After some hard-selling by Beanies, and desperately needing more of Lee Soo-yeon (what am I going to do now?), I finally finished bingeing Life. It is definitely nothing close to LSY’s best, i.e., Stranger, and as @eazal puts it, nothing really happens in the show, it still has its charm. Some random observations from my watch follow (One or two Spoilers Alert) .
About the performances:
— exponentially upped my appreciation for the senior actors in kdramaland – Yum Hye-Ran (Secretary Kang! – gold performance), Yoo Jae-Myung (he’s done so many rubbish shows, but he’s *such* a great character actor), Lee Sang-hee, Kim Won-Hae (hope he’s recovering fast!)…
— Of the younger lot, Lee Kyu-hyung and Tae In-ho stood out.
— Of course our hero Cho Seung-Woo can do no wrong in my eyes. I’d love to see CSW in a slice of life one day, instead of his forever grim poker-faced characters.
— I still love Won Jin-ah’s voice: deep, rich, and clear. That. is her biggest strength, and I hope she uses it well. But she has yet to best her role in Just Between Lovers. This was not it. Maybe she’s a director’s actor, and needs to find the right guidance.
— Lee Dong Wook as “Greek God” had me in splits throughout – well, erm, he is that, but sadly, maybe mainly that in this show. I’m not complaining. Visual relief is always important.
— I hooted silently when Lee Joon Hyuk came on screen in a blink and miss scene. It was just the other day I had mentioned that it was a shame he wasn’t in this drama considering how many actors overlapped with Stranger, and voila.
About the writing and storytelling:
— the friendships are written/performed so well! They shine in comparison with the subtle-but-oh-not-so-subtle romance. I think LSY should stick to writing good friendships (cue reference, Stranger 2: please don’t mess it up).
— the storytelling style pushes a lot of standard dramaland boundaries: Things were not always explained well. A lot of sub-text was left for the audience to decipher. There were no clear resolutions. A lot of ambiguity remained right till the end, including on critical character motivations (or at least I felt so).
— this is what I respect LSY for – she doesn’t spoonfeed, and doesn’t treat audience as stupid. Her settings are also very real, and although dramatic license is employed often, there is enough to make you feel like this is familiar stuff, and that you could have been a part of this story yourself.
About other stuff:
— the BGM was louder and more prominent than it needed to be.
— the pacing was off in many many places. It was very slow and involved a lot of unnecessary shots of people staring into blank space.
— BUT BUT BUT the mid-length non-verbal ocean scene in the end between the Brothers Ye was so beautiful, and gave closure to a lot of unanswered questions (without actually answering them). This was one of the finest moments of the show overall, and I’m glad I stayed the course.
— My favourite line came at the end, from the character played by Tae In-ho, and. the context in which he said (after a career in a place he didn’t. like, with few friends left in the world, and no idea where to go next), “How is it that there’s nothing I want to do?”. That moment captured a lot of things, which felt very personal for me.
Overall, Life is definitely up there among the top – maybe 20 – kdramas I have watched. I truly appreciate that LSY is doing so much to write about serious issues that most folks in dramaland would avoid. I hope she keeps at it! Her oeuvre can only go from strength to strength at this rate.
I’m so glad you liked it. I’ve already told you.
Yes to all you say, my most favorite character was, as I have stated many times, Secretary Kang (it’s funny because I watched this show after watching Lawless Lawyer in which Yum Hye Ran’s character was so stereotypical…).
I like how LSY writes about real women. I’m not talking about strong, leading or extraordinary women, but about real women: like YeoJin in Stranger or all the female characters in Life. You didn’t mention Moon So Ri, and her Dr. Oh is just amazing. I loved how it was so clear on how a woman has to deal in man’s world to get to the top without one single explanation.
I also agree about Tae In Ho. Yes, yes, yes… he’s also one of my weakness.
And I didn’t want to sp*il you on LHJ cameo, because I almost fell off my couch when I saw him, hehe. That scene made me want a second season with him as the Hospital Director.
In the end, nothing really happened: it is just Life.
You’re right about the women in LSY’s writing – thank heavens for that. There’s no artificial coyness or any such rubbish in her depictions. I wish she would write more women in, though!!
All her shows have just a handful of women – the stories are still very much about the men.
