Iljimae Episode 4, recap

So, folks. Just started reading Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides – it is one heck of a book. I haven’t finished it, but I feel confident in saying that it’s a great book. It’s the vibes one gets.

Anyway, you’re probably about to beat me over the head with Gil Dong’s stick or something… so here it is.

Episode 4

Last episode ended on a stressful note.

Yong is trying to keep his father’s hand attached to his wrist, and after being shown Shi Wan threatening Yong, we flash to a dogfight. *headdesks* They better not have been hurt during filming. Shi Wan comments that the two dogs look alike and could be taken for brothers. His clear enjoyment of the fight disturbs even his friend.

At the jail place, Shi Hoo has requested a meeting with Swe Dol. They enjoy a father-son moment together. Swe Dol tells him that Yong is just an adoptee (who is, I think, also younger than Shi Hoo – he calls him ‘child’ – but it could also just be because Shi Hoo is miles ahead in the maturity department). He urges Shi Hoo to stay and meet Dani, who’s coming to visit, but Shi Hoo reiterates her words at their parting and upholds his promise to her to never recognize her anymore. (What will he do if/when he finds out he’s Lee’s son and Kyum/Yong’s brother? Hmm.) Poor guy’s obviously unhappy. Oh, Mr. Kicked Angst Puppy, let Eun Chae give you a hug already.

Iljimae Episode 3, recap

Hey dudes! Things are looking to get super busy soon… Will continue to do recaps as fast as I am able.

In passing, Gossip Girl is interesting. (Sort of ashamed to admit it, but it seems better than the books…)

Episode 3

Swe Dol can send Yong to school because he takes beatings for the schoolmaster, who’s really into harassing women. Poor man has to support Yong somehow.

Meanwhile, Yong is unconscious and bleeding about the head after being bashed by Shi Wan. The nobles drag him out to nowhere again and throw him into a hunting pit. Swe Dol is worried at his disappearance, but Dani is not really caring. Cute moment as she takes care of Swe Dol’s sore butt.

Swe Dol asks after the young eagles (aka noble students) if they’ve seen Yong, but they pretend not to know that he’s not noble and tell him Yong snuck off early. Yay for skivving class. It’s not the first time, so unfortunately for Yong, Swe Dol only gets annoyed.

The Casual Reader’s Guide to Twilight

So, having just seen the trailer (oh god, the trailer, I have words about the trailer) of Twilight, teen romance movie coming out December 12 of this year, I thought, well, the book is 500+ pages long. Why not condense it for the eager moviegoer who doesn’t plan to read through the brick before going to see the movie? (Like a lot of people did for Harry Potter, reportedly.)

And also because I want an opportunity to flex my sarcasm muscles. The thing begs for someone to take a good critical look at it. I am, however, content to only mock.

Enjoy! (Format borrowed from the great Maya.)

Twilight, drastically condensed for your reading pleasure

Bella: Hi, my name is Bella Swann, and many of you will notice that my name actually means ‘beautiful swan’, but don’t worry. I am the clumsiest fool ever born, and I keep disparaging my looks. You are never in danger of thinking of me as swanlike or beautiful!
Forks: What’s up? Rain. Clouds. Rain. Clouds. Rain … you get the point.
Bella: Woe! I am a self-sacrificing model teen! I am unhappy at being separated from my mother! I am – what the hell is all this rain?! I am a creature of the sunlight! My year is going to be great, I can just feel it now.

Earthquake backlash

Remember I said at the end of my Sichuan Earthquake page that some people are taking the opportunity to say that the Chinese deserved to get hit?

Examples here and here.

I do acknowledge that there were structural faults with the schools that fell down. I do think that rampant corruption is that giant elephant in the room that no one talks about in China. I think a lot of things, and most of them got shouted out when I was with friends, discussing the tragedy.

Does that really justify other people saying, oh, you were mean to the Tibetans, you deserved it?

Really?

So you think that karma/God/whatever you choose killed 60000, most of them children and many Tibetan themselves, to illustrate a point?

Fine. But I don’t drink stupid potion for breakfast, sorry.

Sevenses

Legend Episode 1, recap

Since dearest flyingcrispi refused to tell me what happened, I had to go find out for myself. (Not that I blame her – from what she said and what I gather from watching this thing, it would take ages for anyone to get a hold of the plot.)

