Boys Over Flowers

So my last post here was 11th November? Omg. I read one novel in between, which was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. However, I'm not going to blog about it. Mainly because I can't remember much about it, and I don't think I'm going to continue the trilogy. Plus I'm in Korean drama mode now, and when I'm in such a mood, novels do no good. I can only do one thing at a time. Well, this post is going to be about Boys Over Flower, which I finished watching about two weeks ago, but postponed (procrastinated) this post till now. Leggo. 

Firstly, I have to mention, this is the second time I'm watching Lee Min Ho in a school-type of series, where he is just too old for that role. In The Heirs, it was bad enough. Although he was younger in BOF, but I guess his face is the matured type, so he just doesn't fit here. Having said that, his acting is fine, so it wasn't too bad either. I shall talk about the characters first, before focusing on the plot. Actually, I won't be focusing on the plot. I'll be talking about, which guy actually deserves her, and the reason to why I think so. 

Yi-Jung. So for me this is the best looking member of F4. But, his acting was bad. The happy parts were okay, but he couldn't pull of the depressive phase. Plus, I totally couldn't get why he suddenly started thinking about his past, when from the beginning of the drama, the only depressed person was Ji-Hoo, or so they portrayed. Either I can't remember where was the trigger, or there wasn't one. 

 

Ku Hye-Sun (Geum Jan-Di). She acted in Blood, which I watched a couple of months ago. In Blood she was super annoying with her long hair. Here however, I kinda liked her acting. Although her crying scenes were forced, but overall, she was less annoying and wayyy more pretty with her short hair. Her smile is just super charming! 

Kim Hyun-Joong. So he actually can't play the violin, but he tried la HAHAHA. Anyway, for me, his best is still Inspiring Generation. He has that depressed look, but at the same time, if you noticed, he has a pretty nice smile as well. I'm not sure why the directors are misplacing his talent. They keep giving him the depressed roles for love stories. Wae? He was depressed in Inspiring Generation as well, but it suited him there. Its totally not suitable for chirpy love stories like this especially. 

Now, basically Jun-Pyo (Lee Min Ho) and Ji Hoo (Hyun Joong) loves her, and Jan-Di loves Jun-Pyo (sadly). I think Ji Hoo should be the one that gets the girl. He cares for her. Maybe Jun-Pyo does as well. But, I don't give marks for effort. Ji-Hoo gets it right. He's always there especially when she needs someone. That's something that was never done by Jun-Pyo, which is just being there for her. That's very important for me I guess. Not being there emotionally, every single time, is a big time failure for me. Plus, Jun-Pyo is so dramatic and confused at times. I know its tough, but people who can't make decisions annoy me. He can either choose his empire and or her, but he's standing on the fence and that's just irritating. 

The only thing that I'd praise Jun-Pyo was how he cared for her family. That's something I rarely see in other korean dramas, and also for myself. Most of the time, I only think about the person I care about. I don't go to the extent of caring for their family members. Perhaps, that should be the way, because the other factors also contribute to the happiness of your loved one, and taking care of those factors also show that you care for that person.

One more thing about this drama, was the love triangle didn't get overly intense. Yes, their friendship was threatened because of a girl, and there were some "competitions" as well, but at no point I felt, that it was getting out of hand. There was one scene where Jun-Pyo will ask Ji-Hoo to punch him, and he will say that, there was a point in time where he felt Ji-Hoo would have been better for Jan-Di. Well, I agree with him. Definitely Ji-Hoo is better for her, and the fact that he feels that way, just shows that he isn't doing enough for her, and yet he doesn't actually do anything about it. 

Perhaps I'm so bitter about the fact that Jun-Pyo won, is because I don't believe in that passionate love anymore. Your passion may not be the right choice, and the right choice may not be something you're passionate about. I feel the love Jun-Pyo and Jan-Di had was merely passionate, and not so much on whether they matched each other. Passionate love is like a bonfire. At first it burns fast and bright and super hot, however it takes a lot of effort and you constantly need to replace the firewood. At any one point you get tired, the fire will go out, even before the rain comes. I feel that what Jan-Di and Ji-Hoo had was something much better, something much mature. Its simple, effortless, but difficult to obtain. Its not easy to find someone that you can just blend in and feel comfortable with. Some would think that what Jan-Di had for Ji-Hoo is not called love, but for me I do consider it as love. Probably because my terms are different. 

Either way, I totally enjoyed the drama, not forgetting the soundtracks for this drama were amazing. I'm still listening to it now, as I am typing this post. There were some scenes I just burst out laughing. Some kdramas just know how to be extremely dramatic, and I love how every time she sees any one of the other characters in the drama, she is so shocked to see them, and she goes "Sunbae?" - like she hasn't seen them in a 100 years. 

This is my most most most favorite scene, I just wanted the drama to end here. Even if it was fake, it was sweet :) I'm watching Bubblegum now. I'm sure I'll be blogging about that soon, the story is picking up its pace. See ya!

Picoult, Despain, Gerritsen

 

So back to books. I've read three books already but I've been procrastinating to blog about it. I shall start with My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. This is my fourth Picoult book. Anyway, the plot isn't too complex. Basically, these two parents had a kid with leukemia, and in order to provide genetically matching blood or marrow and whatnot, they genetically engineered another kid. This engineered kid, files a lawsuit against her parents, because apparently when she is required to donate a kidney to her dying sister, it becomes too much for her to handle so she flips. However, at the end, we learn that its her dying sister's final wish - that the engineered kid shouldn't donate her kidney, so that she could die. The leukemic kid was suffering too much, she just wanted to die. 

The story was written in multiple POV's. Picoult's fashion, just like she did in Leaving Time. All the characters took turns to speak their mind. Although sometimes its hard to keep up, but its okay for me. I can enjoy it. For me, if the engineered kid filed a lawsuit based on the initial claim (that she just can't continue being a default donor without proper consent), I would have loved the story more. Its because I would look at that kid as being really mature, and doing what most kids cannot do, which is to fight for themselves. However, that turned out to be a cliche as it was the dying girl's wish to die a dignified death. 

It all became too perfect, when the engineered kid got into a car crash, in a way that only resulted in brain death, which made her a perfect candidate for kidney donation. Her leukemic sister needed a kidney - how convenient. In the end, the sister with the rare leukemia survived with the kidney. The ending was just too perfect. I enjoyed the journey. I always do with Picoult's novels. The endings doesn't necessarily impress me, except for the case of Leaving Time. All her novels are thought provoking. I kind of imagine myself in both the situations of the dying kid, and the genetically engineered kid, and in both situations, life sucks. I watched the movie after reading the book, and the movie was even more of a cliche because the leukemic kid just died instead. Nevermind. 

This was the next book I read. It's actually a trilogy, and this is the first book. I doubt I'm going to continue with the other two books though. I actually started the second book, when someone on Dayre recommended me Die Again by Tess Gerritsen. Usually, when I put a book down, its really hard to pick it up again. Plus my exam is on wednesday next week, which makes tomorrow less than a week I have till exam. Novels isn't the thing I should be doing now. Oh well.

