Musings of the Obsessive Kind

This is my OTP for Take Care of the Lady:



Cheeky hardworking butler (r) and a human rights lawyer who's given up his rich family to pursue his cause (l).

OK, I am kidding. Sort of.

The thing is, I am not big on our heroine, Hae Na, at all. I have no patience for poor little rich girl or boy who treats people like dirt while thinking that they are owed everything because of their unearned money and wallowing in undeserved emo while being waited on hand and foot. I start thinking longingly of French Revolution and guillotines.

Now, a hardworking rich person, like Lee Byung Hun's character in Beautiful Days, I am fine with. Otherwise, the spoiled rich brat better have some genuine cause for lashing out like Jae Min from Bali - I would not want to be a member of his horrific family for any money and Bali never shies away from the fact that despite being angsty and magnetic, Jae-Min is not a loveable cuddly thing only needing a love of a good woman to fix him, but a total mess.

Hae Na reminds me of Domyouji in all his incarnations and I loathed early Domyouji with every fibre of my being. To be honest, she is even worse - Domyouji was younger and was around one of the worst mother figures ever. Hae Na is close to a decade older than Domyouji and seems to be a product of a nice enough family. She has no excuse! Her grandfather is warm and loving and treats her well, her staff jumps to her every whim, she is healthy - wtf is her problem! Boo-hoo, some relationship 6 years ago did not work out. Since when is that a legitimate excuse to treat people like dirt? (There is no hint that her ex was abusive or similar and she has some sort of PTSD).

I adored Sung Yuri's heroine in Snow Queen even when she was a horrifying bitch because there was good reason for her behavior - a deeply dysfunctional family, suicide of a loved older brother, and knowledge that she is bound to die in her 20s due to a health condition. Yeah, that makes for some lashing out. Someone like Shin from Goong might have been no picnic as a significant other but he performed all his myriad duties in a proper manner while Hae Na does absolutely nothing, spounging off her grandfather, refusing to work. Charming! Contrast her her with Anna from Fantasy Couple - Anna was a nightmare but competent and at least her being awful to the hero had some rational basis at the start.

She is not utterly self-absorbed and is capable of gratitude (the way she behaved with Dong Chan when she countermanded his dismissal after he covered for her as she asked) - she is capable of improvement. But she has a long way to go before she becomes worthy of being anyone's girlfriend.

I think her being in tears after realizing Tae Yoon wasn't her first love but someone who looked a bit like him was supposed to humanize her but I was left rolling my eyes at the fact that her wealth insulated her from anything - she caused such a scene chasing after him and then was free to sit and emote while someone else, in this case Dong Chan, was left cleaning up her mess - pacifying the owner of the horse she took, getting her car etc etc. What a contrast with something like Worlds Within where heartbreak or not, Song Hye Kyo's character still had to go to work and do her best, without even time to finish her conversation with the man who was dumping her. Or something like Thank You where, whatever else went on in her life, Gong Hyo Jin had to work in the fields, take care of her daughter and her senile grandfather, and deal with it all. Awww, Hae Na, poor little rich girl, see me weep! Whatever other flaws I am easy on in my characters (iciness, jerkiness, dysfunction, whatever), I cannot stand people who are simply spoiled.

The reason I am enjoying this drama and do not hate Hae Na is, in part, because she does have potential as a character to develop, and in part because Yoon Eun Hye is, as always, gorgeous, charismatic and a good actress, making Hae Na a real person with hidden little-girl warmth, as opposed to a nasty rich witch she could easily come across in someone else's hands.

In other news, I am very very eager about upcoming Angel's Temptation. The plot? The heroine's family is killed and her family is ruined so she decides to punish those responsible. (Now, see, Hae Na? That's a woman with a legitimate reason to be pissed!) However, instead of doing the sensible thing and hiring a hitman or maybe using a pipe bomb on their house, she...that's right...seduces and marries the son of her enemy. The logic? Is brilliant.

I adore revenge plots and this sounds so deliciously OTT ridiculous, I cannot wait. All the more so as the male lead is the scrumptious Bae Soo Bin, who you all might remember as the gorgeous Jun Se oppa from Brilliant Legacy. Mmmmmmmm. MMMMMM.

