I wish I had a girlfriend like Joo In Hae who can bite a vampire.

Such a shame not to make a sunscreen product placement. Everybody knows vampires and Koreans are suckers for sunscreen. And me too. They literally ducked a golden mine.

🔸They ducked so many more things in this drama, including believable character development. Shin Do Shik starts as a softie, then he is suddenly obsessed by murder, and then he ends up helping poor sick kids. His character was unsuccessfully begging for a moral choice. Director Na is even more messed up.

Yet the actor Park Kang Hyun performs very well despite this unfortunate TV debut. He has both gentle and evil vibes. As far as I know, he acted in musicals before, and he sings one of the soundtracks here. I'd like to see him in a better project next time.

🔸The screenwriters successfully traded all the charm and quirkiness of the first episodes for cheesy tropes and cliches and an intense "dramatic" La Crimosa remix. How come a guesthouse doesn't have a washing machine? It's just because the two leads need to splash in a basin together and make cute expressions for the camera. With such weak writing In Hae would never love so deeply to be ready to sacrifice her life for the boyfriend. No wonder she never offered.

And what's with that craven ending? Why are we supposed to decide the very last minute what the hell is going on if you can't sum up the story well?

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"오늘부터 퇴근 없다!"

서투르고 한심하고 어리석다.
I just can't stand all these poorly made dumb movies that make a fortune by involving big names and accessible concepts while small authors with better filmmaking skills don't get attention.

🔸️Separate scenes are hanging loose, and the acting and lines feel very forced. Lee Byeong Heon totally abandoned that thing called rhythm. He is one terrible director among many in the action thriller genre in Korea. I just despise that type of movies, including Master and the recent Alien. Imagine how would it flow if Edgar Wright shot it - because that's what cinematography is about!

I am damn revolted, and I hope I never make anything like this when it's my time to shoot a feature.

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The essence of the color green.

This title's translation is "green night", and the movie is the essence of the dark side of the color green.

🔸️You should watch it at least for the incredible camerawork. The camera is always static but the composition and the colors contribute to the depressing viscous atmosphere while nothing seemingly unusual is in the frame. This is the director Yoon Seo Jin's debut feature, and, while it's not a masterpiece, the directing style is intriguing enough for me to wait for his next movie. It's dark. Someone's death follows another death, and all in the scale of one family. The main issue would probably be the short premises that don't develop into the full genre or subplot.

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이상하게 귀여운 영화. 내가 제일 좋아하는 박찬욱 영화 중 하나.

"Please, steal my sympathy. Like Thursday."

화려한 영상미와 캐스팅은 차치하고라도 두 정신병원 환자가 각자의 독특한 소통 방식을 찾아가는 이야기는 마치 내가 한번 다시 세상을 발견한 것 같은 느낌을 준다. 분위기가 유치하고 성숙해서 소중하다.

"I didn't come with an instruction manual or a label on me anywhere. I still don't know what my purpose is. What was I made for?"

I was only 2 y.o. when this movie was released. To this day I have no idea what was I made for, but at least I know what a great time it is to be alive.
주목적은 핵폭탕이 되는 거 아니라 행복하게 사는 것이다.

Yesterday was 78 years since the bombing of Hiroshima, and we as individuals should not succumb to self-destructive behavior, we should not become our own nuclear bombs, and we as humanity must not destroy. We all should live, love, and help people around us become happier like Il Soon helped Yeong Goon.

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"귀신보다 더 무서운 건 사람이에요."

What could be better than Kim Tae Ri fighting demons? Kim Tae Ri, Oh Jeong Se and Hong Gyeong fighting demons. A truly stellar invincible cast.

🔸I feel the beginning could be much more exciting. The story could play with the viewer's expectations regarding the existence of supernatural powers. You could throw in evidence for both humans' and spirits' involvement in a felony, and let the detectives battle with professor Yeom. The middle part is also pretty monotonous and doesn't bear much significance. There is no cat-and-mouse play, no riddles either.

🔸Yet I still appreciate the emotionally and visually beautiful ending. A sneak into the ancient Korean rituals and beliefs made me understand better why many elders believe in spirits and what traditions do they follow.

