Lee Min Jung has had quite a wild Summer if you ask me. She started it off starring in the Hong Sister‘s highly anticipated drama Big with Gong Yoo, which I loved but most everyone else hated. Then the drama wrapped and she subsequently unwrapped a real life relationship with A-list leading man Lee Byung Hun, the equivalent being way … Continue reading →
I love how dramas have taken to reminding me that mid-Autumn is coming up, that and the abundance of moon cakes everywhere. September 30th is Zhong Qiu (otherwise known as Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinese speaking countries or Chuseok in Korea) which means families gathering together for meals and plenty of specials airing on TV. SETTV just released a sweet and … Continue reading →
Reading the written preview for episode 7 of Nice Guy leaves me salivating in anticipation. Just when I worried Eun Gi would be relegated to being lied to, the tables turn and she learns more truths than perhaps she would like to know. Part of me can tell that she is enjoying the thrumming magic of falling for Maru, despite … Continue reading →
I know it feels like Miss Rose has slowed down on all narrative fronts, but for whatever reason I am fine with the pacing. Perhaps the early charge out of the gate was the outlier, and really this story was all about the rather mundane and ordinary interactions between Si Yi and Cheng Kuan that drive their relationship forward. Outside … Continue reading →
The thought of someone thinking it would be a great idea to remake yet again another version of Die Sterntaler (also known as White Romance or Heaven’s Coins) gives me a headache. One of the granddaddies of all second-male-lead-gets-the-girl stories was the 1995 J-dorama Hoshi no Kinka starring Osawa Takao, Sakai Noriko, and Tanenouchi Yutaka. The heroine is a deaf … Continue reading →
Six episodes is enough to render a verdict on a drama’s potential, no? If a twenty-episode or less drama can’t get its act together by the sixth episode, not much can buoy a shaky ship for the remainder of its run. Similarly if an excellently launched drama remains firmly in control by the sixth episode, I’d say chances are good … Continue reading →
I suppose I could have titled this post with the confirmed news, which is that Mickey Yoochun has signed on as the lead for the upcoming MBC drama I Miss You. Sadly his involvement does not get me excited in any drama in the least. This drama is scheduled to air after Arang and the Magistrate which means it really … Continue reading →
In the US, when a movie is a turkey right out of the gate, the movie studios will either release it on a slow weekend without any media previews, hoping to recoup some of its sunk costs by luring unsuspecting audience members into the theater, or it can go the way of direct-to-DVD (formerly known as direct-to-video). Because the majority … Continue reading →
This episode of Nice Guy felt a wee bit stale in terms of narrative, or perhaps my exponentially growing hatred of Jae Hee clouds my mind. I’m still trying to fit my mind around what is going on, watching the action while at the same time thinking about the motivations. For some reason this drama makes me feel anxious watching … Continue reading →
Ahhhh, this is much better. After a thoroughly amusing first teaser for The Great Seer (Dae Poong Soo), that was likely amusing for all the wrong reasons, the drama followed that up by releasing character stills and more shots of the two male leads filming that go a ways in allaying my fears that we have another Dr. Jin-esque hot … Continue reading →
A good melodrama really needs to be populated by broken and battered people. Functioning happy people just don’t work in stories fraught with a lot of anxiety and bad decisions because naturally their chipper attitude helps them overcome the odds and what not. That’s the Candy heroine stereotype, and better fitting for stories where the happy ending is a given. … Continue reading →
The best TW-drama of the Oct 2011-Oct 2012 season has been validated by In Time With You sweeping through all the major categories at the just announced nominations for this year’s Golden Bell Awards (Taiwan’s Emmy’s). Already a Golden Bell best actress winner for It Started with a Kiss 2, Ariel Lin continues her dominance at this award ceremony by … Continue reading →
The original star-crossed lovers recently got a stage remake in Japan starring Ishihara Satomi and Sato Takeru. The modern stage version of Romeo and Juliet ran for two weeks in Tokyo and clearly unless I could teleport I wasn’t going to be able to catch it. Lucky for me, the stage production is coming to DVD next week and the … Continue reading →