This is my OTP for Take Care of the Lady:



Cheeky hardworking butler (r) and a human rights lawyer who's given up his rich family to pursue his cause (l).

OK, I am kidding. Sort of.

The thing is, I am not big on our heroine, Hae Na, at all. I have no patience for poor little rich girl or boy who treats people like dirt while thinking that they are owed everything because of their unearned money and wallowing in undeserved emo while being waited on hand and foot. I start thinking longingly of French Revolution and guillotines.

Now, a hardworking rich person, like Lee Byung Hun's character in Beautiful Days, I am fine with. Otherwise, the spoiled rich brat better have some genuine cause for lashing out like Jae Min from Bali - I would not want to be a member of his horrific family for any money and Bali never shies away from the fact that despite being angsty and magnetic, Jae-Min is not a loveable cuddly thing only needing a love of a good woman to fix him, but a total mess.

Hae Na reminds me of Domyouji in all his incarnations and I loathed early Domyouji with every fibre of my being. To be honest, she is even worse - Domyouji was younger and was around one of the worst mother figures ever. Hae Na is close to a decade older than Domyouji and seems to be a product of a nice enough family. She has no excuse! Her grandfather is warm and loving and treats her well, her staff jumps to her every whim, she is healthy - wtf is her problem! Boo-hoo, some relationship 6 years ago did not work out. Since when is that a legitimate excuse to treat people like dirt? (There is no hint that her ex was abusive or similar and she has some sort of PTSD).

I adored Sung Yuri's heroine in Snow Queen even when she was a horrifying bitch because there was good reason for her behavior - a deeply dysfunctional family, suicide of a loved older brother, and knowledge that she is bound to die in her 20s due to a health condition. Yeah, that makes for some lashing out. Someone like Shin from Goong might have been no picnic as a significant other but he performed all his myriad duties in a proper manner while Hae Na does absolutely nothing, spounging off her grandfather, refusing to work. Charming! Contrast her her with Anna from Fantasy Couple - Anna was a nightmare but competent and at least her being awful to the hero had some rational basis at the start.

She is not utterly self-absorbed and is capable of gratitude (the way she behaved with Dong Chan when she countermanded his dismissal after he covered for her as she asked) - she is capable of improvement. But she has a long way to go before she becomes worthy of being anyone's girlfriend.

I think her being in tears after realizing Tae Yoon wasn't her first love but someone who looked a bit like him was supposed to humanize her but I was left rolling my eyes at the fact that her wealth insulated her from anything - she caused such a scene chasing after him and then was free to sit and emote while someone else, in this case Dong Chan, was left cleaning up her mess - pacifying the owner of the horse she took, getting her car etc etc. What a contrast with something like Worlds Within where heartbreak or not, Song Hye Kyo's character still had to go to work and do her best, without even time to finish her conversation with the man who was dumping her. Or something like Thank You where, whatever else went on in her life, Gong Hyo Jin had to work in the fields, take care of her daughter and her senile grandfather, and deal with it all. Awww, Hae Na, poor little rich girl, see me weep! Whatever other flaws I am easy on in my characters (iciness, jerkiness, dysfunction, whatever), I cannot stand people who are simply spoiled.

The reason I am enjoying this drama and do not hate Hae Na is, in part, because she does have potential as a character to develop, and in part because Yoon Eun Hye is, as always, gorgeous, charismatic and a good actress, making Hae Na a real person with hidden little-girl warmth, as opposed to a nasty rich witch she could easily come across in someone else's hands.

In other news, I am very very eager about upcoming Angel's Temptation. The plot? The heroine's family is killed and her family is ruined so she decides to punish those responsible. (Now, see, Hae Na? That's a woman with a legitimate reason to be pissed!) However, instead of doing the sensible thing and hiring a hitman or maybe using a pipe bomb on their house, she...that's right...seduces and marries the son of her enemy. The logic? Is brilliant.