If you are about to watch Revenant, you might've picked it because of the cast, but be prepared for the thick layer of folklore and many grafic suicides as well.

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OH. MY. GOD.

As much as I want Joon Ho to get rest and find peace, he has one more year to go, and something tells me there is going to be the next season. In my opinion, season 1 alone was insufficient, but now the story is summarized very well.

Personally, I like the second one better because it finally gives the feeling of each individual story and their meanings on the big scale. The martial arts scenes are great, the cinematography is wonderful, the actors are stunning. The 3rd episode "Curtain Call" - MY. GOD. I haven't seen one so tragic and brutal in ages. Mostly because of Nina, this series makes it to my top-4. Thank you so much.

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"잊기 싫어. 기억하고 싶어."

Have you ever wondered what your closest friends would feel like if you died? What would they do? How would they remember you? Moreover, would you want to witness their grief yourself while being around them as a completely different person? Those are the challenges the main character Ban Ji Eum has to navigate on a daily basis.

🔸️The drama explores grief and the ways to cope with it - letting people go or holding onto them at all costs. Do dearest memories outweigh traumas? Should we live in the moment and forgive? Ji Eum has 19 lives worth of suffering, and worth of happy moments too, but she can't erase one and keep another. She has to make a choice between her long desired happiness and her friends' wellbeing. I feel like the plot relies too heavily on inyeon 인연, but I like that the characters still have to overcome challenges in their next lives to end up together, like Secretary Ha and Cho Won.

🔸️The drama is heartwarming, not heartbreaking, and it kept me engaged very well. Except for the truck accident for which I still don't understand the motive. I absolutely adore the child actors who all did an outstanding job, and not just for their age. Shin Hye Seon is truly amazing, especially in the emotionally intense final episodes. And Ahn Dong Goo? Where did this guy come from? He has an incredible quiet energy.

But I was more interested, how did Ji Eum's gender identity and sexual orientation change as Ji Eum was reborn in both female and male bodies?

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"이 땅의 주인은 니들이 아니야!"

There is a lot more this prequel season could have told, but it certainly doesn't lack the style, passion, and its firecracker personality. I guess we don't have to argue that Kim Beom's undercut, inspired by Peaky Blinders, stole the show. I totally approve of it, I myself have been wearing such for years.

🔸A wild mix of fantasy, horror, action, noir, comedy, and period drama, a sneak into the culture, history facts, indigenous Korean spirits, zombies, martial arts, and time-traveling, - you can't pull that off flawlessly, but you can make it a passion project with fire in each and every actor's eyes, sparkling a fire in mine as well. How do actions in the past affect the future? How did Ki Yuri end up as a wild gumiho in Siberia if she was a Korean independence movement activist blowing up Japanese officers with regular non-magical TNT? Who the hell is the first mountain god? Even though we didn't get to learn any of that, it doesn't diminish the joy of watching the two reunited brothers trying to beat each other's arse, fooling around, fighting, learning to show their appreciation for each other, bonding, and parting to different centuries to never ever meet again.

🔸The magnificent instrumental scores of the composer Hong Dae Seong already deserved an Oscar in the first season. They are breathtaking masterpieces no less significant that those in Park Chan Wook's movies. You won't find such tremendous works in other K-dramas. I haven't heard anything like them. The Youth of the Mountain Gods, Parting at the River of Three Crossings, Sad Fate, The Brothers - these instrumentals won't leave my "On Repeat" Spotify playlist soon. Or ever.

Tale of the Nine Tailed is that type of drama that depends heavily on the actors charisma and unique production style. With a few writing improvements I will be happy to see the next season. I have a special thanks for making 1938 a separate show, now it won't get erased from Letterboxd.

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"나도 계속 살아가도 돼요?"

🔸️With its lurid intro you'd expect the drama to be mysterious, but its quietness turns out to be lifeless, not menacing as it was intended. There is very little to question in the first episodes. The house starts to smell rotten, literally and metaphorically, and the husband acts overly caring for his wife, pushing to take her depression pills. You'd think he has something to do with the smell, maybe he has buried someone in that garden. Guess what? You're totally right, and that's not even a spoiler. Everything plays out just like any other dark thriller about rich people and their skeletons in the closet.

