beyond the edge

The holiday season drought is finally over and the new year for J-dramas has begun!

Final Cut
(Kamenashi Kazuya, Kuriyama Chiaki etc) First episode 7.2%
The rumour is this was supposed to be the finally entry to Kusanagi Tsuyoshi’s revenge trilogy (Zeni no Sensou and Uso no Sensou being the first 2) and because of SMAP’s messy dissolution, Kame took over along with a different script-writer. I tried watching Uso no Sensou and had to fast-forward through the first episode…and this is exactly what I did here. The character’s special skill is supposed to be “parkour” but apart from a show-off sequence in the beginning, the parkour does not feature again, which just makes the isolated sequence rather imi-wakanai. I’m not an awfully big fan of Kusanagi’s acting (I think if you have to squint or twitch your eyebrows to show emotion, something’s not done right), but Kame just doesn’t bring the audience into this character. The climax in the first episode was so ludicrous it throws you out of the rhythm (despite it being Kame’s most eye-gripping appearance in the episode). The most appealing thing so far about the series is the two sisters, acted by Kuriyama Chiaki and Hashimoto Kanna. They’re so adorable I can watch them for another 9 episodes…but I really don’t think this drama is for me.

Unnatural
(Ishihara Satomi etc) First episode 12.7%
This is not Ishihara’s first time as a forensic pathologist, if anyone still remember the tonally mild but surprisingly reflective Voice (with Eita and Toma) before she went down the sexy route for a few years. The thought behind this series is that Japan has amongst the lowest referrals to Coroners in the developed world, and a fictional forensic pathology department is created to deal with unnatural deaths. Fortunately it’s fairly light on the visuals of the autopsies and is mostly about case-solving. Ishihara’s character appears to also be harbouring some sort of dark past. The first case, for the premiere episode, was rather unexciting but the pace was good and the characters are easy to relate to. It’s nice (and realistic) for it to show pathologists cracking inappropriate jokes instead of taking a morbid profession too seriously.

Momi Keshite Fuyu
(Yamada Ryosuke, Haru, etc) First episode 13.3%
There’s a lot to like about this drama but the overall direction leaves you scratching your head. At its surface it’s a comedy family drama, and Yama-chan takes to the role with aplomb. Haru and Ozawa Yukiyoshi are also great respectively as the mean sister and self-centered brother. The characters overall are quirky, cute and watchable, and characteristic of the scriptwriter who brought you Sekaiichi Muzukashii Koi. The plot is where it leaves me confused. As a family drama, you’d expect if it were to have a moral message, it would at least be a correct one - but the main character, who is looked down upon by his family for his earnestness, saves the family by doing something unethical and frankly illegal, and yet is rewarded for doing it? In the end it leaves you confused as to what the drama is trying to do or say, and it’s rather worrying when a lawyer successfully convinces a police officer that “family overrules the law”, and a doctor says that it’s okay to steal confidential medical information and use it to blackmail people. It seems like only the bullied main character is “good” but in the end he is forced to compromise on his goodness…it just does not make sense in a comedy.

99.9 Season 2
(Matsumoto Jun, Kagawa Teruyuki, Kimura Fumino, etc) First episode 15.1%
The first episode had the problem that many sequels have, and that’s trying to introduce everyone to new audiences, and trying to appease old audiences with familiar gags, and trying to suggest there are interesting subplots to keep watching for, while trying to fit in a whole story arc in between. There’s more dad jokes in this episode than there was in the whole first season, and they’ve got to pull the reins before it gets ridiculous. MatsuJun and Kagawa are now really comfortable in their roles and with each other, and their banter continues to be the highlight. I do like Kimura, but it feels like this scriptwriter isn’t very good at writing young female regulars - neither Eikura Nana’s role from last season nor Kimura’s this season was particularly interesting especially between 2 quirky men, and Kimura’s role doesn’t delineate from Nana’s role enough to really make you care for the change. Even the female paralegal was more interesting than her… One of the major loose ends last season was Miyama’s father’s story got brought up regularly throughout the show but was never resolved, and it looks likes this season (hopefully) it will get somewhere. Nevertheless, this is the top of my watch list for the season, if only for Kagawa-san trying to terrify MatsuJun in a pink grasshopper bodysuit.

