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00:00:00
00:00:01
Hallyu
16 Plays1 month ago
Korea swung big at the end of the year and hit it out of the park on both the queer romance and queer life drama fronts. Ben, NiNi and Shan talk Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo and Love In The Big City.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00 Welcome
01:15 Introduction: Let's Talk Hallyu
06:01 Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo
12:36 Taekwondo: Themes and Patterns In Hwang Da Seul's Work
21:54 Taekwondo: The Separation
33:28 Taekwondo: The Reunion
38:22 Taekwondo: On Hyeon Ho
44:57 Taekwondo: Final Thoughts and Ratings
52:33 Love In The Big City
58:46 Love In The Big City Part 1: Mi Ae and the Film Adaptation
01:06:50 Love In The Big City Part 2: Umma and Young Soo
01:17:05 Love In The Big City Part 3: Gyu Ho and Kylie
01:28:31 Love In The Big City Part 4: Habibi and the T-aras
01:40:28 Love In The Big City: Final Thoughts and Ratings
01:48:25 Outro
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Transcript
Introduction to the Brunk Knicker Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to the conversation about BL, a.k.a. The Brunk Knicker Podcast. And there it is. I'm Ben. I'm Nini. We're your drunk, rippling, and unclean auntie. We're sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
00:00:36
Speaker
Four times a year we pop in and talk about what's going on in the BL world. We shoot the shit about stories, all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens. I review from a romance and drama lens. So she like cracked out takes and really intense emotional analysis.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the
00:01:16
Speaker
And we're back.
Focus on Korean Projects and the Hallyu Wave
00:01:19
Speaker
This time, we're in for a winners-only discussion. We will be discussing two Korean projects that we all love. Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo by the Gwangda Seoul team, the drama adaptation of Love in the Big City, screenwritten by the author, Sae Young Park. We have brought Shan back with us. Shan, say hello. Hello.
00:01:45
Speaker
We want to discuss the how you wave, and what that means and how we feel about it. Shan, why don't you walk us through the last couple of decades of what Korea has been up to with their drama.
00:01:58
Speaker
Essentially, when we talk about the Hallyu wave, what we're referencing is a very intentional plan by the Korean government in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis to start exporting their culture as a means of improving their economy, getting the rest of the world to see Korea as a place where they want to spend their dollars. And so starting in the late 90s, they started exporting music, drama, film, inviting in the international audience for Korean media. That really picked up steam in the early 2000s and accelerated pretty steadily into early 2020s with the pandemic. Korean media kind of globally exploded and they started dominating the conversation through music, through very popular Korean pop groups that everybody now knows, and also through dramas.
00:02:51
Speaker
In 2019, Netflix started producing Korean dramas and hosting them on their platform, bringing that content to new audiences. And then on the heels of that, we started to get Korean BL entering the BL space later than some of the other countries like Japan and Thailand, who had already been in the game for a while.
00:03:10
Speaker
Korea kind of showed up during those early pandemic years and started producing QL. It wasn't the very first QL they had ever produced. There are queer films and queer dramas from Korea earlier on, but that is when Korean BL, as it exists in its current state, really picked up, and it is definitely part of the Hallyu wave.
00:03:32
Speaker
I kind of came in on that wave because my first K-drama I watched in 2019 and it was Pretty Nuna Who Buys Me Food. That's the first ever K-drama I watched and I was hooked. I am not a K-pop girl but I'm most definitely a K-drama girl.
00:03:49
Speaker
And I am most definitely a Korean QL girl, for sure. One of the reasons that K-drama is so appealing, I think, to a Western audience as well as to their home audience is because the Korean stories really respect romance.
00:04:05
Speaker
They prioritize it in a way that we don't get in Western media, serving a slice of the Western audience that the West has kind of let go of and has diminished and belittled. For people who love romance, for people who love romantic comedies and romantic melodramas, you can't top Korean content. It's not surprising that on the heels of huge success of their exporting of heterosexual romance media, they started getting into the BL game.
00:04:34
Speaker
Do you both remember the early K-dramas you watched that really hooked you into it? I didn't start consistently watching K-drama as my main venue for head media until around the same time as you, Nini, about 2019. But before that, I had seen them here and there. I think Coffee Prince might have actually been my first K-drama, which, wow, what a way to start. Good for you, Shin.
00:04:58
Speaker
And then when I came in in 2019, it just became easier to access these shows. Like everything was going up on Netflix. Vicky became bigger. It was hosting more things. That's when I started going really deep and I went back and watched a lot of dramas that predated that. So when we're talking about Korean projects, we're engaging from the perspective of Korea really wanted us to engage with this. And so we want to engage as earnestly as we can with
Discussion on 'Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo'
00:05:26
Speaker
it. These two shows stand out for us because Hwang Da Seoul has made it abundantly clear that she cares a lot about telling queer stories well in her interviews and in the work she does. And based upon our interactions with Anton Herr, who translated Love in the Big City,
00:05:45
Speaker
We feel very strongly that they also wanted us to experience this too. So with that in mind, get your snacks, get your drinks. We gonna be here for a while.
00:06:01
Speaker
Nini, let's get going on Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. Once again, and you keep asking me to jump into the things I don't know nothing. How about you tell us what Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo is about?
00:06:15
Speaker
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo is a Korean B.O. from the Hwangda Seoul team. This is, I think, her second or third full original project. Fongasol has made several projects in BL, either as just a director or as a screenwriter and director. She began in 2020 with Where Your Eyes Linger. She wrote and directed that it's a short film. It was also cut as a show. but From there, she directed but did not write To My Star, then directed but did not write Blooming, then directed but did not write To My Star 2.
00:06:51
Speaker
And then she came back as a writer and director on Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. So that's her resume within the BL space. She has only actually written two of these works, but there are very similar themes across all of them. She clearly brings a strong point of view. You have a really good read on one of the themes she really loves, and I want to get to that. Let's start with the basics. Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo is about the teenage and then second chance romance between Lee Do-ho and Shin Ji-young can't forget it ever. Thank you. Shin Ji-young is sent to the Korean countryside to straighten him out literally by having him get his ass beat every single day by his Taekwon Do teacher. While there, he ends up bonding with the
00:07:46
Speaker
teacher's son who is a star student and very much a standoffish type. Their relationship develops but is then severed by horrible consequences because they kept beating the shit out of our boy. The two separate for a brutal amount of time before running into each other again in the same neighborhood and having to unpack this huge mess between them. I think we will go through this piece by piece. Shannon, walk us through the first half of the show with their relationship as a teenager.
00:08:32
Speaker
I'm going to get emotional just thinking about it. So this is kind of a classic second chance romance and the first half of the show is about the first chance, the first iteration of their relationship that inevitably ended horribly. We had Ji Yong, who was coming to the town, basically because he was banished from his own family. His parents were aware that he is clear. He's been sent here, basically handed over to Doho's father, who runs the dojo, to, as Ben said, get straightened out to have the gay beat out of him, essentially.
00:09:07
Speaker
He, though, is a very optimistic person. That's just who he is at his core. So despite this horrific backstory and the trauma that he must have experienced, he presents this very funny face to the world, which is not fake. It's not a facade. It's just he's a very optimistic person at heart.
00:09:26
Speaker
He meets Doho who is a very serious kid who has grown up with this abusive father who is like many abused children trying to earn his way out of this horrible life circumstance that he's in by performing well academically. He wants to get into college. He wants to make something of himself. He wants to leave his father and this town behind and he wants to do that by getting into a good school and by getting a degree that he can use to make money and support himself. So these two meet. They initially have a lot of antagonism. Doho is a bit threatened by Ju Young when he comes into the dojo.
00:10:06
Speaker
but they also have a really clear spark together. Zhuyang is immediately fascinated by Doho and wants to get close to him. Zhuyang's persistent optimism eventually breaks through. They bond.
00:10:21
Speaker
and They start seeing each other in a way that kind of surprised me. and We were all pretty impressed, happy, amazed that they actually got into their relationship pretty quickly once they realized that their feelings were mutual. They started looking for places to spend time alone together to make out and do horny teenage boy stuff. They were sneaking around town knowing that this was not actually going to be acceptable to anybody. And they always had to be on alert for Doho's father.
00:10:51
Speaker
Ju Young is really trying to support Doho through his academic studies because he understands how important it is to him to get into college. And because of that, Ju Young is hiding things from him about what his father is doing.
00:11:06
Speaker
The thing that the show did really beautifully was that they showed that Doho wasn't actually oblivious to the things that his father was doing to Ju Young. He just didn't want to deal with them. He didn't know how to deal with them. It was kind of heartbreaking. They were grabbing these moments of happiness together, but always, always knowing how fragile it was and always on guard for something to go wrong.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then, of course, it did. It all converged with Zhu Yong getting beat by Douhou's father on the day that Douhou had to take a very important test, Douhou seeing the altercation going down and deciding to do something about it, getting distracted, failing his test, and then the police who were supposed to come and intervene to protect Zhu Yong, of course, siding with the abuser and not protecting him at all.
00:11:55
Speaker
That's how their teenage relationship ended. Doho disappeared, and then they were separated for quite a long time. Complications in the teeny bop section of this come from another boy named Hyun-ho, who was at one time a student of the dojo,
00:12:17
Speaker
And he and Dehoi were clearly vibing at some point before both of them backed off of it. And Hae Yeon-ho ends up clearly jealous.
00:12:36
Speaker
This is something I really want to return to when we start talking about Hong Besso's themes. But ah as I'm listening to you go back through the details of what happened in the youth section, It strikes me that at no point in Hongdaso's work does any character have an awakening moment. It's really fascinating how often her characters seem to be aware of this thing about them and they're having to deal with the reality of someone else knowing about that and what it might mean to pursue that. I think that's why I connected so deeply with both of these characters.
