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| I did a Namjooning trip to DIA: Beacon to see the Indigo album MV locations in April. |
I'm way behind in my blogging about K-dramas due to my D-Day activities. So let's get into it.
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The Glory
The Glory has had so much attention I felt like I could not ignore it. As usual, for a Netflix series, my skepticism around their use of sex and violence remains acute. Taking a boring, predictable page out of American cable TV in a space that so often focuses on character and relationships, I worry the deeper investment Netflix makes in K-dramas, the less these works will interest me.
Nevertheless, The Glory is a revenge drama focused on a woman Moon Dong-eun (Song Hye-kyo) who comes back from what can only be described as absolute physical and emotional torture in high school (graphically depicted) to track down her school-day bullies-tormentors and slowly, methodically blow up their adult lives.
Park Yeon-jin (Lim Ji-yeon) is a weather forecaster on TV and the ringleader of the high school group. She's rich and powerful and basically just likes to pull the wings off of insects (torture her poor classmate for no reason other than she exists). Yeon-jin has no characteristics besides shouting a lot when she does not get her way or getting really mad when she is caught doing anything wrong.
Nevertheless, The Glory is a revenge drama focused on a woman Moon Dong-eun (Song Hye-kyo) who comes back from what can only be described as absolute physical and emotional torture in high school (graphically depicted) to track down her school-day bullies-tormentors and slowly, methodically blow up their adult lives.
Park Yeon-jin (Lim Ji-yeon) is a weather forecaster on TV and the ringleader of the high school group. She's rich and powerful and basically just likes to pull the wings off of insects (torture her poor classmate for no reason other than she exists). Yeon-jin has no characteristics besides shouting a lot when she does not get her way or getting really mad when she is caught doing anything wrong.
Chaebol Jeon Jae-joon (Park Sung-hoon) has always been in love with her and will do anything she asks. But she is married to the successful and moral Ha Do-yeon (Jung Sung-il) who has never seemed to notice he's married to psychopath but when Dong-eun brings it to his attention their marriage is put under pressure. Dong-eun encounters Joo Yeo-jeong (Lee Do-hyun), a plastic surgeon, who agrees to help her for his own reasons and together they chip away at these pathologically devious characters.
My big gripe is the extreme nature of the violence and the lack of real remorse turns these bullies into monsters rather than people. And I think that chips away at any meaningful pathos.
But what made me stick around and keep watching was the sincere relationships Dong-eun had with Joo Yeo-jeong and Kang Hyeon-nam (Yeom Hye-ran) a housekeeper experiencing domestic violence. Slowly characters grounded in some reality start to appear and things get a bit more interesting then. I think it's also important to show that the world is not just made up of monsters. Monsters are boring and one note. Bad humans are a whole different creature which forces us to deal with the nuance of evil existing within us all. Dong-eun's revenge team actually starts to reflect more that nuance and complexity.
One of the great joys of the romance genre is all the different ways you can show how someone comes to love someone else. In Our Blooming Youth, we see a prince fall for a woman by appreciating her mind, her cunning, her survival and spirit.
The Crown Prince (Park Hyung-sik) rose to his position by the sudden death of his older brother. Even after he has become Crown Prince, his position has been under constant threat. He was shot by a poisoned arrow and received a thretening prediction from a ghost about his downfall. He slowly recovers from the arrow and must prove himself to a skeptical court that he can be the heir to the throne. He encounters Min Jae-yi (Jeon So-nee) who is the daughter of his mentor. Her whole family was murdered and she has been framed for it. She escaped capture and came to the Prince in the hopes that he would help her figure out what happened. She ends up hiding in his court as a eunuch and he comes to trust her to help him solve the mystery around who is threatening him.
I saw someone on Twitter complain this series was too slow. But I thought it was a wonderful aching series where the impediments to the couple coming together are substantial and real and the threats to their lives otherwise take the front seat over any romantic feelings. Until they are safe, there cannot be romance. And they need each other to solve the mystery of who wants both of them out of the picture. But even as they are under threat their feelings for each other grow. They want to spend all their time together and their respect and admiration for the other enriches over time.
She is also liberated in many ways once she is a man/eunuch to use her mind, solve mysteries and engage in the world not as a noblewoman. She can be more of herself as a man.
While the Scooby-doo mystery solving romance is a genre I've spoken about before, I thought getting to the bottom of the palace mystery and who killed Jae-yi's family was as compelling as their growing love.
