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dangermousieSo, I watched the second episode of Chuno.
And if I loved the first one, there are no words for how I felt about the second one. It made me feel the way some (very few) movies can feel - so intense it feels like a dream, so intense that when it stops, the real world feels washed-out in comparison.
The pace has slowed down since the first episode because the introductions are out of the way but it does not drag in the least - there is so much to look at, to take in, both plot-wise and emotionally, that my attention never swerved, not even though I am watching a period drama in Korean of which I do not speak a word.
Maybe it's because I am still exhausted from last night (where I stayed up - that's right - watching ep 1) but the first scene of the episode, Dae Gil looking for Un Nyun (he's been informed she is there) floored me. I was almost crying. It was ridiculous. I loved the intercusts between the present day, bedraggled and toughened Dae Gil and his pristine younger self. And the intercuts between him - looking so rough and weary and just... - and his memory of Un Nyun. She is always so luminous in his memories. Even in grubby clothes she shines. I wonder if Dae Gil is so fixated on her not just because he loved/loves her, but because she is the one solid link with his happy past, when he too could be innocent and young and kind?
I love how he pauses before touching her. As if this is a dream. And of course it is - it's not Un Nyun at all, it's an ambush set up by a rival slave hunter gang. Dae Gil's face when he realizes - this whole scene is the most alive we have ever seen him in the present but that means that where hope goes, devastation can seep in too.
Do you REALLY want to piss him off? I mean, really? (Side note - in ep 1, even as everyone was wandering around bedraggled, I marvelled at their lovely anachronistic teeth, and then this gentleman showed up and all was right with the world. Those were some nasty nasty specimens).
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Un Nyun's wedding proceeds as planned. Not what I'd call a happy bride.
And Dae Gil is fighting. He is sort of possessed. You know, I've sort of forgotten how insense Jang Hyuk can be - but during this whole scene he is nothing but and I just want to step away (out of fear and sense of intrusion, both :D) even as I gorge on it as some sort of an emotional vampire as that intensity drags me in in in.
He is so berserk, he turns even on General Choi who stops him from killing the rival leader. Throughout this episode, even more than the first, I get the sense that Dae Gil is seriously unhinged - he's basically hanging onto sanity and normal function by his fingernails and I wouldn't count on those fingernails not slipping.
I think General Choi is telling him to move on and forget Un Nyun.
Sound advice, except that does that look like a man capable of taking sound advice? Or moving on?
Meanwhile, Un Nyun in all her wedding finery, is remembering Dae Gil. What I want to know is, as she is so clearly unhappy in the match (she runs away rather than go through with it!), why and how did she agree in the first place.
Her memory. OK, it's official. I don't care how dysfunctional they would be now and how they have no chance of happiness at all due to about a billion and a half factors, starting with his current profession and the fact that her brother murdered his family and ending with the fact she'd probably catch lice from him - have you seen his vest? I don't care. I ship them so very very very VERY hard, it's insane. I think in this scene his father is proposing a marriage for him and Dae Gil tells him his heart is free - I take it telling Daddy that you are in love with a slave girl would go over as well as a ton of bricks. And Un Nyun overhears.
So many of these shots look like paintings!
Dae Gil comes up and this scene follows - where he puts on her this gorgeous pair of brand new red shoes. I confess I cringed when I saw those gorgeous shoes go next to her raggedy, horrible socks. I obviously understand he cannot change her whole wardrobe (hello, questions!) but I almost physically hurt when I see her dressed in such tatters. (And now ironic that if they met now, she'd be the one wearing new and splendid finery and he's the one wearing rags. Rather symmetrical). I think he also tells her he loves her or something similar. Mmmm.
Oh God, this scene made me melt and squee at the screen and turn into a ridiculous insane shipper. Because she comes after him and she is the one who initiates the kiss and his face. I love the way he holds her, as if she's infinitely fragile. Also, that's some kiss! I didn't know they allowed you to show open mouths in period dramas :D
And she still clutches the stones he warmed for her hands...
She is not the only one remembering (I love how he is remembering the shoes at the same time, almost).
A bit of comic relief in the form of all the ladies who drool over General Choi (and who could blame them) bringing him about 8 billion kinds of different extra food:
But General Choi prefers his BFF. What's a little attempted murder between friends? :P
OK, Jang Hyuk, stop being so gorgeous. I need to breathe, thank you.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the unlucky husband finds his bride gone! Well, at least she folded the wedding clothes neatly, maybe he can get a refund.
