Review: Navillera

THE SHORT VERDICT:

Navillera works out to be so many things; it’s so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a story of personal journey; of unlikely friendship; of family; of healing; of growth; of daring to dream your dreams, and it’s altogether uplifting and wholesome.

Our entire cast is excellent but the dual stand-outs for me, are Park In Hwan and Song Kang, who, individually and together, steal this show – and my heart – in deep and profound ways.

On top of this, Show is confidently written, and wonderfully executed, plus, a wonderfully immersive OST works to lift the watch experience to a whole other level.

Affecting, inspiring and completely moving. A must-see.

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Dear kfangurl: Who are your favorite supporting actors – and will they ever get to play lead??

Beez writes:

Dear Kfangurl, Are supporting actors too funny to ever cast as leads?

I keep waiting for my favorites – Park Jin Joo, Kim Seul Gi and my all time favorite, Kim Sung Oh to be part of an OTP or at least a single lead in their own dramas. I’ve seen all of them give snippets of really moving scenes so their acting talent is not in question. What gives?

And phl1rxd writes:

I would love to see an article on your favorite supporting actors|actresses.

There are so many that pop up in our drama world all the time, and while they are not the leads, their work is great none-the-less.

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Flash Review: I Can Speak [Movie]

Unexpectedly, the chronicles of my adventures in in-flight entertainment continue, heh.

Today I watched K-movie I Can Speak on a whim, mostly because it stars Na Moon Hee, and I’ve learned from my time in dramaland, that Na Moon Hee is awesome.

Her co-star in this is Lee Je Hoon, whom I didn’t have strong feelings about after feeling rather meh about what I did see of him in 2017’s Tomorrow With You, but the idea of Na Moon Hee learning English from a rather unwilling Lee Je Hoon tickled me, and I thought I’d give it a whirl.

Plus, in my mind, Na Moon Hee’s awesome totally outweighed any ambivalence I had towards Lee Je Hoon.

Well, whaddya know. Two hours later, my heart is moved and my eyes are involuntarily leaking tears – good ones! – and I just had to start writing this review, right here on the plane.

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Flash Review: Just Between Lovers

Before I started this show, I had the impression that viewers basically fell into one of two camps with this one: they either really really love it, or really hate it.

Well, guess what, you guys.. I fall kinda in-between. What can I say, maybe I’m a little bit special? Or maybe I’m weird; take your pick, heh.

Essentially, watching this one felt to me like I was eating my spinach – at a time when I was learning to like it, but wasn’t quite there yet. Like, I’d have to tell myself to eat it, coz it had good vitamins and minerals.

Kinda the same thing with this show. I often had to decide to start on an episode, because I found that this show often wasn’t easy to watch. But I also knew this one had good things going for it, and that’s why I kept going.

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Flash Review: Miss Granny [Movie]

If you’ve known me for a while, you’d probably know that I generally don’t watch all that many k-movies.

I tend to prefer the dramas over the movies, probably coz so many of the k-movies that I’ve watched seem to either go super gritty & violent, derail, or take weird narrative turns towards the end (Raise your hand if you’ve never had a seemingly harmless k-movie suddenly go all dark, sad and deathy on you!).

Or sometimes, the writers don’t make the best use of their 90 or 120 minutes of available screentime, and the movie ends up feeling more like a highlight reel than a real story. And, well, it’s hard to feel invested in a highlight reel rather than a real story, y’know?

Which is why it makes me so happy to say, Miss Granny is NOT any of those.

I watched this movie on a flight and I loved it. Like, unreservedly, wholeheartedly Loved. It.

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

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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