Review: King The Land

THE SHORT VERDICT:

On the upside, Show is very pretty to look at, has a great-looking OTP that shares excellent chemistry, and it isn’t shy about serving up lots of OTP squee moments.

On top of that, Show’s got a very enjoyable OST scoring it all, so that it all feels like a worry-free, very pretty escape from Real Life.

On the downside, Show is so low-angst that the narrative tension it serves up is very low-stakes and therefore not very gripping. While this is in keeping with Show wanting to be a happy place, unfortunately, this also means that for some viewers, this could become pretty boring, pretty fast. 😅

Ultimately, your mileage will vary, depending on just how much of an appetite you have, for light, cotton-candy, pretty fluff.

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Review: Confession

THE SHORT VERDICT:

Confession might look like a standard crime thriller sort of show, but as it turns out, it’s more heartfelt and more melodramatic, than one might first expect.

With your expectations tweaked (very important, and more on that in a bit), Show works out to be a solid watch that’s both interesting and absorbing.

Junho and Yoo Jae Myung anchor this story, and they are excellent, both individually and together. Their enemies-to-partners journey was one of my favorite arcs in this show; I just loved the idea of them putting their talents together, and working towards a shared goal. 🤩

Plus, the music in this show is a force to be reckoned with; I loved the atmospheric, dramatic nature of it all, and how precisely it’s all applied.

An underrated drama that deserves more love than it gets.

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Dear kfangurl: Can you talk about celebrity dating culture in Korea? [Interview with VOGUE India!]

This is another slightly different Dear kfangurl post, you guys.

After my last interview with VOGUE India about the male gaze vs. female gaze in kdramas (more details here!), Hasina Khatib (@thejoblessjourno on Instagram), who writes for VOGUE India, reached out to me again.

This time, she asked if I’d be willing to talk about celebrity dating culture, for an article that she was writing, which features Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin‘s wedding.

I said yes, and you can check out the article, where she quotes me selectively, here!

At the same time, similar to the last interview, there was a lot that I said, that didn’t make it into the final article, so with Hasina’s permission, I’m sharing the actual interview questions and answers here with you guys.

The only difference is that I’ve added images to make this more reader-friendly. I hope you all enjoy! ❤️

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Thoughts On: Junho The Moment [Fan Meeting]

They say that love is all about timing, and I’m so stoked that, just a couple of weeks after falling pretty dang hard for Junho (my Junho k-love post is here!), he has a fan meeting that includes an online option. Meaning, I COULD ATTEND, without having to fly to Korea! 😱 Eeee!!! 🤩😍🤩

What are the chances of that, yes?

So here I am, fresh off the fan meeting, and I have thoughts – and screenshots! – to share. ❤️

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Officially Smitten With: Lee Junho

Listen. I know that you guys have been urging me – for literal years now! – to revive my fangirling posts, whether by way of a k-love post or a Pure Pretty post. And for years, I’ve just been saying vaguely that I’d think about it.

The truth is, I just wasn’t feeling inspired to do any fangirling posts. You just can’t do one of these things properly, if you’re not feeling properly inspired, y’know?

Honestly, I’d kind of thought that perhaps I’d outgrown my fangirling phase. After all, I’d been concentrating on putting out all this other more “serious” content, like reviewing shows, and answering Dear kfangurl questions, sometimes on controversial topics, even. I thought, maybe I had just become.. immune to intense fangirling..? HA.

I WAS SO WRONG, y’all. Several weeks ago, out of the blue, almost, I found myself joining the rest of the world in falling for Lee Junho’s charms. I feel like I blinked, and suddenly here I am, knee-deep in spazz.

It’s official, y’all. I am utterly and completely smitten with this man. 😍

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Guest Review: Greasy Melo [An Alternative Lens]

You guys might remember that I ended up dropping Greasy Melo (despite my love for Jang Hyuk), back when it first aired (Dropped post is here). Show’s brand of whimsy just wasn’t working for me, and I found myself feeling more bemused than anything, the more I watched.

HOWEVER. I’ve learned that friend of the blog Dame Holly (also known around the interwebs as Lee Tennant) is much more attuned to – and gifted at understanding – the use of metaphors, symbolism and visual storytelling than I am, and she definitely has more appreciation for Greasy Melo than I could ever muster.

So I asked her to share her insights on Greasy Melo with us, in the hope that we I could absorb some of her conceptual prowess. I hope you guys enjoy!

You can also find her at her blog Invisible Pink Dragon, or at her Dramabeans fanwall.

PS: I loved her write-up on A Piece Of Your Mind, which you can check out here.

~kfangurl

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