dangermousie | I go on a Jo In Sung binge..

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I go on a Jo In Sung binge..

My next angsty kdrama?

Piano.

Piano involves a really messed-up extended family. Older Gentleman I am not interested in (Gangster) is a gangster who discovers he has a son when the kid is 10 years old (grown-up kid will be played by Go Soo). He also falls in love with Older Lady I Don't Care For Either (Old Gal). Old Gal used to be part of a happy, middle-class family, but being a kdrama person, her husband died and now she is destitute and miserable. She also has two children, a son (grown-up son will be played by Jo In Sung) and daughter (Kim Ha Neul). Gangster and Old Gal marry, bringing no joy to their three off-spring. Can you say 'quasi-incestuous love story plus angsty hot gangsters falling for single mothers the younger generation?' I knew you could.

Blame

alexandral. According to her, and to my further research, this drama has:

1. Angst.
2. Go Soo AND Jo In Sung. Both angsting like their lives depended on it. Perhaps they did for nothing is as scary as a disappointed fangirl :P. Two really hot actors I love playing angsty woobies? I don't need anything further. However, it also has:
3. Forbidden stepsibling love (alas, not between Go Soo and JIS). Go Soo and Kim Ha Neul share the love that cannot be. Apparently, there is wrist-cutting.
4. Jo In Sung grows up angry and bitter and becomes a gangster. YES. He also falls for single mother with adorable moppet.
5. There are accidents and gruesome deaths of secondaries, but we don't care about them, do we? After all this sturm-and-drang, Jo In Sung gets a happy ending with a ready-made family. And stepsiblings get an open ending which can also result in 'inbred in name only' babies in the future potentially.

Did I mention Go Soo? And Jo In Sung? Super-intense ones? Together?

Go Soo and wrong-lurve centric one. Ignore the uncute older people. They are secondaries, and we all know that I (and probably you) are not in it for them but for angsty Go Soo who at least doesn't get to starve in China (Green Rose) this time:

If you thought your life would be incomplete without seeing Jo In Sung emote with a little quasi-son, this vid is for you:

lesbiassparrow, I can't believe you haven't seen this one yet. it has your name written all over it.

However, it will take a bit for me to get it. Meanwhile, once I finish Only You, since I have such a Jo In Sung craving, I will watch Shooting Star (Shoot for the Stars), costarring Jo In Sung and a Bunch of People Who Are Not Jo In Sung.

Our heroine is an older lady (29) who comes across younger guy, JIS. JIS is a dyslexic waiter and wannabe actor blah blah blah. Who cares? It's a younger guy-older woman story. And has JIS. Who does not die and get the girl! I don't really care about anything else.

(I know

lesbiassparrow didn't like the heroine, but I have extremely high tolerance for that sort of thing. There has been only one heroine in history of dramaworld who irritated me so much I had to stop watching: the heroine of Bull-Fighting. And I would have forgiven even her if she ended up with secondary guy, who was the one I was rooting for as he was by far my favorite character. Unless lady in this one will cause JIS to be whipped for no reason and then permanently ditch him for someone else, we are set)

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I can't believe I haven't seen or heard of Piano myself. How did I miss this treat?

As for Shoot for the Stars...well, I found it a huge disappointment even with the wonderful JIS. And the description lies! He's illiterate which ends up being an endlessly annoying plot point. I don't remember hating the heroine but if I recall correctly she had a voice that could cut you like a knife.

Illiterate? That is even better. That way, you could keep him in the house forever and he would not be able to wander off because he couldn't read the street signs :P

I spent a lot of the time watching this wondering how they could screw up a plot as delicious as this one. The illiterate thing was really quite genius but woes! they failed to take full advantage of it. But maybe you will really like it; it's got a wonderfully evil other woman. And JIS is easy to like.

I am easy to please, so we'll see.

