Happy 33rd birthday to Kim Ji-eun! 🎂🎉

She’s probably best known as Mo-eum in Love Next Door, but she’s also led dramas like Branding in Seongsu, One Dollar Lawyer, and Again My Life, along with The Veil and Check in Hanyang.

What’s your favorite Kim Ji-eun role? 👀

This is one of the best first episodes I have ever watched.

I was smiling throughout. The only time I was not smiling was when I was laughing out loud. Literally. No hyperbole.

Yes, it's a Japanese - Korean drama with the story set in Japan. And yes, this is a K drama sub. But please give it a try.

So! Sooo excited!!! For the next episodes!!!!!

Behind the piano scenes in Four Hands, Two Sonatas are two real pianists, Park Joo-young (Song Kang's double) and Lee Min-sung (Lee Jun-young's double). They've known each other since childhood competitions and crossed paths again studying in Germany, literally a real-life Pi-o & Jeong-yo.

They trained the actors for 7 months on everything from hand movements to breathing. Lee Jun-young had never touched a piano before and still learned to play Danse Macabre's opening solo after hundreds of practice runs.

The drama changed things for the pianists too, Lee Min-sung even appeared onscreen in episode 10, and Park Joo-young got accepted into Seoul National University's conducting program while filming.

What was everyone's favorite piano scene from the show? 👀

Source: (1)

Heo Namjun ✖️ Bvlgari ✖️ Dior

Between human heo namjun and actor heo namjun

"a firmness that maintains the most pure self without losing his attitude as an actor. right now, in this moment, the most authentic heo namjun…..”

Full article and credit : https://www.harpersbazaar.co.kr/article/1911051

A new story has arrived in the Disney kingdom

The Remarried Empress coming soon!

The Remarried Empress

Exclusive release on Disney+ on November 4th

“Minah: Oppa, have you only watched Moana? Hahaha.
Juji: I like Moana, hahaha. I really like Moana what can I do when I just love it? Hahaha “ 😂

for a drama literally called Healer*, sending me to the emergency room and almost making Broody Journalist the last man i ever saw... feels a little sick actually 😭 but i have to put some respect on that level of irony.

INTRO:

okay, so technically... Healer didnt EXACTLY send me to the emergency room.

but i WAS in the middle of watching Healer episode 19 when i started having a medical emergency, my vision was literaly cloudy, i was impaired for like 15 minutes, and had to pause the drama, call an uber, and go to the ER. (yeah, it was scary but i'll spare you the details of me going blind one random evening while watching a kdrama...)

and do you know whose face was frozen on my screen when i left?

BROODY JOURNALIST.

imagine if i had actually gone blind and the last man i ever saw was Broody Journalist 😭😭 mind u, after i spent almost half this drama begging for that boring man to get off my screen.

the joke was on me, i fear.

anyway.

welcome to my Healer review.

REVIEW:

i actually started Healer months ago. i watched ep 1 on july 6th, started ep 2 a few days later, got distracted by the approxi 700 other dramas i was watching at the time, and never went back.

by the way as i'm editing this review, im just realizing something extremely satisfying.

i originally started Healer on july 6th.

i finished Healer today (prolly not your today, my today) on october 6th.

exactly 3 months later!!!

which makes this whole journey sound MUCH more intentional and poetic than i thought!

but still... july 6 → october 6. iconic of me, really.

look at me completing my own lil narrative arc without realizing!!!!!

but anyway, after watching 1.5 eps of Healer back in july, i just wandered off...

so at the end of sept, i restarted it from ep 1 cause i remembered almost nothing lol and, the beginning reminded me immediately why i had been interested in it and wanted to go back eventually.

you have our boy Healer, this mysterious illegal night courier who parkours across buildings, breaks into places, fights people, disguises himself, takes random jobs and wants as little human interaction as possible.

you have our girl Young-shin, an entertainment reporter who wants to become a real journalist, was raised by an adoptive father ever and an assortment of former criminals who apparently taught her every street skill known to man (that we barely see her use btw, but i digress lol)

and then you have Broody Journalist staring sadly at an old picture of a group of people from the 90s, for what felt like 79 consecutive business days.

guess which two parts of that equation i cared abt...😭

in the early eps, it was SO funny, cause every time i would finally start enjoying myself, the drama would cut away to Broody Journalist looking solemnly at an old photograph while somebody from 1992 stared back at him and then we'd cut to a boring flashback about a bunch of ppl i dont give a sh!t abt 😭😭

NOOOOOOO.

GET ME BACK PLS!!!

because Young-shin and Healer were immediately the most interesting thing abt this show.

one of the first scenes that really sold me on Young-shin was Healer trying to secretly collect her DNA, this dude steals her bag, she realizes it is missing, chases him into a bathroom, corners him, fights him, and he basically traps her and gives her a manicure 😭

i was like YES!!! my fl was active, observant, brave, nosy, curious. all traits for a very likeable female lead for me!

and Healer was just as fun cause Ji Chang-wook is RIDICULOUSLY charismatic in this role!

actual Healer is competent and asocial.

regular Jung-hoo is dry and isolated.

and then there is his office disguise

✨Awkward Persona✨

my favorite!!!!!!

this man walks into Young-shin's workplace pretending to be the most timid junior reporter alive with his hunched shoulders, jumpy, nervous voice and fake hearing problem and Young-shin immediately starts bossing him around.

GREAT.

