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paula-karlstam
Reviews
Doona! (2023)
A love story with depth and melancoly.
Doona (Bae Suzy) is the front icon of an idol group, when she has a breakdown and drops out. She moves into a small rental complex where the other tenants are college students. Lee Won-joon (Yang Se-jong) also moves into the house.
Doona is a seeker, an insecure soul, self-destructive, unreliable and driven by impulse. Won-joon is cautious, controlled, and tied down. They are each other's opposites, but coincidences cause them to develop a fragile friendship and a mutual dependence on each other.
The plot is subordinate in this fine-tuned little gem where the actors get to excel in low-key portraits of two people who meet and become each other's lifeblood but also their greatest weakness, who challenge the other's self-image and shake up what they thought they knew about themselves, their life choices and their dreams.
Anyone looking for an easy-to-digest k-drama will be disappointed. It's low key, serious, slow and wistful. It is real and painful. The photography is fantastic, the soundtrack well chosen. The interaction is exquisite between Bae Suzy, who gives her (in my opinion) best performance, and the absolutely magnificent Yang Se-jong, who's performance goes straight to the heart.
This is the best I've seen this year. Possibly it could have benefited from a few more episodes, to deepen the characters' backstories somewhat, but that's just a small note in the margin. The ending is unexpected and can be interpreted in several ways, which is quite unusual in Korean series I've seen.
If you enjoyed My Liberation Notes, Our Blues and Nevertheless, this series is for you. I give it 9.5 out of 10 wistful hearts.
King Deo Raendeu (2023)
Sadly lacking
King the Land (2023, series, 16 episodes)
Director: Im Hyun-wook
Screenplay: Choi Rom
Seen on: Netflix
Gu Won (Lee Jun-ho) is the son of one of the country's business magnates and has just returned to Korea after a long stay abroad. Won is handsome, smart and confident, but he hides emotional wounds and is quite a loner with an edgy and harsh personality. Won's mother disappeared from the picture when he was little and he has never had answers to his questions about why she left him. All he was met with from the adults were stiff smiles and evasive answers.
Because of this, relations with the family are frosty, not least that between Won and his half-sister, Gu Wha-ran (Sun-young Kim). When the father puts Won in charge of the King Hotel, which is an important part of the company that also consists of an airline and a department store, the relationship becomes even more strained.
Cheon Sa-rang has been working at the hotel for some time. She has always dreamed of working in a hotel, has a charming and smooth manner and a smile that can make the stiffest person soften. Because of this, she has made a fast career within the hotel and has been named best employee.
When Won and Sa-rang meet, their personalities clash. Won thinks Sa-rang is fake while Sa-rang thinks Won is rude and rude. When they are nevertheless forced to collaborate on a marketing mission, they slowly begin to see other sides to each other and realize that first impressions can be completely wrong.
I had such high expectations for this series, being a huge Junho fan, but oh my, what a disappointment this was! Why? Yes, where to start?
The script is occasionally a disaster, uneven and superficial. Flat, uninteresting scenes that drag on endlessly are followed by silly trip and fall scenes we've all seen a million times and feel so dated. Next to that, it's an orgy in "favorable angle", where both Junho and Yoona are shown in slow motion with soft lighting, in sliding zooms feasting on cheekbones, eyes and chin lines, and one can't help but think that the series is mostly to promote them for upcoming projects and give them a bigger fan base (which worked, Junho has doubled the number of followers on his Instagram account). Another huge minus is the countless, clumsy product placements, where the Thailand trip, which is like one long commercial (think of the country introductions in Eurovision), takes the prize.
The parts of the story that could engage are spent far too little time on, or the seriousness is joked away. For example, Sa-rang's friend, Kang Da-eul (Kim Ga-eun) has marital problems. Her husband is an irresponsible, spoiled type who leaves all responsibility for the home and children to Da-eul while he lies, gambles, and parties away his money. There is a seed of social criticism here, but it is all brushed away with "humor", where the husband, caught up in his excesses, is forced to look after the household wearing an apron, while he complains loudly. Mossy.
