[Drama 2018] My Mister, 나의 아저씨 - Best Drama at 2019 (55th) BaekSang Arts Awards

[justamom]

On 2/3/2023 at 2:33 PM, the_sweetroad said:

 

And actually now I remember that it was Ki Hoon who first mentioned that. In an earlier episode as he was running toward Yu Ra's apartment, his voiceover said, "Run to her if you miss her!" For KH and YR they ran to each other when they missed each other (spoken out loud), and I think it's pretty obvious from the times DH runs after JA that he mirrors this and is missing JA.

 

JA running to DH is a bit more complex. When she runs toward him as he's lying on the train tracks and when he's standing on the Han River bridge, it seems her worry over him compels her to run to him. It doesn't seem so much that she's missing him, more that she's watching over him and trying to make sure he doesn't commit suicide. Then we have the time she hears herself being called pretty and she runs to him at the restobar. I can't remember if there are any other scenes of her running toward him after that. (After that, I only remember her running away from DH.)

 

 

Oh, nice insight. There are quite a few honest conversations that take place between them at night, for sure.

 

 

The way you put this really reminds me of Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. The following is not exactly what you were trying to say, but I'll take any excuse to talk about Pride and Prejudice, so thank you in advance for reading this.

 

Some thoughts off the top of the head: Mr Darcy couldn't entertain thoughts of a connection with Elizabeth because of her circumstances and family (his traditional bent coming through) but he was drawn to her values, her kindness, and her willingness to challenge him as an equal.

 

For Dong Hoon, because of his marital situation and JA's vulnerability, he rightfully couldn't allow himself to entertain any thoughts of a romantic connection with JA. But he was definitely drawn to her honesty, her kindness and her care for her family.

 

In the end, once JA returned from Busan as an independent woman, if Dong Hoon were single again their values could be pretty compatible moving forward.

 

(And to keep going with some of the P & P and MM parallels, Elizabeth was completely prejudiced against Darcy at first, but by the end she realized what a good man he was, especially in his love toward his sister and his care for his household servants. Ji An was also prejudiced against Dong Hoon in the beginning but she started to realized his mettle and goodness by episode 4.)

 

By the way @S F I tried to look for the calendar on the wall at the restobar in episode 16 and I couldn't see it anywhere. Can you give us a hint as to where it is? You mentioned it said the number 12?

 

Also @S F once you reach something like 22 posts we'll be able to "Like" them.

 

 

After going through so many of your posts here and after reading your excellent Contact, I'm so glad you came by! Yep, the thread is still going ....some of us watched MM in recent years/ months and have been captivated with it ever since. Nothing compares to MM.  What kdrama did you decide to watch as your first since 2018 @justamom?

 

 

 

I'm crushing over Jung Kyung Ho and Jeon Do Yeon in Crash Course in Romance! It's nothing like My Mister, it's very silly and predictable but somehow leaves my heart feeling warm and fuzzy after each episode. It's a really, really well done romantic comedy and I think after the pandemic years we all need something fun and light hearted.

[sweetroad]

 

On 2/4/2023 at 1:25 PM, S F said:

Hello the_sweetroad! I'm back from my trip. I checked for you the time when the calendar is shown with 12 on it. On Netflix it is minute 1:01:17 of episode 16, as the camera pans on the restobar from the outside. The calendar is also very visible in the BTS video of the last meal between DH and JA.

 

Thank you! I see it now in the BTS:

 

 

And it's also here in Episode 15, the night that DH finds JA in the shack:

 

 

So it might be a mystery if it was deliberately used as a date stamp during the show or not?

 

It also looks like it was a later addition as a prop, as it doesn't appear in Ep 7:

 

 

On 2/4/2023 at 1:25 PM, S F said:

So I was wondering: does he like it because, consciously or not, he also wants to 'run'? Away from the weight of expectations, the sadness of work and marriage? And she makes him see that the solution is indeed quite simple (running)? But I'm not wholly satisfied with this. In My Liberation Notes, for example, Mr Gu expresses himself both with the long jump and the long run in pursuit of Chang-hee. Both scenes are very long and do not just lead to a certain end (especially not the pursuit) but seem significant in their own right, as a form of self-expression: is running a language of sorts for writer Park?

