#..also i was supposed to post this like 40 mins ago but i got distracted by the evanuris pajama art (my prev rb) 💀

[zaahvi]

number 3 and 4 for my DA six fanarts! flemeth suggested by @ultimmmmmp & zevran suggested by @crowwithabrush!! 🖤

[katierosefun]

you know, april was an insane month for me, between my thesis and making my final senior plans (oh my god, the fact that i now only have maybe a few more weeks of being an undergrad is still so bonkers to me), but! here’s some things that i somehow watched/read/consumed over the past month!

also, a note: i actually rewatched a lot of things this month, but i didn’t include them on this list just because then this post would be outrageously long. here’s my film diary on letterboxd though, if you want to get a look at what i was actually watching. also how badly i was managing my time/how much i was stress-rewatching things in general, oops.

kdrama: 

my absolute boyfriend 

okay, so this drama was actually a bit of a surprise to me, mostly in that i did not expect to like this show at all, if only because the whole premise (young woman named da da (minah) is sent a robot boyfriend) isn’t exactly my style, but yeo jin goo plays the main love interest, so you know i have to watch it. and needless to say, i was pleasantly surprised? it’s definitely very silly, but sometimes you need a silly show! and what’s nice is that this show doesn’t take itself seriously either! it fully embraces how comedic the whole thing is, and while i think there’s still some stuff that could improve, i ultimately really enjoyed this show. the entire cast was lovely, and actually, outside of jin goo, i realized that i also wanted to see more of bang min ah’s dramas, just because i found her acting a lot stronger than i thought it would be? and also, i guess on another note, it was kinda cool to see what her life as a special effects makeup artist was. she seemed to really know what she was worth, which is always such an admirable trait in a rom-com like this one. 

the relationship between da da and yeong goo (the robot) was also so . . . admittedly, the beginning was a bit rough, but i think that like the way yeong goo grows on min ah and eventually becomes someone truly worth loving, their relationship also genuinely made me smile quite a lot. that said though, the last few episodes made me cry so much. like, so much. i was inconsolable. i didn’t expect to feel so many fuckign things over this show but i somehow did like what the fuck--

lost 

there are certain shows that i just think came for me at the right time, and lost is one of them. i actually started this show a while ago, but then i stopped because i was distracted by life things, but i got around to finishing this show, and it made me feel a lot of things. basically, this show is about a 40 year old woman named lee bu jeong (jeon do yeon) and a 27 year old man named lee kang jae (ryoo joon yeol). they’ve both suffered through lots of hardships in their lives, and somehow, they wind up connecting with each other. it’s genuinely very touching, and i suppose it says a lot that the literal translation of this show i think is called disqualified souls, which in itself is fitting: bu jeong is a woman who feels like she’s accomplished nothing in her life, and kang jae feels the same. 

as such, you can imagine that this show is pretty heavy--and it is. lots of trigger warnings for discussions of suicide especially, just because that’s a pretty big theme throughout the show. that said, i think this show really examined depression and suicide in a way that was honest. sad, but not necessarily for the sake of being truthful and also for the sake of demonstrating that you can eventually heal from the pains of your own life. 

circle 

so immediately after finishing my absolute boyfriend, i decided to watch this show. i started the first episode way back in september or so, but then i got distracted by other dramas, and then i wound up watching this whole thing in a few days. it’s relatively short, only 12 episodes, so it’s something you can easily watch over a week and a half, and it’s so concisely, smartly written that honestly, i kind of wish i spent longer to digest it all. 

but anyways: this is a sci-fi kdrama following a set of twins--kim woo jin (yeo jin goo) and kim beom gyun (ahn woo yeon), who thinks they encountered an alien ten years ago. the kdrama also follows the story of kim joon hyuk (kim kang woo), a detective 20 years in the future in a dystopian society. i won’t go much more into the plot because this is one of those shows that i think you really need to watch this show with little information going in. in any case, this show was so .  . . it was so good. lots of twists and turns, but not twisty and turny for the sake of being twisty and turny--like, there’s genuinely smart writing in this show, and it’s so concisely written and i think it really got at the core of the beauty of the sci-fi genre. 10/10 recommend, esp if you feel like you haven’t seen anything good in the sci-fi genre lately. 

