Thanks again for writing an article for my last blog post idea about archetypes (post is here)! I loved it and shared it with some of my friends who watch kdramas too.
I had another question for you. I did a quick search of your site, but didn’t find anything.
Can you give us a quick explanation of sageuks? I have seen a few, but I’d like to understand more about them.
The different types: fusion sageuk, etc., recommendations in each category, how they are produced (if you have any insight), why they seem to be longer than other dramas, etc.
Show’s draw is more about its characters and their relationships, as well as our OTP’s (One True Pairing) slow-burn romance. The court politics really is just set-dressing.
The downside is that the court politics is also the thing that drives our story forward, so Show can’t ever leave it behind for too long.
The upside, however, is that our key characters really do tend to grow on you in a solid way, and Show teases out the growth of characters and the progression of their relationships, in a manner that feels natural and believable, for the most part.
Jung Il Woo shows depth even in his character’s quiet melancholy, and Kwon Yu Ri is absolutely regal as our Princess who gets accidentally bossamed by our male lead.
Show has its fair share of flaws, but I thought the gentle, heartfelt romance between our OTP made it worthwhile.
I picked 50 more (!!) shows to touch on in this post, with a quick “status update.” Mostly, these are dramas that people tend to ask me about, and also, shows that I’d like to give shout-outs to, but which I’m unlikely to write reviews for.
There are still more shows that I’ve either sampled or watched to completion, which I am not including in this list, but maybe (just maybe?) another post, another time? 😅
I’m excited, y’all!! I hereby bring you the first joint post this blog has ever hosted! Woot!
Most of you know by now that I’ve fallen into the habit (trap? heh.) of taking a show apart for its review, and examining each little gear and piston, and writing up a storm in the process.
Although I never specifically set out to write epic reviews, it’s become a bit of a trend on this blog now, and I’m grateful to those of you who actually enjoy coming on these epic journeys with me. Thanks y’all. It means a lot, really. ❤
In the midst of all you wonderful peeps who put in the time to read my reviews and share your thoughts with me, I discovered a particular sort of connection with the lovely Betsy Hp who hosts Creating Volumes.
If you’ve been following the comments threads in some of my reviews, you might have noticed that Betsy Hp and I sometimes exchange (very) large chunks of thoughts. It’s like her thoughts inspire me to more thoughts, which then inspire her to more thoughts.
It’s often a cycle that evolves and grows and gives birth to new and completely unexpected thoughts and ideas, which, Too Cool.
I then said (only) half in jest to Betsy Hp, that we should try joint-posting, just to see what these thought babies might look like, given the room to grow. And so – ta-dah! – here we are! *blows noisemaker*
Join us as we dive – with our thinking caps firmly on! – into the twisty world of Nine!
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!)
So 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?