 

Very good questions and things to ponder. I never connected the running scenes in MLN with MM until you mentioned them, but you could be on to something. By the way, the long running scene where Mr Gu is "chasing" Chang-hee (but not really) is so long and humorous. I really thought he was going to tackle Chang-hee for denting his car...and in the end Mr Gu wasn't even concerned with the frantic CH who had been running for his life.

 

On 2/5/2023 at 5:32 PM, actionscript said:

Listing down here JA’s running scenes so that we have a comprehensive list. Feel free to add if I missed any:

1. When DH was lying on the train tracks (ep 5)
2. When DH was standing on the Han River bridge (ep 6)
3. When she heard DH called her pretty (ep 7)
4. When she missed the train stop (ep 9)
5. After DH and his brothers’ tuna dinner and a round of drinks at JH’s bar. (ep 9)

 

Thanks for compiling all these! It seems like in 1, 2, and 5 Ji An was running to him as an "outsider" or observer, to just check up on him. They didn't really connect during those particular times though she wanted to watch over him. But in 3 and 4 she was running to him in order to connect with him; i.e. it was friendship/relationship-building. I can't remember now - did you find all of her runs romantic, or just particular ones?

 

Thinking of Dong Hoon, it seems when DH ran he was already "in it" with her and he was running to her to keep that connection: the Buy Me Slippers run, the run from his movie theater to the payphone, and the run to the shack. They all seem like very emotionally-invested runs.

 

By the way, everyone, I've been re-watching the slew of Bilibili videos that show the MM BTS takes. This one seems to be a sort of blooper reel: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tf4y1P7ZX/?spm_id_from=333.788

 

Check out the very last blooper - starting at 40:54 - it is nuts!

[sadiesmith]

It looks like the Chinese version of My Mister has changed direction with the potential casting of a younger actor for the role of PDH. The taiwanese actor Zhao Yu-ting is rumored to be the male lead at 38 years old, and Liu Hao-cun, 24 years, for the role of LJA. This is an improvement over the "grandpa" actor, although with the age gap of only 14 years, I wonder if it will generate the same amount "forbidden fruit" dilemma in the viewers' hearts. 

 

https://www.sohu.com/a/644058584_120961599?scm=1102.xchannel:325:100002.0.6.0&spm=smpc.channel_248.block3_308_NDdFbm_1_fd.1.1676995200010DA5oXoZ_324

 

https://www.gqkorea.co.kr/2023/02/22/중국판으로-리메이크/

[sweetroad]

On 2/22/2023 at 3:42 PM, sadiesmith said:

It looks like the Chinese version of My Mister has changed direction with the potential casting of a younger actor for the role of PDH. The taiwanese actor Zhao Yu-ting is rumored to be the male lead at 38 years old, and Liu Hao-cun, 24 years, for the role of LJA.

 

Will you watch it? I can't decide if I want to wade into that or not. I feel like nothing will ever be as good as the original MM.

[sweetroad]

This review of MM came out in September: https://at.tumblr.com/cere-mon-ials/i-heard-a-great-many-things-about-my-mister-before/6zz0i341bvp9

 

The whole thing is expressed beautifully, and I especially liked this part:

 

”Here’s the heart: Dong-hoon and Ji-an embark on a relationship where they see in each other a reflection of themselves and then some. They are empty, broken people who constantly wonder why life happens to them, with neither the strength to ask what matters nor the inclination to face the music of the answer. They protect each other, from themselves and others.

 

Age has caught up to both of them—Dong-hoon, literally, he’s pretty much lived the same way for four decades; Ji-an, metaphorically, because at 20, she has already lived through the trauma of being an abandoned child, the disillusionment of a teen shunned by faux meritocracy, and the role of a care-giver without money or support. She is a child who had to grow up too soon in the worst way possible—taking the life of an abusive elder, who should have taken care of her, in self-defence. She is 30,000 years old, she thinks. He is 40, and that’s old enough, he thinks.

 

Ji-an’s survival instincts jerks Dong-hoon to a life that feels more urgent. Dong-hoon’s rule-abiding spirit shows Ji-an how to secure a life that could afford her space to breathe. It is Ji-an who protects Dong-hoon from being fired. It is Dong-hoon who tells the clueless Ji-an how to move in the world of adults, above ground.”

