IRIS - thoughts on subbed eps 12-16

[dangermousie]

boycottbananas, Thank You!!!!

In other news, I have spent the morning marathonning the subbed eps 12-16 of IRIS (wirebox subber owns my heart) and my head is now spinning. I am not sure I can take that much awesomeness in one sitting.



* Hyun Joon is amazing - I don't mean his capability with guns or the ability to withstand a crazy amount of punishment. No, what I mean (and that is going to sound corny, excuse me in advance) is his enormous capacity for love. The scene between him and Sawoo in ep 15 almost made me cry - because even after all that's happened, he loves him. He really does - his comment (to both Sun Hwa and later Seung Hee) about Budapest - that he knows it was just orders, that he would have done just the same in Sawoo's place, breaks my heart - he is trying so hard to absolve Sawoo, even though I am 100% sure that if he was in Sawoo's place, no way. But yes, his capacity for love isn't shown in the way he loves Seung Hee (because he would die for her, but after all she is the one person who stood by him) but in the way he still loves (and weeps for!) Sawoo, who's helped made his life a living hell. And in the way he reacts to Sun Hwa's confession that she knew Seung Hee was alive and didn't tell him. He isn't angry, he just wants to know why, and when he can see why from her reaction, he just holds her. The fact that he can love like this after all that's happened to him is pretty darn incredible. I wonder if he holds onto people in his life so hard because he's always had so few of them. I would mention that Lee Byung Hun is absolutely incredible in the role but that goes without saying. Oh, and the scene with him interrogating Seung Hee in ep 13 is still the most emotionally brutal thing I've seen in a kdrama (that takes some doing) and their reunion in ep 16 still makes me cry.

* Seung Hee, tough and smart and loving and clever and angry, is officially my favorite drama heroine ever. You know, people criticize Kim Tae Hee's acting but not me. Is she the best actress to ever exist? No, but she is fine enough. And more importantly, in a dramaworld which is filled with cutesy helpless heroines, Tae Hee has played two of the toughest kdrama women ever - first in Nine-Tailed Fox and now here. Also, I do love that Hyun Joon can forgive Sawoo for what he did to him, but Seung Hee cannot forgive Sawoo on Hyun Joon's behalf. Oh, Sawoo, how much you lost. Also, what is with her and Baek-san. Anyone else would have acted the way Seung-Hee has, snooping and rebelling, they would have been executed.

* Ah, yes, Sawoo. He is fascinating and complex and repellent. My dislike burns like a nice steady flame (big credit to Jung Joon Ho, seeing that his Last Scandal character is basically my drama boyfriend). The tragedy of Sawoo is that he isn't an utter sociopath/psychopath like Baek-San or Vic (this latter, I am sure, is using Computer Girl for some nefarious purpose). He is a normal person who's slowly went worse and worse and is now irredeemable (of all the random references, he reminds me of a villain in 1905 novel called "Victor of Salamis", where the hero's best friend did one bad thing and then it escalated and escalated and he ended up framing this friend for treason and making his life total hell and wooing his wife and eventually killing himself). And the sad thing is he's had so many people who love him - Hyun Joon, Director Park, even Seung Hee. And yet he's betrayed/abused them all, and for what? Nothing. His excuse to Seung Hee that he did it all for her is so very hollow. Fine, he was going to kill Hyun Joon so she won't have to (though way to take away her agency) - that explains Budapest. Do tell me whether he killed the Voice's bodyguards for Seung Hee? Whether he allowed terrorists to run around Seoul with a nuke (the moment he was lost for me, utterly) for Seung Hee? Indeed.