Here's a show about how the anchor is pulled up from a generations-long curse & Nam Joo-hyuk is put in his proper place.

BoH is one of my guilty pleasures. The term “guilty pleasure” is overused & misused. Most commonly it's thrown in b/c we're embarrassed about what we like or we're throwing cover over something we've enjoyed for fear of being mocked. For a GP to actually be a GP, there must be something to feel guilty about, meaning it has to be a show that is more than alittle flawed, but we just like it. Any fair assessment has to be a combo of technical competence & how it touches the♥️. Critics often focus more on the technical b/c that is measurable, while matters of the♥️ are subjective. How the receiver takes them matters as much as how the messenger sends them out. We have to be vulnerable to admit what our♥️ likes, & that makes it scary. BoH has lots of flaws - so many logical problems, so many missed opportunities, & if one steps back & really thinks about So-ah’s story, it's so So SO SAD! But I've already watched it twice & I'm sure I'll watch it again, b/c I'm a bit of a romance junkie, & BoH gotz goodz. I'll take a flawed show in which the director can give me the flutters, merely by showing closeups of the actors’ hands, over Citizen Kane 6 days a week. I'll watch CK on the 7th. Technically excellent shows give me a thrill, but left-brain thrills are just trills compared to right-brain dopamine. Anyway, romance junkies! You'll love this one! Everyone else - probably not.

BoH is comfy & soothing while being surprisingly sensual at times. Based on the Kmanga, Bride of the Water God, it's a tale of the future king of the heavenly realms who must come to earth & complete tasks in order to ascend to the throne. Habaek (Nam Joo-hyuk from Start-Up-8) is that future king. So-ah (Shin Se-kyung Rookie Historian-7.5) is a psychiatrist who has no peace in her life. Nothing has ever gone right. She is drowning in debt and, well.... forget romance! She doesn't have the time or energy for that. Unbeknownst to So-ah, things are even worse: Her family is sworn to serve the heavenly realms whenever needed. Habaek somehow lost his powers when he descended, so he is going to need a lot of help… But So-ah is a mess! Even more worse, b/c she's from a line of divine servants, she's a god magnet.

House cleaning 1st. Besides the logical problems & missed opportunities, there was no follow-thru on many ideas. They dropped things here & there that initially made a splash, & then they let them sink to the bottom, forgotten. Habaek's powers, or lack of, are inconsistently handled. There are ill defined rules of the game, a thing too common in Kdramas. Not only does it get confusing, but it feels like they are cheating by making stuff up as they go. Before setting sail, they should clearly define the fantastical world depicted & stick to the parameters that they've set down. After 16+ hours of content, couldn't they have allowed a little more time for a thorough wrap up? We don't know what happened with most of the characters, & I would have liked a peek at what the coming days & years would look like. This is also too common and always yields discontent. It adds up to mandatory deductions. From a craft standpoint, BoH is at level 5~6 but as a romance it's a 7~8.

So-ah is in a submerged cage. She's drowning. Her altruistic father never had time for the family. Only child?!? Their house was always full of needy orphans. Ultimately, dad left on another goodwill mission & never returned. Her assistant recalls how evil she was as a child. From her perspective, she’s the victim. To dad, everyone else was more important than she. (It's a reminder that our perspectives often aren't the full story). Her dream is Vanuatu - a beautiful sea ~ sand ~ wine & song ~ she wants the life of a god. Her reality, though, is prison. Her clinic is in a lower income area with bars on the windows. She literally lives behind bars. She's floundering in the dissonance between how she's compelled to live & how she wants to live ~ she's human.

Habaek begins as demanding & dismissive. It's amusing that he calls her his servant, but he always ends up helping her. As he acclimates to life on earth, it becomes clear that something dark is afoot. He & So-ah must wade through perils to right wrongs before all of creation goes under. In the background other gods are making trouble & complicating things; most have no respect for So-ah. One person that does respect So-ah is Shin Hoo-ye. He likes everything about So-ah, which makes Habaek gradually more irritated & determined to show his own worth, even w/o his powers. The oft overdone ♥️⚠ makes a little more sense here given who So-ah is.

They ain't subtle. Like in The Terminator, clothes don't survive world-transference, so Nam Joo-hyuk is in the buff at the start. Rap music beats as he walks to So-ah like a model (though I can't say what he's modeling - The scene isn't a tad overdone, though; he's worthy of it). The director was able to make simple scenes sizzle with moments that practically steam up the lens with their sensuality. At times, just a touch is enough. Shots of hands moving slowly until the tips of their fingers separate are just beautiful. The soundtrack complements it all superbly. Glass Bridge, by Savina & Drones, made the romantic scenes flow deeper & stronger, like a wave washing over & the only way to escape the power is to drop under. I've got Glass Bridge & Savina & Drones on a variety of playlists. Ty, BoH.

