Black&White: initial impressions
timeripple, I have finally started Black&White!
Uh, for the first episode I wasn't sure if I admired Vic Zhou's acting choices or abominated them. Now that I know the character was actually *supposed* to be high for part of that episode I have come to a truce with myself... (Similarly, Kingone's character. CREEPY, dude.)
It's intriguing to me that while they've made very different choices in editing, it *does* have a certain similarity to City Hunter in overall vibe--especially as contrasted with the bulk of the dramas in that vein, in their respective countries. City Hunter was slick in every respect, and high-def of sound and filming.
Black&White isn't so slick, but instead chooses to be stark. The camera doesn't change vantage point often in a scene, and usually there's only one other angle. A perhaps-intentional effect is that of being a witness, someone reviewing the surveillance, instead of being the usual tag-along on the shoulder of a character.
Mark Chao is a hot sonovagun in this, but in the second episode I'm getting tired of the unabated hostility--and his character is bearing the brunt of this. It's a weakness of T-drama in particular, and drama in general that I am perhaps a little more allergic too than most. But his acting isn't really helping.
...I am as curious as anyone how Vic's character got a hit of the Mighty Mutant Marijuana, but he was in a whole bunch of things he shouldn't have been in that lab, and bumped into a lot of people along the way. It's kind of adorable, in retrospect.
It's kind of trippy to watch Ivy Chen be the toned-down mob-boss daughter right on the heels of seeing her as Kyoko...
But so far so good. It's trippy because she's doing a good job, but I recognize her face and am like, "Waaaait a minute..."
***
I live-blogged my experience with the first three eps of Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, and my review thoughts on Dream High 2 on a Tumblr I created for the purpose. More collected reviews will certainly be still appearing here.
Uh, for the first episode I wasn't sure if I admired Vic Zhou's acting choices or abominated them. Now that I know the character was actually *supposed* to be high for part of that episode I have come to a truce with myself... (Similarly, Kingone's character. CREEPY, dude.)
It's intriguing to me that while they've made very different choices in editing, it *does* have a certain similarity to City Hunter in overall vibe--especially as contrasted with the bulk of the dramas in that vein, in their respective countries. City Hunter was slick in every respect, and high-def of sound and filming.
Black&White isn't so slick, but instead chooses to be stark. The camera doesn't change vantage point often in a scene, and usually there's only one other angle. A perhaps-intentional effect is that of being a witness, someone reviewing the surveillance, instead of being the usual tag-along on the shoulder of a character.
Mark Chao is a hot sonovagun in this, but in the second episode I'm getting tired of the unabated hostility--and his character is bearing the brunt of this. It's a weakness of T-drama in particular, and drama in general that I am perhaps a little more allergic too than most. But his acting isn't really helping.
...I am as curious as anyone how Vic's character got a hit of the Mighty Mutant Marijuana, but he was in a whole bunch of things he shouldn't have been in that lab, and bumped into a lot of people along the way. It's kind of adorable, in retrospect.
It's kind of trippy to watch Ivy Chen be the toned-down mob-boss daughter right on the heels of seeing her as Kyoko...
But so far so good. It's trippy because she's doing a good job, but I recognize her face and am like, "Waaaait a minute..."
***
I live-blogged my experience with the first three eps of Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, and my review thoughts on Dream High 2 on a Tumblr I created for the purpose. More collected reviews will certainly be still appearing here.