Snow Queen, eps 1 and 2
Feb. 7th, 2007 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieOh Snow Queen.
I am not watching anything else until I finish you.
Wow. I am about twenty minutes into the second ep and I literally had to force myself to stop because I had to leave. I kept going ‘but one more minute, one more minute.’
I did a picspam about SQ before so I won’t repeat it, but I will repeat that I am taken aback by how luminous this drama is. I don’t know what filters they used, but the light simply shines, pure and early morning, throughout (I love what Korean dramas do with light and design. This is equally beautiful but miles away from the super-saturated richness of Goong).
The plot, in case you haven’t read up on it before, revolves around two individuals: Tae-Woong (played by Hyun Bin. I never knew he could be beautiful) and Bo Ra (played by Sung Yuri, as this restrained brittle yet irresistable mess). Tae-Woong is a math genius who is wasting his life being a third-rate boxer as a result of his best friend’s suicide while in high school. Bo Ra is the only child of a very rich man, and is suffering from a number of physical and mental disorders. Their paths cross and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale heavily comes into play.
You would think that a story with such a plot would be heavy, dark, depressing? But it isn’t. The one, very odd word that comes to mind is ‘pure.’ Both TW and BR have a certain purity to them and neither of them really wallows around in misery. And oh God, I can so see how they are going to heal each other: she is going to find love, and care, and connection she doesn’t have, be a ‘real girl’ at last, not someone who is to be just treated and protected and kept in a glass case so she won’t break. And he will also find connection and love and will be able to open up again and move up past his guilt.
You know what I love so much? I am going to rave about Hyun Bin and his Tae-Woong a bit more below, but first let me say this about Sung Yuri. She is amazing. It’s a really hard job to portray someone like Bo Ra (who when we first meet her as a grown up is creating a scene in the hospital, threatening to kill herself, but not really meaning it, who when she finds out the maid tried on her scarf cuts the scarf to ribbons because she can’t bear to touch it, who creates a scene and gets the shoe-salesman friend of TW fired because he accidentally touched her foot) as likeable. But that is the thing. I adore her. I don’t see her as a giant bitch (which is what you’d think she’d be on paper). Maybe because despite the shell you can see the fragility in her, and all the potential for care and love that you know is there. Maybe it’s the fact that she is so charming, or the fact that I know that inside her is still that little girl who Tae-Woong hoisted on his shoulders (they had a series of brief but memorable childhood encounters) so she could see the masked performance better and who pretended she didn’t enjoy seeing it but couldn’t quite conceal her excitement. Or the girl who waited in the bus shelter for him in the rain (skinny 14 year old, giant umbrella, prickly. I just want to hug her). Or when she went (when they were temporarily stuck on the ferris wheel) that the heroines and heros kiss at that point in a foreign movie and stuck her face at Tae-Woong, to the latter’s 17-year-old horror. Heeee.
To portray Bo Ra’s likeability is a feat, and she manages. I love her first meeting with the guy who is supposed to be her arranged fiance, where she comes up with reasons why he shouldn’t want her and is so amused by it (though so is he). I love her.
And this brings me to Tae-Woong. Oh my. He really might be the gentlest drama hero I’ve come across, you know? And I think he might replace Gong-Chan from My Girl as my dorama boyfriend. He is just so caring but in a low key, uncloying way. I love when we first meet him eight years after the school events. He is rougher around the edges, somewhat more self-contained, but still with that enormous capacity for caring and somehow that inner purity (yes, odd word to use for a guy, but whatever) is not damaged by the world, or the rough life. He is still an innocent, you know? Someone incredibly good. Maybe that is what is causing his penance though. Someone more hardened, more cynical, more detached would have been able to bear the death of the friend. But his grief on finding out is so uncontrolled, so raw. He has no filters for the cruelty of the world.
You know, I feel sorry for the friend, I do. Academic pressure can be fierce and he clearly had a pushy father. But come on! To kill yourself over failing to win a math Olympiad? You know what kills me? Tae-Woong is acting as the boxer in that gym as some sort of a penance for his friend dying and never fulfilling any of his dreams, but in killing himself, the friend effectively ended TW’s dreams as well. And what kills me more is that TW’s dreams were such little, obtainable things: to be a white-collar worker, to get a restaurant for his Mom instead of the food stall, to marry someone for love and to have kids who he can teach math to. They are so normal, so everyday. (And really come from his upbringing, don’t they? This drama is very subtle so it doesn’t stress it, but TW really is the oddball in the ritzy school. Being a white collar worker might be small fry to his rich friend, but for TW who grew up helping his Mom run a food stall, this is a big dream indeed).
