briseis
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Posts posted by briseis
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Episode 9 and 10 were about Seon Mi and Son Oh Gong finally figuring what is is they really want - no more excuses, no more hiding behind pride, complexes and doubts. SM got her wish and had a taste of a “normal” life and realized that it just might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
The realization that she might never see Oh Gong, that he might fall in love with someone else and that there are people who admire her because she has never been normal puts things into perspective for her. Her life might have been lonely and sometimes bleak but it wasn’t unhappy, she survived so much on her own, she achieved so much and now she even has friends who care about her and someone she loves. It might be complicated and messed up but every life is. It’s OK to doubt, to despair, to lose confidence in yourself but people fall so they can learn to pick themselves up. SM needed to lose the thing she thought she wanted to lose and realize that what she thought she wanted isn’t what she needs. She accepts herself the way she is and you can once again see the hope and determination she showed to OG in episode 2 when she stood up for herself and her life when he told her it wasn’t worth living.
Seon Mi chooses her fate out of her free will, she chooses to be Sam Jang; she knows it’s dangerous just like her relationship with Oh Gong but that’s her choice.
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He hoped until the last moment that she would choose him, like the fool in love he is, and when she doesn’t it he completely loses it.
He gathered his courage and swallowed his pride to come to her one more time and he gets rejected and it hurts him like hell and he becomes livid because when SM chooses the normal she rejects him and everything he is.
I think OG secretly hopes that after all the time they have spend together and everything they went through, SM would care enough to at least want him around her but when she bids him farewell instead he can’t take it anymore and leaves. Because this time SM might have seen his tears.
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source: tenasia
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source: newsen
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He is so desperate to stay by her side! Like virtually the moment SOJ gives Son Oh Gong a glimmer of hope he springs into action and runs to SM, hoping that she would change her mind and choose him over normal and ordinary life.
There was always the question whether OG would come to SM and protect her even if he couldn’t hear her call, even if she didn’t call and this anwers that question completely - coming to her office, getting rid off the ghost, protecting her even when she doesn’t want to be protected,… Remember how SM told him once that making her happy means not doing the things she doesn’t want him to? Now she doesn’t want him to protect her but he does it anyway.
“Why, you don’t want me to (leave)? Are you being clingy? Are you asking if I love her? Are you looking at me? To ask for help? Are you being clingy?”
SM thinks OG is taunting her with his words when, in fact, he is literally begging her to tell him not to leave; he is the one clinging to her for dear life and waiting for any glimmer of hope; one sign is all he needs and he would readily throw himself to her feet, pride be damned.
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I love how Oh Gong admits that it would be easy to stay with Seon Mi and cling to her whether it’d mean making her Sam Jang again or staying by her side even though she’d be normal. He could be selfish and just be with her but that isn’t what she wants (or at least he thinks it isn’t since he doesn’t have an ability to read minds which would make the entire story a lot less fun). SM told OG many times that she wants to be normal, that it is what she wanted all her life, and neither of those options can give her that, so Oh Gong does the unselfish thing and takes himself out of the equation because he is the most unnormal thing in her life.
It really is a heartwrenching parallel with the scene when he gave up his chance of drinking alcohol in exchange of one happy dream for her; however, while that might have been a small gesture and only a minor inconvenience to OG, now he is giving up his heart’s desire so Seon Mi could be happy. He is breaking his own heart for the sake of her happiness. It reminds me of that time when he was watching her eat tteokbokki and the fact that he could watch her when she’s happy was enough for her.
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If you open a visual dictionary and find the term ‘lovesick’ there should be a photo of Son Oh Gong clutching his heart.
“I held it in well. At the last moment, I almost couldn’t hold it and nearly clung to her to ask her not to leave.”
It costs Oh Gong all his willpower not to beg Seon Mi to stay with him. I knew he was grasping at straws when he started rearranging those sofa pillows. And then he was fisting his hands and clutching the remote control, as if he had to keep his hands occupied otherwise he could just hug her and ask her not to leave him.
He even spent most of the time with his back turned to SM to hide the unshed tears and the torment in his eyes. These two are such huge fools in love. Someone, give the boy a hug.
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- Popular Post
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Famous fighting words! For 12 years now, I’ve been hearing them from kdrama male leads and not a single one has managed to supress it. 12 CONSECUTIVE YEARS! THAT’S ONE HELL OF A LOSING STREAK! Welcome to the club of losers who got laid low by love, Monkey King!
