In Soon is Pretty - The Characters

After watching one k-drama, I'm never sure what else to watch. There's a lot out there. Fortunately, my friend dramaok has a page with recommendations. I have so far made my way through "White Tower", "Legend", "Thank You", and "Coffee Prince". I started "Que Sera Sera" but I didn't find myself investing enough in the characters and stopped watching. Possibly unfortunate, since dramaok has been pretty right on in her assessments of the shows that I've watched.



So it was time to watch another one and I picked "In Soon is Pretty". Not quite finished with 2.5 episodes to go. It's the story of Park In Soon (IS), an orphan whose parents allegedly died when she was 100 days old, cared for in her youth by her Grandmother. While still in high school IS was jailed for (what appears to be 10 years) accidentally killing a girl.


We meet In Soon as she trolls Seoul looking for work upon her release from prison. In Soon; homeless, friendless, and jobless decides to end her life by stepping out in front of an oncoming train. It is at this moment her old junior high friend Yoo Sang Woo (YSW) recognizes her on the train platform and calls her name.

Brought back from the brink of death, we continue watching In Soon try to push on. There were few people who believed in her while she was in prison; one was her Gramma and the other was one of her junior high teachers. Gramma dies while In Soon is in prison and In Soon falls in love with her teacher. Transferrence at its best. Her teacher however, recognizes this for what it is and consistently pushes In Soon away. His kid is cute though.


Her Aunt and Uncle. Wooooof. The Uncle is a nasty brute who drinks wine like koolaid and knocks his wife down for sport. The Aunt has supported In Soon throughout but isn't above taking pot shots and playing the "You have ruined our lives" card, nicely adding to In Soon's burden of guilt. In what I considered to be a purely selfish act (she just didn't want to have any responsibility for IS any longer) she drops a bombshell on IS - her mother is still alive. Niiiiiiiice. I'm not liking any of these people.

Mom is an actress ~ Lee Sun Young (LSY). LSY is supremely, no, MONUMENTALLY self absorbed, not getting the roles she wants any longer and so she pushes her other daughter, Jung Ha, to go on auditions. Mom starts to see her own star fading and to keep herself in the spotlight, longs to get her daughter involved in the business as well. Jung Ha has no interest and could probably benefit from a run on the Prozac train quite frankly.

Yoo Sang Woo has loved Park In Soon his whole life. He was a geeky kid, not smart, not athletic, kinda goofy looking when they were children (yeeeesss, we get the obligatory childhood love flashbacks all through the show) and he finds himself attracted to her as an adult. Born to irresponsible parents, we see a flashback of them fleeing to Canada in the middle of the night to escape their creditors. This may have been a viable option in the 1980s, certainly a penniless Korean family carrying plastic garbage bags full of their life's possessions out of Korea and into Canada wouldn't have caused any raised eyebrows. Nooooo sir.


YSW has done well for himself. Shed his geeky image and grew into a fiiiine lookin' young man. Finished school, went to college, and is now a successful reporter with KBC television. Personally, I think his success can be argued, or at the very least it can be determined that he has a lousy research department, since he has no idea what happened to In Soon since he last saw her. He further condemns himself when he claims to have searched the internet to no avail to try to find information on her. I decided later on in the series that he was hired solely for his cool good looks - Hey! Sang Woo! Google dude. Google.

YSW's dad seems to be going through a mid-life crisis, as he becomes obsessed with In Soon's Mom, Lee Sun Young - he has several mugs on his office desk sporting her in a variety of roles, photos are pasted on his office walls. If this was CSI and LSY were dead, we'd be looking for a lock of hair and her liver in a jar at this point. However, LSY revels in the attention and actually meets with her stalker. He's falling in love, she's looking for someone to remodel her house on the cheap.


YSW's mom ~ next to In Soon, I feel saddest for her. Here this woman keeps a lovely home, takes care of her family, stuck by that pig of a partner of hers when they spirited off to Canada after he failed in business and now that she's older she's no longer attractive to him anymore.
She's ignored by her husband - indeed, the only time he deigns to speak to her it's to abusively criticize. Sang Woo does little to ease the tension - after a long hard day of chasing In Soon around Seoul, he comes home ignoring his mother's attempts at communication with little more than grunts and goes to his nicely appointed room.

Mom eventually finds out that Dad is having an affair (which in k-drama fashion = going to a play together...it's as good as a hug) and she packs his bags and throws him out. When she calls Sang Woo to tell him what's going on, he ignores the pain in her voice and is dismissive to her so ~ good on her ~ she says she's on strike. Tells him she's not cooking or cleaning or doing his laundry any more. "Hey Oma, is something wrong?" Ohhhhh, NOW he senses she's upset. My boys ever treat me like that, they're gonna get an earful.

