@ viola: I think the reason she can't mention her father being dead is that he was their source of wealth and status. Without him they don't really have anything. Wealthy families don't want to marry off their kids to poor families.

Happy Friday yevreybaadee!

@ Michelle
Thank you!

TGIF!!

OMG I honestly just typed a facebook status on ipad and TOM (Time of Month) esterday and since my hubby's name is Tom, ppl r wondering y the PDA....

o on heavy (esp carbs) late night meals and waking up hungry:
carbs increase blood sugar (a brain food), serotonin (our natural upper 'drug') so your brain shut off (and remember) for the night on a very happy high. By the time u woke up, that blood sugar and serotonin level must be lower than what your brain registered when it was last conscious... and it will scream in 'withdrawal' and 'need more' in relative terms.

I haven't been following WISFC (not even JB's great caps)...but what belleza suggested ....awfully entertaining. Wow, I didnt expect a 'happy ending' for reals...I'll go read JB's recap now.

@ Michelle, sharing your exact sentiments towards QSD. There's one whole ep around 40sth when MiShil and Deokman were at some silly table and doing their monotonous glaring and eyebrows and unrelenting voiceovers and I wanna throw a torch at that table and burn them both NOW! grrrr

@ mookie-twin

loverboy (or any Chinese actor) having a k-actor-esque physique? Eh, with you there, no expectations on that. I'm not shallow at all, I love him for his acting talents. :-P

See this clip and tell me if that's not XLN in yellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPxKnecFdgc

Crystal Liu was not just wooden (mu na) as XLN, her eyes reflected nothing, which freaks me out (the opposite of KTH, whose eyes reflect everything, sometimes too much emotion or not the appropriate emotion, but girl has got feelings in them peepers!) Shishi's eyes are very expressive, and warm even when SS herself projects a very cool, icy image at times.

Btw, explain this to me: who did YG-XLN's descendents marry if they continued to live in the Living Tomb for 100 years and never left? Hhmmm.

@ Michelle,

my rant couple OTs back is exactly yours (ok me way more bitchy...)

I tried very very hard but I really don’t see any amazing in GHJ’s Mishil, if I stopped at ep 3…yeah maybe, coz it’s new fr her. I’ve paid by now 40+ hours of serious eye gouging attention already, but all I got was repetitive, redundant, monotonous reappearance of the smirk and the eyebrows. I just want to slap the upside of her head, not because I care enough to hate Mishil, but I’m having a big visual fatigue.. it’s there when she’s angry/in evil glee, when she’s commanding her bro/her lesbian friend to drink some poison…blablabla. so cartoonish it’s tiresome and messing with my head unlike the neverending stream of tears fr CJW@StH at this point. There’s no nuances, there’s no appropriateness, and she just keeps smirking and raising her pretty eyebrows in a continuum .. It’s like she was botoxed while she’s doing one of her smirks and it stayed for EVERY frEAKEN scene thereafter. If I’m going to make caps of GHJ as Mishil, I’ll get carbon copies for godzillion eps *roar*

@ twin..I'm totally with you. even Crystal's eyes looked marble-esque. And I know SS got a lot of descriptives on her 'woodenness' with MNC, I saw it as green, shy, unworldly charming girliness...befitting a MNC...

and they r really saving up Tangren a whole budgetful of PR with their miniblog thing. like loverboy HAD to blog on his phone screen at nite... and yup have to tell us the pic of his phone was taken by SS's phone but she's too shy to send it... O..K now kids... get a room (but I'm enjoying it of coz!)

@ twin

Agreed, I've watched enough Chinese actresses since the beginning of time (whereas my appreciation of k-actresses is comparatively recent), and there is a very big difference between the Lius - Crystal and Shishi. Looks, demeanor, carriage, presence, they are near identical. But where Crystal fails is that she doesn't act well AND her eyes don't engage with the camera, like you said, marble-esque, and really vacant, and so it tags her with the bad acting.

Shishi's MNC was only just an okay performance (esp when you compare with a masterful actress like Ariel Lin in the same drama), but she really showed a lot of sorrow in her eye-acting, very conflicted, very resigned, and I liked that. She has plenty of time to work on acting skills, but she's already connected with one viewer, me. And Crystal has failed in 3 different dramas to make me re-assess her, she's just blank.