🔸️A lot of viewers didn't bother to watch till the end where we finally get a glimpse on Sang Eun and Joo Ran's relationships. They weren't a mystery but a mess throughout the whole drama with the two women just walking around like zombies and emotionlessly throwing words at each other. How was Joo Ran "not herself" in the beginning? Did she believe her manipulative husband? No. Did she not try to find the truth? No.

I wish we could untangle the lies of emotional abuse as the story goes and cheer for the women to break free of those bonds. Unfortunately, there is nothing to untangle. Everything is as clear as a day for them and for us, therefore worthless.

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"I am taxi driver, you are taxi 손님."

There are at least two countries that I have learned a lot about and admire: the United States and South Korea. The book Human Acts by Han Kang accidentally came into my posession two years ago, and it's extremely vivid and graphic depiction of Gwangju Uprising made me want to learn more and more about Korean history to find out what have this nation come through to become a leading democratic country that the world looks up to nowadays.

🔸️There were only several foreigners in Gwangju on the first days of the massacre, including 5 Peace Corps volunteers, and all of them chose not to abandon their Korean colleagues and friends despite the direct warnings from the American Ambassador. Later, when a few foreign reporters, including this movie's main character Jürgen Hinzpeter, arrived, they helped them by being their interpreters. If you have seen the movie you already know what happened to the fictional character Jae Shik. A few Koreans who did speak English would not desire that attention from the ubiquitous KCIA.

🔸️I love A Taxi Driver for its amazing execution, production design, and a pretty much historically accurate timeline. It succeeds in capturing the sense of confusion and danger coming from all the sides and making spectacular and tragic scenes like the taxi cars battle and the arrogant German reporter coping with shock and guilt by filming his dead companion and the bloody havoc around. No one in Gwangju knew what was going on, later hearing the infuriating official news that the upheaval was incited by "bandits" and "impure elements from outside the city".

From "Witnessing Gwangju" by Paul Courtright: "The [elderly Korean] halmeoni's grip tightened on my arm and she turned to face me. 'We have no voice. You have to be our voice. You have to tell people outside our country what they're doing to us'. She glanced around the street, then returned her fearless gaze to me. I was rooted to the spot. I was to be the "witness" and she had given me a clear task."

🔸️No country exists in a vacuum, and I find it fascinating how people from different provinces, from different nations can work together, bond, and help each other, i.e. Seoul and Gwangju taxi drivers, Gwangju people and foreign reporters, volunteers. Man Seop didn't choose between his daughter and a grown-ass foreigner reporter. He was choosing between what's best for his family and what's best for his country. Along with self-sacrifice this makes it a clear patriotic idea for the movie.

I've been learning about the Gwangju Uprising from the article of the witness Peace Corps volunteer Tim Warnberg "The Kwangju Uprising: An Inside View", 1987, and the memoir "Witnessing Gwangju", 2020, by Paul Courtright. I highly recommend to read them if you're interested, as the writing is highly detailed, captivating and visual.

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생일 축하합니다!

I haven't had my birthday celebrated for so many years. I can totally understand how you wait for that day to feel appreciated, and it turns out just like any other day that brings you closer to death and updates the count of "friends" who forgot about you.

🔸️As for the movie, one major issue, in my opinion, is that the rhythm doesn't really change making it hard to feel where is the beginning, climax, and the end. The movie is too shy, too quiet, just like the main character, and I would like it to stir me up a little bit more. Otherwise, it's still bottled up and not resolved. Yet I like this short a lot for its beautiful picture, vibrant environment, and good acting. 응원합니다, 감독님!

If you want to watch this short film, contact the director through email and request the link politely. The email address is [email protected]. (It took about a couple of weeks to get a response on mine)

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What would you do in her shoes?

Although the drama provided us with decent entertainment, it failed for me to go into the very darkness of human desires, falling flat in it's execution.