The final confrontation between the friend and TW is rather painful because they are such different people. I don’t think TW’s friend can comprehend selflessness. Not really. He thinks TW must be delighted over winning over him and goaded, TW finally admits that he is happy he won because it made his mother happy and it means getting a scholarship so he doesn’t have to worry about going to college (but oh, of course he won’t go, after the suicide, but he so wanted and…ok, I am going to descend into keymash here). But not about winning over his friend. Because it’s not a competition for TW. He enjoys math, he is good at it, but his priorities are right. You know, when I was in high school I read Knowles’ Separate Peace, a book I liked and which made me cry, and the story here is really reminding me of it. The narrator of the novel, Gene, could never believe that his brilliant charismatic friend Finny wasn’t envious of him or secretly competing, because he Gene, totally was. And probably one of the biggest revelations of Gene’s life was that no, Finny really was what he seemed. It’s the same dichotomy here.
Oh my GUH. How much do I love the scene of the first meeting between grown-up Bo Ra and Tae-Woong. I have to say the actors have this incredible, intense chemistry together. I love the scene where he sees her in the hospital with that sliver of glass, creating a drama, and he totally stops her and tells her if she wants to kill herself, she should go ahead (because he knows she is bluffing) and then when she makes an attempt holds her hand again and tells her that is not where she needs to cut and explains where she does need to. And she deflates. And he walks off. I love that he comes across as very kind (yes, I know, I keep using that word) even during that bit and it’s clearly because he doesn’t want anyone to die in front of him.
I love that he might be a gentle guy, but he is no weakling, no push-over. When later, he comes to her house to demand she get his friend rehired and she ropes him into driving her somewhere, he is not intimidated or controlled. He is a very unbendable person in some basic ways, isn’t he? It’s a quiet strength, but it’s there in spades. She can’t boss him or manipulate him, or anything.
I love this SO MUCH.
I am not watching anything else until I finish you.
Wow. I am about twenty minutes into the second ep and I literally had to force myself to stop because I had to leave. I kept going ‘but one more minute, one more minute.’
I did a picspam about SQ before so I won’t repeat it, but I will repeat that I am taken aback by how luminous this drama is. I don’t know what filters they used, but the light simply shines, pure and early morning, throughout (I love what Korean dramas do with light and design. This is equally beautiful but miles away from the super-saturated richness of Goong).
The plot, in case you haven’t read up on it before, revolves around two individuals: Tae-Woong (played by Hyun Bin. I never knew he could be beautiful) and Bo Ra (played by Sung Yuri, as this restrained brittle yet irresistable mess). Tae-Woong is a math genius who is wasting his life being a third-rate boxer as a result of his best friend’s suicide while in high school. Bo Ra is the only child of a very rich man, and is suffering from a number of physical and mental disorders. Their paths cross and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale heavily comes into play.
You would think that a story with such a plot would be heavy, dark, depressing? But it isn’t. The one, very odd word that comes to mind is ‘pure.’ Both TW and BR have a certain purity to them and neither of them really wallows around in misery. And oh God, I can so see how they are going to heal each other: she is going to find love, and care, and connection she doesn’t have, be a ‘real girl’ at last, not someone who is to be just treated and protected and kept in a glass case so she won’t break. And he will also find connection and love and will be able to open up again and move up past his guilt.
You know what I love so much? I am going to rave about Hyun Bin and his Tae-Woong a bit more below, but first let me say this about Sung Yuri. She is amazing. It’s a really hard job to portray someone like Bo Ra (who when we first meet her as a grown up is creating a scene in the hospital, threatening to kill herself, but not really meaning it, who when she finds out the maid tried on her scarf cuts the scarf to ribbons because she can’t bear to touch it, who creates a scene and gets the shoe-salesman friend of TW fired because he accidentally touched her foot) as likeable. But that is the thing. I adore her. I don’t see her as a giant bitch (which is what you’d think she’d be on paper). Maybe because despite the shell you can see the fragility in her, and all the potential for care and love that you know is there. Maybe it’s the fact that she is so charming, or the fact that I know that inside her is still that little girl who Tae-Woong hoisted on his shoulders (they had a series of brief but memorable childhood encounters) so she could see the masked performance better and who pretended she didn’t enjoy seeing it but couldn’t quite conceal her excitement. Or the girl who waited in the bus shelter for him in the rain (skinny 14 year old, giant umbrella, prickly. I just want to hug her). Or when she went (when they were temporarily stuck on the ferris wheel) that the heroines and heros kiss at that point in a foreign movie and stuck her face at Tae-Woong, to the latter’s 17-year-old horror. Heeee.