The real-life flirting btw those two is priceless, seriously, it's like watching OPW daily with a side of DPW (dongsaeng-pat-wink). At this time, enough people are shipping Hong-Shi (based on the real-life nickname given to them by c-fans), Tangren will totally not throw a hissy fit if they come out dating, which is totally smart move on their part. I don't mind HG-YM as well, and then a double wedding, C-idol royalty. ;-) This is too fun not to follow along in real time, keep the goodies coming, twin.

I've picked my OTP for the year!

@ twin,

I also ff'd 2 eps of Prince's Education. It's disappointing. Loverboy's alright, but the writer was so amateurish in handling complex Qing palace fare. and that OTP girl... I want her DEATH already! First, looks... ok, I can shut the shallow me for a moment, she's not ugly, just plain and a bit too bitchy in the eyes, ESP next to our pretty and nice and kind girl2 in Yang Mi. But now the character herself....Why do they mess with the OTP like THAT?! She's annoying and outrageously self-centered, yes wellread, but BRAINLESS in caring for anyone except herself... wanting the prince to lose the crown and be a nobody just so she can have him. That's the stereotypical Kdrama evil girl2 trope. ARGH!

@ twin

This I dug up from my post in OT 118 - "I think Yuan Hong was a tad too restrained as Si-A-ge (the Fourth Prince, the future Emperor Qiang-long), and I didn’t like his leading lady, and just wanted him to make out with Yang Mi for like all 50 episodes."

You explained much better - I just want to chuck the leading lady into the nearest dungeon where she can grow a soul. And she's butt ugly. What gives? Yang Mi PWNED her in every respect.

Nope, just dying in my seat for the premier of Clothing World, ack, all those BTS, I know I'll just be FF-ing every episode and only stopping to watch scenes where our OTP shows up. Kinda like how I watched EoE, I FF'ed until either SSH or LDH showed up, except that involved watching mostly scenes where LDH walked a dog or looked confused, and scenes where SSH keeps shouting "Dong-wooooooook! Wooook-a!!!" or something along those lines. And I ended up very confused about the plot of EoE, to this day. And I was told SSH-LDH was the OTP, and episode 30 hits and those two still had like 3 scenes in total together, and I felt like I was sold a Beemer that turned out to be a Pinto with a Beemer sign taped to the front.

@mookie,

thank you!! beautiful explanation. so, most likely when you overeat on carbs. very helpful!

@honest_will,

"JEJOONGWON great drama, and story and not too much and good pace, cant wait for more"

This is by far by favorite show going right now, and it's the most sincere love story I've seen in a long, long time. When he was telling her "you are so beautiful" again and again . . . sigh. So simple and yet beautifully done. I was seriously crying happy tears through that scene.

@Mishil,

Hands down my favorite acting performance in a long, long time. It's not even about her being evil or good -- it's her constant ownership with the camera and her masterly control of the reframe by which I'm obsessed with. The way she hisses her lines, the way her eyes goes through the horizon, each and every eyebrow . . .

It begins as a consolidation of all of Go Hyun Jung's many, many mannerisms and turns into an improvisation around the notion of diva. Mishil becomes a cult of personality, an idea and a relationship with the lens. I absolutely loved it.

love this song...

but belleza, how her eyes/brows work the horizon was secular to any and every other thing of the scene....the context, the drama, other characters.. it's an A-B repeat of 60+ eps

Do a consolidation of an actor's mannerisms sum up to a great performance?!?!

we would all agree though it takes your wit find all brilliance in GHJ's MiShil.

@ M and B (from the O in the middle)

So is GHJ's Mishil-forming moment akin to when JIS found his inner-bitch and performed the fist-in-mouth and an icon was born? Probably, cuz JIS won himself a Daesang (or was it as Baeksang) for that, didn't he?

Anyways, my sister got tired of the one-track acting from Mishil as well, but it was fun and cool when it started, echoing twin's point that it wasn't the acting, or the fabulous diva-performance, but that it got old, and apparently rather quickly for mookie. :-)

I'll just take it as GHJ finding her inner-witch. And I also watched my version of QSD, which consisted of about 15 YT clips of only Bidam scenes that my sister sent to me (some involving Munno, Mishil and a lot of DK/SD), boy, that was surely a surreal way to watch a drama. If you asked me what QSD was about, I would say it was about a boy who got screwed by his mom and master, never knew love until he loved a woman with all his heart, and got screwed by her as well and his own limited understanding of how to trust people.