And ah Moon So-ri – yeah, I think in my editing back and forth, her name got deleted! she was awesome as Dr Oh – suitably ambiguous – powerful – professional – ambitious – that scene with the Restructuring team where she starts with kicking the door open was some serious stuff!
Tae In-ho!! So underused in dramaland, IMO. I really wanted to see more of him in JBL too!
Thank you for not spoiling LJH for me – it was such a whistle-inducing surprise! I totally agree that this was beautifully set up for a season 2. Maybe Gu Seung-ho could be hired by the doctors to head the independent foundation they set up to buy Sankook out, and we could have a CSW-LJH face off here!! Ah, wishful thinking…
Ljfe totally lives upto its name and I’ll call it more of a slice of life and workplace politics drama than a medical one. That scene with the Ye brothers was amazing and I was a crying mess when I saw it. I have special apprecaition fr writers who include characters who are differently abled (sorry if I’m using the wrong term), both Life and JBL had characters who were human beyond a disability. LKH has done very sad roles but Life was most heart wrenching he just wanted to be considered and treated like a normal human being like everyone else. But I stuck through Life because of Gu Seung Ho. He was a very complex gray character and a typical “business man” but thay didn’t mean that he’ll side with the wrong. Like the characters the audience was equally in the dark about him, is he good? Is he bad? And our opinion about him changed with the characters. Dr Oh was another kind of gray character in Life, but for the admirable strong woman she is, everyone had a good view about her.
Agree that this is a workplace drama and not really a medical drama. But my grouse about not seeing enough of CSW’s smile remains 🙂 which is why I said I’d like to seem him as a regular guy in a plain ole’ slice of life. He was too much of the grey-hearted businessman here for me.
So right about the grayness of the characterization – that’s what I especially loved about the writing – there’s two sides to everyone. There were times I felt that Ye Seon-woo was taking advantage of others, or Lee Bun-ho was a scheming director, and many characters, like Glutton and Dr Oh, were unreadable at most times. This is what made it all so real and felt close to home in mimicking people around us.
CSW was terrific as GSH, making the character greyer than ash – even until the end, I wasn’t sure if I sided with or against him, just like I felt the doctors couldn’t make up their minds either. I came for Lee Soo-Yeon, but CSW was also definitely the second major draw for me. Like I said, I’m very biased – he’s a near perfect actor in my opinion. 😀
And I hear you about including characters who are specially abled (I am also not sure of what the appropriate term would be): Without becoming moralistic or taking the high ground, this show said so much about what life is like if you are in such a situation – whether it is the daily humdrum of your life, or emotional and mental state, or the extent to which you can have a full-blown professional career, and how your ambitions (professional, social, emotional) get curtailed. It was very sensitively and respectfully done. On this metric alone, I don’t think I have seen a better show. JBL also did a good job (and it is one of all time favourite shows), but I thought this drama did an even better job.
Won Jin-ah certainly felt like the weak link to me, if only because she was playing a character 10 years her senior, so she didn’t carry the weariness that the others naturally possessed about life (ha, ha). Maybe that was the point of her character, but her youthful face compounded by her small frame didn’t exactly help with the (unnecessary) love-line with CSW. I maaaybe get why he’d be initially drawn to her at least platonically – she gave him a chance instead of just writing him off as a businessman. I don’t get why she’d be romantically pulled towards him, and I felt zero chemistry between the two to justify his character coming for her in the final scene.
There’s a chance I just dislike her character too – I especially disliked how pity was kind of the only emotion that No-eul expressed towards Sun-woo. I can’t tell if it was a directorial choice, but Won Jin-ah/No-eul looked way too stunted for a noona hearing the confession from a dongseng, and looked traumatized more than anything else. In fact, she only looked traumatized, which puzzled me given the supposed emotional wisdom/maturity she showed CSW’s character. To me, it was pretty damning that the first thing she saw were his legs and the wheelchair before meeting his gaze, and I thought the show kind of let her off too easy for it.
One other thing that I thought was forced was Sun-woo’s health complications, like jeez give this guy a break! I just don’t get why we needed to have this additional side plot when the resolution (theatre scene) didn’t require it. I thought there was enough material to work with already, and I would have preferred if the drama more fully explored Sun-woo’s feelings of self worth instead of inducing angst by giving him only 10-15 years to live and a last minute guilt trip over his childhood accident. That said, I would have loved to have seen CSW’s character help Sun-woo in his character growth, and I really found their interaction outside No-eul’s apartment fascinating – Seung-hyo’s result oriented/no-nonsense perspective could have breathed a lot into a character weighed to the ground by self-pity.
