My Year in K Drama-Part 3 of 3

My Favorite: Flower Boy Next Door: because I will watch it again and watch all of it.

Best Quality:

For cinematography, I have to give a nod to That Winter The Wind Blows because it was gorgeous to watch.

Reply 1994: because over all, writing, directing, production, acting, heart, themes-win.

Best Characters:

Female Lead:  Hye-sung and Dok-mi: Neither owned their sexuality, but they were both the most interesting plus enjoyable characters for me, and broke some tropes. I loved Dok-mi as a person that we can all relate to in our tired, emotional, lonely moments.  Hye-sung is the bluffer in all of us, even when we don’t think we are all that, we pretend we are and make it so.

This is so totally me.

Male Lead:

Enrique and Su-ha: Enrique-Part 5 year old, part wandering mendicant. I’d laugh at him and hate him and then strangle him in his sleep, and then miss him desperately.  Su-ha-Just a lovely character, an old soul.

Most Unique Leads:  Trash,  Si-on,  and Gong-shil, and Bok-Nyeo

Smartest Leads:  Si-on and Bok Nyeo

Most Relatable Leads:  Dok-mi and Hye-sung

Second Leads:

Lil Sun was pretty entertaining.   Kim Nana was a win for me. She gave good glare and good sneer.   Her drop dead comment to Sun-woo was priceless.

Chilbongie is most beloved, and Jin-rak would be the most entertaining to watch. I’m not someone who gets mushy and cries during dramas.  But Chilbongie’s heartbreak and loneliness, yeah, I’ve been there, and I cried with him in that stadium.

Characters that need a spin off: Sun-woo and Kim Nana.

OMG these guys are in every drama I Watch:  Ahn Nae-sang, Kim Chang-won and Kim Mi-kyung

Drama that was the biggest Waste of Talent: Heirs and Level 7 Civil Servant

And the Gakistal Award Goes to:

Secret

Character that I was all about even though I did not watch the drama past the first two episodes because well it was horrible and just was not going to happen:

Hot Gummy Daddy

 I’m thinking of getting lost on a certain Korean mountain.  Seriously, why wasn’t the show about this character?

Most Aegyo:  Won Kang Hwi in Full House 2 (Again, yes it ran at the end of 2012, but I ran it over in viewing to 2013)

Breakout Talents:

Lee Jong Suk

More shoulder porn

Kang Haneul

Hottest moment in Heirs.

Kim Seul-gi

Most Improved: Yong Hwa, Go Ara, Yoona

Most Overrated Drama:  Masters Sun or Nine

Most Underrated Drama:  Acting wise, Medical Top Team  Character wise, Good Doctor.

Drama that people forgot about that was awesome: TEN 2

Biggest Surprise: Yong Jun-hyung in Monstar

Biggest Disappointment:  Lack of mature relationship in Master’s Sun

Best Cameo:  Uhm-force in Level 7 Civil Servant and the most cute guy ever in Good Doctor.

Just for this scene.

Will you be my squishy?

Best Female Friendships:  The Prison Bitches in Secret

Best Male Friendships:  Reply 1994

And Jin Rak the dreamer and Dong Joon the truth speaker in Flower Boy Next Door

Romulans and Vulcans:

Pon Farr???

And Last But Not least let’s hear it for the Moms:

What I have learned from K Drama watching in 2013:

-I’m an independent thinker and I will never go along with the crowd.

-Based on reading blogs and comments there are a lot of women in the world that perpetuate and enable female second class citizenship.

-Stop watching a drama if you are not happy with it or it pisses you off.  Just. Stop.  It’s not like a blogger or commenter will not put out alerts on anything interesting that you might want to check out.  Just don’t believe any hype on a kiss scene, ha.

-Don’t be afraid to try a drama that you are iffy about but see above.

-I learned from Barefoot Friends that Koreans must have mouths made out of iron to withstand crunching crabmeat right out of the shell.  Because my ass would be at the hospital getting stitches if I tried that with a blue crab.  Not to mention the dental risks.

-I realized how much Korean female characters and actresses are overlooked in discussion and commentary.  To include my own neglect.  And probably in this review.  I could not for the life of me think of break out female actresses, besides thinking of the work that some of the child actresses were doing.  It would be hypocritical to deny that I came to k drama for the hotties and the romance.  But how can I say I want to see more developed and more interesting k drama female characters if I don’t give them more attention?  I cannot do anything drastic about culture as a whole, but I can do something about what I do and how I comment on dramas to include more coverage of female characters and actresses.  And maybe that is how changes begin?

Happy Viewing for 2014!

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Monstar Episode 12 (Final) Thoughts

Another lovely little drama wrapped up this week.   The overall quality and entertainment value of Monstar snuck up on many viewers, I think.   I do not think I had any expectations going into it.  I was pleasantly surprised by the execution of this drama and in particular a big surprise was the acting of Yong Jun-hyung, the standout performance of Kang Haneul, and the stage presence of Dahee, along with the chemistry that sparked with Kang Haneul and Dahee.

