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more kdrama feelings
Let's talk about Coffee Prince, which was SO DAMN DELIGHTFUL I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF.
Okay, first off: most gender-bendy thing EVER. If you enjoy that, get thyself to hulu or dramafever or something and watch this series. Yoon Eun Hye (my Kdrama girlfriend for sure) is a girl who's super tomboyish and often gets mistaken for a guy. She's the breadwinner in her family (her dad's dead, her mom is pretty useless and her little sis is still in high school) and constantly needs to find ways to make more money. She ends up running into the layabout grandson of a (badass) lady owner of a big food company and he mistakes her for a guy. She thinks he's a jerk, so she doesn't bother to correct him. But then he hires her first to play his boyfriend so he can convince girls his grandmama is setting him up with that he's gay and secondly at an all-guys coffee shop (the workers are all guys, the customers are everyone). So obviously she can't tell him now that she's a girl--she'll lose her job, and she really needs it!
Cue all sorts of shenanigans and adorable "male"-bonding and conflicted feelings and of course falling in love. It's a romantic comedy, after all.
In short: YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS.
It is so lovable, y'all. YEH, who was adorably teenage girly in Goong is adorably not at all girly in this. Her physicality is awesome: she takes up space in ways that most women have been culturally conditioned not to, flopping her limbs around and moving like a teenage boy who hasn't quite managed to figure out how his body works yet. She also completely gives up any attempts at vanity: there are moments where her character is the opposite of attractive, and she goes all the way with it.
Another little detail I liked was how realistic the relationship between YEH's Eun Chan and her little sister felt. They felt like real siblings to me, and I rarely see that on TV, as much as I love my TV siblings. They love each other a lot, get on each others' nerves, make fun of each other, flop around on the floor play-wrestling, are incredibly different, insult each other, misunderstand each other, and love each other some more.
And I just love this whole cast of characters. The boys in the coffee shop have the most adorable little friendships (I especially love Min Yeop and his pursuit of Eun Chan's little sister and also how he always calls Eun Chan hyung and is basically a big dumb but sweet guy. Awwww! Also: Sun Ki is hot, so).
The romance worked, mostly because they set up the weird little friendship between Eun Chan and Han Kyul so well. Like, when he desperately tries to convince himself that he just wants Eun Chan to be his little brother, it makes sense, because they've had that sort of relationship thus far (mostly). I love their bromance going on. Han Kyul thinks Eun Chan is absolutely ridiculous but also pretty cute, and that mix is great. And Eun Chan can't decide if she hates or loves Han Kyul half the time. So well done.
And I thought Han Kyul's conflict over these feelings he doesn't understand was really well-handled. I especially loved when he asked Yoo Joo if he could hug her and gave this huge sigh of relief when his body reacted to hers. Of course, then things go sticky again for him when he hugged Eun Chan, but. I felt so bad for him with all these feelings he had. And then the way he reacted when he found out she was really a girl--he felt so betrayed because he's been caring around these big scary feelings and he didn't have to be. It all made sense.
Some other things I loved re: the romance: 1) most awkward lead-up to a sex scene ever? YES YES YES. So unromantic, Han Kyul trying to kick Eun Chan out of his house and her refusing to go and then: BOOM. SEX. Oh, these two. 2) Han Kyul's command not to grow out her hair or wear miniskirts when she's in Italy. 3) How open he is about his feelings once he accepts them. Like, he is absolutely crazy about this girl and he doesn't mind showing it.
The last episode was not a great episode of TV or anything, but it gave me all the warm fuzzies with all the Coffee Princes coming in one by one to say their goodbyes to Eun Chan; it was like a little character study of each guy. And then when she came back and everyone freaks out!
I loved her little haircut when she came back--it was more girly but actually it was shorter than her hair was before and probably doesn't require much work. If she'd come back with like, shampoo commercial hair, I would have been pissed, but she still seemed Eun Chan-ish. Her clothes were more girly, but I understood: I dressed differently when I got back from my time in Europe, and I was only gone for a semester. You could always tell which kids on campus had done study abroad at my school. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I wore skinny jeans almost exactly like Eun Chan's when I got back from Vienna. So.
Most of all, I'm just happy that Eun Chan got to both live her dream of becoming a barista AND have the guy. Yay for both!
Eun Sae/Min Yeop best B couple so adorable I love them. Eun Sae is a badass, and Min Yeop is a big giant puppy, and they were so cute.
Han Sung and Yoo Joo were way more complicated but I did like them, even if Yoo Joo was kind of hard to get along with and also she seemed emotionally fickle. But I do believe they could get to a good place and I'm glad they ended up together and happy. My heart ACHED at the miscarraige/barrenness plotline. Poor kids.
Oh, and a GREAT soundtrack. Obviously I downloaded all the available ones.
Blah blah blah. Lots of feelings. Probably left some stuff out, but whatever.
I also watched the first half of Shut Up Flower Boy Band yesterday, which I actually ended up enjoying way more than I thought I would.
First of all: HAHAHA THIS KID. ♥
I love him and his coked-out whackjob amoral androgynous nonsense. THE EYELINER ALONE. I mean, I knew going in that he would only be in the first two episodes, and it broke my heart because: LOOK AT THIS KID. This show got 6,000% less punk after he was gone. But writing him out makes sense for Watsonian reasons, too, because the life that this boy would lead would never, ever be airable on Korean TV. He would take all the drugs and sleep with all the people and probably have severe mental health problems all the time and then die young. This. Kid.