Thinking hard, I am not 100% sure of the end for Jo In Sung but I thought he lived. :D My brain is bad - all I rememeber is that everyone was suffering beautifully and lengthily. I quite liked the Old Gal, actually, and the Father at the end. But Go Soo was excellent there. And Jo In Sung .

I checked and he does live at the end which is YAY.

I'm totally late on this, but I recently (secretly) Bt'ed Piano. I mostly wanted to see JIS get a happy ending, and well. . . he lives. In some ways I find the melo of the drama to be too much. There were moments were I couldn't help but thinking they all needed to calm down. But, still an overall good angst-feast. Yes, feast. And JIS just plays the jerky a-hole, whose so screwed up and yet secretly lonely so well.

What else happens to him in Piano? *curious*

And angst-feast? *ears perk up*

I don't want to spoil it for you. But, he's character starts off on my 'you need a slap' list. Him and his sister, because of the way they treat their poor stepdad, who, unlike most kdrama parents, really love them and want them to call him 'Dad', etc. I mean, for most of the series, his character is just such a jerk toward the poor old man, saying things like, 'Don't even say my name.' He also gets into a lot of trouble and there is angst. BUT, during the early episodes his younger half-sis is about eight or so and there is cuteness with their scenes. He only really smiles around her (side note: the actress looks so familiar, but I can't play her), and he clearly loves her very much.

Later on in the series, he has cuteness with a little boy, who is the son of his 'semi-girlfriend'. There is much angst, as he really wants to love them, but due to his own issues and past, he has a hard time letting the girl in and showing his affection for them. There is much jerkiness from him toward girl. I wanted to slap him several times.

Sadly, his story (aside from the Dad issues) is secondary, so there was some rushing of his 'family/romance' storyline.

I could spoil you further, but that would be rude.

Spoil me, spoil me, spoilllll meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :)

Ok, ok.

His character starts off being played by a kid for the first three or four episodes. He's a boy who used to be upper middle class and is now poor. Clearly, he can't handle it. When his very sweet mom remarries an ex-con, he and his older sister act like little a-holes and more or less ignore stepdad and stepbro or are just really stuck up and rude toward them. Awful, kids needed a slap. Mom and stepdad have a little girl, then mom dies in an accident. Kids tell stepdad its his fought.

Seven years later:

He and older sis have moved out somewhere along the line. He's always getting beaten by the local mob scene, as he cannot stay out of trouble. Stepdad spends most of his time trying to win them back, but they are complete and total a-holes toward him, stepbro. However, he's very cute with his little sis, even finding stupid reasons for her to leave when he feels a huge fight coming on - he, his sis, stepdad, and stepbro tend to fight a lot.

Finally, he does something totally stupid and stepbro saves him. Stepbro goes to jail, and he leaves the city. See, he feels he nows owes stepbro (who goes to jail for a bit) something and that is the last thing he wants. So, he disappears for at least eight years.

During this time, he gets deeper and deeper into the underground, become someone who is often beat up and who often is a woobie with his angst. One day, he come across stepbro's bratty high school girlfriend, whose become a hair dresser. She remembers him and invites him back to her place for a drink. Waiting there is her small son, whose stopped speaking. She invites him to drink with her, to talk about the old days. For no real reason, she tells him how she followed stepbro around, even after he went to college. But, then someone started chasing her, so she went with him. Only, this new guy - the son's father- drunk, gambled, and beat her. Before, dying by being hit by a car. She's likeable, having grown up over the last seven or eight years. And, though she's attracted, she's not about to just sleep with this guy. However, she does invite him to spend the night (most likely out of loneliness), saying she'll sleep in her son's room.

He takes this in a way that's either being jerky, but more like a 'don't get close to be' defense, and 'attacks' by pulling her to the ground. She pushes him off and in a low blow, reminds him that he's not his stepbro. (Ow.)

Time passes, (I guess. The timeline toward the end of the series gets slightly confusing and like I said, their storyline is second) and he, the girl, and the son spend a day together. Cuteness. He has to stop himself from being overly fatherly toward the kid, and the kid allows his mom to speak for him, though she's really saying what she feels - 'He wanted to see you.' is code for 'I wanted to see you', etc.