I adore revenge plots and this sounds so deliciously OTT ridiculous, I cannot wait. All the more so as the male lead is the scrumptious Bae Soo Bin, who you all might remember as the gorgeous Jun Se oppa from Brilliant Legacy. Mmmmmmmm. MMMMMM.

Some time ago, I started a series of posts capping episodes of Goong (just click on the goong tag to see previous eps' caps) because not only do I adore that drama, but it's just so incredibly pretty. It should win some sort of an award for art design.



In case you somehow avoided knowing about it, Goong was a wildly successful adaptation of a manhwa from a few years back, starring Yoon Eun Hye and Joo Ji hoon. It's a delicious, hilarious (but with that yummy underpinning of angst) fairytale set in an alternative universe, where Korea is a constitutional monarchy. Our heroine Chae-Gyung, in her last year of high school, an outgoing, funny, and dorktastic girl from a wonderful but poor family, finds out that years ago, and unknown to anyone but her now deceased grandfather, she has been betrothed to the Crown Prince Shin - a cold, arrogant young man who she has overheard proposing marriage to another woman. How on earth could the two of them ever make it work?



I took a bit of a break, but am back on it now, where I left off: this post contains caps for ep 19.

You know, this capping is basically a giant excuse for me to rewatch (it's one of my most rewatched dramas) and somehow, every time, I forget how much I adore it and just how well it flows - the makers of BOF could learn a thing or dozen on how to adopt a manga into a teen-oriented drama successfully, by watching Goong (and, no, stealing instrumental music from it doesn't count). In addition to pretty colors, art design, and actually competent editing, what really gets me in Goong is the characters: to me Goong, bubblegum though it is, has some of the most consistent, believable, and interesting character arcs I have seen in kdramas. ( A bit more on Goong v BOF )

Anyway, ep 19 - angst, funniness, shippiness, and prettiness.

( Grab my hand and run )

I am so irritated with Korean version of Hana Yori Dango at the moment.

It's a living proof of a mess you get when you put together:

a. excellent cast
b. huge budget
c. a messy, nonsensical, illogical script.

Seriously, wtf, Korea? K-Hanadan was at its best in the beginning, when it followed the manga closely. The more and more it departed from it, the less logical sense it made and the more I had to handwave things. At this point, not only is it nowhere near dethroning Meteor Garden or the jdrama from their 'favorite adaptations' places, it's making less sense than an average well-written kdrama.

You do not have to slavishly follow the manga. But then you have to make sure you have a good script which makes its own internal coherent sense - with character progressions, logical segways, developments that make sense. Oh, and if you at least try to be true to the spirit of the original story, that also helps. Look at the Japanese Hanadan - it's the perfect example. It didn't choose to go the literally faithful adaptation road of the awesome Meteor Garden, but it remained true to the spirit of the story and the characters - Matsujun's Domyouji and Mao's Makino are, in essense, very much like their manga counterparts. Jandi and Jun Pyo are miles away. Not only that, but even if they reorganized the events significantly, it made both character progression sense, a la the manga, and also, even more importantly, internal coherent sense. When I watched e.g. Hanadan2, I never either wondered WTF they were doing what they were doing, or switched ships because the canon ship made no sense.

And that's another complaint: the characters. Manga Makino is one of the most awesome heroines out there: strong, unyielding, unmopey, fiercely energetic, impossible to bully. Inoue Mao in the jdrama portrays it perfectly. And Barbie Hsu in the twdrama kicks it up a notch even more. Those are some fearsome ladies. And then we have Jandi. Whose toughness in the earlier eps has gone away entirely - who cannot say boo to the mean girls, let alone Darth Mama, who needs constant ridiculous rescuing (from a pool two feet deep!), who is mopey, weepy, and listless. She is lame and weak compared even to an good kdrama heroine (Chunhyang or Yu Rin or Ma Ja would wipe the floor with her in two seconds), not to mention the original source. Heck, even an average kdrama heroine (heroine of Who Are You or Which Star Are You From), not one with unusual amounts of spunk, could take her.