00:13:15
Speaker
The uncertainty that exists between them is about, is he actually vibing with me or not? And if so, what do I do with that? Not, what is this in me? It's nice to watch work from someone who understands that that's how it is for a lot of us. We are not oblivious to what we've been feeling the whole time.
00:13:36
Speaker
Wongasil definitely deals in the knowing. That's the lane that she's playing in with her characters. It's all about the knowing. It's never about finding out. She is the queen of the knowing. Every time she shows them, like, who's about to be on my list, girl? Show me the new boys.
00:13:56
Speaker
One like wine or scene that I remember in the show that really lampshaded this that I loved was when Doho asks Ju Young if he was his first kiss and his first love and Ju Young was like, are you fucking kidding? Look at me. Of course I had already kissed people before I met you. Of course I had already had relationships before I met you. And I just loved that. like This is not about a discovery of queerness. This is not about the very first time of having feelings. It's about the first time of having feelings this deep in an impossible situation. That's more what she's interested in. Nini, as our resident vibes expert, why don't you take us through your highlight scenes that captured that for you in the youth section. Before I get into the specific scenes, I gotta just talk about Huang De Sol and the things that she does in general.
00:14:47
Speaker
Honda Soul, she's not just the queen of the knowing, she's the queen of depression romance because the other thing that she likes to do is to get a character who is hard to love and give them somebody who can only love them.
00:15:05
Speaker
I keep thinking about how Douhou treats Zhiyung both in the teenage section and when they come back together in the adult section. Douhou is just really standoffish, he's very arm's length, not talking about anything and then basically the relentlessness of Zhiyung's positivity of his tension breaks through every single time. As somebody who suffers from depression, it feels very healing to see characters who have the patience to shove through something that you are trying to work through but in some ways can't control. All right, so let's talk about the snow scene. That's definitely part of that for sure.
00:15:55
Speaker
Because let me tell you, if somebody made me snow, it would be a wrap. Great. It's done. It's over. Here's a thing that I love about Huangba Soul is that Her work in the QL space is very referential to the mainstream K-drama space and to its tropes. She is really based in Korean media. So if you know K-drama romance tropes, they are everywhere in her works. And the snow is a great example of that. There is no greater signal of true love in K-drama than kissing in the first. That's snow.
00:16:30
Speaker
it What's great about this one is Joo Young made the snow to make it happen. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm getting fucking goosebumps right now, thinking about it right now. That boy is everything to me. What a man. The way I came into the chat screaming, it was just like snow. It was like sobbing.
00:16:53
Speaker
was really beautiful. The part that really feels consistent across the show is how much Ju Young saw Doho needed him and just found ways to show up for him, even when it was hard. Sorry, I'm very emotional about the show. I can't get over it. I thought that I had gotten past my initial reactions, but now talking about it again, I feel all the exact same things. It's amazing how it just came back just like that.
00:17:23
Speaker
Something fun. Huang Dussel has made enough work now that she can make references to her own work and make fun of it. I really liked them making fun of their To My Start II moment.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, it was so good. I would try to find a place to kiss and say, who would kiss at an underpass? I'm like, let me tell you who would kiss at an underpass. You know exactly who would. How about you dare not disrespect your seniors like that?
00:17:56
Speaker
but but I love that whole sequence, because it was so real. Two horny teenage boys, they really want to make out, but they know they're not safe to do it at home. So they're just wandering around outside. Like, where can we sit and make out where we won't be seen, where we won't be disturbed? Who hasn't been there as a teenager? It was such a good moment. Now for something really emotional. When Ju Young removed that cross from around his neck,
00:18:26
Speaker
and then confessed his feelings to Dojo through the fucking wall. With his forehead on the confessional wall. Every lapsed Catholic on Tumblr was activated at once, found each other on the same post, held each other by the shoulders, and screamed.
00:18:47
Speaker
I felt bad, deep in my soul. I was just like, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. He's taking it off. He's taking it off. so What is he going to say? He's taking it off. Oh my God. And then he put his head against the wall and I was like, no, I can't do this. I actually cannot do this. Wow. When he put his head on that wall and treated it like a confessional, I was like somewhere Oscar Wilde is shaking ah about how love is a sacrament that should be taken on the knees.
00:19:17
Speaker
Oh my God. It was so good. There were so many just little moments like that. And there's no monologue where Ju Young talks about his mother's face and what it means to him. This is not that kind of show where they're going to look into the camera and tell you what things mean and explain the themes. You really have to pay attention. You have to be present in this story to notice the things that are happening and what they mean. Oh, it's such a immersive drama experience.
00:19:48
Speaker
I feel like it's equal parts immersive and voyeuristic because they're parts of it that feel like you are in there with them and they're parts of it that feel almost like you shouldn't be watching, like their first kiss in the van. It feels very intimate. Wong Dessal is really good at making emotional intimacy come through without asking her actors to make softcore porn with her.
00:20:14
Speaker
This is not to say that we do not enjoy the soft core. We do enjoy the soft core. Please do keep making it. Make sure that makes the edit. Don't do that doing that too. Just make sure that you get the emotions right. Get the emotions right.
00:20:28
Speaker
The other thing that Huang De Sol likes to do is she likes to film in winter. And I think that's one of the differences that we've often discussed between Chinese Japanese and Korean BL and Southeast Asian BL. That difference between the intimacy of cold weather, the moodiness of winter, and what you get in terms of mood coming out of places that are hot and tropical.
00:20:59
Speaker
It's not that the angst isn't there if it's tropical. It's not that the moodiness can't be there if it's tropical. But there's a different sort of melancholy that comes with the winter stuff. And Huang De Sol really likes to sink into that stuff. Yeah, she likes to put her characters in these really cold, dark scenes, situations, settings, and then she likes to allow them to find the warmth and find the light together. That is the narrative that she's always pursuing.
00:21:29
Speaker
She mentioned that she both wrote and directed Where Your Eyes Linger, and this, this feels like an evolution from Where Your Eyes Linger. Where Your Eyes Linger was actually one of my first QLs, so this is kind of a full circle moment. It was my very first QL. I was intro'd to BL by Huang De Sol.
00:21:55
Speaker
So after going through all of this and making us really believe in the youth romance between these boys, Wanda sold it her favorite thing. She broke these boys up for an unreasonable amount of time. Unreasonable. When that chiron came up and we realized it was a 12 year time skip. We're calling the Koreans. Can y'all verify this? My heart sunk into my stomach. I was like, not 12 fucking years.
00:22:24
Speaker
That's horrific. I want you to know that Twig and I are not well. Thanks, Kyron said 12 years and I DM'ed her and I was like 12 years. Hell yeah, girl. She was like, it's about to be a mess. You are not well. We knew.
00:22:39
Speaker
You've talked about this proportion that she really likes to take audiences well beyond the acceptable point with the separation. So Ju Young ends up separated from Do-ho and is unable to reconnect with him. For the next 12 years, he seems kind of lost. Like he ends up not really pursuing much for himself in an aspirational way. He ends up working at someone else's Taekwondo dojo. He ends up.
00:23:07
Speaker
concluding to maintain a relationship with Doho's father and this offered the dojo from him before he passes away. There's a lot here in the separation that was really difficult to sort of absorb. Not only was there this gap where Doho and he weren't seeing each other at all, I felt a whole lot of angst and stress about just being like having a relationship with the man who beat him like a drum and
00:23:38
Speaker
I knew that when Lido rejoined the narrative, it would be a huge pain point between them. I'm gonna go to Nini first this time because this is probably the most emotionally difficult section of it. And we hadn't had a chance to talk to you about this section while you were watching. I want you to unpack how you felt during this period and what sort of threads you were most holding on to.
00:24:04
Speaker
Oh man, watching Chew Young just sort of shuffle through life, just kind of sleepwalk through it. The first time we see him at the end of that 12 year break, he does not look well. He just looks like all the life and optimism have gone out of him. For somebody who was such a sunshine in the teenage section, who was so focused and dedicated and smiley and happy and just a ball of energy.
00:24:35
Speaker
to watch him just sort of fluffing away. It was heartbreaking. You could see the pain that he was holding in.
00:24:46
Speaker
The whole thing where he is maintaining contact with Doho's father, it's in the hope that at some point he will get some news about Doho. He just has not left this behind. He has not moved on from anything that happened. He is completely stuck in place, can't move forward. Meanwhile, Doho has basically run away. Ran as fast and as far as he could get.
00:25:11
Speaker
But as far as he could get, ended up being Shin Ji-young's hometown, close to a place that he remembered as making him happy. There was this whole sequence in the teenage years where they basically ran away from home for a day.
00:25:28
Speaker
they went to Xinjiang's old hometown and they couldn't find anywhere to sleep because no hotels would take them because they were minors and they couldn't stay in the sun overnight. And so they basically snuck into some kind of school building or whatever and slept on some seats. But it was such a moment that belonged to them and it was such a happy moment for both of them having that experience together. That happy moment is what Doho is drawn to and how he ends up being drawn back into Jeong's orbit. He goes to his old neighborhood in some way, I think, knowing that at some point he's going to run into Shin Jeong, even as he's avoiding it. Shan, you're the most powerful hater I know. You are very specific in your gripes when people hurt one another in dramas. Sure am. Go in and let hash.
00:26:27
Speaker
First of all, I really like the very complex decision to have Zhu Yong stay close to Doho's father. The way that this all fell apart is that Zhu Yong had an altercation with Doho's father that ended up interrupting Doho's exam. It is the reason Doho failed, lost his chance to go to college in the way that he intended to.
