W - Two worlds - KDrama

The age of sci-fi is upon us, or at least in the kdrama world this is true. Where dramas come out with stories that hook you not only with their intense and adorable romances but with their intriguing plots that may or may not be completely immersed in the fantasy or science fiction section. But I will not complain, in fact I will rejoice and encourage the makers of these dramas silently in my corner as I hope they continue like this for a long while as I am an avid fan of these genres. Because let’s be honest, in a world that’s getting a little bit more crazy as the days go by, it helps to have a little bit of fantasy to distract you and remind you that there are still things to be wondered at and amazed of.

The drama that has indeed fulfilled this need and recently ended is ‘W’. This story follows the life of Kang Chul who has a rough life where he gets accused of murdering his family and has to struggle through his childhood to become a very successful man who tries to solve the cases the police aren’t fully equipped to deal with. What makes Kang Chul even more fascinating is his very keen self-awareness and ability to realize that something is amiss with his life. This nagging feeling of his is both intensified and given an interesting twist with the lovely doctor Oh Yeon Joo entering his life suddenly and unusually.

Oh Yeon Joo is a resident doctor still finding her feet in her profession while spending her free time reading her favorite manhwa that just so happens to be written by her father, Oh Sung Moo. One day when he goes missing our curious doctor goes in search of him and suddenly finds herself dragged into another world and not just any world, but that very world of her fascination where her favorite, as well as millions of other people’s favorite, character Kang Chul resides. Before she even has time to register this event she finds herself constantly coming to our lead character’s rescue, changing not only the course of the story but her own reality as well.

Needless to say things become weird as the increasingly aware Kang Chul learns the truth of his existence from the strange girl he can’t stop thinking of as he also begins to see the world around him crumble as it struggles to keep up with the seemingly unplanned changes to his universe. It also starts getting interesting as we see the supposedly ‘real’ Oh Yeon Joo slowly becomes a part of the storyline and thus becomes bound by the laws of another universe, unable to control when and how she travels between the two worlds.

The story gifts one with a whole new fresh and intriguing storyline not fully explored by the kdrama universe and adds enough twists and turns that make it impossible to predict what is to happen and where things are going. It keeps you hooked and waiting for every step with bated breath as you follow the action-packed, romance-filled plot. Though they pull a somewhat interesting backtrack in the middle there with the clichéd amnesia card, it is easy to see where this is justified as writers try to keep the story on a smooth and intelligible track.

The acting was also on point as you watched the irresistibly handsome Lee Jong Suk display many versions of his character that show just how versatile he can be while still retaining an image you can’t look away from. The lovely doctor also held up her end of the stick with those expressions and actions that have you at first wanting to be her (as who wouldn’t want to fall into a comic book?) to cheering her on as another lead character in the story.

This drama proved to be a highly recommendable drama if only for its fresh approach to a whole new type of drama that Korea needs to invest in. It’s hard to dislike the show, (unless you watched it during the Olympics and hated that a new episode had to be delayed due to viewing schedules). In any case this drama did many things to me and dragged out many feels and I feel it was worth every moment watching it.

Hwayi: A Monster Boy - Movie

It’s been a long time since I watched a gripping psychological drama that had me on the edge of my seat as it forced my brain into following every detail of the story as it played out, but my does it feel good to get lost every now and then in one. Hwayi: A Monster Boy had me lapping up its story line with some eager eyes and it gave me something to enjoy. The relatively gruesome thriller could probably stand as one of the most bloody and uncensored Korean-based pieces of media I have set my eyeballs upon [to date] and I loved every minute of it.

The story is a dark toned one that has you follow a young boy raised by a group of criminals who aren’t the type to think twice before pulling the trigger. But despite being raised and trained by his fairly ruthless fathers, our teenage boy retains a rather innocent temperament as well as an artistic view of the world. We see him roaming the streets in a uniform as he longs for a normal life and especially the relationships that come with it.

But things don’t stay easy going for our boy as a job that his fathers have taken brings out the boy’s past and hidden secrets are revealed and mistakes are made as the boy is confronted by a rather cruel reality that has been hidden from him all his life. Things escalate from there, not only as the truth is revealed but as the boy is forced to follow in his adoptive fathers’ footsteps, an act that brings about the first crack in his already troubled psyche as things go south and quickly.

The show is well planned out and the pacing of how the events unfold is genius as you follow the story of the poor boy whose life is torn about in the most twisted of ways. The action is also pretty good and gruesome in all the right places. The acting was also on point as it breathed some amazing life into the scenes and brought the whole thing to life, so I have to give props to the actors, especially our lead guy as he brought home the troubled teen act.

