Bromance, melo-style
The Equator Man
air date: 3.21.2012 through 5.24.2012
number of eps: 20
I watched it: ...a while ago? I know it wasn't live
In a nutshell: Bromance? You're soaking in it. The whole thrust of the drama is the relationship between Kim Seon-woo and Lee Jang-il, taking them from their meeting in high school, to crisis, to massive crisis, to even-more-massive! crisis... and into adulthood where the pile of crises are a festering mess that need dealing with. For the most part this drama was really good, with a few rough patches that slowed things down and kept it from being truly amazing.
What worked: The acting was amazing. The two teen actors (Lee Hyun-woo and Siwan) were so good, tackling really meaty scenes with such skill (scenes where it would have been really tempting to over-act), that it was hard to let them go when the characters "grew up". But then the adult actors (Uhm Tae-woong and Lee Joon-hyuk) stepped up and, after a moment of adjusting, owned the characters as well. The actor playing Jang-il's father (Lee Won-jong) was so, so good at being the creepiest creeper who ever creeped. (So good, in fact, that I avoided Vampire Prosecutor because he had a lead role. But it was all the acting. He was adorable in VP. *g*) And Im Jung-eun rocked as the intensely obsessive, Choi Su-mi.
The cinematography was gorgeous. Lighting, angles ... whatever else is involved in cinematography? So much beauty on my screen! Which was good because the director had an interesting style. It made me think of Hitchcock, actually -- which suited the psychological story being told. But there were times when things went... very... still. It wasn't quite a freeze frame, more the actors just holding a position (a pause before acting or answering or what have you) longer than any normal human being would. It could have been a bug or a feature, but because the scenes were so beautifully framed, I chose to take it as a feature.
And the story was, for the most part, fascinating. All about love and betrayal and greed and compassion. All that lovely, mucky human-stuff. The interplay between the two leads was fascinating to watch -- and Lee Jang-il's interaction with himself was fascinating as well.
What didn't work: For some reason there was a mother and daughter duo that we'd cut away to watch and I can't even remember what their storyline was, that's how interesting it was. Also, there was a character who caused some romantic competition between the two guys and she started out interesting and I remember being intrigued at first. But then she became pretty flat, sliding into more symbol territory (representative of all that's good and pure, etc.) than full-fledged character. Which was too bad. So there were some filler-fluff that wasn't needed and I think the drama would have been better if it'd been tightened down to 16 episodes.
But if you look past the filler-fluff, the core story was awesome and didn't get compromised and ended in a heart wrenchingly satisfying way.
air date: 3.21.2012 through 5.24.2012
number of eps: 20
I watched it: ...a while ago? I know it wasn't live
In a nutshell: Bromance? You're soaking in it. The whole thrust of the drama is the relationship between Kim Seon-woo and Lee Jang-il, taking them from their meeting in high school, to crisis, to massive crisis, to even-more-massive! crisis... and into adulthood where the pile of crises are a festering mess that need dealing with. For the most part this drama was really good, with a few rough patches that slowed things down and kept it from being truly amazing.
What worked: The acting was amazing. The two teen actors (Lee Hyun-woo and Siwan) were so good, tackling really meaty scenes with such skill (scenes where it would have been really tempting to over-act), that it was hard to let them go when the characters "grew up". But then the adult actors (Uhm Tae-woong and Lee Joon-hyuk) stepped up and, after a moment of adjusting, owned the characters as well. The actor playing Jang-il's father (Lee Won-jong) was so, so good at being the creepiest creeper who ever creeped. (So good, in fact, that I avoided Vampire Prosecutor because he had a lead role. But it was all the acting. He was adorable in VP. *g*) And Im Jung-eun rocked as the intensely obsessive, Choi Su-mi.
The cinematography was gorgeous. Lighting, angles ... whatever else is involved in cinematography? So much beauty on my screen! Which was good because the director had an interesting style. It made me think of Hitchcock, actually -- which suited the psychological story being told. But there were times when things went... very... still. It wasn't quite a freeze frame, more the actors just holding a position (a pause before acting or answering or what have you) longer than any normal human being would. It could have been a bug or a feature, but because the scenes were so beautifully framed, I chose to take it as a feature.
And the story was, for the most part, fascinating. All about love and betrayal and greed and compassion. All that lovely, mucky human-stuff. The interplay between the two leads was fascinating to watch -- and Lee Jang-il's interaction with himself was fascinating as well.
What didn't work: For some reason there was a mother and daughter duo that we'd cut away to watch and I can't even remember what their storyline was, that's how interesting it was. Also, there was a character who caused some romantic competition between the two guys and she started out interesting and I remember being intrigued at first. But then she became pretty flat, sliding into more symbol territory (representative of all that's good and pure, etc.) than full-fledged character. Which was too bad. So there were some filler-fluff that wasn't needed and I think the drama would have been better if it'd been tightened down to 16 episodes.
But if you look past the filler-fluff, the core story was awesome and didn't get compromised and ended in a heart wrenchingly satisfying way.