Sageuk

Review – Queen In Hyun’s Man

/ Lady Divine / 3 Comments

Review – Queen In Hyun’s Man

Though the first two episodes of this drama are notoriously slow, this is one of the most interesting (and romantic) time traveling between Joseon Era & Modern Times shows out there.  Why?  Because the two main leads are so interesting (and romantic).  They feel fresh… even though it’s not a new show (it came out in 2012).  Ji Hyun-Woo plays the thoughtful scholar who snickers at jokes, explores the new world with a reserved wonder, quietly observes situations before taking action, and is totally hard for his modern companion and doesn’t hide it.

Ji Hyun-Woo and Yoo In-Na are crackling with chemistry.

Yoo In-Na plays our leading lady, an adorable ditzy actress who’s won over by her time traveler almost instantly… oh the way he talks, she mutters.  Their banter is so refreshingly real.  It feels like an actual couple, not some k-drama construct.  She’s lying through her teeth, flirting, trying to show off, and he’s teasing her, testing her.  They make this show.  There’s really no other reason to watch it.  The plot is decent, but it’s watching this 300 year time gap couple cuddle in the library that makes this show stand out.  It literally made me feel like a giddy school girl every time these two were together, starting about episode three and kicking into full gear by episode four.

You will be helplessly charmed.  It’s not cheesy or gimicky or cutesy.  These are two grown people falling in love, just… head over heels in love.  And it’s magnetic.  Check it out if you’re in the mood for lots of PDA and heart melting romance.

Overall Rating – 9/10.  Dear God, Let Me Be Reincarnated As Yoo In-A In My Next Life.

Review – Legend of the Blue Sea

/ Lady Divine / 2 Comments

Review – Legend of the Blue Sea

A profoundly unspecial fantasy romance.  Oh, how I wanted to love this show!  But every little thing about it was so enormously contrived and flat.  The “romance” was just a nonstop series of cliches and ridiculousness.  Just like in the show Tomorrow With You, the writers and director seemed to think that putting two attractive people opposite each other is all it takes for everyone around the world to collectively sigh.  Well, this gal groaned.  Loudly.  And because I wanted to like it, it just made it worse.  It was like forcing yourself to enjoy a treat way past its expiration date… it was just dry and a bitter reminder of all the other dramas that have done this better in the past.  You know, the fresh ones.

Plotline, basic version:  A mermaid comes to land following her one true love… but if she doesn’t win his affection in return, she will die.

Overall Rating – 5/10.  A Can Of Anchovies When You Ordered Fresh Salmon.

More Grumbling and Ranting and Spoilers follow….

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Review – Love in the Moonlight / Moonlight Drawn by Clouds

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Review – Love in the Moonlight

So, I finished Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, or Love in the Moonlight, not too long ago and have been wondering what, exactly, I had to say about it.  It was nothing special, to be perfectly honest.  This drama offered no new ground to the pantheon of K-Dramas, yet it still managed to be enjoyable, settling into well worn territory… like coming home and putting on your favorite t-shirt even though it’s faded and has holes in it and probably smells a little suspicious if you get too close.  Love in the Moonlight is your usual tropes thrown together in a historical romance with a light melodrama.  It’s the safe bet.  The meal you’ve ordered before and know you like.

I liked the first half best, that was more focused on the romance, than the second half, that was more focused on the politics.  The young actors were beautiful and charming, the seasoned actors were outstanding as always.  Costumes, sets, writing, all well done.  They added a lot of modern humor in, which made it fun and playful.  The lead female looked like an alien, albeit a pretty alien.  I’m not kidding.  She was straight from a Steven Spielberg movie – and yet it was cool, like her Western alien friend Amanda Seyfried.  The black-clad guard was clearly the poster child for perfected jaw sculpting… just startlingly handsome.  That wig was working for him, too.  Usually the wig doesn’t help improve the looks of our male historical characters, but Kwak Dong-Yeon lucked out.  He has NEVER looked better, and probably never will.  The rival to the Crown Prince was also handsome and generic and overall the entire production was very easy on the eyes.

But it was the Crown Prince that owned the show.  To be honest, I don’t know if I would have stuck around for the entire drama if it weren’t for Park Bo-Gum.   Is it the capped teeth that make his smirk so cute or what?  Park Bo-Gum took a rather tired plotline of a clueless dude falling in love with a girl in drag and made it adorable all over again – by being impossibly adorable.  Geesh, he was a cutie.

Overall Rating – 8/10 – Like A Fluffy Bunny, Pretty Worthless But Oh So Cute!

Review – Faith

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Review – Faith

There are few historical dramas with an interesting female lead… whose interest goes beyond “I want to rule” or something generic like that.  But the lead female in Faith is by far the most interesting character in the show – and she’s interesting for lots of reasons.  The girl wants TONS of things – cause the world is full of possibilities and she’s crafty and resourceful and full of life and energy.  And she’s not the only one!  No, no, no, my fine friends, there are a multitude of interesting ladies in this show.  In fact, the ladies are JUST AS INTERESTING AS THE MEN!  Gasp!  Equal representation in a historical drama?  Be still my feminist heart.  This show has ladies with humor, personality, individuality, sexuality, and self interest.  Heck, there are even female guards in this show.  It’s awesome.

