Reel Thursday: Frozen (2013).

Who here hasn't watched Frozen yet? Haha! You must be too old, a hipster, or just too busy to have time to watch it. Everyone in the internet knows this wonderful Disney movie because there are no words that can express how awesome it is. From the soundtrack, the characters, and to the plot, there's nothing to be unhappy about. 

As everyone might have already known, the main characters are the sisters Anna and Elsa, the ice seller, Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, and finally Olaf, the snowman who likes warm hugs.

What I like about Anna (left) is that she is the epitome of almost all young women nowadays. She's awkward, a bit of an airhead but smart, and she's not your princess who's actions are always with finesse. It's like she's showing the young women that even when you're awkward and normal and can't even get up early in the morning, you can also be a princess.

Elsa, on the other hand, shows the insecurities that we young women experience. There's bound to be one or more things that we're insecure about ourselves, and Elsa showing that she can "Let it go" since her insecurities "never bothered her anyway" means that these insecurities that we have are just a creation of our imagination of what other people think of us. Let's all sing "Let It Go" with Elsa and let go of those things that we don't like about ourselves. The important people in our lives (like Anna for Elsa) will not be bothered about those things anyway.

Kristoff, oh Kristoff. I have nothing about this man since he's perfect for Anna. He does not overpower Anna in anyway, and it's like they're two puzzles that perfectly fit together because of their back and forth bickering. Just be awkward together! (Wait, what?)

Finally, there's Sven and Olaf. Sven is the reindeer companion of Kristoff ever since he was a kid. Olaf is a snowman created by Elsa. Olaf provides the comic relief in the movie and his lines are the funniest. He even has his own song about how a snowman like him would enjoy summer! Best song ever.

Check it out here:

That's it for this Frozen appreciation post. I didn't say much because it's just all over the internet now and everyone has their opinion about it that mine wouldn't matter as much. It's just that I love this movie and I wanted to show my appreciation of it.

J-Wednesdays 水曜日だ！: Hal「ハル」the movie (2013).

Hal is an animated movie that's depressingly beautiful. It's a sci-fi romance themed animated film that has a twist at the end. I can say that it's pretty good, but I'm not just a fan of the kind of animation for this. The story though was good, and will definitely leave you hung over the main characters after watching.

The story is set on a time when robots can completely act like humans, and I assume that anyone can own one if they can afford to..

Hal is the guy in the picture while Kurumi is the girl. They are in a relationship when Hal suddenly died from a plane crash.

Kurumi was left devastated..

Then this old man asked the robot, Q01, to become Hal so that he could comfort Kurumi who's suffering from Hal's death.

When Hal the robot showed up, Kurumi didn't easily open up to him because she's still afraid.

However, as time went by, Kurumi opened up to Hal the robot while he makes some of Kurumi's wishes come true. (Her wishes are written on rubix cubes that are completed and Hal had to solve each of the faces to be able to read the wish).

Hal also started to get to know the old Hal. Robot Hal tried to understand what kind of person Hal was back then..

Hal and Kurumi started hanging out again and went to a festival together.

After having fun, a guy by the name of Ryu who is supposedly Hal's friend showed up. He expressed his desire to sell Kurumi..

Hal and Kurumi ran from Ryu and his apparently gangster-like friends. 

While running away, Kurumi fell in a gushing river, and it was also raining hard.

I will end my story-telling right here, since anything beyond this scene will be huge spoilers. I think the beauty of this movie is the plot twist because right there, the reality of this story was revealed. Even in this advanced society, there is the existence of humanly feelings of regret, depression, and love. The reality in the story reveals the true essence of it, which is supposed to be telling a story of love between these two people who became victims of a harsh fate.

That's all I can say about this movie. It gave me the chills, and the feeling of finding the meaning of life upon watching it. I'm not even exaggerating. 

Tuesday Running Man: Episode 181, Secret Couple.

Running Man's theme this week is "girls" vs boys, but the problem is that between this opposing teams, there is a secret couple!

