The Housemaid

하녀 (The Housemaid) is a South Korean movie that was directed by Im Sang-soo and released in 2010. It is a remake of Kim Ki-young's movie "The Housemaid" that was released in 1960.

Story: Lee Eun-yi starts to work as a maid in the house of a rich family. Her task mainly is to take care of the daughter Nami but also do the housework and cook together with Byeong-sik, a woman who has been working for the family for a long time.
On a family trip Eun-yi gets into an affair with Hoon, the son of a rich family and her boss, who is married to Hae-ra. Hae-ra is pregnant with twins.
Soon Byeong-sik finds out that Eun-yi is pregnant with Hoon's child and tells Hae-ra's mother about it. So the women in the family are trying to get rid of the dark secret.

Cast: Jeon Do-yeon as Lee Eun-yi is the main character in this movie. While her acting was good I also think just by her looks she reminded me of what I would imagine a nanny to look like. Except for a few moments of definitely overdone acting she was good in this movie.
Lee Jung-jae as Hoon is the son of a rich family who always got what he wanted when he wanted it. The acting was good, too, but in some way his character confused me a bit in the end. Anyway, I think it was not about the acting itself but the character.
Hae-ra was played by Seo Woo and I think her acting was too flat. There were some emotions missing in the daily stuff, not only when acting like a jealous wife. So personally I didn't believe in the relationship between Hae-ra and Hoon because of her acting.
Park Ji-young as Hae-ra's mother has a similar problem in my opinion but it is not about a lack of emotions shown. It is more or less a too ruthless way of behavior her character showed and while I was able to believe her acting in that way the interactions with the family members were a little bit strange.
Lastly, Yoon Yeo-jeong as Byeong-sik seems cold and hard as stone but showed a nice change in character especially towards Eun-yi. I personally really think she is a good actress in these type of roles - she seems to become something like a mother or aunt and portrayed that change well.


I saw some really bad reviews of this movie because, yes, it is slow paced. Yes, the story itself is kinda obvious and some people don't even see a story (I don't know how though?). Yes, the ending really is ridiculous and totally influenced my rating but I'm not sure if it happened that way because of the original version from 1960.
However, I gave this movie a 5.5/10 for everything. While it did lack in aspects and definitely does not deserve the genre tags "thriller" and "suspense" it is a good, classical drama/melodrama and if you like those kind of movies you should go for it.


BE WARNED though since this movie has some nudity. So I would say watch it if you think you don't mind sexual scenes.

71: Into the Fire

포화속으로 (71: Into the Fire) is a South Korean movie based on a real historic event during the Korean war directed by John H. Lee and released in 2010.

Story: The movie starts with Oh Jung-beom being ordered around to deliver supplies to soldiers in need in Yeongdeok. The town is attacked by North Korean soldiers and Jung-beom is saved my Lieutenant Kim Jun-seop who dies to save the student soldier. Full of guilt Jung-beom manages to get to Pohang with another unit of the South Korean army that established a base camp in a girls middle school. As the troops leave to fight at the Nakdong river 71 student-soldiers, most of whom never used a gun before, are left at the middle school to defend the minor strategic point. Kang Suk-dae makes Jung-beom the leader of the student-soldiers because he is one of three of the group who has some combat experience.
One day they are on patrol and get under fire. The feared 766th division of the North Korean army is attacking the group of students. The get an ultimatum to either rise a white flag or the school will be attacked by the division.
After reporting their encounters with the North Korean soldiers, Kang Suk-dae continously asks the commander of the forces at Nakdong river to send support to the school and shortly before the North Koreans attack he leaves with his soldiers for the school to save the students.

Cast: There was not one actor in this movie whom I didn't believe his role. I think they all put their heart and soul into this production and it is visible. T.O.P as Oh Jung-beom was doing especially well in the beginning being the traumtised students. Since he has to take the lead later on it shows that his acting is strong in this movie, the transformation to a leader of the student-soldiers is portrayed well.
Kwon Sang-woo as Gu Kap-jo was really good in his rebellious acting and it seemed as if I saw him before in this role. I don't know if he often plays those rebel characters but it was really good. Kim Seung-woo as Kang Suk-dae was good, too. He seemed sincerely worried about the soldiers on a human basis much more like a father character that doesn't want to see his children die because he had to leave them alone.
Cha Seung-won as Park Mu-rang, the leader of the North Korean division, was a good antagonist. While I personally think his character was sometimes a little bit too careless about orders (I don't think the North Korean military would like that much) it still worked well with the story and totally was not a problem with his acting.
Of course as this is a movie about the Korean war there are lots and lots of actors and I can't name them all but other actors in this movie include Kim Yoon-sung as Poong-chun, Yoon Seung-hoon as Hwang Chang-woo, Kim Hye-seong as Yong-man, Kim Dong-bum as Jae-seon and Shin Hyeon-tak as Dal-yeong.


