블러드 Blood - Episode 1 (A FakeCap)

A new drama! Aren't we all glad! And one about vampires! I absolutely LOVE vampires! But I don't love kid-stories and wasn't warned at all that we had some terribly booooooooooooooring backstory to go through. This drama is so shockingly bad, I don't even know what to say.
Look at it this way - the kid wasn't any better than the grown up, so it's not like we had time or inclination to love them young and then spend 10 or 12 episodes resenting the grown ups.  Plus it was just that one episode.
Shuk: Would this be a good time to go back and rewatch BOFiasco, rather than watch this?
I think so, Shuk. And I'm serious.

*Disclaimer: I'm recapping this on a raw version. What I say may or may not have occurred this way. I wish they would have said more and/or the plot were a bit more complicated, because I'm quite certain I got it all right.
I watched raw and then subbed. Look what I do for you people!  Plus I live-tweeted both versions. I wonder if I used up all my good stuff.
I watched it raw. That was enough. Jo unni, thanks for taking one for the team [bows].

Episode 1

An old jeep races through the Highlands, towards a ruined castle. It's all very mysterious. A masked guy gets out and enters the abandoned building... who might it be? Well, that's easy: It's Park Ji-Sang (Ahn Jae-hyeon), our protagonist. Nobody really knows why he got this lead-role, but we all think he's really pretty.
Meh. I have two questions: Why is his face covered, and what on EARTH is growing out from between that carving's legs?
The cloth is an ancient weaving, using fairy blood and baby animal fur, that makes the wearer an amazing, emotive actor. Unfortunately, the cloth only works when your face is muffled Otherwise...

He is also wearing a bloody coat and is interested in graves and what's in them, cause he starts diggin'. I want to know where they filmed this!
Romania. They're very proud of that. I think they were just trying to avoid the predictable 'why can't they find Americans who actually speak English?' backlash. I give them credit, but their fears were clearly pointed in the wrong direction because accents are the least of their issues.
Who wears anything white when you're digging? Or blood-spattered for that matter.  If you don't soak immediately in cold water, it's gonna stain. Tsk Tsk.

He finds a bunch of bones ... and we're not sure, is he pleased? Surprised? Bored?
Oh, so he's scarf-acting, then.
Exactly! You've heard the tales of Cair Baennough's Amazing Emotive Scarf? No?

He drives back to where he came from (a field hospital of some sort) and takes off his mask. We sigh, because he is beautiful. Nice lip color, too.

Director: JH, baby, just pull it down slowly, slooooooowly. Really make it dramatic by lowering your head INTO the scarf so you can drag it out. The ahjummas will LOVE it, baby. Make sure they crave your mouth before they remember you're going to have fangs. That's it, that's it - then look off into the distance, you know, sort of piercingly. There you go, that's the stuff!

Annd, there went the acting ability....

So he's a doctor and there are other doctors and there is a patient, a child, which looks bad. I have no clue where "Kochenia" is supposed to be, but this is clearly a war zone (in Romania, I guess, since these guys seem to be speaking Romanian) and things are urgent! Everybody is evacuating, only the Hero isn't. 

But dammit the insurgent rebels don't CARE about doctors or kids, Kakashi!

When he is alone, he eats a secret chewing gum, sighs (he does that often) and goes to work, which involves super-jumping across some old furniture and stuff. We find out he has the secret vampire eye, too, kinda like Vampy Prosecutor, but more of the x-ray kind. He sees what's wrong in a patients body. All by himself, Park Ji-sang operates on the boy and saves him.

Ok, so with subs, I understand that this is a barricade they put up to deter the rebels, not proof that he has a secret operating room that he likes to dramatically enter.

Still, if I could parkour, I would be throwing myself through windows instead of front doors. But uh-oh, that's his last Chewy VitaVamp Gum! What will he do now? 

But the enemy has arrived outside! And now they're inside! They threaten him, he tries to talk his way out of it, they don't listen. He is shot a thousand times, but that's nothing for a vamp like him - it makes him transform (nice fingernails there) and kill all of the bad guys. And then, he says he's a pampire. I already knew that and yes, my Korean is that good.

He hears them enter, you know. And he knows that they don't care about doctors or kids. And he MUST have heard them say 'okay, this place is empty, let's boogie.' - so why he chooses that minute to exit the operating room with the child and INVITE the hailstorm of bullets upon himself is puzzling, unless it's all an elaborate plot to ambush the rebels and kill them dead dead dead, but not before he awesomely poses in many awesome positions which showcase his awesome fighting pose skills. 

I think he wanted the mercenary on the left's hat. He was trying to bargain, but given his poor Romanian language tapes, he actually insulted his mother and his sheep. 

This seems to be one of those vampire stories where vampirism is transmitted through a virus (hello, Blade) and he had a tough time growing up with this disease. All those urges, the sensitivity to light, the animals he had to kill. Tough times. But now, he likes to stand on roof tops and watch the city at night, like a true badass loner.

Next season, on Bloodless City: A posse of policeman who are actually undercover vampires work together to take down the local Red Cross Syndicate, long suspected of harboring the masterminds behind the cheap imported blood sold to local city hospitals and clinics.

