#kim gyeolyu

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Special episode

So, I wasn’t going to watch it, but then... They showed a man bringing in a camera. And I want to know wether it is Eusung or maybe that man that took Hyemin away when she was younger. So far, those are my two primary hypothesis. Maybe the special won’t be about that anyways... Who knows.

Oh well, I should just have looked at the timing, it was only bloopers... What did I expect hahaha.

But it was very cute and wholesome, so it wasn’t time wasted!

Thanks for keeping up with me for so long!

[ninha-kdramas]

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[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Overall Review

It did take me a long time to complete this drama, as I didn’t have much time for watching and reviewing anything when I started working again. So I feel my overall review might be incomplete, but I still wanted to make a post on my impressions for whoever is unsure about wether to watch or not. I will try to be as objective as I can, even though my memory might be a little failing.

Plot

The story revolves around a woman named Oh Harin who went through the traumatic event of losing her best friend and crush Ji Seojun during high school. Someday, ten years later his passing, she receives his old camera and a film of pictures he took. Or maybe did she get both the pictures and the camera? I’m not sure about the details anymore, but it isn’t really relevant at this point. Anyways, she ends up discovering that by burning the pictures, she can travel back in time. Even though years have passed by, she still hasn’t had closure with Seojun’s death. She can’t believe it was suicide, so while in the past, she decides to investigate to save her friend whom she missed all those years. So the whole series revolves about time travelling through the pictures and figuring a way for Seojun to live, while finding out the reasons of his death.

For me, the plot was solid until we hit the middle of the series and then it kind of went astray. It was pretty consistant before that and while not being super innovative, it was still a little different than what I have seen in the past. Unfortunately, I would say the direction they took for the last eight episodes ran in circles far too long. There weren’t so much explanation where it was needed and to me that was a very poor choice because there was a lot of material to be exploited there. There were too many clichés for me. If only for the first half, this drama would have got a pretty good score plot wise, but I can’t give it more than a 6/10 with the way it turned out.

Acting

Since I watched most episodes with long periods between them, this will be based only on the last six episodes or so, I really can’t remember the acting from the beginning. Without being extraordinary, it was very decent. The characters were annoying when they had to, cute at the right moment. Big shout out to Kim Yiseo as Ji Hyemin, she really made me invested in her character even though the script wasn’t doing justice to her. I have been disappointed by this character, but really not because of the acting, because she was fantastic from the beginning to the end, even though when it made no more sense. As for Yeri and Yang Hongseok, they both did a pretty good job, they got me emotional at some points in the story thanks to their skill and I appreciate that. I give it a 7/10.

Other

I won’t be commenting on the soundtrack and the visuals of the drama, as I don’t have an overall view of it since it took so long and it would be unfair not to judge it on the entirety of the series. However, I would like to mention that I really liked the short format of the episodes, the story had a lot of rythm thanks to that and there were no moment that was slow paced.

Do I recommend or not?

I can’t really make my mind on that topic. I really liked the beginning of the drama, I was super invested in the story, the plot was enticing and it was overall quite interesting. However, it went downhill when we reached half of the series and it felt more of an obligation to watch than something I really wanted to. Maybe that’s one of the reasons watching dramas weren’t a priority even though so many came out and I was interested into seeing. There are a lots of good points to this drama, but a even amount of failures too. Since it’s short episodes too, there isn’t much time for character growth. They do evolve, but they are pretty much the same from the top to the end.

I would say I would recommend it if you are looking for something to entertain yourself and that goes by quickly. Each episodes are only 20 minutes or so, so it’s really easy to watch it in a one sit if you don’t write reviews as I do or to start before going to work. You don’t need to be too concentrated to watch, because even though the subject is a little dark, the storyline isn’t too complicated. So it’s a good story to have your brain half relaxing, half active in my opinion.

However, this wouldn’t make to my absolutely must watch list. Had I known how the story would unravel, I probably wouldn’t have spent the time on it. It isn’t that it’s poorly written, it’s just that I was really disappointed with how much potential it had to be great and how much they took the safe path instead of exploiting everything great about it.

