From K-drama The Uncanny Counter to Love Actually – what to watch over the festive season
- There is no shortage of festive fare to stream, including Love Actually, A New York Christmas Wedding and Holidate
- If you’re already over Christmas, look to Netflix show The Uncanny Counter about demon-hunting, noodle shop owners
If, with a few days still to go, you’re already Yuletid’ed out and would rather your spirits were not of the cosy, Christmassy variety, there’s a noodle shop with your name on it. And not just any old noodle shop, either.
Down in fictional Jungjin town in The Uncanny Counter (series one, Netflix, new episodes weekly) is Eonni’s Noodles, front for the headquarters of an unlikely team of Korean rooftop-jumping, evil-spirit vanquishers good at martial arts. Their rawest vigilante recruit is So Mun (Cho Byeong-kyu), drafted into the force after being zapped by a dazzling white light that wafted him away into a seeming dreamland.
With season tickets to and from the afterlife, these grim reapers of poisoned souls must also face the wrath of queuing customers left disappointed when another secret mission suddenly calls and the world’s greatest noodles go uncooked.
But nobody ever said banishing demons while running a cha chaan teng would be easy … or without its tongue-in-cheek moments.
If, on the other hand, you really feel that Christmas is all around and you should come on and let it snow, why not recycle Bill Nighy’s finest hour and stream the ultimate feel-good movie, Love Actually (HBO Go)? And having established that festive fatigue isn’t an affliction, you might then move on to A New York Christmas Wedding (Netflix), an LGBTQ holiday-romance film featuring typically awkward family dinners, typically obstructionist church politics and a Robert Mapplethorpe-lookalike spirit (Cooper Koch) who announces, “You shouldn’t underestimate the power of love around Christmas – it’s magical,” before threatening to sabotage it.
Modern-day ghosts revealing multiple-choice Christmases and alternate realities? If that sounds like the spirit of Charles Dickens revisited, it is.
Now you’re in the mood for some Christmas-time luuuurve, treat yourself to a Holidate (Netflix). Single-and-proud Chicagoan Sloane (Emma Roberts) is too cool for Yule, too condescending to indulge in all the vacuous pleasantries and too bilious to vacuum in the seasonal froth to satisfy the needs of a painfully conventional extended family.
That’s until she meets Australian beefcake golf professional Jackson (Luke Bracey) and they agree to become friends with minimal benefits for the duration, no strings attached or implied. Naturally, however, “things” develop and one holiday season becomes another, until … well, you fill in the blanks.
Younger viewers, however, and those who wish to be again, will happily forego all the romantic slush in favour of animated action-adventure movie Rise of the Guardians (HBO Go), in which some of the very pillars of Western belief – Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, the Easter bunny – face the chop.
On their case is Pitch Black (voiced by Jude Law at his most sinister), who wants to rule by psychological terror. But on their side is new ally Jack Frost (Chris Pine), who goes into battle holding a stick … with not a photon torpedo in sight. It’s a wild ride all round, not just aboard Santa’s gravity-busting sleigh.
And for an unusual Christmas crescendo, try Netflix series Dash & Lily, an inventive love story with an unorthodox evolution. Dash (Austin Abrams) is a Noël naysayer, yet his views come under attack courtesy of a mysterious notebook full of clues directing him towards a potential liaison. But with whom? Enter Lily (American-Japanese actress Midori Francis), an optimistic but needy Christmas-aholic desperate for company.
As the players, unknown to each other, begin their chess match-treasure hunt around New York’s landmarks, this festive romcom turns into a poignant assessment of the cost of not fitting in.
Perhaps emotional mush is the true essence of Christmas after all.
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