Latest / Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews / Chicago Typewriter | Full K-drama Review / Ep. 107

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Chicago Typewriter | Full K-drama Review / Ep. 107 · Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews

• 0:19
  I'm Jessica and this is Teba K Rambles where a couple of
• 0:22
  friends review Korean dramas and we are back with AK Drama
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  Review. For this episode I am joined by
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  Yarrow. How are you Yarrow?
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  I'm great excited to be with you today.
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  Yes, absolutely thrilled that you're here.
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  You basically volunteered as tribute to come and talk about
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  the drama that we're going to review today.
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  It's Chicago Typewriter. I understand that you're a huge
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  fan, so I actually might have you in the section after we've
• 0:47
  finished talking about the cast. Have you talked about your
• 0:50
  thoughts on Chicago typewriter? But I know that you are excited
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  you are prepped to talk about Chicago Typewriter by way of an
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  introduction to the listeners. Maybe give me one drama that
• 1:03
  you're currently watching and that you would recommend to
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  listeners. I'm watching The King's
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  Affection right now on finished episode 19 and about to watch
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  episode 20 but yeah, but I've been doing a a buddy watch with
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  a friend and we haven't been able to schedule.
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  We're planning on watching episode 20 together and it's
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  it's fun. Oh God, is that a ringing
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  endorsement or is it just kind of like.
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  I really don't know. It just depends on what people
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  like and what people want out of it.
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  There's definitely some great gender stuff in it that's
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  refreshing and different than a lot of the others that claim to
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  have sort of this fluid gender sexuality going on.
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  And this one, it's interesting and enjoying it.
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  All right, fair enough. The King's affection.
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  All right, before we get into our review of Chicago
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  typewriter, if this is your first time listening, go ahead
• 2:00
  and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or on Apple podcast,
• 2:03
  Spotify, Google podcast and many more.
• 2:05
  And if you like us, please give us a five star review on Apple
• 2:07
  podcast and Spotify. Come and check us out on social
• 2:10
  media to stay up to date on the latest episodes and reviews.
• 2:13
  You can find us on TikTok and Instagram at Debakpod DAEBAKPOD.
• 2:18
  And lastly, if you're a fan, please consider becoming a
• 2:20
  patron. It's such a great way for you to
• 2:22
  get involved and show your support.
• 2:24
  You can check out the page on Patreon dot com slash Tabak pod
• 2:28
  and shout out to my patrons Curtis, Alana, Lorna, Sammy,
• 2:31
  Julian, number one, Caitlin, Tammy, Marta, Delphia, Maria,
• 2:35
  Sarah, Pam, Julian #2 Nadira, Matthew Lauda, Christine, KP and
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  KGK drama watcher 2. Thank you for being patrons and
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  supporting the show. All right, Yarrow, we're going
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  to get going on this non spoiler section.
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  I will start us out with the Netflix synopsis, which is
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  really short, and then I'll segue into a bit of an edited
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  MDL synopsis, which may be more encompassing.
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  A veterinarian and two writers have a mysterious connection to
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  Korean independence fighters from the Japanese colonial
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  period. Almost too simplistic.
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  So here's the MD, the edited MDL synopsis it reads, set in the
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  1930s Japanese occupation of Korea and the 21st century.
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  Hans Seju, a best selling author in the present, struggles with
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  writer's block, while You Denoue, A talented ghostwriter
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  in 2017, offers to help but has a mysterious condition.
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  Tong Sol, a veterinarian with diverse skills, fluctuates
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  between extreme fandom and anti fandom for Seju as their
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  intertwined stories unfold. The drama explores the
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  connections between past and present lives, focusing on
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  redemption and friendship set against the backdrop of Korea's
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  changing history. All right, so this show aired
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  between April and June 2017. It is 16 episodes long.
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  And it is directed by Kim Tol Q. And he's directed a bunch of
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  stuff from the early aughts. He's been directing things like
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  her beautiful story, Han Jin Yi Emergency Couple, which I
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  vividly remember watching in 2014, My Beautiful Bride Mother,
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  which I still need to watch from 2018.
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  Confession Flower of Evil. He is the director of Flower of
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  Evil from 2020. He won a Pixung award for that
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  best directing and there is a big deep dive on the podcast
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  feed if you want to scroll back and listen to the Flower of Evil
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  episode. Keem Tool Q has also directed
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  celebrity Mother and mom, most recently Sirens Kiss So Yarrow.
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  What are your thoughts on this director?
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  Have you watched more from him? I don't think I've watched any
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  of those. OK, fair enough.
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  I have been wanting to watch Flower of Evil, but we can't
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  watch it in the United States and I was too wimpy when it was.
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  Available really. Did they take it off platforms?
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  Oh, that's. Yeah, it's not available right
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  now. OK, well, it it's kind of one
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  that like month to month, the changes, the licensing deals
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  expire and then they kind of get renewed and it's somewhere else.
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  But definitely recommend Flower of evil among all of these.
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  Mother I heard is really, really good.
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  I want to watch it. I've watched Celebrity from 2023
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  that's pretty solid short show that you can watch on Netflix
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  right now. So if you're looking for more
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  King Joel Q maybe give Celebrity a try.
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  Sirens kiss has Pac-Man young in it and that one I think it just
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  recently finished airing and I've heard mixed reviews mostly
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  because she's very very thin in that show.
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  Like physically looks quite gaunt and she was always thin
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  like to begin with. So for people to start being
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  like, OK, it's actually she's scary skinny now.
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  I'm a little worried that that's like the only thing people are
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  talking about for Sirens Kiss and not necessarily looking at
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  the like any discussion of the show has to include she looks
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  unhealthy at this point. So that's a little frightening.
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  But Sirens Kiss is also the most recent thing that he's done.
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  Chicago typewriter was written by Jean Suan.
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  She has written stuff like first of all, she's been writing for
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  like 26 years since 2000. She's got snow flower School for
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  my 19 year old sister-in-law, Scandal in Seoul, The Moon,
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  embracing the Sun, which is a huge, huge show that came out in
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  2012. That was definitely one of the
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  dramas of the year. Kill me, heal me from 2015.
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  She's also written and then Twinkling Watermelon from 2023.
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  People really, really love that show.
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  Have you seen stuff from the screenwriter before?
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  I actually haven't. And you know, Twinkling
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  Watermelon's been on my list for a long time.
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  I don't love teen shows and it's I'm kind of a contradiction
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  because I also don't love time travel in general.
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  I know. So I've avoided, I know I've
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  avoided twinkling watermelon, but I I'm gonna watch it.
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  It's I think I'm gonna watch it very soon.
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  Yeah twinkling Watermelon. I think I've watched the 1st 2
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  episodes of Twinkling Watermelon and I was like this is fine and
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  really didn't feel a pull. Or.
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  Yeah, but no sense of urgency to finish the show.
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  So it's still sort of on hold for me.
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  People swear up and down, left, right and center that it's like
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  amazing top show of 2023 again, I it could be.
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  I just don't feel compelled to watch it.
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  So I feel bad. It's kind of a Back to the
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  Future situation. Yeah, which I, you know, yeah, I
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  love those people, but I just they it's not my favorite.
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  Gotcha. And I also, because I loved
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  Chicago typewriters so much and I saw the list of the director
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  and the screenwriter, I felt like I wanted to not watch their
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  their other shows for some reason.
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  I don't know, I don't really want to watch flow.
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  Yeah, somehow I don't know. It's fine.
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  This show Chicago typewriter stars you are in as Hun Seiju.
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  He's the male lead of the show and he's been in about 18 movies
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  including High 5 and The Match from 2025.
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  Most recently, he's been in Soul Vibe from 2022, which is kind of
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  like a weird funky movie. He has won a Peck Song Award for
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  Best Actor in the movie Voice of Silence from 2020.
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  I really love him in two things for his movie work and it's
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  Hashtag Alive from 2020 which is a zombie movie and then Burning
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  from 2018 which is also sort of like AI.
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  Don't even know how to describe Burning, but have you watched
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  him in any movies? Yes OK I watched both the match
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  and high 5. Perfect.
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  And I've been wanting to watch Burning, but my husband already
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  watched it years ago and shows that are a little bit more
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  intense. I like to have someone watch
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  with me. And I love that he, you know, he
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  got a very nice review in the New York Times for his acting in
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  that as well as, you know, lots of they got lots of attention at
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  con for that movie. High 5 is very, very silly, but
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  originally his mate, his part in it was supposed to be a main
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  character. And then after his scandal,
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  which I know you'll talk about, they reduced his section of that
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  movie to be one of the side characters.
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  But still, when he's on the screen, it's just he's fabulous
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  and it's, you know, it's worth watching just to for the moments
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  of him. Yeah, he's been in 14 TV shows
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  as well, and I think a lot of people might place a lot of
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  importance on his roles in Sunken Kwan Scandal for
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  instance, from 2010 in Secret Affair from 2014, The Roots of
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  the Throne from 20/15/2016 won him a Best Actor Peck Song
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  Award. So that's 6 flag flying Dragons,
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  right, 6 flying Dragons, yes and yeah.
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  So that's yes it is. It's very popular. 6 Flying
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  Dragons and I have watched a few of the episodes.
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  I really want to watch 6 Flying Dragons.
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  I've never seen it, but I know that I will love it.
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  Like, you know, there's something about some shows where
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  I'm like, I know that I'm going to love that.
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  So when I finally get to it, I'll let everyone know,
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  obviously. And then most recently for TV,
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  he's been in Hell Bound from 2021.
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  That was four years after Chicago's typewriter.
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  So he took kind of a long TV break for years, came back with
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  Hell Bound and Goodbye Earth from 2024.
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  And I guess, first of all, have you seen him in these shows?
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  6 flying Dragons I think 3 episodes and I did also watch
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  the movie Antique Bakery OK from 2008.
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  Maybe. 2007 it's also got Kim J Hook, who is this one of the
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  stars. It's awful and also really
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  interesting to watch it to see how you know what was happening
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  in Korean cinema before the broadcast changes and a little
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  snippet into where some K dramas because it's it's a movie, but
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  it's more like AK drama. OK.
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  And it's about men. It's similar to Coffee Prince in
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  that it's about men who run a a fancy bakery and the one of the
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  main characters is gay. And it's interesting and awful
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  the same time. OK, Domestic violence is why
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  it's awful. Oh gosh, OK, well it's talking
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  about interesting and awful. You Lion has been embroiled in
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  scandal and controversy for the past few years.
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  He was involved in a major illegal drug scandal starting in
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  about 2023 and he admitted to habitually using substances
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  including propofol, ketamine and cocaine.
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  And so early last year in 2025, February 18th, 2025, in
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  appellate court sentenced him to a one year prison term, but the
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  sentence was suspended leading to his release.
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  Even though he's walking for he's not working because he has
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  basically been cancelled from the entertainment industry,
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  unfortunately. And here in the West, we are
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  pretty soft on celebrities and actors, especially using
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  substances. And I know it's not the
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  healthiest mentality, I'm sure, but we don't cancel people
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  really for their extracurricular activities over here in the West
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  like they do in South Korea. And case in point, Robert Downey
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  Junior. Robert Downey Junior has a very
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  similar trajectory. He's an amazing actor who was
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  really, really struggling with his drug addiction years before
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  he got sober. And it's one of the most well
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  known comeback stories over here with the Iron Man and the MCU
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  reviving his career and take it was a taking a chance on Robert
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  Downey junior casting him as Iron Man and hopefully there is
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  a resurgence of a similar caliber for UI in because I love
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  you are in. I think he's such an excellent
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  actor and I would love to know if you experienced you are in in
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  a bubble and then afterward kind of found out he's been cancelled
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  and he's been struggling with an addiction and what your thoughts
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  are on the whole situation. I can't remember if I knew about
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  the scandal before because I did watch Chicago Typewriter just a
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  year ago, and I don't remember because Chicago Typewriter also
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  wasn't available for a while in the US as far as I knew.
