The thread is open.
This thread was requested by @GB. I hope some of you will join her so she won’t be lonely here. 🙂
Enjoy the show!
The thread is open.
This thread was requested by @GB. I hope some of you will join her so she won’t be lonely here. 🙂
Enjoy the show!
Thanks so much @pkml3 for offering to open threads for us and giving me/us 2 brand new threads to preserve our thoughts on.
I wasn’t too sure about this Show at first, but now that I look back on the earlier episodes, it does fill something of a ‘want’ of mine.
I didn’t mind something ‘sageuk’ but only without the angst of court politics, and this Show gave a semblance of something from a period drama but more from the common people’s point of view with some ‘chaebol’ style tropes that felt modern and traditional at the same time. I liked the traditional, deliberate politeness, the respect, the cultural artifacts and the fact that ML in hanbok was quite badass when dealing with thieves of the latter.
I didn’t mind a noona romance, and was amused to find that this one goes a different way ie the young ML does not actually pursue the noona in a romantic way. I liked noona’s consideration for the ex-student as well.
I was up for some romance which was not overly sugary, and this show serves up more than 1 or 2 or even 3!!! And they are not sugary at all. I kind of wish there was a 4th one but we’ll wait and see.
I wanted a show that respected its audience, even if it did not hold much in the way of surprises or great feels, something lightish but not too silly, and this show surprised me by adding emotional weight and a more serious tone without losing the webtoon-style.
I’m curious to see how it navigates investigation, multiple relationships, family ties coherently and well. So far, so good!
Since I’ve watched several episodes already, my comments automatically should be considered to have SPOILERS!!!! I don’t actually do recaps or only sporadically, and on an ad hoc basis, so this is not a recap.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Ep 1 title: A Woman You Can Be Impolite To
The opening bars of the opening credits OST remind me of the movie, Titanic LOL. Is this going to be a ill-fated love, doomed to drown? Will the lovers be forever separated?
It’s a cold open to FL, Hong Do making a love confession to ML, Yoon Bok in a café, only they are sitting at different tables and he keeps rejecting her LOL. I laughed when they spouted the love confession and rejection in 4 different languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish)!! It was a good hook, because now I want to know why they ended up on different tables over a rejected love confession.
Yoon Bok could not, out of respect, even touch his ‘teacher’, hence he saves her from falling backwards by grabbing on to the tails of her blouse bow and yanking her upright again. Oh dear. I wondered if most of the series would be cartoonish, but surprisingly, this was one of the few cartoonish moments.
We hear Hong Do say in voiceover “I’m Kim Hong Do, a 30-year-old with a crush on the 24-year-old Shin Yoon Bok.” However in REAL LIFE she’s 34 and he’s 32 but ‘L’ looks like such a young boy!
@GB, I’ve just started this tonight and am in Episode 1, but I thought I’d say hello on this thread. Although this has more slapstick elements than I like, I can see why they’re there, as this is webtoon to live action. The juxtaposition between contemporary Seoul and people still living Joseon style is funny. I suspect that I’m missing some of the humor because I’m not able to follow the Korean dialogue, but must rely on subtitles. It could be that formal language is being used to hilarious effect.
I can’t help myself: I must bring up some concerns I have when the old ways at held up as being desirable. The Joseon way of life included slavery and indentured servitude. Could such a labor-intensive culture survive with all people earning living wages? Pounding laundry on rocks? At minimum wage, it must cost a fortune to wear clean clothing within that economic framework.
The rooftop flat with Joseon decor had me laughing.
It is strange to see a man wearing a gat without his hair drawn up in a top knot.
Again, juxtapositions bring humor. This time it is contemporary Seoul not seeing the value in the ML’s gatkkeun (strand of beads holding down his gat), or the embroidered hwa (shoes) he wore.
Hi @Welmaris! Long time no see. I hope you’ll enjoy watching this simple (in the sense that I do not expect it requires in depth analysis) show that I hope may surprise me a bit.
I am glad that the slapstick does not go on in a big way. In fact in later episodes, I don’t notice that any ‘hit me in the face’ so to speak. Either I have become inured or there really wasn’t any. The parts where more serious emotional beats were needed were well executed without the cartoonish feel.
