#I also keep accidentally typing dokjaebi

[orvdiscrepancies]

What’s your opinion on the live action trailer? No pressure.

I don’t know how trigger warnings work on tumblr but this has a discussion about guns and why I think it was a bad story decision.

Oh do I have thoughts.

I just plainly don’t like it. Like I think the setting as far as we’ve seen is cool. They did well on set design, but also the story takes place in mostly real places so that does like half the work for them. I think it looks nice and I like the color grading they did.

I also don’t think they did too bad with the casting. Do I know anything about South Korean actors? No. I hardly know anything about American actors. But I looked it up so close enough.

I think Nana is a great choice for Jung Heewon. She absolutely fits the vibes. Ahn Hyo-Seop also looks great. Chae Soo-Bin looks great, I just wish they gave her a wig or something that more matches Sangah’s hair color. Her hair is pretty in the trailer though. I don’t know about Jisoo. I’m always the person that prefers teenaged/young adult actors for teenaged characters but oh well. Also her ponytail just looks weird for some reason. Lee Min-Ho is also good. Just make his hair better. It’s either too well maintained or too flat in the trailer lmao. Which yes, I know typically Asian hair is very thick and straight. Trust me. I have the really thick Asian hair. But have you see how Joonghyuk’s hair is drawn?? Give me back that fluff.

Now let’s talk about the guns in the room and why I don’t like them for various reasons:

1.

Why. Just- just why- why change it?? Like at all??? I know more about Japanese culture than Korean culture (it’s the anime obsession. I’d love to fix that though. I love learning about new cultures) but a quick Google search tells me that swords are very important in Korean culture too. I would assume so anyways cause they’re in the same region.

If it were Americans making this movie, I’d maybe say that it makes a LITTLE more sense they change it. Americans are stupid sometimes and don’t do the cultural research. However, these are Koreans! The director is Kim Byung-woo who I know nothing about but still!

2.

Due to the change in weaponry, it feels like they’re catering towards American audiences. Which like- again- why? There is absolutely no reason. Sure, there’s an American audience for ORV. How big is the audience? I’ve got no clue. But either way, just because stupid Americans wanna watch the cool Korean movie doesn’t mean you gotta dumb it down for us. We can handle cool swords. Hell we LIKE cool swords. Wanna cater specifically for American audiences? Shoot the movie in English!

3.

Yes, swords are cool. But there also tends to be a homoerotic undertone to two guys holding swords if yk what I mean. I know that’s not all it is. Plenty of other characters hold swords. But if you just look at Dokja and Joonghyuk- I mean-

Anyways, I’m not sure how LGBTQ+ content is accepted in other cultures. Philippines is pretty lax about it. Japan is conservative, but their anime/manga content doesn’t seem too concerned about exploring those topics. I’m not sure about South Korea. I’ve consumed exactly 2 pieces of Korean content not including the very little K-pop I listen to (It’s ORV and The Vegetarian by Kang for anyone curious). So it could be to further limit that, but I think it’s more likely to cater to American audiences. Don’t even get me started on Americans and minority groups.

4.

Guns are easily accessible in America. Like very easily. As in I have like 3 in my house right now and I could go down to Walmart and get some more if I wanted. I don’t. But I could. Not all Walmarts do this but I live in Texas around a bunch of woods so of course we’ll have guns in Walmart.

Logistically speaking, how would they get guns? Joonghyuk can MAYBE be excused. I think his inter dimensional coat regresses with him (which I’ll post a story discussion about that eventually), so maybe he has one in there. But where the fuck did teenager Lee Jihye get a whole ass AWP? And why is putting stickers on it such a badass move??

I don’t know how to feel about her staying in her school uniform either. On one hand, it makes sense cause that’s what we first saw her wearing in the novel/webtoon. For any audience members not paying attention, it makes sense to have her wearing the same clothes if she’s not going to be explicitly introduced as Lee Jihye: survivor of that high school. But on the other hand, it also makes sense that she changed into something more comfortable. She probably had clothes in her locker or whatever and Dokja changed his clothes every few arcs in the webtoon.

I’d also like to talk about what I’ve heard about the movie. Since I don’t watch movies often, I don’t typically pay attention to the news surrounding them, but I know they took out the dokkaebis which makes absolutely zero sense. The dokkaebis are the inciting incident in the story. It’s like taking Mushu out of the LA Mulan movie (which I also didn’t watch). Without them, it doesn’t make sense at all. How does the streaming work? What about the constellations? How does the world end? So many questions and so few answers.

Also in the trailer, the subway looks like it’s being thrown around for no reason?? I’m glad they kept Gilyoung in there tho. I don’t know who his actor is but I half expected them to not include him considering how much else they’ve changed.

All in all, I probably won’t be watching it for various reasons. Including but not limited to: I don’t watch movies often, the guns are stupid, and I don’t wanna.

Now here’s the thing. My friend got me into ORV via a passing comment last year. She was like “oh yeah I’ve been into ORV recently,” I didn’t acknowledge the message for another SIX DAYS before I picked it up saying Gilyoung is my favorite character and I would cry if he died.

So obviously, I went to this friend and I asked her for her thoughts on the trailer too because this hyperfixation is her fault. Reap what you’ve sown @moonlitideals

[Conversation with my friend on Instagram. Her drama was too silly to not just post screenshots.]

And she’s right. This movie would be the introduction to ORV for a lot of normal people. That’s a horrible first impression and we know that I care a lot about first impressions!

So anyways, neither of us like it ( *^^)o∀*∀o(^^* )

On the other hand, my mom (who watches k dramas) likes it, so my friend isn’t too wrong about drawing in the k drama crowd. But my mom also doesn’t know anything about ORV. She just likes the action lol.