00:26:53
Speaker
Zhu Yang has a lot of guilt about that situation. And he also, as Nini said, is kind of emotionally stuck in that moment where everything went sideways. So not only does he not leave, not only does he try to maintain some connection with the places and the people that he had when he was with Doho, not only does he keep trying to find Doho, he maintains a very close relationship and even grows much closer to Doho's father in his absence and takes care of him and acts the part of the filial son in a way that Doho is no longer doing.
00:27:31
Speaker
That's a really interesting choice. I think it's in part very much driven by his guilt that he has for messing up Doho's life. I think he is in a way trying to do penance for his role in what went wrong. But for Doho, that choice looks hurtful and absurd that Juyang would stay and take care of his abuser.
00:27:58
Speaker
and be filial to the man who Douhou has been afraid of and running from for his entire life. Douhou has a lot of valid anger, I think, about Zhu Yong making that choice. At the same time, Douhou really was cruel in the way that he ghosted Zhu Yong, and he was certainly cruel when he met him again 12 years later.
00:28:25
Speaker
It's something that you really have to give some time and space to think about, like, what is motivating him here? Because again, this is not a show that looks into the camera and tells you everything the characters are thinking. Why, when he saw Ju Young again, was he so mean to him, so belittling? He used Hyun-ho against him to imply things about their relationship that were not true just to hurt Ju Young.
00:28:48
Speaker
He put on this front, pretending to be this very successful, haughty guy who didn't care about Joo Young, who hadn't thought about him in years. He made some really cruel choices, but you can kind of understand why he feels so complicated about Joo Young. Joo Young is tied to all of these horrible things that he has tried to move beyond, that he is trying to let go of.
00:29:14
Speaker
He wants to get free of this curse on his life that is his father. And Zhu Yang is so wrapped up in those things. When we talk about Huang De Sol's patterns, this is a pattern that she has across her shows. She likes to take a character to the limits, really push on how cruel she will let them behave in the name of whatever psychological shit they're dealing with and try to find a way to redeem them. What really worked with the way that she set up this conflict with Doho and Ju Young is that even though it was really hard to watch him be awful to Ju Young, a character that we all feel protective of,
00:29:54
Speaker
You could really understand why he was feeling that way, why he was acting that way. We knew enough about Doho. We saw enough of what he experienced to be able to extend that empathy to him and forgive him for the way that he was behaving just as Ju Young did. I thought that was just so well done in this show in a way that, frankly, has not been in her previous attempts at this dynamic.
00:30:17
Speaker
but as a regular defender of Huang Dusou's wrong voice. you should and and I'm not even gonna, I'm letting that go. Continue. Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo is the culmination of everything that Huang Dusou has been trying to do across all these different shows, and she finally got it exactly right. I don't disagree, but I also don't 100% agree.
00:30:46
Speaker
One of the things that I want to talk about that we haven't really delved into, we haven't delved into the violence as a motivating actor for why Dole was so cruel to Jeong when he goes to him and when he's coming back to him because of Doho's experience with his father, Doho abhors violence. There is a scene where after he realizes that Jiyoung has been sent away because of the fight, he goes into the kitchen and he picks up a knife and he
00:31:25
Speaker
gets really close to honestly stabbing his father. And he looks at his reflection and he's horrified by what he sees there. He is defying himself and everything that he's trying to do by being the opposite of his father, by refusing violence. He won't even do Taekwondo anymore because he has decided against violence so deeply. And so to see that connection between his father and himself to see that the violence could also be in him too, and that the violence and the rage could come from the way that he cares about Gyeong freaked him the fuck out.
00:32:03
Speaker
That's a big chunk of why he ran away and why when he does come back, he's so cruel because he's terrified of that part of himself. And so the whole thing where Ji Young is now close to his father, there's another layer to that now of, I have removed myself from this situation because I was afraid of who I would become. And here you are not having that problem.
00:32:29
Speaker
I think about what was different on the day that Doho called police. And I think the difference is that I think Joo Young fought back that day. I think there's a difference between accepting the beating and fighting back. And what Doho was afraid would happen once they both started fighting and it wasn't just beating him.
00:32:50
Speaker
A really good layer there is that Doho knew all along that his father was beating up Joo Young. There were a lot of moments where we would see Doho notice bruises on Joo Young and look away from them and not ask the question. He has definitely seen them and he just kept his mouth shut. But on that day,
00:33:11
Speaker
He saw something that scared him. I think Ben is right. He saw Joo Young fighting back and he really worried about what the consequences of that could be. And that is why he finally intervened.
00:33:29
Speaker
Let's talk about the second chance. Shan is somebody who has been a huang da soul. critic in terms of how she's handled the reconciliation between couples when they break. I would like you to walk us through this one and why this one worked for you.
00:33:46
Speaker
I think what worked so well in this is that we were seen enough of Doho's experiences and his background to understand where he was coming from, even without it being very explicitly spelled out. We were able to watch the whole process of him putting up this front for Ju Young, pushing him away.
00:34:09
Speaker
finally breaking down, admitting the truth of what his life had become, the truth of how he felt. We got to see them really take time on fighting through all of that. And then really importantly, we got to see them work together to figure out how to repair their relationship and to build a new life for themselves that worked for them and to see how it worked. We got to see that whole journey for them. We got to see Doha admit and explain why he had been behaving the way that he was, what he was afraid of. We got to see him own the things that he had done wrong or that he had been hiding and be honest with Ju Young and really drop his shield
00:34:57
Speaker
And also be the one to reach out and start making some amends. Some of these aspects were missing in other shows, which is why I criticized them. Here, we see the whole arc of that. We got to really believe in their new start and why it works.
00:35:13
Speaker
I did not end this trauma feeling like they're going to have this problem again. I felt like they really moved past these childhood traumas that had been weighing them down and found a way forward together. And we got to see them experiencing not just a happy epilogue of cutesy moments, but an epilogue where They lived life day to day together and they had disappointments and they realized some things weren't going to work the way they thought and they worked through that and they found a new way to be content. And so I really left the show feeling like I got to see Doho heal in a way that made me think he was going to be okay fully.
00:35:55
Speaker
The flip side of that is that you got to see Ji Yong get angry and really push about what had happened. They had a a little bit of a false start reunion in the middle. Things seem like they're going okay, but Ji Yong wants to unpack what happened.
00:36:10
Speaker
yeah so that it doesn't happen again. And Doho is resistant to that because he's still hiding so many things. So part of the reason that all of that works is because, like you said, there is the discussion. There is the amends. There is the coming clean. There is the fighting through it that you get to see. How Doho went to jail? He said that. That man went to jail and got out of jail so fast.
00:36:39
Speaker
Let me go back to what Nini said. One of the things I love the most in this show is that in this adult reconciliation arc, they have the big dramatic reunion moment. They have sex and it doesn't fix fucking anything. We got to see them have the initial reunion euphoria and then realize they still had to deal with all their shit and then watch them deal with it. It was fucking awesome. This is what I want from a drama about a relationship.
00:37:04
Speaker
Their sex scene is probably one of my favorites of the year because they intercut the current sex scene with a sex scene we didn't get before but when they were kids and I really like the framing of it because the youth one is furtive and uncertain but excited. As two young people are going to be they're getting away with something that's really important to them and they're happy about it but It didn't fix the issues that were going to show up then, and the sex they're having doesn't fix their issues now. And it was interesting seeing them have sex as adults where they know their bodies a lot more, but the emotions are just so off in that moment. It was so clever to mirror that moment with a moment we hadn't seen where their emotions were better aligned.
00:37:53
Speaker
There's more activity in the adult section, but the emotions are more enjoyable in the youth section. That was such an excellent choice. I promised you the moon, episode three. It's the same thing. The use of the cross cutting technique to show you two things being true while they're doing the same activity.
00:38:22
Speaker
I loved the use of Tian He in this show because he lets us know that Douhou knows exactly who the fuck he is at both stages of the show and that he is a shit to everyone that he interacts with when it comes to his queerness and all of the issues that he's hanging on. You know how it's not blamelessness either? He ends up bullying Douhou.
00:38:48
Speaker
He's hanging around Doho, trying to make amends for what happened between them. And Doho is not giving this name what he wants. This man is desperate. He wants Doho to fuck him so bad it makes him look stupid. And Doho will not give it to him. This role that Hyun-ho has about how he probably should have had a shot in here at some point, but can't works so well, particularly because that character is given closure in the story as well. Huang De Sol is really good at dealing with the trauma of someone ghosting you when you were really important to them and they were important to you. One of the things I love about her work is that she doesn't think it's wrong for characters to break up, but she does think it's wrong for characters
00:39:39
Speaker
do not communicate properly with the other person. That person needs to be given the closure. They need to be given permission to mourn the end of something that was important to them. But by denying the other party,
00:39:53
Speaker
the closure they need, neither of you is allowed to move on and it becomes this festering wound that both of you are forced to carry. I think that's probably why I've enjoyed her work so much because for a lot of us, queerness complicates how you can handle many of these relationships. In some cases with guys I've cared a lot about, life just snatched us from each other and we never got to conclude anything that we were going through and I'm just required to keep living after that.
00:40:23
Speaker
I really like how very clear it is in this that Dojo's primary a mistake he makes with all three of the men he has relationships with in this is that he never gave himself or them closure about anything that happened between them. That's why none of them can heal and none of them can get well until he's able to give that to at least two of them.
