapses, in a position… God fears his creature. The director tilts the camera on purpose, and he reaches slightly for the tablet.
So good episode. Ultra dense.
I just noticed that there were untranslated sentences in my comment, here they are (in order):
Short insert with the introduction of the characters like on the manhwa page, it was necessary to think about it, especially at this moment. The drama always thinks to break any monotony in this way. Scene cut, short transition then back, unexpected element occurring, visual, etc.
Funny guitar music, every time Yeon-Joo does something weird…
Kang Chul on the phone with Seo-Hee. Of course, no consideration for his hypothetical feelings… He asks her to do the job for the sake of his future girlfriend Yeon-Joo. Moreover, he reveals to her that now he finds her pretty. And pushes the knife in the wound on “key of my life”. Everything to make Seo-Hee uncomfortable. Haha, this guy doesn’t doubt anything…
@WEnchanteur, the term you had been thinking of is red herring: a logical fallacy that is plausible, but irrelevant and a distraction from the true issues. In my opinion, the staff member’s comment about Oh Sung Moo’s skinnier appearance is a hint that the passing of time can be significantly different in the real world as compared to time in the manhwa W. We all know that it takes time to lose a noticeable about of weight, right? So this hints at Writer Oh being in the world of W much longer than the amount of time he was missing from his office. He wouldn’t have lost enough weight to make a difference in his appearance in just a day or two.
@Welmaris, I doubt it but well, let’s try to see it more clearly…
Oh Sung-Moo disappears a little before the moment when Kang Chul is attacked and left for dead. There, we suppose that the time of the manhwa is frozen. Then Yeon-Joo arrives to save him. Once done, there is the scene where Kang Chul says “key of my life”. We can assume that 3 or 4 days passed in W. I don’t remember if it’s mentioned. But there is a voice-over of a reporter in episode 1 who says that he had an operation and now he is recovering. Right after, Oh Sung-Moo comes back. Oh Yeon-Joo returns to W when Kang Chul is in the hospital, probably 5-6 days after his surgery. At most, Oh Sung-Moo stayed 5 days in “W”, but maybe less if he came back before (in the night in the real world), and then goes to the living room in the morning.
There might be some kind of plot hole. Not really a big one, and it’s not certain. Or maybe something left unexplained, or swept under the rug. The reason why Yeon-Joo comes back in episode 1 is this time not a cliffhanger (like in episode 2), but a classic episode resolution. She accomplished her mission in “W” and it ends with a strong scene (Kang Chul and Elle look at each other). So episode resolution, “to be continued” appears. On the other hand Oh Sung-Moo?! How does he come back? Why? At this point, we guess of course that he was in “W”, even if it is not said in this episode. But the fantastic logical mechanism that allows him to come back is hard to find. What we do know is that it is not related to the logic of manhwa cliffhangers. On the one hand because Kang Chul is not involved, and on the other hand Oh Sung-Moo is invisible in the manhwa. His presence was considered “out of context” by the manhwa, and was not shown. So this is certainly arbitrary, because Yeon-Joo is not out of context. But it is a reasonable approximation. Still, there is a reason why Oh Sung-Moo might come back, and why he doesn’t come back at the same time as Yeon-Joo (and why it’s important to show that he doesn’t come back at the same time), but I’m not going to talk about it right now because it’s a Spoiler. We’ll talk about it when the time comes.
Thank you @WE and @Welmaris for such rich insight into the possible logic of the world of W and the relationship of W with the writer Sung Moo. The possible reasons why the character could become self-determining and the ‘hole’ of why Sung Moo could go and return.
There is so much to conjecture and consider. It is ‘hard’ work. LOL.
@GB, yeah, this point of Oh Sung-Moo is very specific. Many people, even when they do a negative critisism and point at many plot-holes that don’t exist, didn’t pointed this. As I already said, most of people pointed the wrong things and forgot to point where it could be weird.
But as I said, I will speak about that one later. It will be at episode 12. So, remind me to do so at this point.
Also, my “out of context” explanation is accurate with some other parts, because it’s not an isolated phenomenon. It comes when Kang Chul isn’t implicated in the stage, and what comes in the manhwa is absurd. So the manhwa don’t show it. I don’t know to what point Song Jae-Jung thought about this. As I liked very much this concept and it could help me for my Season 2 script, I reuse that and make it more clear. (what mean… a line of dialog at episode 5, lol!). As a counterpart I don’t reuse some other ideas, because they are uneasy to stand (will talk about that episode 10). And of course, add a lot of new concepts… making that more complicated, ahaha.
