Shut Up Flower Boy Band

Stories from the community: Uyen’s story!

| kfangurl

If you didn’t already know, we’ve got a special series to kick off the new year! Guests posts, by patrons on Patreon, sharing their personal drama stories, mostly around the topic of “How did you get into dramas?” and “What does your first drama mean to you?” – with flexibility to go off on personal tangents, of course. 😁 Feel free to share your stories too, in the comments!

This guest series is MC‘s brainchild (thanks MC! ❤️). You can check out the earlier posts in this series as follows: MC, Sean, Shahz, JJ, Martina & Beth. After today’s post, there will be three more guest posts by mystery guest writers, whose identities will be revealed when their various posts go live. Woot! 🥳

Today’s post is brought to you by Uyen, whom you may seen around the blog for some time now. I’ve realized that Uyen has lots of drama thoughts, and I’m so pleased that she’s taken the time to share some of those thoughts with us today!

Uyen also writes about dramas on her own blog, which you might like to visit here!

I hope you guys enjoy!

~ KFG ❤️

Continue reading →

Dropped: Angel’s Last Mission: Love

| kfangurl

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one of those shows that either really works for you, or really doesn’t. Some of my drama friends seem to really like this one, which is kinda why I thought I might, too.

For the record, I kinda-sorta liked this one okay after the first episode, but afterwards, there just wasn’t any spark for me with this show (kinda like how a second lead in a drama somehow never seems to manage to spark with a lead character, ha).

And since dramas have consistently taught us not to try to force love, after 16 episodes of trying – and failing – to get sucked into this one, I’m calling it quits, you guys.

On the upside, at least I’m taking my drama lessons to heart? 😉

Continue reading →

kfangurl’s 2012 Drama Awards [Repost]

| kfangurl

So this might be the mother of all throwback posts on this blog. (Wait, this might be the only throwback post on the blog, actually!)

Basically, this post had first appeared on Stephanie’s blog Crazy for Kdrama, when she’d invited me to guest on her 2012-in-review series.

I’d been super excited, and Stephanie’s invitation basically was the catalyst that inspired me to even start this blog (you can find the blog’s origin story here).

Long story short, Crazy for Kdrama suffered from a takedown a while ago, thanks to DMCA bots, which sucked. 🙁 But, Steph’s since dusted herself off and has started over at Kchat Jjigae.

This post, though, was lost with the original blog. That’s been niggling me for a while, since this post has a special place in this blog’s history.

That, and the more OCD parts of my brain felt uncomfortable that the link to my 2012 year-in-review on the Full List page basically led to nowhere.

Happily, those same OCD parts of my brain had thought to save my original draft somewhere, so it wasn’t all that hard to reproduce the post here.

So now, for old times’ sake, and for the sake of having my 2012-in-review post available somewhere, I present to you one of the earliest blog posts I ever wrote, in its pure, original state.

I’ve simply added links to reviews where available. Hope you guys enjoy the walk down memory lane with me! 🙂

Continue reading →

Dear kfangurl: What is it about bromances that make a kdrama great?

| kfangurl

Today’s question is brought to us by Bakazen, who asks:

Dear kfangurl,

What is it about bromances that make a kdrama great? I just recently finished watching Doctor Stranger and realized 2 things: LJS is a good actor and I really didn’t like this drama. So why did I finish it? Because I was hooked by the bromance tease between LJS and PHJ.

My personal theory is they work well as substitutes for the sometimes overwhelming lack of affection we see between couples. Guys in bromances show affection, love, solidarity, joy, connection & (dare I say it) skinship!

Nothing warms my heart like one of the F4s coming to a bros rescue, the F44s teasing each other or the leads in School 2013 (LJS & Woobie) saying how much they missed each other’s friendship.

Besides, I rarely get that hooked into the female friendships (major exception, Noh Eun-seol & Lee Myung Ran from Protect the Boss). What do you think?

Bakazen

Continue reading →

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

| kfangurl

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!)

Continue reading →

Review: What’s Up?

| kfangurl

WU2

THE SHORT VERDICT:

This drama had a somewhat raw, rough-around-the-edges sort of feel to it, which gave it a sense of realism.

Several plot-lines felt under-developed, which made the show feel a bit off-kilter, but some great characters and a couple of meaningful plot-lines which did get nicely fleshed out made this unassuming little show one that I enjoyed quite a lot more than I thought I would.

The characters snuck up on me and made me start to care about them, which is always a plus in my books.

A character piece with songs.

Continue reading →

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

| kfangurl

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.

Continue reading →

Review: Shut Up Flower Boy Band

| kfangurl

THE SHORT VERDICT:

It took me a couple of episodes to feel completely engaged and get used to all the characters in the ensemble cast, but once I hit that point, this drama was just fantastic.

I love Dream High (a lot), but I think this is even better. This manages to be more grounded, relatable and true to life than Dream High ever was.

There is an OTP in this drama, as with most dramas, but the OTP doesn’t take centerstage. And that works in this drama. Shut Up is more about growing up and about friendships and bonds, and it is heartwarming and heartbreaking all in one, depending on where you are in the drama.

Yes, sometimes it hurts, but it hurts so good.