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Kdrama Mouse, episodes 1-4 review

Mar13

Spoilers ahead.

With one of the most fascinating opening scenes I have ever watched, Mouse starring Lee Seung Gi has me hooked. Murder mysteries are favorite genre of mine, and as a subset, hunt-for-serial-killer stories are too. These kinds of stories have a lot to offer, from smart detectives, to puzzle box plots, to universal themes surrounding life and death, sin and redemption. The downside is that these stories often glorify murders and serial killers, making them appear much more important than they really are. But, it’s like a magic trick, the trick seems awesome until it’s explained, and then often it seems quite dumb. So it can be with the detective figuring out the criminal, once he or she has figured them out, the prowess of the killer automatically shrinks. So it’s a downside that often has an upside in the end.

Like other Kdramas such as Hello Monster and Flower of Evil, Mouse presents a South Korea awash in serial killers and psychopaths. We get what is often a staple in this genre, an intellectual or professor who studies serial killers. In this tale it is Dr. Daniel Lee (Jo Jae Yun), a doctor and researcher who comes back to Korea from overseas. We soon find he’s really not that smart, as it’s revealed his longtime friend is a serial killer who actually killed his sister and pretended it was robbers. Unsurprisingly, the good doctor only makes it a few episodes. The most important thing about Dr. Lee is that he has isolated a psychopath gene and can predict if one’s baby in the womb has it. However, despite its 99% accuracy, the remaining one percent is a big factor, the kid could actually just be a genius. We are shown a couple of mothers who are debating aborting their children due to getting this test done, and of course they decide to let the kids live, because that’s what any good mother should do.

As with Hello Monster and Flower of Evil, Mouse plays heavily with the concept of psychopathy versus genius and the extent to which a true psychopath who is also a murderer can be redeemed in some way. The main killer in the show appears deeply troubled by his sin that he apparently has no control over. He has to go out and kill people and blames God, the Christian God, for this. His problem with God is very emotional, which is interesting on the face of it, and doesn’t seem to fit with an emotionless psychopath. The opening scene with the mouse and the snake is frightening and awesome, and we are led to believe that this little kid who puts the mouse into the snake’s cage is the killer the detectives will be hunting for.

The writing in this drama will either turn out to be amazing or a let down. It all depends how events and characters play themselves out. These beginning episodes are a knot of stories, characters and plots that will be unwound over time. Misdirection is used heavily. Our main hero is Detective Go Mu Chi (Lee Hee Jun), who is immediately likable and also infuriating. He’s his own best friend and enemy. We are introduced to the detective as a child, where his family comes up against the murderous father of our current serial killer and gets slaughtered and/or permanently maimed. As each family member protects the youngest, Mu Chi is the one who survives physically unscathed, but certainly not otherwise. He is the typical detective, bad past and and suffering from alcoholism, brash and brilliant, and not one to follow the rules. He’s the kind of person who goes around promising the victims’ families that he will someday kill the murderer with his own two hands, because official justice is too slow, if it comes at all.

These first few episodes the audience has been mainly figuring out what’s going and trying to figure out what will happen next, and especially how the star, Lee Seung Gi will fit in into all of this. Lee’s character is Jung Ba Reum, and he’s a neighborhood beat policemen with a heart of gold, but a person who also seems a bit slow on the uptake, certainly not as smart as Detective Go. That’s what we’re led to believe, anyway. We are presented with two babies who have the psychopath gene who are now grown up men in their twenties. It is implied that one of them is the serial killer and true psychopath, and one of them is the one percent, the genius. Dr. Sung Yo Han (Kwon Hwa Woon) is the son of the original serial killer from 25 years ago and he fits the psychopath bill almost entirely, showing little to no emotion. We are actually shown him killing people, but again, it’s a bit muddled with misdirection. The other child surely must be Jung Ba Reum, and he must be something more, because the heart-of-gold thing is just too difficult to believe in a series such as this. At the end of episode 4, we are shown that Ba Reum may actually be the serial killer or another killer. He is holding a child hostage and we’ve already learned the killer is trying to manipulate Detective Go using same child.

Mouse, the title comes from the opening scene with the snake and the mouse but also from the genre. Serial killer hunts are often described as “cat and mouse games,” usually with the serial killer as the cat and the detective as the mouse or vice versa. This story will clearly be a bit different as it is the mouse that is ultimately going to be the hunter, and it’s implied that the snake or cat won’t have a chance in the end. The mouse is likely only one person: The child with the genius gene. My theory is that it is Jung Be Reum, and although he will first seem like either the or a serial killer, his real goal is to entrap the real killer. Even with all the brutal killings, his genius will probably, even if he saves the populace in the end, come across as anathema, simply because he could so easily use his genius for evil. That’s my take on the story so far. Hoping Detective Go really shows his smarts and turns out to be the true hero of the story, but we’ll see. He could very well be the mouse, too, an ordinary human triumphing over the too-brilliant psychopaths. There are also several other young men who could all be the killer or killers. Again, the misdirection is heavy, but the specifics of it will only become clear after more episodes come out. More reviews to come on this fascinating show.

Kdrama review: Tale of the Nine Tailed

Jan28

This fall and winter I’ve been really into foxes, and tvN’s Tale of the Nine Tailed fits right along with that interest. A nine-tailed fox is a mythologic creature who can take human form and also often eats people. Thankfully, there’s not any people eating in this show, though the characters sometimes joke about it. Nine-tailed foxes are originally from Chinese culture, but Korean culture has them, too, and they are called Gumiho. My Girlfriend is a Gumiho is also a great Kdrama involving these foxes.

Tale of the Nine Tailed is a romance much in the vein of Twilight or the more recent Kdrama Goblin. It’s a love story between a human woman and a nine-tailed fox, who once was the god of a mountain, but still has plenty of super powers. His lady love is a present day woman who is the reincarnation–because Kdrama–of his first love from 600 years ago, and for whom he ended up giving his mountain god status. Although as usual I found the story dragging at the end–really don’t get into the sentimental–on the whole it was a good watch and some scenes that were quite brilliant. The music wasn’t that memorable, but the red umbrella/sword was, as well as the few scenes in which we get to see our hero with his fiery fox eyes.

