Bad Guy of My Heart - an unlikely ode
Nov. 1st, 2010 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI am in the middle of working on my ginormous "2010 drama year in review" post (it will take me weeks and only in part because a few dramas have yet to premier) and, to my shock, I realized that Bad Guy has ended up a winner in a number of 'favorites' categories for me.
So, have a post.
I don't think I have such a complicated relationship with any other drama this year (or any other year, for that matter). Usually it's a pretty straightforward love/like/meh/dislike categorization for me. Even with dramas which evoke different feelings in the beginning and the end (Boys Over Flowers, Powerful Opponents) my ultimate overall feeling for them is fairly uniform. But not so with Bad Guy which refuses to submit to categorization.
I realized that I would have no problem recommending BG to others even though the last third drove me insane (I am still not sure whether it went into tailspin because of Kim Nam Gil's unexpected enlistment, the episode number cut, or the writers doing crack in the writers' room - my bet is on all three - given more time to flesh it out, even what the drama started doing could have been more palatable, if KNG could stay, they wouldn't have to rush, and the writers were certainly on something). Because what BG is, to me, is a grand, fascinating, magnetic failure - not the masterpiece that could have been, but even with all its flaws still miles above the usual inoffensive mediocre stuff kdrama world churns out by the dozen every year.
There is the story - it's as if someone threw Mawang, Bali, Resurrection, Que Sera Sera and La Dolce Vita in a blender and made it work for 2/3 of its run. When this drama was good, it was amazing, better than anything else on this year with its almost claustrophobic intensity. When it was bad...oh well.
Then there is the acting. Bad Guy had literally the strongest acting ensemble I have seen in years. Kim Nam Gil made a cypher not just interesting but someone you actually cared for. Kim Jae Wook stole the drama (and my heart) - I have seen him before but I never knew he could be like this. His tortured, spoiled, fragile, hurtful, abused Hwang Tae Sung is, hands down, my favorite kdrama character this year (I saw so many shades of Jo In Sung's character in Bali in him). I never knew Han Ga In could act before this drama but her good-at-heart golddigger really won me over. Oh Yeon Soo was her amazing self as a tightly-wound, neurotic, love-starved woman. Etc etc etc - everyone in the cast was uniformly excellent. Even when the script went, they maintained how good they were.
It was also, hands down, the most beautifully shot kdrama I have ever seen. And the direction, soundtrack, pacing, design - they were all out of this world.
So, yes, ultimately a failure. But still, even its lack, better than 90% of dramas out there.
Have an unspoilery MV:
So, have a post.
I don't think I have such a complicated relationship with any other drama this year (or any other year, for that matter). Usually it's a pretty straightforward love/like/meh/dislike categorization for me. Even with dramas which evoke different feelings in the beginning and the end (Boys Over Flowers, Powerful Opponents) my ultimate overall feeling for them is fairly uniform. But not so with Bad Guy which refuses to submit to categorization.
I realized that I would have no problem recommending BG to others even though the last third drove me insane (I am still not sure whether it went into tailspin because of Kim Nam Gil's unexpected enlistment, the episode number cut, or the writers doing crack in the writers' room - my bet is on all three - given more time to flesh it out, even what the drama started doing could have been more palatable, if KNG could stay, they wouldn't have to rush, and the writers were certainly on something). Because what BG is, to me, is a grand, fascinating, magnetic failure - not the masterpiece that could have been, but even with all its flaws still miles above the usual inoffensive mediocre stuff kdrama world churns out by the dozen every year.
There is the story - it's as if someone threw Mawang, Bali, Resurrection, Que Sera Sera and La Dolce Vita in a blender and made it work for 2/3 of its run. When this drama was good, it was amazing, better than anything else on this year with its almost claustrophobic intensity. When it was bad...oh well.
Then there is the acting. Bad Guy had literally the strongest acting ensemble I have seen in years. Kim Nam Gil made a cypher not just interesting but someone you actually cared for. Kim Jae Wook stole the drama (and my heart) - I have seen him before but I never knew he could be like this. His tortured, spoiled, fragile, hurtful, abused Hwang Tae Sung is, hands down, my favorite kdrama character this year (I saw so many shades of Jo In Sung's character in Bali in him). I never knew Han Ga In could act before this drama but her good-at-heart golddigger really won me over. Oh Yeon Soo was her amazing self as a tightly-wound, neurotic, love-starved woman. Etc etc etc - everyone in the cast was uniformly excellent. Even when the script went, they maintained how good they were.
It was also, hands down, the most beautifully shot kdrama I have ever seen. And the direction, soundtrack, pacing, design - they were all out of this world.
So, yes, ultimately a failure. But still, even its lack, better than 90% of dramas out there.
Have an unspoilery MV:
