Dream Knight (드림 나이트) Episode 1 Recap

So this is a show much like EXO Next Door: it is a webseries that stars a K-pop group and a hopelessly stupid girl who's mostly an avatar for drooling fangirls and has a lot of fanservice. However, the setting is very different, and there's supernatural elements that require even more suspension of disbelief than EXO Next Door.

The Intro:
We open on a castle with a bunch of craft herpes floating in the air and a girl wearing a pretty red dress walking around. It's like an MV, or a cover photoshoot for every modern YA novel ever. After we get a few gratuitous shots of her face, JB appears out of the glitter and they start to dance. He's wearing a completely white outfit and has glitter on his face that looks like VIXX's glitter makeup from On and On. Junior materializes out of a cloud of black glitter (that actually looks like flies) with a black outfit and the same glitter makeup that JB has. Jackson, Mark, and Youngjae materialize behind JB, wearing white, while Bambam and Yoogyeom (soo hard to type, ugh) appear behing Junior wearing black. Whoa, no need to beat me over the head with symbolism here. They dance and circle around the girl like they're birds putting on a mating display. The girl and JB hold each other and are about to kiss, when the screen goes black and the title comes up, all glittery like this is some Cinderella movie.





This episode is called "There's Something Special About Them." Yup, definitely something "special." We cut to Our Hero, In Hyung, who is asleep on her desk at school. Some girls throw coins at her and laugh. I may be being culturally insensitive, but a girl having the syllable "Hyung" in her name is kind of funny to me. A pink-haired Mean Girl (MG) (who makes me think of Luhan and Sehun for some reason) teases her for sleeping at school. I wouldn't tease her, I'd tie her shoelaces together or something and then snicker while she tripped. I like being passively mean like that.

MG exposits that In Hyung's "millionaire mom" died and so she (In Hyung) became homeless. In Hyung mutters that she's camping, not homeless. MG gives her a coin and tells her to buy some bread with it. MG's cronies, for some reason, find this hilarious.
Wow, these girls must be super bored to be bugging In Hyung--they should be beating each other up over whose bias is best, like normal girls.

In Hyung jumps up and yells out MG's name (Lee Je Ni) and a dramatic chord plays. Oh, is In Hyung going to break the K-drama girl mold and actually have a backbone?  But no, In Hyung smiles, looking very much like Haruhi from the live action version of Ouran Highschool Host Club. A quick shot of her back reveals there's a note taped to it. My Korean game isn't very strong currently, so I assume it's some variant of "Kick Me."

(okay, actually, I typed what the sign SEEMED to say--그러라고 보낸 학교가 아닐텐데--into Google Translate, and got "I would not be the school I sent you." soo...the sign is saying something like "I don't belong at this school"? Interestingly, KissAsian translates it to "School is a place for you to sleep?")

Draw your own conclusions.

In Hyung sweetly informs Je Ni that "you can't buy anything with a hundred won these days. Give me five hundred won next time." I feel ya, girl. Penny candy has gone the way of the dinosaur. (Oh, and apparently 500 won is 42 cents with the current exchange rate. Hoo boy.) Je Ni mutters that In Hyung is being sassy (not really) as In Hyung blithely skips away. Sure, the K-drama girls are always sassy. In the pilot. Then they lose their backbone in the blink of an eye when the Hawt Guy shows up. Another dramatic chord plays, and--oh no--In Hyung trips! The screen freezes, and Korean letters spell out: "Joo In Hyung: The ultimate  positive type." HAHAHAHA. Suuure. Like Jan Di was positive?

In Hyung falls in slow motion, prompting another round of giggles from the class. I admit I find pratfalls more funny than someone my age should (same with bathroom humor), but I didn't think most other people were so easily amused. Oh wait. They have to persecute the Poor Main Girl. Huh, I wonder what In Hyung's "fatal flaw" will be. Clumsiness? I can only hope for something that tame and uncomplicated. After falling, In Hyung makes a face that could indicate that either she's gassy or she just remembered she left the straightener on.

