kdrama: City Hunter eps 1-10
Jun. 28th, 2011 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreCity Hunter is, quite simply, the most ridiculously addicting TV show I’ve seen in ages.
No, really. It’s almost embarrassing.
It’s basically about a fake playboy raised to be an evil assassin out for revenge who wants to be a superhero. Or something like that. Dude jumps off buildings a lot and randomly starts wearing a mask halfway through the aired episodes.
The first episode, I admit, almost put me to sleep because it was all the manpainy backstory about how Our Hero, Yoon Sung’s, father and a bunch of other soldiers were betrayed by the Korean government in 1983, and the sole survivor stole Yoon Sung from his mother (Babystealer left her a note saying that her life would be better and she’d be happier without a baby, then he tells Yoon Sung that his mother abandoned him to have an easier life.) and raises Yoon Sung to be his personal killing machine, while he becomes an international drug lord based out of Thailand in order to finance his revenge.
Babystealer is something else. He’d get along great with numerous versions of Merlin though, I think.
Anyway, I think I missed a lot in the first episode because I was whining to calixa that nobody praising it warned me that it started with an hour of manpainy backstory, and that it was a good thing that I was assured I’d like it once we got to the main story.
However! After that is when it gets absurdly addicting. The main story is Yoon Sung and Babystealer getting revenge. Yoon Sung votes for outting all the bad guys’ dirty secrets so that they’ll be humiliated and in jail. Babystealer is all “kill them all and kick their families out on the street.” Yoon Sung would like to not be a murderer so that he can settled down and have a real job and a family some day. Babystealer seems to think that once they get revenge, they’ll go back to Thailand shoot each other in the head or something. Then Yoon Sung goes and falls in love with Na Na, who is the bodyguard of both the president’s teenage daughter and one of the men Babystealer is after.
Na Na is kind of universally awesome and I like Joon Sung a lot when he’s being himself (as opposed to his playboy cover persona, which annoys me a lot) but what makes it great is the Drama. Things that you’d expect to not show up until, like, the last 3 episodes just randomly show up in early episodes for extra twists, and once you hit I think episode 5 practically every episode ends with a cliffhanger that’s basically a game changer. (It’s like the first season and a half of Vampire Diaries, but with secret identities, way way less misogyny and woobifying of rapists and abusers, and no supernatural elements. Uhm…and a completely different plot. But similar Drama and random reveals.)
SPOILERS!
1. You know, I was on board with hating Babystealer from the start (also, I’m 90% certain he was secretly in love with Yoon Sung’s father-DID YOU SEE THAT DEATH SCENE?) but he was like, an average villain until he spoke to Yoon Sung’s mom. Before he even finished with the “Hey, how ya been the last few decades?” part I was pretty much rabid.
2. Is there a single traffic law Yoon Sung hasn’t broken? I mean, he probably breaks most of them when he’s stalking Na Na’s buses, much less when he’s being dramatic.
3. I don’t particularly get the hate for/annoyance with Da Hye? I mean, she’s as harmless as you can get (unless you insult her father) and pretty sweet, and her childish moments make sense given her life. Though, no way would bodyguards who got as close to their subjects as Na Na and her partner are to Da Hye be allowed to keep that position. Then again, they were given the president’s daughter as their first assignment. Drama bodyguard logic clearly does not work in a way that my brain processes easily.
4. Did I mention that I started watching before it was over purely because I was told that Na Na shoots Yoon Sung? Because I did. (His emo dreams of doom make me giggle like nothing else, let me tell you.) Also, do we think there was tongue involved in ep 9? It sure looked like there might be. (Uhm…even if he has a way more legitimate reason than the norm, the “I push you away and am mean to you/try to embarrass you for your own good” thing needs to end fast because I have a low enough tolerance for that that it’s already on my last nerve. Though at least Na Na has even less tolerance for it than me. But he needs to do something suitably dramatic soon.)
5. Are Seung Ye and Sae He really regarded as potential romantic interlopers by fandom? I mean, yeah, Na Na had a bit of a crush on him but she’s been over it for a while now, and not only is his interest in her pretty obviously platonic, but he’s still ridiculously hung up on Sae He. I hope he thwaps himself over the head regularly for always ditching her for work until she dumped his butt, and I’m glad she’s willing to give him chances to redeem himself but not remotely chasing after him, and that he seems to always be the one to go to her. She’s still hung up on him, but less…blatantly and is more “well, I’ll go to dinner with you and maybe if you grovel a bit and get me flowers and manage to not ditch me for work for about six months, I’ll think about really giving you another chance.” I’m also pretty sure she sees Yoon Sung as a stray puppy that keeps wandering over when it’s hurt or hungry, but doesn’t want to you realize it wants you to adopt it.
6. I'm pretty sure Seung Ye has known/strongly suspected than Yoon Sung is City Hunter from almost the beginning (he did spot him doing his thing in an early, pre-mask ep, even if only for a moment) but hasn't had any proof. (Also, I think his...almost obsessed devotion to finding proof is largely because it was made his main job, but also because Sae He is involved, and he's as pissy about that as he is jealous at thinking Yoon Sung and Sae He are dating. He and Yoon Sung are polar opposites save for sucking at showing feelings.)
7. I sincerely hope the end to ep 10 leads to smoochies and Na Na demanding to have a part in taking down the next target.
Incidentally, this is the first modern kdrama (I mostly watch traditional and fusion sageuks when it comes to kdramas) I've been into and didn't drop relatively early since...Spring Waltz? I may have watched Vineyard Man after that, but while I watched all of it and enjoyed, I wasn't hugely into it.