[Looking at the needle scars on my right arm]  My platelets!! How could they!! [ugly crying]

We're taken to 1979 and it's Halloween! A small kid comes trick'n'treating and ... it's Ryu Soo-Young who opens the door! Oh, is this just a cameo or is he in this?! Small boy is late but still gets candy, but as he walks away from the house, there is a man who knocks the basket out of his hand and one that steps on the candy. Both are hooded. Mr. Park (yes, he is Park Ji-sang's father) knows something is wrong and switches off the light, but that doesn't stop one of the men from jumping through the window and attacking Mr. Park. He's not looking particularly good, more like a corpse. Oh wait, the second is also in the house. There also is an indestructible Hail Mary figure.

The idea for this drama came while the writer was watching Witch's Romance and dreaming up creative ways to kill that fucking Panda.

Ryu Soo-young! The actor in many of my early SK drama watching, and the main lead in my first ever personal recap project. [Sigh] Loved the English. Hated the makeup.

Mr. Park transforms, he is a pampire too! But then, a baby starts crying upstairs and a woman sings. It's what the other pampires have come for! But when they get upstairs, they see they have been fooled: there's only a tape for the singing and a teddy bear. Mommy took the pampire boy and ran.Or rather, drove.
On my second view, I realize that the pampire baby made noise while Pops was at the door with the kid, and then not again until a while after the Emo Boys were in the house. I like to tell myself that's when Mom and the baby were escaping and that Dad knew this was coming tonight all along, but then I have to figure out why he let the neighbor kids come trick or treating and my head starts to hurt.
Remember the kid was late, so I guess he hoped little VampyDaniel would have already gotten his ridiculously small Fun Size candy bars much earlier in the evening. Personally, it prolly would have been best to just flee that night completely, but hey, then we wouldn't have this excruciating enjoyment.

Dad is on the floor, hurt (why? don't pampires heal?), when the Big Bad Boy comes down the stairs (how did he get up in the first place?). Oh YES, it's Lee Jae-Wook (Ji Jin-hee), one of those sad-seeming bad guys. He wants the kid, but Daddy would rather die than say where the boy is. Fine, die he may - he gets injected with some liquid sunlight-garlic mixtures and dies. Guess he won't be in the drama after all. But he died a family hero.
I spend a lot of time wondering why they didn't bother to make his throat or chest white.  And then I look at the photo below and realize they didn't even make his whole FACE white. The nails kill me, by the way.
Kei and Bunny would be so proud, yes.

Fast forward to 1994. The baby is no longer a baby, but a boy (Baek Seung Hwan). How does that work, I thought pampires don't age? 

They have an answer for that, except not for him. 

Blade grew up before becoming immortal. Maybe the virus lies mostly dormant until puberty? Or when your growth plates fuse? Or when the writer-nim has another shot of soju?

He is gentle and kind, but also sad and moody. Give him some blood, dammit, he looks so lifeless! But no, he only gets pills. Which he doesn't take, but throws into the ocean. Bad pampire! He almost shreds a girl who cuts herself in a book store. Instead, he rips a book apart.

It's all a metaphor for sinful lust.

That book was sharper and more dangerous than my entire collection of Ginzu Steak Knives.  Just another reason to own a Kindle.

Cause he is different from all the others, he is home schooled by his mom. But he can't stop thinking of the paper cut. The urges! Mommy mixes him some new pills, because the old ones gave him heartburn and flatulence, but it's too late! He has already killed his best friend, the deer! oh, how he HATES himself.

So far only the heartburn and flatulance is out in left field... but maybe not. It seems like vegetarians would be gassy, right?

A broccoli fart is usually louder and smellier than a bacon one.  And don't get me started on asparagus. #AnotherExcellentReasonToEatMeat

Only running at high-speed in the forest and jumping off cliffs helps. And falling into the ocean. But today is a day neither the water nor the sun can hurt him. He lives and heals and is still sad. And angry. So angry, he beats up two whole cars full of gangsters.

As he rushes through the twilight forest, we're meant to understand his struggle with dark, hidden impulses. He emerges into the clear light of the cliff top and throw himself toward the one solid point on his emotional horizon, clinging to the rock in fear of the unknown. Eventually he falls exhausted into the sea and she, Mother of us all, returns him gently to the shore. No man can escape his fate, however fantastical.

[holding up my arm to save my watch from that big pile above]

Hey, the bad pampires have tracked him down! But first, he cries because he is so sad and lonely. Is Mommy a pampire too? She's nice. By the way, do female vampires get periods? 

Funny you should ask because I kept thinking about periods during this episode. Seems like it would be a tricky thing to manage. I was especially curious later, during the special scene.

In Christine Feehan's Carpathian series, only once every 5 years or so.  In JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, it's every 10. So it's species-specific. And no, I don't read a lot of vampire books [shifty eyes].

We're at a hospital! And it is Lee Jae-Wook again, doing miracle-y operations (and cracking bad jokes in English). At home, he sips some blood and answers phone calls. The boy has been found! The truth is, it is HIS boy (bad, bad Mommy) and he wants him back right now.