As plot-hole, I’ll try to find the ones we get in the drama, but there isn’t many. And if we can call it like that, it’s small things, more some blurry points. one at Episode 10, one at Episode 8. Another one at Episode 8 (but we get the explanation episode 12). And episode 10, well, there is an explanation too for one part, and the other part… it was that or miss a very good striking scene. So here, the choice is obvious, the rendering of a strong and unforgeatable scene is more important. I had to do that for one of my scene too. So I understand well, when a too harsh logic could destroy the dramatic intensity.
There is one episode 6 ending/start of episode 7. It don’t come from the script exactly. It’s an error of production, because the chain of people working on the drama got a wrong interpretation. Maybe the props guy. I’ll have to copy-paste the script about that.
There is also one, in a surprizing way coming from the script (but maybe the writer was thinking about something else when doing that)… and it’s in Episode 16!! But here, what is so nice… the director didn’t shoot the scene. So there is no plot-hole in the drama. It was not a big one. Just something you can think if you are a specialist of the drama and think a lot about every logical little things. Still for me, it was important for my season 2, because it was coming from a element I forgot in my episode 6. I was thinking… oh shit, I forgot that, I made a plot hole (even after re-reading x10 my scene, so you get an idea how easy it is to miss something above a high level of complexity and text accumulation, half of War & Peace, the longest novel in human history). So I made the correction, and to be sure, I checked again the drama. And then, by curiosity, I also have read the script. And I found that!
There is also something important coming in second half of part 2. Here it’s not a hole, it’s rather something the writer could have done but didn’t. And many times I thought about that, It could be done. Maybe the drama could be better if done at this point. But not even sure, because the situation changed and was again on tracks. So here, hard to say if the writer considered that and choose to not do it (and the valorize more her new turn of events), or if it’s a point the writer couldn’t think because the complexity of the whole. When she also do a crazy job about structure, that is…
…how she re order the scenes of the plot. What I can do partly well but not to the point she’s able to do. Of course, she have dozen years of experience and high dramaturgy knowledge, cumulated with exceptionnal smartness. So at least I can rely on my creativity, smartness too, then my instinct and natural way to structure. But when it come to rebalance too much complicated scenes order structure, I can’t do it everywhere, and need to rely on something more linear. At what point you have to stop on what you know to do well, instead of create an unreadable mess. As I check later part of my script, I made some change, so it bring more tension like she do. At this point, I would need to outline again every single scene. Then think hard at each tension point, and see if I can re-order. Crazy quantity of work. Then, probably I would meet episodes problems (one too small, the next one too big). I have for example some big revelation, but I’m not happy how I unfold that, because it’s in the time order of events. I need to past all the explanation later in flashback, and focus first on the plot-twist. So it’s a more effective revelation. Hopefully, it’s in the middle of part 2, and I’m far to this point for now. I ended episode 12, 13 revision. And good ones, thanks to the lot of progress I made since I wrote the first/second drafts. Now on episode 14 revision, need a crazy lot of work because it’s one of these badly written episode I made. The content is good, but drown in too much voice over. I have to make that more active but I found some methods for that. Ooopps, there I am, I’m flying away in the writing wind. Damn, I stop here. ^^
Hi testing testing…@WE says he can’t post anymore on this thread.
@WE, reading you gets me to appreciate even more the work of scriptwriters. It’s not something I can do because it involves too much revision after making changes in 1 part, and I detest doing retrospective amendments. I imagine that if I wrote anything, it would be full of plot holes and contradictory scenes because I’d forget or not bother to go back and smoothen out the plot.
Instead I’ll happily sit here in my ‘armchair/computer chair’ and critique something that I can’t write LOL.
I can’t stay to join the watch.
If @Wenchanteur can’t post, he may need to change browsers. Sometimes I can’t join on Microsoft Edge, but can on Google Chrome.
@GB, maybe you don’t want or think you can’t, but as audience, you are of the smart one. So your feedback is highly appreciated for me. It can be better than the ones from screenwriting world. Just because you are the kind of audience that able to dig more, and already know the kdrama style, have ideas, analyze. The people I meet on screenwriting forums… so many of them are narrow-minded, it’s just unbelievable. A lot of them want to become professionals one day. And they’ll never make it, that’s for sure, they’re too stupid for that, even when they know one trick or two.