romance is a bonus book 

sigh. i really, really, really wanted to like this kdrama, but tbh, it was such a struggle for me. i’m not willing to say that it’s because this kdrama is bad--i think it’s more like i couldn’t really connect with all the themes in this show, and the characters just felt very far away from me. (like, there wasn’t anyone i could relate to at all. i think this was one of the first kdramas where i was very conscious that this was, in fact, a kdrama in their own bubble of a world. and i say this as someone who watched a sci-fi kdrama this month. the sci-fi kdrama made me feel more grounded in the characters than this one.) 

but who knows! maybe one of you guys will like it. basically, it’s about this recently divorced woman named kang dan i (lee na young), who’s trying to get back into the workforce after being a housewife/mom for so long. she manages to secure a job at her friend cha eun ho (lee jong suk)’s publishing house, and the show kinda mostly revolves around the goings-on of this publishing house, as well as their growing relationship. 

i mean . . . i dunno. i think i really appreciated each of the leads for who they were, but i couldn’t really get myself invested in the relationship, and i really wanted to! maybe it’s just a me problem, but i couldn’t really feel anything between the two of them outside maybe a solid friendship. that said though, their characters--as well as the side characters!--were all cute and very funny, so i suppose that’s a plus. if anything, i think this show would have worked better as a genuine slice-of-life instead of anything else (kind of like hello, my twenties! or be melodramatic, which i haven’t actually watched, but that’s the only other show i know that’s kind of about struggling with the obstacles that come with being a certain age). kind of a shame that this show was as a disappointment as it was for me--maybe i’ll appreciate this show better when i’m older, but for now, it was kinda . . . eh. 

law school 

so, i started this school back in like . . . september or october, but as i was applying to law schools at the time, i couldn’t bring myself to watch this show because i just felt all-around wistful and pretty crappy about myself. thankfully, now that i’m officially going to law school, i decided my heart was okay enough to resume this show! and i’m glad i did! 

basically, this show is about a group of law school students trying to put together the pieces of the death of a professor. if you’re at all familiar with the show how to get away with murder, there are somewhat similar vibes, but i think law school kinda becomes pretty different outside of the similarity with the “murdered professor” vibe. the characters are very much root-worthy, particularly kang sol a (ryoo hye young) and the quiet han joon hwi (kim beom). i also really enjoyed the aspect about what it means to practice and respect the law, and it def. tickled my brain in a very satisfactory way. however, i will say that the plot can get just a little bit convoluted sometimes, and there were a few parts where things just seemed to get so tangled in each other that i wasn’t sure what was actually going on (so many plots, so many things happening), but ultimately, i enjoyed it!

movies:

shoot me in the heart 

so i started this movie back in december, but i didn’t get around to really watching much more until this month, and i’m glad that i did. this movie is based off the korean novel of the same name, following the story of two young men stuck in a mental institution: soo myung (yeo jin goo) and seung min (lee min ki). the mental institution is absolutely brutal, and that’s my warning for the film--it really shows how terribly screwed up mental institutions are, and i am very much so hoping that hopefully, korean mental institutions--and mental institutions around the world in general--are much better now (although i’m still unsure of that). 

basically, over the course of this movie, soo myung and seung min grow closer. seung min tries time and time again to break out of the mental institution, and soo myung, who is very much so a model patient, gets caught in his gravity. i won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but it left my heart aching--but i think more in a good way than in a bad way. it made me think a lot about what it means to live, and what it means to live the life that you want instead of living for others, and it was just a lot to process, but in a good way. that said though, if you’re mentally in a vulnerable place right now, i would hold off on watching this movie, just because the first hour or so is pretty brutal, even if there’s happier moments spread out in between. 

