A Blast from the Past

[partyon]

4 minutes ago, the_sweetroad said:

JCW's hair....I think his hair in Lovestruck in the City is just right. I love him in Healer, though...to play Bong Su as such a dork and Healer as such a reserved, cool guy.....SO good.

 

Oh, you're so polite, chingu!

 

Me every time @agenth posts a recent picture of Ji Chang Wook oppa:

 

My next comment:

"NOT THE HAIR!!!!!!!"

 

So @agenth ends up posting mostly close-up pics of his face without the hair visible

 

She's a good chingu

[Sunset]

@partyon I don't know how he pulls off bright pink and orange suits like that.

Jang Hyuk made it to the oppa list when I watched Thank you. I remember fighting that he was handsome or not with one of my friends... hahahaha. In the end I won, because I remember sharing a clip from Thank you to convince her. hahaha. Sweet memories coming back to me.

 

 

To be honest, there are many more dramas that deserves to be in my fav dramas list. I'm sure I missed a lot of good ones. Not to mention, life is crazy tight. Binge-watching kdramas is impossible nowadays. I can only binge-watch nursery rhymes.

 I kid you not, this is exactly how my living room looks right now VV

.

 

 

[agenth]

9 minutes ago, the_sweetroad said:

 

I think @agenth is the JCW super fan of this forum! That's been clear to me for a while now . (I follow the JCW thread!) I didn't know he was your oppa, too, @partyon!

 

(Edit: I just checked out the JCW thread for the first time in a while and remembered that @cherkell is also a huge JCW super fan!)

 

JCW's hair....I think his hair in Lovestruck in the City is just right. I love him in Healer, though...to play Bong Su as such a dork and Healer as such a reserved, cool guy.....SO good.

 

Oooooh the honour  ~ 

 

@partyon is talking about this kind of hair he sports now

 

from his vlog / in preparation for his role in The Sound of Magic

 

ya know i need to cure her supposed eye sore of jcw with long hair

 

 

39 minutes ago, hyall said:

Which K-drama you cannot stop yourself from re-watching?

Princess Hours

 

 

oooh there's a rewatch happening now!

40 minutes ago, hyall said:

Was there a specific K-drama that made you stay?

Lovers in Paris 

i love that soundtrack ~ 

 

3 hours ago, kokodus said:

How did you start watching K-dramas?

One name. Lee Min Ho. While aimlessly changing channels in my TV, I came across this handsome young guy with amazingly weird hair trying to woo this clueless girl. I was starstruck and I badly wanted to be that girl. LOL. 

this is honestly one of my kdrama experiences too  you just get stuck against all odds hahaa

 

 

[Sleepy Owl]

6 minutes ago, Sunset said:

Jang Hyuk made it to the oppa list when I watched Thank you. I remember fighting that he was handsome or not with one of my friends... hahahaha. In the end I won, because I remember sharing a clip from Thank you to convince her. hahaha. Sweet memories coming back to me.

 

 

Thank You was a great drama. I have re-watched it a couple of times, it is so beautiful yet sad at times. 

 

Talking about Jang Hyuk, I watched his "Chuno" first and then straightaway watched "Fated to love you" since the plot looked interesting.

 

Back to topic, I watched FTLY soon after Chuno without even checking the cast etc. and when I saw Jang Hyuk, I didn't straightaway recognize him, but believed I have seen this actor before. After seeing him in some more scenes in ep 1, I was like, that's Daegil from Chuno 

 

 

Post FTLY, I ended up watching Jang Hyuk's "Thank You" and "Robber" as well 

 

PS: "Fated To Love You" is actually my first rom-com kdrama and it is the drama which introduced Jang Nara, my ultimate Noona to me, so it is a very special drama for me 

[partyon]

6 minutes ago, agenth said:

from his vlog / in preparation for his role in The Sound of Magic

 

ya know i need to cure her supposed eye sore of jcw with long hair

 

NOT THE HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

@Sunset Jang Hyuk is a fine actor!

Yeah, I find it hard to binge watch dramas anymore due to RL, but I did manage to watch all 9 episodes of Squid Game yesterday.