Despite a truly terrible hair dye job and bad Viki show art, I stumbled upon this thoughtful, bittersweet coming-of-age drama of college aged kids navigating their crushes, family abuse, and coming to understand each other and themselves better over time.
Yeo Jun (Park Ji-hoon) is the golden boy on campus. Handsome (despite the worst blond hair), rich, and congenial so that all the women love him and all the men want him as their friend. But he wears a plastic smile and keeps people at a distance to cover up something troubled in his heart.
My big gripe is the extreme nature of the violence and the lack of real remorse turns these bullies into monsters rather than people. And I think that chips away at any meaningful pathos.
But what made me stick around and keep watching was the sincere relationships Dong-eun had with Joo Yeo-jeong and Kang Hyeon-nam (Yeom Hye-ran) a housekeeper experiencing domestic violence. Slowly characters grounded in some reality start to appear and things get a bit more interesting then. I think it's also important to show that the world is not just made up of monsters. Monsters are boring and one note. Bad humans are a whole different creature which forces us to deal with the nuance of evil existing within us all. Dong-eun's revenge team actually starts to reflect more that nuance and complexity.
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Our Blooming Youth
The Crown Prince (Park Hyung-sik) rose to his position by the sudden death of his older brother. Even after he has become Crown Prince, his position has been under constant threat. He was shot by a poisoned arrow and received a thretening prediction from a ghost about his downfall. He slowly recovers from the arrow and must prove himself to a skeptical court that he can be the heir to the throne. He encounters Min Jae-yi (Jeon So-nee) who is the daughter of his mentor. Her whole family was murdered and she has been framed for it. She escaped capture and came to the Prince in the hopes that he would help her figure out what happened. She ends up hiding in his court as a eunuch and he comes to trust her to help him solve the mystery around who is threatening him.
I saw someone on Twitter complain this series was too slow. But I thought it was a wonderful aching series where the impediments to the couple coming together are substantial and real and the threats to their lives otherwise take the front seat over any romantic feelings. Until they are safe, there cannot be romance. And they need each other to solve the mystery of who wants both of them out of the picture. But even as they are under threat their feelings for each other grow. They want to spend all their time together and their respect and admiration for the other enriches over time.
She is also liberated in many ways once she is a man/eunuch to use her mind, solve mysteries and engage in the world not as a noblewoman. She can be more of herself as a man.
While the Scooby-doo mystery solving romance is a genre I've spoken about before, I thought getting to the bottom of the palace mystery and who killed Jae-yi's family was as compelling as their growing love.
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At a Distance, Spring is Green
Despite a truly terrible hair dye job and bad Viki show art, I stumbled upon this thoughtful, bittersweet coming-of-age drama of college aged kids navigating their crushes, family abuse, and coming to understand each other and themselves better over time.
Yeo Jun (Park Ji-hoon) is the golden boy on campus. Handsome (despite the worst blond hair), rich, and congenial so that all the women love him and all the men want him as their friend. But he wears a plastic smile and keeps people at a distance to cover up something troubled in his heart.
He runs into his senior in business school Nam Soo-hyun (Bae In-hyuk) who is very standoffish, poor, hard-working and too busy and skeptical of this rich boy who has everything. But Yeo Jun is desperate to befriend Soo-hyun. Like a nagging puppy, he won't let go and eventually Soo-hyun and Yeo Jun see each other for who they are and find that a friendship between them might help them in ways they did not realize. Rounding out this trio of eventual friends is Kim So-bin (Kang Min-ah) who is a bit too shy and quiet. She cannot believe the campus prince would even look at her but Yeo Jun is drawn to her as a friend.
This second season was not quite as tight and meaningful as season one. The team's efforts of righteous vengeance gets a little lost in the fight against an overall generic evil organization. But when it’s personal to the characters it works best.
With this sad boyz hook, I was in. Park Ji-hoon was so great in Weak Hero Class 1, and while this show
does not have as much depth as that, it is another unique series looking at the tender struggles of male friendship and growing up when you have experienced violence. He has an interesting charm of being both well-suited to the idealized character as well as the disaffected one. Here he is both.
There's a whole plot line about Yeo Jun and his brother and their confusing relationship that I don't think works as well as it's supposed to. Na In Woo is kind of terrible as the older brother.
But I loved the ways these friends grow and benefit from having each other in their lives. The series also tries to address serious issues such as school bullying and domestic violence in mostly thoughtful
ways.
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Taxi Driver 2
This second season was not quite as tight and meaningful as season one. The team's efforts of righteous vengeance gets a little lost in the fight against an overall generic evil organization. But when it’s personal to the characters it works best.
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