They Kiss Again makes my brain short-circuit and my heart go pitter-patter with its sweetness

[dangermousie]

I think I will be liveblogging They Kiss Again a.k.a. It Started with a Kiss 2. I got all the eps (freed space by deleting BOF) and started watching and gosh, how could I foget how gleeful Xiang Qin and Zhi Shu make me. I am in a happy mood just watching. An ep a day liveblog seems doable.



What is TKA about? Well, the outgoing, loud, and decidely non-brainiac Xiang Qin and the reserved, intellectual Zhi Shu are now married. And marriage is hard enough to adjust to for two such different personalities, even without adding ladies who want the male half of the pair, gentlemen who want the female half. Still, the biggest obstacle is themselves - Xiang Qin's propensity for jumping to conclusions and insecurities and Zhi Shu's difficulties in expressing emotions in an open fashion.

Also, me being me, I watched the ending just to see what happened and I think my bones melted. Seriously.



It's when the makers of TKA decided they needed to go all kdrama on us and she found out her night-blindness might very well be the start of the real thing (and not only that but their kids could inherit it too, which is extra bad as she is pregnant) and ran away and he searched for her. Mmmmm.

But first off, a few happy smoochies. See, why are twdramas so much less prudish than kdramas?















And here is where the really good stuff starts, when he wakes up and finds her gone and finds out about the blindness thing.









So very kdrama!



Is that the wall from their first kiss? I believe it is! TKA makers love me!









And here is where the bone-meltingness starts, as he finds her...





















I approve of clutching!











I also approve of the fact that his hand is as big as her head!



















Ahhhh, that is why I watch dramas...What guy in RL would say stuff like this? Mr. Mousie does :D. Well, I suppose any husband might act the same if one was going blind, but I don't recommend to do so just to find out...































































Awwww, Zhi Shu! That is about the sweetest thing you've said in both seasons!






































































You go, Zhi Shu, express yourself! Awwww. I love the ending so very much! And as a now married lady, joking aside, the thing about the light (her turning it off so he can sleep well and his turning it on so she can see) is really one of the little things marriage is about.





























































And we end with a montage of all their kisses in the two seasons. I capped a few. They could have just called this drama Kissination. It had more kissing then an entire season of kdramas :)



















Here is a cute TKA mv (even if it makes the drama seem angstier than it is. It's ISWAK universe, i.e. fluffiness galore):

Comments

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

Xiang Qin! Zhi Shu! Even I, allergic to sentimentality and therefore to a lot of romances out there, just turn into a big pile of mush over those two. Awwwww.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

There is something incredibly cute about them!

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I may have to watch this after all. I avoided the first one like the plague because I heard AL's character was a doormat to the nth degree and I hate that above all else, and also because I don't particularly love either of them as actors. But I've always been kinda tempted by the sequel, mostly because they're already together and I can take stupidity during romance better than stupidity leading up to romance.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

ps. Less than a week until Black and White premiers!! Intangible FS is subbing it apparently.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

So excited!

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

No wonder those two (Ariel & Joe) felt so comfortable with each other in Love or Bread. After Iswak and TKA they don't have any inhibration anymore concerning being so close together.
In LoB it sometimes wasn't right as their characters were supposed to be suspicious of each other, but when they had to get into each other's faces while arguing it was fun to watch and not as in some other dramas too stiff or stilted.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Is LoB any good btw?

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

I watched it on viikii or mysoju as d-addicts only has the first ep subbed by an official subbing group.

Yes and no ... Joe's character came across as too gay where he was supposed to be this crooked, lazy country bumpkin turned model wannabe and he comes across more of a comic relief than this cool dude. He esp. looses it almost in every scene with Ariel where he is supposed to be menacing (or perhaps the script wanted it to be comedic, I don't know - even though he is not a great actor per se, he ususally has a better timing and acting ability than that). Ariel's character was spot on and I loved her in it. The chemistry between the two was amazing but esp. in earlier eps. it was in the way, you could see that they were just pretending that they don't know each other, if you know what I mean?!
But all in all it was a very carefree, Angst free little rom com, very suited for this budding spring. :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think I'll skip then - I have such a huge watchlist already. But if it clears up, then I'll check it out :)

[wednesdaya.livejournal.com]

I don't have a good track record with twdramas, I can never seems to finish them. But I gotta say ISWAK and TKA are the exception. They're something I can watch repeatedly, and I really liked the ending of TKA.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It was so very sweet.

[uisceros.livejournal.com]

Seriously, isn't the ending AMAZING?! I watched about half the series before I ran out of subs, but I totally needed to see the end, so I watched it sans subs. I didn't know what they were saying, but I knew I loved it.

