Various...

[dangermousie]

I feel as if I entered an odd parallel world with City Hall. This is hero and secondary guy:




Or as more lurid imagination of heroine paints it:



Interesting.

I have finished 7 eps of CH and it continues to be watchable but unmemorable. I think I will give it a break for a bit. Part of it, to be fair, is that I am exhausted and part that it has to follow Worlds Within, which unexpectedly turned out the best piece of television (except for Farscape) I have ever seen from any country.

But another part is my fundamental problem with Mi Rae, our heroine, played by Kim Sun Ah. I am one of five people in the Universe who really despised the huge-super-mega hit Kim Sam Soon that she starred in: I loathed most anything about that drama. But I did want to give KSA another chance because it was mainly her character who drove me up the wall - KSA herself appeared decent enough, if not stellar, actress. So yeah, while a little wary because of KSS, I was willing to give her another chance (the male lead of KSS, even if he also played a character I disliked, was played by Hyun Bin whom I have seen prior to KSS in Snow Queen, one of my favorite dramas, and has made excellent dramas in general, so I just try to pretend he didn't star in KSS and continue my adoration in peace).

Problem: Mi Rae is, in many ways, a Sam Soon by different name. She reminds me of those romcom heroines played by Renee Zellwegger (Kim Sun Ah even looks a bit like Renee) - the ones we are supposed to find cute and adorable even though they are clumsy, not too educated, and act as if they are 17. It might be cute to be little-girlish naive, clumsy, and disregarding of social situations as a high school student but it is rather a nuisance in a 36-yr old. By that point, shouldn't you know better? The cute act gets old at some point! Once again, watching Worlds Within right before it, with the heroine that was actually supremely competent and not trying to be a silly cute cartoon girl didn't help.

You are a grown woman, act like it! UGH.

I have heard that starting in ep 8 the story shifts and Mi Rae becomes more of a power, so I am looking forward to it, but honestly, that is a long time to wait for the story to kick in. Odd.

Anyway, meanwhile I am watching the hilarious Britcom Coupling and reading the equally hilarioud Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks, a non-fiction account about a stand-up comedian trying to hitchhike around Ireland, with a refridgerator, in a month, as a result of a drunken bet. It's wonderful. I was literally laughing out loud twice per page.

Comments

[darkeyedwolf.livejournal.com]

It might be cute to be little-girlish naive, clumsy, and disregarding of social situations as a high school student but it is rather a nuisance in a 36-yr old. By that point, shouldn't you know better?

Augh, this is my problem with Ito Misaki. She's a grown damn woman but forever 16 -- childishly exaggerated and high-voiced and empty-headed.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I've only seen her in Sapuri and I liked her character - she was competent, ambitious and hard-working (I can't tell the pitch of the voice tbh as most Japanese actresses sound relatively high-pitched to me). But I will stay away from the rest of her stuff then.

[darkeyedwolf.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get into Sapuri (blah, Kame), but she's just awful in Tiger & Dragon and Kiken na Aneki. Always cutesy and pigeon-toed and putting her finger to her chin waiting for someone else to make her decisions. In Edison no Haha they even meta-mock her type -- her boyfriend in the drama is like "I thought I liked you because you're so pretty, but really you're empty like a doll... "

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

Coupling is awesome, no? I love that show! Do you ship anyone? I was a hardcore Sally/Patrick shipper.

Don't even attempt to watch the American remake though. How it actually made it on television is beyond me. And I actually watched the two broadcast episodes. It was painful.

[stardreemer.livejournal.com]

I second the Sally/Patrick love!

I absolutely adore Coupling. I can watch it over and over and it never gets old!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't really ship anyone in Coupling - tbh I don't care for them as people - I just find them utterly hilarious :)

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

I completely agree - her character in this is basically Sam-Soon with an involvement in politics instead of cooking. I found her in both dramas to have this weird doubleness of being somewhat emotionally mature - ie capable of love and continuing to love - while being completely immature in her actions and the way she lives her life. It super annoyed me in both dramas.

Coupling! thank you! I did a television poll of what I should watch next(you should go and vote for Farscape, btw, if you like it that much) and I KNEW I was forgetting something. A friend rec'd that to me a while back.

apparently it's becoming a habit for me to stop Kim Sun Ah dramas halfway through - I did the same thing with KSS.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I like City Hall but KSA's cutesy mannerisms really do grate. I want her to grow up so badly, not be stuck in perpetual cutesy adolescence. She does seem to be wising up in later eps so we will see. I think KSA is just not my cup of tea.

[mishane.livejournal.com]

The ONLY thing that's keeping me from this drama is the whole infidelity thing. From what I heard, the main male character is engaged the whole time to another chick?

Is this a big deal? Does it bother you? If not, let me know, I might pick it up. I hear that this drama is like fanservice for all OTP moments under the sun. Which I wouldn't mind, as long as I don't want to kill the characters.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It doesn't bother me. It's clearly an arranged politically expedient engagement with no feelings whatsoever on either side - I bet his fiancee would really not care if he had ten girlfriends and 15 illegitimate children as long as she married him and got political benefits.

And he is portrayed as rather ambitious and messed up - so I don't have a problem with how it's portrayed.

It IS shipper heaven though - even as little as I've gotten into the drama (ep 7) we already had tangoes and giving up suit jacket to protect her torn dress etc.

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

I was actually under the impression that she did care for him and vice versa, which is one of the several reasons it bothered me so much(but it would always bother me if an engaged man was dating/making out/going on weekend-long camping trips with another woman) - but it's possible I missed out on a few of the nuances as I tend to fastforward/skip around a bit.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

That is not an impression I got at all - he is very unsurprised at her lack of sympathy about his setbacks, shares nothing personal with her whatsoever, and treats her with politeness and restraint one would give a business associate. There is no intimacy in their manner at all.

She, OTOH, is not sympathetic when he does mention something and even not interested - the only interest she has is not in him as a person but entirely in his political position and her resulting status as his future wife - she treats him as a hired contractor who is not delivering what he promised. Sure, she is mildly annoyed by KSA's character but it's not because she has any emotion towards CSW, but because KSA might derail her own 'contract' and resulting benefits.

She openly tells him she will sleep with him on her father's suggestion (!!) and there is no indication that this course of action involves her own emotions in any capacity.

In a situation of this sort and with the hero who is on-purpose portrayed as messed-up I have no problem with him going out with someone else. I only hate when what drama wants us to think and what I do are completely radically different (i.e. Jun Pyo being presented as doing nothing wrong when he came across as pathologically self-absorbed and uncaring, or being presented as strong-willed when he was nothing of the sort). When the drama gives me an ambiguous, emotionally screwed-up guy with an arranged engagement falling in love despite his will, I am fine with it. But tbh, cheating is not automatically a dealbreaker for me with drama characters.