the long way home 

so, i’m not the biggest fan of war movies, in part because of the violence and in part because sometimes they just seem to drag on for a while. but i wanted to watch most of yeo jin goo’s filmography this month, and so i wound up watching the long way home on the same day i finished shoot me in the heart, and boy oh boy oh boy--

basically, the long way home is a part comedy, part typical action/drama war film about the korean war. nam bok (sol kyung gu) is a solider on the south korean side, who needs to deliver this top secret document. one thing leads to another, and he runs into young gwang (yeo jin goo), a student-turned-soldier who winds up getting ahold of this document. now, they’re stuck together in a tank and the movie kind of takes off from there. 

oh man. i wasn’t sure how i was going to feel about this movie, just because i personally can’t get into comedies about wartime, but this movie somehow really delivered? and i think particularly the last act of the movie (last 30 minutes) really dug into the whole thesis of the film, which is basically that war is unpleasant for everyone, and specifically in the case of the korean war, when families and loved ones were all split because of this tragedy, it’s . . . a lot. and so i liked this film a lot more than i thought i would. 

room no. 7 

after watching this movie, i joked that there should be a category of movies called “it’s not very good, but shin ha kyun really acted with his whole heart as always, and therefore it deserves one more star than it’s actually worth”, and that’s kinda how i felt with room no. 7. it’s a dark comedy about doo sik (shin ha kyun), the owner of a dvd room (ie. couples come in, choose a dvd to select, and then go to one of the back rooms to netflix and chill). he’s desperate to sell this place, and his part timer tae jung (doh kyung soo, yes, that doh kyung soo of exo) is desperate to pay off his debt. basically, just two guys who very much so need money. and then things get complicated when uh . . . well, now there’s a dead body. 

like, to be honest, i actually really liked the first and middle portions of this movie--but the ending kinda ? ? ? idk, i feel like it could have gone a lot better by the ending. it’s relatively lighthearted, and the humor’s a bit crass, but y’know, i did enjoy it for shin ha kyun. 

on your wedding day 

i actually started this movie back in january i think, but i got around to finishing it this month, and i’m glad i did. basically, it’s about hwang woo yeon (kim young kwang), who falls in love with seung hee (park bo young) in high school. they wind up getting closer before seung hee moves away--and then, because he misses her so much, woo yeon winds up studying hard enough to go to the same college as her. and basically, this movie sort of follows their relationship and all the highs and lows that comes with first love. 

let me just say that i used to be really, really cynical of the whole concept of someone getting so much energy because of a first love--until i myself was in a similar position. watching this movie was a bit bittersweet for me in that way, in seeing woo yeon go through his life with very little focuses outside of seung hee--but this isn’t to say that seung hee is, like, an object in the way that a lot of movies have objects/manic pixie dream girls. seung hee is very much so real, someone who has a lot of struggles and burdens and is very down-to-earth, and the way she responds to woo yeon’s feelings is incredibly realistic, i think, in that woo yeon is seung hee’s first love as well. 

but you know, some people are lucky enough for their first love to be their only love. 

hot young bloods

okay, so . . . this movie was fun. like, middling sort of fun. lots of people being beat up (good grief so many people getting beat up). basically, this movie is about a bunch of high schoolers during the 80s, lots of gang activity, etc. things get kind of awry when this new girl from seoul so hee (lee se young) moves to the little town. local flirt joong gil (lee jong suk) makes it his mission to charm so hee, while the local bad girl-slash-ex-childhood-bestie young sook (park bo young) tries to prevent this from happening. that’s a pretty simple summary of the movie--when in reality, this movie was an oddly compelling look at messy relationships in high school, backstabbing, betrayal, friendships, etc.

okay so ngl, it was kinda a forgettable movie for me. interesting because i don’t think i’ve seen lee jong suk play more comedic rules in a hot second, and i was actually impressed how he could pull slightly more comedic faces . . . and park bo young, of course, was impressive as always. it always surprises me how she can play someone equal parts badass and soft, depending on the character she’s acting. 

anyways, did i think it was fun? yeah. maybe not my fave, but it was nice, and i did like the ending, so!

sympathy for lady vengeance 

this movie has been on my to watch list forever, ever since i watched sympathy for mr. vengeance back a few months ago. directed by the famous park chan wook, this film is about a woman named lee geum ja (lee young ae), who, 13 years ago, was accused of kidnapping and murdering a little boy. now out of prison, she’s out to get revenge for the real person who committed this crime. 

