Musings of the Obsessive Kind

We have battened down our hatches for Hurricane Sandy - both Mr. Mousie and I have had our work close tomorrow and Baby Mousie's preschool is shut as well. Me being me, that means I need to pass the suddenly-freed time with a drama, preferably one I can binge on, as opposed to waiting for a slow slow drip of weekly eps.



(Some gorgeous shippy caps and a bunch of thoughts) (   )

1. Check out this gorgeous, shippy Faith MV:



2. I am currently following three dramas (Faith, Nice Guy, Five Fingers). This is pretty much a perfect number because it's enough to sate my drama love while giving me enough free time for other things. And it looks like the 'three' pattern will continue for the rest of the year. Faith ends next week (sob!) but I Miss You starts that same week (different channel. I have no interest in Faith's replacement drama - it's very much not my thing). Five Fingers will be replaced by Cheonamdong Alice, which I need to watch because Park Shi Ho! and Nice Guy is being replaced by Jeon Woo Chi, which I definitely plan to check out due to my love of fantasy and plot, and just hope Cha Tae Hyun will surprise me and make my dislike of him disappear.

3. In addition to the above, the only (possibly) winter dramas on my radar are:

* This Winter The Wind Blows - the dark romance melodrama from the amazing Noh Hee Kyung, with Jo In Sung, Song Hye Kyo, Kim Bum, Park Eunji. The only way I am missing checking it out is if I get hit by the bus
* IRIS 2 - I get to see Jang Hyuk and Lee Da Hae romance each other again. Everything else is immaterial.
* That rumored Kang Ji Hwan/Hwang Jung Eum drama the plot of which sounds insane. But only if KJH is on board (it's by the people who made History of a Salaryman and humorous/satirical drama and I don't mix normally).
* Yoon Sang Hyun as an ahjusshi idol one. Because in my head it's a drama all about Oska :P Plus, I think the female lead in this one is much younger than the male lead (because male lead has been in a coma for forever and still thinks he's a twenty-something) and I want that, if for no other reason than as a counterpoint to endless noona romances out there.
* The Legend of the Half-Blood - Lee Seung Gi/Suzi sageuk fantasy. I mean!

Sadly, Joo Won's upcoming drama came off the list the moment they cast Choi Kang Hee. I am just going to pretend that drama doesn't exist. (Though people who keep complaining because RL Joo Won is babyish/immature thus the ten-year-difference is exacerbated must be people who have somehow managed to skip Gaksital, Ojakgyo Brothers and Baker King - i.e., every drama Joo Won has ever made. In all of them he has played dark, manly characters older than his age. His RL persona and his on-screen one are 180 degrees different).

4. I've seen interest in sageuks spike on my flist due to Faith. So, if you haven't yet watched Chuno (also known as Slave Hunters), I am totally here to push it. It's arguably my favorite sageuk, and follows Lee Dae Gil (Jang Hyuk), an aristocrat fallen on hard times who became a slave hunter, as he chases Song Tae Ha (Oh Ji Ho), an unjustly enslaved general who goes on the run to fulfill a secret mission. And then there is Un Nyun (Lee Da Hae), a woman who ends up being the love of both of their lives. This is pretty much a perfect drama in every way. And Tae Ha/Un Nyun- the aristocrat-turned-slave and slave-turned-aristocrat, were my favorite period drama OTP until the Faith OTP knocked them off that spot. (Song Tae Ha remains my favorite kdrama hero, however). Have a great unspoilery, trailer-type MV. The first half focuses on the fights etc and the second on the emotional beats of the story:



And a shippy MV (though, excellent though it is, it doesn't have all my favorite shippy scenes).



FWIW, this is one of the only two kdramas Mr. Mousie has ever watched.

I think if I had to pick, Secret Garden, the story of a plucky stuntwoman rescuing her traumatized but caustic ice prince, is probably my favorite romantic kdrama ever. It just works for me on every level (and if a drama exists that will make me cry more than ep 17 of SG did, I don't want to know it).

So imagine my delight when I found this amazing amazing unspoilery MV that is pretty much perfect:



I am desperate for a rewatch now. Anyone want to join me?

spunspider recommended me this year's Ishaqzaade by telling me that if I love dysfunction, I will love this movie.



She was right.

Ishaqzaade follows Parma and Zoya - members of rival, bloodthirsty political families in UP and all the bad things that happen when they get tangled up.

First off (and that can be either good or bad, depending on your tastes) - this movie doesn't feel Bollywood. It makes me think of South Indian cinema (is it a remake of a Tamil movie or similar?). It is gritty (even the rich live in houses with dust), hella violent, and dark. Actually, it is a lot darker than most any 'romantic' Bollywood movie I can think of. Both Zoya and Parma are violent, damaged people. In some ways, it's a throwback to the 1980s, but not a bad one. Despite the fact that Parma does some truly reprehensible things, I can't help it - while I wanted to strangle him in the first half, the second half of the movie made me ship Parma and Zoya like mad (what can I say, I am a sucker for the '(sort of) good woman redeems bad man' narrative and this one was both hot and adorable) and hope against hope that they could find some way out of the madhouse of their town. My heart is very much with Zoya, especially, who discovers all the horrors that can ensue when one impulsive action places her beyond the pale in her family.



