There was a time in my life when I also dreamt of becoming a cosplayer, an animator, and a graphic novelist. It was the obvious fascination with anime that led to those childhood fantasies. Growing up, I’ve always pictured myself doing something related to those Japanese animations.
‘Mr. Queen’ tells about the gender-bending story of a Blue House chef from the present (Bong-hwan) who got into a comical accident and got his soul entrapped in the body of the Joseon-era Queen (Kim So Yong).
When the Camellia Blooms follows the story of the single mother Dong Baek (Gong Hyo Jin) who settles with her son in the fictional town of Ongsan. There she puts up a bar business, named Camellia, which became the talk among her conservative neighbors. Years after she meets the local policeman, Hwang Yong Sik (Kang Ha Neul) and finds love in him, the people around her, and the circumstances that came along with her life.
Watching Haikyu!! brought back those years. The crazy energy. The drive. The willingness to practice. The team. So nostalgic. It was the answer to Kei Tsukishima’s question on the first season of the series: if it was just a club activity, why spend so much energy and put your heart into it?
Here’s what I learned: you don’t have to be like Mulan. You don’t need to be strong. You don’t need to leave home. You don’t need to defeat men. You don’t need to impose physical force. You don’t need to disguise for who you are not. You don’t have to become a legend.
Here are some of the quotes that I truly love from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild – the story of Christopher McCandles – a young man who was found dead in a bus in Alaska in 1992 after years of traveling across the United States. Into the Wild tells the life story of how Christopher McCandless set out on a solo backpacking adventure into the notorious Stampede Trail.
The King: Eternal Monarch is an epic comeback drama of Lee Min Ho after getting discharged from the military. It tells the story of two parallel universes: the Kingdom of Corea where King Lee Gon (Lee Min Ho) rules and the Republic of Korea where Detective Jung Tae-eul (Kim Go-eun) lives. Thanks to the mythical bamboo flute called “manpashikjeok”, Lee Gon gets to cross the barrier to the other realm and meets Tae-eul whom he recognized as his childhood savior during the assassination of his father.
The Philippines is blessed with a number of mountains that provide verdant views at the top. Here are some of the Filipino movies that will help you trace back your personal experience with the mountains – the struggles, reflections, friendship fostered, and simple joys – and fuel your interest to climb once again.
Itaewon Class is problematically titled. It’s not your regular high school teenage love story but a rather serious drama that portrays power struggle amidst diversity, prejudice, and discrimination. But what really troubled me all through its sixteen episodes is the battle for the leading lady role. At first glance, it’s easy to spot Cho Yi-seo as the main lead of Itaewon Class. However, there is an overlapping build-up of emotion towards her and Saeroyi’s first love, Soo Ah. Which gets me asking: who really is the second lead of this drama?
Once upon a time, my boss told me that I need an alpha to tame me so that I could get married. I believe otherwise. I don’t need an alpha. In a world of patriarchs, it’s difficult to be a woman. But this drama pointed out how a single woman could create ripples into others. To empower others to makes choices for themselves – to choose themselves first – denying society of what it wants to dictate. The World of Married Couple helps us reevaluate the women around us, the decisions that they have to make, and the struggles they silently battled with.