Lee Yeon, the fox, is played by Lee Dong Wook whose fame soared after playing a memorable dead-panned grim reaper in 2017’s Goblin. This show and Goblin are really the best acting I’ve seen from Lee and I’m especially impressed by his stage presence here. He carries the show well, instead of sucking the energy off the screen as in previous works. He was very good at the action scenes and the writers didn’t use that to full capacity, but what was there was excellent. The red hair looks great on him and it really makes his excellent eyebrow acting stand out. Not everyone can move their eyebrows well. It’s a talent.

Jo Bo Ah (Monster) who plays producer Nam Ji Ah and the reincarnated love, impressed me in this as well, but only because I didn’t have high expectations for her. She’s grown in her acting talent, but I think still has far to go. Both leads are good, adequate actors, but not quite great yet, and perhaps they just haven’t found the right role. They also had almost zero chemistry, which is just not good in a show based around said romance. Chemistry is hard to fake. By the last episode, I was badly wondering what the story would have been like with different leads, even though I really like Lee as the fox.

That all being said, neither lead tanked or did a bad job, really, it’s just that it’s so easy to compare them with a long list of better actors. Among the minor characters, though, there was much to love: Kim Beom (Boys over Flowers) looks much as he did in 2019, just with a little more weight. He plays Lee Rang, Lee Yeon’s half-brother who is only part fox and does a standout job with emotional impact. The brothers’ relationship is really the core relationship of the show as Lee Rang struggles with feelings of abandonment and his older brother tries to assure him he is loved.

The romance to watch in the show is between two foxes in human form, veterinarian Goo Shin Joo played by Hwang Hee and Russian female fox Ki You Ri played by Kim Yong Ji. Both actors were great and full of a lot more expression than the lead couple. They also had a great back and forth banter going on which is often what makes for great onscreen romances. Goo should get his own lead role and Kim should always wear blue contacts as she looks beautiful with them on.

Like a lot of these kinds of tales, the story itself was somewhat muddled, the mythology purposefully murky. There’s a being who guards the gate between the world of the living and the dead, and there’s rules about this and that and crossing over and so on that are cast aside when not needed by the storyline. The writing kind of failed in the end as the expectation was built up that the Lee brothers would come up with some awesome, fox trickery to save the day. That didn’t happen, and much like in Goblin, the hero coming back didn’t really make sense to me no matter how cleverly done. But, hey, it’s fantasy, maybe it doesn’t have to make sense. The very, very end bugged me as it turns our hero into a liar, but it’s a fun scene.

As far as the bad guy, he was a snake called Imoogi played by Lee Tae Ri. Overall, the villain was far less creepy than he (spoilers) or she was built up to be. Again, it was the acting that did. Some actors are naturally full expression on their face. In this, anyway, Lee Tae Ri was not, and it just didn’t work as far as making the Imoogi someone to be feared. (Spoilers) Jo Bo Ah did far better with her piece of the villain, but just didn’t hit the high mark for me.

Although I enjoyed Tale of the Nine Tailed, it would be fun to see it retold by a more resourceful writer and director. So much screen time passes with little to nothing happening, which is a shame, because the happening stuff is really happening! My favorites scenes were almost all with the fox and the granny gatekeeper between the worlds, the fights between the fox brothers, the fight between fox and his friend, a bear in human form, and the awesome moment where the fox reaches between worlds or dimensions to grab a button off Imoogi’s shirt. More of that, please, and less of wasting characters like Nam Ji Ah’s parents who were nonentities by the end. All of the memory scenes of the past were great as was the fox’s crazy hair.

Sanditon: Not Austen

Jan7

It’s a conundrum when one likes a certain storyteller, but they are no longer telling stories. Having created other series adapting Jane Austen’s work, the most famous of which is Pride and Prejudice from 1995 starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, it makes sense that Andrew Davies would try his hand at a story Austen was unable to finish before her death: Sanditon, originally called The Brothers, stopped short at only eleven chapters. As I haven’t yet read the story, I can’t say how faithful the 2019 adaptation is to the bones of the story. As to the spirit of Austen’s romances, assuming Sanditon is to end at season or series 1, it’s a great big fail.

Davies is hit or miss for me with his adaptations, but I have truly enjoyed P&P ‘95, Little Dorrit (Dickens), Sense and Sensibility ’08, Northanger Abbey, and others. Sanditon begins well, feeling like a fresh story, because for many it is a fresh story, but modernity is soon shoehorned in, most noticeably in the casting of Miss Lambe (Crystal Clarke) which actually works really at times, but seemed awkward throughout, and the really unnecessary sexual exploits of some of the minor characters. Although this does promote character growth in one of the characters, Esther Denham (Charlotte Spencer), it’s so, so not Jane Austen. It’s not as if Austen never refers to sex in her books, but it’s very subtle–a girl can be ruined, but it’s never detailed exactly how and we don’t have to witness the act. In this adaptation we also we have to sit through how presumably bigoted everyone was back then, because that’s the main point, isn’t it? We are so modern now, so much smarter and better than they were, aren’t we? I mean feminism has made women perfectly happy, right?

Having to check certain Progressive or as I like to think of them, Communist, boxes in every single modern work, is tedious and ruins storytelling. The world isn’t perfectly or equally distributed by race, class, or creed, and to force it to be so, again, ruins the story, and real life as well. Human being are unequal in so, so many ways. That’s ok. It’s reality. Never will we make everything and everyone perfectly equal and how boring that would be. I myself am surely guilty of some of this in my own writing, as it’s a mindset pervasive and hard to shake off.

Sanditon is grating also in that the sense of the period is off. Never, did I think that the setting was truly Regency, and the excuse of it being a seaside town where conventions of society presumably drop, was exactly that, an excuse not to pay attention to detail. The detail, or should I say main storyline of the show that was severely lacking, was the main romance between Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) and Sidney Parker (Theo James, Divergent). We simply don’t get to spend enough time with them and have to spend an inordinate amount of time with a creepy, manipulative sex triangle of other characters that have little to do with the three brothers in the story. Sadly, the romance is never resolved and hopefully there will be a season 2.

With all that, Sanditon wasn’t entirely bad. The Celtic music in the first episode was great, as was the dancing. It was exciting to watch Mr. Tom Parker (Kris Marshall, Love Actually) try to make his seaside resort town a reality, and his brothers Sidney and Arthur (Turlough Convery), and their sister Diana (Alexandra Roach, No Offence) have a fun quirkiness about them that is very Austen. The story of Miss Lamb was also intriguing and it was nail biting to watch as both she and Charlotte both plot and plan to thwart their guardians and caregivers who truly only have their best interests at heart. Ah, the rebellion of young women. It can be so, so dangerous for them, far more than for young men, though in this show nothing truly bad happens to the young women, if broken hearts can be considered as not truly “bad.” I would watch a season 2, but more, it would be great to have someone write and produce a screenplay more in the spirit of Austen, or even take on the works of her contemporaries, Fanny Burney, for example: Evelina would made a great show and has a ton of funny parts and a little romance that one could expand.