The part where he tells her that he will love anything of hers, good or bad, ugly of beautiful, simply because it came from her killed me. Seriously, killed me dead. Is it any wonder I totally ship Ariel/Joe...

Have you watched the first episode yet? It was that episode that firmly planted twdramas as my favorite. Also, the kiss montage; amazing! I honestly think the ending was a lovely tribute to Tada Kaoru, the writers/directors wanted to leave her story as unaltered as possible, even though it is a bit of a cliffy.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I actually really liked the relative openness of the ending - it made it seem more like real life and I could imagine ZS and XQ just going on with their lives once the last minute ended...

Ariel and Joe have so much on-screen chemistry, it's insane. It was a lovely scene anyway, but their chemistry made it into a completely ridiculously amazing one.

[uisceros.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked the ending too. Course I didn't know at the time that the drama was unfinished, so it wasn't intentional. If I had known, I probably would have been a bit more angsty about it.

They should just keep making dramas forever. And get married... I don't care if Joe is gay, they belong together... *sigh* Now I want to watch that scene again..

Slight OT; I hated that they swithced the actor who played Yu Shu.

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

I don't care if Joe is gay, they belong together
True .. and for someone who is rumoured to be gay, he very enthusistically kissed Ariel and it looked so damn real ... not like any dorama kisses at all.

[uisceros.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally agree! I'm on the fence over whether I believe the gay rumors. I can see both sides. Personally, I think of him as bi, and that's that!

Judging by the way he kisses Ariel, I'd say he was totally and completely in love with her. I don't think he's that good of an actor...

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that .. all those little nose rubs ... the teasing .. that was so natural and yeah he is not THAT good an actor.

And it would explain why he was so weird in Love Or Bread.

[uisceros.livejournal.com]

He IS weird in LoB isn't he? I'm only on episode 2, but he's a lot weirder than normal. But I admit, I'm watching for Rui Jia. That boy needs a starring role in something.

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. Gawd.

I need to watch this again! like i said, Xiang Qin's histrionics grated a bit, but i admit that Zhi Shu wasnt exactly helping either! but they do learn and grow together and even in this fluffiest of dramas, I shed many tears at the end!

Argh, gonna watch ISWAK again i think!

btw, Love Marriage is about a kooky couple manager for divorcees and a slightly cold, slightly detached divorce lawyer. You might like it, especially when it's a couple who talks about their problems!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

LM sounds adorable. I can't wait to start TKA. Was planning to earlier but baby got fussy.

[clowninpathos.livejournal.com]

Hello! I’m one of those silent readers, so I’ve never commented before. But an awesome opportunity came up so here I’ll comment on something. Known you since HK jp days actually, found you through calledinvain, she had some really funny picspams. ^^

Just wanted to give you a heads up, keep your expectations low, don’t need to go through the BBFs disappointment again.

Since they went and followed the manga to the T ( for the most part) gotta say, that led to some issues for me. Side-stories weren’t finished, side-characters were dropped randomly, got draggy, and meandered at times. I was kind of disappointed with TKA actually. All the growth that ZS had done over the course of season 1, and then 2 comes along and he seemed to revert back a little, then a lot at some points.

SPOILER, but you like them, so it’s ok right?
Later on in the series, he feels jealousy about how much XQ is spending her time with a fellow classmate, yet it takes Ah Jin to tell him, in order for ZS to get that what he is feeling, is jealousy. Wow, did it feel contrived, thought he more than gotten passed that point by now. I thought he was more aware of himself by then?

(note I watched it when it was still airing, since I know Chinese, but not fluent in it, so might have missed some deeper points that language might have clarified.)

ISKWA had it’s flaws, but TKA was 10 X as flawed sometimes, to be honest they should have never done a 2nd season if they were going to followed the manga that closely, since the mangaka died and the series was never fully finished and her husband told them that they HAD to follow it “exactly” without taking their own spin or license on the story (at least that’s what AF forums said), cut out some of the fat and add in some better storylines. In the end, while TKA had it’s moments, and was funny, I realized that it came up short and kind of ruined / tainted my love for ISWAK.

ZS is still mean to XQ! What!? I thought you finally loved her?!

[It’s like CP, I know how you loved it at the beginning right? But they went and had to extend it and then it was all.....

Dang, is that how they ended it? heh, it was ok, but by god if they just ended it earlier HOW glorious could it have been? sad.]

Maybe it’s bcuz what I loved most about ISWAK, just wasn’t there in TKA anymore, ZS’s amused looks at XQ, the constant reluctance to liking XQ, but he couldn’t help but smile. I loved that we the audience always saw this and XQ never did. It’s fun watching a guy fall in love with the girl and the girl never really knowing it.