Also, Jun Pyo. We got rid of most of Domyouji's distinctive traits - the hugely troubling and uncontrolled violence. The dimness. Total unwaivering refusal to let go of Makino (in Hanadan2 I bought it barely, because it was brief, super-hard, and rather justified). He's become yet another tall, hot, and troubled kdrama hero. And the worst part? Unlike in twdrama and jdrama, he's had no learning curve about becoming human, he didn't have to work hard and hard and harder to get the girl to change her opinion - the bullying doesn't seem to matter, Jandi falls into his lap fairly quick.

Etcetcetc. I could rant for hours.

But one last comment - it took my reading people's posts to realize that the fiancee in a modest swimsuit hugging Jun Pyo from the back in the pool is the kdrama's equivalent of the seduction scene in the manga. WTF? I don't expect them to follow the manga and the twdrama and show her straddling him half-naked on the bed, but even the jdrama, much much more prudish though it was, had her on top of him in a bed. This pool thing is a seduction scene? Ahahahahahaaaa. LOL. Yeah.

Korea, you can adopt manga excellently well and make a great teen drama - see Goong! So WTF?

I am so irritated with Korean version of Hana Yori Dango at the moment.

It's a living proof of a mess you get when you put together:

a. excellent cast
b. huge budget
c. a messy, nonsensical, illogical script.

Seriously, wtf, Korea? K-Hanadan was at its best in the beginning, when it followed the manga closely. The more and more it departed from it, the less logical sense it made and the more I had to handwave things. At this point, not only is it nowhere near dethroning Meteor Garden or the jdrama from their 'favorite adaptations' places, it's making less sense than an average well-written kdrama.

You do not have to slavishly follow the manga. But then you have to make sure you have a good script which makes its own internal coherent sense - with character progressions, logical segways, developments that make sense. Oh, and if you at least try to be true to the spirit of the original story, that also helps. Look at the Japanese Hanadan - it's the perfect example. It didn't choose to go the literally faithful adaptation road of the awesome Meteor Garden, but it remained true to the spirit of the story and the characters - Matsujun's Domyouji and Mao's Makino are, in essense, very much like their manga counterparts. Jandi and Jun Pyo are miles away. Not only that, but even if they reorganized the events significantly, it made both character progression sense, a la the manga, and also, even more importantly, internal coherent sense. When I watched e.g. Hanadan2, I never either wondered WTF they were doing what they were doing, or switched ships because the canon ship made no sense.

And that's another complaint: the characters. Manga Makino is one of the most awesome heroines out there: strong, unyielding, unmopey, fiercely energetic, impossible to bully. Inoue Mao in the jdrama portrays it perfectly. And Barbie Hsu in the twdrama kicks it up a notch even more. Those are some fearsome ladies. And then we have Jandi. Whose toughness in the earlier eps has gone away entirely - who cannot say boo to the mean girls, let alone Darth Mama, who needs constant ridiculous rescuing (from a pool two feet deep!), who is mopey, weepy, and listless. She is lame and weak compared even to an good kdrama heroine (Chunhyang or Yu Rin or Ma Ja would wipe the floor with her in two seconds), not to mention the original source. Heck, even an average kdrama heroine (heroine of Who Are You or Which Star Are You From), not one with unusual amounts of spunk, could take her.

Also, Jun Pyo. We got rid of most of Domyouji's distinctive traits - the hugely troubling and uncontrolled violence. The dimness. Total unwaivering refusal to let go of Makino (in Hanadan2 I bought it barely, because it was brief, super-hard, and rather justified). He's become yet another tall, hot, and troubled kdrama hero. And the worst part? Unlike in twdrama and jdrama, he's had no learning curve about becoming human, he didn't have to work hard and hard and harder to get the girl to change her opinion - the bullying doesn't seem to matter, Jandi falls into his lap fairly quick.

Etcetcetc. I could rant for hours.

But one last comment - it took my reading people's posts to realize that the fiancee in a modest swimsuit hugging Jun Pyo from the back in the pool is the kdrama's equivalent of the seduction scene in the manga. WTF? I don't expect them to follow the manga and the twdrama and show her straddling him half-naked on the bed, but even the jdrama, much much more prudish though it was, had her on top of him in a bed. This pool thing is a seduction scene? Ahahahahahaaaa. LOL. Yeah.