This novel is about a guy who is a werewolf (Daniel), and this girl (Grace) who adores this guy. After some fallout, this guy left town, to explore himself and his wolf. Years later, he returns, and this girl is still crazy over him. Apparently, there's a cure to this wolf thing. It has to be someone with no predatory intent, but true love to stab the wolf (in the wolf state, not the human state) in the chest, directly injuring the heart with a silver weapon. Conflict of the story is that, Grace's brother was bitten by Daniel sometime before the fallout many years ago. So the brother is in fact a wolf too. The thing about the transformation of wolf in this book is similar to The Vampire Diaries, where you need to make a kill to complete the transition. It takes time for the wolf to come in control, so the brother has been killing some people in town without realizing when the wolf takes over.

Somehow, (to cut the story short), the brother bit her sister, Grace, while Grace stabbed the silver knife into Wolf Daniel's heart. So basically, Daniel is now cured. Grace becomes a wolf because her brother bit her before she did the stab, which makes Daniel's kill her first blood to complete her transformation. Her brother is now still unconscious about the fact that he is a werewolf and tries to keep Grace away from Daniel. There was romance in the book. Mostly about kissing and knees getting weak while kissing. Its all sweet, but whether I would enjoy it or not really depends on my mood. I was reading it because I had nothing else to read. That's why I abandoned it when I had another recommendation HAHA. Perhaps I might continue the second book in the trilogy after exams, who knows?

Okay next. This book I started last night, and finished it about an hour ago. It was just amazing. I couldn't put it down, except to sleep yesterday night HAHAHA. I didn't know the author, but now I do and apparently she is a physician. There was a dual storyline, until the meeting point somewhere around the climax. The first storyline was happening six years ago. 7 people trapped in a safari, and they were dying one by one, leaving one survivor and of course the killer itself. The second storyline was about two murders, and an ongoing investigation. Eventually both story lines meet, and the murders are tied up to each other. 

The serial killer turns out to be a person who takes on different identities, and instead of hunting animals, he hunts humans. He puts them in a hunting circumstance, and its just downright horrifying. He feels the power of being a predator. The novel didn't go into the psychological aspects of serial killers. It was basically a police investigation finding a criminal. There was quite extensive research on Felidae (cat family) for this novel and how they hunt. It was enjoyable and a really fun read. The serial killer has been doing this for years now. The only mistake he made was assuming, the survivor would not have survived the safari alone for two weeks. Along with some photo taking mistakes, he realized he needed to cover his tracks, and to do so, he committed another two murders that stirred up everything. It's a higly recommended read, and in fact there's a whole series of books that Gerritsen wrote. I'm sure I'm going to explore more of it.

 

"I’m alive merely because I was too terrified to die..... 

I will always be that cracked porcelain doll."

 

Spectre 007

I watched Spectre last Friday, and read the review on Vox on Saturday and basically, everything I want to say is there. Honestly, I think we have seen it all. How much can action movies impress us these days? If you think about it, action movies revolves only around a few things - pendrives, saving girls, defusing bombs or stopping nuclear warfare. The plot of action movies don't run too far from these themes. When there's nothing much to comment on the plot, we focus on other factors in the movie to compliment. 

Firstly, Bond is known for his 'player' attitude. So basically, this has been screwed up since Casino Royale. Craig had a 'real' love and he's still hung up on her. I think his liquor preference has been addressed elsewhere too. Not forgetting his action skills became more 'human' ever since Craig signed the contract. I'm okay with all of these to be honest. Like all Bond movies, the beginning of the movie can be separated into three parts - the gunshot and blood entrance, viewed through a gun barrel, then comes the opening action scene, and then comes the very sexy introduction of names with a theme song. There were goosebumps-inducing octopi this time, coupled with Sam Smith's Writing's On The Wall. I was okay with the song, but not the octopus. At first it felt artistic, but the octopus didn't go away and it started to get annoying. 

The opening action scene was magnificent - the one where there's a death day parade in Mexico. I liked that, and there was less talking, and it was slightly comedic. After that, it just basically went downhill. I didn't really sink into the movie, and felt like the movie didn't actually hold a proper plot and I kept feeling, has the real conflict of the movie kicked in? The plot was rather simple, which is to stop a kind of global surveillance that takes over the double-O program. I think I have to give Christoph Waltz some credit here. 

Christoph Waltz

I loved this guy's acting since Inglorious Basterds, not forgetting Django Unchained. He is just a natural when taking on a villain role. He speaks calmly and it sounds like a badass. Although, if you watched Spectre, the part when Bond's bomb watch exploded near him, worked against his benefit (the whole scene just made him lose his coolness), but I think overall he did well. What else do I remember about Spectre? Car chase! I loved the car chase. These were the cars used in the movie. My favorite car was used by the villain instead HAHA.

Aston Martin DB10 & Jaguar C-X75

Honestly, I think the car chase action in Spectre did much better than Fast & Furious. It was more logical, exciting, cool, fast, and elegant. About the love story in this movie, it was so superficial that I didn't feel anything at all. He just made a promise to a guy to protect his daughter and suddenly shes the love of his life and he starts being all heroic about it. The destruction of the villain base was impressively short. Just took a gigantic blast and the whole place went down. Since this movie is new and I'm blogging about it, I cant really include screenshots.

Anyway, there was a scene, where Mr.Hinx was introducing himself, and he smacked the previous leader's head on the table. Well, seriously? that move is totally owened by Joker in The Dark Knight. Although this scene in Spectre did not involve a disappearing-pen-magic-trick. This head smash move was pulled off so well by The Joker, I don't think anyone should attempt it again, ever.

Joker's Magic Trick

Also, the ultimatum given by the villain (Christoph Waltz) to Bond was so lame. Save the girl or save yourself? Seriously? It's not even a difficult choice to make. It would be difficult, only if you're the most un-gentlemen and cowardly guy on earth. Again, I shall make a reference to The Dark Knight. Joker's ultimatum for Batman was much much better. Harvey or Rachel. Love or Duty. That's more like it - a tough choice. 

The last thing I'm going to mention about Spectre is, how much alike it is with Totally Spies, the cartoon. If you watched Totally Spies, you would know that, for every mission they get, they are given weapons so specific that it will come in handy only for that mission. Its not like a gun, which is multipurpose, and you can shoot anything, irrelevant of the drama you're stuck in. We are talking about some laser lipstick that cut through doors and it so happen, in that mission they (Totally Spies) would get stuck in a really thick metal-door room, where this laser can cut through it. Kinda same thing happened here. He received a watch-bomb. So happened, he got restrained on a futuristic lobotomy machine, where he could remove his watch and pass it to his girlfriend to slide it towards to villain (but not to throw is at his face) before it explodes. How convenient.

Overall I enjoyed the movie, because I was in a good mood I think. You could read the review on Vox to see the full crucifixion of the movie HAHA.

Our Times

It's been awhile since I blogged here. Mostly its because I haven't been watching any epic movies, and I've literally stopped exploring mind-boggling movies. Wanna know what I've been watching lately? Greys Anatomy. Any free time I have, its just an episode or two of Greys. So I have nothing much to blog about. I read a book though - Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, but I totally forgot to blog about it, mostly because I mentioned a few things on Dayre on the day I finished reading it, and then I felt satisfied about how much I talked about it HAHA. Anyway, yesterday I watched this new Taiwanese love story. I kinda only got to know about it a week or so before the movie was released, but apparently many others were waiting for the movie for quite some time already. Plus the theme song for the movie was released for quite some time (of which I'm super hooked to).

The plot isn't really all that complex, although its not entirely a cliche. Usually its a triangle, but this one is a square? So there's Lin (the nobody girl), MinMin (the popular girl), TaiYu (the gangster guy), and OuYang (the popular guy). The popular guy and girl get together (?kinda). Obviously Lin adores OuYang - like all other girls in the school, and the gangster likes MinMin. So the gangster teams up with Lin in order to break up the popular couple so that they have a chance to be with whoever they like, respectively. However (as we all can see it from a hundred miles away), the romance between the gangster and Lin develops unexpectedly (the characters wasn't expecting I mean). 

Due to some accident-causing-curse-chain-letter, gangsterism and a stroke of bad luck, the gangster develops a ?clot in his brain. He had to go for his brain surgery in US, and of course he hid that fact from Lin. The surgical problem coupled with the fact that he thought the person Lin truly likes is OuYang led him to do what all dumb guys at that age do - The noble break up. Then he disappeared - only to return years later, while fulfilling his promise to her about the Andy Lau concert. 

 Before I give my honest opinion of the movie, I shall give a few awards HAHAHA. 

Shooting star scene

So basically, the scene above was the Best Scene for me. It was really sweet, and they both look really happy being by each others side.

 

The Noble BreakUp

The scene above is the scene with the Best Acting from Lin. He smiling-yet-crying face was epic, and she pulled it off really well - until she had that epic fall and stopped him from running after her. That part I just wanted to burst out laughing.

The orange sweater girl

So the girl in the orange sweater, I can't find her online, and I have no idea who she is. The cast list is not complete on websites, but she is the Prettiest Girl in the movie, for me. Why isn't she the main actress? HAHAHA 

Honestly, I really enjoyed the movie. It was sweet, and some parts were funny - and of course my date for the movie contributed most of the enjoyment. However, as usual, I am able to pick up the most negative parts in the sweetest bowl of sugar. The ending of course. It just suggests that people cannot move on, and that really sucks so bad. Its like she is living her life paralyzed by her previous love, and it obviously affected her current relationship badly. She chucked the current guy effortlessly I think HAHA. But I think people move on. People can move on. We have to, and I'd like to believe its possible. Because in real life no one comes back to you many years later in a concert-dream-fulfilling manner. Even by the time they do, the damage has been done. 

Triangle

 

Okay I just watched this movie. I hate the tagline on this image, but I couldn't find a better image, so whatever. I shall split my discussion into two parts. The loops within the cruise and the ending discussion. I will try my very best, not to confuse myself at the very least. To figure this out, I had to draw the timeline multiple times to explain it to myself. Unfortunately, its too ugly for me to post it here. I hope you understand a timeline explanation in words. Good luck!

So, at any one time, there are actually three versions of Jess. I shall categorize them as - Newcomer, Remainder, and Fail-safe (the one with the mask). So here it goes. Every time a newcomer comes, the newcomer kills the failsafe. Then, shift all roles. There is a new newcomer, and previous newcomer becomes a remainder, and the previous remainder becomes the new failsafe. 

The remainder is always the one who is watching the battle between the newcomer and the failsafe and the remainder has a choice to intervene. If the remainder intervenes in the ballroom, the murders turns out to be the one in the room (where Jess stabs them vigorously). If the remainder does not, the murders are the one in the theater (the one where shotguns are used). Whatever the choice the remainder makes, the failsafe realizes that the only choice there is, is to kill the others and die by the new Jess' hands, in order to escape the ship. So the remainder's choice is irrelevant. That's why I named it failsafe, coz the murders will still take place. Two possibilities, with the same end. 

Now when the failsafe dies, she comes off the island, and runs back home (wow, cool). She then sees the violent version of herself, abusing the son verbally and physically. I shall label them as Dress and Cardigan (Because the violent-self was wearing a dress and the escapee was wearing a cardigan). Cardigan kills Dress, then she wraps Dress in a bag, and takes the son along in the car, to the Triangle (after looking at the note on the fridge, like in the beginning of the movie). Along the way, Cardigan hits a bird (its possible to kill a bird while driving, I've done it). The son starts freaking out and Cardigan promises to bury the bird. When she takes the bird off the road to dump it at the side, she sees plenty of other dead birds there - which means even this has happened many times. After that, the son is still freaking out due to the blood on the windscreen, and due to the distraction from the son, they collide with an oncoming bus. 

This is where is gets really confusing. The crowd attends to the Dress, and her son, but Cardigan is only seen talking to a cab driver that asks whether she needs a ride. She then says she needs to go to the harbour. The big question now is, is Cardigan alive or dead after the accident? Is she really there? 

My take on the ending is, Cardigan is real once she makes it off the Triangle. This is proven by physical proof such as she is able to ring the doorbell and interact with her son. Also, there are many dead birds at the side of the road, indicating its real and it has happened many times. Unfortunately, Dress or Cardigan you can't cheat death, as suggested by the quick philosophy discussion they were having about the ship's name, Aeolus. You can go look up the Greek mythology behind it, because I'm not going to. Cardigan is only real within the time span of after escaping Triangle and before the car-bus collision. That's why nobody attended to her except the afterlife-like cab-driver. She then tries to cheat death and save her son by going on Triangle, to return back in time. Unfortunately, she and her son is dead, and there is nothing anyone can do about it, just like the cab-driver told her. 

For the limbo to start, there is a version where there is only Dress and her son in the car, and they meet with an accident for the first time. If you want, you could go back to the side of the road and calculate how many birds where there at the side - that would give you the number of times her soul has looped back in time, killed her violent self, tries to run off with her son - only to meet with the same accident again. Life sucks.

The only bit of a problem - If she got onto Triangle with her memory intact, at which point did she forget it in order to experience a déjà vu instead of a real memory? Because if she is going on Triangle for the sole purpose of traveling back in time, she shouldn't be so shocked when she saw the storm coming. To let my mind at peace, I'm just going to assume she lost her memory while sleeping in Triangle (the part where Heather comes to offer her champagne), because after that she wakes up all blur. All time travel movies have problems, because they aren't suppose to exist. Reality stand on logic, if time travel exists, reality will disintegrate. Leaving the physics aside, this is just a sad story of a mother trying her best to take care of her son (maybe autistic). She is obviously frustrated with her life. She then meets with an accident, and spends her eternity coming back to save his life, to no avail. I enjoyed this movie! Especially in trying to figure out the loops. See ya!

Sweet

So I just finished reading this book, Sweet by Emmy Laybourne. Saw the recommendation from GoodReads. Some of the reviews there said that the story is very creepy, however it did not pass the threshold of creepy for me. Its a really simple story. Theres a villain who wants to destroy the world and to balance the equation, there's a someone to save the day. In this case, there's more than someone. Actually, the entire time I was reading this book, I was thinking of a Totally Spies episode I watched as a kid. In that episode, celebrities get kidnapped in a plane that flies so fast around the world, it turns the world backwards and subsequently reverses time. Also, the plane has no plans to land. However, in this story, the villain basically wanted to localize all fat and lazy people and kill them all before proceeding to a wider scale of killing all fat people on planet earth.

