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WINTER_SONATA
January 7, 2019
"Winter Sonata" (2002) Male lead: Bae Yong-Joon
Female lead: Choi Ji-Woo
Director: Yoon Seok-Ho
Hyeong-min Lee
Writer: Kim Eun-Hee
Yoon Eun-Kyung
o Central to the story: the birth mystery. Oh Soo-Yun
Could it be that our love is-- *incest*?
FORBIDDEN_LOVE
o Tremendously popular throughout Asia:
regarded as one of the key breakthrough
"korean wave" dramas
o Amazingly slow pacing: lots of mournful
"looking sad" scenes, lots of halting There are long passages where
can't-get-the-words-out dialog. the female lead says nothing
but "I'm sorry."
o They hammer away at a handful of really sappy pieces of music.
(When they start up "My Memories..." we started singing along:
"*Noooooo....*".)
o There are many of the standard devices on display that the
korean drama is only now just recovering from-- car accidents,
amnesia, hospital bedside scenes, dread diseases requiring risky
operations... disturbing news regularly makes people keel over
and land in the hospital.
o There are funny attempts at doing "arty" direction that remind
of Woody Allen imitating Ingmar Bergman ("Interiors").
o My project, as usual, is to try to use the drama to tease
out something about social attitudes in Korea.
They want self-directed romantic love
but with the stamp of parental approval.
The status of women is mixed: professional The careers tend to be
careers with children delayed to ~30, but femme: running interior
"forceful" male schtick seems accepted. design firms, fashion
outlets.
o They work hard at manipulating
the audience, and the author's Parents do At one point someone
job is assisted by multiple their best to tries to rape the
manipulative characters on emotionally female lead. This is
stage that steer the plot. torture regarded as wrong, but
children. she doesn't seem to
It's impossible to talk hold it against him.
about any of this without Then, there's (She got away from him,
"spoilers", and there isn't a classic so no big deal?)
much point to the story soap opera
except wondering "where is villainess.
this going?", so:
Such people exist, When you're
SPOILERS but everyone in this dealing with a
story is remarkably passive-agressive
slow to recognize manipulative
her style and block liar, you don't
her maneuvers. give them any
thing to work
with and don't
I can see that many elements believe what they
I've puzzled over in later say. That's
dramas probably have their obvious, right?
roots in this one.
I mean, they've
For example: known her since
high school.
The long period of separation
before the final reunion.
Some of the later elements dropped into
"He's Beautiful" (the A.N. Jell show) BAD_GIRLS_FATE
that seemed weirdly out-of-place may
have come from "Winter Sonata":
o A birth mystery & could it be this
is an incestuous love?
o The mother is a famous female musician,
who slept around a lot, she creates
confusion about parentage by projecting They all do don't they?
her wishful delusions about her past. You can't trust a female
singer. Except for
At least in "Winter Sonata" Japanese idol groups,
the lead characters (particularly every one of them is
the male lead) are aware of a certified virgin.
the problem and worry about it at
some point. In "He's Beautiful"
its a point raised solely to
mess with the audience.
There are a number of really
sleazy moves made to make the
audience go "oh no"-- After the long time lapse, we
come back to find the female
lead hanging around with the
despised second male while
they're both holding a little
kid-- did she really land
with this guy?
But no, the second male is
still friend-zoned: When the
camera finds them again they
*just happened* to be standing
next to each other holding
someone else's kid.
The "birth mystery" angle had me
thinking why don't they just get a DNA
test? When is this story set, anyway?
They've all got cellphones--
And then, all of a sudden, one of the
characters *does* order a DNA test. Where he gets legal
standing to do this is
This is one of the secondary never explained but I
characters, who wants to see once get tired of complaining
and for all if he might be the about these issues in
male lead's father. these shows-- there's
another scene where a
So: why didn't it occur to hospital employee reels
our hero and heroine to have off someone's medical
themselves tested at some status over the phone to
point? They're just a complete stranger.
convinced that they're
doomed, so why bother. One way of understanding
these shows is "it's all
But then, throughout about the ahjummas".
most of the story, no They're targeting an
one will tell the older female audience
female lead about the that cares (or is
issue. Girls need to supposed to care) more
be protected from about emotional reactions
reality, you know. than practical detail
about how the world works.
I'm afraid the great
conundrum of this show had
me thinking "Dude, you move
to LA and get a vasectomy,
she follows you and gets a The male lead has previously lived in
nose job. Problem solved." the US for years, and is an established
architect there. It's not like he
They'd hardly be the first can't imagine leaving Korea.
people to use this maneuver.
Living without the
crazy parents and
I saw a couple out at a silly high-school
restaurant in SF's Japantown friends would be
the other day: both had red pretty tough, but
hair and very similar noses. you'd probably manage.
I figured they were brother and
sister-- then I noticed them
holding hands across the table.
FORBIDDEN_LOVE
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