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[Drama 2018] Life on Mars, 라이프 온 마스


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4 hours ago, triplem said:

Omo! Watching eps 8 Live ....

Not only is dad part of the lottery gang , he is the numero uno!!! Gang leader. What a shock for Tae Joo 

 

 

Similar to US version.  The execution is different, much better.  I wasn't sure if TJ would let his dad go (which I think in the BBC version, Sam did? @40somethingahjumma?).  He made the difficult decision of not, stayed true to his upright character. By letting Dad cast the first stone and hurting his own son, this drama made TJ's confrontation and his dad's death tragic on many levels.  I think TJ doubted himself all these years whether he should have been more brave trying to stop his father from hurting the woman instead of running away.  The adult TJ thought this time he has a second chance to change the tragedy but alas, the future cannot be altered in terms of his father's death.  He can however comfort little TJ afterward with this new knowledge in hope of lessening the trauma.  I wonder what he will tell his little self.  In any case, TJ will soon be able to settle these painful unresolved memories regarding his father in the past.  Not without a lot of heartache and pain though.   Jun Suk Ho did a great job with his HCH's character!

 

I really like how they tie TJ's dad story to the serial killer.  I am also intrigued that they chose not to pursue the theory of Na Young/Han Choong Ho's relationship (BBC theory).  Glad that she was not the beaten victim. :D

 

@40somethingahjumma @triplem I also like how the hostage situation mirrors TJ's own fight for his life.  The desperation in both timelines: to fight for their survival when others misunderstood their current situations.  The public are unawared of the hostage takers' true crimes/unfair sentencing and the doctors not knowing TJ could still be alive.  However, there is a clear contrast in frame of mind and thus, outcomes.  All three men felt hopeless, trapped with no solution when are pushed against the corner so they chose to end their suffering.  Did they take the easier way out one can argue?  TJ on the other hand tried to keep calm till the last minute trying to save the man's life.  We also have the voice over by his mom apologizing for giving up on him in 2018 as she decided to put him back on life support after 15min.  I think the difference is to highlight the need to persevere and find another way to overcome your problems.  

 

Thank you for the BeeGees' Holiday lyrics.

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This is freaking mindblowing... I repeated the last seconds again and again...

why do i have the impression that in the last scene the killer shot in the air... that makes no sense - okay like everything is doing right now. Logic is not helping this time.

 

Dad is such an  ( just imagine very nasty words here) - the best I can say is he is a lowlife. So I interpret it like the woman tried to run away with all the money from the lottery Gang and Daddy found out about it. She used the red polish herself. And she was still alive when Dad run away - but not thanks to him. He really hits the woman very hard with a steelbar on the head - and this was murder or attemped murder.

Daddy used a Stone to hurt TJ too...

What a wonderful Husband and Daddy - grrrrrrrr

 

I wonder - in the last Scene Dad calls out TJs name - is that related to the adult TJ (he knows his name). For me it sounded different. Was the young TJ around when his Father was killed? Oh damn - since a long time I found a Drama again which turns my mind into a rollercoster - and I love it.

 

Poor TJ really needs to work on a lot bad stuff in his deep mind.

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I knew there was a reason why I fell in love with Jung Kyung Ho last year. He was really amazing in Episode 8 especially in that final confrontation with Dad in the bamboo grove. Poor TJ... the battle within... the confusion and the angst.

 

But why does everyone look so... yellow in this episode... especially the night scenes?

 

 

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7 hours ago, Prettysup said:

‘Life on Mars’ will stop for a week this week. Next episode 9 will air on 14th July. 

 

Reason: In order to present a more ‘complete’ production 

Noooooooo. They did this for Tunnel as well . They can’t leave me hanging like this .

@bedifferent @40somethingahjumma JKH is really versatile  .I luff him :wub:When you have time check out cruel city if you have not . 

 

 

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Another amazing episode.  

 

I am thinking that TJ must know in the future that his father was killed when he was a child. I suppose this has to do with that memory discussion with officer Yoon. We bury most memories and she advises him not to try to remember them, too painful and of no help.  Isn't that what then occurs?  The memory and the pain come back.   But even if he forgot the trauma of being there (I think TJ must have been there and seen it)  - he would intellectually. know on some level.  But still this was so powerful, his father's death is inevitable. No matter how many times he redoes it, he cannot run fast enough, his father's death cannot be altered, it is a reality.  Painful to watch.

