Friday, September 29, 2017

275. King is Not Easy 大王不容易 (2017) Chinese

Zhang Yi Jie, Bai Lu, Zhao Yi Qin, Xu Bai Hui

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A+

When I saw the promos for this I was excited, because it looked cute and funny. It looked fluffy.  That it was.  A body swapping Drama with the King of Zhou and his maid, who of course will fall in love.  Classic.

It started off really well.  It was rather refreshing as a body swapping drama.  It was still cheesy, but I really loved it.  I think they both did a great job of being each other, especially when she was still chasing after the hot palace guard in the king’s body, so everyone thought he was gay, and he's more jealous than worried because he's already in like with her even though he's literally only interacted with her while she was in his body.  Haha, imagine seducing your own body, haha.  Somehow it still worked, even though it was cheesy and fluffy and the king looked like a 16 year old. A cute, but scrawny one at that.

Then the last four episodes happened when it turned into some kind of an epic all the sudden.  I mean, it did have a draggy part before, when they had to resolve the 2nd couple so the king could actually get her to pay attention to him, despite him still being in her body.  But all the sudden they are fighting wars, and using every trope to fill the holes and tie up ends that didn't need to be tied.  It went full blown W on us, as worlds collided and the craziness continued to escalate.  And then, in the end, it still left us hanging.  All I wanted was a happy ending, which it kind of did, in a super open ended way.  The weird thing was that everything they did was technically possible, but highly improbable.  There were unexplored facets they didn't need to explore, but technically could because it was there, but to do it that way would be bad or at least sloppy writing.  If it was a manga adaptation, they could have done a better job, thats all I have to say.  Really, even the opening credits song was a metaphor for this show. It is fluffy and cute until the last 3o seconds which turns into a funky break down that doesn't seem to fit, much like the last 4 episodes of the show... hmmm, interesting.

So overall I loved it, but I am disappointed that the ending since istead of wrapping it up they opened a bunch of random worm cans and then left us drowning. Ok, fine whatever. I just had to go with the flow and let it happen.  I did still love the main couple, even though he was 16 and she was like 20, at least in appearances.  I also really loved the added dynamics added by the short little modern skits at the end.  I guess they could have given me some hints, since she was a graphic novelist or whatever, but still, if they were going in that direction, just make it longer. Don't surprise us that close to the end.  Nope, nope, nope.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Men Who Make Me Watch Dramas Against My Will: Ahjussi Edition

It's been a while and I've realized that I need revisit this topic of actors who I love so much I watch pretty much anything for them.  I realized that I need to pay homage to the Ahjussi in my life, because as I grow older, the oppas I like are pretty much all really ahjussi.  Am I really that close in age to 40?  Eek!


Yeah, that's the definition I'm going to use for Ahjussi- 40 and up.  Omo, do I love the ahjussi these days.  I find myself way more attracted to them, and able to connect to them, then say, those puppies in the high school dramas.  Yeah, when I do watch the high school dramas I am checking out the teacher actors, like in School 2013 or Sassy Go Go, who have some of the oppas (or donggaps) that I love.  So here is a list of "Ahjussi" actors (some of who are just barely 40) who I would watch anything for, or have watched complete nonsense for, or would just love to see in everything.  Can't they just be in everything so the quality of everything goes up?

Monday, September 25, 2017

Korean Movie Night: The Wailing 곡성 (2016) Korean

Kwak Do Wan, Hwang Jung Min, Chun Woo Hee, Jun Kunimura, Kim Hwan Hee

Movie rating: 8/10      Neck score: B

I've been meaning to watch a real Korean horror film for a while, and my boss, who love horror films recommended this one to me.  It's weird to have Korean films recommended to me when I'm the one who first recommended them to him, but that's cool.  He just likes films in general, so why not.  This one was superbly made.  The pacing is really good, which is interesting because it's a long movie and really slow paced, but at the same time, it builds well.  Well, I don't know how slow paced it can be when it starts off with death and there is plenty of death and carnage along the way.  It's not super jumpy or violent, but it is gruesome.  We mostly see the aftermath of the murders.

It's not really jumpy scary much, more like a suspense that builds up as we watch this ordinary man, a lazy cop in a remote mountain village, try to figure out what is going on as violent murders start happening around the village.  They all have the same things in common.  One family member going crazy and murdering all the rest.  They all have a horrible rash before, and they usually commit suicide after all the murders.  Also, they are very violent and bloody murders.  People start blaming the Japanese stranger, and cite having nightmares after random encounters with him.  The suspense only builds as people closer to our ordinary man begin to be affected, including his daughter.

