Recommendations and Reviews

Merry Christmas everyone

I seem to have a love hate relationship with this editor. A lot of the endings I didn’t like where they decided to end, but with the previews I think they are doing a pretty good job. To date, this long trailer was the best I think personally. Why? Cuz it brought back my favorite thing about JW and incorporated it with such a moving scene. When he chanted Kim soroo as he hugged R closer and closer, almost tearing up, you can just feel how much he is in love with her. He knows by hugging her like this, it is going to be that much harder to ever let go and his chants as he embraces her got to me more than any of the kisses so far. That hug got me out of bed on Christmas morning at 7:30am and that in itself was a Christmas miracle cuz I never wake up that early for anything.

SG Long trailer translations



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JW breaks the moment by saying “there is an empty room next door” and gets a cushion in his face as a reply.

Next morning as R and JL leave for their hike, R asks JL “are we going all the way up to jeong mountain” and JL says “if we can” while JW wrapped in his blanket yells out “where are you two going?” How many times do I have to tell you I’m not the kind of person you can ignore?”

JW sits and waits for them pretending to be in pain and points to his ankle and says “can’t you see how swollen it is? Here-right here”

I love how there are so many scenes I don’t have to translate cuz it is just hilarious to watch how cute and adorable JW is.

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Oska and the singer talk about someone else and oska gets frustrated and yells out the inside joke “ya- just cuz your OST these days are selling well can you look down on me?” (the ost he is referring to is SG’s)

Oska calls seul and asks: it’s me, I left a text message to see if we could meet. when do you have some time? And he goes to see her

Oska to seul: it really wasn’t you? I thought about it for a long time.  if this isn’t it…

Why did you date a bad guy like me? What did you like so much (about me)? I’ll think about it some more. One by one – I’ll think over it all. I’ll think about it and figure out why you got hurt by me. I’ll be going now.

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Cupid tells JL: KJW can’t move till tomorrow cuz of his meeting so I left R behind. (my guess is someone had to take care of him cuz of his “injury”)

R: are you really hurt?

JW tries to show her something on his lower hip

R: You’re really going to die

JW: Why?  just now I was being really manly )

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As they are walking JW turns to R and says: GRI, your action has a scent of a lavender.

R: what?

JW:  your presence itself is a miracle to me.

R squints her eyes and says: crazy (guy)

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JW holding a pillow: I’m going to sleep in this room

R: what?

JW: why? i can’t? normally people need scandalous/disgraceful incidents to get close

R: have you really gone crazy? Are you not going to leave?

JW: with everything else you take stock of the situation well so why are you acting like this is all new to you at a time like this?

If you go to an island, the boats stop running

If you go to a hotel, it’s the last room

At a country estate, in front of the fireplace, of course we should be… ….

Pillow gets thrown at his face

Ya!

R: fine – you sleep here. I’ll leave. I will

JW pretending: oh- director yoon-you didn’t leave yet? Did you leave something behind?

R falling for it and coming out: director?

JW: I was right when I said you’re not smart and have to do physical work.

R: get out!

JW: let’s sleep, I’m sleepy

Let’s sleep

JW holding R: kim sooroo…

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*Thanks to Anon and her short trailer post

someone besides Santa is going to be working this Christmas

I have been waiting for JW and R moments like this and there is no way I am going to miss watching it

As long as I am watching it, of course I am going to want to share. To be honest I was still on the fence whether or not to transcap this Christmas cuz everyone is on holiday and will be gone out of town. Doubt you guys will see any screen caps or gifs either so it may just be the words this time.

Granted it won’t be a Live Transcap but whenever I do get home, I will download it and start transcapping. More than likely, I will only be an hour or two behind my normal schedule.

Sorry for the late notice, but I was waiting to see the trailer before I decided to transcap or not on Sat.

Merry Christmas everyone 🙂

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This short trailer was perfect, esp that scene where JW pretends his butt is hurt and tries to get R to look at it. Then as they are traipsing through the woods,  JW  uses the flattering lines cupid taught him to say to win R over:

“GRI, your presence itself is a miracle to us.” and  “Your action has a scent of a lavender.”