Yet another side story suffers from the same problem. Sa-rang's other friend, Oh Pyeong-wha (Go Won-Hee) works at the airline that is part of the King group. Pyeong-wha has long hoped for a promotion, but is once again overtaken by a younger, less experienced colleague. The reason turns out to be that Pyeong-wha is divorced. Here, too, a golden opportunity to question current norms, that is, but this opportunity is also missed. A male colleague saves the day by saying that he really likes Pyeong-wha, divorced or not.
The gender roles in the series are thus sadly traditional. Some attempts at nuance are made, but it falls flat when, in the following sequence, the hero lifts up an unwilling heroine and carries her away, while she stares wide-eyed and holds her hand over her mouth in shock. "Cringe!" as my boys would say.
The family story, about why the relations in the family are so cold, about why Won's mother disappeared and why Wha-ran harbors such a grudge against Won, is the part of the series that burns and engages, and in those parts it feels like a completely different, more serious series, which in itself becomes a problem, as it creates discrepancy in the viewer. Unfortunately, this part of the story got mixed up a bit half-heartedly at the end.
King the Land's biggest problem is that the basic story is about a clash between upper class and lower class, workers and management, old hierarchies and a modern approach, but you don't take that story seriously. Won wants to change the company culture and elevate the employees as the company's most important resource. Good, but no real change happens, because all problems are solved with the help of money and power, which means that the change is no deeper than a person's will (Wons), and really only sprung from his infatuation and desire to make life better for the subject for his love, as well as winning points with her. It revels in luxury, with Won showering an overwhelmed and impressed Sa-rang (and her friends) with gadgets, trips, dinners and power. At the end of the day, money and status rule and nothing has changed.
What will be the grade then? This series wouldn't have been worth more than a second, if it wasn't for the amazing cast that make the most of this gloom and occasionally actually make it shine. Names like Se-ha Ahn, Kim Young-ok, Byung-ho Son and Kim Jae-Won, in addition to those mentioned above, still make me give the series 4/10. The next time I see Junho, however, I expect something much more interesting.
Love to Hate You (2023)
Modern comedy with brain and heart
Do you need a little romance in your life, but have a hard time finding something touching? Have you had enough of wide-eyed stare dry kisses and want some heat? Are you longing for strong female portraits and nuanced male portraits? Can you imagine a giggle or ten? Then this is the series for you!
Yeo Mi-ran (Kim Ok-bin) is a lawyer at a small law firm she runs with a classmate from university. She has a distrust of men rooted in a poor relationship with a patriarchal father as well as several failed relationships, the most recent of which ended when she caught her boyfriend Lee Jin-seo (Jeon Shin-hwan) cheating.
When the classmate also turns out to be a less reliable man, Mi-ran leaves the firm and looks for a job at established law firms without getting a bite. Desperate as she is, she finally applies for a position at a notorious law firm that only handles famous clients and only has male employees, including the ex-boyfriend. To Mi-ran's surprise, she is offered the job.
One of the clients at the firm is Korea's hottest male actor, Nam Kang-ho (Teo Yoo).
Mi-ran doesn't have much left for him, as she has partly heard that he despises women and partly suspects that he has a relationship with an underage girl. Therefore, when Kang-ho passes Mi-ran on her first day at the agency, she deliberately trips him.
When Kang-ho and Mi-ran meet at a party organized by the law firm, he puts her up against the wall. In an attempt to avoid retaliation, Mi-ran claims to be Kang-ho's fan, that she accidentally felled him, as she impulsively just wanted to touch him.
Due to various circumstances, Mi-ran is appointed to represent Kang-ho. When a false rumor threatens Kang-ho's career, Mi-ran agrees to fake date Kang-ho. Kang-ho, having developed feelings for Mi-ran, decides to use the time they are dating to try to win her heart.
