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Ah Zhu: Why don't we do this? I'll go divert their attention. Songkrod: No, Ah Zhu. Ah Zhu: I've got this, trust me. Unpin my hair. Songkrod: ?!?!?! Ah Zhu: Pull my hairpin out. Songkrod: How am I supposed to do that?

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Ahjumma, he only falls down when Chae Young Shin “pushes” his feelings^^

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something I really find fascinating and interesting is chae young shin’s career path and what led her to it. We have her boast about her innate journalistic instincts - "I was born to investigate," she tells bong sook and while the audience is aware of her parentage, the rebel reporters of the 80s, Young Shin  doesn’t possess that knowledge.

Was it a natural, inborn desire to investigate and write about the truth that made her decide to be a journalist - coupled with her idolization of Moon-ho or a mere coincidence or some type of alignments of stars that gave her the nudge to walk the path her parents travelled before.

healer is doing a stellar job of depicting deep and complex characters and rich interwoven stories and I’d loooooove it if they could address this.

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I really need to give a shout-out here to the whole production team for Healer’s distinctive fighting style. They’ve managed to create an original and very unique style which suits JH as the legendary mercenary perfectly. Huge kudos to JCW and his stunt double! All those amazing jump, falls, vaults and rolls are awe-inspiring. JH’s abilities have already been many times compared to those of Superman and Spiderman, however, the first thing that came to my mind after seeing Healer for the first time - jumping over rooftops, with no obstacle too high or insurmountable for him and with ease and prowess that defied the laws of physics - was Prince of Persia. And then it hit me, that despite using those superhero stories as inspiration SJN never meant for JH to be one of them. He is no alien from far away planet or genetically altered wimp. Despite all his gravity-defying moves, there is nothing supernatural about them whatsoever. There is no actual flying or spider webs involved, behind what seems almost supernatural skills is actually a lot of hard work (how much sheer will-power, endurance and self-denial did it take for him reach this impossible level?! We already know that he has already suprassed his Teacher’s skill). JH’s complex style is a combination of parkour and free running (which demands impressice physical skills), acrobatics combined with martial arts. It seems fitting that another name for the technique is L’Art du Déplacement (The Art of Movement) because JH is always on the move, never stopping. Not only is it a perfect preparation for his job but it’s also perfectly the activity you’d expect from someone as unconvetional and indepent as JH.

It requires a versatile range of skills, and it isn’t so much about brute force, rather than precision, speed and determination. Not only does the practice of parkour make a person incredibly agile and strong (it’s a full-body workout and you need great strength in arms to lift you, power in legs to jump and strong abdominals to support the legs and arms), the training also improves balance, awareness, concentration, coordination, creativity and endurance. Parkour is a challenge which teaches its practitioners to dig deep within themself and pushes them both physically and mentally because it’s about facing many obstacles, which seem insurmountable, and overcoming them. 

Therefore I’m dying to see his training days (SJN writer-nim, give as a series of amazing JH flashbacks of JH exercising, running over rooftops, sweating while shirtless,…) and how he arrived to this point, how did he become Healer, the legendary, unbeatable mercenary that he is. Let’s face it, Healer is epic but for that JH needed long strenuous training, practice and preparation. I’d love to see this process. I find JH the most intriguing character so far because even after 8 episodes, he remains the most mysterious. It’s not for the lack of emotions on his part but the lack of information about his past which remains clouded in mystery for the large part How did he become the man he is today, how was the legend born?

If you have time, watch this real-life demonstration of parkour and free-running. It’s breathtaking and it feels like you are watching tens of Healers in the making.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFYxxuVXj40

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Healer-ya, take me on your island with you. I’ll be your leopard!

"I have a dream. An island two and half hours from Panama by ferry boat. In the middle of the clear blue sea, the trees are lush, and there is a well of natural spring water. This… is my dream.” - SJH

I’ve finally found it - the kdrama that will own me in 2015. After a full week of just basking in the OTP awesomeness, I’ve finally started to gather and write down some coherent and intelligible thoughts about Healer.

