Korean

I watch all these kdramas and they warp my notions of reality. I think that I sympathize more with straight forward characters like Dong Yi and Han Tae Yang because that’s pretty much how I am. Though I think they give themselves more trouble than they really need if they would just be honest with people; not about their more serious secret, but the smaller troubles they get into.

Half these dramas would simply fall apart if one character would turn to another and just lay all the facts out on the table. Instead, everyone has to hold everything all bottled up and creep around all over the place.

Sure, that kind of super melodrama is interesting for a number of episodes, then it just gets repetetive. You want the characters to quit moping around all the time and buck up. At the very least, you stop feeling sorry for the characters and you just think that they should totally cut contact with each other because they would be much better off.

“Bachelor’s Vegetable Store” is strangely compelling for a story about a guy selling vegetables, but I think that they’ve kind of lost track of the charm and have drifted into ridiculous territory. Also, they introduced some side stories for the supporting characters, then they don’t follow through with them. We just get a tiny taste at a time and it’s actually very frustrating.

I was willing to watch 60 episodes of “Dong Yi” because it was just that attention grabbing and entertaining. There were characters that I really cared about and wanted to see get a happy ending.

With “Bachelor’s Vegetable Store,” I’ve kind of gotten to the point where I think Han Tae Yang should just cut his losses and find some other girl to love, one that would actually appreciate him. I just think that she should face up to the fact that she’s more interested in comfort and money than she is in love, and cut the ties; it would be a kindness to just let him go. But there’s no way she’s ever going to do that because she’s selfish. She doesn’t even care enough for him to protect his life from a woman that has shown a willlingness to do horrible things to people.

I’m so disgusted by her, that I think I would appreciate it if there were longer scenes in the secondary characters’ lives to break the tension. Like I have my suspicious about Chan Sol’s situation, but I kind of want to have that proved; that or I would really like an interesting twist. And I’m kind of curious about the seemingly homeless bachelor with the angsty past.

All Systems Red at Amazon

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The Man From Nowhere
Korean action movie
Director: Jeong-beom Lee
Writer: Jeong-beom Lee
Starring: Bin Won, Thanayong Wongtrakul, and Sae-ron Kim

Summary borrowed from IMDB: A quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past takes on a drug- and organ trafficking ring in hope of saving the child who is his only friend.

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Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon

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Movie: A Frozen Flower
Genre: mm, Korean, historical
Rated: R for graphic violence, sex

Director: Ha Yu
Writer: Ha Yu (screenplay)
Stars: Jin-mo Ju, Ji-hyo Song, In-seong Jo

IMDB says: A historical drama set in the Koryo dynasty and focused on the relationship between a king and his bodyguard.

HanCinema says: Source http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr  Synopsis:  In the end of Goryeo era politically manipulated by the Yuan Dynasty, the ambitious King of the Goryeo Dynasty organizes Kunryongwe. Hong Lim, the commander of Kunryongwe, captivates the King of Goryeo, and the Queen keeps her eyes on the relationship between Hong Lim and the King with a reluctant view. Meanwhile, the bilateral relation between Goryeo and the Yuan gets worse as Yuan demands to install the cousin of the King in the Crown Prince of Goryeo with ascribing it to no son the King has. The King refuses it resolutely, so the high-ranking officials of Goryeo, who are in submission to Yuan, are discontented with the king. One day, the King gives Hong Lim a covert yet unobjectionable order to sleep with the Queen instead of himself to protect the independence of Goryeo from the Yuan by making a son, the successor to Goryeo throne.

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