You know, even though I've listened to that album for years, I didn't realize "World at Large" and "Float On" were Part 1 and 2 until much later.

Played World at Large all last summer. Felt like a change was due.

@langdon,

"Park Kyu is so special he has his own Team! Bidam is so special he has his own Army! "

POOR BIDAM!!!

You know, I never explained where that came from. Basically, Poor [insert name here] is a meme where when you're totally in love with the support character, and you know that character is going to lose in the end, you basically go "Poor [insert name here]!!!"

This arose when a bunch of us were watching Autumn Tale way back when. At that time, we didn't pick up that the rival character never gets the girl. And, so, throughout the whole show, we would go "POOR WON BIN!!!" because none of us were rooting for Jun-suh. And, so it goes . . .

For example, while watching Shining Inheritance, I did a lot of POOR JUNSE!!!
Or if you were watching What Happened in Bali, POOR IN-WOOK!!!
Or if you were watching My Lovely Pattzi, POOR KIM JAE WON!!! No wait, it was POOR KIM RAE WON!!! No wait, it was . . . . ah screw it.

Due to the confusion you caused my brain, you PATZZI MUST DIE!!!

@mookie,

"how her eyes/brows work the horizon was secular to any and every other thing of the scene…."

It mitigates the literal context of the scene and refashions the text entirely from her subjectivity. This is what makes her acting so profound to me -- she is will-to-narrative to me. If the scene calls for her defeat, she makes it victory. If the scene calls for evil, she makes it enlightment. There's none of Kim Myung Min's reductive sincerity here (who, while a great actor in detail and execution, can be too linear for me.) Her performance is a cowriting credit, and at times you can tell that Lee Yo Won's truly dazed and confused as to how to properly react.

Wonderful fusion-y stuff.

@ockoala,

"I would say it was about a boy who got screwed by his mom and master, never knew love until he loved a woman with all his heart, and got screwed by her as well and his own limited understanding of how to trust people."

POOR BIDAM!!! :( :( :(

After the live-shoot rewrite, that's kinda how the story became. This is why I love live shoot syndrome. We got about 75% of what we wanted, history be damned.

@ B watching WHIB, I'd never ever go Poor InWook, Poor pillow or cushion or JIS's fist at times, but mostly since we got a visual on what 'headdesking' REALLY looks like and in the hands of some evil mom figure...I'm going PoorSJ all the way hands down

Patzzi must die.....while retrieving that necklace thing fr that freezing WISFC river of pain.

I'm sorry just looking at the caps for W, HYS reminds me of the lady in Shining whenever she glares (or doing her OPW?! I can't tell...).. I havent even added on the visual of epileptic OPSplat!

oh @O-twin:
ah...I have to quit this cyberstalking biz... NOW Huge is talking about going to S. America and the lady boss of Tangren said they should repeat their Egypt trip!

Hi all... end of another hellish week... too braindead to dredge up an appropriate comment but glad to be able to drop in here and see what you witty people are up to.

If langdon813 has any humidifiers left over after her LMK skort emergency, pls send them my way... humidifying is my last hope (as I am out of wine and it's too cold to go out and stock up). sigh.

"Patzzi must die…..while retrieving that necklace thing fr that freezing WISFC river of pain."

GIMME BACK MY DAD!!! :D

Happy Friday All! This day couldn't have come soon enough. It's an absolutely gorgeous day in Los Angeles--breezy, the sun is out, clear, you can see snow in the mountains and just the perfect day to drive with the top down on my car and cruise up the Pacific Coast Highway! What to do this weekend? I so want to start a new K-drama BUT I'm still obsessed over "You're Beautiful". I keep watching favorite episodes over and over again (and listening to the OSTs over and over again)! I started to watch Beethoven Virus and Smile You and I'm going to try my best to at least finish one of these dramas over the weekend. After I finish watching these two dramas, I was thinking of watching "Pasta". Or finishing "IRIS"...or "The Time Between Dog and Wolf"...aish! Now I'm rambling...