The shipper in me would have loved this movie if for no other reason than the 'falling for each other properly' sequences set in the brothel...



Have the title track:

Yash Chopra has died :(

Some of his movies (Veer-Zaara, Deewar, etc) are all-time favorites of mine.

:(

Have a song from Veer Zaara (where Zaara is progressing with her arranged marriage, while fantasizing that she sees Veer everywhere). VZ is my most favorite Bollywood movie:

As I realize that 90% of my flist is going 'what?'

I realize that part of the reason I am so smitten with Parade's End is that it's giving me what I wanted from that adaptation of Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga a few years ago - adopting a brilliant novel with a perfect cast and making me feel. Forsyte Saga is one of my favorite works of literature and I got so excited when I heard there was going to be an adaptation, only to loathe the adaptation when it came out - it was appallingly miscast and all the vivid poetry and intense emotion I felt when reading the books was utterly absent.

But the adaptation of PE is fiercely intelligent and a hothouse of emotion. More than that, it's a wonderful adaptation - I am reading PE right now, and how Stoppard managed to convey the spirit of the books is amazing.

Anyway, since I am a MV junkie, have another gorgeous shippy MV:



Speaking of BBC adaptations, I just found out that they adapted one of my favorite novels, Zola's "Ladies' Paradise" into a BBC period drama (transplanted to the North of England) called Paradise. OMFG, I need this in my life. Denise/Mouret 4evah etc (or as they renamed them here, Denise/Moray). Have a trailer:



There is also a MV.

Clearly, I am on a Western TV kick. Luckily, now that I am only following 4 kdramas, I have room.



Next on my list - the 5 ep British series Parade's End. I didn't even know it existed (unlike every other fangirl in existence, while I enjoyed Benedict Cummerbatch in Sherlock, I don't follow his stuff in any fashion) and stumbled across it while looking for something else.



And then I kinda went insane. Because! This is an adaptation of a series of novels by Ford Madox Ford, whom I've read and liked (though not this series but one about Katherine Parr) and who, I believe, was a friend of Sigfried Sassoon (who I used to be a bit obsessed about). And it's set around WWI, a time period I find utterly fascinating - I will pretty much watch/read almost anything set in that time period (probably the hangover from the fact that Erik Maria Remarque's Three Comrades is my favorite novel ever - it's not set during WWI but it does follow a group of WWI veterans). And there is a love story which sounds all sorts of messed up because he's a married Tory and she is a suffragette. And and and and it was adopted by Tom Stoppard.

Basically, I need this in my life ASAP!

Also, on a random note - I don't find BC good-looking (he has a rather odd face, actually, IMO) but he looks quintessentially upper-class British to me, so it looks like perfect casting.

Have a shippy MV:



( And this vid is from near the end, I believe. Caution, they show things on British TV we only get on HBO etc here in the USA :P )

It's a long wait until Monday (yes, I know, less than 24 hours, but it still feels too long) so have some Faith MVs.



( More here )

It's a long wait until Monday (yes, I know, less than 24 hours, but it still feels too long) so have some Faith MVs.



( More here )

1. One of the best things about Yoochun being cast in a drama is that his fangirls are a supremely dedicated bunch and thus you can be sure of a ton of MVs and other things. I mean, someone made a speculative trailer of I Miss You already, splicing Yoochun and Yoon Eun Hye's other dramas:

http://youtu.be/aPoVhOdQ4mY

It's utterly gorgeous. Mmmmm, I am super-excited for this drama - I love the leads and the writer to bits.

2. Speaking of fanworks, I am so lucky with Faith. The ratings for my obsession are mediocre, but the (English-language) fandom seems to have glommed on to it in a huge way. The soompi thread has over 600 pages (!!!!), we have a number of bloggers talking about it, and some very talented people are producing fanfics and vids. Compare it with May Queen, which has almost twice the ratings, yet the blogosphere is pretty dead about. This is all a long intro to a comment that I went hunting for MVs and found some gorgeous ones:



3. Apparently, Kim Bum has been confirmed for That Winter the Wind Blows. Noh Hee Kyung must have really liked him in her previous drama, Padam Padam (he WAS excellent). I've seen some fangirls upset that, once again, it's not the lead, but I really respect his choices - he keeps picking projects by a good writer which entail bouncing off some real heavyweights (in PP, it was Jung Woo Sung and here it will be Jo In Sung). I actually think these are great choices for him.

4. Last but not least, I keep wondering who will be the leading lady in Joo Won's upcoming drama. A lot of the likely candidates are busy. I think it would fun if it was Park Min Young - if I still like her after the horror that was Dr Jin, then clearly she can do no wrong in my eyes.

5. I am currently only following 4 airing kdramas - Five Fingers, Nice Guy, Faith, and Arang and the Magistrate. This is so much easier on my schedule (I dropped The Horse Healer and Oohlala Spouses, at the very least postponed The Great Seer, and I can't say I am watching Glass Mask in any consistent fashion).