Tuesday Running Man: Episode 167, The Legendary Bag

This week's episode is about the Legendary Bag of a delinquent, Go Dong Wan. As I'm writing this post, there will be a new episode of Running Man that will air tomorrow in Korea. Never mind that, as long as I'm still writing this post, I can make it!

In this episode, Lee Kwang Soo takes on a role of a secret police agent. He's re-named as "Lee Kwang Ja" to make his name more girly. I will therefore refer to him as a "she" within the next few paragraphs. She was given a secret mission, which is to find the legendary bag that was left by the legendary delinquent, Go Dong Wan, to his lower class men (of delinquents). Lee Kwang Ja will therefore "infiltrate" a group of delinquents in order to know where the legendary bag containing a piece of evidence is.

The normal greetings start, and with Lee Kwang Ja are Ji Suk Jin and Haha. The betrayers club is in one team again.

Another group consists of Kim Jong Kook, Kang Gary, and guest, Kim Min Jung. 

The last team has Yoo Jae Suk, Song Ji Hyo, and guest, Chun Jung Myung. 

Kim Min Jung and Chun Jung Myung are promoting their new movie, Queen of the Night, which is about a married couple. The husband finds out about his wife's shocking past, and investigates on it further.

Yoo Jae Suk points out Song Ji Hyo's "dark" past again of her being a delinquent in the past. Ji Hyo strongly denied it.

Here we go again, on a rice paddy field (maybe intentionally) filled with water.

Lee Kwang Ja never forgets her hair and had it fixed first before going to the stage.

The point of the game is to let the girls cross the bridge by putting blocks of wood on it one by one, and each male member should take turns. The first female member to cross the bridge, wins.

What are water games for, right? Lee Kwang Ja fell face-first into the water. Poor tall girl.

The game turned into a really physical one because they were trying to prevent each other in putting a block of wood on the bridge. Chun Jung Myung, Kim Jong Kook, Kang Gary, and Yoo Jae Suk (the strongest men in Running Man) are fighting for their lives in the screenshot above.

Can you see Jae Suk's shirt? It's the result of the hand to hand combat that happened on the stage.

Kang Gary's shirt was also ruined during the fight.

Well of course, even the strongest Running Man member has his shirt ruined. I think only Chun Jung Myung had his shirt looking decent after the fight.

On the other side, the boys are fighting. The girls, on the other hand, are also keeping each other from crossing the bridge. The game ultimately turned into a UFC competition.

The first place in this game was Song Ji Hyo's team, and in the second place was Kim Min Jung's team. Obviously, the last place is Kwang Ja's team. The first two teams received a clue for the final mission.

This game is a relay. The balls that they're showing above contains food items that their team should buy in the convenience store, and then one has to roll down the hill with a mat and then all three of them should eat and finish the food items.

First, they buy food.

Then they roll down the hill.

Then they eat.

This scene was funny because Ji Hyo was the one rolling down the hill, and then Gary saw her and stopped her from rolling. After that, Gary acted as if nothing happened and returned to his seat, because they already won first place.

Fortunately for the betrayers' club, they had easy to eat food items. Unfortunately for Ji Hyo's team, they got hard to chew items. And so betrayers' club got second place and Ji Hyo's third.

The next game is inside a boxing ring. The players from each team will have a "warm-up" session first before the staff gives them the actual mission.

During the warm-up session, Kang Gary showed off his boxing skills, and Ji Suk Jin got hit unintentionally, which was hilarious.

The mission for these three is breaking the bowl on another person's head. The first one to do so, wins.

Although Ji Suk Jin was the first to get the bowl, he wasn't able to break it, and that's why Gary ended up winning and breaking it on JSJ's head.

Ji Hyo also showed her boxing skills during the games. She admitted that she took boxing lessons before, which made Kwang Ja look more pitiful and incompetent. Hahaha!

Chun Jung Myung wins the battle against KJK and Haha.

