응답하라 1988, 마지막 회

Predictably, this nostalgia-soaked program ends in 재개발, with residents deserting the alleyway one by one, and, with them, their close, utopian community.

지하철의 밤, Part 2

This was an interesting, thought-provoking Web comic, available here for free (as yet!).  There are only two characters--the luckless student Seok-gyu (석규) and the mysterious woman on the subway, Nella (넬라).  In his daily grind from school to hagwon, reading room (독서실) to home, Seok-gyu takes Line 2, Seoul's only circular subway--that is to say, you can endlessly circle the city on Line 2 without having to transfer.  And that's his life, a monotonous rat-race to succeed in school without really knowing why he's doing that or, indeed, what he wants. This is underscored by the faceless riders Yun depicts on the subway--Seok-gyu's random, meaningless life.  Nella rides Line 2 because her mother left her there at the opening ceremony for the subway line in 1980; she rides the train looking for her lost mother.

When Nella finds her mother (or someone like her, anyway), and when Seok-gyu begins studying again, it is the Buddhist realization of returning to the one.  Line 2 as a deep, Zen koan!