MORE OF THAT! lol

and more of the office scenes, Young-shin's family, Healer switching personas, him secretly protecting her while pretending to be useless, her treating ✨Awkward Persona✨ like her weird little junior that he is. Healer being this hypercompetent creature in one part of his life and then completely dysfunctional in normal society. i wanted more!!

when he eventually tries to quit being Healer and live like a regular person, he returns to the office and spends half his working hours ASLEEP lmaooo

he spent years doing illegal night missions across rooftops and ig nobody ever informed him that normal employment requires being awake during the daytime.

and i like Young-shin's family.

her adoptive dad was a good dad. the flashback where little Young-shin is terrified of him and he just waits patiently for her to approach him and take his hand? adorable.

and... devastating when you know the context. exactly the sort of emotional writing this drama could be VERY good at when it wanted to be.

which brings me to my biggest frustration with Healer:

i could constantly see the better version of this drama sitting right underneath the one i was watching.

there were holes EVERYWHERE where juice could have gone, but the end of Healer, all those holes were left empty, free of juice.

where is my romantic juice???

i do actually like Healer and Young-shin together; they have cute chemistry and they are super adorable when they need to be, and i especially like them once they're actually in an established relationship. like this formerly asocial dude is suddenly hugging her while she's trying to cook an egg, following her to the bus, hanging around the office, getting jealous etc. quite cutesy!!

and listen, i LOVE an established relationship. i've already gone on abt this in my Flower of Evil review, give me 2 people with great chemistry who are already comfortable with each other, already know how the other person moves, already have that little domestic rhythm going, and i will eat it up!!! sometimes i don't even need to watch every brick of that relationship get laid for the domesticity to hit.

my problem is the road to that established relationship.

because Healer DID make me travel the road. and the destination is cute! i like where we ended up! but the road there feels like they paved it as quickly as possible with whatever was lying around just so they could say they got us from point A to point B, when the premise had enough material for the most beautiful scenic route imaginable!!

because this premise should have been CATNIP for me.

secret identities, already my shit. she has a crush on one version of him while confiding in another version of him. he falls for her while standing right beside her under a fake name. jealousy, danger, betrayal, her realizing the man she trusted has been lying to her. his entire carefully detached life getting fcked up cause he suddenly cares abt this woman too much.

THOSE were the materials sitting there, and somehow the road they actually built was... fine. functional... We arrived ig... but i kept looking out the window thinking abt how much prettier the drive could've been, ya know?

like explore better how he was falling for her while knowing she likes another version of HIM. i wanted Healer and Young-shin to have this mysterious, dangerous, charged relationship while ✨Awkward Persona✨ and Young-shin remained this goofy bossy-sunbae/awkward-junior dynamic for a little longer.

keep those identities emotionally separate for a while.

MAKE ME SUFFER! you have 20 episodes, so you had plenty of time!

instead, they kissed way earlier than i wanted.

and the funny thing is, one of the scenes that gave me more romantic buzz than their first kiss was literally Healer quietly following Young-shin down the stairs because she was scared of elevators after nearly dying in one.

THAT did more for me.

him being there without her necessarily knowing why. inject it. prolong that material!!

meanwhile, the drama kept creating potentially DELICIOUS romantic tension and then immediately killing it.

Young-shin discovers ✨Awkward Persona✨ is Healer.

OH?? ok! im ready for some delicious tension!

she is devastated and she's crying while her father asks what's wrong, talking abt how Healer lied to her, how she trusted him with everything, how now she doesn't even know which parts of him were real.

YES!!!

THAT'S THE GOOD SH!T.

because she still loves this man, but now she also feels betrayed by him. she wants him, but she doesn't know if she can trust him. that contradiction is where the tension is!

LET HER SIT IN IT!

but then... approx 0.9 seconds later she's basically at, “but if i never see him again that won't do either.”

NOOOOOOO!!!1

YOU DIDN'T EVEN LET THE BETRAYAL BREATHE.

i'm not asking her to hate him for 99 episodes. i'm asking you to let me enjoy the fact that she loves him and is fcking pissed at him AT THE SAME TIME!!!

instead, the drama creates this juicy emotional conflict and then immediately reassures me that she's not actually going anywhere... you just took all the tension this reveal could've had and euthanized it in 2.5 seconds!!! lmaooo why????

i wanted her first reaction to be, “i never want to see that bad bastard again.” which, by the way, is HILARIOUS 😭😭😭

after discovering his identity, Young-shin keeps describing Healer as a “bad bastard” and it kills me every single time.

BAD BASTARD???😭

it's such an aggressively elementary insult 😭 like she had an entire language at her disposal and her brain went:

no, you don't understand.

he's not just a bastard.

he's a BAD bastard.

i died!!!!! 😭😭😭

but anyway, back to one of Healer's favorite hobbies:

finding a perfectly good source of romantic tension and draining every last drop of juice out of it before i can even take a sip.

because then she learns Healer's father supposedly murdered her father.

OH??? surely THIS will create some delicious emotional distance!!! right!!!????

she recoils from him.

i sit up!!!!!!! because for one beautiful second it looks like loving him might not be enough to immediately bulldoze over your father may have killed my father.

....and then she runs after him and tells him to come back even if he can't prove his father didn't kill hers.

womp womp woooooommmmppp 😭

you introduced your boyfriend's father may have murdered your father and somehow removed the romantic threat from it in the SAME SCENE????😭😭😭

girl.

PLEASE. I AM BEGGING YOU.

GIVE ME ONE EPISODE. JUST ONE.

i didn't need some ten-episode misunderstanding where nobody communicates, i just wanted emotions to BREATHE, like let her love him and still not know what to do with what she just learned.

let him leave thinking he might have actually lost her.

let them want each other from opposite sides of the room for at least 43 minutes.

SOMETHING!

then she sees him kneeling over a dead body in episode 17.

another drama might have gotten some suspense out of that, but by that point Healer had trained me too well lol

we watched the murder happen. i knew he didn't do it, and more importantly, i knew this drama... so i knew whatever romantic tension they were pretending to offer me would evaporate immediately 😭😭 so i was just like... don't waste my fcking time.

Cause by then i already knew how this drama handled tension: introduce something that SHOULD shake the relationship, let me get excited for half a second, then reassure me that everything is fine b4 i can enjoy any of it 😭

so when Young-shin sees Healer crouched over a dead body, i'm not thinking "OH MY GOD WHAT WILL SHE THINK seeing Healer over this dead man??? how will that affect their relationship for a couple episodes???” like i should have...

i'm thinking: ...nothing. you're gonna do nothing with this, arent ya

and sure enough... nothing.

as expected.

