Kdrama binge
To the Beautiful You 1-2 kdrama! I survived the Taiwanese and Japanese version of HanaKimi. Can I possibly survive the Korean version? (I think there was a mainland China version....but even I don't have that much attention span). A young girl from America transfers into an all boys school in Korea to be close to a high-jump athlete she admires. He turns out to have a stoic, cold personality while another boy in her class, a soccer star, has an outgoing and friendly personality. Love triangle, ding. The show veers off into kdrama-land. The high school is really high tech and expensive-looking. The dorm hallway looks like the entrance to a nightclub, and the dorm room themselves look very, very spacious. Rather than the three rival dormitories being focused on different subjects, they are each focused on a separate sports styles.
Sano/Tae Joon (Min-Ho from SHINee) retains a little bit of his 'manga' character, but also has a manager who tries to drag him to photoshoots and a terrible 'kdrama' father. Nakatsu/Eun-Gyeol is pretty much like the manga character and is practically a clone of Jeremy from 'You're Beautiful'; adorable. Mizuki/Jae-Hee doesn't stray too much from the source; clueless, overly sincere, etc. I wish I could like this, but there are only so many cross-dressing comedies one can watch before everything just looks the same. This is pretty well-made for those interested. It's rich in setting, color, clothing, star-power and there's a variety of catchy kpop bgm.
Arang and the Magistrate 1-2! Yes, I need more eye-candy. Lee Jun-ki back from the army, stars in this fantasy about a young man who can see dead people or rather ghosts. He happens by a young female ghost who has lost her memory. He promises to help if she makes him the local magistrate. She gets him the job. He decides to help her because he wants to find his missing mother and Arang might hold a clue. It's pretty silly, but in a likable way. There are also scenes in 'heaven' where mysterious people hang out in flower gardens. Dramafever's video quality is fairly pathetic and the drama's cheap production sort of stands out. You can clearly tell the difference if you've watched Faith. All in all, despite the production, the characters were fairly amusing and interesting.
Faith 1-2 kdrama! Lee Min-Ho (from the kdrama version of Hana Yori Dango...and City Hunter...which I did not finish) stars in this time traveling drama. I didn't really pay attention to the fictional set-up, but there was some nice animation. I'm not quite sure who is fighting who, but the queen is fatally injured in the attack. Min-Ho's character, Choi Young, has to travel through time, and find a doctor with god-like powers who can heal her. He is so pretty in his seriousness and angst. It's funny when he lands in 2012 and a monk thinks he is looking for a plastic surgeon. The dramatic music also adds to the comedy. Choi Young also has super-powers...electricity, it seems. And a couple/few? of his men have super-powers too. Anyway, Choi Young brings the plastic surgeon back to his time rather ruthlessly, she saves the queen, there are bad guys still after them, the king refuses to let the doctor return to her time despite Choi Young's promise, he tries to kill himself, the doctor tries to save him...yay for a kdrama with constant action and suspense. The production quality is really high and the plastic surgeon is not a cut-out kdrama female character...thus far.