Category: Feature

K-Drama Report: The Judge from Hell (2024)

January 2, 2025

The IMDb logline for The Judge from Hell reads as follows: “Kang Bit Na, an elite judge with a beautiful appearance, is a demon whose mission is to punish those who have wronged others and send them to Hell. However, the righteous Detective Han Da On is determined to change her ways.” You know what? That sounds really good. I’ve been dying for a show where Park Shin-hye plays against type and, ironically, into her public persona as a bigger-than-life celebrity who everyone loves. At the very least, her biggest roles have been characters easily described as “nice” or “shy” or even “do-gooder”? I feel like she’s been slapped in the face so many times, though she did give it to Kim Ji-won – the Queen of Tears herself – in The Heirs. But no more. Now she’s playing a demon! … More K-Drama Report: The Judge from Hell (2024)

K-Drama Report: Love Next Door, Part III

October 19, 2024

Here at the end of Love Next Door, I’m revisiting a question from early on. These Reports frequently reference back to the small clutch of K-dramas I’ve seen, and a few get more attention than others: Twenty-Five Twenty-One, of course, while I almost never mention Madam Antoine, despite really liking it. Both Doona! and Love is for Suckers come up because they had obvious or interesting flaws to measure against. Now I’m wondering how often I’ll cite Love Next Door in the future, because it bears almost no distinguishing hallmarks. I think it’s a great show, ultimately, but it’s the K-drama you’d get from the K-drama wishing well. Appealing leads? Check. Beautiful setting? Check. Cozy atmosphere? Romance? Happy ending? Check, check, check. Then you’re standing there, looking at your cup of vanilla ice cream, full of grave self-doubt. … More K-Drama Report: Love Next Door, Part III

Mouthguard Recommended | The Shadow Strays (2024) Review

October 18, 2024

Timo Tjahjanto is a filmmaker with the intuitive understanding that, in human nature, we’re at our angriest when we’ve taken a blade to the shoulder in a fight to the death. I don’t know how he knows this, but it does make sense, and in his latest film, it comes up a lot. For reference, The Shadow Strays could be described as a sequel to 2018’s The Night Comes for Us, though in spirit, it’s more like a prequel to that film’s own – tragically unmade – sequel, Night of the Operator, which would’ve spun off Julie Estelle’s assassin character. I was so stricken dumb by the “bones tearing through flesh” style of The Night Comes for Us that I didn’t realize how much I loved it until subsequent, wide-eyed viewings. I’ve watched Julie Estelle’s big fight scene so many times that I know every beat by heart. And so, the experience of The Shadow Strays is relatively unique for this movie-goer. Tjahjanto said, “Want more?” and I said, “I-I didn’t even know that was an option.” … More Mouthguard Recommended | The Shadow Strays (2024) Review

K-Drama Report: Love Next Door, Part II

October 10, 2024

Love Next Door kicks off its second half by hitting the Big Red Button. In my experience, a good K-drama will take its time to develop the characters and their conflicts, nurturing these story fundamentals like a gentle gardener, while other K-dramas will decide at some point to lob a grenade in there and blow up all the flowers. Someone will die, or end up in the hospital, or get hit by a fucking car, or a bus. Love is for Suckers kept introducing extreme situations for the characters to suddenly deal with as the climax to existing, unrelated issues. In retrospect, was this a commentary on the sensationalism of reality TV? In Love Next Door, we know that something happened in Seok-ryu’s past; she took a year off from work and broke things off with her fiancé, and perhaps these two things are related. During a taste test of her cooking attended by both Seung-hyo and ex-fiancé Song Hyeon-jun, she collapses, clutching her stomach, and elects for Hyeon-jun to take her to the hospital. … More K-Drama Report: Love Next Door, Part II

K-Drama Report: Love Next Door (2024)

October 6, 2024

“You can never go home again,” according to so many movies and TV shows. Within its first half at least, the K-drama Love Next Door asks the other, rarer question: “But what if you could?” Our heroine is Bae Seok-ryu, a Korean who’s been living and working in the U.S. for the last ten years, homebound after leaving her big tech job and even a fiancé. Her mother Na Mi-sook has a habit of bragging to her friends about Seok-ryu’s grand successes overseas, if only to match her frenemy Seo Hye-sook’s equally aggressive bragging about her son Choi Seung-hyo, an award-winning architect and co-CEO of a new firm. This is the world waiting for our heroine when she lands in Korea, and it’s a world of hurt – literally. Finally breaking the news to her mother, Seok-ryu is beaten, though she expected nothing less. … More K-Drama Report: Love Next Door (2024)