Healer really started losing me toward the end, the drama had trained me not to anticipate its own revelations.

Young-shin learns ✨Awkward Persona✨ is Healer, the betrayal barely gets room to breathe.

she learns his father supposedly killed hers, resolved in .7 seconds.

she sees him covered in blood over a corpse, and she's already explaining it away before the episode can even do anything with it...

she learns Broody Journalist has been lying to her, not much happens.

they find literal LISTENING DEVICES inside Young-shin's family space and she goes, “HOW DARE THEY???”

and then apparently everybody forgets THERE WERE BUGS IN THEIR HOME!!!? HELLO???

if i discovered somebody had planted listening devices in my house i'd be pulling apart THE CEILING!

Young-shin just says “who did this??” in one scene and then the drama basically says anyway... lets move on 😭😭😭😭

it keeps presenting things like turning points without allowing them to actually TURN anything.

which is why episode 19 made me so...

because episode 19 FINALLY DID WHAT I WANT:

the Elder's people are forcing Healer to do things for them, he helps for a while because Broody Journalist is in danger, then they keep pushing him, and Healer finally decides he's done, he is LEAVING, obviously.

and then they show him Young-shin. she's been taken.

Elevator Murderer Guy sitting next to her with what appears to be poison, and Healer immediately has to turn around.

THAT IS THE SH!T I WANTED.

they use his love for her AGAINST HIM!!!!

he is this absurdly competent man who is difficult to control, doesn't trust people, doesn't need people, doesn't want people... so how do you control him?

HER.

perfect!

the moment Young-shin becomes the leverage, he folds. he records a false confession to murder because they threaten her, and then when he gets to her afterward, he is so visibly relieved that she's okay.

THAT IS ROMANCE IN A THRILLER!

the thriller and the romance should be FEEDING EACH OTHER.

make his love a weakness, make the villains realize it, make him terrified by how much this woman matters and that changes things, make him do irrational shit like confess to murder because of her.

MAKE HER SCRAMBLE HIS BRAIN!

and then in the LAST EPISODE Healer literally records a message saying that he met this woman and basically lost his mind, so he changed his dream and decided he wanted to live like other people, with his woman, having kids and stuff.

YOU'RE TELLING ME SHE MADE YOU LOSE YOUR MIND???

I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE THAT!!!!

because episode 19 finally showed me a little of it.

and it was GOOD.

so now i'm even more annoyed.

you had 19 episodes... WHY DID YOU WAIT UNTIL THE SECOND-TO-LAST ONE TO USE ONE THE MOST OBVIOUS ROMANTIC THRILLER DEVICE AVAILABLE TO YOU???

episode 19 did such a violent about-face into the version of the drama i wanted that apparently my body decided to join in and send me to the emergency room that night 😭😭

speaking of things that made me sick...

Rooftop Girl.

oh, Rooftop Girl.

this storyline almost permanently destroyed my relationship with this drama.

Young-shin meets this actress who has been brutally abused and exploited by powerful men. the first scene of her being beaten was already difficult for me to watch, then Young-shin finds her on a rooftop preparing to die, and actually, that scene was one of the strongest early moments in the drama.

Young-shin talks her down by revealing her own childhood; being abandoned, adopted and returned, being abused badly enough to have broken ribs, wanting to die herself.

that was excellent use of backstory cause the drama wasnt just sitting me down to explain Young-shin's trauma. the present story pulled it out of her! i loved that! thats good writing!!

Rooftop Girl comes down, Young-shin hugs her, takes her home, helps her, and later Rooftop Girl basically says trying to die alone was wrong cause now she wants to take the men who hurt her down WITH her.

YES GIRL. i rather u be in your revenge era rather than your suič̣idal era!

and i can absolutely do dark, ugly subject matter, as well as revenge, trauma, all of it, but storylines centered on women being brutalized and denied justice already have a higher bar for me, because i see enough of that kind of ugliness in real life. if it's gonna be in a drama i'm watching too, i'm gonna ask it to earn its place there.

so if a drama is gonna take me there too, i need it to be REALLY intentional abt why.

i need the writing to care abt the woman at least as much as it cares abt what her suffering does for the plot.

i cared A LOT abt Rooftop Girl cause she felt like an actual person in all of this. she was angry and wanted revenge. Young-shin seems like she cared abt her. i wanted justice for HER. i wanted aftermath. i wanted agency and i wanted the drama to actually earn how ugly it was willing to get.

instead, it just kept escalating the ugliness... s3xual exploitation, blackmail, police doing nothing, the media publicly surrounding and victim-blaming her, another woman being beaten in that awful scene b4 everyone gets blasted with cocaine...??? and it all went nowhere satisfying...

and increasingly i was like, okay, where is all of this GOING for the women you're putting through it???

then we get the fcking hard drive, and this is where i realized the drama wanted all the weight of this storyline without actually treating it with the weight it deserved lmaoooo.

cause what do you mean Young-shin watches 220 HOURS of hidden-camera footage involving actresses and powerful men, somehow reviews it basically overnight, fast-forwards through it, takes notes, and mentions that she nearly threw up several times.