[sadiesmith]

On 2/23/2023 at 1:23 PM, the_sweetroad said:

Will you watch it? I can't decide if I want to wade into that or not. I feel like nothing will ever be as good as the original MM.

 

Though I've never watched a Chinese drama before, I think I'd be curious enough to check this out. I agree with Koala that one way this remake could work is if the creative team would use the "culture and societal pain" of China as its backdrop and make it different enough from the original. Otherwise, why bother improving what's already perfect?

https://koalasplayground.com/2023/02/24/c-ent-readies-for-remake-of-critically-acclaimed-k-drama-my-ahjusshi-with-leads-mark-chao-and-liu-hao-cun/

[liddi]

Excited to hear that there will be a C-remake for My Ahjussi, though with adaptations, there is inevitable trepidation that it will not meet the standard that the original set. Still, am relieved that 赵又廷 Mark Chao is headlining it, as he did an excellent job playing Mgr Oh's equivalent in the Misaeng C-remake Ordinary Glory 平凡的荣耀. Am not as certain about 刘浩存 Liu Haocun, whose work I've never watched. She looks very young and sweet, so am not sure whether she will be able to deliver the bleakness that Ji-an carried with her. Still, she appears to be a favourite of Zhang Yimou and has been in several of his movies, the latest being 2021 movie Cliff Walkers, so will be checking that out to see how she fares.

 

Either way, they start filming in April in Qingdao, so the drama itself will probably only see the light of day next year.  There are protests among the C-viewers about the remake which they believe will never surpass the original. Nonetheless, Ordinary Glory was an example of an excellent remake - keeping the spirit of the original while adapting it in line with its domestic culture and backdrop, which gives me hope that My Ahjussi will be just as well done. We will see.

[sweetroad]

@liddi Thanks for your thoughts; all that is “reassuring” and helpful.  I’ve heard good things about Mark Chao so that did pique interest.

 

Do you know if it will be called 我的大叔？
 

And as you find more news in the C entertainment world please keep us posted! 

[liddi]

@the_sweetroad I definitely hope that the remake will be good too, having seen good and poor adaptations in the past of beloved works.  No idea whether it will also be called 我的大叔 or if it will have a totally different title, similar to other remakes e.g. Ordinary Glory (Misaeng), Unknown Number (Signal) etc. Will share if I do see any further news about it.

 

Meanwhile, looks like a rewatch of My Ahjussi is in order during the wait  

[sweetroad]

2 hours ago, liddi said:

Meanwhile, looks like a rewatch of My Ahjussi is in order during the wait  

Haha, always a good idea! 

[sweetroad]

The first poster is out for the Chinese MM remake. The heart is so cute.

 

https://mydramalist.com/748667-wo-de-da-shu

 

@liddi Can you tell us what the Chinese on the poster says? I’ve forgotten too many characters. 
 

@chickfactor Thanks for the heads-up! I  see that Disney+ has it in this region. Do you only have four episodes available as well?

[liddi]

@the_sweetroad 保密项目 means "confidential project" so it would appear that this is just a temporary placeholder, and not what the actual poster will look like. According to the uncropped poster, the urban emotional drama will be aired on Youku, filming begins in April in Qingdao and is expected to take 110 days. 

 

What does interest me are the character details of the Chinese production, which seem to indicate that the base narrative might be veering away from the original into the entertainment industry, assuming the CEO and celebrity are meant to be PDH and LJA respectively. Not very sure how the entire premise would work if Ji-A is now a celebrity and Dong-hoon is a CEO. Will the overall bleakness and desperation that permeates the soul and is such a tangible part of the original still be there? I don't know, but I hope they will find a way to honour the source material.

 

1. Male, company CEO, age 30+, height ~180cm

2. Female, celebrity, age 25+, height ~165cm

3. Male, middle-aged uncle, aged 50+,  height ~180cm

4. Male, young director, aged 28+,  height ~180cm

5. Male, good-looking ruffian, aged 25+, height ~180cm

6. Female, housewife, aged 35+, height ~165cm

 

 

 

cr. star.ettoday.net 

[sadiesmith]

15 hours ago, liddi said:

3. Male, middle-aged uncle, aged 50+,  height ~180cm

 

Wow, I can't believe they are aging the PDH character to 50+ when Mark Chao is not even 40. 