🔸Through the whole story I wanted to see what made Seo Ari moving despite her unwillingness to step into the glamour world at first. She was born in a rich household, so it doesn't make her look "not like the other girls" when she says to her non-rich friend that "the (Burberry) backpack was made to be worn". There are 3 types of people in this drama: "good" rich who doesn't bargain over a ruined limited collection dress, "cheap" rich who charge for every scratch on their bag, and "cheap" non-rich who want to live the lives of celebrities. Seo Ari essentially is the only visible representative of the "non-cheap" non-rich group (later transferring to the "good" rich), and making her look better this way feels problematic.

🔸I wish the origins and implications of human greed and desire for money and power were researched, how would it sweep Seo Ari and what would be the outcomes. However we only see that the "bad" rich fail and the "good" rich win, and Seo Ari gaining power uses it to punish the guilty. It is a very predictable plot and doesn't challenge her internally.

🔸Another issue that I feel is important is the intro. It's just bad. It is long (1 min), repetitive, lacks distinct rhythm and design. I don't have to explain how important an intro is for a show, and this one is too similar to the infamous "corporate style". Just compare it to The Glory and Little Women.

The drama isn't bad. It has good actors, luxurious interiors, it receives a lot of love from the viewers, but there could be so much more than that, and it disappoints me.

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"소에, 되지, 사람들까지, 계획대로 되는 게 하나도 없으니까."

I feel like the most appropriate time to watch this sunny K-drama is a leisurely summer breakfast with a cup of tea. The 30-mins episodes and an easy-to-follow story about two young people - former secret friends - will be able to provide enough warmth and comfort for the day.

🔸️The plot is entirely focused on the young veterinarian Ji Yool and a policewoman Ja Yeong slowly falling in love. By "entirely" I mean entirely. There are many authentic characters around them in the Huidong village but none of them have any influence on the main characters or an arc. That isolated romantic development falls flat leaving me indifferent to the ending. My favorite episode though was the 7th where Ji Yool and Ja Yeong give the opposite relationship advices to the kid, confusing him, therefore showcasing their differences.

However, I find the comedic beginning - how Ji Yool adapts to the village life and tries to treat big cattle - very enjoyable. Mostly thanks to the actor Choo Yeong Woo and his soft comedic style. He is never too much and has a perfect balance in his expressions. Basically, the whole show is his.

🔸️A K-drama in a rural setting with its beautiful landscapes and loud nosy ajummas is always going to be comforting despite its writing flaws. There are far better examples like Summer Strike, Hometown Cha-cha-vha, Our Blues, but if you look for a short sweet one with cute puppies and cute Choo Yeong Woo - this is it!

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"우리가 끝내지 못한 그 재판 우리 아들이 끝내로 갑니다."

🐽 The story of prosecutor Kang Ho struggling with amnesia and the traffic accident consequences gives a slight feel of Woo Yeong Woo but on a pig farm. It is darker than I expected and lighter than I thought.
This is a big step for Lee Do Hyun acting-wise. I feel like he always looked held back and reserved in past dramas, and The Good Bad Mother is finally the room for him to flourish. He has to play three different states of one character: shrewd cold attractive prosecutor, confused childish Kang Ho in a wheelchair, and healthy mother's son in the end after all the challenges he's been through. And Lee Do Hyun does it damn well! The ratings started with 3.6% on the first episode ending with 12% on the final.

"내가 망가지면서 하는 복수는 복수가 아니야. 진짜 복수는 복수하려는 이유조차 생각 안 할 만큼 깨끗하게 있고 보란듯이 잘 사는 거야."

🐽 While the criminal storyline is well-waived, the most heartfelt part of the drama is the life in the village and the characters interactions. I couldn't help but rolled on the floor chuckling anytime Sam Sik or the two Woo Byeok secretaries-turned-salad-farmers appeared on screen. (Yoo In Soo needs more recognition, he's hilarious) I also adore the child actors duo of Ye Jin (Kim So Yoo) and Seo Jin (Park Da On). It's never easy to work with kids, especially to get such a sparkling chemistry from 5-6 year-olds.

The ending didn't make me cry neither of sadness nor of happiness, but The Good Bad Mother will remain one of my favorite dramas memorable for its soft humor, attention to details, engaging plot (who killed WHO?), loveable and energetic characters, and, of course, the cute piglets. 🐖

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