clyde

K-Dramas & K-pop

Recommended Posts

We are currently on episode 4 of Uncontrollably Fond which stars Suzy from Miss A. I was pleased to see that they managed to sew two full episodes of flashbacks into contrived circumstances that make the first episode and premise more interesting.

Is anyone else watching any K-dramas?

And since K-pop fills pool of actors, any MVs will be considered relevant to this thread.

I'd also be interested in discussing how 16-episode korean rom-coms have a distinct sensibility from american television and how it may require one to adjust their tastes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I watched a couple years ago till I realised they repeat the same storyline/ characters with a different coat of paint.

 

I look up reviews  every now and then trying to find something that seem it might be worth watching but the only people who write about them like the fact they are drawing on the same narrow pool of story and characters played by pop singers which is the exact reason I don't watch them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I watched a couple years ago till I realised they repeat the same storyline/ characters with a different coat of paint.

 

I look up reviews  every now and then trying to find something that seem it might be worth watching but the only people who write about them like the fact they are drawing on the same narrow pool of story and characters played by pop singers which is the exact reason I don't watch them.

 

Thanks for responding. Your difficulties with the genre seem relevant to what I was trying to refer to about how they depend on a different sensibility than is typical in american dramas. The star-system does seem to be a huge draw for a lot of the fan-base (and I have come to enjoy it myself), but I find the consistent use of the same narrative with very similar characters to be part of the main appeal. When I watch k-dramas, I'm not really interested in what is going to happen in the story as much as I am interested in the shameless ways in which the production tries to make the characters endearing and then lines up the biggest trainwreck possible. For those of you who don't know, here is the basic formula of the shows I particularly enjoy:

Hard working girl dreams of the good life which contrasts with her embarrassing or dead parents. She's typically got a little brother that she is largely responsible for too. When she is delivering chicken-dinners as a part-time job, she has an embarrassing run-in with a beautiful, rich, and famous male model. At first she is apologetic (if her situation is not too incredibly desperate), but once the rich boy (also known as a chaebol) begins to arrogantly insult her intentions, social-status, and looks... she will stand up for herself and embarrass him. These dudes are often portrayed as spoiled, uninterested,  and inconsiderate of others; but our female-lead manages to pierce all that and he can't stop thinking about how much it stung.

For some absurdly contrived reasons, the two are forced to be around each other in as many awkward situations as possible. One will realize that they need something from the other; then they switch roles a few times; and they eventually reach a mutual understanding of each other having accepted the limits of their own independence. All of this is filled in with how glamorous his lifestyle is, how endearing she is, and as many absurdly awkward circumstances as you can pack into 16 episodes.

One of the things I really enjoy is seeing the level of gymnastics required by the writers to force the characters to need each other while increasing how much they are repulsed by each other. Another big appeal is the generic characters themselves and their adorable performances. Often the female-lead is immediately lovable in how diligent-but-clumsy and shameless-yet-prideful she is presented as. The male-lead is often selfish at first, but he is typically shown to be selfish as a defense against some past tragedy or a pressure he currently faces alone. Knowledge of the formula takes my attention away from thinking about what events might occur or how the story will resolve. This allows me to just hang out with the characters, and watch them react to each other.

I think one thing that people can often find off-putting is that everything is over-acted and contrived. I have a hard time explaining why I like this quality of being willed in art. I suspect that I like it for the same reason as an infant likes baby-talk; it's a pleasurable pandering in which both parties feel capable and appreciated but no one is fooled. I like that it is not a convincing illusion. I like that it looks like a performance.

 

So we just watched the fourth episode of Uncontrollably Fond and the writers went out of their way on this one by making both the lead-male and the failed love-interest

sons of the guy who covered for killer of the female-lead's father.

That's going to make both romances really awkward.

 

I haven't watched enough of the show to recommend it, but here is a link if anyone is interested.

 

This is the band that Suzy (the female-lead) is in. In case you didn't catch it, K-pop and K-dramas promote each other with the same stars regardless of acting ability.

 

They also had to make the male-lead sing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

K-pop used to be a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, haven't listed that much to it for a while. To be honest the behind the scenes business reality of it puts me off a little. Plus, Jessica left SNSD :P

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder if the behind the scenes standards will get more abusive or less abusive as it becomes more popular internationally.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

K-pop used to be a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, haven't listed that much to it for a while. To be honest the behind the scenes business reality of it puts me off a little. Plus, Jessica left SNSD :P

I had a similar experience.