 

Are Chinese dramas usually aired midway through filming? Any idea which online streaming site might carry this for the US audience? My interest is piqued enough that I will definitely check this out.

 

[sweetroad]

41 minutes ago, sadiesmith said:

Wow, I can't believe they are aging the PDH character to 50+ when Mark Chao is not even 40. 

 

I think they are making the Park Sang Hoon character "50+", and the CEO character (presumably that's the one that Mark Chao will play) will be "30+". So they'll make the eldest brother over 50, and the male lead, Park Dong Hoon character will be a CEO and in his 30's.

 

In My Mister, there's only about a 10-year spread between Ki Hoon and Sang Hoon. In the Chinese remake the spread between the brothers will be more, from "28+" years old to "50+" years old. That's 22 years, and I imagine that would change some of the dynamic between the three brothers.

 

Also, according to the above chart, the age gap between the CEO and the female celebrity is only going to be a decade or so. So we'll lose the "Park Dong Hoon is old enough to be Ji An's father!" element of it all.

 

It already seems like a different drama, if Mark Chao will already be a CEO and the FL will be a celebrity. In MM, part of the grimness of Lee Ji An and her grandmother's lives is that they are dirt-poor and in dire circumstances.

[liddi]

12 hours ago, sadiesmith said:

Are Chinese dramas usually aired midway through filming? Any idea which online streaming site might carry this for the US audience? My interest is piqued enough that I will definitely check this out.

 

 

@sadiesmith Chinese dramas are always aired post-production following a vetting process by the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA). Some dramas may be shelved particularly if there are issues with either the script or scandals surrounding the cast etc. Others go through subsequent rounds of editing to meet the requirements in terms of narrative themes, length etc. and may perhaps be broadcast a year or more after filming. It varies.

 

No idea yet where it will air internationally... hopefully more information will be available closer to the broadcast date.

[sadiesmith]

12 hours ago, the_sweetroad said:

I think they are making the Park Sang Hoon character "50+", and the CEO character (presumably that's the one that Mark Chao will play) will be "30+". So they'll make the eldest brother over 50, and the male lead, Park Dong Hoon character will be a CEO and in his 30's.

Ah, thank you. I saw the title CEO and immediately thought of CEO Do Joon Young, And of course when I saw a character labeled 大叔, I naturally thought of ajusshi PDH. So age gap is NOT likely to be an issue, not when the ML and FL are ~30 and ~25 years old respectively. I wonder if they will establish a much more obvious love line now that they have removed the controversy that made the original so intriguing.

 

53 minutes ago, liddi said:

Chinese dramas are always aired post-production following a vetting process by the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA).

Thanks. Sounds like a long time before we see this.

[Sleepy Owl]

Event: Best Female Centric Kdramas

 

 

Vote for your favorite "Female Centric" kdrama!!! 

 

 

Your Event Organizers,

@Sleepy Owl @partyon @agenth @confusedheart 

 

[sadiesmith]

I think this is the official video of LSK's performance at the Peregrine Concert. I just recently learned that PF was the composer of A Far Away Place. What an honor to be invited to sing this song in their concert.

 

 

[sweetroad]

Park Hae Young was interviewed last week by Cine21, and she had some interesting things to say about My Mister:

 

http://m.cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=102197

 

'My Liberation Journal' 'My Mister' Writer Park Hae-young [22 WRITERS6]

 

2023-03-12

 

Written by Kim Soo-young, photographed by Oh Gye-ok

 

 

 

Excerpts (translated by Google with some light editing...but if a native Korean speaker could correct any mistakes that would be great!):

 

In winter, ‘Jeong Hee’s’ in Hugye-dong comes to mind, and in summer, the rice fields in Sanpo, where the three siblings used to walk after work, come to mind. There are moments when certain scenes in the dramas My Mister and My Liberation Journal come to mind as if they were my memories. If someone asks about the plot of the drama, I have no choice but to say “the story of the people in Hugye-dong” or “the story of three siblings living in Sanpo, Gyeonggi-do”, but if they ask me what kind of character Park Dong-hoon (Lee Sun-kyun) was or what kind of person Yeom Mi-jeong (Kim Ji-won) was, I would say I think I can introduce you to someone I know well.