Chiisana Kyojin (Little giants) -- Hasegawa Hiroki, Okada Masaki, Kagawa Teruyuki, Yasuda Ken
Synposis: as the protege of the serving director of the "first division", Kosaka thought he had the director position in his pocket until he was all of a sudden demoted for a small mistake. The more he tries to find out why, the deeper he seems to become entangled in the web of corruption and lies.

( The police version of Hanazawa Naoki? )

Kizoku Tantei (Aristocratic detective) -- Aiba Masaki, Takei Emi
Synposis: an aristocratic man moonlights as a free PI because he likes it, and he is helped along by his 3 servants. He goes up against a female PI in her cases.

( That was about how much I understood from the first episode )

Kinkyu Torishirabeshitsu 2 (Emergency Interrogation Room 2) -- Amami Yuki
Synposis: Amami Yuki returns to her best as a no-nonsense policewoman in a small group specialising in interrogation.

( Almost like BOSS )

(PS: I kept getting very confused because Tanaka Tetsushi appears in both CRISIS and this one)

Maybe it's my stuffed nose or my week of sleep deprivation, but it was quite possibly the most unexciting 2 hours of entertainment I've sat through in the last year.

I've been fond of Eddie Redmayne since Les Miserables and the rather stunning (?mouth-gaping) The Danish Girl, but he managed to hit the awkward and anti-social Newt on the nail...because he's just as forgettable and charmless.

The two women are equally forgettable yet also manage to be grating in addition. The main girl (whose name I swiftly banished out of my short term memory as soon as I finished watching, might have been Louise or Tina or something) must be one of the most annoyingly useless female inspectors in a major role to grace the big screen.

The only one who had any real charm was the Muggle. The fantastic beasts and the fantastical world in question took too long to appear. Newt's suitcase reveal should have happened at least 30 minutes earlier, and not after a 1 hour trawl through an exposition-heavy introduction.

Because of how long the movie was, it hadn't been clear from the outset that the orphans were going to be a major plot point, I failed to develop any sympathy for the kids, who managed more creepiness than innocence.

Without wishing to waste any more words on this movie, it was a decent optical spectacle but the fantasy came too late and the emotional core was curiously absent. And there's Johnny Depp being Johnny Depp...

Firstly, congratulations on surviving 2016 and welcome to 2017.

2016 was certainly an interesting year, not just because of the number of shock celebrity deaths (RIP). It showed us there are flaws to every form of government, including democracy, and it gave us a world that proudly preys on our fear of "them" and "those people".

“There is a curse.
They say:
May you live in interesting times.”
---Sir Terry Pratchett

But my subject is actually much more mundane. I recently watched The Martian and following that, because it's still touted as a masterpiece, Interstellar.

I'm beginning to think I'm not really a sci-fi fan.

They were both nice movies, though Interstellar felt about 1 hour too long. The pace was slow, perhaps to give the audience time to absorb the beauty of space and the gravity (hah) of the situation. I liked that Murph (and Brand) was a strong female who was pivotal to the plot (and to solving humanity's plight) without serving a romantic role. The trouble was, as clever as the conceit was, there was too much gobbledygook going on towards the end that, given how realism had grounded much of the movie, came to its undoing as it gravitated (hah) too close to fantasy. The snippet where Cooper enters the black hole and transmits the secret quantum message to his daughter was particularly gobbledygook. Nolan has authored some clever stuff, and you're much better off appreciating his genius in something like The Prestige or Inception, both of which were also better served by their pacing and atmosphere. The music was starting to really grate after 2 hours and 50 minutes of ominous swell of strings chorus, and again (?) you have Hans Zimmer to thank. As usual with Nolan's movies, the quality of the cast was superb, especially in the actresses for Murph.

