When The Camellia Blooms

Dropped: River Where The Moon Rises

| kfangurl

So full disclosure, I didn’t hard drop this show. I just.. wandered off from it, after 4 episodes, and never managed to go back to it.

In the interest of closure, I’m writing a Dropped post, and will describe my experience with the show in this post, just to give you an idea of my impressions of its various working parts. I suppose you could think of this as a First Impressions sort of post; that works too.

If you have more experience with this show than I do (ie, you watched the whole thing, or at least, more than the 4 episodes that I watched), please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, to help everyone else decide if it’s a show worth checking out?

Continue reading →

Dropped: You Are My Spring

| kfangurl

Given that a number of people have told me that they enjoyed this show, I was expecting to like this one at least reasonably well.

I knew going in, that there was murder in this story, and I also knew that this murder stuff wouldn’t turn out to be Show’s main focus. Instead, the focus would be on the OTP and the mutual healing that they would bring to each other.

I didn’t mind the sound of that, and I also enjoy both Seo Hyun Jin and Kim Dong Wook – plus I do have a bit of a soft spot for Yoon Park, who’s our second male lead.

All the chips seemed destined to fall in favor of this being a show that I would be able to enjoy, at least reasonably well.

The thing is, though.. try as I might, I couldn’t get into this one – from episode 1. 😅

Continue reading →

Dear kfangurl: Do you have difficulty seeing an actor in a different role?

| kfangurl

Elaine writes:

I have a Dear kfangurl question to ask! My question is whether you’ve ever had a problem watching the same actor in a different role, because you have such a strong impression of him/her in the first show you saw the actor in?

Asking because I just started watching K dramas last year, and i started with highly rated ones like Crash Landing on You and Healer, where the OTPs are so smashing that I was reluctant to see the actors in other shows as it would feel to me almost like they were cheating on their original OTP! Lol.

So far I haven’t “repeated” any actors besides Lee Jun Ki – I first saw him in Arang and the Magistrate and a few months later in Flower of Evil. But to me that felt ok as his performance made the two characters feel completely different. It probably helped that his Flower of Evil character was supposed to have antisocial personality disorder so has flattened emotions.

But now almost a year after watching Healer, I’m watching Park Min Young in Her Private Life and I keep getting flashbacks to her Healer performance, especially when the two characters overlap on certain traits like optimism, pluckiness and sunny smiles.

It’s probably a personal quirk but I do wonder if anyone faces this issue too! For now there are so many dramas out there that I can avoid repeats of actors but soon it won’t be an option! Ha ha.

Continue reading →

Review: The Uncanny Counter

| kfangurl

THE SHORT VERDICT:

Gritty, bloody and full of action like many an OCN drama, yet character-driven and full of heart, like you might expect from jTBC, with a fantasy bent like you might expect of tvN, The Uncanny Counter is the superhero-flavored, heartfelt, X-Men-esque demon-hunting story that I didn’t know I needed in my life.

For the most part, Show does a great job of meshing all these different personality traits into an organic whole – except for a late-stage change in writers, which admittedly causes a bit of a wobble, but which Show does recover well from.

Our cast does an all-around great job of bringing this story to life, while making their characters and their relationships pop, and Show works out to be highly engaging, and sometimes, even rather cracky.

Definitely recommend.

Continue reading →

Dear kfangurl: What are some dramas where the leads are nice?

| kfangurl

Reaper525 writes:

So my question is: Is it just me or is it really hard to find likable leads these days in dramas? I mean most female leads these days annoy me compared to older dramas.

But also male leads are just sometimes you know …. facepalm material.

Is that me or is there actually something changing in dramas? Back in the day I liked 9/10 of the dramas (and their leads) that I watched but now it is more like 3-4/10…

Am I getting old? 😀

Continue reading →

Dear kfangurl: What are some romance dramas featuring regular guys?

| kfangurl

Today’s post is inspired by Jesse!

In the course of one of our chats scattered across the blog, where I was trying to think of dramas to recommend to Jesse, I’d suggested Romance Is A Bonus Book.

He’d ultimately sounded quite happy with this suggestion and said that he would probably check it out soon, but, he’d also said this, about the first time he’d considered watching the show:

“I remember at the time that I came across the show in a search awhile back, I saw the word “success” (as in Cha Eun-ho is a successful author) and completely lost interest.

I didn’t want to see successful characters! I wanted to see losers and average Joes, because that’s who I could relate to at the time. I wanted to see love interacting with unremarkable people so I could nod and say, “See, Jess – it happens. Just you wait…”

..And that made me realize that Dramaland’s been so focused on creating everygirls and everywomen to give the female viewers (traditionally a majority) someone to identify with, that it’s forgotten that our growing number of male viewers would also appreciate an everyman to identify with.

So I set about coming up with a list of dramas featuring regular guys – instead of the usual chaebol prince, or requisite geeenius – as romantic leading men.

Continue reading →

Dear kfangurl: What are some dramas the man in my life might be willing to watch?

| kfangurl

This post is thanks to MeriJ, who suggested the topic “K-Roms Your BF/Husband Might Be Willing To Watch With You.”

I’ve also come across many drama fans who do sincerely wish that their significant others would share in their passion and watch dramas with them.

And since many of us are spending a lot more time at home these days because of the pandemic, and also because we recently had a great time helping Amethystwaves shortlist dramas to watch with her mom, I thought it’d be a good time to attempt to answer the question:

Dear kfangurl,

What are some dramas that the man in my life might be willing to watch with me?

Continue reading →

Flash Review: When The Camellia Blooms

| kfangurl

Y’know, I’d gotten to the point where I was so tired of serial killers and murders being mixed with romance (what is up with that, Dramaland?), that I was ready to give this show a hard, blind pass, just for having the audacity to mix murder with romance, again.

But, the overwhelming positive buzz around this show piqued my interest, as did the high ratings, and the glowing, persuasive comments that a number of you left me, which is how I ended up checking out this show, in spite of myself.

With 20/20 hindsight, now that I’ve emerged on the other side, do I still think Show didn’t need a serial killer murder arc? BIG YES. Did I manage to enjoy this one, despite my by-now-very-firm serial killer drama allergy? Also, yes. I guess that means Show wins, overall?

Continue reading →

Year In Review: 2019

| kfangurl

It’s that time of the year again, my friends. 2020 is upon us, and 2019 is just about done and dusted. Time to take stock of the year, celebrate the highs, brush off the lows, and get ready to usher in the new year.

Can you believe that this is my 8th year-in-review post?? Imma be honest with you guys; every time I sit down to do one of these, I get visited by a touch of blogger existential crisis.

Essentially, I ask myself, “Where am I going with this? How long will I do this? Is there still.. a point to doing this?”

..And I gotta tell ya, I still don’t know the answer to those questions. What I can say, though, is, I’m still enjoying my dramas reasonably well, and I’m still game to write about ’em, and I’m grateful that you guys are still here on this journey with me. Thanks for sticking it out with me, y’all.  ❤️

And now, let me attempt to break down my 2019 drama year for ya.

Continue reading →