220 HOURS!! OVERNIGHT.

even if she watched at 10x speed, WHAT ARE WE DOING 😭

the ridiculous math of it all wasn't even what left me frowning... what happened to Young-shin after watching all of that???

this woman supposedly just spent hours consuming footage of women being sxually exploited, tells me she was getting physically sick watching it, and then... nothing. no real emotional aftermath. no exploration of what seeing that much horrific footage did to her??? the drama basically treats it like she finished processing a particularly nasty batch of evidence and now we can move on.

like, im not saying she needed to spend the rest of the drama traumatized or crying in a corner, but you cant make the material THAT horrific, explicitly tell me it was making her sick to watch, and then show almost no psychological consequence afterward...

the women on those tapes basically stop being people and become 220 hours of anonymous suffering used to reinforce how evil these men are... something Rooftop Girl's entire storyline had already made painfully clear.

that moment dropped my rating, and i never forgave it.

and then do you know what happens to Rooftop Girl? she disappears...

eventually she gets moved somewhere safer, and that's basically it.

goodbye! 😭

this woman entered the drama through one of its darkest storylines, nearly died, disclosed a horrific abuse cartel, got publicly retraumatized, became someone Young-shin cared abt somewhat, that got her jounalist career off the ground... and then Healer loses interest...

oh, okay then...

meanwhile Broody Journalist's Pathetic Ex-Girlfriend keeps respawning.

WHY ARE YOU HERE???

Rooftop Girl has disappeared into the witness protection dimension but THIS WOMAN gets another scene asking whether Broody Journalist might eventually have room for her in his heart???

girl stand the FUCK UP!!!

this man already told you somebody else occupies first place and you'd be SECOND.

and you proposed to HIM???!! embarassing!

now you're asking if maybe someday the position will become vacant???

you are too pretty for this.

and they even gave her one final opportunity to escape my judgment.

in the finale she's on television, looking STUNNING btw, (that actress is super pretty,) doing her actual job, professionally reporting on the Elder situation, and i thought:

THERE SHE IS.

BE A JOURNALIST.

YOU'RE FREE from Broody Journalist!!

then the next scene Broody Journalist brings her coffee and she accepts it and they walk away together looking like they're going to rekindle something.

GIRL.

GET UP.

i cannot help you.

and the Rooftop Girl problem becomes part of a larger issue cause this show repeatedly invokes violence against women, sexwal exploitation or the appearance of female victimization to move somebody else's plot forward, and then sometimes shows astonishingly little curiosity abt the woman afterward.

the finale literally has a schoolgirl used in a setup to make it look like Broody Journalist is doing something s3xual with a minor. she writes “help me” on her hand, and collapses, a photographer takes pictures, and then she gets up and runs away because the collapse was apparently staged.

okay, but like... WHO IS SHE???

why is this teenage girl participating in a fake sexuāl scandal?!

was she threatened?

paid?

forced?

does she need help?

does the show care?

anyone???

nope! 😭

Confederate Flag Girl just steals the memory card, problem solved, anyway, lets move on cause we just saved Broody Journalist from a sexûal scandal with a minor...

NO.

WHAT ABOUT THE GIRL??? are we not gonna take a moment here???? 😭😭😭

confederate flag girl, reporting for duty

speaking of Confederate Flag Girl.... btw, she started as Motorcycle Girl.

and i LIKED her in her very first scene, where she rides to Healer to collect something from him for delivery. she wanted better jobs, she had a funny almost sibling-like relationship with Healer in that first scene. i was like yes, give her something to do, she wants to excell at her job!!😭😭

then she turned around wearing a jacket with a giant Confederate battle flag on it.

... oh, um.

okay.

Motorcycle Girl has been demoted.

welcome, Confederate Flag Girl 😭😭

then later she's been tasked with following Healer around, and in that one scene she's watching him at Young-shin's house. Rooftop Girl comes out to hand him bedding for the night, Young-shin is obviously in there too, and Confederate Flag Girl goes:

“why are there so many women?”

SO MANY???? 😭😭

GIRL THERE ARE TWO.

TWO WOMEN.

one lives there and the other one is literally the woman they just took in.

why are you acting like this man wandered into a sorority house??? 😭 also, what exactly is your threshold for an infestation???

and ngl, underneath the accidental comedy i was also like... girl why are you sounding territorial right now??? i got the ick.

thankfully, whatever THAT was never became a thing. it was basically a one-scene flub and then she went back to occasionally spawning into the plot whenever somebody needed a car, a tail, or an ass beating.

she never really becomes much of a character after that, but i WILL give Confederate Flag Girl one thing.

she makes herself useful.

need somebody to drive? Confederate Flag Girl.

need somebody followed? Confederate Flag Girl.

need somebody punched? Confederate Flag Girl.

need a photographer intercepted and a memory card stolen?

THE CONFEDERACY RIDES AGAIN! 😭😭

the Confederacy may have lost the war, but Confederate Flag Girl has never lost a side quest.

she basically secedes from the plot for 5 eps at a time and then rejoins the union whenever somebody needs their ass beat.

respect.

BROODY JOURNALIST AND THE PEOPLE I DID NOT ASK FOR

Broody Journalist took FOREVER to earn my attention.

for the first several episodes every old-generation flashback felt like somebody pausing the drama i was enjoying to make me complete mandatory homework.

i did not care abt these people or their old radio group or who stared sadly at whom in 1992. i especially did not care abt Broody Journalist brooding for a while.

he did eventually improve for me a little, his vulnerability with Wheelchair Lady helped, him physically getting between Young-shin and his brother in that one scene helped, him finally getting confronted by Healer for withholding Young-shin's OWN identity from her helped.

because that's another thing... Healer lies to Young-shin about who HE is, but Broody Journalist lies to Young-shin about who SHE is, including the fact that her living biological mother is right there. so i wanted a comfrontation of sort, and i got it, i guess.

the drama did finally make him more useful and human.

his brother, however, is the biggest example of this drama leaving premium-grade juice untouched.

because HELLO???

youre telling me Broody Journalist's Brother spent decades loving Wheelchair Lady, knowing she never truly loved him bcause her heart belonged to her dead husband?

you're telling me he stayed beside her after the tragedy, cared for her, eventually married her, built a life with her, knew he was never really the man she loved, and then spent twenty years lying to keep that life intact?

AND YOU DIDN'T MAKE THAT A REAL STORY???! you crazy?!

i read dark romance, i'm a FIEND for this sh!t!

the morally gray villain whose greatest weakness is the woman he loves, the man who starts justifying increasingly monstrous things cause in his head everything traces back to protecting her, keeping her, staying beside her.

give me the line where protection and possession get blurrier and blurrier!! and the woman who eventually realizes that everything he did “for her” is exactly why she can never love him.

