A Love to Kill: picspam of one of my favorite scenes...
Today's picspam is courtesy of A Love to Kill, a 2005 Korean drama starring Rain and Shin Min Ah.
ALTK is a story of a man (Rain) who decides to get close to a rising young actress (Shin Min Ah) in order to be able to wreck her life to avenge his brother, who he believes has been jilted by her and, as a result, committed suicide.
ALTK wasn't my first Korean drama, and probably not my fifth. But it was a drama I fell madly in love with, the first Kdrama I truly went psychotic for: it remains one of the most beautifully filmed kdramas I've ever seen: clean, sharp, yet oddly muted cinematography, tilted camera angles, mirrors and reflections (reflecting the deception and traumas of the protagonists).
But what really drew me in was the story and the characters: their love and dysfunction extreme in equal measure. Because, no surprise, when Rain is hired as SMA's bodyguard, he begins to slowly fall in love with her, and the lines between his revenge and genuine feeling get more and more blurred. But (and that is part of why I love this drama so), falling in love doesn't make things better, it doesn't make it all magically OK. Neither does even the eventual realization by him of the truth of which we, the audience, were aware from the start: Shin Min Ah is innocent of all he blames her for. Nothing makes it better, and yet nothing can make it worse, either, because they become two individuals who are literally incapable of existing without each other, and equally incapable of allowing themselves to be together.
They are both dysfunctional, brutalized people: not just Rain, who was raised on the streets as the younger son of an abusive goon, and whose belief in the value of a repaid obligation is so extreme as to be a psychological millstone. But Shin Min Ah is equally off-kilter: a tough drinker who is psychologically fragile, who is caught in the traumas of her childhood and who latches onto love with unhealthy desperation. They are both so so screwed-up. Yet somehow, they work together...
Anyway, this drama has a lot of amazing scenes, and a lot of them are spoilery :) But here is one of my all-time favorite scenes from the drama, from episode 5. Shin Min Ah is completely drunk and her fiance (who she got coerced into accepting, long story) decides that nothing will make love of a disinterested woman blossom like a little date rape. So he has Rain (whom he hired to be SMA's bodyguard) drive them to his hotel and takes her inside. You would think this is a perfect opportunity for Rain to get a little revenge, isn't it? The woman responsible for his brother's ruin getting date raped. (And at the very least, he owes her nothing, the guy is rich etc etc). Well, click and find out what happens.
She is drinking with fiance:
Passed-out:
He drives them to the hotel and SMA is all 'I want to go hoooome' to which fiance reacts not at all.
I just love the shots through reflections:
*stab*
So prettily shot:
And fiance takes her away and is all 'see you in the morning.'
And Rain just sits in the car, unmoving.
YESSSSSSS! He just leaves the car and goes into the hotel, slow at first and then faster and faster.
Mirrored shots FTW!
The elevator is too slow so he runs. Up the stairs.
Ugh:
Yup, running:
dieeeeee. This woman doesn't want to marry you, doesn't know you from hole in the wall and is passed out. That spells 'leave her the hell alone.'
Man, that's a workout :)
Yup, it's the bodyguard. And he is telling Fiance some pretty unpalatable things: (1) I am her bodyguard, so it's my job to take care of her safety (2) so give her back so I can take her home. (3) She thinks she is in her own house!
Fiance is all 'I am the one who hired you and also we are engaged.' Rain reacts to these marvelous pronouncements not at all.
And walks straight past flabbergasted fiance.
Fiance is all 'you are fired, so now go away' to which Rain is 'that's your prerogative, but nontheless I will complete my duty for the day. I'll be taking her home.'
Fiance Smash! (Side note: Fiance is not just wannabe rapist, he is an idiot. Do you really want to physically mess with the guy you hired to be a bodyguard because he is so damn competent at hand-to-hand and other forms of violence).
But Rain lets him hit and still repeats 'Please let me take Miss ES home.'
Interruption because if the noise:
Rain calmly picks up passed out SMA and takes her away past the fiance.
I love the infinite reflections:
And here are other various scenes from the ep that I like.
Crisp colors:
SMA depressed:
Remembering his ex-gf, with whom he broke up out of obligation to Secondary Girl:
With Secondary Girl. OK, nobody repays a debt of gratitude by forcing himself to be with a girl you are not attracted to. Nobody but Rain...
But he flashbacks to kissing SMA on the beach and can't make himself do it, eee!
I love these shots:
This scene made me LOL.
So crisp!