To its credit, Interstellar's slow pace gives the audience pause to think about what humans are doing to Earth, about the moral dilemma of a world crises - do we choose to turn a blind eye and hide in a shell of ignorance, or do we take the higher intellectual ground of saving the species, or do we bank on our empathy and fight for those we care for? The movie seems to support the last option, and we like to believe that it's empathy that makes us human - but as it questions even in the movie, so often an individual's empathy is short-sighted, given only to those we have contact with. Is saving the species, rather than the individual, the real moral high ground?

Space, the final frontier, said Star Trek, but Interstellar suggests that there is another frontier out there, beyond the three dimensions, that the humans will conquer. Time, the one thing that has always been constant in our existence, the one thing we cannot escape nor alter. But Cooper suggests that humans conquered time to deliver him the message for him to save mankind.

The Martian is a much lighter film in terms of its mood but also philosophy. Quite a few of the same cast appears, supported by a bunch of MCU veterans (especially the two who've recently appeared in Doctor Strange). Like Interstellar, it's a story of survival but on a one man scale. It's a movie of optimism, not only in the old Chinese adage that "the heavens will not give you a road that ends you", but one that also believes in a world where people will come together to save one man. It's a story that empowers nerds and scientists, if that needed to be done, although it is a bit incredible the amount of knowledge Matt Damon's character possessed to survive on his own. Reacting hydrogen with oxygen? I don't think I learned that in biology.

And at the birth of another year, let's commemorate the passing of the last with the poem endlessly referenced in Interstellar.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--- Dylan Thomas

A few months ago I went to New York, and as often happens on these 20+ hour flights, I caught up on a few movies. As often happens when you are sleep-deprived, cramped into a tight space and struggling to hear the dialogue over the drone of engines, these are usually not the best circumstances to meet a movie (or anything/anyone) for the first time. Sometimes I wonder if airlines should change the name from "entertainment" to "procrastinator" or perhaps more aptly, "sleep replacement therapy" - for those moments in life when you're too uncomfortable to sleep, too tired to read, and...well, there really isn't any option apart from trying to raid the galley for the 5th time for biscuits.

By the way, JAL has some really amazing snacks. Definitely worth the raid...ahem.

Strayer's Chronicle
This one I actually watched last year on our way via Japan. It's the sort of dystopian science fiction that Japan seems to love churning out - ala Gantz, SPEC and Shin Sekai Yori. Perhaps a little too similar to X-men than it intended to be, but much smaller in scale. In the near future, scientists have worked out a way to create "superhumans" via one of two methods. The first group "Team Subaru", to which the main characters belong, were born from mothers who had been placed under prolonged extreme stress during gestation. This group has heightened senses and perception, at the price that when they reach "adulthood", they undergo an abrupt breakdown and die - that process occurring at any point after they reach teenage years.

The second group "Team Ageha", are Magneto's team the antagonists, having been created from recombinant technology that spliced animal DNA with humans. Their DNA had been coded so that they were unable to live past the age of 20 (I can't remember if it was this movie or another that talked about telomeres, but the concept is similar).

The result is painfully akin to a watered down version of X-men, where the two groups of children meet as enemies and eventually unite in the common cause of preserving their line. Unfortunately, a recurrent flaw of these dystopian science fiction stories is that the final reveal, the big boss's motivation, the cruel hand that drove their fate...is incredibly uninspired and underwhelming. Think Death Note and its nihilistic "after death there is nothing" message, or SPEC and its ludicrous retconning.

What it does differently to the much glossier X-men, and in no small part due to the young age of its cast, is the sense of family between its characters. Japan seems to be able to do the tenderness of a family a lot better than Hollywood, but it may be more due to the cultural structure than scripting. The adoration the younger kids have for their big brother Subaru, and the responsibility he feels towards his charges, the bickering between the Ageha members while always watching out for each other...in the end you feel bad for them, because these are vulnerable kids who should be coming into their prime, and are yet faced with the imminence (and certainty) of death.

I wouldn't have placed Okada Masaki as an action hero, but he did a fair job here, having enough presence to pull off the thoughtful big brother and a keen fighter who can predict other people's moves before they make them. The kids all turn in on par performances, though this was probably an item that should have stayed a book where morals and social values could be explored without undermining an action-packed climax.

