ํ์ธ์ ์ง์ฅ์ด๋ค; ์์์ ์๋ด์ ์ ๋ชจ๋ฅด๊ฒ ์ง๋ง ๊ทธ๋๋ 10๋ถ์์ด์๋๋ฐ๋ ๋ถ๊ตฌํ๊ณ ์ง๋ฃจํ๋ค๋ ์ ์ด......๐ค ๊ทธ๋, ์ฐ๊ธฐ ์ํ์ด. ์ง์ง ์ํ์ด. ํนํ ์์์. ์ง์ง ์ํ๋๋ผ. ๋ ์ฐ๊ธฐ๊ฐ ์ฒด์ง์ด๋ค. ์ข ์ฐ๊ฐ ์ ์ ๋ฌธ์กฐ์ ๊ณํ๋๋ก ๋ฏธ์ณ๊ฐ๋ ๊ทธ ๊ณผ์ ์ ์ง์ง ๋ฏธ์น๋ฏ์ด ์ฐ๊ธฐํด์ฃผ๋๋ฐ ๊ทธ๊ฒ ์ง์ง ๋๋ด์ค๐ ์ง์ง ์นญ์ฐฌ๋ฐ์ ๋ง๋ ํ ์ฐ๊ธฐ์๋ค. ๋๋ผ๋ง๋ ์ง๋ฃจํ์ด๋ ๋งคํ ๋ ์ฐ๊ธฐ์ ์ง๋ฆฟํจ์ ๋๊ผ๋ค๊ตฌ! ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ์ด๋์ฑ์ ๋ด๊ฐ ๋ณผ๋ ๋ณ๋ก์๋ค. ๋ณ๋ก ์ ๋ฌด์์ ์ด. ์ ์์ ์์งค์์๋ง ์ค ๋ญ์ผ?! ํ๊ณ ๊ทธ ๋ํํ ์ฃฝ์ผ๋๋ง ์ํธ! ํ๋คใ ใ ใ ใ ใ ์ด๊ฑด ์์งํ ์ฌ์ด๋ค์๋ค, ๊ฐ์์!ใ ใ ใ ใ ใ ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๊ณ ์์์ฌ๋๋ค๋ ์ ๋ ๊ฒ ์์ ์นํฐ ๊ทธ๋ฆผ์ฒด๋ ๋น๊ตํด๋ณด๋๊น ์บ์คํ ์ ์ฐธ ์ํ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์๋ฐ ์ฐ๊ธฐ๋ค๋ ์์ฃผ ์ํด์คฌ๋ค๋ ๊ฒ๋ ๋ณด๋ฉด์ ๋๊ผ์ง๋ง ์ค๊ฐ์ 4ํ์ธ๊ฐ 5ํ์ธ๊ฐ ์ด ์ด๋์ฏค์ ์ง์ง ๋๋ฌด ์ฌ๋ฏธ๊ฐ ์์์ด์;;;;ใ ใ ใ ใ ใ ๊ธฐ๋ํ ๋๋ผ๋ง์๋๋ฐ ๊ทธ ๊ธฐ๋์๋ ํ์ ํ ๋ฏธ์น์ง ๋ชปํ๋ค. ์ํ๊น๋ค. ๊ทธ๋๋ ์์์์ด ์ฐ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๋ฏธ์น๋ฏ์ด ์ํ๋ค ๊ฒ์ ๋ค์ ํ๋ฒ ๋๋ผ๊ฒ ๋์์ผ๋ ๋ญ....;;;๐ ์ง์ง ์์ด๋์ถ์ ์ค์๋ ๋๊ฐ ์ต๊ณ ์ธ๊ฒ ๊ฐ๋ค. ๊ฒฝ์๋ ์ด์ ๋๋ ์๋. ๋๊ฐ ๋ ๋๋ด์ค๋ค. ์ฌํผ ์๊ธฐ์ผ ๋ค์ ์ฐจ๊ธฐ์์ด ๋ด๋ฐฐ์ฐ ํ๋ฐฐ์ฐ์ ์ํ ์ธ๊ฑฐ์ง? ์์ฃผ ๊ธฐ๋๊ฐ ํฌ๋ค. ๋ ์ปค์ ธ๋ด๋ผ. ๋ ์ ๋๋ฉด ์ง์ง ํฌ๊ฒ ๋๊ณ ๋ ๋จ์ ์ฐ๊ธฐ๋ ฅ์ด์ผ. ์์ผ๋ก ์์ํ ๊ฒ. ํ์ดํ ! ๐ค๐ค
์๊ธฐ์ผโฃ๏ธ
Remember to turn on the light when you're readingโฆ (;๏ฝก>๏ฝฯ๏ฝฅ๏ฝก)
ํ์ธ์ ์ง์ฅ์ด๋ค (Strangers from hell/Hell is other people)
Possible post-story idea: Just as Seo Moon-jo mentioned in the last episode, Yoon Jong-woo never stops hallucinating him as he continues to kill, hiding in plain sight.ย
OCN pls give us another glimpse of the murder boyfriendsย
์๊ธฐ์ผ
Strangers From Hell ํ์ธ์ ์ง์ฅ์ด๋คย (2019)
A two frame animation of the last scene from Strangers from Hell because Iโm still not over how good that show was . This was also me trying to figure out how to use clip studio ( kinda still donโt know.. :^ I )
some Im Si-wan s from episode 8, I cant seem to capture the emotion tho :-1
So I was thinking, let Moon Jo stay dead. But when Jong Woo tried to dig up his grave, his hand suddenly stuck out from the ground. Confused as he should have, yet JW took out a ring with a tooth on top and put it on MJ ring finger, Moon Jo came back to life just like in Corpse Bride =))
Guess I will call this AU Corpse Groom haha
โจ My ID is you
When murder bae catches you slipping
(Watch the episodes and tell me Iโm wrong.)
Iโm not sure if you can classify this as โbromanceโ. Itโs more of a special connection between a messed up character and a character that got messed up by the former?
I know that sounds totally wrong... But do not scroll through yet! I guarantee you, this show is hella good. 11/10 good. One of a kind good. Binge-watch worthy good. Promised!