A bit more on the main romance: It’s generally true to Austen, for usually the main character does not at first get along well with her would-be suitor, but Sidney Parker’s initial anger at Charlotte seems to come out of nowhere, and I think that scene could have been done much better. Also, Charlotte came across as too young, in appearance, but also in her actions and thinking, at times like a teenager compared to Sidney, who’s clearly in his 30s. Not that unusual of a gap for the time period, but it made the match seem off. Why they made the choice to have her wear her hair down all the time, baffles me. Not only does her hair look bad, it just doesn’t fit with what the time period is supposed to be. The ending (spoilers) could have been better explained, for Sidney doesn’t really seem like a person who would agree to marry someone just to save his family. It just didn’t make sense, no matter how much he loves his brother and wants to save his enterprise. I wrote something earlier about men and being forced into marriage. If they allow it, it’s an allowance and on some level they want the marriage. Again, perhaps a season 2 is in the works and will explain further.

I think Davies is at a point where he can just write his own stories and succeed. He’s done plenty of series and movies set in the 1800s and could really get it right, if he wants and also add as much modern ickiness as his heart desires. I say his heart, for I truly don’t think it is the audience that wants it. Perhaps he’s just following the law, though, and shouldn’t be blamed.

What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?: Kdrama review

Dec19

This show was a second watch for me, and I was surprised to see I hadn’t actually written a review on it. Well, that’s getting remedied now.

Let me tell you about the life of a secretary: Often it is a very demanding, very thankless job in which one is given more and more tasks to be done often without additional pay and certainly no additional time in which to do them. It is also extremely rewarding to be that cog in the wheel that makes everything work. Secretaries are vital to most organizations, but it’s like one’s vital organs, they just work, one doesn’t think about them unless something is wrong.

What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? is a Kdrama romantic comedy starring Park Seo Joon (She Was Pretty) as company VP Lee Young Joon and Park Min Young (City Hunter) as his long-suffering secretary, Kim Mi So. After working together day in and day out for nine years, Young Joon is shocked to find that Mi So wants to resign and leave him. And of course, he doesn’t want her to leave. The drama is based on the book of the same title by Jung Kyung Yoon. It’s kind of the plot of Two Weeks’ Notice starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, and a little bit of The Devil Wears Prada.

This show is a wonderful blend of romance and comedy, and although I thought the ending episodes dragged a bit, I think I enjoyed it more the second time. All of the little details and jokes really shined. Park Seo Joon is hilarious in his role as a narcissistic, demanding boss who is actually a big softy. The character’s vanity is largely for show, as she finds he actually cares about those he loves to an almost dangerous degree. Park Min Young matches Seo Joon scene for scene, giving us plenty of comedic reactions of her own and somehow makes Mi So’s passive aggressiveness lovable.

What really me got hooked watching again, though, was the back story of a traumatic past for both of the characters and also the glimpses into their years of working together. We get to see Mi So actually shouting– shouting–at her ridiculously demanding boss. And with good reason, as he is way too demanding. However, as we later learn, Mi So is also very under qualified for this position. But we then get to see her come back the next day and strive to meet his expectations. Time and time again we get to see her do this, letting Young Joon shape her into what his perfect secretary needs to be. I can tell you this is part of being a secretary. You’re given impossible tasks that you just can’t do, you complain, and then you come back striving to meet every single one. Sometimes high expectations really aren’t a bad thing, and this drama showcases that. Also, although Young Joon is vain, he’s not incorrect to be so to some degree: He’s handsome, wealthy, smart, keeps his company a success, and does have some right to be demanding. And because Mi So has grown to match him, she has every right to be demanding of him as well.

As for the romance, it’s pretty typical and classical and would almost be boring except there’s just so few of these kinds of stories around anymore, even in Kdramas. Mi So isn’t off on a feminist jaunt of some kind, she realizing she’s missing what most women want: a husband and family. When Young Joon finds this out, he comes to the logical conclusion that he should be said husband. This all happens because Mi So is finally calling in her card–Young Joon needs her, and for more than just being a secretary. It’s not just recognition of her work she is looking for, but for Young Joon to acknowledge her as a woman who has her own needs. Like in Two Weeks’ Notice, both have really been in love with each other for nine years, they just didn’t really know it. Can and does that happen in real life? Maybe, maybe not, but either way it makes for a good romcom material. I think woman as secretaries are a great thing for that position so clearly highlights how women are built to be helpmeets for men, which is far more than just a helper. In this story, the two are equals, though maybe they didn’t start out that way at first. It’s evident by the end that should Young Joon be out of commission for awhile that Mi So would be able to run the company in his stead. Classic romance is the best romance, hands down, and empowering to both sexes.

In the show there are also some background romances, carried off hilariously by comedic actors Kang Ki Young (I Am Not a Robot) and Hwang Bo Ra (Love Rain). Kang plays Young Joon’s second in command who has his own awesomely inept secretary and is a master at sarcastic comments. Hwang’s character is part of the secretary office team and is funny as a women with zero tact and an inflated ego who falls for a puppy dog hero chauffeur. There’s also a sweet romance with secretary Mi So’s replacement and a workaholic, which really highlights that some people reject others not because they do not like them, but simply because they are not ready for romance. A good romance has a lot to do with timing, probably more than we acknowledge. For women in childbearing years, they don’t want to waste time. For men not in a position to provide all that they want for a family, they want to wait until they are in that position. Neither side is wrong, but they do clash on occasion.

What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? By the end of the show, nothing. Everything has been resolved with wedding bells just like it was supposed to be. They are a team in work and in life, and are considerate and caring of each other, just like couples who love each other should be. More of this stuff, please. At the end of the day, it’s good, it’s wholesome.