Overall, I have to agree that for most of the drama, nothing really happened, but I was still really absorbed. Yoo Jae-myung had one or two too many monologues/speeches for my tastes, but I don’t blame them for trying recreate the magic in FoS. I loved seeing Dr. Oh take charge, and I thought Jin-woo’s characterization that her only flaw is that she views herself as the standard was spot-on, and we could see that her motivations/actions were really consistent through the lens of this characterization throughout the drama. Really glad to have watched.
Totally on-point observations about Won Jin-ah’s No-eul. I also felt there was zero chemistry. But I don’t know if it was about the casting alone, but also about the writing – I did not find the other romantic arc particularly well-done either (Jin-woo and the reporter). I also thought LDW was as much of a weak link as WJA.
There were TONS of monologues!! And yes they got a tedious. I worry that Stranger 2 might go down the same path – if not monologues, but interminably long and complex dialogues between two people, with no end or goal in sight – that is better for a written text, but doesn’t always translate well into performance.
The initial romance with the reporter was important only to show that there was nothing going on with No-eul. I was surprised they took it to the end.
Strangely, the only thought I had while watching Lee Dong-wook’s farewell to imaginary Sun-woo/himself was “wow, Jo In-sung is a better actor than I thought”, because I couldn’t help not compare it to that scene in It’s Okay that’s Love (beginning of ep 16). While LDW’s self confession fell very, very flat to me, I remember Jo In-sung’s was much more moving. It could be directorial – Jo In-sung did get a close-up while LDW was in a public space, but I thought LDW’s execution was poor overall. I didn’t think too much of his performance otherwise, but I may be giving Greek god who’s a doofus around girls too much of a pass.
“It’s Okay” is a show I did NOT like at all – disliked both the leads, the story, the execution, everything. I ff-ed through it to understand what the hype was about and didn’t get it still. I’m mighty glad that LSY did not pick LDW for Stranger 2 – he has a long way to go to fix his acting chops.
And oh yeah, the dynamic between Seung-ho and Seon-woo could have been better explored. That’s what I meant when I said the writer does non-romantic relationships well, and should focus on those. All the scenes between those two were superb – it also helps that they are generally outstanding actors.
The additional health complication was just wasted time, I agree, and caused unnecessary drama angst. There was enough otherwise in Seon-woo’s character to discuss the challenges of living normally when life throws you a curveball, and those parts were actually well done. Like the conversation between the brothers, when Jin-woo tells his brother he is a role model, and he replies that he doesn’t want to be one – I have had this exact same conversation with a close friend who was in a similar situation, which caused me to revisit my position on this issue fundamentally. That really hit home.
The ocean scene will be forever in my memory as one of the most beautiful moments in drama land. I loved every minute of Life.
The debates about the identity and role of the institution resonated strongly with debates about universities as they became corporatised and transformed into profit making organisations. There could not have been a resolution to this debate at the time Life was made. The process has been like an unstoppable juggernaut.
Ironically, with COVID-19, it’s all changed again, at least where I am, and the whole profit-making venture has fallen over. It would have been, and will continue to be, laudable and right if hospitals put healing people first and Universities were about the pursuit of knowledge and truth, but all of that seemed impossibly naive in the era of neo-liberalism.
In Life and Stranger2, Lee Soo-yeon brilliantly chooses contemporary hot spots and bravely explores what’s at stake. Best and most pleasurable viewing ever.
Yes! to the ocean scene. From start to finish, it was breathtakingly beautiful and so so appropriate in terms of its placement in the story. It wasn’t a random, oh lets give some visual relief, kind of scene. It had meaning and really pushed the story forward, or as in this case, gave closure.
“Contemporary hot spots” – brave is the word to use for LSY indeed! This is also why I drew comparisons with The Wire, because I see a similar attempt in her work to question the evolution of institutions and speculate on whether we truly understand our priorities or not, as human beings. I respect and admire her immensely for this, and I do hope she keeps this a running motif through her work, because for all the fluff on TV out there, we desperately need to have these kinds of conversations too!
