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Post by TheBo on Feb 24, 2015 14:35:17 GMT -5
I thought maybe I'd just keep a casual "diary" here--rather like what Jewel did when she watched Yi San. My Love From Another StarStarring Kim Soo-hyun (wikipedia) as Minjoon, a space alien who crashed to Joseun earth 400 years ago and, on the very eve of his return home, meets a girl he lost 400 years ago. Kim Hyun-soo (on AsianWiki) (on Wikipedia) plays Yihwa, a young woman that Minjoon lost in the past, and also the young woman he found briefly 13 years ago and has spent all that time looking to find again. Also stars Jun Ji-hyun (wikipedia) as Songyi, a big hallyu star who bumbles her way into and out of scandal on almost a minute-by-minute basis. These are the three characters who are most important at the beginning, I'll add people as I go along. SPOILERS HERE: Hollywood remake (from mid-2014) I don't know what happened with this, but it looks like if you read the article, you may be spoiled for the Korean show. Wikipedia article (also spoilers) If you read this article, you could seriously be spoiled for many of the plot twists in the show, so you're forewarned. Asian WikiDramaFever feedEPISODES 1 & 2: edit is done The spaceship of Minjoon, a young scientist from another planet, crashes in Joseun era Korea 400 years ago. His landing almost kills 15-year-old widow Yihwa, but even though he saves her, eventually we find out she died somehow, and he had something to do with it. Soon, the stars will align and he will get to go home.
Minjoon is presently a teacher at Seoul University. Apparently every 10 years, he arranges his own death and then comes back as a different person in a different profession (to cover the fact that he does not age). 13 years ago, while a doctor at a big hospital, he had a premonition about a truck accident at a certain intersection, went there and was able to rescue a young girl who looked exactly like Yihwa. He's never found out who she was, but hopes to meet her before he returns to his own planet.
His life is then disrupted by Hallyu star Songyi. Songyi is Minjoon's new neighbor, and their first encounter is a rocky one in which she accuses him of being a stalker. Then, due to her constant, terminal case of foot-in-mouth, Songyi is forced to attend Minjoon's class, where he publicly humiliates her on a regular basis. Songyi, it seems, is simply stupid, and he cannot stand stupidity.
Songyi has a habit of making outrageous statements that her management then has to scramble to clean up. Even though she's Korea's "most beloved" star, the Netizens (can we still say that?) are not kind to her. She constantly makes public statements that reveal the depths of her ignorance of knowledge familiar to any young Korean student. Even reporters know more than she does. At one point, she states in a documentary that she is taking a controlled substance, an anesthesia, when really she's taking an Australian herbal supplement with a similar name. Her manager tries to get her to shut up, but she simply doesn't see what the problem is. "Anyone could make a similar mistake," she blithely proclaims. This turns out to be her general attitude. She is arrogant, she is bored, but mostly, she's unhappy and completely mystified by the sharks nipping at the heels of her ignorance.
Songyi’s mother is a shallow leech spending her daughter’s money like water. (I think she steals one of Songyi’s credit cards at one point.) She has no true friends, just people who tolerate or leech off her; other actresses hate her success; and one male friend (Hwikyung) has been proposing to her since she was 14 much to her distress. (A side story seems to be developing. Hwikyung, a third-brother chaebol, has an older brother who is introduced as a man who does good works while turning his back on his birthright, but who is actually black in soul and deed. More when it happens.)
Minjoon hears most of what happens in Songyi’s apartment. First, he is irritated, but then seems to become more sympathetic to her lonely plight. One night she gets drunk over one of her screw-ups and tries to break into Minjoon’s apartment (she thinks it’s hers). When he opens the door to yell at her, she pushes by and falls asleep on the couch. He calls Hwikyung to come get her. The next morning, Minjoon notices her wallet under the couch and opens it to find a photo of Songyi as a child with her family. The girl in the photo is the girl who he rescued, the one with Yihwa’s face. He rushes out to find Songyi, publicly causes a ruckus at a beauty parlor by breaking glass with his mind, and drags her outside to wave the wallet and photo in her unconcerned face.