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  And I think I watched it pretty soon after it was released on
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  Tubi, which was less about a year ago I think.
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  Mm hmm. I don't remember if I knew about
• 14:00
  his scandal or not. So to answer that, I fell in
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  love with, you know, his acting before I probably knew about the
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  scandal. And then when I tried to look at
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  sort of a more nuanced look, I, you know, I don't read a lot of
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  that celebrity stuff, but I, you know, I just looked a little bit
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  more into it. And also, you know, what he how
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  he talked about his craft and his life and himself before the
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  scandal. I saw that he was someone who's
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  got struggled with, you know, insomnia and anxiety and was
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  quite open about some of his struggles.
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  And I have an open heart for people who have addiction and
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  are trying to self medicate in various ways.
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  And, you know, being an artist and being in the public eye and
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  drug policies in South Korea and drug policies in the United
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  States, it's sad. And I really hope that he's
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  doing well. I know that he established some
• 15:01
  kind of his own agency. Looks like he's trying to do
• 15:04
  something creatively. Maybe he's writing because in
• 15:06
  the past, he said that was what he wanted to do next.
• 15:09
  So I really hope we will see him on our screens again.
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  And I also just hope he's getting the support that he
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  needs and that he's having a good time with his life.
• 15:19
  I agree. I agree.
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  His Co star in Chicago typewriter is IM SU Jung.
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  She plays tone soul. She's a female lead and this
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  drama is actually a huge comeback drama for her.
• 15:31
  She had not been on television screens, the small screen in 13
• 15:36
  years since 2000. Fours.
• 15:38
  I'm sorry, I love you, which I have covered on the podcast
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  feed. You can hear that deep dive if
• 15:44
  you'd like to. And then she's also been in
• 15:47
  Search WWW, which was two years after Chicago Typewriter.
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  There's also a big deep dive on Search WWW on the feed.
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  It's been in Melancholia in 2021.
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  And of course, a bunch of movies.
• 15:59
  She's really more of a movie star Finding Mr. Destiny.
• 16:02
  I'm a Cyborg, but that's okay. A Tale of Two Sisters, which is
• 16:05
  a really iconic horror movie. What's your experience with this
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  actress? I've only seen her in this, but
• 16:11
  she was in a show last year on Disney.
• 16:15
  It was the one about the the treasure.
• 16:17
  I can't remember low down something like that.
• 16:20
  It was called yes I I tried to watch the first episode and it
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  just didn't. I I want I wanted to watch it
• 16:27
  but it just. Didn't I understand that
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  sentiment so much? So, yeah, she was in Lowlife,
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  Lowlife from Disney Plus last year, 2025.
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  She does have a upcoming drama, Mad Concrete Dreams, that's
• 16:39
  coming out this year. I hope that's good.
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  I've hope for her sake it's good.
• 16:43
  Yeah. But yeah.
• 16:44
  So you this was basically your introduction to IM SU Jung.
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  Yes, and I loved her in this, Yeah.
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  The last person I'll talk about is Cole Kyung Pio.
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  He plays you to know. He's basically the second male
• 16:56
  lead and I won't say too much about his character.
• 16:59
  It's basically a spoiler but he's been in 15 movies including
• 17:03
  Soul Vibe from 2022 with You are in 645 Decision to Leave.
• 17:09
  Also from 2022 is Puck Tanook movie 7 years of Night, the
• 17:12
  Treacherous Coin Locker Girl, and I think his most recent
• 17:15
  movie was Hurdle 23 TV shows so you've most likely seen him in
• 17:20
  AK drama Undercover. Miss Hong was the most recent
• 17:24
  thing that he's been in DP both seasons.
• 17:27
  He's kind of got a small part in the show.
• 17:31
  There's a deep dive on DP in the feed if you want to scroll back
• 17:34
  and look at it. Connect love and contract.
• 17:36
  My roommate is a Kumio. Private life, strongest delivery
• 17:40
  man. Don't dare to dream.
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  And then I think most people really, I really love him and
• 17:45
  Reply 1988 from 2015, 2016. What's your experience with this
• 17:51
  actor? I love him of course, and I've I
• 17:55
  haven't finished Undercover Miss Hong.
• 17:58
  I think I'm on episode 10. And it was great to see him show
• 18:03
  up in My Roommate as a Goomi Ho. Although I didn't watch all of
• 18:06
  that show and I think I've watched one or two others of
• 18:09
  those, but I'm not sure. And I think that My Roommate is
• 18:12
  a Gumiho house, might be the same house but I'm not sure as
• 18:17
  Chicago. Typewriter.
• 18:18
  Yes, well, now that you brought up the house, the house in
• 18:22
  Chicago typewriter, listen, you've seen this house like a
• 18:26
  million times. Definitely it could be the same
• 18:28
  house. I can't say for sure if it is,
• 18:30
  but it's probably in the same area of Seoul.
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  The main house is not a one off set.
• 18:36
  It's a real filming location that gets reused a ton.
• 18:39
  It's located in Pyeongchang Dong and upscale quiet residential
• 18:42
  area in northern Seoul. And that area is known for
• 18:46
  modern luxury homes, architect designed villas, lots of filming
• 18:49
  locations in this area because the owners of the house might
• 18:54
  just be like, yeah, you can use my house for the exterior shots
• 18:57
  of XYZ in the other K drama. So yeah, this house, as soon as
• 19:01
  you see it, you'll be like, oh, I've I've seen this house
• 19:04
  before. OK, so now that we've gotten to
• 19:07
  the end of the cast and there's more people in this cast as
• 19:10
  well, but those are the main players.
• 19:12
  Yarrow, please tell me and the audience what you love so much.
• 19:17
  What did you connect with in Chicago Typewriter?
• 19:20
  I think that in the big picture, the reason that it that I love
• 19:26
  it and that it just like tore itself into my heart was gently
• 19:31
  was is that it? It's really novelistic.
• 19:34
  It really has a beginning, middle and end.
• 19:36
  The stories weave together in a satisfying way and I'm a reader
• 19:43
  and before I watched K dramas, I actually didn't watch very much
• 19:46
  TV. OK, and the, the narrative of
• 19:49
  beginning, middle and, and, and this big story, these two big
• 19:55
  stories told and it's dramatic, but it's also kind of a quiet
• 19:58
  way, I think fed into my my natural inclination towards.
• 20:04
  A narrative arc similar to a novel, storytelling wise.
• 20:10
  And, you know, another key theme of the pen is mightier than the
• 20:14
  sword and the typewriter is mightier than the gun, as well
• 20:19
  as a key theme of, you know, the struggle of writing a novel and
• 20:25
  that it's about writing as well as about history.
• 20:28
  And another key theme of atonement and forgiveness.
• 20:31
  Sure. So to segue into my thoughts, I
• 20:36
  like the concept of the story, which is about camaraderie and
• 20:41
  friendship and love and betrayal and like you said, atonement and
• 20:44
  this story that spans basically 80 years and finding out the
• 20:50
  truth that haunts them and stuff like that.
• 20:53
  I personally, it took me about 6 episodes to really lock in to
• 20:59
  Chicago Typewriter and to just start liking it basically.
• 21:04
  And then I sort of really liked it.
• 21:06
  And then towards the end I was like, OK, like this is fine.
• 21:10
  It was kind of an uneven experience watching it.
• 21:13
  So I liked it but didn't love it and I really wanted to love it.
• 21:18
  You know, this was, this is a drama that's kind of been a
• 21:22
  white whale for me. It's been a little hard to find
• 21:25
  in places like you said. And then we watched it on to be
• 21:29
  to be sponsor me. And I like the pieces of it.
• 21:33
  Like I like the actors a lot. They were great in this drama.
• 21:38
  I'm wondering if like, by the end of this episode, I will be
• 21:42
  listening to you and I'll think, oh, maybe this was better than I
• 21:45
  thought. But I think it was suffering to
• 21:49
  me with being too long. The episodes fluctuated from
• 21:54
  being an hour to like an hour, 10 minutes, an hour, 12 minutes
• 21:58
  or whatever, which in the grand scheme of things is not that
• 22:00
  long. But I found myself being like,
• 22:04
  this is inordinately long. And so even though it was evenly
• 22:08
  paced and like you said, beginning, middle and end, it
• 22:11
  felt too long to me. And it is so patriotic.
• 22:16
  It's a very patriotic show with the story that it's telling, the
• 22:21
  setting, you know, all the time and place things, but dialogue
• 22:24
  is even like really, really patriotic.
• 22:27
  And it just feels like a museum piece to me.
• 22:31
  And I don't know if because of that, because of how patriotic
• 22:36
  it is. It feels too cheesy and like ham
• 22:40
  fisted too on the nose. I didn't quite get my hands
• 22:45
  dirty with it and matter of fact, I don't think the show
• 22:49
  necessarily gets its hands dirty either with the era as much as
• 22:52
  it could have. I think this drama is good, but
• 22:56
  if it was made today, I feel like it'd be a gritty, tight 10
• 23:01
  episode Disney Plus show. It'd be a lot darker.
• 23:05
  Maybe that's a hot take. I don't know that like I like
• 23:08
  the show enough where I'm like, let's try it again.
• 23:11
  It's been almost 10 years, maybe we can make it better, I don't
• 23:16
  know. I can see what you're saying and
• 23:19
  I agree about the beginning and I don't know if this is the
• 23:23
  right time to talk about the first few episodes.
• 23:26
  In a non spoilery way of course. So the first 3 episodes have a
• 23:31
  very different vibe than the rest.
• 23:33
  Of the show, very tonally different.
• 23:34
  Yeah. And so I even, you know, I
• 23:38
  eventually was like asked my husband to watch with me after I
• 23:41
  decided I loved it and I skipped the first few episodes for him.
• 23:45
  I said, you know, this the tone, I said I explained the things
• 23:48
  that happened and there were a few things that really didn't
• 23:51
  make sense to him, so he missed out on.
• 23:53
  But the tone of the first, you know, it's, it's not until
• 23:59
  basically halfway through the 3rd and really into the 4th
• 24:02
  episode that the tone picks up what it is.
• 24:05
  And I think that, I mean that happens with a lot of the first
• 24:09
  few episodes are just a little chaotic or a little mock Jong as
• 24:14
  they say, and then it hits its stride.
• 24:17
  Chicago typewriter, really the 1st 2 episodes are totally
• 24:20
  different than the rest. And like you said about what it
• 24:23
  would be like if it was made now, I think that having being
• 24:26
  made in 2017, I think that it was a little bit of a show of
• 24:31
  the more like what I've seen of the 2012, 2014.
• 24:35
  Yes, it was. It was a little bit closer to
• 24:38
  that genre that eight, that time period, it almost feels.
• 24:41
  Classically K drama. In a sense, yes and yeah.
• 24:45
  And less like the 2020 sort of era of shows.
• 24:50
  So it seems more like a show made around 2014 and not 2017,
• 24:55
  which maybe she wrote it a while before that and was following in
• 25:01
  the way those shows were, which was a great era.
• 25:04
  I mean, there's some great shows from that time period, right?
• 25:07
  And when you say it was too long, I can understand why you
• 25:12
  feel that way. And at the same time, what I
• 25:14
  think is interesting about this show is that it doesn't really
• 25:18
  have a 12. I didn't find it to have a 12 to
• 25:21
  15 episode air slump like so many shows do.
• 25:26
  It really felt to me that it builds builded nicely, built
• 25:29
  nicely. That's why I'm like, it was
• 25:31
  evenly paced but at the same time too long.