But I am afraid we may have lost @confusedheart chingu today to Squid Game.

It's a dangerous drama....

[Sunset]

31 minutes ago, Sleepy Owl said:

 

 

 

PS: "Fated To Love You" is actually my first rom-com kdrama and it is the drama which introduced Jang Nara, my ultimate Noona to me, so it is a very special drama for me 

 

Jang Nara picks her dramas really well.

 

She is really humble too. I will never forget how genuinely she felt that she is nothing and cried on stage when winning award for her performance in go back couple.

 

P.S. She still looks exactly like she looked in Baby faced beauty (with Choi Daniel). How is that possible? 

 

@partyon Binge-watching squid game? Oooh...

I haven't gone near it.

I'm in Cha cha cha world. I'm loving that drama. That's the only one I am watching.

Also, I'm restarting to learn korean again. I started years ago and then stopped when life got in the way. Now I am back to learning it formally.

It's weird that Korean has so many common words with Tamil, my native language. Like Amma = mother and Appa = father, Wa= come, The way sentences are framed, etc.

 

[Sleepy Owl]

39 minutes ago, Sunset said:

Jang Nara picks her dramas really well.

 

She is really humble too. I will never forget how genuinely she felt that she is nothing and cried on stage when winning award for her performance in go back couple.

 

Yup, she selects her dramas really well. I have watched most of her dramas. 

 

Yup, I watched that video as well, and I really believe she did deserve that award for her performance in "Go Back Couple", she literally carried that drama.

 

39 minutes ago, Sunset said:

P.S. She still looks exactly like she looked in Baby faced beauty (with Choi Daniel). How is that possible? 

 

 

 

Baby Faced Beauty is another favorite drama of mine. I have re-watched it more than a couple of times. Maybe I will get back to it this year. 

 

    

[Sky Kang]

5 hours ago, partyon said:

 

@Sky Kang @lebeaucouple I haven't watched When the Camellia Blooms. Is there anything specific (character, plot line, feeling, etc) in the drama that makes the drama so memorable for you?

 

It's just that it gives a warm feeling with a little bit of a thrill. I have a soft spot too with the story about single mothers plus the many social issues this drama tackled. At first, I didn't want to watch this after the drama aired because the drama title is so corny but I can't remember how I somehow ended up watching it and I really fell hard to the characters and the story. I didn't know the existence of kang haneul before this drama but I fell in love with him that I decided to binge watch his dramas and films. Yongsik is love plus that cute chungcheongdo satoori 

[CarolynH]

Now I can't remember the questions.

Some of my favorites (in no particular order)

My Mister

Miseang (sp?) 

Misty (found JJH in this drama)

Sky Castle

Legend of the Blue Sea (surprise, surprise! lol)

Pegasus Market ( I found this drama delightfully quirky)

 

[maribella]

9 hours ago, partyon said:

@maribella Any specific reason you like daily dramas? I think you often watch those. What was your first daily drama?

I can't remember the first. But I had watched what I thought were duds. One was teacher Oh Soon Nam, only two of us were posting. Then much later, someone praised it as one of the top dailies. One's man meat is another man's poison.

 

Why do I watch it? I think for the corny storylines, strange, a mix of trying to follow popular sentiments plus trying to be uptodate. Amor Fati for example is the typical family melo but they introduce a gay character. 
Dailies are usually easy, no brainer type, I don't remember much about it after a few months.

It is good after putting one's brain through a grinder phase. The angst is from the guts.  

 

[lebeaucouple]

10 hours ago, partyon said:

@Sky Kang @lebeaucouple I haven't watched When the Camellia Blooms. Is there anything specific (character, plot line, feeling, etc) in the drama that makes the drama so memorable for you?

It started with a mysterious plot of a restaurant cafe set up in a small town by the heroine (a single mother)... What made me curious was the mysterious "written message" at the cafe that often left suspense at the end of each EP. You will have an interesting "serial killer" aspect to look forward to watch on each EP.

 

It doesn't look appealing from the drama title and the poster ads, but the profound significance of the story is worth watching.