This is a modern, smart and stylish comedy starring a lovely Kim Ok-bin and a sensitive Teo Yoo. It's a wonderful ensemble drama, a bit like Romance is a Bonusbook, where the supporting characters are at least as important as the main characters. Among other things, we see a wonderful Kim Ji-hoon as Do Won-jun, Kang-ho's manager and best friend. The fits of laughter he is the cause of are legion! For me he steals the show. Other excellent actors are Kim Sung-ryung and Baek Sung-chul, to name a few.
There are funny misunderstandings and entanglements, there are silly situations and crazy elements, there is humor and heart and seriousness and a little blackness. Characters who are allowed to be human and show the full spectrum of emotions. It's as good as only Korean series can be. The only downside is that it is too short! I give it a 9 out of 10 rating.
Haepiniseu (2021)
Zombiethriller with heart and without gore.
Happiness is a dystopian thriller set in the near future, where pandemics have become the new normal.
Joon Sae-bom (played by Han Hyo-joo) and Jung Yi-hyun (played by Park Hyung-Sik) have been friends since high school. When Sae-bom, who is in the military, gets the chance for an apartment contract in a newly built, glassy area, she therefore asks Yi-hyun to move in with her because the contract requires two fixed incomes.
Shortly after they move in, a mysterious viral disease breaks out in the community, called "mad person disease". The virus is transmitted through bites or claw marks. The people affected by the virus go on a rampage as they attack other people in a sudden bloodlust. After the attacks, they return to their normal state and cannot be distinguished as infected. A number of cases are traced to the apartment complex, which is therefore placed under lock-down by the military. Sae-bom and Yi-hyun (who is a police officer) are thus stuck inside the residential area. Outside, the police and military try to limit the spread of the infection, while desperately searching for a cure, which leads to several cruel and questionable decisions from a humane point of view.
Inside the housing complex, fear spreads when a state of emergency is declared. A claustrophobic atmosphere prevails. There is a lot of suspicion between the apartment owners. Who is infected and who can be trusted? Moral dilemmas arise. What to do with the infected? How are the shared resources distributed? The fact that several of the residents have their own secrets and agendas that they do not want to be revealed creates even more mistrust within the group. The longer the siege lasts, the more the social polish falls, until all that remains is the instinct for survival.
In my opinion, this is an extremely exciting dystopian thriller, which has managed to avoid most of the pitfalls that the genre sometimes suffers from. The focus is also more on what happens to people in a stressful situation than on zombie gore (which I personally have a hard time with).
Happiness thus offers a really exciting plot, interesting moral questions, engaging characters and a makeup department that had a really good day at work. In addition, the claustrophobic feeling of stairwells, corridors and parking garages is used to the full. Add to that excellent casting down to the smallest supporting cast and some unexpected plot twists and the drama becomes all the more urgent. Han Hyo-joo and Park Hyung-Sik are perfect in their roles and also have a chemistry that crackles and their characters' trust in, and need for each other, is very believable and finely portrayed, without ever spilling over into sentimentality. It's also refreshing to see strong female portraits and realistic human relationships portrayed, without a single stumbling scene or wide-eyed staring into the other person's eyes in sight.
So I would highly recommend this dystopian thriller, and give it 10/10, because I binge wayched this one and couldn't find anything I didn't like, except that it ended.
Geu hae urineun (2021)
A wonderful, rare pearl!
When Choi Ung (Choi Woo-shik) meets Kook Yeon-su (Kim Da-mi), it's trouble at first sight.
Yeon-su is the school's best student, a tough and independent young woman with clear goals and ambitions. Ung is her opposite, a conflicted dreamer whose ideal life consists of not having to work and lying in the shade of a tree and philosophizing. They are brought together by a film team that will make a documentary about high school students and their different conditions.
At first they can't stand each other, Yeon-su resents Ung's relaxed, disinterested attitude towards his own future, while Ung, for his part, finds Yeon-su annoyingly zealous and annoyingly buffoonish. As the documentary draws to a close, however, their view of each other has changed, and they become a couple. However, the relationship ends in heartbreak, with Ung being left after five years with no explanation as to why from Yeon-su.