Flower of Evil: Love Is a Verb

Nov20

It’s a made-for-a-Lifetime-movie plot: Police detective Cha Ji Won (Moon Chae Won from The Good Doctor) is married to a serial killer but doesn’t know it. When she finds out, she loses all faith in men, reaching for her girl power and… No, no, no, that’s not it. That’s not it at all, because this is a Korean drama called Flower of Evil, also starring Li Joon Gi (Lawless Lawyer, Two Weeks) as said serial killer, who is the actual main character. The story is largely his and all about him learning what love truly is.

That being said, this is a half-review, as I haven’t finished the series yet. Flower of Evil is suspenseful and action packed, as many of Li’s dramas are. Moon’s character is no slouch, either, and her detective keeps up with the boys well while still maintaining her femininity. The music is intense and really helps carry the story and often reminds me of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on occasion. Spoilers ahead.

For years, Baek Hee Sung (Li) has lived as someone else. His real name is Oh Hyun Soo, the son of a long-dead serial killer, who is wanted for murdering one person and possibly assisting his father in killing his victims. We know from the beginning that Hee Sung and Hyun Soo are the same person, and because Hee Sung seems like a great husband and father, we hope that this murder and killing stuff is all a mistake.

The writers dance the tightrope well in this story, giving a little hope here, and taking it away there. Baek Hee Sung also has Antisocial Personality Disorder. Basically, he doesn’t have feelings like normal people and manipulates people without thinking. To bring hope and humor into the story, we get to see Hee Sung persistently learning how to mirror human emotions from YouTube videos. It’s sweet, yet kind of scary at the same time. We also learn that he hallucinates, seeing his dead father staring at him with blacked out eyes and carrying a dog chain and collar, something he used on his victims.

I was sure this wasn’t going to end up in the Lifetime arena when reporter Kim Moo Jin (Seo Hyun Woo, The Good Wife) comes on the scene. Their tense first encounter turns into a pretty cool bromance that carries much of the first quarter of the show, especially after it becomes obvious that whatever psychological problems Hee Sung has, it’s nothing compared to others who would perhaps consider themselves “better” people. This is pushed to the forefront throughout the show as we start to learn more and more about what happened in Hee Sung’s village in the past.

Flower of Evil isn’t all action and mystery solving, it is also a relationship drama, plumbing the depths and weirdnesses of family relationships. Cha Ji Won and Baek Hee Sung might end up being one of my favorite Kdrama couples ever. Their trust and loyalty in each other is challenged again and again, yet both rise to the occasion, the perfect match for each other. It is Cha who tells him and gets him to understand by her actions, that love isn’t a mere emotion, a feeling, but something you do. DC Talk said it best back in the say: Love Is a Verb. It’s an interesting question: Can you love someone without really feeling that you do? The answer is: of course. But it’s just not how we often think about love.

As much as I’m able to guess about this show, though, it keeps throwing me for a loop. I don’t know how it’s going to end. I suspect happily, but in episode 11, it’s revealed we are dealing not with one messed up family, but two, and the second family might actually turn out to be worse. The show eerily echoes Hundred Million Stars from the Sky starring Seo In Guk and also produced by SH Studio. At least one of the same sets is used on this show, as are the themes of trust, loyalty, and family relationships. The 4th wall is nudged a bit by the introduction of Do Hae Soo (Jang Hee Jin, Babel), Hee Sung/Hyun Soo’s sister, who’s trying to live quietly as a makeup artist for gory movies. How much her serial killer father really affected her or her brother, for that matter, is still to be revealed. Hee Sung doesn’t remember anything from before he was ten, but Hae Soo, being older, surely has some answers.

Can you really live with a person and not know they are killing people? Another interesting question. I was thinking about that driving home today: how many times we surely see something strange but never think to pull the thread. Well, who wants to imagine the worst about their fellow man, much less someone they live with or a family member? Sometimes people don’t know, sometimes they choose not to, and sometimes they suspect or know without realizing that they know. It’s only much later that we often realize we did indeed know all along, but it was as if we were seeing things through a veil. If only monsters revealed themselves outright, how much easier it would be to fight them. There’s that action again. Love is a verb. Good fights and defeats evil, that’s what makes it good.

Well, I’m off to watch another riveting episode. After the last big twist, I’m really not sure what’s going to happen next, and I’m inwardly kicking myself for not figuring it out earlier. This messed up other family started as seemingly shoe-horned in, yet they are not, they are totally not. And they all think that what they are doing is fine, because of course they do. All I can say is that Hee Sung better hold onto Cha Ji Won for dear life. She is his anchor and he hers.

Missing: The Other Side: Kdrama review

Oct31

Spoilers ahead. If you’re planning to watch this show, I highly recommend watching it first, then reading this review.

Leave the audience wanting more. That is one of the best compliments a movie or TV show can get, and something that Missing: The Other Side earns from the audience in it’s scant twelve episodes. One the one hand, the amount of time was exactly correct for the plot and characters, on the other hand, the time was too short and the plot and characters could have easily handled longer story arcs. This is rare, especially for television, which almost always draws things out too long, ruining great beginnings in the process.

Missing is essentially a ghost story, but it’s also a procedural crime drama. I found it to be a good mix of both and didn’t make the mistakes of either wallowing in its own violence or succumbing to over-explicating. Episode one was a doozy and so much better if one doesn’t know a thing about the plot, so one can along with the main character, Kim Wook (Ko Soo, Heart Surgeons) be left reeling, wondering just what on earth is going on.

Kim Wook is a con artist who works together with a couple of other friends, one a pawn shop owner, the other a hacker. Through a series of coincidences, Wook ends up in a forest in the country. Here, he survives a couple of near-death experiences and comes across a village that he belated realizes not just anyone can see. The old man who saves his life can also see the village and the people in it. Jang Pan Seok (Heo Jun Ho, Come and Hug Me) has been living just outside the village for quite some time. Turns out the village is a bit of a purgatory-like place, a stopping off point for ghosts who have particular unfinished business. The unfinished business is that their bodies haven’t been found by any human. Many of them also died violently or due to circumstances they don’t remember.

Wook catches on pretty quickly to just what Pan Seok has been up to: Doing what the police detectives could not do, finding the bodies of these people, allowing them to move on to the next life or sphere. They work together, sometimes with the police, and sometimes not. One detective in particular, Shin Joon Ho (Ha Joon), keeps running into Wook and gets roped into helping them. Considering Wook sounds crazy and sees things he cannot, Detective Shin is pretty openminded, and a good thing, too, as he solves more cases by being so.