You know I’ve always hoped for a second season of City Hunter. I knew it was a fool’s hope but after I watched the first two episodes of Healer, I suddenly began to get that tingly feeling I always had while watching CH and it’s not only because of PMY. As many have noted before, the show truly does give off a City Hunteresque vibe with its slick directing, comic-like quality, great OTP, gripping storytelling, which leaves you not knowing what will happen next but makes you satisfied with the result, and far more. Yet, it manages to be singular and awesome in its own rights, thanks to SJN’s distinctive writing and inspired acting. I feel like she wanted to write her own vigilante/superhero drama and she’s been inspired by stories like Superman, City Hunter (out of her love for LMH) and many others. In the end, she’s done it again and created yet again another unforgettable and thrilling story. I think the most appropriate word to describe the drama is satisfying because it leaves you thoroughly satisfied yet gasping for more. One of the most distict similarities in the storylines, besides the vigilante aspect, is for me the interconnection between the male characters - a man (JH’s Teacher) taking care of his friend’s son (JH) ,whose father (JS) was betrayed by a person he trusted (MS) , while the traitor’s close relative (MH) feels guilt and responsibility and he’s been trying to make amends. The question is if MH will become JH’s very own Prosecutor in all regards and if so, then whether we should prepare ourselves a Kleenex box for the end of episode 19.

I’m a huge sucker for damaged, tormented badasss heros with jaded devil-may-care attitude, so Jung Hoo basically represents all my fangirl fantasies coming true. I love that he isn’t your typical kdrama heroic male lead - he is no hero, he has no selfless reasons for becoming a night courier - it is nothing so lofty as a blood debt or world peace or greater good but a means to an end for him. On the other, it’s great to see him as a passive antihero kind of character, because then it becomes such a treat to watch his gradual development as he becomes proactive, finds his own way and purpose in life and starts to make his own fate.

JH is such a maverick and a recluse - the things he wants the most are his own deserted island, a yacht and a leopard. On one hand, he is a pragmatist, while on the other a wild dreamer. He is young, handsome, strong and rich, yet the only thing he wants in his life is to be left alone. That’s how huge and deeply-rooted his fear of abandonment is; his childhood scars remain as painful today as they were 20 years ago. I find I can’t really blame him for wanting to spare himself all the pain after being abandoned by so many people in his life; by people who should have loved him and cared for him the most (his father died, his mother left him for another man and son, his grandmother died as well and finally by his Teacher). It’s no wonder he wants to leave to a place where there are no people, where there is no one who can abandon him again. He’s been also avoiding any emotional attachment for that reason, which reminds me of DMJ in YWCFTS. Their philosophy is simple and effective: “Never get close to anyone and you’ll never get hurt by anyone.” Yet, it’s also very lonely and bleak one. It’s not because they are cold or unfeeling. On the contrary, it’s because they feel too much, they love too much and can’t let go it. Yet, he runs to save his Minion and always tells her to drive carefully. Even though, he does his job purely out of mercenary reason, he has his own strict code of ethics which involves no killing or bodily harm. All these discrepancies make him so intriguing and fascinating.

JCW is the perfect choice for Healer. Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous and dreamy and physically perfect for the role (those impossibly broad shoulders and CHOCO ABS!!!), but he has such amazingly expressive eyes. He gives the character hidden depths, the aura of mystery and of an ever-present deep, haunting sadness. JH’s loneliness is never more palpable than when he is home and JCW’s acting makes it so heartwrenching. In his vast bachelor lair he looks like the loneliest person on earth. It feels symbolic that he doesn’t live in a house or an apartment but an ABANDONED BUILDING.

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Healer ep 8

I’m having a hard time finding things to say about this show because my reactions while watching it are mostly “OH BABY NO IT’S OKAY I LOVE YOU” and “YOU ARE THE BEST” and “GO HEALER” and “I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH.” Not exactly the stuff of thoughtful and coherent meta. 

However, I continue to adore this show and everything they’re doing with it. The badass hacker is a 50-year-old woman who knits when she isn’t typing, and who dresses up like a film noir heroine! The badass sidekick is a teenage girl who calls our hero “hyung” and talks about her motorcycle like it’s her baby! The heroine’s adoptive uncles are all former thugs and felons who adore her and think she’s too good for anyone! The Big Bad’s Dragon is a 60-year-old dried-up old secretary who is actually kind of really scary! 

Chae Chi Soo is the Best Guy Ever and I will fight anyone who says differently. He’s a criminal defense attorney whose former clients adore him and treat him as their hyungnim. He adopted an abandoned little girl when he believed she had a speech disability, and he raised her into a confident, courageous, empathetic young woman. He’s fighting hard for Yeon-hee not just as her lawyer but as a person who truly cares about her. (I actually kinda shipped him with Pickpocket Uncle when we started the show, but now I ship him with Yeon-hee SO MUCH. After all she’s been through, she deserves a wonderful man like him. AGE DIFFERENCE WHAT AGE DIFFERENCE.) 

