Drama Review: Vineyard Man (2006)

Grade: B-

Category
Rural (!) Romantic comedy

What it’s about

A city girl who’s strapped for cash moves to her great-uncle’s vineyard in hopes of inheriting the land. Unprepared for the rustic conditions and hard work, she struggles to fit in and come to terms with her growing attraction to the vineyard’s hardworking caretaker.

First impression

As of episode one, this is a fairly standard mid-oughts romantic comedy, vastly improved by its likeable cast. I’m hoping once they head out to the countryside the manic zaniness will be toned down. (And maybe by then I’ll be able to stop wondering why my Chan is wearing so much eye makeup and trying to design clothes.) 

Final verdict

Vineyard Man is one of those shows I liked more than it really deserved. Its direction, acting, and plotting were all clumsy at best, but the strong cast and refreshing story largely saved the day for me.

Unlike so many trendy romantic comedies, Vineyard Man has more to offer than just a cutesy love story and slapstick humor: it’s a show about how a spoiled, selfish girl becomes a woman and learns that the material things she’s always treasured might not be so important after all. Revolving around life on a rural farm, Vineyard Man’s finest moments showcase the relationships its characters have with their beloved vineyard. It also tackles what I suspect is one of South Korea’s greatest dilemmas today—the uncomfortable balance between the traditional ways of doing things and the country’s sudden, citified modernization. (All this, and the screenwriters still managed to make time for an entire episode about constipation. This is a Korean drama, after all.)

I also liked that this show actually allowed its lead couple time to become friends before it forced them into standard love-triangle shenanigans. In contrast, most Kdramas focus on keeping their leads apart rather than building a compelling case for why they should be together. Take, for example, Princess’s Man: the establishment of that drama’s love story happened in the space of two or three episodes—its leads met in a classroom, rode on a horse, went for a walk through town, and then were hardly shown together for the next eighteen episodes. The small scale of Vineyard Man’s story ensures that its characters spend most of their time together and forge a believably human bond.

This drama is an enjoyable, transporting watch, but through no real fault of its own it will always be a cautionary tale about how much impact good directing and writing has on all the things that happen on screen, including the acting. After all, a year after filming wrapped on Vineyard Man, its female lead would star in the endlessly wonderful Coffee Prince—a production that knew how to take an unpolished actress and truly make her shine.

Random thoughts

• Episode 2. As I hoped, now that they’re off at the vineyard this show is much more fun. When you’re in a fish-out-of-water scenario, you’re allowed to make the kind of goofy mistakes Kdramas thrive on. I think that’s one of my problems with shows like A Gentleman’s Dignity—its female lead was in her mid-thirties, yet had absolutely no idea how to function in the world. That’s not amusing; it’s just sad.

• Episode 2. Surprise! This show’s female lead has the same backup career plan as all the other rom-com girls in recent memory: Matrimony. ::eyeroll::

• Episode 2. Way to frame a discussion about love with a pair of women enthusiastically devouring giant, phallic popsicles. I think this moment was even intended to be funny, unlike the Kimchi Family scene that cut from a hot kiss directly to a Naked-Gun-worthy billowing smokestack. (Sometimes you Korean directors are too innocent for your own good.)

• Episode 8. This is either the exact right show for me to be watching right now or the exact wrong one. As they’re dealing with bugs at the vineyard, I’m battling a major camel cricket infestation in my house. Everywhere I go, there they are, huge and terrifyingly hoppy. Oh Man Seok, how about you come take care of the problem before I go totally bonkers?

• Episode 16. This is the first Yoon Eun Hye kiss I’ve seen that hasn’t been a ten on the richter scale. It was fine, but pretty standard as Kdramas kissing goes—the female lead stood there with her mouth resolutely shut while the male lead seemingly tried to lick maple syrup off her chin. Oh well. I guess they can’t all be winners.

Watch it

DramaFever 

DramaCrazy

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The Australian series McLeod’s Daughters, for its story about a city girl who learns about life after she joins her half-sister on their family’s ranch

Drama Fever: A Lovely Way to Burn?

(HOT OFF THE PRESSES! [Erm... HOT OFF THE INTERWEBS?] According to a number of posts on the November 9, 2012, Drama Beans open thread, Drama Fever is testing the water by allowing international viewers for a limited time only. If you’re not in North America, now’s your chance to see what the fuss is about! Here’s a post about the offering from Drama Fever’s blog.)

The Drama Fever Google TV app I’ll probably never use—it’s not as good
as the web interface, which I can access just as easily.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Facebook becoming a “utility”—something as fundamental to modern life as electricity and running water. I’m not on that bandwagon; I never even signed up, believing my privacy to be more important than posting daily updates about my cat or friending elementary school classmates I’ve lost touch with. (Newsflash: If we’ve lost touch, there’s probably a reason.)

