• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Your K-DRAMA thread

teacake said:
And now for a very different documentary..

Nocturne 2019

This documentary follows a family for 10 years, during which the documentary maker Jeong Gwan-Jo lived with them for periods of time. The family consists of a mom and her two musical sons, the older of whom is autistic and very dependent on her. This child is the greater musical talent of the two and she devotes her life to caring for him and developing his future as an accomplished pianist and clarinetist. Her younger son resents this entire set up and feels neglected and less loved, long into adulthood. He's had to give way to his younger brother's greater needs and dreads his mother's insistence that he will be his brother's caretaker when she dies.

This is a powerful and nuanced film with no pat answers or glorious triumph to fix everything at the end, though good things do happen to all of them eventually. It delves into motherhood, disability, sibling relationships, hopes and how easy it is to fail each other, and for the world to fail us. You worry for all of them watching this. I would love to know how they felt about the finished piece, if they resent how they are portrayed. It's a great documentary and one of those times I regret that I'll never get anyone I know to ever watch it and talk about it! Instead I post here, into the void.. :lol:

This is the only work of the writer and director I could find listed. This film did make it to a couple film festivals but has had virtually no attention which is a real shame.

I did find one article interviewing Jeong:

https://www.salemfilmfest.com/blog-library/blog-bite-gwanjo-jeong-director-of-nocturne
Click to expand...
Before we lost Peanut we worried a lot about his brother being burdened with his care. It’s a terrifying thing to have to contemplate and he always said he would but it was still such a heart breaking reality. I sometimes wondered if we would share a nursing home with him.
 
KimMH said:
Before we lost Peanut we worried a lot about his brother being burdened with his care. It’s a terrifying thing to have to contemplate and he always said he would but it was still such a heart breaking reality. I sometimes wondered if we would share a nursing home with him.
Click to expand...

{{{ hugs }}}

I'm sorry my friend :(

That doco was good, raw, but not with the pushy narrative it might have had if made elsewhere.
 
Night in Paradise 2020, a movie

This was a gangster movie with all the classic K gangster shit going down and of course some tragic pathos. Two rival gangs, betrayals, more betrayals, innocence betrayed and lots and lots and lots of shooting. Some of the shooting is quite dramatic and well done. It's set on Jeju island but don't get too excited, other than some coastal roads and a bit of pastoral land there's nothing very scenic here and only minimal Jeju specific content which you won't notice unless already familiar with it.

There is a couple of food scenes.

Some people were raving about this movie but I just watched it on autopilot and wasn't excited by it at all. For a good K gangster movie watch The Drug King, reviewed by me in this thread.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
Speaking of action movies I rewatched Escape from Mogadishu recently (brief review in this thread) and it was fantastically entertaining.

Just adding the trailer and damn I want to watch it again :lol:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
Sounds harrowing. I might rewatch some comfort stuff since things is nuts around here. Honestly some Totoro seems nice.
I cancelled Netflix before I got a chance to watch BEEF. Have you seen it by any chance?
 
For comfort @KimMH off the top of my head from this thread I'd recommend:

Reply 1988 (no need to see the other Replies, not connected). I just love that show so much, it does such a fantastic job of telling multiple generation stories. It's funny and endearing.

So Not Worth It: This is a really fun comedy centered around foreign students at a Uni in Seoul. There's quite a collection of characters.

See how good I'm being here and only making two suggestions :lol:

As to BEAR, I did not realize the second season was out. I enjoyed the first season a lot, it was very bingeable and well done. The main character really IS Lip from Shameless :lol: (same actor).So now I will watch the second season though my retention is terrible, trying to avoid rewatching the first.

I could never cancel Netflix, that's where 99% of Kdramas are shown in Aus! I've had to go further afield for older stuff and classics but I love knowing the Kdrama library on Netflix is so huge. Most other streaming have like 1-3 Korean made items that they seem to have accidentally acquired LOL. So now I'm subbed to Netflix, Paramount+ for Trek, Stan (Australian streaming company) and mysteriously Prime, maybe that came with the Paramount+? Oh and Disney+ for Star Wars. This is TOO MUCH and I've managed to cancel one streaming service that I only used to watch White Lotus but that was also the cheapest one LOL.
 
Lol. I thought we’d save $$$ with the new streaming model but noooooo - they’ll always get theirs.

Thanks for the recommendations- I’ll look for them!
 