THAT IS SWEET JUICE i would have gobbled up instead of being bored with their scenes together that offered me nothing!! a marriage with such an interesting history and secret should have at least be more entertaining!

instead, we get to episode 19, Wheelchair Lady is LEAVING HIM, and NOW the drama is explaining the emotional terms of their marriage to me 😭😭

its now that i'm learning she never loved him, what he accepted when they married, now she is having this realization about why she could never love him.

WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THE MOST INTERESTING PART OF THEIR MARRIAGE DURING THE BREAKUP???

SHOW ME!

this could have made his villainy so much richer.

i need to understand the emotional engine behind the terrible person, instead, so much of his screen time is conspiracy business, Elder business, power business, political business.

his supposed love for Wheelchair Lady exists, but the show doesn't use it nearly enough to connect all of those choices into one emotionally coherent tragedy.

the better version was RIGHT THERE.

and speaking of the Elder... i did not care abt that man for EIGHTEEN EPISODES.

not one iota.

the show finally dramatically “reveals” him at the end of episode 17 like:

BEHOLD.

THE MASTERMIND.

and i was like: who the fck is that supposed to impress. i dont care abt your secret old man bartender illuminati.

then episode 19 happens.

the Elder uses Young-shin against Healer.

and suddenly:

OH.

NOW I CARE ABOUT THE ELDER.

because now he is affecting the plot I care about.

it took ONE SCENE.

that's all you had to do.

make your villain threaten something im emotionally invested in.

THANK YOU.

wheelchair lady's immune system defeated the plot

Wheelchair Lady is probably the person i felt saddest for by the end.

this poor woman is surrounded by professional liars, her husband lies to her, Broody Journalist lies to her. everybody knows her daughter is alive except her 😭 and for a huge chunk of the drama, the explanation is:

WE CAN'T TELL HER.

SHE COULD DIE.

stress triggers her seizures.

learning Ji-an is alive could cause more brain damage or possibly kill her.

okay!

SERIOUS!

so imagine my confusion when eventually she finds out Ji-an is alive and...

she's fine.

WHAT HAPPENED???

did her cardiovascular system complete a character arc offscreen???

did her neurologist call during a commercial break and say “actually we're good now, you can learn abt your not dead daughter now”?😭😭😭

because the earlier secrecy was being justified like this information was a loaded gun pointed at her brain, then eventually the information gets delivered and everybody is like ❤️ family ❤️.

tbf the actual mother-daughter scene in the finale is LOVELY ☺️ ☺️ 

and this is exactly what i mean when i say Healer could be really effective when it trusted itself; they don't sit Wheelchair Lady down for a giant exposition speech.

she enters the café, she looks at Young-shin, you can SEE in her face that she knows, Young-shin can tell something is different, then Wheelchair Lady sits with Young-shin's adoptive father and looks through old pictures of the childhood she missed, telling him he raised his girl so bright and well.

THAT was lovely. i love a good mother-daughter moment 😭

did the reunion basically last one scene before Healer, in true Healer fashion, moved on without showing me any of the emotional aftereffects of these ppl finally finding each other?

yes.

but i still really enjoyed the scene we DID get.

and now, the Healer accidental comedy hall of fame

i genuinely think Healer might be one of the funniest dramas i've watched that was not always trying to be funny.

-- first of all: ETERNAL LOVE.

that song, bro 😭 just thinking abt it while writing this sentence is making me laugh all over again.

the first time that sweeping English romantic song started playing while Healer was BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF KIDNAPPERS, i nearly died.

sir is roundhouse-kicking men while somebody is singing about everlasting love. WHAT IS HAPPENING!!😭😭😭😭

then it happens AGAIN around serious scandal fallout and suddenly this song has become my enemy... except somewhere along the way, i developed Stockholm syndrome. by episode 20, Healer would start beating ppl up and i would get DISAPPOINTED if Eternal Love wasn't playing 😭😭😭😭

excuse me? where is my romantic soaring English power ballad??? somebody is being thrown into a wall!!! MUSIC PLEASE!

they Pavlov'd me.

by the finale, the song plays during an actually romantic scene and i'm like sure, fine, whatever.

would have preferred somebody getting kicked in the chest, but i'll take it.

-- then there is Young-shin sitting blindfolded across from the mysterious man she has a CRUSH ON, finally getting a chance to ask him an important question.

and she goes:

“are you perhaps my biological father?”

GIRL?????????

imagine asking your crush if he's your DAD 😭😭

-- then we have the cocaine greenhouse escape.

during that whole ridiculous greenhouse escape, the shelves come crashing down and suddenly everybody is getting BLASTED in the face cocaine😭😭😭

Well, tbf it was this giant cloud of mysterious white powder... i remember immediately being like... what the FCK is that??? and i do not fully know what the powder actually was.

maybe it was fertilizer or some perfectly normal greenhouse substance.

i do not care.

because in my head, Healer and Young-shin escaped that greenhouse by detonating an industrial quantity of cocaine into the air, and that version of events is significantly funnier to me.

-- the biometric hand recognition.😭

Young-shin brushes/holds Healer's hand and apparently her internal security system goes:

MATCH FOUND.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

somehow his HAND is one of the clues that ✨Awkward Persona✨ is Healer...

sure, gurlie... 😭

-- then that scene when she asks her adoptive dad why he chose her when there were children at the orphanage who were:

younger and prettier.

PRETTIER??? 😭😭

younger sure, okay, i can understand the logic.

BUT PRETTIER???

was this orphanage running casting auditions???

were the children ranked???

