IU isn’t promoting these songs on the music shows as she’s focusing on her upcoming solo concert, but Every end of the day still topped the online charts when it came out.

As the title of the single suggests, IU turns 20 this spring. In Korean age, that is. She turned 19 in “western age” on the 16th. Spring of a twenty year old is also the title of a short film which was released instead of a normal music video. It starts out in a documentary style where you get to follow IU during various activities, mixed with a personal interview. The second part is more of a short film of her trip to Venice, Italy. It also doubles as a music video for Every end of the day.

You can watch the film in its entirety here (no subtitles):

I made some clips for the music parts.

IU ~ Peach (composition clip)

15MB 2:42 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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As I said, this song is IU’s own composition. Apart from the guitar, she also plays the recorder in this song. I heard that peach is her favourite fruit and word and that it’s also a nickname she’d like to give her lover .

You don’t get the whole song in this clip. It’s more of a clip showing IU making the composition. I like this song. The start of the song (when listening to the single) makes me think of Ai Otsuka a little. Then it’s all IU. It’s a very “cozy” song. I like that she’s composing more and more own songs.

IU ~ Every end of the day

23MB 4:01 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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At first I wasn’t all that thrilled about this song, mostly because of the intro, which sounds a bit “Swedish”, haha. I really like the verse though. And I love IU and her voice. The song is steadily growing on me.

OMG, IU’s so cute with the ice cream in this clip . I like the virtual date concept .

IU ~ Peach (live clip)

12MB 2:11 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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This is from the end credits of the movie, where IU sings Peach by a canal in Venice.

I watched the Studio Ghibli anime Porco Rosso the other day. It’s one of those movies that I bought ages ago, but never got around to watching. Until now. I was looking for an “easy watching” movie where I didn’t have to invest much. It fit that bill well. It’s a very laid back movie.

The story takes place at the Adriatic Sea in the late 1920’s. It is about a former air force pilot, who has turned into a pig for some reason and now makes a living as a bounty hunter, chasing air pirates. His plane is damaged during a dog fight and he goes to Italy to have it repaired at his old friend’s shop. There he meets the friend’s granddaughter Fio, who is put in charge of making the repairs/improvements.

I liked Porco Rosso. It had some nice moments, but some things weren’t explained or resolved. The ending is one of those where you get a summary of what happened to everyone after the last scene, which was a bit “blah”. Enjoyable none the less.

Despite my aversion to anything with leopard print, I really like Seo-hyun’s outfit here:

Girls’ Generation-TTS ~ Twinkle Live@M!Countdown 20120510

27MB 3:28 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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I love Tae-yeon’s outfit in this one:

Girls’ Generation-TTS ~ Twinkle Live@M!Countdown 20120503

38MB 3:28 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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Last night I finally watched Hana no Ato (After the Flowers). It’s a Japanese period film starring Keiko Kitagawa. It’s based on a short story by Shuhei Fujisawa, whose work was the basis for similar movies such as Twilight Samurai.

I was planning on getting it on DVD as soon as a version with English subtitles was released, but it never came out, so after waiting for over a year and a half I got a fan-subbed version.

Keiko plays Ito, who is the daughter of a clan official. Without any sons, he has trained Ito in swordsmanship. One day Ito meets a lower ranking samurai, Magoshiro, who asks for a sparring match. During the match they make a connection. However, Ito’s future husband has already been decided and she tries to quench her feelings.

This might sound like a very romantic story, but it’s not typically romantic as much as a story of respect and quiet admiration. I don’t want to spoil the story more than that.

Watching the swordplay makes me want to take up kendo or iaido again.

The movie progresses slowly, but it’s not boring. Far from it. I was actually pretty tired when I sat down to watch this movie, but it pulled me in with its great attention to detail and almost meditative feel of the everyday tasks that the characters perform. I like how, for instance, you get to see all the movements involved when Ito opens and closes the door. Or how she gracefully shakes the snow off her umbrella. How each action is performed with full focus, instead of like nowadays when you usually do several things at a time. The cuts are few and far between, which adds to the immersion. Mostly the background is silent or filled with faint sounds of nature, but I liked the movie score when it was playing.

