Kim Dae-Myung | subtitledreams

Review – The Sound of Your Heart

I HAVE NEVER LAUGHED SO HARD OVER A K-DRAMA! Ever. This show is Archer funny. Arrested Development funny. Bojack Horseman and South Park funny. I literally laughed so loud the cat jumped off the couch and hid under the bed. I’ve never seen anything like this before – and I’m loving it! All star cast, all star comedy.

If you have Netflix – start watching this now. If you don’t… well… call up your friends and borrow their passwords, cause this show is golden!

Okay… so this is a situational comedy. And in general, I loathe situational comedies. They are the reason I love Korean dramas so much – they have plotlines that run a course, have narrative, wrap up at the end. This show may or may not EVER wrap up. Just like South Park or The Simpsons, this show may never end. It has it’s set up – which is a struggling webtoon artist trying to break into the industry (played by Lee Kwang-Soo) and his family… which consist of his father (Kim Byung-Ok) who runs a chicken restaurant that rarely sees customers, thus he seeks additional part time employment often and hilarity ensues – his mother (Kim Mi-Kyung) and her stern, but genuine affection – and his adorably awkward older brother (Kim Dae-Myung), who is low on the ladder in the Korean business world and a ridiculous playboy who targets the most unattractive women he can find, seduces them, and quickly throws them aside for the next conquest. He is your quintessential manchild… a selfish, heartless ass… who thankfully is funny, or we would all hate him. And of course we have the extremely attractive woman (Jung So-Min) who has a personality so quirky it has chased away all the extremely attractive men who would pursue her (apparently?), who is the love interest of our sweet, dorky webtoon artist.

Overall Rating – 9/10. Who Doesn’t Love Stupid, Low Brow, Fart Joke Humor?

Mild spoilers & Discussion Follow….

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Review – Incomplete Life (Misaeng)

Work. It’s something most of us have to deal with about 50% of our waking lives, if not more. So much of your identity is tied to what your job is. What kind of life you lead is largely determined by your career, let’s face it. Whether you are a cop, a priest, a lawyer, a chemist, a construction worker, a teacher or a salaryman – your job wraps around you like an extra skin. It shapes your view of the world, the environment you grow accustomed to, the people you are in contact with, and the paycheck you learn to live on.

This is a show about work. It’s a character study, focusing on a few key players and exploring the nature of their personalities, their backgrounds, their current lives, and their struggles and successes as they navigate their careers. It’s fascinating, well written, engaging and just really good. It’s a show that makes you think. It doesn’t hand you all the answers. You’re expected to be smart enough to figure it out or patient enough to wait it out. And the pay off is worth it. It’s an odd mix of realism and subtle optimism, which makes you reflect deeply but offers you hope. I highly recommend it.

Overall Rating – 10/10. You Are What You Do, Not What You Think.

More Musings About Work and the Characters and SPOILERS…

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