[lavender:a symbol of bravado.=white fox translated both lines ]

Then R ruined this perfect short preview clip with her hurtful words as she walks away from JW asking him to : go out of my [miserable] reality and go back to the fairytale you lived in

There is going to be another soul swap this weekend

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Since MSOAN is drawing to a close and there will only be one drama transcribed, I thought I would take the time to introduce you to a few other options and recommendations for something else to watch. Most of it was written back when Thundie asked me to write the epic review of SKKS so that is why the fonts are different. I’ve been a full time blogger now for a little over a month and a half so this little post means a lot to me since I am not transcribing someone else’s work. I’ve been working on this during my three day breaks here and there and I finally finished it tonight just in time for Christmas.

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Recommendations:

Flower shop that doesn’t sell roses- “bara no nai hanaya”

I found out about this Japanese drama on a comment on another blog. A mother said she watched it with her daughter and they both cried their eyes out. She promised that it was good and worth checking out. I started looking for it and read the synopsis and hesitantly started with the first episode. I didn’t sleep that night and watched all 11 episodes. Thank goodness I started on a late Saturday night so I had the whole next day to sleep. I am not the “drama marathoning” type – only cuz I like sleep too much. But this one, it is all kinds of special and watching just one at a time was impossible. The little girl actress in this drama is out of this world good. She is like a young Japanese Dakota Fanning. She can act circles around anyone more famous and consummate. There is no other way to describe how wonderful this drama is with its warmth and subtle charm. It just sweeps you up in an embrace and squeezes tight before setting you down and all you want is to be picked up again.

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Actresses (2009)

This came out around last Christmas. When I first heard about it, I was interested for three of the actresses in the movie. The three older ones were the pull for me since I’ve seen them in other dramas or movies and always admired their work. What I didn’t expect was to like it so much. The first half is all hilarity and guffaws. It is thoroughly entertaining from start to finish and time just flies by. What took me by surprise was their sincerity and I found myself crying towards the end along with the actresses. I had no idea how hard their real lives had been for them. Even though I hadn’t gone through what they did, it didn’t stop me from empathizing with their acute pain. I have to add that this was the only Korean movie I loved in recent years. It made me proud that they could pull off a partial documentary type movie so well. 

There is a reason why I don’t like Korean movies. They seem to fall between two reactions: “what the hell is this” and “wake me up when it is over.” I am dead serious about this range. Out of the handful of movies I watched last year and this year, except for two movies (Actresses and Speed Scandal), the rest all fell under those two reactions. Prime examples are the Housemaid, The man from nowhere (ahjussi), and some more that involved serial killings and abductions. Thank goodness most of my friends don’t drag me to see Korean movies so I was spared from having a lot more of those reactions.

*I am finally going to watch the new Gong Yoo movie this weekend so if it is any good, I will add it on here

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Kdrama Reviews

Anyone who knows me will attest that I am not much of a Kdrama viewer. I never bother learning any actor’s or character names and I don’t follow certain directors or writers religiously except for the CP director Lee and the Hong sisters. I am VERY selective with my dramas and will only watch what I deem to be worthy of my time. Not many have made that cut this year or previous years. I am not the type to watch almost everything and then winnow out the ones I don’t like. There were a few I started, but never finished or watched enough to merit attention like The Woman who still wants to get married (as soon as Bummie dyed his hair gray I was out of there-it was too much to take), Personal Taste, Kim Tak Gu, Dong Yi, and Playful Kiss.

The beauty of a Kdrama is you never quite know where it will take you or how it will all begin. You may start off lukewarm and then gradually fall in love with it or it may take hold of you like a vice grip from a certain scene and never let go. I’m not the fall in love instantly type at all. It usually takes a while for me to warm up to a drama. At least one or two episodes in, I will either be intrigued, curious to continue, or handcuffed for life. With that said, here are my personal favorites this year.

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Sungkyunkwan Scandal

Before SKKS, MGIAG held the top spot in my heart and I was pretty certain nothing would change because I had already fallen head over heels in love with it.  Then around episode five, SKKS made me cheat and stole my heart away with all the winking, hiccupping, back hugging, hats colliding, fighting over sleeping spots, etc. For someone like me to fall in love with a sageuk drama, this was a monumental year for me. SKKS managed to do the one thing I swore I would never do and that is finish a sageuk drama from start to finish. I’ve dabbled here and there before with a few episodes of Iljimae and Dong Yi, but only managed to watch a few sporadic episodes. If SKKS deserves any distinction, it earned its right to call itself the best drama of 2010. The level of popularity alone in its peak rivaled Coffee Prince and BOF. Say what you will about this drama, but one thing you can’t deny is that however briefly people tuned in, most stuck around and stayed for life. This drama remains in my top three favorites of all time and it will always hold very special memories for me (one of them is all over this blog-YAI looks good from any angle doesn’t he?)

