Rants and Weekly Raves #105 (RAWR)

kakashi: To Kang Ha-neul, who grew up so well! And to my unnis who are crazy-busy at work!
JoAnne: I can breathe again for the moment, so I foresee some drama watching in my future! And laundry. Lots of laundry.
Damn, laundry. Also: Damn laundry! 
Shuk: I actually finished a couple of side projects! Oh, and laundry.

Korea

MoonJunKi

Joon-gi, the eye actor. People keep bashing this drama, why? It has "umpf", a lot of it. 
They are? I see people complaining that Soo and Wook were bad because Wook was married, and some are complaining about shaky camera and overabundance of extreme close-ups. But one is personal preference and the other is fairly minor, as things go... what else are you hearing?
Blabla this, blabla that. How dare they! My drama! But what is this craziness? Dramafever has a different (and apparently worse) version?! Why, why, why?!
I'm so sad to hear that I'm watching a shorter version. But since I will absolutely be breaking my rule and watching this in full again (yes! a rewatch!) on Viki the minute it's available there... I guess I will survive. In the meantime, it's gorgeous and heart-throbbingly romantic and they throw some cute in there, too, and so far the politics is mostly very directly related to family dynamics, so I am head over in heels in love with the whole thing.
So actually, there are THREE versions. SBS, Dramafever, and Youku. Well. For as to why, they did a different cut for Korean TV because of the bad ratings. Because it's preproduced, most sites got the original edit. You watched the original then! I don't think this is a good idea, SBS, but hey, more Junki is always good. 
Okay, so I admit that this drama has a lot of faults, but the main characters, Wook, Soo and So ... excellent stuff.
Ah, goodness. It's crazy how much I love this drama because of a few characters...but love it, I do. From the sub-sub-sub-sub-basement of my heart. If I were a mother - wait, I am - if I were the mother of these boys, my secret would be that I love So the best because his sadness pierces me and he needs it the most. But whichever boy ends happy in love, the other will end sad, I think. And I love them both, so my heart both happily anticipates and painfully dreads seeing it unfold. I also love Soo; her spirit and her heart are lovely...but this isn't about shipping for me, at all. It's about those boys.

MoonBogummy

This, for me, has no "umpf". Sure, it's cute. Sure, they're all pretty. But it's completely empty otherwise. Not enjoying all that much, should I drop? 
I'm enjoying this but in a very different way than MoonJunKi. MJK has my heart so deep I'm in a sub-sub-sub-basement level of bottom of my heart. MBG has me at maybe first floor. Could get to ground level once people's hearts start breaking. I love it but it does not crush my heart.
Lol, first floor. That's quite accurate.
Okay, after being extremely bored during episode 8, I'm dropping this. I am glad I saw Bogummy in something, now I know what all the fuss is about! But I need more from my entertainment than pretty people smiling at each other or fumbling about in embarrassment because of said smile.
And I like it exactly for that :)

Drinking Alone

Something about the way my eye reads the title/alternate title on DF has me calling this Let's Drinking in my head. I caught up today and my favorite parts are actually the three boy students, and Gong Myung's puppy crush on Saem. I dislike the other female teacher on a cellular level. Something about the way she simpers. This is a fun show, but I do find the lingering scenes of him eating or drinking as distasteful as I did in the Let's Eat shows.

Jealousy Incarnate

Didn't see it this week.

W Two Worlds (Final)

Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhat?
That's IT? That's all of it? Writer-nim, you basically took an hour of our lives to say this: 'Don't pay any attention to all that stuff I said before. Just ignore it. Shove it in the closet, none of it matters and I can't be bothered explaining it anyway because hey look! Shiny pretty people get to live happily ever after! Don't try to figure out how! Bye, gotta go! Oops...almost forgot my check! Okay, now I'm really going!' I mean... I'm glad they're together. I wanted that. But I wanted to know how it all WORKED, too. In the end, I feel like I wanted steak and someone gave me a picture of a steak and said 'here, eat this.' Not the same
Trotwood: I climbed out of my week of 18-hour work days for this? I was hoping that I was just confused because I was still tired, but . . . I mean why/how does the dad get to choose to "go"? How does Chul get back into the real world? What a cop out ending. But I'm glad it's done because I don't think they would've answered the questions even if it were longer.
Shuk: So much of the second half felt flat and stale when compared to Chul 1.0. The end reminded me of QIHM. I'll accept it, but it could have been handled so much better. 