The two teams meet each other. Boys team: Haha, Gary, Suk JIn, Lee Jong Suk and Jae Suk. Girls team: Ji Hyo, Lee Sae Young, "Jong Sook," Lee Bo Young and "Kwang Ja." These two teams will be going against each other in the games.

However, the secret couple, Ji Hyo and Lee Jong Suk will have to do a mission without anyone of the members knowing. They will have to do a lovey-dovey act with the members present but they must not be caught. If they do get caught, the winning team for the game will receive only a real clue, but if they succeed, the winning team for the game will receive two clues, one real and one fake. The clues pertain to who the "secret couple" is, which they have to guess on the last mission.

Running Man high school's secret couple.

I must admit that these two doing the mission together made me go "aww" because they're just too cute! I'm not betraying my Monday Couple heart though. Maybe it's just because I have a thing for secret lovers...

The girls team lead by the two most manly girls I've ever seen, Kwang Ja and Jong Sook.

Of course, the boys team is lead by Jae Suk, the best dancer in school. Haha! Kidding.

The first mission for the lovers is to link arms while doing the first game.

The first game is to go above that straw platform and they must stay there until the whistle is blown by the staff. There is also a maximum of members that can pass a round. Once a member passes, he or she will not participate anymore. The first team to have all members pass, wins.

In the first round, Lee Sae Young passed, and so these gangster girls are left. They had a strategy to leave Ji Suk Jin alone (and letting the other boys pass) so that they'll easily win, with Kwang Ja and Jong Sook being left against Suk Jin.

Wanko-hyung did all his best to win...

While Suk Jin struggles against the two manly girls, the secret couple finished their secret mission, which is to link arms.

Poor Suk Jin, fighting a bunch of girls who are much stronger than he is.

The girls won this round, while the boys claimed that they just let the girls win because they're gentlemen. The boys went delusional. The girls got two clues, but they don't know which one is a fake clue or a real one.

The next mission for the secret couple is to hold hands (with interlocked fingers).

Gary saw the two staff members who were showing the secret mission to the secret couple holding hands, and so he thought that they were dating!

The next game is called the "Scarecrow Game," where they have to move 4 steps (including a swing on the horizontal bar because they cannot step within the "pond" made across the bar). After moving four steps, they must stay there until everyone is done. The next step is to go back, without ruining the pose of another "scarecrow."

The two did it again stealthily. Whew! They were so cute.

The winner for this game is the boys team, and so they get the real and fake clues.

The next mission for the lovers is the "forehead kiss."

The next game is in a market place. The boys and girls will be partnered up (according to whom they want to be partnered with) and they will buy anything that they want, come back to the mission room and receive the actual mission that they should do with the bought goods from the market.

The secret couple were partnered in the first round, and so they were able to do the mission while buying stuff from the market. 

In the second round, they had different partners.

The mission for the couples is to put the thing they bought between their cheeks for one minute.

For the last round, they change couples once again. The choosing of the couples was so funny because of Kwang Ja and Jong Sook.

The last round's mission is a word relay from the thing that they bought. They only had 30 seconds to do that, and they won. Both teams receive clues.

While buying in the market, these two succeeded their secret mission and even did the mission 3 times just to make sure. They did it at the first round of the game, that's why it was fine for them to be partnered up with different people on the 2nd and 3rd round.

The next game was "Saranghae Game!" This game was also played in Family Outing and it was fun because of the pretty boys who were guests in the show back then, since the girls (Lee Hyo Ri and Park Ye Jin) get to be kissed by them. The rule is simple, they will just be saying "Saranghae" to the one next to them and if they laugh or react, they will be guilty of "falling in love" and so the person will be "punished" of making the his or her two neighbors kiss him or her on the cheek.

When Lee Sae Young whispered "saranghae" to Gary, Gary replied with "me too."

That's why he was punished by the two guests, Sae Young and Bo Young! He then screamed "hurray!"