 

Writer Park Hae-young writes such a drama. With the words liberation and worship, the show shakes the deepest places in the hearts of those who endure everyday life. She creates a character who is introverted and unmotivated, and who exposes a side of her that I want to hide [Note: I think this is talking about Yeom Mi-Jeong from My Liberation Notes, but it could probably also apply to Park Dong-hoon ]. She said, “When I give lectures at the Institute of Education, students ask ‘how do you write? Then I ask, ‘It was entertaining, right?’ They said it was entertaining. ‘The reason you find it interesting is that the element is also in you. So, just show what’s inside of you.’ I say it’s nothing special.”

 

I sympathize with these words, but this doesn't make up for it.

 

On March 7, at JTBC in Sangam-dong, Seoul, I caught up with writer Park Hae-young and asked again how to write that person and that line.

 

(skipped unrelated)

 

How do you organize the various episodes that make the characters vivid in the play?

 

PHY: "I thought about it while talking with a writer, and he said that he cuts off episodes with an important event. Part 1 ending, the main character escapes. Part 2 ending, go to prison. Like this. On the other hand, I cut episodes with emotion. So my heart goes. It fluctuates. After that, it's like writing an episode that can fit there...Even when I think of an episode, I think I think about what kind of emotion should arise rather than the incident."

 

Writer Park Hae-young explained this part by hand-drawing the situation in which emotions fluctuated in each episode. The story begins on the trajectory of emotions. Perhaps this is why director Kim Won-seok of My Mister looked at his script and described it “like sheet music.”

 

 

Is it because it touches your emotions? Even after the drama ends, the character remains. Park Dong-hoon of My Mister, who always lived with safety first, saying, “This is enough”, was an ordinary office worker, but he is remembered as a good person. How was the character Park Dong-hoon conceived?

 

PHY: "It was a long time ago (thinks for a moment). Park Dong-hoon said, 'I shouldn't be loud.' But at the root of him... it started with ‘I’ll be lonely’. He was a difficult character. Basically, in dramas, events unfold through dialogue. Park Dong-hoon doesn't talk much, so he's not the one pushing the case. But since he is the main character and must be attractive, what should I do? (Laughter) Park Dong-hoon is a person who marks a situation, not a person who perpetrates it. He is the one who quietly and imperceptibly blocks things from collapsing. He built it with an emphasis on being a marksman. If you set a clear intention or goal from the beginning, the play becomes forced. I focused on the character and went further, and when he went with a certain degree of direction, I said, ‘Ah, this person will become like this. I wanted to draw a person like this,’ to be accurate and to persevere until the end."

 

A story that advances without narrative, a silent protagonist. Why do you choose the difficult path? (laugh)

 

PHY: "I think I am attracted to humans. There are many cases in which I watch movies or dramas because I like the actors or the characters, not because the narrative or story is interesting. I want to draw realistic human beings, people who show facial expressions and tone of voice that makes you want to say, 'That’s real.' Sometimes when I see a mechanical character, I think that the acting and dialogue come out mechanically because the script flowed mechanically. Why did it happen? Maybe the mechanical story came out because I started with the narrative first, and turned the human into the predetermined narrative. If you catch a human first and use him/her, I think it won't be a mechanical story because that human can go only as far as it can go. Recently, while watching The Whale, I felt that a movie or drama is an actor's art. In the end, it is important how much the actor is immersed in the situation and what kind of human being he shows properly, but the writer has to be the base for that. The actor blossoms. Let him nourish the flower. For me, this idea seems to work the most."

 

(skipped unrelated...but the rest of the article in which they talk about her background in writing sitcoms, and her writing process in general, is very interesting.)

[africandramalover]

19 hours ago, the_sweetroad said:

but the rest of the article in which they talk about her background in writing sitcoms, and her writing process in general, is very interesting.)

 

Thanks so much for the article!

 

Pls translate the rest of it. I'd love to know her writing process and her comedy background!!

 

 

Pretty please!!