WHO ARE YOU? He demands.
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Post by jewel on Feb 27, 2015 1:02:01 GMT -5
Im gonna read this thread with my eyes squinted so I don't get spoiled. I'm not gonna start this drama for a while. I still have three to finish. I've decided I'm gonna try to watch one drama at a time now, after I finish the three.
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Post by TheBo on Mar 4, 2015 11:22:13 GMT -5
What are the three that you are watching? Just wondering. Don't expect me to be watching this too regularly, I am trying to close this office and find a new job at the same time.
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Post by jewel on Mar 4, 2015 14:33:19 GMT -5
Now that I'm done with "Yi San," I have left "Pride and Prejudice," "The Joseon Gunman," and " The Tree with Deep Roots."
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Post by TheBo on Mar 12, 2015 16:07:05 GMT -5
Ep.3 – Minjoon and Songyi squabble on the private terrace outside the beauty salon. He notices her spangly silver heels and recognizes them from a premonition he had about those shoes on a boat, on a woman who was falling overboard. She thinks he’s odd for asking, but tells him they’re the only pair in Korea.
Late that night, she has an appendicitis attack, and he hears her in her apartment (he has super hearing skills). As she stumbles out, he pretends to be going to the hospital “on business” and takes her there, where he immediately starts bossing the staff around (remember, he was a surgeon in the past). Songyi tells the attending doc that Minjoon is her manager (much to the doctor’s disgust) because otherwise it’ll be a scandal for a man to take her to the hospital. Minjoon grudgingly cooperates, but he also steals the silver shoes in an attempt to stop the vision coming true. However, after being released she gets her assistant to locate a knockoff pair of the shoes for a friend’s wedding on a private boat, and then she pages Minjoon to chide him for taking the shoes (which he denies) and telling him she has another pair. He has responded to her page on a public phone, and outside in the big shopping district in Seoul he sees a jumbotron image of her, in the shoes, getting on the boat. He looks pretty stunned by this.
Other stuff: Plenty info about Yihwa, the Joseun era girl from Minjoon’s past, and I’ll put that into a separate post below this one because I think I ran over into Ep.4 as well.
Things that may be important later, or sound like they should: Minjoon is sent by Songyi to get some manhwa from her high-school buddy’s lending library store. It’s just romantic tripe, and when Minjoon disses them to Songyi, he gets hot under the collar when she makes fun of his pick for best novel ever, which is Goo Eun Mong, a Joseun era fantasy novel.
At the hospital, there’s a lot of cute interplay between Songyi and Minjoon, who keeps coming thisclose to seeing her as Yihwa until Songyi undercuts his expectation with her usual shallow observations. He also attempts to get her not to go on boats by pretending to read her a bad horoscope from the newspaper.
Hyekyung (Songyi’s supposed boyfriend) is angered by his reception at the hospital and by the fact that Minjoon was there pretending to be the manager, and then thinks he recognizes Minjoon from somewhere. We see some of Semi, Hyekyung and Songyi’s schooldays back story (pretty funny). Songyi’s mother and brother show up. The brother blames Songyi’s money for their father’s emotional problems, and he refuses to take money from her. The mother, who somehow is in control of Songyi's agency contract, tries to have a documentary film crew show them as a happy family, but Songyi kicks them out. The father shows up outside the hospital, but when he sees his son come out, he hides and then ambles away. Minjoon witnesses all of this.
Hyekyung’s baddie brother Jaekyung is secretly dating Songyi’s mortal enemy/fellow actress Yoora, who seems to be blackmailing him into marrying her and going public with their relationship. He doesn’t look happy. He apparently also murders one of his family’s old friends (a board member of the company who insists on investigating some rumors of wrong conduct in the firm) by fiddling with the man’s insulin.
