cloysauce

[cloysauce]

thank u 2020 me for stanning cloy best decision ever

[cloysauce]

HARBIN (2024) directed by: Woo Min Ho cinematography: Hong Kyung Pyo

[cloysauce]

Harbin: A silent tempest underneath the snow

Beneath its sweeping landscapes and stirring orchestral score, Harbin tells a surprisingly straightforward story. The Korean Independence Army is on a mission to eliminate an oppressor at any cost, even their own lives.

(spoilers herein)

The narrative unfolds with a matter-of-fact tone: it opens with a man crossing a frozen river, then cuts to a tense debate among independence fighters in a safehouse. Their leader had made a controversial decision, sparing enemy soldiers in accordance with international law—a choice that would soon cost comrades their lives.

This leader soon arrives, burdened by a personal vow to kill the “old wolf.” In a stark gesture, he cuts a piece of his finger to seal the promise. These moments are presented without embellishment: no lingering shots, no dramatic zoom-ins, no sentimentality. Just raw, restrained storytelling.

The battle scenes are similarly stripped of heroism. Ahn Jung-geun’s crossing of the Tumen River is filmed from a distance, emphasizing his insignificance against the vast, indifferent landscape. The film’s visual language is quiet and contemplative: wide scenic shots replace close-ups, and dialogue often gives way to music performed by one of the world’s best orchestras to heighten tension.

Watching it on television for the first time, I couldn't be fully immersed. What surprised me most was the film’s brisk pace when several have dismissed it for its slowness and dullness. The journey from desert heat back to icy terrain felt almost too quick. I found myself wishing it were longer, though I suspect the runtime was tailored for the broader audiences.

Hyun Bin’s understated performance

Hyun Bin with Lee Dong-wook (top) and Yoo Jae-myung (bottom)

Hyun Bin likely won’t win acting awards for this role, because of the nature of this movie, which refuses to be sentimental, which refuses to be passionate, which refuses to be emotive. He portrays a man more known as dead than alive. Also, despite being a top-biller, Harbin is hardly the story of Ahn Jung-geun, any more than it is about a collective of fighters, ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. One common critique I’ve seen online is that the characters all look alike. But I feel this is intentional to emphasize their shared humanity and anonymity. Everyone is cold, shrouded in darkness and melancholy, hunched over in deep thought, gnawed by survivor's guilt, fear, and grief.

Ahn Jung-geun doesn’t adopt his iconic short haircut until later in the film, as he marches toward martyrdom in heavy breaths. The film doesn’t highlight his intellect or charisma. Instead, it presents him as a shell-shocked man with a resolve hardened by suffering and loss. There are no grandstanding speeches, no memorable punchlines, no star moments. Even the assassination scene is subdued, captured by a drone shot—a choice the director made for a surprisingly sentimental reason, despite the film’s overall dryness and sobriety. The final monologue, for all its fiery intent, was spoken into the void, creating a fourth wall effect as if hoping to be heard throughout the echoes of time. This has proven to be effective as one of the audience-favorite scenes.

Hyun Bin and Director Woo Min-ho

A risk worth taking?

Harbin defies the conventions of historical epics. There are no bombastic expositions or melodramatic flourishes. This is a film that vehemently refuses to flatter. I found myself instinctively searching for that boom moment. But this isn’t a film about heroes born and trained to fight, rather a ragged group of people who had to learn it by tooth and nail. It’s a movie styled more as an indie than a blockbuster which puts it in a funny spot as a 30-billion-won movie. Harbin is a somber movie that had to be promoted loudly for box-office takings even though the material seems inappropriate for such flashiness.

Jo Woo-jin steals the scene for his harrowing performance as Kim Sang-hyeon

While I wish it had shown more to advance its message, Harbin takes bold artistic risks, showcasing what the industry can achieve beyond formulaic storytelling, especially poignant given the timing of its release during Korea’s cinematic crisis and its current historical era.

For Hyun Bin’s filmography, it’s a milestone if just for the sheer mettle and commitment to play a man to whom memorials and monuments are built. He devoted himself fully to portraying a man who had become more symbol than human. He surrendered his star power to serve the director’s vision, becoming a vessel to show the beating heart of a man in a losing fight but relentless in hopes of a better tomorrow.

Second time’s the charm

I watched the movie again on Netflix Korea (yay VPN), and it resonated even more deeply the second time, now I'm not worked up on "What's gonna happen? What's next?" Understanding the narrative direction helped me catch some subtleties I missed before. I also noticed how the musical themes wove suspense throughout the film and paid more attention on the shot compositions, the interplay of light and shadows, unfortunately still constrained in a smaller screen. Oddly enough, watching it on a phone in the dark felt more immersive than on a mid-sized TV.

