The modern mores of beauty increasingly distress me, with a fear that future generations will only know it as a homogeneity of looks achieved under the knife to conform to a certain standard. Wide manga heroine eyes, knife blade sharp cheekbones, artificial plumped up picker, blindingly white veneers, ramrod straight and high noses with tiny nostrils, a perfectly pointy chin … Continue reading →
Watch. This. Drama. Now. I wish I could end this recap right here, but alas there is so much awesome in episode 2 I don’t even know where to start. Now this is what I call finger lickin’ good melodrama! I questioned SBS‘s decision to air two back-to-back episodes of That Winter, The Wind Blows, which was clearly an attempt … Continue reading →
The Wed-Thurs primetime K-drama battle is back on this week with some low-rated dramas finally ending last week and two potential powerhouse contenders joining the race. I saw the real time ratings and it’s neck-to-neck today, so the final ratings will probably have IRIS 2 leading the pack slightly, with That Winter, the Wind Blows a notch below, and 7th Level … Continue reading →
In the limited Russian Roulette of Taiwan actor and actress pairings, Vic Zhou and Janine Chang doing two dramas together already not that surprising. I loved both their characters in Black & White, and was rather disappointed they didn’t have even a what-if love line. A few years ago Zai Zai and Janine filmed Coming Home, a Taiwan-Mainland China collaboration … Continue reading →
After being relatively low key for a few years after he did Down with Love with Ella back in 2010, Jerry Yan is back with a blast recently. His period movie Ripples of Desire opened this past December in Taiwan (he played a pirate and had a love line with Ivy Chen), he reunited with his F4 brothers to perform … Continue reading →
I’ve gotten so used to the general realistic and low key trials and tribulations in Flower Boy Next Door that the recent shift towards more dramatic conflicts such as the stalker ahjumma disgruntled gamer mom and the panda hat fangirl have felt a tad jarring. I enjoy watching the denizens of this story talk, be awkward with each other, push … Continue reading →
While he may not be an A-lister in Korea, he’ll forever have my love and goodwill after Im Joo Hwan delivered a career-making performance as the exiled Joseon nobleman Park Kyu in the underrated Tamra the Island. It’s weird how I’ve watched so many In Joo Hwan performances because I was checking out the movie or drama for someone else, … Continue reading →
It’s kinda funny how the kiss at the end of episode 11 of Flower Boy Next Door is generating so much buzz and dissection. That’s fine and all but kissing in dramas are all in the hands of the PD. Whatever the PD wants is what’s delivered. Period. Closed mouths, open mouths, maybe tongue, inert body language, groping body language … Continue reading →
A good melodrama takes a central conceit and fleshes it out, allowing the narrative to morph as the characters develop and information is shared. A bad melodrama beats its one main purpose into the ground and stomps on it a few times just in cast we couldn’t tell what it was about. And in between these two extremes lays the … Continue reading →
There were so many wonderful lines of dialogue in this episode of Flower Boy Next Door, still the warmest little drama I’ve watched in ages, but Jin Rok said one that is rather apropos for this stage of the story. He explained that as a kid, when he got a nice present, he would naturally worry what corresponding pain will … Continue reading →
Reunions stemming from fond memories are the best. Even though people have aged, with it comes an appreciation for the moment in time long ago as well as the current state. Of Louis Cha‘s famous Condors trilogy, which is really two novels and then a third one loosely connected with the first two, my least favorite is the final book … Continue reading →
I’m immensely grateful for how Flower Boy Next Door has been promoted because it gives me more goodies to squirrel away. What’s even more appealing is that so much of it involves the cast having fun behind-the-scenes and sharing it with the viewers via tweets or official BTS stills. Park Shin Hye and Yoon Si Yoon are my first OTP … Continue reading →
The boys are back! Though they aren’t boys anymore, are they? Thirteen years after they singlehandedly started the idol drama craze in Taiwan, F4 reunited at the Jiang Su STV Lunar New Year Eve extravaganza and performed two signature songs from their oeuvre “Meteor Rain” and ‘The First Time”. Between the audience sobbing in joy and myself watching with a … Continue reading →