One thing I also liked about the movie was its realistic expectation, in the sense of what you expected would happen to the actors. There were no ‘in the nick of time’ saves, or perfect shots all the time. Bullets missed and time was not messed with throughout the movie, especially there at the end. The drama was kept to a minimum which was pretty cool in my books.

All in all, a good psychological and suspense movie with some sweet action spots to wet the taste buds with.

Hello Monster/I Remember You - KDrama

Everybody likes to think they’re crazy, even if it’s for a little moment. There’s just something freeing about the idea that we could go bat-shit crazy and do something unbelievable and plead insanity afterwards, even while we’re still grinning like we belong in the madhouse. In a recent Kdrama that I started watching, a lot of talk of psychopaths has been covered and I can’t help myself but do the research and my, is it interesting.

The Kdrama, Hello Monster/I Remember You, takes a look at the minds of psychopaths and tries to twist and turn a few serial killings into its storyline and I must say, though it was tough to keep up at first, now that I really took a moment to look into it, it’s fascinating how the drama plays out. The story follows the main protagonist, Lee Hyun, who is a gifted child so much so that he actually comes across as a bit of a concern to his father who coincidently deals with juvenile criminals, one of which is a psychopath.

Because of this Lee Hyun goes through a somewhat unconventional childhood and then, due to unforeseen circumstances he is confronted with the murder of his father and the disappearance of his younger brother. Traumatized by these events, his memory becomes fragmented and he is raised by a family friend and grows up to become a genius criminal profiler with a somewhat sketchy personality.

Years later, he is drawn to a crime scene that reminds him of his forgotten past and here he crosses paths with detective Cha Ji-An. But this isn’t our female lead’s first time meeting the oblivious Lee Hyun as she has been effectively stalking him since their childhood, for various reasons.

The two officially reunite over this first case which leads them to working together and a mystery is discovered as Lee Hyun tries to discover who it was that reached out to him through the crime scene, while Cha Ji-An investigates case after case and continually seeks out Lee Hyun’s help as she hopes to keep him in her line of sight for her own reasons.

The drama is entertaining to watch. I especially like the whole ‘stalking’ detective that was pretty hilarious for me. Another aspect is the criminal profiling that is done by Lee Hyun’s character. It’s a unique take on detective skills that I haven’t yet seen in Kdrama’s and it’s pretty intense and I like it, definitely works. As for the story, I’m very curious to see where it goes. Having only watched six episodes I can only hope it gets better as I anticipate who the bad guys really are and how they get revealed.

On that note, I really hope they go into depth about mental illness and other details about psychopaths and I don’t mean the made up stuff, I’m hoping they do their research and they use some real world cases and all that. I mean after all, mental illness isn’t something to joke about at the end of the day and if they can spread some awareness that would be great too, just saying.

*I suppose we can’t forget that there needs to be romance, right!?…*

[Just for kicks, here is an interesting article I found recently that covers psychopaths and what professions they're most likely to have.]

Border - JDrama

Where do we go when we die? It’s an interesting question, one with many varying answers that I find quite intriguing and tend to research from time to time just to kill time. But whatever the answer may be, I’m sure the recent drama I watched would make it one very dark and gloomy place.

Border is a Japanese drama that was released in 2014. One of the many JDrama’s that was on my backlog, I find I’m glad I finally got around to watching it. The series has a somewhat dark tone to it and despite my expectations, which weren’t much aside from the general good acting I always know to expect from the lead actor, I found this drama quite surprising.

The series follows a detective that gets shot while on duty but survives the fatal wound with one strange twist; the bullet that gets lodged in his head allows him to see dead people. Though a fairly predictable plot twist, this drama takes the scenario and paints it with a dark and gloomy brush as it follows our detective as he goes back to work, using his newfound ability to solve crimes and confront the evil that exists in the world around us.

The episodes were interesting and each one seemed to take the detective deeper down a dark path as he strayed further and further from using ‘normal’ methods of solving crimes and instead turned to much sinister ones that aided both his ability and efforts to catch the bad guy. That is until it led our poor strung out detective to the ultimate cross roads.

It’s an interesting observation as you watch the detective’s character change so drastically due to his newfound ability that he seems to attach a somewhat curious responsibility to, very interesting indeed and very engrossing to watch. It reflects a rather sad reality that sometimes the bad guys might just beat the good guys, despite the supernatural advantage on the good guy’s part and that maybe, just~ maybe knowing that little detail might just drive you over the edge more often than we’d like to admit.

Yeah, this was a very thought provoking drama. It might have been dark and gloomy, but I guess that helped as it brought its solemn message across. I reckon it’s worth watching, I mean it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves the bad guys have their good days too, right?