Pained

통증 (Pained, also known as Pain) is a South Korean movie that was released in 2011.

Story: Nam-soon works for a loan shark as a human punching bag to scare people into paying back their debt. He lost the ability to feel pain after a car accident in which his family died. Since he feels responsible for the accident he lost his will to live as well.
Dong-hyun is a young woman who's parents died both because of illnesses. She has high debts left to pay though she only makes money selling handmade items and additionally suffers from hemophilia.
One day Nam-soon and Bum-no visit Dong-hyun to collect a debt. Bum-no has to leave, and Nam-soon quietly waits outside until Dong-hyun comes out of her house. The police soon arrives and finds the two of them fighting which makes Nam-soon leave.
When a few days later a group of homeless approach Dong-hyun because of her father owing them money, Nam-soon helps her out and since she had to left her apartment because of him, he decides to let her live with him..

Cast: Kwon Sang-woo as Nam-soon wasn't too bad of an actor. Same goes for Jung Ryeo-won as Dong-hyun. But their chemistry could have been better and I honestly felt like something just wasn't right. Their acting in itself was pretty much okay anyways, so there's nothing special to really say about them.
However, Bum-no played by Ma Dong-seok was the highlight in this movie. The acting overall was great and I did like his character and how he worked with Nam-soon. I can't really explain the reason but I just liked it.

Soundtrack: While I don't know the title of the song, I did like the song at the end of the movie. The music was one of the things I enjoyed about this movie.


I'm sure a rating of 5/10 is kind of surprising to some of those who read this post thus far. There are a few reasons to it but let's just start with the most obvious one:
This is a melodrama. It's also categorized as "tearjerker" and I was far from crying. There were romance-comedy dramas that brought me closer to tears. Besides I'm not a huge fan of melodrama but still ended up watching this movie (that's my bad but I still have hope I'll find a melodrama that captures my attention).
The whole plot isn't that unique as well. A man who can't feel pain and a woman who thinks stuff over and over again because of her disease. But really, it doesn't feel like there's a unique touch to it. The story itself wasn't really able to keep me interested.
The fighting scenes were nice and also some scenes with the two leads but I still got the feeling they just lacked something.
And what was worse to me was the ending. I don't get why they did that. First, it would've made sense for all those people around to call an ambulance. If you've watched this movie before, you might understand what I mean. Secondly, it would only make sense for Dong-hyun to die. Of course we don't know that (I won't tell you what's exactly happening) but the part including Nam-soon's prayer just seems randomly placed there. It's not like a prayer could heal a genetic disease. Well, yes, of course, a melodrama should be more based on emotions than on logic but still, that's what actually bothers me.

However, it's not a waste of time if you're bored and have nothing else to watch. Though you might need to like melodramatic love stories. I probably won't watch it again or maybe when I'm in a bad mood because of being love sick.

Mimi

미미 (Mimi) is a South Korean drama series that aired on Mnet from February 21st to March 14th 2014 every Friday at 11PM. The series consists of four episodes with a duration of 70 minutes each.

Story: Han Min-woo is a webtoonist who recently gained popularity because of "December 8th" but he suffers from a partial loss of his memory. All memories until December 2003 disappeared but it feels like the webtoon he's working on tells his own story. To be able to complete the story he tries to restore his memories of his first love that were erased by someone to save him from the pain. While he finds out what has happened, the viewer watches his past self as well as Mimi as high school students and understands what exactly happened.

Cast/Acting: Han Min-woo is a quite complex character who had to deal with loss before. Shim Chang-min actually did a good job portraying him though I'm not familiar with his acting itself. I enjoyed seeing him in this series after all. Moon Ga-young as Mi-mi was quite good as well, though my personal feelings towards her character changed within 30 minutes in the last episode (some humans are just stupid and not romantic but hey, that's my opinion) but her acting throughout this drama was solid.
Jang Eun-hye portrayed by Shin Hyun-bin was good in the beginning as well. While the acting was okay, in the end I felt like her character was just the most senseless one in this series. Yes, sure, there had to be a love story with a happy ending but besides for that I missed something about character development and the importance of her character. She didn't seem like a main character/actress at all.
Jung Ji-soon delivered as one of the side characters, to be more exact he was the team leader Min-woo was working with.
The last actor I really NEED to mention is Baek-hyun. No, not the one from EXO though someone confused them already (I had a good time laughing about wikipedia) but his voice and charisma as the "umbrella guy" is no joke. I loved him and I'm looking forward to maybe see him in more dramas.

