Kim Soo Hyun

Review: You From Another Star [My Love From Another Star]

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THE SHORT VERDICT:

A drama that’s got a light, frothy and often comedic outer shell, but harbors an inner core that’s poignant, stirring and heart-in-your-throat moving.

To be sure, if one put on a hard logical lens, this show’s flaws may be too glaring for one to overlook.

But for those who can turn that logical lens to a blurry soft-focus, and amp up the emotional lens to a setting high enough to engage with the characters on a more visceral level, that touching inner core is the satisfying, gratifying reward.

Separately, Jeon Ji Hyun and Kim Soo Hyun are both truly excellent in their roles. Even better? Together, they are pure magic.

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Liebster Shower [Round 2!]

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So a funny thing happened. Liebster season snuck up on me when I wasn’t even looking.

When the first signs popped up, hinting that Liebster season was upon us again, I hardly took notice. I was all like, Well, I had a good go at that last year, and it was a heap of fun.

Surely after 9 whole Liebsters, though, no one’s going to want to ask me more questions about myself. Right?

Wrong.

When I wasn’t looking, those Liebsters seemed to multiply in a little room all by their sneaky little selves. Almost like they had a will all their own. And now, I have a serious heap of questions to answer *starts sweating bullets*

I plead hectic Real Life schedules as the reason that I delegated the job of answering the Liebster questions to Future Me (hey, after watching so many time-travel dramas, you gotta learn something, right?)

So here I am, Future Me (er, now Present Me?) to the rescue! Let’s see if you guys can stick with me all the way to the very end, eh? I promise to make this as pain-free as possible 😉

And, thanks to all you sweethearts who nominated me – I feel like I’ve been rained on by showers of lurve ❤

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Review: King of Dramas [The Lord of the Drama]

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THE SHORT VERDICT:

A tongue-in-cheek, satirical unveiling of what really happens behind the scenes of our beloved kdramas.

Populated by a large ensemble cast of likable characters, King of Dramas paints a dramatic yet believable picture that is in line with all the BTS drama news that we get off the grapevine.

PPL wars? Check. Scripts delivered to the set in a piecemeal fashion? Check. Madly rushing the final tape to the editing room minutes before the episode is due to broadcast? Check. Such a fascinating peek into the world that doles out to us the dramas on which we subsist.

The show starts out meaty and strong, and even manages to be insanely hysterical at points, buoyed by strong performances and often-cheeky writing. A huge pity, that the ending was more whimper than bang.

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A Liebster Award. Kinda. [Liebster the Ninth!]

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So this morning I woke up to a comment on the blog, from fellow blogger Indigo that read, “Hi! I nominated you for Liebster Award” and I hafta confess, my first thought was, “Uh. This is spam, right?”

Coz up till today, I’d never even heard of the Liebster Award, but had made acquaintance with enough spam to make me immediately suspicious.

I mean, sure, I follow Indigo’s (very nice) blog Between Wor(L)ds & she’s definitely legit. But I thought spiders had impersonated her by hijacking her identity or something, and posted something spammy on my blog. For serious, yo.

I’m usually a pretty trusting person. Unless it has to do with suspicious spammy spiders on the world wide web. (Ooh, did’ja see what I did there? That’s technically triple – ok, fine, double – alliteration, twice in a row!)

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What Makes Drama Crack Stay Fresh / Turn Stale?

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DC1So today Stephanie posted on her blog Crazy for Kdrama a post titled Second-hand Crack. In it, she describes her experience re-watching Smile Dong Hae, and finding that it just wasn’t as cracktastic the second time around.

That really resonated with me, coz as some of you may know, I’ve been marathoning Beautiful Days for review, and that review’s been taking a while to actually get written.

The reason is pretty much the same as Stephanie’s experience with Smile Dong Hae. I’d loved Beautiful Days on my first watch, and had devoured it pretty quickly.

Fast forward several years, and now that I’m watching it for the second time, I still find it pretty engaging, but it’s just not as cracktastic as I had first found it.

Which begs the question: What exactly makes drama crack stay fresh / turn stale?

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Kfangirl’s 2012 Drama Awards + Origin Story of This Blog

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Kfangirl 2012 Drama Awards I

Celebrate with me! This is a double first for me: my first Year-In-Review, AND, my first guest post too! 😀

This guest post is especially close to my heart because how it came about is actually the origin story of this blog.

THE ORIGIN STORY

Up to about 2 months ago, I had been a persistent lurker in the kdrama-verse.

For most of my six kdrama-watching years, I visited lots of blogs regularly and kept up with the k-entertainment news and lapped up other people’s views and reviews, but I almost never commented on anything.

Once in a long while, I would leave a comment somewhere, but mostly only if I had something that I was just burning to say.

I’m an introvert at heart, though most people who know me in real life wouldn’t guess it, and this was my inner introvert acting out.

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Review: Dream High 2

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DH2.1

THE SHORT VERDICT:

This was bad. As much as Dream High was DA BOMB, this was simply, A BOMB.

Dream High 2 was comprised of a lackluster script, poorly drawn characters, a cast who could manage only very, very average acting, and random musical numbers which went on.. & on.. & on..

The only bright(ish) spot was Jung Jin Woon, who ironically delivered a better performance than the only actor-actor of the bunch, Kang So Ra.

A very strong contender for worst drama I have ever seen. And I have seen a LOT of dramas.

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Review: The Moon that Embraces the Sun

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THE SHORT VERDICT:

Moon/Sun is basically a romance dressed as a simplified saguek with supernatural elements, so it’s fairly light on the political intrigue.

Kim Soo Hyun is absolutely fantastic in this, and everyone else is pretty excellent too, except for Han Ga In, who seems miscast. Kim Soo Hyun more than makes up for it, though.

Cliffhangers are mostly of the romantic kind instead of the political kind, and there’s some pretty strong sexual tension that goes on for a good stretch of the drama.

I lapped up back-to-back episodes of this. Even my mother zoomed her way through the first 8 episodes in just 2 days

The ending could have been handled better, but overall, I really enjoyed this one 🙂

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Review: The King 2 Hearts

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THE SHORT VERDICT:

I really, really liked this.

Don’t be put off by the political nature of the premise. I’m not into political stories myself, but I found this easy to like.

It’s got a robust story, lots of great acting, a fast pace, a compelling conflict, strong character growth, chemistry between the leads and a strong romance.

This lent itself to back-to-back episodes, and I finished it very quickly. And I plan to revisit it for more.

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