Our School E.T. / 울학교 이티

2008 Korean movie about an aging, ex-boxer turned gym teacher who pulls a lot of Onizuka and Yankumi moves to help keep his students in line, but then it is decided that gym isn't so important anymore, and English is king.

The school is (again) run by a bunch of idiots who cave to the unrealistic demands of the parents (especially those with a lot of $$), and the staff are left to pick up the slack while the students pay the ultimate price.

To my surprise, however, this movie turned out to be funny, and in a very, good Korean sort of way, too.

Seong Geun (Kim Su ro) never did well in school, but he had a mentor who believed in him, so Geun decides he's going to become a teacher after losing a decisive battle in the boxing ring.

He also just happens to possess a certificate for teaching English, but like most Asians who try to teach another language, his proficiency isn't all, that great, so the head honcho's at the school (including one very prune-faced omanee) force him to take a test he is expected to pass by at least 70%, or he has to leave the school.

Like all the other GTO movies and dramas out there, his students don't think much of him at the start, but as things progress, they come to realize he's the only one who really cares, so they want to return the favor.


Yea! That's Lee Min ho on the left!


Like other, Korean comedies, it's the little things that matter most, and ET was no exception.

It wasn't so much the storyline, the characters, or even the actors that made this a delight to watch but the off-color, in-between moments that had me rolling on the floor instead.

Example: Geun is preparing for the exam, and he goes to the men's room when some yucky foreigner (hairy/greasy) stands beside him to pee, and Geun's eyes pop out as he says, "Good, very good!" and the foreigner glances at him, so Geun quickly turns aside and mumbles, "No good."

The bunny-face eye mask was a hit with me, too.

Okay, so while trying to save his livelihood by studying for the English exam, Geun also works to mentor a flagging student with a terrific, right-cross, so he sends the kid to his old gym for training.



Baek Seong hyeun as Geun's protege


As Baek Jeong goo, he ends up floundering in his first competition, but Geun is there for moral support, as are his three, other friends from school.






The fight was predictable, but no, less nail-biter moment for me.

So, after all this madness and mayhem, Geun ends up passing the exam with flying colors, but the ending still comes as a bit of a surprise.

Our School E.T. was a light-hearted romp I highly suggest when you need a pick-me-up or a reason to smile.

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연인 / Lovers

2006, 20-episode Korean drama that stars Lee Seo jin and Kim Jung eun as star-crossed 'lovers' from opposite sides of the track who meet quite by accident and end up bumping into one another throughout the first half of the show; eventually succumbing to the destined side of their fate.

Italicized 'lovers' because, to me, they weren't, exactly lovers in the American (or my) sense of the word.

License, I suppose, but the word is misused, overabused ... what have you.

A 'lover' is someone you have sex with on the side - a LOT; yet in this drama, the only one having a good time at the start was Ha Kang jae's foster brother, Kang Sae yeon (Jung Chan).


Jung Chan
I had no idea what to make of this guy from the start of the show, but as things progressed, I started to feel more sorry for him until I hoped that he'd be the one to get the girl -


devastating moment in his life - so sad - someone needs a hug
He can't be considered a 'lover' to the women he bedded since he wasn't romantically involved with either them or anyone else since he still held out hope of reuniting with his first love, Park Yu jin (Kim Kyu ri), who had a seven-year relationship with Kang jae when the drama started.

Yes, a lover can also be described as someone who has a lot of sex, but when it becomes plural, all that changes.

Enough with the grammar lesson, though, and on with the show.

I had a lot of fun with this despite the aggravation faced at the depressingly changed website, aznv.tv.

Nothing great or even good lasts forever with me, and sadly, this website is one of those instances.

What I appreciated most about the site was that it is the only website where you can watch an entire movie or drama without pop-up ads, commercials, re-directs, and ten-minute cut-offs.

