The Beauty Inside – A Review

Would you have fallen in love with your significant other if s/he had had another face? Would you be able to love someone with a physical disability? How about someone who, though not visually impaired, was still not able to differentiate faces? Is one’s identity tied to one’s face and appearance?

If you had another face, would you be a totally different person inside as well?

These are all questions the audience cannot help but ask itself, while watching ‘The Beauty Inside’. This very good Korean drama in fact, tells the story of two people whose very difficult situations color their lives in multiple ways.

Han Se-gye is a well-known actress, yet for some mysterious reason, when she is 20 years old something happens to her and she starts to transform into someone else for a week every month. Each time, she transforms into someone different. It could be an old man, a child, an older woman on a wheelchair. Age, race, gender, physical abilities – all change without warning, causing her to break down both mentally and physically.

On the other hand, there is Seo Do-jae, a man who suffers from Prosopagnosia due to having broken his cranium in an accident. Prosopagnosia, also called ‘face blindness’ really does exist, and is a cognitive disorder caused by acute brain damage, whereby a person looses the ability to recognize people’s faces, including one’s own in the mirror. After his accident, Seo Do-jae spends years learning how to recognize people using other individual clues instead. The way they walk, the way they dress, their voice, their scent… no wonder he is the only one who can actually recognize Han Se-gye, even when she wears a different face…

This K-drama is very different from any others I’ve watched, not only because of its very interesting take on mental and physical health and disability, but also because although it is a love story, the focus is not on the dating game itself, but rather highlights the fact that before one can really love and accept others, one must first of all learn to love and accept one’s self.

The supporting cast of characters is pretty impressive too. There are many funny and endearing moments, and also many sad ones. Prepare your tissues!

This T.V series is made up of 16 episodes, all of which are approximately an hour long. If you don’t mind watching them with subs (since obviously, the language is Korean), you can find all of the episodes online for free on various websites.

My personal rating is 5 on 5 stars.

There is also a movie with the same name, with basically the same story-line but different actors.

Enjoy!

On Creativity – Tropes and why we love them

A ‘trope’ is a recurrent literary theme, motif, or structure of a plot when it comes to writing novels and stories. Most tropes are presented by authors again and again, in differing formats and story-lines, and yet, though readers generally recognize them and sometimes even preempt certain happenings and resolutions, they still continue to prefer the same type of story-line and continue to read and enjoy such books and stories again and again.

Most tropes are over-used, and yet, they still sell. Why? I must admit that I myself find that I tend to gravitate towards reading familiar tropes, especially when I’m in a certain mood where I need a nice comfortable reliable story… and yet… is writing a novel and basing it on this much-recycled outline acceptable? I mean – where is creativity?? And what about originality?

Take for example the Rags to Riches trope – here the main character is usually a young unknown person who, through some circumstance or other, ends up becoming rich and famous. Some well-known examples include Cinderella, Pretty Woman and Slum Dog Millionaire.

Another well-known trope is the Love Triangle – this one actually needs no explanation does it? Everyone enjoys a good love story, but throw in some unrequited love, a couple of misunderstandings, a pinch of jealousy and heartache, and there it is, the usual popular T.V drama series cocktail!

A third trope, which never gets old, is what I call the Ugly Duckling story-line. Think about My Fair Lady, The Princess Diaries, Miss Congeniality or The Devil wears Prada, and you have it. Basically this kind of story also usually ends up becoming a ‘moral lesson’ = Unkept girl has a make-over and transforms into a beauty, then realizes that looks are not everything… but she still looks pretty now anyways.

Want another one? How about the Unknown Hero who saves the World trope? I guess I don’t even need to give examples for this one… *cough*Spiderman*cough*Superman*cough*Marvelingeneral*

And what about all those post-apocalyptic dystopian teen-movies which seem to add up all of the above?! The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Giver… ugh! I read the books before there was even a hint of any movie, and I realized early on that they were all the same, and yet I still gobbled them up! Why!?

I guess we all love the familiar, we all dream of becoming rich, popular heroes and that never changes.

Yet, artists, BEWARE. Writing/creating something familiar while portraying it in an entirely new and creative manner is one thing, re-writing the same thing over and over and over again, is another. ‘Familiar’ is a tricky word, since it is most often dangerously close to ‘mediocre’, not to mention ‘boring’. 

 

American Horror Story – Season 6 Review – NO SPOILERS

When I had watched Season 5 of American Horror Story last year,I was hardly impressed to say the least.

However, looking at Season 6 this autumn, I guess I’ll just have to eat my words.

Gone is the fake gratuitous soft porn thrown in simply to shock viewers into cheap thrills. Gone is the unneeded violence and lackadaisical plot. Instead of unexplained murders and ghouls, AHS takes us back to the mysterious plot lines, interesting characters, and dramatic acting so much admired during the first season. Entitled Murder House, Season 1 had focused on a haunted mansion and its historic violent past. Season 6, Roanoke, tackles not so much a haunted house, but an actual haunted piece of land, illustrating one of America’s oldest mysteries.

The Season in fact makes reference to the historic mystery of the Roanoke colony, also known as the Lost Colony – a group of Americans who were sent to Roanoke Island in the New World (North America) in the 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, in an attempt to colonise it and establish a base camp. The 115 members of the colony all disappeared without a trace. The only remaining clue was the word ‘Croatoan’ scratched on the bark of a tree.

This season is, in a way, totally different from the previous ones, as all the episodes are presented in the format of a documentary. The narrative focuses on a married couple, who are telling us the story in a studio, while at the same time, people we know to be re-enactors play their parts in order for the viewers to understand what actually happened. Each character is therefore seen twice and portrayed by two different people. The ‘real’ character is interviewed in the filming studio, while the ‘re-enactors’ are the ones playing out the actual events.

The main plot line follows an interracial couple, Matt and Shelby. After being attacked by a street gang, they decide to leave the city and its perils, and relocate to an abandoned colonial farmhouse in North Carolina.

To read the rest of the article, which was published on EVE magazine follow the direct link: http://www.eve.com.mt/2016/11/05/american-horror-story-season-6/

Game of Thrones – S05 FIRST FOUR EPISODES LEAKED!!!

I wish to apologise for not writing for quite some days now. A lot of things are going on, not to mention the fact that I’ve been sick for around 5 days now, and I am heartily fed up of it.

Fed up of not being able to sleep properly, fed up of my chest hurting due to all the coughing, fed up of feeling as though I have a tennis ball lodged in my throat (what I actually have is inflamed glands), fed up of not being able to speak louder than a whisper without splattering everyone with phlegmy bouts of coughing, fed up of not being able to breathe, and fed up of feeling so damn tired all the time!

Anyways, no more moaning – scout’s honour!

Because finally, the fifth season of GOT has begun!! I haven’t watched the first episode yet, but I can’t wait to hear that catchy GOT tune blaring across my TV again! What’s more, not just episode number one is available, since THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES OF GOT WERE LEAKED OUT!

Yessss dears!! We get to watch four uninterrupted hours of this devilishly enthralling saga!

Thank you HBO!