One thing that is not lacking in BoH is the acting. Nam Joo-hyuk is fine, though I'm not sure if anyone cares about his acting. He plays Habaek who sits atop the world with no equals. He's never had to give anyone else a thought, so he has quite a bit of growing to do. Shin Sae Kyeong plays Yoon So-ah. I've seen her in Rookie Historian(7.5) & Run On(7- but the 2ndary couple’s ♥️ is a 9). She has an acerbic wit & authoritative air that lends to her playing a mother-lover in these shows. I like her, but I'm not partial to the mother-lover in a romance. Here she's gasping for air & she's fantastic. The superb actor, Im Joo Hwan, is Shin Hoo-ye. I'm a fan since Oh My Ghost(10). Just don't watch him in The Spies Who Loved Me(4) b/c it's awful. Krystal Jung is the petulant Mu-ra. She's got the best drop-dead stare - quite natural for a spoiled god. She's great in the hilarious Crazy Love(7.8) & even better in Sweet & Sour(7) and of course, she stars in the legendary Heirs(7.3). Gong Myung is Bi Ryum, another spoiled god. He's got a beautiful baby face. I'm currently watching him in Be Melodramatic, which is outstanding. I'd say skip Revolutionary Love(5.7) - not worth the ⏲ & his character is one of the worst things in RL.

Viki-9.2; MDL 7.4; Awiki 87; IMDB 6.9. BoH ‘s ratings are all over. Director Kim Byung-Soo doesn't have any duds. His low water mark, Bubble Gum @6.3, is his only feature rated under 7 on IMDB. Nine: 9 Times Time Travel is the high mark at 8.1. The very popular A Korean Odyssey(7) is the only other work of his that I've seen, & it's pretty much the same story. The “issues” made me crazy, yet I loved the show anyway. Both of these shows are too sloppy to appeal to anyone but a romant-i-phile. Mr. Kim's name in the credits is a draw for me, & to be honest, I would probably enjoy watching Nam Joo-hyuk in any show, good or bad.

Mr. Kim works in excellent shots & imagery. Hou-ye is also behind bars. His office is cave-dark & coldly industrial, with bar imagery on either end. It's a metaphor for his earlier life. Somebody goes through a window & the movement of the broken glass is beautiful, like it's water circling round them. Gorgeous. While there are not many action scenes, the stunts during the parking garage scene are excellent. In a scene or two, their clothes form ☯ as they embrace. There's reverses. In eps1&9 they kiss, & the scenes switch which one of them has closed eyes. In ep13 they both close their eyes.

There's laughter & warmth. Koreans & food - even when there's gods that don't get hungry they can't help having them go out to eat anyway. Why does Asian entertainment always feature eating while Hollywood starves us? The result is that their stuff has more warmth. Role reversal shopping is pretty funny. He has no clothes, so off to the fitting room scene they go. What's funnier is that tight-fisted So-ah buys him a suit that doesn't fit right. You get what you pay for, So-ah;))! The police want to know if there's anyone who might want to kill her? Her assistant immediately responds by giving names, Misters A-L, & blah blah blah, “I can't count them with my fingers…” She's utterly shocked. She had no idea.

They do go below the surface briefly. Instead of just one villain, everybody did wrong. Everyone has to live with regrets. Much of the angst in the show could be traced to a father's lack of love or attention. There's beautiful moments such as this poem about two people in love, as when you're in love even dandelions look beautiful & bright: ‘The dandelions beneath the telephone pole swayed brightly. I've come to believe that there is no such thing as coincidence in love. I've come to trust that the universe calculates even the littlest things, such as the winged stroke of a butterfly, in order to make two people fall in love.’

The name So-ah means: Beautiful waters. Drowning. Her whole life she's been drowning. The beautiful water god saves her. He turns her horror to honor & love.


〰️QUOTES〰️

The ones who smile during hardships are the winners. The ones who endure it are lesser. The ones who cry are losers.

It's in our language. We put action first in our sentences, while they put nouns first.


〰 ✏ IMHO
Directing 6.7
Writing 6
Acting 7.8
Romance 7.6
Flutters 7.8
Art 7.5
Action 5
Sound & music 9
Ending 6.5

LEVELS
Tears 7
Thought provocation 5
Snores 0

Age 15+ for mild sexual content

Re-📺watch? GP

🎬6.7 📝6 🎭7.8 💓7.6 🦋7.8 🎨7.5 ⚡5 🎵9 😭7 🤔5 💤0 🔚6.5