Me and Korean Melodramas

Hellooooo!!!
Oh My God, like finally, I can update my blog again!!!Hahahahahahahaha sorry if that is too much.

First of all, I am truly sorry for my lack of updates on this blog. For the past few weeks, I have been busy with Final Exam and Student Organization. There are so much things to do, which made me have no time to update this blog. Once again, I am really sorry :(
Today, I am going to write another post about K-Dramas. Yes, I have been soooooooo into K-Dramas lately :) So many list about K-Dramas that I am going to watch and I hope that I will be able to watch all of it ;)

Anyway, actually, before this, I am going to write a review about SISTAR19 newest single, Gone Not Around Any Longer, and Korean miniseries, White Christmas. But, unfortunately, since I already watched it several weeks ago, the feeling to write it a review is gone :"""(
In a sum, Gone Not Around Any Longer is a pleasant listen song, but sadly, lack of "punch". As for the choreography, this time, it is too much exploiting sexiness. Meanwhile, for White Christmas, it is a miniseries with unpredictable story and brilliant young casts. Definitely one of the best drama I have ever watched!!!

Back to today's post again, this time, I will write about my personal thoughts one one of the genre in K-Dramas, which called, melodrama. Melodrama means a drama which has a characterization of exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts (thefreedictionary.com). Usually, this type of drama also guaranteed to make the viewers get angry with the evil characters and of course, cry seeing the life of the main character, which mostly has a miserable life.
In every melodrama, including K-Melodramas, there is one basic story line which often repeated over and over again. The story line goes like this; there is a pretty woman who has miserable life and then, she fall in love with the super handsome and rich man. The man also feel the same way too, but it is not easy to make them together and have a happy life since there is always a second lead female character, who also pretty, but manipulative and mean, that also going into the main male character. This second lead female character always torture the main female character and try to break her relationship with the man. But, fortunately, there will always be the second lead male character, who is also handsome and superduper nice like an angel, that always be beside the main female character and help her. This man is secretly in love with the main female character, but, sadly, it is one sided love.

The story line on the above will accompanied by several basic elements, such as evil older women character, illness that cannot be cured, accidents, and amnesia. The famous classical K-Melodramas, such as Autumn In My Heart (2000) and Stairway to Heaven (2003), have this typical story line. But, nowadays, K-Melodramas, like Nice Guy (2012) and I Miss You (2012), are more varied with their story line eventhough it still input the basic elements in K-Melodramas.

To be quite honest, melodrama is actually not my cup of tea. I don't really like how the story is too typical. I don't really like how it can increase my blood pressure because I get angry with how the evil characters torture the main character or how dumb and weak the main character is. And most importantly, I really hate to have bucket of tears because of the heartbreaking scenes on this drama. All of this explained that how I tend to avoid this type of drama.

Wait, wait, hold on a second..........avoid??? Really avoid this kind of drama??? Well, not so much, because believe it or not, last year until early this year, I watched about five melodramas, which are Love Rain, Fashion King, I Miss You, Nice Guy, and recently, That Winter, The Wind Blows. Well, I have an explanation for this actually hehehehe. For Love Rain and Fashion King, I watched it because it has Yoona and Yuri, two members of my favorite girl group, Girls' Generation, as the main and second female lead character. As for I Miss You, well, who can't resist Park Yoochun and Yoo Seung Ho in one drama? While Nice Guy, it gained many positive reviews from people which make me curious. And lastly, the reason why I watch That Winter, The Wind Blows because many people said that it has similar vibe with Nice Guy.

By looking at that, I begin questioning what is wrong with me? I supposed to hate melodramas, but why I turned out to enjoy it? Hahahahahaha this is so over dramatic. But, then, I realize there are three things which make me like this type of drama and not soo against it.

Remember, my opinions only based on those five melodramas and only a little part of other melodramas :)

1. Great Acting from the Casts

The main reason why I enjoyed K-Melodramas so much is because of the casts' amazing acting. Like what has been said earlier, melodramas have the tendency to have typical characters and story lines. Surely, viewers will be bored with this. In order to make it interesting, the casting team has to find the actor/actress that able to bring their characters into different level. It means that they need to portray their character's emotions perfectly and can make viewers related to it. This explained why Song Joong Ki gained enormous popularity last year with Nice Guy because he make viewers feel Kang Maru, his character emotions. This also explained why viewers still feel pity for Harry Borrison (Yoo Seung Ho) in I Miss You and Han Jae Hee (Park Shi Yeon) in Nice Guy, eventhough they actually the bad guy/girl. Lastly, great acting from the casts can also save the drama since the story line is sometimes too typical. The main reason why I still enjoy Fashion King despite its confusing story and ending is because of the four lead characters, acting, Shin Se Kyung, Yoo Ah In, Lee Jee Hoon, and Yuri.