Korea, you can adopt manga excellently well and make a great teen drama - see Goong! So WTF?

I have decided that it was about time for me to update and expand my favorite kdrama primer yet again (which I first did some months ago). Not only were there a bunch of kdramas I wanted to add to the list, but I wanted to rearrange the order of some of the dramas on the list already (except for the first three or so, the placement of the other ones within the rankings is fluid and moves based on my mood) and very much expand it.

So behind the cut are 25 of my favorite kdramas, with summaries, reasons why, pics and vids. I have tried to keep it as unspoilery as possible.

No kdrama I have not finished is on the list because I want to have seen the complete drama before evaluating the fave status. Also, I watch a lot of dramas, but I have hardly seen all or most kdrama out there, and there are some very famous ones I have never seen. I am always open to recs and am always looking for said recs.

Now, without too much further verbosity, Dangermousie's 25 favorite kdramas list, new and improved.

( Lengthy post here )

I am loving The Devil the way I haven't loved a drama in quite a bit. This is the only drama I am watching right now, literally. If you know me, you know how rare that phenomenon is. Also, there has been no fast-forwarding at all, an equally almost-unheard-of-phenomenon.

This said, morwen_perehdil's awesome Goong post did inspire me to continue with my rewatch once I finish The Devil (I love Goong as much as ever, but got sidetracked). Now, I plan to mostly marathon the remaining six eps on a plane trip I'll be going on shortly (it is sweet, soothing crack of awesomeness on a ride) but I did watch ep 18 a while back and yes, as gleefilled as ever. I have been too busy with The Devil to cap Goong ep 18 properly, because...obsessive. But it makes for a nice break in a busy day, so here are caps from ep 18.



( My, my, how cracktastic you are, Your Highnesses )

It's totally surreal watching The Devil and Goong back to back. But the odd thing? I don't confuse Shin and Seung Ha at all, they act and look very different so it never interferes one character with the other.

I am loving The Devil the way I haven't loved a drama in quite a bit. This is the only drama I am watching right now, literally. If you know me, you know how rare that phenomenon is. Also, there has been no fast-forwarding at all, an equally almost-unheard-of-phenomenon.

This said, morwen_perehdil's awesome Goong post did inspire me to continue with my rewatch once I finish The Devil (I love Goong as much as ever, but got sidetracked). Now, I plan to mostly marathon the remaining six eps on a plane trip I'll be going on shortly (it is sweet, soothing crack of awesomeness on a ride) but I did watch ep 18 a while back and yes, as gleefilled as ever. I have been too busy with The Devil to cap Goong ep 18 properly, because...obsessive. But it makes for a nice break in a busy day, so here are caps from ep 18.



( My, my, how cracktastic you are, Your Highnesses )

It's totally surreal watching The Devil and Goong back to back. But the odd thing? I don't confuse Shin and Seung Ha at all, they act and look very different so it never interferes one character with the other.

1.



2.

The fact that there are people (who don't need English subs) in the Powerful Opponents thread on soompi freaking out/partying that the drama is beginning to tilt Gwan Pil/Young Joo. Oh, please please please drama Gods! If you make it GP/YJ, I will forgive you for atrocities like Peach Girl and My Love Patzzi, unreservedly. I might even forgive you for Gokusen 3. (OTOH, some people also exhibit the annoying shipper phenomenon, i.e. because the shipping is not going their way, the whole show is awful, but really it has nothing to do with the shipping honest honest honest. I have been in too many fandoms with that phenomenon. Also, come on! I would hardly think the drama is awful if they went YJ/Su Ho, after all. As long as relationships make sense, I am fine with it).

3.

The prettiness of this dress:

I have been in a bit of a bad mood since morning for various reasons, but this never fails to cheer me up:



Yeah, I posted it before, but it is still my favorite MV in the whole world.

Yes. Really.

Oh Shin and Chae-Gyung, why do you make me feel so good? They must have mixed some sort of a drug additive into the film.