I agree, these are conversations we need to have. I haven’t seen The Wire. I’ve just been reading about the outcome of the actual police vs prosecution debate in Korea and discovered how momentous it was. People demonstrated in the streets at the prosecution-led attack on the Justice Minister who initiated the attempt to reform the checks and balances between the two. She has written right into this in Stranger 2, and Koreans would not miss the connection. It all leads straight to the President and his pledge to bring more fairness to the country when he was elected. What actually happened was the system of privilege was even further exposed in the accusations against the progressive Justice Minister, Cho kuk. It’s truly the stuff of dramas. Clearly an opportunity she could not resist and has bravely taken on.
oh do watch The Wire if you get the chance – it’s a show that stays in your head for a long long time.
I love the real-to-reel transition you describe, and actually even envy the writer being able to do that (while also admiring her bravery) for not everywhere can you write (or dare to write) so openly. Do share links if you have recommendations on the subject. I will be only to happy to read.
The representation of the Assemblyman in the last episode of FOS appears to make a significant departure from the Justice Minister who actually fell prey to the prosecution in SK. My impression is that the actual Minister had been a hero of the Left and may still be for some. https://thediplomat.com/2019/10/south-koreas-cho-kuk-saga-ends/
But opinions have actually fractured the Left too: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2020/08/142_295124.html
The current episodes of FOS about trying to control the Assemblyman. In real life, it looks as if the prosecutors went for him like attaching sharks. The repercussions go all the way to the top and also erode the President’s promise to make a fairer Korea.
Thank you! This gives an interesting perspective to the storytelling. I wonder if, as in S1, this will take it all the way to the Blue House too – gunning directly for the President.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 12:49 AM
After some hard-selling by Beanies, and desperately needing more of Lee Soo-yeon (what am I going to do now?), I finally finished bingeing Life. It is definitely nothing close to LSY’s best, i.e., Stranger, and as @eazal puts it, nothing really happens in the show, it still has its charm. Some random observations from my watch follow (One or two Spoilers Alert) .
About the performances:
— exponentially upped my appreciation for the senior actors in kdramaland – Yum Hye-Ran (Secretary Kang! – gold performance), Yoo Jae-Myung (he’s done so many rubbish shows, but he’s *such* a great character actor), Lee Sang-hee, Kim Won-Hae (hope he’s recovering fast!)…
— Of the younger lot, Lee Kyu-hyung and Tae In-ho stood out.
— Of course our hero Cho Seung-Woo can do no wrong in my eyes. I’d love to see CSW in a slice of life one day, instead of his forever grim poker-faced characters.
— I still love Won Jin-ah’s voice: deep, rich, and clear. That. is her biggest strength, and I hope she uses it well. But she has yet to best her role in Just Between Lovers. This was not it. Maybe she’s a director’s actor, and needs to find the right guidance.
— Lee Dong Wook as “Greek God” had me in splits throughout – well, erm, he is that, but sadly, maybe mainly that in this show. I’m not complaining. Visual relief is always important.
— I hooted silently when Lee Joon Hyuk came on screen in a blink and miss scene. It was just the other day I had mentioned that it was a shame he wasn’t in this drama considering how many actors overlapped with Stranger, and voila.
About the writing and storytelling:
— the friendships are written/performed so well! They shine in comparison with the subtle-but-oh-not-so-subtle romance. I think LSY should stick to writing good friendships (cue reference, Stranger 2: please don’t mess it up).
— the storytelling style pushes a lot of standard dramaland boundaries: Things were not always explained well. A lot of sub-text was left for the audience to decipher. There were no clear resolutions. A lot of ambiguity remained right till the end, including on critical character motivations (or at least I felt so).
— this is what I respect LSY for – she doesn’t spoonfeed, and doesn’t treat audience as stupid. Her settings are also very real, and although dramatic license is employed often, there is enough to make you feel like this is familiar stuff, and that you could have been a part of this story yourself.
About other stuff:
— the BGM was louder and more prominent than it needed to be.
— the pacing was off in many many places. It was very slow and involved a lot of unnecessary shots of people staring into blank space.
— BUT BUT BUT the mid-length non-verbal ocean scene in the end between the Brothers Ye was so beautiful, and gave closure to a lot of unanswered questions (without actually answering them). This was one of the finest moments of the show overall, and I’m glad I stayed the course.
