heartstrings / you've fallen for me 넌 내게 반했어 [series]

Im not arrogant, i just really am that great.

cast:

the stupid: singer/guitarist – Jung YongHwa (cn blue, you’re beautiful)

the stupid: drummer - Kang MinHyuk (cn blue, its ok daddy’s girl)

the stupid: guitarist – Oh WonBin (ex FT Island, muscle girl)

the stupid: bassist - Song SeHyun
KyuWon - Park ShinHye (you’re beautiful, goong)

Im SeMi as Cha BoWoon – kyuwon’s friend

WooRi as Han HeeJoo – (stuck up actress that the drummer loves)

Lee HyunJin - KiJoung (guy with stage fright who comes back to college)

Lee JungHun as Im Tae Joon (the jealous department head teacher)

So YiHyun. - Jung YoonSoo (the dance teacher)

So having watched you’re beautiful and having loved it sincerely, I was very exited to hear Park ShinHye and Jung YongHwa would be pairing up again for another drama called heartstings, (the Korean title is you’ve fallen for me - and it was called festival before that) probably eagerly awaited by all cn blue fans alike (especially as YongHwa is joined by his bandmate Kang MinHyuk). To my absolute sudden joy, who should appear in front of my eyes but Oh WonBin. Ureshii squee. (I continued to ureshii squee every time he came on screen – it was rather impressively relentless of me)

Basically from the outset it was going to be fantastic, it is full of people who really deliver warmth and emotion well and who give a lot of personality to their characters.

I really like director Kim SukHyun played by Song ChangUi and Jung YoonSoo played by So YiHyun. The supporting cast, especially KyuWon’s grandfather are all really likable, I could gush on and on I guess but I wont for now. Let’s just get on with the plot synop.

We realise KyuWon [Park ShinHye] is a bit of a clumsy girl from the get go, we meet both her and LeeShin [YongHwa] at the start before they know each other (both looking unbelievably beautiful I might add. That girl is stunning in this drama) and then we follow them as they meet and become ‘friends’. Of course, they kinda hate each other at first so there we go, but it doesn’t take long for her to fall for him. He is such a pr*ck for ages – it is truly great.

So basically, LeeShin is in love with the dance teacher YoonSoo, director Kim SukHyun who used to be in a relationship with her comes back from Broadway to direct the musical in the university, they obviously still have something between them.

LeeShin is in a well loved rock band called the stupid and through various situations that occur he is thrust together with KyuWon to work on the music for the musical. (By this point she had lost a bet and been his slave for an age, and the drummer of the stupid had fallen head over heals in love with little miss lead eating disorder actress Han Hee joo [WooRi] and all manner of other stupidness that I cant even remember has happened).

LeeShin is a d*ck to almost everyone all the time, KyuWon is adorable and manages to win most people over after some hard work, MinHyuk is hysterically cute as the bonkers off the planet away with the fairies oblivious bounding puppy JoonHee who follows jumped-up arrogant little b*tch-face Han HeeJoo around like she is made of daisies. My favourite line in reference to him: don’t take him seriously or you’ll get really annoyed. (^_^)

It is a very funny and sweet series with lots of great music and heart warming moments. I hate watching stuff that is airing. I have to wait for episodes – it makes me irritable that I can’t watch the next one when I want to.

I will point out in case anyone wonders, there are 16 episodes but one of them is a flash back filler because Park ShinHye had an accident and had to go into hospital for a little bit. So it is 15 full episodes to the series.

I raced through the first 9 episodes to catch up with what had already aired then wished I had waited to watch them all once they were out – as it was not what I had the patience for. I love love loved this series. I hate that they have to end it.

Yes, the two main characters have that banter you get in most dramas – the whole love hate thing, but also they have such a sweet loving bond – especially when he gets over himself for five minutes and acts all protective over her.

She does fall over a lot so there are plenty of opportunities for him to see her as the damsel who needs saving from stuff. Hard things, like the floor.

And her scattered brain. And his own sharp tongue.

And the floor a few more times.

One of my favourite characters is director Kim SukHyun. He takes a shine to KyuWon in the sense that he can see her beautiful personality and potential – he does cause heaps of problems for her along the way by pushing her to do stuff all the time though, like be in the musical when everyone hates her, – though turning him down would be a chore for anyone.

