lesbiassparrow

I swear, I am on the final episode and I couldn't be happier. I got a terminal illness! And someone walked into the sea! And there was lots of coughing of blood and crawling around hotel rooms and drama and people turning up too late and quoting of Italian movies and self-sacrifice (that bit was actually really boring).

While not quite hitting the cracktastic height of Stairway to Heaven (that one had amnesia, blindness, step-sibling love, and a terminal illness) it came pretty close. I am a bit sad now it is almost over. I should probably watch something good next but instead I am going to watch Winter Sonata. Because I have no taste.

ETA: Apparently I am not going to watch Winter Sonata because it doesn't have subtitles. I like melodrama but I don't think I'm up to watching 18 episodes of something where I only understand 'really,' 'why,' 'hello,' 'let's go,' 'I love you' and 10 other words.

1. Massively attractive people all of whom angst very nicely

2. Lots of standing in snow and rain for OTPs. I am always impressed by this. More so by the snow standing than the rain standing as the later often involves getting unattractively damp

3. Guilt trips of the sort that the nuns in my secondary school would be impressed by (and, trust me, they knew their guilt trips). The Secondary Male Lead (I don't like him so I refuse to use his name) admittedly can pull the 'I gave you my kidney' line with the hero, Dong-Joo. With the heroine he just keeps pointing out that he will go insane if she doesn't marry him. And then gives her things she doesn't want. And helps out her useless brother in ways that make him even more useless - against the heroine's wishes too. Of course, he's doing it all for her

4. Many, many stand-offs between Dong-joo and the Secondary Male Lead. They just sort of loom at each other while both saying that they will die without the heroine. There is the implied threat of violence or hostile takeovers but nothing is ever said except through subtext

5. The heroine, Ji-soo. I really like her: she is saddled with obsessive love, useless brother, dead parents, having to drop out of college because of money issues, a sequence of horrible jobs, the hero's brooding and she still is pretty cheery and stands on her own two feet. And also withstands the impressive guilt trips of the Secondary Male Lead

6. Men in suits. Kdrama fashions often wound the eyes and soul but here they've wisely gone the suit route which means much less experimentation (there are some unwise sartorial choices by Secondary Male Lead in the start but now he has become an important heir to a company he has stopped that).

7. Cracktastic plot lines. No one has gone blind yet, but I suspect it or a terminal illness is coming. Or someone running another character over with a car. I look forward to this with the glee of a five year old contemplating Christmas. So far we have returns from the dead, plotting mothers, obsessive love, evil dads, suddenly dead heirs to major corporations, and MANY OTHER THINGS.

ETA: 8. The heroine. I know I've said this before but I admire how - even though she is surrounded by all this mad angst and drama - she is sensible. Even if it does mean that she turned down the hero when he asked her to go to Japan with her because she a) doesn't speak Japanese and b) would be totally dependent on him. I feel this is probably taking principles too far but at least it made sense especially given her somewhat traumatizing experience with Secondary Male Lead

Please be aware I don't mean objectively good, but I am enjoying it immensely which is surely more important. It revolves around that tried and true specialty of kdramas, first love lost. And then regained in the angstiest of circumstances. Though the hero, though very comely, seems to creating pretty much the entire angst himself.

Anyway three young children (2 boys, 1 girl) have an idyllic (sort of) childhood together until one of them falls into a river and is believed drowned. Is he dead? Of course not! Where would the fun be in that? He is instead discovered and adopted by a passing Japanese couple (that bit hasn't been fully explained) and lost his memory a bit. I am not sure what bit because it seemed okay but I think it was the name of the town where he fell into the river. (Very selective and useful plotwise memory loss).

After the hero's (Dong-joo) first encounters with the heroine, Ji-soo, where there are misunderstandings and attraction despite her being a not very good paparazzi trying to photograph him with some actress ALL IS DISCOVERED. But oh noes! He cannot confess his love because his best friend from those childish days is also in love with Ji-Soo and is really nice even if his horrible dad hates him and publicly humiliates him for some reason. This is about where we are at. And naturally Ji-soo works at the company of the hero and he spends most of his time looking longingly at her and being caught on stairwells passionately grabbing her hand leading people to think that she IS A WOMAN OF ILL-REPUTE AND UP TO NO GOOD. After she tells him to back off he naturally is all drinking and broody and staring.

Dangermousie did a picspam here