She is travelling as a boy. A. Ha. Ahahahahaha. She looks more feminine while cross-dressing than most ladies would in a ballgown. I wonder where she is going.
Her brother gets Sexy Bodyguard to bring her back. Lucky lucky Un Nyun, all these hot men are after you. I suggest you pick the least psychotic one, move far far away from Korea with him, and live happily ever after, growing a small troup of baby swordsmen.
I don't know who she is but I want her dress ergo she is in here.
I really liked this interlude - two people punished the same way but not completely brutalized by it.
Every time the head groom mistreated Tae Ha and Tae Ha, who could have taken him apart with both his arms tied behind his back, just took it, my heart broke a little. I wonder if he is punishing himself for something or if he just goes along with whatever because he has nothing to live for and/or whatever happened in his past broke him in some way.
Court intrigue. I don't speak a word of Korean so not sure what is going on, but I loved the intercut of a minister enjoying his evening entertainment while his political enemies were being tortured to death elsewhere. Sort of like a more decadent version of the ending of Godfather.
Meanwhile Tae Ha is reading a letter smuggled to him, written by the dead Prince he used to serve and it's as if something is waking up in him, now that he has a purpose.
This is why I love Tae Ha so - because despite it all, his nobility (of character) and goodness have not been brutalized out of him - even though it has nothing to do with him and may even hinder his escape, he comes to the rescue of the runaway slave grooms - yeah, the same ones who mistreated him, and helps them secure their freedom. Also, it's darn good to see him finally allow himself to be confident, to be so incredibly good with a weapon, not to have to constantly diminish himself.
And slashers everywhere heave a very sated sigh :)
Ahhh, Chuno. Such an excellent feast for the...mind. Yes. Mind.
And we end on this confrontation between Tae Ha and Dae Gil, the runaway and the man ordered to bring him in. I admit I am fully on Tae Ha's side in this and any future fights - he is a good man. I love Dae Gil as a character, but a good man he is not. Not any more.
Previews. Flashback. Did they freaking kill his wife and baby??????? RAAAAGE.
Oooohlala, Miss Un Nyun. That's what happens when you take in warrior hotties with high fever.
How can I wait a week for another episode, how?
ETA: This ep had a 25% rating. Frankly - that's insane. Insane. But every bit is utterly deserved.
And if I loved the first one, there are no words for how I felt about the second one. It made me feel the way some (very few) movies can feel - so intense it feels like a dream, so intense that when it stops, the real world feels washed-out in comparison.
The pace has slowed down since the first episode because the introductions are out of the way but it does not drag in the least - there is so much to look at, to take in, both plot-wise and emotionally, that my attention never swerved, not even though I am watching a period drama in Korean of which I do not speak a word.
Maybe it's because I am still exhausted from last night (where I stayed up - that's right - watching ep 1) but the first scene of the episode, Dae Gil looking for Un Nyun (he's been informed she is there) floored me. I was almost crying. It was ridiculous. I loved the intercusts between the present day, bedraggled and toughened Dae Gil and his pristine younger self. And the intercuts between him - looking so rough and weary and just... - and his memory of Un Nyun. She is always so luminous in his memories. Even in grubby clothes she shines. I wonder if Dae Gil is so fixated on her not just because he loved/loves her, but because she is the one solid link with his happy past, when he too could be innocent and young and kind?
I love how he pauses before touching her. As if this is a dream. And of course it is - it's not Un Nyun at all, it's an ambush set up by a rival slave hunter gang. Dae Gil's face when he realizes - this whole scene is the most alive we have ever seen him in the present but that means that where hope goes, devastation can seep in too.
Do you REALLY want to piss him off? I mean, really? (Side note - in ep 1, even as everyone was wandering around bedraggled, I marvelled at their lovely anachronistic teeth, and then this gentleman showed up and all was right with the world. Those were some nasty nasty specimens).
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Un Nyun's wedding proceeds as planned. Not what I'd call a happy bride.
And Dae Gil is fighting. He is sort of possessed. You know, I've sort of forgotten how insense Jang Hyuk can be - but during this whole scene he is nothing but and I just want to step away (out of fear and sense of intrusion, both :D) even as I gorge on it as some sort of an emotional vampire as that intensity drags me in in in.
He is so berserk, he turns even on General Choi who stops him from killing the rival leader. Throughout this episode, even more than the first, I get the sense that Dae Gil is seriously unhinged - he's basically hanging onto sanity and normal function by his fingernails and I wouldn't count on those fingernails not slipping.
