dangermousie: (Jumong by miss_dian)
dangermousie ([personal profile] dangermousie) wrote2008-03-17 07:30 pm
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My drama WTF-points, and Jumong gets married...

Perhaps surprisingly for someone who enjoys stories about stepsiblings loving each other in the snow, I do have a WTF button when it comes to dramas. This is separate from not liking a drama because it's not good. There are plenty of wtf dramas that are excellently made and plenty of bad ones which do not even pinge my WTF meter. There have been a number of dramas I gave up on or never checked out because they broke the WTF-meter: Magicians of Love (Taiwan), Hana Kimi (Japan), Kimi Wa Petto (Japan), Jotei (Japan), Deer Man (Japan), RH Plus (Japan), Love Story in Harvard (Korea), Who Are You (Korea), etc etc etc. I am sure there are many more wtf-y dramas, but I tend to stay away from them.

What are sure signs that will send me running for the exit?

1. Hairdressers who are butch, manly, the envy of all and saviors of the country. Some are mafia heirs (See MoL).

2. Generally people who use their face like rubber masks. I don't require a great deal of subtlety in my acting, but am not keen on human cartoons.

3. Scrawny, starved boys with concave chests who are supposed to be tough fighters. (I shudder when I think of shirtless Matsuda Shota with his concave chest pretending to be a gangster in Jotei. No one will convince me even a Kame who's had a few meals can be any kind of a boxer etc etc).

3a. Any scrawny guy shirtless. Most of jdrama stars should keep their shirts on forever.

4. Talking animals. Just no. (Deer Man).

5. Gay teenage vampires who fight crime. (RH+)

6. Any drama which has a main character in drag for most of the duration (Queens, Princess Princess D)

Scratch that. Just remembered Coffee Prince and Hana Kimi-tw.

7. People as pets. (KwP)

8. Any drama a huge chunk of which is set at an English-speaking country and I have to listen to episodes and episodes of nearly incomprehensible English as everyon around them exclaims at their fluency and they are surrounded by horrid White non-actors (Love Story in Harvard by far the worst offender, as its hero is supposed to be an American lawyer for eps and eps and eps).

9. Prostitutes dressed like desk ladies at Holiday Inn (Jotei).

10. Bizarro sound effects.

What are yours?

In completely unrelated news, kdrama star Song Il-Gook got hitched last week in a very traditional ceremony. He married a lady judge. That is sort of like a drama :)

And apparently it was a private wedding (he doesn't want the pics/name of bride to circulate so she can stay private) but some authorized pics have been released. You can't see the bride well in them, on purpose, but the traditional stuff is fascinating (a duck?)







[identity profile] miss-dian.livejournal.com 2008-03-18 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
Heeee. Song Il Gook :D For some weird reason I am quite happy that he got married.

Any drama a huge chunk of which is set at an English-speaking country and I have to listen to episodes and episodes of nearly incomprehensible English as everyon around them exclaims at their fluency and they are surrounded by horrid White non-actors (Love Story in Harvard by far the worst offender, as its hero is supposed to be an American lawyer for eps and eps and eps).
Eeeee! Does that mean that you won't like The Lobbyist? There was quite a bit of English in the beginning, but they are quite comprehensible, trust me. If it's any consolation, the best English I've heard (spoken in large chunks, anyway) in a k-drama, in fact ^^

I have Love Story in Harvard, and love looking at Kim Rae Won. But you're right. The English just put me off. I didn't end up watching (am putting it off for later) and sent it to my sister to watch first, LOL.

PS. I have the biggest crush on Lee Dong Gun at the moment. So freakin' hot in the movie Love Now (alongside Uhm Jung Hwa of Seducing Mr Perfect and Han Chae Young of Delightful Girl EH). Do you have any recs for his other dramas, in which he actually GETS the girl (in Sangdoo he didn't, I read that in Lovers in Paris he also didn't get the girl - heh)?

[identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com 2008-03-18 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
Oh YES.

I adore Lee Dong Gun with a scary level of adoration :)

Image

He gets the girl in Smile Again, which is on my very very short list (I am taking it to watch on flight to Thailand later this week).

He gets the girl in Sweet 18, which is cute and super-fluffy.

He gets the girl in Stained Glass. And looks really good:

http://dangermousie.livejournal.com/847820.html

He also is the main male lead in If in love...like them, but it's one of those terminal illness dramas.

I don't mind bad English if the rest of the drama grabs me. LSiH didn't.

[identity profile] miss-dian.livejournal.com 2008-03-18 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my. YUM :D I seriously went brain-dead looking at his hotness after Love Now. To me, the 'sex' scenes in that movie was more intense than Lust Caution. Yup. It wasn't even as explicit but DAMN IT WAS HOT. And Lee Dong Gun's bare chest might just be the thing that threw me off the edge ^^ I was squealing and covering my eyes because I was embarrassed from watching intensity of it all, LOL. I am so going to make screencaps of that movie later on this week.

Thanks so much for the recs! I have 'If in Love' (my copy is actually titled Perhaps Love) but haven't finished watching because I couldn't stand looking at him die >_>

I will be looking out for Stained Glass (though am not particularly excited that he plays opposite Kim Hae Nul there), Sweet 18 (his leading lady there was his ex-girlfriend Han Ji Hye, right?) and Smile Again :)

[identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com 2008-03-18 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I want to watch Love Now after reading all this :) Does it have a happy ending?

S18: Yup.

I just started SA and it's awesome.

[identity profile] miss-dian.livejournal.com 2008-03-19 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
Re: Love Now. It does have a happy ending. I think :) It's one of those movies that end ambiguously, so depends on how you interpret it. I liked the ending, though it was pretty much a non-closure. The theme of the movie itself isn't a favourite of mine (marriage couples falling out of love). But the acting and the choice of actors/actresses were very fitting. I just watched parts of it again last night ^^

[identity profile] miss-dian.livejournal.com 2008-03-24 01:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Am so stupid. Love Now definitely has a happy ending :) So worth the watch. Did a write up and went screencap crazy here http://miss-dian.livejournal.com/110104.html#cutid1 and http://miss-dian.livejournal.com/110396.html#cutid1

You have to watch. Really :D

[identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com 2008-04-01 10:08 am (UTC)(link)
Yay! Just ordered it.

Btw, the most explicit sex scenes in kcinema are in Chunhyang. Oh my.