On the other hand, it’s getting pretty darn hard to imagine life without Drama Fever. It’s the first thing that pops up when I turn on my television, before even the option for local or cable networks. I spend a horrifying amount of time on the site, and am always relieved when they carry something I want to see. The streaming competition just isn’t tenable: Viki is buggy, Crunchyroll has a tiny selection, and the Drama Crazy class of illegal sites are unreliable, low-res nightmares stuffed with ads that usually cause my computer to freeze.

I’ve been a premium member of Drama Fever for almost as long as I’ve been obsessed with Korean drama. And while the service isn’t perfect, it’s absolutely the best value I get for my entertainment dollar. According to my drama list, I’ve watched 1,285 episodes over the past year and a half (!), the vast majority of which were housed on Drama Fever. That means I’ve paid under 5 cents per hour of of television. If things stay as they are, it’s hard to imagine that I’d ever end my membership.

My worry, though, is that things won’t stay as they are. Drama Fever’s recent redesign was fine and gets better every day, but two months on it’s still littered with features that don’t work the way they should. There are little problems and big problems, ranging from it being impossible to navigate beyond the first page of user reviews to the inexplicable quasi-functionality of the Currently Watching feature. Once upon a time, clicking on a show listed there would take you right to the episode you most recently watched, but now it drops you at the series’ first episode. (Sometimes. Other times it seems to pick a random episode in the 5 to 8 range.) In combination with the redesign’s less-trustworthy “you’ve watched this episode” checkmark and lack of the “watch again” screen for episodes you’ve completed, I’m always having to hit play on multiple episodes to find where I actually left off. And then there are the mouseover notes that have disappeared altogether—they used to be a handy way to see the other shows actors had been in without navigating away from the drama you were watching. With a slowish internet connection, that was a blessing.

Even more concerning is that Drama Fever might just start focusing on their new Spanish-language content at the expense of Asian shows. As a service geared toward North American users, it’s no wonder they wanted to expand their offerings into Latin American programing: there’s a huge population of people here with roots in that region, many of whom are native speakers of Spanish. Now that it’s possible to watch shows on Drama Fever without subtitles, the site is in a prime position to market to this group. The word of mouth potential is so enormous that it’s not hard to imagine this material taking over the site.

I don’t have any evidence to back this up, but it’s my impression that Korean drama gets much less attention in mainstream American media than the closer-to-home Spanish-language programing. For one thing, people are familiar with telenovelas because there have been a number of American remakes, including Ugly Betty and an upcoming Sofia Vergara project. (Dear McG: How about an American Boys over Flowers? Please?) The Hispanic population in America is also about three times as big as the Asian population. Clearly, heritage doesn’t determine viewing habits, but it might just mean more press coverage, more infrastructure, and potentially more buzz.

Nice subtitles—even if they’re blocking
Lee Min Ho’s pretty face.

On the bright side, Drama Fever’s new video player is pretty awesome: I love being able to watch things in high definition, which really improves the experience of gorgeously filmed shows like Arang and the Magistrate. The ability to change the subtitle size is also nice. Drama Fever’s selection of dramas is still incredible and growing every week. They even stream most of the new shows I want to see (although I’m getting a little antsy about the new Yoon Eun Hye drama, which still hasn’t appeared on their Coming Soon list).

I also find it interesting that Drama Fever has recently replaced their original version of Secret Garden with higher resolution files and re-edited subtitles. I don’t have much company on this one, but Secret Garden is probably my least favorite Korean drama of all time. (The only thing that might make me enjoy it more would be cutting out all the parts that include human beings—I could actually sit through the resulting thirty minutes of pretty scenery and interesting architecture without wanting to scratch my eyes out.) I don’t remember the Drama Fever subtitles or video quality for this show being particularly bad, though. Does this mean they’re going to be revisiting all the popular old series and making improvements? Because their Coffee Prince is grainy as all get out, and its subs aren’t particularly good (even if they are the official ones).

(Some random facts about Coffee Prince on Drama Fever: you can tell by the numbers in its URL that it was the first drama they ever uploaded, and although they recently improved its crappy descriptive copy, it now incorrectly says that Choi Han Gyul is from a “wealthy hotelier family.” Plus, it calls him “Han Kyul,” in contrast to the show’s subtitles.)

I’m also glad to see that new shows are being added from Korea’s jTBC cable network. This channel aired a slew of programs this spring that had Korean-speaking bloggers buzzing, including A Wife’s Credentials and the sitcom I Live in Cheongdam Dong, but as of yet none of those shows have made it to Drama Fever. (As far as I can tell, they’re only available streaming on one legit site, and even then only partially subbed.) Drama Fever once carried new shows aired by this network, so I was wondering if they’d had a falling out that represented the end of the relationship. It seems that’s not the case, though, as both jTBC’s Beloved and Can We Get Married? have been recently added. (I’m dying to watch the later, might I add.)