00:40:51
Speaker
I have to say, as someone who is usually a second lead hater, I really like Hyun-ho. When I say second lead, that's a reference to a very common character archetype in K-drama. Every K-drama romance just about has a second lead character who is the person who is vying for the protagonist's romantic attention.
00:41:14
Speaker
Not necessarily in a love triangle way because it's often not actually a triangle. It's often that the second lead is just holding a one-sided candle, which is definitely the case for Hyun-ho. His inclusion in the story complicated things in a really nice way. In the teenage years, he was there as a signal that Do-ho already knew himself. Hyun-ho was struggling with his own internalized homophobia in high school and so was really awful to Do-ho. And then as an adult, he really tried to make that up to him by doing what he thought was the right thing, in helping Do-ho to run away.
00:41:46
Speaker
from his trauma and helping him to build this new life, which turned out to be fraudulent, by helping him to perpetuate the fraud, by helping him to keep his secrets, by helping him to cover up his lies. He thought incorrectly that being Doho's conspirator in that way was going to bring them closer and going to make him the person who knew Doho best.
00:42:11
Speaker
And I really felt a lot of sympathy for him in the end because it's not his fault that he didn't actually know Do-ho and didn't know that that was what was good for him. Do-ho never let him know him. He never let Hyun-ho really know him in the way that he let Joo Young. And so Hyun-ho didn't realize that the things he was doing because he thought they were what Do-ho wanted and needed were actually the things that were weighing Do-ho down.
00:42:38
Speaker
It wasn't his fault that he had it wrong and that he couldn't understand Doho in the way that Joo Young did. And it wasn't his fault that Doho used him quite knowingly as a lifeline, as a way to protect himself, as a way to dig at Joo Young. That was very wrong of Doho to use him and his feelings for him that way.
00:43:02
Speaker
And to Doho's credit, he realized that in the end, and he apologized. And that was one of my favorite scenes in the show, was Doho really owning that he had not done Hyun-ho right, and that his behavior toward him was not okay, and apologizing for that to the point where they could move past it and become genuine friends. I really loved that arc.
00:43:20
Speaker
And I really ended up respecting Hyun-ho. I respected that he still got his moment to share his feelings honestly and ask the question why it wasn't him and to take a moment to understand that and to mourn what he thought he could have had with Doh-ho. It's so sad to think about him hanging on to this for so long. Twelve years of this separation, Hyun-ho was there as Doh-ho's friend waiting for his moment that never came.
00:43:49
Speaker
And because the way that it was presented and the way that he handled himself, I didn't end up thinking anything negative about him for that. I just felt sympathy for the situation he was in, and I was happy for him that he was able to finally be free of it. I'm glad he was let go, because the fundamental reason why Do-Ho can never let him smash is that Hyun-ho lives an existence that is inherently closeted, and Do-Ho doesn't want that.
00:44:16
Speaker
And he doesn't know how to say that properly to Hyun-ho. I'm very glad that there was a very gentle release of that for Hyun-ho. I really hope that Hyun-ho is able to reckon with the way his help of Do-ho inherently closeted him, trapping them in a lie that both of them are holding together.
00:44:38
Speaker
And I really hope that Hyun-ho is able to find his own ability to have a relationship that doesn't require him to fight so much all the time.
00:44:58
Speaker
Let's talk about that child? What do you say it like that?
00:45:04
Speaker
I think you're right though, Ben, to call this out is another one of the common themes that she revisits. There's a tiny child and they helped bridge the gap in the separated couple. In this show, we got Guangmo.
00:45:15
Speaker
Guangmo represents for them the cycle that they're stuck in, that they would like to see broken. I really love that they're able to do that for that kid, but in a way that further sets them back personally and professionally. The world can be made better by brave people putting themselves on the line, and a lot of the people who are first are going to get slapped down for it.
00:45:41
Speaker
Doho can't remain a teacher because he's not technically qualified and he embarrassed someone with money. Even if he's right, the powers that be are going to slap him down for what he did. Ju Young is still struggling to try and make something of himself that he has independent control over. I love that they were willing to accept that loss to make sure that a kid they cared about was safe.
00:46:08
Speaker
The one time that the couple moving into the smaller house made sense. Oh, why are you trying to make me mad again? Don't think I forgot. Let's talk about that epilogue because you you brought up the house. The ending of this show, that little happy epilogue we get is the best happy epilogue we have gotten in a long time because everything we saw in that was perfectly calibrated.
00:46:36
Speaker
for where these two are realistically, what sort of difficulties they're going to be facing personally and financially, what their lives are going to look like socially, they confirmed that they are having the sex on the rag, and, finally, Doho got to see all of that boy's Yahoo answers.
00:46:58
Speaker
ah Yes, you need to talk about those forum posts at the end. It was such a lovely little button on the show. We've seen their domestic life. They're making it work. They are compromising together. They are happy and content in what they have. And Doho has let go of some of his huge aspirations for himself that were really just pressure. One of the things I love about the epilogue is this message that Actually having a loving partnership that you care about and that you're committed to it's a life achievement that you can stand up next to anything else that you do and so just because he didn't have a fancy degree or a high-paying job didn't mean that he had achieved nothing in life because He had this beautiful relationship that he cared so much about and then on top of that we see Doho
00:47:48
Speaker
looking through something on Ju Young's computer and stumbling upon his forum history, where we learned that Ju Young has for years been posting questions for advice. And they're nearly all about things he wanted to do to help Doho. That forum is where he went to learn how to make snow when they were teenagers.
00:48:12
Speaker
As he read through the questions, you could see him connecting them back to memories of their time together. He has always, always cared about Doho, and he has always been willing to show up and put in the effort for him. It was really beautiful. Nene, reset the clock. I'm going to mention what did you meet yesterday?
00:48:30
Speaker
but but Doho got to have the moment that Kenji got to have when he opened that refrigerator and saw that there were peaches waiting for him.
00:48:43
Speaker
The last thing I want to say about this is I really love the way Hwang Besso uses the bed in this show, that we can see Doho's current demeanor shifting by how he shares a bed with Ji Young. I love that by the end he is a sloppy sleeper, like hanging on top of that poor man.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah, because the first time that they sleep in the bed together that we see in the second half of their relationship, he says he doesn't remember the last time that he slept properly. And Jeong is just like, just lying down and shutting your eyes gives you the same kind of thing. So there's this whole thing where he's like slowly relaxing back into himself so that by the time you see him in the epilogue, he's basically sleeping all over the bed. It's just joyous to watch it happen. but He's so comfortable. I would like to end this section by giving thanks. Everybody go around and say things they're thankful for. I'm thankful for quite a few things. I'm thankful that we ended on the shot of that cross being thrown away. um Yes. Amen and hallelujah. And I would like to thank Lee Seon for his face. Congratulations.
00:49:53
Speaker
The Koreans have a term, face genius. He is one. He is definitely a face genius. I would like to offer thanks to h Huang De Sol for continuing to perfect this story until she fucking nailed it and delivered the perfect version of it. Hats off to you, ma'am. You did it. I would like to thank Huang De Sol for Lee Do Ho.
00:50:21
Speaker
I think the lead oval character is one of the best things I've ever seen anywhere in drama, not just BL, not just K-Trauma, anywhere in drama. That's right. Maybe my favorite character of the year. I got to think about that. He's definitely one of them. The other one might be the one we're about to talk about. The vibes are coming, girls. Just think about it. I'm curious. I love these boys, but I already have my favorite boy of the year.
00:50:50
Speaker
All right, let's rate this bad boy. Tens of chops, everybody. Shan. As if it would be a chop. I'm actually trying to remind myself what score I gave it. Do you gotta think about this? I'm just double checking. I gave it a perfect 10, baby. ran Congratulations. Golf clap for the show.
Introduction to 'Love in the Big City'
00:51:10
Speaker
And only 10 that I gave to any BL this year.
00:51:14
Speaker
I mean, y'all know how stingy Shan is with these 10s. Shan is not me. Shan never gives shit a 10. It's so true. A Shan 10 is quite a momentous event. This is the only BL this year that's getting one from me. I love this show. I think it is one of the best BLs ever made. It's beautiful. Everyone should watch it.
00:51:42
Speaker
It's a motherfucking 10 from me. I don't think I need to explain that anymore than I already have. Juan Gasol is my queen. This is a 10. I got everything right. I got the romance right. I got the gay shit right on multiple fronts. I got the gay shit right with the lead and the guy who can't win because we do need to accept that the world does not perfectly align for everybody to have the first person they like and you got to move on.
00:52:12
Speaker
Great job, everybody. Great job. It will be a 10 from the conversation. Go watch it. It is the greatest thing that happened this year, except for this next thing that we're going to talk about now.
00:52:27
Speaker
what well
00:52:36
Speaker
Let's move on to the drama adaptation of Love in the Big City. Love in the Big City is the second adaptation this year of a book by Korean author Sangyeon Park, which was translated by Anton Herr and pushed into international distribution. The book became very popular internationally, which rebounded domestically to get more views there.
00:53:05
Speaker
Sengyang Park was not involved with the movie adaptation, which Nini did watch earlier this year. He was involved with the drama adaptation and was the lead screenwriter for this. The story is about the narrator who we just refer to as Young. It's about four different periods in his life. The original book premise treats these periods as semi-distinct from each other, whereas the drama presents them as a more linear story.
00:53:32
Speaker
In the first part, we focus heavily on our narrator's college relationship with his best girlfriend and how their relationship eventually comes to an end as it's the pressures of heteronormativity and long-term survival require certain concessions.
00:53:54
Speaker
The second part of the story is when Yang is a little bit more mature. He's dealing with the impending death of his mother and he meets this somewhat older man and it's about the complex relationship he has with his homophobic mother and this homophobic boyfriend. The third part has our narrator.
00:54:17
Speaker
with probably the best boyfriend he has and how their relationship was not one that our narrator was able to make succeed in the long term. And the fourth part is him recognizing that he fucked up pretty badly in the third part and having to reckon with a life after his big love had come to an end.
00:54:43
Speaker
I want Shan to talk about why we were so excited about this drama and why Shan approached me about organizing a book club on Tumblr. Maybe my favorite thing that we did this year was Love in the Big City Book Club. In January of 2024, we got news that Love in the Big City was going to get two adaptations, a drama adaptation and a film adaptation.
00:55:11
Speaker
I had read the book, Ben had not. And I was like, what would be very cool would be to try to encourage some of our friends, some of the folks that we are in community with on Tumblr to read the book together. And so we decided we were going to spend the month of February, 2024 reading the book together with anyone who wanted to join us in this book club with the intention of getting excited about a clear story that was going to be coming to our screens.
00:55:37
Speaker
We talked earlier about the How You Wave and how BL started to come into that. I think a piece that we didn't really address was that queer representation in mainstream K-drama is still and incredibly rare. There have been isolated characters and storylines in mainstream K-drama that are gay, usually very small side roles, usually not depicted as having full lives usually don't get to have romance on screen. We knew that Love in the Big City was a big messy gay story and we knew that with Sang Young Park involved in the drama adaptation there was no way that this was going to be some sanitized version and that that would be a landmark
00:56:29
Speaker
queer media event for Korea. There were a few dozen of us that read the book that really were engaged in participating in the book club posting every week. And we knew that when the drama adaptations were released later in the year, we would be ready to come back to those discussions. A really cool thing that happened while we were doing our book club is that one of our members reached out to Anton Herr, who did the English translation of the book.
00:56:58
Speaker
Anton Herr is a Korean gay man. He had a lot of personal feelings about working on this project. He chose it as a passion project. When he heard from our book clubber that there were a group of us who were doing a book club together on Tumblr, he showed up on Tumblr. He made an account and he posted in our tag to say hello to us and to invite us to ask him any questions that we wanted about his translation work. It was like one of the coolest things ever He opened himself up, he answered dozens of questions for us about how he thought about the translation, why he chose to work on this project, what the story meant to him in his context. And it just really enriched the story for us, really brought it to life, really helped us think about when you're trying to translate Korean content for our global audience, what are the things that you're thinking about?
00:57:49
Speaker
When we found out that the film would be premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and that the drama would then be dropping in October, we were ready. We had all really grown to love this story. We were deep in the weeds on its themes, on what Sanging Park was trying to say with this work, and we were just so excited to get to see it on screen. I was really thankful that Anton was willing to talk to us. I think few things are more validating for The way you try to show respect to the work that you're engaging with by taking it as seriously as you can and respectfully as you can is to have somebody who is closely involved with it acknowledge what you're trying to do and allow you to engage with them. I really appreciate the time that Anton took out for us on that. That was probably one of my most memorable things that happened this year.
00:58:47
Speaker
now Getting into the drama itself, meaning you watched ahead of us because we were intentionally pacing the drama, let's break down some of our big reactives to each part. So, quick feelings that you felt about the first part, particularly about his relationship with Mie. I'm curious about your reactions to the relationship you had with her because you also watched the movie, which is found distinctively primarily from her perspective and focuses on that part of the story.
00:59:18
Speaker
So that's I think a misconception. It's not really from her perspective. The film adaptation covers the first part of the book, so it is about that relationship between, I'm just going to use the drama characters names because they have different names in the film, between Yang and Mie.
00:59:37
Speaker
It really is a two-hander, but you actually see me a mostly from Young's perspective. The film is a different story from what I gather the book story is, because I hadn't read the novel, and definitely different from the drama story. The film is more traditionally what you would expect coming out of K-drama. It stars some really big names who are winning some really big awards now. and Kim Go Eun is fantastic in it. I think that the drama is more grounded and more focused on the things that the audience who is here for my drama would like to see. For me, because I had seen the film first, I had a little bit of a disconnect trying to get through it because I was mentally policing things that were happening in the drama next to things that were happening in the film.
01:00:35
Speaker
and While I enjoyed it, there were parts that I was missing and looking forward to that ended up being in later parts of the drama. So I kind of had to watch it twice. The main thing that stood out for me about the first part of the drama was that part you said better about how me, in the end, slips away from Jung. And it's because heteronormativity and misogyny and conservatism of Korean society are forcing me down a path that Yeon cannot follow and does not want to follow. Whereas in the film, they have more of a rupture in the drama, it's more of a gentle slipping away. It's not that they're not still friends, but me as priorities change.
01:01:32
Speaker
in a way that Jung can't follow her into. Because Korea is such a conservative society and such an ambitious, absolistic society as well, I think people make compromises. They compromise and they compromise to have the like that they think that they should have or they're a little bit beaten down into the life that the society expects them to have. I'm always fascinated of watching that trajectory happen in dramas. That's the part that I really latched into there, the fact that the reason that they came away from each other is because literally me it is able to do that and young is not. Yeah, quick reactions to part one.
01:02:19
Speaker
It's so interesting to me that we had such different trajectories. For me, one of the most surprising and wonderful things about the drama is how close it was to the book. There are changes. and They start to become more pronounced as we go through, but I was so happy about how close this felt to the story that was originally intended to be told.
01:02:43
Speaker
I really loved that in part one, Mie and Young, their relationship was paired with a relationship with Kim Nam-gyoo, who was a boyfriend of Young's that just was kind of out of step with him. They were not looking for the same things.
01:03:02
Speaker
young was very young and he was kind of cruel to Namgu about some of their differences. I thought that was a really nice parallel that he had these two relationships where he just wasn't really on the same page with the people that he was engaging with. And he didn't, I think, realize that Miye ultimately wanted to conform in a way that he did not. And that became a fracture in their relationship. They didn't have a big dramatic blow up in the drama version. It was a much gentler kind of drifting away that happens a lot with people that you're very intensely in relationship with in your early 20s. As life goes on, you make different choices and you kind of realize that you're not each other's confidant anymore. You're not the person who can understand each other best anymore.
01:03:52
Speaker
It was sad, but it felt real. It felt true to the choices that they both made in their lives. But it was also a really big heartbreak for him. I think his first big heartbreak in terms of having someone that he really let in and then having that person disappoint him and not stick around, that started a pattern for him of behavior and the way that he engaged in his relationships.
01:04:17
Speaker
I really liked the depiction of Mie. I thought the actress that played her, Lee Soo Kyung, really embodied the spirit of that character. Her and Nam Yoon Soo had great platonic chemistry as friends. I also want to shout out Kwon Hyuk, who played Nam Gyu. He is a BL guy. We've seen him before. Yeah, he's my man, Jong Chan. Don't think I forgot about my man.
01:04:42
Speaker
One of the cool things that Love in the Big City did was it cast quite a few people who have done BL before, which was pretty fun. and He was great as this older love interest that was more traditional and out of step with Bratty Little Young. The piece that really resonated for me when thinking about how it compared to the book in this first part was that the fracture between Mia and Young didn't feel as harsh. The choice that she made, we had more context for her decision in the drama than we did in the book.
01:05:09
Speaker
The most common thing that you'll hear us say is that the book was extremely interior. We were sitting with Young in his older age as he was looking back with regret and narrating to us what happened. The drama has a wider point of view. It takes us into the perspectives of the other characters. And so it just naturally lightens things up a little bit because we're not so stuck in one person's very cynical perspective.
01:05:35
Speaker
Will Sirius being kinder to the supporting characters in Young's life makes the book much sadder because he was not accepting of all of the love people were trying to give him. My favorite thing about the first part is about how In both major relationships Jung has, he's struggling with their connection to traditional feelings about romance. Kwon Yook is so perfectly cast. He fit this very specific ideal. A man who is kind of caught up in the whole K-dramification of love. Jung is like, I get called slurs. I am not about that.
01:06:11
Speaker
The great thing about Mie and why this particular presentation is so important to me is because despite how people who aren't connected to queer people might think gay men don't have relationships with women, every gay man has spent an extremely painful breakup with a woman who is super important to him. Every gay man I know has a woman who was their rock in their early 20s.
01:06:38
Speaker
that for whatever reason it did not work out with, none of us gets over that. And I really loved seeing that represented.
01:06:53
Speaker
and part two let's talk about the worst man ever but but
01:07:00
Speaker
In part two, Young is a little bit older and Nam Yun Tzu, the director of part two, they were fucking it dialed in on how heavy that man's life was. It was Herjin Ho then. Herjin Ho uses long shots and wide shots so well in this section to communicate how stuck Young is.
01:07:23
Speaker
Young is dealing with his mother who is in the hospital with cancer and is not going that great and his mom is working in his damn nourishment her Christianity at the same time he is caught up in this new relationship with a man named No Young Sue and it is difficult because as hot and smart and mysterious as he finds this guy, this man is super closeted and icky homophobic. It is difficult to watch him dealing with his mom's version of homophobia ah
01:07:58
Speaker
and then trying to love a man with his own version of homophobia. I want Nina to go first because you don't want Shannon and I's book experience to color your reactions. This is actually my favorite part of the drama. There's something about the relationship that Young has with his mother.
01:08:17
Speaker
that puts me in mind of something that I've seen with other people, who his parents know but won't acknowledge what they know about their kids.
01:08:31
Speaker
He's constantly instant running away from his mother. He goes to the hospital this year because he's a good son and he goes to take care of her and all of that. She loves her but he also can't wait to get away from her. And as you go along you see there's ah a kind of a brightness and a brittleness in their relationship that feels like they're dancing around something that they both know is there but will not speak about. That comes to a head at the end of this section.
01:08:57
Speaker
What it culminates in is as his mom is getting closer to the end, he wants to be real with her. He doesn't want to have this false, brittle relationship that they have where they joke around and play and they don't talk about anything real. He wants to show her his life and who he is, and he wants her to see him before she dies. So he is in this relationship with this horrible man.
01:09:23
Speaker
And he knows that this man is horrible. But he is holding onto it because he wants to show his mother, look mom, this is who I am. And I can be happy like this. I can have a life like this. And then this man bails on him in the moment where he needs him to be able to show that to his mother. I'm kind of glad that he bails on him because that wasn't the one. That wasn't the person who made him happy.
01:09:53
Speaker
And if his mother had seen that, I think she would have picked up on that as well. So it's this terrible thing where it feels like his mom dies without ever really knowing her son and that haunts him in a lot of ways. It feels like it's probably the thing I related the most to in the entire drama.
01:10:17
Speaker
despite the fact that this is Loki, the worst person, the young dates and the whole thing, the worst relationship, the worst everything. To me, this is the part, the part with his mother and everything that's going on there that really sunk into me.
01:10:36
Speaker
the book is much darker than what we got in the drama. And actually, that's the reason this is not my favorite part of the drama, because the book version is my favorite part of the entire story. I don't think that that's a bad adaptation choice, though. I think it was appropriate for the drama they were making, but I already have the book part two in my heart, and it didn't really match up to that.
01:10:56
Speaker
the juxtaposition of Young's mother, her homophobia and the way that it had hurt him against the relationship that he was having with No Young Soo, who is very much hiding who he is, who also has a very complicated relationship with a difficult mother.
01:11:15
Speaker
It really felt like Jung was kind of burying himself a little bit in this relationship that he knew on some level was not good. But he needed the distraction. He needed somewhere to take all of these emotions that he could not unleash on his mother. And he sublimated them into this relationship that was ultimately quite toxic.
01:11:40
Speaker
That just rang so true to me. This is exactly who I would expect Young to be dating in this dark period of his life, where he is trying to work through all of his guilt and all of his shame and all of his extremely complicated feelings about his mother.
01:11:58
Speaker
I thought that the way it was depicted and the way that he was allowed to take a little bit of power back from Young Sue at the end of this section, the way that even though he was never able to fully express himself to his mother, he did get to have some moments with her at the end of peace. I thought that was really beautiful. I have a book question before we go on to Ben.
01:12:23
Speaker
You said the drama is more linear, puts these stories sort of in sequence in time, whereas the book is more vignette-y. One of the things that came to mind in his relationship with Yinsu is all the stuff that's going on with his father, yes. But also this is after Namgyu has died and he's been pondering all these questions about how he treated him and whether it's that he didn't even try to love him. And so part of it is yes, everything that's going on with his mother and him supplementing himself in this dark relationship. But the other part of it is him pushing through to try to make it work because he thinks that he didn't do that with Namgyu and he feels a lot of guilt about it.
01:13:09
Speaker
I really loved that as a drama read because in the book, Namgu is just Kia Guy to us. He's not even a real character in the book. So it's hard as someone who read the book first and knows the quote unquote true version of the story to read it that way. Cause he just wasn't someone with that kind of importance in the original telling of this story. But I do think it's a layer that the drama added and can certainly be read that way.
01:13:34
Speaker
I don't think there's anything wrong with your reading connecting those two things. It's just so when we read the book, Young is so distinct in each section that he almost feels like a different character. Yeah, it's very intentional, the book not drawing those lines of connection between the parts, which definitely informs the way that we interpret the beats of the story. It's a good thing to point out. I think that's the intent.
01:13:56
Speaker
Because the same author is telling this story, I think your read on that and connecting those two things is 100% valid and likely intentional. This is an autobiographical story that became a novel, that became a drama, and the same man is the one who authored all of these versions of it. I think that that's really interesting that he came back to his own life experiences and added layers to them for a television drama version of the story. I'm sure that just like he did when he wrote the novel, he drew from things that felt real and authentic to him. and
01:14:36
Speaker
I got a couple of things to say about part two before we move on to all of the baby gays out there. If you're going to fuck a guy with this much internalized homophobia, don't fall for him because they are not well. You cannot fuck the homophobia out of them. I also will say this section has one of my favorite moments, the final scene in the park with his mom to me.
01:15:04
Speaker
he hearkened back to the very complicated feelings I had during part three of Moonlight where Chiron is seeing his mom for the last time in the film and he says, I hate you mama and he cries and she cries but then he still lights a cigarette for her. That's the exact same place I went emotionally in that scene in the part. My big thing about this section and how they lighten some of this in the book Young doesn't have his blow up with Hyung, as we called him in the book, in public. He has this in private in his apartment, and he legit tries to kill that man. I appreciate the drama's choice, but let me tell you, I really was hoping we get the intensity that he really, really wanted to kill that man. The whole nature of the scene is different in the book. He really could have killed him, and he wanted to.
01:15:57
Speaker
I wanted him to kill him. When they're sitting in that restaurant and he's saying all the things that he's saying about leaving and going to America and I know what Yang is going through in that moment and that he basically left Yang Han out to dry when he really needed him. He turns to go and I see Yang launch himself away from that table. I was like, yes baby, kill him. That man needs to be stabbed.
01:16:22
Speaker
I think because of the medium I liked the choice to have Hyung writing like a shitty research paper about how gay people are fucked in the head and then send that shitty paper to Hyung for him to throw away. In the book he sends Hyung his own diary back to him with edits. That is the most insane thing I have ever read and I will always hate that man with a fiery passion.
01:16:50
Speaker
He literally took a red pen to that man's diary and sent him notes. Despicable man. He could talk about murdering that man all night. so
01:17:10
Speaker
In part three, Young buries his mother. And when he's hanging out with his friends to try and blow off some steam, He has a connection with one of the bartenders at the club. Two of them start hanging out and this grows into something really important for them. They try to do cohabitation and making their relationship work, but unfortunately Young's brain does not allow him to have the relationship he wants to have with Yuho.
01:17:44
Speaker
We learn in this section that Young has been sick with HIV for quite some time and he can't even say it. He calls it Kylie after one of his favorite singers. This becomes an insurmountable struggle eventually in their relationship. This section, unfortunately, is about a really good relationship that just wasn't enough.
01:18:10
Speaker
like i was saying to the gays in the last part you can't fuck these problems out of people yuho couldn't either reactions to part three nine how you feel and once the whole kylie thing comes to the fore It completely re-jiggers how I think about everything else that's been happening. The first question that I'm asking in my head is, when did this happen? Because it's not really clear when he found out about Kylie. Is it before he meets Mia? Is it before he meets Young? When did he change? I think it's after he meets Mia, but it's before the Tiaras go off to their military service.
01:18:55
Speaker
I got to think about that because that just recasts everything. It does. Like the fight that he has with her where she outs him to her fiance. The reason why he's so mad there is he almost trusted her with that. And he almost made in his mind a mistake doing because this is not part of the film. And I had not read the book. This came out of nowhere for me. He does the same thing in the book.
01:19:21
Speaker
You don't know anything about it until part three. Each part has two relationships that it focuses on. Part one is Mie and Namgyu. Part two is his mother and Yansu. And part three is Gyuho and Kylie.
01:19:39
Speaker
I still think about that, that choice to pair who he considers at this point when he's writing this story to be the love of his life and the companion that he did not choose, that he can't get rid of, who haunts his life. I think that's such an interesting thing, particularly in the context of the way that Yuho ends up kind of haunting the narrative after this relationship fails. These are the two relationships that really stick with Jung and change him.
01:20:07
Speaker
The thing to know about Yuho is he is the only named love interest in the entire book. Everyone else is referred to by vague descriptors. Like No Young Sue, he is just Hyung to us. And Kia Guy is just Kia Guy. Hyung doesn't even tell us his name.
01:20:28
Speaker
That's why Gu Ho was so important to a lot of us from the book reader perspective because this is our guy. and for ris it' to see so guy i didn it is Young's most important relationship as he sees it in terms of romance. This is the one that he was happiest with. This is the one that almost worked. This is the one that got away. This is the one that haunts him still.
01:20:54
Speaker
And so it was really important that they got him right and they did. They really, really did. And that is why for me as a book reader, part three is actually my favorite. I think that it is the most successful in translating exactly what this part of the book was trying to do and living up to the exact same standard of it. It was perfect.
01:21:16
Speaker
In this section for me, a couple of things really come to fruition in a way that I thought were perfect. Like the fact that they kept Mie's apartment as a character in the drama and a way that the book doesn't, it really works here because Jung has stripped sociability from the apartment at this point. Like he's gotten rid of the TV. Clearly he doesn't invite people over except the fuck. He's got books all over the place. Yuho moves in.
01:21:44
Speaker
And they have to purge some of his shit. He has to reorganize things in the place. He's managed to contain his writing to one table they've put up against the window. But you can see him struggling in this section. He knows what Kylie is costing him. And he wants to succeed as a writer.
01:22:04
Speaker
because he wants to be independently wealthy in a way that can supersede the barriers that Kylie genuinely presents to his life in terms of professional and personal advancement.
01:22:19
Speaker
He's trying to make this work, but he's so fucking mad because he can't, he and Gujo are not great and they keep having the same fights over and over again. They really figured out how to show how difficult gay domesticity is. This pairs so well with all of the heteronormative pressures from the first two parts. For a lot of hetero people, there are all of these expectations about marriage and child rearing.