THEY ARE SO MARRIED AND HE IS SO WHIPPED AND HE TOTALLY KNOWS IT! The best thing is that he doesn’t even give a damn at this point and even secretly enjoys it.
Nothing says ‘I’m leaving you forever’ like bugging your ex-girlfriend’s office.
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New stills of PK and bigger stills of Ma Wang
Spoilersource: topstarnews, naver, tvN
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New stills of Ma Wang
source: sport chosun
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Seon Mi's wedding dress
source: Sosohan Boutique
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Episode 9 and episode 10 are two halves of one whole - episode 9 is about Oh Gong asking the questions which matter and episode 10 is about Seon Mi giving him her answer and also figuring it for herself.
The first episode gives Seon Mi the taste of everything she never had and always wanted (in that way it’s similar to her date with OG in episode 3) and to Oh Gong it gives a taste of what he wants to have with her (he is at point where just watching her eat gives him happiness) - a wedding, children, a date, holding hands … - it gives them a semblance of normalcy but the truth is that they can never be normal. Because while SM might become ordinary someday, it’s something Oh Gong can never do, not only because he doesn’t want to as he tell Han Joo, but also because it’s something he shouldn’t want because it isn’t what he is - it would mean changing himself completely, his very nature, and what point does a love have when it can’t accept you the way you are? The Little Mermaid’s biggest mistake was that she thought that by changing herself she could make a human love her. Is Oh Gong’s very nature the reason why he can’t make SM ever happy, as HJ suggests?
So when after their “ordinary” date, Oh Gong asks SM what he is to her, it means that he can be whatever she wants him to be to her - a family, a friend or a lover - but he won’t ever be a ordinary? His question is: Am I good enough for you? Would you accept me the way I am? Unnormal? Am I what you want from life? It isn’t what Oh Gong says literally but rather how I interpret his words based on his conversation with Han Joo about normalcy and the one he had with Ma Wang about how Seon Mi wants to be normal and have the normal things. Those conversations really weigh on him because while OG can stay with Seon Mi if she becomes normal because it’s something he wants do and he even acknowledges he wants it; however, the question for him is whether it’s also what SM wants since she desires normal life so much and OG can never be normal as his very nature is not normal. Do you want a demon as your lover, your friend, your family? Would you want to stay with me if you wouldn’t need my protection? Am I more to you than a bodyguard and a shield against monsters? Can you fall in love with a monster like me when I’m one of them - a monster who wanted to eat you? That’s what he is asking.
Episode 9 is really the moment when we get to see OG struggle with his won insecurities and to be openly emotionally vulnerable in front of other people.
I find OG’s conversation with Han Joo incredible sad and tragic because in that moment he, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, gets hurt by a mere human. It’s poetic, really, that his weakness is his heart. How the mighty have fallen.
On a different note, the fact that OG literally tells SM that if he were her lover he would in fact be pinning her to the wall/bed and have his way with her! Hong Sisters never do bed scenes but I really, really wish they make an exception this time.
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OST Part 6 sung by Ben will be released on February 3 - it's the unreleased OST which played during the death bell scene and Ma Wang's moment with his lover in the Occupation Era
According to the article, the song describes SM's and OG's heartbreaking love and sad love story
source: newsen
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There is something surreal about watching Son Oh Gong being surrounded by all the fairy-tale books when he himself is a being that to other people appears only in fairy tales. Or maybe it’d be more precise to say, that Oh Gong comes from the real fairy tales - dark, scary and disturbing - before Brothers Grimm came and did the PG-version. However, not to Seon Mi because for her he is her reality.
In the previous episodes, the writers already used the tale about mermaid and the fairy tale Where the Wild Things Are as a parallel; and it’s only fitting that the book in which little SM gets trapped is the story about Peter Pan when Oh Gong is similar to Peter in so many ways - playful, seemingly all-powerful, clever, confident, at times boastful and self-centered but with a caring side. And just like Peter he wants to continue his life unburdened by the realities of human world.
What I find interesting about this particular moment is that Oh Gong and Seon Mi find themselves in two different worlds, literally, and for the third time. It really does serve as a symbolism; but unlike in the two previous instances, this is a world where Oh Gong can’t follows SM so he implores her to come back to him. There is the fact that he actually always follows her to a different world or if he can’t he fights and begs her to come to the world where he is as if he couldn’t live in a world without her.
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Making of the wedding scene
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Stills of Secretary Ma and Kang Dae Sung
source: naver
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“So you don’t need to laugh at me. You too are a very bad guy. Reflect on it.”