There are some great character pairings and I think there wasn’t an even slightly less than perfect match of actor and character in the whole program. And now that I have come to the end I just hate that the only way to see keep seeing them all is to watch the bloody thing all over again. Which I probably will do at some point later down the line.

By the end I just wanted to bang their f*cking heads together – why is everything I’m watching at the moment so frustrating?! Between the last three episodes of heartstrings and the mid point in Zenkai Girl, I’m just about ready to march over there and punch them all in the face for being such f*cking idiots! Aish! It’s so annoying! Just be honest and you wouldn’t be in these messes!!! For f*ck sake!

Aigoo.

Anyway, aside from being unbelievably cuted out by the main characters and their adorable friends as well, - actually I was going to say that it is an interesting story and all that but really for me it was all about being cuted out by their adorableness.

I love Park ShinHye. I love her. I should never be allowed to meet her ever – I would get arrested for trying to squeeze her into my pocket so I could take her home and keep her. Never let this happen – please. If you are there, and you see me coming, for god’s sake get her to safety – She is just too cute and wonderful.

So, what have we got? Park ShinHye – goes without saying, a genius addition to the drama. Such skill, really funny, completely lovable. YongHwa – stunning voice, brilliant watery eyes, and such fantastic fun to watch when he is being so mean! MinHyuk – I don’t think he could have been any more adorable and brilliant, he must have taken acting lessons from a litter of new born puppies. (god that was a sickly thing to say!) Im SeMi – also must have gone to the same puppy class as MinHyuk. It is too much cuteness for me. I’m overloading.

I suppose it is balanced out by LeeShin’s absolute d*ckheadedness – actually I guess HeeJoo’s aswell. Yes it is obvious we are gonna love them by the end! But that just makes it all the more alright to love how mean they are at the start!

(You can tell how much I loved the show because all how many exclamation marks I’m using. I don’t like to use them normally)

The soundtrack is great, and there are some places online where you can find the incidentals and some of the score as well. Most of the pieces are performed by the cast and there is even one by HongKi in there also. (that tune really didn’t help stem the tide of tears when things were all cracking up though – god damn it we don’t need that boy making it harder for us!)

I know this drama was hugely popular. I hope it didn’t disappoint anyone. The ratings were appropriately high and I hope people’s reactions were also appreciative and warm. They are just deserving of the praise this show has been receiving.

There are so many talented Korean stars it makes me sick. Eternally indebted to the Korean entertainment industry for constantly showing us all this wonderful sh*t. I cant seem to stop loving it all – which really doesn’t help as I really need to concentrate on my Japanese studies right now.

This was never going to be a good review was it. From the outset. All I was bound to do was gush. Cant be helped. The whole thing was too cute for appropriate words.

‘You’ve fallen for me’  ..?   You’re damn right I have.

short clip, MinHyuk acting like a puppy dork:

The cast:

The cast:

The stupid:

The promo poster:

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Jungdok중독 [movie]

I will have to do an epic spoiler rant but I will put it at the end of the post so just don’t read past the spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it already

Another quiet, sad feeling movie, featuring the wonderful Lee ByungHun, I really like Jungdok and just had a feeling it would be something worth giving my attention to. It also stars the lovely Lee MiYeon who I think I recognize from the first whispering corridors – I know I’ve seen her in something before this – but anyway – she was really perfectly cast in her role for this film.

It has done nothing but re-affirm my stead fast view that nothing beats Korean cinema. Unfortunately most of the reason for that will be in my spoiler rant at the end, I can’t explain much of why I adore this film without splurging all the details. So for now, I will outline the basic plot and give you some more pictures of these beautiful people.

 

EunSu and HoJin are a blissfully married couple with an extremely close relationship. Living with them is HoJin’s younger brother DaeJin, and they are very close with him too. Although DaeJin seems a little carefree and reckless he and his sensible and stable brother live harmoniously together even in HoJin’s married home.

 

Due to two separate car accidents at the same time, both brothers end up in comas for over a year and only DaeJin is able to eventually wake. But, as they are all shocked to find out, DaeJin is saying he is really somehow HoJin inside DaeJin’s body.