I’m also fascinated with Myung-hee, who would be the Languishing Mother on a Pedestal in many other shows, but who comes across as a much more real and rounded person here. She’s paraplegic and suffers from seizures but does her best to enjoy her life and her hobbies. She may be restricted to cooking and horticulture and reading now (WHICH ARE THE BEST HOBBIES, Myung-hee I’m proud of you, I would love to spend my life cooking and gardening and reading books), but the fighter-for-justice still burns deep within her. She’s been so badly traumatized, but she still grasped for love and happiness again. I’m terrified of how much she’ll be hurt when she finds out the truth, but I believe in her strength, and I can’t wait to see her become the tiger to defend the daughter she lost so long ago. 

JUNG HOO. BABY. Ji Chang-wook is doing a MAGNIFICENT job with his dual characters—the ultra-competent badass Healer, who is nonetheless a damaged boy, abandoned by everyone he loved, who grew up believing he was better off without humans and human contact and understanding, but who is slowly starting to hunger for all the warmth and love and light Young-shin offers. And Bong-soo (I automatically typed Bong-sook, because Young-shin’s feminine nickname for him is the most adorable thing ever), who stutters at every word and throws up from fear and has the most amazing facial expressions ever. I love how he uses Bong-soo’s bumbling as an excuse for petty interference with Moon-ho and as a guise for his ultra-competent information-gathering antics—but he’s finding Bong-soo a harder and harder act to pull, and his true self keeps slipping through. 

Park Min Young won me over from her first appearance as Chae Young-shin, and I adore her maybe more than any kdrama heroine this year. She’s brave and loyal and intelligent and confident. She doesn’t let the pain of her past hold her back, but she’s willing to dig it up and bare all her anguish to help someone else. She’s horrified by embarrassment when she believes she opened up her heart to Healer on the basis of a mistaken understanding, but she pulls herself together and does her job like a badass. She’s kind to her hoobae, praises and encourages and worries over him; she pushes through her debilitating panic attacks to protect him and then, when he’s overcome by his own fear, she encourages and supports him. He admires and respects her, and he’s right to do it. 

I love this show so much. 

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another thing i really love about healer is jung hoo and his biological mom. it’s kind of giving me shades tae hee ojakgyo brothers feelings

like in ojakgyo brothers tae hee was always so respectful and loving and caring and grateful to his adoptive mother and family, and he protected them and stood up for them and was so selfless in his love for them, because they took him in and loved him. but at the same time he also felt incredibly isolated and felt that he had to live up to a certain kind of perfection because he wasn’t a “real” son—like he had to be 10x better than he otherwise would have to be because he would be judged differently…

and the way jung hoo goes to visit his mom, the way he stays behind and doesn’t interrupt her interaction with her other son (his half brother!), how he hides, how he accepts these heartbreaking boundaries she’s set, how he accepts that she left him and started an entire new life and family without him, left him behind, the gentleness with which he speaks to her and asks her about her son and how he says “yeah i guess” when she says she can’t keep any mementos about his dad (and him!) in her new home. there’s sadness there, but there isn’t anger, there isn’t resentment. afterwards he walks down that alley with his head down, thoughtful and quiet. there’s a distance he places between himself and the world, and it’s a distance born of how “everyone leaves him and he never ever leaves anyone,” and it’s there in how everyone seems exactly the same to him and all he wants is to move to an island where he won’t have to deal with people. he keeps himself separate, and in doing that he won’t be hurt, but also, he won’t hurt anyone.

i also really love how his team is made up of two skilled, awesome women. he can’t do his job without min ja! and his junior calls him hyung! like the opening scene had him saying gross sexualizing stuff about women, but then everything else in the show works against that? like how proud he is of young shin for always working to protect him, and how he never feels any threat to his masculinity that she kind of babies him and thinks he’s weak and is always scared. he doesn’t feel it makes him lesser to pretend he can’t fight, to pretend he’s scared, to pretend he needs young shin to save him!