271. Strongest Deliveryman 최강 배달꾼 (2017) Korean

Go Kyung Pyo, Chae Soo Bin, Kim Sun Ho, Go Won Hee

Drama Rating: 8/10     Neck Score: A

I'll admit it took me a couple of episodes to get into this, but maybe it's because I had just finished Golden Cross and was still stuck in snarky snarkville.  I didn't like how everyone was being mean to Kang Soo (Go Kyung Pyo) when he was literally the nicest person in the world.  But then they just didn't get it yet, and it wasn't too long before everyone loved him because he was literally the nicest person in the world.  I love the nice guy trend.  It worked really good for this one, especially when it was also a continuation of the fight corruption/evil conglomerates trend.  It seemed to start slow, but I think that was partially because they really wanted all the characters to grow, and I mean all of them.  It started all mixed up, with the two rich people liking the two poor people, or at least clinging to them as they taught them how to be people, but then everyone learned from everyone, and it was great.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Korean Movie Night: JSA Joint Security Area 공동경비구역 JSA (2000) Korean

Lee Young Ae, Lee Byung Hun, Song Kang Ho, Kim Tae Woo, Shin Ha Kyun

Movie rating: 9/10     Neck score: A

I knew going into this one, that it was going to be filled with tension and sadness.  How could a movie about the boarder between two countries, divided, and constantly on the brink of war not be?  It certainly had all of that.  It was also full of all the emotions, like every Korean movie I end up watching.  I really liked the build of this one, as it starts with the event that is being investigated, with gun shots and dead bodies, and then we slowly get flashes into the different sides of the story, until we get the full story, what really happened.  By this point we are fully invested, so it is all the more tragic and heartbreaking, and we're crying, or at least ready to at any moment.  It had a good way of catching the beauty of the little moments, so that the gravity of the big moments were all the more harsh.  This is something that's hard to find in most typical movies.  I love it when the little moments are important.

I loved how cleanly it portrayed both sides.  It didn't demonize or glorify one side over the other.  It didn't paint one bad the other good, but that the whole thing was a mess.  The higher ups on both sides were just as bad, demonstrating the stereotypes and prejudices, while the common soldier, the individual, each had a story and their own opinions.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

273. Nightmare Teacher 악몽선생 (2016) Korean

Uhm Ki Joon, Kim So Hyun, Lee Min Hyuk, Seo Shin Ae

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A

After the lameness of Golden Cross, I needed to see my Grumpy Cat (Uhm Ki Joon) in something more worthy of his greatness.  What better than a webdrama where he is a teacher who is making his students live their nightmares so he can steal their souls and teach them life lessons?  Answer, lots of things, but this was also a good option.  It was actually not too bad for a webdrama.  It wasn't that creepy, sadly, and it was very moralistic and stuff, but I still liked it.  It was done in serial format, with a new kid with a new problem every two episodes.  Some of the mini story arcs were more relatable than others, which really helped with the quality or enjoyability of the story arc.  Lizabreff couldn't get into the story about the overachiever student who studied until he lost his memory of anything else, while I cared less about the girl who wanted to look perfect and be the prettiest so she went all Dorian Gray on us.  Although I liked the Dorian Gray part of it.  We also both struggled with the lonely, dreamer girl who dreamed herself a boy friend and a stalker.  Why would you want the stalker?  He turned out only slightly less scary than the boyfriend actually.  While her stupidity was the worst, I loved that one the best because it was probably the creepiest one.  The end was almost the creepiest, which I was excited for, but it stayed pretty tame and not horrific like I wanted.  Oh well.  It was very moralizing and we all learned a lesson.  The end.  The important part was that Uhm Ki Joon was amazing and I loved him, as he just stood there, being awesome and leading the kids to their doom... haha.  It was a good drama to appreciate him in, and that's what I needed, so it was perfect.


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

K-Con LA 2017 Final Day: Wrapping Up the Trip

Is it ridiculous that most of our adventures of our last day took place outside of K-Con?  We were trying to find someplace, and our information was wrong.  That day was the huge exception, and even though we went to 3 different places, we ended up not finding what we were looking for.  But we did get a sort of tour of different parts of LA because of that.  Saw some different views and some residential areas.  It was nice, I guess.  But it meant that we got less K-Con time.


