Jigeumeun Yeonaejong / We Are Dating Now / 지금은 연애중

I so looked forward to watching this KDrama!

I used Mysoju this time, and the first half of this 16-episode drama was GREAT!
Then, that little, Chinese girl came back to SARS and ruined it for me.

To retaliate, I've joined the SARS website, and with any luck at all, I'll find a way to UNDO the damage already done (or at least prevent it from ever occurring in the future).

There is NOTHING worse (to me) than to lose your way in a drama because you can't understand what the hell anyone is saying.
Actually, for me, the most annoying thing about it is having to pause the damn screen every, few minutes, to re-read the convoluted garble that is written.

I'm not stupid, so I get the gist of what is TRYING to be translated, but it's still frustrating as hell to have to put up with, and I'm sick & tired of it.

Anyway, as Korean dramas go, WRDN was a long, drawn-out story about two people who meet, and she hates him/he likes her.


SHE (Yoon Ho-jung) has two friends ... a twirpy wallflower that dresses frumpy, (Soo-Ji), and a knock-out hard-ass, (Kang Cha-hee), hell-bent on destroying her own life because of her mother.

She has a bitch mother (BIG surprise), a weak father (BIG surprise), and a dreamy grandmother (BIG surprise).

She's got a hunk brother, too ... KWON SANG-WOO as Yoon Ho-jae.

I really LIKE him!
I mean, aside from his gorgeous looks & terrific bod, that is.
He has that cute lisp, too, like LEE Min-ki does.

He really helped to bring WRDN to life, and I'll always appreciate a man that can make me laugh.
KWON did that in just, about every scene that he appeared, too.

If I had watched this drama when it originally aired, back in 2002 (Jan to Mar), I would have fallen for Kwon the same way that I fell for KIM Nam-jin when I saw 1,000 Years of Love.

Poor, silly So Ji-sub.
He was so NOT attractive to me back in the day!
Thank the Lord (and his stylist) that he changed his image the way that he did!
THIS ... is completely unappealing to me ***



THIS is what I love about my man, Ji-sub ***



Anyway, KWON played the air-head, younger brother, spoiled to death by his abrasively dominatrix mother.


He's not good in school, and his grand scheme is to latch onto a cougar, living off her $$$ for the rest of his life.

Eventually, he falls in love with his sister's best friend, Soo-Ji (Lee Eui-jung.)
The nerd with no sense of style, and who eventually becomes a dentist.


They must not pay very well over there, in Korea.
Soo-ji is an only-child, living with DOCTOR parents, in a fancy, cookie-cutter subdivision.
And, as I already mentioned, she becomes a dentist.
So, when she decides to elope with our Yoon Ho-jae, she's suddenly destitute?
And, I'd like someone to explain to me how ANYONE can blow through $5 grand that quick?

A dentist, with Doctor parents, and her grand total savings is only $6 million won?
For a wallflower that never dated or knew how to have a good time, she sure didn't know how to take care of her income!

Ok ... back to the story.

So Ji-sub plays the upright, stodgy Choi Kyo-in, who falls for Yoon Ho-jung (Chae Rim) of Dal Ja's Spring fame.

She ends up sitting in front of So's character on the same bus, as she did when she made Dal Ja's Spring, which I thought rather humorous and unimaginative.

Choi is old-school, and his bossy nature turns off Yoon almost immediately.

She keeps meeting and falling in love with the wrong men, and he keeps offering advice while growing increasingly jealous of her ability to attract members of the opposite sex.

The hard-ass sex kitten, Kang Cha-hee (Choi Yoon Young) falls for Choi, and since Yoon is interested in another guy, Choi decides to hook up with Kang.

Naturally, this doesn't work out, and the beautiful Kang realizes that Choi will never love her, so she dumps him and walks away.
Later however, she comes back as a super-model, and along the way, she tries to help Yoon and Soo-ji with their messed up love lives.
She also introduces Ho-jae to her connections in the business, and he ends up becoming a super-model as well.

This was a sappy, sentimental story, and because of So Ji-sub, I had to watch it in it's entirety, though it hurt a great deal, what with the horrific subtitles and SO's awful hair style.

I'll leave you with a few pics, and then it's time for me to finish filling out report cards.

Read More

발리에서 생긴 일 / What Happened in Bali

Bal-li-e-seo Saeng-kin il


Throughout these 20 episodes, I kept asking myself, "What DID happen in Bali?"

I am guessing now that the title has everything to do with the last, two minutes of this drama.

What a dark, miserable show this was! Maybe now that I've seen the whole thing, the seductive sneer that the leading lady, Lee Soo-jung gave to So Ji Sup's character, Kang In-wook at the very start of the show was not a figment of my imagination!