Kung Fu Panda 3
These days, everything must have a sequel, and when things have a sequel, they must be a trilogy. Hollywood logic *eye roll* Franchises that have so far been undone by the need for trilogies include and are not limited to The Hobbit, Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean and....Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon.

In this perfunctory and forgettable final entry, we meet Po's (real) dad and a village of similarly fat and silly pandas. I don't really understand the logic of "we almost got killed because we knew kungfu so let's hide in a place where no one can find us...and purposely not learn kungfu". I'm pretty sure they'd kill you even faster....

Anyhow, I've seen talks on the net complimenting the climax on the way it portrays the importance of attaining inner peace, of looking within, of letting go of the attachment of life and death...but that's giving the movie way more credit than it deserves.

Funny and colourful, but unfortunately no longer as impressive as when the first movie was released, though to its credit, it's still much less hamfisted with the "be yourself" message as most other Hollywood animations out there...

Spotlight
This was the movie that won the Oscar. I feel watching it on the plane really didn't do it justice. Set in 2000-2001, a group of columnists expose the long-standing child abuse perpetrated by church priests(?) and protected by a society that did not want to know it.

It's really a sad movie that passes such keen criticism on the damaging inertia of society. People, involuntarily or not, protect the perpetrators and cast out the victims, because to do otherwise - especially in this case but also in other circumstances - would be to defy some part of their own beliefs.

In the end there was no powerful corporation, no scheming villain, no unscrupulous thugs...just lots of embittered and angry people who tried to make things right, and on their way discovering that the barriers that had prevented them were so insidious and institutionalised that they almost could not pinpoint it.

I think the most poignant scene was when Rachel McAdams' character tried to calm Mark Ruffalo's character down, and as they sat outside in the dark fuming, McAdam's character says in a sad, wistful tone, "You know...I used to go the church, then life got busy...but I've always thought I'd go back one day, you know, when I get older. But now that I've read all these...I don't know. I don't know if I can sit there, knowing what they've done."

For a lot of people who still have a belief, it's a very sacred, pure thing, whatever the religion. That moment after the newspaper was in wide release and McAdams' grandmother reads it, then puts a trembling hand down...it was terrible, not just what the perpetrators did to the victims, but to do so from a position of trust, and what it meant for the masses who had turned to them for purity and purpose.

Jurassic Park
I hadn't been meaning to watch this, given how reviews had been, and how scathing dear Joss Whedon had been about its use of regressive gender tropes.

What can I say? I think my brain had been pretty numb by this stage of the trip, which meant this was the perfect combination of running-screaming-shooting-and-rinse-and-repeat to engage your time without needing a functioning brain to actually process any of it. The CGI was nice, the main characters were gorgeous, there were predictable but not altogether too stupefying ebbs and flows of tension. Did someone die? I think someone did, but frankly I can't remember, so can't have been important.

I liked Chris Pratt from GotG, and if I had time I'd watch Parks and Recreation, but somehow Jurassic Park took an all-round fun and charming guy and turned him into a sour bore.

So it was fortunate I watched this in a state of stupor that I would forget it before GotG 2 rolls around, I suppose.

That was not a review.

I've watched about 9 episodes of this projected-to-be-16 episodes saga.

I actually didn't want to watch it based on the synopses (又用這個藉口不累嗎) - a soldier and a doctor? So many things could go wrong, but then a nurse at work kept pushing me to watch it, so surely it can't be too bad.

I'm really not into K-dramas, but I understand the central characters are all pretty famous? And this is Song Joong-ki's first drama since returning from military conscription.

There's a good reason I try to avoid medical drama but I like stuff with suspense (but preferably not a convoluted plot that resolves over 50 episodes) so it's almost always police procedurals or medical dramas on my watch list.

Fortunately, Descendants of the Sun doesn't pretend to be a medical or a military-based thriller, and so I'm far more forgiving of its mistakes. I think the wonderful thing about this show is how perfectly balanced it is between the romance and the drama, humour and angst.



I was so busy laughing at this scene (basically the doctor is 花痴ing over the guy's "only photo") to notice the dextrocardia situs inversus totalis the first time I saw this. Then when it popped up again in an MV, I thought, "Hang on...not only is the heart deviated...the gastric and colonic gas are also on the right."