01:22:47
Speaker
that help them prioritize their relationship in such a way they can make it work for a lot of queer people. Those structures are not there to support a long-term romance. This is such a difficult section because Young is not wrong.
01:23:09
Speaker
about how Haile is going to hold them back. It's just so sad that he was unwilling to accept Yuho's willingness to deal with that.
01:23:23
Speaker
That's one of the things I really love about this story. is Young letting go of this relationship doesn't feel like a wrong choice or a choice that I couldn't understand. I wish he'd chosen differently. I wish that he had tried to talk with Gu Hou about what happened in terms of his Kylie getting in the way of their plans to go to China. I wish that he had tried to work it out. But I really understand why he didn't.
01:23:50
Speaker
Even if Gu Ho was obviously willing to sacrifice things for him, he didn't want Gu Ho to sacrifice things for him. He didn't want Gu Ho to be held back by his disease.
01:24:04
Speaker
He had a lot of really understandable shame and guilt about that. He just couldn't hope with the idea that his Kylie would be the reason why Gu Ho did not get the things that he wanted.
01:24:20
Speaker
And so he ended it. A lot of times in dramas, you'll get a scenario like this where you have what we call a noble idiocy breakup where a character is being stupid for the benefit of the other person. This didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like he was being stupid. It felt like he was recognizing a very real limitation on his life that he did not want to pass on to someone he loved. I want to talk about depression for a minute. Fetalistic sabotage. It's this idea that no matter what you do, it's gonna suck. So let's burn it all down now, because at least that I have control over.
01:25:00
Speaker
the trajectory of Yang's relationship with Gyuho. That's what I was thinking about. The decision that he makes to not go to China and why he's not gonna try to work it out and not mention to Gyuho why he's not gonna try to work it out. That's sort of the end of the trajectory. But along the way you see him, like you said, pull further and further away from Gyuho throughout the relationship. Part of that, I think, is that idea of burning it down before it can burn him down. It's very much a depression thing. Kylie completely addresses him, and I think he's probably at the end of the story just starting to dig himself back out. There's a thing that he does in part four that makes me think that, okay, he's going to start digging himself out.
01:25:50
Speaker
I think that's very real and I think we actually saw an explicit acknowledgement of one of his depressive periods in this part. The whole segment where he was really struggling with his writing and he couldn't focus and he and Guo kept fighting and he was being really snippy with him and we saw Guo come find him at the cafe where he was working and say to him, what can I do for you? Please tell me how I can help you.
01:26:17
Speaker
and Jung told him you can't. The things going out with me are not things that you can fix by loving me. And that's such a fucking hard thing to accept.
01:26:30
Speaker
Let's get into the Thailand trip and how this doesn't fix their relationship. And then he throws that shirt away. My feelings are hurt. Oh, it hurt really so bad. I feel like talking about the Thailand trip in part three almost feels preemptive. We understand that it happened and we get a little bit of it in part three, but we really delve into it in part four. You're running into the book stuff now, Nini, because we don't go back to Thailand in part four in the book. All of it happens in part three.
01:26:59
Speaker
Apparently, for many of the people who watched the show without having read the book, they interpreted these two versions that we saw of the Thailand trip in some wild ways. Because of the way parts three and four are structured, we see this Thailand trip through two different lenses. We see it through this part three segment that is about primarily Gu Ho's relationship with Young and Young's relationship with his Kylie. We see this Thailand trip in the context of them going through a rough patch, taking this trip as a chance to reconnect with each other. We see it as part of Young's commitment
01:27:34
Speaker
to trying to make things work with Gu Ho. He makes time for this trip, even though he is stressed and trying to write and lacking in funds. He makes time for this because he cares about Gu Ho and he cares about their relationship. We see them go to Thailand. We see them have that reconnection that is probably really familiar for anyone who's ever been in a long-term couple and has taken a trip that's meant to be a reset.
01:27:57
Speaker
We see them be happy and content together in their time in Thailand and then we see them come back and have it not fix anything. They come back and all their problems are still waiting for them and they have not addressed them adequately. That's the context of Thailand in part three. It was a little bit of a Hail Mary on trying to get them back on the same page, and it worked to an extent, but it didn't address the underlying issues, so it didn't ultimately fix things. But it was still this really lovely memory for them as a couple this time that they spent together in Thailand.
01:28:35
Speaker
Now, let's talk about habibi. So in part four, we then revisit this Thailand trip through the lens of a young who is mourning his relationship with Gu Ho, who is looking back and remembering it a little bit differently or remembering different parts of it.
01:28:53
Speaker
Now, nothing in the two presentations of this trip in parts three and four actually contradicts each other in terms of the sequence of events and what happened. Some of the shots contradict each other. Some of the tone of the scenes feel different. And that was very intentional. There were different directors shooting these scenes in each part.
01:29:12
Speaker
there were different moods and different perspectives from young that they were trying to get across in each sequence. and It's not that as some people apparently interpreted it, one of these trips was real and one was fake. There's not some alternate reality thing going on here. We're just seeing the same trip.
01:29:30
Speaker
first through the experience of Young in the present with Yuho as he's trying to repair the relationship, and then later in retrospect as he's thinking back and remembering it through a haze of regret and melancholy. It would not have ever occurred to me that one was real and one- But as he's saying, I'm about to get re-triggered about the headsets all over again. So in part four,
01:29:56
Speaker
Young has achieved some measure of success in his career, but he's feeling very personally unfulfilled. He is very sad about the end of his relationship with Yuho. He seeks solace in this weirdo that he meets Habibi, which of course is not his real name.
01:30:14
Speaker
He's just this older guy that young meets through an app. I really liked the drama's adaptation of this dynamic between them. I really like how deranged it feels. These are two men who are kind of in a super low point, they are looking to each other for distraction more than anything else. They're playing these weird power games with each other. They're fucking with each other. It's a very strange energy that has nothing to do with romance and honestly didn't even seem like it had much to do with sex. It was really just about distracting each other. He's the only love interest, quote unquote, that we saw in the show that didn't have a sex scene.
01:30:57
Speaker
It wasn't even clear if he and Young were having sex. It was a really interesting thing to pair this haunted man who is struggling in his life with basically this mourning for Guo and the relationship that Young let go of.
The Impact of the Tiaras and Adaptation Changes
01:31:14
Speaker
I also thought it was a really interesting choice in the drama to tell us that Guo is still kind of lurking in the atmosphere. He left messages.
01:31:23
Speaker
too young. He left that order at the bar where he used to work that young always gets a drink on his tab when he comes in. Through their networks of people, it became clear that Gu Ho is coming back to Korea. None of that stuff is in the book. And I was very curious about the decision to include those details. I wondered if it was maybe intended to set up the possibility of a continuation of this story. I would have a lot of mixed feelings about that We haven't talked about the Tiaras much. This group of queer men that he is friends with throughout the story, they are probably the biggest change and they really change the feeling of the entire story from the book by making all of it feel lighter, making it feel like Jung always has support that he wasn't so isolated and alone through all of these things that happened to him. In this part four, we actually get to learn more about one of the Tiaras, Eunsoo,
01:32:20
Speaker
who has his own plot that was invented entirely for the drama about getting engaged to his long-term boyfriend and then realizing that he didn't actually want that marriage and turning too young for solace and poor understanding as he was struggling through that. So it's kind of what's going on in this part. It was a really interesting mix of stuff. And I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about some of the changes. I like the word that Chan used, deranged.
01:32:46
Speaker
because that really is how the relationship feels between young and happy be. Bringing up the tiaras. To me, the tiaras don't feel as close to you. To me, they sort of emphasize some parts of his isolation. There's two things that really came up with the tiaras that make me feel that way about them. The first one is that young,
01:33:15
Speaker
does not tell them about Kylie and will not tell them about Kylie because of the reaction that they had and to this other kid at the club who it's the rumor has HIV how they were covering their glasses at the club and Yang sees that. He doesn't feel like he can tell them about Kylie.
01:33:37
Speaker
The thing that really got me was when it gets to the end of the story, we see that Eun-su is getting closer to Young. That also makes me feel like actually the Tiaras, they're close for a certain value of close, but they aren't actually that close because now Eun-su and Young actually are becoming close in part four.
01:33:57
Speaker
They clearly care about him. Everything that happens at the end of part two when he tries to end his life, but they come to the hospital and they're basically fighting the nurses just to be able to visit him. After Gugol leaves and they've banged on his door.
01:34:11
Speaker
to make sure that he hasn't done something again. Like it's clear that they have a close friendship, but it still feels out of distance for me. And one of the things that really came across to me in the whole drama is that Jung keeps people out of distance, even the people that he is close to or supposedly close to.
01:34:29
Speaker
It's so fun to talk to you about this, NeNe, because it's all relative, right? The book is so, so, so much darker than this show. That to us, this show feels super light, but you aren't coming in with that book context. So you feel the dark elements of the show that felt very suppressed to us. Ciaras did not exist for the book readers until part four. And the way that they were presented, I actually thought they were a lot younger than Young,
01:34:57
Speaker
It was in part three that we met them in the book. They're basically presented as his club friends. They are not necessarily close personal friends. They had a much bigger role in the drama. I think it was implied that they were a little bit younger, but I don't remember the exact details of that. What works for me about the Tiaras is it feels like in some ways Sang Young Park was apologizing to his friends who read his book.
01:35:27
Speaker
ah He wrote them out of the story for most of it. And like I'm imagining somebody called him onto the floor and they were like, bitch, we broke into your house for you.