A brief synopsis of the drama that I watched on Mysoju said that it's supposed to depict the 'real' topic of social distinction and money-grubbing mentality in today's Korean society. What it did for me was make me want less and less to visit that part of the world.

Personally, I'd love to have all the money in the world, go wherever I want to go, and buy whatever the hell I feel like buying. It wouldn't be so bad to have a hot, rich guy after my ass, either! Two would be pushing it, and that's what this drama did as far as I'm concerned.

Interesting too, was the unmitigated gall of Park Ye Jin's character, Choi Young-joo. Honestly, some of the things that she said throughout this drama had me shaking my head in utter confusion. Perhaps it's a rich way of thinking, but to treat anyone like an object, and then make outrageous demands like, "...we can be lovers after I'm married," and, "I'm only doing this for the money," and, "...what's love got to do with it?" are absolutely groundless. I know that she ended up noting that she behaved quite like the "trash" that she felt ruined her life, but still ... her character was the least believable of them all.

I hope this is one writer's convoluted impression of the "written in stone" caste system in Korea and not, actual fact. Kang In-wook actually made reference to it in the drama, but what he said was incorrect ~ unless the translator screwed it up (as usual). Until the middle ages, Korea had no caste? I beg to differ, and not just in Korea, but all over the world, since time began, there have been the haves and the have-nots. The haves have always looked down upon, spat upon, and treated the have-nots as inferior nothings, to be treated like dirt or "trash". So, I guess I'm supposed to believe that the work-a-day Korean wants the prestige by having a diploma framed and hung on their wall, for the whole world to see and be impressed by. Whatever.

Ironically, a majority of the Koreans that I've met online claim to be Catholic. If this is true, then I am anxious to visit a Korean Cathedral when and if I ever get to that side of the world. I'm curious to know what the priest's say during their sermons, because being the richest, most powerful person alive is NOT a Catholic doctrine, trust me. For a country that hates Japan (and vice versa) they certainly seem to want to keep up with their enemy in this regard, which again does NOT make sense to an outsider looking in.

NOTHING about Bali made sense to me!

It's drama; I know. It's not supposed to make sense, it's not supposed to make you think, or even to reflect for that matter. It's mindless, paperback novel kitsch meant to take the middle-age housewife away from the everyday and transform her into a world of make-believe. I know this, and yet I can't help but to question just about every aspect of the writer's reasoning. Perhaps that's because I'm a writer too.

So for the nonsense ... I'm sorry, but what woman in her right MIND would choose ANY man over SO-Fine Ji-sup???? I know, I know ... the $$$ was supposed to make all the difference in the world.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Excuse me, but at 25 the ONLY thing on a woman's mind is making babies. If you're born rich, I guess you want to marry rich, but even then, I'm sure the gal hopes for some strapping, six-footer with a dashing smile and bedroom eyes to sweep her off her feet in the boardroom, yes? If the construction guy that moved in after Ji-sup's character moved out, if he had $$$, would our ambivalent Ms. Lee have wrapped her legs around HIS groin??? I think not.

Shin Yi's Park Mi-hee was the ONLY believable character in the entire show. She was cute, funny, and had a normal sense of values. And, what has being an orphan got to do with being useless or poor? Your parents die, so ... you are expected to crawl inside their graves with them, is that it? Again, I'm shaking my head in utter bewilderment here.

Ok, it starred SO Ji-sup, and that's really all that I cared about. From the moment that he arrived on-screen, my heart raced and I felt all warm inside. He's a stone FOX, and I'm madly in lust with him. I want to see him naked, and thank you, THANK YOU for letting him disrobe a few times during the long, drawn-out drama.

I'm trying to recall a time when I ever saw him smile in anything that he's acted in. I know he can, and when he does, it probably lights up the room! But, he's always playing a down-trodden, life-beaten reject that ends up taking a major beating for no, realistic reason other than he's poor. He drives me wild, and in those clothes that he wore, I went nuts just looking at him. Which, again, makes me wonder how they cast actors for roles in these dramas.

I can't think of a woman alive that could remain unaffected the moment that a guy like him looks at you with them EYES of his!? That's when the knees go weak, the heart starts to pound, and your face heats up with blush. Not EVERY guy is capable of having that affect on women, so what were we supposed to believe about Ms. Lee falling in love with the useless, pathetic waste of life that capped her sorry ass in the end? She's lying in bed, next to a NAKED SO JI-SUP, and she's thinking about HIM instead??? YAH! Totally credible.

