kdrama-galore

[kdrama-galore]

Things I might not get used to, no matter how many kdramas I watch:

Men in three piece suits wearing slippers at home (to quote Carry Bradshaw: "it's meant to be an outfit!!")

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Because this is my first life (2017) | ep 11

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"I recognize this one. It's different."

The beauty inside (2018) | ep. 06

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OH MY VENUS 오 마이 비너스 (2015) 1.06 | Please take your eyes off me. This dimple is mine.

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"please send my notebook to this post box (...) " - "I'm too busy to get to the post office these days. You can get it yourself."

(episode 6 was so nice & fluffy. I loved the banter).

Her private life (2019) | ep. 06

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Another thing I appreciate so much more about Her private life now that I've finished my rewatch is that it avoided so many of the pitfalls romance dramas fall into 90% of the time.

The second leads? Neither of our leads gave them a second glance they were so into each other they barely caused 5 seconds of jealousy. The big secret or fight that will break them up towards the end? They said nah, we're gonna make each other even happier. The year or 2 separation? Nope, she got an opportunity for her career abroad and he said of course you should go and she answered yeah we're going together even before this I was working towards giving you a come back as an artist abroad. Just the amount of absolute tender consideration for each other's dreams and wants and needs and the work put into fulfilling those things; Unparalleled, especially Deok Mi, one of the best girlfriends of all time, only a girl like this would make me not care if she was a hardcore fangirl.

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I'm a kdrama fan and might develop into a k-politics fan as well. People defending democracy against autocrats? Sounds so good, I'm here for it 💪

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A genderqueer reading of Coffee Prince

I wanted to examine why I keep coming back to a show I first watched 12 years ago and why it seemed to mean so much to me. I think it's because I saw in this show an extremely raw portrayal of the struggles I have felt as a genderqueer person, which is wild for a Korean show from 2007. While I rewatched, it was so clear to me that Eun Chan is genderqueer and many of her struggles are not only about her relationship with the love interest, but her relationship with her own gender.

A brief synopsis: Eun Chan is mistaken for a man, and ends up going along with it and getting a job under these pretenses in coffee shop. She ends up falling in love with her boss, Han Gyul, who still thinks she is a man. Han Gyul is also falling in love, but really struggles with the fact that this would make him gay. He eventually decides he is willing to face homophobia to be with Eun Chan. She then decides to reveal to him the truth, but it is Eun Chan’s struggle with having to confess this which feels so familiar and painful to a genderqueer person.

Eun chan has forgotten shes in a lie, she is not in disguise like other gender bending shows, she is just being herself, wearing what she wants to wear, acting how she wants to act It is others who place her in a binary, and assume she is a man. She says right out, “I'm not a guy nor a girl", and she is terrified of what that means.

So when Han Gyul says “Whether you’re a man or an alien, I don’t care anymore”, how can she not run with that? All she is feeling in that moment is relief, you can see it in the way she hugs him.

She does feel like an alien, that much is clear from how she describes herself, and the soundtrack brilliantly confirms this – “I feel like an alien, not part of the human race...it should be such a simple thing” (Alien, by Arco). This song plays when both of them are in the car together, it could refer to Han Gyul, coming to terms with being attracted to who he thinks is a man, or to Eun Chan, who feels she exists outside of the binary.

When Han Gyul finally asks her if she really is a woman, she is reluctant to answer. Some might interpret this hesitation as fear of his anger, but it could also be that she doesn’t want to admit to and be punished for something she doesn’t even feel to be true. He has to ask multiple times because she doesn’t answer, and finally she only slightly nods her head, looking sad and scared.

Later, he begs her to say its not true, that she isn’t a woman. Again, she cant answer to confirm or deny, all she can say is “I’m sorry”, and she breaks down. He is so angry at her for being something she doesn’t even feel herself to be. He said he’d love her if she was a man or alien, but he doesn’t want her to be a woman. The one thing she never felt like she was she’s now being punished for.

When Han Gyul finally comes around and says he’s actually glad she’s a girl, her face says it all.

There are many more hints that she doesn’t feel that she conforms to femininity. She said right from the beginning, that he would never like “someone like me”, showing she had a preexisting view of herself before she ever got involved in this whole thing.

You can see she has internalized this failure to conform, saying its her fault for looking the way she does. She is not shocked when his grandmother called her a thing, She has become used to being treated poorly as she has not conformed her whole life. But Han Gyul gets angry having to grapple for this first time with non-conformity.

Although Han Gyul has a lot of issues, he does have to get some credit for eventually coming out of the woman-man binary thinking he fell into earlier. He realizes she was born this way, and when he shops for a ring for her, he tells the shopkeeper “she is not feminine” and buys her a simple band.

One final thing I’ll mention is the music choice, again. The song that keeps returning at different points is a beautifully sad song with the lyrics “And now I’ve travelled across the ocean, with the same shoes, just longer hair”. At the end she does come back from overseas with longer hair, making her seem more feminine. But she remains the same, and you have to hope Han Gyul realizes she is still the same person, existing outside of a binary, and he is at peace with that.

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(Ryan's new hobby is wrapping his jackets around Deok-mi. From reluctant to caring within one episode...)

Her private life (2019) | ep. 03 & 04

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HER PRIVATE LIFE [EP 10]

Totally out of context, but this is how I imagine my favourite gif makers watching shows (thank you for your service @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @gabrielokun, @smittenskitten, @bellepark, @sollucets, @clairedaring, @chinzillas and many many moooore).

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Ryan Gold painting

Her private life (2019) | ep. 02

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Lee Min Ki 🤍

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Someone hand this man a shirt, please! I can't cope... (on the other hand: maybe he could lend sung deok mi his jacket again? 🤔...)

Her private life (2019) | ep. 01 & 08

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the amount of contract marriage and marriage related kdramas in the past year makes me so happy because truly the hottest thing on this planet is a man wearing a wedding band and going feral for his wife

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In American movies you have the best friends of the main leads. They are usually less attractive and add some comic relief to the story... 🥱

In Korean drama you have the best and hottest second and third leads you could wish for 🧡.

[kdrama-galore]

As much as I enjoy a good soundtrack to accompany what I'm watching I LOVE the intentional silence even more. So I'm going through Her Private Life episode 5 and there's this scene where Doek-mi's scarf gets stuck in her hair and Ryan is trying to untangle it and just OH. MY. GOD.

The only thing that can be heard is water dripping, some ASMR-ish sounds of hands-hair-scarf action and the characters' breathing. THE TENSION IS SO PALPABLE THAT I NEED TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS. Woah. So simple. So effective. I barely survived that one lol.