They run only the shows, full-length, and without interruption, unlike mysoju (ten minute files redirected), veoh (ads, pop-ups, redirects), and so on.

Buffering issues, files not opening, horrible subs, timing trouble, and having the program shut down ten or even twenty minutes into a show have become commonplace now, and it makes me very sad since this used to be my favorite (and only) place to watch anything from Asia.

Now, it seems I'll have to begin searching for somewhere else to go to enjoy these shows, and I don't like that idea one bit.

Okay ~ enough with the bitching, and ON WITH THE SHOW!

I first saw a news article about the leading actors for this drama long before I watched this, and I was a bit surprised to see them together. It looks like they were between takes at the carnival scene.

He was in this white tank top, tanned and sporting one hella physique while she was dressed like your average, twenty-something ajumma spinster: it just, didn't work for me.




I know this is a pic of them on the set, but it's also where their romance blossomed, and even while watching 'Lovers', I didn't see a connection at - all.


Kim Jung eun

She's cute in a kawaii sort of way, and her eyes make that perfect ^.^ whenever she smiles!



Maybe I'm just jealous (again) cause she gets to hop in bed every night with a dude this fine, who knows.

Are they even, still together I wonder?

Some of the comments at the website stated that Lovers was one of their top-five, all-time favorite dramas, and while I disagree, I can't say it isn't one of my top-twenty.

The storyline was quite interesting, and the acting was superb, but it was the 'gaengseuteo' mob boys who drew me in and kept me glued to the screen for twenty, freakin' episodes.

Man, those were some mighty fine bad-boys, huh??

Which, to me, was more of what this drama was about than actual 'love' between so-called 'lovers': the inner workings, the conflicts, the brotherhood, family issues, and the eventual demise of such types.

Everyone on the wrong side of the law (earthly or religious) has GOT to pay the price in Korea, eh???

Funny stuff, but this show still worked for me.

Okay, so Kang jae is in this seven-year itch ... I mean, relationship, with ta-ta chick Yu jin, who just happens to live next door to newcomer-lover, Mi joo, a mousy type who is a plastic surgeon with (here it comes again) no money because she is forced to have to take care of her reverend father and the orphans he takes in at his seaside church in a lovely area south of Seoul.

Whatever ~ I've given up trying to figure out the wage issues from that part of the world.

So, Mi joo has issues with her family and friends, like a pregnant dongsaeng whose gorgeous boyfriend tries to skip town on her, so Mi joo goes after the guy (he's hot, ladies - long, wavy black hair, broad shoulders, nice face ... sigh), only she enters the wrong, Japanese-style dining room and confronts Kang jae instead.

It's hilarious.

She grabs the thug by his tie and demands to know what he intends to do for her sister when five shoji screens open up at once, revealing a host of hunky mobsters all staring at her with the same, '...you want to die, bitch?' look on their handsome faces.

Priceless.

What's better, though, is when she realizes she's got the wrong dude, and she proceeds to try and make amends for disturbing the now-obvious gangsta and his bro's during their evening meal.

Instead of getting HER ass kicked, though, Kang jae, his super-fine left-hand man Tae san (Lee han) and older but no, less hawt right-hand man, Uhm Sang taek (Lee Gi young) drag the real dude outside and proceed to punish him for trying to leave his 'heavy belly' girlfriend in a lurch.

Then, Kang jae has bought the land the church sits on (for whatever reason), and he goes out there to hide, or perhaps to find some rival thugs when Mi joo also happens to pay her appahji a visit.

Kang jae gets stabbed and Mi joo takes him home to patch him up.

It's really funny how he maintains his high-rollin' lifestyle in a country setting, ordering his hunky subordinates to lug in all this high-class sh*t so he is more comfortable in the cabin-like, one-room place he's forced to have to recover in and not the ultra-chic hotel room he's used to living in.After they become an item (in their own minds, since everyone else wanted a piece of them - and neither lead knew quite how to let go of their pasts), Kang jae labels Mi joo Doctor on his cell, and she labels him Dimpled Gangster on hers.