and just about the show in general: i didn’t watch it chronologically—i watched eps 4-6 first, then went back and watched the first few, and i think that benefitted me, cause what i’ve realized is that the show is very measured, it’s very deliberately paced. it doesn’t try to reel you in with a whole bunch of stuff, only to settle down in the 3rd and 4th episodes, it just starts and then builds and builds. the pacing stays consistent, each character and their relationships to one another get their due, new characters are introduced and it doesn’t feel as though they’re superfluous, the flash backs serve the story and are just as interesting as the present day story (i think it could actually be a show of its own…)

and finally, just this idea that i have, i think it’s a show about generations, or that that is one way through which to understand the show. you have this one group of people from a generation: young, idealistic, willing the risk to work against a media and government they think are in the wrong, starting to grow up and build lives and families. and something happens and it all goes to shit, there’s a dissolution and they fall apart. we’re not totally privy to what happened yet; what we have is the consequences—young shin thought dead and adopted, jung hoo isolated and working as the healer, the people of this older generation either dead or totally separated from the ideals and work they once held and did. so you have this younger generation at first kind of lost, without that commitment the older generation had, but then they pick up where the older generation left off and start working against what the people in the older generation have turned to doing. and moon ho stuck in the middle…

anyway, yeah

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talk to me about healer and how young shin is always grabbing the bumbling idiot my the wrist and dragging him as she chatters away! talk to me about the impromptu singing sessions. talk to me about jung hoo and how he has to curl into himself because he's soooo much taller than her. I'm just having so many feels and i need to talk about it!!!!

I CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE I HAVE NO WORDSSSSSSSS

did you see how in episode 5 at the end when he CRASHES THE ENTIRE PLACE AROUND THEM to secretly save her, the first thing she does is look for her baby bong soo who she has to protect and guide, and make sure he’s ok? AND SHE TAKES HIS HAND TO LEAD HIM AWAY FROM HARM AND JUNG HOO GIVES HER A SECRET SMILE?????? BECAUSE HE LOVES HOW BRAVE SHE IS AND HOW SHE ALWAYS PROTECTS HIM????

or how free she is with him, just taking his hand and pulling him after her, and she’s so excited to have this person she can teach about what it is to be a reporter to, and when she tells him to “drive the car! no, stop the car!” and how she always positions herself in front of him, SHIELDS HIM WITH HER BODY EVEN THOUGH SHE IS SO MUCH TINIER THAN HIM so he won’t be in the direct line of violence????? and how there is absolutely no gross judging of bong soo on her part as ~not being a man~ just because he’s always scared and asking for her help? JUST HOW THEY PROTECT EACH OTHER ALWAYS ALWAAAAAAYYYYYSSSSSS

and in ep 6 (which neeeeeeeddddd the subs for) jung hoo gets texts messages from her and HE TAKES HIS PHONE AND CURLS UP WITH IT ON HIS COUCH (JI CHANG WOOK IS SO LARGE) AND JUST REPEATS WHAT YOUNG SHIN WROTE TO HIM???? and in ep 5 he sits on the roof musing about how absolutely wonderful she is, how brave and principled she is, how inspired by her he is?????

and just how overwhelmed he is when she and her family tell him of course he’s going to have dinner with them! they’re so open with him! they’re so kind! they treat him so well!

and young shin. YOUNG SHIIIIIIIINNNNNNN. all of her mannerisms. the way she flutters her hands when she sings. how she’s the one who has experienced trauma in her past and he’s the one who offers her comfort. HOW SHE DEFENDS WOMEN FROM VIOLENCE. how she sings when she’s happy or sad or nervous aka ALL THE TIME. park min young’s absolute perfection.

and can we talk about park min young for a second? she’s actually reminding me ever so slightly of kim soon ah???? like there’s a maturity to her face that wasn’t there before??? 

just ji chang wook and park min young’s faces????????????? MY GOD

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Now see here, tell me the truth. Is there a camera in my house? I swear you interrupt me whenever I try to eat!

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Ever since my mother left home when I was eight years old, I haven’t cried because of anyone. I’ve also never had anything to expect from them. What I hated the most in this world was a human’s understanding and interest. It was. Whether someone understood or misunderstood me, it didn’t matter. I was like that.

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Can we all just take a moment and realized that slight hesitation he does before he kisses her. He knows this is a bad idea, he knows he shouldn’t be doing this, we all know he doesn’t understand the feelings his having for her right now  but seeing her like that and giving in to this feelings he has for her he doesn’t care at that moment. I’m so excited for this couple and there development

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Healer  < 힐러 >  Episode 8

Ever since, I was alone and up to now, I never expected anything from a human. So I was okay. Whether someone understood or misunderstood me, it didn’t matter. I was like that.

                                                                                                  - - - healer