Strangers From Hell (K-Drama)
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Drama
Synopsis (taken from MyDramaList):
โYoon Jong Woo is a young guy in his 20s, who moved from the countryside to Seoul after his college friend, Jae Ho, offered him a job. While looking for a place to live, he stumbles upon Eden Gosiwon, a cheap apartment that shares the kitchen and bathroom with other residents. He is not thrilled about the quality of the place or the other abnormal residents, such as his next-door neighbor Seo Moon Jo, a charismatic dentist. Nevertheless, Jong Woo decides to put up with it for 6 months until he saves enough money to move out. However, mysterious events start occurring in the apartment, causing Jong Woo to start fearing the apartment's residents.โ
Length: Complete - 10 episodes, 60 minutes each
Note: This drama is closely adapted from a webtoon of the same name, which is serialised on Naver. No English translation is yet available.
Personal review:
+ I started watching this drama when only 4 episodes had aired, purely because I saw some friends post about it on FB and Iโm such a sucker for anything thriller. Little did I know the show would get me instantly hooked and I would see through 4 episodes in one single sitting. Yes, you can imagine the torturous wait for new episodes. Granted, Iโm biased toward mystery/thriller genre but I am confident you will agree that the atmosphere is set up amazingly right from the start, the lighting is top-notch and the actors/actresses all do a spectacular job.
+ The story keeps me on edge at literally all times. The pacing is super fast and the tension adds up relentlessly. Is something bad happening to the main guy? How is he going react to the situation? Is he finally getting the villains? Is someone else going to die in this episode? Warning: Yes, it does get a bit bloody (skip those scenes if you are uncomfortab).
+ Now, on the actor part, I cannot shut up about the dentist. Omg omg omg. When was the last time I saw a human this perfect?! He is soooooo beautiful. You really can watch the show just for him! [Iโm sorry. Fangirl mode accidentally turned on]
That beauty... Urgh... *faint*
+ Since we are at โthe dentistโ part, letโs now talk about the bromance/chemistry/special connection/whatever word you deem fit in this drama. You can see this โobvious sparkโ between the main character and the dentist since the very moment they first set eyes on each other (that sounds more romantic than necessary, but, well...). I wonโt give away too many spoilers but do note that many non-horror fans set foot into this drama purely to see these two. It really is that good.