We cut to the door, where a Hawt Guy (JB) strides in in slo-mo accompanied by three other slightly less Hawt Guys (Jackson, Mark, and Youngjae). (I use the term Hawt Guy loosely here; I think Jackson is WAAAAY hotter than JB). JB asks if In Hyung is OK, and helps her up. WOW, a K-drama guy love  interest being the slightest bit nice? I think I'm gonna die of shock. The guys go past the camera, and we get a nice shot of all their faces in slo-mo. I guess the effect would be better if they weren't making such weird faces.

Then they do this REALLY weird thing where they show off what their powers are. They snap their fingers to let their powers lose on Je Ni and her cronies. So apparently, JB has ice/cold powers, Jackson has fire/heat powers, Mark has love powers [!], and Youngjae has wind/air powers. However, Mark's powers only make people start furiously hugging each other. People of the same gender. Yeah. No one notices that these four new guys have powers, because they're morons and this is a piddly little web series with very little room for plot and character development.

In Hyung, meanwhile, has gone to the roof. She slaps herself upside the head like she's trying to get water out of her ears and wonders why she had to fall "right then." Right when four Hawt Guys came in, you mean? But In Hyung, you're a  K-drama girl. Your embarrassment has to be Over 9000 and Up To 11 at all times.

In Hyung skips over to her "dancing station" which is a bunch of whiteboards, mirrors, potted plants, and posters of GOT, which is made up of Junior, Yoogyeom, and Bambam (because GOT7 doesn't exist in this universe). She happily sprays some potted plants. As we will see later, In Hyung has a thing for keeping her stuff outside without a thought for thievery, rain, wind, animal, or bug damage. (how often does it rain in Seoul/S. Korea anyway?) A strange thing I've noticed in K-dramas is that schools often seem to store excess equipment (chairs and whatnot) on the roof. I've seen it enough times that it might actually be Truth in Television.


The sign is still on In Hyung's back. She tells Poster Junior (who I will call Junior rather than JR to avoid any confusion with JB) that she's totally holding back, and mock karate chops CG bubbles of Je Ni and her cronies.

We then get a shot of the Hawt Guys jumping down from somewhere [?] and I have to admit, the shot makes them look kind of cool, like they're superheroes or something. I assume they followed her up to the roof. In Hyung pauses in her karate-chopping to fix her hair in the mirror. JB takes this opportunity to pull the note off her back. Apparently having not heard or seen them coming, despite there being a huge-ass mirror in front of her, In Hyung screeches and whirls around. Yet another piece of evidence to support my theory that K-drama girls Don't Have Peripheral Vision.

In Hyung demands to know who the guys are (uh, her classmates, maybe? She just saw them, and they're wearing school uniforms) and how they got there. Uh yeah, it's called walking (or, in their case, jumping). And it's not like there's a fence around her little rooftop area or something. Anyone can go there. 

JB wonders if karate-chopping helps her manage her stress. He says her "martial arts skills haven't improved." What? Since when did she have any "skills" in martial arts? In Hyung wonders how he could possibly know this bit of extremely personal information. Youngjae and Jackson imply that they know her and she knows them, while In Hyung holds her faux-martial arts pose, slowly backing toward her plants and other stuff. Ha. Like karate-chopping them is gonna help. She should smash the mirror over their heads.

Mark says it's totes fine that she doesn't recognize them--she can get to know them! He touches her head in a creepy, robotic way, prompting In Hyung to back up even farther and demand AGAIN to know who they are. She threatens them with her fists of fury, and screeches at them to leave, before suddenly running off herself. [??] 

The guys look moderately confused--about as confused as singers-turned-actors can look. Jackson mutters that this situation is frustrating, and wonders to JB why they can't just tell her. Oh boy. I'm preparing for some incredibly contrived reason as to why they can't.  JB snootily tells him "You know the rule." Uh huh. Okay, if this "Rule" is so incredibly important, WHY DON'T THEY JUST PRETEND TO GET TO KNOW HER INSTEAD OF FREAKING HER OUT FIRST?? Seriously, how hard is that?

