It seems fitting to have a poll about the ratings behemoth that is Moon/Sun

[dangermousie]

[Poll #1824605]

Comments

[clairiere.livejournal.com]

Speaking of period dramas, I tried/watched a little bit of Princess Ja Myung Go last week (and re-read your posts :)). The actor who played Wang Hol? is in God of War, and I'm developing a crush on him. He hasn't had much to do yet, but it's a key role, and they gave him a fabulous scene in ep. 8. But prior to that, I wanted to find out if he had the chops for sageuks and the DCgall people said he did just fine in Ja Myung Go. Checked a couple of his scenes with Jung Ryeo-Won on YT, and it was better than I'd expected (not just the actor, but the drama as a whole, from the little I could tell).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I really liked JMG, which was very underrated. It was flawed but very interesting.

I need to catch up with GoW - I try to watch dramas that require braincells on the weekend.

[rectherapyfreak.livejournal.com]

I love most genres but I chose revenge plots as my fave. Probably tie with romatic comedy though. I do love a bunch of period dramas too.

I have no clue what Moon is about...I really don't know much about any of the airing dramas...except OP and SUFBB...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Moon is a period romance which is normally my thing but I really dislike this one.

[rectherapyfreak.livejournal.com]

I knew it was a period just not what the storyine was. I can go and look up if I get interested. :D

[cwazy-weiven.livejournal.com]

Honestly, there's nothing about Kim Soo Hyun that I find particularly interesting so there's nothing really pulling me to watch the drama.

And about the drama genre, the one I really love is high school delinquent dramas and it isn't even because of Shut Up Flower Boy Band. It dates back to my first every Japanese drama, Gokusen and the subsequent delinquent drama obsessions I've had like Gokusen 2 and 3, ROOKIES, Crows Zero, Dragon Zakura (a variation)...etc.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heee, I like delinquent dramas. Almost as much as I dislike KSH :P

[cwazy-weiven.livejournal.com]

KSH has such a dull face tbh /shallow

Acting talent or not I'd rather spend 40 minutes of my day looking at Jang Do Il and his L'Oreal campaign hair. Hell I'd rather spend 40 minutes looking at grouchy Jihyuk being moody and grouchy.

[momosan.livejournal.com]

Clearly we were raised in the same school of dorama! I normally like the Japanese versions a lot better than the Korean ones, so I'm surprised to find that I like Operation Proposal better than Proposal Daisakusan. Also Nobuta, Nodame, Yankee-kun, etc. I have a real thing for the school genre. The only Korean one of this type that I can think of that everyone but me seems to hate is the movie He Was Cool.

[cwazy-weiven.livejournal.com]

I still favour Japanese dramas over Korean drama though (besides a selected few *coughSUFBBcough*) although I didn't really like Proposal Daisakusen. I think I watched maybe 4 episodes before I got bored and skipped to the end to see what happened, so I don't really have any intention of watching the Korean version.

I haven't seen Nodame although I've been meaning to so bad (TAMAKI HIROSHI UNF) and NOBUTA IS THE MOST PERFECT DRAMA EVER I DON'T EVEN CARE

[timescout.livejournal.com]

Everything about Moon/Sun is 'meh' for me. I liked the childhood part well enough but even the re-caps from then on 'taste' like cadboard. Besides, I don't know when I started being irritated by anythying KSH but that's the way it is atm.

My fave genre is basically revenge/suspense/period with mysteries/procedurals thrown in too but I picked suspense/thriller for now. :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Period is my favorite and M/S is pretty much the first sageuk I really loathe. Hmmm.

[momosan.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of period dramas. Moonshine is way too far into the fantasy realm for me to count it as a period drama, and yet not far enough for me to count it as fantasy. Now Rooftop Prince - you go time traveling and you automatically skip into fantasy and get a pass on the history.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

The thing about sageuks is that I like them for their complexity and tie-ins to actual history, neither one of which is present for Moon/Sun/Rain/Cloud/Meteorology United, and while I do think the younger cast did a great job, the older cast's been crippled by the lack of plot to be able to do more than look pretty.

It is truly a puzzle as to why this show became a national drama.

[clairiere.livejournal.com]

Labeling M/S a "sageuk" is an insult to sageuks (which I know neither you nor Mousie meant), but anyhow...

The most plausible explanation I've read is that M/S belongs to that type of teenage-oriented k-dramas that tend to perform well in the winter, coinciding with school breaks in Korea, such as Boys Before Flowers or God of Study. Winter school breaks in Korea tend to be much longer than elsewhere (from Dec. through Feb.), and k-dramas definitely target that demo group (eg. Dream High). In addition to that, and an unusually long cold snap (keeping people off the streets), M/S faced no competition from KBS (Wild Romance) and SBS (Flying Captain whatever). BBF was up against East of Eden, GoS Pasta, which leveled their ratings in the 20-30% range.