I am also looking forward to receiving my Pig-Rabbit next week from YesAsia.com AND my Director's Cut DVD of "You're Beautiful" when it is finally released.

Enjoy your weekend all!

@ hpn88

ok, watched your gifts again, this time with sound... and died once more. the fangirl screaming on the video happened in front of my computer as well haha. cannot wait for the actual release!!

@ twin

TOP MINE 95%!! lols!! Now more so than ever... i am LOVING his new hair. the girl in the fancam was right.. Tabi is "JACKPOT!!" ha ha!

@ 73 emma's dilemma

hullooo..

i plan to watch TWWSWTM (couldnt the title be any longer?) now that i (think) i found another stream site that works

Kim Bum is quite adorable.. and PJH's character is spunky. it's good so far..

I got a Blackberry Storm back in August and I LOVE it. It's my first smartphone but I will never go back to a regular phone again. I always said that I didn't need all that extra stuff, but there is nothing more awesome that being able to push all my email, networking, and messaging to one easy location. And I don't even do very much emailing, networking, or messaging but I still love the convenience. I rarely go on my personal email these days except to clean it out.

I checked out Assorted Gems a few weeks ago while waiting for the new crop of Monday/Tuesday dramas to air and I really liked it. I mean, overall with the plot it's nothing spectacular... but the sibling relationship is really great and the male lead (I forget his name) is a SMOKING HOTTY. Even the American dude is not too bad though, am I the only one who notices that he sounds way cooler speaking Korean than he does speaking English. If I met him on the streets of ATL and he spit some game to me in Korean, I admit , I'd probably let him take me to Starbucks. in English... not so sure...

By the way, as much as I am still enjoying Smile, You, am I the only one wishing they had never extended it... Everything could have been wrapped up really nicely by now but we got what, 10 or so more episodes left and they are running out of steam.

for any 2PM fans (and mostly for my twin)

look what i just found!!!! http://www.themarketo.com/confectionery/new/enjoy/enjoy02.asp

gives a whole new meaning to chocolate brownies. YUM!

Possibly a last Hello from HKG (it's Sat morn now)
@Samsooki
My flight is for 4pm HKG time or Midnite PST Sun, so I will be travelling while you guys are sleeping (unless our Ji Hoonie decided to stay up and wait for Auntie ;)
@DVT while travelling
Didn't I tell you that I was literally sandwiched between 2 men on SQ ? Since the plane was just a flying sardine can, a few hours into the flight, the 2 men next to me used me as their personal head rests. I had to lean forward(you know, the 1 extra inch o_O ) and used the meal tray as a place to rest my elbow and "slept" that way. So, yes, I got up and out every chance I could-not so much for DVT prevention, but to stretch out. I hope my return flight with Cathay Pacific will be better...PLEASE
@Samsooki
Please remind me NOT to play the game Telephone with you....you're cracking me up; I was THIS close of spitting out my OJ at the internet cafe's VDT screen, he he.
@Mookie from OT 119
You see, I'm useless in term of Chinese movie/tv stars. My Sis was kinda disappointed that I didn't get Lim's autograph, but then I reminded her that I also didn't get baseball star Tim Salmon's or Francisco Rodriguez's either (both were my patients). Hey, they are just another patients,and my only concern at that moment was their chief complaints. ...although if my Gong Yoo, Jang Geun Seuk or JJH is in front of me, I would probably take twice the time "assessing" them, I mean their bodies, I mean their chief complaints....he he .....esp if they are wearing something like LMK. THUD....@langdon, are you ok??? Sorry, I forgot to warn you...@ockoala, hurry, go check on @unni.....lol

Well, that was my 3 weeks of HKG....2 weeks of daily apt to hosp and 6 days of my Mom 4 BIG meals of food (Mom: you HAVE to eat this, that....Me: Mom, I'm still full from last meal...Mom: giving me a hurt look.. Me: wait, I have a mini-teaspoonful of space in my stomach...I told a spoonful of food...yum while thinking how many hours of jogging/spinning I have to do when I'm back in LA.
Shopping-
just bought a lot of purses and clothes for the 2 lil cingdoc. I just "surveyed" the diamond jewelry that I MIGHT buy in June when I return with Hubby and kids (it's our 20th wedding/25th together anniversary). I came with 1 suitcase, but will return with 2 bursting suitcases (sounds about right? @mookie)
I will try to meet up with all on Sun , but Hubby just told me that my laptop is not done being serviced yet...WHAT???NO COMPUTER...
Ithink I will just commandere one of the girls'

@ cingdoc

I'm okay! Hurry home, we've missed you!