Misery loves company, doesn’t it? This is their first serious and sincere conversation and it’s such a poignant and honest moment between these two men as they finally admit they are the same as they connect over their respetive heartbreaks - two demons who have brought misery and misfortune to the women they love.
This is basically them saying that hurting the ones they love, it’s just what they do because it is what they are. That in the end, no matter what they do, deep inside they are messed-up and dysfunctional and they realize their mistakes only after it’s too late and they already messed up and hurt the ones they love.
“Because she met me, her fate changed. There’s Sam Jang, whose fate changed after meeting you, isn’t there? The reason human JIn Seon Mi became Sam Jang is your fault, no?”
I’ve always felt that Ma Wang’s love story was a cautionary tale, a warning against what could happen if a love between beings from different worlds went wrong and that one day Oh Gong might become like Ma Wang - spending 1 000 years waiting for the woman he loves and trying to save her.
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Forget about Oh Gong being jealous of Jonathan (an adult being jealous of another adult is normal) because Seon Mi takes the definition of jealousy and being crazy in love to the next level when she considers a five-year-old girl as a serious competition for The Monkey King’s love. What makes this even funnier is that it takes place during the period where she keeps insisting to Han Joo that OG is definitely NOT HER BOYFRIEND.
Anyway, I think SM used the wrong argument; she should have just told the girl that she already married OG twice and he told her that he would marry her as many times she wanted. Pity, she didn’t take a photo with him in that wedding hall, she could have used it now.
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“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice…”
There has been a lot said about Oh Gong’s bipolarity, particularly regarding his feelings for SM and his behaviour towards her; it’s an integral part of his character on so many different levels. In fact, his bipolarity is the manifestation of how complex and complicated his character is. His friendship with General Frost is one of the most glaring examples because the General is literally OG’s polar opposite, be it his personality or his powers. Oh Gong was born in a vulcano and he hates cold, yet he is BBFs with a guy who is cold personified.
It’s actually interesting to look at the two men who OG consideres his friends (I left SOJ out because he is probably the closest thing to family OG has ever had) because the second person is Ma Wang and whereas General Frost’s is OG’s opposite, there are hints that he became friends with Ma Wang because they are, in fact, very similar. It explains their petty fights and frenemy-like animosity because deep down they see each other reflected in the other person. It isn’t diffficult to imagine that Ma Wang in his youth would be as reckless and wild as Oh Gong.
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The Bookseller's shop scenes were filmed at Paju Book City (open library)
Spoilersource: mengnews
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You have to give it to the Hong Sisters - they do know their own mythology. Leaving the audience think that it would be the bracelet which would be taken away only for it to be the contract and Seon Mi’s special abilities which is utterly brilliant and logical. The Bookseller took away the little SM because she has powers to lure in lonely and sad children; however, while it was the child who was born with the ability to see ghost, entered into contract and was “punished” with the fate of being Sam Jang, it was THE ADULT SEON MI WHO PLACED THE GGG ON SON OH GONG’S WRIST. There are clearly still mysteries and secrets that shroud SM’s ghost-seeing abilities and the GGG and that is only well since there are still 10 episodes to go. In episode 1, Ma Wang knew that there is a person or persons who can see ghosts but she became SM only later - either it’s a talent which a few human might posses, perhaps a streak in her family, maybe it’s a predisposition for becoming Sam Jang; no doubt the writers will reveal the answer eventually.
While the contract can’t be one-sidedly terminated, a one-sided transfer or rights and duties is possible (it really does work like an actual contract); the subject matter of the contract was that OG would come to protect SM whenever she called his name, he didn’t and was in breach of the contract therefore the GGG can be understood as a coercive means of enforcing that right. Since OG was able to find a loophole and break the contract with SM, there is no reason why he couldn’t do that with the demon and the only reason why he isn’t killing the Bookseller is because SM is in one of her books and it’s a way to give SM what he thinks she wants - an ordinary life.
“Whether Geumganggo wa activated by Sam Jang’s abilities, or human Jin Seon Mi’s, that’s probably something only Oh Gong knows.”
As mentioned before, it was the adult SM who activated the bracelet; it wasn’t her special abilities which allowed her to do that - IT WAS HER HUMANITY - her human emotions, feelings, hopes and longings. It was her human heart and Oh Gong’s heart answered to its calling. Since the very first episode many, including me, have been advocating that OG and SM were attracted to each other even before the GGG, and this only supports that theory further. And if it really turns out to be true it’d make a complete sense because Sam Jang is just a title and The Monkey King has never fallen in love with Sam Jang; he lost his heart to the very human Jin Seon Mi. Only Oh Gong’s heart knows.