• 25:34
  So maybe it's not the fact that it's 16 episodes long, it's the
• 25:38
  fact that each episode has an extra 1015 minutes on it that
• 25:42
  maybe. Can be shaved off.
• 25:44
  I think that would help with making it feel even tighter.
• 25:48
  And yes, that's what I mean. Like it's not necessarily, but
• 25:51
  if it was made today, like let's be clear, it would totally be
• 25:54
  1012 episodes and not 16 episodes.
• 25:57
  Yeah. And about the patriotism, yes,
• 25:59
  wow, this show is patriotic, so patriotic.
• 26:02
  And again, I think it's feels more like a show that would have
• 26:06
  been made around, you know, a little earlier than it was made,
• 26:09
  although it is interesting to compare and contrast it to Mr.
• 26:14
  Sunshine. Let's do that.
• 26:16
  Let's. Do that for a minute because
• 26:18
  yeah, I, I, I don't want to spoil what the twist or anything
• 26:23
  is in this section, but I will say the novelty of this show
• 26:28
  totally would have worked on me in 2017, but it doesn't quite
• 26:33
  work for me now. And I will say in 2017, I was
• 26:37
  basically illiterate of the era that they are depicting the
• 26:41
  history of the Japanese colonization and occupation of
• 26:45
  Korea. And in the past 10 years, I've
• 26:48
  seen a lot of media about this time period.
• 26:51
  And in a word, Chicago's typewriter is very simple.
• 26:56
  It doesn't quite interrogate the time period, the character
• 26:59
  motivations. Nothing is really in an elegant
• 27:02
  way. The characters are either good
• 27:05
  or they're bad. There's not a lot of Gray in
• 27:08
  here. And you mentioned Mr. Sunshine.
• 27:10
  I love Mr. Sunshine and we've covered that show on the podcast
• 27:15
  and that's a show that I'm like that is patriotic but not
• 27:18
  overbearingly patriotic. And the characters are very
• 27:22
  interesting and complex. And I found that show better
• 27:26
  than Chicago Typewriter. I found Pachinko seasons 1 and 2
• 27:30
  better than the show. Movies like Assassination and
• 27:34
  The Age of Shadows and so many others that are still on my
• 27:38
  watch list and I'll name them like, I don't know, Battleship
• 27:40
  Island, The Last Princess, Snowy Rd.
• 27:43
  The K drama, Hymn of Death from 2018, which I have yet to see,
• 27:47
  Bridal Mask from 2012. There's other media that treads
• 27:52
  the same ground and does it better and that's why I'm like
• 27:56
  really kind of frustrated with Chicago typewriter.
• 27:59
  You mentioned not liking past life story or time travel
• 28:03
  stories specifically and I don't, I don't know if this is a
• 28:09
  spoiler, but I don't tend to like Korean ghost stories.
• 28:12
  For instance, Oh my ghosts Brig it on ghosts Hotel de Luna, A
• 28:17
  Korean Odyssey. But there's some that I liked,
• 28:20
  so I'm not it's not a blanket statement.
• 28:21
  I do like the master son goblin autoing on the magistrate.
• 28:25
  These are also like ghost stories to an extent.
• 28:28
  And I am also nearly 5050 on if I like past life stories.
• 28:34
  For instance, I dropped See you in my 19th life, dropped Dustin
• 28:38
  with you did not like Legend of the Blue Sea.
• 28:41
  And those are past life stories, this one, and I'm not sure if
• 28:46
  there's much of A spoiler, maybe people have figured it out by
• 28:48
  now with the title Chicago Typewriter, What does Chicago
• 28:50
  have to do with anything? And like the fact that this
• 28:53
  story takes place over 80 years, but this show has both past life
• 28:58
  stories and ghost stories. It's both.
• 29:02
  We can discuss this. This is how This is how I felt.
• 29:05
  It keeps to the thesis that people don't change.
• 29:09
  People stay the same over different lives, repeating the
• 29:14
  same predestined mistakes and never overcoming the same
• 29:17
  character flaws, and I personally don't like that.
• 29:22
  I will have to disagree with you on that particular point, yes,
• 29:26
  but I what we will need to do it in the.
• 29:28
  Spoiler section, yes, because there's specific things that we
• 29:31
  can talk about. In there are a few characters
• 29:33
  that So cannot I say something about Mr. Sunshine?
• 29:37
  Oh no. What I'd like to say is about
• 29:39
  Chicago typewriter and like you say, it doesn't tell the story
• 29:43
  in a gritty way or as in depth. And you are right, it's a like I
• 29:48
  said at the beginning, it's a relatively gentle take on some
• 29:52
  really intense time and story. It's a bit history.
• 29:57
  It's a bit of a like a middle school history documentary, not
• 30:05
  documentary, whatever they call reenactment of a time.
• 30:08
  And it's interesting that it's not from a web web comic because
• 30:12
  it, it does have a web comic type of feel to it.
• 30:15
  Yeah, it does. It is gentle and, and maybe
• 30:20
  that's, you know, I, I came to K drama to watch things that were
• 30:25
  more on the gentler side and not as much intense in my face.
• 30:32
  Although I've watched intense shows like Mr. Sunshine and, and
• 30:36
  I will just say about Mr. Sunshine and Chicago typewriter.
• 30:40
  Chicago typewriter is a fantasy and Mr. Sunshine is not.
• 30:44
  And it's interesting in the K drama fandom people talking
• 30:49
  about these shows and in the more past few years people think
• 30:54
  that Chicago Typewriter was copying Mr. Sunshine.
• 30:57
  But of course, Chicago Typewriter came out first.
• 31:00
  People. Think yeah, just mentions about
• 31:05
  one of the characters who has a similar thing to one of the
• 31:07
  characters of Mr. Sunshine and. Well, that's wrong.
• 31:11
  Yeah, that's straight up. Wrong.
• 31:13
  You know, I feel that Chicago typewriter meandered across the
• 31:17
  street so that Mister Sunshine could run.
• 31:21
  Yeah, sure. I I can agree with that.
• 31:23
  Absolutely. This came first.
• 31:24
  It plowed the ground and I mean Mr. Sunshine and then the Mr.
• 31:29
  Sunshine is like prestige level. Yeah, in a way that Chicago
• 31:35
  typewriter is not. It's just totally different
• 31:37
  scales. I totally understand that.
• 31:39
  I'm not comparing scale. I'm kind of talking more about
• 31:43
  the characterizations and how complex it is and the the plot
• 31:46
  and stuff like that. Not necessarily like Mr.
• 31:48
  Sunshine had 40 more $1,000,000 to work with and they hired Ibn
• 31:54
  and whatever. I'm not talking about that.
• 31:56
  Yeah. But comparing, you know, from a
• 31:58
  surface level, yeah. Yeah.
• 32:00
  Was what I was doing, yeah. OK, so you are in which I will
• 32:04
  say in the non spoiler section, excellent actor.
• 32:07
  I love what he's doing in this show.
• 32:09
  He's also got a buzz cut in this show which completely works for
• 32:13
  him. The buzz cut is not something
• 32:16
  you see all the time in K dramas and he's also very tan in this.
• 32:21
  He just looks kind of sun kissed.
• 32:24
  I feel like it's only something that one other actor can pull
• 32:27
  off now, and maybe it's just I have no other names at the
• 32:31
  moment, but Tongue Hanging is the only other actor who can do
• 32:34
  this. Like the buzzcat and like Sun
• 32:36
  kiss or tan Look, nobody else is doing it.
• 32:42
  There's a, there's a yeah, yeah, you're yeah.
• 32:44
  I think you might be right. So that's pretty much the extent
• 32:50
  of my non spoiler thoughts. Did you have anything else you
• 32:53
  wanted to add before we break for spoilers?
• 32:55
  You know, I love this show so much that I had to write about
• 32:59
  it a bunch. And I do have a few things to
• 33:02
  share in the non spoiler section, which is that I for my
• 33:05
  writing practice, I tried to write about things that I love
• 33:09
  and I wanted to write about this show without spoiling it.
• 33:16
  And so I did write a 600 word ode to why I love Chicago
• 33:20
  typewriter without spoiling it. And I'm obviously not gonna read
• 33:24
  that whole thing, but I'm gonna just can I just list the thing?
• 33:29
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 33:31
  So one of the things I love the way I mean a lot of K drama are
• 33:35
  genre blending. This one is really genre
• 33:39
  blending between historical and fantasy and romance and
• 33:42
  thriller. And the mishmash chaos of the
• 33:46
  mixed genre in this show I found worked just very well for me.
• 33:52
  And I also thought it was interesting that they have this
• 33:54
  Dolly painting or they have a sculpture of the Dolly painting
• 33:57
  of the melting clock in one of the first scenes.
• 34:01
  And I. Loved that.
• 34:02
  I was like, yeah, yeah. So I loved the antique
• 34:06
  typewriter and the way the typewriter was basically a
• 34:09
  character in itself and how many different things the character
• 34:13
  represented and became. I also really liked the
• 34:17
  cinematography. And there's there's a good essay
• 34:20
  on a blog about the cinematography.
• 34:22
  I liked that the cinematography was slightly different style in
• 34:26
  the past scenes from the 1930s and the modern.
• 34:29
  In the current era the cinematography changed.
• 34:33
  Yeah, I'm nodding my. Head I yeah, I love the writing
• 34:36
  desk and the writing room and the stacks and stacks of books.
• 34:40
  The stacks of books go on and on.
• 34:42
  I liked the discussion about art, about having a muse and
• 34:47
  what it is to have a muse and who becomes a muse and who isn't
• 34:51
  a muse or not isn't, but where inspiration comes from.
• 34:56
  Yeah. Sure, I as a reader I loved the
• 34:59
  literary references. It just went on and on with the
• 35:01
  little my references and their connection about the literary
• 35:05
  references was really sweet. I loved the steampunk vibe.
• 35:09
  It did have a steampunk vibe and I do appreciate that, yes.
• 35:12
  Yeah, and I loved the gold pocket watch and the matchbox.
• 35:17
  I love this idea that he Hansedju gives himself a cup of
• 35:21
  or has his helper bring him a cup of hot chocolate and a slice
• 35:25
  of cake when he finishes the project.
• 35:27
  Yes. And sweet tooth cinnamon sticks.
• 35:32
  And I also really love the soundtrack, especially the song
• 35:35
  Be My Light by Kevin O which is the most beautiful song.
• 35:39
  You know, I agree with everything that that you're
• 35:41
  saying because I like the same things about the show.
• 35:44
  It's probably adding to why I appreciate the show because it's
• 35:48
  got all these, like, little idiosyncrasies and they're all
• 35:52
  great. Like, I love that stuff as well.
• 35:55
  Like the cinnamon stick instead of the cigarette.
• 35:57
  Like he's like, yeah, I like to chew on the cinnamon stick,
• 36:00
  which is so endearing and and unique to the characters.
• 36:06
  The literary references, like you said, are great.
• 36:08
  The cinematography, which I I know there's some scenes that I
• 36:11
  have bookmarked to talk about in the spoiler section that I'm
• 36:14
  like, Oh yeah, they were doing something here.
• 36:16
  They were cooking. And I will say the OST is really
• 36:21
  good. Yeah, really good.
• 36:23
  That's why I'm like, this is like classically K drama in a
• 36:26
  lot of. Ways very classically K drama.
• 36:29
  So there is another fun fact that I added a link in your
• 36:34
  document and I will it's not spoiler to say that the writer
• 36:38
  took an an experience from you in his personal life to use in
• 36:43
  this show about when he was a struggling young actor at like
• 36:48
  age 19. And he'd been in one TV show and
• 36:51
  he was ready to give up and go back to his hometown.