2. Heart Wrenching Soundtrack

Why Kang Maru and Seo Eun Gi's (Moon Chae Won) sad scenes in Nice Guy able to make viewers cry? It is because there is Xiah Junsu's soulful voice on those scenes singing his song, my personal favorite, Love Is Like A Snowflake. Whenever there are sad scenes in K-Melodramas, it will always be accompanied with heart wrenching soundtracks. With the sad lyrics and the singer's soulful voice that fits perfectly with the drama, viewers are able to get emotionally involved with it. Some memorable soundtracks like the famous, Bogoshipda, by Kim Bum Soo from drama, Stairway to Heaven, even make people suddenly remember the drama whenever they hear the soundtrack. Well, personally, this type of songs are actually my favorite song, which is also explained why I enjoyed watching K-Melodramas so much. I still remember how many times I listen to Jang Geun Seuk's, Love Rain, and Girls' Generation Tiffany's, Because It's You, when it first appeared on drama, Love Rain, until now.

3. Lovely Sidekick Characters

Eventhough the title is melodrama, it actually does not always show every single character in this drama crying because of their miserable life. There are still many happy and funny scenes, thanks to the lovable sidekick character. Usually, this character is the best friend of the main male character which described as funny and loyal. These characters are very refreshing in the middle of the mellow theme on the drama. Characters like Park Jae Gil (Lee Kwang Soo) from Nice Guy and Kim Chang Mo (Seo In Guk) from Love Rain, always make viewers laugh with their silly, yet adorable attitudes. These characters also has their own cute love line, which contrasted the angsty love line of the main characters. How many times viewers giggle by seeing Kang Choco (Lee Yoo Bi) flirty attitude towards Park Jae Gil? Or the most recent one, how many of you screaming when Moon Hee Sun (Jung Eun Ji) accidentally kissed Park Jin Sung's (Kim Bum) lips? Lastly, these sidekick character always provide us a heartwarming friendship with the main male character. Song Joong Ki-Lee Kwang Soo from Nice Guy and Park Yoochun-Oh Jung Se from I Miss You showed us amazing chemistry as a best friend and co-workers. While Jo In Sung and Kim Bum, already make me love their friendship in That Winter, The Wind Blows, despite only airing three episodes.

In summary, there are three reasons why I like watching K-Melodramas, which are great acting from the casts, heart wrenching soundtracks, and lovely sidekick characters. These three reasons are enough to make me enjoy K-Melodramas. 

But, truthfully, no matter how typical the story is, it will never gets old. It will always make the viewers, including me, watch the drama because watching it was like a roller coaster emotion. And finally, I have to fix my previous statement on the above because yes, I do enjoy watching K-Melodramas :)

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[DRAMA REVIEW] Nice Guy (2012)

Olaaaaa!

A good way to start 2013 by posting my blog in two consecutive days.

Yaaaayyyy!!!!!

Today, I am going to review something that I have never written in my blog before. It is about Korean Drama (K-Drama) who gained a large number of viewers last year, "Nice Guy". Yes, I know it is another Korean thingy, but please bear with it, okay? :)

Before going on to the review, I am going to tell you about my history with K-Drama. Actually, I rarely watched K-Drama before. When many of my friends hypnotized by Full House, Autumn In My Heart (Endless Love), and Princess Hours at early 2000s, I did not take any interest on that. My ignorance to K-Drama stopped at 2009. At that time, I began to watch Boys Before Flowers, my first K-Drama, and having a crush on Lee Min Ho, the male lead actor. But, that's just it, my intention to watch K-Drama stop until there, which is I don't know why. Maybe because K-Drama tends to have longer duration than Hollywood Television Series, so I became bored and I had no time to watch that.