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Post by TheBo on Mar 12, 2015 16:12:41 GMT -5
Tales of Yihwa - Episodes 1 through 4. When Minjoon’s spaceship fell to earth, he accidentally sent Yihwa over a cliff. He stopped time and rescued her. However, later she is kidnapped from her inlaws’ home and taken out to the woods to be murdered, but again Minjoon rescues her. She takes him back to her inlaws’ home to be rewarded. However, once there they discover that her inlaws are the ones who hired the assassin. They’ve already made a grave mound for her, and when the killer lost Yihwa, they apparently murdered some other poor girl so they’d have a body handy, all because they desired a certain cash award for female chastity from the king.
So Yihwa (who also tells Minjoon that she loves him) runs to her own family, with Minjoon accompanying her to protect her, where they are greeted in the yard and everyone seems happy to see her. However, Yihwa wakes in the night being strangled by her own mother, who shouts out that she’s stained the family honor, but once she hears Yihwa’s father walk away from the door, she stops and begs Yihwa to run away and live quietly, pressing money into her daughter's hand. Mom had convinced Dad that she was the one who had to murder her daughter, and knows her own life will probably be forfeit but must protect Yihwa. It turns out that Dad is embarrassed for the family honor that someone they don’t know or can’t identify came home with her.
He also has poisoned Minjoon with arsenic, but is angered when Minjoon refuses to die.
EDIT: As Minjoon lies sweating and possibly dying from the poison, through the window he sees his friends/classmates from the other planet flying off in their flying saucers. So now we know why he got left behind.
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Post by TheBo on Mar 17, 2015 13:33:15 GMT -5
Ep.4 - The party is eventful, to say the least. Songyi and mortal enemy Yoora squabble over their shoes, their relative positions in the Hallyu firmament and their ages. They make a mockery of the poor bride's dressing room photos, but she seems resigned to it. Yoora has claimed to Songyi that she'll be marrying one of the S&C boys, and since it can't be Hyekyung (Songyi’s unsuccessful suitor), Songyi asks Jaekyung about it. He claims to know nothing. Songyi gets good and drunk, and close friend Semi sees her about to fall overboard, but then she just disappears from sight. The next day, the ship docks and Semi runs into Yoora's and Songyi's management teams, and tells them both girls have disappeared.
However, Hyekyung has searched the ship and found Songyi asleep in one of the staterooms (pretty funny with him scaring other couples who run away shamefacedly). Songyi is the last partygoer to leave. Yoora cannot be located, until her body is dredged out of the river. The police speculate that Yoora committed suicide, and the press goes nuts. However, the young prosecutor is convinced murder may be involved.
On the internet, Yoora’s management and fans are spinning madly against Songyi’s interests. An edited version of Yoora’s fight with Songyi at the salon is posted, making it look like all aggression was on Songyi’s side. Her manager talks about what a gentle soul Yoora was and how she suffered from depression, especially concerning Songyi. Unfortunately, Songyi’s brother’s job is at one of the internet cafes, and he suffers silently under these slings and arrows.
Songyi’s management company is going crazy, they can’t control the PR. Her manager is sent over to her apartment, but can’t reach her on the phone until the reporters are roiling into the building. (Some security.) He calls to wake her out of a deep (hangover) sleep, and she rushes out into the hallway, but the reporters have taken the elevators and the emergency stairs. She can’t remember her own access code, and is panicking in the hallway when Minjoon happens to come out. She pushes him into his apartment and first begs for sanctuary, then food. Angered, he pushes past her into the hallful of vultures, who shove cameras into his face. Much to Songyi’s relief, he orders them to back off (which surprisingly they do) and strolls out without giving her away.
Meanwhile, Semi’s mother is urging her to take advantage of the situation and take over Songyi’s role in the spotlight, as well as stealing Hyekyung for herself. Meanwhile, Songyi’s mom is at the management agency, complaining. She also tries to get the president to re-sign Songyi with his agency but surprisingly enough, he puts her off. (Sarcasm.)
