Work Later, Drink Now Season 2 (TVING Original Series)

Lee Heewon: Setup, confrontation, resolution, and cheers! “Work Later, Drink Now” is back. But with a twist. The latest season opens with an oxymoronic setup: our three quasi-professional drinkers have sworn off the drink and live in nature. So-hee (Lee Sun-bin) and Ji-goo (Jung Eun-ji) had gone in search of Ji-yeon (Han Sun-hwa) who had fled to the ends of the earth quite literally – Ttang-ggeut Maeul (Name of the village located at the southernmost tip of the Korean peninsula that translates to “Land’s End Village”) – ahead of her cancer treatment. They end up traveling all corners of the country and simply having a blast. When Ji-yeon sees her doctor again, he tells her “the tumor markers have gone down by 10%”. So the two women decide to give up drinking for Ji-yeon, though it was often the only fun in their lives. They build a home in the mountains and even start to farm. After 26 months of a teetotaler existence in the hills, Ji-yeon’s condition improves greatly and she no longer needs medical treatment. As the friends leave the hospital, So-hee says in a voiceover, “Our decision was right, and our faith was also pretty badass.” Perhaps it was all just a happy coincidence, but the three women have found faith in themselves. They return to life in the city with this reinvigorated sense of solidarity. The city has also changed much more than they had predicted during their two-year absence. As they slowly acclimatize to a new routine, in their homes they now have a new set of lifestyle rules for a better relationship with alcohol: “No day-drinking, no weekday drinking, no all-night drinking.” If Season 1 showed us the unsophisticated but honest fun of raucous drinking sessions, Season 2 shows us the three friends learning to place other joys at the center of their lives with alcohol as a light setup. And throughout all of this it is friendship that keeps shining on, at last even outshining the glamor of the alcohol-fueled party life.

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK

Im Sooyeon (CINE21 Reporter): The saying goes something like this: to be remembered as the best, walk away at your best. This is what happened with the basketball comic book series “SLAM DUNK”. It still remains embedded in our minds as an almost perfect masterpiece. 26 years since the final scenes were published, we are treated to a cinematic adaptation. The animated feature film “THE FIRST SLAM DUNK” focuses on the longest and most intense matchup at nationals between the chief protagonist’s team (Buksan High) and its rival (Sanwang High) in an epic event known familiarly to Korean audiences as the Sanwang-jeon. Instead of new episodes, the film gives us the first ever motion picture rendition of what may be considered the series’ climax. Creative reinterpretation is balanced out by the decision to stay faithful to the style of the original artwork, thus reproducing the comics’ trademark bold lines and powerful movements on the silver screen. Precisely because of this the film will feel like a satisfying fan-appreciation event for movie-goers who remember the “SLAM DUNK” comics of the 90s. The shift away from using the two most famous characters (Kang Baek-ho, Seo Tae-woong) in favor of an arguably second-tier character (Song Tae-seob) to narrate the story is worth mentioning. Choosing a narrative perspective that was rather neglected in the original telling of events fills in the gaps in a way that hits the spot for hard-core fans who read into the most trivial gestures of the most minor characters. “SLAM DUNK” comics creator Inoue Takehiko is the scriptwriter and director. 

“Mountain Top” (ELLEGARDEN)

Kim Doheon (Music Critic): Once again, ELLEGARDEN. The youthful punk rockers who made rock music fans’ hearts beat a little faster in both Korea and Japan with their brash but compelling melodies in the earl-to-mid 2000s have returned after an exceptionally long hiatus of 16 years with their sixth full length album. It is titled “The End of Yesterday”. When the band decided to take a break in 2008, the promise they made to their fans was to use this time to fully explore their artistic calling through each member’s unique perspective. ELLEGARDEN’s four members, Hosomi Takeshi, Ubukata Shinichi, Takada Yuichi, and Takahashi Hirotaka, have indeed kept this promise. Hosomi Takeshi formed the HIATUS and MONOEYES and created memorable tracks. We can also hear artistic evolution take place for Ubukata Shinichi in his rock band Nothing’s Carved in Stone, for Takada Yuichi in his heavy-metal band MEANING, and for Takahashi Hirotaka it is in THE PREDATORS. They announced a return to their ELLEGARDEN form in 2018 and expectations have been growing since. At last they have announced their musical return with a much-awaited new album. The results are impressive. The melodies are written with an incredibly sensitive understanding of today’s trends and performed with scintillating chemistry that makes one question if they had ever been apart. It is a masterclass in how to temper youthful fearlessness with a veteran musician’s experience. ELLEGARDEN has returned to peak form from whence they set our hearts on fire with the declaration that “I am that being who desires, to explode into flames, to go on a quest, to fight that ‘last duel’”; this fiery declaration being the lyrics to the first track, “Mountain Top”. The entire album is a must-listen.