updates

Before I will give my thoughts on Memories of the Alhambra, the first Kdrama I followed in real time.  I’ll talk about my diary first. It has been a while since I’ve been writing about myself.  Nothing’s changed really, I remain deeply an introvert, not really going out much, unless it’s an invite to a kid’s birthday party. I still hyperventilate whenever I bring Chichi (my nickname for my daughter, I’m the only person who calls her Chichi) to ballet class and during school runs.  Ah, those parents and their judgments and arrogance. 

After my surgery last year, my Bradford Score has improved.  I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been reading or tidying up the house. All I seem to do is watch Kdramas or these days, Chinese Dramas and a bit of Japanese Dramas. As I observe the Far East lenses, they seem to be affluent in Asia, at least in the Chinese and Japanese dramas I am watching. They have these amazingly high-tech gadgets at home and talking, touch screen computers, facial recognition with doors. 

As it’s such a mess in my literal surroundings, I need to breathe in, simmer down.  In the larger scale, health is wealth.  I have to take care of my health as I grow older.  My hypertension is such a killer.  I view life with trepidation when it comes to health.  Career and stuff are not the most vital thing in perspective (a loser’s mantra, but really, no one is a loser in this world).  Working with the salt of the  earth are what keeps us growing as a human being.   At my age, I should be chilled.  I know sometimes, it gets really annoying but what could we do about the condescending attitude of the powers-that-be’s, the holier than thou’s. 

Plus, too much gossip sullies perspectives.  I try to to avoid social media, a lot less Facebook. Instagram is helpful when it comes to celebrities, those who share anyway. No posts from me. Yet? But for those who prefer life in private, they don’t update as much, they prefer their publicity and promotions in hashtags. For C-ent, (imagine that, me following C-ent when I depend on subtitles), there’s Weibo, which is being translated for Twitter users by very kind souls.  I follow K-ent  and most news through Twitter. Love Twitter for the news and the translation.

Flower Boy Next Door

Now here comes my favourite Park Shin-hye series. The only downside to this drama is that I’ve not seen this tale since Drama Fever  ceased service in October 2018.  It’s also called My Cute Guys.  Cute as in small (you know not as tall as Lee Min-ho) or cute as in good-looking?  But then there is so-called good looks and then there is charm or magnetic appeal.  

Flower Boy Next Door also seem a superficial label to attach to a drama that tackles the effects and repercussions of bullying and reclusion.  Despite being a  frugal, baggage-carrying recluse, Go Dok-mi (PSH) is an interesting character.  She works at home as a copy writer, have her groceries delivered and limits her interactions with people. It took the efforts of an hyperactive extrovert of a love interest for this young lass to explore the outside world.  Yoon Shi-yoon as Enrique, the main cute guy and flower boy is too animated for comfort.  He talks, talks and talks.  The times he’s quiet and serious are the moments I seriously crave. 

Enrique is a genius game designer.  Dok-mi is a writer.  He has the ability to bring her out of her shell and make her interact with people.  He could see the hidden beauty underneath the layers of winter clothing. 

I couldn’t recall the conflicts anymore since it has been so long since I’ve seen this drama.  Was it the jealous high school best friend, the trigger for the forlorn reclusion?  What was the glitch of the 

second lead, the next door neighbour, ably portrayed by Kim Ji-hoon?  This is my first introduction to Go Kyung-pyo (the second lead sidekick), who I’m so impressed with in Dare to Dream or Jealousy Incarnate, a melodrama that really tugs on the emotions.  

Flower Boy Next Door may not pull me as much as say, Heirs or Pinocchio or even Heartstrings.  But there was a bit of poetry in motion, in dialogues and conversations, in the coming of age of young people in their twenties, in simply living life.  I would have loved not to be a breadwinner in those days. I’m going to watch this again.  Maybe pray for Netflix UK to add this series to their massive list or buy the DVD?  Are DVD’s still in vogue in the age of streaming? 

You're Beautiful kdrama

I reckon I might have seen Flower Boys Next Door before You're Beautiful or He's Handsome, or What a Handsome Man You Are, or Minamisineyo. Translations are tricky.  Languages are hard to maneuver. Anyhow, You're Beautiful (2009) is a story of a trainee nun pretending to be her twin brother for a month (who flew to America to repair a botched plastic surgery) and join one of the top boy bands or Kpop group in the land.  I'll say the continent of Asia.  Or as the group's leader Hwang Tae Kyung says it, "I'm quite known, " the psychology of idolatry for Kpop idols,  go figure.