As conflicted as I may be about some of Drama Fever’s practices, it’s still the website I visit most often, and probably will continue to be. Here’s hoping, anyway.

>>Sidebar<<
Drama Fever Facts Culled from the Internet

• It started operations in August 2009 and now has more than over 400 streaming titles, for a total of more than 10,000 hours (“About Us,” Drama Fever)

• Drama Fever has “two million unique advertising-supported monthly visitors, having added an additional half million viewers since mid-March [2012]. Seventy-five percent of current DramaFever viewers are native English-speakers of non-Asian descent, underscoring the broadening appeal of foreign content, which has historically been attractive to art house and independent film fans. Traffic is doubling every six to eight months and is up 400% since early 2011.” ( “Drama FeverCompletes $6 Million Round with Backing from Global Media Giants,” Drama Fever press release)

• “DramaFever sees significant opportunities to attract millions of new users from adding Latin American telenovelas, Bollywood movies, and expanding the service to potential new viewers in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Australia.” (“Drama Fever Raises $4.5 Million in SeriesB Round to Found Global Expansion,” Drama Fever press release)

• By early 2013, Drama Fever will carry 60 Spanish language shows from Argentina and Spain (“Asian-Spanish Fusion for Drama Fever,” Variety.com)

• In 2013, Netflix will stream 500 hours of Drama Fever content. (“Drama Fever adds Spanish Flavor,” C21 Media)

• “DramaFever is already the largest single source of online revenue for its Asian content partners.” (“DramaFever adds Spanish-language content, hooks up with Netflix and iTunes,” Gigaom)

Drama Review: Arang and the Magistrate (2012)

Grade: A-

Category

Supernatural fusion sageuk

What it’s about

In the Joseon era, a memory-less ghost and wayward young nobleman cope with a host of supernatural beings while working together to solve the mysteries that are key in each of their lives.

First impression

Bright, beautiful, and crisply written, Arang and the Magistrate might just be the sageuk I’ve been dreaming of—one that’s serious without being boring, and lighthearted without being stupid. Let’s see how long the charm of its pretty sets and prettier cast will last.

Final verdict

I’ve been burned by fusion sageuks a lot more than I’ve been satisfied by them. For every carnival of delights like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, there seem to be a football stadium’s worth of over-the-top train wrecks. Two of these duds almost convinced me to give up on the genre altogether: the shallow still-life that was The Moon that Embraces the Sun, and the low-rent Iljimae, a drama characterized by cartoony characters doing cartoony things, like occasionally bursting into fits of Hong-Kong style violence.

And then there’s Arang and the Magistrate, a gorgeous, lavishly imagined piece of worldbuilding with only one major flaw: it slightly overstays its welcome. Had this show been compressed into 16 episodes, it would have benefited from jettisoning some useless characters and repetitive plot twists. But Arang still has a lot to offer—it’s a charming love story, a spooky murder mystery, and a silly comedy all rolled into one. Its expansive world ranges from the gates of Hell to the misty flowerbeds of Heaven, and everywhere in between.

Most impressive is the show’s ability to balance the emotional heft of traditional sageuks and the cheerful impossibilities of the fusion genre. It manages tonal shift after tonal shift with aplomb, somehow making flower-growing goats, death angels, killer fairies, and earth-bound courtly intrigues all coexist in one diverting world.


As far as I’m concerned, the story’s one real weak spot is its development of the character of Arang. As the series progressed, the plot’s focus moved away from Arang to the male lead. In the meanwhile, she changed from the spunky, take-no-prisoners ghost of the first few episodes to a passive MacGuffin with little to offer as a human being. Even at her most sketchily drawn, though, Arang’s emotions ring true, in spite of the fantastical improbability of the things that inspire them.

Although they travel through fantasy landscapes that are part myth and part magic, Arang’s leads still deal with issues of life and afterlife in a compellingly earnest, believable way. A perfect, goose-bumpy fit for the Halloween season, this show is just what I wanted it to be: a transporting sageuk that never commits the crime of taking itself too seriously.

Random thoughts
• While it’s certainly possible to enjoy Arang as a Westerner without a lot of knowledge about Asian culture and history, I suspect that its multi-layered world is full of in-jokes that I didn’t really get. I can’t quite find the dividing line between whole-cloth invention and things that might based in long-standing tradition: The Jade King is certainly a “real” mythological figure, and those beans that ghosts are so afraid of bring to mind the Japanese holiday of Setsubun. But the blooming goat? The peach-blossom injuries? I’m not so sure.

• Episode 1. The most unbelievably supernatural thing in this drama so far? Lee Joon Ki’s bone structure.

• Episode 3. The Christian view of the afterlife is certainly not all puppies and rainbows, but this concept of hungry ghosts is really upsetting. Especially when it’s happening to cute-as-a-button Shin Min Ah in what’s supposed to be a romantic comedy. With foundations like this, no wonder Asian cultures seem to be having a harder time accepting homosexuality. If you die without children, your afterlife is a horror show.