I personally loved this movie in its real and historic tragedy for portraying the reality of war. Especially the Korean war is a topic I know much about and that is therefore a special topic to me. It is one of the wars where brothers could have happened to fight against each other because of different ideologies or just living places. I had to rate this movie with a 10/10 and also added it to the list of my favorite movies (I'm not a movie person so there aren't that many though..)
I highly recommend this movie if you are interested in Korean history.

Be Arrogant

도도하라 (Be Arrogant, Be Proud) is a South Korean drama series that was aired on SBS Plus from October 27th to November 24th 2014.

Story: Hong Ha-ra is a bright, energetic and sweet girl working as a tour guide for Chinese tourists who happens to send her boyfriend 5000$ one day. After that he disappears and took all her deposit money. One day she has to move out of her room but doesn't have anywhere to go. The only place she can think of is the house of her boyfriend's sister Do Ra-hee. It turns out that her boyfriend Noh Cheol has been in a relationship with the woman he always called his sister for more than 6 years but she doesn't know where he currently is either. To make money the two women start an online business called Dodohara. When Cheol appears again the three of them live together in the house and get into a complicated relationship based on friendship and love.

Cast: Okay, so at least there are some familiar faces in this drama, let me be happy about this! At first there is Shin So-yul as Do Ra-hee. I honestly enjoyed seeing her in this role, the hot temper was great with her acting and I really liked it how she was not the typical female character in a drama.
On another corner of this love triangle we have Kim Ah-young better known as Yura of Girls Day. I think she did well in the cheerful part but also managed to show the more serious emotions and the temper she developed living with Ra-hee and Cheol.
Yoo Min-kyu as Noh Cheol was another familiar face in this drama. I personally think the flower boy role suits him but something about his character and his indecisive acting didn't really click for me. Maybe it was the way his character was written between those two women but it might have also been his acting.
Go Se-won as himself was the only actor in the cast that appeared frequently that I was not familiar with. I think his acting seemed a little bit less expressive than I would've expected in some parts of this drama and maybe that is his style of acting I didn't quite enjoy in this drama.

Soundtrack: I don't know much about the OST (again) but then again I'm pretty sure it wasn't bad or I would remember that part at least. It's just nothing I would listen to outside of the drama either so somewhere around average.


After all I rated this drama as a 7.5/10. I didn't have high expectations to be honest and that made this drama probably better than it actually was. Such a short drama with 10 episodes and 20 minutes per episode doesn't leave much space for character development but the humor and the way the characters dealt with problems was interesting.
It delivered a solid story line and three entirely different characters who somehow ended up living together and have to sort out their personal lives while earning money. It might not be the best drama ever but if you have some spare time and are looking for something short to watch this drama is not the worst choice.

Surplus Princess

잉여공주 (Surplus Princess) is a South Korean drama series consisting of 10 episodes that aired on tvN from August 7th to October 9th 2014.

Story: Aileen is the 18th mermaid princess and has a crush on Kwon Shi-kyung. She wants to become a human and steals a potion from An Ma-nyeo. The big problem after drinking the portion is - that she has to find true love within 100 days or she will die or, more correctly, disappear without a trace.
She moves into the "Surplus house" and her new housemates are all unemployed job seekers who experience various difficulties together. Trying to hide her real identity Aileen, going by the name Kim Ha-ni,  tries to gets closer to Shi-kyung not only because of her feelings but also to save her life.

