The thread is open.
Start Time: 13.30 UTC which is Saturday,
5.30am PST
8.30am EST
9.30am Caracas
1.30pm London
2.30pm Paris
3.30pm Athens
9.30pm Singapore, Perth
@Growing Beautifully, @WEnchanteur, @Feifei, @Old American Lady, @salteddust, @Cleopatra, and @Kelley are doing the rewatch.
If you’re a lurker interested in joining the rewatch, please de-lurk before Saturday so I can pre-approve you. I may not be around on weekends. My hubby and I like to flee the city and drive to the beach house or somewhere far from the madding crowd to recharge.
Yippee! Weekend!
Enjoy the rewatch!
Thanks @pkml3! I guess I recharge when I watch dramas. That must be why I’m watching more than 4!
Happy recharging!
Am going to try to watch this weekend even though I failed to join in last Saturday. Did watch episode one on my own and must admit the time element is confusing even this second time of watching. In retrospect, being new to Kdramas I may have been fangirling Hyun Bin a bit much back then😂🤣
Hope you can join us this weekend @Lootie Lyn!
Hi, I’m currently rewatching episode 9. ^^
And the others ones before, ofc.
Hi @WE, I can now afford to rewatch more slowly, since the tension is not as high as when I first watched the show. I did look at Ep 2 again earlier this week. Still good stuff. See you in some 11+ hours time!
@WE, you are always ahead of us. I would love to do a pre-watch to rewatch but I can’t afford the time.
@GB and the rest, see you all later.
@PM3, thank you for giving us this space.
See you soon @Feifei. I was under the impression that you’re in the same location or at least the same timezone as myself. It’s the busy period here. 🙂
See everyone soon. Coffee!
Hi @salteddust! Good morning to you. I trust your coffee is perking you up.
I’m watching a cdrama now. It’s quite engaging. See you soon!
Hi @GB! Yes the coffee is doing it’s assigned task. And it better, since my husband woke me up early grinding the coffee beans (LOL)!
Ready to start.
Hi Everyone, it’s time!! Let’s START the party!
I’ve started @salteddust.
The way this show begins it’s episodes … it’s in the same style as ‘W – Two Worlds’ we get the summary of parts of the previous episode (about 2 minutes of it) before we launch into the present one. So we are brought up to the right moment in the story when we watch Ep 2.
Immediately the music evokes heart-pounding and stress. We sense Se Ju’s urgency and fear. The narrative continues with the voiceover from Jin Wu.
HJ seems like a pushover in the beginning. She lets out her stress in tears. I’d have been so angry at his outburst, but maybe quite speechless as well LOL.
Me too @GB. Not sure we need all the summary (like the entire argument), but I appreciate the voice-over summary.
Great dramatic point… to have him diss the very person that he now has to desperately get on to his side LOL.
JW lists all the things wrong with the hostel from his point of view and later when Hee Ju berates him, she eloquently addresses several of those points that he brought up. Great memory!
LOL Jin Wu is so unconvincing as someone with short-term memory loss.
Heeeere!!
At least neither of them believe him about the ‘short-term memory loss’, ha ha
Hi @WE! I’m 7 minutes into the episode.
JW claims that he is suffering from short term memory loss? So unbelievable, hehe. He has to get into her good books now that he realized who she is. He can do anything just to secure the contract rights.
I jump to 7. I’m rewatching the drama during the week.
Hello everyone here.
Sorry, I was in writing, so concentrate that I didn’t see the hour.
@salteddust, I loved their incredulous expressions.
Ah the non-linear storytelling comes in…. a reminder that we are still watching events of the past.
Nice informative flashback, but the first time I watched this episode I thought the messy bedroom was in Barcelona.
Hi @Feifei! Heheheh! JW shot himself in the foot when he let of that tirade against Hee Ju. Now he has to sweet talk her and rely on charm.
@WE, I was watching another show and was afraid I’d miss the start time of this party too!
@GB Was not aware of the flash back to a week ago until this re-watch.
I noticed that MOTA is quite slow paced (if I compare with W). Inciting incident happens at the end of episode 3. But there is still something strange in the start with the brother disparition and the scene in the train.
@salteddust, yes, I found it confusing when I first watched. I didn’t know when and where each thing was happening.
You also get an idea of how opposite Jung He-Joo is from his characterization of her. Much more hard-working than even he would be!
PSH is the more than the cliché of working girl. It’s really impossible she could do all that.
It’s fun because Jin Woo just said her she was not working enough before. 🙂
@Feifei, this writer does a lot of flashbacks and goes back and forth in the timeline. Takes a bit of time to get used to the style. But it’s effective in bringing the right events together so that we understand what’s happening.