 

There are not many TV dramas with exquisite elements that combined suspense, comedy, touching, and heart-warming storylines. The plot tempts your emotions to make you cry, sad, touching and addictive.  

 

I binged watched this drama (and "My Mister") that recommended at IMDb site. True enough, it scored very high rating of these drama. It's not just a healing drama, I felt warm, moved and comfortable after watching them. 

 

The comedy element came from our supporting role, by Oh Jung-se, and of course he won the best supporting award at Baeksang Arts. 

 

In this drama, we can't ignore this super cute character from our male lead, Kang Ha-neul. He certainly deserve this best actor award at Baeksang Arts.

 

Trust me, you won't regret watching this drama if you're really willing to spend time to watch this high quality drama. Don't miss it. (I remb the original plan was up to EP 16, but they extended to EP20, so you can imagine how popular and high rating for this drama in Korea)

 

My conclusion review of this drama that inspired us - 

.....The protagonist of life does not need to be perfect.

.....Perfection lies in embracing and accepting our imperfections.

 

 

 

[confusedheart]

13 hours ago, kokodus said:

One name. Lee Min Ho. While aimlessly changing channels in my TV, I came across this handsome young guy with amazingly weird hair trying to woo this clueless girl. I was starstruck and I badly wanted to be that girl. LOL. 

Same here. I don't think I can ever get over his boyishness in BOF.

 

10 hours ago, hyall said:

Which K-drama you cannot stop yourself from re-watching?

Princess Hours

 That's one drama I am watching as part of the Re-watching event. This is my first time. I can't decide if I want to love him or strangle him. Not to mention how Hyorin is getting on my nerves. Even Yul has become deluded. Can't a girl have one good friend? What's your favourite thing about the drama that makes you want to re-watch it?

 

Quote

Jang Hyuk made it to the oppa list when I watched Thank you. I remember fighting that he was handsome or not with one of my friends... hahahaha. In the end I won, because I remember sharing a clip from Thank you to convince her. hahaha. Sweet memories coming back to me.

@Sunset Yes, Thank You and Jang Hyuk. If I were to ever fangirl and flood the forum, it would be with Thank You and Jang Hyuk. That's my all time most favourite drama. What did you like about the drama? I love the cinematography. I wish they would release it as DVD or something. Each and every character was so beautifully written. Bomi, the little girl was such a darling. Gong Hyo-jin is my favourite actress other than Jang Nara.

 

Quote

Pegasus Market ( I found this drama delightfully quirky)

 

@CarolynH Wow! I never thought I would meet someone who loved Pegasus Market. Not many have watched it. I agree the quirkiness is really delightful. 

 

Quote

Dailies are usually easy, no brainer type, I don't remember much about it after a few months.

It is good after putting one's brain through a grinder phase. The angst is from the guts

 

@maribella I have watched My Golden Life. Somehow I still remember it. That was my first daily. Presently watching Second Husband. That is giving me a lot of angst.

 

@lebeaucouple TBH, I didn't much care about the mystery. I was busy cheering for Kang Ha-neul and Gong Hyo-jin' romance. I don't know how Gong Hyo-jin nails every character that she plays. I want a boyfriend like Hwang Yong-sik. I have come to the conclusion that I like these small town dramas more than the city ones. The cinematography is simply stunning. 

 

[BlackLotus1025]

15 hours ago, confusedheart said:

 That was so poetically expressed. Loved the comparison.  K-dramas are not just fun and games. Thanks to dramas like Squid Game and movies like Parasite much more people are getting exposed to K-drama/ K-movies and once you delve deeper into the world of K-dramas, you realize how stunning it truly is.  To be honest, not a day goes by when I don't watch at least one episode of a K-drama.

 

Thank you! I absolutely agree. I wonder how people would think about the classic K-dramas that were really amazing when it comes to the stories and the scenes! I think in the past, Korean pop songs were more popular than their dramas and movies so they weren't really noticeable. Glad K-Dramas are really getting more recognition now even though we all are foreigners when it comes to them. Haha. 

 

And hooray to Ji Sung! He's such a gentleman and respectful oppa! 

