The thread is open.
This was a “duh” moment for WooHak and, lol, many viewers.
Likewise, what kind of fool — and diva — would give up on her lifelong dreams for someone she wasn’t interested in?
Didn’t she tell WooHak that she refused to live the rest of her life back in the island?
MH: I thought I told you. I didn’t want to come back here to live forever and ever.
WH: You should stay! You’re here now.
Ha! WH was a “stay in the fishtank” king of guy.
MH: (exhaling) If I stay that means all of this was for nothing. I went on that ferry to meet RanJoo and see the big city. It took 15 years. Fifteen years, but now I’m back to try again. You think I should stay on this island?
WH: (SLOWLY realizing her truth)
MH: Then all of those years I spent alone, might as well have been thrown in the trash! My entire life would be just a bunch of nothing.
The ticket seller wordlessly handed her ticket.
Don’t forget what I said. This scene was the reset/reboot moment. He was recreating the moment that should have been theirs on the island if his hyung hadn’t intercepted.
He didn’t get to thank her back then for staying alive. (Ha! That’s why I’m still clinging to hope that the ice box/cooler she found when she had given up on life, had come from him. That would be the perfect loop in a life marked by coincidences and fate.)
And I like the subtle ways that he shows jealousy.
He showed his jealousy too in Episode 2. WooHak kept on and on about how pathetic MokHa was without a place to stay.
WH: We have a room upstairs, you’re looking to hire, and MokHa has nowhere to go, we’d all win. It’s a perfect plan. Don’t you see, Mom?
Mom: (sighing and turning her back on him)
BoGyeol: Hyung. Are you into her?
Mom: Bro, come on. I’m just being nice.
BoGyeol: Do your chores. If you push it, I’ll think you like her.
He didn’t like his brother showing interest in MokHa. But he also knew that his brother rebelled against anything he said, so he did the “reverse psychology” on him. He influenced his Hyung to deny and reject an attachment for MokHa by accusing him of liking her. Sneaky, right?
Let’s enjoy the show.
Yes, BG is definitely into MH! @PM3, now I see what you mean on your comment about the actor’s big hands, very visible when he held her face. I like the way he did his “reset” and by being candid with his feelings, too. Not in a mushy way but again supported by facts.
Although it was @Birdie who was searching for the “petal”, what I said before was I will look at the similarities of Start-up and this show. One is the use of epilogue where we get additional easter eggs. In Ep 8 epilogue, MH said she will never like a guy who watched porn and then asked him to promise not to watch porn. It’s a roundabout way of telling him she likes him! I think he got the message and they even pinky swear on it. I hope that also made him rethink his next steps about his dad.
Thanks again for your write ups and analysis, they are spot-on!
Now that I have caught up, will be watching ep9.
@Packmule3,
Thank you. I liked the way you highlighted the ‘duh’ moment here – the truth lurking in plain sight! Actions speaking far louder than any words and great that the writer allowed the ML to spell it out while offering us hints and the chance to put 2 and 2 together along the way.
Arguably, this approach makes for greater intrigue – as we have discovered!! – and because we are not omniscient viewers, the key scenes more fresh and immediate. Our introverted hero’s words have far more impact than if we were spending a lot of time inside his thoughts!
Hi pm3, Janey and Kate (and birdy and snowflower not here yet).
I was scared to read because fear of spoiler, but it was the funny scene of the sinks.
I’ll come back later (of course) after watching the episodes. YO!!!!
EPISODE 9 AND 10
In Episode 8, @pkml3 spoke of a double betrayal. WRT Mok Ha, taking the seagull’s eggs was one betrayal and then lying that she hadn’t eaten them doubled the betrayal. I felt that this applied to Ran Joo as well who betrayed her fans by lip-syncing and then by going along with the script that said she was doing it in order to give her mentee a chance to debut. That was disingenuous, since her reason for lip-syncing was not so altruistic. True enough by the end of Episode 10, it looks like that double betrayal of Ran Joo will come back to bite her.