* when he wakes up and walks around the hospital - god! the way he moves his feet and cant straighten his toes out - it was so so so well acted, my legs hurt watching it *

The traumatic nature of this occurrence understandably puts a strain on EunSu and DaeJin’s friend YeJin (played by the beautiful Park SunYoung) who has been in love with DaeJin for years. But most of all it seems to be unbearable for the supposed HoJin to have to act like DaeJin because everyone believes he is just sick.

Cast:

EunSu – Lee MiYeon

DaeJin – Lee ByungHun

HoJin – Lee Eol

YeJin – Park SunYoung

As time goes on HoJin/DaeJin shows EunSu more and more that he really is who he says he is and she begins to trust what she sees in him. But how hard must that be? To succumb to that thought, knowing it could be that she just desperately wants it to be true. There is so much uncertainty and quiet desperation that even loving scenes between the pair just feel heart wrenching and almost pitiful. Her acceptance of him would be a slow and fragile process so he tries to just continue working as he always did.

 

ByungHun, as always, has such grace and subtly in his portrayal of his characters that it is hard not to feel the uncomfortable signs in Jungdok that something isn’t right. His warm manner when interacting with YeJin is unusual, and all the things he knows about EunSu and how he acts with her are so out of character for DaeJin - the connection is there and the love is most definitely real, so it could be that he really is HoJin.

I love that they start to just take it as it is, DaeJin thinks he’s HoJin but we wont section him or anything, we’ll just go back to living in the house like we were before and he’ll be ok in the end.

What else can I say before I go into mass spoiler mode? Not much, as it is all the things that would spoil it for you that I love about the movie and its perfect ending.

spoilers below movie poster.

Ok, so here we have one massive great big f*ck off spoiler alert. Got it?

*spoilers below*

So normally with western films of this nature, when the girl finds out she has been tricked by the brother pretending to be the husband because he has loved her since before time began and it caused him to go all stalker types of mental, the girl would normally find out in some sugoku shokku way and go nuts crying and screaming etc etc try to run away and he goes all “you can’t leave me I love you” type stuff and they have a big old fight and she stabs him in the leg or whatever and, I dunno, he attacks her and she manages to kill him in the end or the other comatose husband wakes up and saves her or something equally as sh*t as that.

But here, we have a Korean movie. So my hopes are always a little higher to begin with. When she found out and started crying and I thought: “Oh no! Don’t leave him! Please just be ok with it!”

Is that weird of me? I really didn’t want her to be all freaked out – and just deal with it. She is happy now, why f*ck it up? When she went into see him at the exhibition and was all putting on the smile and forcing herself to get over it and deal, I frantically went to the search bar on the movie player and saw there were only a few minutes left – no time for any big ass fight scenes – she’s… she’s… its… its… its gonna end like this? Oh my god, it’s gonna end like this!

I was so f*cking happy. Stuff never happens how I think it should – usually because it isn’t really how people should behave *sulks* but screw that! He wasn’t just stalking her or anything, he genuinely was doing everything he could just to be in her life and be good to her. Right until then end. When he was crying on the rocks, asking his brother to never forgive him… aish, seriously beautiful. I think I am a bit messed up in the head.

But go back to the scene where they get it on, now I usually find something to distract myself with or get up and brush my hair or something until they’ve finished with most scenes like that, cos im – well – y’know …me, but I just sat and stared. There was something unbelievably sad going on there. ByungHun was just killing me by this point, DaeJin was sort of crying, and EunSu was giving in to the hope that he was HoJin, I thought it looked like it was the first time they had ever touched each other – because it f*cking was!!!

Aish, I seriously love how that ended and I chose to believe that they stay together forever and when they are super old at one point something happens that lets the cat out of the bag and she calmly says “I know. I have known since before the baby was born” and he is all tears and whatever and she hugs him, smiles and says a lovely quiet warm ‘Saranghaeyo’ and he realises that she loves him as who he is now not just the memory of the real HoJin – I could go on and on with that fairy story.

So yet again, the stalker thing came out on top. I really worry… Asian movies and dramas are feeding my already twisted idea of what love is… I am not sure watching this sh*t is such a good idea anymore but I am too hooked now to do anything about it.

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A bittersweet life 달콤한 인생 [movie]

Some people just look at home all bloody and stuff y’know?