 

Madame Jo dressed in a white dress like officer Yoon, was a little heavy handed. I think the writer is a really teasing us with this stuff, like when KDC is laying shrouded in the ambulance in episode 7.   Maybe it is a way of his unconscious to relieve him of the pain of irreversible loss.    And it is a kind of learning experience.  Learning to care about people, to worry and grieve for them, and then to feel elation at their recovery.   This is a world of many rewards he didn't experience in the future (that we know of). I still wish I could know more about his relationship with his Ex-fiance and what happened between them.

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Just now, bedifferent said:

Ratings, AGB 

 

Episode 7 (6/30/18):   3.817%

Episode 8 (7/1/18):  4.681%

 

Nice increase

 

A really nice increase indeed :) Episode 8 was epic ..... whoah.. and the more episodes go by, the more I actually want him to stay in his past unconscious world :(

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I'm not one for hyperboles but honestly Episode 8 which sees the culmination of the father arc was superbly done. A lot of credit needs to go to the writer for pulling it all together and then to JKH for a stellar performance as the man out of time struggling to make sense of the confusing plethora of facts, wrestling with his doubts and trying to do the right thing... whatever that might be. JKH captures TJ's reticence and quiet vulnerability perfectly. And yes, it does explain to a large extent, his rigidity to the law as if he's spent a lifetime doing penance for a father who wasn't just flawed but was the head of an elusive criminal operation. Once he comes face to face with the contradictions that was his father, the light comes on... he has been transported to the past to resolve his daddy issues and the hole in his mind. Like Alice who fell through the rabbit hole, TJ follows his White Rabbit... his younger self... through the memory maze to follow (quite literally) in his father's footsteps.

 

Han Choong Ho might have been a scoundrel and an inveterate liar but I have a hard time seeing him as a serial killer. Not only is the physique not right, neither is the MO. He beds women and even bashes them when the occasion calls for them but I don't see him painting their nails in immaculate fashion after choking them. He's not that neat either. I know that these are the days before profiling becomes a big thing in SK but surely DC should be able to pick up on some of the discrepancies. 

 

Speculation about the identity of the "manicure" killer

Spoiler

I am beginning to wonder if the manicure serial killer isn't just some kind of recurring projection in TJ's unconscious of a case which he couldn't satisfactorily conclude before becoming comatose. The killer seems to pop up randomly and then coincidentally in connection with HCH's maybe mistress.  Early on in the drama he kept seeing KMS' face like a man obsessed. That stopped temporarily and then reared its head again in these last couple of episodes which is tied to repressed fragments memories of his father.

 

Although the episode consists of much angst for our protagonist, the show still manages to inject no small amount of levity amidst the gravity of the situation at hand. My favourite has to be the bit where TJ scuttles off quietly with NY (like a couple of misbehaving kids) to escape the wrath of DC after "borrowing" his vehicle and then using it to mow down the gangsters attacking TJ. While running off she loses one of her pumps like Cinderella and they both go back for it. That was so cute and a nice break from all the heaviness.

 

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 2.52.19 pm

 

In the end, HCH meets with a tragic fate... partly of his own making. But to see TJ trying so desperately not once but three times to get to his father was absolutely heartbreaking. Even despite everything he knows about the man, HCH is still his dad after all.

 

The ending leads on really nicely to what seems to me to be the equivalent of the BBC's "The Warren". Sadly we will have to wait a couple of weeks for the next episode but at least the dad arc is more or less complete.

 

On second thoughts... Oh Jung Mun might be Tony Crane instead.

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1 hour ago, maddymappo said:

... this was so powerful, his father's death is inevitable. No matter how many times he redoes it, he cannot run fast enough, his father's death cannot be altered, it is a reality.  Painful to watch.

 

Oh man... the last 1-2 min of the episode where Taejoo desperately  rewinds his 1988 several times was heartbreaking.  Don’t know whose idea it was to visualize for us TJ’s helplessness, KHJ and/or the PD... I just have to applaud them for making me hold my breath during that scene.  We see TJ tried to run  a little faster each time, hand reaching out further, closing the distance a little more... yet still unable to reach HCH.  So sad. 

 

Some police officer must have returned the dropped autographed ball after his father’s death to the Han family since 2018 TJ has it in his treasure tin box.  In this 1988 world, it will most likely be TJ himself.  I’m not sure if things will be any different...adult TJ may continue to shield his little self from the awful truth.

 

@kasjady TJ needs to catch the serial killer before he can decide whether he should stay in this 1988 world.

 

@triplem I did not watch the Bad Guys series.  Really like KJH in PP.  Here though he is just marvelous! :wub:  Having the same feeling as when I watched Secret Forest last year. Quality show this one is.

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Annyeong everyone

 

Wow I just finished Ep8 and can't help tearing up at Han Tae Joo's father's death. Yup agree with @bedifferent that no matter how many times HTJ rewinds that scene which the dad got shot at, he failed, he can't changed the past.