Two years later, when I was watching television, I saw the teaser trailer of another K-Drama with many K-Pop idols starred in it, "Dream High". The trailer looked interesting, so I began to find out about this drama. Unexpectedly, my best friend recommended me to watch this drama because she had just finished it. So, I watched this drama and fall in love with it! The story, the casts, and the soundtracks were suited with my preferences. Beside that, coincidentally, the theme of the drama was similar with my condition at that time. Dream High itself is also a door for me to K-Pop  world, so yes, thanks to it :)

If you're thinking that I began to watch other K-Dramas after Dream High, well you're wrong. It took me about eight months to watch another drama. This condition happened because I was more focusing into know more about K-Pop music. So, shortly, in 2012, I watched nine dramas, including Nice Guy which I finished last saturday. Overall, all of the dramas that I watched was pretty decent dramas, despite their absurd story (Fashion King) or ending (Fashion King (again) and Big).

That is my long history about how I gotten into watching K-Dramas. Now, back to Nice Guy itself, the story is about a medical school students, Kang Maru (Song Joong Ki), who was blindly in love with his childhood friend, Han Jae Hee (Park Shi Yeon), a news reporter that unfortunately, love her career more than Maru. So, when Jae Hee accidentally killed an old man at the motel and she hesitated to turn herself in to the police since it would affect her career, Maru decided to cover it up. Poor Maru, he had to spend five years in prison.

Six years later, Maru and Jae Hee were reunited again on the plane from Tokyo to Seoul. On the plane, Maru, a former medical student, was helping a girl who suddenly collapse. When the girl's condition was getting worse, Maru asked if she had her guardian with her. Fortunately, her guardian is with her and guess what, her guardian is none other than.......................Han Jae Hee!! It turned out that Han Jae Hee married this collapse girl's (super rich) father, a leader of Taesan company (Kim Young Chul). Jae Hee herself even have a son from her marriage with him, Seo Eun Seok (Jo Whee Joon).

Felt betrayed, heartbroken, and angry, Maru decided to take revenge on Jae Hee. To help him success in his plan, he used Han Jae Hee's stepdaughter, Seo Eun Gi (Moon Chae Won), who happened to hate Jae Hee too. Eun Gi started to grow feeling for Maru, but she did not realize that Maru had been using her. Will Maru's revenge plan success? Well, you have to watch it to know more ;)

(WARNING! Most of the review contains SPOILER! So, read at your own risks!)

The synopsis looked very promising and exciting. It seems you have to prepare a lot of energy, either to scream at annoying scenes, cry at tearjerker scenes or simply only for screaming how handsome Song Joong Ki is. But at the same time, the story itself is like a typical K-Dramas story with love, revenge, betrayal, ambition, and later on, you will meet again with severe diseases and Amnesia, old themed in K-Dramas. I think this is one of the reason why this dramas has high rating because admit it, no matter how typical the story is, it was really interesting to watch! The drama also had a fast-paced story, which I like, because it leaved the viewers no time to catch our breath.

This drama also supported by wonderful casts, so it makes the typical story became more interesting to watch. I really love the three main leads actor and actresses' acting, Song Joong Ki, Moon Chae Won, and Park Shi Yeon. It was really interesting to see them their character transformation and development as time goes by.

Now, I'm going to explain about each of the actors and actresses acting. Song Joong Ki was BRILLIANT as Kang Maru. I know him first from current South Korean most famous variety show, Running Man, as the permanent member, but sadly, he departed at Episode 41 to focus on his acting career. I never watched any of his dramas before, so I did not know anything about his acting yet. Surprisingly, he really got talent for that! I mean I did not expect that kind of cruel, yet vulnerable, bad boy character came from the man who known for his "flower boy" image. His emotions were unpredictable, which can be shown on his expressions, so you don't know what is he up to next. His soft spot to Eun Gi make people, especially female viewers, fall in love with him. Joong Ki also able to make me cry a bucket of tears whenever Kang Maru showed his vulnerable side during episode 14 where he desperately ask Seo Eun Gi to drink the milk or tomato juice which lead to both of their frustrations and also, during episode 19 where he apologized to Han Jae Hee for turning her into a monster and made a promise to comeback to her. 

I also love Moon Chae Won strong character as Seo Eun Gi. It was really refreshing to see the different character for the female lead, who is not weak and always cry. Moon Chae Won successfully transform herself into this selfish and stubborn character because I think this character is completely different from her real personality based from what I saw on her interviews and behind the scene clips. Actually, at first, I prefer Park Shi Yeon acting than her because I was more interested in Shi Yeon's complex character. But, towards the end, she showed us how good her acting is by showing her frustration about her lost memories, which made me cry, in episode 14 and also, about her cancelled wedding in episode 18. She also showed a good chemistry with Song Joong Ki that leave viewers' hope to see them dating in real life.