• 36:54
  He was almost out of money and he went to his corner
• 36:56
  convenience store and the Ajima owner there gave him chocolate
• 37:01
  milk or something similar as a gift and said, I am you're doing
• 37:05
  great and I'm your first fan and just take this.
• 37:08
  And he said he had to leave quickly before he started to
• 37:12
  cry. And they you there is a similar
• 37:16
  scene that they used. Oh.
• 37:18
  Yes, absolutely. In Chicago typewriter with the
• 37:21
  female lead and the and you are in in a deli many years before
• 37:26
  this show. Take the main part of the show.
• 37:29
  Start starts. Yeah, about 10 years before the
• 37:32
  events of the modern day portion of Chicago Typewriter.
• 37:36
  And it's not a deli. I'll have you know it's a
• 37:39
  subway. I was avoiding that.
• 37:43
  Yeah. So this main product placement
• 37:45
  in here is the Subway. It is just as frustrating as I
• 37:50
  remember seeing Subway as a main sort of location for events in
• 37:57
  the show. Main characters are part timing
• 38:01
  at Subway and hey let's go have dinner.
• 38:03
  It's Subway. Like that is the type of Subway
• 38:06
  product placement that really sent me up a wall for the better
• 38:09
  part of 5-6 years in K drama land.
• 38:13
  And to see it again. I was like, blood pressure
• 38:17
  instantly rose. But there was other product
• 38:19
  placement as well. They had the Holly's coffee, the
• 38:22
  beer, the IT was like a black beer can and it just said beer
• 38:27
  really big on it. I don't know what brand that
• 38:29
  was. They went ham on that too.
• 38:31
  The electrolyte or flavored water situation.
• 38:35
  Yeah, I've seen that in so many K dramas.
• 38:37
  And then the green Hangover, sobering drink or whatever that
• 38:42
  was. I mean, the list goes on.
• 38:44
  The best. The best one What, though, was
• 38:46
  the dog food. The dog food, Yeah.
• 38:51
  So Subway was not alone, but I think it was the most
• 38:55
  frustrating of them, the one that definitely made me throw my
• 39:01
  eyes to high heaven. Because what is what is that?
• 39:06
  How is that natural implementation?
• 39:09
  Integration. But anyway, I am going to ask
• 39:13
  you what you would rate this show out of five soldier bottles
• 39:17
  and then we'll get going on the spoiler section.
• 39:19
  So why don't you go 1st and give me out of zero to 5 soldier
• 39:24
  bottles, 5 being the best. So I realized after I fell in
• 39:28
  love with K dramas that I tried to start rating them after I
• 39:33
  started keeping track and I realized that there were a lot
• 39:37
  of shows that I thought were really, really great and that I
• 39:41
  would rate very high, but that I didn't love them.
• 39:44
  So I put shows into boxes into loved also great.
• 39:49
  I'm on it enjoyed so and I realized this after watching Mr.
• 39:54
  Sunshine that Mister Sunshine is a masterpiece and it's a 10.
• 39:58
  It's Absolutely Fabulous. And at the same time I don't.
• 40:04
  Do. Not well, I don't love it.
• 40:06
  Yeah, and I know why I don't love it.
• 40:08
  It's not. I totally understand.
• 40:10
  Completely what you're talking. About yes, so I decide.
• 40:15
  So when I fell in love with Chicago Typewriter, and I think
• 40:18
  Chicago Typewriter was maybe around the 35th, 32nd show I
• 40:23
  watched because I fell in love with it, I realized this is
• 40:26
  going to be my only 10 show. This.
• 40:28
  I'm going to only rate this even though there's shows at the top
• 40:31
  of my list. So I have to give it 5 soju
• 40:33
  bottles. Fair enough. 5 soju bottles from
• 40:36
  Yarrow and then I'm going to swing in with I I was
• 40:41
  oscillating between 3 and 3 1/2 and then I felt like that was
• 40:44
  too low. So I was like, maybe I'll just
• 40:47
  be kind and give it, give it 4 soju bottles.
• 40:51
  But I again, it's between 3:00 and 4:00 soju bottles.
• 40:55
  For me, it depends on my mood. If I'm feeling really sort of
• 40:59
  spicy, then I will probably downrate it.
• 41:01
  But I want to be as kind as possible because like I said,
• 41:05
  when you were listing off the things you love about the drama,
• 41:07
  I'm like, yeah, I love those things too.
• 41:09
  So I'll just go ahead and give it 4 soju bottles for Chicago
• 41:14
  Typewriter. And with that, we are going to
• 41:16
  get going on the spoiler section.
• 41:19
  See you on the other side of spoilers.
• 41:22
  Excuse me, I can't tell. I can't tell you know.
• 41:27
  I have no tingle. Oh, sorry.
• 41:30
  Swear. Discussing shit.
• 41:32
  What? All right, we're on the other
• 41:37
  side of spoilers. So we are going to spoil what
• 41:39
  happened in Chicago Typewriter. This is about a 10 year old
• 41:43
  show, so if you haven't seen it by now, you can go and watch it
• 41:46
  on Tubi Tubi, Tubi Tubi sponsor me.
• 41:51
  We start in on episode 1 and we got a standard typewriter #5
• 41:57
  this is an Underwood #5 arguably the most successful and iconic
• 42:01
  typewriter in history, produced around 1900 to the 1930s.
• 42:06
  Is really heavy, about 30 to 40 lbs.
• 42:09
  So every time they pick up the typewriter, I'm like they are
• 42:13
  picking up a freaking brick. I really like this typewriter.
• 42:19
  It's very Moody and very steampunky and all of the
• 42:23
  things, and it is a character unto itself.
• 42:26
  It's like New York City as a character.
• 42:30
  It's fun that they already introduce the fact that the gun
• 42:35
  that they use in the show or one of the guns is nicknamed Chicago
• 42:38
  Typewriter because it sounds like a gunshot similar to that
• 42:42
  of like clocking away on the typewriter.
• 42:45
  And it's not just any gun, it's the Tommy gun.
• 42:49
  So if you've ever watched a gangster movie, they are using
• 42:52
  Tommy gun and that's the gun that they're referring to as
• 42:55
  Chicago typewriter. We're here in Kyung Song in the
• 42:59
  1930s, and I love everything about the past sequences.
• 43:05
  How about you? Oh I was just going to write my
• 43:08
  share my list of why all the reasons I love the typewriter.
• 43:11
  I love how it becomes a character on a continuum, a
• 43:14
  multi dimensional entity thing, tool, tomb, weapon, love letter,
• 43:21
  Pandora's box that travels through time and space and comes
• 43:25
  home to roost. Then I'll also add that it was a
• 43:29
  hungle character. Correct typewriter.
• 43:31
  Yeah, no QWERTY on here. It was all Korean characters.
• 43:35
  Multiple hits of the typewriter will produce a single character.
• 43:38
  Anyway, yes, it's all in Hungle. I thought the proper title for
• 43:42
  this would be The Haunting of the Typewriter, but I think that
• 43:46
  might give a lot of way. And Chicago Typewriter is a cool
• 43:49
  name, I will say. Yes, cool title.
• 43:51
  So there's a great promo ad that they didn't translate into
• 43:56
  English and it's all about the typewriter and I'll share it
• 44:00
  with you. It's great.
• 44:02
  I thought this was interesting cuz in episode 1 he, the main
• 44:06
  character, the male lead yuan's character is in Chicago on a
• 44:10
  book tour and he sees the typewriter.
• 44:12
  He's in this really cool like restaurant clubby sort of space
• 44:16
  and in Chai town. And there is a white guy in this
• 44:20
  show. And I was like I've seen this
• 44:21
  man before. Is he the man from Squid Game?
• 44:24
  And the answer is yes. However, this is John Dee
• 44:28
  Michaels very first Korean drama credit.
• 44:32
  It is here in Chicago typewriter.
• 44:34
  So if you've seen this guy further along in his career, you
• 44:38
  got to give credit what credit is due.
• 44:39
  He was the proprietor of this little club, hosted him on his
• 44:45
  book tour. Yeah, strange space, but he was
• 44:48
  the original owner of the typewriter.
• 44:50
  Well, at least in the present. Yes.
• 44:53
  And you are in says can I buy it from you?
• 44:55
  And he says, Oh no, to me she is priceless.
• 45:00
  I'm like, OK, I mean, I think for me personally, there would
• 45:04
  be a number. I would have a number in mind to
• 45:07
  like let the typewriter go with this guy.
• 45:09
  But anyway, I found this interesting that and this is
• 45:14
  classically K drama that the female lead is some sort of she
• 45:19
  owns a Courier slash errand service and she does that full
• 45:25
  time or part time. It's very unclear, but she used
• 45:27
  to be a veterinarian. And I'm like, what the hell do
• 45:29
  you what the fact that she was like did all of the schooling to
• 45:36
  be a veterinarian and she went through, no, she's not a
• 45:39
  veterinarian. She left that practice.
• 45:41
  She is now running her own errand service.
• 45:44
  And I thought, how much more K drama could you be?
• 45:47
  Yes, and her name means legend, correct?
• 45:52
  Yes, her name means Legend 00, and I forgot she was a
• 45:59
  sharpshooter who nearly competed in the Olympics and she quit,
• 46:04
  and this is very understandable, but she quit because she was
• 46:06
  seeing visions of her past life. The one thing I never understood
• 46:10
  about the show was why this group of people remember their
• 46:15
  past life. You know what I'm saying?
• 46:17
  Like why isn't everyone remembering their past life?
• 46:21
  It's just this small group of people.
• 46:25
  Well, it's snippets, right? The mom has certain snippets and
• 46:29
  she had certain snippets as a child.
• 46:31
  But then they faded and then it came back and there's there's no
• 46:36
  rules for who remembers what. There are some rules in other
• 46:40
  shows about who remembers what and not.
• 46:43
  But yeah, it's not explained. Not explained and.
• 46:46
  It's OK and. The thing is, the show is very
• 46:49
  good about explaining a lot of things and inconsistencies in
• 46:53
  the way they experienced the past.
• 46:54
  And like, you know, at one point UN is, is kind of in the role
• 46:59
  that he would have been in the past, like experiencing this
• 47:04
  elaborate flashback as if he is a participator and people are
• 47:08
  seeing him, right? Like, he's, yeah, can be seen.
• 47:11
  And then later on, they both experience a memory, but they
• 47:15
  cannot be seen. And so they explain that
• 47:17
  phenomenon. And I'm like, all right, I'll
• 47:19
  take that explanation. It's totally fine if you want to
• 47:21
  change the rules, but his. Character Yuan N's character is
• 47:27
  named Han Sei Ju, the author. He starts to have flashes of his
• 47:32
  past life as soon as he gets within a certain amount of feet
• 47:35
  of the typewriter. And the light shines so that it
• 47:39
  shines on him. And he comes closer to the
• 47:42
  typewriter and he starts to have a flash.
• 47:44
  And then he hears this voice that says, Hey, Qinggu, I
• 47:49
  friend, which is the character who has been in the typewriter.
• 47:54
  It's a genie in a bottle. I think I'm just going to skip
• 47:57
  over the whole thing of like he this ghost was possessing a dog
• 48:01
  and the dog was like a big thing in the first few episodes and he
• 48:06
  was this ghost was creating earthquakes that only hit the
• 48:10
  house and said you was in and losing his mojo, his writing.
• 48:17
  It turns into a big writing slump after coming face to face
• 48:19
  with a psycho stalker. I'd like to add one thing about
• 48:23
  the dog. Please.
• 48:25
  So the dog is a is a Sapsari, which is a Korean breed and they
• 48:30
  were bred as temple protector dogs and that is the breed and
• 48:36
  they were for temple guarding and they're known to sea
• 48:39
  spirits. And they named the dog.
