"Run (운영) by Nell (넬), Friday, September 8, 2023 (updated repost)

After a hiatus which allowed each member of the group to complete their conscription for the Korean military, Nell reappeared in 2012 with their fifth album Slip Away in April. By the end of the year, the band started their 3-EP Gravity series. Their second EP in the series, Escaping Gravity, was released on June 10, 2013. Escaping Gravity gave the band a different tone. The lead single, "Ocean of Light" was the most optimistic Nell track they had released up until that point. On August 7th, the band released a single that they recorded for the MBC drama 2 Weeks. The upbeat song sounded like it could have been recorded during the same sessions for Escaping Gravity with its guitar and keyboard production and fast tempo. "Run" sets up the show as the song appears in the action sequence before the story begins and also is played at the end of the episode as we see the protagonist framed for murder.

I FALL AND BREAK EVERY DAY. Airing on MBC between August 7- September 26, 2013, the sixteen episodes of 2 Weeks tell the story of a gangster, Tae-san, who had given up a life of crime because he fell in love. But when the romance doesn't work out, instead of going back to a life of crime, he works in a pawn shop. At the start of the drama, though, he finds out that he is a father and that his daughter has leukaemia. He is a match for his daughter's bone marrow transplant and is scheduled for surgery two weeks later, but his old gang boss, together with a politician, decide to frame Tae-san for a murder of a special agent infiltrating the gang leader's operation. The series has Tae-san on the run from the law and from his former life in order to save his daughter. While "Run" may not be Nell's most poetic song, the lyrics about a tortured existence from which the singer must fight against every day fits well into the drama during the action scenes. The drama currently isn't available on Netflix in Korea, but a poor quality version, sped up to dodge the copyright police, is available on YouTube. The quality issue makes it hard to be sucked into the storyline, and the sped-up song is very hard to enjoy.

I HOLD ONTO MY SCAR, WHICH DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO HEAL. The writers and producers of Korean dramas know how to hook their audience. However, there are so many dramas that I've started and quit. These are just a few problems that I've noticed when attempting a Korean drama. First, the episodes are just too long. An American network series can be up to 24 to 50 minute episodes, but a Korean drama is well over an hour in length. There are usually less than 20 episodes, so they cram more than a season's worth of story into a mini series. This could be an advantage; however, it often seems that the writers run out "fun and games" in the middle. The dramas that I have stuck with in the end add interesting characters or plot twists that make sense for the characters they've developed. But there's nothing worse when you get a few episodes in and the plot starts repeating itself. And a single love interest isn't enough to make a drama flow. So often it seems that the writers focus too much on the love story and not enough on the premise that made viewers love the show. We want more action, more bizarre cases, more conflict between other characters. The last reason I give up on dramas is entirely my fault. I'm terrible at sitting down and watching something. I have to move around--clean, prepare something a class, cook dinner. All of these things make it hard to sit down and read subtitles. I've watched so many Episode 1s and so few Episode 16s, but there are a few I enjoyed. My favorite is Reply 1987 (응답하러 1997), and I've also enjoyed Netflix's Move to Heaven earlier this year. And Prison Playbook had a lot of fun characters. There are several others I've finished, but those are three I fully endorse.

Read the lyrics in Korean, English, and Romanized Korean.

Video with English translation and scenes from Two Weeks: