Various Things of Great Import. Or at least Middling Interest

[dangermousie]

1. I went out and bought a couple more books by L.J. Smith. Basically, she is like Stephenie Meyer but without the sparkling. She is trashy, sure, but it is enjoyable trashy, not painful and idiotic. Sort of like the difference between shoujo manga and a Cassie Edwards novel :P The two novels (of a quadrology) of hers that I've read, also involved a bored high school girl and a sexy vampire who decides that going to school might be fun. They were written 20 years ago, however, so I think someone has been borrowing :)

This said, while they will never be characters I dream about, Elena and Stefan are much much less irritating. Elena is supposed to be beautiful up-front (no silly fake modesty) and Stephan does not sparkle and does not seem to believe in frigidity waiting until vamp marriage. Also, nobody imprints. And there is angst. I bought a few more of her books, too.

2. I think I will start watching Utahime. I give up on KKK2003. It's too depressing and twisted even for me. It's like artistically slashing your wrists and looking at pretty colors.

3. So, I am faced with the realization that the only upcoming kdramas I am interested in are (in order):

a. East of Eden: star-studded historical epic set in 1960s-1970s, about tangled families, politics, and revenge. Starring Song Seong Heon, Lee Da Hae etc etc.

b. Tazza: story about gambling and revenge and organized crime. Starring Jang Hyuk, Kim Min Joon (yum on both!) and Han Ye Seol.

c. The Kingdom of the Winds: a period epic starring Song Il Gook (be still my heart!) as the most capable warrior son of an elderly king slowly going mad. Guess who has to deal with it!

d. Painter of the Wind: in this one, Moon Geun Young masquerades as a man in medieval Korea, in order to be able to learn how to paint and to solve her father's murder. Also with Park Shin Young.

Did you notice something about all these dramas? They are all period (with the possible exception of Tazza. Not sure when it's set, but it does have a retro feel). With the exception of Iljimae, no Korean period drama, whether it's very traditional, like Jumong, or very fusion, like Hong Gil Dong, whether it's set in prehistory, like Legend, or 1930s, like Capital Scandal, has yet to disappoint me. And even Iljimae was merely mediocre, rather than a total disaster. Also, except for EoE, they are all based on either novels or mangas. And not a single one of them is a romcom. I am burned out on them, after a spate of really disappointing ones recently. So let's hope they get my kdrama love back.

3. They are making a Taiwanese adaptation of Skip Beat apparently with Jerry Yan and Ariel Lin as Ren and Kyoko. Heeee. I like SB manga OK but am not a huge fan. Could make a cute drama though. Mainly, I am so amused at the height difference. Ariel is always super-tiny (she could be tiny even in jdramas :P) and Jerry's what, 6'1"? Or more? Heeee.

Though if it's also true that Joe Cheng is going to be this version's Sho, the casting director has been doing bad drugs. Sure, take one of the most popular twdrama pairings and make one the heroine and one the other guy. How well is it going to work out? Yeah...

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I am choosing to believe the Joe Cheng part is a publicity stunt until forced to accept otherwise.

The first volume of the Kingdom of the Winds manhwa was pretty good.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

The manhwa art is very pretty...

[vierran45.livejournal.com]

Yay on Utahime, since it was so good and much too underappreciated while it was running, IMO.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

*is excited*

[katranna.livejournal.com]

Call me. Thanks to you I just read Uglies and am now onto Pretties. The slang is silly-making, but kinda bubbly. I hope it changes soon though, or else it'll just cross into bogus. Reading it for a while certainly makes you feel brain-missing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL.

Will call.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

L.J Smith? I'm almost sure she wrote a series called 'Nightworld' which dealt with angsty soulmates of vampires, werewolves, underground societies. All the sorts of drama you usually like. :D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yup, I bought a three novel omnibus of that series too :)

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

The first novel is not great, but it gets progressively, guilty-pleasure better.

[catdecember.livejournal.com]

i think you were the one who told me it would be cool if Skip Beat (which you even given me a 2 min summary, and apparently i forgot i read some volumes of it!) would be made into a drama with jerry! and LOL, yeah Ariel's too tiny, but she is a bit charming so who knows......