If we look at it on the surface, it has all the standard issue overworked elements in dramas, and especially teen dramas. Standard issue male lead, standard issue, second male lead.   It did the same thing with the female protagonist many dramas do-she’s cute, she’s plucky, she’s an outsider.  Then “they” turn her into a passive little girl.  There was a cast of of excellent supporting characters.  Why was it different?  Good question.  They took their time telling the story.  They gave each character a moment to shine.  The cinematography was pretty, the writing was wonderful,  and the acting was great. That does not really make it different, just somehow bits and pieced together good stuff.

What it did not do:  it did not flesh out the antagonists.  It left them as cookie cutter images, with small hints of humanity in them.  It did not redeem them. Which was great, and that is kind of important. Why?  Because that is a life lesson of high school.  All those people that make you miserable in high school really are not important in the scheme of your future life.

At about the 8th episode, I knew this drama was going to meander a bit and pacing was going to be sacrificed for the small moments, which I am okay with sometimes, but we were not going to have everything wrapped up neatly and tied with a bow.  I have come to expect that in many Korean dramas, especially teen dramas.  That it was somewhat open ended was okay with me, because life is not wrapped up neatly when one is in high school.  I appreciated that in the Dream High dramas also.   That the winner of the band battle was left unanswered was done for a reason, because it too, was not important.  The important thing was that Color Bar worked together (Color Bar to describe people of different socio economic levels is a bit different than how it would be used in other countries).  And really what was not tied up to some extent in the end?   All the plot bunnies had a wrap of some sort:

-The conflict with Seol Chan and Sun-woo were childhood resentments that Seol Chan understood and would recede with time.  They had natural competitiveness that was not going to go away.  And they liked the same girl.  Only time would sort that out.

-Sun-woo was not ready to let go of Se-yi,  even though she rejected him.  Even though he admitted to Nana he had to practice letting go, thus he knew in his heart that it would never be.  If this was a longer drama, I have a feeling we would have Sun-woo go second lead female crazy stalker on us.  I am glad to be spared because I eally really liked the complexities of this character, even though they were not really explored.

-Sun-woo finally acknowledged Nana’s crush in his normal passive aggressive way.   Sun-woo’s character was way too complex for such a short drama.  He had so many layers of kindness and detachment and cruelty.  But he never saw that it was Nana that brought him to life and made him interested (and interesting) in something outside his little world and his childhood crush on Se-yi.

-Nana, smarter than all of the others put together, was at least able to see that her crush was one sided all along, and knew there was a time limit on Sun-woo’s toleration of her crush.

-The nerd boys made peace.

-Eun-ha grew up a little bit, and stepped into her role as the heart of the group.  There was not going to be a resolution to an abusive parent.   Not in this Korean drama, and not in life.  Life is not that simple.

-The mother/father and Ahjussi story line was explained.

-Thai boy was explained.

-Episode 12 really was Seol Chan’s time to resolve as a character.  He developed from a egocentric Monstar to a person that cared about his team mates.  We saw that all of his insecurities were tied to abandonment issues.

-Was the teen love storyline opened ended?  I do not think so on Seol Chan’s end.   Seol Chan committed.  It appears the Se-yi committed, but she still allowed Sun-woo to claim her attention and even drag her around a bit.   Seriously, she allowed the posturing to continue from Sun-woo.  She has strong points, but could she really survive Seol Chan’s world? I definitely think this is a situation where she was loved way more than she loved in return.  I am not sure that the relationship would last.

The themes of friendship and acceptance and forgiveness of others and self that ran throughout the drama were not sacrificed by time issues in the last episode.

Would I liked to have had more from this drama?  I have to say yes.  I wish Se-yi had retained her sense of justice throughout, and her backbone had not been sacrificed to become the passive chew toy between two boys. Someone with backbone does not let a one-sided crush linger, especially after the guy asks you to date, and you do not say no.  I wish we could have delved in the complexities of Sun-woo’s nature.  I wish Seol Chan’s passionate nature did not have to be stymied by a teen demographic.  I wish Nana could have what she wanted out of life.  I wish Eun-ha time to find her calling.  I wish there had been time for the gym teacher to woo the aunt.  I wish Kim Nana would beat the crap out of that violin girl.

So if a show leaves you wanting more, it is because it was insufficient, or because it was good?   I am going to go with this was a little show that was pretty darn good.

And how sad is it that the MINUTE I saw the shadow profile of the mystery guy with the orchestra geeks, I was like OMG that is No friggin Min Woo!  I am such a nerd.   That guy is a beast.  I love him, he is so talented.  However, he is getting a little weird and is way too thin.  But that guy is another blog topic.