In Hyung stops in her mad flight down the stairs from the roof and wonders aloud "what" the guys are. Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots, obvi. She entertains the possibility that maybe they DO know her for about 1.5 seconds, then shakes the stupid thought out of her head and continues going down the stairs. 

A song plays (GOT7's Girls, Girls--how appropriate), and some girls scream, so you can tell a celebrity is coming. A group of screaming girls (plus some random guys) crowds around a van like they're hungry zombies and the last humans alive are inside. GOT has come to visit the school. For some reason. Junior coolly opens the door and steps out coolly. His face freezes and morphs into a newspaper picture. The newspaper headline helpfully exposits that GOT, "the top idol group, captures the Chinese music market." Cool, but I think in this universe, EXO has them beat.

Text on the screen further info-dumps that Junior's real name is Park Jin Young, and he "is best at everything." O RLY? Good, then I'll hire him to clean out my rat-filled shed and then hack the NSA database. (NSA, I am kidding. I am not planning to hack your database. Ever. I am not even half smart enough. Plz do not spy on me any more than you already are. Love, You Know My Name Already.)

Bambam comes out next, with gorgeous cotton-candy blue hair and an orange striped lollipop, looking utterly adorable (not quite sure why, but kpop guys look way better with blue hair). Another newspaper informs us that GOT is "Korea's number one idol group." (Ha, they wish.) More text states that Bambam is "the cute ladies man." [lol] Cute, definitely. <3 Ladies' man? IIIII don't know. I think this might be an example of an Informed Attribute. 

Last to exit the van is Yoogyeom (or Yoo Gyum). His newspaper says that GOT fans  swarmed and paralyzed the Beijing airport. LOL. So they ARE zombies. Apparently, he is "the adorable youngest member, the best dancer." Okay. Great. Give me a fistfight, I'm bored. (Oh, and Gyum sounds like a pharmaceutical company or a unit of measurement for radiation.)

Junior coolly does the Miss America wave to the screaming girls. In Hyung, who has apparently reached the bottom of the stairs, is bouncing around in the back like she's on a freaking pogo stick. Ooh, who wants to bet she's about to do something SUPER embarrassing right in front of Junior? Also, I bet that Junior and In Hyung have some sort of past connection, like Chanyeol and Yeonhee did in EXO Next Door.

We get a...uh..."nice" shot of JR grinning widely at the camera, showing off his large set of teeth, while cartoon hearts dance around his head. In Hyung has hearts around her head and stars in her eyes as she boing-boings up and down, staring at JR. Okay, I probably shouldn't be so hard on her...I'd do the exact same thing to Ravi, Hongbin, N, Chen, Xiumin, and, well...most K-pop stars I know of. I'm that desperate.

We then cut to a shot of In Hyung walking onto the roof at night. A caption helpfully informs us that this is six months ago. She peeks over a low wall to see Junior dancing to the same song, on the same roof, right at her dancing station. He's obviously trying VERY hard to learn this dance, gritting his teeth and whatnot. In Hyung smirks. She's "never seen this side of him." Oh, so he demands all pictures of him be taken from one side like Ariana Grande does?

JR marks off a tic mark next to a bunch of drawings of dance moves. He's keeping track of how many times he practices a particular move. His phone buzzes, and he answers it, seeming a bit pissed off. Or maybe he just pulled a muscle. He assures the person on the other end that he already finished his dance practice. He hangs up, and, like any good lil' Asian, goes right back to practice. For some reason, In Hyung finds this infinitely amusing. Well, I guess she takes it where she can get it.

Flash back to the present day, where In Hyung is still gazing dreamily at Junior. JB's foursome comes up behind her. Jackson asks her if she's had "enough" (THANK YOU) and grabs at her arm. In Hyung tells him to get lost, and, in trying to avoid the Possessive Wrist Grab, trips backwards and elbows Junior in the crotch. We get a series of oh-so-lovely shots of everyone's horrified slo-mo reaction (except Jackson and Mark, they're loving it). Yoogyeom and Bambam try to help Junior, and the other kids gather around and take about a billion pictures and videos and post them online.