And when Sevenses watches something, she has a tendency to recap, but fear not, gentle readers. I will keep it short.

(Public service announcement – am starting work in a few days – please don’t expect IJM recaps right after episodes are released. Thank you, have a nice day.)

Episode 1

Beautiful scenery, wonderful music… Backstory! Backstory! Backstory!

But first, we meet a lovable scamp of a girl called Sujini. Her master, Hyungo, is also the Chief of the Turtle people, but he can’t control her at all. They’ve all been waiting for the Jooshin king, who is the equivalent of Arthur to the Korean people, and now that the Jooshin Star has been appearing for 10 years, they figure it’s time to go to Korea and figure things out. Hyungo also has to fulfill a promise to kill off Sujini if she ever turns into the Black Phoenix (see backstory notes). Notice the abundance of happy that pervades this episode.

Sujini has a Mysterious Past that prevents adults from telling her the full backstory. (That’s okay, honey, I’ll introduce you to someone. Have you met Harry Potter?)

The Backstory

Iljimae Episode 2, recap

Enough of the mockery. The real recaps begin here.

I said before to iurgnotmis that I tend to watch dramas for two things – the quality or the eyecandy. I think by now it’s fairly obvious which category Iljimae falls in, yeah?

Also, Lee Junki is Yong/Ryung (depends on how you want to spell it) in the day, Iljimae in the night, and Lee Kyum in the past. Confused yet?

Let’s see if we have all the names straight, cause there’s a lot of name changing in this drama:

Cha Dol – the sweet clueless boy, later renamed Shi Hoo, assumed to be Byun Shik’s son, but he’s really Lee Won Ho’s, and thus Iljimae/Ryung/Kyum’s older half-brother
Swe Dol – the kindly thief who takes care of Dani (who also sucks a little at thieving)
Dani – that lovely servant girl who seems to have slept with everyone
Lee Won Ho – Iljimae’s dad, and presumed traitor
Byun Shik – annoying asshat noble person
Eun Chae – Byun Shik’s daughter (whom we all suspect to have been adopted or given by aliens, she’s too cute and smart by half), future love interest of Iljimae/Ryung/Kyum
Shi Wan – Byun Shik’s son, takes after him in more ways than one
Bong Soon – A girl who will get more airtime in the next recap

If you get past all the nonsense and the convoluted relationships they try to have in this show, it’s pretty enjoyable. If not, then… eh.

Episode 2

There’s a really long battle, and while Lord Lee puts up a good fight, there are three people trying to kill him. Poor Kyum has to watch his father gets slashed and stabbed (through a conveniently placed hole in the cabinet, may I add).

Lord Lee loses his weapon, and accepts defeat, but wants to know who would do this. His very good friend from last episode appears, and says (with no small amount of wood), that there cannot be two suns in one Earth (no, for one, the Earth would get totally fried)(but what a cliche!). He also says that he really did like Lord Lee, so he’s going to kill him personally.

Lord Lee is quite shocked but takes it stoically. (Kyum in the cabinet is dismayed.)

While Kyum is busy crying his thousand tears, one of the underlings makes it look like Lord Lee committed suicide.

Then the underling suddenly develops a spider sense and goes to the cabinet. He raises his sword to slice it in half, but happily for Kyum a superior comes and checks it first. At the same time, Swe Dol, feeling guilty for what he and his son were forced to do, comes to check on the family.

Doremifasolatido Movie Recap

Dun dun dun!

If you want the shortest version possible, I’d recommend iurgnotmis’s recap instead. She actually manages to stay within 1000 words. How do you do it?

Here’s where to watch it in : English, or in Chinese.

Cast:

Yoon Jungwon – lead girl (Cha Ye Ryun)
Shin Eungyu – lead boy (Jang Geun Suk)
Yoon Jaewang – Jungwon’s bro
Shin Sohyun – Eungyu’s sis
Kang Heewon – An Asshat
Yoona – Jungwon’s friend
Nari – Keyboardist and backup singer
Seohyun – Drummer
Pupu – A Cat

Doremifasolatido, A Recap:

There is an amusement park! (Pause for my moment of nausea.)

Jungwon, dressed in a dragon suit, is obviously new at this. She falls down while dancing on stage, is chased by kids with pitchforks (symbol? lol), and then someone turns her giant head, so she falls.