In this story, the “missing” are people missing in real life, but also those whose bodies are missing. It’s an interesting dynamic and allows for, well, a lot of heartbreaking scenes as those still alive realize their loved ones are dead, and also that their bodies need to be found for them to be at peace. Detective Shin’s story is particularly tragic as he first realizes that his fiancee is missing, then discovers she is dead. The fiancee Choi Yeo Na, played by the beautiful Seo Eun Su (A Hundred Million Stars from the Sky) also struggles with the fact that she has died. In the village she can eat, drink, sleep, feel, touch, etc., and continually plans to escape in whatever way she can.

The rules of the village–which I think is called Duon–were masterfully done. It was a good mix of clarity, subtlety, and little or no explanation. The ghosts in the village seem real to each other, having all their senses, and, again, the ability to eat, drink, fall in love, cry, have sorrow and pain. For the living who can see them, the village is much like a real place, with buildings and furniture they can sit on, food they can eat, and people they can interact with just as if they were still alive. The ghosts move on when their bodies are found, that’s their only out. For the still living people, by the end of the show, it’s revealed they are seeing this village because they have a connection to it. They know a person in the village somehow and when that person moves on, they can no longer see the village or people. Many of the inhabitants in the village have been there for years and lead fully lives. They have the ability to learn to skills and to work if they want to. It’s an interesting angle. One of the oldest residents is an owner of the local bar/coffee shoo/restaurant. He’s named Thomas and was once a freedom fighter for Korea and died under Japanese rule. Another couple, who fell in love after they died, have been in the village for over twenty years. And so on and so forth.

Missing is unique and really keeps one guessing in some ways, but in other ways telegraphs everything that will come. For the main mystery of a missing grandchild, it was easy to tell how that was going to play out. But other things threw me, like Thomas’s status as a Renaissance man, and the revelation that bad killers who died also come to the village and wreak terror on their fellow ghosts even if they technically can’t kill them anymore. That aspect is so disturbing that I’m glad the writers don’t dwell on it too long. These poor people die tragic deaths and then get molested again in the afterlife? Ugh, just ugh! It definitely adds another level to the plot, though, as what to do with the baddies isn’t always easy or obvious.

The acting in this show was really good. I came to like Kim Wook more and more, though he wasn’t super likable at first. I was surprised to find the actor that plays Thomas, Song Geon Hee is actually really young. He plays and old soul well, and I would say had the most iconic screen presence of the show, so much so that it was highlighted at the end when Thomas goes to the next life. Ha Joon, who played Detective Shin, threw me out of the story at first, as he looks at lot like American actor Scott Wolf to me (Party of Five, White Squall – WWG1WGA! – sorry, gotta get a Q reference in). He is a cutie born in 1987 like some other famous actors–Li Min Ho, Li Seung Gi, Seo In Guk among others. Something good was in the water in Korea that year. He and the other leads did great jobs with their crying scenes, and there were many. They seemed genuinely sad and heartbroken.

Because Missing to its credit doesn’t explain much about this purgatory world, there’s little of religion in it aside from both the alive and ghost humans pleading and praying to God when they need it. There’s little of magic, either, but the amount was sufficient to me as the focus was always on the characters and on solving the various mysteries. I wasn’t quite sure if they were going to keep Thomas in the village at the end or have him move on. The writers chose to have him move on, but then alluded to Wook and Pan Seok continuing to have the ability to see the ghosts of the missing and being able to continue solving mysteries.

All in all a great show and so much potential if they had wanted to continue it–leaving Thomas around as a staple, for example, or adding new ghosts and/or new humans that can see them. It was only twelve episodes, so shorter than many Kdramas, but it was sufficient length for the mysteries they chose and I don’t think they left any major strings untied by the end. This is the kind of show, though, that could sport several seasons and much longer story arcs. It’s also something easily adapted to other countries and cultures. Every place on earth there are people who go missing and die violently, with their bodies never found. My belief is that of the Bible, that when they die people go to heaven or hell, they don’t stick around, but this was a great way of showcasing the idea that some could and why they could. I liked that it wasn’t just about finding the killers, but that it was about the finding of the bodies and giving them a proper burial and recognition. Duon village seemed like another dimension or realm that none of the characters fully understood. Thomas speculates that there could be other villages of its kind, and the ending hints that as well.

Next Week: I am not yet sure what I’m going to review, having belatedly decided to do Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month, to get more of Trolls for Dust, Season Three under my belt. No way will I be writing 50,000 words in November, but I will be very happy if I can get over 25,000. My plan is to still post or do a review weekly, but we’ll see how that plays out. Happy Halloween, and for the Lutherans, Happy Reformation Day!

Melting Me Softly: Age Is Just a Number

Oct16

Rom-Coms can really be so fun. I enjoyed watching this one, though I think it was a tad slow to binge watch. Melting Me Softly stars the ever handsome Ji Chang Wook (The K2), and Won Jin A. The plot is science fiction, but the genre is definitely romantic comedy. Ji really impressed me this time with his acting–he’s definitely getting better over time, and he had great chemistry with Won, who’s a petite firecracker with a really cool, low voice. She reminds me a bit of So Ye Ji from Lawless Lawyer and Save Me.

Melting Me Softly is about cryogenics. Ji plays Ma Dong Chan, a top-of-his-game production director, who in 1999 decides to do an experiment in freezing people for his hit show. Won plays Go Mi Ran, a college student who works part-time doing crazy stunts for the same show. Mi Ran agrees to be frozen with Dong Chan for a total of two hours, and the production assistants will get it all on camera. Due to a mishap, the two end up being frozen not for two hours, but for twenty years!

I really enjoyed watching this despite the often slow pace. It was so fun to revisit the 90s and many parts were funny, with both over-the-top scene chewing and deadpan humor. Some of the jokes were quick one-liners I almost missed. It was hilarious watching the leads wake up in 2019 and encounter their friends and relatives, now all twenty years older.

At the beginning, Dong Chan is 32 and Mi Ran, 24, so when they end up in 2019 they are technically 52 and 44. Much fun is made of this, as both the leads and people around them decide to treat them as their past age or their technical age, depending on the circumstances. Many of the supporting characters are just as they were in 1999, just a bit grayer and wrinklier, but some have become even more outlandish. Some of the best comedy comes from this, and the four standouts were: Lim Won Hee (You’re All Surrounded) as Dong Chan’s subordinate, who still sports longish hair and bites his nails; Jeon Su Kyeong (Devilish Charm) as Dong Chan’s now alcoholic younger sister; Kim Won Hae, who is a Kdrama staple, as Dong Chan’s younger brother (Kim also plays their dad, who in 2019 has passed away. Dong Chan keeps mistaking his younger, now older brother for his dad); and, finally, Shim Hyung Tak (My Sassy Girl), who plays Mi Ran’s weirdo ex-boyfriend who still has a thing for her twenty years later. Shim chomped the scenery five times over and gave that crazy character his own solar system.