• Episode 4. The theology in this show is fascinating—from this episode’s creation myth to the duality it establishes between creation and destruction. That’s not really an understanding we have in the West: if you’re a religious person, there’s pretty much one God and you need to believe that he’s responsible for everything that seems good and everything that seems evil. Of course, you might argue that a lot of that evil is a result of the free will we treasure so much. I wonder how Asian tradition deals with the concept of fate versus self-determination?

• Episode 11. Props to this show for making Arang a ballsy character, but guess what’s not at all hot? Kissing someone who’s unconscious on the lips.

• Episode 14. I’m always amused by how they style characters in these fusion sageuks. When historical accuracy is barely even on a show’s radar, they feel free to do things like leave bright red dye-jobs peeking out from under period wigs, cast actors with obviously pierced ears, and slather on the ivory-toned makeup. Now that Drama Fever has high-def options, this stuff is all the more obvious: Every time Shin Min Ah is shown from the back, you can see that her ears and neck are about four shades darker than the foundation they’ve used on her face.

• Episode 19. In the Drama Fever subs, they keep referencing the Styx River and the word Abracadabra, both of which are associated with Greco-Roman traditions, not Eastern ones. Is this a case of Drama Fever overcompensating by targeting their translations toward North American viewers, or does the show really use these words? It is fusion, after all—anything goes.

• Episode 20. Finally, Kdrama zombies! Huzzah!

Watch it

DramaFever 

Viki 

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• Tamra, the Island, for its silly sageuk fun

Cultural Exchange, Kdrama Style

Put down that silverware, Eun Kyul!
(And stop laughing at my lousy screen capture, while you’re at it.
It’s hard to take them, you know.)

I’ve spent essentially my entire life in the northeastern United States, and if someone were to sequence my DNA I’m sure they’d find it was made up of maple syrup, snowflakes cut from paper, and tiny little holstein figurines. (What, you expected something boring and scientific, like base pairs? As if.) But where I live is just an unavoidable fact of life; it’s not something I’ve really spent a lot of time thinking about. So it surprised me how shocked I was to see the kids from To the Beautiful You casually eating hamburgers with forks and knives early on in their show’s run. It felt fundamentally blasphemous and wrong, deep down in my bones, to see someone approach my national dish in such a foreign way.

Since then, I’ve realized that there’s yet another unexpected side effect of my obsession with Korean drama: Seeing my own culture in a new light. Kdrama offers a glimpse into life on the other side of the world, but through the comparison I’m also coming to learn more about life here.

As is probably true of most people in my country, the biggest reminder that I’m an American rolls around once every four years: the presidential election. Democratic elections are actually something that Korea and America have in common—while we Americans are voting for a president this November, the Korean campaign season will be winding to a close in anticipation of their December election.

In honor of what our countries do differently and the things they share, I thought I’d post two short lists today: one of American rituals and customs worth exporting to Korea, and one of Korean rituals and customs that we Americans should try out.

America to Korea

• Trick-or-treating. Halloween may have roots in religion, but these days it’s almost totally secular. As a kid, there is literally no experience more wonderful than donning a costume to become someone else for an evening, and then going door-to-door demanding candy. It’s not unusual to spend months planning what to wear and strategizing the best neighborhoods to visit. Where to go is a balancing act: you want high property values, because that’s usually an indication of good candy. But you also want closely packed houses to minimize the time spent getting from one place to the next, which means a bigger haul in the end. Starting around five on Halloween night the streets are thick with families and kids all dressed up and carrying plastic jack-o-lanterns for booty storage. As the night progresses, the kids get older, the costumes get gorier, and the parents start to disappear. The “trick” part of trick-or-treating rarely happens, but when it does it generally involves high school kids misbehaving. In suburban America, if you don’t have your porch light on kids know that you’re not participating and just pass you by, rather than taking any sort of revenge.

As seen in: E.T.

• Summer break. As a grown up, it can be hard to remember what summer break felt like: these days, two weeks off from work is an impossible dream. But kids attending American schools have more than two months off every summer to do whatever they want. Once upon a time, this vacation was intended to allow kids to help out on their family farms, but in the modern world it mostly involves video games, sleep-away-camp, and marathon-level slacking off. South Korean schools have breaks between semesters, too, but nothing so mammoth as the mid-June to early September vacation that’s traditional in America. Also of note is the fact that until this year, South Korean kids went to school on Saturdays, for a total of six days a week. Economic miracles take hard work and all, but this is clearly a country in need of a nice, long vacation. (A random side note: some of the “goose families” that are occasionally referred to in Kdramas actually send their kids to America specifically because the academics are so much more relaxed here.)