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My Girlfriend Is A Gumiho

Everything from its great OST to the mark of a Hong sisters’ brand of genius, this drama was destined to be a hit from the first time they mentioned it when YAB fans were clamoring for a sequel. That is when the Hong sisters promised all their fans that they were already at work for their next drama and promised us a fantasy story that would capture our hearts- and boy did they deliver. From the first episode, I was already enraptured by Dae Woong’s goofiness and Miho’s intoxicating spell over him. My Girlfriend is a Gumiho had the perfect blend of humor and cuteness and I should have drowned in saccharine. What kept me afloat were some of the serious undertones. Here was a gumiho so in love that all she wanted to do was become human and stay with her “woong-ah”, only to learn later that he would have to die for her to get her wish. This drama was the perfect mixture of light-heartedness with a tinge of melodrama towards the end and the final result was gold.

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Bad Guy

When I first saw Bad Guy, I literally didn’t know what I was getting into. The only actor I knew was Kim Jae Wook and since I had a soft spot for him, I gave this a shot. I didn’t know the lead guy and never cared for the main actress. Visually, I liked the camera work for this drama. I just kept watching it cuz it wasn’t bad enough to turn off, yet not good enough for me to look forward to it. I wasn’t hooked into it until one particular riveting scene. It was the one where he meets his (birth) father for the first time in years and the look on Nam Gil’s face and the tears in his eyes made my heart break for him. I imagined all that he endured to come to this point and face off with the man he was supposed to hate, but had to fight back the longing of a son wanting his father’s approval. My description does not do that scene justice. But that was it for me and from then on I started to care for the lead guy and hoped he would get his redemption.

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Cinderella’s Sister

As for Cinderella’s sister, I thought the first few episodes before the guy left for the army were hauntingly good, especially that scene where she searches desperately for him. Finally willing to admit she likes him, but he is nowhere to be found so she goes to the edge of the lake and sinks to her knees on the sand in tears. Her immeasurable loss and overwhelming sense of helplessness to do anything about it made the audience feel her pain just as intensely as she did. That scene still gives me chills it was so good. If the drama ended there, it would’ve been perfection. Don’t bother asking how me how the rest was cuz I watched it through a haze of frustration that went in and out. I swear the writer was trying to tease us with the love line so much, but it never really went anywhere. By the time it started to, the audience had emotionally checked out. It had all the makings of greatness that never came into fruition. 

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Coffee House

I had no particular interest in Coffee House at all and didn’t expect to watch it, but it aired an hour earlier than the drama I was watching at the time so I gave it a try. At first I didn’t like it that much, but as the episodes continued, I realized I had been wrong to dismiss it as fluff. Each character had so many idiosyncrasies; it was fascinating to watch how they dealt with them. But what I was interested in was the most obvious fact that the writer and his publisher were in love and should be together, but someone seemed to stand between them and it wasn’t his scatter-brained assistant. Those two surprise kiss scenes at the phone booth and train station alone are worth watching the series for. You get swept in the moment right along with them and isn’t that why we watch these dramas? To learn to care about them and feel satisfied when they get their happy endings because for some reason, we feel like we helped make that happen because we willed it to.

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Now for the ones I never finished.

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Playful Kiss

In anticipation of PK, I saw the Japanese version first. Totally took me by surprise since I had no expectations and looking back now, I realize that was the better version out of the three. Then I tried the Taiwanese version. Even though I heard it stuck to the original version, the comedy felt off and I didn’t like it as much as I should have. What I did appreciate was that last episode when the drama took a complete turn to a serious tone. That’s when it got good, but it was the last episode. I researched the drama more and found out how the original writer had passed away so tragically young. That fact added to my anticipation for the Korean version cuz I wanted the writer’s family to feel proud that there would be three very disparate interpretation of her work. Before I say anything else, let me just preface this with one important point. I desperately wanted to love PK so much that in my mind at least, it was already a winner before it aired. That is why I was crushed – like absolutely heartbroken when the first episode aired. I felt like roadkill after a speeding car knocks you down. Then the second episode felt like that same driver put the car in reverse and backed over me again. After fast forwarding the first two episodes to spare my sanity, I already knew. But unwilling to let it go so easily, I kept downloading more episodes and took peeks to see if it got any better only to have to close my video player in defeat. I don’t blame the actors at all. It was just the unnecessary craziness like the band that kept popping up, the second lead’s Elvis hairdo and accent, the teddy bears at the end of each episode placed in compromising positions that made me cringe, the direction, and editing. I will always look back on this drama with a tinge of sadness that it wasn’t meant for me.