My first introduction to Lee ByungHun, and waaaaay before I knew who Shin Minah was, this movie came into my life at the very beginning of my interest in Korean cinema. After watching Kim JeeWoon’s A Tale Of Two Sisters and Park ChanWook’s Vengeance Trilogy I sought out a few other south Korean movies (by using amazon.com recommendations of all things – this was epic amounts of years ago when I knew nothing) and bought Kim KiDuk’s The Bow and Samaritan Girl, and Kim JeeWoon’s A Bittersweet Life. It is a film I watch when it has reached the point where I have sort of forgotten exactly what happens again and every time I get about half way through I start to remember how it all erupts and I fall for the movie all over again.

This, like all other Kim JeeWoon films I have seen, stands out from others in the same genre. In this case it is partly due to the actor cast in the main role but mainly due to the quiet, sad, beautiful and lonely feel to a dramatic and violent story.

So, first off, I will explain a little about the greatness that is ByungHun. I would say without hesitation that he is one of my favourite actors, and having just this afternoon watched some other movies of his that I hadn’t seen yet, I was reminded of where I first saw him and thought I should write this one up before I go ahead with the others.

This film does offer all the things you want from Asian gangster type shooty bloody fighty nasties, but ByungHun has a quality that brings unspoken depth and texture that would be sorely missed if his character was merely played as a hard man. This is obviously a necessary part of the role and as ByungHun conveys all this crazy amount of feeling with just a simple glance or exhalation of breath, the combination of him and this character was ideal.

Now, I haven’t watched this since I knew Shin Minah had more tails than you could shake a stick at (don’t shake sticks at a gumiho, she’ll eat your liver) but it makes total sense now when I think about it. I knew I recognised her from somewhere else before gumiho and the devil and whatever else it was that I cant remember off the top of my head, and actually her image came flooding back to me while I wasn’t even watching sweet life, I just suddenly thought - it was her. Bizarre.

Shin Minah is another one with that ambiguous quality – you can see thoughts flying around in that mind of hers and you can see her feelings in her eyes but you just can’t get hold of them - as if she is not really on the same plane of existence as you. In this movie she is beautiful as ever, and fits the part perfectly with a quiet, unexplainable poise and free spirit.

For outlining the plot I want to be careful not to give any spoilers to this review but the film almost feels like it is in four parts and I should not say too much that happens later on if I can help it.

ByunHun plays SunWoo, a guy who works for a powerful underground gang boss called kang, he is a hard man and hotel manager ordered to take care of business above and below ground when needed. Kang requests a personal job from SunWoo, to follow his young girlfriend and take care of the problem if she is cheating on him. Being drawn to the girl’s sweet nature and spirit, when SunWoo finds her with another man he cannot help but let her go, but in doing so he opens up a world of pain for himself and quickly finds himself on the run, tortured, buried alive, and then on a killing spree in order to get to kang to finally settle it all.

Parts of this film are brutal. But it depends how desensitised you are to how you see violence in general anyway. It also depends on how much you look at the context when you watch films like these. I spend most of the time sad when he gets hurt, not wincing in squeamish shock. Again possibly due to ByungHun’s abilities, but regardless, I just don’t see SunWoo as any old brutish hard man.

The fight scenes are awesome, especially when he really goes ape-sh*t in the rain and mud etc. The further into the film you get, the more blood is lost, and the more wretched they all become. The sheer exhaustion felt by SunWoo is contagious and as a viewer you want to find some way out for him somehow.

I really think it is more than just a “relentless action-thriller” comparable to western Scorsese types as it says on the dvd cover, He is not just tough, or bitter, or vengeful in a hard man’s game. He is finding out about human nature, love, and morality (in a gangstery sort of way) while trying to save himself in a completely unforgiving world.

It has that beautiful pace that all Kim JeeWoon movies have, and that lonely feeling that you just can’t shake. It is far more than its blurb makes it out to be. The title is completely fitting though. How can you watch such bloody beatings and still call it a beautiful film? Kim JeeWoon that’s how. I know I am biased because A Tale Of Two Sisters is one of my favourite horror films in the world, but there is a reason for that. I like movies that aren’t just completely all their allocated genre. No matter how savage or testing, if it is still beautiful somehow then it is likely to feel worth the effort in watching. It is why I watch more Korean movies than anything else. That beauty is always present in Kim JeeWoon films, and A Bittersweet Life is possibly the most perfect example.

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