Poor Lee Kwang Ja getting bullied by the unnie's. Head locked and punched on the face.

Chun Jung Myung ended up aiding in the game, and Kwang Ja protested it to the staff. However, the staff accepted it because the rules in "WWE" allowed helping a team mate in the ring. Even the other staff members thought it was hilarious.

Min Jung's team got first place, so Ji Hyo and Haha fought it out for second place. Haha won despited all the struggle and pain he experienced from strong Ji Hyo.

All three teams decipher the clues that they got.

Kwang Ja got a different clue since she's a secret agent.

It was then revealed that Min Jung was also a secret agent, and she also got the same clue as Kwang Ja. The clue was that the bag that they're looking for was among the bags that they have. These two don't know about the existence of each other.

Again after a battle, only a few of them were left.

JSJ against Min Jung and KJK against Kwang Ja.

Kwang Ja lost to KJK while JSJ lost to Min Jung. Jong Kook then took notice of what's behind Kwang Ja, which is a "secret agent" note.

Jong Kook got curious as to why Kwang Ja was a secret agent and just then, Min Jung ripped off Jong Kook's name tag, and he immediately got the situation.

Min Jung then found the secret mark in the legendary bag, and got the evidence that they needed.

For next week's episode, (or should I say tomorrow's) the guests are Park Myung Soo and IU! The concept will be the wolf and the lamb. I'm looking forward to Myung Soo's obnoxious personality and also IU in Running Man again.

K-Mondays: The Heirs, Episode 1.

I feel bad about not writing K-Mondays on a Monday, and I got a little free time now so I should really be writing this. I watched the first two episodes of The Heirs last week, and I found it promising. I decided that I will watch this drama series until the end after just watching episodes 1 and 2. This drama is about teenagers from the high society of Korea. When one poor girl got involved in their lives, everything got even more complicated than usual.

For this post, I will talk about the characters introduced in the first episode, and some scenes that happened in it.

First is Kim Tan, played by Lee Min Ho. He's a student in California, and is from a rich family and owners of Jeguk Group.

Next is Choi Young Do, played by Kim Woo Bin. He's the heir of Zeus Hotel, wherein he's required to render his services as either a bellboy, dishwasher, and the like in order for him to officially inherit the hotel.

Yoon Chan Young, lead character Cha Eun Sang's (Park Shin Hye) childhood friend.

Cha Eun Sang is played by Park Shin Hye, and is the main character in the story. She works different part-time jobs day and night just to sustain her family's everyday expenses.

Jung Soo Jung / Krystal of f(x) is Lee Bo Na, Yoon Chan Young's girlfriend. 

We can see here that Bo Na is trying to throw a fit to Chan Young because of Chan Young's close relationship with Cha Eun Sang.

Yoon Jin Seo is Cha Eun Suk, Cha Eun Sang's older sister who's also in California, supposedly studying in university and "soon to be married." 

Park Hee Nam is played by Kim Mi Kyung, a mute housemaid of the Kim family (Jeguk Group). She is Cha Eun Sang's mother.

Esther Lee is played by Yoon Son Ha, the CEO of RS International.

Kim Ji Won is Rachel Yoo, heir of RS International. She is Kim Tan's (Lee Min Ho) fiancé, and Esther Lee's daughter.

Choi Young Do's father and Rachel Yoo's mother are about to get married, and so these two are soon to be step-siblings.

Eun Sang's mother is mute, but she's still working as a housemaid. Eun Sang found the notebooks that her mother uses to communicate with her employers and saw the writings in it. The repetitive "Dry Cleaning Only" is one of the reminders that her mother is trying to remember because she was scolded by her madame (Kim Tan's mother) about it.

This scene was particularly heartbreaking because I can really empathize with Eun Sang. Maybe it's just that Kim Mi Kyung and Park Shin Hye are really good actors, but the scene where Eun Sang was preparing to leave her mute mother just to find her future in the US was really tearjerking. 