As seen in: Dazed and Confused

• Prom. Out of all the youth-oriented Kdramas I’ve watched, only Boys over Flowers has included anything like a school dance. On the other hand, practically every American coming-of-age story uses the prom as a big finale—from Twilight to 10 Things I Hate About You to Pretty in Pink. (And let’s not forget Carrie, either.) The prom is essentially a teenage version of Halloween: you get dressed up as something you’re not for a few hours and do something you wouldn’t normally do. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I never did attend a prom. I can’t say that this is surprising—I’m not great fan of dresses or high heels or dancing, all key elements in the traditional prom experience. But when it comes right down to it, hating on the institution of prom is just as much a cultural touchstone in America as attending the event. Whether you went or you didn’t, whether you spent the whole time crying in the bathroom or ended up as prom queen, the grande dame of formal dances really is a key character-building experience that’s worth sharing.

As seen in: Footloose

Even without Jun Pyo in attendance, I’m sure this would be a good time.

Korea to America

• Making kimjang. Practically every time someone is shown eating in Korean dramas—breakfast, lunch, dinner, or instant ramen consumed while standing in a convenience store—kimchi is involved. At least some of that kimchi was probably prepared during a fall gathering devoted to making enough kimchi to last through the winter. Extended families get together and, over the course of several days, work produce enough kimchi to go around. I’m no great cook, but there’s something deeply appealing about this communal event. See posts on Electric Ground and Life in Korea for more.

As seen in: Boys over Flowers

• Hanbok. There’s really no such thing as “American” traditional dress. As a nation of travelers, our backgrounds are too diverse for such a thing to ever have taken hold—with the possible exception of Civil War getups for the reenactment set and fat Elvis jumpsuits for the fat Elvis set. I suspect it’s a dying tradition, but I love seeing that one woman at any Kdrama formal event who’s all decked out in this traditional outfit. The hanboks themselves are beautiful, and a distinctly Korean tradition like this strikes me as something too precious to lose to globalization. I would love to know more about what it actually feels like to wear a hanbok, but unfortunately the Internet is pretty much mum on this point. There are a few sources of information, though: how to put on a hanbok at Youtube; a visit to the hanbok store at Korea.net; and the hanbok photobooth at Estherxie.com. (If the owner of the last blog had watched as much Korean drama as I have, she would immediately realize the painting she’s sitting in front of was done by Shin Yoon Bok, one of the artists Painter of the Wind was inspired by.)

As seen in: Sweet Eighteen

• Go-stop. I’ve probably seen seventy hands of go-stop played in various Kdramas, but I have yet to grasp a single rule. It looks terrifyingly complex, but based on this guide for beginners it might not be so bad. (The full rules of gameplay are a bit more off-putting, to put it mildly.) Trying to learn this game is probably folly for someone with my limited brain capacity, but those Korean drama characters really seem to enjoy it. (I especially love the sharp snap they use to discard cards.)

As seen in: Coffee Prince

Drama Review: Soulmate (2006)

Grade: B+

Category

Urban romantic comedy

What it’s about

A group of thirty-something friends discuss their love lives over street food and gym machines.

First impression

A grown-up (and occasionally naughty) take on how relationships and our expectations of them often differ. I can’t quite figure out why this is listed as a sitcom on Drama Fever, though. Like Answer Me 1997, most everything about it feels like a standard Korean drama of its era.

Final verdict

Soulmate is an odd, interesting little show. It’s not my favorite series ever, but I can see why it’s often considered to be a classic, must-watch drama on a par with something like Dal Ja’s Spring.

Most Korean dramas are at their best and most interesting early in their run, but Soulmate was exactly the opposite. Its first half felt like a so-so appetizer you were eating mostly because you wanted to get to the main course. And what a main course it was: A charming, sparkly foray into magical realism, the late-arriving soulmate plotline was by far my favorite part of this drama. It playfully addressed the issue of destiny versus decision and then delivered Soulmate’s most powerful emotional wallop.

In spite of its classification, this show is not what I would expect from a(n American) sitcom: it doesn’t include jokey punchlines or a laugh track, and its filming isn’t confined to a single set. And yet its half-hour running time, indie vibe, and lightweight storytelling make it feel distinctly different from traditional Kdramas. For one thing, most other shows draw fuller pictures of their inhabitants. This drama is peopled with quirky characters who seemingly come from nowhere—it’s hard to believe, but no career or living situation is ever established for a number of its key players. Family is almost never discussed, and there’s no real development of anyone’s past. All this adds up to a fun, airy comedy that feels weirdly unmoored when compared to most other Korean dramas.

In some ways, Soulmate is like the drama overlords taking revenge on me for bellyaching that Rich Man, Poor Woman didn’t dedicate enough time to its romance plotline. This drama is nothing but romance; its characters spend its entire run coupling and uncoupling (or talking about doing so) with no other concern. Built as it is around three character configurations—a love square and two separate love triangles, one that’s played out in the first half of the series and one that picks up where it left off—the plot never gets bogged down on the will-they-or-won’t-they merry-go-round. People get together, people break up, and the story goes on. In spite of this constant forward momentum, Soulmate doesn’t lack emotional depth; especially once you get past the gross-out comedy of its first ten episodes, the relationships it portrays are powerful and poignant. When somebody’s heart breaks, you feel it.