The only artist who has stuck with me for a long time is IU. From my limited perspective, it seems like the music she does is quite different than the other things going on in K-pop and her voice is just amazing.

I actually just the other day went back and was listening to old SNSD tracks (think I fell off after 'The Boys') and I still found I liked quite a few of them. It seems like most groups have moved towards making party anthems rather than the stuff I liked though...but if I'm wrong about that I'm open to suggestions!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, IU has a good voice. I remember seeing this video of hers ages ago

I like how she's just mimicing the sounds, because she doesn't know enough English to sing the actual lyrics. Takes me back to being a kid and singing along to stuff on the radio :)

I wonder if the behind the scenes standards will get more abusive or less abusive as it becomes more popular internationally.

It doesn't seem like a problem unique to k-pop, but rather an issue with how they treat their kids over there and the expectations they place on them. They have the highest rate of suicide in the developed world.

Anyway, Korean is on my list of languages that I want to learn. If only it weren't so long :[

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, learning Korean is definitely on my "maybe someday" list. I learned Hangul one day a little while ago. It's one of the most easy-to-learn language systems in the world, according to basically everyone. So, I've got that and I heard the grammar is pretty similar to Japanese, which I've been learning for a few years. However, the pronunciation of Korean seems really difficult to me. 

 

Also! I don't know if this counts as K-pop, but there's a Korean indie rock band I really like called the Peppertones. They've got a real cool style. 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had a similar experience.

The only artist who has stuck with me for a long time is IU. From my limited perspective, it seems like the music she does is quite different than the other things going on in K-pop and her voice is just amazing.

 

 

IU is badass.

 

 

She was actually in Dream High with Suzy. I enjoyed very much after the first episode even though it's not really a romance. JYP plays a really fun character.

 

It doesn't seem like a problem unique to k-pop, but rather an issue with how they treat their kids over there and the expectations they place on them. They have the highest rate of suicide in the developed world.

 

 

I wonder if it is significantly different than how Disney controls their child-stars like Britney Spears.

 

I've been really into Primary lately

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Huh...I just watched that IU video "Friday" for the first time and I realized that the Peppertones make a cameo appearance as strange French dudes! Weird coincidence.

 

Also, K-pop MVs have become real weird, haven't they? I really like that Primary video. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So Clyde, what k-dramas would you recommend?

 

Master's Sun has the best chemistry between actors imo. It can be slow at times due to the structure of the episodes (it's kinda like a 16-episode Quantum-Leap show where they are solving a problem each episode, but the romance does progress in the background). This is the only one I've watched where I looked for fan-fic after it was over because I needed more.

 

I think Playful Kiss is the best because everything that happens in it is essential to the overall message, it's a joy to watch, and the story manages to actually communicate something that I feel is significant and applicable to real-life. Both of the main characters in the  show change each other in believable ways. Unfortunately, the lead male-actor is a scumbag in real life.

 

I really enjoyed Coffee Prince. The inner tension of the male-lead due to his homophobia is a really effective device (in this case) for showing how strong the attraction is, but I could see that being really offensive for some folks.

 

My Lovely Sam Soon is probably the most mature story among my favorites. The ending feels less idealistic than the fantasies I'm recommending. Kim Sun-a's performance really impressed me. I never came around to liking the male-lead's character, but I can believe that Sam Soon is smitten. There is a lot of fat-shaming in this one, sometimes it feels like an expression of the culture the characters are dealing with while other times it feels abusive (if I remember correctly).

 

Dream High was a lot of fun. Don't judge it from the first episode (first episodes are typically horrible anyway, but this case is extreme imo). This isn't a romance, but they try to shoehorn a few in. The appeal to this show was that it's glamorous to see the social and academic lives of high-school age idols (I don't think it is realistic, but I enjoy the fantasy). If you like things like Fame and Highschool Musical, then give this one a shot.

 

You're Beautiful also has a musical appeal, though it doesn't establish itself completely in that sense. This is one of the campiest of my favs. The premise will tell you whether or not you want to watch: a nun has to pretend to be a boy and live with a boy-band while her twin-brother gets eye-lid surgery in America.