• 48:42
  I can't, and I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's the male
• 48:45
  character in a Korean folk tale about separated lovers that
• 48:49
  makes a lot. And her and her.
• 48:52
  Her code name as an oppositional fighter is Subsidy.
• 48:56
  Yeah, yeah. So it's all intertwining, but
• 48:59
  the whole thing of the dog being possessed and stuff, it was.
• 49:02
  Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway so he's in a riding
• 49:06
  slump, he crashes his car, he's so dramatic and by episode 3 we
• 49:12
  are still on with the Stephen King misery spoofing that's
• 49:18
  happening which I've I quite appreciate it.
• 49:22
  I found that funny because she saves him from the wreckage and
• 49:26
  for some comedic reason she puts like a a dog cone on him instead
• 49:31
  of something that really truly will immobilize his neck after
• 49:34
  the crash. Anyway, it's very like, ex vet
• 49:38
  doesn't know how to care for humans type of thing, but it's
• 49:41
  all funny. What I will say about the first
• 49:43
  few episodes is I thought this is going to be a ghost story.
• 49:47
  There's going to be a ghost at some point.
• 49:48
  Who's actually ghost writing? That was my, that was my instant
• 49:52
  guess. And then there was a lot of
• 49:54
  gaslighting happening. Yep.
• 49:56
  And I was like, Oh my God, they're not only gaslighting
• 49:59
  him, they're gaslighting me as an audience member.
• 50:04
  How did you feel about that? Like delayed reveal and the fact
• 50:08
  that even the characters the Ghosty, which in my notes his
• 50:12
  name is Ghosty, he's gaslighting the guy Han Sidhu.
• 50:16
  I'm going to go back to what you said it just a minute ago, which
• 50:19
  was about just the first few episodes in general, and say
• 50:22
  that the very first episode, which is Han Sidhu going
• 50:27
  undercover to check out street fighting gangsters for one of
• 50:33
  his books, is the most ridiculous scene in the entire
• 50:37
  show. And it has nothing to do with
• 50:40
  the rest of the show. And the skills that he has in
• 50:43
  that have nothing to do with the rest of it.
• 50:47
  It's completely ridiculous and doesn't tie in anywhere except
• 50:52
  to show that he's a writer who's really dedicated to writing.
• 50:56
  Right, the research. Yeah, and you know, just 45
• 51:02
  minutes later, he's a total dork when it comes to someone trying
• 51:05
  to attack him where he's fighting everyone up a minute
• 51:09
  before. It's ridiculous, and I still
• 51:12
  love it. I don't know.
• 51:14
  You're like, I don't know, it still works for me.
• 51:17
  I really, I had no idea what was happening and at the same time I
• 51:22
  was just taking it all in. I didn't know which angle it was
• 51:25
  going to go. I I hadn't watched enough K
• 51:28
  dramas to be like, I'm gonna you know, this is a ghost story or
• 51:32
  this is this, this is that. I was just absorbing it and I'm
• 51:37
  not thinking very much about it the first time around.
• 51:41
  Yes. And I wasn't sure if I liked it
• 51:43
  or not. I was.
• 51:43
  Just quite, it's quite. You can't get a handle on it the
• 51:46
  first few episodes. You really can't.
• 51:48
  And I'm sure that's by design. Like, you don't want to show
• 51:51
  your whole hand, I guess, in Episode 1.
• 51:54
  But I did think, OK, there's a ghost.
• 51:58
  That's ghost writing. They want that irony.
• 52:01
  Yeah. And so I was kind of, I was
• 52:04
  really taken aback that they were going full send on the gas
• 52:07
  lighting. Yeah.
• 52:08
  It's pretty interesting. I don't know.
• 52:10
  Yeah, I know. I was like, OK, enough with the
• 52:12
  shenanigans. But there's one shenanigan that
• 52:15
  I really liked in episode 3, which was the transition into
• 52:19
  the 1930s past that he has obviously not experienced.
• 52:23
  And now he's about to experience first hand.
• 52:26
  Like you said, it's the hey Chingu with the and then he
• 52:29
  calls him by his old name in the 1930s.
• 52:32
  And then poof, like all of this foggy, atmospheric, what do you
• 52:37
  think is his front yard turns into suddenly he's in 1930s
• 52:41
  Korea and all of the lights turn on.
• 52:43
  And it kind of reminded me of Singing in the Rain in that
• 52:47
  gotta dance sequence. When they start turning on all
• 52:50
  of the lights and all of the marquees light up.
• 52:52
  I was like, Oh my God, they're really working here.
• 52:56
  It it was really impressive. Yeah, and it's also a call back
• 52:59
  to Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night, Although
• 53:03
  it's not like so much about that show.
• 53:05
  I mean that play. It's more just about like the
• 53:08
  title A Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill's most
• 53:12
  famous. Which Eugene O'Neill has his
• 53:16
  portrait is in his writing office.
• 53:20
  And I thought it was so funny and and sort of classic that
• 53:24
  they would mess with the portrait and like the eyes would
• 53:26
  move and the mouth would smile or show teeth and different
• 53:31
  things like that. I thought that was really funny.
• 53:33
  Yeah. But yeah, you find out pretty
• 53:36
  quickly that they are reincarnations of of these
• 53:40
  Korean revolutionaries during the Japanese occupation in the
• 53:44
  1930s. And that this gold watch that
• 53:47
  you think is actually hers originally belonged to the male
• 53:51
  lead hunted you back in the 1930s.
• 53:54
  And it was his family heirloom. And you get this kiss on the
• 53:59
  street when she's avoiding capture.
• 54:03
  Hey, that's a moment that I will definitely remember in this
• 54:07
  show. He's totally taken aback.
• 54:09
  And she's like, well, if you're not going to help me.
• 54:11
  So what did you think of this whole sequence in this really
• 54:15
  expansive introduction into the 1930s, which we've seen glimpses
• 54:20
  of before, but now it's it's in your face.
• 54:24
  I think it's fascinating the different ways they show the
• 54:27
  kiss and the different ways, you know, they show, they show them
• 54:30
  in a mirrored scene in the modern era when they're running
• 54:34
  from a photographer, paparazzi. And they also show them, you
• 54:39
  know, in a storefront in front of a store with a window sort of
• 54:44
  hiding. And that's his first time when
• 54:45
  he says, you know, why do I keep seeing you in my mind?
• 54:48
  Who are you? So there's I feel differently
• 54:52
  about the different scenes and the different layers or the
• 54:55
  different they they show like in a lot of K dramas, they show
• 54:59
  that kiss and that interaction many different times.
• 55:03
  And I was most interested in it. I mean, I would when we had more
• 55:07
  detail of what was happening. And at the same, I want to say
• 55:12
  the positive, the interesting thing to me about it in the from
• 55:17
  depth from depth is how she grabs him to kiss him to to make
• 55:23
  them look like lovers as opposed to freedom fighters.
• 55:27
  And so she lets her hair out and pushes him up against the wall
• 55:31
  and kisses him. And then he kisses her back in a
• 55:35
  more passionate way and drops his it drops his glasses, which
• 55:39
  is the best part when he drops his glasses.
• 55:42
  But when you pan out, you see that they're in this corner.
• 55:46
  And this is when it's a Japanese occupied city and they're next
• 55:51
  to a very fancy shop full of beautiful Japanese kimonos, very
• 55:57
  bright lit up and parasols. And she's actually bleeding from
• 56:04
  a gunshot wound on her arm. And she had just come from an
• 56:09
  Operation Sharp shooting and they're sort of very gritty and
• 56:15
  earthy and real with each other for a moment.
• 56:18
  And then right next to them, there's this bright shiny.
• 56:21
  Here we are. The Japanese were so present in
• 56:24
  this bright and shiny way. The thing about that scene and
• 56:30
  how it happens in the multiple ways, whether it's the time
• 56:32
  travel way or when they finally see the whole thing, is it's
• 56:37
  ridiculous that she grabs him to run because he's completely
• 56:40
  undercover and she and so it makes absolutely no sense that
• 56:45
  she would grab him to run. Right, because he's not under
• 56:47
  suspicion at that point. Yeah, at that point, yeah.
• 56:50
  It's quite early. You know, that's a astute
• 56:54
  observation that I hadn't even thought.
• 56:56
  Oh, yeah. Why is she making him run?
• 56:58
  But I guess she thought he's my cover, so I I need him to run
• 57:03
  along with me further down the path.
• 57:05
  And yeah, it does. It just does not make a look of
• 57:09
  sense when you think about it for too long.
• 57:12
  But. But it ends up being a great
• 57:14
  scene. Oh yeah, no, it ends up being a
• 57:16
  really, really great scene, super memorable.
• 57:19
  And I honestly didn't think like this is skipping ahead, but I
• 57:22
  didn't think when we got the actual sequence of events and we
• 57:26
  see the raw like memory or whatever, I was like, oh, I
• 57:30
  didn't expect him to really get into the kiss with the you'd
• 57:34
  mentioned, like his he drops his glasses, he's really shocked at
• 57:39
  1st and then he really hugs her close and he's all over her.
• 57:44
  And then he continually, which I loved, he continually teases her
• 57:48
  about the kiss and like, oh, do you need another lesson and all
• 57:52
  this stuff? You call that a kiss?
• 57:53
  And I love that. I love all that stuff.
• 57:56
  Yeah, so. About the the gaslighting that
• 58:00
  you were talking about, about our ghost writer Eugene O, as he
• 58:05
  names himself after Eugene O so haunted Jews experience in those
• 58:12
  episodes from the time when strange thing, the first 5-6
• 58:16
  episodes when he starts experiencing these out of the
• 58:19
  ordinary things. I've now I clicked play on
• 58:25
  episode 1 almost immediately after finishing it the first
• 58:28
  time because I didn't understand if I loved it and if I did love
• 58:33
  it, why? And it wasn't until I'll just I
• 58:38
  just share what I finally figured out.
• 58:41
  I have a neurodivergent brain and I actually experienced
• 58:45
  surreal, out of the ordinary things that I now know have an
• 58:49
  actual name with medical terminology and all.
• 58:52
  And if it was 100 years ago I would have thought I was having
• 58:55
  paranormal experiences. And it seems why I'm drawn to
• 59:00
  magical realism. And magical realism is very
• 59:03
  specific, different than just fantasy, you know?
• 59:07
  Most of it is really normal, 9095% of the story is not
• 59:11
  fantasy and well maybe a little bit less, but magical realism in
• 59:14
  general is what it is. So I can relate to characters
• 59:18
  who are going about their regular everyday lives and all
• 59:21
  of a sudden have unexplained experiences.
• 59:24
  Han Seju has these types of experiences.
• 59:26
  He freaks out and tries to understand what the hell is
• 59:29
  going on. Actor You are in is fabulous
• 59:31
  with this and as I absorbed and empathized with his character's
• 59:36
  arc through this type of the show, that felt like it was a
• 59:39
  real direct route into my psyche.
• 59:42
  But it took until my 4th watch to realize that this was part of
• 59:48
  why this. Show just like.
• 59:50
  Got its claws into me. Yeah, I think he's he's
• 59:56
  relatable in that sense for sure, because in the first 3
• 59:58
  episodes it's, I mean, you went in is a very naturalistic actor
• 1:00:03
  and so he's really bringing this.
• 1:00:06
  Sort of mania out where he's like, I freaking don't know
• 1:00:09
  what's going on. I don't know what I'm seeing is
• 1:00:11
  this real or is this fake? And then the whole the ghost is
• 1:00:15
  literally gaslighting him the whole time.
• 1:00:18
  So it doesn't help that he's not getting answers until episode 3
• 1:00:23
  towards the end when it kind of becomes clear or and he has this
• 1:00:27
  very visceral experience in the 1930s.