In TKA, he felt more cold. He either treated her badly (at least I got why he was still treating her badly in ISWAK. but in TKA, here? why? still? I hated XQ’s running away ep.) or straight out showed her he liked her. The little spark for me was a bit dulled.

Oh, just in case you wanted to know or will ever wonder. The kisses were sooooooo looooooong (my god did I had to turn away, it went on endlessly, it was like it got to private for me too watch or something) is bcuz the director just got married at the time and wanted to show the love between a married couple. But WHY did he had to be soooo gratuitous about it, I felt kind of bad for Joe and Ariel. Since they had to act that out, and the makeouts went on for like 20 minutes it seemed, they must have felt sooooo awkward around each other on those days.

also....

[clowninpathos.livejournal.com]

Sorry for writing such a long post, but it happens when you’re the type that never comments, when you do, it just comes out as an essay sometimes.

continued......

And is it just me or did Ariel's XQ was a little off, 2nd time around? What I thought she did perfect in the 1st, dumb, confused, oblivious, she seemed a little forced in the 2nd.
I just didn’t believe her as much or maybe for both XQ & ZS they both should have learned more and been at a certain level at the start of the 2nd season, and they seemed to have reverted back somehow to the point where I didn’t believe in the actions they chose to take.

But I have to say this, TKA has THEE best ending!!! The BEST. Hands down my FAV! Night-blindness? loved how they tied that in though, always thought it was so very random, but now it had a point and purpose to it.

The ending was really soooo much better then the actual season itself, so don’t be fooled. The rest of the season ZS was not that opened, talked about his feelings, etc.

But, if you have nothing else to watch or need to satisfy some curiosity, watch it, but know that there will be some major flaws IMO, that ISWAK also had, but here, was just not handled right, so it got to be disappointing.
But if you Don’t have the time, just watch the last ep. (or rewatch?) let that sink in, envelop you in giddiness and then just move on.

Well just my 2 cents, wanted to give you a heads up, I might have been less critical or enjoyed the ride a little bit better if I knew they were going to tell the story as they did, instead of getting sidetracked about being annoyed at times.

Oh, and one last thing, loved the way Joe twirled in the tunnel and then fell to the ground, How did he do that? It was like a dance of some sort, replayed that so many times. I just love little randomness like that. Well played. (｡◕‿◕｡)

Re: also....

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all the awesome observations (and I love long posts!)

I'll see how I like TKA :)

Re: also....

[clowninpathos.livejournal.com]

Then I'll be looking forward to reading your take on it. You're quite funny sometimes on what you choose to observe. ^^

[popaddict.livejournal.com]

Gurl! I just finished rewatching TKA last Friday. It was beautiful and I loved all the kissing and OMG! sex.

TWdramas understand that people in romantic relationships have very tight hugs, have passionate kisses and they engage in coitus. The world's still spinning too.

Anyway, I'm not going anywhere, so I look forward to reading your liveblogs.

P.S. I deleted BOF too! (I hardly ever delete anything, I have 1TB of external harddrive space just for that, but BOF wasn't worthy).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

TWdramas understand that people in romantic relationships have very tight hugs, have passionate kisses and they engage in coitus. The world's still spinning too.

Exactly. I like the more natural vibe.

I'll start liveblogging this weekend or (more likely) Monday.

[er-mused.livejournal.com]

sigh...just sigh...

Zhishu & Xiangqin FOREVER!!!!

I think they might honestly be my favourite onscreen couple EVER!
How can they have such insane chemistry and not be a couple in real life?!?!
Although it tickles me to no end that in real life, they call each other "lao gong" "lao po" which means "hubby" and "wife".

I somehow feel that Taiwanese dramas (as rubbish their production quality can be) portray couples so much better. The dialogue, the little touches here and there, and how they express themselves in general. The make out scenes in ISWAK and TKA are probably more than all the Korean and Japanese dramas I've seen combined! And I've seen quite a few! LOL

P.S. oh Zhishu...he's so perfect. My favourite type of hero... haha. Wait, actually, he's kinda like... Rui, quiet, reserved, intellectual, erm..good at everything, cold, distant, 4th dimensional, socially inept for the most parts, will do all these little things for the heroine that shows that he clearly cares even if he will never admit it...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Although it tickles me to no end that in real life, they call each other "lao gong" "lao po" which means "hubby" and "wife".


They do? That is awesome!

And I agree, I love that in twdramas, couples are allowed to be affectionate - much more realistic.