Okay ~ so, even if I really liked this drama and had fun watching the storyline play out, I'd like to leave you with the images I captured, and a couple, dozen minutes or so of the ubiquitous, Korean-drama pregnant pauses moments.

First, Mr. hot-stuff:

Then the yeppeun stuff:

love the bg

again, the bg is gorgeous

pretty pink & lights

not sure what it is hanging behind him, but I likey

wedding crashers w/pretty confetti

In this scene, he's just saved Mi joo's life (again) and while she waits for him to return alive, she cries - and then he appears beside her, and the same, monotonous song plays yet again.

It was good stuff, though!

He's so macho in this one, it's not funny. :-)

and then the funny (or questionable) stuff:

totally diggin' this 1950's steering wheel!

what is it about Korean daters that makes it so impossible to just break up??
I mean - what, really, did he owe her anyway?

and, what would a KD be without the silly ho thinkin' her man's homies will come to her rescue if she turns on the waterworks and begs???

insulin shot time!!

okay ~ I've got this on vid, too, but the water was crazy violent, yet his and her hair stayed perfectly still the whole time they stood and stared at one another.

There were two issues with this drama as well ...

like, why was Mi joo so afraid to donate her own blood?

If she had an aversion, then becoming a plastic surgeon would be just as much of a no-no as she alluded to by claiming it was the best of any 'doctor' career choice based on the least amount of blood-letting.

I know that makes no sense to you or I, but that's what they led us to assume, and yet they never explained why she felt the way she did, or why she was so afraid to donate.

Second, and in the very, last scene, they showed Kang jae hop into his SUV (how it got there is a mystery since he was 'kidnapped' by the bad guys) and they zoomed in on him driving over a stud rail, yet the tires never deflated and he chases after the baddy for a few miles before eventually catching up to him.

Was there supposed to be a point to that, and they just ... I don't know ... let it go since it was the end of the shoot?

Now for the annoying, pregnant pauses in every Korean drama I've ever watched.




daydream pause

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Hotelier

Yes, I finally did it ~

I watched a Bae Yong jun drama from Korea that goes waaay back to 2001!

For those of you not in the know, it's about a guy who works at a hotel in Seoul when he scandalizes everyone by ending up inside a female guest's room in his bath robe.

He gets fired and ends up working in Las Vegas for a few years when the Seoul Hotel owner dies of a heart attack and his wife begs the guy to come back and help save the floundering hotel.

Meanwhile, business tycoon Shin Dong Hyuk (Bae Yong jun) is working with the man who wants to buy out the Seoul Hotel just so he can see it run into the ground or cease to operate anymore.

A chick working in upper management is sent to Las Vegas to find Han Tae jun (Kim Seung woo), but he dumps her in the desert and then Dong hyuk picks her up.

The girl and Tae jun used to be lovers, but now she just wants to be his friend.

It's hard to tell if he lingers or not, but by the end of this 20-episode show, it's even harder to decide whether or not to care.

At least now I know why Bae Yong jun never did much for me - at least not in the looks department.

I went to school with a boy who looks almost identical, but I never made the connection until now, when I just returned from a reunion of sorts, and then I watched Hotelier - and I was like, holy smoke! That's Jim!


Yong jun or Jim Mc?

I can't put Jim's pic here without permission, but trust me, they are like twins, and NOT that I didn't like Jim, cause he always was and still is a really sweet guy.

Maybe I just never looked at him from a sexual standpoint, so to see Bae in that light wasn't, ever a possibility?

Whatever - aside from his slammin' bod, I'm not that crazy about the guy - well, let's just say I'm not one of his gazillion, ga-ga fans who want to bed him at any rate.

As for this oldie but goodie, I really liked it!

Ok, I didn't think it was the greatest drama from Korea, and it had it's moments of slowness, repetition, and boring pauses to contend with, but otherwise, the story was interesting and the characters where rather charming as well.