In the picture is Clover, being exited about Blinkjet - the cruise plane. Well, since I remember this episode so clearly, I could only picture everyone excited to be on the cruise (in the novel), to be as excited as Clover here in Totally Spies.

Anyway, back to the novel. The villain's dad created a drink called Pipop. Its kinda like a soft-drink containing a lot of sugar. People started drinking it, and the drink became famous. However, people who got fat started blaming him for creating that drink in the first place, and causing them to be fat. Hence the son (the Villain, Almstead) creates a diet sweetener. This sweetener allows you to lose weight. So, you can basically eat anything, and while on this sweetener, you will only lose weight. This sweetener is called Solu. Unfortunately, Solu turns out to be an addictive drug, that causes people to lose weight too fast and get addicted to it. Their addiction is so great that when they were deprived of Solu, they started to kill and drink the blood of others who have ingested the drug. 

Who saves the day? The girl who was seasick (caused her not to eat anything), and also a guy who had a personal trainer for his body image. His trainer controlled his food and he laid off desserts, long enough to find out the problem with it. Also, the crew of the ship weren't allowed to have Solu. The story was fast moving, so the love story cultured between them didn't evoke much feelings in me, but it was still acceptable. Yeah, I'm totally okay with suddenly finding yourself kissing a guy in your closet, just a couple of days after meeting him, although you have seen him on television before. 

Almstead planned to kill all these fat celebrities on the ship. This cruise was set to sail for 6 days, and on the sixth day, Solu was to be sold to the country and the rest of the world. Almstead planned to fake his death by exploding the ship, and then watch the cannibalism/vampirism situation in the world from the private island he bought. However, Laurel (the girl), came up with the plan of attracting the bunch of hungry zombies in withdrawal, by pouring a drink diluted with Solu on Almstead's head. Apparently, these addicts can smell Solu from a mile away. They barge into his office and tear him apart - because everyone wants their own share. Tom breaks his ankle in the mess. 

Fast forward a little, the crew escapes on life rafts, and Tom & Laurel volunteered to blow up the ship to attract attention (Helicopters maybe), and hoping they will be able to tell the world from their video recording that Solu is bad for them. However, in a last struggle, Tom loses consciousness leaving Laurel alone. Laurel finds one last raft and puts him on it while she goes to blow up the bom Almstead planned to detonate. However, when she does it, she realizes it has a 60 seconds countdown. She jumps off the cruise ship and swims hard towards Tom, now approx 100m from the ship. 

The ship explodes and both of them get sucked in the explosion vortex and they lose consciousness. They survive the blast and they were brought to a hospital of unknown location. The nurses were speaking in Spanish. Tom and Laurel wake up and they watch the news. The news reader mentions that Solu is bad, but the reader also exclaims that she is already on her third dose of Solu, and she was feeling fantastic! Tom & Laurel were too late. The villain wins this time. Thank god for that. For once, the villain did it right, although no entirely, because he died. Well, I guess in that world, all the fat people are going to die. The description in this story wasn't very good, or perhaps you could say my imagination is not that good. Either way, images weren't painted on my mind that well. The story was fast moving, and that's another thing I liked about this novel. Otherwise, its just a typical villain-hero story with not much of a twist. See ya!

Leaving Time

 

Recently, I can actually finish an entire novel within a day. Well, I finished this book in two, but it took me roughly about 10 hours plus, which can be done in a day hahaha. Once again, just a reminder, all my posts contain spoilers. So the story starts with Jenna, a thirteen year old girl who is looking for her mother. To her knowledge, her mother left her when she was three years old, and she has been looking for her ever since. She has tried every logical method (or at least most of it), to search for her mother, until recently when she decides to seek out a psychic who can contact the dead. She eventually finds Serenity.

Serenity, has a big background history. She became famous for her ability in contacting the dead, and also getting information from the dead about the living. Until one day, when she lied about a high profiled case involving a senators son. When things got ugly, she just went down slope then on. Ever since then, she has never been able to contact the dead. She has been basically doing cold reading on customers and bullshitting her way through life - until Jenna appears. 

Jenna's mother Alice, is an elephant enthusiast, a researcher on elephants and so is her dad. Her dad is currently being treated in a psychiatric hospital. After Jenna's visit, Serenity had a dream about elephants and a blue scarf belonging to Alice and there were elephants, she took that as a sign of nature to help Jenna look for her mother. At the same time, Jenna also looks up for a private investigator. This private investigator was actually the detective in charge of Alice's case 10 years ago. Together, all three of them restart the investigation in search of Alice. 

So, rewind 10 years ago. There is Alice and her husband Thomas; then there is Gideon and his wife, Grace and his mother-in-law, Nevvie. Alice moves from South Africa (studying elephant grief) to where Thomas is because she became pregnant with his child when Thomas came to visit South Africa. A few months later, Jenna is born. Thomas has a history of anxiety and depression, and he is on medications for it. His minds starts to slowly disintegrate as he starts writing formulas on walls, just the way John Nash (Russell Crowe) did in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Alice starts to get worried and asks help from Gideon to paint the walls white, every time Thomas fills the wall up with formulas. 

Eventually, due to Thomas' recent personality changes and slight violence, and Gideon always being there for Alice - both of them (Gideon and Alice) start to develop a thing for each other, and before you know it, they are at secret spots in the elephant sanctuary making love to each other. Grace has PCOS and therefore can't have kids (medically inaccurate actually, but then again I'm very forgiving). Grace eventually finds out about the affair, and kills herself. She loads her pockets with stones and walks into a river. Gideon doesn't feel bad about it, but Alice does. A few months later, Alice is pregnant with Gideon's child. Gideon tells his mother-in-law (Nevvie) about it, however, she doesn't freak out that much. Seeing that, Alice builds up courage to tell Thomas. Thomas indicates that he is not blind, but starts getting violent instead. A few nights later, Jenna goes missing. Alice goes in search for her only to see Nevvie with her child, but her child (Jenna) is bleeding all over. Nevvie killed Jenna and tells Alice, "Now you know what it's like to lose a daughter". What happens after this is a blur because there was a struggle between Alice and Nevvie, and Alice looses consciousness, but its expected that the elephants trample on Nevvie causing serious injuries - broken skulls, bones and lots of bleeding. 

Turns out, Jenna was the one dead all along. The private investigator Jenna hired was also dead, He committed suicide on the day of his detective promotion because he couldn't live with himself, closing Alice's case while knowing that there were evidences that lacked explanation. He drove himself off a cliff. The two people Serenity was with, were actually dead people. Jenna was the soul looking for help, and her mother Alice has been alive all along. Alice miscarries her child with Gideon, Gideon joins the army and dies at war. Thomas was admitted into a psychiatric hospital. Alice is left all alone, and I guess that's where cheating gets you.

