Art and shiny things…
Emergency Couple is a fantastic drama, fast-paced with incredible romantic nuance and an aching, so-real-it-hurts chemistry between leads Song Ji-Ho and Choi Jin-hyuk. Medical dramas always sound boring, but I’ve discovered over years of drama-watching that in fact they’re wonderful fodder for romance, mainly because it sets up the leads to work together in a high-stakes, dramatic environment in which they are constantly forced to interact.
Ordinarily, I’d stay as far away from a drama centering on a man with split-personality disorder as Indiana Jones from a pit of snakes – but it’s been a down weekend, I’ve rarely not liked Hyun Bin, and there’s a lack of dramas in my weekly TV schedule now that Pinocchio has aired. So I thought I’d give this a shot.
It’s a dark season for new television. On both sides of the pond – and in this case by “pond” I don’t mean England and the United States but Korea and the United States – the new series that have debuted in the fall have almost universally been disappointments. Here in the U.S., the overwhelming majority of good (and highly-rated television) currently on is the returning favorites, and among the few new successful shows are How to Get Away with Murder and The Flash. The dramas that have premiered and aired in the past few months have also almost all been disappointments, and at this point I’m just impatiently waiting for Pinocchio (starring my love Park Shin Hye!) later this month, Healer in December, and Jekyll, Hyde (starring Hyun Bin!) in January.
The most puzzling thing about this slightly odd drama is that it’s not based on a manwha. It seems tailor-made to have been based on one of the melodramatic, romantic manwhas that are so often the rage in Korea and Japan. And yet it’s an original creation from screenwriter Kim Kyu Wan – to which all I can say is, you got grit, to break from the tailor-made drama template most screenwriters use in this way. Kim Kyu Wan tends to write problematic dramas with a lot of potential, like Cinderella’s Sister and Robber. Iron Man centers on Joo Hong Bin (Lee Dong Wook), the oddball CEO of a hugely successful game company (video games, not board games). A chance encounter with Son Se Dong, an aspiring game designer, and the unexpected appearance of a young son he didn’t know existed, turns Hong Bin’s world upside down.
1)Coffee Prince (Kdrama). This is one of the most famous kisses in drama-land, and for good reason. Our hero FINALLY conquers his panic, fear, confusion and repression, grabs the paint-spattered Eun-Chan in the deserted coffeeshop, and kisses her with long-simmering heat and passion. Perfect setting, great buildup, long-held kiss – good stuff.
Once upon a long, long, time ago (okay, it was about three years), this girl was obsessed with Asian dramas. Mostly Korean and Taiwanese with a smattering of Japanese. A Taiwanese friend in college introduced me to Asian TV series, widely available with English subtitles via various streaming sites, and the rest, as they say, is history. Throughout college, I went on a long spiral of total obsession, and even spent two years doing freelance writing for Dramafever.com, the U.S.-based “Netflix for dramas”. Be that as it may, the spark eventually faded and I’m largely moved on, but I still have a huge amount of fondness in my heart for this genre. So here is my list of my 12 favorite dramas, culled from the hundreds I watched or experienced during that time period. Will be split into three parts; this part covers #9-#12.
This shot to INSTANT lip-sync hall of fame. If you haven’t watched it yet, what are you doing with your life?
The Wall Street Journal on Veronica Mars‘ innovation – “On television, Veronica Mars was a gritty teenage private investigator who wasn’t afraid to break down doors. Now a movie version of the show is about to do the same thing.
“Veronica Mars” will be released by Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. in about 270 theaters on March 14, the same day that it is available to buy or rent online. It will mark the first time one of Hollywood’s six major studios has distributed a movie in theaters and for home viewing at the same time in the U.S.” RT
The Millions on saving “like”s linguistic reputation – “Where some traditionalists see the use of “like” as a dialog tag as portent of cultural End Times, D’Arcy views it as an important tool for self-expression, allowing speakers to narrate their interior thought processes in dramatic and easily accessible ways.” RT
PRI’s The World on how your next big, addictive TV show could be from Korea. “Last fall, one of South Korea’s leading production companies joined forces with DramaFever to produce their first original series, “Heirs” — already a fan-favorite with 17 million views in just the first three months. The story is about privileged high school students and was filmed largely in California.” RT
Lucy Schwartz, one of my very favorite singer-songwriters, crafted a gorgeous, aching ballad of pain and longing for the TV show Nashville.
Joo Sang Wook in Sly and Single Again via Dramabeans
(credit for screencap to sodahands at Livejournal)
You know, Shining Inheritance just keeps getting better:) This episode was particularly satisfying because the romance/shippiness between Eun-seung and Hwan has heated up to “simmering” now – below boiling but above warm.
Synopsis:
As Eun-seung leaves the house, Hwan runs after and demands why she’s not saying anything, then practically begs her to defend herself. Eun-seung cries back, “If I did, would you believe me?…You wouldn’t believe me anyway” and leaves. Eun-seung goes to stay with Hye-Ri. Hye-Ri, being much less forgiving than her friend, rails at everyone involved and wants to go tell the family the truth. Eun-seung refuses, and next day goes to tender her resignation to grandmother. She, having a spine of steel and unable to believe Eun-seung is all bad, refuses the resignation and tells her no matter what her involvment is in what Seung-mi and her mother said, she should complete her remaining time at Branch 2 and prove to her that she can make it successful. Eun-seung agrees but tells her that she’s absolutely refusing the inheritance now. Eun-seung has a tense confrontation with Seung-mi(can’t remember if this was before or after the conversation with grandmother) and challenges her with “What if Hwan likes me?” and “Are you sure that he promised to marry you?”.
Coffee and Irony 