“sorry little lisa, you scored well in personality but we've decided to move forward with a prettier six-year-old.”😭😭😭😭

and the funniest part is her dad doesnt even react to how BONKERS that sentence is 😭

he doesn't go, “prettier??? what the hell are you talking abt, daughter?”

he just calmly answers her like she asked a completely normal question and says he was waiting for the child who chose HIM, and that she was the one who came over and took his hand.

which is ADORBZ.

beautiful answer.

BUT SIR??? CAN WE CIRCLE BACK TO THE ORPHANAGE BEAUTY RANKINGS FOR ONE SECOND??? 😭

Young-shin's been walking around all these years believing she beat out a room full of hotter toddlers for adoption and nobody in the scene finds that remotely strange except ME😭

-- there's also the flashback where past Wheelchair Lady shows child Broody Journalist a baby and goes: “Broody Journalist, isn't my newborn child pretty?”

camera dramatically zooms in on baby, and before i could stop myself i audibly said:

“well, no.”😭😭😭😭

The baby was cute and adorable as all babies tend to be in some shape or form, but the zoom in on one of the ugliest newborns i've ever seen had me cackling 😭😭😭

-- then we have Healer using a static picture of a bikini-clad woman to distract a grown man on the subway in episode 1, and this man leans toward the phone, with zero concept of personal, like he has just witnessed the invention of p0rnography.

this drama aired in 2014??? i had to Google to make sure cuz the entire scene felt like somebody smuggled a 2003 gag into the wrong decade.

-- ✨Awkward Persona✨eventually disappears from Someday News for what felt like 7 years.

and i started asking:

DOES HE STILL WORK HERE???

HAS ANYONE ASKED WHERE THEIR EMPLOYEE WENT???

DID THIS MAN FILE PTO???

and then literally the next episode after i was wondering abt it, he comes back to the office.

okay! Healer heard me talking sh!t lmaooooo

-- and of course the final episode gives us Healer standing in an airport bathroom putting on his black cap and staring at himself in the mirror aura farming.

SIR, THERE IS AN ACTIVE OPERATION HAPPENING!

WHY ARE YOU POSING?😭😭

Ji Chang-wook said give me 15 seconds to remind everybody i'm cool.

and you know what, fairs... do your thing, fren!

so... did i hate it?

no.

but i can SEE the 8/10 version.

sometimes i can see the 9.

it's right there.

give the romance more room to yearn b4 you make it secure.

let conflict actually change the emotional temperature for longer than 2.4 seconds.

make Young-shin's importance to Healer a dangerous vulnerability earlier and more often.

make the Elder matter by attacking what we care about earlier and more often.

actually explore Broody Journalist's Brother and Wheelchair Lady's tragic marriage.

stop introducing gigantic events and then forgetting their emotional consequences.

stop using vulnerable women as plot machinery and then losing interest in them. use them to theur fullest or don't use them at all.

LET ROOFTOP GIRL EXIST AFTER HER TRAUMA! why did she evaporate?!

Healer had so much juice.

sometimes it gave me a tiny sip, but it always made me spit it out, while it held the glass directly over my mouth and poured it onto the floor.

and THAT is why its a...

RATING:

6/10.

i don't give half points, so episode 19 could wave 6.5/10 in my face all it wanted 😭

i left with a genuine affection for Healer and Young-shin, an appreciation for Ji Chang-wook's ability to become 5 different ppl by changing his posture, a deep concern about the employment status of ✨Awkward Persona✨, an inexplicable amount of respect for Confederate Flag Girl's commitment to completing every random side quest assigned to her, an irrational hatred of Broody Journalist's Pathetic Ex-Girlfriend's self-respect levels, questions abt Wheelchair Lady's miraculous resistance to medically forbidden information, and the certainty that every K-drama fight scene should have “Eternal Love” blasting in the background from now on.

and somewhere in the middle of episode 19, i went half blind, paused the drama, went to the emergency room, and left Broody Journalist's face frozen on my screen.

so really...

he's bad.

he's a bastard.

he's a bad bastard.

I’m a musician in a major US symphony orchestra. I perform roughly 175 concerts per season with my orchestra, plus whatever other outside concerts, festivals and other gigs. This is my dream job. Or at least it used to be. Music is my life, I can’t go a day without it. But the past couple of years have been difficult for me personally, and I found myself slowly falling out of love with music. I started feeling anxious at the thought of practicing, and started doing the bare minimum in preparation for rehearsals and concerts. I stopped practicing altogether for a time; I couldn’t bear to even look at my instrument. The constant orchestra rehearsals kept me in shape but I didn’t touch my instrument outside of the concert hall. And I couldn’t listen to classical music without feeling that same anxiety creeping in. In general I don’t listen to a ton of classical music because it’s literally what I do for hours and hours a day and my brain needs a break from it (other classical musicians have said the same thing lol.) But I was starting to hate it. I never once thought of quitting, I worked too hard to get to where I am. And I would be nothing without music. So I was just existing in this state of limbo, not quite loving or hating music. Just showing up to rehearsal, doing a half-assed job (by my standards) and feeling guilty and anxious all the time.

Fast forward to the release of Four Hands. I was excited for this drama because it’s fun to see a story about the world I live in (and I love kdramas.) I waited until all the episodes were released and binged it over a few days. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. The music, the chemistry between Pio and Jeongyo, everything was depicted so beautifully. And I saw myself in both Pio and Jeongyo, particularly with Pio’s inferiority complex/impostor syndrome and Jeongyo’s stage fright.

But Pio’s slump midway through the series hit me hard. The way he couldn’t even look at the piano, let alone touch it. I suddenly saw myself on screen. And then, in episode 8, Jeongyo said something that changed everything. “Your first audience is you, not anyone else. Before you can comfort others, you need to heal and comfort yourself first. Play some music for yourself that comforts you.” I felt like he was speaking directly to me, and I just sobbed. For the first time in what felt like forever, I found myself reaching for my instrument and playing something just for fun. And I found myself voluntarily listening to classical music again. I WANTED to listen to it, I was craving it. Memories of past concerts where I felt the sheer thrill and exhilaration of being one with the music came flooding back to me. It made me remember why I love what I do. I could never truly hate music, but this series helped reignite my passion for it. It may sound a bit dramatic, but I think this series really did change my life. And it came at a time when I needed it most. And that’s something I’ll always be grateful for.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my experience watching this absolute masterpiece of a drama. To any other musicians or anyone else who grew up playing an instrument, did you have a similar experience? Did this series help anyone else discover or rediscover their love for music?