Cast: Another drama on this blog with Jo Bo-ah, in this case as Kim Ha-ni or Aileen. I really like her as an actress but I have a feeling the very bright and cheerful (and somehow stupid) character didn't really suit her well. Also the helplessness in some scenes just didn't feel right.
Ohn Joo-wan as Lee Hyun-myung definitely did an awesome job acting in this drama as the hero always around to save the damsel in mistress. Definitely a very likeable and sweet character but somehow his relationship with Jin-ah in the beginning just made him seem too weak.
Chef Kwon Shi-kyung was played by Song Jae-rim and I think he did a very good job regarding the disease (you will find out more about this when watching the drama but it is not thaaaat bad). For a male lead in a rom-com drama he was actually very nice and charming.
Park Ji-soo as Yoon Jin-ah probably became my most hated character in the drama. The acting was really good and I really enjoyed hating her character a lot. I'm just going to mention the second-female-lead-syndrome and I guess many of you actually understand what I mean.
Kim Seul-gi as Ahn Hye-young was just brilliant in my opinion. I really love her as an actress by now, her singing in this drama was also nice and she was weird at first but turned out so supportive. The character was well played and I don't know what else I should say.

Nam Joo-hyuk as Big was the youngest person in the sharehouse. His character was acted well, too, but I feel like sometimes it lacked some depth in writing or acting, I don't know what is the reason but it was just my impression.
Ahn Kil-kang as An Ma-nyeo had the weird darkness that totally didn't fit the drama this much and that is 100% about the writing. The acting was nice and fit the actor but I personally liked the less mysterious parts of him a little better and thought that it works better with this drama.
Other actors in this drama include Jin Hee-kyung, Kim Min-kyo, Kim Jae-hwa and Lee Sun-kyu.

Soundtrack: I don't know how they did it but a lot of songs that were not the OST for this drama were played. However, sometimes it was just not the right timing and sometimes the songs were a little out of place for me but in total I would say they supported the light and humorous atmosphere.


My rating of this drama is a simple 5.5/10.
The reason is simple: I was so close to dropping this drama during the first episodes. Somewhere in episode 4 or 5 it became bearable and I didn't want to kill the main character anymore (yaaay). Still the humor in this drama was so flat in the first episodes that I could just sit here, shake my head and hope the writer stopped taking whatever he or she took while writing the first episodes. If a drama has 10 episodes and I would rate the first 4 episodes as a 0 or maybe 1 of 10 something is seriously off.
However, as I said it became bearable and even enjoyable even though some of the jokes were still stupid but maybe I just got used to it.
The idea itself wasn't bad, it kinda reminds me of the little mermaid, but also has it's differences.
Oh, and what is still in my mind is the ending. I'm not sure if I like it or not but.. it is refreshing but something I would wish for in any drama with those annoying and rude male leads..
I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone, honestly, unless this is totally your kind of humor but.. you know the risk and don't say I didn't warn you.

Killer K

소녀 K (Little Girl K, Killer K) is a South Korean short drama series described by channel CGV as a TV movie consisting of 3 episodes. It aired on CGV from August 27th to September 10th 2011.

Story: Cha Yeon-jin is a highschool student who was taught various martial arts starting from her childhood. One day she meets her friends at the port and in a shooting where many people get killed she and police officer Choi Tae-young are the only survivors.
In the same night, Yeon-jin's mother disappears and the young girl who got suspended from school tries to find and save her with the help of Yoo Sung-ho, an old friend of her mother.
Two years later, Yeon-jin is supposedly dead and sneaked into SS1 to get revenge. Going by the name Kim So-yeon she is a professional killer taking out those who are working against the company. Chief Min Ji-young took care of and trained her during the past years which gives Yeon-jin professionalism even though she wants to stop working for the company.

Cast: This drama was the first role for singer-songwriter Han Groo as Cha Yeon-jin and it was just a badass but also multidimensional character that her acting was awesome for a debut.
Kim Jung-tae as Yoo Sung-ho was also very good as a protective father-character. I would've wished to know more about his background though, and why exactly he decided to leave SS1 back in the days.
Baek Do-bin as Choi Tae-young gave it some comedious feeling which was just nice and refreshing to watch in a series that is 95% based on action (what I'm totally in for though).
Park Hyo-joo as Min Ji-young was definitely also a character that was so badass in so many ways. The acting was great but I would've loved to know more about the character and why she started working for the company.
Kim Roe-ha as Jang Se-wook was just annoying me so much. The acting was great but I was hoping for someone to at least make him shut up.. Probably not a character you will be able to stand if you like religion as much as I do.

