rooftop prince
7 Apr 2012 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiI think my friends can attest, prior to this year I had no care or idea about K-pop, K-drama or most things Korean in general.
It all changed because a good friend of mine suddenly got re-addicted (for like the sixth time in the last 2 years) to K-pop, or more specifically the disaster that was TVXQ that turned out to be not quite a disaster at all, in retrospect.
So after being forced to sit through their variety shows and concerts and PVs and whatnots and playing the "repeat after me, that's Yunho-Jaejoong-Junsu-Yoochun-Changmin" game, I can finally match their names to their faces (and, tell them apart, because up until 2 months ago all Korean stars looked the same to me).
So anyway, because we had such a bad run of Japanese dramas, I watched Protect the Boss during the holidays, which was a great deal of fun for the first 10 episodes like such things tend to be before it derailed into a trainwreck of terrible plot devices and character assassination. It had Jaejoong in it, who for the first time looked slightly like a man and also didn't sound so congested when speaking in Korean (that is, until that 20 seconds when he did speak in Japanese and I facedesked my...desk in vicarious shame). Also, he wasn't required to act much, which was a blessing in every form, although he did spend a lot of time doing the Kame thang...
You know what I mean. The mysterious ability of making a perfectly normal scene alight in Yaoi wtfery just because Kame is looking at another male =______= To his credit though, Jaejoong has a lot more chemistry with female costars than Kame can ever aspire to.
It was still a nice drama though, because the two main leads were ridiculously comical and the two supporting characters ridiculously photogenic.
Anyway...anyway, I thought that was going to be the end of my K-drama run. I never thought much of Jaejoong's acting (especially after the disturbing affair that was Sunao ni Narenakute) but I have a soft spot for guys with mellow singing voices XD
So when people told me that Yoochun was in a drama this season, I was all "meh", not least because I find him looking variously plain/weird/mushroom-like (mean). And when I saw the first previews of people running around in traditional Korean costume, I was even more "MEH".
But then I read the synopsis and I was all "oooooooh!"
The synopses said that it was a comedy about a Korean prince from 300 years prior who, grieving at the loss of his beloved wife, accidentally fell through a time-warp and ended up in modern day Korea, where his courtly airs and royal pride gets completely stamped into the dust XDDDDDDD
And I thought, well, I wouldn't mind watching Yoochun being various stamped into the dust (oi).
When I watched the first episode my face was all =/ and =S and =T and =O and =@ because it didn't seem at all comedic, what with sisters burning each other's faces and half-brothers pushing each other into the ocean and step-sisters leaving each other on trucks and other such horrible things.
I almost stopped watching it when, after 65 long torturous minutes, they FINALLY arrived in the modern world, and I thought...oh heck, why not.
So now, 5 episodes later, I think I'm addicted XD
The plotting is pretty terrible, actually. The incongruence in the premiere became less pronounced in succeeding episodes, but abrupt changes of scenes before properly ending the previous one still happens a lot. There's also a lot of plot-holes, like how did Park Ha ever end up in America when she was a penniless orphan. Or why her mother would come to Seoul to look for her when she disappeared for eighteen years.Or why her English still sucks after spending nearly two decades of her youth in New York.
But despite all its flaws, it's oddly watchable. It may have been an act of foresight after all to make the first episode heavy and foreboding. By not making light of the two deaths and the burdens of guilt in the first episode, the show manages to sustain a lot of suspense when it drops away from comedy into the underlying threads that drive the story and the characters.
And Yoochun is surprisingly convincing as a prince. Homely enough not to be distracting, but authoritative enough to convince, and in some angles, better looking than I've ever imagined him possible to be HAHAHAHAHA (oi).
And Han Jimin has the most beautiful expressive eyes I think I can just watch her emote forever. LOL.
Oh, and I love the song. It's kinda Ghibli like.
It all changed because a good friend of mine suddenly got re-addicted (for like the sixth time in the last 2 years) to K-pop, or more specifically the disaster that was TVXQ that turned out to be not quite a disaster at all, in retrospect.
So after being forced to sit through their variety shows and concerts and PVs and whatnots and playing the "repeat after me, that's Yunho-Jaejoong-Junsu-Yoochun-Changmin" game, I can finally match their names to their faces (and, tell them apart, because up until 2 months ago all Korean stars looked the same to me).
So anyway, because we had such a bad run of Japanese dramas, I watched Protect the Boss during the holidays, which was a great deal of fun for the first 10 episodes like such things tend to be before it derailed into a trainwreck of terrible plot devices and character assassination. It had Jaejoong in it, who for the first time looked slightly like a man and also didn't sound so congested when speaking in Korean (that is, until that 20 seconds when he did speak in Japanese and I facedesked my...desk in vicarious shame). Also, he wasn't required to act much, which was a blessing in every form, although he did spend a lot of time doing the Kame thang...
You know what I mean. The mysterious ability of making a perfectly normal scene alight in Yaoi wtfery just because Kame is looking at another male =______= To his credit though, Jaejoong has a lot more chemistry with female costars than Kame can ever aspire to.
It was still a nice drama though, because the two main leads were ridiculously comical and the two supporting characters ridiculously photogenic.
Anyway...anyway, I thought that was going to be the end of my K-drama run. I never thought much of Jaejoong's acting (especially after the disturbing affair that was Sunao ni Narenakute) but I have a soft spot for guys with mellow singing voices XD
So when people told me that Yoochun was in a drama this season, I was all "meh", not least because I find him looking variously plain/weird/mushroom-like (mean). And when I saw the first previews of people running around in traditional Korean costume, I was even more "MEH".
But then I read the synopsis and I was all "oooooooh!"
The synopses said that it was a comedy about a Korean prince from 300 years prior who, grieving at the loss of his beloved wife, accidentally fell through a time-warp and ended up in modern day Korea, where his courtly airs and royal pride gets completely stamped into the dust XDDDDDDD
And I thought, well, I wouldn't mind watching Yoochun being various stamped into the dust (oi).
When I watched the first episode my face was all =/ and =S and =T and =O and =@ because it didn't seem at all comedic, what with sisters burning each other's faces and half-brothers pushing each other into the ocean and step-sisters leaving each other on trucks and other such horrible things.
I almost stopped watching it when, after 65 long torturous minutes, they FINALLY arrived in the modern world, and I thought...oh heck, why not.
So now, 5 episodes later, I think I'm addicted XD
The plotting is pretty terrible, actually. The incongruence in the premiere became less pronounced in succeeding episodes, but abrupt changes of scenes before properly ending the previous one still happens a lot. There's also a lot of plot-holes, like how did Park Ha ever end up in America when she was a penniless orphan. Or why her mother would come to Seoul to look for her when she disappeared for eighteen years.
But despite all its flaws, it's oddly watchable. It may have been an act of foresight after all to make the first episode heavy and foreboding. By not making light of the two deaths and the burdens of guilt in the first episode, the show manages to sustain a lot of suspense when it drops away from comedy into the underlying threads that drive the story and the characters.
And Yoochun is surprisingly convincing as a prince. Homely enough not to be distracting, but authoritative enough to convince, and in some angles, better looking than I've ever imagined him possible to be HAHAHAHAHA (oi).
And Han Jimin has the most beautiful expressive eyes I think I can just watch her emote forever. LOL.
Oh, and I love the song. It's kinda Ghibli like.