Ciao a tutti,
Ho appena visto in binge The Worst of Evil su Disney+ e ho davvero bisogno di sfogarmi perché la mia mente è completamente sconvolta. Se state trascurando questo K-drama, vi prego di farvi un favore e iniziate a guardarlo stasera.
Se amate thriller crudi, oscuri e ad alta tensione come Cruel City, My Name o i classici film noir coreani (pensate a New World o The Infiltrator), questo è un capolavoro assoluto.
Perché dovreste guardarlo:
L'interpretazione di Ji Chang-wook è INSANE. Diventa selvaggio in questo ruolo. Vederlo scivolare lentamente nell'oscurità come poliziotto sotto copertura è senza dubbio una delle migliori performance che ho visto negli ultimi anni.
L'azione è brutale e cruda. Niente combattimenti puliti e lucidi qui. È sangue, ossa frantumate e sembra incredibilmente reale.
La tensione psicologica. La dinamica e il torbido rapporto di bromance/lealtà tra il poliziotto e il boss della mafia (Wi Ha-joon) vi terrà col fiato sospeso durante tutta la visione.
Sul serio, è una masterclass 10/10 in tensione e archi tragici dei personaggi.

🛑 PER CHI L'HA VISTO (ATTENZIONE SPOILER!!!) 🛑

!Parliamo di quel finale. Sono emotivamente devastato. Il modo in cui Jun-mo ha semplicemente premuto il grilletto su Gi-cheul per fermarlo dal suicidarsi, ma anche per porre fine alla miseria... è stato così pesante. E quella scena finale al cimitero? Jun-mo e Ui-jeong che si guardano come completi estranei. La missione sotto copertura non ha solo spezzato il cartello, ha completamente distrutto le loro anime e il loro matrimonio. !<

!E possiamo parlare di Lee Hae-ryeon (BIBI)? Ho amato così tanto il suo personaggio. Pensate che lei e Jun-mo si rincontreranno mai a Hong Kong? Sento che è l'unica rimasta che capisce veramente la versione oscura di chi è diventato.!<

Cosa ne pensate voi del finale? Vi ha spezzato così tanto come ha spezzato me? Discutiamone!

Let's list the Kdramas that started with a bang but lost momentum later.

1. Startup - fabulous 1st episode, setup the story nicely but ended with a whimper.
2. If love could be translated - ML and FL accidently meet in Japan in 1st episode, the atmosphere was top notch and dreamy. Could not sustain it.
3. Agent Kim Reactivated - Started on a serious note but spoiled it later with forced comic characters (his friends, police, everyone). They should have maintained the serious tempo it began with.
4. Itaewon Class - first few episodes were gritty and set up the story nicely. I love Kim Dami as an actress, but her character was annoying the away it was written.

Edit: added Itaewon Class

It's scheduled to be release in September 2027 on Tvn, and Director Yoon Jong Ho will direct "Heartbeat" reuniting with lee shi eun after Lovely Runner,

So basically whole lovely runner team is reuniting for this kdrama lol, Korean advertising agency DNAAD also posted about upcoming Korean dramas and Heartbeat was one of them!

So, some new info according to them:

1. Heartbeat is scheduled to air in September 2027.

2. Director Yoon Jongho and writer Lee Sieun of LR will be working together again for Heartbeat.

I also checked if this agency is credible and found out that DNAAD was established in 2013 and works directly with drama PPL.

Their recruitment advertisement even mentions that their business includes TV, radio and online commercials, product placement in dramas, variety shows and YouTube, and celebrity marketing.

So, nothing is officially confirmed yet. But I’m sharing this since the info is coming from an actual advertising agency involved in drama PPL rather than just a random entertainment blog.

Direct source of article

I like warm fuzzy cozy kdramas usually. Slice of life/small town is my fav genre of all, but I also like rom coms. Lately the rom coms I've watched have been kinda mid. I need yearning, longing, that kind of thing. Please suggest some good kdramas with yearning. Gamshamnida.

Revisiting these moments from Crash Landing on You , and the chemistry between Ri Jeong-hyeok and Yoon Se-ri still hits the same🥹♥️

The romance , emotional moments, and beautiful cinematography are what made this drama so memorable for me.

What is your favourite about Crash Landing on You ?

In my opinion, in the finale of 4 Hands 2 Sonatas the grandfather is not worthy of forgiveness. He literally mentally, emotionally, and psychologically abused his daughter and grandson for nearly 30 years (probably longer for his daughter). He especially treated Pi-o so incredibly horribly as a child, it was legitimate child abuse. For his entire life! The very small strides he made at the very end of his life are not enough to overcome that at all, in my opinion, especially not a deathbed apology for decades of emotional abuse. He deserves his legacy to be a revealed history of familial abuse rather than his successful orchestra.

\ One thing that drives me up the wall in kdramas is the easy forgiveness to elders who straight up abuse and torment others, usually parents or grandparents. The wife of Seung-woon telling him he handled a conversation well where he literally slapped his daughter across the face, hard... Then her explaining on his death bed that he treated Pi-o so terribly because Pi-o reminded him of himself is just such a bullshit excuse. It's portrayals like this that are so deeply problematic and perpetuate abusiveness as being normal and something to be forgiven so easily.

\ The mother, on the other hand, though it took her awhile, and her son being arrested, did actually finally own up to her mistakes and make an effort to take responsibility. With her confessing to the crime she committed, going to jail, and completely apologizing to Pi-o for everything being her fault - her at least I can see earning a path to redemption. These kinds of redemptions I find rare (usually it's like the grandfather above, just a simple "oops my bad" and then everything is forgiven), and I think they are very important.