The central character is played by Park Shin Hye as Go Minam but the top billing is Jang Geun Suk as Hwang Tae Kyung.  Th drama was first shown 10 years ago in 2009 and it's quite dated. This drama was before the era of super smart phones.  The other members of the group are Jung Yong Hwa (CN Blue) as Kang Shinwoo and Lee Hongki (FT Island) as Jeremy. This is a love square.  They all fall for the accident-prone, total klutz, all-naive, fully-innocent Go Minam (as her brother) or Go Mineo (her real name).  Despite her naïveté, the title character is sweet and endearing and despite having the short hair, she's so beautiful, not a single pore, so luminous,  face as clear as a newborn baby's bottom.  One look at the character would tell you she's a girl so really, this makes this into a fantasy drama.  She talks like a girl. Was her voice a few decibels lower?  Most of her scenes are with people who knows she's a girl - Manager Ma, the stylist, Kang Shinwoo, Hwang Tae Kyung, the actress Yoo He-yi.  So the actress doesn't need to be full-on male. 

Logic would also tell you that Kang Shinwoo, the sweet and nice, would be chosen over the jerk, all hang-ups, allergic to seashells, Hwang Tae Kyung.  But maybe, the character wasn't written with enough backbone, so the big jerk gets the girl and shouldn't there have been a twist? Ah, I get it the twist come in the form of Heartstrings, two-years later while Lee Hongki has this enduring friendship with Park Shin-hye that it's so wonderful to see on instagram. 

This is very light, very cute and so floppy.  I like the aura of the square.  I like the dorm.  If that's my dorm at 19, I'll study well.  The antagonist comes in the form of Uee as Yoo He-yi. I have a few gripes about her features, the actress, not the character and she has a few lead credits to her name now. But once I see a person play antagonist first, I could never reconcile them as the downtrodden leads next time. Lee Sung Kyung in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Book Jo? Kim Ji Won in Descendants of the Sun? All I could remember is the fury in their characters' eyes darting towards their jealousy of the Park Shin-hye role as Yoo Hye-Jung and Cha Eun-sang, respectively. Then what if the first Park Shin-hye drama I saw was The Prince Hours, would I change my perception? But wasn't she the young Choi Jae Woo in Stairway To Heaven and was slapped a hundred times by the stepmother? I reckon she was so lovable as an antagonist that is why she scaled heights while her co-stars in The Prince Hours, are "da who?"

You're Beautiful is full of this dramatisation of "what if," scenarios, of dreams, of imaginations, of origins, even plots for music video settings.  It's handled with a light touch but I still find them distracting. Maybe except for Jeremy's origin as an English guy, a great talking point for the fans within the drama and during the Lee Hongki and Jung Yong Hwa concert in Tokyo in 2017.  

But eventually, this drama is a showcase of the many talents of its cast;  Jang Geun Suk plays the guitar and piano, Jung Yong Hwa plays almost all instruments, Lee Hongki learned to play  the drums for this project but he's got this awesome, amazing vocal range.  Park Shin-Hye plays the keyboard here but we all know she plays the guitar like in Memories of Alhambra and learned the gayageum through Heartstrings.  Plus they all could sing. I love all the songs here.  In Park Shin-hye's case, she's also an amazing dancer.

Their weaknesses probably is in acting but in the case of singers or Kpop idols branching into becoming actors (once the group disbands), the more acting projects you do, the more ways for your acting to improve. Park Shin-hye gets so much hate for her acting because she could cry on cue and her haters think she's one-note and all she could do is cry.  They would like to believe that she plays the same character over and over in all her projects. As if those haters could act themselves.   It's actually hard to cry on stage, in-front of the camera and to generate emotions.  I did acting workshops in my teens (literally a million years ago), I did well but the others were struggling (they didn't have my natural talent, burn!).  The likes of Janice De Belen and Judy Ann Santos were honed by abusive antagonists in their soap operas as kids, so it will always be easy for them. 

In the case of Park Shin-hye, the most-followed actress on Viki, (Lee Jong Suk and Lee Min Ho are 1 and 2 respectively, she's number 3, overall, in my calculations), her haters, are just that pure, unadulterated, trolls.  They're so in-love with the male idols and male actors.  Consciously, they think Cha Eun Sang is stealing their Lee Min Ho or how dare Cho In Ha let Lee Jong Suk (not the character Gi Ha Myeong) kiss her in Pinocchio.  But I wouldn't watch The Heirs (The Inheritors) or Pinocchio on repeat if Park Shin-hye was not a cast member. 