Overall, it’s a 6/10 for me on this series. I hope this review helped you see clearer about it and let me know your thoughts if you ever watch it or if you felt the same way if you already did!

List of full recaps

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / Special

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 16

Here it is, the last episode of this short drama. Except for the special episode, which I haven’t decided yet if I want to watch or no. So we left Seojun and Hyemin in a fight, Harin running towards who knows where. Probably lots of drama is going to happen.

So it starts on a flashback of when Harin and Seojun met for the first time. And then Seojun is taken to the emergencies. So he’s the one who got stabbed then. It was weird that he would have done that to his sister. But I mean, he could have done it to take her place in prison or something. I don’t know. It doesn’t especially adds up, but they’re just kids in the end.

Harin spent the night by Seojun’s bed side and when she wakes up, even after a day, she still hasn’t been sent to the present. She realizes Seojun must have travelled to the past too and she wonders why he changed it. Then the detectives come to talk to her. They say that Hyemin won’t speak before Harin gets there. They promise to stay with her in the room.

So Hyemin still had that cutter, so even though Seojun had the knife, she was the one to stab. She left without finishing him because the police came. She threatens Harin that once she gets out of prison again, just like that other time, she’ll come to persecute her, as she’s the most precious thing to Seojun and tormenting her would make him as miserable, even more than if he died. Then Harin, instead of being afraid, she claims that she will make sure that if Hyemin doesn’t pay the price for time travelling, she will make her pay herself.

As soon as she gets out of the police office, she receives a phone call from Seojun’s mother, she’s crying. I guess he woke up. It would be too easy if he was dead. Harin runs to the hospital, praying for him to be all right, because the worst thing for her would be a world without him. Meanwhile, Hyemin tries to escape from the police and doing so she gets hit by a car.

Of course, Seojun is up, waiting for Harin. They listen to music together. Then they start dating, a lot of happy memories are made. Seojun and Harin grow up into fine young adults. They’re really happy.

Then we realize that Harin saving the dog is why the police could get to the school faster that time.

Nothing else about Hyemin. I guess she just died. That’s annoying. Like... There could have been a lot of substance for this character, but until the end, as soon as we knew she was the murderer, there weren’t any.

And it ends with a shot of someone bringing a camera to the film developper from the beginning. It seems there are two time travelling camera. Do you think Eunwoo was also time travelling? LOL. I guess now I have to watch the special episode even though I wasn’t going to.

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 15

I just realized that... I still have three more episodes left and ugh no. There was a new picture time frame shown during last episode. How much you bet Seojun’s going back to save her? If they’re both alive by the end of this I don’t know, it’s not even cute anymore. And if saves her in three episodes while she took 13 to actually save him... what a disappointment and a waste of time. Oh never mind, only two. I messed up somewhere, somehow.

The point of view now changes onto Seojun and we get the most dramatic acting here, when he tries to reach her when the ambulance takes her away. Good, no coma, she really is dead. Hopefully she doesn’t get saved. Now I want to know if Hyemin is still alive. Because Harin was under her during their fall. Everyone is super sad about Harin.

Hyemin isn’t dead. Well not her body, but the doctors say she’s brain dead. So she’s the one going through coma. The detectives are probably still investigating and mom is a bear protecting her child. She’s upset that they suspect her and argues that it’s bad to say that in front of someone who’ll never wake up again... Say that to Kim Sinwoo’s parents. Because that kid is fully dead, brain and body. Seojun feels bad for his mom and takes all of the blame.

So he finds a picture and decides to travel back in time. As expected. Oh actually, it doesn’t work. It seems he tried to burn a few pictures, without success. Oh but... maybe, the magic camera fell on that they were trying to find the sculpting knife. Maybe it took a picture and he can burn it. I mean, that’s probably what is going to happen. He ends up trying to commit suicide, but then a memory of Harin seems to stop him. I mean, he doesn’t really want to die and disappear (not that it would change a thing to what happened and it would only make his mother sad). And then he thinks of exactly what I just said. Photo developing, photo burning, back to the past on that day Harin died.