Well, everybody lies when circumstances call for it. It appears to me that no one is really whom they say they are, are not true to themselves, or they are impersonating others. They just don’t have the excuse that Ran Joo’s mum does ie dementia, LOL.
Aside from the entire fake Kang family who stole the Kang family identity, there’s:
Evil Jung who is impersonating a good cop.
Ran Joo who pretends to be the same singer she was before.
Yong Kwan who really wanted to be a singer but settled for being a manager
Even Mok Ha did that in reverse ie she took on being a Manager when her dream was to be a singer.
However of the lot of them, Mok Ha and Ki Ho are the most honest and truthful, because they aim to come clean as far as possible. It was refreshing to hear Ki Ho/BG tell Ran Joo and Mo Rae to own up to their lies and compete fairly, and it was great that MH does not hold back telling people to their faces, how two-faced they are LOL.
So far Woo Hak’s role now has changed so that he seems mainly to be a foil character to show up the good attitude of BG. He has grown somewhat, but when we see their reactions side by side, WH is still the more self-interested, petty, punitive and childish character. His fake dad is to him what Granny had been to Ji Pyeong in Start-up. She was indulgent. His responses and reactions when things don’t go his way are generally lacking. I did like however, that he did once make breakfast for the family, which scared them because it was so unlike him!
@Kate, speaking of actions that speak louder than words, I really loved Ki Ho’s action of renting an officetel for MH immediately after they found her, and then furnishing it so that it was in move-in condition. Knowing that MH had nothing, he even had towels ready. He’s a real provider (the kind of man a girl wants to marry!!!). He had foresight, he prepared so much with MH in mind and yet was prepared to let her go for everyone’s good.
So unlike the Evil Jung who kept harping on what the family owed him just because he worked, and they had a roof over their heads. He felt that entitled him to own them and beat up his family over anything at all.
The sickening thing is that in that society’s eyes still, the father is given so much lee-way to discipline his family. He is seen as the victim instead of the perpetrator. We see that he merely gets interviewed by his policeman friend (I can’t call it an interrogation!!) and we next see him at home.
Episode 9, first watch impressions, LIVE!
01:00 – Starts directly with Ki Ho at his father’s house.
But switch to Mok Ha and Ki Ho. Damn, I feel like I’ve got the cliffhanger x2.
They’re talking about the corpse of Mok Ha’s father and–
Ah, I like! Quick switch between scenes, back to the father.
If the father were easy to fool, I’d feel more reassured.
But damn, no, he immediately thinks of the smartphone. A dread antagonist.
Does Ki Ho let himself get beaten up, or is his father really stronger?
(I suppose he could have a close-combat skill from his former profession).
It could also be a resurgent conditioned reflex.
(Ki Ho has lived with abuse for a long time).
Or just a plan? Or to avoid becoming an assassin, as foreshadowed in the previous episode?
We get part of the answer in what Mok Ha says next…
08:14 – And yes, the camera in foreshadowing episode 1.
Otherwise, Ki Ho had a second recorder, LOL. A plan within a plan.
+ Response: Ki Ho is indeed stronger than his father.
He let himself be beaten up so he could record everything. Diabolic!
11:30 – The detail is well done. Visually, we immediately understand that the father is thinking of taking fingerprints. In the previous scene, there was a shot on the can that “clicked” for me.
This guy’s going to be a pain in the ass for a long time to come…
12:30 – Ki Ho in his car, puts on a mask to hide his wounds.
Since he had a plan within a plan, he should have also brought a first-aid kit. Tsss.
13:30 – Why Ran Joo can no longer trust Mok Ha.
Flashback, to a previous junior who disappointed her.
Just a note: they don’t want to show us his face!
Sad separation of the two women (for now!).
16:00 – Good tip, pretend you’ve been drinking.
Can explain accidental injuries (or bar fights).
17:22 – Mini cliffhanger, when Mok Ha is about to go after two discourteous fans.
18:20 – AH, I hadn’t realized the actor was so tall and physically imposing.
19:55 – lol, is it really okay to put so much pressure on discourteous fans? Woo Hak forces them to delete the photos.
25:00 – Long cuddle scene.
Ends with a voice-over from the future and–
TITLE: comfort VS resolution.
29:00 – At this point, apart from the first situation, a slow episode.
32:00 – The guy Ran Joo wanted to produce.
I have the weirdest feeling it’s her current manager?!
His song is good. Unexpectedly, it wakes me up in the drama, whereas usually songs put me to sleep (well, when they’re boring).
Oh yes! I’m not cross-eyed, that’s her current manager.
35:00 – Yep. Slow episode. I need plot!
Give me a shot of PLOT!!! Or plot in capsule form.
Bring a man with a gun into the room!
AH, I’m temporarily fulfilled, Mok Ha ready for the deal with Lee Soon.
38:00 – Mok Ha misses Ran Joo.
The writer knows all the tricks! Here, the ghost trick.
41:00 – Plot! The father’s plan…
47:00 – Not clear why they’d rather give her archived songs than a composer.
49:45 – Easy to identify with her. I need to listen to dozens of songs before I find one I like (or it just randomly happens).
51:00 – Good scene of mystery and comedy, with the obnoxious composer.
55:10 – Excellent! The composer is Ran Joo’s impresario.
I prefer the second part of the episode: more conflict.
56:10 – What’s she doing? Plagiarize his song? Rewrites the text? But what about the melody and harmony? Oulaaah. You’re going to hear something like that.
59:45 – Mok Ha not convinced by the motto “giving up takes courage”. 🙂
Opinion: The impresario’s real problem isn’t that he’s given up, but rather that he’s always regretted it. So he’s defeatist about the others, including Mok Ha. He still has a passion for singing.
Otherwise, it’s a good theme (but for another drama), giving up without regret. I’m thinking of a passion that slowly fades away. So it doesn’t require courage or discouragement. It’s just the way it is: you forget and move on.
Mok Ha: “Failure is the foundation of success”.
This convinces the impresario.
1:03:30 – Not sure what Ran Joo is doing. Is she changing the composition of a song? For whom?
1:04:10 – Ki Ho “long and boring”.
Ah ah, that was my impression listening to those three chords, with a basic rhythm.
Aaaah, there you go… Ki Ho has Ran Joo’s help to improve the song. I like!
1:08:10 – I finally have a doubt whether Ran Joo will give up her contract and records to sell.
1:12:20 – I could feel it coming. This is the right moment in the drama. Something in the pond! My money’s on a car and 4 dead bodies 😉
1:13:10 – Countdown for Ki Ho’s father…
1:15:00 – Irony that we don’t understand until the next scene. He was supposed to come back in 4 minutes, but ends up buying soup. Problematic, because the next scene…
1:15:30 – Ki Ho’s father at Mok Ha’s (we can’t see how he got here).
Looks like he was here before…. So, Mok Ha said something hidden in his message? Aaah, I don’t know, it’s confusing.
1:16:35 – Oh yeah, it’s even bigger. It’s filming the whole scene (I guess Ki Ho installed a camera for security? if so, I missed it or I don’t remember).
1:16:55 – I make the absurd observation that the father was threatening them with… a hairbrush?! 😀
Title was: comfort VS resolution.
I guess I’ll wait for a Pm3 article or your comments, because it slipped my mind, and I couldn’t say how the thematic was used in the episode. T T
@WE
Thanks for the running commentary and recap. It helps me see that the corpse of MH’s father is likened to the living ‘corpse’ of Ki Ho’s father. MH was sad that her father had not lived a better life and KH tells his father the same thing. He had not changed or grown… he was also stagnated in the past, in the same old house. He might as well have been dead.
I’m pleased to say that I guessed KH already had another recorder on him because he was not in the least upset that his phone was confiscated. I didn’t see him pick it up but he seems to have had it with him after the confrontation. I wanted him to have photos of his injuries taken and to have filed a report on abuse anyway, but of course in kdramas, the good guy victim does not take action against the mean perpetrator.
Title: Comfort vs Resolution…where’s the comfort and where’s the resolution?
Comfort as in KH and MH comforting each other? Finding comfort in the resolution: the end of a long, tiring and painful struggle?