• 1:00:31
  By episode 4, we get that this is a ghost and you didn't know
• 1:00:35
  is over here in like a two piece Glen check suit just walking
• 1:00:40
  around town and very few people can see him.
• 1:00:44
  What I thought was interesting and you mentioned the fact that
• 1:00:47
  you like all of the literary references and the the process
• 1:00:51
  of writing and things like that. Is that in the past you fit?
• 1:00:55
  So we get a Subway sequence where the female lead has become
• 1:01:00
  his very first fan, like you said in the non spoiler section,
• 1:01:03
  and she works in Subway. He goes to Subway every day to
• 1:01:06
  have a cheap ass sandwich, right.
• 1:01:09
  He tells her that he wanted to be a writer no one could
• 1:01:13
  imitate. So inimitable.
• 1:01:15
  And it's a bitter dream now because he's dealing with a
• 1:01:20
  ghost writer who's literally a ghost who can imitate his style
• 1:01:25
  explicitly, You know, And I, I thought that was a very
• 1:01:30
  interesting take. They don't quite do much with it
• 1:01:32
  because you end up finding out this ghost writer is writing a
• 1:01:35
  story that he wrote just basically he is not writing
• 1:01:40
  something new in his voice. He is, it's literally him
• 1:01:44
  writing from the 1930s and the ghost writer is like dredging it
• 1:01:48
  up from his own memory. So I thought that was a nice
• 1:01:52
  interesting take. And basically I think creatives
• 1:01:56
  might find something in this as well that like, I want to be
• 1:02:00
  inimitable. I don't want people to copy me.
• 1:02:01
  I want to be original. I want to be authentic and
• 1:02:03
  original, and that is something that he struggles with in the
• 1:02:08
  early part of the show, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:11
  He's this egotistical guy, and he gets knocked down a peg in a
• 1:02:15
  few different ways. And his, I mean, he even goes to
• 1:02:19
  the therapist and tries to figure out what the heck's going
• 1:02:22
  on. And he has those moments.
• 1:02:25
  And also as life imitating art and art imitating life, he has
• 1:02:30
  these moments where he doesn't remember if he wrote it or not.
• 1:02:34
  And he says, you know, was this the drugs?
• 1:02:38
  You know, was this because I took the drugs and drank alcohol
• 1:02:40
  to sleep? And then at one point he says,
• 1:02:44
  how can you tell me an anxious person not to be anxious?
• 1:02:48
  It's like telling an alcoholic not to drink.
• 1:02:51
  Also, at various times, there's a struggle with how his public
• 1:02:55
  persona is seen and he's attacked in in the public
• 1:02:59
  sphere. And there's some things that
• 1:03:02
  ended up happening to him that happened in this show.
• 1:03:05
  Yes. What I will say is I think that
• 1:03:08
  part of the show was really singing to me.
• 1:03:10
  You know, it really hit all of these struggles and being on
• 1:03:13
  deadline and stuff. You know, if you've written
• 1:03:16
  anything, you understand, like the stress of that and trying to
• 1:03:20
  do something creative on a schedule is really difficult.
• 1:03:25
  And he seems they introduce his character as a very regimented
• 1:03:30
  writer who can turn it on and off.
• 1:03:33
  And when he can't turn it on, he freaks out.
• 1:03:38
  And I'm like, yeah, relatable. Relatable because when you are
• 1:03:42
  told you have to write something when things are on the line and
• 1:03:45
  you can't produce something. And especially it's his
• 1:03:48
  livelihood. I thought, I thought that was
• 1:03:52
  pretty brilliant of them to bring that in.
• 1:03:54
  And it adds to the frustration that he feels alongside the
• 1:03:58
  gaslighting situation, which part of me, we find out he's a
• 1:04:01
  ghost at the end of episode 5, not at the end of episode 3.
• 1:04:05
  So excuse me. The other thing was she gets the
• 1:04:09
  female lead gets doxxed in episode 5 because of her
• 1:04:14
  involvement with this basically celebrity writer.
• 1:04:18
  This is Stephen King esque writer.
• 1:04:21
  And they go on this like weird first date in this episode where
• 1:04:26
  it's kind of he's passing it off as hypothetical fan service for
• 1:04:30
  his number one fan. And he's like, what if I had a
• 1:04:33
  fan and the fan was terminal? What would what kind of first
• 1:04:36
  date would you want to go on? And she's like, wait, are you
• 1:04:39
  terminal? It's so great.
• 1:04:42
  But he stops in the middle of her date and says, I'm sorry and
• 1:04:48
  kind of trails off. And in her mind, she finishes
• 1:04:51
  this sentence in her head and she says, I love you with a
• 1:04:55
  question mark. It is a reference to I'm sorry I
• 1:04:58
  Love you, which is the last K drama that she was in before
• 1:05:02
  this. Yeah.
• 1:05:03
  So I was like, oh. That's good.
• 1:05:05
  I missed that. Yes.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah. So he takes that, He takes her
• 1:05:09
  on that date because he's trying to figure out who she is and if
• 1:05:13
  she's from his past and and then takes her to the to the gaming
• 1:05:18
  parlor and they do the shooting with the fake guns.
• 1:05:22
  Yeah. And then the press conference
• 1:05:23
  happens. He calls a press conference to
• 1:05:26
  announce because he's been tortured by this whole thing of
• 1:05:29
  having a ghost writer, Somebody else is writing this story, and
• 1:05:33
  it is a wild success, right? Everyone is like, Oh my God,
• 1:05:37
  It's like the best thing he's ever put out and he is like, I
• 1:05:41
  can't abide by this. Plus he's got the previous
• 1:05:44
  trauma of this guy stole his entire novel from him,
• 1:05:49
  completely plagiarized this other novel.
• 1:05:52
  And that's a whole other thing in this show of like plagiarism
• 1:05:56
  and theft and and I completely understood where he was coming
• 1:06:01
  from, but also I would have sang like a Canary if someone
• 1:06:04
  plagiarized me. Oh my God, best believe I would
• 1:06:07
  have come for their neck. So I understand him wanting to
• 1:06:11
  not deal with it, but also I would have dealt with.
• 1:06:15
  It right and it's an issue. It's been addressed in a few K
• 1:06:20
  dramas, that idea, and then there's been quite a few big K
• 1:06:24
  dramas, including I think one that he was in that was accused
• 1:06:28
  of this. I finally watched.
• 1:06:30
  It's OK. That's Love and that plagiarism
• 1:06:32
  and writer's block and all of those things is also in that
• 1:06:35
  show. Plagiarism and it's OK, that's
• 1:06:38
  love am I missing? Yeah, the very beginning.
• 1:06:41
  His girlfriend that he had took his book.
• 1:06:44
  Yes. Yes, yes, that's right.
• 1:06:47
  Oh my God, thank you for reminding me of that.
• 1:06:50
  I totally forgot about that. I see this link between It's OK,
• 1:06:53
  That's Love, Chicago typewriter and another Miss O.
• 1:06:58
  There's some really similar themes and relationships going
• 1:07:01
  on in those three shows. Also shows that wouldn't be made
• 1:07:04
  now. Yeah, definitely shows that
• 1:07:06
  wouldn't make it to air now for sure.
• 1:07:08
  I mentioned that the press conference, he creates this
• 1:07:11
  opportunity to tell the truth. He admits to using a ghostwriter
• 1:07:15
  for the Chicago typewriter series, which of course he names
• 1:07:17
  the series Chicago Typewriter, but it's also the name of the
• 1:07:20
  book that he started back in the 1930s.
• 1:07:22
  It's all connected. He begs the press to stop
• 1:07:25
  involving the female lead and, like, just leaves because after
• 1:07:29
  introducing the ghostwriter, everyone is utterly confused.
• 1:07:33
  There was nobody else at the press conference with him.
• 1:07:36
  There is no evidence that there is another ghostwriter.
• 1:07:40
  It looks like a PR stunt. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:07:43
  I really, really enjoyed that. It's great.
• 1:07:46
  The press conferences in K dramas are so intense because
• 1:07:51
  they make them so real. And the flash and the shutters
• 1:07:55
  of the cameras, I can barely watch them because I get.
• 1:07:59
  So I'm like, I wanna see what happens in this and I can barely
• 1:08:02
  watch it. And that one, the lighting is
• 1:08:05
  really intense. Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  The reveal with the journalist, you know, and his reaction is
• 1:08:11
  really great. And you are in just being a
• 1:08:13
  smart ass and leaving and it's so great.
• 1:08:17
  Let's talk about the shaman and her daughter who can see ghosts.
• 1:08:21
  This is like AI think I found this more annoying than it
• 1:08:25
  probably should have been. And I think it's a me thing and
• 1:08:28
  just the fact that I'm watching AK drama that's like 10 years
• 1:08:31
  old and these two characters probably would be way different.
• 1:08:35
  I think if the K drama was made now.
• 1:08:38
  They were there for like comedic relief and like to usher in a
• 1:08:42
  lot of exposition for the ghostly happenings and like
• 1:08:46
  what's going on with the ghost? Why does he have a crack in his
• 1:08:49
  arm that's expelling light And like all of these things,
• 1:08:53
  they're just there for the she's just there for that.
• 1:08:55
  The shaman and then the daughter who can see ghosts and doesn't
• 1:09:00
  realize that she's seeing ghosts.
• 1:09:03
  I was like, they just, I think they love irony, this show.
• 1:09:07
  And the writer really loved irony.
• 1:09:09
  And so the fact that the shaman who's a professional shaman and
• 1:09:12
  can't see the ghost, but then her daughter who wants nothing
• 1:09:15
  to do with anything can see the ghost.
• 1:09:18
  Yeah, I just, I was rolling my eyes a little bit more at that
• 1:09:21
  stuff. Yeah, I've been trying to figure
• 1:09:23
  out, you know, they call her Big Bell Fairy and she's and I don't
• 1:09:28
  know if there's something different between a shaman and
• 1:09:31
  someone who you go to. She seems like a little
• 1:09:35
  different than any shaman that I've seen in any other shows.
• 1:09:38
  And they they don't ever call her a shaman.
• 1:09:41
  So I'm wondering if if whatever it is, the name she is is
• 1:09:44
  something different. She also, she does some things,
• 1:09:47
  but she doesn't seem to do the rituals the way the shamans do.
• 1:09:51
  You know, in most of the shows that I've seen, I loved her.
• 1:09:55
  The shaman woman, Big Bell Fairy.
• 1:09:58
  I thought she was great and I thought she added the daughter
• 1:10:02
  is my least favorite part of the show.
• 1:10:05
  It's maybe the actress, the way they wrote her character.
• 1:10:08
  It's very K drama. It's very like 2010 K drama.
• 1:10:12
  So I don't wanna, you know, say that it was the actress because
• 1:10:15
  I think it was the way she was written.
• 1:10:17
  Her outfits. You know, it is the irony is
• 1:10:20
  great, but she can see the ghost and her mother can't.
• 1:10:24
  The very first scene when she comes across him after with the
• 1:10:26
  red beans is a great scene, but she's my least favorite part of
• 1:10:30
  the show for sure. By episode 7, the female lead
• 1:10:34
  keeps finding excuses to forgive him or let Hans Zhu off for his
• 1:10:38
  really bizarre behavior because he's yelling at her, he's
• 1:10:41
  cutting her off, he's being rude, he's combative, and it's
• 1:10:43
  all because he's responding to Ghosty, who she can't see so he
• 1:10:48
  looks like a crazy person. He's also at this point really
• 1:10:52
  torn between being drawn to her past self and the one that he
• 1:10:58
  kissed passionately in the past and liking her in the present,
• 1:11:02
  Like liking this version of her now.
• 1:11:05
  And I thought they could have done more with that.
• 1:11:07
  Yes. Right.
