the face of the moon

Don't worry though, I'll at least put off for another day my 9384928403289 word essay on how Kim Nam-gil and I are destined for wedded bliss on the astral plane.

1) The BBC's modern day Sherlock Holmes reboot, one episode (A Study in Pink) out of a total of three (!!!!! DDDD:) aired.

Yeah, sorry, RDJ. I guess Moffat's version hit my fandom kink buttons more? Because I enjoyed this so much more than the latest movie. I may or may not have been seal clapping with joy the whole way through.

Now that I think about it, I bet a lot of my enjoyment had to do with ( Sherlock's characterization )

And is it just me, or does the new Sherlock Holmes actor not look uncannily like Colin Morgan? I swear to god, they could be brothers. O.O Also, apparently the actor's name is Benedict Carlton Cumberbatch. It's like something straight out of Dickens or Harry Potter, I swear.

2) The King and the Clown

A great Joseon dynasty period movie about two minstrels/clowns, Jang-seng (he of the scarred face), and Gong-gil (he of the androgynous beauty). The mad king comes into the movie later and dominates the plot with his erratic, childlike, homicidal whims, ( but the movie starts and ends with the dynamic between the two clowns. )

Actually, ( one of the aspects of Inception that pleased me the most... )

Which leads me to, ironically, the opposite of that. (LOL IDK, I like different things from my source material that I do from my fic reading material)

3) Someone on my flist posted Arthur/Eames Inception slash \o/ Dull Boy, by sparky77

4) I read an interesting article on Language Log today, about how there doesn't really exist a way for Chinese people to textually represent casual spoken Cantonese, which I had no idea. Apparently text messaging Hong Kong teenagers have created an ad hoc amalgam of Roman letters, Arabic numerals, mathematical symbols, and traditional Mandarin characters to represent their mother tongue. The end result being that, "If we really want to, we can type Chinese, but English is a lot easier to type."

(Random aside: Language Log is a funny blog for me because I follow it as an RSS feed on DW, which means I don't see who the posters are to come to know and recognize each writer's style/point of view. So twice a day I read interesting to neutral academic articles from it, and then every once in a while there will be a completely batshit frothing rant about Barack Obama or the word vuvuzela or some shit. And I have no idea if it's just one crazy guy who got posting access somehow or what.)

5) So I just watched episode 9 of Bad Guy (aaaahhhh how does Kim Nam-gil just totally gut me with just the expression in his eyes?? IDEK :O) and started thinking about Korean revenge dramas as a genre, and why they're so popular that they actually do constitute a genre in and of themselves. And then I thought about that for about two seconds. LOL, gee, Korean culture as a whole enjoys escapist fantasy about enacting revenge on someone who has wronged you. I wonder why.

Reviews of the 7 kdramas I've watched recently, only the vaguest of spoilers.

Oh! My Lady

Genre: Romantic Comedy. Kids. Older woman, younger guy.
Status: Finished.

Verdict: Cute fluffy romance involving children. Well, I'm a sucker for kidfic, so no big shocker that I liked it. The kids rather conveniently appeared and reappeared whenever the plot needed the parents to be elsewhere (what day care will keep your children until the middle of the night??) but that was probably my only complaint. Not gonna lie, I was swooning together with those tabloid reading shop girls after the press was hounding Gae-hwa and Min-woo had to go "save" her from them.

My viewing experience of this drama benefited a lot from my having such low expectations for it, unlike a few others down the list. I started watching knowing it was a cute fluffy romcom, and that's exactly what I got. Sometimes it's nice to get a simple, uncomplicated happy ending where the music swells, the couple kiss, and then the lights go down before anybody dies. LOL I'm beginning to find that's much more rare in kdrama than I had initially anticipated.

Cinderella's Sister

Genre: Romance. Melodrama.
Status: Lost interest.

Verdict: This show was such a huge disappointment to me. I LOVE Moon Geun-yeong (also the lead actress in Painter of the Wind) and I find her character of Eun-jo fascinating. The way she'd get angry and give this death stare from under her unkempt hair, eyes like a wild animal about to bite your face off. Lines she had just stuck in my mind, like "Liking someone so much you could die? I know less about that than dogs and cats." I just found her to be really interesting as a character.