— My favourite line came at the end, from the character played by Tae In-ho, and. the context in which he said (after a career in a place he didn’t. like, with few friends left in the world, and no idea where to go next), “How is it that there’s nothing I want to do?”. That moment captured a lot of things, which felt very personal for me.
Overall, Life is definitely up there among the top – maybe 20 – kdramas I have watched. I truly appreciate that LSY is doing so much to write about serious issues that most folks in dramaland would avoid. I hope she keeps at it! Her oeuvre can only go from strength to strength at this rate.
Eazal
August 29, 2020 at 1:07 AM
I’m so glad you liked it. I’ve already told you.
Yes to all you say, my most favorite character was, as I have stated many times, Secretary Kang (it’s funny because I watched this show after watching Lawless Lawyer in which Yum Hye Ran’s character was so stereotypical…).
I like how LSY writes about real women. I’m not talking about strong, leading or extraordinary women, but about real women: like YeoJin in Stranger or all the female characters in Life. You didn’t mention Moon So Ri, and her Dr. Oh is just amazing. I loved how it was so clear on how a woman has to deal in man’s world to get to the top without one single explanation.
I also agree about Tae In Ho. Yes, yes, yes… he’s also one of my weakness.
And I didn’t want to sp*il you on LHJ cameo, because I almost fell off my couch when I saw him, hehe. That scene made me want a second season with him as the Hospital Director.
In the end, nothing really happened: it is just Life.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 4:57 AM
You’re right about the women in LSY’s writing – thank heavens for that. There’s no artificial coyness or any such rubbish in her depictions. I wish she would write more women in, though!!
All her shows have just a handful of women – the stories are still very much about the men.
And ah Moon So-ri – yeah, I think in my editing back and forth, her name got deleted! she was awesome as Dr Oh – suitably ambiguous – powerful – professional – ambitious – that scene with the Restructuring team where she starts with kicking the door open was some serious stuff!
Tae In-ho!! So underused in dramaland, IMO. I really wanted to see more of him in JBL too!
Thank you for not spoiling LJH for me – it was such a whistle-inducing surprise! I totally agree that this was beautifully set up for a season 2. Maybe Gu Seung-ho could be hired by the doctors to head the independent foundation they set up to buy Sankook out, and we could have a CSW-LJH face off here!! Ah, wishful thinking…
wapz
August 29, 2020 at 4:02 AM
Ljfe totally lives upto its name and I’ll call it more of a slice of life and workplace politics drama than a medical one. That scene with the Ye brothers was amazing and I was a crying mess when I saw it. I have special apprecaition fr writers who include characters who are differently abled (sorry if I’m using the wrong term), both Life and JBL had characters who were human beyond a disability. LKH has done very sad roles but Life was most heart wrenching he just wanted to be considered and treated like a normal human being like everyone else. But I stuck through Life because of Gu Seung Ho. He was a very complex gray character and a typical “business man” but thay didn’t mean that he’ll side with the wrong. Like the characters the audience was equally in the dark about him, is he good? Is he bad? And our opinion about him changed with the characters. Dr Oh was another kind of gray character in Life, but for the admirable strong woman she is, everyone had a good view about her.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 5:08 AM
Agree that this is a workplace drama and not really a medical drama. But my grouse about not seeing enough of CSW’s smile remains 🙂 which is why I said I’d like to seem him as a regular guy in a plain ole’ slice of life. He was too much of the grey-hearted businessman here for me.
So right about the grayness of the characterization – that’s what I especially loved about the writing – there’s two sides to everyone. There were times I felt that Ye Seon-woo was taking advantage of others, or Lee Bun-ho was a scheming director, and many characters, like Glutton and Dr Oh, were unreadable at most times. This is what made it all so real and felt close to home in mimicking people around us.