But a good thing happened after the wild goose chase we went on.  When we got to our sketchy under the parking lot parking, some girls were just leaving.  Seeing our wrist bands, they offered us their parking they had bought, because they were leaving already.  So we got free parking!  #blessings #kconersunite

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

269. Golden Cross 골든 크로스 (2014) Korean

Kim Kang Woo Lee Si Young, Uhm Ki Joon, Han Eun Jung, Jung Bo Suk

Drama Rating: 3/10     Neck Score: A+++

Let's take a guy with a normal family who has struggled a bit because they are as good as they are normal, even though they fight and stuff and don't get why they have to suffer when they are good, and then let's ruin their lives completely just to give us the premise of this show: a secret chaebol organization that steps all over normal people for their greedy, economic controlling power.  There, we have the set up for a perfectly normal revenge drama.  Prosecutor in training, who also happens to be a former Taekwondo star, whose family struggles because of his super upright, honest banker dad, losing everything when his said upright, honest dad is framed for murdering his little sister.  It's obviously set up so this prosecutor will go on a holy rampage and take this secret organization down with his smart brain and snazzy taekwondo skills.  His crush is both the villain's daughter and the prosecutor of his father's case, that's going to lead to a bit of drama, exciting!  Typical revenge melodrama, right?  Well, let's take this typically set up plot and logical progression and do the opposite of everything logical.  That equals this show.  I was so disappointed.

Friday, September 1, 2017

267. Sound of Your Heart 마음의 소리 (2016) Korean

Lee Kwang Soo, Kim Dae Myung, Jung So Min, Kim Byung Ok, Kim Mi Kyung

Drama Rating: 9/10     Neck Score: A

I was so sad when I couldn't find this anywhere, because you all know how much I love Kwang Soo.  He is my #1 actor who rivals even GD in my heart.  I had to watch him be Cho Seok, because I also am 100% in love with Sound of Your Heart and have read everything that has been translated on Line Webtoon.  Sadly that is just a fraction of what there actually is, sniff.  Basically, there is a certain laugh that I have reserved just for Sound of Your Heart.  Lizabreff knows only one thing can make me laugh like that, so she knows what I'm reading.  This show was the same.  I laughed so hard!  I think it did a good job capturing the right feeling.  Their actor choice was perfect for all of them.  Every new person introduced I was like "Yeah!  They're perfect for it!"  It was delightful.  Even before we found it on Netflix and were just watching random clips on YouTube, I was just laughing.  They did a good job.  It's a slightly different experience when the naked/bathroom humor comes in, cuz it's live action vs just the drawings.  You realize just how tall and skinny Kwang Soo is when he's streaking through the city with his bare legs and censored blur.  It was hilarious.  I loved it.  I also like how they managed to keep the webtoon feel to it, while also connecting them into a somewhat cohesive story, with some character growth and some tied in themes.  It brought it all back in for a good ending to the series, so we didn't get left hanging.  It was well done.  Highly recommended.  I want there to be more seasons.  All the seasons in the world!  More Sound of Your Heart!  More Kwang Soo!  Hurray!

262. Father is Strange 아버지가 이상해 (2017) Korean

Kim Young Chul,  Kim Hae Sook, Lee Joon,  Jung So Min, Lee Yoo Ri, Ryu Soo Young, Min Jin Woong, Lee Mi Do, Ryu Hwa Young, Ahn Hyo Seop

Drama Rating: 8/10     Neck Score: A+

I love a good 50 episode family drama, and that is exactly what this was.  So many wonderful characters that you can just grow to love, because you have all the time in the world.  I love it because you can take time to develop characters fully and let relationships build naturally.  This usually makes me way more invested in all the characters and all the relationships to the point where I'm crying and giggling at any wedding or big event near the end.  This was no exception.

The plot of this was a bit interesting, since it is focused on a family with three strong minded girls who all take after their strong minded mother, and then the one older brother who takes after the easygoing sweet father.  However there are, of course, family secrets- practically birth secrets here- when an idol turned actor shows up looking for his father who happens to be the dad of this family.  This is potentially bad because the main OTP is clearly this actor (Lee Joon) and his manager, who is the third child in the family (Jung So Min).  But they let us slowly unravel the secrets until all the crap hits the fan and it's all dramatic, and all that.