Faith is a show that knows its strengths and weaknesses and plays both correctly.   It doesn’t have great action, but it will distract you with a handsome lead.  Heck, they even let him get away with abandoning the top knot in favor of a fan favorite bangs.  There isn’t too much political tension, but there’s fun characters.  Loads of them.  Faith is a fish out of water via time travel story… as well as your basic “kings trying to keep their thrones while their court plots against them” story.  There are fantasy elements, people with special powers, magical portals to different times… but that’s about the extent of it.  It’s a bit long, a bit cheesy, a bit under dramatic for something that should be more dramatic, and definitely light on the action (for my taste – I prefer much more sword play!).  The romance is PG at best.  Yet it was still extremely enjoyable just for having so many refreshing elements and unique characters!  If only we could have such well written characters in other historical shows, eh?  To dream!

Overall Rating 7.5/10.  Lee Min Ho Looks Cool With A Sword Even If He Doesn’t Know How To Use It.

More Review and Spoilers and Discussion Follow…

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Review – The Moon Embracing the Sun

/ Lady Divine / 1 Comment

Review – The Moon Embracing the Sun

LAWD!  Save us all from historical dramas!  Why are they always so good?

I’ve heard about The Moon Embracing the Sun for many years but for some reason never watched it.  Scratch that – I did try, originally, but got bored around the third episode and turned it off (a mistake I almost made again the second round).  This time I firmly planted myself in front of the show and stuck with it – until the young cast went through their youthful turmoil and misfortunes and reached adulthood… only to be met with more turmoil and misfortunes.  In between all this they also found moments of happiness and true love.  It was wonderful.  I mean, it wasn’t The Princess’ Man, but it was still worth watching.

Plot in a nutshell – two young royals fall in love with the same young lady, but she only likes one of them, the one destined for the throne.  A series of unfortunate events occur and the young woman is presumed dead, the young royals both left heartbroken.  Young lady grows up with total memory loss, raised as a shaman.  Young royals grow up as well.  They all meet again.  The young lady doesn’t recognize her male admirers, but they are drawn to her like bears to honey.  The entire process of their youth repeats – with both men falling in love with her again… who will she fall in love with round two?  Will she remember her past?  What happened to her all those years ago?  Mystery and intrigue and romance abound in this historical drama.

Overall Rating – 8/10.  An Satisfying Appetizer to Prepare You For Better Historical Drama Meals.

Discussion and spoilers follow…

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Review – Empress Ki (Sageuks, Not Sanity!)

/ Lady Divine / 26 Comments

Review – Empress Ki (Sageuks, Not Sanity!)

I feel like the most important thing everyone should know before committing 51 hours of your life to a historical drama is this… you will never get so torn up over whether or not two people will be in the same room together as you will in these slow burn historical romances.  Just intensely looking at each other in silence turns into the most erotic of experiences.  Holding hands? Gasp!  Someone bring the fire extinguisher because you’re gonna be BURNING UP!

I know it sounds ridiculous.  It really defies reason, in this day and age, that we can revert back to grade school romance so quickly, no matter how old we are… but such is the power of the historical drama.  Such is the power of Empress Ki.  There is literally a scene where two grown men are fighting over who is going to covertly hold a woman’s hand in a dark room and the stakes have never been higher!  Who will win?  Which hand will she hold?!  I imagine a bookie is literally taking bets from an excited audience at this point (“$15 on the Emperor!” – “Put me down for $100 on Wang Yu!”) – cause it’s like… what… episode 17 and it’s hard to explain but by then you’re just INTO IT and you’re ready to scream “Chuna!” and “Kill Me!” and the spell has been cast.  You are committed to these characters and their stories and this love triangle is EVERYTHING – it’s not just about two men and a woman, it’s about two countries fighting for power and you know this woman is going to be key… but it’s also about love and you kinda want her to lean left, no right, no left, no right!  Curses!  They’re both so awesome!   And deep down you know you’ll probably sit through 51 hours of this show and never even get any tongue, cause if Queen Seondeok taught us anything, it’s that you’re going to have to take those chapters to the fan fiction forums.  Does that stop you from chewing your nails off as the intensity between these people increases?  Hell no!  Cause… we’ve got mega intense hand holding happening here!  And who knows what might be next… there could be a dramatic rescue scene or some heartbreaking sacrifice or… a hug… oh my god, they might hug!  THERE COULD BE HUGGING!!!  And that might as well be uncensored porn, because that’s how rewired your brain has become watching these shows.  I say this without irony.  This really happens.

