I came from the Stone Age.
I apologize. I should have known earlier that some you are watching the Chinese drama “Meet Yourself.” I’m going to open this thread so you can enjoy your discussion in an exclusive thread.
I’m going to unpin last month’s “Watch Are You Watching” thread, but if you want to access it, here’s the link:
Bitch Talk: What Are We Watching in January 2023?
To make up for my oversight, here are gifs of the kiss scene. They’re from xiaolanhua’s tumblr.
I’m sorry I can’t analyze this kiss because I haven’t been following the show. But it looks like they don’t need tinder to start that fire.
But the camera angle could be better. In my not-so-humble opinion, kiss scenes are more aesthetically pleasing if they’re shot with the actor’s nose on the foreground, and the actress’ nose in the background.
Like this one from “Alchemy of Souls 2.”
And this one from “Vincenzo.”
source: tenor
Leonardo diCaprio in “Romeo and Juliet”
And “Tangled.”
Do you get what I mean? We want to see the guy “work” the kiss.
Enjoy the kiss and the show!
Aha! ‘We want to see the guy work the kiss’ – makes sense and yes!
Very nice kiss montage here – thank you @Packmule3.
Ooooh lala them kisses
Thanks @Pm3 hahahaha
OK i’ll watch this show for Li Xian haha just cause i’m in the middle of GO GO SQUID and i am loving that show.
i agree his kiss here is not a good angle. and i agree about them kisses – they need to be aesthetically pleasing or they’re no good. thanks for the gifs. yummy LOL
I’ll start on this one this weekend!
Thank you! I hope you are well. ❤️
Heh! Thanks @pkml3!!! I’m glad you’re back safe and sound.
It will be nice to meet ourselves on this thread… in a slow and relaxed way, LOL.
However, the thread that @Cleo and I are interested in just for fun, is for the rather mixed-toned ‘Kokdu’. @Cleo asked for a thread, if possible… just a single thread might do or at the most a group of 4 episodes per thread on Fridays.
Will it be easier if I just list the dates on the outset?
Ep 1-4 on Saturday 4th Feb 2023
Ep 5-8 on Friday 10th Feb 2023
Ep 9-12 on Friday 24th Feb 2023
Ep 13-16 on Friday 10th Mar 2023
Hugs and thanks in advance!
🤗 😄 😇 🍪 🥛 🥑 🍪 ☕ 🍎 🍡 🍵 🍊 🍩 🥤 🍌 🍪 🥛 😂
🙂 Thanks, I’m doing okay, @agdr03. I shortened my trip because I’m not 100% back on my feet again. But I’ll be overseas again later this month/beginning of March.
Meanwhile, I’ll try to cram as many kdramas as I can while I’m here. 😂😂 I have yet to watch Alchemy of Souls’ last two episodes. I mean REALLY watch them. I just skimmed through them.
And you, @agdr03. How have you been, my friend?
Kokdu?
Okay! Sounds like a plan. Give me two hours please. I fell asleep but I’m forcing myself to get up for dinner, and get back to “normal” sleep pattern without my melatonin pills.
Take your time @pkml3. Getting back to normal hours and having lots of rest after illness is more important. I’ll be out of the house, and will only be watching anything only for a short while, if at all.
Well, melatonin is not as bad as other sleeping pills/aids, but still, take it easy on them, since no one knows the long-term side effects of taking them yet.
Here’s wishing you restful slumbers at the right times!! 😴 🤤 😄
I’m well, thank you. ☺️ My eldest is starting university this month and my youngest just started another high school year. I’m just getting old, that’s about it. 😃
Oh please watch the last 2 episodes of AoS. I really enjoyed S2. I think you’ll enjoy it too. ☺️
I believe LJW and GYJ will be in another drama again but they’re not the pair. Bummer 😂
Take care and make sure to get back to 100% health ok? 😘
My eyes! My eyes! What did I just see…and read? I can’t unsee/unread it? 😂. Seriously, welcome back to dramaland, where amnesia and prosopagnosia happens with alarming frequency (or used to anyway). We’re well into February now so what’s on my viewing list
– Our Blooming Youth (Park HyunSik in princely Hanbok)
– Island (part 2) – truly annoyed that the powers that be decided to dice this up so randomly into seasons like this – part 1 had only 6eps. I only just got into it and then it abruptly ended 🤦♀️
Finishing off
– Interest of Love – a real downer so don’t watch this if you’re already depressed 😂
– Trolley – political thriller which is gripping and keeps hold of your interest with each turn.
@agdr03,
Who was it who said that for the young people, the days go fast and the years go slow. But for the old folks, it’s the reverse. The days go slow and the years go fast?
Is your younger son still interested in ballpoint pens? I remember we had this conversation before.
@Packmule3, I’m glad you’re home safely, but sorry to learn you cut your trip short because you’re not back to full health. May your recovery continue until you are back to 100%.
To help you recuperate, my prescription is for you to watch Meet Yourself. Yes, I recognize it has been packaged very prettily to make palatable the propaganda, inevitable in Cdramas. And I don’t believe people are as adept as we see in this drama at getting to the root of problems and solving them. But as a viewer, I appreciated seeing characters talking through issues rather than wallowing in misery.