As soon as he gets there, he gets a call that her sister escaped and when Harin calls him to say that Hyemin is back to the past, he tells her to leave school so she won’t go after her and that he will find the proof himself. Harin almost gets killed while she tries to save a puppy. Meanwhile, Seojun finds the knife. Hyemin gets to school, but when she wants to grab the Follenir in her locker, she finds a note telling her to go to the art room.

Seojun tries to tell her to turn herself in so they don’t hurt their parents any further. But she’s gone crazy already. He tells her she’s going to die in the future he saw before he burnt a picture like she did. She says she doesn’t care and that she’ll kill him and all his friends before killing herself. Then he brings her their mom. He tries to convince her again, but she’s way too far down that path. Plus he’s talking to the her who spent ten years in prison, she’s way too broken. What she needed was therapy from the beginning. Like, when they found her back after ten years, they should have sent her to a therapist. Imagine the trauma of a child being lost for ten years. Love alone won’t be enough to heal that kind of pain. Anyways, getting closer was a really stupid move Seojun. But I guess he has a backup plan because the camera focused on their reflection in the window of the art room. At least he’s a little smarter than Harin. They fight, they run for the abandoned knife and then... Someone bleeds, but I don’t know who. I guess Seojun. I don’t know.

Harin felt that there was no more possibility for them to save each other anymore and she runs to I don’t know where.

I don’t have much hopes for the ending. We’ll see when we get there.

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 14

So hopefully, I will complete this series today in that attempt of a marathon. So we left on last episode Harin and Hyemin to travel to the past together. I have no hopes for a satisfying ending, but oh well. We have to at least see to know.

They are back on Harin’s birthday. Hyemin is with the detective and goes on a crazy rant before asking to go to the bathroom.

Meanwhile Harin rushes to find Seojun who’s at the hospital, taking care of his mom who fainted upon the news of Hyemin’s arrest. Harin finally manages to get a hold of him and tells him that Hyemin is back to the past and that she’ll try to find the knife she used which was a decisive element to incriminated her with the crime. And of course, restrooms in a police station have easy access windows for people to escape. Anyways, they decide to look out for the knife before sister can find it and destroy it. They can’t find it in the art room, so they ask about it to the teacher and basically she says the students of the club are using it right so she can’t lend it to them. But I know Hyemin dropped it in the library. And Harin finds it from a art club student. But it’s too late. Seojun is lured to the roof top by his sister. And she has some Follenir with her. Seriously... this is never ending.

Hyemin injected the thing to Seojun. She tells Harin, pretending to be him, that he’s on the rooftop. Gosh... cliché. When she gets to the rooftop, Hyemin has a cutter to Seojun’s throat. Give the tool and we save Seojun. For now lol. I really hope Harin was smart enough. Just this one time, but with her whole behaviour from the previous episodes... I highly doubt it. As expected, she has the sculpting knife on her, hands it to Hyemin so she won’t kill Seojun. Stupid. You don’t have anymore leverage and she still has a knife to his throat. She begs to save his life. Hyemin rants on how he’s just her replacement and since she’s back they don’t need him anymore. Seojun moves away, Hyemin tries to kill him, Harin jumps in to protect him and she and Hyemin falls down the roof. I guess that was the price to pay to travel again to the past. As Seojun explained, each time there’s a price to pay, bigger each time. But you know, she won’t probably be really dead, and then... well I don’t know, it’s not a good ending unless she is. Not that I am sadistic in any ways, it’s just... it makes sense. A life for a life. Or maybe she’ll end up in coma and wake up ten years later. That’s very likely, there always is a coma in dramas. Boring series of flashbacks. Happy moments before dying. Ambulance sirens ringing. Pitch black. Crying Seojun.

That was unexpected, but not surprising in any ways. I guess we’ll have to get through the last episode now.