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LOL...I have the gift of prophecy :P

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I'll watch East of Eden, just because it is getting so much hype. It's like everyone in South Korea has a part and everyone else is looking forward to it. I think I'll wait until it's aired a few episodes before I watch. I am looking forward (and plan to watch) the other dramas, however. But, I have to say that, so far, there aren't many fall dramas I'm looking forward to.



with Jerry Yan and Ariel Lin as Ren and Kyoko


I've never read Skip Beat (I think I'm one of ten people who haven't), but the pairing is certainly interesting. It would be nice to see Ariel with someone besides Joe Cheng - let those two branch out and work with different partners, I say. Anything to stop the fangirls from screaming on and on about how Ariel and Joe are perfect together and must never ever work with anyone else. (Yeah, it annoyed me that no one talked about the plot of ISWAK2 and instead focused solely on the scenes AL and JC were in together, at a certain site.)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it annoyed me that no one talked about the plot of ISWAK2 and instead focused solely on the scenes AL and JC were in together, at a certain site

LOL.

This year's kdrama season has been rather lackluster so far. Only HGD made me love it. Though to be fair, I haven't checked out Gourmet yet.

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to be rude, but that is how I feel. Yes, AL and JC have great chemistry. But they aren't their characters and there is an actual plot to the show. :/


I'm in agreement about the kdrama season. The only show that has really caught my attention is HGD. I tried Iljimae, but got a bit bored. And, I've tried a couple of others, but. . . meh.

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

I just bought LJ Smith's Nightworld #1! The first story is a a bit lame, imo but hopefully it'll get better.

I'm not sure if Jerry Yan can actually pull off Ren. I mean, I've only seen him in Meteor Garden and I found his acting pretty cheesy. And Ren's supposed to be this really cool and aloof guy and I just can't picture JY as Ren. (Though physically he does kind of look like Ren.) But then again Meteor Garden was a long time ago and (hopefully) his acting is eons better now.
But do the director/producer/whatever really think that fans will actually accept Jerry/Ariel with Joe Cheng in the mix? The fangirls will probably go all crazy and get that murderous glint in their eyes.

East of Eden sounds really interesting and I really liked Lee Da hae in My Girl but haven't seen her in anything else. She looks very glam and kickass in the poster.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

will actually accept Jerry/Ariel with Joe Cheng in the mix? The fangirls will probably go all crazy and get that murderous glint in their eyes.


LOL, I can just see it.

[kittykatz.livejournal.com]

On the one hand I would love to see Joe and Ariel do a show together, but on the other hand, with Jerry in it? I dunno... cos I might change my mind if I do actually see the show.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Apparently they have some drama lined up where they are the otp, in addition to SB. Hope it happens!

[timescout.livejournal.com]

I started with Utahime after Tiger & Dragon but it's another comedy (starts that way anyway) so I decided to leave it for later. I've had my fill of comedies for the time being. There is a rather fun rendition of Jailhouse Rock in English by Nagase's character in one of the early episodes though. ;P Kudos for him in pulling that one off with wafling through half of the lyrics, ha.

Those upcoming dramas are more or less the ones I'm looking forward too. Oh, and I believe that EoE may also have a litterary background as it seems to pay homage to Steinbeck's epic novel of the same name. The story is not the same but there seems to be points in the themes that are very similar. Oh well, we'll see - I may be totally wrong about this.

As for romcoms, I finally broke my drama-hiatus by taking a peek at Lawyers of the Great Republic Korea solely because of Lee Sung Jae and sorta got hooked. It's been pretty entertaining so far (half way through now) but there's still time for it to thoroughly disappoint me.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Utahime apparently atrts out light and goes into rip-your-heart-out territory. Knowing me, it's the latter part that's got me eager.

Yay, I might check out Lawyers then!

[timescout.livejournal.com]

Yay, I might check out Lawyers then!

Laywers is still good, loved ep 9! :) Hopefully it won't go pearshaped on me later on either. The subs for ep 10 are now out, so I'm going to watch that today.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

L.J. Smith: I disliked The Vampire Diaries, but really liked The Forbidden Game and The Secret Circle trilogies. There was another one, about some psychics at a school, that was okay.

She either started to suck when she hit NightWorld, or I grew out of her writing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She is rather juvenile. But I find her fun in a brain-relaxing kind of way.

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

Oooo - Skip Beat sounds exciting. I haven't read the manga, but it's been on my "To Read" list for a while :)

As for period dramas, I love them, simply cause of the gorgeous costumes :)