I’ve said it in another thread, and I’ll say it again here: my favorite character in MY is Granny Xie. She’s nurturing, but takes no guff. I also like the various aunties, even those with some annoying traits. The story arc with Auntie Feng is well done. That actress astounded me with her portrayal of a mother’s heart. I respect that the show didn’t rush her story, which gave it more impact.
I haven’t felt so good about a skice-of-community-life drama since watching Reply 1988.
One negative I feel I must mention as a former horse owner: the show filmed Cutie Pie exhibiting a stable vice but presented it as the horse responding happily to the humans’ activity near his stall. No. No. No. The rocking side to side–head, neck, and forelegs–is called weaving. It is a sign of stress. That was not a happy horse. It was probably uncomfortable being solitary (no other horses), confined in a small stall, with scary things all around (equipment used during filming).
The first episode sets the premise and the situation well for the rest of the story. In the pursuit of happiness, one may be mistakenly spending time, effort, health and end up failing to achieve the main goal.
We see Xu Hou Dou’s busy life. She didn’t have time to eat properly, she had stomach problems. She could not take her personal calls during meetings or visit her parents to celebrate birthdays. She could not take leave if she wanted to get her promotion. She had no time to date and her ex-boyfriend and her could not even see each other every week.
Her peers had gotten married and had kids.
The question is raised from the outset… what is important? One works like crazy, not getting enough sleep, no proper meals, not much personal life and for what? Working towards the house or car and a married life was supposed to bring happiness, but all those things were becoming unaffordable.
The real concern: concerns over getting old and lonely in the future give way to concerns for health and whether one even can have a future.
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. – Aristotle – ”
Chen Nanxing’s recorded messages repeat the advice for all of us.
Even when grieving cry and get it over with and then one (or she says to Hou Dou): Must be happy. Must go out. Open your mind to others, Make friends, find a replacement for her. Be proactive, seize the day, go after a man you like instead of just waiting. Live a good life, stop wasting time, take care, live life the way you want.
The missing phrase is ‘before it’s too late!’
Good advice, lovely show.
The Clock
There’s a simple bookending of the entire series with the image or metaphor of the clock, at the beginning of the series and again at the end.
Each Episode’s opening credits starts with the clock. We see the spiral of time, in the way the clock is rendered. As it recedes from us, the parts of the clock come apart and we cut to a seed planted somewhere in Yunnan that starts to sprout and grow at an incredible rate. Hong Dou begins her journey alone, with clocks draping limply beside her, but it’s good to see that the credits end with her together with Ah Yao along a bright yellow flowered path and in a hot air balloon, above the fray.
From hindsight we know that the springs of the clock became too tightly coiled for Hong Dou, who did decide to uproot herself and be planted, at least for a while, to begin with, in a quiet village of Yunnan.
In the beginning, we witness Hong Dou’s hectic working life, and we see the actual large clock with exposed gears in the hotel where she works. HD was like one of those little gears going around, non-stop, helping the whole machinery of the clock/hotel to keep time, at the expense of her health.
Chen Nanxing had suggested that HD quit so as to take care of her health, but she had refused to even take leave to go on a holiday as promised to Nanxing since 2 years previously. In the end it was too late for their trip together when Nanxing died.
Sometime after Nanxing’s passing, HD sees that the hotel clock has had a gear replaced. The man who was fixing the clock tells HD that the clock had been working for too long and the gear had become worn out.
As if he had been speaking about her, HD had fainted, possibly due to stress or fatigue or both. In the hospital, she worried that she might be dying (just like her friend) but while that was not the case, it was a wake-up call for her to take a break, to take stock of what she wanted in life, and to meet herself.
In the last episode, HD drops by the same hotel and looks at the clock with Ah Yao.
HD : “What do you think of when you look at this clock?”
AY : “Time.”
HD : “I always feel that it’s the embodiment of our hotel. I am a turning gear inside. Every part of this time machine works together to maintain accurate timekeeping. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
AY : “I only see time itself anyway.”
HD : “Because you’re a customer.” She forgot that she too was a customer and not a cog in the hotel wheel, anymore. Instead of being only a customer, she was also starting to run her own guesthouse in the Yunnan village, with the help and support of her village community.
Actually, Ah Yao was also right. The clock symbolised time, which was something she had not spent on herself in the past. It was her being uprooted and planted in Yunnan, plus her taking the time to grieve, regroup and reassess her life, that she had badly needed. It had taken time and good people to cultivate and be planted with, that enabled the seed of the opening credits to grow and bloom.
What’s wrong with Secretary Kim – full on kiss scene! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYgz0bSoUQA
Suspicious Partner – another full on kiss scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqjQQvdv46g
Love to Hate You: no clip yet. You have to watch Episode 4 from around 40 minutes in and then the beginning of Episode 5. Bear in mind that these two characters had a VERY bad impression of one another in the early episodes but that he was intrigued by her street fighting ability and difference from other women he has met.
Wong thread I apologise!!!