Resolution in the context of the show and episode likely means the resolving of the lies and the gaining of some peace of mind. Peace from living in fear is better than mere comfort.
It seems these 2 episodes have protagonists forcing Resolutions in order to get some peace of mind or comfort.
Ran Joo deliberately gives up on her shares to force a resolution with the contract termination, but she won’t get any comfort until she gets to sign the contract on her own terms. She seems to want to be the producer for other talents, rather than just being a singer herself.
Obnoxious composer who finds MH obnoxious (yes it’s transference!) gives up his dream to sing without much resolution (@WE you say he regrets it) but he will be comforted to hear MH singing his song. I like how MK accosts Yong Gwan, the Obnoxious Composer and tells him point blank that his lyrics are terrible. She gives him some good truths… do one’s best and even if one fails after 10 years, at least one has enjoyed doing what one has loved for 10 years. The regret of giving up is worse than that of never trying. She gets him to give a disgruntled yes to her singing his song… a resolution! He has a tear rolling down his face when she sings his song at the Showcase.
So we have a good team… RJ as the producer, Yong Gwan as songwriter and MH as the artiste.
I mentioned something above about people being two-faced… Lee Seo Jin is two-faced as well… not only has he betrayed Ran Joo, but he immediately starts playing out MH after scouting her, by giving her only rejected songs to choose from. But why, when she can make him a lot of money? My guess is that he just wants to stop others from getting their hands on her singing, and maybe to frustrate Ran Joo who dotes on MH so much.
For me a real happy ending for this series is that Ran Joo still gets her last 20K records sold, regardless of what scandals take place around her. I would have preferred it if she could also get all the money that is her due after 15 years of work in RJ Entertainment.
When KH promised MH that he wouldn’t look at ‘that’ again… she thought he meant porn, but he meant ‘patricide’. So in effect MH had stopped him from committing murder. In the next episode she does something similar for WH.
1:15:30 How Ki Ho’s father comes to the Brothers’ Salon will probably be shown a bit more in a flashback or next episode if it’s not made clear in this episode. We know that he got KH’s fingerprints checked and probably got his policeman friend to give him the address of the fingerprint owner.
KH, while queuing up for dumplings, has a flashback memory where MH promises he won’t get to see his father again. She was guaranteeing it by sending him off to line up for dumplings, so that he would not be back in time to see Evil Jung in his home.
Smart girl in one way but that leaves 2 women alone with a violent man who fails to understand reason.
1:06:18 – 1:06:20 I like how show does the transitions of songs so that we get to see the try out and end up with the song continued on stage in a flash. So much time saved.
I did expect the pond to have hidden a car with the real Kang family in it, but not that it would be suicide (I expected it to be an accident). So sad to take the lives of the children as well.
At 56:10 MH is changing the lyrics of the song and later on RJ changes the song’s arrangement and tempo, I believe. MH chooses an English title “Until the End” for the song. It speaks of the other kind of resolve… persisting until the end. Yong Gwan didn’t have that resolve but MH does.
So too do KH and his ‘fake’ father. They want to clear away the lies and see all the fallout through to the end.
At least if Evil Jung cannot get caught for violence and abuse, WH can get him arrested for attempted manslaughter over the hornets in car incident. One of the few useful things that WH does. Heh!
Episode 10, first watching LIVE.
02:20 – The new father (Mr Kang) asks Mok Ha what she would do about the identity theft.
It’s unintentionally funny. It’s as if he’s saying:
“Hey, Mok Ha, you’re the heroine of the drama, so you make all the decisions. What do we do about the 4 corpses in the car?”
05:30 – Unpleasant arrival of Jung, Ki Ho’s father in the hairdressing salon.
(so, ref previous episode, he was actually here before the phone call)
He really can’t accept that everyone around him is doing everything to forget him… AAAhhh, he doesn’t want to be forgotten!
06:30 – I still don’t understand why she’s telling him about the soup.