Minjoon has brought back some food for Songyi. She tries to get him to entertain her, but he wants to sleep. She eats alone, then snoops around and finds his secret study full of books and original paintings from 400 years of life in Korea. Sensing this, he drags her out of there and tells her to leave, but she invokes the teacher’s duty to protect a student. He denies this, so she speaks informally to him, demanding to see his ID to determine their relative ages. Then she points out that if she’s seen leaving his apartment, he too will be crucified by the press.
So, FINE, he says. Just don’t touch anything here, don’t ask questions and don’t come anywhere near me physically. She agrees to all, then speculates to herself that he must be gay since he’s obviously not attracted to her.
Jaekyung (S&C evil bro) is receiving a report from his henchman regarding Yoora’s death, so obviously he’s involved, when Hyekyung comes in to ask Jaekyung to help clear Songyi by proving it wasn’t a suicide, but rather a murder. Jaekyung is not enthusiastic. So Hyekyung goes to Songyi’s apartment. The reporters all think he’s one of them, and he goes along with it once he realizes that if they think he’s her boyfriend, it’ll be a bloodbath. Hyekyung settles in with the enemy, but shocks them when he expresses concern for Songyi's well-being.
Songyi recalls that when she went to the bathroom on the boat, she spied Yoora through the door threatening Jaekyung that she was going to announce their engagement publicly. He asked her about her depression, and she said she stopped taking the meds. Then Yoora caught Songyi eavesdropping, and they had a candid conversation in which Songyi noted that Yoora didn’t have to be so desperate, any man would like her. But Yoora assured her there was a “reason” he couldn’t go public, and the two girls descended into bickering. Someone came in and Yoora left, leaving her purse behind, and Songyi picked it up and put it into hers to give to her later. (This is confusing, because in the bathroom, Songyi notes that Jaekyung is a liar about his relationship with Yoora, but she doesn’t even ask him about it until she goes out to the table, which is after she’s picked up the purse. So the writer got that a little garbled.)
Songyi recites this story to Minjoon, but then she tells him that something else happened on the boat. And we cut to the cop and the prosecutor, looking over some CCTV tapes, where they see Minjoon mysteriously appear and then disappear, and Songyi disappear at the same moment. Songyi tells Minjoon she had a vivid dream, wonders if he was there, he denies it, and she asks, okay what did you do that night?
What he did was walk out of his front door directly onto the boat in his slippers, fritzing out security cameras as he walked about, until he got to the deck where he saw Songyi about to fall overboard, but not before she noticed him there. He stopped time, picked her up and tucked her into a bed in a stateroom. Unable to pull his arm out from underneath her, she then drew him into a kiss.
EPILOG: Minjoon tells his video diary that he has always avoided kissing. In the past, a “the most beautiful woman in Hanyang” gives him a painting by Dan Won (who was featured in Painter of the Wind, so now we know it was during Jeongjo’s reign--we saw this painting hanging on the wall of Minjoon’s office when Songyi broke in), then tries to kiss him. He insults her by telling her they’re from different planets.
I just noticed that these episodes (after 2) have epilogs that don't appear to be previews, but rather comment on and expand on the action. So I added it to this one, maybe I'll go back and do 2 & 3 also when I have time.
I am really really enjoying this series, it's clever. Songyi is amazing, funny and heartbreaking. I also love the way they begin by establishing the action, then do the intro, calling each episode "The First Record" and so on. Like the Annals, only personal. Neato.
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Post by bird11 on Mar 19, 2015 9:05:16 GMT -5
Just thought I would drop in and watch this, not watching anything else right now.... BUT....did you notice in Ep2 when SongYi's "friend" from school that works in the bookstore, needed to look at some "eye candy"--- she pulled up Big Bang on her computer!?!?!? Yeah, I understand that!!!
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Post by TheBo on Mar 19, 2015 9:30:34 GMT -5
Ep.5: It turns out that when Songyi saw Minjoon on the boat, she thought she was dreaming. He had stopped time to keep her from falling overboard, and as he left, he overheard and glimpsed Jaekyung (evil S&C bro) telling his henchman that Yoora was a greedy bee-atch and responsible for her own demise. This turns out to be very important later.
