The thread is open.
7.00am PST
10.00am EST/Canada
10.00am Caracas
2.00pm in London
3.00pm in Paris
4.00pm in Athens
10.00pm in Singapore
Is this the finale, GB? Have you decided on what to watch next?
Enjoy the show!
The thread is open.
7.00am PST
10.00am EST/Canada
10.00am Caracas
2.00pm in London
3.00pm in Paris
4.00pm in Athens
10.00pm in Singapore
Is this the finale, GB? Have you decided on what to watch next?
Enjoy the show!
Hi @pkml3! No, there are 20 episodes of Nine: 9 so we have 5 more to go!
Next show to be Rewatch will be Signal Yay!!!!
😂😂 okay. Five more then. See you tomorrow.
I am thinking about HJ Trying to explain who jesus is to our josean scholar. I was just rewatching for the umpteenth time and noticed The show is in march and april. Remember, there was a reference to the resurrection.I think in a conversation in the cafe between the female lead and her assistant agent. Obsessive that I am.I even checked the date for easter in sixteen ninety four. Interestingly enough one can find it.
Rebirth is certainly a Theme we keep seeing in asian and other drama.
I don’t think this is a spoiler.
At one point the hero of nine says that he is the incense stick and that explains what happens. I never quite understood that so I hope I can figure that out this time around With your help.
This episode starts in a church!
Hi @MM. Who is HJ? What Joseon scholar?
It’s much later that SW thinks he can liken himself to the incense stick. Let’s see what @WE says about that. @WE did mention that at the end he found everything understandable. 🙂
@MM, I believe in Asian lore, the idea of reincarnation is pretty common. A kind of rebirth, yes, into a life that’s good or bad depending on what one did in one’s past life. The karma thing. Koreans seem to think that they have 4 lives.
OK, we start about now!!
Hi @MM, @GB!
Hi!!
Hi @SD! Good to see you!
Hi @WE!
This episode starts in a church! I think the conversation here I just realized is relevant to my above question about the meaning of hymn being an Incense stick.
QIHM. I am on a resurrection theme in s j j.
Hi @WE. Maybe you can answer @MM’s question about SW saying that he’s the incense stick. That happens in the 19th episode?
Helllo everyone!
@MM yes Writer SJJ tends to like including churches and religious icons into her dramas. Memories of Alhambra had the church. In fact I feel it’s this same church!
It is interesting how SJJ.
Combines christian and buddhist themes
Kind of outside the scope, but I found the painting at the back of the church fascinating. The central figure has a Josean style hat and the crowd are arranged the way Bodhisattva’s might be.
Ironic (?) for SW to go from wishing he could pray to wanting to murder.
Hi @FF!
Young Hoon is such a good friend. He believes that he saves SW by stopping him from killing and taking away the incense sticks.
@GB We must have posted at the same moment. This combination of religious themes reflects religion in south korea
Hi, SD, GB, MM, FF.
About SW saying he’s the incense stick. I’ve no clue about that, except what he says. I just take it as “when the last incens stick ends, the time traveller stay in the past”. lol.
Here a crazy plot-twist in the church, when he’s about to break the stick.
Unexpected time change! The stick vanishes.
@SD, yes… he was obviously not in the right frame of mind to pray or take what the Christian faith holds dear as relevant to him.
Love how the incense vanished and we have the crucifix as the backdrop to it. LOL YH’s expressions. Love the music too!
Of course BIBLICAL MUSIC during this twist!
Jesus Christ just stole the last stick! 😀
Hi @GB, yea Young Hoon is a good friend and it seems SW’s only friend.
Hi all, @MM you have raised religious points that interest me as well. Previous to episode 16 there wasn’t any or very little mention of religious beliefs that I remember. Could be my faulty memory, though. Also interesting that hero IS the incense stick? I need think more about this analogy. 🤔
I’ll be bouncing between BOD and watching granddaughter’s live volleyball games in Atlanta, Georgia.
Happy and blessed Easter to all!
It’s CHOI acting feast from now on.
Close up on his evil eyes, scaried.
@MM, yes there are strong religious themes in kdramas and they mix and match beliefs willy-nilly at times. At least SJJ has a certain knowledge or respect for the Christian faith and does not do anything that’s too absurd with regards to using the symbols and church as backdrop.
The stronger influence is shamanism, I feel but Christianity or Catholicism is a close 2nd.
Sun Wu’s chilling expression.Just before he says he’s going to kill the villain.