i won’t let myself summarize this movie any more than that--i think this is one of those movies that you kind of have to watch without knowing much more than this is a film about revenge, and it’s so . . . good. like, everything, from the writing to the acting (lee young ae, iconic queen as always, it’s no surprise this is one of her biggest roles ever) to the camerawork (god . . . not to sound pretentious, but i think this might be one of my favorite films solely for the coloring and god god god you have to watch it to understand what’s going on it’s so good) 

i think what i adored most about this movie though was that besides the fantastic acting and writing, i was also really surprised by how the violence wasn’t . . . quite as explicit and in your face as it was in sympathy for mr. vengeance (which is a fantastic film as well, and there were actually a few callbacks to that movie here). there’s def. still some blood, but it’s def. a different vibe, and tbh, it’s just  .. . . so good. i can fully say that this is now one of my favorite films, and that’s saying quite a lot. 

dunkirk

i’m really not the biggest fan of war movies, but while i was at home for break, my brother wanted to watch this, so i did. . . and i was pleasantly surprised? dunkirk is about the evacuation of the allied forces on the beach of dunkirk in france. unlike a lot of world war ii movies i’ve seen, dunkirk is very . . . quiet. and tense. so tense. i was so stressed every single second of the film, which i think was the greatest strength here. i mean, i might even rewatch this movie on my own, if only because i really want to digest exactly how . . . nervewracking every single scene is. 

stoker

dude this movie is so good. so good. and so creepy. and so good. brilliant. 

i’ve been making a point to watch all of park chan wook’s films, and so i decided to give stoker a go. and god, i loved it. i don’t want to spoil it because i basically knew nothing of the film when i was going in, but i’m familiar with park chan wook’s other films, so i knew it was going to be fucked up. but in an excellent way. 

stoker is basically about a young girl named india (mia wasikowska), whose father tragically died in a car accident. following the wake of her father’s death, her uncle charlie (matthew goode) comes to stay with india and her mother (nicole kidman). india’s totally caught off-guard . . . because she never even knew she had an uncle. 

this film is just . . . it’s insane. it’s good. it’s insane. it’s so good. so good. i can’t talk much more about this film because i really don’t want to spoil it--but oh god, it was excellent. 1000/10. 

books:

yolk by mary hk choi

i bought this book on an absolute whim, mostly because the cover was so pretty and also because i apparently follow mary hk choi on instagram (although i don’t remember when). but in any case, a book about korean-american sisters and their on- and off-relationship? the protagonist being kind of a disaster? (because yes. please do give me more korean-american characters who didn’t go to ivy league schools to become doctors or lawyers or business people, but instead wound up being art students who live in a ratty apartment and have poor taste in men and also have a slew of issues but just don’t know how to deal with them because see: grew up in a korean-american family.)

bro. i cried so much. i cried so much reading this book in ways that i didn’t think were possible. i still don’t really know how to put my feelings into words, but this book is about jayne baek, whose world becomes much more complicated when her estranged older sister june confesses she’s been diagnosed with cancer. over the course of roughly 400 pages, you get so much about their relationship, that bizarre “i love you, i hate you” kind of relationship that comes with siblings, as well as just how messy both of them are . . . but specifically jayne. god, it’s been a while since i’ve met a character who’s so insanely messy but still understandable, and that’s jayne. do be wary because there’s a lot of references to jayne’s battle with bulimia (that’s just one of her many issues). 

god. i dunno. this book was weirdly personal to me in so many ways (the korean-american experience, but also the specific kind of korean-american experience jayne goes through . . . with all the mental illness and the ups and downs of her relationship with her sister . . .) god. it’s just all lovely. i cried. i think this might be the first book i’ve ever read that genuinely made me cry as much as i did. highly recommend, 100/10.

rewatched: 

hwayi

no mercy for the rude

barbie in the nutcracker

the haunting of bly manor

little forest 

the handmaiden

coraline

doctor sleep

anastasia

matilda

paperman

sympathy for mr. vengeance