Soundtrack: Oh, the soundtrack.. a very difficult thing. I loved the music they used but of course there aren't many songs you can listen to to remember this drama since it is only short and the OST literally consists of two parts. However, the instrumental music was good and I really enjoyed it.


In total I rated this drama as a 8/10. It is packed with action and an independent female lead, it was interesting and also included some lighter scenes like highschool lovey-dovey but it also had dark moments. While I personally really enjoyed the story I couldn't stand Jang Se-wook and was close to turning off the sound.
Another problem about this series was the lack of background information. It wouldn't have been that hard to give some more information in one or two lines. Oh, and making the mother that stupid (yes, she's worried about her child but runs into a trap) was just unnecessary. So it could've been better but that still doesn't mean it is bad.

That was me in highschool every single day when I was finally allowed to go home!

Formula 17

十七岁的天空 (Formula 17) is a Taiwanese gay movie directed by Yin-jung Chen and released in 2004 with a screentime of 93 minutes.

Story: Chou Tien Tsai is a country kid who believes in true love. One day he goes to Taipei to meet his internet friend face to face but he eventually ends up in a gay club after his internet friend suggests having sex without love. In that club his friend Yu works as a barkeeper. During the next days Yu and Tien are roommates. In the bar Tien also meets CC, Yu's friend, and a man who is described as a playboy by many, Bai.
After that night in the club Yu tries to help Tien to lose his virginity but all plans fail as eventually Tien keeps running into Bai and falls in love with him even though he knows it might be dangerous for his feelings.

Cast: Tony Yang as Chou Tien Tsai is such a cute character that I really wanted to squeal from time to time. The naive, romantic country person came out well in this role. Duncan Lai as Bai is also an interesting character by the way he tries to avoid love. While it is not bad at first he starts to consult a professional at some point as he doesn't know what is happening to him.
King Chin as Yu is such a hilarious character - I think you should see him in this movie - that I couldn't do anything but laugh about the country bumpkin who turned into a big city bar keeper and party person. He can't keep up with Dada Ji as CC though - like.. CC is the gay person many people actually just imagine as the representative of gay men (which of course he isn't) but together with Jimmy Yang as Alan they are doing a great job at keeping up the comedy because of their characters literally screaming "gay" at the audience.


I honestly admit that I watched this movie for the first time back in 2011 or 2012 back when I was really interested in all that boys love and gay movie-stuff and I had to rewatch this movie to be able to tell you about the story and to properly criticize it.
What I can tell you is that it is an entertaining comedy movie that is almost a little bit like satire - even though I wouldn't view it as criticism - so the acting is a little bit extreme. However, this movie made me laugh much more and it has quite memorable scenes I still remembered even after such a long time. So it does deserve a rating of 8.5/10 solely for those parts.
The love story on the other hand is cute but somehow basic - it is nothing really unique but the package made this movie funny and cute at the same time and I should probably put it on the list of "feel-good"-movies.

Perseverance Goo Hae Ra

To make it short: This entry will be a long rant among the dozens of things I hated about this drama, why the 12 episodes took me two months to finish and how stupid some people make characters while I will probably talk about how much I loved the music and performances for half an hour. Don't mind me, you don't need to read everything if you don't want to.

칠전팔기 구해라 (Perseverance, Goo Hae Ra) is a South Korean drama series that was aired on Mnet from January 9th to March 27th 2015 and consists of 12 episodes.

Story: Goo Hae-ra's father died when she was a child. Since then it was her dream to make her fathers last song known all over the world. As she participates in a casting problems start to arise since something or someone seems to be against her. And to make it all worse her childhood friend Kang Se-chan signs with Emperor Entertainment which disqualifies the team. The only option to save Se-chan from a long-term contract is for his older brother Kang Se-jong to sign with them. As he is considered the traitor, his relationship with Hae-ra suffers heavily. The other team members already consider what to do if they can't fulfill their dream until one day the former idol Tae-poong decides to help them. Except for Se-jong the whole team is united again and starts to work towards their dream - standing on stage and performing together. Se-jong debuted with IMPACT in the meantime but wants to leave Emperor Entertainment to get back - but there are the entertainment's star Scarlet as well as the CEO Hwang Je-gook trying to stop him and destroy the Perseverance team.