 

11 hours ago, partyon said:

 

@BlackLotus1025 Something Happened in Bali has a special place in my heart too! Jo In Sung was amazing in his role and to me it's still so cool to see his talented performance in it - especially taking into account his young age at the time the drama was airing. Too bad he doesn't often appear in dramas anymore.

 

Hooray! Yes, it was actually pretty amazing how he was able to act his character. The most unforgettable scene of his for me was when Ha Ji Won's character, Lee Soo Jung, called him to congratulate on his wedding to Park Ye Jin's character, Choi Young Joo. When he cried on the phone hearing her voice, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Did you like its controversial ending? I'm glad I can watch it numerous times again on ViKi. 

 

Actually, two of my favorite oppas are Ji Sung and Jo In Sung. Both their dramas aired on weeknights ("Save the Last Dance" and "Memories in Bali") consecutively in the past and I always made sure I was present to watch them. Haha. I really wanted JS's character to end up with Lee Bo Young's at that time, too. Glad they made it together in real life. I do wish to see JIS more in drama though. He's usually just visible in movies nowadays. 

[LeftCoastOppa]

12 hours ago, partyon said:

@LeftCoastOppa Mr. Oppa, I am shocked that you didn't mention Alice!

 

We don't discuss ALICE anymore ... I'm quite certain you know that 

 

[sweetroad]

1 hour ago, LeftCoastOppa said:

We don't discuss ALICE anymore ... I'm quite certain you know that 

 

I haven't watched it but now I'm intrigued. Train wreck?

 

12 hours ago, agenth said:

 

@partyon is talking about this kind of hair he sports now

 

Haha, he doesn't look too bad!

 

And Brad Pitt is my lifelong favorite actor, and his hair has gone through a million changes in his career. My husband has also gone through various crazy goatee/mustache and hair lengths during the years....so I've learned to just always look at the face!

 

Also, I want to give k actresses some love...I really like Park Min Young. And recently I realized I had watched 3 dramas with IU (The Producers, Dream High, and My Mister). It's insane that IU is so talented musically and acting-wise.

[Lmangla]

13 hours ago, Sunset said:

I usually get turned off by amnesia and noble idiocy and discontinue dramas. I am usually picky when it comes to those things.

 

It was just the timing of the drama in my life that made it special. I was in the worst slump of my life. It was as if life was speaking to me: "Don't worry about the future and don't let your fear make you stop living. Don't worry about what might happen and think about it when you get there."

 

Guess what? I got engaged and married within a year after that. Now I am happily married for 6 years and I have a toddler. I cannot not give it credit.

 

 

ooh, what a nice story. I can honestly say that I have learned a lot and grown as a person from watching kdramas and the discussions on soompi. like you said, sometimes, it just has to do with timing. you are grappling with something and you are totally strucky by the dialogue in the drama or the discussion on the thread. so yea, who can say that watching dramas isn't good for you? 

 

11 hours ago, Sunset said:

 

Also, I'm restarting to learn korean again. I started years ago and then stopped when life got in the way. Now I am back to learning it formally.

It's weird that Korean has so many common words with Tamil, my native language. Like Amma = mother and Appa = father, Wa= come, The way sentences are framed, etc.

 

so, here is my encyclopedia mode answer (so chingus, please ignore if that isn't your thing).  hahahahah...

 

Spoiler

#1  so 80% of the world languages or more, the words for mom and dad are usually framed around 'ma' sound and 'ba'/'pa' sound. the reason is that as babies learn to babble, the way tongue folds in the mouth, these two sounds are the easiest to make. so the words for mother and father across many languges do sound similar. 

 

#2 so there is the legend of the indian princess who went to korea, married the king and started the first dynasty of gaya. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heo_Hwang-ok 

now there are different interpretations on where she exactly came from (some say to the north), there are arguments that based on the coins (which depict two fishes), it was the pandaya kingdom (which was a kingdom in southern india). if she really did come from the pandaya kingdom, then it isn't surprising that a few tamil words would have creeped into korean perhaps... 