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There have been so many adaptations of the Journey to the West, be it movies or TV shows, basically each year there is at least one adaptation released in China. Each one taking a new spin at the story because how else to make the same material attractive to the viewers all over again? So naturally, new relationships and characters get added and also new themes, or themes that are barely there in the original. Two of the most recent movie adaptations are Wu Kong and The Monkey King 3, and I have no intention to talk about them; however, each one focuses on different aspect/overreaching theme which I'd like to mention because they are extremely relevant for Oh Gong's and Seon Mi's story in Hwayugi:
1.The theme of rebelling against fate and never backing down
- This is something that appears on many different levels in Hwayugi, probably most noticebly, it's Seon Mi's struggle and determination to live her life to the fullest despite all the bad luck and terrible fate she has; her will to carry on and keep going despite everything, never losing hope; and she becomes a stronger person for it.
- There is also the fact of Oh Gong's rebellion against the Heaven.
- And finally, we have Oh Gong and Seon Mi pursuing their forbidden love affair, this dangerous love which even the Heavens seem to be opposed to, despite all the dangers and obstacles
2. The conflict between earthly love and eternal salvation/the will of the Gods
The first and second theme are intricately intertwined with eahc other: it's the conflict between SM's love for Oh Gong and the fulfilling of her summons. Against the backdrop of danger and evil so huge that they endanger the whole world, there is the fragile, vulnerable , forbidden love of a human woman and a demon. It's a love that shouldn't have happened because they come from different worlds; they shouldn't have pursued this love yet no matter how much they fought it they were helpless when faced with a life without each other.
There is a beautiful song featured in the new movie The Monkey King 3, a duet between Jane Zhang and Li Ronghao, and the lyrics so fittingly describe the relationship between Oh Gong and Seon Mi, though I'd say the female lyrics are more apt for OG anf the male lyrics for SM, since in this case the male is the one who is the monk in the movie
(Male) In this world, there is no means by which to satisfy both sides,[Not falling in love and thus] not letting down Buddha, and at the same time, [falling in love and thus] notting letting one's beloved down.Engaging in introspection regarding fond thoughts of the mundane damages one's practice of Buddhism.It has always been this way; don't try to be clever [in finding a way around it].Since life is full of suffering, I travel westward.In which lifetime do you, in your youthful beauty, bring entire cities to their knees?How do erase your silhouette?[It would be] like forgetting my own name.
(Female) Why speak of sovereign power, of wealth and status?Why fear monastic discipline and Buddhist conventions?[Your] heart has longed for and loved me through innumerable twists and turns.Quickly, take me and [let us] escape somewhere far away.Why chant about good and evil, benevolence and compassion?Why wait with impatient anticipation?Let the next life wither into ashes,And in exchange, in this life, [I will] be together with you.
(Both - duet) Why speak of sovereign power, of wealth and status?(In this world, there is no means by which to satisfy both sides,)Why fear monastic discipline and Buddhist conventions?([Not falling in love and thus] not letting down Buddha, and at the same time, [falling in love and thus] notting letting one's beloved down.)[Your] heart has longed for and loved me through innumerable twists and turns.(Engaging in introspection regarding fond thoughts of the mundane damages one's practice of Buddhism.)Quickly, take me and [let us] escape somewhere far away.(It has always been this way; don't try to be clever [in finding a way around it].)Why chant about good and evil, benevolence and compassion?(Since life is full of suffering, I travel westward.)Why wait with impatient anticipation?(In which lifetime do you, in your youthful beauty, bring entire cities to their knees?)Let the next life wither into ashes,(How do erase your silhouette?)And in exchange, in this life, [I will] be together with you.([It would be] like forgetting my own name.)
translation source: https://onehallyu.com/topic/617837-li-ronghao-jane-zhang-李荣浩-张靓颖-女儿国-kingdom-of-women/
And while I like the Hwayugi OST I have to admit that it's missing that one epic song which would tell about fate and sad love, similar to this one or the songs Lee Sun Hee performed for The King and the Clown or Legend of the Blue Sea. To be honest, I really hoped that LSH would take part on the OST considering she is really a fantasy-theme-song specialist and also because she already performed the beautiful OST song 'Fox Rain' for another Hong Sisters drama, My Girlfriend is a Gumiho.
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[Drama 2017-2018] A Korean Odyssey/Hwayugi 화유기
in k-dramas & movies
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OMO, so it's true a flashback will be happening - SH posted this on his instagram