Poetry 2010, a movie

A sad reflective film where the smallest moments can totally unseat the viewer. A grandmother in her late 60's is raising her teenage grandson. She enjoys finding beauty everywhere and thinking about how the world is put together. She's always well dressed, above the standard for day to day in her town, something that gives her pleasure. She's gentle and caring. In the beginning of the film her vagueness and memory issues are diagnosed as early onset Alzheimer's. Within days of this a terrible event takes over her life and she is left to navigate her grandson's future and her own attempt to hold onto the present and fully embrace it.

I'd say more but on the offchance that someone watches this movie I'll leave it at that!

It won Best Screenplay at Cannes.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
KimMH said:
Lol. I thought we’d save $$$ with the new streaming model but noooooo - they’ll always get theirs.

Thanks for the recommendations- I’ll look for them!
Click to expand...

Honestly I'm still okay about it despite the vagaries of the streaming system and rising monthly fees. I'm happy not to be buying any more box sets of dvds. And for international tv and films it can't be beat.
 
Spa Night 2016, movie

A small budget movie that did well in film festivals Spa Night is a Korean American film though 95% of the dialogue is in Korean.

A coming of age story about a first generation teenager in Los Angeles struggling with his sexuality, his epic apathy and his immigrant parents' expectations. His hard working mom and dad only want him to do better than them, go to college, have a girlfriend, be a success. They themselves have spectacularly failed having lost their restaurant and now working menial part time jobs.

Reviewers of this movie typically reacted to the lack of any resolutions by the end of it. It was supposed to be a coming out story! Where's the coming out?! But this is slice of life and not every slice is going to be a neat Hollywood trajectory.

What impressed me was how you can feel the pressure this teenage boy is under, all the expectations under all the love and hope. Pressure from himself for being so bad at the academics, for not caring enough. Pressure from church group friends who are in their wild and crazy heterosexual college phase while the protagonist David can barely breath. Pressure as he makes feeble beginnings at exploring his sexuality at the men's spa he works at, not nearly anonymous enough.

The movie ends as it begins. It's 6 months of this family's life. A slice of it as is. I enjoyed it.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
Right Now, Wrong Then 2015 movie

Written and directed by Hong Sang-Soo. As devout readers of this blog thread will remember I've reviewed two Hong Sang-Soo films in the past. Once again I'm a little surprised at how much I am enjoying the minimalist direction and vagueblogging dialogue, something I've deeply disliked in other movies. Apparently Hong Sang-Soo comes out with a movie every year and they are all early Woody Allen-esque interplays of people coming together briefly in life.

Right Now, Wrong Then is divided into two parts, each an hour long.

Part One

A film director (sound familiar?) in Suwon a day early for his screening meets a young woman artist at a temple where they are both adrift, just sitting in the cold winter sun. They discuss themselves and their lives and progress from the temple to a coffee shop, her studio, a sushi bar, her friend's late night gathering and finally a freezing walk to the house she shares with her mother (played by Youn Yuh-Jung of Canola, Dear My Friends and Minari fame). The day ends badly and the next day during the director's screening he's an asshole, hungover and petty.

Part Two

SAME EXACT events only they play out differently because of differing choices the director makes in how he approaches the young woman, mainly how honest he is. It's very well done, nothing dramatic and they are still the same flawed people but the slight shifts change the entire nature of their relationship at the end of the film.

For some reason I could not look away! Some amusing parts as well. Interesting direction choices, or perhaps there was no direction they just pointed the camera and pressed play.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
The Beauty Inside 2015, movie

This movie came from an American webseries and in turn spawned a Kdrama series, which I have not seen.

From the age of 18 a man wakes up every day in a different body. Mostly korean men, but sometimes women, older people, different race etc.. He has only one friend he maintains a relationship with who knows his secret. The friend is played by Lee Dong-Hwi of Reply 1988 fame, in fact it's basically the same character :lol:

After ten years of this he's over whatever fun he had with it and very lonely. He falls in love with a woman and reveals his secret and they try and have a relationship where she can never introduce her boyfriend to her family or friends.

Kept waiting for the wonderful K-trope "the white truck of doom" to appear but alas it did not. An occasionally amusing, gentle drama.

Oh!! And something very surprising happened! There was a scene after the credits! I have never come across a scene after the credits in a Korean movie, almost missed it.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
War of the Arrows 2011, movie. Alternate title is Arrow: the Ultimate Weapon. I give the alternate title because in the past it was not uncommon for Korean shows/movies to have their english titles differ in different countries.