I kind of saw that coming, but it almost feels like that's exactly what Picoult wants. Anyway, I really really enjoyed this story throughout and I learnt a lot about elephants of which the details I left out of this post. Elephants are capable of grief and emotion, and they are able to compartmentalize grief, although there are some exceptional cases. The elephant matriarch and the relationship with her calf was used as the metaphor of how the bond of a mother and child is inseparable. Get between an elephant mom and her calf, and you can be sure to pronounce yourself dead. Humans tick the same way. See ya! :)

Papanasam

 

Watched this tamil movie yesterday, Papanasam. It's a name of a town, if you are wondering. Was it good? Yes. Was it perfect? No. Did I enjoy it? Definitely. Set in a rural area, with thick local dialects, is a story about a family trying to live their lives to the very best they can. The story starts of with all smiles and laughter, but it all goes down slope since the eldest daughter went for a school camp. There was another guy in the camp - notorious, son of an Inspector General - who captured nude clips of Kamal's eldest daughter while she was showering. Of course she didn't know she was being filmed while showering. Well, nudes in Tamil movies aren't really nudes, but I'll let that go for now. 

He then looks for her in this small town (Papanasam), and tries to blackmail her. What he demanded was her consent for sex, otherwise he will broadcast the video clip he recorded. Apparently some places in the world, when a video like that gets broadcasted, its the person in the video that gets blamed, not the horny dude. Anyways, he repeatedly told her not to let anyone know about their rendezvous. However, when he arrived, he was shocked to find the girl's mother there trying to protect her  daughter. He was pissed off, and wanted to leave, to go broadcast the video perhaps. After the mom begging him several times to not do so, he offers to delete the video if the girl's mom is willing to have sex with him instead. Amazing huh? hahaha! Anyway, possessed by ihavenoideawhat spirit, the daughter picks up a metal bar, swings it to hit the head of the guy (his name suddenly popped in my head, Varun). Varun apparently dies. I am definitely not going to correlate any of this to my medical knowledge. Otherwise, I can't enjoy this movie anymore.

Almost instinctively, they take his body and bury it in the land outside. When Kamal comes home the next day, he is brought up to speed with what happened. Now comes the decision making. To confess or not to confess? However, loaded with knowledge from movies - crime thrillers, murder mysteries, suicides - Kamal thoroughly plans their alibi. First off, he disposes the car Varun came with. At this very point, he is seen driving a yellow Maruti (a car brand) by a policeman that doesn't particularly like him very much. He drowns the car, and along the way to the quaryy he buys lunch, bus tickets, movie tickets (all for four people) - so that when the police comes to interogate later, he will have an alibi saying that he and his family (total of 4) were out of town during the disappearance of Varun. 

Eventually, Varun's family finds out about his car drowned in a quarry and his disappearance. Everything was working according to Kamal's plans, until the police force realized that everything is too perfect, and they have an inclination that it is all somehow planned. Kamal actually goes to all those places that he went on that day of car disposal, with his family, but only a couple of days later. He then creates a lasting impression on as many people as possible - the person in the Briyani shop, cinema, bus driver and so forth. He implanted in their minds that he and his family was there just a couple of days ago. Therefore, everybody was testifying for him that they entire family was there on August 2nd - the day Varun went missing. However, the truth is - none of them actually saw the family on that very day. They are just repeating the fact that Kamal told them they were there on the Aug 2nd. 

Itching to find out the truth, Kamal's family is brutally tortured. Varun's mother being the Inspector General does not help the situation. At the nick of time, Varun's friend Alex, confesses about the video recording incident. Also, Kamal's youngest daughter blabbered out the location of the burial of the body. The police force then rushed to Kamal's house, digging deep into the location the girl had told them, only to find a dead corpse of an animal - a four legged animal. Immediately, Kamal runs to the press, pouring out his frustration that he and his family have been tortured and that no real body (of Varun) was found at their house. The illegal torturous investigation, coupled by the media trumpeting the fact that the police is abusing the general public although no true evidence was found, worked towards the benefit of Kamal and his family. Eventually, some officers were sacked, and the Inspector General left the town. 

Then came the most disappointing scene of the movie. The part where Varun's parents had a talk with Kamal alone. The fact that Kamal indicated that Varun did in fact, come into their lives and try to ruin in - just dropped the standard of the movie right down by 50% for me. If he stuck with it till the end, it would have been worth it. Anyway, the parents now understood that their son was irredeemable and was most probably dead, they just walked away, not using his half-confession against him. Although he was never caught, the some sort of a half-confession come apology, just made it a typical Tamil movie, just crowd pleasing and I felt it was almost Kamal just showing off his acting skills that he was able to pull off a really good crying face. He was tough throughout, the last confession was pointless. It's so typical of Tamil movies trying to justify the hero's actions, making him look good. However, thank god he wasn't caught by the police until the end. At least they could give me that. The location of Varun's body, I shall leave it out this post - for you to go watch the movie and find out. 

I guess what they were trying to say in this movie is, sometimes, it only takes a small stone to create big ripples. Some people are preys, some people predators. Although preys never have asked to be preyed on. Its just how the animal kingdom works. Some people manipulate others to their maximum benefit, and these people won't stop, until they actually stop breathing. I'm not saying that you should swing a metal bar on every head that tries to make your life miserable. This movie also portrays the difficulty of building a family. Repeatedly in the script, Kamal was saying that it took sweat and blood building this family, almost like building a kingdom of your own. Telling the truth doesn't always benefit you in the case of the policeman who did, but eventually got sacked. Telling lies, provided you are highly intelligent can set you free. Judging by recent happenings of cam recorded thieves being set free, I'd say that tactical lying can in fact get you off the hook. Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie. The plot was interesting and fast moving although it was a long movie. I didn't feel the time passing at all. Would I recommend this movie? Yes, definitely. Till next time! :)

Dark Places

So after the disappointment from Maze Runner Trilogy, I needed a treat and that's exactly what I got from Gillian Flynn, yet again. So far I've read Gone Girl. This is my second book by Gillian Flynn. I'm not going to reiterate the entire story, because it's too complex for me to do so. I will just discuss how I feel about the plot, which parts I loved and which parts I didn't. Lets get straight to it.

I'll start with what I didn't like, or to be more precise, what I didn't find to be quite logical. It was the Kill Club. I mean, is there such a thing? Well, the way she put it, it sounded like it was legit. However, it just seems weird to exist in real life. It may not exist in my country, but maybe Kill Clubs exist over there, I don't know - but the whole idea of random people becoming obsessed about murders not relating to them didn't quite fit. It's not like they were ex-cops or lawyers that wanted to make use of their skills after being thrown out from their jobs. They were just really random people. However, this story needed a premise to start the plot - to get the ball rolling for Libby Day (the youngest daughter that survived). 

Basically, Patty, Michelle and Debby were murdered (Libby's Family), and Libby testified that her brother Ben did it, although she did not see him do it - at a very young age (7 years old). Besides the Kill Club, I loved everything else about this novel. Gillian Flynn is very true to herself. She digs deep into the human psyche and tells the truth that hurts. Sometimes, we are all capable of scary things. Flynn portrayed each role in the novel very well, each of the characters exposing the raw nature of human beings at a certain age. 