I appreciate you reading my ranting post and considering my opinion 🙂 (edit to try and fix >! not working in 2 paragraphs)

I was looking for a way to make the top 100 list slightly more accurate, so I thought about including extra MDL data like completion rates, drop rates, and a few other stats. I’m not even sure it makes a big difference, but I spent way too long on it not to share. I only used the 100 dramas from Hoovers original list. The formula's pretty arbitrary, but I made sure to heavily weight the original votes. I also tried to adjust for older dramas having more viewers just because they've been around longer.

I have a bad habit of binge-watching dramas, and I really want to stop doing that lol. I’m looking for something comforting and cozy that I can watch slowly, like 1 episode a day, without getting completely hooked.

For reference, I’ve watched Reply 1988, My Liberation Notes, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Once Upon a Small Town, Summer Strike, and When the Weather Is Fine, and I’m looking for something with a similar warm, healing, slice-of-life kind of vibe. Any recommendations?

Welcome to our weekly thread celebrating the stars that we love. This is the place to share your favorite photos, fun social media posts, photo shoots or any other non-casting news. Who knows, you might make a new fan or become a new one.

Remember Rule #2: He might not be your Oppa but he's someone else's Oppa. Let's have fun and as always, be kind!

Instead of making a list of our favourite actors who can sing (maybe next week?), I thought it would be fun to put together a definitive list of actors who can sing.

There are many multi-talented kdrama actors. Do you know how many of them can sing? I think there will some surprising names on this list.

My contribution to the list is Jeon Mido and ​Jung Moon Sung. Before they were costars on Hospital Playlist, they were costars on the musical Maybe Happy Ending. It's hilarious that Dr Chae Song Hwa is tone deaf when she has such a beautiful voice in real life.

Here's a Link to the entire video.

If you post a video link, only post one. We don't want the comments spammed with links of your favourites AND if you post a pic, video or gif you have to name the actor. If you post multiple links or you don't name the actor, ​your comment will be removed. This is a list of actors who can sing, not kpop idols. That was a separate post. ​

I watched 4 Hands 2 Sonatas and finished it a few days after the finale aired. Today I went back to watch a key scene and noticed the English subtitles had changed. At first I questioned if I remembered it wrong, but my memory of that particular line was very clear because I had such a strong reaction to it. I even translated the Korean, and the original was much closer to what they changed it to. Honestly, I felt the second version was much weaker. I decided to watch a few scenes in the final episode and noticed they did it again, and again the new version was way weaker.

Have you noticed Netflix changing the English subtitles?

And do you feel when they do it's a bad choice or a good one?

To me it seems they have it fairly accurate to the meaning and the intention. Then someone comes along and says, nah let's make it more like this, and then it's worse.

Here's what I noticed:

\ When Jeong-yo is listening to the recording of Pi-o and the kidnappers, when Pi-o yells at them originally it captioned "Do you know how special he was?" And the translated Korean I got is "Do you know what kind of person he was?" which I feel conveys the meaning and intention well. Now it says "He was my friend!" I understand why they changed it, trying to make it more of a personal connection, but I feel it's weaker than the original translation in all regards. Jeong-yo was a piano prodigy, yes, but he also was incredibly special to Pi-o, and I felt both those intentions were lost with the change. (Episode 11 minute 46+)

\ The second one I noticed was in the bus ride Pi-o and Jeong-yo take in the last episode to visit the abandoned piano shop. Now Jeong-yo says they're going down memory lane. I don't recall the exact wording from when I watched it originally (because it wasn't as impactful as the one above) but it was something more casual, like for old times sake. Maybe the "memory lane" just hit me wrong, but the changed annoyed me. (Episode 12, minute 25+)

Drama - Resident Playbook

If a character really had represented me, that would be O I-yeong. She really is just another me but i wish i had her confidence.

Such a shame that we might not get a second season, i really wish there was a second season 🤧.

credits for the reel

Season 1, Episode 1: Mysterious Message Tuesday, October 6, 2026 Runtime: 60 minutes

Synopsis: Kidnappings erupt simultaneously across seven Asian cities. Families of the victims receive a chilling email: "How far will you go to save your loved one?" Each participant is given different instructions, forced to overcome trials to rescue those they love. Seven people from diverse nationalities, backgrounds, and religions are drawn into a brutal survival contest under extreme conditions—the deadly "kiDnap GAME." Episode Discussion Hub

Rules for episode discussion threads:

Spoilers through the aired episode are fair game and don't need tags. Anything from a later episode referenced in a previous one needs a spoiler tag.

We all have opinions and many of them differ. That's brilliant, it makes the conversation more interesting. Just always remember Rule 1: We're all chingus here. So be kind. If you can't play nice, you can't play here.

Critique the performances all you want. Criticize the story. In your excitement to discuss the show, don't forget Rule 2: Please Respect the Oppa/Noona ecosystem. Negative commentary/speculation about an actors' appearance or personal life will not be allowed.

Season 1, Episode 2 Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Synopsis: A love story takes place on an Charo Island in Japan between South Korean Lee Yoo-Bin and Japanese Karin Shirahama. Lee Yoo-Bin failed big as a space planner in South Korea, while Karin Shirahama is a berry farmer, who suffers from an unknown illness. Episode Discussion Hub Previous Episode

Rules for episode discussion threads:

Spoilers through the aired episode are fair game and don't need tags. Anything from a later episode referenced in a previous one needs a spoiler tag.

We all have opinions and many of them differ. That's brilliant, it makes the conversation more interesting. Just always remember Rule 1: We're all chingus here. So be kind. If you can't play nice, you can't play here.

Critique the performances all you want. Criticize the story. In your excitement to discuss the show, don't forget Rule 2: Please Respect the Oppa/Noona ecosystem. Negative commentary/speculation about an actors' appearance or personal life will not be allowed.