This takes place during the second Manchu invasion of Korea in the 1600's and thus is classified as a sageuk, historical drama. Wikipedia tells me that this film is unusual in using the Manchu language for the soldier's dialogue, a language currently spoken by less than 70,000 people but once widespread.

Two children must flee when the royal court their father is employed in is overthrown, and they are sent to live with their father's friend on his estate. They grow close to this family and eventually the daughter is betrothed to one of the sons they grow up with. But then the Manchu invasion comes, lots and lots of slaughter, tens of thousands taken to China as slaves. This is the story of how the girl's brother and husband seek to find and rescue her.

MUCH archery, and apparently it showcases a revolutionary form of arrow invented in Korea a century before. There's lots of chasing, arrows, near misses, satisfying rebellions and escapes and beautiful scenery. There's a tiger. There's some very sad things. It's a good pace and an attractive film!

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
The Fortress, a movie 2017

This takes place in the same time period as the previous movie reviewed (1600's). Korea has been torn apart with the politics of competing Manchu invaders and King Injo has been on the losing side. His court and his people have taken refuge in Namhansanseong, a mountain fortress 25km from Seoul. It is winter. They await their fate and the factions within the court try and sway the King (an indecisive man) towards their very different solutions.

This film was shot in the dead of winter to capture the feel of the hardships involved and the armour and dress aims to be accurate. Manchu is also spoken as in the previous movie. As the winter draws on, the threat grows, the hope in aid coming from Southern forces becomes more desperate and the soldiers starve and freeze and despair. This is a very atmospheric film with some stunning scenes, but it's also long and plodding in the best possible way. You can feel the fear and claustrophobia of being trapped in this fortress under worsening conditions.

I've never been to Namhansanseong but it's now on my list. This movie was based on a novel Namhansanseong by Kim Hoon, unfortunately not translated into english. I've read one of his short stories, a thoroughly modern and odd piece, in a collection and I wish I could read this novel! But there's lots of things I wish I could read that will probably never get translated.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited:
Black Knight : 2017, series

This six episode dystopian sci fi is very satisfying. 40 years ago a comet hits the earth and most of the world is now under water. Korea is a desert wasteland (we'll just ignore that Korea is a peninsula and would most certainly be under water lol). Pollution is toxic, you cannot breath without a mask, the sky is opaque. Society is heavily stratified by class which determines how much water, air and food you can access.

This is a mini series about social justice, the usual Chaebol father/son dynamic and people's survival skills in a very difficult world. The younger generation has known nothing else, the older ones remember a world of freedoms. Everyone wants a better life whether through rogue actions or obedience to the status quo. I love my dystopian dramas!

I'm going to start including the trailers for my reviews and going back and adding them to try and generate some interest in the vast K world of entertainment :D

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
teacake said:
Black Knight : 2017, series

This six episode dystopian sci fi is very satisfying. 40 years ago a comet hits the earth and most of the world is now under water. Korea is a desert wasteland (we'll just ignore that Korea is a peninsula and would most certainly be under water lol). Pollution is toxic, you cannot breath without a mask, the sky is opaque. Society is heavily stratified by class which determines how much water, air and food you can access.

This is a mini series about social justice, the usual Chaebol father/son dynamic and people's survival skills in a very difficult world. The younger generation has known nothing else, the older ones remember a world of freedoms. Everyone wants a better life whether through rogue actions or obedience to the status quo. I love my dystopian dramas!

I'm going to start including the trailers for my reviews and going back and adding them to try and generate some interest in the vast K world of entertainment :D

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
Click to expand...
Handsome people murderously mayhemming in Apocalyptia, I miiiight have to do the netflxx thing again
 
lurok said:
I binge-watched 'Mask Girl' on Netflix: sooo good :adore: . I either don't recall or don't care about a single male character. Because it wasn't about them
Click to expand...

Ohhh I hadn't heard of this! Thank you for the rec! I've been steadfastly watching all the K content on an Aus station with free streaming and have only just returned to Netflix for the K fix.

I'm watching Season 2 Uncanny Counters, saw the first two episodes last night. Already went places you wouldn't have Hollywood go in a similar show. Thoroughly enjoying it. I'll hit up Mask Girl when it's done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top