Patty Day, a mother trying her best to feed four children while having a husband that really isn't there, full on loans, and an alcoholic. Not forgetting that he isn't paying for child support. She has good support from her sister Diane though. However, her decision to kill herself to allow her family to get the money from her life insurance - I must say is a terrible decision as a mother. It's almost as if she wanted to escape the entire tragedy happening to her family, while looking at the brightest side of her decision. It was downright stupid. That decision was good for the plot, as it carved a smile on my face - a smile of utter shock and excitement at the same time, but analyzing it from a maternal angle, even if it did work out the way she wanted it to work out, it wasn't the best thing she could come up with. 

Ben Day, the son - the one accused of all the murders. Well, this is the saddest part of the story. I think all teenagers or youths try so hard to blend in the crowd, they'd do anything for it. Come to thing of it, I doubt "trying to blend in" stops at the teen age. I think it goes on as adults, its just that we portray it differently. Ben Day tried so hard to get the approval of Diondra, his girlfriend. He made her pregnant. Diondra is the ultimate manipulator of the entire plot. Along the book, I thought the child was going to be Trey Teepanos' in the end, and Diondra was just manipulating Ben for money. Turns out the child was really Ben's. Trey was just collateral damage of the tragedy. They were so high on DevilRush (a recreational drug) when they were killing bulls. They started mumbling Satanic worships and called that devil worshiping. I guess, Ben was still very high from the drug, allowing him to remain calm when Diondra was choking his sister Michelle to death (Michelle found out about the prenancy and wanted to tell her mother about it). 

Even after he found out Michelle was dead, he was so calm. When he saw his mother and the other sister, Debby dead, he wanted to vomit, but he was able to pull himself together and leave the scene only thinking of how he and Diondra would start a new life together. This part, I don't know whether to call him a coward just like how Diondra does, or to call him tough for being able to carry on his life. Diondra always made him feel less of a man, always laughing at him with Trey, manipulating him into doing things for her, and finally making him feel guilty that he made her pregnant. All these things work on a person's mind, and eventually - people like this snap, and they change into an entirely different person. Until Libby unfolded the story, he stayed true to Diondra, not saying a word about her participation in the murders of his family. He stayed in jail for her and also his daugter for twenty five long years. I guess true love makes you a loser.

Flynn also shows that some people are able to live with guilt, even if it is for a very very long time. Diondra represents this. People of no sense of responsibility would be the father - Runner Day. Crystal, Ben's daughter was instinctively able to pick up an iron to smack Libby with it. I guess the kill gene is inheritable. Also, on the other side of the spectrum, Flynn shows how one can get trapped in oblivion and their soul paralyzed by tragedy within family. That would be represented best by Libby herself. She spent years and years trying to get back up, only to spiral all the way back down, digging into the dark recesses of her mind, all for the sake of money. She does not have the courage to live, neither does she have the courage to die, although mentally planning to kill herself is somewhat of a hobby. In fact I do that sometimes. It really does help you get through a tough day. 

Lastly, the focus goes to Krissi. I guess what Flynn is trying to say here is, what big damage a small lie can cause. The ripple effect. Also, the focus is on how psychologists/psychiatrists do their job. Its almost like they want the children to say what they want to hear. Leading questions or statements. As a medical student, we are trained over and over to not lead patients with directional questions or statements. When you feed children with leading statements, they are just probably going to agree with you, even if the lie grows out of proportion. When they realize things are getting out of hand, it's already too late. None of the murders would have happened if it wasn't for that one lie from Krissi - that Ben had molested her. Well, it was just a school girl trying to cover her tracks. She got caught doing funny stuff with Ben (actually with her consent), but when her mother questioned her differently, the answer came out differently too. "Did Ben touch you wrong", coupled with "it's okay you can trust me" making the child overly secure to the level of telling a lie because her mother seemed disappointed that she did not hear what she wanted her daughter to blurt out. In trying to please her mother, Krissi blurted out that Ben touched her weirdly. Everyone who did not die, suffered tragically from the lies in this novel.

1. Kirssi - Her Mom never forgave her and left the family. Krissi became a stripper.
2. Runner Day - Spent his last days in a grasshopper bait site loaded with arsenic and having liver cirrhosis from his alcoholism.
3. Ben Day - In prison for 25 years.
4. Diane - Lost a sister, and her nieces. Spent part of her life taking care of Libby and getting only hurt in return by Libby's rebellious behavior.
5. Libby - basically lost all hope in life, being the lone survivor.
6. Diondra - was good for 25 years, but now in prison and separated from her daughter, Crystal.
7. Trey - Had to move away and work in some Feed and Farm supply.

Moral of the story - don't lie, don't do drugs, don't get together with girls elder than you, don't get them pregnant on top of that, don't worship Satan, don't kill cows, don't get loans, don't kill yourself hoping your family will benefit from your life insurance. Hahahaha! I really enjoyed this book. It was really really fun. I will read her other book as well, Sharp Objects, but not just yet - because all Flynn's books are very dark, and I don't want too much of it at one go haha! Till next time! :)

All The World's A Maze.

 

Hello again! After a long journey, I've successfully finished this trilogy. The first book was about a bunch of people being stuck in a super huge maze, literally. The maze opens during the day, and they have to make it back to the Glade (which is the main area) before it gets dark. Some sort of spider-machine creatures called Grievers roam the maze at night. If they get stung by it, they suffer great pain although there's a serum for it. Without the serum they'd probably die. The thing is, they all lost their memories before being sent to this maze. If they get stung however, they recall bits and pieces of their memories. Apparently, getting back their memories can help them escape the maze, especially for the main character, Thomas. The story just ended with them successfully escaping the maze, by jumping through a hole which they found a long time ago, at the end of the maze.

Apparently, it wasn't all over. When they came out of the maze, they were directed to yet another sort of trial, this time with directives. They were support to cross (I forgot how far, 100miles perhaps?) a hot desert-like place, totally rundown, and some zombie-like creatures called Cranks are living at random places in this desert. This is where the reader is slightly enlightened with what happened in the real world. There was The Flare, from the sun that increased the temperature of the surface of the earth, together with a biological warfare that released a virus that kills the brains, making you go crazy and die. So people infected with virus are called Cranks. In this book, they were talking about Variables and Patterns. It seemed like they needed to get the pattern of emotions from Thomas' brain to develop the cure for the infection. This book ended with them fighting a huge number of Cranks and successfully getting to the main WICKED (the company running all these trials, trying to find the cure) base. 

The third book was about WICKED giving the participants their memories back. Also, Thomas and most of the participants of the maze trials were immune to the virus, they called them Munies. However, Thomas and his friends were tired of WICKED and their human experiments. They refused to get their memories back because they didn't trust them. Perhaps 'giving their memories back' could be them just planting memories that they want them to have. This is all because Thomas and his friends were heavily manipulated along the way of the maze trials, and the scorch trials. On top of all of that, a couple of his best friends died, he was betrayed by another best friend/girl friend. Being betrayed was all part of WICKED's plan in arousing emotions for the development of the vaccine. They hate WICKED and eventually joined a right wing party against WICKED, called the Right Arm. In the climax, Chancellor Paige which is the boss of WICKED, leaves Thomas a message, showing him a way out, and also notifying him that there are other Munies still in the Maze. Thomas and his friends goes back to rescue them, successfully bringing them back to the base, and escaping through a flat transportation (some sort of teleport machine), to what seemed like paradise.