 

I enjoy watching LOM, one of my new fave drama currently. Waiting for next Saturday to see what's next.

 

Poor Han Tae Joo, he always looks pale and deadbeat. I wonder if he will stay in 1988 or goes back to the present time. But I have a feeling he might stay on in 1988 because he found a new love. But again, who knows the writer might write him back to the present time and meet someone who looks like Officer Yoon Na Young.

 

Just want to say I'm beginning to really like Jung Kyung Ho now after watching few of his dramas. He is really great in acting but I feel sad to see how sad and haggard he is in this drama ^_^ whenever I look at his poor beaten face, I remember Sooyoung :P

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7 hours ago, maddymappo said:

 

 

Madame Jo dressed in a white dress like officer Yoon, was a little heavy handed. I think the writer is a really teasing us with this stuff, like when KDC is laying shrouded in the ambulance in episode 7.   Maybe it is a way of his unconscious to relieve him of the pain of irreversible loss.    And it is a kind of learning experience.  Learning to care about people, to worry and grieve for them, and then to feel elation at their recovery.   This is a world of many rewards he didn't experience in the future (that we know of). I still wish I could know more about his relationship with his Ex-fiance and what happened between them.

 

I thought it was a bit over the top as well. ;) But I accepted it in the end as a necessary twist because 1) TJ's mind is all over the place, 2) the show needed to distinguish itself from the original and 3) NY does look fetching in white. ;) She epitomizes a kind of genuine innocence of days gone by which is symbolized by the white dress. This is in contrast to Madame Jo's grifter persona (not innocent at all) which makes her wearing the white dress rather ironic. Everything about her feels fake as a result.

But I like your explanation too. 

By the way, there is a possibility we might get some backstory on the ex-fiancee.

 

@triplem -- I've uhmed and ahhed about Heartless City for the longest time. I've seen a few clips here and there, heard people rave about it but never seen the whole thing from start to finish. I feel like I need to be in a certain frame of mind for it. But I adored Falling for Innocence and to a lesser extent Another Happy Ending. I even liked Missing 9. There's no doubt that JKH always brings his A-game to whatever he does. The husband who has just finished with Prison Playbook and is actually rewatching it because he liked it so much, made the comment that JKH is a "talented actor". 

 

@alekaonu This role is definitely a departure from other characters he's been playing lately and I really miss his smile. But he's a good enough actor that he can take on anything and own it.

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1 hour ago, 40somethingahjumma said:

've uhmed and ahhed about Heartless City for the longest time. I've seen a few clips here and there, heard people rave about it but never seen the whole thing from start to finish. I feel like I need to be in a certain frame of mind for it. But I adored Falling for Innocence and to a lesser extent Another Happy Ending. I even liked Missing 9. There's no doubt that JKH always brings his A-game to whatever he does. The husband who has just finished with Prison Playbook and is actually rewatching it because he liked it so much, made the comment that JKH is a "talented actor". 

This is true. It's pretty heavy and the romance was the weak link. He was also always stressed out in that drama. Didn't smile much :D and always brooding. But I loved it . It was great that Yoon Hyun Min was in it as well. I would rewatch PP sometime in the future...but 1.5 hours per episode is a lot of time :lol:

 

Anyway @bedifferent I can't seem to place it, but the doc in 2018, who was he again? Wasn't he the one who spoke to him in some of the dizzy episodes he had?

@alekaonu Now my slight concern is if this is all his memories ,  what happens to him and NY? I was so happy that he took the match ticket she gave him. It's obvious he's beginning to like her the way she likes him :D

 

15 minutes ago, Dramanoona said:

Popped in only to find out this week's episodes....there are none! *DEVASTATED* 

How how how....could you leave us hanging like this.

Will try to look for gems to gif.

Can we have some with lil TJ ? 

It's two whole weeks of waiting. *Cries*

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Hi everyone, I forgot my old Soompi account and I've been a silent reader for ages. But for the love of Life on Mars, I create a new account to join you guys :D

I never thought that I would watch an OCN drama, but Jung Kyung Ho and the gang drove me here and I love it to bits.

Episode 8 was so intense, but moments like this make my day. Oh bromance.. :wub:

 

20180702_163204_zps2486rwn5.png

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Gosh... I just wanted to give TJ (adult) a big hug.

His world comes crashing down in this episode. Although it didn't give me as much of an emotional jolt as with the previous episode, the wise words of the bar owner came to mind - find the source of the problem in order to return.

 

A light hearted moment in the episode. DC and his beloved car. LOL

ug7O4v.gif

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