This show stuck pretty close to rom-com territory. There’s a couple of cartoonish villains, but not a lot of action as a whole. Most of the plot centered around relationships, which was a way to use the jump in time well. To heat up the romance, the bane of being frozen is that the leads’ body temperatures need to stay at 31.7 degrees Celsius or about 89 degrees Fahrenheit. The “steamiest” scene is a cold shower makeout session, and much of the last half of the show is spent with the doctors and scientists trying to figure out how the two can live and love normally. Good foreshadowing for the ending, and I give the writer props for working it in so well. We know it’s coming, we know it’s coming, and then it happens.

The best part of the show is that it reinforces the idea that age is just a number. Dong Chan is still given respect even though he looks 32 not 52, and Mi Ran considers herself 24 or 44 depending on her mood, and no one much cares because she looks young and beautiful. The friends and relatives they knew in 1999 still have the same hearts and essential cores in 2019, and it’s cool to see that the siblings who are all now technically older still need their older brother or sister. Vitality and goodness of heart as being more important than age is constantly reinforced, as well as the idea that no matter how old you are, you can always improve and change for the better. This is also a great show for those who are thinking being frozen would be a good thing. Living out one’s life in real time is something that one can’t get back, should one choose to skip it by getting frozen. The twenty years missed still hang over the couple, and I think their share in that sorrow is really what pulls the two together into a romance. No one else on earth knows what they are going through.

My next Kdrama review will be a weird one: Missing: The Other Side. It’s a creepy, supernatural one, so I’m not sure I’ll make through the whole thing, but we’ll see. One episode in, and it’s intriguing simply because I have no idea what’s going on. Look for that review in a few weeks.

Secret Love Affair: A Work of Art

Sep11

It’s rare that one comes across a TV show that is a work of art. Artsy movies abound, as do some many series, but hours and hours of a TV show? Well, it’s just not that common. In fact, I don’t really know that I’ve ever watched a TV show I would consider a work of art–up until now, that is.

Something about affairs, whether it’s the illicitness or the adventure, something about affairs is often involved in the art of story. This is something you can find right across history, from The Bridges of Madison County to the Illiad and that whole thing with Helen of Troy. Maybe it’s just the fact that in an affair there are likely to be high emotions and also retributions from the injured or cuckolded party–plenty of dynamics and fireworks possible.

Although publicly society generally doesn’t condone affairs, in our entertainment and art, they are everywhere. Sadly, few of the fictional stories about affairs truly touch how wrong it is to break one’s vows of marriage. The Korean drama Secret Love Affair is no different in this, and that’s because the sin it focuses on is not the affair itself, but the reason for it: The main character is living in an awful environment and denying her true self any agency.

A trend in K-dramas in recent years has been pairing older women with younger men. I’m sure real young men would be a bit horrified at this, but it’s just a reversal of the standard in visual storytelling, which for decades has been older men with much younger women. In real life one sees age gap pairings, but they are not nearly as common as TV and movies would lead us to believe. In my own experience, couples, married or not are two people of roughly the same age or within a few years of each other. The older I get, I realize that age doesn’t really matter that much when it comes to a relationship, but biologically, it can. Older women, for example, have less childbearing years ahead of them. That in itself may give a young man who wants a lot of biological kids pause. In Secret Love Affair, this aspect is not even a consideration, though the age gap is 20 years.

As a women who is in her 40s, I can’t even fathom dating a man of twenty or even early twenties. That aspect of this story grated on me throughout, for the young man was way too much of a boy still. He hasn’t even had time to think if he wants kids in his future or not. He was, essentially, a way for the female lead to change her life, and she also helped him change his life, but beyond that, it was a bit creepy. I don’t know how big an age gap has to be to be creepy–everyone probably has a different threshold–but for me, 20 years is too much. So, why did I continue watching? Hands down, for the music and the sort-of redemption story.

Secret Love Affair (aka Secret Affair) stars Kim Hee Ae (Mrs. Cop) as Oh Hye Won, a director/personal assistant to the Seohan Arts Foundation. In her job she is wedded deeply and dangerously to the family who owns the foundation. These are not nice people. Her husband, played well by Park Hyuk Kwan (Six Flying Dragons) is a do-nothing hanger on who has no music or teaching whatsoever, but somehow got a spot at the music school the foundation owns. Their marriage is one of convenience, both wanted to be a part of the foundation and saw that they could if they were together. This was the biggest sin Hye Won made in her life, for it led to her entanglement with the foundation and a life of walking on glass. When we are first introduced to her, we see that Hye Won has great talent at her job, that she has tact and guile and has helped the foundation succeed. It seems unlikely that she herself has musical talent, but we soon discover she does.

During preparation for a big concert, a young, lowly delivery guy happens upon the scene. Lee Sun Jae, played very well by Yoo Ah In (Chicago Typewriter) is a quiet, hesitant man in his early twenties. He quickly gets into trouble stealing some piano time on the schools expensive grand. The kicker is, that his performance is recorded and immediately Hye Won’s husband sees the young man as his ticket to greatness at the school and beyond. He pesters his wife to give the kid a listen and declare him someone who should be admitted to the school right away.

The couple’s real first meeting is at this audition at Hye Won’s home, and as a first meeting, it’s amazing. Few couples get to spend this much time together, ever. Ok, I exaggerate, but it’s unusual one gets to spend so much time with a person upon first meeting them. Hye Won listens to Sun Jae play and is immediately hypnotized. You see, she has musical talent at the piano. Back in the day, she could have been a star, but she was convinced to work in administration instead. She listens to him for hours and then starts to play along with him. The two immediately connect emotionally, spiritually, and physically through playing together. Their style of playing is very similar, their appreciation of music, as if they are one heart. It’s instalove, but spread over a few hours.

