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[Drama 2020] It's Okay not to be Okay, 사이코지만 괜찮아


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I swung by just to say how enamoured I was of Episode 3. It took my breath away. I love how the show blends the real, the surreal and the fantastical. OK psychiatric facility serves as a a parallel to the "cursed castle" -- Mun-yeong's family mansion.  Both are places that hold dark secrets and haunt the people who walk through its corridors. Psychiatric facilities may seem like places of healing but perhaps for some it is a glorified form of imprisonment. 

 

I didn't think anything else this year could top how I feel about Hospital Playlist but this could. I am utterly in awe of the juggling act that PD Park is doing here.

 

Oh the layers. I love the layers. Just one viewing can't do it justice. So many literary references went through my head watching this --  the obvious ones and the not-so-obvious ones... One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest came to mind when Mun-yeong let Min-seok loose on his father's election campaign. She may flout convention and proprietary to make a statement or in defiance of life but there's no denying she's perceptive... and unexpectedly kind. Underneath the prickles she's a self-styled freedom fighter.

 

Despite the surface differences, there's really not a lot separating Mun-yeong and Gang-tae. They are much more alike than even she thinks, I suspect. If she's purportedly the sleeping princess trapped in the castle surrounded by thorns and thistles, then he might be the prince to cut through the briars and slay the dragon. At least that seems to be the implication so far. In her own way, I think she wants to rescue him from his life of mundane drudgery and for him to protect her from her own demons. If only they can find a way to speak to each other without her games and his defensiveness.

 

I do wonder if the danger that she represents is that she makes him yearn for something he dares not ask for himself because he feels that his whole raison d'etre has to do with caring for his brother. It's not so much that he's a hypocrite or fearful... I don't believe... but that he can't allow himself the luxury of doing what he wants because that means he is irresponsible.

He is playing a zero sum game. If there's a fear driving him, it's the fear that if he harbours certain thoughts, he can't be the kind of brother that his brother needs. In a real enough way he is shackled by his own highly developed sense of responsibility.

 

MY's workshop on fairytales was a lot of fun. Her interpretation of The Ugly Duckling was hilarious but pointed. Although I doubt that was what Andersen intended for readers to take away from it. It is true, however, that fairytales and nursery rhymes have been Disneyfied to a large extent. Because the tales in their most original forms were object lessons of the harsh realities of life. Robert Darnton's The Great Cat Massacre was a text that came to mind. Maternal childbirth mortality, malnutrition, abject poverty -- beggary etc are the stuff of many folktales. I am no expert but I am convinced that folktales, the progenitor of fairytales are useful anthropological artifacts of social history. They conceal as much as they tell. Of course they have another function: Morality tales concealed as escapist fare are the spoonfuls of sugar that makes the medicine go down.

 

At this point I find this intertwining of fairytales and mental health issues profoundly fascinating. I am so looking forward to where the show goes with that. Anyway that's for another time.

 

O Jung Sae... what can I say... he is amazing in this. Better than Dustin Hoffman. ;)

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After watching the first 4 episodes I find that Moon Young's character reminds me of another female character in another Kim Soo Hyun drama that I absolutely loved, My Love From the Stars. Moon Young kind of reminds me of Cheon Songyi. They are both very stylishly dressed, a bit out there as far as Kdrama female characters go, hilariously entertaining, famous and in the public eye, and both did something that caused the public to go against them, and both very much obsessed with Kim Soo Hyun's character. Cheon Songyi followed Do Min-joon around initially and made Do Minjoon her manager. Here, Moon Young called Kangtae her safety pin and followed him back to where they both lived during their childhoods. And while there are red shoes in this drama, the other one had black sparkly shoes. And Cheon Songyi also thought she dreamed about Do Minjoon even though in reality was he was actually there. Moon Young and Kang Tae knew each other as kids while Do Minjoon and Cheon Songyi knew each other when Cheon Songyi was little and in Cheon Songyi's previous life. And I think it's awesome that Kim Chang-wan, who played Do Minjoon's friend/lawyer in MLFTS is also in this drama as the president of the hospital. 

 

Of course, almost everything else about these two dramas are different and I think I may like It's okay not to be okay even more. It has been quite a while since a drama has me this hooked, enough for me jump into this discussion. Each episode takes me through a series of varying emotions as it can be hilariously entertaining one minute and tearfully emotional the next and then be both a horror story and a fairy tale. It's only been 4 episodes but it has made me teary eyed several times. The struggle waiting for the next episode is real. 

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1 hour ago, glory said:

btw, is there any meaning or symbolism of magnolias relevant to this drama?? 

 

what i also don't understand is the dandelion reference...i know they said it in their interviews but can anyone explain what they meant by KT being a dandelion and MY being the girl dandelion ? is there a symbolism for dandelion that im missing??

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'Psycho is okay', Kim Soo-hyun power → No. 1 in content influence

 

'Psycho but it's okay' starring Kim Soo-hyun and Seo Ye-ji ranked first in the overall content impact index. 