That’s true @salteddust, he dissed her for the wrong thing, when she has to compensate for the loss of parents and work so hard.
Funny how tentative he is about sneaking into the dining room, and then he plasters that insincere expression on his face. Lots of humor in this that I did not always pick up the first time I viewed this series.
JW later claims that he has to resort Mi Nam (beautiful man) strategy if all else fails (to get into HJ’s good books). But that will fail because she thinks that he is a fake, fake luxury watch and all.
Suddenly he is the perfect and nice customer. 🙂
Some joke with the barman in the street.
@WE, LOL Secretary Jung Hun thinks he’s handsome or even handsomer than JW. But JW obnoxiously says “Regardless of race or culture, a face like yours has never been considered ‘handsom’ in human history. Not even once in the entirety of human history. Tell your mother. Even maternal love can’t deny history.”
It’s a wonder his staff like him so much that they still stick with him, even after this attitude.
I was thinking how it’s possible… a contact lens brings with it full stereo hi-fi sound???
I think that scene on the street is the last we will see of the handsome bartender. Darn. But a nice and humorous touch. Reiterates the disconnect from the real world Yoo Jin-woo has just participated in.
JW tells the barman he is no longer at that level, as if the barman knows what he is referring to. JW lost in his own world.
I like that these early episodes have these lighter touches and humour. It gets more and more tense after this.
And another seamless switch to the train, now on real time and not a remembrance.
LOL, what excited the staff most was seeing the game crush JW.
I like their camaraderie that they can say this to their boss and know it will be understood and not be held against them. Says a lot about JW’s character. He is arrogant and resentful against Hyun Seok, but he is also fair and good to his staff and friends.
I wonder if the timeline is right. He takes the night train. But before he phones to jin-woo. Then jin woo go to grenade, by day go to the hotel, then fight all night, then now go to the train station.
Jin-Woo was in korea? If yes, it’s impossible he comes by plane in time.
@salteddust, such a jump from a thunderstorm to a clear day. I was disoriented.
@WE, in one of @pkml3’s posts she mentioned the play with time. It’s shown to us rather loosely so that we are not sure. However it’s possible for JW to arrive early enough to spend the night playing the game. He took the plane while the train was a slow night train.
Jin-Woo was in Barcelona for the conference, supposedly he flew (although I think the timeline is still tight).
She talk fast and gest angry.
Things won’t get easy for him to gets what he want.
@salteddus, you save me!!
Yes, the conference, damn. How can I forget this kind of detail.
@WE, JW flew in from Barcelona he was at the Mobile World Congress.
HJ: “No, I’m not angry. Everything you said was true. You just told the truth. So I’d like to say something that’s true as well.
It’s true the house is worn out, but I do have a conscience. That’s why I’m giving you a refund.” (LOL the expressions on both JW’s and Seo’s face.
JW: “You said everything you wanted to say without even letting me speak. You treated me like I was unconscientious and rude. But I do have a conscience. That’s why I told you to go to another hotel.
(LOL) I know you need the money, you wear fake designer shoes and a fake luxury watch …” LOLOL
I love the addition of the face-paced music to accompany her tirade.
Jin Wu is afraid to lose Se Ju to HS, and then he comes face to face with the very person he loathed to lose to HS, his ex-wife. What great dramatic timing.
To make matters more awkward, she’s heavily pregnant with his enemy’s baby. I kind of feel bad for JW.
Su Jin looks like she has regrets after meeting JW again.
Those contact lenses are really fantastic… they are like little computers with everything inside…. sound and pictures!
And then the ex-wife. The first intimation that something is wrong.Hyun-Bin does a nice job of expressing his discomfort with seeing Jin-Woo’s ex-wife. They do seem to both still care for another.
New user login means someone else also has the game software. JW needs to find out who is this new user.
@GB, I think there is a mini earpiece to go with the lens.
Oh he of the rusty sword!
@WE, the game server… is it just a general server in Granada and not the one in JW’s company? If the latter, how does an outsider like Hyun Seok get access to the game? Just having the lenses will do? How did he get the lenses. They are not distributed yet.
@GW. A lot is unexplained. I have not watched it all the way through, but you get the idea the ex-wife might have struck a deal with her new husband. She still seems to care about him. I wonder if she had anything to do with it. Or else, this is a plot hole.
@salteddust
HS only arrived the previous morning and he’s achieved level 4. He might be a more skilled player than JW who took so many hours to get past level 1.
How does this game works? Users do not need to download/install software, just log in to the server and can start playing the game? So CHYS log in with another device that is not the lens. Any gamers here?