And sometimes I'd laugh out loud at how realistic the sibling dynamic between Eun-jo and her "Cinderella" sister is. At one point Eun-jo, who even after 7 years is like a stray cat you can't pet for fear of losing an eye, refuses to have lunch with her family. So her sister, knowing that a happy family meal together will please their father, grabs Eun-jo by the arm in a white knuckled grip and hisses at her through a clenched teeth smile, "EAT SOMETHING BEFORE YOU GO, YOU EVIL BITCH." Yeah, sounds like a normal family to me.

But after the time skip the pacing dies a horrible agonizing death. And then I started to hate the male lead she was obviously going to end up with. "I'd rather be miserable with Male Lead forever than be in a happy, healthy relationship with Secondary Male Lead who treats me well and makes me smile!" No thanks.

After reading a few reviews of the last episode I decided it wasn't even worth it to keep watching. This drama had so much unfulfilled potential. :|

Painter of the Wind

Genre: Historical romance. Crossdressing.
Status: Finished.

Verdict: I really liked this. The art, the history, the love stories... great.

I appreciated how Yun-bok's romance with the courtesan and with her teacher were both treated respectfully. She never stopped loving either of them, and the show explicitly acknowledged that. The show is a bit Coffee Prince-esque in its gayness, in that the teacher starts to fall in love with Yun-bok while thinking she's a man. The courtesan also falls in love with crossdressed Yun-bok, and doesn't fall out of love upon learning that she's not.

I was rooting for her and the teacher though, I loved their relationship dynamic; she was always tagging along with him and he was always doting on her, but they constantly fought and debated as intellectual equals. The age different between the actors IRL is a little o.O when you think about it, but in the context of the story I believed it.

I also find it touching when a romance hinges on such small gestures and moments. The most physical the romance gets in this drama is a forehead kiss and Yun-bok washing ink from her teacher's hands.

Honestly, I liked everything except the last ten minutes of the last episode, which made me T_________T even though I understood how it tied the story together.

Damo

Genre: Historical romance. Melodrama.
Status: Lost interest.

Verdict: I WANT to like this show. This is the second time I've tried to watch it, since it comes so highly recommended and has gained a cult following in Korea. I love the concept: an ass-kicking, crime-fighting tea girl in the Joseon dynasty police department. I just really dislike how over-the-top melodramatic it is in every. single. episode. And I find the heroine's interactions with her love interest to be obnoxious.

Heroine: *does something that gets her in trouble*
Love interest: Don't do that.
Heroine: I DON'T WANT TO BE AN OBSTACLE TO YOU, SO I WILL CUT OFF MY ARM.
Love interest: No, I don't want that. I want you to stop doing dumb shit that gets you into trouble.
Heroine: NO, NAEURI. I MUST DO THIS.
Love interest: Seriously, stop. This is upsetting.
Heroine: Okay fine.
(10 minutes later)
Heroine: *ignores what he JUST SAID and does something that gets her into more trouble*
Love interest: >:|
Heroine: I DON'T WANT TO BE AN OBSTACLE TO YOU, SO I WILL LEAVE MY JOB AND MY HOME AND NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN.
Me: You know, you wouldn't be an obstacle to him if you stopped being a willful idiot who has to have everything her way all the time.

Also, the pacing is terrible. When I couldn't make myself download episode 6 after the annoyance that was episode 5, I found it streaming online at mysoju.com to watch last few episodes (since I've heard it has a twist ending) but couldn't even get through another ten minutes.

Conspiracy in the Court

Genre: Historical. Political thriller.
Status: Stopped watching during the second to last episode.

Verdict: This was another one that came so highly recommended, I wanted to LOVE IT. Several different kdrama reviewers all hailed this as THE BEST SAGEUK OF ALL TIME. So I went in with really high expectations and, honestly, I kind of hate it. Yes, the cinematography and direction and soundtrack are just as amazing as everyone said they were. But omggg do I hate these characters.

The male lead is useless from beginning to end and the female lead is completely and utterly without a shred of agency. It defied my suspension of disbelief, how passive she was while supposedly being this hardcore assassin. Since the king is the same historical figure as the king in Painter of the Wind, who I already knew and liked based on his character in that drama, at least I had a certain amount of interest in him. But after the events of episode 7, I went to go download the finale and suddenly realized I didn't give a fuck whether any of these people lived or died. Why bother? So I didn't.