She stomps around looking for the culprits and bumps into a gang of loud guys. They pick on her some more. Eungyu is there, doing his disinterested thing, but she is so angry she empties another customer’s soda on him. (The girl she took the soda from looks positively startled.)

The guys are amused (and some of them are wearing furry ears, no points for taste) but Eungyu is pissed.

Jungwon is dragged away by a distraught coworker.

Odette Toulemonde the movie

Seeing it on the rack in the movie rental section has prodded my memory… I wrote an absolutely scathing review of the movie a while ago. For your edification:

Odette Toulemonde, a review

In French class, we were required to read a short story and watch a movie, both named “Odette Toulemonde” (by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt, if you’re interested). I reacted very badly to it, and I don’t know how I wrote a 450 word comparative essay on it without burning the thing to fine, gray ashes.

Odette Toulemonde is a sweet, snappy (or should that be sappy?) love story about a successful Parisian writer and a Belgian sales clerk. The writer is named Balthazar Balsan and the sales clerk is named Odette Toulemonde (a funny name, by all accounts). It’s a nice story, well-written, but just not for me. I don’t like saccharine.

My major objection is not, however, contained within the overly sugared contents of both short story and movie. It is that the story purports to tout the overplayed and underrepresented (at least in literature) value of happiness and its absolute independence from money, status and other social factors while representing some really repugnant conservative/male-centric views. In short, the age old cliché: money doesn’t bring happiness (Inner cynic: it does, you moron) is used to cover some glaringly odd (or insulting, depending on how sensitive you are) items of interest.

Iljimae Episode 1, recap

Iljimae csubs at the speed of light! Go thank the TSKS (天使) subbing team!

I tried to turn down the urge to mock, but I don’t think it worked. Bear with me.

Episode 1

We begin in the Lair of Darkness (aka We Didn’t Bother With Proper Suspenseful Lighting) and guttering torches. But it looks like they can apparently afford a pendulum map swinger. Go thieving priorities.

There is a map, and some plotting, and the usual male posturing.

Iljimae really wants to steal a bronze thing, which is just a Freudian symbol, but whatever. The rest of his gang tell him it’s impossible, which means he will naturally get it by the end of the episode. (And his gang – am I too used to the delicate beauty that is LJK, or are they especially ugly?)

We have the intro of the horrible iron mask. Iljimae’s motto is shockingly modern in its brazeness: There is nothing in this world safe from being stolen. For I am Iljimae. (What ego, forsooth?)

He gets into the city in disguise as an ice merchant because we all sell ice in the middle of the night. The guards have orders, since Iljimae sent his calling card in advance, that no one is to enter. Iljimae is privately amused. However, he and his alcoholic ice are so special, he gets in.

Several Epilogues, Part 4

A/N: Iljimae looks endlessly mockable, from the screencaps, but alas, no csubs as of yet. Posting this in the meantime.

This is for you, Neechan!

Ending #4

Sugar, Spice, and Mostly Nice

[Don't toss tomatoes or other deadly projectiles please. This one just ran away with itself. Also, reading Terry Pratchett did not help.]

They say that the Trousers of Time bifurcate upon certain choices, whereupon a new world is created with no fanfare but a lot of confusion, and things go on the way they would have, if so-and-so had gone down a certain path.

What they don’t tell you, is that the Trousers of Time have more than two legs. A lot more.

In another world, another time, a brave, relentless Gil Dong faced the fire arrows with the stubbornness of a man who knows he is going to die, sooner or later, and would prefer to go out with a bang. In another world, Enok died with him, and so did Chang Hui’s heart.

~~~

The first thing Gil Dong saw when he woke up was a fearsomely embroidered cushion. It was bright aqua blue with magenta threading that looked vaguely chrysanthemum-like, but upon second inspection, just looked like something he found floating in the stream the other day. Urrh. Right. Turning his head so his nose didn’t feel like part of the embroidery would be good.

Gil Dong turned his head, and groaned. He was in the royal palace, no doubt about that. Ruby red columns and elaborate ceilings everywhere. Plus, the … the upholstery was unmistakably in Lady Noh’s taste. Eurgh. Hong Gil Dong, hero of a nation, smiter of corrupted evils, blinded at the tender age of 29, by badly-chosen drapery.