#just like my bb Chae Soo Bin

[grrrlsoverdramas]

My Lovely Liar reminds me a lot of Where Stars Land. It's lacking conceptually, hits incredibly cliche notes and at its best, the plot has many holes and at its worst, the show is absurd. Tonally it's all over the place.

There are also all these Secrets that are just Secret for the Drama of it, not for any good reason, because they just want to wait around to see what's going on, which can really drag down a show if it isn't enjoyable in the meantime.

However, it's all held up by the chemistry between the leads and their performances, and they are sooooo good!

[dangermousie]

I'm so happy you ended up loving Rebel! I loved GaRyung from the get go (you dont tell ur bf to shoot you, or else you're breaking up with him if you odnt have a core of steel). But I also hate the youth episodes, because BB!Gil Dong is like my least favourite child actor ever. Usually Kdramas have great to amazing child actors and then there's little GilDong trying to emote and ending up looking like he's trying to not soil his pants. One of the rare dramas that starts weak and ends strong af!

The opening sequence with Ga Ryung and Gil Dong is what got me to check out the drama but then when we actually met her in the story proper I was all “ehhh, you are OK, but Lee Honey’s character is more interesting” only to eventually realize that while I overlooked her at first because she was a normal woman in a sea of larger than life or damaged personalities, her quietness masked a heart of steel. Plus, she is very soul-whole, if it makes any sense, and I love that. (And the fact that she’s a normal, even traditional woman - no combat skills for her or even Lee Honey’s amazing musical talent and ruthless ambition and she is still portrayed as awesome.) Plus, narratively it makes sense that folk hero Gil Dong is married to what is essentially an everywoman in a lot of ways. 

I actually found the progression of that love story very unusual for a kdrama. Because it was clear Gil Dong and Nok Soo loved each other until Nok Soo’s issues resulted in what they resulted in, and Gil Dong only saw Ga Ryang as a little sister and then it so gradually, it was almost imperceptible, progressed to more and now they love each other enough to literally die for each other but there are no flashy moments or declarations or unicorns. That’s an unusual narrative for a kdrama but one I love. 

I hate kids portions in literally every drama so Rebel doesn’t stand out for that for me. I did think the actor who played Amogae was amazing, but nothing can get me into kid portions. It took me literal months to get past those eps.

But the early adult eps were not where my obsession started - that only kicked in when Gil Dong and the King’s stories intersected. I liked the early adult portions just fine, but watching Gil Dong be a cheeky peddler or a thug with a heart was entertaining but not earthshaking. And King Yeonsan is just hard to take in large doses for me because he is just so awful - it’s a good narrative and great portrayal but seeing him get with Nok Soo or tyrannize his court is not my narrative bag (I very rarely go for psychopathic villains; the sole exception being Cao Cao in Three Kingdoms 2010.) So until they started taking on the system, I thought Rebel was a very solid drama - well written and acted and paced - but it was not going on a fave list. But once they started their revenge for Amogae and then like inexorable circles got closer and closer to the rottenness of the Court, I got more and more invested. Watching Gil Dong and Yeonsan clash is amazing. 

Also, Rebel feels a lot more lived in then a lot of sageuks - it’s the visual palette but also the fact that it covers things a lot of sageuks don’t. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen a sageuk cover the lives of the dispossessed and their hardships and injustices as its main narrative outside of 2008 Hong Gil Dong and Chuno and to a somewhat lesser degree, Return of Iljimae. And when I bring in a HGD 2008 or Chuno comparison in a positive way, you know it’s all over for me in terms of adoring a drama forever. (Apparently Nokdu Flower also has that and is on my very short list.) Sageuks tend to focus on royals, warriors or merchants, and the few that don’t still have other drives - romance, comedy, Japanese occupation. Even the LJK Iljimae was not really class conscious that way because its hero was a wrongly dispossessed nobleman - victory was the restoration of the proper status quo. And that narrative of fighting or showing society-based injustice, one that is baked into the very fabric of the world for these people, is something I find fascinating. 

Finally, the acting is amazing. I’ve seen all of these actors in other stuff and they have been solid to good there, but I’ve never seen any of them give a better performance than they have done here. Yoon Kyun Sang as Gil Dong takes my breath away, and the way the performance ratchets with the narrative, where by the end I want to jump the screen and join his rebels on sheer force of his just rage and strength alone - wow. (And he is not afraid to fall apart unprettily - in those eps where he is the King’s prisoner, it felt viscerally horrible to watch, like an intrusion.) I have seen Kim Ji Suk in a ton of dramas and was always moderately bored by him, but his portrayal of the unhinged monster than is Yeonsan is the first time I am riveted - he comes across as a living breathing human being who is also an irredeemable bight on the world without being a cartoon. Lee Honey is always always solid but she is extra good here because she gets a complex ambivalent character to play - Nok Soo has willingly stayed by a monster and did monstrous things herself but it’s hard to hate her because her every motivation and what drives her are portrayed so well. Chae Soo Bin takes a character who could disappear into wallpaper in other hands and makes her not just Gil Dong’s heart, but a woman I desperately care for, one I want to know more of. And it goes on and on (including Kim Jung Hyun as Mori. I have only seen him in Crash Landing and thought he was charming and whatever. But here I am all “OMG he can actually act this well?!?)

OK, I better stop because I wrote War and Peace in response to your short ask but also - the OST!!! I rarely pay attention to those but I have the entire hour long thing on constant repeat.