Cha Eun Sang eventually went to the US. What she told her mother was she's going to visit her sister to attend her 'wedding' (since that's what her sister said). In the airport, Eun Sang met Rachel Yoo because of some uncomfortable situation.

Finally, we have Choi Jin Hyuk as Kim Won. He is Kim Tan's older brother, and was the one who sent his younger brother away to the US. He's also the president of Jeguk Group.

Eun Sang eventually met her older sister, Eun Suk. Eun Sang discovered that she was lying to them about studying in university and having met a good man. Eun Suk got some money from Eun Sang and ran away with it.

Because of a situation caused by bean powder from Eun Sang's bag, Kim Tan and Eun Sang had a brief but powerful encounter.

The American police suspected that the bean powder was not just a normal powder. The man confiscated Eun Sang's passport because of that. 

After Kim Tan helping Eun Sang negotiate with the police (but they still didn't get Eun Sang's passport), he dropped Eun Sang to her older sister's house, where no one seems to be at home. Kim Tan felt bad, and decided to go back and bring Eun Sang to his home instead.

And there we have episode 1. Episode 2 starts with Kim Tan bringing Eun Sang to his lovely home, and Rachel Yoo eventually meeting Eun Sang again in Tan's house. I'm now on my way to watching episode three, and I hope I have time tomorrow for that. Overall, the story is not just your normal rich kids meet poor girl type of thing, I feel like there's something more deep and touching in it rather than just a meaningless type of teen drama series. I expect a lot of tearjerking moments in this drama, and I hope that those irritating characters that I found in the first two episodes would eventually have a character development that I will eventually understand and like.

Hiatus. (This Week)

Just this morning, I woke up at 4am and only got 4 hours of sleep. I had to wake up that early despite having gone home at 11:30pm the other day because I had my Civil Service Exam this Sunday morning. I wasn't that prepared, considering that I just studied (not vigorously) a week before the exam, and I was also busy last week. At 11am after finishing the exam (which was stressful by the way, because of the really uncomfortable chair that I sat on for three whole hours) I accompanied a friend to go shopping at a mall for her birthday. Then, we went to her condo (by car, thank goodness, but the traffic was terrible in Manila) and picked up our two friends. Thankfully, they decided to drop me in Makati for my training for my part-time job, at 5pm. I actually just got home and remembered that I still don't have a post for Monday, and I'm too busy tomorrow to create a blog entry.

This week, my schedule is also packed, and I don't think that I can squeeze in a proper sleep what more update for my 4-day blog entries? Now, I'm writing this as a 'promissory note' that I will definitely write K-Mondays, Tuesday Running Man, J-Wednesdays, and Reel Thursday for this week, but not on the days themselves. Most probably by Wednesday, I can write some of it but I will try to finish until Sunday. I don't even know if what I'm writing is right anymore. Anyways, I need to sleep now and wake up at 9am tomorrow (finally some decent sleep) but I know that it'll be a busy day tomorrow. Gambare! Fighting! Aja!

Reel Thursday: Young Adult (2011)

Photo taken from here.

Young Adult is a movie about a YA novel ghost writer, Mavis Gary, who upon finding out about her old high school flame having his first child, decides to go back to her hometown (where her high school boyfriend lives). Mavis had just been divorced and her then popular novel (which she's only the ghost writer, not the author per se) is at the verge of cancellation. She's obviously in a point of her life where she'd feel lost like a puppy, only she is more lost than her actual puppy. Upon returning to her hometown, with the excuse of getting some real estate business done, she immediately looks for her old beau and tries to seduce him. Yes, she is well aware that his ex-boyfriend from high school, Buddy, is now happily married and just had his first child, yet she's still willing to rekindle their romance. Before actually getting to meet Buddy, she first meets Matt, also an old classmate from high school. Matt was the 'loser' that the popular girls like Mavis didn't even notice. However, they're already full grown middle-aged adults, and it doesn't really matter whether you were (or still is) a popular kid. As long as you get along well, you'd be as good as friends. Matt and Mavis had some pretty 'friendly' encounters, and from there Matt knew what Mavis was planning to do.