Or: it’s to make sure she keeps Ki Ho away. Yep. She doesn’t want him to come. Hence the importance of him saying “I’ll be there in 4 minutes” and her sending him for soup. But since he’s paranoid, he’s set the whole thing up with cameras. I hope he didn’t put any in the bathroom.
The father is in “I’m unhappy, so you don’t have the right to be happy” mode! What a pisser! By the way, the actor was in Memories of the Alhambra. The manager who was always freaking out about everything without ever believing it.
I bet Mok Ha pretended to call the police.
09:00 – “Hobo”, yeah… plus Jung is jealous of the new husband.
Even though it’s been about 15 years!
AH!!! The bastard, he slaps Mok Ha!!!
Mini-cliffhanger: about to beat the shit out of Woo Hak.
11:05 – Family drama, screaming, crying, hysterical people, great atmosphere. Even when he’s physically underpowered, Jung’s psychological intoxication makes him a nuisance.
12:00 – Yep, the police car is going in the opposite direction… Or did the cops finish before Ki Ho arrived? So Mok Ha really did call the police?
15:00 – I had a good feeling about that. It’s about forgetting the father. Mok Ha has some sharp words. “he deserves nothing, doesn’t deserve to be happy”, “even getting angry is giving him too much”, so “he deserves to be forgotten”.
17:00 – 4 skeletons. Mass suicide?
I doubt the kids were up for it.
17:30 – Beginning of episode 10 and resolution of all the plots?!
I have my doubts about Jung…
19:10 – No surprise: Mok Ha is going to meet the indignant people who always spread the same rumors. blah blah “bad wife” blah blah “the kids abandoned the father”. She’s going to give them a shipwrecked dressing down, yah!
20:38 – TITLE: Answers VS risks.
24:50 – Excellent scene at the police station. Jung is out of his mind. His former colleague is no longer supportive.
36:45 – Good obstacle, very painful. Ran Joo agrees to produce Mok Ha’s record… If she stops seeing the Kang family (hence Ki Ho).
39:15 – The kind of montage that bores me. Sad character, with a song. Does mundane things, moves into an apartment. It’s long. It’s slow. It’s functional, to produce the moment of separation and let down, the passage of time. I don’t know if the audience likes it? What do you think?
Well, at least for Mok Ha’s montage, there are the rotten shoes.
46:14 – The end! Ki Ho shows up unexpectedly.
Still: after 7 minutes on the clock!
Mok Ha plays the diva.
She invents a bad-girl temperament. AH AH!
Just give her an umbrella and things fall apart. 🙂
Plus, he gives her a flat!
(she’s angry, she accepts the umbrella more easily)
I forget to comment on the substance of what they’re saying, but I’m too absorbed in the scenes.
I’ve forgotten what this black obelisk-shaped trinket is. Everyone’s been carrying it around for a while, and I’ve lost track.
I like background music. Not the style I listen to, but it reminds me of older melodramas. Adapted to the feelings here. Several moving scenes.
1:00:00 – Recording session, interesting.
During the song. New montage. A little more interesting than the previous one. Shot of them in bed, face to face (but not in the same room).
1:03:40 – I like it. A cruel moment for Mo Rae, the mic is left on, she hears the sound engineer praising Mok Ha. ^^
I forgot to take a lot of notes.
In the end, it makes sense to take “Risks”.
(first time she dives for crustaceans)
I guess she shouldn’t stay away from Ki Ho anymore.
On the other hand, I’m having trouble seeing the “Answer” part.
@GB. Right about the composer. He’s a secondary character but have a lot of room in this episode. So, what we see of him is certainly important. When he listens to Mok Ha singing, he have a tear. He didn’t get resolution before, but with the confort of hearing her, he finally heals and get resolution.
Lee Seo Jin is an interesting character. It’s difficult to say in the relationship with Ran Joo, who want what. In a previous episode, Ran Joo was ready to kiss him, to come back. But he betrayed about the record sales. Now, opposite, he’s the one who want to be a happy couple with her again. I like the character. It’s not the man we can classify as a villain. He does some wrong and some right. He looks like a very good producer.