 

According to the CPI (CONTENT POWER INDEX) announced by CJ ENM on June 30,  'Psycho but it's okay'  won first place in overall category (drama, non-drama (entertainment/entertainment)). 

This ranking of 'Psycho but it's okay' has risen 10th from last week.

 

A little bit about fantasy fairy-tale love where Moon Kang-Tae (Kim Soo-Hyun), a psychiatric ward guard who refuses to love under heavy weight, and Go Mun-Young (Seo Ye-Ji), a fairy tale writer who doesn't know love due to birth defects, heals and heals each other's wounds It's a strange romantic comedy drama. It was the first broadcast on the last 20th. 

 

Meanwhile, the content impact index is a consumer behavior-based content impact measurement model jointly developed by CJ ENM and Nielsen Korea. Three terrestrial companies, seven channels of CJ ENM (tvN, Mnet, OCN, OnStyle, Olive, XtvN, OtvN), four vertical films and two general PP channels (MBC Every 1, Comedy TV) were measured. The genres of drama, entertainment, entertainment, music, and infotainment are among the targets. 

 

 

Full article

 

https://entertain.naver.com/read?oid=108&aid=0002875201

 

http://www.slist.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=166933

 

 

 

Image

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Just here to rave about Seo Ye Ji's voice. This is one drama that I have to watch with headphones on. Unlike others where sometimes I watch with half a brain and the sound off. When she spins her tales, in that smooth lower range of hers, I fall in love and barely need the images to hear the narrative. It's amazing. 

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I don't think I've ever watched back the first episodes in a matter of hours, that's how hooked I am with this drama.

 

Some unconnected thoughts (ramblings)

 

Loving both KMY and KT and both actors are doing a fantastic job. Arguably KSH has less to work with because KT is a more subdued character but still... SYJ is breaking ground with her portrayal of KMY here.

 

Not a single scene between them is just inane filling, they can be hilarious, sad, sometimes both, but never irrelevant. So refreshing the lack of cliches and tropes! Because let's be frank here, you can delete half the scenes between OTPs in most dramas and not miss a single beat in terms of the story/plot.

 

And so far they've called each other:

KMY to KT: Coward, hypocrite, arrogant and shallow...

KT to KMY: Clueless freak, she has no warmth in her eyes, no drug can cure her, she's empty...

 

I'm not sure KMY has ASPD, for all we know she has never been diagnosed but KT is wrong when he says she's empty. I think KT is able to recognise what he feels inside (all the frustration and sadness) but unable/unwilling to express it, yet KMY, who is able to express anything that comes to her mind with no care for the world is unable to recognise what she feels or even that she actually feels anything in a deep and meaningful way.

 

KMY has been almost strangled to death at least three times that we know of and I found interesting that she really didn't fight back in any of those instances. She looked more frightened than anything the first time, and when that poor girl's father was choking her she actually dared him to finish the deed. I think in a sense she was ready to die, and the third time at the hospital I got a feeling of a bit of a shocked acceptance too, down to the single tear and the sad smile afterwards, as if she realised "this is me" or "this is how they see me" and there is nothing that she can do. Isolated and helpless really.

 

Frankly, so long as this drama is succesful enough that others are encouraged to follow it's lead in the future, I don't care if IONTBO doesn't top the charts. And if they can keep the quality until the end and they give me a happy ending, this will be Top1 ever and it's not even close.

Edited by Valhad
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damn! learning about the fact that Kim Soo Hyun was actually abandoned by his father as a child and was raised by a single mom literally made episode 4 much more heartbreaking! 

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8 hours ago, glory said:

btw, is there any meaning or symbolism of magnolias relevant to this drama?? 

 

7 hours ago, ruminati0n said:

 

what i also don't understand is the dandelion reference...i know they said it in their interviews but can anyone explain what they meant by KT being a dandelion and MY being the girl dandelion ? is there a symbolism for dandelion that im missing

 

What is the reference of dandelion you are referring to? Can you tell me which interview this was in? I can look into it and provide my insights.

 

edit:

 

@glory do you mean KSH as in his real life or the character he plays? Because in this drama, his father passed away.

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4 minutes ago, vangsweetie637 said:

What dandelion reference was mentioned? Can you tell me which interview this was in? I can further look into the symbolism of these two flowers and put my insights on it :D

 

wow thanks for looking into this!

KSH mentioned it in their tvn interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ltp-nB8VFs (around 3:24)

then SYJ echoed the same answer in their presscon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFGfUmHglAA (around 3:10) 

 

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16 minutes ago, ruminati0n said:

 

wow thanks for looking into this!

KSH mentioned it in their tvn interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ltp-nB8VFs (around 3:24)

then SYJ echoed the same answer in their presscon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFGfUmHglAA (around 3:10) 

 


thanks for the links! I will provide my insights shortly on what I think these two flowers symbolize in the drama and why it was mentioned in the interviews :D


 

 

 

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