Don’t blame the villain.It is the stick we need to get rid of. His friend’s incredulous.Look up at the crucifix when the stick disappears.
So is something else happening that we do not know about.When the stick disappears or is it Christ getting rid of the devil?
Poor YH. When he asks for a miracle he did not expect to get one!
Hi @LL! Happy and blessed Easter to you too!
Yes, we’ll think about what being an incense stick means.
@MM, SW gives us the correct answer to your question. He lost the stick at that time, 20 years in the past. Confusing, huh?
Hi @LL and @FF.
Even SW wonders if there was a divine intervention (he looks up at the crucifix). I suspect though he will continue thinking about it, LOL
@SD, it was a miracle in a sense. However not by God.
The real saviour in this show is Boss of CBM. He became a necessary help to change the Timeline.
Explicit combination of christian and buddhist symbols at10.25
The friend have a role close than the one the actor have in MOTA: always worried about the supernatural phenomenon.
I think the white ribbons in their hair at funeral are of buddhist origin? I am not sure. I am not sure if some symbols our confucion in nature.
@GB. Is some of what we are seeing shamenistic?
@GB, in 9, the writer spoon feed us.
Naaa… just joking. 🙂 🙂 🙂
But much more easy to get than W or MOTA.
Even more easy than QIHM.
Hi SD, WE,
SW’s theory that someone took the incense 20 years ago sounds incredulous, yet it makes perfect sense. SJJ’s story always amazes me because plot twists are always fresh, new and original.
@WE, MOTA guy didn’t know whether to believe or not. He just took refuge in the church and got the holograph to be displayed there so he ended up disappearing in church like an incense stick LOL. SJJ repeats the idea of supernatural disappearing (and resurrection) in connection with churches.
@MM, here funeral have black clothes (what is we get in modern tradition), but I remember in historical dramas, color of mourn is white.
@MM, no I don’t think anything is shamanistic in Nine: 9. SJJ is stronger with Christian symbols. The incense stick is the only thing Buddhist or of other faith. It seems to have originated in the Himalayas. I was looking up the religions there: Animism, Buddhism and Hinduism. So it’s hard to say what other influcences are included.
@FF, no it’s logic, time changes are simultaneous in both time. So if the time change happens 5 days after time travel in the past, it takes 5 days in present time too.
JUST: the concept is sometime a bit elastic, so it fit the plot. 😉
CHOI has his sluuussshhhssllluurrupp moment.
And he makes big “OooOOhh OooOOOh”. ^^
@WE, well SJJ may leave clues but she does not ever explain properly how the supernatural stuff works. We just make our best guesses.
Here’s are villain with his eyes at their larges and mouth most pursed as he looks at or gets a new memory about the incense.
@WE Yes I have noticed how morning clothes have changed from white to black. I am not sure Why the tradition changed.
AH AH AHAHHHAHHH !!!!
The actor put all his might in the scenes.
Just excellent, CHOI !!!
@WE, Choi actor had to maintain an expression of shock and anticipation for many minutes LOL.
We see that he’s been pretending all the time.
@GB, director request:
Make bulging eyes and round mouth.
Then enlarge more your eyes.
Yeh yeh. Now climax of the scene:
Exorbited eyes please !! 😀
@WE, I understand the logi but at the point when I saw the incense disappearing my reaction was like Young Hoon’s. I didn’t think it is because someone took the incense away, it was after Sw’s remark that I realized the possibility.
LOL @WE, he managed without eyes popping all the way out.
Now SW has to force his way into the hospital room. Too late!
I note something disturbing:
There were only ONE last stick.
But now there is again TWO sticks.
Oh DAMN, he lights the stick but the stick disappear. Because it breaks the rule of 9 sticks max I guess.
Like a noob, Choi burn ne last stick but hold it in his hand, instead of putting it on a box for sticks. So there are chances the combution won’t complete fully. Pfooo.
The significance of the villain manipulating human eggs Just Dawned on me In the context of our conversation about rebirth and playing god.
@WE, 2 sticks are right. There were 2 sticks left in the tube 20 years in the past. One was used up in the future and so it disappears when Choi lights it.
Choi lighted the incense and travelled back in time! The director is kind to show the present hospital room in split screen to prove the point.