@thunderbolt (or thundie :))

I doubted him at first, I was even thinking his English dialogues were dubbed. :D But I think it's him; it sounded really good.

Now, I must go check out that Never Forever movie of his. I saw the trailer and it piqued my interest!

My first OT! but a happy friday despite a 4h-long lecture in the afternoon should be commemorated with milestones? =p

first my friends made me a nice surprise belated birthday dinner, then i find out i'll definitely be going to Korea university in the fall (for a year!), and then lee minki! haha

but since everyone's talking about the iphone up there, this segues nicely into a question that's been bothering me for some time - I've wanted a pretty Korean phone pretty much since I first saw one in a drama - I think it was probably Delightful Girl Chun Hyang? But now that the prospect of actually shelling out for one draws near, practical concerns loom....

If I shell out for a new phone in Korea (as I understand I'll have to, since apparently other phones don't work with Korean SIM cards?) - I'd also like to be able to use it with other countries' SIM cards when I move out of Korea (boohoo) after a year. Is the iPhone the only way I can do this? Advice please! thanks =))

@Samsooki

I've checked back on the WiSC thread, and strangely there is no howling for my blood. Hmm. I guess everyone's shaking their heads and going, "The woman is clearly deranged, just ignore her and she'll go away." Actually, I'm kinda making a serious point -- How can a tragedy be a tragedy if it doesn't have a tragic ending? I feel cheated. Hey, dying tragically in Braveheart didn't do Mel Gibson any harm. Go Soo doesn't even have to die himself, but if he did it would just cement his heroic status, y'know.

Ah, I see @58 belleza has made the same point, but ten points more provocatively! And interestingly...

Btw, Samsooki, loved your Scottish Korean. I've downloaded the clips and will look for an opportunity to show them to my Korean and Scottish colleagues, preferably at the same time. Hee hee.

@ mie

Sorry, but the iPad is SO named by men. I mean, can any woman seriously carry around a thing called an iPad? What next, an iTampon?

Ah, I see @53 hpn88 has also made this point - I'm not alone!

@ aceyyy

happy birthday and congrats on going to kodae (you do mean kodae, right, not just a korean university?) for a year! indeed an auspicious day. I can recommend/send pics of a fab place for samgyeopsal in kodae area.

phone: oh, i can't wait to see how others answer you. And i'm not sure what country you will be returning to, so maybe that will affect the answer. i brought home from korea to the states my beloved metallic pink slider phone and tried for months to use it here. Even had friends helping who were a) native korean speakers and b) very savvy about this kind of thing. I was told by phone service providers, sure, we can replace the SIM card with a new one....

but first...

you have to bring us an unlocked phone. aye, there's the rub. I tried everything, even explored having Pinkie sent to a co. in vancouver that does such things. But inquiry suggested it wouldn't work. Korean phones are locked down tight. again, maybe others will have different answers. good luck!

i haven't been here in a while and man! so much to catch up on. i totally missed out on the newly formed Patzzi must die movement lol! i don't even know where to start, just reading all you guys' posts is so entertaining that i feel inadequate even sharing any OT lol!

@paula253, i'll try to make it on feb. 4 'coz i want to meet you guys :)

@pixie, fab ~~ the more the merrier! here's my cell if you need to reach me: 228 0808. area code is the same as the 3 digits of my screen name.

@Amg1,

Yup, I'm in complete agreement that Ji-wan is the true protoganist with the story. And, upon realizing that, I actually felt out of love with Kang Jin and became disinterested with KJ/JW as a couple. Because . . .

"I must add that in a codependent relationship the person with the mental problem is as bad as the enabler. "

Yup, because the drama fundamentally changed during the last 1/3 of the show. First, the rivalries of a traditional K-drama totally dissolve -- instead of Woo Jung and Tae Jung as being the obstacles, it's instead the moms of KJ and JW.