 

I included a mixture of DramaFever and Viki links, if you prefer one to the other, you can probably find all the shows on either but they might have slightly different titles.

If you find any that you like the first 5-or-so episodes of (they often fall off the cliff quickly), please tell me that they exist.

THANKS FOR ASKING!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It seems like YG is starting a new cycle with the 2NE1 formula which works so well. Teddy seems to be feeling it.



...it's like a post-Red Velvet 2NE1. They even have a
with overly dramatic vocals for the harmonious parts used for breaks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I fell off of Uncontrollably Fond very suddenly around episode 5. Suzy's acting became a problem. When ever she acts affectionate, it comes off as sarcastic. This was fine until I realized that it wasn't supposed to be sarcastic. So when she confessed to one of the love-interests, it was like "I don't know if I want to watch any more." I think there were other reasons I couldn't enjoy it very easily, but it has been a while.

 

ANYWAY.

We started watching Doctor Crush. I'm only two episodes in, but I've been enjoying it a lot. I have a crush on Park Shin Hye, but I haven't enjoyed anything she has made in a long time, so this is especially fun for me. The first episode had too many action-sequences for my taste and Park Shin Hye's weird I'm a highschooler voice is awkward, but the character motivations/tensions and chemistry is fun. My favorite moment was when Park Shin Hye was all like "what about your family hyung-nim" to the male lead and he looked downward blankly and I turned to my wife and said "here comes the car-accident flashback".

Looks like grandma gonna die.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So Doctor Crush fell to the 5th-episode curse. We stopped watching it after it seemed like it was turning into a medical-drama rather than a romance in a hospital.

 

But IU is starring in a show now called Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. We are on the 6th episode and it is pretty fun. IU gets thrown around a lot which is kinda gross. I'm sure they are just trying to make the love-interest seem misogynistic so that she can change him, but I find that rhetoric off-putting and frankly dangerous. We are still enjoying it though. IU finds herself teleported to the bath-house of a bunch of princes in 10th century Goryeo (ikr). I typically don't enjoy political drama in romances, but it seems to work pretty well so far. It's is not incredibly complicated, just some intrigue for a naive lead to navigate clumsily.

Capture.JPG
 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

We made it all the way to the last episode of Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. It ultimately felt like a bait&switch that I got something out of. IU's character in the historic circumstances is the main draw at first, but once they lock in to the political drama (which is intriguing) IU's character just kinda fades away into depressing conformity. The thing I got out of it though was a better understanding of how hereditary monarchies have inherent tendencies towards fratricide.

 

Anyway, I'm hear because I want to post this music video:
 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't watch K-dramas myself because of... lots of reasons, but recently there does seem to be some pretty different (i.e. better) stuff getting made. A year or two ago my wife watched a drama called Misaeng which seemed to be about office relationships. It seemed very understated and had none of the overacting or absurd shenanigans of most K-dramas, at least in the parts that I saw.

 

There's an older drama that in English is called Rude Miss Young-ae which is about an overweight and assertive young woman as she and her family go through the usual struggles of life in Seoul. I first saw it in 2007 and apparently it is still running, so I have no idea if the show is still good or not (I assume it has long since jumped the shark). But while I didn't really watch it much, it was definitely a lot more subversive than any other drama I've seen, as it poked fun at the superficiality of modern Korean culture, among other things. Again, the storylines and the acting were much more subdued than most K-dramas.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the suggestions. I attribute a lot of my enjoyment to the over-acting and the reliance on tropes, but I'm willing to try out the first episode of the drama that isn't many years in length.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm... well, if those are the things you enjoy about K-dramas, you might not enjoy my suggestions at all. I love Korean movies, and K-pop is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but I pretty much hate anything and everything that appears on Korean television. There is one drama I've heard of called... Love and War? I don't know the English title. But apparently it's legendary for how terrible it is. I've always been curious to see that one...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, after poking around a bit I think it might not be a drama in the traditional sense, but something like a series of dramatisations based on 'real' stories (and the drama that you linked to is something else). That's not quite what I was hoping for.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There was a K-pop video I saw once in Korea and could never find again. The story line was all about a guy who took really good care of his girlfriend, helped here do everything including her makeup and really loved her. Halfway through the song it was revealed that she was a corpse and it replayed most of the previous scenes with her as a dead body. It was so much weirder and darker than any other K-pop I had ever seen.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now