#stormynoon

5. What was your favourite book as a child?

Book adaptation of Disney cartoons and world’s fairytales.

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten?

Hm, nothing comes to my mind.

44. If you could travel back to any era, which would you choose?

Choosing something that wouldn’t put me in immediate danger - 1960′s but actually, I had a lot of eras in my mind but those are risky to visit without some prep.

When @stormynoon wrote about why she recommended Mask to me, she mentioned that it had a thrilling aspect to it that I might enjoy, seeing as though thrillers are one of my favorite genres--and she was absolutely right! With its fast pace, heart-pounding cliffhangers, and game-changing twists and turns, Mask never failed to keep me on my toes. Those twenty hours zipped by without a dull moment.

What I loved just as much about Mask was its characters. Ji Sook rocked my world from the start. She was the very epitome of quiet strength and resilience, and seeing her determination to never relinquish control over her own life, no matter what tough situation she seemed forced into, was positively awe-inspiring.

At first, Min Woo seemed like he was going to be the typical jerkish male lead, but then he turned out to be a total cinnamon roll who wasn’t too proud to wear his heart on his sleeve. He showered Ji Sook with unconditional love and trust, and completely owned his own feelings. Other male leads could learn a thing or two from Min Woo.

And Mi Yeon—oh, Mi Yeon. She may have seemed like a villain, but she was just as much Suk Hoon’s victim as Ji Sook and Min Woo. It pained me to see her so at war with herself over her unrequited love for her husband, and I wish she could have had that second chance at life and happiness that she never received.

Mask wasn’t without its weak points—plot threads like Ji Sook’s amnesia and the possibility of Ji Sook and Eun Ha being sisters dropped in and out when convenient or even disappeared altogether, and some turn of events just seemed too ridiculous, even for a drama that thrived on the implausible. At the end of the day, I think it was a drama that was best enjoyed without squinting too hard at the writing.

All in all, even though Mi Yeon’s fate did put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm for the later episodes, Mask was ultimately a highly addicting drama populated with engaging characters that I found myself really rooting for. 

Rating: 8/10

I’m excited to be watching Mask, not just because I’ve heard almost nothing but good things about it, but because it features only one of my favorite drama tropes ever—contract relationships. There’s nothing quite like watching two people enter into a relationship thinking it’s solely for business purposes, only to then realize over time that their feelings for each other are far from business-like. Throw cohabitation into the mix, and I am one happy camper. The other main reason I’m looking forward to taking on Mask is that its lead actors are still rather new to me. I’m at that point in my kdrama viewing career where it’s harder and harder to come across a drama with lead actors who are still relative unknowns to me–partly because I do tend to gravitate toward dramas helmed by my favorite actors, and partly because it’s just plain difficult to go anywhere in dramaland without bumping into the same familiar faces over and over again. In this case, I’ve only ever seen Soo Ae in half of 9 End 2 Outs, and I’ve only seen Joo Ji Hoon in Goong, which—unpopular opinion alert—I more or less loathed and scrubbed from memory, and part of Mawang. It should be fun to see them both again, in a drama I actually finish (and hopefully, actually like) this time around.

My drama partner is @stormynoon (hi!), and I was very excited to see what dramas she recommended for me to watch. Her first recommendation was Liar Game, which I’ve already seen (the Korean version, at least) and LOVED. Her next recommendation was JIN, and I have to admit, I was taken aback by this at first—a kdrama I haven’t heard of before? How was that possible?! But then I realized that JIN is actually a jdrama, and is actually the source material for the infamous Time Slip Dr. Jin. I’ve read a lot of strong opinions about that Korean remake, but the original JIN does sound right up my alley—the main character faints in the present, wakes up to find himself transported to the Edo Period, and tries to find a way to make it back to his own time (Bu Bu Jing Xin, much?). Unfortunately, I was unable to find a good streaming source for JIN that I could easily access, so I moved on to her last recommendation, which was Mask. I remember seeing a lot about Mask on my dash back when it aired, and I know that a lot of people really liked it (or from what I gathered, really really liked Joo Ji Hoon in that red suit and Soo Ae in that blue dress). In any case, a good, soapy melodrama sounds like a perfect summer watch—so bring on the doppelgangers and contract marriage!

As for my recommendations for stormynoon, when I first got her list of preferences, I felt a bit daunted. A lot of her favorites seem to be jdramas–which aside from 1 Litre of Tears and Nodame Cantabile, I know next to nothing about. After spending some time thinking about her preferences and looking through her blog, though, I came up with a few ideas of kdramas that I thought she might enjoy, and ended up settling on these three:

1. Delightful Girl Choon Hyang: Stormynoon listed romance and comedy as two of her favorite drama genres, and posted that You’re Beautiful is her favorite kdrama. I thought I’d recommend another Hong Sisters drama, and went with my personal favorite—Delightful Girl Choon Hyang. It’s over ten years old now, but even though what made it feel so fresh when it first aired is fairly commonplace in dramaland nowadays, I think it still stands the test of time as a real classic.

2. Two Weeks: I saw that stormynoon enjoyed Signal, the drama she was recommended in the first round of the drama exchange, and decided to recommend another action drama. My initial thought was God’s Gift since, like Signal, it’s another thriller with time travel elements. But in case she wouldn’t want to watch two similar dramas in a row, I went with Two Weeks instead—another race-against-the-clock action drama, but without the time travel aspect.