Ireland: The Kdrama, not the country, picspam

[lesbiassparrow]

Before I head out I wanted to post this. According to one site this is a summary of the show: "A westernized Irish adoptee, Joong-Ah inevitably flies back to Korea to confront her past and to see the country she is really from, only to fall in love with her brother, Jae-Bok. Their love is painful, as they are never meant to be together as lovers, but merely as brother and sister. The show’s message is that there is no such thing as noble innocent love and that love is adversity itself. Therefore, love mustn’t be impeded by so-called "destiny" or family, no matter how ironic or difficult the case may seem. Although destiny is cruel and arduous, the two young lovers radiate pure happiness. The show describes how love survives the tragic bondage of family, destiny and romance."

They could well be right: I only got to episode 3 and I think I only understood about 10% of what was going on in the plot. I mainly watched it for Not!Ireland scenes involving the tragic demise of the heroine's adoptive Irish family, who apparently were IRA terrorists and whom she thinks she killed.





A young girl is adopted by an Irish family. Who may or may not be terrorists (the brother is, but I never worked out if the parents were). Note the way the girl is screaming: this is a precursor of what will follow.


See what I mean?


We know she is Irish because she has an Irish passport. Where she learned perfect Korean in rural Northern Ireland we will have to leave a blank.


We also know she is Irish because (according to one description of this kdrama I read) she is wearing outlandish Irish costume. Look, mate: by kdrama standards that outfit is positively tasteful. Have you seen What they like to put people in on a regular basis?


But one day something tragic happens. This is her brother Peter, very dead and possibly by the heroine's hand. SHE HAS MANY FLASHBACKS ABOUT THIS SCENE.


This scene is also set in a place that is manifestly Not!Ireland (N!I for short)


More N!I (Despite the subtitle, she is clearly meant to be in Ireland.)

Here are her adoptive parents. I rather admired the mother who (unlike the dad and the brother) did not even bother attempting an Irish accent and just went for American. Apparently they needed to wear floppy hats against the ferocious Irish sun.


I think this is more convincingly N!I. I am sure the heroine is brooding over whether her adoptive parents are terrorists. No, we are given no reason for why she thinks this other than her brother wears a flat cap and has a small Colt revolver. Doesn't everyone know the IRA didn't use Colts?


And here's another shot of dead brother in case you forgot about him. Apparently the heroine is convinced she killed her family because of terrorist activities – which surely is overkill. Why not turn them into the authorities instead?


However, we find out that they were shot by evil people who drove up in their 50s car and insisted that the entire family were IRA. I don't have a screen cap but it amused me mightily that they were all dressed like Korean gangsters.


The heroine escapes by insisting that she has nothing to do with these Irish people. Strangely, the killers (who have not hidden their faces at all) take her word for it and drive off leaving her weeping.


She walks off leaving the dead family behind only to fly to Korea to drown herself


Sometimes she remembers happy times with her fake!Irish family


Like when her terrorist brother used to play the harp. Irish terrorists are nothing if not musical.


This only steadies her in her resolve to chuck herself in the Han river. And she does. Only to (in a scene not shown) climb right out and decide to go on living


She meets with a rather screwed up body guard of some hotel owner


Hotel owner likes to pat Bodyguard's bum from time to time. I don't think this is meant to be a gay or sexual thing, though.


And we come to what is my second favourite scene: while running romantically through the streets of Seoul with the Heroine the Bodyguard smashes into a pole. I laughed and laughed at this scene because I have no soul.


I thought this would be a plot point and she would lose one more person. But despite this picture he pops right up again unharmed. I was very disappointed in this.


That fateful evening she catches a glimpse of her future OTP, her brother. I am sorry but I think this is one of the ugliest OTPs I have ever seen


Seriously. Look at this picture. How unattractive is that? And she has an affair with him (she married Bodyguard off screen)


Look at this guy!


His girlfriend has one of the worst haircuts I have ever seen


Shot of heroine looking soulful. I checked out at about this point. I really wish I had a witty conclusion.


So here's another picture of the heroine in N!I instead.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

OTP guy was prettier in Damo.

Where he played a rebel who fell in love with his younger sister from whom he'd been separated in childhood. Of course, she was already in a deep, symbiotic love with the man who was effectively her foster brother, who she'd been with since being separated from her real brother. Both options are, of course, very very Doomed and Forbidden for her.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I am sorry but I cannot see the OTP as attractive. It may have something to do with his lurid gaping after the secondary female lead or his tendency to wear hairclips in his hair.

Maybe he is pretty sometimes, but not in the first 3 episodes of this.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Half my interest in the picspam was hoping to see him, and then when I did, it was "HUH??? What happened to you?"

Here is my massive Damo picspam: http://community.livejournal.com/dorama_chat/51894.html#cutid1

Though, as I am all about the OTP, much as I adore his character, he doesn't show up until the last 3rd.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

He looks better in the picspam from Damo where he has the advantage of the OTP wearing strange hats. But I assure you in this he has very little in way of appealing characteristics (he is introduced as someone trying to cop a feel of secondary female's breast).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

You must watch Damo just to see him in a good role, then.

Sadly, Damo seems to be the only place where he has a role that appeals to me, which saddens me beyond words.

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

love is adversity itself

That seems to be a recurring theme. It would be depressing if it weren't so very amusing.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is too surreal to not be entertaining. Though about 3 episodes of surreal entertainment apparently is enough for me.