You say Ran Joo gets her 20k ? But unless I missed something, she gave back the contract signed to Seo Jin in Ep10. So she definitely gave up on that.
@WE, about the 20K, it is only that I would like that to still work out in terms of sales figures. She can still reach that target but it will have no effect since she terminated the contract.
I’ll read you tomorrow. It’s too late in the night/morning now!
I think it’s time to start thinking about adding another boyfriend to the
Best Boyfriend award on BOD: Ki-Ho! Like Nam Do-Sam in Start-Up (also by the same writer), KH does his best to help the girl/woman he loves. From stocking a backpack with convenience store snacks for their escape to Seoul (and writing out pages of instructions for her once she got there), to furnishing an apartment for the now-adult FL, so far he is everything your mom (and you, if you’re wise) would want in a boyfriend. He also makes good on his promises–such as buying a new pair of shoes for the FL once they got to Seoul.
Those attributes alone would be enough to nominate him for a Best Boyfriend Award, but he also devoted 15 years of his life cleaning SK islands as a way to look for her. And he went into a career that would help her if she ever made it back to the mainland. (That ocean backdrop during her TV debut just about killed me.)
OK, except for one technicality–the FL and ML aren’t in a relationship yet by episode 10 (out of 12), but the previews show us that things might change.
I like how this writer shows both toxic masculinity and positive/nurturing masculinity in her shows (at least with Start Up and now CD). In SU the toxic male was JP (despite what the fan girls said), and Nam Do San was the knight in shining armor. In CD we are shown extreme examples of toxic masculinity with the two dads who beat their children. The examples of positive/nurturing masculinity comes with the new dad and with Ki-Ho.
Great idea, @Beth. KiHo definitely belongs to our BitchesoverDramas’ Best Boyfriend Hall of Fame. We only have three, right?
Will open an “induction post” after this series end and use your write-up. We do need a president of the “fan club.”
@WE, about Ki Ho’s father, the Evil Jung – Rather than not wanting to be forgotten, I felt that he hated that everyone was happy away from him. Everyone had moved on and were living their lives quite happily without him but he was stagnated in the past. He felt that he was entitled to have his family just because he had been the original father. I liked that his ex-colleague told him that the reason he didn’t have the right to have them back was that they didn’t want him.
Yes the actor who plays the demented Evil Jung is Lee Seung Joon (1973) and he is also going to be in Nine: 9 Times Time Travel LOL. Looks like he is frequently chosen to be in SJJ dramas. Did you say that she’s the one who chooses her cast? Anyway, he is a prolific actor.
Well, the Evil Jung will turn up again in the last 2 episodes because he’s not even incarcerated.
@WE … the sad montage is necessary to bring on the sad emotion in viewers, and to underscore the separation, and the fact that they kept busy in their own lives and that Ki Ho’s family really had to handle the fallout of their ‘crime’. It showed that MH had done the right thing to cut ties with them while pursuing her own path for a time. I’m sure we’ll get a time jump to when the family are all right/good in the eyes of the public and she can date Ki Ho openly or something.
The black obelisk trinket was something that a fortune-teller lady behind the bar offered only to those who were prepared to pay for it. (Timestamp 34:00) She was supposed to have successfully predicted who would become famous. All those people were supposed to have received a similar trinket from her.
She had predicted that Ran Joo would be singing and doing well until she was 60 years of age. Although RJ felt that the fortune-teller was wrong about her, she still passed the trinket to KH to give to MH as a sign that she supported her and trusted that MH would not give up but would succeed. In the end MH passed the trinket back to RJ, because after all, it belonged to RJ.
I’m more interested to know what the key on the keychain that RJ’s demented mother gave MH will open. All these items being passed around are supposed to have some significance.
In Ep 9, (Timestamp 27:08) the thing that RJ’s mother said should be bugging us. She had suddenly recognised Ran Joo as her daughter and asked about her concert, saying that she really needed to go for it next time. Then she said: Don’t let President Lee Seo Jin find out about it. But then she lapsed into memory loss and didn’t know what she’d said or what that meant. So we are all in the dark about it too, but we expect that this was an important remark.