• 1:11:08
  I'm like that could, that's an interesting thing to explore of
• 1:11:13
  like, do I like you or do I like my memories of you from the
• 1:11:16
  1930s? I think that could have been
• 1:11:18
  definitely beefed up. Oh yeah, And then there's a
• 1:11:20
  whole thing of the male lead. Han said you is constantly in
• 1:11:24
  competition with the guy that plagiarized picked him in.
• 1:11:28
  What do you think of picked him in?
• 1:11:29
  And I think this is where I'm coming from where I feel like
• 1:11:32
  they don't necessarily go all the way with the people can
• 1:11:38
  change thing that I said in the non spoiler section, because the
• 1:11:43
  mom still abandons her child and does like irreparable harm to
• 1:11:48
  the female lead Tonsil. So she's still sort of betraying
• 1:11:53
  her in the present. This character picked, I mean,
• 1:11:56
  still goes off the deep end with kidnapping, thievery, attempted
• 1:12:00
  murder, etcetera. And then the male lead and the
• 1:12:02
  female lead, Han Sei Du and Tonsil still fall in love in the
• 1:12:07
  present day as a kind of fulfilment of the love.
• 1:12:11
  They couldn't have this relationship that could never be
• 1:12:15
  in the 1930s. So I'm like, OK, the Korean
• 1:12:19
  dramas really go deep on fate, on Destined Lovers and things
• 1:12:26
  like that. And this is kind of a
• 1:12:28
  continuation of that where the 1930s, there's a lot of stuff
• 1:12:32
  that happens and happens in a way again later on in the
• 1:12:36
  present. So I would love to hear a little
• 1:12:39
  more about your disagreement. Like what's your rebuttal to to
• 1:12:43
  like this deep seated thought that I have?
• 1:12:45
  It's a few things, but one thing is she the female age young
• 1:12:49
  soul? She talks about, you know, in
• 1:12:51
  her conversation with her mom that says I disagree with you,
• 1:12:55
  you know, you abandoned me. And no, we don't have to repeat
• 1:13:01
  these same things. And she chooses to.
• 1:13:06
  She names that that we can change and she doesn't they they
• 1:13:12
  don't choose any kind of revenge against any of the people that
• 1:13:17
  have hurt them. In fact, they act very I can't
• 1:13:20
  remember the word, but they give room to all the people that hurt
• 1:13:23
  them to to have their own redemption of a kind, whereas
• 1:13:27
  they wouldn't, they didn't in the in the earlier she went full
• 1:13:31
  revenge on everyone, not revenge, but she finished the
• 1:13:35
  job and continued to choose that.
• 1:13:39
  And I think that Beck Timon, he was someone who had a terrible,
• 1:13:44
  terrible mother and had a stepbrother who was ridiculously
• 1:13:49
  talented where he was not talented and that it could have
• 1:13:53
  gone either way for him. And he, I felt that they showed
• 1:13:57
  us that that things just kept on not going his way towards being
• 1:14:02
  a kind person and being able to let.
• 1:14:05
  And his father even says that to him, you know, like this is what
• 1:14:08
  you chose and you could have chosen something else.
• 1:14:11
  And yes, they basically all similarly stayed the same, but
• 1:14:16
  they talked about this idea of change.
• 1:14:19
  And Eugeno really has true deep atonement, I find.
• 1:14:26
  I see he talks about what he wants to do when he when he's
• 1:14:28
  born again and how he wants to meet lots of women.
• 1:14:31
  Yes. Not just one.
• 1:14:33
  Yeah. And I, I would like to say
• 1:14:35
  something about Eugeno, which is another reason I realized I
• 1:14:38
  loved this show. Sure.
• 1:14:40
  I found him to be an Angel like character and that he was trying
• 1:14:44
  to figure out his, you know, what happened to him.
• 1:14:48
  But he became like an Elijah, the prophet to me in our
• 1:14:52
  tradition of Passover where he was invisible, but he was
• 1:14:56
  welcomed in the door. He came in because the dog
• 1:14:59
  opened the door and he's welcomed in and he's totally
• 1:15:02
  misbelieved as who he is at 1st and then they accept him and
• 1:15:08
  they offer him a seat at the table.
• 1:15:10
  And he has this covenant with these two, his beloveds, his two
• 1:15:14
  beloveds, and he has pure intentions of figuring this out.
• 1:15:19
  And he's a this manifestation of forgiveness and redemption and
• 1:15:24
  love. And it turns out that he's a
• 1:15:26
  portend of good things to come. A portend of good things to
• 1:15:30
  come, Yes, OK. Because he helps bring them
• 1:15:32
  together, these two people who were not.
• 1:15:35
  I'm thinking about what you're saying, OK, I like your
• 1:15:38
  assessment of views, you know, and he is sort of like a just
• 1:15:43
  such a saintly figure in this. The show makes it seem like he
• 1:15:48
  did something wrong. He's atoning for something or
• 1:15:52
  being punished for something that he did in the 1930s.
• 1:15:56
  And what is it? Nobody can remember what it is.
• 1:15:58
  What did he do? How did he meet his end, yadda,
• 1:16:01
  yadda, yadda. I, I don't know if I believe,
• 1:16:06
  how do I put it? The fact that he gets trapped
• 1:16:08
  like a genie in a bottle in the typewriter is because he had
• 1:16:13
  this deep seated guilt and regret and he wanted to
• 1:16:17
  apologize to the to these two for basically ratting them out
• 1:16:22
  to the Japanese sympathizers. That group of like Koreans of
• 1:16:27
  which bektamine was a part of them.
• 1:16:30
  I don't think that was because they all had something that they
• 1:16:34
  died regretting. Like why?
• 1:16:37
  Why did his wish come true and manifest in such a way like they
• 1:16:40
  would all be trapped as, as some kind of ghost then in the
• 1:16:44
  typewriter or in the Tommy gun or whatever.
• 1:16:47
  You know, because they were all so kind of bereft at the end of
• 1:16:52
  their life in the 1930s. Died in very horrendous ways,
• 1:16:58
  although I wasn't even quite sure how Tonsil died in the
• 1:17:01
  1930s. They don't show us.
• 1:17:03
  That was bizarre. She just like, yeah, keeled
• 1:17:05
  over. Or maybe she didn't.
• 1:17:07
  Maybe she didn't die and maybe she lived another 50 years.
• 1:17:10
  And that's why it took so long to for them to all come back.
• 1:17:13
  And I was OK with that. OK, you were OK with that?
• 1:17:16
  I was kind of like oh, cuz the other guys had such a clear end
• 1:17:21
  right, Everyone from Hansage character Eugenos character
• 1:17:24
  picked him means character literally everybody the Madam
• 1:17:27
  Sophia, which was the mom character in the back.
• 1:17:29
  They all had a clear Oh, they died.
• 1:17:32
  And so for them to go ambiguous with tonsils character only and
• 1:17:37
  just kind of have her pass out, fall asleep, whatever.
• 1:17:41
  You know I. I was like, oh, OK.
• 1:17:43
  It took me a few watches before I was OK with that scene though.
• 1:17:46
  OK. I got.
• 1:17:47
  You, I should say, but I don't watch a lot of fantasy and I
• 1:17:51
  don't read a lot of fantasy. Just some, of course.
• 1:17:54
  But the why he gets locked in the typewriter?
• 1:17:57
  That felt shaky to me. Is.
• 1:18:00
  What I'm saying this typewriter that he bought for Yuans
• 1:18:05
  character and then they used together and she also typed on
• 1:18:08
  it and then he had both the typewriter and he was directed
• 1:18:13
  to finish the story of the three of them and their life and he
• 1:18:16
  had the gold pocket watch. She kills him and and his head
• 1:18:21
  slumps onto the typewriter. He bleeds onto the typewriter
• 1:18:25
  and onto the gold. Pocket, I see.
• 1:18:26
  So you're thinking that it's all sort of like a mysterious like
• 1:18:29
  series of events that leads to, oh, he gets.
• 1:18:32
  The series of events that connect everything the
• 1:18:34
  typewriter, the gold pocket watch, her killing him, the fact
• 1:18:37
  that he bleeds to death on these things while he's working on the
• 1:18:41
  book of writing their. Stories.
• 1:18:42
  Why do you think of that? Why do you think he got trapped
• 1:18:44
  in the typewriter versus the watch?
• 1:18:46
  That's a good question. I mean, he's they're both
• 1:18:50
  because we're dealing with time, right?
• 1:18:52
  We're also. Dealing with like time and what
• 1:18:54
  is it because he was. Writing yeah, writing Chicago
• 1:18:57
  typewriter he was trying to finish he.
• 1:18:58
  Was trying to finish, but also he had.
• 1:19:00
  To come back and finish the book.
• 1:19:01
  He was also very accepting of her coming to collect, right,
• 1:19:06
  and coming to kill him. He knew she was coming and he
• 1:19:09
  accepted it. You know, with grace, as much
• 1:19:12
  grace as you can, because this is the end of your life and
• 1:19:14
  you're being shot by someone you deeply, deeply loved.
• 1:19:18
  So I also like was like, but why?
• 1:19:22
  I don't know, I, I thought it was a little shaky that only he
• 1:19:25
  was a ghost. But I mean, maybe there's
• 1:19:29
  something like in the folklore that really kind of sheds light
• 1:19:32
  on that and is like, OK, I think it was.
• 1:19:33
  Because the story needs to be, the story needs to be finished
• 1:19:37
  old. And he was in the middle of
• 1:19:40
  telling the story, and he was killed in the middle of telling
• 1:19:42
  the story. And he didn't get to finish
• 1:19:44
  telling the story. And so he had to come back.
• 1:19:48
  And he was only going to come out of the typewriter when he
• 1:19:52
  came across these his two beloveds.
• 1:19:56
  Oh, I have one last note going back to the thesis that people
• 1:19:59
  don't change. And then you you talked about
• 1:20:02
  why you disagree with that. So talking about time and this
• 1:20:05
  whole story and then revisiting their past and writing it down,
• 1:20:09
  like telling this story, The Chicago typewriter story, you
• 1:20:13
  could say. That by them confronting their
• 1:20:17
  past, fleshing it out and collectively remembering it
• 1:20:20
  frees them from it. But that's not the bulk of the
• 1:20:23
  drama. The drama is they're trapped by
• 1:20:26
  what happened in the past and are phonetically trying to
• 1:20:31
  remember what happened in the past and initiate flashbacks and
• 1:20:35
  things like that so that they can not only finish the story,
• 1:20:38
  but like physically finished writing the story.
• 1:20:40
  But also, they want to find out. They're absolutely curious about
• 1:20:45
  how did these people meet their end?
• 1:20:47
  How did my past self die? It feels adamant.
• 1:20:51
  This might be harsh. This feels more like forced
• 1:20:55
  catharsis to wrap up a drama versus we really explored the
• 1:21:00
  fact that these people have gone through the work of letting go
• 1:21:06
  at some point. Yuan Anne's character said you
• 1:21:09
  is like, oh, are you confused that that's not me?
• 1:21:13
  That was so and so from the 1930s.
• 1:21:16
  And he has this like clear distinction between his past
• 1:21:20
  self and his current self. As you do know.
• 1:21:22
  It's very confused. Like this ghosty character is
• 1:21:25
  constantly like, so sorry to these two.
• 1:21:29
  And he's like, oh, we're cool. Like you don't need to say sorry
• 1:21:33
  to me. And I'm like, but he's waited
• 1:21:35
  all this time to say sorry and for you to forgive him.
• 1:21:39
  And he's like, well, there's nothing to forgive because that
• 1:21:42
  wasn't me that you did that too. That was my fast self.
• 1:21:44
  And I, it was bothering me. And it's almost like a Pebble in
• 1:21:48
  my shoe. It's not that big of a deal, but
• 1:21:51
  I don't know. I think maybe if you watched it
• 1:21:53
  a second time. You think this is second watch?