And now the creepy orchestrated music.
@GB, aaah, I don’t know well. It’s a bit under the carpet… I think the story have some weakness about that:
– I don’t think a guy alone could really program such a game.
Then about where is the game, we’ll need to look better where it is. I don’t think the brother could have a enough powerfull machine to run that. But later he played it, so he has this machine. Maybe not in the grenada room but in the barcelena room (we see that later, with marco).
But right now, I’ve no idea where the game they play is run. It looks like it’s the korean server, because the IT geek looks at it on the screen. But I’ve no idea how the game was loaded on it.
@salteddust, when I watched it through, it seems that Su Jin was sincere in wanting to marry HS. She did betray JW when she chose another man when she was still married. However she did not want anything bad to happen to either of the men. In actual fact she made a mistake by marrying HS. It put her in a very difficult position in relation with her father-in-law.
I wonder if the crossing of the swords is common ‘game- parlance’ for we are now enemies. Although I sometimes watched my sons game the multi-player games kind of freaked me out so I never watched actual matches. Anyone know?
@Feifei and @WE, yes this was the burning question. How could Marco or Se Ju get the game onto a big server so that from anywhere people can just login play the game?
BUT Se Ju emailed the game to JW I think… so he got his people to install it.
With HS, it is like the lenses are computers on the Internet and the game is hosted on a server in SK. It only allows players in Granada but enables access to people to watch it from Korea and elsewhere. Can’t figure out how that works.
The painfull guy with in his mind “I want to be her boyfriend” and her “he’s just a friend like family one”.
I know having all of the info about your opponent along with your weapons available, etc. is common.
@WE, I agree that the server would likely be a problem, there would at least be some sort of lag if it was actually in Korea, though it might not be much. Ditto for the boy. It would cost way too much. It is possible to imagine the programming, but even a large group would have difficulty programming a game of this detail. As the reactions of JW and his team indicate.
@salteddust
If you mean the drawing of the cross in the air with the swords, I felt that it was just a sign of rejection. They rejected the idea of an alliance, and so became enemies.
@GB, yes, I remember that. He said “look at my email”. It should be that.
@WE The almost-like-family friend tires me out. I find him unnecessary for the story.
The painfull wannabe boyfriend meet his worst nightmare with Jin-Woo, LOL. The writer like to make suffer some characters, but also makes them unsufferable. 🙂
@WE, I liked it when JW finally punched the almost-family guy. I found him so presumptuous.
@Gb, the funny thing is Cha Hyeon Seok also waive his hand over his eyes to log out like JW. It seems like CHS is also wearing lens to log into the game.
@Feifei, yes, to begin with, everyone needs the lenses to log into the game. They blink to login and wave their hand over their face to logout. But we only see this in the beginning.
When the bug in the game sets in, the player cannot log out.
Here we have a ballsy move from the writer.
A flashforward, epic. Resolved only far later, episode 10. Now I like it.
I took the idea and made one in my W2 screenplay. Same, resolution is faaaar later.
The way JW presents the offer to HJ is disengenious. He is hiding the actual reason he wants the hostel. He offers her the same amount that HS offered Marco for the game, but HJ never had the full understanding of what she was doing until later.
With the “coming from the future” voice over. 🙂
Very usefull, as we never know when is this future.
Maybe one after the full end of the story ?
@WE, flash forward into the present… Ominous music!!!
When the thunder and lightning strikes, JW looks out apprehensively.
The clouds move at an abnormal rate.
He rushes into the toilet, takes out a gun, shoots someone in the train. It is pouring rain outside.
(The first shots are to kill HS.) Then he pauses to gather himself. He finds that he is able to walk like normal in game mode. He looks at his feet. (This is truly amazing and it gives viewers the cue as to when he’s in game mode and when not.)
He walks into the train carriage shooting with 2 guns, a bunch of people in black masks, amid shrieks and screams. He too is shot more than once. It’s strange. Some passengers seem to be able to see and hear the shooting. Others don’t and even sleep through it all. So some passengers are inserted by the game?
@WE. I like that foreshadowing as well. It is in direct contrast to all of JW’s statements about the ‘magic’ of the new game and his original view that it is light and pleasurable (even if it would not for the bartenders and customers in the bar where the first weapon is stored). It is though in line with the thunder and dark rain and gunshot of the opening episode.
@WE, I thought the one year later referred to one year after he first met Hee Ju.
@salteddust… yes, I like the bookending with the first episodes where Se Ju was in a train and getting shot.
It seems that by this stage of the game, the players can feel pain. In the beginning they did not feel the pain of being cut or shot.
We have some details in this flashforward.