Soundtrack: The actual soundtrack only includes one song performed by two singers, it's just a male and a female version. "슬픔 속에 그댈 지워야만 해 (Because I Love You)" was performed by Wendy and Chang-min and isn't a bad song but I found it rather boring after listening to it a few times. The other songs are actually a part of the S.M. The Ballad Vol.2 project. I personally loved and still love Yesung's "내 욕심이 많았다 (Blind)" to death and it really works well with this drama.
After all, the music in this series is really good and nothing else was to be expected since that's what Mnet is known for.

I decided to rate this drama with a 6/10 though. The story was nice but I personally missed some logical aspects and just started complaining about why some characters just started acting the way they did. The drama itself lost the mysterious aspect after the first episode, especially due to the flashbacks it possible to guess what's actually behind everything. So if you're looking for something mysterious with a hint of romance this drama just fails to deliver the mystery part at some point and develops into a typical tragic love story. But what really bothered me the most is how they actually just put Eun-hye in this drama while her character lacks sense, there was literally no reason why another woman had to be there. She didn't support the romance between Min-woo and Mi-mi nor did she have any impact on the whole mystery.
However, the music, the scenery and the acting itself saved a plot that was actually based on a good idea but not delivered the way they could have. It's beautiful to watch if you're in the mood for some tragic first love and don't want to spend much time on it.

Secert Love

시크릿 러브 (Secret Love) is a South Korean drama series that aired on Dramacube network from June 13th to July 11th 2014. The series consists of 5 episodes telling different stories. It is also known as KARA's Secret Love because a member of Kara starring in each of the episodes.

Story:
1. Min Ji-hye is a model who lost her longterm boyfriend Jang Hyun-jin because of a car accident. In a bar she gets offered to travel to the past and stop them from meeting to save Hyun-jin. However, the price she has to pay for changing the past is high: She has to give up all of her memories involving Hyun-jin.
2. Lee Hyun-jung is diagnosed with cancer and the doctor tells her she only has three to six months left to live. She writes a bucket list and starts to do what she really wants to do before her time has come. One day she meets Yoon Joon-moon who's currently a soldier and has three months left until his discharge. When he finds out that Hyun-jung will probably die he decides to help her fulfill her wishes.
3. Park So-yeol collapses on a highschool festival one day and is brought to the hospital. There she meets Hyun-joon, a man who's a lot older than her. But the two of them start going on short trips together and So-yeol finds herself becoming attracted to a man only she can hear and see...
4. Melly/Mary Jung comes back to Korea after hearing that her birth father died. While she never met him as far as she knows, she has to solve a puzzle in order to receive the money he left behind. The only hint she got is Tae-yang, a boy she has been playing with when she spent one week in Korea years ago.
5. Park Sun-woo is helplessly in love with her senior Woo-bin but got turned down for four years. After graduating from university she starts working for the same company. One night she makes an earnest wish that she'll end up with Woo-bin. Her guardian angel Chun Sa-nam has to help her and can only return to heaven when her wish came true.
All of the stories are completely different and, as far as I know, written by different writers, too. What bothered me the most, though, is in fact, that cancer played a huge part in two of five stories, while another deadly disease is mentioned in another episode. Now if someone really has seen people deal with those diseases or lost beloved ones.. I don't like how often they used this without considering that the repeated use might hurt people a lot.

Cast: 1. Han Seung-yeon as Min Ji-hye did a far better job in this series compared to Her Lovely Heels. I liked her acting overall, in some scenes I still thought she seemed to be a little cold but she has improved her acting. Yeon Woo-jin as Jang Hyun-jin was excellent in this series, I really enjoyed his acting and the end of this series almost made me cry because of him.
2. Goo Ha-ra as Lee Hyun-jung was a lot better than I expected her to be. I somehow found her acting a little bit too much from time to time as well but since it was my first time seeing her in a series I think it was a solid performance. Kim Young-kwang as Yoon Joon-moon was good as well but his character changed within five minutes completely. Sure that's because they lacked time but it could've been portrayed better.
3. Kang Ji-young as Park So-yeol simply delivered. I was impressed with her acting, especially in the end. There's nothing I can really criticize about her. Bae Soo-bin as Hyun-joon was a good counterpart and his acting especially when he finally learns the truth was simply awesome.
4. Nicole Jung as Melly/Mary Jung was pretty much alright. I can understand her feelings towards the father she never had but then again in the end she took the shocking message who her father was and why he died to lightly though. Humans are different but I would've imagined something more emotional, especially since she seems to have quite a temper. Lee Kwang-soo as Tae-yang is a chaotic personality in need of money. He seemed goofy but has a serious side to him as well that was kind of interesting to watch.
5. Park Gyu-ri as Park Sun-woo is probably one of the characters I really disliked at first but came to like in the end and her acting was good. She might be one of the few female idols I like to see in K-Dramas. Ji Chang-wook as Chun Sa-nam or Guardian Angel No. 2013 (this sounds so weird though) did a great job. Especially when complaining about humans and scolding Sun-woo.