Those American Godzilla Movies: X Marks the Spot

July 26, 2024

It’s almost fascinating, the experience of being a fan of something but not at the moment. I don’t even know how to describe it. I’m a Godzilla fan, but his American movies have done me nothing but harm. In keeping tabs on the Japanese side, I’m inundated by news and updates about the Legendary MonsterVerse. How do I explain it to my poor mother, who asks me, “Are you gonna see that?” in response to a TV spot for Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, and I bark, “No!” Almost fascinating, and this time, more than usual, because the marketing on-ramp for 2024’s entry coincided with the tsunami aftermath of Godzilla Minus One. The Japanese film was hailed for its sensitivity toward character, its faculty for drama, and of course, its efficient but convincing visual effects. Comparisons were drawn to the original 1954 Godzilla; it was that authentic. What, then, did that make The New Empire, whose trailer debuted two days later? … More Those American Godzilla Movies: X Marks the Spot

What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

June 28, 2024

Meat Loaf once said that two out of three ain’t bad, but he obviously never saw Ghost in the Shell. Two volumes of the original manga – and then an interquel – two original movies and two seasons of the television show, and when that television show finally got a sequel almost 20 years later, it ran for two seasons. Now, each of these examples feels incomplete because the trilogy is such a natural expression of “beginning, middle and end,” and also, because Ghost in the Shell is really good, and fans always want more. I mean, for the most part. The experimental, almost anthological nature of the series means there are misses along with the hits, including an ill-advised Hollywood rendition and the franchise’s latest, a Netflix anime in 3D CG. Only until recently, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence could arguably be counted among them, having never generated the same enthusiasm as the original 1995 classic. Of course, even if left disappointed by Batou’s adventure, I bet fans still wonder about the follow-up that never was. … More What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

The Revelation of ‘My Undead Yokai Girlfriend’

June 8, 2024

As a man with an interesting life, one who pursues many hobbies, it’s only natural I’ve had occasion to add anthropology to the list. Sometimes I simply want to understand people who fascinate and repulse. For example, what kind of sicko watches a show called My Undead Yokai Girlfriend? This, friends, is how I came to watch the Amazon original from March of this year. It was purely academic. I swear. … More The Revelation of ‘My Undead Yokai Girlfriend’

K-Drama Report: Love is for Suckers, Part III

April 17, 2024

I cannot imagine that, upon finishing the finale of Love is for Suckers, one doesn’t immediately go back and rewatch the very first scene. Not because it’s a twist-movie “now it all makes sense,” but because the show opens with a flash-forward tease that doesn’t come back in the end. For those who didn’t be-kind-rewind, the first episode opens with our heroine Goo Yeo-reum taking a van to the Kingdom of Love house. She scrolls through articles on her phone about a wedding between contestants after a controversial season. On the set, she first speaks with Sang-woo, who says it’s been a long time. The contestants are gathered nearby, dressed up like brides and grooms. Han Ji-yeon excitedly calls out to Yeo-reum – which, like, whoa. This makes Jae-hoon turn, and the lovebirds lock eyes. Sang-woo corrals everyone for pictures, and then Jae-hoon and Yeo-reum make eyes again. The clock winds backwards, taking us into the show… … More K-Drama Report: Love is for Suckers, Part III

K-Drama Report: Love is for Suckers, Part II

April 14, 2024

Something I’ve long found interesting in media studies is why people decide to watch what they watch. What goes into the decision, if a decision ever comes from the endless browsing across multiple platforms? In this most academic pursuit, I’ve been privileged with a curious, compelling subject – myself – and every now and again, he baffles me. At the moment, I’ve got at least two shows running: Love is for Suckers, and season two of The Shield. That follows. It’s season two because I watched the first way back in college, during the great mania around prestige television. Unfortunately, it vanished off streaming, and I’ve only returned to it ten years later. It’s good. It’s probably the best police procedural I’ve ever seen (if The Wire and Mindhunter are just stage-left of procedural), in part because it’s honest and seems to have a mission. In its exploration of police corruption, we see the grisly effects but we also understand the very logical cause. The bad guy’s gonna get away with it, so we want Vic Mackey to step in with his extrajudicial methods. Why wouldn’t that impulse exist in the real world, and is the system strong enough to resist it? … More K-Drama Report: Love is for Suckers, Part II