Drama Review: School 2013 (2013)

Grade: C+

Category

Light high-school melodrama

What it’s about

A pair of teachers whose philosophies are apparently at odds manage Victory High’s toughest class, facing bullies, academic underacheivers, and demanding parents.

First impression

This curiously teacher-centric school drama has yet to develop a strong pull for me. The first few episodes have done a fine job of setting up story lines for the rest of the drama—the college entrance-obsessed teacher versus the one who wants to teach the kids to think, the bully versus the bad boy with a heart of gold, the badass school chick versus the world—but none of the characters feel particularly compelling as of yet, and neither does the show’s overarching plot. Based on what I’ve heard, though, the secret ingredient has yet to be added to the mix: Kim Woo Bin’s magnetic troublemaker Heung Soo.

When Drama Fever Strikes

There’s a lot more to the Korean drama story than plot twists, broody shower scenes, and chaebols who sweep poor, hardworking girls off their feet. And although this is a blog about Kdrama, the shows themselves aren’t the only things I’m interested in discussing here: There’s also the online fandom that has grown up around them.

Watching Korean drama is a mostly solitary pursuit for me (in spite of my best attempts, I have yet to hook anyone I know in real life). But the more involved I become in the dramaweb, the more I realize that my feelings about the shows I watch are influenced by other people. Take Flower Boy Next Door—I was utterly swept up in the cycle of checking Couch Kimchi for episode stills, browsing Koala’s Playground for early reviews, poring over insanely detailed analysis on Tumblr, and then reading Dramabeans’ long, insightful recaps. Even the Dok Mis among us are never really alone when it comes to Kdrama.

More than any other website I visit (or maintain, even), Dramabeans is the hub of my online drama life. For me at least, it’s more than just another blog—it’s the spine of the Kdrama community. If I hadn’t found it after stumbling across Boys over Flowers on Netflix, I would have shrugged my shoulders and carried on with life, having learned only that Kdrama existed in the world, and that it might be worth watching more.

But the mere existence of a big, constantly updated site like Dramabeans is what brought me into the fold: it legitimized and normalized my preoccupation with Kdrama. Even more than a year later, it’s still my browser’s home page. And if I have time to visit only one website a day, Dramabeans is the one I choose. It’s expansive enough to be complete and informative, but not so expansive that trying to keep up with it would literally be fatal. (Unlike, say, the fun but insanely active kdrama tag on Tumblr.) It tells me what I need to know in the most entertaining way possible, through the voices of people who are smart and funny and insightful about not only Korean culture, but also about so many other things I love—including (but not limited to) storytelling, television, and celebrity.

So like a lot of other Kdrama fans, my hackles went up when I visited Dramabeans on Thursday morning to find a post about legal threats made against the site. Written by Javabeans, the blog’s founder, it read:

Drama Review: Flower Boy Next Door (2013)

Grade: A

Category

Youthful rom-com

What it’s about

Flower Boy Next Door is the deceptively thoughtful story of a lonely, damaged girl who re-enters the world with the help of a quirky new acquaintance, panda-suit wearing, scene stealing, heart-exploding Enrique Geum. 

First impression posts

Oh (flower) Boy: The Dramas

Those Blooming Boys Next Door 

Dok Mis and Me 

Final verdict

Here’s a quick pop quiz for you before we begin this review in earnest. Are you a drama watcher who:

1) enjoys goofy character studies that present wonderfully detailed universes but don’t necessary have much of an overarching plot, or

2) prefers shows that feature strong narrative throughlines and beginning-to-end, series-wide plots?

If you answered 1, you just might love Flower Boy Next Door. If you answered 2, you just might not.

Through the Looking Glass: The Park Shi Hoo Case on the Web

AGGGGHH! Due to a brain cell defect, your regularly scheduled Tuesday post arrives today. (Man, I should really learn how to use a calendar.)

Are we to believe this is the face Park Shi Hoo made
when he heard about the accusation?

I’ve thought a lot about whether I should write about the Park Shi Hoo news.

Surfers of dramaweb almost certainly already know more about this situation than they want to. But for those of us lucky enough to have missed the coverage, here’s a quick recap of every single piece of wholly trustworthy information that’s now available: last month, actor Park Shi Hoo was accused of rape after a night out with an entertainment-industry friend and a girl he knew.

