a ghost story in a shopping mall -- what's not to like?
The Hong Sisters' 9th script, standard length -- 16 eps at +- 1hr ea.
A good drama from an emotional standpoint if you can hang in there for the first few episodes. A proper Chaebol/CEO story combined with ghosts in a shopping mall (sounds good doesn't it?) and a disheveled psychic who is utterly terrorized by said ghosts. Gong Hyo Jin is creepier than the ghosts to start off with, and the CEO constantly saves her even though he wants nothing to do with her. Do not watch this just after watching The Greatest Love -- this pairing only superficially resembles those fabulous characters.
The script and soundtrack are more powerfully romantically affecting than Gong Hyo Jin's admitted acting skill and the charm of Jo Si Seob (he went onto success as a romantic lead after this). The revelations of their slow and prickly romance are fueled by another of those complicated structures of allusion and jokes which the HS can produce, and which are frustrating to guess at from the subtitles.
A total guess on my part, but most of the subtitles of MSappear to be so literal (i.e.close to the meanings of individual words in Korean) that I think the translators decided to try to give a taste of the verbal humor and play in that way, throwing caution and pronouns to the winds.
Physical touch/sexual attraction and the psychic invisible phenomena are the concepts which are constantly played with (the two words are"sound-alikes" in Korean, hehe). The pair discusses invisibility as part of selfishness -- she was so needy she couldn't "see" him...he is stuck in a mirroring past experience and couldnt see her real self.
The title Masters Sun and her name Tae (means sun) refer to another set of metaphors -- she is a shining light (sun) to ghosts in their world, so they flock to her like moths, but in the outer world she fears she is a darker light.
This attraction of total opposites is compared to a children's fable or book about a wolf and a goat. It sounds like when in Aesop the lamb tries to escape through fancy talk but the wolf cuts in with realpolitick and eats her/him, enough so that the viewer is quite worried about how it will all end.
ps. The CEO calls Seo inguk charater "Candy Kang" with great relish. It looks like a loosely attached Korean POV reference to Seo In Guk's rap stylistics at the beginning of his career. I cant read whether the HS wanted to characterize the CEO as sophisticated (or ignorant as it would be from a US POV). It may just have made cinematic sense to joke around about a truly terrifying young male black ghost trope common in a certain subgenre of hiphop, an image derived from a film/novel of the 80s/90s (look at yourself in the mirror and call the CANDYMAN 5x and he will appear!
first posted on Viki Sept. 23rd 2024
A good drama from an emotional standpoint if you can hang in there for the first few episodes. A proper Chaebol/CEO story combined with ghosts in a shopping mall (sounds good doesn't it?) and a disheveled psychic who is utterly terrorized by said ghosts. Gong Hyo Jin is creepier than the ghosts to start off with, and the CEO constantly saves her even though he wants nothing to do with her. Do not watch this just after watching The Greatest Love -- this pairing only superficially resembles those fabulous characters.
The script and soundtrack are more powerfully romantically affecting than Gong Hyo Jin's admitted acting skill and the charm of Jo Si Seob (he went onto success as a romantic lead after this). The revelations of their slow and prickly romance are fueled by another of those complicated structures of allusion and jokes which the HS can produce, and which are frustrating to guess at from the subtitles.
A total guess on my part, but most of the subtitles of MSappear to be so literal (i.e.close to the meanings of individual words in Korean) that I think the translators decided to try to give a taste of the verbal humor and play in that way, throwing caution and pronouns to the winds.
Physical touch/sexual attraction and the psychic invisible phenomena are the concepts which are constantly played with (the two words are"sound-alikes" in Korean, hehe). The pair discusses invisibility as part of selfishness -- she was so needy she couldn't "see" him...he is stuck in a mirroring past experience and couldnt see her real self.
The title Masters Sun and her name Tae (means sun) refer to another set of metaphors -- she is a shining light (sun) to ghosts in their world, so they flock to her like moths, but in the outer world she fears she is a darker light.
This attraction of total opposites is compared to a children's fable or book about a wolf and a goat. It sounds like when in Aesop the lamb tries to escape through fancy talk but the wolf cuts in with realpolitick and eats her/him, enough so that the viewer is quite worried about how it will all end.
ps. The CEO calls Seo inguk charater "Candy Kang" with great relish. It looks like a loosely attached Korean POV reference to Seo In Guk's rap stylistics at the beginning of his career. I cant read whether the HS wanted to characterize the CEO as sophisticated (or ignorant as it would be from a US POV). It may just have made cinematic sense to joke around about a truly terrifying young male black ghost trope common in a certain subgenre of hiphop, an image derived from a film/novel of the 80s/90s (look at yourself in the mirror and call the CANDYMAN 5x and he will appear!
first posted on Viki Sept. 23rd 2024
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