Review – Painter of the Wind

This is less of a review and more of me expressing my frustration over this drama.  The costuming, the cinematography, the sets, the actors – all fantastic.  The music was wonderful.  It offered a nice twist on the cross-dressing girl trope.  You had a lady  disguised as a dude so she could perfect her artistic skills and study the craft under the masters.  There’s some royal conspiracies and a lot of fuss about a portrait of the prince, all of which was rather underwhelming and generic “historical political” hoopla.

My problem is this:  Our female lead didn’t come across as a girl pretending to be a guy, in the style of this tried and true K-Drama trope.  She came off as a cute, artistic lesbian.  Thus my exasperation with this show.  Painter of the Wind should have embraced its obvious natural direction and  gone gay.  The entire show felt like an indie coming-of-age lesbian drama, but failed to fully embrace its already deliciously implied girl-girl romance and instead meandered around with an old man artist and attempted to go straight.  Don’t they remember the lesson from art class… that if the straight line is long enough eventually it will curve?  Come on!

 

Overall Rating – 2/10 For Not Coming Out of the Closet.

or…

Overall Rating – 8/10 If You Ignore The Lesbians And Watch It Straight.  This is probably the more fair rating – cause it really is a lovely drama and the subject of old school painters is very interesting and beautiful to explore.  But… I just can’t.  Cause this is my blog and my review and fair is for love and war.  And this is war!

More bitching and moaning and some sexy photo stills and SPOILERS follow.

 

So, what could have been a very successful, beautiful drama about a young artist and her muse turned out to be a heaping pile of blah with a side dish of why.  There was probably a plot to this drama, I don’t remember.  Something about her family being ruined and her brother dying from huffing paint and the king being extra picky about his portrait.  Whatever.  I couldn’t focus on any of that mess.  I was too busy throwing popcorn at my TV and screaming “Oh, Come ON!”  every other episode.  You know, the episodes where the little arty girl isn’t hanging onto the skirts of her favorite concubine or ogling naked women bathing or jumping onto a swing with other ladies so they can fly through the sky together… the boring episodes inbetween all this delightful and unexpected lesbo action.

Cause this wasn’t a gay show, people.  Clear your dirty minds of that notion immediately.  They were just friends.  Very, very close friends… who take each others clothes off and cry on each other and write songs about the stirrings in their hearts.

Let us now examine the hetro-evidence.

Nope.  Nothing gay about this scene, folks.

 

Nothing to see here…

(chokes on popcorn)

Obviously this is all in our imaginations, perverted viewers that we are.

Why would we mistake this cute little lezzie for anything other than a dick-loving gal in drag?

 

I mean, it’s clear she’s super into this older artist guy… the chemistry is spot on!

Eeeeewwwww…..

Surely she’s thinking of that hot sexy man flesh as inspiration for her art, right?  Oh, wait a minute…

Yup.

Gay as an Easter basket!

But nooooooo.  Instead the drama firmly denies. It says “Take your West Hollywood and your rainbow flags and get your dirty minds out of our chaste k-dramas!”

Ooo, gets my blood boiling just thinking about this Titanic-sized disaster of a drama and all of its missed opportunities (piled on top of its blatant overtones and highly-suggestive frolicking and modeling).  I finished the last disc and found myself thinking – this is officially the first drama I have ever hated.  I don’t care how good it was in every other aspect – if you ruin my romance then you’ve ruined our time together.  It’s like an ice skater who does a flawless routine and falls flat on their ass after the last triple axel jump.  You just went from a gold medal to a country-sized slice of pity.  A mistake that big knocks you out of the game.

And while I’m bitching, does any one else hate the guy who plays the King?

I’ve seen him in two dramas now – and in both he looked constipated and concerned that someone might know just how constipated he is.  King indeed.  I know what throne this dude really wants to sit on.  Maybe I need to see him out of costume, but in this and Dong Yi he just irked me.

So, suck it Painter in the Wind.  I was an art major, damn it, and you ruined what could have been a beautiful relationship between us.  And for the record, gentle molestation is not required for nude figure painting.