Keiko looks as beautiful as ever. She looks very elegant wearing a kimono exposing nothing but her face and the back of her neck.

If I were to say anything negative about the movie it would be that a lot of the dialogue in the first half of the movie is very formal and complicated. Slow and understated movies like this one isn’t for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.

Girls’ Generation ~ Echo

25MB 3:30 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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I like this song. It was included in the Run Devil Run repackage of the “Oh” album, but it was never promoted.

The music video was recorded in Thailand at the same time as their All About Girls’ Generation: Paradise in Phuket DVD. It feels so unusual to see Sunny with dark long hair now . I like Seo-hyun’s look with that hair band (Yoon-a and Soo-young also have the same one, but it looks best on Seo-hyun). I should watch this DVD set again.

Girls’ Generation-TTS ~ Baby Steps Live@M!Countdown 20120503

31MB 3:55 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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Baby Steps was originally sung by the American boyband Varsity Fanclub. SM acquired the rights for the song and made a Korean version for TaeTiSeo, which (in my completely unbiased opinion) blows the original out of the water.

According to the message included with the digital album, this is Seo-hyun’s favourite song on the album. I realize that the top picks is probably a marketing thing, but I could see this being her favourite (even though Tae-yeon owns the stage).

SM’s new thing is putting ads in the videos they release online, but this one is ad free (not counting the perfume product placement ).

Girls’ Generation-TTS ~ Twinkle

40MB 4:21 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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Credit: source vid. hotsport@jpopsuki

The girls look so great in the video! The dance moves are really cute too. Tae-yeon is so gorgeous and I love Seo-hyun’s cute faces on the roof wearing the red dress.

TaeTiSeo (apparently Girls’ Generation-TTS is the official English name, but TaeTiSeo sounds better to me) are also going to be promoting on the weekly music shows this week, so expect some lives later on. If you’re interested in the official fan-chant, you can find it here (Korean).

This is my favourite picture from the digital booklet that comes with the album when you buy it on iTunes. I’m using (a cropped version of) it as my phone lock screen wallpaper .

It looks like the physical album comes with a bunch of photo cards. Going to get that too.

Watch the video on SMTown’s YouTube too, to help raise the view count .

Tae-yeon ~ Missing you like crazy Live@Music Core 20120428

24MB 3:21 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

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Credit: source vid. from soshified

One thing I love about Tae-yeon is how her voice conveys emotion. Her stage presence is also great. I love her stage outfit here, btw.

I haven’t seen The King 2 Hearts yet, but it’s on my “to watch” list.

I watched Korean monster action movie Sector 7 last night. The main character, Hae-jun, is played by Ha Ji-won. The reason I watched the movie (apart from the fact that Ji-won is in it) was the reference to this movie in the drama series Secret Garden that I watched recently.

The movie is about a crew on an off shore drilling rig… and then there’s a monster. No need to explain the plot in more detail . It’s Korea’s first 3D movie, but I watched it in 2D.

I wasn’t expecting much from Sector 7, and rightfully so . Ji-won looks great, but that’s about it. There’s a lot of CGI. It seems like there are almost no proper sets, just green screens and a few props. It’s kind of cheap looking CGI which takes a while to get over. I was hoping that the movie would be a little scary, but it wasn’t even close. It’s one of those movies where whenever the monster catches up to the main character it stops and roars instead of just decapitating its victim. The actions scenes at the very end were pretty WTF-inducing .

The movie had the ingredients to turn out OK, but it was kind of bad . I agree with the iMDB rating of 4/10. It’d be great to see Ha Ji-won in a better action movie, though.

Apart from the reference in Secret Garden to this movie, another link is that Hae-jun’s deceased father is played by the same actor who played Ra-im’s deceased father in Secret Garden. Ha Ji-won also did her own stunts in Sector 7.

They also released the album cover(?). The concept in that picture is a bit different/toned down from the earlier teaser photos.

source: facebook.com/smtown

Update: a Tae-yeon teaser video and another picture were released:

Tiffany:

Seo-hyun: