♥️ Love with Hiccups ❗️ °7.8° °VG+°
Aunt and uncle… father & daughter… father-SON, mother/daughter, mother~son, friends, lovers, brothers, coworkers, coworkers who pass out drunk on the lounge sofa, and rivals… Pinocchio shows us that every relationship has its hiccups.
It's a quiz show. Dal is smarter than anyone realized - he's answering all the questions, but he's playing with the crowd even more. He makes a call out to Ha - she cannot lie without a tell! She has the Pinocchio effect. Lying always gives Ha a bad case of hiccups. Did Dal have to talk about her on national TV? She's with their class watching from school - the whole room erupts.
P is a 2014 release that is rated 96 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 65-minute episodes. It should have been only 12-16. It's MAL-content. They stretched it too thin. I got into the Kdrama game in 2021. Therefore, I'm experiencing many things backwards. I was already a fan of these two leads, but seeing them act as kids makes me understand why they became such MEGA stars: They are amazing in this. They carry the viewer through the dry stretches.
Yes, there are dry stretches. Let's get the negatives dispatched. Some of the newsroom drama is simplified but it isn't necessarily bad - it isn't far off from bad, either. One character is on a years-long quest for revenge and gives up that burning desire too easily. It doesn't feel natural. The whole thing with mom's phone doesn't make sense. She would have had to get a new number for the phone to keep working. It makes no sense that they were able to keep the plan going. Am I being too picky? I have no explanation for what I can easily dismiss and what I cannot. The phone thing bothered me… eh, I'll admit it's minor. P is too sappy at times. Towards the end of ep18 Ha cries for her mother. It drove me nuts. Her mother didn't deserve one tear. There's simplified logic, dialogue, and character arcs. The second half drags. Basically, the acting is stellar; the script and direction are not as laudable.
The acting IS STELLAR. Park Shin Hye (Flower Boy Next Door-7, Memories of Alhambra-7) is Choi In “Ha”. Any intermediate Kdrama fan has seen her a handful of times. She's one of the BEST. Early on in her career, she's always tragic and traumatized. {No one wriggles the chin like she! Per AI: “Fans love GIF-ing her exaggerated expressions, including some chin-heavy ones during arguments or cute-rage scenes (toothbrush revenge vibes, anyone?). She even talked about how she practiced real hiccups…} She is nothing short of spectacular in this show. I just don't think she's always chosen the best projects. She's Omazing as an eye-rolling kick@$$ in Sisyphus: The Myth-8. That's her wheelhouse. It's obvious from watching her in P why fans love her. She's exceptional in this show and she carries half of it on her tiny frame.
Lee Jong Suk (Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9, While You Were Sleeping-7.3, and The Hymn of Death-8.4 - my favorite performance of his, so far) plays Choi “Dal” Po and while he doesn't have to hiccup on demand while trying to look earnest and then get teary-eyed angry when it doesn’t work (PSH had the tougher role), he also does an exceptional job.
These two grew up together. Her grandfather adopted Dal after he lost his other son. Then Ha and her own father moved back home with grandpa and “Uncle Dal.” The two navigate HS together and make a pact to be reporters. As they embark on that adventure, fate reopens old wounds and raises other obstacles that make their journey rocky and unsure. Is the fact that Dal has been secretly in love with Ha for a long time an obstacle? Obstacle or not, it's what's happening now.
Pinocchio syndrome seems incompatible with being a reporter! C'mon: A reporter who can't lie?! Preposterous! But when a news broadcast suffers low ratings coupled with a decline in trust, she's seen as the perfect stunt to catapult them back into relevance. Dal, himself, breezes through the interview process, so there they are together, along with the rest of the miscreant band of probationary hires. One of those new hires is Seo Beom “Jo” (Kim Young Kwang from Hello, Me!-6.7 & Call It Love-8.4- which I seemed to like more than most. Go figure) He's a pretty boy, and boy is he wealthy. He's probably a mama's boy, too. Dal has serious competition. A much younger Kim Hae Sook is Park Ro Sa, Ja's mama. From a humble grandma in Start-up (my first look at her) to the Jade emperor in Tomorrow-8, she can do anything. My favorite role of hers was in Hospital Playlist-9.
Jin Kyung (Extraordinary Attorney Woo) is Song Cha Ok, Ha's bio-mom. I only remember seeing her in Melancholia-10, a woefully underrated masterpiece - and her performance is nothing short of legendary. Jang Young Nam portrays one of the character's mothers. She has a lovely earthy/raspy voice. I've seen her in The Devil Judge-8.2, It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, and My Sassy Girl-8.5. She's 3-for-3 with me. The director is Jo Soo Won (Doctor John, Awaken-8.7) and the screenwriter is
Park Hye Ryun (While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Castaway Diva).
The romance is entirely unfair. Ha is unable to lie about her attraction to Dal, but he can pull the wool over her indefinitely - they each have their reasons for what they're doing. Then, enter the other love interests. One of Ha's coworkers is interested in her. He's every bit as good looking, arguably… it all comes down to taste after all, and this other dude is wealthy. He's perfect (except for being too attached to his Oma). The way the two men square off against each other while she is oblivious is adorable.
The filming is really pretty in spots. In ep2 they walk a cliffside road overlooking Azure seas and flamingo pink skies. Their first kiss is so cute! Under the warm, white, winter lights, amidst the newly falling snow, they lock eyes. She starts to explain her last hiccuping incident, but she stops talking when she sees how he's looking at her. At first she covers her mouth. She's scared! So, he just kisses her hand. They have some gorgeous scenes together that are convincingly tender.
Before Ha was finally hired /for/ her disability, it was keeping her down. Way down, like 7-11 clerk level. She tried to keep going forward, but the pressure was starting to escape: “I'll hiccup forever! I was almost a reporter but I failed! Life is hopeless! I graduated 3 years ago and look at me!” (Sometimes she just had to let off steam…) Confused customer: “Could I have my change, please?” 🤣 PSH's wailing 7-11 clerk motif is hilarious. {AI: YESSSSS. The wailing 7-11 clerk motif is unhinged genius. Park Shin-hye just fully commits to these sudden, full-body, high-pitched “AHHHHHHHH—” meltdowns like she just got yelled at by her 17th drunk customer at 2 a.m. and her soul has left her body. The way she throws her head back, clutches her chest, lets the wail spiral up into pure chaos, then snaps right back into bubbly rookie mode like nothing happened? Iconic.}
One of the things that touched me the most in P was Shin Jung Keun (from The Soup and A Birth) as Ha's father. His acting is incredible. He keeps looking at his daughter with love and longing. He wants to shield her from anything unpleasant, but when he speaks it comes out as disdain and lite abuse. He has no idea how to express himself! We are treated to his thoughts (💭my daughter is the most beautiful woman in the world, she is so precious, I want everything good for her💭… “💢Hey! Don't you dare come home late tonight❗” {AI: “That hits like a gut punch wrapped in a hug. Dad’s eyes are doing all the heavy lifting - soft, aching, desperate to wrap her in bubble wrap and keep the world from ever scratching her - while his mouth spits out that clipped, dismissive tone that lands like a backhanded slap. It’s such a perfect little portrait of a certain generation of Korean (and honestly, a lot of Asian) fathers: emotionally fluent in their heads, verbally bankrupt in real life. They’d walk through fire for you, but they’d rather die than say it. So they bark orders, nitpick, act annoyed… while their eyes are screaming “please be safe, please be happy, I’m terrified of losing you.”} 🤗 Dad almost quietly stole the show. He owns those scenes.
In the latter episodes doing the right thing becomes more than any ideological concept. It becomes a hurdle. The only way to become fully human is to do the right thing… no matter how difficult it is.
QUOTES🗣
Words saved a life.
What's merely a story to us is someone else's life.
IMHO〰🖍
RATINGS 🎬7 🖊7 🎭10 💓7 🦋6 🎨6 🎶6 🔚7.5 🤗4.5 ▪ LEVELS 🌞6⚡3 😅3 😭4 😱2 😬3 🤢2 🤔4.5 💤2.5
Age 11+ the show is actually on a kid level in a good way.
Re-📺? No comment
Family & Where You Find It
Racket Boys-8.3,
Reply 1988-8.6,
Hospital Playlist 9 (give it 3 episodes to get warmed up),
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
The Bros-7.4,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Mine-8
Playful kiss-7.3,
One Spring Night-7.8,
Never Give Up-7.3,
My Unfamiliar Family-7.9,
My First First Love-8,
Strongest Delivery Man-6.6,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7
💋Dopamine Factory⚗️
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
Oh My Venus-7.4K,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
A Witch's Love-7.9,
Business Proposal-7
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2,
Her Private Life-8,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Nevertheless-7.6
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9,
Hidden Love-7.8
J🇯🇵: 7th Time Loop-7.9,
Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion-8.4,
It's a quiz show. Dal is smarter than anyone realized - he's answering all the questions, but he's playing with the crowd even more. He makes a call out to Ha - she cannot lie without a tell! She has the Pinocchio effect. Lying always gives Ha a bad case of hiccups. Did Dal have to talk about her on national TV? She's with their class watching from school - the whole room erupts.