CSW was terrific as GSH, making the character greyer than ash – even until the end, I wasn’t sure if I sided with or against him, just like I felt the doctors couldn’t make up their minds either. I came for Lee Soo-Yeon, but CSW was also definitely the second major draw for me. Like I said, I’m very biased – he’s a near perfect actor in my opinion. 😀
And I hear you about including characters who are specially abled (I am also not sure of what the appropriate term would be): Without becoming moralistic or taking the high ground, this show said so much about what life is like if you are in such a situation – whether it is the daily humdrum of your life, or emotional and mental state, or the extent to which you can have a full-blown professional career, and how your ambitions (professional, social, emotional) get curtailed. It was very sensitively and respectfully done. On this metric alone, I don’t think I have seen a better show. JBL also did a good job (and it is one of all time favourite shows), but I thought this drama did an even better job.
asterell
August 29, 2020 at 7:06 AM
Won Jin-ah certainly felt like the weak link to me, if only because she was playing a character 10 years her senior, so she didn’t carry the weariness that the others naturally possessed about life (ha, ha). Maybe that was the point of her character, but her youthful face compounded by her small frame didn’t exactly help with the (unnecessary) love-line with CSW. I maaaybe get why he’d be initially drawn to her at least platonically – she gave him a chance instead of just writing him off as a businessman. I don’t get why she’d be romantically pulled towards him, and I felt zero chemistry between the two to justify his character coming for her in the final scene.
There’s a chance I just dislike her character too – I especially disliked how pity was kind of the only emotion that No-eul expressed towards Sun-woo. I can’t tell if it was a directorial choice, but Won Jin-ah/No-eul looked way too stunted for a noona hearing the confession from a dongseng, and looked traumatized more than anything else. In fact, she only looked traumatized, which puzzled me given the supposed emotional wisdom/maturity she showed CSW’s character. To me, it was pretty damning that the first thing she saw were his legs and the wheelchair before meeting his gaze, and I thought the show kind of let her off too easy for it.
One other thing that I thought was forced was Sun-woo’s health complications, like jeez give this guy a break! I just don’t get why we needed to have this additional side plot when the resolution (theatre scene) didn’t require it. I thought there was enough material to work with already, and I would have preferred if the drama more fully explored Sun-woo’s feelings of self worth instead of inducing angst by giving him only 10-15 years to live and a last minute guilt trip over his childhood accident. That said, I would have loved to have seen CSW’s character help Sun-woo in his character growth, and I really found their interaction outside No-eul’s apartment fascinating – Seung-hyo’s result oriented/no-nonsense perspective could have breathed a lot into a character weighed to the ground by self-pity.
Overall, I have to agree that for most of the drama, nothing really happened, but I was still really absorbed. Yoo Jae-myung had one or two too many monologues/speeches for my tastes, but I don’t blame them for trying recreate the magic in FoS. I loved seeing Dr. Oh take charge, and I thought Jin-woo’s characterization that her only flaw is that she views herself as the standard was spot-on, and we could see that her motivations/actions were really consistent through the lens of this characterization throughout the drama. Really glad to have watched.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 9:49 PM
Totally on-point observations about Won Jin-ah’s No-eul. I also felt there was zero chemistry. But I don’t know if it was about the casting alone, but also about the writing – I did not find the other romantic arc particularly well-done either (Jin-woo and the reporter). I also thought LDW was as much of a weak link as WJA.
There were TONS of monologues!! And yes they got a tedious. I worry that Stranger 2 might go down the same path – if not monologues, but interminably long and complex dialogues between two people, with no end or goal in sight – that is better for a written text, but doesn’t always translate well into performance.
asterell
August 30, 2020 at 5:22 AM
The initial romance with the reporter was important only to show that there was nothing going on with No-eul. I was surprised they took it to the end.
Strangely, the only thought I had while watching Lee Dong-wook’s farewell to imaginary Sun-woo/himself was “wow, Jo In-sung is a better actor than I thought”, because I couldn’t help not compare it to that scene in It’s Okay that’s Love (beginning of ep 16). While LDW’s self confession fell very, very flat to me, I remember Jo In-sung’s was much more moving. It could be directorial – Jo In-sung did get a close-up while LDW was in a public space, but I thought LDW’s execution was poor overall. I didn’t think too much of his performance otherwise, but I may be giving Greek god who’s a doofus around girls too much of a pass.
pickleddragon
August 31, 2020 at 12:35 AM
“It’s Okay” is a show I did NOT like at all – disliked both the leads, the story, the execution, everything. I ff-ed through it to understand what the hype was about and didn’t get it still. I’m mighty glad that LSY did not pick LDW for Stranger 2 – he has a long way to go to fix his acting chops.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 9:54 PM
And oh yeah, the dynamic between Seung-ho and Seon-woo could have been better explored. That’s what I meant when I said the writer does non-romantic relationships well, and should focus on those. All the scenes between those two were superb – it also helps that they are generally outstanding actors.