Also wonderful is this show’s group of female leads. Unlike the empty-headed drama bots so common these days, the women of Soulmate are unfailingly independent and capable, and thanks to a sympathetic script and capable actresses, they’re also presented as full, nuanced characters with flaws and doubts and fears. They all chart their own courses in life—a fact I appreciate so much it almost allows me to overlook a finale that leaves one plot thread frustratingly unresolved. One more scene (or shot, even) is all it would have taken to for this show to exit with sighs instead of groans.

Random thoughts

• Episode 2. Soulmate has already included an unprecedented amount of barfing. I would have joined in during this episode’s revolving door scene: the actors clearly spent a lot of time walking around in circles while it was shot from many, many angles.

• Episode 2. This is a show that’s much more concerned with its characters’ public faces than their inner beings. At this point, it’s mostly made up of scenes showing people discussing their love lives with very little action or forward momentum. Could this shallow start be the source of the trendy genre’s bad reputation?

• Episode 9. This is a gross-out romantic comedy feels shockingly modern and mature even compared with dramas airing today, including the I Need Romance series. When it first aired in 2006, it must have been a shock—Soulmates features everything from sex talk to independent single girls to boys coming thisclose to kissing. All that, and nary a true grown up in sight.

• Episode 12. Holy moly! Somebody just used a phone booth for its intended purpose, not as a spot to talk about time travel or a quiet place for a cell phone conversation. That’s even more dated these days than this drama’s wardrobe. (Although Ryeohi’s fashion choices aren’t really from a specific era. They’re more from a specific planet...that’s not Earth.)

• Episode 12. I officially take back all the nasty thoughts I had about the just-barely-missed connections between this show’s eventual lead couple. It’s actually sort of Dickensian and charming how these characters pop unwittingly in and out of each other’s lives.

• Episode 13. I often wish there was Kdrama equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, where I could look up the first instance of each standard Kdrama trope. I suspect this episode might represent the first example of a guy silently inserting an earbud for a girl so they can share music.

• Episode 13. Well, that was an unexpected use of footage from Hedwig and the Angy Inch. I guess those Koreans really do like their gender swap dramas, angry inches or not.

• Episode 18. I heartily approve of the soulmate mind reading shenanigans, but what about all those times when you wouldn’t want anyone else to know what you’re thinking? Say, for example, “I don’t care if he’s dating my friend. I want to shag him rotten”?

• Episode 19. Soulmate has its ups and downs, but this episode was perfect and wonderful from beginning to end.

• Episode 20. I just downloaded the Soulmate soundtrack, which is full of thoughtful, introspective songs. Especially wonderful is the dreamy theme song (which, go figure, is sung by the guy who did the dreamy theme song for I Need Romance 2012).

Watch it

Drama Fever

Crunchy Roll 

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The I Need Romance series, for its contemporary and frank discussion of all things love
Dal Ja’s Spring, for its lighthearted humor

Beyond Good and Evil: Kdrama, Blogging, and Purpose

Fanfic got Shi Won into college, after all...

I recently finished reading the book Everything Bad Is Good for You by Stephen Johnson. In it, Johnson argues that our engagement with modern pop culture actually makes us smarter, more alert, and more capable when it comes to problem solving—all of which sounds like a lot of wishful thinking, but still holds some merit as far as I’m concerned. For proof, look no further than my obsession with Kdrama. Hour by hour, episode by episode, I’m leaning the Korean language practically by osmosis. I’m discovering a culture I never once thought about before, and I’m coming to understand more of the limitless ways that life can be lived on planet earth.

These are some pretty impressive developments, especially considering that television soap operas are their catalyst. I also have Kdrama to thank for one more thing: I haven’t written this much or this regularly for years. And when I did write, my words were in service of an employer rather than myself. The daily grind of being a grown-up made me forget about the English degree I earned once upon a time, and that I used to dream about writing books when I was a kid. I’d even lost sight of what a thrill it can be to have something to write and know I can write it well. This is an experience I suspect many civilians live their entire lives without having; there are only a few people who actually make their living writing, after all, and people who aren’t obsessed with the Internet don’t have much call for lengthy critical analyses of their favorite show or think-pieces about gender-bending in Asian dramas. (Poor things.)

(Of course, there is a flip side to that thrill: the times when writing a paragraph seems more difficult than building a space ship from items in my kitchen’s junk drawer and using it to travel to Mars. On those days I can write and erase a single sentence twenty or thirty times, with my mood becoming less and less pleasant every time I hit the delete key. But writing fails are the price all of us pay for writing successes. Without the first, the second couldn’t exist.)

Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s having my horizons broadened by Korean dramas. As I surf around in search of new sites to include on my list of Kdrama links, I’m always impressed by the variety and quality of writing there is out there. From the short to the long, from the funny to the serious, blog posts are as unique as fingerprints and just as varied. I’ve come across two discussions that touch on this lately: The first was an article on My Drama List that poked gentle fun at a number of different review styles, and the second was a longer piece offering blogging advice at Thundie’s Prattle.

It actually took months of blogging to settle on a review format that worked for me, and hopefully works for the people who read this site. My raw materials were my own preferences: When I read a review I don’t want to be told every little thing. A quick introduction to the facts is helpful, but there’s no need for a full cast list or an exhaustive outline of every single plot detail. (That’s what dramawikis and streaming sites are for.) What I’m really looking for is the writer’s own opinion of the show, and whatever new perspectives he or she has to offer about it. I don’t even mind writers who include spoilers: I almost never read a blog post about or review of a show I haven’t already seen. I usually decide what to watch based on the general ratings and comments at Dramafever or Dramacrazy, but anything more in-depth than that waits until I’m caught up with watching. This might make me weird, but I read reviews to enrich my understanding of the show, not as a preview of what I’ll see if I decide to watch it.

The review format I eventually settled on is a bit of a cheat. I repeat specific categories so I don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time I sit down to write, and also to sidestep actually crafting a single cohesive discussion of the show. Building bridges to get from one point to another is my least favorite part of writing, and thanks to my headings I never really have to do it. That work gets saved for the few shows I really love (or, theoretically, the few shows I really hate).

Because I’m a Hermione-style geek who feels the need to research everything ever, I also did a lot of reading of other people’s reviews when I was trying to formulate my own style. This was an opportunity to borrow what I liked and also helped me see what other people might find useful. (In retrospect, I hope my borrowing can be counted as taking inspiration and not plagiarizing.)

In my searching, I came across a few key types of blog posts that I really, really love reading.

• The syllabus. When I was first exploring Kdrama, my ultimate source of guidance was the Dramabeans rating page. The show descriptions here are so short and to the point that you might actually think they’re easy to write—but I bet you’d be wrong. As millions of Twitter users know all to well, brevity is hard. But as Shakespeare knew first, it’s also the soul of wit. Take Javabeans’ rating of the 2007 drama Air City: “Hot boys. Cold plot.” That kind of dispassionate restraint is hard, but these four words tell us all we need to know about the show. Whether they’re accurate, I couldn’t actually say: I took them to heart and skipped that drama altogether.

• The lab report. Some bloggers have literally turned reviewing into a science. Their reviews are full of graphs and complicated rating systems based on mathematical formulas that would make my old algebra teacher swoon with delight. Built around empirical backbones, these posts are straightforward and easy to navigate, and allow both writer and reader to focus on their particular points of interest. They also invite readers to compare dramas category by category and provide a standard format that can be expected from each new review. For particularly deft examples of this species, see any of the reviews at Daily KTJ Drama and Kdrama Guk (which seems to be inactive these days, sadly).

• The doctoral dissertation. Lengthy, insightful, and prone to referencing Foucault, reviews falling into this category are rare for good reason: they take forever to write and conceive. They plumb every smile and plot twist for meaning and significance, and can open your eyes to unimagined nuances in the simplest of scenes. As far as I'm concerned, there’s no pleasure like reading a downright scholarly discussion of a great show, like the ones found on Idle Revelry, The Vault, Mihansa, and High Yellow.

Like everything else in life, being obsessed with Korean drama is a mixed bag. I would get more exercise if I’d never discovered Drama Fever, but I probably wouldn’t be doing as much writing. While this blogging business doesn’t use my quads, it does give the critical thought center of my brain quite the workout—which is what I value more, anyway. Ultimately, blogging is hard work. It requires thought and effort and time, but its rewards can be pretty amazing: There’s the pleasure of being another voice in the communal discussion of something you love, and the ability to meet likeminded people from around the world. 

And who knows? Maybe it also refines our thinking and makes us smarter, just as Everything Bad Is Good for You would have us believe.

*** *** ***

SIDEBAR: BLOGGING PRINCE

When I first started reading Kdrama blogs, it amazed me that so many people had so many different things to say about the very same episodes. To appreciate the variety (and as an excuse to think more about my favorite show of all time), I went through the sites included on my list of Kdrama links and searched for posts devoted to Coffee Prince. 

Here’s what I found.