The trials failed. This paradise set up by Chancellor Paige was a fail-safe in case the trials failed. Since they couldn't develop the vaccine, mainly due to the fightback of the Right Arm being against human experiments, the Chancellor chose to just preserve the Munies instead and restart humanity from that bunch of 200 Munies, while the rest of the world, rots and dies. Did this story make sense? I don't know. I didn't like it. The ending seemed rushed and lazy for me. There weren't any exceptional writing style, mostly predictable. It seemed to have so much potential but the ending was just disappointing. I thought they could come up with some other cool idea. They just failed instead. It didn't make sense because the boss of WICKED just suddenly had a change of heart to abandon the experiment. On top of that, Thomas who was so 'the chose one'  type, just suddenly got tired of saving the world and escaped to paradise instead. Everyone just gave up, when they seemed all too passionate at first. Of course reading the prequel will shed light on many other things I want to know about, such as the development of the maze and how The Flare started, but the ending is so disappointing that I'm contemplating real hard on whether or not I should read the book.

Of all the illogical things that happened, developing a vaccine for a virus from studying human emotions was what I couldn't comprehend the most. Seriously, what does emotions have to do with vaccines? There was also a part of the story where Thomas could telepathically talk to some of his friends. What was all that for, and how did it lead to the cure? Nothing was clarified. Judging by three books, I doubt the prequel will be enough to sustain the number of questions Dashner himself raised. I kind of expected the ending to be inadequate, but it was worse than my expectation. I still can't believe everyone just abandoned the experiment. Unable to be successful in an experiment is one thing, abandoning it is another thing altogether. To makes things worse, there's a prequel to the prequel, coming out in 2016. Probably I'll read all the prequels together when they are all out. Relative to the books that I've put down because it was extremely boring, this book is way better because it at least kept me going for whatever non-comprehensible reason. Maybe I didn't enjoy this book that much because I'm not so into post-apocalyptic stories. I like to delve more into human behavior and emotions, choices and whatnot. More of daily life issues. I can't even settle what's currently happening in life, I doubt I'm bothered about apocalypse hahaha. Till next time! :)

Who Are You?

So I just finished watching Who Are You : School 2015. I watched the last few episodes on Viki, and this is a new experience for me. The timed comments makes the drama wayyy more fun, because some of the comments are really really funny, and you get to comment there as well, and it makes me feel connected to the drama community. I get to know how most people feel about how the drama went, and how they felt about the ending. Reading blogs is either just a cross sectional review or one that is done at the end of the drama. It isn't nearly as fun as reading live comments. While some people were very pleased with the ending, most people wasn't. For me? I was very pleased. As usual, the Korean cinema does not make films in order to please the crowd, and that is what I love most about it. They have a message to portray and they always do it stylishly.

I shall not write about the plot here. Trust me, I tried, but its so complex that I can't word it well. Please watch the drama haha. I shall just analyze its meaning here. Basically, being 18 is the age where you should be finding out your true identity. Everything you are very sure of at that age, may no be the truth, and it is okay to make mistakes at that age (at least that's what the drama is trying to say). When you don't have a personality, people will tell you who you are, or more accurately who you should be. They will toy you around, not necessarily with a bad intention, but people will want you to be, who they need you to be. Just like when Eun Bi lost her memories and took Eun Byul's place - she was told she was Eun Byul, she was told she was cool, had friends, had a great mom, had a best friend/potential bf. That's how suffocated you will be, living up to what people want you to be, not what you truly want for yourself.

I really really give credit to the writers and the directors, because in the end, none (the main characters) of the love stories went through. They remained friends till the end. What they are trying to say is, people change as they grow up. When you find your true self, you may realize that the person whom you call your "soul-mate" really isn't the one for you. No matter how real the love may feel at that moment in time, it may not be real till the end. That also doesn't mean that you do not act accordingly for your age. That's why they ended off saying, its okay to make mistakes, after all, you are still 18. There were different groups of people in different ships, hoping different pairs  of couple to sail, but in the end many were disappointed by the way they ended the drama. For me, it was very mature of them to end it that way. Males and females could actually be really good friends no matter how much people disagree with that statement. At least for me, I believe its true because I have a couple of really good friends of the opposite sex that I really trust, and that I can lean on without having anything more that a platonic relationship.

The next issue they were focusing on was the bullying issue. I disagree with how they ended this part of the story, because it's hard to find a bully that repents in the end. Usually, when you pressure a bully, they end up bullying more and find other means to vent their rage. Maybe the gender of the bully plays a huge role too. Also, they discussed briefly in a couple of episodes about the stress of maintaining good results, and the pressure that originates from parents. Although I feel its a little exaggerated here (wait...in fact all k-dramas are exaggerated), but maybe that's how Korean parents are. Parents here are not too different anyway. 

Suicide is a real thing. Pushing someone to the limit, can cause them to break. However, the product of a psyche breakdown can result in one of two things. They can either get stronger after that, or they can break - once and for all. The result of which, is not a choice, rather its something we have to look out for in people to see what kind of people they truly are before pushing them to limits that they can't handle. They also showed about how lying can get us into a huge web of troubles. Everybody was caught up in their lies. The homeroom teacher, the chairman, Eun Bi, and also the class leader during the formatting computer incident. 

Well, in the end I really enjoyed the journey and the end of this drama. Loved the fact that Eun Byul realized that she grew and found herself to be different and not suitable for Yi An. Eventually, Yi An also accepted that fact. In fact, everyone including Tae Kwang and Eun Bi since they all remained as friends. I was really glad about the ending. Of course I have to mention a word or two about Kim So-Hyun as Eun Byul/Eun Bi. Her acting here was near perfect. She totally pulled off two opposite types of characters - the bully and the victim. She has already acted as a victim in 'I Miss You' (one of my favorite dramas too), and also she has acted as a total badass in Reset. Here in this drama, she did both. Well done! I also need to mention that the soundtracks for this drama were really awesome, especially Tiger JK's Reset ft. Jinsil. I kept looping the song during the first part of the drama, and still listening to it now! Till next time, see ya! :)

Kim So-Hyun as Go Eun-Byul

IRIS

Iris main cast

I just finished watching Iris. Well, I don't really know where to start haha. I will make this short! I really loved this drama :) The action scenes were exciting, there was suspense, adequate plot-twists  and the love story wasn't annoying. In fact, it was really appealing. There wasn't a point where the love story overtook the main plot, and that's exactly what I prefer. 

Basically, this drama is about the National Security Service, where Kim Hyun-Jun (Lee Byung-Hun) and his best friend are recruited into. They were profiled by Choi Seung-Hee (Kim Tae-Hee), and fished into NSS. The love triangle occurs there, but Hyun-Jun gets the girl. One day, Hyun-Jun is given a mission to kill the leader of North Korea. That's when all hell breaks loose. In the mission (which was successful), Hyun-Jun gets injured, and in order to eliminate the risks of exposure, NSS director - Baek-San, orders Hyun-Jun's best friend to kill him. Hyun-Jun feeling betrayed, swears revenge upon NSS and his country. On top of that, due to certain circumstances, he was led into thinking that his girl was dead. 