He and the girl end up spending the night together (though, they don't even show a kiss. :( ). But, the next morning, he tells her that with his life (the angsty man!pain/underground life) there is no room for a woman.

Later, in between his mobster scenes (which there are a lot of), he and the girl meet up and he gives her a huge jair of suckers to give her son (the boy then spends the rest of the series sleeping with the jar and eating the suckers), and tells her he's going back to his home town.

Girl and her son have fallen in love, so they follow.

Sometime later, they live in an apartment together. He goes to meet his family (tearful reunion with sisters. Thinks about forgiving stepdad, leaves in a hissy fit when stepbro shows.) Semi-girlfriend asks what she and her son are to him. He's jerky and defensive. She stays put like a weed.

More mobster angst, more family angst.

The sis and stepbro show at the apartment, and end up thinking the kid is actually his son, despite protest. They tell stepdad who buys the kid toys and goes to see him as 'grandpa' (Aw.)

He gets beaten again, and when he returns to the apartment, again the girl asks who she is to him, why she and her son stay, etc. I get the feeling that since no one's ever told her they love her, she's looking for a little something, anything from him. He clearly loves her son (in his actions), but he never says anything to her. Angry and angsting, he pins her to the ground. She tries to say no, but he...forces her, I think. I'm 96% he rapes her. Then, she has trouble standing and...well, that's no good.

Mob angst, mob angst,

He's told by the boss that he has to go somewhere and later, he tells the girl that when he comes back they can be together - as a real couple. Only, she's more or less frozen in place and sweaty and having trouble seeing and...

Family angst, mob angst,

One day, he returns home and is told by some lady that he has to go to the hospital - girlfriend fell down!

What's the problem? MS - and its advanced VERY advanced, as part of her brain has already begun to get hard. :( He promises that stepbro (now a doc) will save her. Much teary angst. He explains to stepbro "She spent so much time trying to get to me. Now, that I want her, she's going away." :(

Mobster angst, family angst due to stepbro/sis forbidden love.

He and mobster crew go to attack stepdad's bakery shop and just as things are going down - little boy (whose there with 'grandpa') talks. He looks up and crying says 'Goodbye' over and over again. Everyone is shocked. Turns out his mom dies at that moment.

The girl's ashes are spread at sea, and he tearful tells the little boy to scream out 'Goodbye Mom', because this is goodbye. In a voice over 'letter', the girl tells him she's sorry. That she didn't know she was that sick and that she just wanted to be with him and be happy, etc, etc. She asks that he watch her son for her. (Very sad.)

More mob stuff. Little boy gets kidnapped, and he and stepdad go to save the boy. Mirroring earlier events, stepdad dies protecting his stepson. Nearly insane with regret and grief, he breaks down with the body and then again with his siblings at the hospital. They all scream, 'Dad.' and 'I'm sorry, Dad.' and 'Wake up, Dad.'

The series ends with the four siblings going to their home (before or after the funeral)(it was their childhood that was sold. The Dad spent years raising the money to buy it back so they could all live together and has bought it - along with the paino the mom used to play) to find the little boy inside, playing the piano as if he had always been there.

Thank you!

Btw, I think I'll check out Shoot for the Stars instead, first :) He definitely gets the girl there.

Welcome. :)

I thought about SftS, but I heard it was cheesy and draggy. Let me know if its worth a look.

BTW: did you ever get around to watching Chinese Paladin?

I am about 6 eps into CP. It's cheesy and very fun.

Because I get most of my drama recs from you (even if you don't know it), I watched it over my spring break. Be prepared for some angst and 'Wait, what?' moments. It is a drama from China/Hong Kong after all. And, then there's a very confusing (but polite) love triangle. :/

Heeee, polite but confusing? Yay. I am so continuing with this next.

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I go on a Jo In Sung binge..

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