The girls won this game, and the secret couple didn't get to do their mission because of the lack of space. They were supposed to do a back hug. The girls team then gets the real clue only.

They then went to the final location, where they had to agree on who to guess as the "secret couple" in their groups, based from the clues. They guessed right because Lee Jong Suk was so obvious that he's the guy and that Ji Hyo was suspiciously close to Jong Suk. The secret couple then got bombed with flour on their faces.

I was looking forward to this episode because of the countryside games that they did. I was a little disappointed though because the games were not that highlighted because of the secret couple thing. I wish that they just didn't do the countryside games along with the secret couple so that the games were given more attention to. Well, I just hope that they would do those kinds of game again in future episodes!

The guests for next week's episode are Yeo Jin Goo, Si Wan (ZE:A), and Do Hee (Tiny G). The games were requested by a Running Man fan from Hong Kong. That fan is so lucky! We should be jealous. Haha! I just hope her games would be exciting (it did seem fun from the preview).

K-Mondays: Prime Minister and I (Kdrama)

Prime Minister and I poster from AsianWiki.

Prime Minister and I stars Lee Beom Soo and Yoona (Girl's Generation) as the titular characters, "Prime Minister" and "I," respectively. It started airing last December 2013 (on a Monday & Tuesday run time), and is almost nearing its end. I've only started watching it and I really got hooked. I'm not that of a fan of Yoona, and I'm not really familiar with Lee Beom Soo, that's why I didn't have the motivation to watch this drama when it first aired.

Now for the story..

This drama is about the Prime Minister of Korea who married a young reporter due to circumstances the they were in. Of course, like any other cliché K-drama goes, they don't like each other but still goes through with the wedding for convenient reasons. It's then called a "contract wedding" and so they struggle to keep this secret only between those people who were involved in making the decision. Even the Prime Minister's family (three kids) and Nam Da Jung's (Yoona) sick father are not aware of the wedding being a hoax. 

As you might've noticed, the story is quite the same with Full House and Goong (which are two of my favorite Kdramas). The main characters get into a "contract wedding," where they have to pretend that they're all sweet and in love with each other when in reality, they hate each other and that they're just starting to fall in love. I love clichés like that, and so I easily got hooked with the story. I didn't really bother to look up this drama when it aired, but when I didn't have anything to watch on a certain day, I tried it out and ended up watching most of the episodes that's already out. What I like about this drama is that I don't expect any surprising twists or even exciting scenes from it. Just the good all romance of two people stuck in a situation wherein they're meant to fall in love, seals the deal for me. Clichés never disappoint, since you already know what could happen. I love it!

Not recommended though for those who hate clichés and those people who live for criticizing these sort of Korean romantic comedy drama. By the way, I don't have screenshots for this drama because I didn't download it due to lack of space in my hard drive (whale cries). I do need a new external hard drive because my 1 TB one is already full of movies, dramas, sitcoms, and anime. (whale cries again)

Watch it, cry, laugh and cringe at times.

Tuesday Running Man: Episode 180, Cooking Battle part 2.

The part 2 of the cooking battle (and the actual cooking battle) was aired in this week's episode of Running Man. This episode was completely different from the usual Running Man episode with all the games, and so I don't have much to say about it except for the kinds of dishes that each group tried to come up with during the battle. Okay, one more thing. I was nearly drooling while watching them cook because I really like Korean food and just looking at it makes me daydream about eating it. Haha!

Yoo Jae Suk and Park Soo Hong team made use of the rockfish that Park Soo Hong caught himself to cook spicy fish soup and sweet and sour fish. 

While Park Soo Hong is a certified Korean food chef who even has his own set of knives (with his name engraved on it),

Yoo Jae Suk received a one-on-one lesson on how to chop garlic from one of the judges, Shim Young Soon.

Song Ji Hyo and Lee Dong Wook team's dishes were all made from king crab all the way from Ji Hyo's hometown, Pohang. Their dishes included steamed king crab, king crab porridge, and king crab stew.

