Tag Archives: review

Reviews, tv shows

White Christmas – Korean mini-series.

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Stars 5+ out of 5

 

Today I am stepping away from tradition and reviewing not a book, but a TV series, and a Korean TV series to boot. Well, this series is an absolute masterpiece so I couldn’t help by share it on my blog, because more people should be able to watch it. I just wish it was more readily available on official streaming services.

 

Susin High School, nicknamed “Prison High” or Alcatraz by both students and staff, is an elite school attended by the top 1% of students in Korea. During the 8 days of Christmas break, 8 students decide to stay behind instead of going home like everybody else. Seven of them have received a threatening black letter, while the eight one has motives of his own. Stuck with them is the PT teacher who volunteered to supervise them during the break and a psychiatrist whose car crashed on the mountain road nearby. When a record snow fall blocks the roads leading to the school, they are cut off from the rest of the world for 8 days, and there might possibly be a killer in their midst.

 

At first, this show sounds like a typical teenage slasher movie – 8 students, 8 days of isolation, who will survive at the end? Or like one of the Agatha Christi mysteries – 10 people stuck together and a letter threatening to kill one or 7 of them. So it might just be a “whodunit” movie. And for the first 2 episodes, it seems to be exactly that – the students try to figure out why they received that letter and who sent it.

 

… and then the story suddenly changes and the stakes go way up and it’s not just a matter of who sent the letter, but a desperate fight for survival for everyone involved.

White Christmas
Meet the students

Are monsters born or are they created? That’s the main question this show seeks to answer by pitting all the characters against their worst fears and pushing them to their breaking points.

 

I loved everything about this show. It’s only 8 episodes long but it manages to introduce us to all the characters and show us why they are who they are and behave like they do. More than that, it manages to make us care about those 8 students even if we still don’t like some of them. They are real, they are human, and we get them. So it’s becomes particularly painful to see them each face their own “monster in the corner” and slowly break down.

 

I think that we have the excellent writing and directing to thank for that, but also the talented actors, all of whom were unknowns at the time this series was filmed. All of them went to have successful acting careers afterwards. They really owned their characters and managed to portray all the good and the bad in them so realistically that you can’t help but root for them until the end.

 

The cinematography is top notch as well. Everything you see on the screen has a hidden meaning. The school itself is a huge building made of glass and concrete. It looks light and cold by day and threatening and suffocating by night. It’s all sharp angles and stark modern furniture. It’s so sterile and cold that it looks more like a hospital than school… Or a prison, since there are CCTVs everywhere, even in the student dorms.

 

There are also several shots of our characters in front of mirrors which echo something one of the characters says, “Your faces when alone and the faces you show to others are different.” So it’s rather ominous and fitting that all of them get to see several reflections of themselves, one of which might be a monster.

mirrors

… And I could rant about this series on and on, but I will refrain myself because mentioning anything else would be spoilery.  So buy it and watch it. You will not regret it at all. It’s only 8 hours long but you will be at the edge of your sit through all of it.

PS. For US readers (and I think Europe also), this drama has been licensed and is available on the streaming site Viki.com – White Christmas.

Characters, writing

The Shadow Hero – Severus Snape

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At the beginning of this month, I had started a new series of posts about literary (and movie) characters I really liked and the reasons why I liked them. If you are interested, here is my first post about Doctor Who. I would like to continue this series with another famous character that I dearly love – Hogwards Potion Master and spy extraordinaire Severus Snape.

severus snape

I need to warn you now that this post will contain SPOILERS for all seven books, so if you haven’t read them yet for some reason, proceed at your own risk.

Alright, this warning out of the way, let me explain why I love this character so much. I think it’s because he is so complex and has such hidden depths that even the author didn’t suspect until she started writing him. I also think that Alan Rickman fit into this role perfectly in the movies, even though his Severus Snape is a lot older than the one in the books (who, after all, was only 38 in the first book).

Everything in the books is seen through Harry Potter’s eyes, and he takes an instant dislike to his taciturn Potion Master, so of course everything Snape does will be painted in negative light. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Severus Snape is a miserable bastard. He is bitter, angry and full of self-hatred as well as hatred at the world in general, and the way he treats Harry or Hermione is simply inexcusable.

But let’s set aside his horrible personality and consider his actions instead. In the first book, he does everything to try and protect the Sorcerer’s stone and he spends most of the quidditch match muttering counter spells to prevent Harry from falling off his broom. In second year, he is responsible for brewing the potion that would save all the kids that had been petrified by the basilisk, including Hermione.