Inevitably, they do have an affair, but though they sort of attempt to hide it, it’s really not a secret to anyone. Hye Won is really the only one surprised, but it’s hard to see oneself and how one changes and flowers under real love and real passion and emotion. That takes an outside view. Everyone else could see how obviously she was changing except herself. Through her relationship with Sun Jae, Hye Won starts to realize what a truly toxic environment she’s been living in. Her life isn’t really her own; her husband’s life is barely his own. To save herself and also Sun Jae’s future, Hye Won embarks on a path of intrigue in order to take down the family and the foundation.

This show is a great, intense watch. All of the actors are spot on, especially Park as the irritating husband. He is so perfectly loathsome, he brings Hye Won down with him. What kind of women is she really to have entered into a marriage of convenience with him? The writing and directing are also top notch. Each episode feels like a film, and it reminded me most in style to Heartless City (also a great watch, but hard to finish). The music is all consuming and nearly ever present in the background. This is classical music, but stepped up to ten in its emotional impact. Contrast that with the awful school and the owning family, and the parts where the characters experience real joy in their practice and performances become jewels to be treasured.

One aspect that was almost too much to handle, was the supporting cast of women in the show. Many of these characters were prone to scary violence, and it’s quite possible that Hye Won herself could’ve one day become like that had she not turned almost all her emotion off.

It’s interesting at the end how Sun Jae keeps calling Hye Won to be good, but she knows she has to callously take down the family first or neither of them will ever be free. In some ways, Sun Jae is content to stay as he is with Hye Won almost as a stand-in mother figure to him (yeah, creepy), but she nudges him, gets him to spread his wings, and soon he’s making new friends all on his own and leading secret jam sessions. By this point we barely miss the cuckolded husband, though we are maybe shocked at how upset about the affair he actually is, as they seem to have had a loveless, sexless marriage. More likely, he finally realizes just how much of a loser he is on all levels. So Hye Won gets her redemption story and Sun Jae has hope for a future. Will they stay together? By the end, it doesn’t really matter, for they’ve fulfilled whatever was needed for the other by the end of the show.

Sad the story revolves around an affair, but I suppose these types of plots are signs that at least some of modern society still takes marriage vows seriously. And that’s a really good thing. It was shocking to see how isolating a loveless marriage can be. If Hye Won hadn’t had a couple of good friends, she would likely have had a total breakdown at some point. Your spouse should be your best friend and lover, someone you can confide in and be yourself with. She found that with Sun Jae and he with her. The piano music sort of packaged everything together.

Secret Love Affair is a worthwhile watch, and there are moral lessons in the story, though probably not the ones you’d expect. This show is a work of art on all levels.

Pretty Proofreader: 100%!

Sep4

Who doesn’t love a story about a person who gives 100% in what they do? These books, movies, and shows are always inspiring to me and I wish there were more of them. One of my favorites of these is Morning Glory, starring Rachel McAdams, and I think the girl power version of this 100% dedication could be its own sub-genre.

The Japanese drama Pretty Proofreader is the second J-drama I tried on Viki and this was a hit! What a show! Perhaps I’m a teensy bit biased as I used to proofread for a codebook (city and county ordinances) company and often miss doing it. Proofreading is one of those unsung heroes types of jobs, especially as the reality is that very few of one’s suggestions are often taken. It requires dedication in the face of that.

Etsuko Kono, played by the petite Satomi Ishihara is a bubbly, vivacious fashionista in her late 20s. Ever since graduating, she’s applied every year to the publishing house that owns Lassy fashion magazine, hoping to get hired as an editor. She is the magazine’s biggest fan, having kept all of their copies over the years and reading them cover to cover. To her surprise, I think this is the 7th or 8th time, she is finally hired! But it’s to the proofreading department in the basement.

At first Etsuko is disappointed, but she quickly rallies, delving into the proofreading with a relish she probably didn’t know she had. Her greatest skill is checking the facts of the novels she proofreads, and soon she’s taking off at all hours of the work day to confirm things. This isn’t so unusual, fact checking is a part of proofreading, but the proofreaders usually just stay at their desks. Some of her colleagues previously built model houses, acted out sword fights, and the like, but soon all of them are out and about, checking the facts and getting to know more of their countrymen in the process. If only real proofreading jobs were more like this! Perhaps there are some, but it may take persistence to find them. Etsuko’s blatant questioning of some of the novelists choices would probably normally get her fired, but here, they quickly warm to her and are encouraged by her to do even better jobs at writing.

Yukito, the love interest, becomes so fascinated by the proofreaders that few know about, that it inspires him to write a whole book on all of the unsung heroes in Japanese civilization, the people who keep the electricity going, the trains running safely, and so on.

If one knows Japanese, the show would be even more enjoyable, because there’s a lot of play on words–much to her chagrin, Etsuko Kono, or Kono Etsuko is shortened by her colleagues to koestu, which literally means copywriting, and I know I likely missed a lot of that not knowing much of the language.

As is traditional with these stories, there is a romance, but it was kind of meh. Yukito (Masaki Suda) is a college student and magazine model who runs into Etsuko by accident. They click right away, but over the course of the show there didn’t seem to be real chemistry. She had more chemistry with the editor for the proofreading department, Mr. Kaizuka (Munetaka Aoki), who she calls Octopus. Perhaps because Yukito is quieter and more blasé, and the other two are loud and dynamic, that’s why I thought they got along better, but, honestly, I just found Mr. K to be more manly and attractive and was hoping they would change course and make the romance with him. Oh well. Etsuko and Yukito support each other well in their work and lives, and maybe that’s more important than a lot of passion.

Etsuko lives above a neighborhood Odon restaurant owned by a friend of her dad’s, and her apartment is cute, but she spends at least half of her time there in the restaurant. Odon is a hot pot or soup that’s popular in Japan and the show inspired me to try and make it sometime. I find most Asian foods from whichever country to be delicious, so it’s always fun to try new ones. Odon is from the Kantu region in Japan, and the broth is made of dashi, or fish and kelp stock, and miso. The main ingredients in the soup are usually fish cakes, boiled eggs, and daikon radishes. Not sure how I’m going to find or make fish cakes.

Pretty Proofreader is only 11 episodes, but the time is used well, and it’s a warm blanket type of show as there’s really no outright villains, and almost every character is caring and caring of others. It’s very, very sweet and comforting to watch, even if it is fantasy. I have noticed with K-dramas and now this J-drama that the characters are often more caring and kind to each other on American shows. This is maybe because most American shows are plot driven, but really it’s probably our independence here. We take much pride in doing things ourselves, and bottom lines often override everything else. The characters in this show are workaholics also, but it’s portrayed as work uplifting and meaningful to their souls, not a lot of talk about making money. What talk there is, is portrayed as troublesome and missing the mark of both connecting with people and doing a good job. It’s a refreshing perspective, though I’m not sure how much of it is true of either Korea or Japan, having never lived there.

