毎日grind, 毎日rhymes
Maybe I was didn’t remember too much about I saw in Answer Me 1997, and High School King of Savvy is one of those dramas I’ll love despite having not finished, but is …… Seo In-guk is not as good as I remember him being? I want to believe he’s phoning it in here, but those SERIOUS! ACTING! EMOTION! ANGER! faces are… hmm.
Case in point, episode 14 (and the parts of 15 I’m watching now) :/ :/ :/
Amazing things: I’ve watched 19 dramas so far this year! I usually end up finishing dramas within weeks of each other rather than endless marathon sessions, feels like a lot though. (more…)
“‘A remarkable person changes the world. A remarkable person can rise above good and evil.’ I… am that remarkable person.”
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWDAMN.
AH YES who could forget the sweeter days of Orange Marmalade (wtf)…
And:
Subtitle by yours truly. LOL.
Sometimes I wonder how many dramas is too many dramas… and then I watch more. Ha! This is more like a mid-season review, but it’s all Gucci! (more…)
After 2 years of waiting, I finally watched Strawberry Night: Invisible Rain! And it totally got me, I was absorbed. I think the series really gets its footing in longform. The episodes in the original drama were a little hamfisted at times and unevenly paced (some episodes being drawn out to three episodes and others being limited to one), but I think the film format fully allowed the writers to explore all parts of the crime while developing character and exploring backstories. Strawberry Night still employs a lot of the conventions that the drama follows, but I was so hooked by the characterization (as usual) that I didn’t really mind that it felt like I was watching an extended Strawberry Night episode/SP.
We get to hang out with a bunch of characters we all know and love with varying amounts of screen time (Imaizumi! we hardly knew ya), but the best one we were introduced to was Makita Isao (Osawa Takao), the homme fatale.
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Rather than waiting to collect all my thoughts about the dramas I’m watching in one post, I’m going to try and post about them semi-indiscriminately. I always end up waiting until I’ve watched just enough episodes to make a post, but by then my thoughts are already outdated! And so the endless list of drafts grows longer…
Anyway, Kageri Yuku Natsu (WOWOW / 2015) deftly unseated a couple of my personal favorites for best directing. It is SO stunning. (more…)
Submitting this retroactively, ’cause uhhhhh I somehow I forgot to do this many years ago. Oops. Still managed to track it though.
JAPAN
Aoi Honoo
BORDER
Gomen ne, Seishun
Kagi no Kakatta Heya SP
Oyaji no Senaka
Sayonara Watashi
Second Virgin
Shinigami-kun
Shitsuren Chocolatier
Suteki na Sen TAXI
The Long Goodbye
KOREA
A New Leaf
Birth of a Beauty
Cantabile Tomorrow
Fated to Love You
I Need Romance 3
It’s Okay, It’s Love
Let’s Eat
Liar Game (2014)
Misaeng
My Secret Hotel
Queen In-hyun’s Man*
Secret Love Affair
Surplus Princess*
Witch’s Romance
* = did not air this year
TOTAL: 25! Nice. Watched a lot of Korean dramas this year…
I don’t have a favorite! Seriously, I don’t have one. This is the most difficult subject for me to rank because out of the handful (LOL) that I’ve watched, I have more than twenty as my top ranking. It’s a bit of a cop out, but if you pressed me I could probably pick one. The problem is that I wouldn’t want it to be indicative of my taste in dramas (I promise I’m not into destroying my heart/mind/soul with these heartrending shows), and that’s where I run the slippery slope of naming different dramas that I love for so many different reasons.
For example, I love “Hero” because it was the drama that set the bar (haha) for what a GOOD drama could be like, and it was a total game changer. I love “Mother” because it was the first emotional and character based drama I ever took a chance on, “Keizoku 2: SPEC” for the high concept and theories that had everyone talking, “JIN” for marking a change in the types of dramas I watched (hint, I got pickier), and “49 Days” for being the first edge-of-your-seat and hardcore melo I’ve ever witness. Or I’m just indecisive.
I’ve already talked about quite a few favorites of mine in this blog challenge, but I will talk another one that I love for being another “first”. (more…)