So much of Harbin lies in what’s unsaid, in the spaces between lines. Its brevity makes it hard to grasp the director’s intent on a first viewing. But by spending a couple more hours in its world through a rewatch, I could endeavor to catch a whiff of the power whispered within the film.

[cloysauce]

Davaajargal Altankhuyag and Nominzaya Renchindorj perform a Crash Landing on You-themed foxtrot at Dancing With the Stars Mongolia

[cloysauce]

how dare i get sad when this photo exists

[cloysauce]

to be perfectly honest. i don't care if it is cheesy or cliched or idealistic. i like stories where the core of it is about kindness, the warmth we can offer others and the gentleness we receive in return. maybe the moral of the story IS love triumphs. it better fucking be

[cloysauce]

Happy Valentine's Day to them

[cloysauce]

rewatching CLOY

[cloysauce]

[cloysauce]

[cloysauce]

son yejin and hyun bin on you quiz on the block

[cloysauce]

crash landing on you shonichi

[cloysauce]

The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho

it's not every day your favorite fantasy author writes a novel inspired by your favorite drama.

i've been a fan of @zenaldehyde for 8 years now, so to see her venturing into a romance birthed by crash landing on you itself signals an immediate purchase for me.

[official book website]

going into the novel, it's easy to see why the main characters could pass as au versions of seri and jeong-hyeok, so much that the similarities can be too on the nose. renee goh owns a successful fashion company and in the line of succession of a powerful conglomerate family (from whom she is also estranged), add to that two toxic brothers and a string of exes. yap ket siong is a gifted (tall, broad, gentle, handsome) pianist who is close to his brother. there was a point where i worried too much about parallels but eventually as the world building progresses, the characters would stand on their own merits and unique backstories, and diverge from the cookie dough from whence they have come from.

i imagine it like the author trying to fill in a coloring book, instead of say writing from scratch. but she doesn't necessarily use yellow for the sun or green for the trees or blue for sky. she colors in the scenery in her own way, and in the manner she sees the world and in this case, an intermingling of malaysian, singaporean, and british cultures. this has always been one of her trademarks in her books. she takes something to a different spin like say how she puts Malaysian witches in magical English polite society in Sorcerer to the Crown.

admittedly, i'm very biased for Zen's writing, i love it, it's fun, it's springy, it's colorful. while there's no actual abracadabra magic in this book, she's weaving her spells just the same, in creating sparks between characters. you can trust her to create characters with depth and purpose, like this isn't just about one relationship, but also adult friendships, families, female camaraderie, and many of these rooted to a distinct heritage that me as a southeast asian girl can relate with.

the story is also framed according to real-life events with a touch of fantasy (coz rich people) but the tone and plot perfectly balances between the grim and light (as characteristic of the romance genre). i think it's a balance that's hard to pull off and to justify, but Zen is no stranger to combining two different worlds and making it gel nicely and firmly.

the novel shines its brightest when everything comes together and you chew right into the sweet center. but perhaps as all sweet centers go, it runs out quickly. i'd have wanted to relish it longer.

i've seen some of the mixed reviews and i feel there's something being lost in translation (and possibly marketing?) the book is inspired by the themes, feels, and plot structure of a kdrama, and many of the readers aren't exactly familiar of the genre still. instead they compare it to the first thing people think about when it comes to asians and rich people (yeah that book) which is a rather myopic view imho. that KK book was written with a tabloid sensibility in mind. The Friend Zone Experiment offers so much more to the table (though the title could do much better to communicate that).

but as a kdrama viewer, and a Zen Cho reader, i can say it's a treat for me. will i read it if i were not a kdrama viewer? i'm not sure. but i'm gonna lift a page straight out of cloy and say it's fate that i got to know about this book just when i'm also kneedeep into kdramas.

who will enjoy this? people who liked cloy, people curious about southeast asian affairs and living in diasporic situations, people who love strong women and green flag men, people who want well-written asian characters, people who love a good plot in their romances, and yes, people who love kdramas!

owing to their superior storytelling techniques, kdrama interest is growing and i've been seeing more blogs and readers looking for books with the literary equivalent of watching a kdrama episode. i can recommend this one, especially for the holidays. it's the best time to slurp up a book and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

[cloysauce]

Hyun Bin at the Seoul Harbin production presentation, November 27, 2024

[cloysauce]

Hyun Bin as Ahn Jung-geun in the Seoul production presentation for Harbin, November 27, 2024

[cloysauce]

hyun bin sent son yejin a foodtruck I KNOW K-ENT COUPLES DO THIS but it's different when it's them ok.

[cloysauce]

he's really evil ok