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Post by ajk on Mar 3, 2024 15:36:42 GMT -5
...is up on Kocowa now with English subs. Up for the usual 24 hours free with ads, before it's moved behind the paywall.
I'm running late on this one so it will be tonight before everything is caught up and posted.
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Post by sageuk on Mar 3, 2024 16:11:22 GMT -5
Source: Koryo-sa choryo translated by Sem Vermeesch
Honestly saw the removal of the dam trap coming with all the talks of tight budget. Still would have liked to see though.
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Post by ajk on Mar 3, 2024 17:54:06 GMT -5
Thank you for mentioning that--I had read about this incident but wouldn't have remembered to mention it.
This is where some CGI and maps and narrated text can be so useful. You can show these things and make them part of the story for very little money, even if it's just in an abstract way. For that matter, they could have incorporated the first invasion at the beginning in the same way. It's surprising that they haven't made better use of any of this.
Back later with the rest; family stuff to deal with.
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Post by ajk on Mar 4, 2024 0:03:55 GMT -5
Pretty much the same as 29. An enormous relief from the nonsense we had been getting. Most of it was terrific. Again a bit stiff at times--particularly that long speech Hyeonjong gave, too long and not logically consistent. But after The Black Assassin and the other silliness you can easily forgive that. The two sides trying to get into each other’s heads and outguess them, great stuff, especially the ambush that the Khitans’ previous tactics made predictable. Really enjoyed that. And let’s get something out of the way first, something I get on the soapbox an awful lot about. Always complaining about how these shows never give us enough of the common people, and never show us how the events inside palaces and among generals affect the larger country. Well this episode, I cannot remember an episode of any series going all the way back to the disease outbreak in Yi Soon-Shin’s naval base that did such a terrific job giving us voices and images of the commoners. The glimpses we got here were absolutely wonderful. (click for full size) This was the first one, the sequence of people going to their temples. Exactly what you’d have seen the common citizens doing at that time. The old woman praying for her son killed in action, and the little girl praying for her country’s success and her father’s safety, just those two little glimpses were more meaningful and powerful than everything we got in all those episodes of The Black Assassin nonsense combined. And they weren’t exploiting those two for melodrama, not at all. It was just right and it packed a wallop. (click for full size) Then the scene with Gamchan wandering into the group of common soldiers. “How was it to fight against them?” “Well, I thought we were up for the fight. At first, we were shaking with fright from the rumors we had heard, but once we actually went up against them, it was not that bad.” “Now the Khitan soldiers will be afraid of the Goryeo army. No matter how many times they pound on us, we do not break down.” This was IYSS-worthy. You could hear the entire story of the war in how these humble soldiers rose to the occasion and gained their courage and were ready to strike a decisive blow. (click for full size) And then at the end, all of those villagers packing up and heading into the fortress, some of them trudging through snow...and the resolve that we saw in the citizens to step up and do their part. And the woman so happy to see Hyeonjong, and she’s encouraging him! “Do not cry, we will surely win, Goryeo will win.” Except for that bit of Hyeonjong, there wasn’t anybody of any importance in these later scenes and yet they delivered more information and more emotion than anything with the important people. KBS needs to make a highlight reel from these sequences and make it required viewing for everyone who tries to write a historical from now on. This was exactly what should be in every episode of every series. Whoever put these together, bravo and thank you. Gamchan: “Using the fish scale formation when there are more enemies than allies, and the semicircular formation when there are more allies than enemies, are the basics of military strategy. Goryeo has double the numbers of Khitan. And thus, the semicircular formation. By enclosing the enemy with sword wagons, and blocking the rear with the mounted troops, we are to wipe them out completely.” Everybody got that? It went by quickly and was worth including here. As for the fish scale formation, I had never heard of this but if anyone is curious about it, somebody on a Reddit board posted the greatest Reddit post I’ve ever seen, an absolute Fish Scale 101 (scroll down towards the bottom). https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/ascy8z/ancient_chinese_fish_scale_formation_ancient/Talk about rewarding you for paying attention: Kang Jo’s wife and Yang Kyu’s wife. Good to see them again, that was a nice surprise. A few negatives. First, we saw Hyeonjong praying with Lady Kim next to him. Where is Wonhwa? Her sister died so isn’t she the queen now? Certainly she’d be at his side over Lady Kim, at least for a public appearance. I’m calling shenanigans on this one; too much trying to make Lady Kim a big deal. Frankly her stuff has gotten bland. Another part of the stiffness. Fist clench alert: 28:59. And then again at 43:54. Sheesh. Another fail with the maps. I’ll show this in another post later on. “Kang Gamchan, this time you lose.” The ending fell flat…and this has been a disappointment lately, how Xiao Paiya has turned into just another typical enemy leader and we’ve lost all of the nuance that made him so interesting. Stiffness. But those aside, this one was very enjoyable, and if they give us more of the same with the ordinary citizens in 31 then it’s going to be a monster treat.
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Post by MTR on Mar 6, 2024 0:23:08 GMT -5
Better late than never i guess . I found out Daily Motion has all the episodes uploaded with subs . They are about a day or two behind Kocowa .
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Post by ajk on Mar 6, 2024 4:53:17 GMT -5
Gee I never thought to look there. Good to know, thanks. Dramacool gets them quickly but that site tends to have pop-up issues. We watched all 200 episodes of EWG on DailyMotion and it worked well. So just to get back to that map issue I mentioned...Here was the map they gave us that showed the Khitan army detouring past the Goryeo army camp outside Heunghwajin: (click for full size) Because so much of the screen is dark, it looks like the Khitans took a massive long trek to the east before they started south and you tend to think it must have took them a while to do it. (Unless you can read Hangul and have very good eyesight to see the small print, and also know exactly where those places are.) Now here's a simple little map from the book "Korean History in Maps": (click for full size) Because you can see clearly and get a proper perspective, it's clear that the eastward movement wasn't far east at all; they basically just took the next north-south road to the east, albeit a tough road to get onto because of the mountainous terrain at Kwiju/Gwiju that they had to pass through. We can't see any other north-south paths in this map but presumably there's at least one path closer to the coast, and what's happening at this point is that it's a mad rush to the capital between the Khitans on their path (with a head start) and the Goryeo army on the westernmost path, which almost certainly goes through Seogyeong. And now it's easier to understand Hyeonjong's thinking too. Even if the Khitans get to the capital first, it won't be for long at all before their larger opponent gets there and they're in big trouble. So yeah there's a reasonably good chance that they can hold on for that short time. And you can sell that to the citizens too and they'll be more likely to step up and help. A simple map makes it so much clearer and helps understand so much more. One thing this series has not gotten right at all, unfortunately.
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Post by MTR on Mar 9, 2024 11:10:30 GMT -5
I caught up to the rest of you finally . I must say this and 29 are more like it . I would rather we had several episodes about the tensions between Goryeo and Khitan than this Black Assassin wacko . I agree with AKJ, one of the great parts of this drama has been showing how the common people felt and were treated
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