Couple of minor characters - Jung Ha and Geun Soo. Jung Ha - as I mentioned before is In Soon's half sister and Geun Soo is her adoptive brother - it's amazing how complicated these shows get. JH falls in love with GS - GS is a ne'er do well, a grifter, who owes the mob money. He has women shoving all sorts of money at him - you know, I don't even know if he pays the thugs off, but he has no problem taking the money. A tortured lonely soul, I think GS's measure of love is non-abandonment, stemming from when his own mother left him at a bus terminal telling him she'd be right back. Mom abandoned him, IS in an act of tough love tells him she's done with him. The only one who sticks is JH who follows him through the streets of Seouls and further. He can't shake her. And he's starting to need her.

Jung Ha, for all her money and privilege just can't stand her mom and like all good girls looking to rebel, falls for the baddest boy that comes in her line of sight. I think she really understands him though, inasmuch as her life experience has been sheltered.

Lonely. All these characters are lonely. Even after becoming a media darling, In Soon is still empty, her mom with her one fan is lonely, YSW with his successful career is lonely, all lonely trying to make it work. Loneliness and sadness permeates this series, but the sweet thread running throughtout is YSW's love for IS. We get to see it when they are young when it's pure and sweet, and now we watch as it matures while they are hefting all their baggage from the intervening years and trying to sort through the baggage of those around them.


I think this will end sweetly and I hope happily for all the characters. Except for In Soon's Mom. We still haven't had a good solid trip "to the beach" yet...but I'm hopeful.

In the Navy

Expecting the Village People? Yeah, I thought about embedding the song. But as I listened to it I thought it lacked dignity and my son's decision to enter into the US Navy was worth more than that suggested.

My son registered at Naval Officer Candidate School on Sunday in the nuclear submarine program. Having no immediate experience of the military (I have uncles, cousins and friends who entered, but it's not immediate enough for me) I've been pretty anxious. I found a wonderful website:

http://www.navyformoms.com/

full of wonderful supportive and warm women who have also sent their children into the Navy. Their tagline; "You gave them the values, we give them the opportunity." made me burst into tears yesterday. Lot of stuff making me burst into tears over this lately. But its a great site, full of suggestions, what to expect, what not to expect, when to expect it, pictures, videos and camaraderie; a sort of face book for Navy Moms.

I think I'm going to need it. He graduates in 12 weeks.

KDrama Review: Emperor of the Sea

“Emperor of the Sea” is based on the Choi In-Ho novel of the same title. The drama focuses on the life of Jang BoGo (? – 846) who dominated the East Asian Sea and international trade during the Shilla Dynasty (676 A.D. – 935 A.D). The drama features Jang BoGo’s growth from slave to Ambassador of Cheong Hae-Jin.

Ponder Angst – I was very frustrated with the amount of lonely staring that went on in this series. Maybe it was just because I had never been exposed to Korean Ponder Angst and it was a culture shock for me. Jang Bo Go looks out at the ocean. Jung Hwa looks out at the ocean. Yeom Moon looks out at the ocean. Master Lee looks out at the ocean. Madame Jami looks at a wall from her table of doom. Awful. 5 points.

Love “ – “ Angles – It’s a Quint. Jang BoGo loves Jung Hwa. Jung Hwa loves Bo Go. Other chick loves Bo Go. Yeom Moon loves Jung Hwa. Bo Go has baby with Other chick and feels a great deal of affection. 20 points.

Sizzle – Song Il Guk as Yeom Moon not only sizzled in this series, the man was on fire. He lit up the screen for me. I woke up in the middle of the night to watch the next installment of the series just so I could see what would happen to Yeom Moon next. Song Il Guk is solely responsible for my k-drama obsession. I have yet to find a character that entranced and captured me the way the tragic Yeom Moon did. 50 points. Yeah, that's right, I said 50. If you say anything, I’ll give it 10 more.

Physical Intimacy – Well, again, since my k-drama cherry was popped on EotS, the lack of physical intimacy made me nuts. I have since gotten used to this really endearing quality in my Korean dramas. This time though, I wanted something more than hands to touch, and I barely got that. Jang Bo Go’s and Jeong Nyeon's wives get pregnant, so we know that at least 2 couples consummated their relationship, so I give it 10 points.

Tragic Heartwrenching Disease and/or Character Death from Same – If I go into all the heart wrenching tragic death on this series, I’ll start to cry and spoil the whole thing for anyone who hasn’t seen it. This series devastated me even though I had read all the spoilers and I knew what was going to happen. 20 points

Going to the Beach – Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! Bonus Round! The e-ville Madame Jami kills herself by walking into the ocean. Yessssss! 15 points!