Ten years after the documentary was recorded, they are contacted by the same film crew, who want to make a follow-up documentary. Ung is an up-and-coming artist, while Yeon-su works at a small project agency. When they meet again, it is clear that there is much that is unfinished between them.
Our Beloved Summer is, in my opinion, a wonderful little gem of a relationship about two people's emotional maturation process and coming of age. Choi Woo-shik and Kim Da-mi are absolutely brilliant in their roles, and the interaction between them is a pure pleasure to watch. The drama takes time to develop, with flashbacks to the high school years gradually giving the viewer insight into both the couple's different personalities, as well as pieces of the puzzle as to why the relationship ended. Small snapshots and everyday events are interspersed with interviews from the documentary, most of which are extremely undramatic and thus realistic and believable. A wonderfully low-key humor pervades the whole story, which also offers a lot of darkness and some really painful moments. Interesting side tracks and characters also contribute to a nice whole. Extra plus for the soundtrack, with V's Christmas Tree as the top track.
I'm totally engrossed in this warm, wistful series, which might be the best I've seen since Something in the Rain. I highly recommend it. 10 out of 10.
Doshinamnyeoui Sarangbeob (2020)
Beautiful story about love and life
Lovestruck in the City is an ensemble drama about a group of young people in Seoul, their mutual relationships and their more or less problematic love lives.
A number of young people have agreed to be interviewed for a documentary about young adults in their thirties in modern Seoul; their career choices, love lives and friendships. None of the participants know who the other participants are. For the viewer, it soon becomes clear that several of the interviewees know each other and have a common, not entirely uncomplicated, history.
Park Jae Won (Ji Chang-wook), one of the participants, is a successful architect with a keen interest in photography. In the interviews, we learn that the year before, he took a month-long vacation to Yangyang to realize an old dream of living by the sea, photographing and surfing - a simpler life than the one he normally lives. Once there, he met a young woman, Yoon Seon-a, with whom he fell in love. They began a passionate relationship and when Jae Won had to return to Seoul, they promised to meet a month later and resume the relationship, but Seon-a never showed up.
Lee Eun-o (Kim Ji-won) is a freelance marketer whose life hasn't been easy in recent years. Not only did her boyfriend leave her for another woman, she was also overlooked in the tough job market. With a broken heart and without a job or livelihood, Eun-o, in an impulsive and unplanned whim, jumped on a bus and then disappeared for three months, before reappearing in Seoul, without telling her worried friends, Sun Rin- y (Joo-Jeon So) and Kang Geon (Ryu Kyung-Soo), where she has been or what she has done. Now she runs her own agency and struggles to find clients and make a name for herself in the industry. One day, she is offered to show her portfolio to the architecture firm where Jae Won works...
This is a really nice story that has both depth and darkness, humor and drama. Through interviews and flashbacks, but also events in the present, we as spectators get to follow the participants' lives, thoughts and relationships and gradually reveal how they are related to each other. If you, like me, are a fan of Ji Chang-wook, this is one of those series where he gets to shine. His role portrait of Park Jae Won is wonderful, where he finely shows all parts of a person's emotional life; uncertainty, longing, frustration, loss, sadness, anger, resignation and joy. The fact that he also has Kim Ji-won as his co-star doesn't make it any worse. I loved her in Our Liberation Notes, and her role in Descendants of the Sun gave what I thought was an uneven and sometimes rather mediocre series a real boost. Here, too, she creates a memorable portrait of a young woman who is searching for her self, about who she wants to be and how she wants to live.
This series has everything I love about Korean drama, namely the combination of seriousness and humor. All sides of human behavior are shown, even the less flattering ones. People's sometimes fragile emotional lives, their immaturity and self-absorption, but also their capacity for love, caring and sacrifice.
As I wrote, this is an ensemble drama, and the casting is truly superb. In addition to Joo-Jeon and Ryu Kyung-Soo, we see, among others, Kim Min-Suk, Park Jin-joo and Han Ji-Eun in fine role performances.
If you like relationship drama with a bit more adult touch, this is the series for you.