But more importantly, the true flow of the story reveals itself (and frankly is not properly resolved.) The real dilemna is not the suffering love between KJ and JW, it's Kang Jin's dysfunctional relationship with women, specifically his need to persistently play "white knight" or "perfect son" to "damaged" women. (Note how he acts this out with both Ji Wan and Woo Jung.) His own mother is essentially an alcoholic, and he never had a father.

The "ideal" relationship model in the story is between Kang Jin and Ji Wan's mom. Pretend that you knew nothing of their circumstances and came into their house as a house guest. Don't they look like the "perfect" mother and son?

She may love him, but Ji Wan naturally reacts this with repulsion. It's not only that their circumstabnce forces her to adopt a sibling relationship with Kang Jin, where she has to suspend her own desire as a woman. She also has to come in 2nd place due to her own mother in Kang Jin's attention. He's not only a "Momma's Boy", he's her mom's Momma's Boy.

And naturally, his mom is like W!T!F! with her own son. Are you frigging nuts?!? And well . . . maybe he was all along, and she never understood it because she was always the source of his affliction. Moms see into their child more than anybody else, but moms also have the strongest observer bias. The part of their own damage can be eclipsed by the moon, until they are no longer in their child's orbit. Which is what happens here.

The ending of this story shouldn't be happy. As I see it, it should have ended with Kang Jing and Ji Wan's mom consummating. At that point, Kang Jing finally destroys his own "perfect son" role-play, and Ji Wan's mom can finally act out complete revenge upon KJ's family as well as fully acting out her own grief over losing her son.

In the end, having done the deed, Ji Wan's mom and Kang Jing kill themselves. And the last scene is Ji Wan oppa pout splatting herself to death on an sunset island.

Han Ye Seul was probably the biggest surprise for me. I actually liked her performance during the beginning of the show (thought it was true to Ji Wan's dissolution after running away), and it grew on me throughout the rest of the show.

Go Soo was great in the beginning, but I felt he started to lose the grip of his character through the 2nd half of the show. His intensity gives context to the dialogue, but it can't actually replace dialogue with a concrete silence like So Ji Sup could have played it.

Joo Min So played best of all. the perfect Lee Kyung Hee character.

Belleza, I think we'll all (including Samsooki) will agree on one (and maybe the only one) thing:

you should write K-melo.

evidence I'm submitting:

Belleza:
'The ending of this story shouldn’t be happy. As I see it, it should have ended with Kang Jing and Ji Wan’s mom consummating. At that point, Kang Jing finally destroys his own “perfect son” role-play, and Ji Wan’s mom can finally act out complete revenge upon KJ’s family as well as fully acting out her own grief over losing her son.

In the end, having done the deed, Ji Wan’s mom and Kang Jing kill themselves. And the last scene is Ji Wan oppa pout splatting herself to death on an sunset island.'

@ belleza

Your analysis and posited ending are so much more satisfying than the real thing! As it is, it's like Romeo and Juliet ending with a group hug and everyone alive. What's the point? I much prefer your ending. Thank you. I think I have closure now.

@122 lovenyc52
I'm glad that you enjoyed the gifts! I was work and couldn't spazz, so i went home, turned up the volume and them properly SPAZZED almost exactly like the girls in the video

@125 lb_tmi
thank you for the gifts!
i don't know if that marketing is effective or not. i wasn't paying ANY attention to the product they were selling

You who else could totally endorse these brownies? The entire main male cast of CHUNO!!! i really want to thank the PD for the slo-mo chase at the beginning of episode 4. THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@mookie,

"you should write K-melo."

They should let me rewrite Chuno as a fusion chambara. Then I wouldn't skip over every fight scene. ;)

@Amg1,

I love Lee Kyung Hee's work, partially because there's an inner playwright in her that loves to borrow from the high brow. And when she nails it (which she did during the first half of Thank You), she can twist melodrama narrative into a mobious strip of karmic debt without hint of horizon pretty much like nobody else's business. In that regard, when it comes to her "first half" scripts, she's one of the finest technicians working in K-drama, knowing where the audience is expecting the angst and the comedy and then flipping the script. And, here, her brilliant revision was in overloading the childhood arc in order to tell most of the whole story. It's when you rewatch the childhood arc as a "All About My Mother" narrative that the whole show plays differently.