He limps and…
When going into the action, put is foot on the ground, don’t limp anymore.
Again, the music marks the transition to the game.
@salteddust, the music stresses me out. I have to reduce the volume LOL.
@GB, yes, some passengers are fake ones, NPC.
But it’s great to have them screaming, while we see the real passengers calm, sleeping. It gives a delicious nonsens to this scene. Well, no really a nonsens because we know why, but a nice crazy feeling.
The flashforward confuses me, why is JW limping? Why does he look so haggard? Why is he in a train to Granada again? It was only much later that I realized it is a flash forward.
We notice the other players are all wearing bullet proof vests and highly technical gear. I keep thinking JW is injured given his apparent actual injury at the beginning of this sequence. And the run down nature of his shoes and his jacket. He looks poor and apprehensive. A nice touch.
@WE, the whole thing about the chaos, the mixture of people screaming and others sleeping, the loose calculation of time… it’s on purpose to disorientate us so that we feel a sense of the same disorientation of the players who are in AR and yet in the real world.
@salteddust, yes, I like how the show juxtaposes the suave, confident, arrogant JW of 1 year ago and the current disheveled, worn out, limping. We know he made a gross miscalculation and that it started probably 1 year in the past.
Logging out. I won’t be able to make it next week. Traveling to see relatives. Probably not quite kosher to use someone else’s home internet for this (LOL). See everyone in two weeks for Episode 4.
Okie dokie @salteddust, see you in 2 weeks’ time!
Bye everyone! Thanks for a great rewatch!
bye bye, see you soon.
@GB, I may not be able to join the re-watch party this Sat due reunion dinner.
Hi @Feifei, not to worry. Just join us late or afterwards. I always come back to read comments even after the parties are over.
Have a great Chinese New Year with your family!
Hi BOD members. I’m sorry I missed the rewatch but 8 would ,Ike to join the next one. My husband had abadnight and I was upwithhim for most of the night and slept through the rewatch time. I will catch up and read the comments in preparation. The discussion here is great respite. I keep thinking that our two leads respectively married and became parents of b aby boys last year.
My dear @OAL, I’m sorry to hear that your husband, and therefore you, had a bad night last weekend. Hats off to you for the great care you give him. 💐
Take your time and join in whenever and however you can. I’m glad that you find respite here. Yes, come and relax with us… although this show cannot be called restful or peace-inducing LOL. 🤔 😱 😬 🤯 😯
Look out for the next post, I’m suggesting that we factor in some breaks. Let’s see how the others feel about it. 🙂
Hi Everyone, and @pkml3 please note,
I was thinking that since we are intent on following through all of Jin Wu’s exploits and what the game throws at him, which would cover 16 Saturdays, it would be good to factor in some breaks. Some of us may be celebrating the Lunar New Year this weekend, for example, and may not be able to join in. My apologies that the break was not factored in from the beginning.
So for the *future*, if we know early enough about a clash with a Saturday, we may insert a break, and postpone the episodes to the following weekends.
To give us an idea of the episodes and dates, here’s a tentative schedule that can be changed along the way.
MOTA Rewatch Tentative Schedule
Episode 3 – Jan 21 (Chinese or Lunar New Year Eve but we are continuing with the Rewatch because we did not give everyone notice early enough to postpone it.)
Episode 4 – Jan 28
Episode 5 – Feb 4
Episode 6 – Feb 11
Episode 7 – Feb 18
Episode 8 – Feb 25
Episode 9 – Mar 4
Break – Mar 11 (This is because I’ll be busy.)
Episode 10 – Mar 18
Episode 11 – Mar 25
Episode 12 – Apr 1
Break – Apr 8 (Easter Weekend)
Episode 13 – Apr 15
Episode 14 – Apr 22 (Festival of Eid al-Fitr. Are any of us celebrating this? Anyone wants a break here just leave a post and we’ll adjust the schedule.)
Episode 15 – Apr 29
Episode 16 – May 6
@GB, it is supposed to be a lunch and is changed to dinner but since the dinner is going to be at a third party venue, there is a good chance that the dinner will end early and I might be able to join the re-watch party mid-way. Thank you for working out the re-watch schedule, the proposed dates work for me.
@OAL, hope you can join us for the next 14 episodes.
Hi @Feifei, oh, reunion lunch is cute… but it makes sense if we have to go from in-laws’ place to eat at parents’ place. Usually one big meal is all I can manage. I just have soup for dinner if I have a big lunch.
That’s good news if your dinner ends early. Yes, come whenever you can. Just jump in and let us know you’ve arrived. We’ll let you know where we are at in the episode. 🙂
I hope to see you on Saturday!