In case you don’t follow me on twitter (or in case you’ve muted me), I’ve now made my way through ep 29 of Meteor Garden. It’s been a hard slog, with very little pineapple and Shancai to distract me from the utterly irrelevant Caina (NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU).
The show comes from director Kim Seong-hun, and it will be about a
prince going on a quest to “investigate a mysterious outbreak that leads
him to a brutal truth that threatens the kingdom.”
Kingdom will premiere on Netflix around the world in 2018.
I kind of bristle at the thought of trying to paint Korean history with a Western lens since Korea shouldn’t need to be shoe-horned into Euro-centric definitions of history, but I suppose if one must make a comparison, the Joseon era is perhaps most like the High Middle Ages in Europe. I also suppose I can’t fault the wording in the article, since people unfamiliar with Korea wouldn’t know what “Joseon” means but could perhaps easily grok that “Medieval” means “historical” – I hope they’re not expecting knights in shining armor, though.
Anyway, the most important thing to note (which the article ignores, alas, because apparently the AV Club cares little about Dramaland) is that Kingdom (both the webtoon and the drama script) is written by my beloved Kim Eun Hee. Most will know her work from from Signal, although I’ve been been a devotee ever since Harvest Villa – so you know at least the script will be good because even the worst drama she’s done has been tolerably decent.
Plus, if it goes straight to Netflix, that means she can go as dark and twisted as she would like without fear of repercussions (and if you’ve seen her dramas, you know she can go there).
“It’s my favorite scene in the movie and it’s the most important scene in the movie. It’s also the scene that made the least sense to other people going in, which is why it’s a wonderful victory for me. I think that in superhero movies, they fight other people, they fight villains. So when I started to really hunker in on the significance of No Man’s Land, there were a couple people who were deeply confused, wondering, like, ‘Well, what is she going to do? How many bullets can she fight?’ And I kept saying, ‘It’s not about that. This is a different scene than that. This is a scene about her becoming Wonder Woman.’” –Patty Jenkins on the No Man’s Land scene
I keep forgetting my phone at home which is stressful because I never know what time it is and also what if people need to contact me, but also probably a good thing because lbr no one needs to contact me and time is an illusion anyway.
I don’t eat ramen very often, but I always seem to have some on hand just because I can’t resist trying whatever is on sale. I’ve taken to having some packs of ramen on hand at work for whenever I’m hungry and didn’t bring a lunch and don’t want to spend money.
Today I made the ramen without thinking about it, just noting I took the last one out of my locker and I’ll have to bring more in later.
Since I’m an expert at making packaged ramen in the microwave and not picky about my flavors, I didn’t bother to read the packaging except noting that any packaging with red in it means spicy. I think my brain assumed it would be like my go-to fave Shin “Gourmet Spicy Picante” which is a spicy but a heat I tolerate and even enjoy.
Which is why I was bewildered as I started to tear up from the skin tingling heat as I ate my lunch. Did I suddenly lose my ability to eat spicy things? Why am I crying? Why is my nose running? Why can I no longer feel my lips?
What I didn’t realize was that I’d carelessly been slurping down the infamous Paldo Teumsae ramen. Now, it’s not the spiciest (would I even survive the Fire Noodle challenge?) but holy heck this is one bowl of spicy noodles.
It took about a half-hour for the lip-tingle and tears to evaporate, and honestly I’ve mostly forgotten about how spicy my lunch was – except when I realize why I have such a strong and inexplicable craving for the cold milk goodness of a bowl of ice cream.
The Obsessive Dilettante 