Korean Movie Night: Punch 완득이 (2011) Korean

Yoo Ah In, Kim Yoon Seok

Movie rating: 8/10     Neck score: A

This was the perfect time to watch this movie, which I had been meaning to watch for a while, because it helped Curdy get passed her Yoo Ah In thing.  She started out watching Six Flying Dragons with me, but it was too much for her, as she was still too new to dramas for a 50 episode sageuk, and she hated Yoo Ah In as Lee Bang Won.  She was starting to like him in Chicago Typewriter, but now fully loves him, because he is adorable in this movie.  She says his hair helped a lot, since it wasn't that CT fade.

Anyway, Punch is a slice of life, coming of age type movie.  It was very understated at times, and just generally as quirky and awkward as a high schooler with a non-traditional family is.  He has a temper, especially when people insult his hunchback father or stuttering uncle, so he punches people.  He has a tsundere teacher who is looking out for him, even though it looks like he is just using him at times.  He has a neighbor who cusses all the time, especially when they're being loud.

It is just a great little film about a boy reaching that turning point of his life and the things that happened to turn his life.  It's pretty funny, but at a pace where if you are not paying attention you might miss something.  Everything just kind of happens, no matter how weird it is if you actually thing about it, so it seems normal, and then it hits you and you laugh hard.  One of my favorite scenes is just solid cussing for like 2-3 minutes over where a car was parked and slashing tires, you know the petty sort of arguments neighbors get into.  It was hilarious.  Awkward high school romance.  The bluntness of teenagers.  Families and their ups and downs.  It was all good.

It also deals with a lot of good topics like the economic state of disabled people, immigration and immigrant workers, multicultural relationships, families, schools and university exams, neighborhoods, lots of things like that.  It did it in a non-preachy way, just a down to earth way that made you actually pay attention.  It really liked it.

249. Bring It On, Ghost 싸우자 귀신아 (2016) Korean

Ok Taecyeon, Kim So Hyun, Kwon Yul, Kim Sang Ho, Kang Ki Young, David Lee

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A

An appropriate blend of creepy and cute.  The acting wasn't the best... ahem ahem Taecyeon ahem ahem... but that didn't hurt the show too much.  The best acting was of course the villains and side peeps.  I loved the GhostNet who became Soondae Soup boys.  Ki Young and David Lee were just the best.  I think every screenshot I got while watching was Ki Young, except for that Shim Hyung Tak cameo.  Anyways.  I did like the build up of figuring out the plot.  At first Creepy Doll Face (Kwan Yul) is just a creepy Cat Killer (his new nickname), but then he starts to become even creepier as we figure out that he doesn't just kill cats, but people too... and more people than we thought.  He's just killing people all over the place, making ghosts everywhere... or killing ghosts everywhere.

The basic root of the plot, that tied everyone together was a little weak in my opinion, but not enough to ruin everything.  It explained things... okay, but whatever.  I wanted the ghost girl to stay bad-a the whole time, but sadly she had to have her time as a damsel in distress.  But that's the good part about the horror/action romantic comedies.  Instead of getting mopey, we have life and death situations to add the drama, so it thankfully never got lame.  Even the amnesia episodes weren't too bad.  They made more sense than most amnesia episodes.  It wasn't unwarranted amnesia, it was somewhat justifiable amnesia, if that is a thing.

Last thing, there is no way we would believe that Kim So Hyun was a year older than Taecyeon.  I understand the part about her becoming a ghost in high school, so they need a young looking person, but there is no way we'd believe she was any older than high school.  The age gap wasn't great.  Not as bad as some, since he could look college aged, but still.  Eek!  As much as I hate to admit to praising Creepy Doll Face Cat Killer, he did a good job being creepy as foretold.  Obviously Kim Sang Ho was the best actor in this, but he also did a good job.  Reluctant claps.  The last episode was super drawn out.  They solved the ghost crime part too soon, so all that was left was bringing everything back to where it started, with Soondae Soup, and as much as I love those boys (literally my favorite part of the show) it made for a really boring last episode.  That's ok, overall this show was cute and creepy, so what more do you want?

A Perfect Match: The Perfect Combo of Tropes and Twists... I love Taiwanese Dramas

It's been a while since I've watched a Taiwanese Drama.  I've been focusing more on the Korean and Chinese lately, not by design, that's just how it happened.  But I was wanting to watch something fluffy and romantic, and I saw this one with Chris Wu.  I hadn't seen his as the lead yet (again, that's just how it worked out), so I thought I'd give it a try.

I stopped in the middle of the first episode.  I forgot how campy Taiwanese Dramas are.  But then, for some reason, I felt I needed to give it another try.  Five minutes later I was hooked.  I had forgotten how quickly Taiwanese Dramas give you the good stuff.  They don't mess around with romantic comedies.  They start with a bang.

Korean Movie Night: Because I Love You 사랑하기 때문에 (2017) Korean

Cha Tae Hyun, Kim Yoo Jung, Seo Hyun Jin 

Movie rating: 7/10     Neck score: B

Despite how generic the name of this movie is (I kept forgetting it's name because there are a million titles that sound similar) this is a different sort of movie.  It's comedic with a lot of heart, but also has some twist and stuff that I wasn't expecting.

Cha Tae Hyun gets into an accident and dies... or at least wakes up in not his body.  He doesn't remember who he is, but he knows he's not a high school girl.  He meets another high school girl, who he is able to explain the situation to, and who soon becomes his best friend to help him figure out what is going on.  And it doesn't stop with the high school girl.  He jumps around to a police detective, a old grandma, and a high school teacher.  Each time he has to help them with their situation, and play cupid.  In turn, he is able to slowly remember who he is and what he needs to do to stop this body jumping.