SO MAYBE HE HAS HIS APPENDIX ON THE LEFT SIDE AFTER ALL. I mean, excuse my 職業病 but it looks like the bronchus on the left is also more horizontal than the right? So it's likely that he has the total inversion of the organs. The text on the Xray is not flipped, so it just remains whether this is going to be a plot point or just...some random mistake trivia.

Also, just for the record, the only X-rays that make surgeons go 花痴 (yes, even female surgeons) are the ones of people who are not walking out of hospital the same day.

Anyway, back to the story, because I didn't know Song Joong-Ki when I first started watching (and I didn't see any posters...) I seriously thought Seo Dae-young was the main character until the scene in the hospital where the two main characters gaze upon each other as the curtain glides in slow motion between them while a love song croons in the background.

Hey, it is a Korean drama after all.

Which brings me back to what I mentioned a few days ago in the Sungkyunkwan post. Don't get me wrong, I love Song Joong-Ki in this role, and my lack of knowledge of Korean stars aside, I can't imagine someone else doing Yoo Si-jin. He manages to subvert his character as Yeo-rim, despite both these characters having a playful streak (okay, there are one or two scenes where his mischief overlaps with Yeo-rim). Whether 2 years of service did this, who knows, but his air is much more mature, more confident, and more manly. In a way, I think Joong-ki tries to play Yeo-rim as aesthetically pleasing as possible, which is in keeping with the character but also with a lot of idols of that age. Yoo Si-jin's expressions are much less...picturesque, if that's the word, his smiles and grimaces and snarls and shock can all contort his face into odd angles, but makes him feel more like a working man than an idol.

That said, Song has a very boyish face, and coupled with his leaner physique, his perpetual slouch, and the character's playful mannerisms...I seriously thought Seo Dae-young, who exudes much more discipline and the manly virtues of not having an idea of romance assurance was the main character. Or at least, the higher ranking captain. It's not that Song can't do serious, and some of his best scenes are when he's serious, but on occasions, depending on the lighting and which uniform he's wearing, standing amongst other soldiers he looks like a cornered high school student....

Kang Mo-yeon and Yoo Si-jin especially are impossibly perfect characters, written in a way that makes it hard to dislike them. I like how mature and rational they approach their vocation and their relationship. I like their level-headed discussions, where they acknowledge each other's values without compromising their own. Their discussions about the different and potentially contradictory commitments of a surgeon versus a soldier is interesting for two jobs that deal with injury and death on a regular basis. Fortunately I don't think the drama tries to preach any lessons about which side is correct, though it did have a rather painful side plot about a doctor who ran away from a building (leaving a trapped patient behind) during an aftershock and was then, despite the patient surviving, guilt-ridden for 4 episodes with many scenes of really grating mopiness.

First rule of emergency medicine: check for danger and keep yourself safe. You can't save the patient if you become a patient.

Without trying to nitpick, that entire plot was written poorly - certainly some junior doctors can be left quite unsupported in the field, but that is not characteristic of the medical team shown in the drama. They're a good cohesive team who work well together, so it was incredible that the senior doctors didn't try to mediate at all. Secondly there was no good reason that the junior doctor was in the ruins looking for survivors, he's not trained in that sort of retrieval, and when he found the trapped patient, he should have called for help first rather than trying to drag him out on his own. Third, while it's true that you shouldn't be changing treating doctors on a whim, when the therapeutic relationship has clearly broken down, it's to everyone's benefit to change the treating doctor.

Aigoo...let's stop talking about the medical aspect, because otherwise I won't stop.

I like how the relationship between Yoo and Kang plays out, even though it might feel a bit drawn out. I think Kang's prolonged misgivings about entering the relationship are perfectly justified, because not many rational people want to commit to a relationship where the other person might get sent on a job and never return. I like how Yoo is usually playful, but when questioned about his expectations and hopes for the relationship, he always approaches the discussion like an adult.