That night, The Man In The Moon (no really, there's a dude's face superimposed over the moon) looks down disparagingly at In Hyung, who is outside, in front of her trailer (where I assume she lives) in bed [?]. I guess the superpowers, the Man in the Moon, and her outside bed are proof that this show does not take place in our universe.



Her phone makes a noise. What, she has people calling her? I thought she was a friendless loser. I guess I'm right, because it wasn't a call; it was a notification of a video. (Can anyone guess what it is?) Yep, it's a video of her elbowing Junior. She reads the comments, and freaks at the mean names and fangirls' threats. The comments, BTW, float in the air and slap her around, Ouran Highschool Host Club style. 

Finally managing to beat away the sentient comments, In Hyung states that she's become an "outcast". OH NO REALLY?? Seriously, wasn't she one before? And...most Kdrama girls have to be outcasts anyway, so...

She remember's Mark and Jackson's laughing faces, and mutters that it's all their fault. Well...she could have hit THEM or elbowed THEM in the crotch. She didn't HAVE to walk backwards. In Hyung stretches out on her bed and looks up at the stars. She asks her mom if she's doing well. 

What I imagine Mom to say: "I'm doing wonderfully, dear. I just had tea with Joan of Arc. Now get your bed inside, you idiot. You'll catch your death of cold. And make sure you eat!" We pan up to show that In Huyng's trailer is by some sort of body of water; I can't tell if it's a river or lake. A line of lights nearby keeps the place moderately well lit.



Fade to day, cut to a close-up shot of In Hyung's face. Still, I can see that there are at least two other people in bed with her. In Hyung turns over and half-hugs the person on her left. She opens her eyes, and we get a SUPER IMAX HD 3D DIGITAL 1080P ULTRA AIRBRUSHED shot of JB's face, with long, gratuitous pans to and from his mouth. He's not my type in the slightest (cute little dudes FTW), but I guess JB fangirls would totally freak out at this scene. In Hyung stares at his mouth for a few seconds, and he asks her what she's looking at. She stares for a few more seconds, then the data that there's a strange dude in her bed reaches her brain. So, naturally, she sits up and screams her freaking head off. And...the episode ends with an oh-so-lovely freeze frame of Our Hero screaming into the camera like a rabid raccoon just chewed her toe off.

ZEDD Cross Gene Movie Recap Part 2

So my arm and shoulder are better, but now my left knee is hurting like crazy. I don't know why; I've just sat around on my butt and watched VIXX TV and VIXX MVs (making the most of my break, yo). If I was a hypochondriac, I'd say I had early onset arthritis or a degenerative joint disorder or Satansoo put a curse on me or something for admitting I wanted to squeeze him.


(picture is not mine obvi)

Anyway, we last left off with Cross Gene arguing on whether or not they should focus on their new song or get to a possible sanctuary. They have a ridiculous riddle to decode before they can find the sanctuary. 

Some unidentified amount of time after Seyoung leaves Youngseok outside, Cross Gene goes to sleep. Okay, they sleep. Good to know. Interestingly, none of them even try to sleep in a comfortable place or use anything resembling pillows or blankets; they just sleep right on the floor, like babies/little kids do (I used to like sleeping under tables. The carpet was just soft enough.)

The next day (I assume it's the next day), they go into a building that resembles a cross between the museum in BTS's Blood Sweat and Tears MV and the mall where Jonnie and those other guys get ambushed by the Psychlos in Battlefield Earth. It's littered with the ubiquitous paper trash that is used in post-apocalyptic movies to make places look Desolate and Empty (I'm looking at you, 28 Days Later).

BTS's museum...

Ridiculously well-built mall...

And Cross Gene's building.

They sneak around with their guns, like they're expecting an ambush of bloodthirsty vampire bats or something (they keep looking up). Seyoung says they need to find ammunition.

...Interesting place to look for ammunition, isn't it? Next time, I suggest a Walmart or a gun store (wait, are there Walmarts in China or wherever the heck this is supposed to be set?) Casper suggests they split up, and Shin and Takuya go with him. Going up the stairs, Casper and Takuya have another mini-argument regarding music or survival. Seyoung's group (him, Sangmin, and Youngseok) goes into a hallway lined with jail cells [??]. So...is this a courthouse?? I seriously doubt a regular jail would have such an elaborate entrance. Youngseok muses that the place looks familiar, and Sangmin wonders what happened to the dude who framed them. Good, at least there's *some* explanation as to why they got sent to jail. Seyoung and Youngseok say that maybe he's a zombie if karma came back to bite him in the butt.

