frozentundra

I was wondering if they would close the cafe at some point. Please be healthy, everyone! No matter what country you are in. And of course we wish all the best health to Jong Suk ssi and his people, too.

Happy birthday to our lovely Han Hyo Joo! Love her stories and hope she has many more to share with us. (PS turn on the sound to this--the fan who posted it played the violin herself in it, and it's lovely!)

According to the banner, KN is the sender of the truck. As much as people want to see JS, it's not reasonable for him to be running a truck when he's currently at work at his public service job. If it was him, a LOT of people would notice, no?

I feel like online comments are always going to trend to the negative. Basically, online trolls will criticize people for their faults (ie for not being "the best,"), but once you reach the top, the same people simply cannot handle someone having it all, so they immediately begin to tear that person down. Don't think about miserable people living their lives online in miserable ways. Be happy for all the good in the world--which includes a fantastic drama! A couple of observations about the drama. While it was horribly tragic for our second lead guy to die, I think that it cemented in Dan's mind the fact that there really was a guy who loved her more than his own life. (She felt hurt that RJH would risk so much for Seri earlier, but here is a guy who literally would do that for her, too.) Also, another thing I like about kdramas (as opposed to western storytelling) that really came out in this is that for every role, there is the positive and negative side. Western stories sometimes take a negative character through such a transformation that they turn into someone else entirely. They give up that role and take on another. I've observed that in kdramas, it's more a transformation to find your own best self (instead of turning into someone else). Seri could have gone to NK and decided that her old life was soulless, and given up the store, the clothing line, the whole lifestyle. Instead, she came back and discovered how to humanize her role. She used her position to better the lives of her employees, to bring cheer to the ahjummahs over the border with the cosmetic line for them, etc. I've seen this in other dramas, too (the guy in Masters Sun comes to mind), and I really like it. We can't just turn into someone else. We have to look for our own best strengths and choose the positive side of ourselves over the negative. As for the ending...the real life future of NK and SK remains an unwritten book. I choose to hope that someday there will be a peaceful, happy ending there, and I imagine in the drama that it happened and that they did get married and live happily ever after in Switzerland and got their twins and everything else they wanted.

I had a discussion elsewhere over this. We concluded that it must be in Romansch (one of the four national languages of Switzerland) because it isn't French, German, or Italian.

You know...from here on out, every time I see one of the "ducklings" in another show, I'm going to be waving at them and smiling that they got to visit down south again. It will be the little story I tell myself in my head... that they finally figured out what casting agencies were, and had a chance to go back. (Even just seeing the subinyoo post above makes me want to take them all home with me...) They sure did a good job of selling Switzerland in this drama, too. There is no freaking way you could ever get me on that suspension bridge, but that glorious mountainside, sure!

The moment in the bus when the one duckling looked out the window at SK and said, We'll never come back here again, will we? And the other guy said, probably not, but we'll remember it from time to time. From that moment on, I was a sobbing ball of tears and snot, seriously. Seri rushing to the dividing line didn't help, lol. I was so glad that Man Bok (my hero, lol) was finally able to have a job that didn't force him to rat everyone out. I LOVED how Seri made the cosmetics line based on her village friends. She knew that stuff would make it over the border. RJH's dad was the man in this one. Great performance from that actor! And of course our lovely OTP, with such wonderful chemistry and acting. Every detail, from the script to the directing to the acting to music to even the unseen people like the stylists--so well done. This one ranks among my very top dramas of all time. I enjoyed the storyline very much, but it made the leap off the screen, and I find myself thinking about all kinds of real life situations in an entirely new way. I appreciated the way it made us see North Korea not as a shadowy mystery, but as simply a place where real people live. The drama felt like a love letter to all of Korea, North and South, and a love letter to humans in general. I'm so glad I watched it.

Congratulations to Parasite and also to Korea! I think that even those of us who are not Korean are thrilled to cheer for "our" team when it comes to movies and TV.

I'm like a one person fan club for Man Bok. That character arc is so heartfelt and piercing. The other people in my house were giving me alarmed looks when I was cheering for him in this most recent episode. He is awesome!

Yes, I can hear her say "seonbae anira" (not just the seonbae, ie JS, but also all the staff, manager, fellow actors and director on set, etc.). Sounds like she's trying to deflect the reporter's irrelevant question and get back to the topic at hand, ie this drama that she is actually in.

I get the feeling he is quite popular in China, I am sure he could.

Me too. On the plus side, it could a) entertain people who are going crazy cooped up in quarantine, and b) they could perhaps get some extra revenue off of it if they aired it now (and exported it to the various foreign fans interested). If it can generate income without requiring possibly infected humans to interact, it might be good. (Just thinking that the economy could face a bit of a slow time if so many businesses are shuttered and people are quarantined to stop the spread of the virus. I um, don't know much about economics, but I keep hearing news stories about some delays in moving shipments from point A to point B given the circumstances. Which would have some kind of effect on some businesses, right?) But in any case, the most important thing is people's health. Really feeling concerned about everyone in the path of the virus. Also--JS looks soooooo little in that post with the shoes! He has really grown up, hasn't he?

JL has such an interesting feel to it. Like, I can see that in some scenes they are wearing modern clothes and so it must be the current time period, but the sets and sometimes the clothes have really quite a feel of the past as well. I'm so interested in seeing what it looks like to have a few Koreans in a Chinese production (I guess they dub them into Chinese?). It looks really good, I hope it airs soon.

I so hope that this time, JL really is going to come out. It's been so long since it was filmed, and it will be so long before there is a new work from JS. Plus it would be a good distraction for all those who are under quarantine! Please, really, I hope they bring it out this year.

Haha! Sadly, I do not have a hand-made-in-Italy jacket. But I literally cannot see any such jacket without thinking of that one. RJH got to engage in a little multi player gaming there...perhaps while in South Korea, he'll have the chance to pick up a sparkly exercise jacket?? And @stroppyse, yes, you are right, it's a track suit. I got my head in not-English mode and couldn't think of what it was usually called.