As this is a webtoon at heart, I just accepted that Seongsan Villagers were happy with their chosen lifestyle, whether as servants or slaves. We do see that individuals could ‘run away’ if they didn’t want to remain in the ‘Joseon of 2024’, hence I assumed that those who stayed, chose it willingly enough, but it’s possible that some would feel too uncomfortable leaving what they had been brought up to, and choose to live Joseon-style out of inertia or fear of modernity.
The juxtaposition that hit me was how much ML wore, regardless of how valuable and how it didn’t get him into the club versus how much his bodyguard must have removed to successfully enter the door!!!
I’d nominate Shin Yoon Bok for the Boyfriend Hall of Fame, except I’m not far enough into Dare to Love Me to see whether or not he becomes someone’s boyfriend. His gallantry toward the FL is thus far motivated by respect for her former position as his teacher, and by the manners he learned living in the Confucian Joseon community. His emotions toward her are not that of a lover, and I have yet to see if they will become so for her, or anyone else.
Good grief: Kim Hong Do’s quilt vest in the beginning of Episode 3 make her look like she’s wearing a tea cozy. Fabric, pattern, and cut all contribute to the impression.
Well done, Show. In Episode 3, the trope of getting sick after getting wet in the rain is used to great effect. The ML, laying on his bedding, is feeling poorly. Then we see a flashback to him as a child, laying in similar bedding, grieving. We learn the cause of his grief, not only what happened to his immediate family, but the burden laid on him by his grandfather and ancestral line. Then we go back to current day, and see the adult ML roll to his side and slowly pull himself into the fetal position. This sequence efficiently gives us a lot of information about how he’s become who he is, and his mindset.
I’m liking this show more and more, as it taps into why I enjoy watching Kdramas: learning about another culture through armchair travel. The sequence in Episode 3 where the FL delves into her culture seeking inspiration, visiting museums, shops, and historical sites, was satisfying to watch. It raises the question: What makes Korea Korean, past and present? We are with the FL on her journey to find out.
EPISODE 2
What I Like About Hong Do With Yoon Bok
They are a positive influence upon each other. What Hong Do had taught YB about being confident in who he is, as an amazing person, regardless of what others thought of him, he also teaches to HD. They build up each other’s confidence and ego as needed.
Because YB had told her how much she had inspired him with confidence, she too decided to stand up for herself.
What I Like About Hong Do
She might appear to be a doormat, but she did not take bad treatment lying down. I was amused that she engineered getting sneaky ex-BF to pay for the entire team at the expensive restaurant after he used her to wait in line for a table, and that she refused to allow Hyangi to steal her design, without calling her out for it.
SPOILER for later part of Yoon Bok’s arc…
When HD agrees to stop avoiding YB, the burden in his chest is lifted. At this stage, we do not know the significance of his relief because we do not know what trauma he suffered in the past. We only know that his father had died when he was young. It is later on that we appreciate that he was more extreme in being upset that his much-respected Teacher avoided him, because he feared being abandoned by those he loved and respected.
EPISODE 3
Continuing a bit more on Yoon Bok’s arc… I fancy his great sense of loyalty to tradition and pristine good manners is also his way of drawing the line and keeping a distance from even his bodyguard and others.
From childhood he had likely been told by his grandfather that he had been abandoned by his mother and sister, and that he should not waste his emotions on them who left and would not return. He was also told to trust only in himself. This advice, and his fear of being abandoned again, likely led to YB’s use of the excuse of good manners to keep his distance from many people, so that he would not become attached to them and be hurt again should they leave.
= = =
I’m pleased to see that Hong Do has changed her style of dressing to look more like a high-class designer instead of merely an assistant. Gone (and good riddance!) are her sad sack style clothing when she goes to work.
= = =
I’ve liked Jun Ho, ever since he was shown being generous to the orphans at the orphanage that had taken him in. Later we will see that he had also been friends with YB’s sister but had been unjustly hit (by harsh Grandpa Shin) when she got sick, through no fault of his.