Cinderella and the Fellas

Mrs B had laundry, too.
That was a nice confession and kiss there at the end of episode 12, wasn't it?
But we had to wait forever for it! Thank goodness that dumb dad mess was exposed, but I'm worried about PA Lee and what kind of lies his mother is going to embroil him in. If I were him, I would confess to the Chairman right now. Otherwise, it will look like he's in cahoots with her. Blech. And is no one but me worried about the no dating rule? She needs that money for college people since she cleared her savings for her the fake dad. And can anyone--and I mean anyone--tell me why we are still wasting any time with the step sister and step mom? Ugg. I just want to smack this show upside its head.
I refuse to give the step-jerks any notice in the SqueeCaps if I can help it. And PA Lee should have kept the copy of the will out of his mother's hands, especially since he knows she is planning some nefarious action with it that are sure to bite her in the ass. Yes, the kiss and the box were cute, and I am happy they didn't just thrust the pairing on us. But there's still too much turmoil and not enough cute.

Fantastic

Didn't see this, either. I did hear about Jisoo puppy's bad luck, though. I hope he heals quickly from his surgery and illness and is not in too much pain anymore.

Laurel Tree Tailors

Didn't watch this for the second week in a row. I wonder if that means I'll just drop it for another time...these have been a few unusually busy weeks but once I fall more than a week or so behind, it becomes very difficult to catch up.

Not Korea

Fo Ye at al

Jaehyus: I don't understand what happened here.
Going by the picture...Ya Tou came back to life and Er Ye found her sitting at the table waiting for him. He's very grossed out because she grew really long teeth, which fell out.
That's actually not that far off... Saki, I think those were tremendously long fingernails!
And hey! This drama has finished airing this week! It's over! Ahhhhh! 

Sparrow (NEW)

I keep waiting for the Ming brothers to turn up. But alas... 
Jaehyus: bored within the first 10 minutes.
It's certainly no Disguiser, but it ain't bad either. And wow, those sets! They're the exact same ones and that is simply weird. It's like another set of spies in the Disguiser universe. And Li Yi Feng is a dear, but he certainly isn't a good actor. I'm intrigued by our "bad guy" (Zhang Lu Yi) and by the "sister-in-law" / Prime Minister (Li Xiao Ran). She is so beautiful!!
Anyway, after two episodes, I don't think I'll continue. 
Yeah, I'm not going to bother. I was aware it was coming, but I didn't really want to watch another Spies in Occupied Shanghai drama so quickly after Disguiser, and everything you've said just convinces me more deeply that I don't need to fill up my time with this.

Prince of Wolf

Haven't seen this, either. I guess my priority right now is the two Moons, then providing my comments for the shows I'm committed to, then half watching/half sleeping on a couple others...and then this, which would require more effort to recap than I can actually provide, right now. Soon, my wolfie, soon.
Or just drop it, dearest. Once you're behind, you're behind... and often, it's not worth the effort!

Ice Fantasy

Wow, Shi looked absolutely stunning during his coronation scenes. Almost coronation that is.
Jaehyus: he's coroned. (Yes, I made that word up.) And gosh, I'm feeling things... 
He is turning bad, isn't he... poor, poor Shi. You tried so hard, but can you escape your destiny? The less he smiles, the sexier he gets though. Wow, so beautiful. And then, Li Luo and Kasuo broke my heart this week as well. Just marry and have babies already! Gahhhh, this show moves so fast. 
I've never even tried to keep up with this, just try to keep an episode or so ahead of the recap so I can comment as needed...but this picture of Shi makes me want to move forward more quickly. Damn you! When did I start to like this crappy show?
Told you it's not crappy.
Wait a second, though. You know as well as I do that I often like crappy shows. It doesn't make them less so.
Yes, but I don't like crappy shows, well, I do, but only a certain type of crappy and I don't think this one is. Yes, the production value is subpar (at times), but the story is really good. Over 30 episodes and I find this script praiseworthy. When has that ever happened recently?


Whirlwind Wookie


This is NOT ME being upset now that WG2 has ended...
OH THANK GOD OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER! Although I have yet to completely watch the last four episodes aired last week, I know enough about them to flip over tables from here to Shanghai and back again. FUCKING RIDICULOUS.  I'll wax poetic about this travesty more in next week's RAWR. In the meantime...