@GB, I wonder how you do bold an italic text here?
Thanks for the item. No wonder why I’m lost, there is also the key, and probably I confused the two ones.
Sad montage scene. Well. Yeah, it’s fonctional. But waAhhh-ahh (yawn)… So it makes I don’t have any reflex to write things like that, when objectively, it’s useful. Or I put something more in these scenes. Want to catch attention.
I had one montage like that (two lovers separated, ‘see the mood), but even with additional interesting content, my usual reader found that boring. I guess he’s a bit a guy like me about that. Plus, on the page, you don’t even have the song or the beautiful directing.
I feel like I have a flaw and don’t think enough about slower scenes for emotional consequences. When I was watching Dr Romantic I was thinking about that. There are clear input-output to situations about characters change. However, I guess it’s more a character driven drama. So the writer imagine first what the characters become (internally) and find a local plot (let’s say a new patient or medical urgency), set-up that so it create what she want for characters. What make sometime easy plot or even wobbly ones. Like “a guy take hostage in the surgery room” without a gun, just some kind of knife. Damn it, I’m in a text wall for something else again. ssshtttttt!!
About what actor is in a drama. Writers and Director have a word, yes!
I think I’ve read an article about that but don’t remember well.
See this funny actor:
https://mydramalist.com/people/4481-yang-hyung-wook
He’s in most of writers Jang Young Chul + Jung Kyung Soon dramas, when this guy doesn’t have a carrer as actor elsewhere.
He’s funny to tears-laugh in Incarnation of money. So I used him as actor in my W2, and you see him as soon as episode 2. 😀
Same writers use every drama actor Kim Jung Hyun.
Also, Memories of the Alhambra, I remember the Director interview:
He wanted to do the drama ONLY if he gets Hyun Bin and Park Shin Hye.
@WE
Bold font is made by placing text in between codes with angle brackets. Place angle brackets to enclose “b” before the text, the text to be made bold, then close with angle brackets “/b” after the text ie replace the square brackets here with angle brackets: [b]bold[/b]
Italics are angle brackets with “i” ie replace the square brackets here with angle brackets: [i]italics[/i]
@WE, yes I understand that not everyone will enjoy a slow emotional scene to look at or to write into the plot, but emotions need time to build up. Of course the right background music needs to accompany it, and enough snippets of people being full of resolve while missing someone.
Thanks for the link. I’ll look at it later. Yes, I do recall that Directors and Writers seem to have someone in mind and want particular actors to take on a role. That accounts for many repeated collaborations in dramas.
Now I want to post my thoughts on Answers Vs Risks.
Answers Vs Risks (The title for Episode 10, but I feel it works for more than one episode)
Answers here mean solutions to a problem or solutions/the consequences of a risk one has to take.
The Evil Jung problem – Risks and their solutions had to be weighed in the balance. The problem of the Kang family living in growing fear because of the risk of being found by Evil Jung… and the likelihood of being found increased with time, plus the risk of being caught by the law if they asked for help.
But dad Kang/Lee Uk made the right call. He decides to take the initiative. Instead of waiting to be found out, he took the risk of being severely punished by confessing to a crime so as to solve the problem of not being able to get protection against Evil Jung. Ending the need to live in fear was worth the risk. It was the answer to their problem (at least for a while). But this had to be weighed also against the loss of jobs for the sons, and the loss of business for the Brothers’ Salon. Still, I feel that the risk and the loss were worth it!!!
Answers and Risks continued…
Answers and Risks continued…
At a meeting in a golf club café??, Lee Seo Jun and investment friends mention that RJ’s shares issue was still a risk. They want proof that RJ does not want her shares. A table away is a reporter, Bong Du Hyeon, who’s out to cause a scandal. He greets Lee Seo Jun who cannot recall him. Perhaps if Lee had recalled whom he was, he could have pre-empted the article that Bong would publish.
By lying about the lip-sync singing, RJ ran the risk of being exposed and denounced by her fans, but worse, RJ found that while she’d forced MH to cut ties with the Kang family to avoid scandal, she herself now had created the greater scandal that risked ruining MH’s chance at success. RJ’s solution or answer was to write a reply to the news article that gave the truth, and then distance herself from MH.