+ Maybe a tiny bit of generalisation but have you heard about just how good the Korean are at making thrillers? Let me give you the answer right away: They are exceptional. And Strangers From Hell happens to be yet another fine piece of art thriller that they produce. If you never watched any, start now with this drama. I guarantee: You are going to be blown away. [Source: Iโve been adoring Korean thrillers for about 9 years now (๏ฟฃโฝ๏ฟฃ)]
- Negative point? Nope, not at all. Absolutely zero. Perfect length, perfect casting, perfect cinematography. 11/10, thank you very much.
Two literary works are referenced in this show (to my knowledge, maybe thereโs more), and I thought it would be interesting to compare the showโs story to those. The works are :
- The Metamorphosisย by Kafka
Thatโs the book Moon Jo took from Jung Wooโs room (it has his name on it, Seok Yoonโs the one who notices and Moon Jo lies that Jung Woo lent it to him). Jung Hwa returns it to Jung Woo in the finale.
- Huis clos (literal translation : โbehind closed doorsโ // english title : โNo Exitโ) by Jean-Paul Sartre
Thatโs the play from which comes the quoteย โHell is other peopleโ (in French : โLโEnfer, cโest les autresโ).
The Metamorphosis
- Jung Wooโs journey vs The bookโs plot
The plot of the book is : the main protagonist, George, wakes up one day to find that heโs turned into a โmonstrousโ insect. He gets progressively rejected by his family from the moment when they find out.
Of course, a proper analysis of the story reveals themes that are different from those of Strangers From Hell.ย
Still,ย I think they chose to mention that book because Jung Woo also turns into a monster and is progressively rejected by the people closest to him (his hyung and his girlfriend), who struggle to show compassion for his ordeal because they do not understand it. They turn on him, and itโs made clear that Jung Woo perceives it that way too.
Even though both Jung Woo and Moon Jo enjoy crime novel, that book, which is not a crime novel, catches Moon Joโs attention. And he is the one who will turn Jung Woo into a monster.
- Jung Wooโs journey vs The deeper meaning of the book
Now if you want to get into the actual analysis of the book : it woud be a criticism of the society the author lived in (apparently he felt that people were becoming socially, economically and morally alienated by a materialistic society and an oppressive capitalistic system).ย
The protagonistโs transformation represents someone going against the values and beliefs of the time. Heโs turned into aย โmonsterโ, and his family starts treating him cruelly while he, on the other hand, retains his humanity. His boss (representing a cold, overly-calculating capitalistic society) berates him for not coming to work (even though heโs in that state) but thanks to his monstrous form, heโs more free than them. Although he ends up isolated, depressed then dead, the point is that the people whoโre alienated arenโt the ones we would have thought of at first - his family is socially, economically and morally alienated. His life was meaningless, and he only realizes it after turning into a monster.
I wonder if Moon Jo was drawing a twisted parallel here, by identifying societyโs moral system that saysย hey, maybe donโt torture and kill people โฆ with the oppressive system that they need to free themselves from.
After all, he kept telling Jung Woo :ย โYou can do whatever you wantโ andย โYou should say what you want, curse who you want and kill who you wantโ. Moon Jo himself lived that way (and died like the main protagonist in the book btw, although Georgeโs death was sad, and Moon Joโs death was well deserved).
Huis clos
- 1st parallel : the story takes place in an enclosed space (the studio residence), aย โhellโ where people hurt each other but that they cannot leave.
Indeed,ย Huis clos is about 3 people who die and are sent to Hell. There, an employee brings them to one of the many rooms and leaves them alone together. There is no mirror, no night and no sleep. There is a button they can press to call the employee but itโs broken.
They bicker and talk about their lives and wonder why theyโre in Hell, but eventually their sins come to light. Most importantly, we realize that they were put in this room together to torture each other.ย
- 2nd parallel : Jung Woo initially thinks that the studio residence is hell, but soon realizes Hell is its inhabitants - and they can still persecute him even if he leaves the studio.
In the book, th 3 people do not torture each other physically or in any other explicit way : itโs the nature of their respective desires / flaws / greeds that lead them to hurting each other. Each one of them wants something from one of the other, that the other canโt give (specifically : attention / affection / approval). Hence the frustration, the lowering self-esteem, etc โฆ
Now, some people have understood the quoteย โHell is other peopleโ as if the author meant that human relationships are always twisted and source of pain, but thatโs not what he meant.