What's his hang up with the number three, by the way? Also, while it seemed to both you and me , watching independently, that he referred to Ji Sung (I think it's Ji-sang) as his child, the subs just identified him as A child, as in 'bring me that child'. I'm not watching this a 3d time to see who's right.

I wanted to call him Count Motorola for that ancient flip phone he's using. Oh wait, maybe this is 1994, and Motorola had the PPL contract back then. I'm a little confused with the time skips. Plus, I owned that phone, so I'm feeling a bit dated.

His pampire hoodie boys are in the forest, tracking and observing Ji-sang. DANGER! A family of three is also in the forest! It is Yoo Ri-Ta (Ku Hye-Sun), the kid version. She follows a cute rabbit (people ... there are no black and white bunnies in the forest) and gets right in the way of very bad CGI wolves.

I said the SAME damn thing about the bunny, and then after that I was laughing too hard at the wolves to say anything much at all other than to shout out in my best EXO fangirl voice 'Naega Uuuuuulf!'  I was very satisfied by the chorus of lyrically appropriate responses that came back to me too.

See?  I can also CGI a credibly accurate rendering of a wolf! I mean, just look at the lifelike leg movements!

Luckily, Edward saves her. And now he needs to marry her because they knew each other as kids. The hooded bad guys watch, Lee Jae-Wook swirls some blood in his glass and Little Edward, now with superpowers, slams wolves against the trees. They were not there to capture him, but to make him transform! Now that he has, there is no way back for him. He can even make plants grow.

I am Team Edward this time around, but if he marries Bella and Uhm Tae Woong shows up in a cameo to fall in love with their unborn child I will kick someone, hard.

I just hate the pink. Girls can be cute and innocent and all that crap withOUT being the color of Pepto-Bismol.

Ah, and the little girl is quite dead, until he feeds her dew. He saves her and she calls him oppa. But then, the police arrives ... when they are almost upon them, Little Edward disappears into the forest. Bad news for the girl: her parents are dead. But Little Edward isn't so sad anymore, he has done a good thing today and he is already a little in love. Too bad the bad pampires enter his home and kill his mother, right in front of him. Yes, she's a pampire too! Was. Ji Jin-hee is to blame.

See what happens when you have lustful thoughts, young man? You kill your mother.

Was she really dead? What killed her? Because she has all her limbs, and I saw no leaking brain matter or potruding pink intestines. I'm not watching it again to figure it out.

Is? Little Edward rushes his mother through the forest, to a mystical place, where the forces of the earth are particularly strong. But it's too long. She is gone. Lee Jae-Wook is sad and shatters a perfectly fine wine glass. 

Yeah, I think he was just running away. As for Handsome Bastard, since this is terribly written and edited, you can't really be sure what he's upset about or if he just likes pain. We assume it's because his plan didn't' go according to.. umm..plan. but who really knows?

Oups, sorry, Mommy is still alive and now back in the house. Dying outside was too uncomfortable for her and a bit cold. She is very very sorry and loves him very very much. And then she is dead. This time I'm sure. He burns the house after that, because that's what you do when you're a pampire. Her lab is still intact, though, and she has left him a video message. Be strong, my son, and prosper. Be a good boy, hear me?
Out in the forest she tells him he has to burn her up or else other people will get infected. She say he has to do it, and also that he has to take that awful painting from his bedroom. But I think she just means the stuff hiding behind it.
The lab couldn't be far from the house. Don't the bad guys know where it is as well? Especially if they were stalking VampMom in the first place?

And just like that, we're back in the present - where Park Ji-sang watches his mother's message on his iPad. He has become all that his mother wishes for and more. A heroic doctor who saves people in war zones.
I think he's working off his guilt over Bambi.

But there is a side of him that cannot rest: it's the side that wants to know more. What is he? Where does he comes from? That's why he has a hacker friend Joo Hyun-Woo (Jung Hae-In) who tracks interesting graves for him, while Ji-sang survives bomb blasts and struts cooly through ruins of European buildings.
Ahhh. He's a doctor to save lives and a doctor with an outfit like Medicine without Borders so he can go to out of the way places and look at bones. Plus it's not like he can be killed, so it doesn't matter much that it's dangerous. Secretly though, he harbors a desire to be a male model, and during surgery lulls he practices his runway walk.
And with a coat that doesn't tear or get wrinkly, even when struck by an RPG! And why did he toss his satellite phone? 

Comments

Yaaaawn, is it over? Episode 2 better be better or I'll drop this. And where is Ku Hye-sun? Slacker.

Why on earth would you wish for her one minute sooner than necessary?  There were SO many things to laugh at in this episode. I am pretty certain 99 percent were not intended. From the hidden operating room with the huge picture window into the courtyard right down to the fact that they can hear each other approaching but refuse to do anything that would protect themselves, from the secret jellybeans of vampire nourishment to their laughably weak constitutions, this is just FULL of reminders that if you put twelve monkeys with typewriters in a room long enough...magic might happen.

I'm thinking that unless the OST is boss, or SSH shows up as his shirtless Uncle Park, I don't think I'll last too long.