SW can’t enters the room and will die because of 2 security guards. LOL! ^^
@WE I think it is a sort of time loop. Until the end SW is constant and remembers everything. When he is wounded or scarred in the earlier time he is 20 years later. I think the incense stick(s) must work the same way. Although I think we would have to carefully map out the logic of it. When SW the younger put the sticks in the drawer, SW the elder found them exactly 20 years later and in that later time frame used one of them. But 20 years earlier there are still 2 sticks in the drawer. When they leave the drawer, the box (and the stick(s) inside) disappear in the modern time frame exactly 20 years later. But 20 years earlier there were 2 sticks.
@GB, it says sticks are a global phenomenon not dependent of any timeline. Ofc, SJJ was fine on detail, and had the good thinking to make vanish the stick. So good logic everywhere in her dramas.
We didn’t see how he tricked the security guards. AAHH.
@SD, you explain it in a complicated way (the time you make your thoughts), but yes it’s that. Quite simple. 😉
Per usual, I have fallen behind. Noting how the actor moves his head to make CJC look like a goose, LOL, in addition to the pursed lips and widened eyes.
@MM, good catch and subtle, the idea that CJC was playing God, but without the consent of those who would be affected.
@WE, yes SJJ gets her details organised properly.
The rain is ominous. Pathetic fallacy for events going south and ending badly. Now the detail of a 20-year old scar suddenly appears!
Suspens cliffhanger: the hero about to die for something happening 20 years ago. How crazy!
And cruel, as he can’t really do anything to prevent that.
@SD @MM Yes, you’ve hit on the theme of this show… that we should not play God. SW never acknowledges that he, too, was not too different from Choi in wanting to play God and benefit his own family. Choi was out to gain recognition, money and fame.
@WE, SJJ really knows how to pile on the twists and the times. Back and forth we go between past and present until we can’t remember if something was supposed to have happened before or after.
In the later episodes, I felt that strongly. Was wondering if the events chronology fit what I was seeing. But it did.
SW used the last incense but there are 4 more episodes to go, will the incense re-appear?
@FF, the incense does not need to reappear. The last 4 episodes have the greatest twists I’ve ever seen. They wowed me before and wow me again. But they actually make sense!!
Just when I think I have a grasp on this show my understanding evaporates.
I can understand the idea of why now there are two incent sticks. Which time travel trip?Did the other one get used for of all of the trips.?
@GB, really? I look forward to be wowed!
@MM, I think there is only one box with 9 sticks for all the trips and all timelines until the 9 sticks are burned. Then it resets and 9 new sticks are ready to be used, somewhere in time.
@MM, The last but one stick was used when SW went back and got stabbed, I believe. After that he held off going back. He had the other issue of Min Yeong supposedly getting married and then coming back to him to take care of.
Remember I was guessing about the logic of the Timelines? We don’t know what version of Timeline 1 we are in now, but with 8 sticks gone it could be T1.8. The past in my way of naming it, is Timeline 2. As long as the incense sticks exist, there are 2 Timelines. However when the last one is burnt up (or down) I feel the Timelines merge into one.
@GB Yes I am getting lost in the back and forth as well.
@GB, ep19 is quite slow one, but it contains the best “multi-contextual” scenes ever. I need to find a new name for that, but you see what I mean. When the high-concept produce the emotion, while mixing two concept (or more in MOTA ep 5).
The famous example of it in W, ep7.
Yeon Joo say “I love you”, Kang Chul doesn’t answer but she disapears, because the high concept rule is “when the hero is moved, cliffhanger, end of chapter and she returns to the real world”, so it means his answer is yes. No explanation, we get the meaning by ourselve when we know how work the high-concept.
It’s crazy difficult to produce when it’s so much clear and powerful. Then there are smaller scenes of this kind everywhere in SJJ dramas.
I don’t find many of this in other dramas. There is one in Kairos. I count also the revelation in the Movie Inception about hero’s wife death.
@GB And there is another scene where This pathetic fallacy shows up again and It is an even stronger scene. I guess it rained a lot the day of that wedding.
@WE, your explanation is interesting. It’s like SJJ chooses a series of happenings to support her high concept and just repeats that at appropriate times so that the viewer figures out the meaning of the scene without explanation. I don’t quite know how to look out for it. I don’t recognise it when I see it!
@SD I also kept looking at that painting in the church trying to figure out the scene. Then I decided it was probably in the church.
as the setting and not added for the sake of this show.
@MM, yes. This time is actually the day of that wedding. On the one hand young SW gets cut but henchman is out of the way. Soon after SW will time travel on the same day and it’s still raining. Instead of henchman it will be Choi who takes action.