To portray Bo Ra’s likeability is a feat, and she manages. I love her first meeting with the guy who is supposed to be her arranged fiance, where she comes up with reasons why he shouldn’t want her and is so amused by it (though so is he). I love her.
And this brings me to Tae-Woong. Oh my. He really might be the gentlest drama hero I’ve come across, you know? And I think he might replace Gong-Chan from My Girl as my dorama boyfriend. He is just so caring but in a low key, uncloying way. I love when we first meet him eight years after the school events. He is rougher around the edges, somewhat more self-contained, but still with that enormous capacity for caring and somehow that inner purity (yes, odd word to use for a guy, but whatever) is not damaged by the world, or the rough life. He is still an innocent, you know? Someone incredibly good. Maybe that is what is causing his penance though. Someone more hardened, more cynical, more detached would have been able to bear the death of the friend. But his grief on finding out is so uncontrolled, so raw. He has no filters for the cruelty of the world.
You know, I feel sorry for the friend, I do. Academic pressure can be fierce and he clearly had a pushy father. But come on! To kill yourself over failing to win a math Olympiad? You know what kills me? Tae-Woong is acting as the boxer in that gym as some sort of a penance for his friend dying and never fulfilling any of his dreams, but in killing himself, the friend effectively ended TW’s dreams as well. And what kills me more is that TW’s dreams were such little, obtainable things: to be a white-collar worker, to get a restaurant for his Mom instead of the food stall, to marry someone for love and to have kids who he can teach math to. They are so normal, so everyday. (And really come from his upbringing, don’t they? This drama is very subtle so it doesn’t stress it, but TW really is the oddball in the ritzy school. Being a white collar worker might be small fry to his rich friend, but for TW who grew up helping his Mom run a food stall, this is a big dream indeed).
The final confrontation between the friend and TW is rather painful because they are such different people. I don’t think TW’s friend can comprehend selflessness. Not really. He thinks TW must be delighted over winning over him and goaded, TW finally admits that he is happy he won because it made his mother happy and it means getting a scholarship so he doesn’t have to worry about going to college (but oh, of course he won’t go, after the suicide, but he so wanted and…ok, I am going to descend into keymash here). But not about winning over his friend. Because it’s not a competition for TW. He enjoys math, he is good at it, but his priorities are right. You know, when I was in high school I read Knowles’ Separate Peace, a book I liked and which made me cry, and the story here is really reminding me of it. The narrator of the novel, Gene, could never believe that his brilliant charismatic friend Finny wasn’t envious of him or secretly competing, because he Gene, totally was. And probably one of the biggest revelations of Gene’s life was that no, Finny really was what he seemed. It’s the same dichotomy here.
Oh my GUH. How much do I love the scene of the first meeting between grown-up Bo Ra and Tae-Woong. I have to say the actors have this incredible, intense chemistry together. I love the scene where he sees her in the hospital with that sliver of glass, creating a drama, and he totally stops her and tells her if she wants to kill herself, she should go ahead (because he knows she is bluffing) and then when she makes an attempt holds her hand again and tells her that is not where she needs to cut and explains where she does need to. And she deflates. And he walks off. I love that he comes across as very kind (yes, I know, I keep using that word) even during that bit and it’s clearly because he doesn’t want anyone to die in front of him.
I love that he might be a gentle guy, but he is no weakling, no push-over. When later, he comes to her house to demand she get his friend rehired and she ropes him into driving her somewhere, he is not intimidated or controlled. He is a very unbendable person in some basic ways, isn’t he? It’s a quiet strength, but it’s there in spades. She can’t boss him or manipulate him, or anything.
I love this SO MUCH.
