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kdrama: Girl K eps 1-3 (complete)
Nov. 25th, 2011 02:47 pmNote: This drama goes by both Girl K and Killer G, but I prefer Girl K.
Pros: 3 1/2 hours of a girl with weapons and a revenge narrative, who's main relationships are first with her mother, and later with the woman who trained her to be an assassin and who now serves as a conflicted surrogate mother figure. The second episode opens with Ji Young (mentor) directing Yeon Jin (vengeful assassin heroine) on a hit, and then flashes back to the last two years of Ji Young training Yeon Jin, ending with and intense swordfight training sessions that culminates in Ji Young telling Yeon Jin that it's time to go to school and Yeon Jin asking why she doesn't just kill her now instead. (Shockingly, their scenes were my favorite in the series, even though you knew it was doomed to go badly from the start.) Also, lots of Girls With Guns, and not just Yeon Jin, and people who look like they genuinely know what they're doing in the fight scenes.
Cons: It's a cable show, so there's lots of gratuitous and often uncomfortable sex and nudity, including a scene of dubious consent (between extras, not major or secondary characters) that was played for laughs. Also a lot of blood, though less than I was expecting. Definitely more blood and more explicit violence than any other kdrama I've seen, but again, less than I was bracing myself for.
In essence, Yeon Jin is a teenager whose mother made her learn martial arts so that she'd be able to defend herself. When Yeon Jin and her friends' hooliganish antics kicks off a chin of events that results in her mother's death and her being shot in the chest, she takes up an offer made by Ji Young to save her life if she becomes an assassin for the secret organization she works for, pointing out that if she joins, she'll be alive to eventually get revenge.
Yeon Jin also secretly has a properly wuxia origin that she won't know about for most of the series.
( spoilers )Korea, feel free to make a sequel series about Yeon Jin's further adventures! The cop can come too. He was more fun than I'd initially expected.
Pros: 3 1/2 hours of a girl with weapons and a revenge narrative, who's main relationships are first with her mother, and later with the woman who trained her to be an assassin and who now serves as a conflicted surrogate mother figure. The second episode opens with Ji Young (mentor) directing Yeon Jin (vengeful assassin heroine) on a hit, and then flashes back to the last two years of Ji Young training Yeon Jin, ending with and intense swordfight training sessions that culminates in Ji Young telling Yeon Jin that it's time to go to school and Yeon Jin asking why she doesn't just kill her now instead. (Shockingly, their scenes were my favorite in the series, even though you knew it was doomed to go badly from the start.) Also, lots of Girls With Guns, and not just Yeon Jin, and people who look like they genuinely know what they're doing in the fight scenes.
Cons: It's a cable show, so there's lots of gratuitous and often uncomfortable sex and nudity, including a scene of dubious consent (between extras, not major or secondary characters) that was played for laughs. Also a lot of blood, though less than I was expecting. Definitely more blood and more explicit violence than any other kdrama I've seen, but again, less than I was bracing myself for.
In essence, Yeon Jin is a teenager whose mother made her learn martial arts so that she'd be able to defend herself. When Yeon Jin and her friends' hooliganish antics kicks off a chin of events that results in her mother's death and her being shot in the chest, she takes up an offer made by Ji Young to save her life if she becomes an assassin for the secret organization she works for, pointing out that if she joins, she'll be alive to eventually get revenge.
Yeon Jin also secretly has a properly wuxia origin that she won't know about for most of the series.
( spoilers )Korea, feel free to make a sequel series about Yeon Jin's further adventures! The cop can come too. He was more fun than I'd initially expected.
(no subject)
Oct. 6th, 2011 07:44 pm
1. kdrama folks, does anyone know if Withs2 dropped Girl K/Killer G? I was checking to see if the last ep was subbed yet yesterday and couldn't find the series at all.
Girl K, for the curious, is a three episode series about a girl who infiltrates a secret organization as an assassin to avenge her mother.
It may be pertinent to your interests.
2. On a similar vein, I suspect I'm the only person on my DW or LJ lists who watches sageuks who isn't particularly interested in Tree With Deep Roots. I liked Jang Hyuk in Chuno (not as much as everyone else seems to have, but still) and the mystery aspect sounds interesting, but I can't see the mystery being carried for 24 episodes given the pace of kdramas, and it looks to be extremely light on women. Based on what I've seen, there's one supporting female character and the lead girl, who's mute for part the series. I'll check it out prepared to be very pleasantly surprised, but don't really have any enthusiasm.
3. I've started watching Rumpole of the Bailey. It's very entertaining, but also very much a product of its time. Very, very much.
4. Revenge needs to have more shots of Victoria and Emanda in the same frame, smiling sweetly at each other as they pretend they don't know the other is a ruthless BAMF with plots and secrets. So i can have an icon of it without having to splice one together.
5. I'm partway through book 5 of the House of Night books I posted on the other day. (You know, the one with "vampyres.") Book 4 actually stated to do something with the mythology and matriarchal society besides bash us over the head with Feminism 101. I mean, it still bashes us over the head with Feminism 101, but now there's a plot beyond Zoey juggling 3 boyfriends, hunting down every bad teen trope and cliche ever and the woman with a history of sexual abuse naturally being The Evil. Also, the protagonist joined forces with Catholic nuns who run a cat charity, so now we actually havwomen who aren't bashing and/or plotting against other women! Not that there's actually less of that. Also, it's very telling when you think the heroine is better off after all her friends have rejected her, and still think she was better off without them once they liked her again. (On that vein: do people actually find The Twins entertaining? I mean, I don't due to their mutual inability to speak more than 3 sentences without finding a way to bash, threaten, or slutshame another woman, but I'm pretty sure I'd still findthem grating otherwise.)