@SD @MM, I know about looking at that painting in the church. In MOTA, @packmule3 saw it as symbolic so I was wondering if there was some greater significance to it in this show as well. I also didn’t gather what it was supposed to signify.
I have never watched Mota. Maybe now I have the analytic tools. I remember there being a lot of displeasure about this show.
@MM, if you watch MOTA, do so for the interesting logic of the virtual game and ignore the so-called romance. It has a small part to play. You can read @pkml3’s thoughts on it to give you loads to think about. 🙂
@GB, I can’t be 100% because I’m not a mouse watching her at home, but:
I think she uses the same process than I do when creating a drama.
Organically elaborate the drama, characters, plots, etc.
When there is an high concept, start with looking for any ideas to use it, best ideas possible to find for this concept. What means, scenes. On top of that, put characters emotion into that. Then the project maturates, and she connects the dot to do the whole plot-line/story. The more preparation work on this, the more everything is logic (with foreshadowing).
So certainely, the parking scene in ep5 or MOTA was created early in the preparation phase. And maybe, the scene got more good points over the time. I think her mind is more clear than mine, so what she does is less hasardeous and she ask herself the right questions and have better defined characters quickly.
Her questions are probably: what are the coolest scenes I can create with the high-concept, followed by “how I make this highly emotional”. She’s looking for both. Her ideas arent done from a linear thinking. So in 9, she has probably the idea of the scene I was speaking, then it becomes a key point in the drama.
For each key points come the questions: “how I go to this” and “what this will trigger after”. It’s a creation process that is both linear time and reverse time. Find the consequences of a cause, and find the causes of a consequence. A ping-pong mind game, to mix with the elaboration of characters (their goal and decisions).
I remember how the parking scene of MOTA is made.
After a series of stressful twists, Jin Woo is in the parking lot, severely wounded.
Jin Woo is about to be killed by the virtual zombie of Hyun Suk.
Then comes Hee Joo on the parking, close to him, at this moment:
– Jin Woo hugs Hee Joo.
– It uses a high-concept rules we learned before: when there is an obstacle the duel is canceled.
It’s already a great twist, but what makes it multi-contextual is that:
– As Jin Woo hugs Hee Joo, his goal is just to save his life, to use her as an obstacle.
– But she understand it as he need her for an emotional reason, and so her feeling for him are shared. She’s wrong at this point, but this just create a better emotion.
– To better enhance the scene, she try to split, but he graps her closer and say “just stay a minute”, making her feeling going even more high. Here, for SJJ, it’s about “I’ve the good idea for the scene, now make that the most intense way I can”.
The scene is ultra-powerful, the level of the police station scene ep7 in W, or the one ep19 in Nine. Just I don’t know how to call this kind of rare scenes, and I use the “multi-contextual” name, for lack of anything better. But I really need to find a better name.
@WE, I feel that ‘multi-contextual’ is an okay way to describe or name the scenes, now that you’ve mentioned what goes into them. The same scene is understood differently by the characters, because the come into it and make of it a different context than the one the other person has in mind.
Yes, I believe that in order to have such scenes, it’s likely that the Writer begins with them and then builds around them to make them fit into the story outline. They don’t just happen but were planned in from the start.
@GB, Sure, think about ep5 of MOTA. To make that working, SJJ need to start by making the day full of stress. So there are many twists where JW risks his life, the zombie chase him in the hospital. Set-up his goal to survive no matters what.
Makes him desesperate and ready to die, just before Hee Joo comes, as last hope.
Makes Hee Joo more and more upset all day in hospital, twisting her feeling for JW, as he does crazy things, she comes in the scene with max emotion.
All this is certainly made AFTER Sjj decided the master scene.
In a later episode, it’s same about the assistant dying and coming back as an ally.
During rewatch, we could see how complex was the episode, hidding information, giving each information at the right time, complicated montages, making last scenes growing the emotion just before the revelation.
Great scenes are like lighthouses in a script. They determine what comes before to reach them. And of course, follow the linear time, what happens next.
I like to use the “lighthouse” metaphor because during the preparation phase, the story is like a furious sea in the storm. All is blurry, ideas hitting each other everywhere, we fight in the storm and nothing clear yet about how to make it a beautiful river.
I recall a statement from a recent episode ” Don’t blame the villain, Blame the incense Stick.” So when sunwoo says I am the incense stick.Is it something about taking responsibility for one’s own actions.