P is a 2014 release that is rated 96 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 65-minute episodes. It should have been only 12-16. It's MAL-content. They stretched it too thin. I got into the Kdrama game in 2021. Therefore, I'm experiencing many things backwards. I was already a fan of these two leads, but seeing them act as kids makes me understand why they became such MEGA stars: They are amazing in this. They carry the viewer through the dry stretches.
Yes, there are dry stretches. Let's get the negatives dispatched. Some of the newsroom drama is simplified but it isn't necessarily bad - it isn't far off from bad, either. One character is on a years-long quest for revenge and gives up that burning desire too easily. It doesn't feel natural. The whole thing with mom's phone doesn't make sense. She would have had to get a new number for the phone to keep working. It makes no sense that they were able to keep the plan going. Am I being too picky? I have no explanation for what I can easily dismiss and what I cannot. The phone thing bothered me… eh, I'll admit it's minor. P is too sappy at times. Towards the end of ep18 Ha cries for her mother. It drove me nuts. Her mother didn't deserve one tear. There's simplified logic, dialogue, and character arcs. The second half drags. Basically, the acting is stellar; the script and direction are not as laudable.
The acting IS STELLAR. Park Shin Hye (Flower Boy Next Door-7, Memories of Alhambra-7) is Choi In “Ha”. Any intermediate Kdrama fan has seen her a handful of times. She's one of the BEST. Early on in her career, she's always tragic and traumatized. {No one wriggles the chin like she! Per AI: “Fans love GIF-ing her exaggerated expressions, including some chin-heavy ones during arguments or cute-rage scenes (toothbrush revenge vibes, anyone?). She even talked about how she practiced real hiccups…} She is nothing short of spectacular in this show. I just don't think she's always chosen the best projects. She's Omazing as an eye-rolling kick@$$ in Sisyphus: The Myth-8. That's her wheelhouse. It's obvious from watching her in P why fans love her. She's exceptional in this show and she carries half of it on her tiny frame.
Lee Jong Suk (Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9, While You Were Sleeping-7.3, and The Hymn of Death-8.4 - my favorite performance of his, so far) plays Choi “Dal” Po and while he doesn't have to hiccup on demand while trying to look earnest and then get teary-eyed angry when it doesn’t work (PSH had the tougher role), he also does an exceptional job.
These two grew up together. Her grandfather adopted Dal after he lost his other son. Then Ha and her own father moved back home with grandpa and “Uncle Dal.” The two navigate HS together and make a pact to be reporters. As they embark on that adventure, fate reopens old wounds and raises other obstacles that make their journey rocky and unsure. Is the fact that Dal has been secretly in love with Ha for a long time an obstacle? Obstacle or not, it's what's happening now.
Pinocchio syndrome seems incompatible with being a reporter! C'mon: A reporter who can't lie?! Preposterous! But when a news broadcast suffers low ratings coupled with a decline in trust, she's seen as the perfect stunt to catapult them back into relevance. Dal, himself, breezes through the interview process, so there they are together, along with the rest of the miscreant band of probationary hires. One of those new hires is Seo Beom “Jo” (Kim Young Kwang from Hello, Me!-6.7 & Call It Love-8.4- which I seemed to like more than most. Go figure) He's a pretty boy, and boy is he wealthy. He's probably a mama's boy, too. Dal has serious competition. A much younger Kim Hae Sook is Park Ro Sa, Ja's mama. From a humble grandma in Start-up (my first look at her) to the Jade emperor in Tomorrow-8, she can do anything. My favorite role of hers was in Hospital Playlist-9.
Jin Kyung (Extraordinary Attorney Woo) is Song Cha Ok, Ha's bio-mom. I only remember seeing her in Melancholia-10, a woefully underrated masterpiece - and her performance is nothing short of legendary. Jang Young Nam portrays one of the character's mothers. She has a lovely earthy/raspy voice. I've seen her in The Devil Judge-8.2, It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, and My Sassy Girl-8.5. She's 3-for-3 with me. The director is Jo Soo Won (Doctor John, Awaken-8.7) and the screenwriter is
Park Hye Ryun (While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Castaway Diva).