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 13

I got an unexpected day off today and I figured I might as well and try to finish this drama so I can move on to different ones in which I might be a little more interested. I would say that it was a good start on this one, but I kind of dropped out of it mid way. I got a little too redundant for my taste and I don’t expect a lot from the last few episodes to be honest. But we never know, something might change magically!

So, by the end of the last episode, we finally managed to discover that Hyemin noona is the culprit of the murder. It was unclear wether she was really arrested or not, but we’ll discover that quite quickly. So a news report tells us that yes, she had been and she’s been proved guilty.

Then we are taken to a flashback of Hyemin’s past, when she was lost. She met an older guy (than her, he’s not old-old) and he takes her I don’t know where, but not to her parents, as the flashback quickly change for a place where she’s with another bunch of teenage girls and it seems she being bullied for the fact that she’s an abandoned child. Then to another one, where she steals some stuff from a convenience store and sees a poster that says that someone is still looking out for her. Anyways, she finds back her family. On Seojun’s birthday, which coincides with the same date as she disappeared. That’s way twisted to want to get rid of him because of that... I need more back story, otherwise I would have been really disappointed.

But it doesn’t seem now’s the time I’ll get more answers, because they bring Harin back to the future right at this time. And she discovers she adopted a fluffy pet dog with Seojun. Meaning he’s not dead, right? Eunsong then gives her a call tells her to come get Seojun because he’s drunk. But then when she goes there, he’s not. Actually at first there are only Sujin and Eui-something and she apologizes for suspecting Sujin back then. And then Seojun comes back, not drunk at all. And then we learn that Hyemin gets out of prison that weekend. Seriously if we go back into protecting Seojun mode...

Or maybe it will be let’s protect Harin mode. Hyemin ends up being a volunteer at Harin’s job. As soon as they said there would be volunteers, I KNEW she was going to be one of them. Anyways, she says she reflected a lot while she was locked up and during work she’s very diligent so Harin’s colleagues all like her and all want her to come back... My worry is that she will use the opportunity volunteering there to get her hands on more follenir. But hopefully, she really did reflect and isn’t up to anything bad. Please.

Sujin also feels suspicious about her. No wonder...

Harin receives a phone call that something happened to Seojun. But then he calls her and he’s all right. Weird enough that she just gave her cellphone number to Hyemin, right? Anyways, she goes back home and the dog is hiding and barking. Of course, Hyemin got in. Ah she came to get the last picture. No wonder. I forgot there was one left. I should have expected that. There’s no point in kiling Seojun now if she can escape from being in prison. They fight a bit, but Hyemin ends up burning the picture and Harin grabs her ankle. Seems like you can team time travel... Ugh... This should’ve been over, it’s a little dragging.

To be brutally honest, I don’t think there’s any way to save that drama anymore. It’s just getting too long, running in circles. I don’t see what this arch will bring more to the story. I mean unless she tries to undo all her killing and wants to live peacefully. Which I highly doubt at this point... And here I thought it was similar to Under the Miracle Cherry Tree... It’s not at all.

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 12

Someday, I will finish this drama, I promise. It will happen, hopefully soon. I’m really bad at being consistent to this blog, somehow I just don’t watch as many drama as I used to in the past. Life got busy, but I want to get back at it whenever I can and hopefully these recaps are of any use to someone. Well, at least they’re fun for me. I have no idea where we were at last time, so let’s just jump right in and see if the sister really is the culprit and if we’ll save the boy. Once again, I forgot every character’s name :D

Oh yeeeah, I remember now. They found the camera, which was taken by one of the gang and it shows Sujin (I believe Harin’s friend) getting in after the other boy. But it’s only her back, so in my opinion, it could totally be someone else wearing her clothe and copying her hairstyle. MISUNDERSTANDING INCOMING! That’s for sure! More drama, we happier. I was thinking they would be a little more subtle about it though, but they actually all gang up against her because the person in the video is wearing the same hairpin she wears everyday, except for Euiyoung when she can’t explain where she was very clearly. She leaves. I mean, I would be pretty hurt myself if my friends accused me of being a murderer.