Emperor of the Sea gets 120 points and for me, that was really on target. I watched this series out of boredom and on a whim. Figured I’d give it an episode. I fell in love with all the characters in the series; I rooted for them and I cried for them. The end devastated me.

I haven’t watched the series full through since though. It’s not the kind of drama where you get a warm fuzzy feeling; there is dread throughout now. What the show did do was to introduce me to a fascinating culture, it put me in touch with people I otherwise never would have met – I’ve made friends all over the world because of this series and it’s characters.

I think that’s what has made this series the most special for me.

Kingdom of the Winds

As far as I know, Song Il Guk's management company, Barunson, has yet to officially announce his participation as King Damushin in "Kingdom of the Winds", even though word has it that he is already in China filming this KBS' sageuk.

Actress actress Choi Jeong-Won [최정원] has been slated as one of Damushin's concubines, and actress Oh Yoon-Ah [오윤아]will play Damushin's wet nurse. Jeong Jin-Yeong and Jeong Tae-Seong have also been cast; I just don't know in what capacity yet.

KotW is a popular graphic novel, or manga, foundation: Korean history; genre: fantasy. It has also been made into the pay to play multiplayer online role playing game NEXUS: The Kingdom of the Winds (Korean:바람의 나라), alternately known as Nexus TK or simply Nexus. The game is currently run in the US by Kru Interactive.

I'm a tool enough to check out the graphic novels, old enough not to be interested in the game.



http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=16&articleid=20080614184028360b6&newssetid=83

information provided by the inimitable dramaok

Excedrin PM Glooblie

Feel foggie this morning, thanks for asking. Yeah, I'm still not feeling 100%, but I'm a lot better than I was Tuesday night. Low grade fever, really sore, just felt all around junky. Stayed in, hit the couch, fell asleep early. I didn't really have much in the way of cold medicine to take, so I just let it fuss its' way out of me.

Yesterday it hurt to talk but as the day wore on, I felt better. I feel still better today; just logie like I took 2 Excedrin PM last night. Except I didn't. Blaaaaah. Taking Buddy out for a walk helped though; it's a lovely bracing 53 degrees out this morning. This went a long way toward waking me up.

Thoughts of taking a sick day yesterday were banished early since I had to cover for my colleague. I would have missed some vigorous e-debate with my pen pal regarding, of all things, parents that feel entitled to take sick time when their kids are sick. Somehow it descended into a rant about the flat tax and his mother - I don't know - I didn't say he was rational.

So in to work, must get on the treadmill tonight; I've missed it.

Crossword

Guest Blogger and I do the Washington Post crossword puzzles. She is much better at the game than I, with a mind more on point and agile than I have ever had. I admire this. I generally just sit next to her and say, "Yep, yep, that sounds good," bobbling my head up and down. I will occasionally be "on" and get a few answers, but usually, nah. It's still fun. She does them in pen. When I note that this is the hallmark of a confident albeit arrogant individual, she interjects that, no, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen is the archetype of the arrogant. I suspect she secretly does these in pen as well. Not because she is arrogant, but because she is brilliant.

To try to keep my hand in the game as well as in an effort to stave off the Alzheimers I'm certain will inevitably settle in, I do the occasional generic crossword puzzle on my own. I can go slowly this way, using pencil with a large eraser. Since it's getting harder and harder for me to see the words without additional ocular intervention, my nose is pressed pretty closely to the page. And I never do the Washington Post Crossword puzzle on my own. I did that once and the reaction from Guest Blogger was akin to a wife learning that her husband just slept with a much younger more naturally blonde woman.

So it was in the execution of one of these generic crosswords that I became flummoxed. The clue was KEEP _ _ _ _ (persevere). I got a few of the down answers and came up with :

A _ IT.

I got the down clue, which was TSAR, making the answer ATIT. It took me a while to realize that the answer was KEEP AT IT.

Coming Down With

I woke up this morning feeling like there was junk in my throat. It occurred to me that I might be coming down with something, but I pushed the thought away; I hadn’t been near anyone who was sick. I shrugged it off.

Not shrugging it off so much now. Tonsils still feel junky, up through my nose, my head hurts and my shoulders are starting to ache. Some people soldier on, “I feel fine,”. Yeah, no, not workin’ for me. Big baby. Huge. I want DayQuil, NyQuil, ibuprofen, ginger ale, a box of tissues, a cold pillow, a fan on my face, blanket covering the rest of my shivery fever-y body. I want a thermometer within reach so I can take my temperature whenever I want. I want the television on and I want to watch DVDs. I want tea, chamomile if I have it, and a hot bath (a hot bath cures all things).

Might just be allergies. We’ll see. I got no problem taking sick time.