Korean drama series

Last months I found that drama series from South Korea were not always about romance, so I decided to try to watch a few. The first one was Criminal Minds. I think it was a good production with a solid cast, but it was very similar to the American version, including the cases. I liked it, but it seemed like watching a rerun with a different cast.

Next, I watched Signal. This one was very good, although at first I thought the communication between the detectives in the past and the present was unbelievable. But it was fun to watch. The cases were purely Korean, including the famous unsolved serial murders of young women in 1986-1991. It was not that the detective in the present told the detective in the past who the killer was; but both had to complete the investigations in their own times, which could make changes in the past that would affect the future.

There are 16 episodes in Signal. I had finished the 12th episode and recommended this to my sister, and, there, the last 4 episodes were quite slow. I think they should have reduced one whole episode, especially the unnecessary flashbacks.

Those Korean names are not easy to remember. The translations sometimes only mention the family name (one word) and sometimes the given name-- so I have to remember each characters's whole name. The next series I watched, Stranger, had 3 characters with the name Lee.

Stranger (a.k.a. Forest of Secrets) was very good. It was quite slow, though--> perhaps because I had expected to see the hero, a prosecutor, solved several cases - but no, here he only worked on a serial murders - and a complicated case of corruption. It's like a long mini-series, about corruption in the justice system involving a big company, prosecutors and an intermediate. The hero had a problem with his emotions, due to a major brain surgery, and believe me, it was nice to see him smile. He smiled 3 times and raised his voice twice during the whole series.

I liked to watch how subordinates had to bow when a boss / superior passing by. [It reminds me when I just entered elementary school. We bowed our head when teachers were passing by and we raced to be the first to help him/her carry his/her bag.] Also, there was a wake scene when the guests had to prostrate.

In my opinion, Stranger was as good as good mini-series made in England and France. [Can't remember right now if America has made any good mini-series.]

Now I am watching Voice. This was a success -- according to Wikipedia -- so I decided to give it a try. So far I find this to be a good thriller. However the policemen were stupid and there was something wrong with the editing. For example: the heroine arrived in a crime scene. She got past the security guards in the front entrance and soon arrived in the victim's office. She called the local policemen for back-up. They soon arrived at the front entrance and got past the guards, but minutes went past before they arrived to help her. How many minutes a group of healthy strong men needed to run up stairs to 3rd floor?

Voice was about 112 call center --> equivalent to 911 in the U.S. The head of 112 call center, founded the Golden Team, whose task was to arrived ASAP in order to be able to solve the caller's problem.

Infernal Affairs (TV) 2016

The movie version of Infernal Affairs starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung was a hit back then. It was a trilogy. I Liked the first one very much, the 2nd one was okay, but I didn't like the third. Can't really remember why I didn't like the third, I think the plot didn't make sense.

I got confused with the title when it first came out. As it was about police, I usually thought of 'internal affairs'; and when I read again that it was 'infernal' instead of 'internal', I thought perhaps that police department really named 'infernal affairs'... But now I know the Chinese title means 'unceasing path (to hell).'

They made the tv series in 2016 and only a few weeks ago I could watch it with subtitles. Compared to the movie version, the movie version was much better.

Sing Luen triad organization, led by Wu Koon-yau, was having rivalry with Hung Lok. Sing Luen's attorney, Hon Long, had sent one of his boys, Wai Chun-hin, to be a policeman, and now he was a senior inspector. This series consists of 30 episodes and before episode 10, Wai Chun-hin's identity was exposed and he had to quit his job. Meanwhile, the police also had sent Bullet as an undercover in Sing Luen, following the death of an undercover police in Sing Luen.

I saw the movie version many years ago, but I think Andy Lau and Tony Leung tried hard not to blow their covers. As a triad member of a policeman, they tried to do their job well and gained trust from people around them. In this series, Wai Chun-hin's cover was blown up soon and when he tried to join Sing Luen, he had to force his way. Nobody really trusted him. As for Bullet, he joined Sing Luen not for long ago, so he was also not to be trusted.

While Andy Lau and Tony Leung are two of the best talented actors in Hong Kong film industry, here we have Him Law and Wang Yang, who are not as good as the previous two - although they are not so bad. Gallen Lo, on the other hand, who played Hon Long, was good. But this is not right, isn't it? In a series about undercover, how can the actor who played the lawyer is better than the two lead roles?

Perguruan Sejati

I don't know the real title of this book. Although it was published with the name of Gu Long, but I cannot find this in the list of Gu Long works. In English the title can be translated to -more or less- "True School".

The lead character was a young scholar, who learnt martial arts secretly, named In Tiong Giok. His teacher left suddenly after leaving a message to In Tiong Giok to deliver a letter. On his way, our hero saw that a sect named Pok Thian Pang was looking for a Sanskrit translator, and since he could speak the language, he applied for the job, and got it. It turned out he was to translate a martial arts manual and that he would be killed after completing the job.

In short, our hero ran away from the sect, taking the book with him. He was chased by people who wanted the manual. To solve the problem, In Tiong Giok went to a printing house and printed the manual 550 copies and gave them away. --> I found this very funny... Often I wonder why in wuxia stories people fight for a manual, why not borrow and copy it...? A kungfu manual usually only consists of not so many pages anyway. Stupid Kwee Ceng even could memorize the whole Kiu Im Cin Keng 九陰真經.

Then they began to fight for a pair of swords, which were hidden in a lake. [This reminded me a bit of King Arthur's sword.] Our hero won, of course.

On his journey, In Tiong Giok would find his true identity, became the head of a school, and destroyed the evil Pok Thian Pang. The "True School" in the title was not mentioned much. It was actually a group of 3 people, 1 Buddhist monk, 1 Buddhist nun and 1 Lama: who fought for the pair of swords many years ago.