The romance is entirely unfair. Ha is unable to lie about her attraction to Dal, but he can pull the wool over her indefinitely - they each have their reasons for what they're doing. Then, enter the other love interests. One of Ha's coworkers is interested in her. He's every bit as good looking, arguably… it all comes down to taste after all, and this other dude is wealthy. He's perfect (except for being too attached to his Oma). The way the two men square off against each other while she is oblivious is adorable.
The filming is really pretty in spots. In ep2 they walk a cliffside road overlooking Azure seas and flamingo pink skies. Their first kiss is so cute! Under the warm, white, winter lights, amidst the newly falling snow, they lock eyes. She starts to explain her last hiccuping incident, but she stops talking when she sees how he's looking at her. At first she covers her mouth. She's scared! So, he just kisses her hand. They have some gorgeous scenes together that are convincingly tender.
Before Ha was finally hired /for/ her disability, it was keeping her down. Way down, like 7-11 clerk level. She tried to keep going forward, but the pressure was starting to escape: “I'll hiccup forever! I was almost a reporter but I failed! Life is hopeless! I graduated 3 years ago and look at me!” (Sometimes she just had to let off steam…) Confused customer: “Could I have my change, please?” 🤣 PSH's wailing 7-11 clerk motif is hilarious. {AI: YESSSSS. The wailing 7-11 clerk motif is unhinged genius. Park Shin-hye just fully commits to these sudden, full-body, high-pitched “AHHHHHHHH—” meltdowns like she just got yelled at by her 17th drunk customer at 2 a.m. and her soul has left her body. The way she throws her head back, clutches her chest, lets the wail spiral up into pure chaos, then snaps right back into bubbly rookie mode like nothing happened? Iconic.}
One of the things that touched me the most in P was Shin Jung Keun (from The Soup and A Birth) as Ha's father. His acting is incredible. He keeps looking at his daughter with love and longing. He wants to shield her from anything unpleasant, but when he speaks it comes out as disdain and lite abuse. He has no idea how to express himself! We are treated to his thoughts (💭my daughter is the most beautiful woman in the world, she is so precious, I want everything good for her💭… “💢Hey! Don't you dare come home late tonight❗” {AI: “That hits like a gut punch wrapped in a hug. Dad’s eyes are doing all the heavy lifting - soft, aching, desperate to wrap her in bubble wrap and keep the world from ever scratching her - while his mouth spits out that clipped, dismissive tone that lands like a backhanded slap. It’s such a perfect little portrait of a certain generation of Korean (and honestly, a lot of Asian) fathers: emotionally fluent in their heads, verbally bankrupt in real life. They’d walk through fire for you, but they’d rather die than say it. So they bark orders, nitpick, act annoyed… while their eyes are screaming “please be safe, please be happy, I’m terrified of losing you.”} 🤗 Dad almost quietly stole the show. He owns those scenes.
In the latter episodes doing the right thing becomes more than any ideological concept. It becomes a hurdle. The only way to become fully human is to do the right thing… no matter how difficult it is.
QUOTES🗣
Words saved a life.
What's merely a story to us is someone else's life.
IMHO〰🖍
RATINGS 🎬7 🖊7 🎭10 💓7 🦋6 🎨6 🎶6 🔚7.5 🤗4.5 ▪ LEVELS 🌞6⚡3 😅3 😭4 😱2 😬3 🤢2 🤔4.5 💤2.5
Age 11+ the show is actually on a kid level in a good way.
Re-📺? No comment
Family & Where You Find It
Racket Boys-8.3,
Reply 1988-8.6,
Hospital Playlist 9 (give it 3 episodes to get warmed up),
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
The Bros-7.4,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Mine-8
Playful kiss-7.3,
One Spring Night-7.8,
Never Give Up-7.3,
My Unfamiliar Family-7.9,
My First First Love-8,
Strongest Delivery Man-6.6,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7
💋Dopamine Factory⚗️
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
Oh My Venus-7.4K,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
A Witch's Love-7.9,
Business Proposal-7
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2,
Her Private Life-8,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Oh My Ghost 10,
Descendants Of The Sun-8.3,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Nevertheless-7.6
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9,
Hidden Love-7.8
J🇯🇵: 7th Time Loop-7.9,
Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion-8.4,
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