 

#3 the impacts of martime silk road -- most have heard of the silk routes that took place over land but many are not aware of the history of the silk route that happened by sea. out of all the southern kingdoms, the most powerful was the chola kingdom and the impact they had on various countries. for those who are not aware, they had a mini kingdom in indonesia at one point and the cholas also impacted the politics of different indonesia kingdoms at various times. they even had an outpost in philippines and there is a whole kingdom that arose from one descendant. they basically had various trading outpost across southeast asia and so you can see the impact in small ways still reasonate.

 

 

for example, if you take the history of idli (steamed rice cake), you find variations of that in so many places. why? and how did rice plant migrate from one place to another? then there is the script of many languages -- so thai and cambodian have curved scripts just like tamil. the reason is that writing was done on palm leaves and scripts with straight lines would makes the leaves tear. so the scripts had to be curved and circles in order for the leaves to act as paper. so those are the kind of cultural exchange impacts from history long ago! 

 

so your question on how tamil and korean are having common words is most likely a combination of different factors. who knows but it is fun to see them all come into play no? 

 

[j9sshi]

I may have to answer each question in a separate post as I know my answers will be long (sorry)

1. How did you first start watching K-dramas?

In 2013, our family had previously enjoyed watching the movies 200lb Beauty and By the Book. 

In beginning of 2014, my daughter had been watching Heirs (  I didn't know what the title was at the time) and I had just caught the last 5 minutes of the final episode and couldn't get over LMH outfit LOL!  She kept mentioning BOF to me but I stumbled upon Playful Kiss.

 

I loved everything about it!  I watched it twice back to back!  (The second time I watched it, I watched all the special episode shorts on youtube). And for some reason, that particular story line hooked me - especially after reading about the author of the original works. So I then watched the original anime - Itazura na kiss, read the manga, and then watched the Kdrama again. I think I was really enamored with KHJ back then ha ha!

 

My daughter then encouraged me to watch BOF. Call me shallow, but I couldn't get past LMH curly permed hair lol (sorry LMH fans). Something else about it didn't capture me, so I stopped watching  (I eventually watched the whole thing at a later time).

 

My daughter then suggested Heirs. I was really impressed with PSH's acting and became a fan of hers.  I saw that she was going to be in a new drama called Pinocchio.  And after watching the 1st episode, I made my daughter watch the series with me (she was more into anime and manga). We loved it. I was so impressed with the child actors!!  I would rewatch the episodes by myself during the week while waiting for the new ones to come out. Lol.  I then watched the whole thing all over on a different streaming site to catch the subtle differences in the translations. I think this was the beginning of going down the rabbit hole 

 

[LeftCoastOppa]

15 minutes ago, the_sweetroad said:

58 minutes ago, LeftCoastOppa said:

We don't discuss ALICE anymore ... I'm quite certain you know that 

 

I haven't watched it but now I'm intrigued. Train wreck?

 

Train Wreck? ... No.  To call it a Train Wreck doesn't begin to describe it.

 

ALICE had an incredible cast, with an assortment of engaging characters.  The story was captivating and the week between episodes seemed like two.  A mystery/time travel/thriller that littered the soompi thread with daily speculation on what was actually going on - who was who - Good Guys who were bad, Bad Guys who turned out to be good - I was crushing hard on the character Do-Yeon at the time ... and now that I think about it, I kinda still am   (She's soooooo good)  For approximately 12-13 episodes it was all-consuming, and then ...

 

The wheels started falling off the train ... the train jumped the tracks ... and then went over a cliff ... and landed on a school bus ...

 

 

 

If you choose to watch it, stop at episode 13 - A large portion of the questions raised by the drama will not be answered, at the end, they never were - so just watch til episode 13 and believe that the good guys won, and spare yourself the mental anguish of forever wondering how a drama so good, could completely come apart so badly ... and oh boy was it bad.

 

Enjoy - if you dare

[sweetroad]

Haha @LeftCoastOppa you have quite the way with words! That was VIVID.

 

On second thought, I will not watch this one.

[nohamahamoud2002]

I started seriously watching in 2018. 

The first ones were:

Are you human too

Sunny again tomorrow

 

Afterwards I focused on KBS1 dailies and sometimes the family weekly drama

 

The older ones include:

Winter sonata

Stairway to heaven

Marry me Mary

Heartstrings