He explained he was talking about the specific relationship between our self-esteem / the way we perceive ourselves in general, and the way people perceive us. No matter what, as people, when we try to get to know ourselves, we always take into account what other people think of us, as well. Whatever we think of ourselves, othersโ opinion contribute to forming our own, at least a little. Which is why, if our relationship to others are twisted, we are in hell. And anyone whoโs too dependent on othersโ opnion ofย them is in hell.
- 3rd parallel : After theyโd rushed to the studio residence because Jung Woo thought the gang would hurt Ji Eun whoโd gone to look for him. Jung Hwaโs junior says about Jung Woo that heย โdidnโt seem normalโ, he wasย โweirdโ. And she says : โimagine that everyone keeps on telling you that youโre insane. Wouldnโt you actually go insane ?โ
And isnโt that what happened to Jung Woo ? His neighbor insisted that deep down he wanted to be a murderer, heightening his struggle with his army-related trauma, his anger and the violence it triggers. Meanwhile his closest friends would say heย โbecame weirdโ,ย โacts weirdlyโ,ย โsays weird thingsโ although they were all true.ย
At some point, after beating up his supervisor at work, Jung Woo admits in his voice over :ย โAt that moment I didnโt know who I was anymoreโ. Meaning : on one hand, he couldnโt believe in a positive version of himself because his friends didnโt believe in it anymore. And on the other hand, he struggled to fight off his darker side because Moon Jo kept insisting that it was his true identity.
โAnyone whoโs too dependent of other peopleโs opinion of them is in hell,โ Sartre says. Although in Jung Wooโs case, he hardly had a choice given how isolated he was between two groups of people who were โtorturingโ him with their perception of him.
Anyway, this is kind of a mess but I really wanted to put this down in writing !!!
About Dazaiโs past actions, and promise to Odasaku
So people have said a lot about how Dazai messed up in the past and how he continues to adopt questionable methods in the present.
Itโs no use trying to justify his past actions or finding excuses for him, but thatโs kinda the point. The point of having Dazai on the good side even though he was the Port Mafiaโs demonic prodigy for several years of his boyhood is precisely that despite being a demonic prodigy, he turned around and went over to the good side.ย
The thing is, Dazai probably doesnโt care if people think he is good or evil (I use โprobablyโ a lot because I have no idea how Dazai actually views himself). So itโs pointless to even try to justify his past actions. Even Dazai himself probably wouldnโt try to justify his own actions. Heโs extremely intelligent, adaptable, and sharp. These qualities allowed him to survive and thrive in the Mafia, and it was all he knew for quite a while. But, we tend to forget he was just a child. Who is to say he didnโt feel terrified when Mori made him his accomplice in the assassination of the previous boss? Sure, he bounced back fast, and went on to even threaten Mori. But thatโs what heโs good at, bouncing back, surviving and thriving in whatever situation he finds himself in.ย
But a child can only do so much. If you lock him in a dark room, never letting him see the brighter, bigger world, he would thrive in the darkness and wouldnโt have known there were other options out there for him. For a while, he was stuck in the life of taking and killing. Only when Odasaku, someone in the same organisation as Dazai who refused to take or kill, showed up, did he know of a possibility of living without taking all the time. Even before he died, Odasaku showed Dazai a light he had never seen before. He showed Dazai that just being in the darkness didnโt mean he couldnโt be good. And when he died, Odasaku taught Dazai that itโs ok to do good for your own sake, because at the end of the day,ย โpeople live to save themselvesโ. Odasaku himself did good for the sake of his own redemption, but it didnโt erase the fact that he did good. Odasaku acknowledge that while Dazai wasnโt inherently righteous, he was not born to be evil, either. So he helped Dazai see a different possibility, a different way to live his life and find his own salvation.
And at this point, Dazai was still a child. He was alone before Odasaku showed up, and now he was alone again. Shit, he must have been so scared. He was lost, he was alone. Odasaku pointed out the fact that Dazai felt stuck and lost in the Mafia, and now he had no idea where to go. Dazai had thrived in the darkness, but now that darkness was no longer a refuge to him. He didnโt know where to go, and thatโs why he asked Odasaku to guide him. He was just a lost, lonely boy, watching the only person who was there to guide him slip away in front of him. Dazai was at a standstill, and now Odasaku pointed him to a crossroad. Dazai, no longer lost, realized that even he had a choice.