The additional health complication was just wasted time, I agree, and caused unnecessary drama angst. There was enough otherwise in Seon-woo’s character to discuss the challenges of living normally when life throws you a curveball, and those parts were actually well done. Like the conversation between the brothers, when Jin-woo tells his brother he is a role model, and he replies that he doesn’t want to be one – I have had this exact same conversation with a close friend who was in a similar situation, which caused me to revisit my position on this issue fundamentally. That really hit home.
dramalover4ever
August 29, 2020 at 5:06 PM
The ocean scene will be forever in my memory as one of the most beautiful moments in drama land. I loved every minute of Life.
The debates about the identity and role of the institution resonated strongly with debates about universities as they became corporatised and transformed into profit making organisations. There could not have been a resolution to this debate at the time Life was made. The process has been like an unstoppable juggernaut.
Ironically, with COVID-19, it’s all changed again, at least where I am, and the whole profit-making venture has fallen over. It would have been, and will continue to be, laudable and right if hospitals put healing people first and Universities were about the pursuit of knowledge and truth, but all of that seemed impossibly naive in the era of neo-liberalism.
In Life and Stranger2, Lee Soo-yeon brilliantly chooses contemporary hot spots and bravely explores what’s at stake. Best and most pleasurable viewing ever.
pickleddragon
August 29, 2020 at 9:59 PM
Yes! to the ocean scene. From start to finish, it was breathtakingly beautiful and so so appropriate in terms of its placement in the story. It wasn’t a random, oh lets give some visual relief, kind of scene. It had meaning and really pushed the story forward, or as in this case, gave closure.
“Contemporary hot spots” – brave is the word to use for LSY indeed! This is also why I drew comparisons with The Wire, because I see a similar attempt in her work to question the evolution of institutions and speculate on whether we truly understand our priorities or not, as human beings. I respect and admire her immensely for this, and I do hope she keeps this a running motif through her work, because for all the fluff on TV out there, we desperately need to have these kinds of conversations too!
dramalover4ever
August 30, 2020 at 12:31 AM
I agree, these are conversations we need to have. I haven’t seen The Wire. I’ve just been reading about the outcome of the actual police vs prosecution debate in Korea and discovered how momentous it was. People demonstrated in the streets at the prosecution-led attack on the Justice Minister who initiated the attempt to reform the checks and balances between the two. She has written right into this in Stranger 2, and Koreans would not miss the connection. It all leads straight to the President and his pledge to bring more fairness to the country when he was elected. What actually happened was the system of privilege was even further exposed in the accusations against the progressive Justice Minister, Cho kuk. It’s truly the stuff of dramas. Clearly an opportunity she could not resist and has bravely taken on.
pickleddragon
August 31, 2020 at 12:38 AM
oh do watch The Wire if you get the chance – it’s a show that stays in your head for a long long time.
I love the real-to-reel transition you describe, and actually even envy the writer being able to do that (while also admiring her bravery) for not everywhere can you write (or dare to write) so openly. Do share links if you have recommendations on the subject. I will be only to happy to read.
dramalover4ever
August 31, 2020 at 1:17 AM
The representation of the Assemblyman in the last episode of FOS appears to make a significant departure from the Justice Minister who actually fell prey to the prosecution in SK. My impression is that the actual Minister had been a hero of the Left and may still be for some. https://thediplomat.com/2019/10/south-koreas-cho-kuk-saga-ends/
But opinions have actually fractured the Left too:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2020/08/142_295124.html
The current episodes of FOS about trying to control the Assemblyman. In real life, it looks as if the prosecutors went for him like attaching sharks. The repercussions go all the way to the top and also erode the President’s promise to make a fairer Korea.
pickleddragon
August 31, 2020 at 1:56 AM
Thank you! This gives an interesting perspective to the storytelling. I wonder if, as in S1, this will take it all the way to the Blue House too – gunning directly for the President.
dramalover4ever
August 31, 2020 at 3:25 AM
I wonder. I can’t see how she can resist.