Songyi stays with Minjoon to hide out from the reporters. He starts to experience some sympathy for her, since she’s pretty much a prisoner of her own life, and she loosens him up. For instance, when his friend (pretending to be MJ’s dad) visits with food for Minjoon, she cajoles everyone into sitting down to a meal together, making the false father see MJ in a hilarious new light, because Minjoon is letting her get away with a lot of stuff.
Hyekyung gets an “in” with the rotten-souled reporters, who think he is one of them, and we also learn his father is dissatisfied with his conduct as a whole (hilarious family interplay, BTW). But Hyekyung’s activities seem to have prodded his brother to consider how to use Songyi’s situation to his own benefit. In fact, he plants a Will "written by" Yoora, to be discovered by YR’s sister. This discovery seals Songyi’s fate.
The young prosecutor and the cop puzzle over a mystery: On the CCTV tapes of the boat deck, Minjoon appears and then disappears, along with Songyi. They later identify Minjoon by viewing the salon CCTV, at which point they incidentally learn that Yoora was the aggressor in her fight with Songyi, not the other way around as has been widely reported and Internetted. The prosecutor, now in Jaekyung’s evil sights for not falling into line, turns out to be Semi’s older brother and the son of a now-deceased prosecutor.
Minjoon sees that the reporters have fled, Songyi has been condemned in the streets and even a billboard of her, visible from their apartments and of which she is very proud, has been removed. In trying to keep her from seeing this, he breaks a vase and she cuts her foot. MJ obtains first aid items from the drugstore and mends her foot, assuring her that what is happening is not her fault. She prettily thanks him for all his help and then goes home.
Songyi braves the public to go to her agency, where she learns she’s being dropped left and right. She runs all over town rejecting people and places “before” they can reject her, and then demands of her long-suffering assistants, is there anything left I have to reject? After magnificently facing down her persecutors all day, she asks for chicken and beer, but flips a bit when the place refuses to deliver. “Am I being rejected by chicken now?” [Had to note that. Funny.]
Therefore, Songyi has dinner with Semi, who is kind to her and reassuring, but when Semi gets a text from her manager about getting Songyi’s previous position on their show, she lies that she has to leave because her mother was injured. Songyi is grateful and understanding. I hope that felt good for Semi. [Yep. Sarcasm.]
At home, Songyi receives a creepy, stalky, why-do-you-know-so-much phone call from Jaekyung, camped outside her building, who asks to come up for coffee and is invited. In the garage, Minjoon spots and recognizes him, but can’t remember why. The cop appears and, in Jaekyung’s hearing, demands that Minjoon come in as a witness on the case. Minjoon suffers through a fatuous conversation with the cop, but as Songyi hesitantly lets Jaekyung in, Minjoon realizes who he is and bolts from the car. The cop gives chase, shouting that MJ’s making himself the main suspect in the matter. Minjoon runs for Songyi’s life.
Epilog: On the balcony, a conversation we saw between Songyi and Minjoon is elaborated. She tried to hug him and he shouted that she had to stay a meter away, but when she does, he is miffed and sidles closer to her while she talks about how hungry she is and how beautiful she is on the billboard across the way. Adorable.
******* I love this show so much. I would recommend it to anyone. The only trouble I'm having with these synopses is I'm making them too detailed, and I don't have the time and really the person reading this should have seen the episode already. I had to cut this one down about 70%--but so much happens that is so cute and the attention to detail by the writers is excellent. Again, highly recommended.
PS - moved two posts below to avoid spoilage
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Post by TheBo on Mar 19, 2015 9:39:50 GMT -5
Tales of Yihwa, Ep.5: In Baekju, the people are upset by reports of strange flying objects. The Royal Prosecutor proclaims to his nervous staff that he can’t put this before the king during this delicate time (beginning of Jeongjo’s reign). “What do I say,” he notes sarcastically. “Your Majesty, Your Majesty, there's a bunch of gourdshapesaucerbowlthingies flying in the sky all lit up, the people are upset and it ain’t a bird for sure…” He suggests they distract the people with some other scandal, and it turns out there is one available. A 15-year-old widow pretended to commit suicide for the chastity award, and then showed up at her family’s home with a MAN IN TOW! Perfect!