太王四神記/The Legend

Genre: Fantasy historical. Epic.
Status: Rewatched from beginning to end.

Verdict: This is my favorite kdrama of all time. Possibly my favorite tv show of all time. I first watched it a few years ago, but after watching several duds in a row recently, I really wanted some good tv. So I rewatched it and fell in love all over again.

I love Damdeok. His kindness, his craftiness, his charm. The way it's second nature for him to hide his strength and wit behind a disarming smile. The way he walks slowly, hands clasped behind his back... um, yeah, so Bae Yong-Joon totally won my heart in this drama. When I started watching it, I thought he was funny looking with an ugly nose and I didn't understand how he was supposed to be this huge international heartthrob. But, oh, I learned. Did I ever.

Sujini is one of my all time favorite heroines. She's a female Han Solo. Hard drinking, gambling, fighting, always with a laugh and a devil-may-care attitude. Their romance develops in the small moments, similar to Painter of the Wind. The biggest expression of love is when she puts on his armor, or when they drink a bottle of wine together. She's his best friend, and he wants her to always stay where he can see her (since who knows what trouble she'll get into if she wanders off).

Lots of people refer to The Legend as Korea's Lord of the Rings. It's not quite on that scale of epic, but it comes really really close. The plot and the pacing are airtight, in 24 episodes there is no filler and it never once feels like the story is dragging (a chronic problem I've found with kdramas). The characters are all original and lovable. (Damdeok's cousin and rival for the throne, Ho Gae, is the only exception for me. I found him pitiful, an agent-less puppet from beginning to end)

And the women! The female characters kick ass! Aside from aformentioned asskicking Sujini, there's also Pa-son, the best blacksmith in Korea. And Dalbi, the adorable and clumsy widow who becomes the chief accountant and head of supplies for Damdeok's army. And Gak-dan, the captain of the king's guard, loyal and valiant. And nobody messes with Kiha, the vengeful guardian of the Phoenix.

The ending is still kind of a wtf for me. Even on rewatching I don't quite get it, though it makes a bit more sense now. The internet rumor is that there was a totally different ending that had to be changed because Bae Yong-Joon was badly injured during filming? I'd believe that. It's just kind of strange.

Apparently a Japanese anime adaption is in the works currently. I can't wait. :D

A Man's Story/Slingshot

Genre: Korean version of Leverage/Ocean's Eleven.
Status: Finished.

Verdict: *_____* So I only started watching this series, even though the description sounded meh to me, because Philip Lee from The Legend is in it and I love his face. /shallow

But apparently the reason Philip Lee was cast in this is because the screenwriter is Song Ji-na, who also wrote The Legend. She also apparently wrote what are considered the two seminal historical kdramas, Sandglass and Eye of Dawn, which I have yet to find online but am furiously searching for. The plot and the pacing are amaaaaazingggg, I was constantly on the edge of my seat. I mainlined the whole series in one weekend.

So, yes, it's the Korean version of Leverage. Only instead of being episodic, it's got a strong, gripping narrative arc that had me dying to know what happened next. The main character even kind of looks like Nate a bit to me, idk, I think it's his haircut.

This drama also has an unexpectedly nuanced approach to mental illness. The villain is a certified sociopath, but he's not unsympathetic. And the most lovable of all the heroes is a twitchy guy reminiscent of L from Death Note who's clearly portrayed as being on the autism spectrum.

I've only got two criticisms for this series. First, I think it starts 3 episodes too early. The first few episodes are all backstory setup that, IMO, could have been condensed into flashbacks dispersed later on after an in media res beginning. That might just be my Western aesthetic speaking though, Hollywood always prefers to start in the middle of the action. .....it might also be because I spent the first 3 episodes impatiently going "WHERE IS PHILIP LEE." >_>

My other criticism is that there's one particular aspect of the finale episode that made me D: :/ >:|. Everything else about the ending I loved, but that one thing I was quite displeased with, though I understand the reasoning behind it.

(LOL apparently I have issues with kdrama endings.)