MH refused to accept the solution of cutting off ties with RJ. We don’t get to hear the answer or the solution that MH might give as an alternative, but she assures RJ that she won’t give up on her dream to be a singer, for RJ’s sake. She refuses to let RJ say that she’ll leave for MH’s sake. In other words, RJ’s answers/solutions are being rejected.
We get the voiceover and flashback to MH choosing to get food from the sea by learning how to swim. Her decision was to do or die. It was all (ie risking her life by drowning but then having the chance to find food) or nothing (starving to death by staying on land). Weighed in the balance, this risk and answer was easier because death was certain if she did nothing, while hope was possible if she risked drowning. She would definitely die a slow death by starvation, but only risked death by drowning while finding food from the sea.
I guess her solution then would be that in the same way, she would keep her friendship with RJ while still pursuing her singing, because to stop singing out of fear of scandal would mean certain ‘death’ while singing regardless of the risk of scandal, would offer the hope that she would be successful, and it kept RJ by her side.
Answers and Risks continued…
Answers and Risks continued…
Exposing the Identity Theft and Jung – the Kang family too decided on all or nothing. If they were going to come clean and be free of Evil Jung, then they should go ahead with the police cross-examination. And we get a sign of hope in the waking up of Han Dae Woong who’d been in the car crash due to the hornets.
Risking Losing All – RJ since Episode 9 had been taking on the risk of getting nothing, by giving up her rights to the shares in order that MH would be able to have an album. The solution/answer to this risk can only be offered by MH who assures RJ that she would never give up singing.
The reason that Lee Seo Jun signed on MH although he didn’t care to promote her as a singer, since she was too old, was likely so that RJ would give up on her shares. RJ seems to have pre-empted him by giving up her shares first, in order to push MH to put herself first, instead of continually putting RJ first.
Risking Failure by Being Nice – RJ’s conclusion was that Mo Rae had succeeded because she had been ungrateful and self-seeking, while Yong Gwan had failed because he’d been putting others first. She wanted MH to succeed by being hard-hearted but MH will show her that being true to people is not a weakness but a strength.
A Show on Answers and Risks – well, every drama will have its conflicts/risks and resolutions/answers, so it’s nothing new to say that this drama has answers and risks as one of its main themes.
Looking back at Episode 1 and 2, what teenage KH and MH had faced was also similar to what MH faced in terms of starvation on the island. Staying on their island of Chunsam meant ‘death’ to them. Running away was very risky, but it offered hope. They would be dependent on strangers, they might have been cheated or abused, their father(s) could have found them, but it was a risk worth taking, because staying on Chunsam offered no hope of freedom from abuse, or of fulfilling their dreams.
The answer for teenage NH and KH was to run away and hide until MH was famous or the father(s) could not hurt them anymore. The answer for adult MH and KH was to stop running and hiding, and instead to own up to the truth, while (to begin with, in MH’s case) still pursuing their dreams. I believe that KH will return to his great love for being behind the camera, to direct the action.
The theme of obtaining success after long persistence, and perseverance in the face of challenges, while not giving up on relationships (as Start-up Ji Pyeong did) in order to succeed quickly/easily, is one of the ideas this Writer is exploring.
Another is that ungratefulness after receiving help to make a start, and pretending to be who we are not/lying in order to get ahead, and doing nothing to help others, is wrong. Ultimately, one is bound to lose, as in the way Start-up Ji Pyeong lost friends, trust of others, … the girl.
@GB, I’ve had time to read all your text-wall.
But it’s going to be hard to keep it all in my little mind!
I note a few points that surprised me:
Seo Jun’s goal is not to promote Mok Ha, but to get Ran Joo’s shares. In that case, does that explain why he’s giving her archive songs?!
Answers and Risks: indeed, the theme is generic, so less significant, on the other hand…
Achieving success without losing relationships is precise. Perhaps the writer has experienced this type of situation, in her own field.