The other thing I found kind of interesting in a weird sort of way was the lead actor who portrayed GM Han Tae Jun (Kim Seung woo) - dude looks a lot like Jackie Chan to me ...




I'll bet a lot of you are thinking I'm crazy, but oh well - it's the way I see it.

The subtitles were practically flawless, but the interpretations were obviously British, and done by an Asian from that part of the world - but there was one word that kept popping up to make me giggle ...


as if to explode, when I really mean pressureD


Funny stuff.

Then there was this guy, with the strangest hair style I've ever seen on an Asian dude before - honestly, I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone else, aside from maybe Jerry Yan in Meteor Garden, but that was staged, and I don't think this was meant to fool anyone ...


Park Jung chul as Choi Young jae


What's even more amazing, though, is how manly he's become of late ~


Park Jung chul today

I liked this clock in madam president's office ~





and, in two, separate scenes, the BOOM was evident - this time -



tippy-top, left side

and another time, when they tried to disguise it with leaves, but it didn't work since the leaf cluster moved from above her head to his while they stood on a balcony to bitch at one another.

funny stuff.

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Crush and Blush / Misseu Hongdangmu

2008 Korean movie that stars Kong Hyo jin, Bang Eun jin, Hwangwoo Seul hye, Lee Jong hyeok, and Seo woo.

Winning Best Actress at the 7th Korean Film Awards and the 11th Director's Cut Awards, Kong Hyo Jin (Dachimawa Lee, M) transforms into a homely teacher in the quirky dramedy Crush and Blush (a.k.a. Miss Carrot). Lighting up the screen with her spunky, idiosyncratic charm, Kong turned her comically tragic black-sheep character into an unlikely audience-favorite heroine. Lee Jong Hyuk (Radio Dayz, A Day for an Affair) co-stars as her romantic interest, or rather obsession, and newcomer Seo Woo (My Son) makes a delightful turn as Kong's partner-in-mayhem. The first film produced by renowned director Park Chan Wook, Crush and Blush marks the impressive directorial debut of Lee Kyung Mi who won Best New Director and Best Screenplay at the 29th Blue Dragon Awards.

Personally, I'm not sure what all the hype is about, but this wasn't as bad a movie as it first presumed to be based on the title and cover image.

It was just, plain weird imho - but, in that creepy, waiting to see the gruesome gore of a train wreck kind of way.

I kept checking everywhere to find out if bRush was a type-o, but it's not and that has me confused as well - thinking it should read bLush since that is what the story is all about - a girl with frizzy hair, a weight problem of sorts, and rosacea (capillary issues on the cheeks).

The blockquote above uses L, and aznv.tv and wiki use R - so I guess it's up to us to decide which is right and which is wrong.

I'll stick with the L since it makes grammatic sense to me.

Yang Mi sook (Jin Kong hyo) is a girl who teaches Russian and has had a ten-year, one-way romance with a fellow educator Seo (Lee Jong hyuk), when one day the principal enters her classroom (filled with uninterested students) to announce that Russian isn't a hot topic anymore and will be replaced with English, along with her position, which will be replaced by a new teacher, Yuri (Hwangwoo Seul hye).

Seo is married to a wealthy woman connected with the academy, and she is a lot older than Seo as well, contemplating divorce against the pleading wishes of their daughter - a girl as misfit and disshevled as Mi sook.

The two form this awkward alliance, and from there, the movie takes off on the odd, modern twists, turns, and '...wait, are we still in reality mode here?' moments that gave the impression the writer/director was aiming for something other than mainstream all around.

Maybe because it's so out of the box, not predictable, and quirky that it was such a hit back home, but for me ... I still don't know what to think or even say about this movie, other than you need to give it a chance if you're looking for something so far from ordinary that it isn't funny.

Here are side-by-sides of the main actress:

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