This is great because not only do we have Cha Tae Hyun acting like all these different people as he is in their bodies, we have them, acting like he is in their bodies, and they all do a great job.

It was fluffy and cute, but also interesting, with some of the twists that I wasn't expecting.  I loved how it became a growth process for everyone.  He helped them, but they also helped him to grow as well, and to fulfill his own wishes.  It has a lot to do with being selfless and love.  It was cute and I do recommend it.  It made me laugh, cry, and all the good emotion stuffs.

246. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon 힘쎈여자 도봉순 (2017) Korean

Park Bo Young, Park Hyung Sik, Ji Soo

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A+++

For having one of the best OTPs of all time, this show wasn't actually that good.  In fact, it was all over the place.  We were constantly saying things like: "why is this plot still a thing?" And "why hasn't anyone caught this creeper?"  It was all very asynchronous with the light, bubbly cute romantic line, and then super dark creepy crime plot.  They didn't really coincide either, it was like watching 5 different dramas all rolled into one.  But that OTP was seriously too cute.  I loved that he loved absolutely everything about her, and it showed so much on his face.  He adored her, and we could all tell.  That was the greatest part of the show, the adorable love story.  The rest, with the bumbling gangsters, ridiculous high schoolers, and parents with marital problems, can just go away.  Especially that blue beard creeper.  Nobody needs that.  The ending was super drawn out and cheesy.  Like too cheesy. There was also a lot of plot devices that they threw in and then just dropped because they existed only for that moment, like Min Hyuk saying he wanted to be a criminal when he was a kid.  You can't just say something like that and then forget about it.  Like, what?  So many plot holes, a bad guy who was just way too smart and powerful, the typical stupid cops, and an evil family who just magically disappears after their part of the plot ends, #didntevencometothewedding.  Yeah, the writing was just so bad, but the chemistry of the leads was so good that we didn't care.  Bong Bong and Min Min forever!

Korean Movie Night: Going by the Book 바르게 살자 (2007) Korean

Jung Jae Young, Son Byung Ho, Uhm Soo Jung, Lee Young Eun, Ko Chang Seok

Movie rating: 7/10      Neck score: A

We've started consistently watching a movie every weekend, which is good, because there are so many good ones to see.  I wish I could be just as consistent in remembering to post a review of them.  It's less of a time commitment, so I guess I forget that much faster.

This is one that one of my friends (the one who recommended Hero to me) has been trying to get us to see for forever.  So we had a Korean night, we out to eat and then watched this.  It is, indeed, hilarious.  It has such subtle humor too.  It is about a detective who was demoted to a traffic cop, who is known for causing problems by being to literal.  He follows the book to the letter.  He even gave his new chief a speeding ticket the first time he met him.  That literal.  He's so earnest and dry about it too.  It's just like, of course I have to, that's what I'm supposed to do, etc.

So there are some bank robbers who are notorious and not caught yet.  To prepare the city, the new chief decides to hold a realistic training scenario.  He decides that this former detective traffic cop is the perfect person to play the role of the bank robber.  I don't know if he wanted him to be that perfect, but what happened was perfectly hilarious.

I loved how serious everyone was taking it.  He planned it out so thoroughly, and we get to see how it goes in his head, versus how he stages it in real life (with signs that say "dead" or "tied up") so it gets a bit psychological and hypothetical.  The level of dedication in planning is just genius.  The bank employees and patrons are so dedicated to playing along for the sake of the training that some super great conversations about what is hypothetically happening, and whether or not he could have been stopped at certain points happen.  The hostages become his team in creating the perfect execution of this scenario, its all just too funny, and very matter-of-fact humor.  It's a good one.

245. Tomorrow With You 내일 그대와 (2017) Korean

Shin Min Ah, Lee Je Hoon, Kim Ye Won, Jo Han Chul

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A

Curdy hated watching this one.  It was too frustrating for her, and the bad guy creeped her out a bit.  It was really interesting to watch it with the three of us together, because we all had different levels of tolerance for what was going on.  Some days Lizabreff would really want to watch it while Curdy was super not ready for it, other days they would both be like, "not that one, not today," when I was like "lets get caught up!"  But yeah, that reveals a lot that we fell behind on this one.  It was the sacrificial lamb in the quest to catching up to what we missed when we went to Dallas.  It was our lowest priority to catching up, so we waited a bit.  We didn't even need to be so meh about it, it never got a bad as we thought it would.  The last four episodes were actually some of the best, it was the middle that kind of sagged.  They would just fall into the trap of the same mistakes over and over in the middle.  "Don't go on the subway any more." "I'll do what I want." "You don't care about me!"  "When did I say that?  Don't you trust me?  This is for us!"  and so on.  There was a lot of lying, but what do you expect from a time travel drama?  The show made up for it with a cute OTP, when they were not having problems.  Which was also good because they seemed more real that way.  It was like a snap shot into a real newly wed couple with all the issues of making two personalities work, just add the time travelling drama, and it's just about right.  That meant it was frustrating, in a good way?  Still hard to watch at times though, but when it was cute, boy was it cute.  I really shipped that couple, which is probably why their troubles were so frustrating.  I tended to be more chill about it than, say, Curdy, who just struggled the whole way through, or Lizabreff who was on and off struggling (mostly liking it).  That's not to say I didn't have days when I just wanted to watch, say, Chief Kim instead.  That's ok.  It was actually a pretty decently done drama, with a great OTP, and an even greater side couple (Ki Doong!  You are the best!  We love you!).  I was satisfied with the end, which is impressive alone.  Most dramas are ruined by the ending, but this one was actually saved.  I liked it.  It definitely is not a drama to be taken lightly.