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frozentundra

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Everything posted by frozentundra

  1. 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!
  2. 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...
  3. 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!
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Huh, so the ending did not go the way I expected, given all the plot dominoes they lined up in ep 1-15. Well, it was better than the ending to A Good Day to Be a Dog as well as Park's Marriage Contract, so there's that. But I was left with questions: The storyline was a bit (!!) derivative of other dramas and novels. (!!!) But despite that, I just really did love Guwon and Do Do Hee. I think I've watched too many dramas where a music idol has been cast due to a pretty face and fan following but has absolutely no expression for 16 episodes. So I particularly appreciated not just pretty faces (ummm very pretty faces!), but ones that actually showed emotion. I found the demon's horror at falling in love with one of the humans he despised pretty hilarious, and I also was able to feel both of their grief in the various sad parts. And they just had chemistry. Their interactions were just really nice to watch. The one scene where I really felt teary was when the sword dancing girl went back to her old house and found herself repeating Guwon's words to someone else (only labeling her actions for what they really were). That was nice. And I liked the messages the drama tried to make: 1) Stop blaming Fate/God for the consequences of your own poor choices, and make better choices in the future, and 2) Every day, our choices either destroy or save others. Life is short, so use this time to save and cherish one another. As with many dramas, I had to unhook the logic part of my brain sometimes, but I liked the main leads so much that I was mostly able to do that and enjoy it.
  7. I have watched a LOT of dramas in the past year with the past-lives theme (five including this one, just off the top of my head); it's hardly a new or inventive plot device here. But somehow My Demon seems to be weaving in the plot threads the tightest. As sad and aggravating as ep 14 was, plotwise it's really satisfying (in a painful sort of way) to see all the past choices and actions of the characters coming to an inevitable head in this episode. The deity keeps telling our demon Gu Won that fate isn't some nebulous thing that falls on your head out of nowhere; it comes directly as a result of the choices humans make. I'm glad the writers understand this principle, because it's a lot more satisfying as a viewer to watch events unfold with logical reasons than to see aliens land in chapter 14 with no good reason. (As basically happened in the last 4 past lives dramas I watched, in some way or another.) We make real choices in life, and they affect real people. And sometimes those real people are ones we end up caring about very, very much. As a result, those choices can either bless us both, or come back to bite us hard. I feel like the writer has done a great job of laying in all of these things and then letting them play out organically and naturally until we have the current culmination of terribleness you'd expect at the end of episode 14/16. Things aren't happening Because the Writer Said So. They're happening because the characters made choices, some of them more awful than they realized at the time. There are still two episodes to mess up in (I am getting quite wary of final episodes after a string of underwhelming ones lately!), but hopefully they can stick this one to the end. I know, I KNOW it's full of tropes and elements we've seen before, but the actors are doing such a great job creating vivid characters, the chemistry is all fresh and sparkly, and the production is doing a nice job of lingering on the important parts to give proper emotional resonance in key scenes. You may like this genre or not, that's up to personal taste, bit as far as the construction of the drama itself, I think they're doing a good job.
  8. I feel like I am striking out with the dramas based on webtoons. The structure of this one was really weird overall (but so is the webtoon?) The last episode ended up basically just a recap after a year's time jump. ?? Second drama ending in a row that leaves me just scratching my head. Not a sad ending, but ???
  9. Aside from 2013, I've only seen School 2017. It had a more central plotline. I did like it as well, but it was just a very different kind of story. The 2nd lead from Crash Landing is the lead here. He does a good job. The other drama that comes to mine that IS in the vein of School 2013 is Moment of Eighteen. (This is the drama I watched after Strong Girl Namsoon, suggested to me by Netflix because they have the same male lead. I was really blown away by Ong Seung Woo's acting in it and then felt doubly disappointed by Strong Girl, as he can ACT and was sorely underutilized.) It's about the difficult times of both students and teachers, and I enjoyed it a lot.
  10. I feel like School 2013 should be required viewing for anyone who thinks they're going to teach in a high school. Also, that drama was my introduction to Korean poetry and erm, apparently I'm supporting the industry now, if you look at my bookshelves. Loved Reset!
  11. Ah, this is one of those dramas where Korea doesn't have much interest, yet it ranks high on worldwide viewership. Always funny how that works. Welp, I'm enjoying it! I realize there have been a lot of dramas lately with a hero who was responsible for the death of their lover in a past life, it's nothing new, but I find the characters more charismatic and interesting to watch than some of the other dramas with these same themes. I don't mean The Visuals!!! (everyone in K-ent is beautiful to look at, it's sort of a job prerequisite? although yes, they are awfully pretty), but more like how the characters act/interact. We're going into the final quarter, and it's been a fun ride so far. I hope they can stick the ending.
  12. @Lmangla I think she had to go back to Joseon Because the Writer Said So, and not for any logical reason. How would going back in time cure 2023 Tae Ha's heart disease?? The Joseon one still died of a heart attack. There is nothing he did or did not do that has any effect on the 2023 one that I can see. It's nice that she was able to stop him from being poisoned, though? The other thing she accomplished was that anachronistic petition to the king about the yeolnyeo/virtuous wife award. I mean, heck YES I agree with her (this was a really awful practice where widows and even engaged women who lost their husbands were not only not allowed to remarry, but eventually were expected to kill themselves to keep from being with any other man, and in return, the government would give her inlaws an award and elevate their status). But it was handled in a very 2023 way, not an 1883 way (or whatever year it was supposed to be). Instead of coming across as organically improving the situation she was in, it felt a little unbelievable (to me, anyway.) Maybe her loyalty to her present-day husband was something along the lines of the faithful wife--she was loyal to 2023 Tae Ha and therefore wouldn't give her first husband the time of day. But she came across really cold. I think it would have been better to recognize that they were the same person living at different time periods instead of trying to split the into two completely different people. I dunno, it was messy. BUT it wasn't makjang (speaking of PMR), and overall I will take messy time travel over makjang any day.