As far as I can tell, beyond that it’s all hearsay and speculation. I’ve been keeping an eye on the big English-language news sites and their coverage of the story, and for every article touting some new piece of information about the case I can find two other articles that disprove everything it says.

I can’t even critically assess these conflicting reports: I have essentially no familiarity with the various Korean news outlets. If similar charges were leveled against an American star, I would have a better sense what was spurious and what deserved further consideration. No news outlet in the world is infallible, but when the New York Times reports something, I feel safe trusting them to get the facts right and present them in a reasonably objective manner. On the other hand, I wouldn’t even bother reading coverage of the same incident in Star magazine, a notorious supermarket tabloid. A lifetime spent consuming American news and culture has prepared me to understand the distinction between these sources. But Naver? Hankyung? Chosunilbo? I have literally no idea what their bent is or how trustworthy they might be.

And as someone who speaks only English, I’m at an even further remove the coverage. Relying on news that has been filtered through the English-language aggregators isn’t the best idea when it comes to actually understanding what’s going on.

Take Drama Fever’s blog. I’ve been reading it regularly ever since I first signed up as a member. Over that time its tone has changed considerably. In early 2011, it focused on posting news tidbits gleaned from sites like Dramabeans or Soompi. Later, it specialized in guest boggers. But since its infusion of venture capital money last fall, the Drama Fever blog has evolved into something of a supermarket tabloid of its own. And I’m not going to lie: I like its hodgepodge approach to celebrity gossip. I’ll happily watch videos of Korean cats getting their butts scratched, ogle photo galleries of handsome actors posted on their birthdays, and devour speculation about whether some girl group member I’ve never heard of is dating some boy group member I’ve never heard of.

Drama Review: Thank You (2007)

Grade: A+

Category

Romantic melodrama

What it’s about

After his girlfriend dies, a hotshot surgeon gives up his career and relocates to the countryside, where he meets a hardworking single mom who’s weighed down by the responsibility of supporting both her senile grandfather and her young daughter. He rents a room in her house and slowly becomes part of the family, bickering all the while, but their burgeoning love story is complicated by an unexpected bit of shared history—his girlfriend accidentally infected the little girl with HIV while giving her a blood transfusion.

First impression

After the cotton-candy insubstantialness of Cheongdamdong Alice, I’m in the mood for something meaty and melodramatic. This show ought to be just thing: it’s written by Lee Kyung Hee, screenwriter of both Nice Guy and I’m Sorry, I Love You. She specializes in gritty tragedies with horrible male leads who end up spectacularly redeemed (and dead) by the closing scene. Based on this show’s summary, it will be more of the same. I’m clearly in for a world of hurt. (Yipee!)

A selection of ways in which my life is different from a Korean drama

Flower Boy Next Door: That looks cozy, Enrique! (Or not.)

#100

Items required to sleep comfortably. . .

Kdrama

• None. Kdrama characters can sleep anywhere, anytime, whether they’re on a moving bus, sitting on a bench in a public park, or lying on the floor of a stranger’s bedroom.

My life

• my own bed
• a hair tie
• a box of tissues
• my carpel-tunnel wrist brace
• Non-binding pajamas suitable for the room’s ambient temperature
• a Pandora-enabled clock radio tuned to the solo piano genre station (sleep timer set at 30 minutes)
• nightlight in the next room burning, but turned to “dim” setting

Drama Review: Cheongdamdong Alice (2013)

Grade: C

Category

Romantic comedy with a side of light cultural commentary

What it’s about

After a life of unthinkable privation (oh, no! She can’t afford a Birkin bag?!?), a hardworking Kdrama girl vows to do whatever it takes to marry into Seoul’s posh Cheongdamdong neighborhood. Various degrees of soul selling ensue.

First impression

Ah, the perils of really loving a currently airing show: all I want to do is watch the next episode of Flower Boy Next Door, but I have to wait an entire week for it to air. In the meanwhile, shows that might seem perfectly acceptable under other circumstances just won’t do it for me. Take Cheongdamdong Alice: it feels slick and spendy, but ultimately hollow when compared to lived-in, contemplative nature of FBND. Park Shi Hoo is cute and Moon Geun Young is as darling as ever, but the design-wannabe storyline is starting to feel awfully threadbare. Barring an injection of depth and humanity in the near future, Cheongdamdong Alice isn’t looking like a winner for me.