But, she's also the bloody laziest writer in K-drama, and -- hurts me to say this -- she's never written a truly great drama all the way through. She has so much fun reconfiguring her narrative into unique situations, again playing off allegory and psychological damage, but she also doesn't give a damn about committing to the practical circumstances of the story.

I would have preferred WSIC end as a tragedy. The ending the show it did have is . . . okay. Quiet, sweet, though with no real emotionally payoff because -- through the various time jumps -- we're kinda internalized that Ji Wan and Kang Jin are locked into a cycle that will continue beyond the credits. Their moms need to reconcile (or better yet, Kang Jin's mom needs to explain what really happened.) Kang Jin and Ji Wan's mom also need to resolve their relationship. Or put it another way, Kang Jin has literally spent more time with Ji Wan's mom -- he putting her to bed, she preparing his meals -- than he has with Ji Wan.

And it kinda plays like that. If you listen to Ji Wan's mom's words carefully -- part of what she doesn't forgive of Kang Jin is that her heart grew really attached to him as a son, and she herself had problems accepting this when she regained her memory.

Running with that . . . well you now have tragic mom sex. That's the logical conclusion, not a bit of feel-good closure by the bridge.

@serendpity,

"As it is, it’s like Romeo and Juliet ending with a group hug and everyone alive. "

See, the thing is, watching WISC made me realize how much I missed A Love to Kill. A Love to Kill is her weakest script, and it's her most artificial/contrived setup. And yet it's in singlemindedness and gothic claustrophobia, the snowballing of sustained futility, tragic bondage, and eventual release, the whole style exercise just pulls me in. As a tone poem, it's comforting in its beautiful sadness.

'Chuno as a fusion chambara'
Just..Do...IT!!! As much pure sweaty manly muscles we're getting in Chuno, I still want MORE!!
Ask Samsooki for 1% of his Minmei wetdream project's budget

and I think I've found a Minmei that a lot of us (girls) will be fine with and can do no wrong...and I'll be jumping ship (and bringing ockoala with me... I think?!)

and she's even in COSTUME for Minmei already

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9_HfmNAsp0

and o, no OT is complete without the start of many Bear jokes, right?

This is fr Faye (Wong):
Why does a bear hibernates for soo long?
.
.
.
.
.
.

no one dares to wake him up.

@Amg1,

"he knew that Jin Wan’s mother was not his mother he chooses her over the one person who truly destroy his self Image, his biological mother"

Yup. A lot of people didn't pick up on that, because they were viewing the symbiotic relationship as all about her destroying Kang Jin's life. In the 3 year sabbatical, he essentially chose to have a new mother (and this is BTW Ji Wan's point of view too . . . after all, the option of living with mom was always there, Kang Jin didn't *have* to live with Ji Wan's mom at all.) When the biological/prodigal mother came back, he doesn't really acknowledge her.

Doesn't change that he was her enabler. But you could read it as his primary weakness exposed for Ji Wan to see. of course, the ending chooses not to see it.

@mookie,

"Just..Do…IT!!! As much pure sweaty manly muscles we’re getting in Chuno, I still want MORE!!"

This is where Chuno and I are at a impasse. The heavy metal wuxia histrionics are a serious turnoff (as it was in Damo . . . tacky bollox), and though it's pretty, it lacks the respiration important in jidaegei/taiga or chambara. So much expensive anesthesia. Ugh. (Yes.yes.yes. . Chuno bites off Ashes of Time here and there -- and I admire the show for that -- but the poetics are arranged wrong. There's a difference between expressionism and posturing, and Chuno . . . )

I concluded quietly that (POOR) Bidam, especially in the last 1/3 of QSD, was really a kind of Leslie transference thing for me. I think it's genetic.

As for Faye Wong . . . I really do wish we'd take her back from the Final Fantasytaku.

@ belleza

Eye-rolling though the Love to Kill ending was for me (Can people actually DIE of walking around in the snow wringing their hands?! Oh for pete's sake...), I must admit it had far more integrity. After all the Crazy and the Tragedy, it was a satisfyingly crazy tragic ending, which is just as it is meant to be.

