There is an upcoming cable network K-drama that flitted into my consciousness this week and honest to god perked me up. Call this lust appreciation at first sight, because I know nothing about Do Ji Han, the rising young actor and leading man in the tvN sports and patriotism themed Basketball, but smoking hot meatballs is he insanely good looking. Of course, knowing my track record, he’ll turn out to be a deadly dull actor onscreen. But if he can actually act, then I’m in for a potentially fantastic drama in Basketball. One of my favorite PDs in Yeouido is Kwak Jung Hwan, who is not prolific by any measure of most PDs output but has seriously made a mark in the industry. His debut drama was the exquisite and utterly underrated Conspiracy in the Court (Seoul’s Sad Song), and after helming a segment of Hometown of Legends, he was the man behind the camera for the devastating and explosive Chuno. Sadly his follow up Fugitive: Plan B was too big budget and stupid to ever work, but he tried and likely came away with the realization that he needed to go back to his indie roots. That’s where the upcoming Basketball comes in, the drama headlines a slew of relative unknowns from Do Ji Han as a country bumpkin, Jung Dong Hyun as a established basketball wunderkind, first time actress Elliya Lee as a rich girl reporter, and Ye Eun of the Wonder Girls as a maid and confidante. Apparently Lee Jung Jin will be making a cameo as well after working with PD Kwak in Fugitive. The story is set in the 1940s and 50s going from the tail end of the Japanese colonization of Korea to when the Korean Olympic basketball team went to the quarterfinals at the 1948 Olympics, and thereafter war broke out in the peninsula and there was never a unified Korean basketball team again. The drama has been filming since early June and will be almost completely pre-filmed when it premieres in September on tvN. I love period dramas, I love basketball, I love PD Kwak, and I love how beautiful Do Ji Han’s profile is. I am totally in, baby! Continue reading