Speaking of HIM ... Jo In-sung is very tall! Ok in the looks department, and a very, good actor! I had no idea how he really felt about Ms. Lee until he cried. And then he cried some more, and then he cried some more! Yes, he was obsessed with the poor girl, but for a reason that STILL escapes me! He said that she was honest and had no pride, which was only half-true. Ms. Lee was the most DIShonest of them all, in my opinion. Ji-sup's character was entirely honest, even when he intended to screw the company out of all that money. I rooted for him the entire time because I knew exactly what he was up to the minute that he moved in next door to the girls.

He He He.

I couldn't figure out, though, how he felt about Ms. Rich-Bitch until more than half-way through the show. And I couldn't figure out why either man fell for our Ms. Lee, either.

As gorgeous as Ji-sup is, and they made sure to express that fact NUMEROUS times during this drama, what the hell did he need with EITHER woman? He could have pulled off the playboy stint MUCH more credibly than our so-called hero, Jo In Sung as Jung Jae-min. Wait a minute. Perhaps even THAT is reserved strictly for the ultra-rich in Korea, is that it? Regular guys can't be playa's unless they 'gangsta'?

Sigh

Every time I watch one of these things, I swear that I'll never watch another ... but then I do. It's the guy's fault, not mine! They make me love them, and they make me want to see them again and again and again, too. I know that's why these things took off the way that they did. I'm not alone in my way of thinking OR feeling about the sexilicious pulchritude running around in that country! I'm trying to think of my own childhood, and if there were EVER as many gorgeous, sex-appealing men alive at one time to drive such a mass of women crazy? I didn't watch television in my youth, so i wouldn't know. I didn't even want to go to the movies back then, and I had no idea about Asian films until after college. It's a strange and wonderful phenomenon that will come to pass, I'm sure. When that day comes, I hope that I'm too old to care anymore. For now, I continue to fan my blushing face and dream about all of the glorious, manly magnificence that is Asian cinema!

Read More

Ice Girl / 그녀가 돌아왔다

It's late, but I just finished watching ICE GIRL, and I better blog now, or I might forget what to say.

I chose this drama on Mysoju because it starred KIM NAM JIN, one of my favorite Korean actors. I made it as far as episode seven when I couldn't take it anymore, and I quit the show.

I've figured out by now that the producers must think that unless something tragic happens, no one will be interested. The love story at the beginning was adorable, but it pissed me off that she had to have a rare heart defect and would die. SIGH! An abused concept that actually causes the REVERSE affect on someone like me. I lose interest in stories with this common denominator, and I'm sure I'm not alone, too.

The reason that I stopped watching after episode six completed was because I couldn't TAKE it anymore! What did the beautiful, young orphan Jung Ha-Rok DO to deserve the heart wrenching treatment that he endured all that time? He was very cute, by the way.




Park JinWoo

When I saw the pathetic waste that he became 25 years later, I felt like I might die. My sense of righteousness screamed inside my head, a squelched sob ached inside my throat, and my eyes grew sore from the unshed tears that blurred my vision. What did Jung Ha-Rok DO to have to be forced to live that sort of unjustifiable existence?

Maybe it's because of my own, pitiful existence that I hate so much to see anyone else have to go through the daily BS that I live with that has me rail against such an injustice, I don't know. It's bad enough that there are no answers, or even cures for my own meaningless life, so why should I be forced to have to watch it unfold on anyone else? I couldn't take it anymore, so I stopped watching ICE GIRL. But, after more than a month, I decided to give it another chance. When I quit watching, it was because I couldn't figure out a single way that Jung Ha-Rok would EVER find the happiness that he sought with Kim So-ryung. And then, as it began to turn around for him, it kind a made me feel creepy inside. He needed to let go of his past and start to live for himself, so it was NOT going to help him to get together with the new So-ryung.

This was the first drama that I ever watched where I did not want to see my hero, Ajushi KIM get the girl. In fact, I almost resented the fact that he played a part in his own father's heartache. OH!!! And when they started that bullsh*t about older men and younger women, I wanted to scream. Creepy or gross is 65 & 20, yes? Age is a number, the heart is an organ, and COMPATIBILITY has everything to do with happiness in love. People who think this way must ALSO agree that race, religion, and social status are determining factors in love as well.

SHAME on narrow-minded, prejudiced people like that!

ICE GIRL was not the worst drama that I ever saw, but it was not something that I would ever watch again. I don't even know that I'd recommend it to friends. It was the worst drama that I ever saw Ajushi KIM in, that's for sure! I've been crunching the numbers for awhile too, and it still makes no sense to me how a twenty-four year old can be a Doctor. Isn't it EIGHT years of med school, and THEN you become an intern, or are things different in Korea? Maybe my Ajushi was a genius or something, who knows.

Genius or not, bad drama or not ... he'll always be a Korean drama draw for me.


Kim Nam Jin

Read More