[calixa.livejournal.com]

I laughed and laughed at this scene because I have no soul.

I'm laughing.

Also, the harp playing picture is probably the best thing I've ever seen.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Irish terrorists: we blow you up to good music!! Yay!!!

[cryptile.livejournal.com]

. . . but it all makes sense in the end, right? Right?

Therefore, love mustn’t be impeded by so-called "destiny" or family

Or inbreeding depression!

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I couldn't make it to the end. Even my melodrama, kdrama loving self just gave up. Which should tell you something.

[missmomoko.livejournal.com]

Oh the hilarity! the harp picture got to me. Lolz. I wonder if anyone youtubed the running into the pole scene. It's sounds so funny

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The pole running scene was hilarious. Especially as the heroine doesn't even notice. Soooo goood.

[squishysquidgy.livejournal.com]

Until I read your description of guy-running-into-pole, I thought he was peeing on it

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I know! But it was apparently a meaningful scene. Apart from the bit where the heroine didn't notice he had run into a pole and kept running happily on.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

OMG. I am so happy you suffer through these that I don't have to.

And OTP guy was hot in Damo but I guess evil harp-playing terrorists got to him here...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...yes. I think it's the hair...the hair is hot when he's all scruffy and wearing period clothes and swinging a sword and staring angstily toto the forest and hills, but when he's all cleanshaven and in a regular shirt, it's just not the same...

And, well, no offence to Pole Smash guy, but he doesn't seem to have as much to hold his own against...

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Pole smash guy was the only decent person in the piece. I really with the otp was more comely in this but (sorry!) they seemed to take a lot of effort to make him repellent.

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Irish terrorists are nothing if not musical. If only there'd been a lord of the dance, too. Also, that artfully splattered blood was hilarious.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

A Lord of the Dance would have been excellent. I was sorry they didn't work Irish dance into this thing as it would only have added to the insanity.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Awww, but pole-smash guy is none other than Huyn Bin (My Lovely Kim Sam-Soon/Millionaire's first love) and Heroine marries him AND STILL has an illicit affair with ugly bro?

*sigh* the things some Korean scriptwriters come up with ... or the wrongness of casting. I would so totally understand if the parts of the males were switched.

As for N!Ireland ... rotflmao ... I think the last time a sunbonnet was worn in Ireland was the time shortly before the great potato famine. Hilarious!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

When he's all scruffy and sword weilding instead of wearing odd clips and giving off odd looks while clinging to a rope, Ugly Bro is acrually quite hot. Enough so that he could distract me from my beloved Lee Seo Jin a few times in Damo.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Umm... I know why I don't watch historical dramas so much ... silly beards and strange hats (or in Japanese historicals silly hairdos) and hot sguys looks so ordinary in rl.
I had that kind of wake-up call as a kid when I had a puppy love crush on Shih-chin (Little blue dragon played by enka singer Teruhiko Aoi) of Water Margin. He looked cute, a bit chubby and with that long hair ... then my pre-teenage crush was totally mutilated and destroyed when I saw a pic of him in rl ... my little heart has never been the same again ever since.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Umm... I know why I don't watch historical dramas so much ... silly beards and strange hats (or in Japanese historicals silly hairdos) and hot sguys looks so ordinary in rl.

Except in Yoshitsune, where the JE boy gets to escape odd hair because it wouldn't further the fanservice.

The actors in Damo and Emperor of the Sea manged to make me not notice the hats and beards, really. But yeah, they can make you wish historical accuracy were a touch less important to TPTB.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I quite liked pole smash guy. He was attractive and also very decent.

As for N!I - well, I guess Irish TV wouldn't do any better if we were showing Korea... :)

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

As for N!I - well, I guess Irish TV wouldn't do any better if we were
showing Korea... :)
Oh yeah, and if they are showing it on Irish TV the Koreans would probably all speak fluent Gaelic too :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

However, we find out that they were shot by evil people who drove up in their 50s car and insisted that the entire family were IRA. I don't have a screen cap but it amused me mightily that they were all dressed like Korean gangsters.

I knew this all along - 'em British army people are all Korean gangsters. :D

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

That scene is supposed to be really tragic but I just giggled my way through it. It was just hard to visualize the UVF or the army as being prone to going around the Irish country side in a 50s car, dressed in suits, and with dyed blond hair and ponytails. Plus they kept calling the heroine 'Asian' as a name and seem entirely unconcerned that she had seen what they looked like.

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't know whether there is anything I love more than your dorama picspam commentaries. They never fail to entertain me until I am forced to control my gleeful squees and laughter (this becomes especially difficult when I am in the office and I have to stop giggling like crazy).

I do agree with meganbmoore that Brother is cuter in Damo. His hair, I grant you, is rather horrid in this. Nonetheless I loved him in Damo and even posted several caps of him angsting beautifully with blood smothered on his (pretty) face :D Oh, and straw hats, of course. My affair with straw hats began thanks to him, LOL.

http://miss-dian.livejournal.com/120404.html#cutid1

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of fun picspamming Ireland, though I had no idea of what was going on most of the time (which was probably a good thing). And you are right that horrid, incestuous brother was much cuter on Damo; I was totally astonished by the difference. But in the three episodes of this that I survived through he was totally unappealing.

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

dangermousie considers this the funniest post on LJ.

So do I and I don't even watch kdramas.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Aaah, thanks! Ireland is in a special category. I am not sure what that category is, but I am glad that it only contains that one drama...