However, I think Yoo is too perfect, to the point where his biggest flaw is his job. He's perceptive, and so he's always playful when the mood needs to be lightened and serious when situations demand respect. He's smart, skillful, disciplined, responsible, brave, pragmatic, humanitarian...........He knows exactly what to say to make a girl's heart flutter (seriously, stuff like "You don't have to feel defeated just because your feelings have been exposed. Just remember that I love you more and you always have that advantage over me." - many kudos to Song Joong-ki for somehow able to carry all these sappy lines without making the audience cringe). He's the sort of character that only exists in fiction, matched with a female character who is similarly smart, strong and stoic, even if she keeps grudges for a little too long and is sometimes a little too fierce - but she's a surgeon, so that would be totally in character XDDDD

The secondary couple of Seo Dae-young and Yoon Myung-ju is a pleasant surprise. In fact, one of the best things about this drama is its general lack of people backstabbing each other (at least, not in seriousness XDDD). There's no multi-angle relationship, just two couples trying to iron out their own massive problems. Seo and Yoon's relationship is perhaps your much more traditional Asian problem of class difference. Yoon's dad is the general, Seo is unlikely to get much further past a sergeant major. Yoon's dad prefers Yoo - despite this, Seo and Yoo are still good friends, Yoo and Yoon bicker like siblings, and the romance between Seo and Yoon teeters between tragedy and hilarity. I like Yoon's forwardness, and her tireless efforts to be somewhere close to Seo despite his and her dad's efforts to keep them apart. I like Seo, or rather, I love Jin Goo's portrayal of Seo - probably one of the best 面攤 (blank faced) acts I've seen (YAMASHITA TAKE LESSONS FROM THIS MAN YO). Unlike Yoo, he is a man of few words and few expressions, but despite that it's still obvious from the way his eyes narrow, or the way his brows furrow, or the way his jaw tightens or relaxes exactly what Seo is thinking, and that is the epitome of 面攤. I like how there are several long conversations where Yoon practically talks to herself while he remains silent and unsmiling...but it still somehow felt like one of the richest conversations between two star-crossed lovers.

But what keeps audiences watching is how well the scriptwriter has balanced and juxtaposed scenes that are completely emotional opposites. After a tense gunfire or a stressful mass trauma event, there's always something sweet, something funny, something mellow, something cute to soften the pain...and just when things are in danger of getting too sappy, the tension starts building again.

Because I'm someone who always preferred thrillers to romances, I think the pace is perfect, but I wonder how people who only watch romances are able to sit through the gunfights? I know my mum runs away every time that comes on...

Really hoping for a happy ending, but somehow with their occupations that seem rather difficult....

As far as terrible excuses go, I went and watched this because I felt I should fatten up my K-drama tag a little...

Actually the real reason is yes, I got on the boat that's Descendants of the Sun and seeing that it's yet to hit the obligatory!k-drama!angst part (i.e. last 3 episodes), I thought I'd dig this out.

I've always been a bit wary of watching actors/actresses I don't know, especially in stories that need to be carried by charisma rather than plot, which was why I never started watching Sungkyunkwan despite really liking Rooftop Prince a few years ago. Also, frankly, the poster that's been used around the net for this drama has really not inspired an interest.

I admit I started watching it for mainly Yoochun and curiosity about Song Joong-Ki. In a way, the first episode was one of its best episodes, because thereafter a series of poor writing made you lose sympathy for the main character "Dae-mul" bit by bit until you were sick of her stupid face.

To be honest, the drama had a lot going for it, and was unfortunately sunk by its central romance. The most interesting parts were everything else - the rigid restrictions brought on by class (and gender) inequity, the importance of an education system that protects the students against partisan interference to foster free thinking, and how different parenting styles create different thinkers.

Unfortunately the central romance and the main plot point of "cross-dressing girl studying in an all boys' school" (wait...where have I seen that before...HanaKimi) is its weakest link because of its shallowness between the meatier plot lines raised above., but to say that would be unfair to its premise.

Sungkyunkwan is meant to be a crossdressing school drama exactly in the vein of HanaKimi and Ouran Koukou and others such silly shoujo things, but set in the ancient times...but if it were only that then it would have sunk into oblivion. It's both fortunate and unfortunate that it's propped up by these pertinent themes and subplots, as it makes the central story of "crossdressing girl in boys' school" really quite...bland.