No, really. It’s almost embarrassing.
It’s basically about a fake playboy raised to be an evil assassin out for revenge who wants to be a superhero. Or something like that. Dude jumps off buildings a lot and randomly starts wearing a mask halfway through the aired episodes.
The first episode, I admit, almost put me to sleep because it was all the manpainy backstory about how Our Hero, Yoon Sung’s, father and a bunch of other soldiers were betrayed by the Korean government in 1983, and the sole survivor stole Yoon Sung from his mother (Babystealer left her a note saying that her life would be better and she’d be happier without a baby, then he tells Yoon Sung that his mother abandoned him to have an easier life.) and raises Yoon Sung to be his personal killing machine, while he becomes an international drug lord based out of Thailand in order to finance his revenge.
Babystealer is something else. He’d get along great with numerous versions of Merlin though, I think.
Anyway, I think I missed a lot in the first episode because I was whining to calixa that nobody praising it warned me that it started with an hour of manpainy backstory, and that it was a good thing that I was assured I’d like it once we got to the main story.
However! After that is when it gets absurdly addicting. The main story is Yoon Sung and Babystealer getting revenge. Yoon Sung votes for outting all the bad guys’ dirty secrets so that they’ll be humiliated and in jail. Babystealer is all “kill them all and kick their families out on the street.” Yoon Sung would like to not be a murderer so that he can settled down and have a real job and a family some day. Babystealer seems to think that once they get revenge, they’ll go back to Thailand shoot each other in the head or something. Then Yoon Sung goes and falls in love with Na Na, who is the bodyguard of both the president’s teenage daughter and one of the men Babystealer is after.
Na Na is kind of universally awesome and I like Joon Sung a lot when he’s being himself (as opposed to his playboy cover persona, which annoys me a lot) but what makes it great is the Drama. Things that you’d expect to not show up until, like, the last 3 episodes just randomly show up in early episodes for extra twists, and once you hit I think episode 5 practically every episode ends with a cliffhanger that’s basically a game changer. (It’s like the first season and a half of Vampire Diaries, but with secret identities, way way less misogyny and woobifying of rapists and abusers, and no supernatural elements. Uhm…and a completely different plot. But similar Drama and random reveals.)
SPOILERS!
1. You know, I was on board with hating Babystealer from the start (also, I’m 90% certain he was secretly in love with Yoon Sung’s father-DID YOU SEE THAT DEATH SCENE?) but he was like, an average villain until he spoke to Yoon Sung’s mom. Before he even finished with the “Hey, how ya been the last few decades?” part I was pretty much rabid.
2. Is there a single traffic law Yoon Sung hasn’t broken? I mean, he probably breaks most of them when he’s stalking Na Na’s buses, much less when he’s being dramatic.
3. I don’t particularly get the hate for/annoyance with Da Hye? I mean, she’s as harmless as you can get (unless you insult her father) and pretty sweet, and her childish moments make sense given her life. Though, no way would bodyguards who got as close to their subjects as Na Na and her partner are to Da Hye be allowed to keep that position. Then again, they were given the president’s daughter as their first assignment. Drama bodyguard logic clearly does not work in a way that my brain processes easily.
4. Did I mention that I started watching before it was over purely because I was told that Na Na shoots Yoon Sung? Because I did. (His emo dreams of doom make me giggle like nothing else, let me tell you.) Also, do we think there was tongue involved in ep 9? It sure looked like there might be. (Uhm…even if he has a way more legitimate reason than the norm, the “I push you away and am mean to you/try to embarrass you for your own good” thing needs to end fast because I have a low enough tolerance for that that it’s already on my last nerve. Though at least Na Na has even less tolerance for it than me. But he needs to do something suitably dramatic soon.)
5. Are Seung Ye and Sae He really regarded as potential romantic interlopers by fandom? I mean, yeah, Na Na had a bit of a crush on him but she’s been over it for a while now, and not only is his interest in her pretty obviously platonic, but he’s still ridiculously hung up on Sae He. I hope he thwaps himself over the head regularly for always ditching her for work until she dumped his butt, and I’m glad she’s willing to give him chances to redeem himself but not remotely chasing after him, and that he seems to always be the one to go to her. She’s still hung up on him, but less…blatantly and is more “well, I’ll go to dinner with you and maybe if you grovel a bit and get me flowers and manage to not ditch me for work for about six months, I’ll think about really giving you another chance.” I’m also pretty sure she sees Yoon Sung as a stray puppy that keeps wandering over when it’s hurt or hungry, but doesn’t want to you realize it wants you to adopt it.
6. I'm pretty sure Seung Ye has known/strongly suspected than Yoon Sung is City Hunter from almost the beginning (he did spot him doing his thing in an early, pre-mask ep, even if only for a moment) but hasn't had any proof. (Also, I think his...almost obsessed devotion to finding proof is largely because it was made his main job, but also because Sae He is involved, and he's as pissy about that as he is jealous at thinking Yoon Sung and Sae He are dating. He and Yoon Sung are polar opposites save for sucking at showing feelings.)
7. I sincerely hope the end to ep 10 leads to smoochies and Na Na demanding to have a part in taking down the next target.
Incidentally, this is the first modern kdrama (I mostly watch traditional and fusion sageuks when it comes to kdramas) I've been into and didn't drop relatively early since...Spring Waltz? I may have watched Vineyard Man after that, but while I watched all of it and enjoyed, I wasn't hugely into it.