2008 in review: doramas
This was a very light year for me as far as dramas go. I only watched 10 full dramas (one of which was a two part special) and 4 episodes of another (included for the crack), far fewer than I did the first two years I watched them. This isn’t deliberate, as I think I’ve been slightly “myeh” on watching things in general the last 6~ months. That is, I’ve been watching things, obviously, but not making an effort to, and dramas require effort, as few are licensed, I don’t get any of the very few U.S. stations that air them, and then I haven’t had a DVD player recently. (Until the last few days, that is.) There are a lot of dramas I wanted to watch, but didn’t get around to. Hopefully in 2009.
Dramas I watched:
kdramas:
Hello Miss
Legend
Lovers
Spring Waltz
Vineyard Man
jdramas:
Good Luck
Jikou Keisatsu
Hotaru no Hikari
Nodame Cantabile Special
cdramas:
Magic Sword of Heaven and Earth (only 4 eps)
Net Deception
Comments:
Incidentally, I make my comments without looking at anything I said about them at the time, and am not going into depth because all but one I posted on at the time.
Hello Miss: Not a hugely popular drama, and one that was longer than it needed to be, but a fun one. I didn’t always like how they handled the hero being the heroine’s boss, but it had a good cast, a nice portrayal of family, and a cute romance. And I really liked the aspects dealing with the heroine trying to reconcile her status as family head to a very old fashioned and traditional family with her involvement in the modern world.
Legend: The most popular of the dramas I watched, and the favorite of several on the f-list. While I liked it, I didn’t like it as much as everyone else seemed to. It has the highest production values of any drama I’ve seen (and sageuks in general seem to have extremely high production values) but never quite grabbed me the way other sageuks I’ve seen have. I liked the story and the main character, but neither ever really stepped out of the traditional fantasy mode. A lot of my enjoyment was that it was classic high fantasy set in ancient Korea, but at the same time it never stepped out of that enough to inspire my massive love. And while I liked Dam-Duk, he was never as interesting to me as the people around him, and I was most captivated by his antagonists. It also ended up completely brushing off a subplot built up to be major, the expected payoff of which I spent the entire series looking forward to. (The flipside of that coin is that it made be care about it.)
Lovers: Another popular one, and my favorite of the dramas I watched this year. Mind you, it has Lee Seo Jin diving fully clothed into a lake in the first five minutes just so the fans can have him with wet, clinging clothes, so it would probably be hard for it to not be popular. Beyond that, though, it’s actually a drama that I shouldn’t have liked, as the set up is a mobster falling for his pregnant girlfriend’s neighbor. That said, the situation is handled far better than I would have thought it possible to handle it, and no characters in the situation are vilified to make it easier. It’s also quite possibly the only modern kdrama I’ve seen where the leads are equals. For once, the heroine is an intelligent, successful career woman. A bit batty, but grounded and with an unshakable sense of self. The only times she needs to be “saved” by the hero, it’s because of a situation he created. One of my biggest pet peeves in kdramas is how the heroine or her family will, at some point, almost always become financially beholden to the hero. The one time this became a factor here, it was a situation directly created by his interfering in her life, and while I was annoyed that it went there in the first place, I do appreciate that it didn’t leave her in his debt.
Spring Waltz: I don’t know that I really have any defenses for liking this one. It has every kdrama trope that I hate and everyone else loves, and in spades. By all rights, I should hate it. But I either watched it when in just the right mood, or it was done in a way that made me appreciate it, because this was my guilty pleasure of the year. It helps that it has a very likable cast. Also, I am likely highly susceptible to things like the hero literally selling himself as a child so she can have a life-saving operation, and then running off into the snow when he’s told she didn’t survive.
Vineyard Man: Not a very popular one, and with a somewhat cringe-worthy beginning, but I’ll take it over a lot of the more popular melodramas. The leads were likable and had good chemistry, and it actually made details about working in a vineyard interesting. It also wins points for making the other participants in the Kdrama Love Square of Doom clearly wrong for the leads without vilifying them, and even hinting that they might be better suited for each other. Less vilifying of others and fewer messages of “you can only find happiness if you destroy the hopes of a third party” would go a long way to making kdramas better in my eyes.
(I am less opinionated about jdramas and cdramas, so you get shorter comments.)
Good Luck: Airplanes! With Kimura Takuya and Tsutsumi Shinichi and Shibasaki Kou and Uchiyama Rina! A well written and well acted drama with a mature romance (in terms of characters, no apparent sexytimes) and interesting conflicts.
Jikou Keisatsu: I just realized I never posted on this one at all. A comedy series about a police officer who, realizing he needs a hobby, decides to investigate cases whose statute of limitations has run out. Very punny, lots of crack. If you like mysteries, random instances of crack, or parodies, or (especially) combinations of the above, then this is a drama for you. If you don’t, you’re better off avoiding it. Unless you just really like Odagiri Joe. Or Shibasaki Kou. I like all the above.
Hotaru no Hikari: When the Japanese decide to really make a drama about a woman, they do it. Surprisingly, often without making her happiness contingent upon landing a guy. Granted, usually by making her realize she wants the wrong guy, but hey. Awesome comedy/romance about a woman with a perfect, collected public face who is a complete slop at home, drinks beer from the cans, and has stacks of manga everywhere. And her neat freak boss. Of course, she does still end up with a guy (actually, I would have been disappointed otherwise) but it’s her choice, and neither she nor her life would have been lacking without him. Also has an awesome cast.
Nodame Cantabile Special: Absurdly enjoyable, fluffy crack. If you liked the series, you’ll like this. If you didn’t, you probably won’t. It probably really is that simple. I really need to get around to the anime and manga soon.
Net Deception: I don’t remember this one as well, but I remember that I really like it. I watched it mostly for the premise of Wong Hei as a world class hacker and Myolie Wu as a delivery girl who’s his half-sister. It has surprisingly (but not unpleasantly) dark theme for the protagonist and his love interest, interesting twist, and a strong cast, though the plot is occasionally a bit meandering.
Magic Sword of Heaven and Earth (only 4 eps): All I remember is that most of it was painfully bad (mostly due to an incoherent plot), but it had some amazingly bizarre crack and weird special effects that made me watch maniacally until I had to turn it off. And then I never touched it again.
Hopefully, I will watch more dramas in 2009.