Unsurprisingly, this show is based on a book of the same name. There is a Chinese version, and I do know a smidgeon of Chinese, but I’ll have to put getting this book out of my head as I’m trying to learn Korean enough to read their novels. It’s very slow going: Never have I fluently learned another language.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, everyone!!

Chicago Typewriter: Kdrama review

Aug21

As a Christian, I don’t believe in reincarnation. However, it certainly makes for interesting plots. The first time I came across them was when I went through a major Bollywood obsession, and I’ve seen them a few times with Korean dramas as well. The Kdrama Chicago Typewriter is about a famous writer, a delivery girl, and a ghostwriter) who are all reliving past events of their former selves from the 1930s.

This was a really fun drama to watch even if it wasn’t always clear just where everything was going. Writer Han Se Joo (Yoo Ah In, Six Flying Dragons) is a bestselling author who is sent a possessed typewriter and simultaneously comes down with writer’s block. He’s also dealing with fans like Jeon Seol (Lim Soo Jung, Search: WWW), who are way too obsessed with him, and haters who think he stole their work and come and attack him in his house. Sometimes fame and talent is as much a curse as it is a blessing, but Han Se Joon takes it relatively in stride, considering.

With the typewriter, from Chicago and the 1930s, he starts to see images of a past life and even starts writing a story about it that is an instant success. At this same time ghostwriter Yoo Jin O (Ko Gyung Pyo, Strongest Deliveryman) shows up, and it’s unclear if he’s writing the story or if Han is. Han is having trouble remembering things. As the story unfolds, Han keeps encountering both Jeon Seol and Yoo Jin O, and we all soon find out they are all embodied by three friends from Japanese occupied Korea in the 1930s.

As the series continues, the scenes from the 1930s really started to take center stage, and in the latter episodes, at least one whole episode is devoted to that timeline, which was riveting. It reminded me a bit of Casablanca, and what an interesting thing it would be to have a Kdrama remake of that amazing movie. It would be cool. Also if they did one of The Princess Bride.

Back to the reincarnation stuff. Although this is a new thing for writer Han, Jeon Seol has been dealing with these visions her whole life and is afraid that in the past she killed someone. Yoo Jin O, who (SPOILERS!) we find is actually a ghost whose name is a play on playwright Eugene O’Neill, is also afraid of what happened back then. He can’t remember how he died, only that he loved Jeon Seol’s historical counterpart, and was friends with writer Han’s counterpart. Not sure what the rules are with reincarnation, but it seems odd that Han had has no problem regarding it until present day. Of course he ends of up falling for Jeon Seol at the same time he’s remembering falling in love with her club singer back in the 1930s.

The acting in Chicago Typewriter was solid. Not so sure about some of the clothes in the modern scenes, though. Writer Han looked like he’d stepped out of the 1990s much of the time, and Jeon Seol’s clothes were often not flattering. The outfits in the past scenes were all smashing, however. Ko Gyung Pyo essentially played the same character throughout, but he had a great screen presence that helped ground, the modern scenes. This worked especially well with the character of Han, as Han was larger than life, but not always in a good way. Yoo Jin O made him instantly more relatable and someone one could be friends with. As for the other two leads, well done acting. I ended up like their 1930s characters a lot more than the modern ones, but I kind of think that’s where the writers were going with this, anyway. The minor characters and actors were all okay, no big standouts. The shaman or fortune telling lady didn’t seem a big help at all, and for some reason couldn’t see ghosts, which didn’t really make sense to me, although it was rather funny.

Writing stuff: How fun to watch stories about writers and publishing. It almost never gets old. Both writer Han and his nemesis had writer’s rooms or offices that were to die for. Han’s house was a character in itself, with unique windows, sometimes looking like squares over the panes, and sometimes looking like white crosses peeking through a lattice. Something covered up, something revealed. The black stain of sin, the white light of redemption. Books were everywhere in this drama. Also, who could not love the cool Chicago typewriter that Jeon Seol’s past self tells writer Han’s past self is also the name of a certain gun that sound just like a typewriter.

The romance: Although this similar love triangle has been done a zillion times over, it totally worked. It was made all the more bittersweet by the fact that the love never really got to manifest: Freedom fighters can’t afford to fall in love, and that’s probably as true today as it was then. Yoo Ah In did an especially great job of using his expressive eyes, and although there was only really one great kiss, it was a great kiss. As for Lim Soo Jung, her Jeon Seol was a bit meh, but she shined as the woman from the 1930s and then it started to make sense just why the men were so taken with her.

Redemption: In the end everyone makes peace and is at peace, especially, Yoo Jin O. While that makes for a great story, it just reminded me again why I am a Christian. In reality, there’s only one person who can atone for sin, and that’s Jesus Christ. He only had to do it once for everyone. These freedom fighters live by a code in which they can’t forgive and have to meet out instant justice as they see it. It’s just kind of sad because the club singer and Yoo Jin O could have had a good life together, because she would have come to forgive him in time. She loved him, even if only as a friend. In the constraints of the story, however, that was not possible, and Yoo Jin O only gets a sense of peace and maybe forgiveness in the present day.

Still, he doesn’t go to heaven or Nirvana or wherever, but decides to stay and be reincarnated so that in his next life he will have his love story. The promise of another life in this sinful world, which might be better than your last, but will ultimately end in death in which you are sent back again to the world to do it all over again, just doesn’t do it for me. It’s not real, lasting comfort or hope. Christians get what some would call a second life in heaven with God, but the difference is, it’s a completely different life separate from this world of sorrow. Anyway, the redeeming or atoning done in association with reincarnation stories isn’t impressive, although the story itself might be.

Chicago Typewriter was one of the better Kdramas I’ve watched in the recent past. Wish there were more like it, as at times it really seemed like a work of art and not just another TV show. As I was curious how good an actor Yoo Ah In really is, I’m currently watching Secret Affair, and it’s unfortunately about adultery and even more unfortunately a masterpiece. He’s good, maybe even Seo In Guk good. If only this amazing artwork had a worthier plot, but the very sinful characters have much to do with why it’s so great. More on that another time.