And while watching something this long… you may be tempted to start skimming.  DO NOT DO THIS.  You can skim all you want the second time you watch it, but the first time it is vital that you watch it – every scene – just as it is.  The pacing is important.  The details are important.  The people are important.  And yeah… it’s freakin’ crazy long.  So take a break if you need to – watch another drama and come back to it.  You do not have to binge Empress Ki.  I watched about 32 episodes of this before I had to stop – and then I didn’t return for a while. When I did return, the last chunk of eps flew by with babies, deaths, madness and intrigue.  I’m glad I took a break, though – cause even with the break, that’s still a heck of a lot of time to spend with one show.  After a while, you kinda start to get wonky.  But hey… I don’t need sanity, I need Sageuks!

Empress Ki is bound to live on for some time as one of the great historical dramas… and it is well deserved.  The character development alone is worth the price of admission.  The amazing acting, the incredible sets, the drool inducing costumes… it was a work of art.

Empress Ki is divided into two sections – PRE CONCUBINE Eps 1-24 and POST CONCUBINE eps 25-51.  Both sections are cool.  There are also “two houses” in this play… and two men, both the heads of each, vying for the same women.

I felt like my grandmother was in the room lecturing on me on the importance of finding a man who “needs me” over a man who “wants me.”  According to grandmother, a woman who is needed is never taken for granted and will always live a happier life.  I’m not sure if that’s true – but this show was definitely the perfect example of a man who Needs You and a man who Wants You.  The Emperor needed her.  And the King wanted her.  Let’s face it, though… it feels nice to have either type of love… and to have both, well… that’s kinda the plot.

Overall Rating – 9/10.  To Be Needed Is To Be Loved.

More musings… and SPOILERS

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Review – Hwarang

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Review – Hwarang

So, I knew going into this it was going to be cute guys and silliness and romance and hopefully a pretty decent plot.  I expected to be won over with non-stop light amusement, an occasional tear, some excellent bromance, and cool costumes.  I was not disappointed.

The writers of this show, thankfully, paid attention to the success & failures of other ensemble shows featuring a heavy cast of men and managed to not make the same mistakes.  Instead, they repeated the tropes we love (estranged brothers coming together, best friends with loyalties tested, sons having to stand up to the tyrannies of their fathers, the injustices of the caste system, and so on) and made them shine.  We got our favorite stereotypes (the flirty guy, the stern guy, the sincere guy, the girlish guy) and of course our main love triangle where the two dudes invariably end up besties.  Honestly, there isn’t much to review.  It was a good with just the right amount of drama to keep you interested but not enough to make you lose sleep.  20 hours flew by.  It had synchronized dancing and “nightclubs” and political scheming and secret identities.  The female characters were enjoyable and interesting, even the bitchy ones, and I actually can’t find anything major to complain about.

Everyone pretty much loved this show and I pretty much loved this show too.  If you haven’t seen it yet – go ahead and pop it in your que.  It’s not my favorite historical drama, but it’s definitely up there in the top ten.

Though all the men in this show were charming and you’ll end up adoring them all, I looooooved Go Ara.  She was the best thing about You Are All Surrounded and she saved this show as well, if you ask me.  The two male leads were excellent (and handsome), but it was her hysterical facial expressions, her playfulness, and her natural stage presence and comedy that brought the love triangle together and kept my interest.

Overall Rating – 8/10.  Lots & Lots Of Handsome Young Men… In A Good Historical Drama (need we say more?).

Review – Painter of the Wind

/ Lady Divine / 9 Comments

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.

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Review – Warrior Baek Dong Soo (I can’t quit you!)

/ Lady Divine / 7 Comments

Review – Warrior Baek Dong Soo

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The Plot, Short Version:  Two young warriors choose two different paths and swords clash.

Though I still don’t think this is a perfect drama and stick firmly to my 8/10 rating, I must confess… the rewatch factor on this show is HIGH.  I have rewatched this show several times.  Maybe not all the way through, true, but I’ve cherry picked my favorite episodes and scenes and tend to crave them like a pregnant woman craving pickles.  Nothing else will do.

Let’s Dig In.  (minor spoilers follow)

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Review – Scholar Who Walks The Night

/ Lady Divine / 6 Comments

Review – Scholar Who Walks the Night

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Supernatural historical dramas are some of my favorites.  Even though I have yet to see one with a really solid plot, I always enjoy them.  You would think that a drama about trying to overthrow an ancient vampire who lives in an underground lair beneath the royal palace and secretly controls the Joseon monarch would be fantastic.  Eh.

Okay, maybe the plot was a little boring sometimes.  I mean, how many secret diaries does it take to kill a vampire, am I right?  But did that spoil my enjoyment of this show?  Nope.  Still loved it.  Why?  Cause vampires, that’s why!  Who doesn’t love a good vampire story?  Throw in a pretty girl disguised as a boy (love that trope!) and some romance and I’m hooked.  Add an incredibly sexy evil vampire as the bad guy… and I’ll pop my popcorn and settle in for a long binge watch.

Overall Rating – 8/10.  Dark Shadows of the Joseon Era.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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