@ Samsooki

I am playing with my new iPhone, and I LOVE it. LOVE LOVE LOVE! :-P

I used to have a work-issue Blackberry and it enslaved me. So it would be hard for me to find a Blackberry fun now. I know I'm a apple product victim. But I don't care. The iPhone is FUN.

@ amg1

Love your analysis too. Great stuff! Train wrecks sit so much better with me when I can *understand* them.

"I used to have a work-issue Blackberry and it enslaved me."

Tis why I call it the Doucheberry. Use it long enough, it turns the person into a Corporate Douchebag. :)

@paula 253

Thanks! ^^ I do mean kodae indeed, and it's funny because when I tell my friends "I'm going to Korea" they're like, we know... and I have to go, no, I mean, kodae! hehe. food/lodging recommendations more than welcome! =) did you live in Korea too?

as for the phone... the little information available on the web suggests that Korean phones are an alien breed that cannot intermarry with foreign networks? but why T_T they have such superior genes too....

my school had a basketball game with the students+faculty vs a couple korean celebrities again this year! oh ji-ho came last year but i guess he was busy shooting chuno..? darn. i think son jichang was there but no one really knew who any of them were, aww. but they were cute, and that's really all that matters to me :) there was this one dude that was frikkin hilarious, but in a way that induced sympathetic mortification. XD

and talking about bball games, i have just finished scorekeeping our school's bball supertournament. OH MY GOD 3 days, 11~12 hours a day (8 am to 7, 8ish pm) with our only breaks EVER being the 10~20 minutes the athletes need to warm up. and they just foisted a whole new set of rules on us the first day with no prior notice. hell. but we're gettin' paid.. ^^ money wins out in the end, and i'll probably be doing this next year too. lol

glad that's over... tgi saturday for me, since korea's ahead anywho :3

Currently watching Assorted Gems, Pasta and Wishing Upon A Star.

@ Assorted Gems - I love it! It took me only a few days to marathon all 42 episodes (with some fast-forwarding), and am now waiting for Eps 43 and 44 to come out this weekend. Real and heartwarming drama played out by a great ensemble cast. Each main character is a gem on his/her own from old to young, the youngest being one year old whom we saw him turning from a baby to a toddler then now roaming and playing on the set as if it's his real home. Whenever the four naughty oldies get together to re-group themselves, it is a riot and a treat to us as viewers. And I like the romance between Go Na Eun and Lee Tae Gon. There is also great chemistry between the American guy and the second sister.

I love it so much that I'm now watching Dear Heaven, an earlier drama by the same writer, Im Sung Han. It has AG's 'smoking manly hottie' Lee Tae Gon and the elegant Yung Joon Hee (from Family Honour). However, it is Han Hye Sook - the mom in both AG and DH - who impresses me most. Those are two utterly different characters but she just plays it pitch perfect in both roles.

@ Pasta - It is getting better by the episodes. The last two episodes especially bring up the dramatic notches. My difficult question each Tuesday and Wednesday is to watch Pasta or Wishing Upon A Star first. At the moment, I guess I love Pasta a bit more as this is my type of drama. I have never thought Lee Sun Gyun could be good in a sardonic role like this but it is really Gong Hyo Jin who steals the show. She always manages to put in an edge, in an understatement and GHJ way, in her acting that makes audience care about the characters she protrays. The same goes here. Alex's character is finally getting thrashed out and becoming interesting. It is a pity that Honey Lee's character remains underwhelming. A very adorable drama that I look forward to see each week.

@ Wishing Upon A Star - I didn't start it until after Ep 4 was aired. But, it is so addictive once you started. It is a 'you've-seen-it-all-but-well-done' drama. Choi Jung Won is a revelation as this is my first time seeing her. The kids are a big drawcard, too. The 'other two' men in the house are all so lovely, only if Shin Dong Wook could change his hairstyle. I agree that Jae Young's character and performance are so weak and lightweight that do not warrant a second lead status. My biggest qualm with this drama is.....I'll probably be the minority on this one....Kim Ji Hoon is miscast in my humble opinion. Episode 8 is the ice-breaker episode for his character and should be very fun to watch but I just can't buy KJH's acting. My apologies to all KJH fans but I can't help thinking wouldn't it be nice if Kang Ha is played by someone else......

All in all, a very good start for 2010!