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Personal Taste

I tried to watch Personal Taste for Lee Min Ho cuz he as a complexion that rivals Joong Ki’s, but couldn’t stand the actress. That pairing just wasn’t convincing as a couple at all. What made it even worse was the story and other characters. That old guy they cast to play the gay rich guy who crushes after LMH’s character was a riot. Seriously, they wanted us to believe a guy like that even had an iota of a chance with a guy like LMH? Maybe the old guy would have had a fighting chance if he didn’t look like he could be old enough to be LMH’s dad or uncle. One thing I will say about this drama, LMH never looked better. That hairstyle fit him to a tee. In BOF, he had that perm, but here his hair was stealing every scene from the poor guy. In real life, he looks just as good too. The only worthwhile scene this drama produced was the “game over’ kiss. Not sure the kiss was good enough to suffer through all those episodes, but I immediately downloaded that one when I read about it. It was definitely worth the download let me tell you.

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I said it before and I’ll say it again, but there is no accounting for taste when a drama like Kim Tak Gu gets over 45% ratings. Seriously, how can a drama about a baker searching for his mother for over ten years become a hit this year? I dubbed that drama Gourmet Redux with bread this time. Just out of curiosity, I checked in and out of the drama periodically just to take a peek and see if he had found his mom yet. I fast forwarded so much I think I may have seen a total of one episode amount during E5-11. I saw the early episodes because it has been my experience that child actors’ scenes surpass their grownup counterparts almost every time in superlative acting and will guarantee a tear or two from me. If you don’t believe me, just watch Dong Yi when she is a child and she loses her father and brother and see if you can hold in your waterworks. And then like forty something episodes later, just watch the kid who played Dong Yi’s son steal EVERY scene from the grownups including the guy who played the King. For best child acting this year, that kid deserves every award because his scenes did summersaults around everyone else and then ended in a handstand. That scene in episode 48 where he recites stuff that even grownups would mess up, he nailed it easily and grinned in triumph at the end. The power of a sharp young mind put everyone to shame in that drama.

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Now for the current two dramas on this blog:

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Secret Garden will be my choice for the sleeper hit of 2010 right behind SKKS and MGIAG. Every line of dialogue should be the reason why people need to watch this drama. It is hands down the most amazing writing I have ever heard on any Kdrama so far in all my five years of watching dramas. Simply put, all those daebak scenes I have highlighted in the last 12 episodes have drugged me and I am in a stupor I hope I never get out of. Clarity is highly overrated if I have to wake from this spell that has intoxicated me these past few weeks. So far it hasn’t let me down and barring any unforeseen Kdrama traps, I am pretty confident it will end with a resounding “bravo” at the end.   

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Mary Stayed Out All Night started off kind of weird for me. The set photos with JGS looking a little too much like a girl threw me a bit and then the “My bus” song was released and that was when I had my moments of doubt. With all that trepidation, this blog had its first recap. I don’t know when it happened, but with each passing transcap, I fell more in love. These three lead characters got to me so much I checked common sense at the door when it came to plot and storyline. Though I relished every one of Mary and MG scenes the most, Jung In had his share as well with the rain kiss, recent cuteness since E11, and now the back hug. There are only two episodes left and I feel safe in saying I loved every episode except for E13. The reality of it is if E13 didn’t air, this review would be glowing and full of unadulterated praise. As it stands, that one episode opened my eyes and doused weeks of sheer glee and I tried to dry off and looked for a patch of sunlight which I found in E14. Let’s see if the last two episodes next week keeps me there basking in the sunlight so that I can enjoy the warmth of this wonderful drama one last time.

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Dramas on my radar for 2011:

Dream high

My princess

Duo

Midas

This time around, I am going to switch up my transcap style

It won’t be as in depth as SG or MSOAN

I will only do line by line translations for really key scenes alone

The rest of the scenes will be summarized using drama dialogue

If I can keep it shorter, I might be able to do more than one or two dramas at the same time again

I learned a lot from SG and MSOAN and it was kind of hard so I have to change up my style a bit

to spare my eyes and fatigue

I say all this now, but who knows. If one of those dramas end up another winner, everything I said will go right out the window and I will have full transcaps again – we will have to play it by ear 🙂