Cast: Min Hyo-rin as Goo Hae-ra was just outright horrible in my opinion. Not only because of the character and the way it was written - Hae-ra is the type of female character I hate so much that it would get me to drop a drama solely because of her - but because her acting was just very obviously fake. Since I haven't seen her in any other role I would just love to say that the role definitely didn't suit her at all.
Kwak Si-yang as Kang Se-jong was good in my opinion though. Not really outstanding but the role of an older brother caring for his younger brother and Hae-ra enough to make himself suffer a lot made somehow sense to me. However, his push-and-pull at some point (yes, it was the writing, I know) was also stupid and so annoying that I think it could've been written a lot better.
B1A4's Jung Jin-young as Kang Se-chan as well as Ray in this drama mainly impressed me with his voice and rapping (which isn't really surprising) but his acting was okay for the characters I would say. At times he did seem to overact a bit but it was okay for the comedy parts. In the serious scenes I would love to say that he did have some brotherly chemistry with Kwak Si-yang which I enjoyed watching.
Henry Lau as... well, Henry, was one of the most funny and refreshing characters in this drama. His acting was a little bit childish at times (not often) but I guess that was also because of the writing. Except for overdoing it a bit in the beginning I would say it was good. But I think the chemistry between Henry and Lee Woo-ri played by Yoo Sung-eun was not really the best. I didn't think they fit together even though their story was good. Sung-eun as Woo-ri was a cute girl I learned to like through the drama but her acting could've been a little stronger. However, it is obvious she was in this drama because of her voice and I loved her songs already years ago so be assured - that woman can sing!
And another singer in this drama is Park Kwang-sun of Ulala Session as Jang Goon. I'm not sure how many people remember know Ulala Session and even if they did how many people recognize his voice - because I clearly didn't but it also has been a long time since I listened to this group. Anyway, his acting was also good somehow and there was a twist around his character that kinda surprised me.
Shim Hyung-Tak as Tae-poong was... weird but good? I don't really know how I can explain this, I think his acting was too extreme at times but that is what made Tae-poong interesting so I don't really know how to rate this. Rather an "above average but not perfect" rating.
Other actors in this drama include Seo Min-ji as Scarlet, Park Hee-jin as Heo Myeon-ran (Hae-ra's mother), Jang Young-nam as Kang Soon (Se-jong's and Se-chan's mother), Yoon Da-hoon as Hwang Je-gook and Kim Min-Jae as Sa Ki-joon.

Soundtrack: This is a drama by Mnet. It is literally a music drama. The music and life performances were good! And I'm not joking, it is what kept me watching this drama while I wanted to drop it at least five to six times. If there are any songs I remember as very special I have to name Yoo Sung-eun's "널 사랑해 (I Love You)" and Min Hyo-rin's and Jin-young's "널 만난 이후 (Oh, My Love)" but literally all the songs and performances are great and I highly recommend watching them on Youtube separately if you want to.


Above I didn't mention many negative things, I know that, because I didn't want to seriously spoiler anyone. But my total rating is a 5.5/10 and I rarely give ratings below 6 or 6.5.

Throughout the whole series what bothered me the most was Goo Hae-ra and don't mind me but she is the reason I will probably never even consider rewatching this. In one episode (yes, this is out of context) she wonders why another person is not answering the phone - after he told her like five minuets ago that his phone battery was empty. You must be kidding me. No one has such a short term memory. And already my short term memory is bad.
This drama includes so many twists (I wouldn't call them plot twists but rather relationship and character twists) that it went up and down faster than any rollercoaster could. It went from good-ok to omg-why-am-I-even-sitting-through-this-bad in five to ten minutes sometimes. It seemed like the writer him- or herself didn't have any idea where this mess was going to end up.
Especially during the last episodes it was really hard for me to keep watching. One of my notes says that I was close to jumping in a circle in episode 9 because they were dragging it so much. I don't exactly remember what made me freak out like that because I took a long break after that to recover and get the energy to force myself back to watching this but it was probably bad.
And there were so many things happening "by chance" in this drama that at some point it got me to roll my eyes.
In the end I would say what saved this series what the fact is that it really involved music as a huge factor and that made it interesting to me but definitely not a series I would recommend anyone to watch - check out the performances on Youtube and please leave it at that for your own sake.