Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
A legal thriller filled with comedy and romance, “Suspicious Partner” is an addictive K-Drama that will keep viewers engaged. Don’t let the 40 episodes put you off. Each episode is less than half an hour long. And the plot is so engaging that the 20 hours goes by quickly.
Growing up in New York, actor Kirk Acevedo says he learned early on to be self-reliant. “Having lived on my own since I was 16 in a big city taught me to be very self-sufficient,” says Acevedo, who portrays Ricardo Diaz — aka The Dragon — on the CW series “Arrow.” “I trust people very slowly. And then I suffer no fools. And for these skills I have to thank New York City. I always know who’s walking 20 yards behind me and then who’s 20 yards ahead.”
So, I didn’t get a kimchi fridge for Mother’s Day. But, my kiddo knows me so well. I love to organize and contain. He bought me new canisters for my baking supplies.
Moreso than any of the previous episodes of “Burn the Stage,” this finale is a love letter from BTS to their fans. The eight-part docu-series ended with “Spring Day” playing over the credits. As many of you already know, that song touches my core every single time I hear it, so I’m a little verklempt as I write this.
“The best travel memory I have is a proper Sunday lunch with my wife’s family in Brighton, England, where she grew up,” says MAX, 25. “It was just beautiful and magical to feel so at home in a place I just got to that day for the first time. The worst vacation memory was in Puerto Rico with a terrible ex of mine when I was 16. We were in a massive fight and two guys walked past hollering at her, so I cursed them out. They (started) yelling that they were gonna shank me. Definitely thought I was gonna die. It made me learn not to curse people out, especially in foreign places.”
Having your music cut out mid-song is a living nightmare for musicians. But if you have the wherewithal to go with the flow with the good and the bad, those moments also can become a highlight of the evening. During a concert in Osaka last year, J-Hope was faced with exactly this dilemma. He describes it as the worst thing that can happen at a show. But he handled it with aplomb.
“Alex, Inc.” actress Tiya Sircar says that the most important thing she has learned from her travels is “to be open to new experiences and accepting of other cultures and ways of life. Travel provides us such a wonderful, rich education. Experiencing new things, meeting people from different walks of life, learning foreign customs and trying new foods — it’s hard to be narrow-minded and ethnocentric when you’ve done all that.”
“Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon” came out around the same time as “Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo.” And that was one reason why I waited so long to watch it. While the latter was a cute drama, it wasn’t great. “Strong Woman” is a wonderful series that started off with so much potential. The first few episodes were so great that I thought I might be awarding it four stars. But I ended up docking it a point, because of the cringe-inducing way it treated gays.
The men in BTS are still so young. But I get the impression that they are not oblivious to the passage of time. They know the half life of a musician’s career isn’t forever. Far from it. And while a part of me feels sad that they had to grow up so fast in the music business, the other part is grateful that they appear to be making plans for the future, even as they are enjoying what they have today.
Former football player Isaiah Mustafa is known to TV viewers as Luke Garroway in the Freeform series “Shadowhunters: Mortal Instruments.” He also won an Emmy for Outstanding Commercial for his work in the Old Spice commercials.
I was delighted that Chicago was so beautifully prominent in this episode. Late one night back at their hotel, they’re trying to figure out how to perform on a tiny stage for their first U.S. television appearance. I used to do a little work for JBTV way back when, and I can tell you that the stage is tiny. It’s fine for most of the bands that pass through Chicago. But most bands aren’t BTS.
Terry Crews is many things: Actor (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), furniture designer, artist, Old Spice spokesman and former NFL player. But the achievement he’s most proud of these days is raising his voice on behalf of the #MeToo Movement. TIME magazine recognized him as one of the Silence Breakers in its Person of the Year cover this past winter.
The argument between two members of BTS was hyped up as being a shocking revelation in the previews. But for anyone who has a sibling — or who has ever been in a serious relationship — speaking the uncomfortable truth is par for the course. Arguments often aren’t about what you’re addressing at the time, but rather all the little things that have built up to make you reach that boiling point. What was more interesting to me was watching Jin and V dig to the bottom of the real issue: respect.
“I didn’t really know what hip hop and rap was when I was in (South) Korea,” San E says. “And then I moved to Atlanta when I was in middle school and just naturally started paying attention to it, because it was everywhere. I was lucky, even though I didn’t think so as a kid. Atlanta has a lot of great musicians. The music scene is pretty diverse and I was just going with it.”
A common element running throughout the plot is that you are not a “real” child if you don’t share your parents’ DNA. One of the central characters views herself as superior to her adopted sister, because … adoption. The emphasis on a family’s pure bloodline is still in effect today in Korea. And though more adoptive families are telling their children about their adoption stories, many still let their kids assume they are biologically related to their adoptive parents.
정 (jung) is a Korean word that is difficult to define in English. 정 encapsulates a feeling of love and loyalty that people have for one another. They will do things out of the kindness of their hearts, rather than as quid pro quo. As I watched the members of BTS drinking and laughing together, I realized that it was this 정 they had for each other that was as much of a component of their success as anything else.
In the hit film “Love, Simon,” Clark Moore plays a high school student named Ethan, who — unlike the titular character — is out and self-aware of his sexuality.
I imagine that for the members of BTS, presenting an idealized version of their real selves was par for the course. But with “Burn the Stage,” they have come to terms with who they truly are and are confident enough to show it to the public. It is difficult to explain why this first episode was so moving for me. Certainly, there is the aspect of seeing Asian Representation so beautifully presented; and in a manner that doesn’t exoticize these young men as strange creatures from a foreign land.
“One of the things I love about dance is that it has given me the opportunity to see the world,” says Maks Chmerkovskiy, who grew up in Odessa, Ukraine, and New York. “It gave me the opportunity to see things I never could have dreamed about as a little boy.”
After winning two bronze medals at the PyeongChang Olympics this year, Alex and Maia Shibutani made history by becoming the first skaters of Asian heritage to medal in ice dancing. “It was really special, because there hadn’t been a tradition of ice dance success for Asians,” says Alex, 26. “Whenever we compete anywhere in Asia, we always feel adopted and embraced by the locals.”