If you've not yet watched this film, can you already figure out what will happen to Mavis? At the very beginning of the film, I knew what would happen to her. It is fairly easy to predict, and I knew that I just had to check for myself how pathetic this 'successful' woman would turn out upon trying to live her past. The mental breakdown that Mavis experienced is basically what the whole movie is about, and there we have the 'comedy-drama' genre. You will indeed laugh at her drama. I kept telling myself when I was watching this that 'Mavis is such a crazy b*tch' and 'why am I still watching this.' The craziness and absurdity of Mavis and the whole situation is just so amusing that I didn't want to stop watching. "What will become of her?" "How will she get past this crisis?" were my questions that I wanted to answer, that's why I carried on.

I think that maybe I can relate to her in some way. Even though I'm still young (and don't have enough experience) to be saying that I can somehow relate to her, I think that her frustrations and desire to go back to the 'glory days' especially that she's feeling so down is the thing that I really understand. There are some points in our past that we feel that we're invincible and that we're so great, that when we're down and feeling worthless, those feelings from the past will come haunting us in a way that we want to go back, to just experience those again, instead of dealing with the current drama that we're supposed to deal with.

Then again, will Mavis get out of her delusions from the past? Will she be able to snap out of it and be ready to look forward to a better tomorrow instead? I must not reveal, even though we all have a tiny idea on how this will end.

J-Wednesdays 水曜日だ！: High School Debut「高校デビュー」

Photo from Wikipedia

I don't even know why I'm writing about this just now, because this is my most favorite shoujo manga. I read and finished it when I was still in high school. High School Debut or Koukou Debut is about a girl, Haruna, who wants to finally experience dating upon entering high school. Before she entered high school, all of her time was dedicated to playing soft ball. Now that she's entering high school, she wants to experience dating (or love) for the first time in her life, that's why she's trying her best to be more attractive enough that someone would actually try to 'hit on' her. While she was on her journey to making herself become more likable for the boys, she meets Yoh, and for some reason, Haruna got Yoh to coach her in dating.

I really like everything about this story, even though it's just a lighthearted shoujo manga. It brought me so much emotions that my naive heart fell for Yoh's character like Haruna did. Their relationship was too cute and very shoujo that I melted every time.

The manga has 13 volumes, and the only volume I'm missing is the 3rd. How come? I collected the Viz Media (Shoujo Beat) English translated version from volume 4, because older volumes were always out of stock. I got the first and second volume in Japanese version, and because I didn't have enough money to buy volumes 1 to 3, I only got two, which leaves me with one missing volume.

You wouldn't imagine my fangirl madness when I found out about the release of a live-action movie version of Koukou Debut. I had never expected that they would make it into anime back then because I thought that it was too old to turn into one. Thank goodness for the kind people who decided to make it into a movie. I was not quite satisfied with the actor that they chose for Yoh's character, because I imagined Yoh to be taller and more 'dapper' looking that Mizobata Junpei. Don't get me wrong though, Mizobata Junpei is one hot piece of man candy but I think someone like Mizushima Hiro would fit better for the role. The other actors and actresses got the looks just fine, especially the other man candy Furukawa Yuki. Although, I think that Mizobata Junpei was (and all of them were) able to pull it off in the movie.

The movie was satisfying enough; it was funny, cute, and very shoujo-like. It depicted the manga almost as good, but of course, reading the manga was more exciting because the movie did not really went through the whole story. The manga is quite long, although the 13 volumes are just right for the story. That's why I think that having an anime would be better so that the story will be more detailed unlike the movie. I'm saying this because I wish that the movie was longer! (but it's too impossible to squeeze all of the Yoh-Haruna goodness into just 2 hours huhu)

Koukou Debut (and Yoh-Haruna) will always have a place in my heart. Now I'm off to re-read a random volume from the series!