Sometimes fashion magazines send famous stars to far flung places for a photo shoot, spending lots of travel moolah but forgetting to actually incorporate the pretty location into the pictures. Cosmopolitan Korea decided to focus on the flower and not the leaves for its September edition featuring lots of young, talented, up-and-coming musicians and actors. Or for many of these … Continue reading →
The ingenuity and heart from the heydays of the wuxia or period movies are long gone and even the famed directors from that era have taken to substituting special effects and intricate fighting for good storytelling. I still watch them because it’s the equivalent of a popcorn flick, but I do miss the days when such flicks could actually be … Continue reading →
The just aired episode 21 of the weekend drama Scandal: That Very Shocking and Immoral Incident was a master class in the storytelling element called “The Payoff.” Already the drama has successfully (if not perfectly) done “The Set-up” – Good Daddy Myung Geun kidnaps Bad Daddy Tae Ha’s son in retaliation for Bad Daddy causing the death of Good Daddy’s … Continue reading →
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the recently revealed real life relationship between frequent onscreen couple Hans Zhang and Zheng Shuang. It’s not that I thought their onscreen chemistry was all an act, it was how long its been going on before their going public. Their collaboration is going on five years, which you take into account entertainment … Continue reading →
After a long hiatus from drama land after two back-to-back dramas in Flower Boy Ramyun Shop right into The Moon Embraces the Sun, Jung Il Woo is finally coming back to the small screen and is making up for his time away by doing a long 50-episode weekend drama. While the official confirmation hasn’t come down yet, insiders at MBC … Continue reading →
I can’t say whether more people will check out Scandal: That Very Shocking and Immoral Incident simply because I wrote that I quite liked it. But from the preview and new stills released, I hope more people do because this drama is upping the romance which has been the one element put on the backburner what with all the murder … Continue reading →
It’s an understatement to describe watching Goddess of Marriage as a chore. With Goddess of Fire as least the snark bubbles up to counter the idiocy onscreen, but GoM isn’t that and falls into the category of drama watching I shall call “The Trudge”. It’s like plowing through high weeds with a machete along on steep hiking trial. I think … Continue reading →
It’s pretty neat watching a star’s star wax and wane. Lee Seo Jin was one of those stalwart Hallyu leading men in the early to mid-2000s as he racked up one drama after another with his combination of manly allure and boyish dimples. He played one of my favorite male characters of all time (Naeuri!!!) in one of my favorite … Continue reading →
The 8th Annual Seoul International Drama Awards took place last night, and it includes winners from around the world in countries where dramas or serials are produced. For the most part it was K-drama centric but it did try hard to acknowledge dramas in other parts of the world while simultaneously promoting K-dramas. Win and Win, I suppose. I’ll only … Continue reading →
There is such sublime satisfaction in watching a drama get better and better. A story line naturally builds momentum in a linear progression so the quality of a drama following suit is a sort of synergy that is like a steady release of enjoyment. Episode 10 of Two Weeks keeps up the reveals, the momentum, and the fantastic character development … Continue reading →
I’ve got some good news and some bad news, with the bad news dependent on whether you can spot the difference or can’t/don’t want to see it. The good news is that the upcoming 50-episode ambitious MBC sageuk Empress Ki (formerly known as Hwatu) finally has a full main cast. The remaining character of Yuan Emperor Huizhong has finally been … Continue reading →
How the heck does Yu Zheng manage to turn the ridiculously gorgeous Chen Xiao into an unattractive Yang Guo? I don’t get it. One way to get people riled up is to purposely mess with fandom. That is why I loathe drama producer Yu Zheng so much, because he delights in pointlessly screwing with classic wuxia novel fandom (and others) … Continue reading →
The official script reading pictures of the full cast of Those Who Wear the Crown, Withstand the Weight: The Heirs (also known as Heritors) is out. It happened last month on August 5th, but SBS smartly withheld it just to keep that aura of mystery and excitement for a bit longer. Since then, the cast has successively jumped into the … Continue reading →