(no subject)

[skygiants]

You know how sometimes a show is more or less made for you in a lab, but also you watch the actual plot and you have some notes, and you're not actually sure it's good, per se, but also it was made for you in a lab?

Anyway, we just finished watching Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, the Kim Tae Ri vehicle about 1950s Korean all-female theater troupes in which the entire plot revolves around aspiring young lesbians competing to see who's going to be the Prince of the Theater.

Please admire these official portraits of the main cast:



Jeongnyeon! Our Heroine. Baby butch. Massive protagonist energy. FORBIDDEN to sing by her mother, who has some kind of tragic lesbian performance backstory, despite that she has the BEST VOICE in a GENERATION. In episode four someone tries to make her sing full femme with no genderplay and she revolts on live television.



Moon Okyeong, the established theater prince!! beloved of every baby lesbian in 1950s Korea!! fishes Jeongnyeon out of the sticks and inspires her to join the troupe in the hopes of molding her into a COMPETITOR who can CURE Moon Okyeong's TRAGIC ENNUI and SCHRODINGER'S MORPHINE ADDICTION with the power of HOMOEROTIC RIVALRY.



Seo Hyerang, the theater's most important femme. Moon Okyeong's toxic partner who does not approve of Okyeong experiencing homoerotic protege/rival emotions.



Heo Yeongsoo! My favorite. Jeongnyeon's OWN baby butch rival that she made HERSELF in the classic rival mode, a stiff and reserved rich girl with Family Issues whose Haughty Pride covers a Profound Passion for Theater, who only really comes alive when she gets to go onstage in full drag and play a prince or a villain. A real Mr. Darcy of a lesbian.

Jeongnyeon and Yeongsoo also have their own same-age femme whom they're constantly competing to perform with who for some reason does not get lead actress billing or one of these cool character portraits even though she is to all intents and purposes the female lead ... anyway here she is, she's extremely cute but needs to pick up some skills in communication



The experience of actually watching the show is a a bit of a roller coaster ... like one episode you're watching Jeongnyeon make the worst decisions that a human has ever made in their life, and the next episode you're just sitting back enjoying the experience of Theater Lesbians Practice The Big Villain Seduction Scene In Every Possible Casting Variation, and the next episode everyone is getting together to do the big performance when apparently nobody has ever practiced their actual blocking together before and you're like "why are you like this. surely a theater troupe cannot run this way" and then the next episode Moon Okyeong is looking simply unbelievably good in a suit.

Honestly most of the time even when something annoying was happening there was some lesbian looking good in an Outfit, so even at the times I was suffering I did not suffer! And most of the time I was not suffering, because a truth about me is I love absurd Method Theater Drama where people are constantly going out to Find their Characters and saying to each other 'show me ... your interpretation of the Foolish General! The one only you could bring!' My many years of reading Skip Beat! have prepared me perfectly for this experience.

[nb: when I say lesbians, nobody is doing anything more than tender embraces or fraught handholding on screen, and nobody is saying 'I am a lesbian', but like they are very unambiguously lesbians. The entire plot is powered by lesbian drama. Every two episodes or so a man shows up to do something like 'embezzle money' or 'vaguely menace' and then exits again.]

Do I think the ending is fully satisfying? No. Will I be requesting it for Yuletide? DESPERATELY. I hope they keep letting Kim Tae Ri play intense lesbians forever.

(Also, if anyone knows where to find scanlations of the webtoon it's based on, I am Extremely Interested in reading them ...)

Comments

[sovay]

a stiff and reserved rich girl with Family Issues whose Haughty Pride covers a Profound Passion for Theater, who only really comes alive when she gets to go onstage in full drag and play a prince or a villain. A real Mr. Darcy of a lesbian.

My life has no time for TV.

[skygiants]

It's only twelve episodes!!

[genarti]

IT'S SO FUN except when it's so frustrating and I DESPERATELY NEED YULETIDE TO GIVE ME CLOSURE ON LIKE SIX DIFFERENT PLOT THREADS AND ALSO THE POST-CANON--

[skygiants]

we will make this happen!!!

[caramarie]

I had heard of this but somehow osmosed nothing about it. Or possibly just nothing that would sell me as much as 'aspiring young lesbians competing to see who's going to be the Prince of the Theater' – now I have to check it out!

[skygiants]

SO MANY LESBIANS with SUCH BIG EMOTIONS

[thistleingrey]

wow what

I have no idea whether it's a good English rendering, but when I went to the last scanlation site I remembered browsing (several years ago!) and searched for the manhwa, I found this.

For anyone passing by who can handle the Korean text directly (I can't), here's the Webtoon landing page on Naver (official publication).

[skygiants]

wonderful thank you!!!

[whimsyful]

AHAHA I remember when this show was airing and I first learned about it I went "there is no way becca's not going to love this, it's basically laser targeted at her id".

[skygiants]

AND YOU WERE RIGHT

[kate_nepveu]

looks like an in-progress scanlation is here.

[skygiants]

last updated last month ... very promising, thank you!!

[meteordust]

This sounds amazing and the portraits are stunning.

I love absurd Method Theater Drama where people are constantly going out to Find their Characters and saying to each other 'show me ... your interpretation of the Foolish General! The one only you could bring!'

Okay, now I really have to watch this.

[skygiants]

I love the portraits SO much, they do such a good job capturing the characters just with pose and body language.

[trent_goulding]

I enjoyed this a lot, although I didn't love some of its narrative choices in the latter half-to-a-third or so. I'm given to understand that the actual webtoon on which it is based is more explicit in the lesbian themes, although as you note, even the subtext is obvious enough..

(Also, Kim Tae-ri won best actress (her second) at this year's Baeksang Arts for this role).

[skygiants]

yeah, the latter half-to-a-third is definitely where I started to think about Things I Would Have Done Differently (was not a huge fan of the screaming in a cave, while everyone else you know tells you it's a bad idea to scream in a cave, and then making a shocked pikachu face when you experience the exact consequences for screaming in a cave that you were warned would follow from screaming in a cave --)

however I am thrilled that she won Best Actress! more awards for Kim Tae-Ri!

[chestnut_pod]

Okay, amazing. Amazing! I have sent on this recommendation to many people who will make good use of it.

[skygiants]

I hope all those people enjoy it very much!

[nineveh_uk]

That sounds very RTMI.

[skygiants]

it certainly was relevant to mine!!

[delphi]

Oh man, those pictures and costumes are absolutely gorgeous.

[skygiants]

The costumes are SO stunning, I love all the shows-within-a-show!

[forestofglory]

See this show also seems like it was made for me in a lab yet I have watched four episodes and was not invested so I wandered off. I am extremely baffled by this turn of events!

[skygiants]

That's so fair! (For me episodes 5-7 were like the height of the experience when the relationships were really at their most Fun and Dramatic, and then the back third or so got a bit more frustrating again.)

[lirazel]

Omg Heo Yeongsoo sounds like MY KIND OF CHARACTER. I know I will not find the time to actually watch this show but I won't say this post didn't tempt me!

[skygiants]

It's only twelve episodes! That's not so much time at all!

[hebethen]

I had heard conflicting vague intel about this one so appreciate the detailed intel (intail? detel?)

[skygiants]

I'm honestly shocked how long it took me to hear any intel about it at all!