In this age of #me too movement,  I still wouldn't deprive connoisseurs of having male crushes.  They didn't, they couldn't get their own happy ending? So they drool over Jang Geun Suk, Jung Yong Hwa and with Game of Thrones being so popular, Kit Harrington.  They follow actors with different leading ladies. I couldn't watch Lee Jong Suk in anything other than Pinocchio.  Maybe if he'll be paired again with Park Shin-hye.  

I'm watching You're Beautiful again, on Netflix.  Netflix cuts a lot of scenes.  The Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer scene is cut. They also cut the Winter Olympic screen scene on Pinocchio. So I revert to Viki for the missing scenes. I have nothing else to watch. Kong Hyong-Jin, unfollowed Park Shin-hye on instagram, so I don't repeat her dramas anymore.  But I like It's Ok, That's Love, especially the discussion on schizophrenia.  Park Shin-hye should do a drama with Noh Hee-Kyung as writer.  That would be  cool as this writer usually give her female leads depth and substance. 

 

Doctors / Doctor Crush

I was thinking of writing about Doctors or Doctor Crush before I have seen Memories of the Alhambra. Then I got trapped following the cliffhangers of MOA (Memories of the Alhambra) and just like everything else about writing and social media, every aspect gets delayed. 

There’s not a lot to comment about Doctors, it’s very feel-good show while Memories of the Alhambra is way darker, fantasy “oh crap” kind of thing. But since I’ve already seen various repeats of Doctors even before MOA finished filming in Spain, I say let’s reminisce about the rags to riches character and story of Dr. Yoo Hye-jung. 

Literally, Park Shin-hye kicks ass in this drama. She is so adept in her action scenes defending herself from the bullies of her youth and the bad guys in her professional life. Yoo Hye-jung emerges from the scars and trauma of her rebellious childhood and adolescence, a star. She is shaped, as we all are, by her upbringing. But rather than settling for mediocrity, she fought off adversity and harnessed her high IQ to become a neurosurgeon. She was far from a good student. She was removed from her previous high school before being taken-in by her paternal (I think so) grandmother and given unconditional support. 

In her new school, she met Hong Ji Hong, (Kim Rae Won) her homeroom teacher, a medical doctor (the word “doctor” always sound cool, notwithstanding the hard work it entails) and new friends and classmates, Jin See Woo (Lee Sung Kyung) and Cheon Soon Hee (Moon J In). Jin See Woo played is the definition of the alpha student, the beauty and brains who does well in school and top all the exams as the daughter and 

granddaughter of physicians. See Woo and Hye Jung initially are friends, it was See Woo who lent her notes and gave her pointers for the midterm exams, as Hye Jung professed that she has not done any studying in her school life. But just as it should be in feel-good dramas, Hye Jung topped the Maths exams instead of See Woo and the latter girl definitely didn’t take it lightly. As an antagonist, what she did next was a bit immature. Antagonists could never handle defeat in any drama. A fire, a stint in jail due to the fire and her grandmother dying on the operating table propelled the heroine to a career in medicine. 

Thirteen years later, Hong Jihong (after stints in Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic) is a professor of neurosurgery and both Hye Jung and See Woo became Fellows in Neurosurgery. They all work in the same hospital. What are the odds? Then comes a series of medical and surgical subplots and individual inpatient cases and a second lead in Jung Yoon-do (Yun Kyun Sang) as another capable neurosurgeon and it becomes very enlightening and educational series. I simply enjoy watching people saving lives and making a difference in society. Although Hye Jung seeking justice for her grandmother’s untimely demise makes the plot convoluted. It's out of character for a doctor not to know her country’s statute of limitations.

I ship Park Shin-hye here with Yun Kyun Sang as I find it so awkward for a teacher to fall for a student especially within the confines of a high school. But Hong Ji Hong is the more acclaimed neurosurgeon and his love story with Hye Jung is an adorable garnish.  

I know Park Shin-hye doesn’t like summer as much as she does winter but I like her style and fashion in this 

drama. In her other summer-filmed drama, Heartstrings, she wore mostly nun-clothes. In Doctors, she not only comes into her own as a lead character but a stylish top star. 

And I like watching medical dramas, I believe health is wealth. We all need the services of health professionals at some point in our lives, even health professionals themselves. I like all the studying they're doing in this drama, how the doctors and nurses are saving lives. People comes only to appreciate  that when their own health is in peril, not during their healthier, happier days.