The point is, Dazai can be whatever he chooses to be. If he had been interested in being the boss of the Port Mafia, Mori would have been dead by now. Honestly, for someone who doesnโt give a damn about being good or evil, just the fact that Dazai chose to be on the good side was a damn remarkable thing to me. The fact that he made that choice after Odasaku advised him to, shows how much faith and trust Dazai had in Odasakuโs guidance. Odasaku was the only person who even tried to guide Dazai.ย
But, even after escaping that darkness, even after bathing himself in the light for the first time, Dazai the kid has no idea how to live like someone whoโs been in the light. He smiles his way through, secretly reads and manipulates people to navigate himself, and paints himself as a careless good-for-nothing to bury his real emotions and potential beneath. The fact that Dazai struggles in the light does not mean that he was born to thrive in the dark. It just shows that even Dazai needs time to adjust, even the demonic prodigy canโt help feeling lost in a world he is not used to.ย
People have said that Dazai doesnโt have a strand of guilt for all the shit heโs done, and continues to make similar mistakes. I personally donโt think Dazai doesnโt feel any guilt. As Odasaku acknowledged, Dazai is not inherently evil. He doesnโt kill for the thrill, and he doesnโt kill if he can help it.
I donโt know about you, but that look on his face tells me he is having some pretty unpleasant memories of the time he was the demonic prodigy of the Port Mafia. That smile - the bitter smile that follows - tells me he would rather listen to anything but the recount of his own fucking crimes. He also brushed it off by sayingย โsadism is just a process of doing thingsโ. This means that while deep down he is not a sadistic person (even though it looks like he very much is), he resorted to sadistic methods to achieve his objective. In other words, to him, the end justifies the means. He also statesย โand people changeโ - with that unchanging smile - that is his own personal acknowledgement that he is trying so hard to be better, for the sake of his promise with Odasaku. The fact that he tried to change the subject by talking about Gin also tells me that he would rather not talk about his past crimes any more.
AKA I-donโt-know-about-you-but-this-scene-and-that-look-on-his-face-still-tears-me-apart.
So, Dazai doesnโt try to justify his actions to anyone, but heโs also not proud of what he did. He did what he had to do, but if you ask me, I think even this man has some sense of guilt for the mess he caused in the Mafia. What differentiates him from Odasaku or Fukuzawa is the fact that he doesnโt think of himself as someone looking for redemption or atonement. He also doesnโt think of himself as being in the path to righteousness. He doesnโt give a flying fuck about righteousness (probably), but he does care about what Odasaku would have done. So if he had guilt, then it would be guilt over the possibility that he is not what Odasaku would have wanted him to become.
So back to Dazaiโs promise with Odasaku, I believe Dazai had to be so damn brave to leave behind his life in the darkness and rush towards the light, as long as his friend told him to, even though he had no idea how to live bathed in the light. He was lost without Odasaku, but his words gave him something to cling on to. Thatโs why no matter what people say, Dazai canโt be taken aback. Even if the whole world thinks Dazai is the devil reincarnated, as long as Odasaku believes he can be good, then you bet he will try his hardest to become good.
And after Odasaku is gone, the torch is passed on to Atsushi. This boy sincerely believes in the good part that lives on in Dazai, and this means that once more, Dazai can have someone who believes he can do good, and you bet he will.ย
And it doesnโt just stop with Dazai. He passed it on to the people around him. That is his way of thanking Odasaku for letting him see the light, and for being the only person who tried to understand him and guide him. Dazai told Kyouka that just because she had killed doesnโt mean she canโt be a good person from now on. He knows it, because he has seen Odasaku become good, and Odasaku has told him to be good. Dazai gave Atsushi his sincere advice to help Atsushi deal with the pain associated with his past. He gave Akutagawa the acknowledgement he needed, but only after Akutagawa had opened his eyes enough after his interactions with Atsushi.
Dazai was and is still living for himself first and foremost, but thatโs what everyone does, isnโt it? At the end of the day, all kind actions are inherently self-serving. But that doesnโt mean one shouldnโt be kind to that end.
Iโm not trying to find excuses for him - hell, even Dazai doesnโt try to find excuses for himself, he knows what heโs done - but he is trying real hard, ok?ย
They already knewโฆthat this place is hell