ibisfeather
Underground resistance fighters battle the occupiers, moral ambiguity and romance complicate things
A good watch, 2hrs and 20mins, a spy thriller from 2015, very successful at the box office in SK. Good costumes and sets, very cool acting.
Do not watch on a whim late at night as I did, only to realize 15 minutes in that I had completely lost track of events. The first scenes are set in 1911, in the 6th year of the 40-year long Japanese Occupation of Korea, and the main assassination plot takes place in 1933 in the 28th year of the Occupation. If you prefer to prepare with a complete spoiler the Wikipedia article on the show itself is very clear. I dont do spoilers but I offer two pointers, one to plot and one to perspective.
1. The premise is set up clearly in the first few scenes but do not be kdrama lazy and assume all will be made clear, this is a spy thriller and you have to keep on your toes. Pay attention to Yem and to Kang later on, respectively the resistance fighter captured after the weird attack on the rich collaborator, which results in the killing of Kang's wife, and the loss of one of his twin baby girls (spirited away by a chinese midwife).
2. Try this rough imagination hack to understand the twisted lines of loyalty and love in 1933 Korea. So, if Germany, France and the British Isles correspond to Japan, Korea and China imagine:
-Germany had successfully invaded France in 1940 and set up a puppet govt which was only ousted after a gigantic international war in 1975-1980 (cruelty, torture, massacres, the suppression of the French language in schools and all civil institutions).
-Meanwhile Germany used France as a base to wage a protracted war from 1968 to 1980 against a distracted UK riven by an internal civil war (coastal British cities sacked and occupied, war crimes galore).
-An assassination plot targeting a 1968 wedding in Paris of a German general's son to a rich Frenchman's daughter falls into chaos like Casablanca on steroids due to the usual divided alliances and survival needs of the people involved and the way romance and family have a tendency to transcend allegiances. Love espionage, nothing like it.
simultaneously posted on viki
Do not watch on a whim late at night as I did, only to realize 15 minutes in that I had completely lost track of events. The first scenes are set in 1911, in the 6th year of the 40-year long Japanese Occupation of Korea, and the main assassination plot takes place in 1933 in the 28th year of the Occupation. If you prefer to prepare with a complete spoiler the Wikipedia article on the show itself is very clear. I dont do spoilers but I offer two pointers, one to plot and one to perspective.
1. The premise is set up clearly in the first few scenes but do not be kdrama lazy and assume all will be made clear, this is a spy thriller and you have to keep on your toes. Pay attention to Yem and to Kang later on, respectively the resistance fighter captured after the weird attack on the rich collaborator, which results in the killing of Kang's wife, and the loss of one of his twin baby girls (spirited away by a chinese midwife).
2. Try this rough imagination hack to understand the twisted lines of loyalty and love in 1933 Korea. So, if Germany, France and the British Isles correspond to Japan, Korea and China imagine:
-Germany had successfully invaded France in 1940 and set up a puppet govt which was only ousted after a gigantic international war in 1975-1980 (cruelty, torture, massacres, the suppression of the French language in schools and all civil institutions).
-Meanwhile Germany used France as a base to wage a protracted war from 1968 to 1980 against a distracted UK riven by an internal civil war (coastal British cities sacked and occupied, war crimes galore).
-An assassination plot targeting a 1968 wedding in Paris of a German general's son to a rich Frenchman's daughter falls into chaos like Casablanca on steroids due to the usual divided alliances and survival needs of the people involved and the way romance and family have a tendency to transcend allegiances. Love espionage, nothing like it.
simultaneously posted on viki
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