Kim Jong Kook and Song Kyung Ah team had chicken as their main ingredient to cook chicken stew with abalone, octopus, and (hardboiled) egg.

Kim Jong Kook doesn't know how to cook, and so Kyung Ah took the lead in cooking, but Jong Kook came up with the idea of cooking chicken stew.

Haha and Sung Kyu team had Jeonju bibimbap as their main dish, with dduk kalbi and bean sprout soup.

Haha is known to have good cooking skills, and they both learned from a Jeonju person on how to cook Jeonju bibimbap, so I think nothing could go wrong in their dish.

Ji Suk Jin and Kim Kyung Ho team cooked stir fried eel and teot muchim.

Gary and Jae Kyung team had Naju pear as their main ingredient and cooked sanjeok, a special pear dessert, and pear tea.

Jae Kyung's mom is a chef, and so she asked for tips from her mom about some stuff about plating. She also is quite skilled in her cooking.

Kwang Soo and John Park team had noodles as main ingredient, and so their dish is a spicy Korean noodle soup with hand made dough.

These two only needed to put the ingredients all together (except for the noodles) because they gained special pork, and a special sauce for their dish already.

They were given 100 minutes to cook, and they all finished just in time. Now, it's time for the judges to taste the food.

Jae Suk-Soo Hong team was the first team to be judged.

Spicy fish soup and sweet and sour fish.

Jong Kook-Kyung Ah team was next.

They had beautiful plating with pretty flower designs. This is chicken stew with abalone, octopus and egg, with a side dish of special kimchi.

Ji Hyo-Dong Wook team was next. Spoiler alert: they received the harshest remark from a judge.

Steamed king crab, king crab porridge, and king crab stew. I think that they indeed ruined the porridge (judging from how it looks) and the ingredient was really good that you cannot go wrong unless you don't put much effort on it. They had a king crab for an ingredient, but the end result was not as amazing as the ingredient itself.

Haha-Sung Kyu team was next with their cheesy group cheer.

This was the easiest to cook, especially that Haha is good at cooking. This is a Jeonju bibimbap. I am definitely going to try cooking it this way, since it was pretty detailed when they tried to cook it.

They also added dduk kalbi and bean sprout soup for added harmony of the dishes.

Suk Jin-Kyung Ho team was next. Their response from the judges was also great, but the only thing was that the eel wasn't cooked properly, although the seasoning is good.

This is the stir-fried eel.

This is the teot muchim.

Next was Gary-Jae Kyung team. I think that their dishes were the most sophisticated one, with all the design and also the kind of dishes that they (mainly Jae Kyung) made.

Sanjeok, beautifully lined up.

Special pear dessert.

Special pear tea.

Lastly, we have Kwang-Park team. No one was expecting anything from these two right from the start, and so lowered expectations means greater chance of not being scolded.

The glorious pork that they brought from a shop.

Their buckwheat noodle soup with special gold flakes (design), that got questioned by the judges.

To repay for the sloppiness of their meal, John Park sang "My Girl" for the judges.

The judges finally decided on the top three contenders and the final winner.

The top three contestants were Jong Kook-Kyung Ah, Gary-Jae Kyung, and Jae Suk-Soo Hong.

The final winners were Kim Jong Kook and Song Kyung Ah!

Their healthy dish, chicken stew with abalone and octopus along with the special kimchi was the ultimate dish for the first new year's weekend!

Even though they had a simple dish, they were still able to impress the judges. Watch it yourself so that you could see why and how it was able to amaze the judges.

I am excited for next week's episode because it seems like the games they will be playing are Family Outing style games.

The boys: Jae Suk, Haha, Gary, Suk Jin, and Lee Jong Suk.

versus the girls (?): Ji Hyo, Lee Sae Young, Park Bo Young, Kim Jong Suk, and Lee Kwang Ja.

Look! They will be playing on hay and it seems like they will have a "Saranghae game!"

Until the next episode!