For all the hype about M/S = 'national drama', I have yet to see either the respect or the passion accorded to such dramas as Jewel in the Palace, Hur Joon, Queen Seondeok or Chuno, just to name a few. I have mixed feelings about QSD but boy were people, the fans passionate about it. A love and hate relationship for sure, but it was deeply intense, generating countless reviews and debates and fights among the fans. I have never, ever seen an in-depth review of M/S, for any of its episodes on DCgall, it just never inspired the usual reviewers or any newcomer to that extent.

Mishil, Bidam, even Deokman vs. Hwon, Yeonwoo?

No contest as to which was the phenomenon.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I didn't know about the demographics, but that makes a lot of sense! So this really is a case of cold hard stats - I think even BBF, horrendous as it was, generated a lot more passion in its viewers.

At this point I'm more interested in the political ramifications of the three-station-wide strike, I really hope something good comes out of it!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thank makes sense, thank you.

Yeah, even on soompi, most seem to criticize it for one thing or another...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

And even if history tie-ins are minimal and politics are too, the characters and motivations are complex but these are characters straight out of a Nick Jr cartoon. Ugh!

[sisterjune.livejournal.com]

I hate Moon/Sun you are right its simplistic and stupid. and I wouldnt even call it disney cause disney can do better tbqh. its an all around basic drama. i have no earthly idea how its getting so many viewers and everyone loves it. color me confused. my only guess is the simplistic narrative makes it very accessible to a wider audience than other sageuks? plus its much shorter. but i mean sageuks are already really popular in korea, its just funny such a crappy one is getting so much more attention. i keep watching it because i just want to see it to the bitter end but i kind of space out/FF through most of it. its really fucking boring. I felt like nothing happened for 90% of the drama. just people crying or making dramatic speeches. is this seriously the person who wrote sungkyunkwan scandal? because my god this is like night and day difference in quality.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, a good Disney movie (like Tangled) is not deep but fun. This is poorly-acted, horribly-written mess and the fact that it got such insane ratings just pisses me off. I mean, I much preferred BOF to it, and that's saying something.

[wanah ceriales (from livejournal.com)]

Makjang dramas if done right and executed well can be extremely gripping and highly entertaining. And FEAST OF THE GODS is the current example of it. There's nothing ground-breaking but the steady flow of the plot, oozing chemistry of the leads and the unpredictable pairings make me want for more. ^^

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, you are making me want to check it out!

[hanjae.livejournal.com]

It took me awhile to even get around to watching the first ep of MoonSun, but I finally gave the first ep a whirl the other day and was SO BORED. I love me some sageuks, but my eyes pretty much glazed over within the first 10 minutes of it. It's just a whole bunch of people yelling and screaming about something that they clearly care about, but I couldn't figure out why the fuss. Like a previous commenter mentioned, if it had historical ties then I could understand why I was at least supposed to find the goings-on important, but since MoonSun has none whatsoever, it's just a bunch of people being dramatic. Evidently I missed the memo; I was supposed to care deeply about Prince Uiseong getting stabbed and poor Hwon not being able to see his brother blah blah blah. I don't think I'm even going to make it to Kim Soo Hyun's first appearance!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

OMG agreed agreed agreed! It was just so...uninspiringly dull. I am really confused by the ratings.

Also, so with you on fictional people making me care less. I mean, if Uisong was Sado or something, at least I'd be caring out of historical importance but the guy is fictional and I barely met him, why do I care?

[hanjae.livejournal.com]

The only reason for the ratings is that the competition didn't really put up a fight and people didn't have anything else to watch! I mean, the other choices were Wild Romance and Take Care of Us, Captain. Barely anyone I know watched the latter, and Wild Romance wasn't everyone's thing. I tried it and was instantly turned off by Lee Shi Young's pineapple hair and overacting.

It's just bad execution all around. Perhaps if they spend half a minute showing us Uiseong's loving bromance with the King or him doing some charity, bouncing around a few babies... BEFORE they killed him off, I'd feel sympathy for him. Instead, we hadn't even figured out who was who yet and they've already jumped into murdering-conspiracy mode, so I'm like... wow, they just killed a guy. He seems important. So what?

It's a bit of a joke that this scored massive ratings while SKKS got an average of 11% or something.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I guess the ratings make more sense this way but still - ugh. I mean, I'd rather stare at a wall than watch this.