Rating this series as a whole is rather difficult to me so I somehow calculated an average that happened to be 7.5/10. There are some things I feel I need to mention.
Some things (for example the disease-topic) became repetitve. Of course the writers just used topics that are typical for K-Drama but it's actually annyoing to see how often it's used.
Even if episode 3 deals with this topic, it managed to be memorable and is my favorite episode of this series.
Episode 5 was probably the most interesting one for me since I loved the angel-part of that. I sincerely hope for a longer series probably dealing with the topic of guardian angels or fallen angels since aliens and vampires already were a topic in K-Drama.
Why didn't I mention the soundtrack? Well, it didn't do much for me in this series and I felt like there were loads of different songs involved so I decided to just leave it be.

And I just HAVE to mention how much I loved the settings in Ep. 1, 4 and 5. Those pictures shown are really beautiful.

How would I rank the episodes based on my personal preference?
1. Kang Ji-young/ Bae Soo-bin - Ep.3
2. Park Gyu-ri/ Ji Chang-wook - Ep. 5
3. Han Seung-yeon/ Yeon Woo-jin - Ep. 1
4. Nicole Jung/ Lee Kwang-soo - Ep. 4
5. Goo Ha-ra/ Kim Young-kwang - Ep.2

Words of Devotion 2: To the End of the World

!WARNING! This is a boys love movie, if you don't like it, just ignore it.

(Ai no kotodama 2: Sekai no hate made; Words of Devotion 2: To the End of the World) is a Japanese boys love movie that was released in 2010.

Story: Hirofumi Sasaki started working for a new company not too long ago and doesn't really know that much about the IT field in the beginning. The day he's moving out of home his boss calls him to the company and he meets Shinji Tamura, who transferred to the branch to help them for some time. As Shinji starts working in the branch, Hirofumi naturally meets him more often. The two of them slowly start to work on their relationship and become a lot closer..

Cast: Ryunosuke Kawai as Shinji Tamura is doing a really good job in this movie. So does Makoto Uenobori as Hirofumi Sasaki. Their chemistry was nice, I really felt like there were sparks floating around in a few scenes. The only thing I didn't really like was one scene pretty much towards the end of this movie since it seemed a little bit too impulsive and even a little violent.

After all this movie received a good 7/10. It is not closely connected to the first movie so you don't have to watch it though some aspects appear in this movie again. One will understand those easily even without knowing the first movie.
The movie is a sweet and light one, nothing really sexual about it unless your imagination will make you think of it that way (though it's actually clearly shown there's nothing to it), if you like some Boys Love movies with a happy end (yay for the writers not making a character die~) you'll probably enjoy this even though the story in itself isn't anything completely new.

Words of Devotion

 !Warning! This is a Boys Love movie! Don't like the genre? Then just ignore it.

愛の言霊 (Ai no Kotodama; Words of Devotion) is a Japanese Boys Love movie that was released in 2008.

Story: Shinya Ootani and Miyako Tachibana have been best friends since high school and started living together about two years ago. Actually the two of them are a quite cute couple but one day Yuki, a friend from high school, shows up and Ootani starts feeling jealous and somehow insecure.
The movie shows the life of a gay couple and no one around them knows that they actually are a couple and not only close friends.

Cast: Yasuka Saito as Miyako Tachibana has acted in a few other boys love movies before so I think his acting in this field is pretty solid. It's not like I could really complain about it.

Hidenori Tokuyama is someone I haven't seen in any series so far and his acting itself as Shinya Ootani was okay but sometimes as a character trying to hide his jealousy he seemed too calm.
After all the chemistry between the two leads was good and their acting was nice to watch.


My personal rating of this movie is 6/10 though. The movie isn't bad but since I'd say it's rather about a couple's life (and it doesn't even matter if it's a gay or straight couple) with a nice ending but a not-so-deep plot. It's not that exciting though it is a sweet story finally not about how people start dating but their relationship itself.