• 1:21:55
  Would clear it up for. Me.
• 1:21:57
  Yeah, because I see what you're saying.
• 1:21:59
  And also, he says the opposite of what you said at some point
• 1:22:05
  as well. And I found that I was a fourth
• 1:22:09
  person on their journey to figure out what happened and be
• 1:22:15
  able to heal, move on. You know, part of it was Hans
• 1:22:21
  Zeju opening his heart to you, to Ghosty, as you call him.
• 1:22:26
  Sorry to you. It's all good.
• 1:22:28
  We all have names for the people, you know, and the beats
• 1:22:32
  of sort of him opening his heart to you.
• 1:22:36
  Geno was like a romance in that he even had to practice how to
• 1:22:41
  say, look, I like you, I want you to stay around.
• 1:22:45
  And he had to drink beer before you could say, why would you
• 1:22:48
  want to leave? He said, you know, it wasn't so
• 1:22:51
  bad if you just stayed, if we just stayed living together like
• 1:22:54
  this. So there had to be this
• 1:22:57
  realizing what happened, finding out what happened and also this,
• 1:23:02
  you know, they had to reconnect as these lovers because I saw
• 1:23:06
  them as a treble, as a three-way love.
• 1:23:08
  And Eugeno says that he says. Yes, our comrade and lover.
• 1:23:12
  He exactly, he says our comrade and lover and Hans ET Zhu acts
• 1:23:17
  like a little bit jealous and doesn't want Eugeno to do
• 1:23:20
  certain things with John Soul, but at the same time they are so
• 1:23:25
  obvious a threesome of love. And The thing is, maybe not that
• 1:23:32
  I'm like, it needs to be more like Pam it up, but the
• 1:23:36
  structure was there for that. So I was like, oh, just do that,
• 1:23:40
  you know? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:42
  So I guess I also wanted like a commitment there and they didn't
• 1:23:48
  quite do it. They did it in the very end.
• 1:23:51
  He's at his book signing and Eugeno's already gone at this
• 1:23:55
  point. And he's at his book signing or
• 1:23:58
  book reading and he reads this. He talks about what amuses and
• 1:24:03
  how he dedicates this book to his muse and this, you know,
• 1:24:07
  person he loves out in the world.
• 1:24:10
  And then we see this little scene of Eugeno back at the
• 1:24:16
  carpe diem. Yeah, dancing with his comrades
• 1:24:18
  and looking at a photo. And there's a photo of all three
• 1:24:21
  of them. Yeah.
• 1:24:21
  Has appeared. Yes, cuz it exists.
• 1:24:24
  I love. This was.
• 1:24:25
  Strange, I love. That I mean not.
• 1:24:27
  That was totally out. That was totally out of yeah.
• 1:24:30
  Yeah, that was a whole other. I was like, I can't I don't
• 1:24:33
  understand what's going on cuz he said.
• 1:24:35
  Hans I Jew was like, hey, to maybe fix the situation and
• 1:24:38
  prolong your ghostly life because the body that you're
• 1:24:43
  spiritual body or whatever that you're inhabiting is seems to be
• 1:24:46
  destroying itself. Why don't you live inside my
• 1:24:51
  book inside the Chicago typewriter book?
• 1:24:53
  And I was like, what do you mean the physical book or just like
• 1:24:56
  the concept of the book, the the words like I've had all this
• 1:24:59
  like follow up that never was done.
• 1:25:04
  Yeah, it's totally. Confused.
• 1:25:05
  It's like very conceptual. Yes, yes, head scratcher.
• 1:25:09
  Instead of instead of coming back or attaining Buddhahood as
• 1:25:13
  they discussed as they can't. Say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:15
  It was completely bizarre. But anyway, yes, also what was
• 1:25:20
  interesting and I like this part of the show, it's like around
• 1:25:23
  episode 11 or so that Tonsil was tortured by the vague memory
• 1:25:29
  that she killed Han Seju, which ends up not being like the
• 1:25:32
  complete story. She didn't just kill Han Seju,
• 1:25:35
  but she tells him, Han Seju, that these feelings of like pain
• 1:25:41
  and guilt are so fresh for her. She feels deeply this anguish
• 1:25:47
  that she killed somebody she shouldn't have.
• 1:25:49
  And I'm like, OK, Han Seju doesn't go through any of this.
• 1:25:53
  Like he at the beginning is like, do I like you, Ben, or do
• 1:25:56
  I like you now? And it's almost like glimmers
• 1:25:59
  of, oh, things that we can explore and it just happens very
• 1:26:05
  quickly and then we move on. And it also plays into the fact
• 1:26:08
  that you do know, is like begging for forgiveness and, and
• 1:26:12
  trying to redeem himself in this, in this lifetime.
• 1:26:15
  The both of them are like, we, we're cool.
• 1:26:18
  We don't need any of that. But she feels very deeply.
• 1:26:22
  I I was like trying to wrap my head around it and maybe I'm
• 1:26:25
  doing too much. No, I think that he you know, he
• 1:26:28
  was quote UN quote the leader in their past, although he he was
• 1:26:33
  also in hiding. So it was interesting how he
• 1:26:35
  kind of has to play 3 roles instead of just two.
• 1:26:39
  But in the present, in the current era of this show, he's
• 1:26:44
  also very much, you know, the the leader in their little merry
• 1:26:48
  band and he's very bossy type. AI don't know the right words to
• 1:26:53
  say but but he's also very accepting.
• 1:26:57
  He's like, I've been stabbed in the back before.
• 1:26:59
  I know what it's like. I'm cautious, but I'm also not
• 1:27:01
  going to lose the things that I love anymore.
• 1:27:05
  And he's very like grounded in his hemness in himself, even
• 1:27:11
  though he's egotistical and also had this moment in the 1st 5
• 1:27:16
  episodes of being very confused about what was going on.
• 1:27:19
  But he very grounded in his if I did something bad and you killed
• 1:27:27
  me because I did something bad, he's just accepting it.
• 1:27:31
  And there's a one of your questions was what was my, what
• 1:27:34
  was the best scene? But I I will lead that into what
• 1:27:37
  was my favorite scene. I had to go back and, you know,
• 1:27:40
  really look through some and really think about what my
• 1:27:43
  favorite scene was. And I realized my favorite
• 1:27:46
  scene, it's an episode 9. And it's when you do, you know,
• 1:27:49
  asks to go into the historic central square of Seoul, where
• 1:27:56
  where the Japanese government general building had been, and
• 1:28:01
  in front of the Temple Palace. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:04
  In front of Kung Kung Moon Gate, yeah.
• 1:28:06
  Yes, so this is it. During the time where John Sils
• 1:28:10
  doesn't see Eugeno yet, but the three of them are on this
• 1:28:14
  outing. And Han Seiju and Eugeno have
• 1:28:18
  this conversation about the past and the present and what life
• 1:28:23
  was like. Freedom versus oppression, sort
• 1:28:27
  of, and the freedom to love who you want to love.
• 1:28:30
  And then there's the moment where he says, can you take a
• 1:28:33
  picture of me? And then even though I'm not
• 1:28:35
  going to show up on the photo. And then the tourist, another
• 1:28:39
  white European actor who shows up in some K dramas, takes a
• 1:28:42
  photo of the three of them. And it goes back and forth
• 1:28:46
  between this, the three of them. And then it also goes back to my
• 1:28:50
  favorite scene in the past in the jazz club when she says
• 1:28:57
  you're going to be a great writer.
• 1:28:58
  And then they dance with champagne and it's the three of
• 1:29:02
  them being together and having both introspective and joyful
• 1:29:07
  moments. Yeah, I love the scene as well.
• 1:29:10
  It might be one of my favorites, especially it might be top three
• 1:29:13
  in the show. There's a quote here that I have
• 1:29:17
  where Ghosty says I want to live in a world like this, you know?
• 1:29:20
  Yeah, and Khan said you says I told you life is a hardship no
• 1:29:24
  matter which era you live in. There isn't a world that is
• 1:29:27
  perfectly made. Every period has its own
• 1:29:29
  problems and issues you must resist against.
• 1:29:32
  We only have one world that we make for ourselves as we
• 1:29:34
  collide, fight, battle and conquer.
• 1:29:37
  Thank you. Because you guys devoted your
• 1:29:39
  youth. We can live like this.
• 1:29:40
  Please tell the youth who devoted their lives back then
• 1:29:43
  that I said thanks for the hard work.
• 1:29:45
  And it's very it's very sentimental, you know, and I
• 1:29:50
  love that aspect of the show that it's very thankful toward
• 1:29:54
  the freedom fighters and that, you know, those that were really
• 1:29:58
  fighting for independence and put everything in their life on
• 1:30:00
  hold, including a love, right? They didn't they didn't get to
• 1:30:04
  experience this really. They're threesome.
• 1:30:07
  They're what is it the King Arthur?
• 1:30:09
  Guinevere. Lancelot, but they're but
• 1:30:13
  they're less tortured. Even though Eugeno doesn't get
• 1:30:16
  to stay with them, they're less tortured.
• 1:30:18
  There's And that is a way that Hans Seju's character changes
• 1:30:22
  and it is to do with the situation of the modern era is
• 1:30:26
  that at the beginning of the show, he says people stab you in
• 1:30:30
  the back and there's no reason to have an open heart and
• 1:30:33
  welcome people in. And he changes his mind and he
• 1:30:37
  even he even has this lovely, you know, moments with his agent
• 1:30:42
  slash publisher where he opens his heart more to him and also
• 1:30:45
  to his secretary helper, personal assistant.
• 1:30:49
  He opens his heart to her and then he opens his heart to
• 1:30:53
  having a relationship to love. Yeah.
• 1:30:55
  And so he does change and. I like that part of the show
• 1:30:59
  where he is like, there's no reason to, you know, hide my
• 1:31:04
  feelings and not, yeah, I have the code.
• 1:31:07
  Oh, I have the code here. It's in episode 12.
• 1:31:10
  It's when he got a concussion and he's in the hospital.
• 1:31:13
  He tells her, I think I loved you in the past life.
• 1:31:15
  Despite that, I think I closed my heart.
• 1:31:18
  It's for me to meet you in the liberated country and love you
• 1:31:21
  to my heart's content. It's not the price of sin.
• 1:31:24
  It's an acquittal. It's an opportunity.
• 1:31:26
  And so I'm going to today for the country, do something.
• 1:31:29
  And then he kisses her. And it's a really passionate
• 1:31:31
  kiss in the hospital. But yeah, it's that sentiment of
• 1:31:34
  like, I'm going to live fully because those that came before
• 1:31:37
  me could not. Yeah.
• 1:31:39
  So Yarrow, we are nearing the end of this.
• 1:31:42
  Is there anything else you'd like to share?
• 1:31:44
  I have lots more thoughts, but I think I'll pause at this point.
• 1:31:48
  All right. Well, Yarrow, thank you so much
• 1:31:51
  for coming on this journey with me, this 80 year long journey
• 1:31:55
  through Chicago typewriter. And I want to thank you so much
• 1:31:59
  for sharing all of your wonderful thoughts and insights
• 1:32:02
  and why you love the show so much.
• 1:32:04
  And I hope that people who haven't watched the show so far
• 1:32:07
  haven't been spoiled too much and go and watch it for
• 1:32:10
  themselves. It's on Tubi right now.
• 1:32:12
  Where can we find you online? On Instagram, Yaro Sr. and I
• 1:32:17
  have a link tree there with some essays and some art.
• 1:32:21
  Perfect. All right.
• 1:32:23
  Well, that's been our show. I'm Jessica and this has been
• 1:32:26
  the Tabaki Rambles podcast.