Oh wow, poor her can’t get a break. As they leave school, the police comes to take Sujin away. Screen of big sister seeing everything. It’s going to run in circles from now on... What a shame, it was interesting. So she left during lunch because she needed to go to the bathroom and she was taken home by a delivery person. She can’t however remember the name of the restaurant. So of course, to help and meddle even more, Harin, feeling bad for accusing her friend, decides to look for that delivery man. Even though the police should be the ones doing it. And she’s supposed to be older than the others since she came from the future...

A call from Euiyoung makes her kind of guessed what happened. The person came from the future, took Sujin’s stuff to make it look like it was her, lured Kim Sinwoo to the art room, uploaded the video and put it back while hiding Eunsong’s watch close to it so he would find the camera. But then Eunsong wasn’t the one to find the camera, so it changed the plan. Hence Harin wants to go back to see the crime scene in case she can find something else. And then they notice the window. They go back to the video, zoom in and... OH NO! IT’S BIG SIS D: They can’t believe it at first, but it really is her. Sadness. Now can we know what her motives are? Thank you.

Obviously, they is a lot of crying, lots of sadness. Police arrest Hyemin (big sis), is it true or a foreshadowing, who knows for now.

There are still 4 episodes left. And I don’t know what to think anymore, how will it not run into circles? Maybe we get a POV from big sis as to why she wanted to kill her brother? I’m not so interested in what their lives become once Seojun is saved. At least, they’re short episodes, so it shouldn’t take too long, but still. We’ll see! See you next time!

[dreamingsushi]

Blue Birthday - Episode 11

Time travelling comes with a cost and we were reminded of that quite deeply last time when Harin almost gets crushed by a huge sign, protected by her one and only knight in shining armor. Now, what we want to know is if they’re both okay.

So overall, he’s fine. He has some broken ribs, but no internal damage. His hit the ground so there’s a minor concussion, only thing to do for now is to wait for him to wake up, which could take some time. Just when the doctor leaves saying there’s no way to know for how long he will be asleep, she receives a call from the police station. The Follenir cannot be used as proof since there’s no serial number on it and they would have to go for an autopsy, which the family of the deceased forbids, so it’s a dead end again. I wonder if in Korean culture they are quite reluctant for an autopsy in general, or if it is only for the purpose of the drama. I mean two families saying no when the death is suspicious.

Anyways, Harin calls her friend and asks Sujin a favor about the camera they hide with Seojun. I’m not sure how much she tells Sujin, because they didn’t give that part away. Anyways, Sujin urges the boys to find the camera and wether she tells them anything Harin told her is yet a mystery again. Okay, so she said she thinks Kim Siwoo was murdered and so they are looking for the camera. But Eunseong disappears on them. And then the other boy whose name is not relevant to me. Yet.

Meanwhile, Harin goes around asking if a student bought Follenir. The only place that says yes so far was by a tall boy. All those things in my head running right now. I don’t see why the other guy is acting suspicious. Nor do I see any reasons for him to help the sister in killing her younger brother. Nothing makes sense anymore!

So they found the camera, suspicious friend hid it, but I still don’t know why. I’m skipping lots of cheesy blabla here, not relevant to the story. Anyways, Harin and Seojun get back to school to meet with Eunseong and Euiyong who’s related to the disappearance of the camera. The boys are reluctant to show the camera to Harin, but then... They give it anyways. And who they see? Sujin. Well that’s what Harin says, but I am doubting it. I wouldn’t make any sense.

That was a short recap, I skipped many of the episode that just basically lovers talk and it’s better to watch than to read it in my opinion. See you next time for episode 12. I’m tired of getting everything twisted all around again. I need the mystery to be solved and for Harin to move on. I’m okay with Seojun still being dead. But having the proof that it wasn’t suicide would bring closure to Harin so she can get on with her life.

[ninha-kdramas]

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