ORANGE MARMALADE - EPISODE 5

See that star? That's where Kim Soo Hyun is from.

After watching this episode, I really have to accept the fact that it's practically a different drama:

We find ourselves watching the same characters in the Joseon period, 17th century. The vampires are planning an uprising to take over the country, but students Jae Min and Shi Hoo are unconcerned. Instead they've got their own dramas to play out. Ma Ri's family is not interested in the war against the humans, they just want to live in peace. Jae Min finds Ma Ri playing a flute in the forest and manages to run afoul of a venomous snake. Ma Ri sucks out the poison, but runs off when she begins the vampire freakout. Shi Hoo finds Jae Min�and gets him to safety. Shi Hoo is a troublemaker in this era; he leaves the school grounds, running off to fight for prize money, to whorehouses and other unsavory activities. He even laces the school's meat with laxatives, leading to the capture of Ma Ri's father, the butcher who supplies the school with meat. The school believes he sold them tainted product. When Shi Hoo confesses, her father is set free. Later, Ma Ri deals with some thugs that cross her path, and this gets Shi Hoo's heart thumping. He moves in to administer a proper ass-kicking. When he's done, Ma Ri has run off. At the end of the episode, both Jae Min and Shi Hoo sit side by side, daydreaming out loud about Ma Ri...��


"She's so hot, but her poetry is so bad."

Why did they switch it up? I understand that vampires and their role in this show stems from events in the Joseon era, but why are the characters there? There are fans who were confused by the two weeks later/two months later time shifts, how much more confused are they going to be when we jump back 300 years or so? Probably about the time I get used to it, they'll shift us back to the present.

The characters, to me, are very different, which goes right along with the time period. Ma Ri is happy with her role in this society, free to do what she wishes. None of that loner vampire-angst here. Jae Min and Shi Hoo are polar opposites and friends in the Joseon sequence. They are both disappointments to their families. Jae Min is an academic among fighters, and Shi Hoo's scholarly family can't stand the fact that he is a fighter. This time, they both are crushing on Ma Ri, and for entirely different reasons.


What she *really* looks like in the morning

The fight scene with Ma Ri was...underwhelming (I'm being nice for a change). Seolhyun is obviously not a fighter, and it showed here. The blows and dodges were unconvincing, and everything seemed slow and stilted. I think there were ways to make it way better than it was, but they decided to film it all vanilla and un-enhanced. I would have liked to see some slow-mo effects and maybe unusual displays of vampire speed or strength.

Apparently this is massively different from the manhwa. But I think series based on some other media are always going to have a different component to them because eventually the source material ends. 'Game of Thrones,' for example, has caught up to the books, and so the writers are creating original stories that extend beyond the books. Superhero movies are never the same as the comics. As long as I'm entertained, I'm not concerned. But if I've read the source material, you better wow me with something better. I haven't read the manhwa, so I'm enjoying this.


Irate fans showed him why you don't diss Girl's Generation

All in all, it's not bad. I understand they were setting everything up last episode, but I'm still not sure what the Joseon thing has to do with what we've already seen in the previous episodes. There had to be a less jarring way to transition between the eras, but I'm not sure how to do it. I'm yanking a point because they couldn't figure it out.

Still, I hope you're sticking with it. I'm loving it, despite my confusion.

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