As for Park Shi Yeon, Han Jae Hee is the most complicated character in this drama. Park Shi Yeon played her role really well, which makes me liking her acting more at first rather than Moon Chae Won's. Her greed for power and money, her ambitions, her seduction to Attorney Ahn (Kim Tae Hun) seriously made me want to slap her face. But, at the same time, I actually understand why she was like that. Han Jae Hee did not trapped into the evil-mean character because people still can see her soft side whenever she was with her son, Seo Eun Seok. Her soft side even often being showed toward the end of the drama whenever she begged to Maru for coming back to her. I still remember her bench scene with Kang Maru, where Maru apologized for turning her into a monster and made a promise to comeback to her, in episode 19 that showed both of Park Shi Yeon and Song Joong Ki's great acting. One of the most memorable scenes in K-Drama!

Other casts were also played a good role. Lee Sang Yeob acting as Seo Eun Gi's most trustworthy co-worker/friend, Attorney Park, obviously make us fall in love with his character. Based on my observation, there is always one character like Attorney Park in K-Dramas. He is the one who is handsome, who is too nice, who knows every secret on the drama, who has an unrequited love for the female leads, and who ended up being injured or death. Oh and am I the only one thinking that his character and appearance reminded me of Prosecutor Kim in 2011 K-Drama, City Hunter?

There is also Attorney Ahn, played really well by Kim Tae Hun, the main antagonist in Nice Guy. Compared to Han Jae Hee, Attorney Ahn had more "You-are-an-asshole-I-want-to-punch-your-face" moments for me because he was really annoying. His transformation from the passive guy who secretly in love with Jae Hee to the obsessive guy who want Jae Hee, money, and power, also suprised me. Good job, Kim Tae Hun! 

Then, there are also Lee Kwang Soo and Lee Yoo Bi as Kang Maru's best friend, Park Jae Gil, and Kang Maru's sister, Kang Choco, who often created the funny moments in the drama, so people did not become stress out with soo many conflicts on this drama :p Kwang Soo and Yoo Bi's good chemistry makes the viewers cannot stop giggling and smiling whenever they appeared in one scene. All of their interactions were cute, funny, and sweet. And also, I kind of like both of their characterization who did not trap into become the clown of this drama. The write showed that Jae Gil and Choco had a heart too. Lee Yoo Bi was good in crying scene and her affection toward his brother was also believable. And for Lee Kwang Soo, this man surprised me because he was actually soooooo good in serious scenes like when he kept begging Maru to do a surgery to cure his sickness. Those scenes were heartbreaking.

Another actor who get my attention is Yang Ik Joon, who played Han Jae Hee's brother, Han Jae Shik. Han Jae Shik is the love/hate character for the viewers. I swear he was really annoying at first! His intention to bring down Jae Hee and kill Eun Gi made me frustrated. But, then, after Choco gave me a seaweed soup that reminded him of home (this is hilarious, but sweet actually), he began to change into good person. He also become very funny too by being the matchmaker for Choco and Jae Gil. He even found his own destiny at the end by opening a restaurant. Han Jae Shik has turned from one of the most hated character into one of the most lovable character in Nice Guy and Yang Ik Joon had a great job portraying him.

Overall, Nice Guy is one of the best and most memorable K-Drama that I ever watched. Great casts and characterization which accompanied by interesting story line, great soundtrack (I SUPER LOVE Junsu's Love is Like a Snowflake!!!!), beautiful settings and outfits. The ending itself was rather unexpected to me in either bad or good way. Eventhough there are still many plot holes and questions that left unanswered, the whole drama covered it up. Lastly, one of the most interesting part in watching Nice Guy is how the characters able to leave a spot in the viewers' heart. Watching them for twenty episodes is like a roller coaster journey for us. So, when Kang Maru finally said that he is happy at the end of episode 20, we cannot help to smile and happy for him. We feel relieved and sad at the same time, because we won't be able to see them every Wednesday and Thursday again (I already miss Song Joong Ki! Let's hope he will have another great drama in 2013 :)). Once again, watch it! It's recommended :)


Rate                                                  : 4/5

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