frozentundra

Thank you for this! I go on-again, off-again with Disney/Hulu, and presently am not subscribed, so I can't search their offerings. I've been waiting for news on this one. I was starting to wonder if it would happen at all. When you say "aside from Netflix," I assume you mean it will NOT be on Netflix? (Disney seems adverse to sharing...but I can always hope, right?) THISSSSS!

On French--I don't speak it, so I can't evaluate this. But I do speak both Spanish and German. Koreans tend to have beautiful pronunciation in Spanish. (Park Seo Joon in particular sounds awesome.) But German....ehhhhh....pain, lol. Nine times out of ten when I hear Koreans on TV, I cannot even understand it as the German language. Notable exceptions are Moon Ga Young, who grew up partly in Germany and sounds absolutely lovely in it, and also, surprisingly, Hyun Bin. HB has an accent, yes, but his lines in Crash Landing anyway sounded natural, like a Korean person who happens to be fluent in German. (Actually, he sounded more natural than the other people who were supposed to be "Swiss" in the scene, with the exception of the little girl who asked him to play the piano. Then again, I'm sure she WAS a native German speaker.) As for Weightlifting Fairy, she was supposed to be a weightlifter, not a glamor girl. But er, I'm not rushing out to copy that style, either...

I can do 2014 onwards. (I started watching in 2016 and could watch things a few years prior to that, but the really old ones felt so DRAMATICALLY dated to me.) The hairstyles can be really...um. Lol. There's like a heaviness to older dramas and also the styling--not just in terms of hair, makeup, clothing, etc., but sometimes even in acting styles and writing. (Older writing often feels less nuanced to me.) There's a really big difference to me between older oppas and more recent ones (and it doesn't have anything to do with my age relative to them). Just different styles in different eras. CGI and production values have definitely gone up over the years as well!

I like this aspect, too. I'm also rewatching an old drama from 6-7 years ago that has a rather backwards attitude towards treating depression. I'm really glad to see things moving in a more positive (and more medically sound) direction. In Doctor Slump, I like how they very calmly and clearly walk the viewer through how to get help if they suspect they might have depression. It's nothing strange or weird, just another health issue that can happen to anyone. And yes, there is treatment and relief available.

I had a bunch in 2023 all at the same time that I really loved. But those are done, and now I am in that period where you try out a zillion things until something sticks. So far I've seen partial first episodes for a number of Chinese dramas that can all be summed up as, "I can flyyyyyyyyyy!" (and gravity doesn't work the same as it does in your universe, so there!) In Kdramas, I'm a little tired of the storyline of, stressed out city girl goes to a countryside village full of quirky characters and finds/rediscovers love from her hometown first crush. I'm also not super into sequels or second seasons (I don't care much for episodic storylines, but rather, am looking for a plot that has an actual purpose and then reaches that point, with a lot of satisfying payoff. Which would render a sequel a bit anticlimactic. Although I guess I could still think of a few exceptions to the rule.) So! What I am I looking for? I don't know, lol. Something with a plot and a good payoff at the end. Something with a lot of heart. Something with you know, logic. Something with good chemistry. Something that has good plot tension. NO MAKJANG. Magic elements are good, time travel is also good, mystery is good. Even realistic contemporary is good, if there is a well-told story. I like characters who have external goals to reach but also internal struggles of character. No matter what the genre, I look for emotional believability. Right now I am arm-wrestling a family member to watch Castaway Diva with me (I watched while it aired), and I also just did a rewatch of Crash Landing. (If you want to test and clean out every single tear duct in your body--a rewatch is in order. Magnificent drama.) But much as I love it, I need a chance for my tear ducts to restock, so right now I'm trying out Doctor Slump. So far, so good. I'll probably check out Mother's Friend's Son, based on the casting. But I hope to find some serendipity favorites this like, like I did last year as well.