I think General Choi is telling him to move on and forget Un Nyun.
Sound advice, except that does that look like a man capable of taking sound advice? Or moving on?
Meanwhile, Un Nyun in all her wedding finery, is remembering Dae Gil. What I want to know is, as she is so clearly unhappy in the match (she runs away rather than go through with it!), why and how did she agree in the first place.
Her memory. OK, it's official. I don't care how dysfunctional they would be now and how they have no chance of happiness at all due to about a billion and a half factors, starting with his current profession and the fact that her brother murdered his family and ending with the fact she'd probably catch lice from him - have you seen his vest? I don't care. I ship them so very very very VERY hard, it's insane. I think in this scene his father is proposing a marriage for him and Dae Gil tells him his heart is free - I take it telling Daddy that you are in love with a slave girl would go over as well as a ton of bricks. And Un Nyun overhears.
So many of these shots look like paintings!
Dae Gil comes up and this scene follows - where he puts on her this gorgeous pair of brand new red shoes. I confess I cringed when I saw those gorgeous shoes go next to her raggedy, horrible socks. I obviously understand he cannot change her whole wardrobe (hello, questions!) but I almost physically hurt when I see her dressed in such tatters. (And now ironic that if they met now, she'd be the one wearing new and splendid finery and he's the one wearing rags. Rather symmetrical). I think he also tells her he loves her or something similar. Mmmm.
Oh God, this scene made me melt and squee at the screen and turn into a ridiculous insane shipper. Because she comes after him and she is the one who initiates the kiss and his face. I love the way he holds her, as if she's infinitely fragile. Also, that's some kiss! I didn't know they allowed you to show open mouths in period dramas :D
And she still clutches the stones he warmed for her hands...
She is not the only one remembering (I love how he is remembering the shoes at the same time, almost).
A bit of comic relief in the form of all the ladies who drool over General Choi (and who could blame them) bringing him about 8 billion kinds of different extra food:
But General Choi prefers his BFF. What's a little attempted murder between friends? :P
OK, Jang Hyuk, stop being so gorgeous. I need to breathe, thank you.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the unlucky husband finds his bride gone! Well, at least she folded the wedding clothes neatly, maybe he can get a refund.
She is travelling as a boy. A. Ha. Ahahahahaha. She looks more feminine while cross-dressing than most ladies would in a ballgown. I wonder where she is going.
Her brother gets Sexy Bodyguard to bring her back. Lucky lucky Un Nyun, all these hot men are after you. I suggest you pick the least psychotic one, move far far away from Korea with him, and live happily ever after, growing a small troup of baby swordsmen.
I don't know who she is but I want her dress ergo she is in here.
I really liked this interlude - two people punished the same way but not completely brutalized by it.
Every time the head groom mistreated Tae Ha and Tae Ha, who could have taken him apart with both his arms tied behind his back, just took it, my heart broke a little. I wonder if he is punishing himself for something or if he just goes along with whatever because he has nothing to live for and/or whatever happened in his past broke him in some way.
Court intrigue. I don't speak a word of Korean so not sure what is going on, but I loved the intercut of a minister enjoying his evening entertainment while his political enemies were being tortured to death elsewhere. Sort of like a more decadent version of the ending of Godfather.
Meanwhile Tae Ha is reading a letter smuggled to him, written by the dead Prince he used to serve and it's as if something is waking up in him, now that he has a purpose.
This is why I love Tae Ha so - because despite it all, his nobility (of character) and goodness have not been brutalized out of him - even though it has nothing to do with him and may even hinder his escape, he comes to the rescue of the runaway slave grooms - yeah, the same ones who mistreated him, and helps them secure their freedom. Also, it's darn good to see him finally allow himself to be confident, to be so incredibly good with a weapon, not to have to constantly diminish himself.
And slashers everywhere heave a very sated sigh :)
Ahhh, Chuno. Such an excellent feast for the...mind. Yes. Mind.
And we end on this confrontation between Tae Ha and Dae Gil, the runaway and the man ordered to bring him in. I admit I am fully on Tae Ha's side in this and any future fights - he is a good man. I love Dae Gil as a character, but a good man he is not. Not any more.
Previews. Flashback. Did they freaking kill his wife and baby??????? RAAAAGE.
Oooohlala, Miss Un Nyun. That's what happens when you take in warrior hotties with high fever.
How can I wait a week for another episode, how?
ETA: This ep had a 25% rating. Frankly - that's insane. Insane. But every bit is utterly deserved.