Soldiers raid Yihwa’s family compound. Father, whom we saw previously making sure Mother murdered her, asks his wife where the girl ran to, since he knew he could trust Mom to let their precious daughter flee. However, she’s only in the shed with the strange man, trying to revive and free him. Father bravely gives his life defending the shed with a sword against overwhelming odds, and by the time the soldiers break in, trampling his lifeless body, the girl and her friend have disappeared.
*** This was very touching, although in writing it sounds horrid. Yihwa's dad, so concerned for her that he tried to murder a strange man who helped her (ulp), redeems himself by making sure his girl and her "lover" can get away. I knew Jeon Intaek couldn't be all bad.
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Post by TheBo on Mar 19, 2015 13:32:30 GMT -5
I moved this from the Ep.5 post so I can poke bird11 and jewel without spoiling them, because I can't remember who likes whom. And yes, the reference to Big Bang was funny, Birdie. Every time they do a show about "big stars" they get a lot of cameos from actual stars, right? It's always fun to spot them. There's a reference to Jo Insung in episode 5. Songyi is miffed that Minjoon knows who JIS is, but didn't know who she is, when she's on TV so much that they call her "tap water"--turn on the TV and she pours out. Very funny bit. (She mentioned JIS earlier in a list of all the big stars she's kissed--for acting purposes of course LOL--his name jumped out at me at the time.)
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Post by jewel on Mar 21, 2015 21:38:50 GMT -5
in Ep2 when SongYi's "friend" from school that works in the bookstore, needed to look at some "eye candy"--- she pulled up Big Bang on her computer!?!?!? Yeah, I understand that!!! I was telling my Oppa a while back he should watch "Greatest Love" cuz he just finished watching "It's Okay, That's Love" and he really liked the lead girl in it. (He already saw "The Master's Sun.") I was telling him how funny and good "GL" was and then I got all nostalgic for it myself and decided to watch it again. Well, in one of the episodes the 2nd lead guy bought something for the girl and look at the bag... Thought it would bring a smile to your face, Birdy... Okay girls, I'm gonna watch "MLFAS" too!!!! I'll catch up to you all soon...
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Post by jewel on Mar 22, 2015 9:26:51 GMT -5
Even reporters know more than she does.
Most reporters do know more than most actresses, I think. Watched episodes 1 and 2. Mood is such a funny thing. When I tried to watch this drama a while back I felt nothing. I thought both main stars were kinda blah and the story not that interesting. I was just not in the mood for it then. This time, however, it grabbed me right from the start. Really enjoyed both episodes. The mole on her otherwise perfect face still bothers me and the main guy does look like an alien kinda but love them both. I think he looks so much better in Hanbok. Why would any guy wanna propose to a girl with another girl looking on? Very strange.
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Post by bird11 on Mar 22, 2015 10:30:08 GMT -5
What brings a smile to Birdy's face?? (not necessarily in this order......) 1) Pictures of Big Bang (I get so mad when I see things like school supplies with 1D on them and just thinking "Wonder if I lived in Korea would they have things with Big Bang's picture on them"? I know, I know it is just insanity to think this way....... 2) having Jewel join us in watching this drama Yeah!!! Time to watch Ep 5!
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Post by TheBo on Mar 23, 2015 12:14:37 GMT -5
Even reporters know more than she does.
Most reporters do know more than most actresses, I think. Yes. I was making a joke. LOL...at least, I did. I know, I know, my sense of humor is obscure.I hope you continue to like it. I am (as you probably can tell) very much enjoying it so far.
The more I watch Hyekyung (the proposer), the more I realize what a spoiled but unworldly person he is. That is all I'll say.
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