• Adverse Effects: Coffee Prince
• Candy Me: I Rate This Scene: Coffee Prince Episode 17

• Crazy for Kdrama: Coffee Prince Review

• Dahee’s Plastic Castle: 호점 Review

• Daily KTJ Drama: 2 Good 2 Miss: 2 Good 2 Miss: 1st Shop of CoffeePrince, Stand Up!!, 1 Litre of Tears

• Dangermousie: Coffee Prince Ramblings

• Ginkgohill: Coffee Prince Review

• Idle Revelry: Coffee Prince: Anatomy of a Scene

• Kdrama Food: Coffee Prince: Kalbitang (Beef-Rib Soup)
• Kdrama Guk: 1st Shop of a Coffee Prince

• Korean Drama Ratings: Coffee Prince

• K-What?: Coffee Prince

• Oishiithoughts: Coffee Prince Review

• Outside Seoul: Drama Review: Coffee Prince

• Puddingpost: Someday My Coffee Prince Will Come

• Rainscene: Coffee Prince: Living the dream of punching your boss in the face!

• Wishiwasasian: Day 1 of the 30-day Kdrama Challenge

Drama Review: Rich Man, Poor Woman (2012)

Grade: B-

Category

Urban Japanese workplace drama

What it’s about

A Steve Jobs–style tech billionaire has his world turned upside down by two people—his longtime business partner and his company’s hardworking new intern.

First impression

This brisk, breezy romance is just what I’ve come to expect from Japanese dramas: it’s got quirky characters to spare, and thanks to its fast-paced plot and streamlined storytelling, it makes most Kdramas feel painfully clunky and self-indulgent in comparison. So far, though, Rich Man, Poor Woman is lacking the emotional depth of Nobuta wo Produce, my favorite Jdrama to date. We’ll see how things go—this is the first Japanese love story I’ve watched, so maybe it will just take a while to get going.

Final verdict

It turns out that what actually took a while was my realization that Rich Man, Poor Woman was not what I wanted it to be: a swoony Kdrama romance. In spite of its cheesy title, this is actually a workplace drama about the value of connection and appreciating the people around us. And while there was a romance between its two leads, their love story felt peripheral—instead, the show’s most compelling relationship was the conflicted bromance between prickly genius Hyuga Toru and his right-hand man, Asahina Kosuke. Rich Man, Poor Woman’s plot revolves largely around the corporate intrigue created when envy finally gets the better of Asahina, who spent most of his long history with Hyuga trapped in the other man’s boy-wonder shadow. Their brotherly love is this show’s true heart, and it was agonizing to watch their friendship waver.

And speaking of agonizing, it’s been a while since I last wanted to leap through the television screen to throttle someone as much as I did during this show’s speedy 11-episode run. Again and again, the leads refused to communicate and instead did idiot things that prevented them from being together. As far as I’m concerned, spineless characters who never try to get what they want are more tiresome and frustrating than fun.

Rich Man, Poor Woman was an easy, amusing watch, but it lacked the homefront-minded charm and obsession with love that keeps me coming back to Korean drama.

Random thoughts

• Episode 1.

Dear Japan:

Would you please stop making it so frigging hard for international viewers watch your dramas? I would literally pay you for easy access to this show—I spent 45 minutes trying to watch part 1 of the first episode last night. All the streaming sites kept freezing or throwing me out. It got old very, very quickly.

Your frustrated friend,

Amanda

• Episode 1. Ye Gods...as if job interviews aren’t terrible enough to begin with, I can’t imagine having to be one of twenty interviewees. I’ve been interviewed by multiple people at once, but never had the competition sitting right next to me, looking cuter and more competent. (And it’s a good thing, or I’d be chronically unemployed.)

• Episode 3. How interesting to see a chaebol type who actually works. Most Kdramas with similar plots star princelings with no mission in life beyond being nasty to commoners. Not that this show’s male lead isn’t plenty nasty—but at least he has some sort of personal merit. Or so we’re told.

• Episode 6. I’m glad this show’s female lead is brainy, but couldn’t they have made her smart in a less stupid way? She can memorize incredible amounts of information in no time, but she’s still more starry-eyed and naive than any human being over the age of 5 should be.

• Episode 6. This is definitely more information than you need to know, but while watching this episode I got a huge nosebleed. This clearly means one of three things: (1) I am dying of cancer; (2) I just watched 2 episodes in a row of Boys over Flowers, and my brain, liquefied by their stupidity, is leaking out; or (3) it’s allergy season. Hmmm...I wonder which it could be?

• Episode 7. This show is well done, but I could use a little more bedroom and a lot less board room. Has Korean drama ruined me for shows that exist for reasons other than fan service in the form of broody shower scenes and over-the-top confessions of love?

• Episode 9. Although Asian dramas are renowned in the West for their serious communication problems, it’s been a while since I’ve seen something as frustrating as this episode. Just explain yourself, you stupid drama bot. Human beings aren’t psychic—if you let him draw his own conclusions instead of telling the truth, it’s your own fault if he misinterprets what is a fundamentally innocent event. Speak, damnit!

Watch it

Drama Crazy

You might also be interested in

Pasta, for its similarly workplace-centric plot (added bonus: its lead couple are way more interesting and have exponentially better chemistry)