01:35:40
Speaker
and I get what you mean, Nini. They highlight how isolated he is, but what I love about them is that this shows that despite his isolation, he was not as alone as he thought he was. There were people around him that cared about him, that stuck by him, that listened to his bullshit, that supported him and really wanted to be there.
01:36:04
Speaker
That dark moment where he hurts himself and his friends are fighting hospital staff just so they can make eye contact with him and know that he's alive and let him know that they're there too? That had me and Twix sobbing in our DMs for two days!
01:36:19
Speaker
their initial reaction to someone else who was rumored to be positive, influenced, youngs, and ability to be as open with them about that. When you're in your early 20s, you make goofy, foolish mistakes like that, because you're not thinking that one of yours could be sick.
01:36:36
Speaker
You hurt people and they don't trust you at that point. I don't know that Young ever reaches a point where he can tell them about that. And that's kind of sad, but I just loved that they were also one of the through lines of his story along with the apartment. And I love that when he leaves the apartment.
01:36:55
Speaker
he brings them with him. That felt so much better than the very difficult place the book left me. When we finished reading the book, Shan was like, I'm feeling kind of optimistic about that. Meanwhile, me and Bookworm were like, no, we're not. We're going to need to sit with this for a bit.
01:37:15
Speaker
I was very intrigued by Nene's mention earlier that at the end of the show, she felt like Jung was starting to come out of it. That is exactly the feeling I got at the end of the book. And the way we got there was a little different. But I felt like what I saw in part four reading the novel was not a Jung that was healed, but a Jung that was starting to figure out how to be better, how to heal himself. And I felt hope for his future. Ben, I mean, there it is.
01:37:45
Speaker
It was really caught up in the bleakness of where we left him that we didn't get to see him get over that mountain. It felt right to me that we didn't because this is a story that is frozen in a moment in time that was written at the end of this man's 20s.
01:38:02
Speaker
When he was looking back at his young life and the mistakes that he had made, he hadn't yet figured out how to get himself together. He hadn't gotten over that mountain yet. And so neither did Young in the story. It felt appropriate. I think that feeling of hope was present in both versions of the story. And I think it did come through stronger in the drama.
01:38:22
Speaker
The thing that I was alluding to earlier is Jung moving out of the apartment that makes me feel like he's about to dig out because that apartment, it was such a part of him throughout the story. It became this constant in his life. And in the end, I think it was a little bit of a stone around his neck that he needed to get rid of. He needed to make a break with some aspects of the past in order to move forward.
01:38:51
Speaker
And part of that was moving out of that apartment and moving into the new place. The person who's there with him is Eunsu, who he is becoming closer to, because the two of them are having, I think, a different experience from the other TRS.
01:39:06
Speaker
And they are connecting over that experience. And so there's been in this long, very serious relationship that was going to lead towards marriage. And Yeoung had this relationship with Yuho that was incredibly serious and really defining. And I don't feel necessarily like the other TRS had something like that. But for the two of them, it was a thing that they connected over it and they understood essentially why they left those relationships. They didn't have to explain it to each other. They were just able to be. So watching him leave the apartment, watching him get closer to Unsu, those two things are the things that made me feel like Young's gonna be okay. He's gonna dig his way out of this. of I'm glad that we all got there in the drama. I think that's the most important thing that he got right in this adaptation.
01:40:01
Speaker
After taking us on this long journey with Young, he doesn't give us any bullshit answers at the end of it. But at least he showed us that Young is not destined to suffer in spiral for the rest of his life. And I think that's a good place to leave someone after giving us their tumultuous 20s.
01:40:32
Speaker
Before we get into the rating, I think we should talk about the production of this show and the distribution drama around it. First, let's talk about Nam Yoon Soo. Nam Yoon Soo is a phenomenal actor. Amazing. It is very clear that a lot of very careful decisions went into his casting because he has, as of this recording, a very clean public record.
01:41:03
Speaker
Everybody loves this man. He's a favorite of a lot of people. I think it was really clever of them to cast an actor that had such a good reputation, to play such a complex character. You mostly played a lot of side roles in mainstream K-dramas. So he's a very well-known face to K-drama viewers. What a beautiful face. Look at those dimples. Nam Yoon Soo doesn't have the visuals of a heterosexual K-drama lead.
01:41:32
Speaker
But he is perfect as young. He has always been really captivating in every role that he's had. He's a phenomenal actor who, because of the very narrow standards of what is perceived to be the ideal masculine model for heterosexual K-dramas, has not had the chance to lead a show. So I loved seeing him get that chance here, and he ran with it. I loved that he embraced this character so much a gay little run that man executed.
Production Challenges and Reception
01:42:06
Speaker
I will give that man every award that this silly little pie cancer is able to offer him. Body language, his expressions, the inflections that he used in his voice. I've seen him in other stuff. This was all brand new. I really love that he and all of his co-stars were able to get to where they needed with these characters. And I really love the way they
01:42:30
Speaker
clearly coordinated for their press tour for this show. Half the guys were like, I am in love with Nami and Suno. They're like, don't you think that sounds kind of gay? Well, I guess that's who I am now. Who is the actor who played Kyuho?
01:42:47
Speaker
Gyo-ho's actor is Jin Ho-un. He was so honored to be part of this project. He was so excited to play Gyo-ho. Seems like such a nice dude. The guy who played Yung Soo, Na Hyun Woo is his name, he gave interviews where he basically admitted to falling in love with Nanyin Soo while filming this show and becoming a little bit obsessed with him. Relatable.
01:43:12
Speaker
In the interview then, like, have you met any of the other actors that he worked with? Not yet. I don't know if I should. i have some joke is page The reason that I was asking about the actor who played Kyo-ho is because I did see something about how he had wanted to work with Namyun-su for a really long time. And when it came up the chance to work with him, he accepted before he even knew what it was. And when he found out what it was, he was just like, okay, yes, let's do this. And he went full pussy in because he wanted to impress Namyun-su. I thought that was a great story.
01:43:51
Speaker
Everyone in the production had nothing but wonderful things to say about Nami and Sue. He seems quite beloved. He talked about how this was one of the most difficult projects he was in because he's present in every part. He asked to work with these different directors who have different styles. He talked about there was a little bit of a melancholy for him about how right as he was developing a rhythm with one director and their team, he would have to start that over again with another director with each part. He basically made four different dramas inside this drama. He played young differently in each part.
01:44:24
Speaker
Part of why they were able to cast an immune suit is they got two huge grants which helped to make this possible. A lot of these KBOs we watch are made on really tiny budgets and a lot of heart. This is one of the few projects we get to see where a significant amount of money was brought to bear.
01:44:43
Speaker
to make the drama happen. The fact that they were able to afford someone like Nami and Sue is telling about this and this led to a bunch of drama right before the series released where conservative groups were gathering to protest the drama to try and keep it from being aired It leads to the network choosing to just dump the show onto the internet instead of airing it properly. And I am frustrated because I do not think this drama was meant to be binged.
01:45:18
Speaker
That's the way that it got distributed, so of course that's the way that some people watched it. But it only got distributed that way because it had to, to make sure that it could all be released into the world. It was a choice that was made out of necessity and not because it it was what was ideal for the story, which is why Ben and I and some of our friends who were in the book club together intentionally paced it and only watched two episodes a week, which is how it was meant to air.
01:45:41
Speaker
I remember in 2016 when we watched Moonlight feeling like something has shifted in me as a viewer and it's been so disappointing almost a decade later that it does not feel like the artistic impact that I felt in Moonlight has reached a lot of the follow-up media that I thought would speak to it. I really hope that love in the big city reaches a lot of people because this drama is special.
01:46:15
Speaker
Sanyang Park shared that Love in the Big City is getting additional distribution after a really positive reception from the international audience. It aired on Netflix late in December on Wave and Wacha, and it's going to be going to 15 additional Southeast Asian countries. And so despite the protests, despite the difficulty in getting funding and getting this made, it has reached an audience, and that audience has returned Love back to it. It has been heard, and more people are going to get to see this show.
01:46:46
Speaker
That's beautiful news. I also heard that he may have gotten tapped for another project. I think that's right. Sengen Park is continuing to get work. He's still writing books. He's going to be making other shows. I'm very excited to see what else he puts out. This is a really special experience. This is probably my favorite experience of the year. I really really loved the book club experience. And I'm so glad that we were able to carry that forward into the show. On that note, let's rate this bad boy. Tens of chops, NeNe. What's a 10? 10. I gave it in my actual rating a 9.5 because, you know, I'm me and I had some notes, but I loved it. Damn it, Shan.
01:47:40
Speaker
and if you hey But a beautiful, beautiful drama. One of my very favorite things that I watched this year and honestly going on my list of all time favorites. This gets 10 from me because it's a show that I wish everyone would watch slowly and then talk to me about it. Slowly. Please do not binge it and then come talk to us. We're just going to get next.
01:48:06
Speaker
Please, at most, watch two episodes a day and give your brain a chance to absorb what you experience. Somebody on Tumblr said today that they needed five to seven business days to process every section of Love in the Big City, and that is correct. That is the right way to watch it.
01:48:29
Speaker
On that note, Let's wrap up this discussion of two of our three favorite Korean projects of the year. While there is less Korean content overall in BL and in queer drama this year, they gave us some of the best stuff of the year. Thank you all for spending time with us on this. Please share with us your reactions, especially if you were in the book club. I'd love to hear how you're feeling about the show, the book, the movie.
01:48:59
Speaker
after we're a couple of weeks and now maybe months removed from it so that is going to wrap us up on how you our korean wave