What makes it more disappointing - and perhaps because it had such an intelligent approach to highlighting class inequities - is the Mary-Sue misogyny that is so painfully unavoidable in these crossdressing stories (perhaps except Ouran Koukou, I still think Haruhi was one of the best done crossdressing heroines).

Even given the grace of "main character protection", she still comes across in her actions as passive and uncertain, until the plot calls for a Mary Sue moment in the end. It's really quite disappointing, because in the first episode she was an admirable (albeit foolhardy) girl who could face down threats of unequal marriage and rape, and take on the risk of potential death by entering Sungkyunkwan. But from episode 2 to 19, the Asian Main Female Character syndrome takes over. She's helpless and quivering when threatened by Ha In-soo and his cronies. She's speechless and keeps trying to run away when teased by Yeo-rim. Despite this, she retains her Mary Sue achievements and clinches several competitions that require real skill and experience, of which it was made obvious she did not have.

This all culminated in a frustrating showdown in episode 18 where she runs (without checking her surroundings or notifying her friends) into a temple, and her 3 friends each paid a terrible price to bail her out - Geol-oh was injured trying to distract the troops, Ga-rang surrendered himself in order to protect Geol-oh, and Yeo-rim - trying to save all three - was forced to publicly acknowledge his falsified heritage. All throughout this, Dae-mul stood big-eyed and open-mouthed without trying, for a moment, to stop Ha In-soo from finding Geol-oh or arresting Ga-rang or publicly humiliating Yeo-rim.

Does this mean that the main character is stupid and useless? She's not - because she's supposed to be one of the smartest in her class, and when the plot calls for it she's more than able to hold her own against a barrage of threats against her poverty and her gender.

What it says, unfortunately, is the perpetuation of gender roles in our modern society, where even a script that has Dae-mul preach several times about "western standards of gender equality", still sees this strong, smart female character as someone who must nevertheless fit the traditional female role of needing to be protected, as not having the ability to stand up and speak out for those she cares for, as being less capable of problem-solving and advocacy than her male counterparts.

Sure, in the end she was the one who led the students in a peaceful protest in front of the emperor, condemning the military intrusion into Sungkyunkwan - but the students would not have been there if Yeo-rim did not abdicate his role to her and if Geol-oh hadn't dragged his wounded body out onto the rooftops to be Hong Byuk Seo. It was, bittersweetly, handed to her on a silver platter for her to enjoy her Mary Sue moment.

I'll talk more about the characters in another post, but Sungkyunkwan is a drama that I think tried to be two competing stories and as a result isn't very successful in either. It has fascinating characters, some beautifully formed friendships, and, as of crossdressing dramas, one of the more natural romances. It has an intriguing political plot line, driven by some well-portrayed class conflict, and its use of Confucius literature is a testament to its intelligence. Unfortunately, all this is undermined by the central premise of a school comedy romance, and all its finer points are sacrificed to uphold this much more banal storyline.

My entries are getting longer and longer...in between.

The endless cycle of sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep doesn't leave much space for introspection on the 2 days of the week you have leave from it.

I've actually been watching a lot of random stuff since coming to Sydney, and this Easter break has been a bit of an unintentional marathon. Some of them I haven't finished yet, but it would be so long until my next entry, that I should at least make the effort.

SPECIALIST
As a continuation of 4 drama SPs over the last couple of years that rated pretty well each time, it managed to be the top rating drama of the season (not including the long-running shows). Even so, the decline in drama ratings over the last few years have been unrestrainable, with most dramas these days struggling to break even 10%, and even the top rating ones of the season seldom pass 15%.

Is it good? It's not bad. The plot holes are less obvious than some of the other stuff that goes on in Japanese crime thrillers, and the mystery is usually interesting enough to keep you engaged for the 45 minutes run time. But the characters are pretty bland, and the overarching conspiracy was - rather typically of Japanese crime dramas - a letdown. The ending is open, possibly paving the way for sequels later on.

Verdict: a good police procedural, but don't get too attached to the big conspiracy.