He then joins forces with North Korea to destroy his own country. He will then be declared a terrorist for some time. After a massive turn of events and as the story unfolds, Hyun-Jun becomes the hero of the day, and we learn about the existence of an organization bigger than one could imagine, named IRIS. Their sole purpose is to prevent the unification of North and South Korea. It seems that their influence penetrates deep into the governmental system, and their resources are unlimited. Until the end, the true identity of IRIS is not shown, and that calls for IRIS 2, which I will definitely be watching. 

Hyun-Jun, together with a little help from Seon-Hwa (North rep) and what was left of NSS, managed to stop the nuclear warfare and the hostage situation. It was weird that they could rest after that, knowing how huge the IRIS organization is. Seeing how they easily eliminate anyone that came along their way, it wouldn't be logical that Hyun-Jun would be allowed to live. Thank God, at the end, they lived up to my expectation :)

Lee Byung-Hun in A Bittersweet Life.

One of the reasons I started watching this drama was because of Lee Byung-Hun. He looks wayyy younger in A Bittersweet Life. That was the first movie which I watched with him in it. I watched a few of his movies, and I really think he is talented, especially in movies that require him to show off his strength, muscles and fighting skills. On top of that, he is really good with the emotional parts as well. Recently I learnt that he was going to play T-1000 in the upcoming Terminator Genisys. After watching the trailer for that, he has officially entered into my list of favorite actors. I hope he pulls of that role well too.

Overall, I really enjoyed this drama, and if you haven't watched it yet, please do so! Review of IRIS 2 will be coming soon, once I'm done watching it. Currently, I'm also watching two other ongoing dramas - Who Are You : School 2015 & Orange Marmalade. Six more episodes for School 2015, and a long way more for Orange Marmalade! See ya! :)

The Suspicious Housekeeper

I just finished watching this, The Suspicious Housekeeper. Lets Dive right into it!

There were 20 episodes, the the plot could be divided into three parts. The story starts of with the death of a mother/wife. The husband then takes care of four of his kids. The first part of the plot was focusing on how the family was coping with the death of a loved one. At that moment, the dad hired a housekeeper. This housekeeper was very suspicious because she doesn't smile and literally interacts like a robot and completely obeys all your commands. The housekeeper was literally apathetic. Although on the outside she lacked compassion and all, but deep down the family and the viewers knew that she had a story to tell. She also in a very weird way, started to actually help them overcome their individuals difficulties. After the death of their mother, each child experienced difficulties differently. The eldest daughter started to search for love elsewhere and almost wanted to have sex with her boyfriend or something (well, Koreans aren't that liberal). The second eldest (son), couldn't focus on his basketball, and started picking fights. The third (son), was being bullied and felt like dying. The youngest daughter (and the cutest), just......lacked love. 

The husband, apparently cheated on the wife, and that was the cause of her (the mother/wife) suicide. But before that, the last person that she met, was with the person he was cheating with (the mistress). The mistress was the one who actually told the wife about it, otherwise she wouldn't have found out. The mistress wanted him all to herself, and told the mother to stop being an obstacle. Drowned with those words, the literally drowned herself in a river. Now, not only the children had to deal with the death, they had a deal with the fact that the cause of their mother's suicide was, their very own father. So the family started to fall apart and they were staying separately. Long story short, the housekeeper, by her twisted methods, brought the family together and they felt very grateful to her for that. It was right then, when they started to get curious as to why she didn't smile and was monotonous all the time. They started asking questions about her past, and tried hard to get to know her, in order to return her favor. 

The second part of the story was focusing on the housekeeper's background story. It was triggered when she saw a man one day (in a restaurant), and started shouting, "Why are you still alive?" It was then that the family became even more curious. When she eventually told them about it, they felt really bad for her. By this time, they already loved her so much that they really wanted to help her. So apparently, her story is that she had a stalker who was in love with her. Of course, she didn't marry him. She married a doctor in Somalia (Somalia because she was on the run from the stalker actually) and had a son. One day, the stalker actually killed the husband and the son by burning their house, when she wasn't at home (well, it was all perfectly planned to be such). But before the restaurant incident, she was thinking he was dead, because he faked his death (because he had leverage over a cop, and the cop helped him fake his death). Now, using that restaurant meeting opportunity, the stalker decides to start going for the housekeeper, but not as the stalker that once liked her, but as the new man he has become (hoping she doesn't recognize his old self, and kill him instantly). So he continuously tries to deceive her by proving he is someone else, but she starts to dedicate her life to prove that he is the same guy as the stalker. She does that by pretending to be his lover, and finally she manages to get a recording of him mumbling the wrong things to his cop friend. The stalker then gets caught and goes to prison.

I never really expected anything much after the bad guy got caught, but then I realized that there were two more episodes to go, which is an usually pattern for Korean dramas. Turns out, the last two episodes (the third part) was the best and most meaningful part. The kids totally love the housekeeper now, and they actually ask her to be their mom. The dad, although doesn't love her, he is trying to do what is best for his kids. This is where Korean dramas differ from most other dramas. They are daring to show the truth and what is right. The children moved on from their mother's death pretty easily due to the distraction and help from the housekeeper. Now they are so much in love with her, that they actually forgot their mother's (dead) birthday. They were so blinded that they actually wanted the housekeeper to be their mom. So again, using her twisted mind gaming techniques, she shows them the truth, that their mother cannot be replaced like that, and on top of that, she needed her own grieving time. To be honest, at one point I became okay with the fact that she can be their mother too. 

In the last two episodes, the ideas that were brought up were really deep. If you move on after a death of the loved one, does it mean you never loved that person who died? If you don't move on, does that mean you feel guilty or is it out of respect? Can you actually ask someone to fill in that position of a mother? If you are worried for a person, you care for that person, you hurt when they hurt - does that equate to love? Does that equate to the love of a mother, and the love of a wife? Her twisted technique to make them realize was to act like she was the evil stepmother (at one point, she wanted to throw the late mother's picture away). She started scolding the youngest daughter, started asking them to do chores, telling them to get out of the house if they don't like it. She drew a very clear line, of what is it to be a mom, and what is it to be a housekeeper. It was because, they were expecting her to be their mom while having the good benefits of a very kind and loving housekeeper that does not discipline them when they do something wrong. If they want someone who only does what they want and makes them happy all the time, what they really want is a housekeeper, not a mom - and it took time for them to realized that, even for me as a viewer. 

The ending was, she left them for a year to grieve for her husband and son (because only recently she found their grave. Her mother-in-law kept that from her as a punishment because she previously thought that the housekeeper and the stalker worked together in the arson). A year later, she returns to them, smiling, as a person that cares for them and loves them, but never as their mom, as it can never be replaced. I really really really enjoyed this drama. It was very exciting. I cried (I actually never do), but the acting was so good, it was moving. All the children did really well, especially the youngest. When she cried, it was so real. The eldest daughter (Kim So-Hyun), I already admired her acting before, in the drama, 'I Miss You' & 'The Moon Embraces The Sun'.

Kim So-Hyun & Kang Ji-Woo

It's definitely a must watch if you enjoy Korean dramas. It's different from the normal couple love dramas out there, because this focused on moving on after the death of a loved one from the angle of a family life, while dealing with affairs and reconciliation. See ya!