Descendants of the Sun--(not a movie) A 2016 K-drama worth watching
So I know there's our Official Asian Drama Thread but this series deserves its own thread. It practically swept Asia by storm when it was released and I can see why. It has a total of 16 episodes.
This is not a Krom-kom so those who can't stand dog-cat fights, this one might be for you. If I were to sum its genre, it would be romance/drama/crime/thriller. If you're a girl who watched this, you might have considered dating a soldier in real life. Or sign up for the next war. This movie has just elevated the high regard we have for our noble soldiers.
Story is about our dear Captain, Yoo Si Jin (Song Joong-Ki), team leader of his well, team, in the Army. He falls in love with a doctor named Kang Mo-Yeon (Song Hye-Kyo). That's basically it in a nutshell. But what made this series special is because the story don't revolve on the two of them alone (which is what usually annoys me). The series involved so many other elements, events, circumstances, twists, whatever, that it made me realize that I was not just watching a Romance series. It was more than that.
Since our lead is a member of the Military, expect some life-death situations here and there. There's crime, suspense, thrill, patriotism, nationalism, principles, decisions, consequences. The acting chops of the actors here must have had their limits tested, because leads need to exude that crying face once in a while.
Watching this made me realize two things. One, Song Hye-Kyo is in my opinion, the MOST beautiful actress in South Korea and one of the, if not THE, Best Actress of her generation. She's beautiful with make-up on, but even without make-up, she is still beautiful. And she has this gift that all her facial features get to display whatever emotions she wishes to convey. And two, I think I'm gonna start stalking Song Joong-Ki. Man now I understand why Song Joong-ki earned so many female fans because of this. He's already handsome by himself, but him being a man in uniform made him more handsome. He was very manly here, and he displayed love of his countrymen and its citizens, and his woman, so accurately that you'll fall in love with him. He spoke good English here too. I made a quick google search and I read he's kinda smart which made his appeal skyrocket a thousand times. So, after I make this post, I'm gonna buy a ring and propose marriage. lol.
I'll try to enumerate now the positive aspects and bummers:
Positive:
1) The leads (and supporting cast) all gave powerful performances. There was more than one time that I was moved and almost cried, especially if you have a wonderful background music to set the mood. Which leads me to...
2) The soundtrack is very registrable. I bet everyone who listens to the music on youtube will associate the scenes that goes with it right away.
3) There's a turn of events once in a while which is why I love it. The love story is not the life of the series. There's some plot twist that will keep you awake if you get sleepy on the romance parts.
4) The romance part was just in the right amount. It was not too much for me to choke and puke, but it wasn't absent too. It was just balanced.
Bummers:
1) The first parts where the doctor plays hard-to-get. She dumps him for so many times only to find herself getting angry over the guy not pursuing her. I wish I can throw boiling water at her. It kinda let me off but I still continued nonetheless.
2) That scene in episode 13 where our dear Captain risked his job and even his life for the girl and the girl dilly-dallys on whether to go on with the relationship or just dump him. If there's hotter boiling water I'd like to throw it to her at this time. I can't give up now, there's only 3 episodes left.
3) The last parts (around episode 15-16) where in my theory, now that the ratings have doubled like crazy, the directors wanted to put some twist that probably gave away so many tears from the viewers. But it was not convincing and poorly done to be honest. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read beyond this point. Well, in episode 15, the lead and his bestfriend/assistant (Sergeant Major) were all thought out to be dead. So that's around hours of crying scenes from the leads and the viewers. And then.....they're alive! Ching! WTH. They just made a last-minute cover-up to justify their "deaths". Not convincing for me.
All in all, I can recommend this series highly even with those bummers I listed. Its been a long time since a series impressed me much and this one is definitely one for the lists.
====================
Age of Loneliness-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o2c4u7XwGo