Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #458

Anne: Hoping everyone has a peaceful start to a brand new year, although the changing of the Chinese zodiac won't occur until February 10th...so exciting! I have spent most of my few days off doing lots and lots a crafts and catching up on what I can with the dramas that seem to be dropping into the streaming platforms left and right. Remember the "greenhouse" I was working on in the previous post, here's the finished product.

I oriented the floor base incorrectly, but I already glued all the stuff...so the floor was forced on and the roof is completely off...but you can't really tell until you look at it closely. And my "pride" in this little greenhouse is the LIGHT! It works!!! I had to wire the light bulb to a battery...tiny, tiny little wires. And my next project is a mini block garden with a waterfall and fake mountains...over 7000 pieces...I'm only about 1/3 of the way through after 4 days.

Despite all these crafting, I also managed to squeeze in some shows in between. 

Gyeongseong Creature

I caught this when it popped up on my NetFlix reel, since my algorithm is all Asian dramas on this thing now. Unlike the other Korean dramas, all ten episodes will be completely dropped by January 5th. This is along the lines of Kingdom, where it's a period setting with supernatural elements. This story is about Jan Tae Sang, a very wealthy and self-made man in Gyeongseong, where he owns a very popular pawn shop called House of Golden Treasure. (It is a little bizarre that the "vault" has windows...seems to defeat the purpose.) He is a man of connections in a city that is still under Japanese occupation. And what happens when he is task to find a missing woman, and collaboration with Yoon Chae Ok. The title tells it all, it is a "monster" story that reminds me of Resident Evil (which I LOVED...the entire set of movies, even the not so good ones...), and you will see why.

The story begins with the movement of a Japanese military group from one city to Gyeongseong. As they pulled out of the building they were occupying, the audience sees the large test tubes, each holding a worm-like creature in a clear liquid. Then it flashes to Gyeongseong, where we are introduced to Jang Tae Sang, played by my favorite dominating CEO of ALL time (Secretary Kim), Park Seo Joon and how he ended up on the wrong end of the town's ruling military commander. He is tasked with finding this commander's missing mistress, and his failure to complete the task is the forfeiture of all his personal belongings and his freedom. So he has a very strong incentive to make sure he doesn't fail.

Into this town, comes Yoon Chae Ok and her father, who are experts at finding missing people, and have been on the track to find her missing mother, for the last 10 years. Let's just say Yoon Chae Ok isn't impressed with Jang Tae Sang and only agreed to work with him in an exchange of information. He would help with them on any information he has for her mother, and in turn, they would help him locate the missing mistress. 

And this leads us to the military hospital in town, where a lot of the town's missing women have ended up...and looks like the "mother" has been with this Japanese military group since she's gone missing. Then there is Kwon Joon Taek, Jang Tae Sang's best friend, who is also the other playboy in town, who is secretly funding the Korean resistance to the Japanese occupation and has some romantic ties with the missing mistress (truthfully, the "tie" is rather a bit loose since he was just a customer of her until she committed herself to the commander). But, Kwon Joon Taek is played by my favorite crazy detective's alter ego, Wi Ha Joon.

So far, I really like it. Here's hoping that this doesn't go the way of Kingdom, where I'm still waiting season 3. If you like period dramas with the Resident Evil plot line, fighting human-morphed monsters, it's a must watch.

Special Lady

This one is on the light side of the dramaland plots. It's billed as a romantic comedy between Song Zhu (the FL) and Xian Yu (the ML). Song Zhu is the black sheep of the Song family, and she possesses not one iota of her family's scholarly genes. She just wants to marry the famous artist, Zhou Ji. 

There is a tradition when the #1 scholar returns to town, which is that a family can "kidnap" this man to marry their daughter. So...in an effort to save her "second elder brother", Song Yan, Song Zhu helps him escape and took his "#1 scholar robes" and put them onto the unlucky Xiao Yu, who just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This starts both of them on the wrong foot. And to top it all off, Song Zhu finds out that Xiao Yu is her intended husband, a betrothal that her father arranged when she was 3 years old with the son of his best friend. Of course, neither of them wants to marry the other, and so far it's pretty cute. Although I'm a little hesitant about sitting through 36 episodes. But....let's see what happens, I can always FF.

That's it for this week. I also started The Forensic Examiner Song Ci, but haven't really completely gotten into it, will get to it next week. I'm also continuing Gourmet Affairs, the Taiwanese drama about the cop and killer dining buddy. It does remind me a lot of Let's Eat, with a crime twist. In episode 5, the killer realized that his dining buddy is a cop. Let's see where this goes.

Hope everyone has a good start of a brand new year. I hope I don't drown in paperwork...and my goal this year is to at least win one major argument with QA...hahaha...