I note with interest that Jun Ho visits the pottery museum and is shown to look at the displays with appreciation. At the moment he seems the likely suspect for the master artefacts’ thief, Gamjjok/Phony, but I would like to believe that he’s above such crime. He has reason to resent the Woorim clan and stealing items that the clan was supposed to safeguard was a possible way for him to get back at it, but a true lover of art would not want to sell it off to the highest bidder in a clandestine way.
Even by Episode 8, we never get to see if he has a burn scar on his right arm. And if he should have such a scar, it might not be because he had anything to do with YB’s father’s death.
I laughed in Episode 7 at the sequence of budding-romance tropes:
–being saved from a delivery motorcycle of doom
–being caught in the arms of a gallant man, then staring at one another while holding the dip position
–shopping for a clothing makeover
–the man being stunned by the beauty of the woman’s transformation when she models her new outfit
–the man cutting meat into bite-size pieces, then swapping plates with the woman
–the man noticing the woman has food by her mouth, then handing her a tissue
And seeing these all being done by an elderly couple.
@Welmaris, I’m enjoying the side couples whenever we get a scene or two of them. This senior couple is cuter than the main OTP.
I’m not so far into this yet, but your comments inspire me, @Growing Beautifully and @Welmaris.
Yes to the sad sack clothing that makes a reasonably pretty woman look nearly grandmotherly. I hope that goes away soon, although having the FL wear her new boss’s designs makes me shudder in case she spills something or damages them. I wonder if her boss is really as much of a dragon as she appears – the FL would be out of the frying pan and into the fire if that were the case. Perhaps the boss just likes to make people stretch to grow and has a good heart like the boss in ‘She Was Pretty.’
I was initially thinking that the bodyguard was a better match to Yoon Bok than the FL. She has the same objectives, the same training and similar upbringing, same good manners (never laughs at his rookie mistakes in the city), same appreciation of cultural relics — see how beautifully she decorated his house for example. But we know that won’t happen, right?
@Fern, you are very correct about the bodyguard, Yoona, being a good match for Yoon Bok. However the great class divide hovers over them still. She (and those who work for the ‘noble’ families) will always refer to their masters as sir or madam and give them deference. They hardly ever consider themselves equal enough in status so as to inter-marry.
Even Jun Ho who left the Village retains his stance of deference and is still treated as the ‘servant’ although he’s a successful businessman. The ties of loyalty of the working class also remain very strong. His mother insists on continuing as the servant for Grandpa Shin instead of living with her son in comfort.
Hello, @Growing Beautifully. I think the class divide you mention would be the main thing that would bother me about this drama. There was a serf system (nobi) until the end of the 19th C. “The nobi system was officially abolished in 1894 but vestiges of it remained until the mid-20th century.[14] (Wikipedia) It is interesting to me how Joseon class system practices of treatment of underlings have remained into the 21st centuries if other k-dramas are to be believed.
Yoona is a student of Yoon Bok, just as Yoon Bok is a student of Hong Do, who is also a lower class than he is, if that is a consideration. Actually I thought the the line Yoon Bok was drawing between himself and Yoona was more of a Teacher-Student line, the same line he didn’t want to cross with Hong Do. I did notice that there were other young women in the village who seemed to be high ranking and perhaps were hopeful of being matched with the ‘young master’.
As @Welmaris mentioned, the lower class villagers seem to have accepted their roles, but seeing some washing clothes in the stream was a bit much to believe except perhaps during tourist season, for the benefit of photographers. If they were washing their own clothes that way by choice, that’s fine. Otherwise the system would seem abusive to me because of other options available in the current age.
I only just finished watching Episode 10 and found it good in the moving of the plot forward both in the area of the romance(s) and of the investigation.
I loved how Yoon Bok is clear and straightforward and how once he makes up his mind, he goes all in.
Sidenote: I’m finding that HD’s brother, Hong Hak (actor Han Gi Chan) is pretty good looking/cute as well, if one can see past that unfortunate curly mop of his. He looks so much better without that hair style.
https://mydramalist.com/people/24719-han-gi-chan
@Growing Beautifully, I agree that the hair colour and curly style are distracting on Hong Hak. I think it was meant to make him look silly and not serious. It reminds me of one of the characters in the C-drama Love 020, who turned out to be a bit of a weasel.