  13. Oh, I forgot to tick off that I liked the fantasy tropes this year. Well, I did. Strongly dislike: multiple seasons. ! Also not a fan of unreasonably short dramas. (Really, the number is just a number; I don't want rushing and I don't want filler. So therefore I don't want 8-12 to be "the new norm" as many storylines will feel cramped. More like, make the story as long as it needs to be, whatever that is. No rushing, no filler.) Not a fan of smoking. And I hope the pendulum swings back soon from the heightened shock-value violence we've seen lately. I can get my fill of that through western shows, thanks; I don't need to see Korean brains splatted on the sidewalk over and over as well. (If you like it, fine, but I hope for enough shows that DON'T have it that we can all find something to suit our tastes.) I initially liked the FL in Strong Girl, but the drama itself ended up fizzling in the second half. The lead pair were never on screen together and the villain started taking on main lead status...whut...?? Then I watched Moment of Eighteen starring Ong Seung Woo and felt double the pain, because that guy can ACT, and meanwhile all we got in Strong Girl were occasional shots of him making phone calls. I also didn't care for the FL's family much. Maybe the Strong Girl series is just not for me. (I did like the cameo from the first one, though.) I felt like there were a lot of dramas that sounded promising on paper and that even had a good cast, but logic went out the window in the scripts and they didn't hold together or make sense.
  14. It's not a complicated storyline; it's just very, very well done. It's about a girl who develops a crush on her older brother's friend (they're like 5 years older than her, and she's in 8th grade when it starts) because he poses as her brother to go intervene with the teacher when she gets in trouble. So they develop this sort of friendship (he has no idea of the crush until much later when the age isn't a problem), and then eventually when she's older it moves into something more. What people like about it I think is that the acting and the way the script portrays the process of growing up and forming meaningful relationships is really honest and rings true. Like, it makes you remember your own first crush, and you can sympathize with the ups and downs of growing up and becoming your own person. The characters are super likable and it's both funny and sad, and the chemistry is top notch. I don't watch a lot of Cdramas myself and I also tend to gravitate more towards plot-heavy stories, maybe with some magical elements,, but every so often there is a realistic story or Cdrama that is just SO well done that it gets under my skin and doesn't let go. This was one of them.
  15. The last episode was bizarre. Suddenly we have a love triangle sprouting in the last chapter? What was that?? Why couldn't they mesh them into the same soul, like you said? Joseon guy was having dreams of what was happening in the future (since he was the same person--sort of.) He could have tragically died of a heart attack but since they realized he/they really were the same person, they could have had the hope of being rejoined in the future. Then the ending of Joseon Tae Ha would make emotional sense, and we'd feel the relief of their reuniting in the future. Instead, she was cold to the guy in the past and then with no logic whatsoever, magically zipped home to the future. I mean, yay, but...?? Also, what was with hopping on the horse and bulls-eyeing arrows?? I read that Joseon noblewomen weren't even legally allowed to ride horseback; how did she do that out of the blue? Maybe I am not smart enough to truly understand the ending.
  16. I absolutely can. not. STAND makjang! I have seen tons of praise for a particular makjang drama from this year, and while I can agree that there are no slow parts and it does exactly what it sets out to do (and the ML is definitely a green flag)--it's still makjang. I watched it because it was short and it would be my ONE makjang, and I could say I'd experienced the genre. But soap operas...daily dramas...overacting and overwriting just make my eyes bleed. (I thought that Kdramas were soaps, based on you know, the word "drama," and it took ten years for my sister to convince me that it wasn't so, and to watch one. She was right, of course. Kdramas are just novel-length stories on screen, as opposed to short-story-length movies, and they can be any genre. But it turns out, makjang is one of those genres!)
  17. I'm waiting for poll #2, because yes, that one
  18. To me it was a good drama year! Maybe I just watched different dramas or something? My top three for the year : Alchemy of Souls, part 2. I LOVED part 1. I still feel a lingering sadness at losing some part of Naksu after part 1. I don't think they entirely, absolutely, sealed up all the missing parts of that character by the end of part 2, but the second part still became something I loved for itself. Both parts are a rewatch for me! I also really loved Castaway Diva. But wow...watching this trailer after seeing the actual drama makes some of the mixed reactions understandable. From the trailer, you'd expect a fish out of water story and a focus on breaking into the music industry and becoming a diva or something. Maybe a little danger on the side, just to make it interesting. But the drama itself? It's actually about some kids trying to escape the burden of domestic abuse, and in a larger sense, about the theme of, how to get through really difficult moments in life and come out of them okay. So, big on problems with violent, abusive adults, with a little music and fish out of water-ness on the side. I was moved by the story of people who hung in there, supported each other, and were able to finally get free of their problems and move on. My third one was Twinkling Watermelon. Again, the trailer sounds like a really shallow, forgettable drama with a lot of exclamation marks. There's literally no hint of the warmth and difficulty of being the only hearing member in an otherwise deaf family. I almost didn't watch this because of the promo material. I'm glad I did, I would have missed out on a really fantastic drama!
  19. I think they're great for best couple; just curious, though--why was Song Kang not there? I feel like I read something about this being a known possibility, and now I can't remember why.
  20. Oh, so we are getting a movie, then? Nice! (Although I still hope there is a drama in the works this year, too...he mentioned the other day that he hopes to do two projects this year.)
  21. Ohhh I hadn't stopped to consider how the end of year awards ceremonies might interrupt regular programming (I don't live remotely in the same time zone, so I think of the awards ceremonies as a 6 am event, lol).
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