Kaitou Tantei Yamaneko
It's been a long time since I could bring myself to watch another one of Kame's dramas, and I'm pleased to say that his acting has improved greatly. Yamaneko is sufficiently brash and burlesque for Kame's public persona not to overwhelm the character.

Yamaneko is an interesting character - sort of like Detective Conan bred with Gintama. Japanese literature (if you count manga/anime amongst "literature") does these sort of characters very well - from Kenshin to Gintoki, the carefree and careless main character who carries a dark and bloody past. He's a "good thief" who steals from the corrupt rich, but previously trained as a spy at the order of a mysterious entity called "Yuuki Tenmei" who came into power during WW2 but still exerts a stronghold on Japanese politics. Somehow, Yamaneko had a fallout with Yuuki Tenmei, and while completing his "side quests of the week", his main mission is to find Yuuki Tenmei and the answer to his existence.

Unfortunately, rather typically of a show of this enormity - e.g. Ouroboros, SPEC - the ending dissolves into ludicrousness. One of the twists was seen a long way coming due to an unfortunate casting. And like many Japanese shows of this calibre, the show is peppered with odd morality lectures and the ending is immensely confusing as to what it wants to say about the world.

Verdict: an excellent effort by all core actors, let down by a disappointing script.


Matsumoto Seicho adaptations
Matsumoto Seicho was one of the great authors of modern Japanese crime literature. Every year, there are multiple adaptations of his works released as drama SP, drama series or movies.

I watched a few of them: "The black forest", "The woman who bought the local paper", "The castle of sand", "The flag of mist". They're slickly produced SPs (well okay, most Japanese drama SPs are quite well done and often better than the series...) which are all well-acted and very atmospheric.

The female characters are...interesting, and really rather pitiable. Apart from "The Black Forest" which quite easily translated to a contemporary setting, the others...I want to say that they're dated, but they're not, because in Japan (and probably many other parts of the world) women are still subject to the same sort of inequity that's put on display there.

For example, the extremely capable and shrewd reporter in "Castle of Sand", who provided multiple clues and ideas to the police investigation, gets transferred away from investigative journalism because she's a woman and should be writing about things like...girly things.

Or the rather tragic female main characters in "The woman who bought the local paper" and "The flag of mist". The first story was extraordinarily...claustrophobic. Here is a woman who was being extorted and raped, who wanted to keep her marriage together, and murdered the two perpetrators because they threatened to continue their abuse. In the end, to protect her husband's reputation, she divorced him before turning herself into police. She had intended to kill herself but one of the other characters stopped her, saying - "the man's (the rapist) children won't get any of his life insurance if you die, because it would be counted as suicide. I hope you can turn yourself in, so that the children know the truth, and they can continue to love their father."

I don't know why I reacted so badly to that. I felt she had already been through so much, and while murder can't be justified, there's certainly extenuating circumstances. I don't feel the man deserved any sympathy and he certainly wasn't portrayed as a good father - he had multiple women and was rarely home to see his wife and children, and on top of that he extorted this poor woman for money and raped her multiple times. I felt she had already paid so much for another undeserving man in her life - the husband, for whom she had an abortion as he demanded it of her, and the botched operation made her infertile. For whom, even when her own honour and security was at stake, she still cut ties with him so that he could be protected. In a way she was a 白蓮花, but she also wasn't, because she became strong enough to take matters into her own hands and kill the perpetrators. I don't think people should commit suicide to avoid facing retributions, but I was very annoyed that the above speech could change her mind - why should she have sympathy for these children, when their dad is such a low life and when she couldn't have children?

Less tragically, in "Flag of Mist", it was about a girl's revenge against a lawyer who declined to be the defense lawyer for her wrongly accused brother. I felt a lot of her hate was misplaced, but yet tragically understandable.

What ties these stories together is that a lot of these women - these women who try to get their way, are not your usual "good girl". They become hostesses, they sell their bodies, and when asked, they sigh and say, "We have to live, somehow".

These days things are getting better for women, but his stories are an oddly painful reminder of how stifling Japanese society can be on the role of women.