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MY RECENT KOREAN ADVENTURE

My world adventure has not started yet, but I did just complete a Netflix Korean series, which inspired two follow-up meals featuring one of their popular alcoholic drinks that dominated in the show and, it turns out, also throughout the world.  Jinro Soju sells three times the volume of its nearest competitors, which are McDowell's No. 1 Whisky and Officers's Choice, both from India.

Crash Landing on You was a marathon event.  Rated 98 by Rotten Tomatoes audiences, the series had 16 episodes, each about an hour and a half long, with a finale of two hours.  Add them up, and you get 24.5 hours, the equivalent of twelve films.

For two decades now I've felt that the best films came from Korea.  My frequent international travels meant that I watched quite a number of them on the flights, and there was something special about productions from that country.  They get to you emotionally.  That gave me an inkling of those Korean soap operas (also called dramas) so popular in Hawaii on TV.  Never watched any of them, and thought I never would, but CLoY embarrassingly qualifies as one.

CLoY is a kind of comedy, but much more:

  • Contrasts life in South and North Korea.
  • Features two impossible love stories.
  • People are eating all the time.
  • Invariably there are bottles of Jinro Soju involved.
However, what the producers/writers did was cover all their bases to satisfy their total audiences.  Thus, there were too many hand to hand combat scenes, car chases, soft background love songs and the like.  Skipped scenes became flashbacks, and were done on purpose to build curiosity.  Even then, there were flaws in relationships that can only be explained as technical mistakes.  The ending was as good as it can get if you're really creative.  I would not be surprised if there someday comes a Season 2, for a lot of questions come to mind about how the two main characters can possibly develop a long life together.

Those two are both 39, but look younger, and I don't recall seeing them in any previous films.  Hyun Bin is excellent as the North Korea captain who came from an influential family and was also a concert pianist.  As harsh as life may be in that country, there was some disbelief in that the lifestyles there are not much different from here.
The person who you fall in love with is Son Ye-jin.  Something about her reminds me of someone I once knew, but can't figure out who.  Reportedly, plastic surgery helped.  She plays an heiress who accidentally gets carried in a storm while hang gliding into the lap of you know who.  She is in another recent series, Something in the Rain, but it has not yet been rated by Rotten Tomatoes.  That remains a problem.  Most of the recent Korean series are not yet evaluated, and there are lots, many of them no doubt to later get excellent scores.

Both Hyun and Son star in a 2018 film, The Negotiation, which only got 60/67 scores from Rotten Tomatoes.  Here is a list of the best 30 best Korean films from Netflix according to Rotten Tomatoes:
  • #1  Poetry (2011), 100/86:  A sixty-something woman, faced with a crippling medical diagnosis and the discovery of a heinous family crime, finds strength and... [More]
  • #2  Age of Shadows (2016), 100/82:  Lee Jung-chool (SONG Kang-ho), a Korean police captain in the Japanese police force, is given a special mission to infiltrate... [More]
  • #3  Parasite (2019), 98/90:  This is the film that won the Oscar last year.
  • #8  The Handmaiden (2016), 98/91:  I saw this a couple of years ago.  Provocative.
  • #11  Train to Busan (2016), 94/81:  Not bad for a zombie film.

So, inspired by CLoY, I bought a bottle of Jinro Soju and had it with two Korean meals and a snack, which was boiled peanuts:

What Jinro has done is eliminate much of the residual funny taste you find in Japanese shochu.  Interestingly enough, Japanese sochu came from Korea.  Korean soju has flexible production options, allowing for additives like MSG and sugar.
To summarize, regarding Korean Jinro Soju:

  • Korean soju was first produced as early as the 13th century.
  • Jinro Soju was launched in 1924.
  • Made from rice, barley, sweet potato and tapioca.
  • Has held the #1 position as the world's largest volume sold since 2002.
  • The bottle I have is at 17.2% alcohol, higher than any wine you can find.  There is a 24% version.

A few closing attempts at humor:



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