I think that we see the true mettle of that man in book three though, when he rushes out of the castle and into the Shrieking Shack even though it’s the night of the full moon and he is about to confront a werewolf that almost killed him once already. He doesn’t hesitate though, because the lives of three children are in danger. The image bellow shows it perfectly well – even when faced with one of his worst nightmares, his reflex is to defend the children, even if that means die a horrible death himself.

Always protecting students, even those he hates.
Always protecting students, even those he hates.

I like Severus Snape because, even though he is a profoundly damaged man, he is also a man of honor and principles. He basically sacrificed his entire life to bring the downfall of a madman and thus to repent for a mistake he had made when he was barely out of his teens. He became a double agent, despised and distrusted by both sides, friendless and alone, with nobody to turn to for comfort. He was asked to do unspeakable things for that cause.

I can’t even imagine what the last year in Hogwards must have been like for him, when he had to play the role of the Death Eater Headmaster and bear the scorn and open hatred of his former colleagues and students. Yet, he made sure that none of the students were permanently harmed, even with two clearly unstable Death Eaters on the premises. Not to mention that Harry would never have gotten the horcruxes destroyed without his timely help. No, I am certain that without Severus Snape and all the sacrifices he had to make, Lord Voldemort would have won and Harry Potter would have been the boy-who-died… along with many others.

And even though I don’t buy into the idea of Snape’s undying love for Lily Potter as the driving force behind everything he had done, I can’t help but admire his extraordinary force of character. He truly is the greatest shadow hero of this book.

books, Reviews

Review of “Grass” by Sheri S. Tepper

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ImageEver since I was a child, I’ve had a particular love for science-fiction and fantasy books. Sure, I have read my fair share of non-fiction and there are a few classics that I love deeply, but give me a good fantasy book, and I am lost to the world. There are, I think, three reasons for that.

First of all, those books give me a chance to explore totally new worlds that the authors created. Places that are either years in the future or not even in our universe. Places that do not exist and never will, but if the author is good, they still seem so real that you can see and smell, and taste them.

The second reason is the characters. Most really good science-fiction and fantasy books have very compelling and memorable characters. Sure, they can be over the board and larger than life sometimes, but you remember them, you sympathize with them and that’s a good thing. After all, they will be your companions on the journey through this new and strange world that the authors have created.

And lastly the book needs a good plot. For the world building and tri-dimensional characters can’t keep my interest for long if the story isn’t getting anywhere. Something needs to happen, the characters need to face and overcome obstacles and evolve.

When it comes to “Grass” by Sheri S. Tepper, the book left me with very mixed feelings.

I really loved the world Sheri Tepper created. I could really visualize Grass: I could see the multitudes of colors and textures of the grasses that constitute the only vegetation of the planet. I could hear the sound of the wind rippling through them, the cries of the peepers in the roots and the rhythmic dances of the Hippae. The ecosystem of the planet is also fascinating – it’s like a serpent biting its own tail in a way – everything evolves and mutates into something else along the food chain.

So as far as world building is concerned, “Grass” delivered, at least for me. It’s the characters that I had a problem with. As I said, I like well developed, tri-dimensional characters that I can empathize with. Sadly, in this book there is only one such character – Lady Marjorie Westriding. You can tell that the author took time to work on her background and motivations. She feels real and alive; I can understand the reasoning behind her actions and choices. Most importantly, she changes and her point of view evolves during the course of the book.

Unfortunately, the rest of the characters are not as lucky – they felt like cardboard cutouts to me. They move, they talk, they act, but they don’t provoke any emotional response from me. Simply put, they are not fleshed out enough for me to care about them. If they had been a bit more memorable, I think I would have reacted differently to the problem of possible imminent extermination that awaits them.

But if you can get past that lack of characterization, the premise is interesting, the plot moves along at a nice pace and the author manages to tie everything neatly together.

While the rest of the colonized planets are not described in as much detail as Grass, the picture the author paints is still convincing, though very bleak. There are several colonized planets, but progress and expansion are at a standstill because Sanctity, the predominant religious order of the star-traveling humanity, forbids it. So the reader is witnessing the slow degradation of a once formidable race. And as if that degradation wasn’t killing humans quickly enough, there is a mysterious but deadly plague that swipes from world to world and for which there is no cure. All the planets are infected. On all of them humans are dying. Except Grass – there is no plague here. Why? If this question is not answered and a cure is not found, Grass might become the only place in the entire galaxy where human life still exists…

But Grass is far from being a bucolic and worry-free haven. Dark tidings are afoot here too. Danger lurks in the shadows. And when hounds are barking and mounts are ready to hunt foxen, their riders are given very little choice in the matter.

To sum it up, I would definitely recommend this book, even with the lack of characterization. Read it for the story, or just read it for the pleasure of walking in the grass gardens of Klive or watching the grasses paint the prairie in different shades of purple when spring finally comes on Grass.