Somehow, Sangmin makes the logical leap from "bad guy might be zombie" to "everyone who's a zombie must have done something bad." [?] I'd just assume he was a zombie, because, you know, *most* people are zombies now (in the movie. not in the real world). Sangmin feels sorry for the kids that have to be zombies too. (Don't they turn into zombies because someone bites them, not because they did something bad?) Seyoung says that they can't save them, since they aren't doctors or scientists. Well, not with that attitude you can't. Sangmin and Youngseok reminisce about a dude in prison who wrote with his hips [?]. They start wiggling their hips and yelling, while Seyoung unsuccessfully tries to shush them.

Meanwhile, Casper, Shin, and Takuya are arguing over which canned food is best. Shin says Spam (obligatory link to the Monty Python skit), Casper, scallops (yummmm), and Takuya, tuna (blegh). Shin says that scallops stink (what is with ur nose dude? Tuna STINKS). Casper points this out, just as they hear something up ahead. They instantly aim their guns at the hallway in front of them. After a while, a girl peeks out of one of the doorways. They wonder if she's a zombie or not, as some zombies charge at them from a hallway perpendicular to theirs.

Apparently, they have No Peripheral Vision (and they're slightly deaf), but Casper notices the undead horde charging at them just in time and starts shooting. Seyoung hears the shots and runs off, Sangmin and Youngseok following. In an office (seriously, what kind of building has a museum entrance, a Von-Trapp-esque staircase, jail cells, AND offices?), Casper's group has taken refuge behind some desks, while a few zombies shuffle around looking for them. Casper has run out of ammo (way to go, buddy), so Takuya gives him some. Shin looks at his belt, mutters that they need to save the girl, and runs off.

The girl (who's around 10-12, maybe) runs out of the building, Shin following her silently. He chases her down some fire-escape-like stairs in to something that resembles an alley. Hey, dude, how about saying that you're here to help instead of chasing her like some predator? She stops in a corner, next to a conspicuously open window. Shin catches up to her, yelling that they need to leave before the zombies get there. She just hugs an ugly blue bear and stands there.

Shin and Casper both grab at her and try to make her come with them. Takuya tells them to chill and adopts a gentler but slower approach. Seriously, the  three of them could probably grab her and drag her off...it's better than being chewed to jerky by a bunch of white American extras in runny makeup and rubber masks. Takuya holds out a chocolate bar and coaxes her forward with it. Good man. Chocolate is the way to a woman's heart.

Except for those freaks who don't like chocolate because it's too bitter for them.

Suddenly, a zombie comes out of the open window. Takuya shoves the girl back towards Casper and Shin, and the zombie starts gnawing on his neck. 

"I love you/Baby I'm not a monster..."

Even though he's literally a few feet away, Casper is reluctant to shoot the zombie because he's afraid of hitting Takuya. Seyoung, standing quite a ways away on the stairs leading to the rooftop or alley or wherever the heck Casper/Shin/Takuya/Girl/Zombie are, shoots it instead. Horrified, Shin puts his hands on Takuya's neck to stop the blood. Yeah, Shin is totally upset. Now he won't be able to blow on Takuya's neck anymore. 

Takuya says to kill him before he turns into a zombie. Shin is like "Aw, heck no, bro!" and opens his eyes INCREDIBLY WIDE--wider than IU's even. Shin starts screaming and crying that they totally can't kill Takuya and overacts horribly. That's kind of strange; he seemed like a fairly good actor in Big and Bachelor Vegetable Store. A whiny, bratty, ditzy, spoiled actor nonetheless, but still better than the crazy-eyed screaming beast that he is in Zedd. Seyoung points his gun at Takuya, preparing to put a bullet in his brain, and Shin screams and cries even more.