Lovely Runner (tvN)
Ahn Kimdaeun: “Run away with Sun-jae on your back” is Im Sol’s (Kim Hye-yoon) fan café username. She has been a die-hard fan of the band Eclipse for over 10 years, and her favorite member, or “bias” is vocalist Ryu Sun-jae (Byeon Woo-seok). Sun-jae was what made Sol get up the next morning even when surviving day to day seemed too much to bear. But when she sees the news of Sun-jae’s sudden death she runs until she loses her breath at the opportunity to go back in time to save his life. Lovely Runner which is a television adaptation of the webtoon series Tomorrow’s Best takes Im Sol back 15 years in time to change Ryu Sun-jae’s fate. Sol hopes that Sun-jae never feels unhappy, not for a single moment, which is why she tries her best to prevent her favorite vocalist from joining Eclipse. Sol seeks high-school student Baek In-hyuk (Lee Seung-hyub) who later becomes the leader of Eclipse and asks him not to take Sun-jae to the audition. She even secretly rips up the business card that Representative Kim (Ahn Sang-woo) gives Sun-jae to cast him. However, despite all of Sol’s efforts, Sun-jae manages to get up on stage and sing. And he is glorious. Sol finally sees what she had been trying hard to ignore: she can’t stop herself from loving her “bias.” She and cries and laughs as she sees Sun-jae perform. 

When Sol tells Sun-jae, “Even if you’re in a different time period, I’ll overcome it somehow and come see you. I told you I’m your fan.” she isn’t comforting him half-heartedly, nor is she making a meaningless promise that she will forget in a few days. She expresses what had been deep down in her heart, with the hopes that those feelings get through to her bias. It is something anyone who has been a fan of someone can relate to. Sol who runs as fast as she can to comfort Sun-jae, just like she had been comforted by Eclipse doesn’t stop even when she cuts her knee from falling over. She simply regains her breath, and sprints forward. Just like the lyrics in one of Eclipse’s songs that says, “I will always be by your side / With you for all time, for all days.” 

The Fall Guy
Jeong Seohui (Cinema Journalist): The new film The Fall Guy directed by former stuntman David Leitch is an homage to stunt performers that is layered with romance and comedy. Veteran stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), who suffers from a serious crash, falls into despair after finding out that his injuries would be permanent. He disappears without saying a word to anybody, not even his girlfriend Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), and starts to make his living as a valet. 18 months later, Colt goes back to doing stunts and the two awkwardly meet again on the movie set of Jody’s directorial debut film Metal Storm. While Colt keeps giving Jody intense looks, she is unable to hide her resentment mixed with whatever feelings that are left for him and makes him suffer on set. The complexly woven plot with Colt getting sucked into nefarious schemes as he tries to finally get his love and career back on track is tied together nicely with the actors’ witty acting. The film is a true celebration of the spectacular stunts that are made possible precisely because the hero is a stunt performer. Colt who can drive his own car chase scenes, and endure the scorching fire overcomes a real-life shoot-out and hand-to-hand combat when he gets swept up in a series of incidents. He fights the fight of a desperate man every time. Ryan Gosling’s stunt driver Logan Holladay set a new Guinness World Record for eight and a half cannon rolls in a car, which is one of the hardest driving stunts that involves spinning the vehicle. In doing so, the film truly highlights the unsung heroes and carves their contributions to the industry in stone. As the title of the film suggests, the stunt performers are always the scapegoats who take over when things get dangerous without receiving much recognition. They are deemed more professional the less they are exposed. This film sheds light on this peculiar irony; it is a film about film.

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
Kim Boksung (Writer): If you ever read something by Jane Austen or one of her contemporaries and thought, “What this needs is some body-swapping shenanigans,” then Poor Things by the late Alasdair Gray might be for you.
A Victorian, Frankenstein story written from a postmodern, satirical, arguably feminist angle, the novel’s central themes all revolve around a girl’s brain (supposedly) placed in a woman’s body. Told from numerous perspectives all woven throughout one metatext, Bella—the alleged Frankenstein-like creation—really gets the last laugh, as she enjoys the world around her, unabashed, while so many of the other characters who inhabit it are bumbling men who think they can control Bella (and who are so woefully unaware that one even compares himself favorably to “that tormented hero, that respectable member of the professional middle class,” Faust).
The book eschews categorization, taking what on the surface is a comedy and layering on so much dry humor in the form of questionable footnotes, bizarre illustrations, conflicting perspectives, and dubious medical practices that it reads like some sort of Voynich manuscript with political satire in place of plants.
Originally published in the 1990s, Poor Things was recently rereleased to support the new movie. While the film version doesn’t privilege Bella’s perspective as much, the original novel is so stuffed with unreliable narration that it practically insists to the reader that their interpretation is the correct one, making this a timeless read.

Peppertones - Twenty Plenty
Kim Doheon (Music Critic): Puberty came. I was hit with an unfamiliar wave of loneliness and depression for the first time in my life. There was always a dark cloud above my head. Thankfully, that was when Peppertones debuted. The duo who appeared on the music scene with the slogan “the new therapy band for depression” combined Japanese Shibuya style music by the likes of KIRINJI, Cymbals, and Yoko Kanno, and quick-paced acoustic rock with a bright melody layered over a foundation of complex harmonics and a multi-tiered rhythmic structure. Whenever my mundane teen days felt unbearably listless and tedious, I listened to Peppertones. That was 20 years ago. Since then, Shin Jae-pyeong and Lee Jang-won have gone through many different styles. They skimmed off the electronic sounds and focused more on the structure of their band, embraced rough sounds, and swung between the larger world and the universal everyday life as they jumped to and from real life and fantasy. Their 20th anniversary album entitled Twenty Plenty contains their unreleased songs, and tracks recorded by younger artists that are dedicated to the duo, who had been singing, always with youth in their hearts. Sumin’s “At the End of the Season” that perfectly expressed the passage of time by expertly controlling the tempo is the first on the roster to honor their history. Bands that shaped today’s Korean band scene like Jannabi, LUCY, Mr. Nah Band, wave to earth, YUDABINBAND, and Dragon Pony, as well as Lee Jin-ah, Stellah Jang, Jeong Dong-hwan, and Kwon Soon-kwan each recreated fragments of Peppertone’s career. Their earlier works can be found on the second disc. A remix of “Freshman,” which is arguably one of their best offerings, gives us a taste of what is quintessentially Peppertones. Some songs, you can’t help but feel a strong sense of gratitude towards because they have always been there for you. Today’s overcast sky is bound to clear up as you listen to “riders” that sings, “Though they say nothing lasts forever/ The sky remains blue as we imagine the sparkling sea.”