Faith episodes 1 and 2 - megapost
Aug. 15th, 2012 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I am so obsessed, I have no words. I haven't yet watched the latest Gaksital, or the newly-started Arang, because I have been too busy fixating on this new awesome shiny. It's pretty much a pitch-perfect mix of heroic fantasy, humor, and cool characters.
I love Eun Soo, who is coping a lot better with this insanity that I would have - an armored man breaks into a medical conference, takes her hostage, makes her fix a man he just slashed to see her skills, and drags her into some insane place to stitch up a woman. She also gets kidnapped and held at knifepoint by thugs etc (who she does her best to fight). The fact that she is not constantly screaming is a testament to her guts. I also love how competent she is by the virtue of being a surgeon - all these warriors and political bigwigs, but none of them can do what she does, and she doesn't flinch at the sight of blood. And I loved it when Choi Young was trying to be a noble idiot and tell her to leave him to die, and she just yelled at him to shut up and that she will fix him and then he can live or die as he pleases. I also find it so realistic she refuses to believe she has time-traveled.
I think Kim Hee Sun and Lee Min Ho have oodles of chemistry and I love all the scenes between them. I love how he sneaks looks at her when she is operating, quietly impressed. I love how he crouches at her eye level when they talk, the way he picks her up and carries her around (and oh, that little amused grin). Even now, this early in their interactions, she sets him on edge, evokes a reaction nobody else can evoke in the deliberately phlegmatic general, who seems to spend his life controlling his feelings within an inch of their life - you can tell that he feels deeply but he doesn't allow it to show in any way. Just as he studiously disdains any attachments except for duty and honor - he lives and dies by his code of honor, even when that code makes him serve an unworthy (yet?) puppet king who abuses his loyalty (the scene where he tells the King that he has killed for the King, and the politicians lie for him, but the King has to be above all - chills. Chills. He wants to believe he serves someone worthy, so badly. I now wish there was a cross-over, where Choi Young rode under Dam Deok's banner).
Eun Soo seems to be a new and only chink in the armor. When the King ordered Choi Young to prevent Eun Soo from leaving (after CY gave her his word that she would be free after she treated the queen! And after he explained to the King that his word is his life. Psycho King, wtf, even his wife, the Yuan princess, understands that such an order means CY's death, either in defying the order or in dying to atone for the dishonor of the broken promise, but the King just doesn't think), it actually takes him a moment, even this early, to obey the royal order, to put away the sword he was threatening the guards with to protect her right to leave. He is this close to snapping and part of it is his word, but part of it is just her. And I love the self-loathing and shame in his eyes when he keeps her from leaving, when the portal closes and she is stuck there, with them. And then, when she runs at him with a sword, he lets her stab him through the abdomen, and actually pulls the sword in (!!!!) and when she whispers 'why?', he asks her if this will be enough to atone. OMFG. Though narratively, it's perfect - not only does it cement Choi Young as a man who wants to keep his word at the cost of his life, and the man who lives and dies by his honor, it's the only way to allow Eun Soo to move past hatred. Because let's face it - if a man dragged me away to some grungy past and then prevented me from leaving, breaking his promise (even if under duress), I'd hate him forever, even if he looked like Lee Min Ho. But with this, it's hard to hold on a grudge. The slate is wiped clean.
I do like that he is not just a 21-st century man in 15th century clothes - his swift, instinctive violence (remember his torturing the boat keeper for information? or when he slashed a guard to show where the queen's wound was?) is certainly in keeping with the times. I love that he can take out a battalion on alone, is focused and fierce and loyal and too literal. Or that he has a dry sense of humor, a detachment he wears like armor, and an almost suicidal devotion to honor and the right thing. I love that he has a rock-solid moral center.
I also like what we've seen of the dynamic of the king and queen (Team Queen), the characters are all complex. So far, the only one I truly hate is the King's chief minister, who seems to take great pleasure in giving an order that he knows would break Choi Young's honor, who does his best to kill CY when the latter is wounded so they won't have to tarry and wait and try to heal him. Die, scum! Oddly, I like the baddies so far - the flute-playing guy and the head honcho are both hot and I am shallow.
Some caps:
Choi Young seeing Eun Soo lecturing.


Watching her on a monitor.

Kidnapping her to come with him (after verifying she can do surgery by making her fix a similar injury).














Promising her that once she fixes the queen, he will bring her back even if it means his life.



Here for the pretty.



Telling the King that his (CY) word is his life and he promised ES they will let her go, so they must let her go. And also quietly burning about what a king should be. I hope this King becomes worthy of the devotion of his life.


Hot bad guys...




He rescues her from the kidnappers and tells her the queen woke up so he is going to take her back to the portal. And picks her up. OMG.


















At the portal, the Chief Minister shows up and tells him she can't go, she has to stay.





Even after being told that this is a royal order, he doesn't lower his sword right away. But ultimately he is put between duty and honor, an untenable choice, and with eyes full of self-hatred (he really does look broken), he goes and drags her away from the portal. And then the portal closes, gone forever. And she is left scrabbling, and the look in his eyes!




















And she really loses it, and comes at him screaming, with a sword. Which he could easily avoid (and she knows and everyone knows), but instead he steps into its path. And she runs him through and they stare at each other and then he pulls the sword in deeper. As atonement to her for breaking his word to her. OMFG!!!! A man who is willing to die because he broke his word to you is...a keeper? Ummm? (Also, what is it with LMH dramas and propensity for wounds inflicted by the OTP?)















The King and the Queen. I love that the King appears shocked that Choi Young is now dying as the outcome of his breaking his word. Psycho King seems to have done it as some sort of insecurity-driven test and is shocked that CY meant it when he said his word was his life. Queen spells it for him in small words.


Meanwhile, chief minister tries to kill the barely-alive CY to speed their travel (!!! WTF!). Luckily, Eun Soo tells him to fuck off and transports him for surgery. She also yells at CY to shut up when he tries to be a martyr. Go, girl! (I love CY's deadpan humor, which seems to be present no matter what - when she is asking him if he's awake/conscious, he mumbles that with her talking at him, how can he be otherwise).



















Here for the pretty. Did I mention he fights with a fan. A fan!

This is pretty much every fantasy novel, wuxia, and romance novel I ever wanted, wrapped in one.
You get a prize for slogging through this!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 11:51 am (UTC)Joking aside, the Queen is in her own element - to a modern first-world person who is not a soldier or gangster or similar, the random constant violence of 16th-century has got to be petrifying.
ETA: Also, the way LMH took her, if I were her, I'd totally think he was a psycho who was going to rape and kill me and dump my body in some alley.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-16 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 02:24 am (UTC)To ES, or any other normal person in her situation, a homicidal lunatic in a cosplay outfit burst into a medical conference, took her hostage, slashed a man in the neck just to see her operate, fought his way past a police cordon dragging her, babbling some incomprehensible thing about healing and heaven - to any rational person, he's a murdering maniac who has had some psychotic break from reality, and she's shortly to be dead, possibly with some rape and mutilation thrown in beforehand. I'd be fainting and puking at that point.
And in the past - she has no idea she's time-travelled (and why would she? it's a crazy idea and nobody told her she's in Goryo), and in any event, she's pretty much a hostage to a various bunch of armed and violent men. I would not be a happy pumpkin.
I thought she was fully justified to stab Choi Young through the guts, actually. I love him, but in her place, I'd have been tempted to do the same.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 08:55 am (UTC)Seems ES is finally accepting the situation and grow a backbone.