But I started loving all the other kids, too, after the first few episodes where I couldn't tell them apart.
Ji Hyuk really grew on me. He didn't stand out until Byung Hee died, actually, but now he's won my heart. He's a good guy, really, but very alone and with a lot of feelings he's not sure how to deal with. I ship him and Soo Ah super hard, which is strange because she doesn't have a ton of personality? But I like how they are together. I have a thing for couples who rely on each other. And yes, I agree with her: his voice is awesome.
Do Il is, I think, a good solid guy, and I hope we get some more development with him later.
Hyun Soo has won me over as well with how hard he worked on his guitar solo and then THE SCENE WITH THE BLOOD. Also when he confessed to his little sister how he got into music and how much he misses being Ji Hyuk's BFF, my heart melted. He's cocky, but he has this fierce pride, and I like him. Also: L is a pretty, pretty child.
Kyung Jong and Ha Jin mostly crack me up with how they constantly hang all over each other. OH BOYS. And then when they have a fight and everyone's like, "Did you two have a lover's quarrel?" "I'm uncomfortable with how much space there is between you. Switch seats with me!"
So yeah. I'm liking it. It's an easy watch.
And I never realized till recently just how much LONGER an hour-long episode feels than a 40-minute one. But the difference is staggering.
Okay, first off: most gender-bendy thing EVER. If you enjoy that, get thyself to hulu or dramafever or something and watch this series. Yoon Eun Hye (my Kdrama girlfriend for sure) is a girl who's super tomboyish and often gets mistaken for a guy. She's the breadwinner in her family (her dad's dead, her mom is pretty useless and her little sis is still in high school) and constantly needs to find ways to make more money. She ends up running into the layabout grandson of a (badass) lady owner of a big food company and he mistakes her for a guy. She thinks he's a jerk, so she doesn't bother to correct him. But then he hires her first to play his boyfriend so he can convince girls his grandmama is setting him up with that he's gay and secondly at an all-guys coffee shop (the workers are all guys, the customers are everyone). So obviously she can't tell him now that she's a girl--she'll lose her job, and she really needs it!
Cue all sorts of shenanigans and adorable "male"-bonding and conflicted feelings and of course falling in love. It's a romantic comedy, after all.
In short: YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS.
It is so lovable, y'all. YEH, who was adorably teenage girly in Goong is adorably not at all girly in this. Her physicality is awesome: she takes up space in ways that most women have been culturally conditioned not to, flopping her limbs around and moving like a teenage boy who hasn't quite managed to figure out how his body works yet. She also completely gives up any attempts at vanity: there are moments where her character is the opposite of attractive, and she goes all the way with it.
Another little detail I liked was how realistic the relationship between YEH's Eun Chan and her little sister felt. They felt like real siblings to me, and I rarely see that on TV, as much as I love my TV siblings. They love each other a lot, get on each others' nerves, make fun of each other, flop around on the floor play-wrestling, are incredibly different, insult each other, misunderstand each other, and love each other some more.
And I just love this whole cast of characters. The boys in the coffee shop have the most adorable little friendships (I especially love Min Yeop and his pursuit of Eun Chan's little sister and also how he always calls Eun Chan hyung and is basically a big dumb but sweet guy. Awwww! Also: Sun Ki is hot, so).
The romance worked, mostly because they set up the weird little friendship between Eun Chan and Han Kyul so well. Like, when he desperately tries to convince himself that he just wants Eun Chan to be his little brother, it makes sense, because they've had that sort of relationship thus far (mostly). I love their bromance going on. Han Kyul thinks Eun Chan is absolutely ridiculous but also pretty cute, and that mix is great. And Eun Chan can't decide if she hates or loves Han Kyul half the time. So well done.
And I thought Han Kyul's conflict over these feelings he doesn't understand was really well-handled. I especially loved when he asked Yoo Joo if he could hug her and gave this huge sigh of relief when his body reacted to hers. Of course, then things go sticky again for him when he hugged Eun Chan, but. I felt so bad for him with all these feelings he had. And then the way he reacted when he found out she was really a girl--he felt so betrayed because he's been caring around these big scary feelings and he didn't have to be. It all made sense.
Some other things I loved re: the romance: 1) most awkward lead-up to a sex scene ever? YES YES YES. So unromantic, Han Kyul trying to kick Eun Chan out of his house and her refusing to go and then: BOOM. SEX. Oh, these two. 2) Han Kyul's command not to grow out her hair or wear miniskirts when she's in Italy. 3) How open he is about his feelings once he accepts them. Like, he is absolutely crazy about this girl and he doesn't mind showing it.
The last episode was not a great episode of TV or anything, but it gave me all the warm fuzzies with all the Coffee Princes coming in one by one to say their goodbyes to Eun Chan; it was like a little character study of each guy. And then when she came back and everyone freaks out!
I loved her little haircut when she came back--it was more girly but actually it was shorter than her hair was before and probably doesn't require much work. If she'd come back with like, shampoo commercial hair, I would have been pissed, but she still seemed Eun Chan-ish. Her clothes were more girly, but I understood: I dressed differently when I got back from my time in Europe, and I was only gone for a semester. You could always tell which kids on campus had done study abroad at my school. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I wore skinny jeans almost exactly like Eun Chan's when I got back from Vienna. So.
Most of all, I'm just happy that Eun Chan got to both live her dream of becoming a barista AND have the guy. Yay for both!
Eun Sae/Min Yeop best B couple so adorable I love them. Eun Sae is a badass, and Min Yeop is a big giant puppy, and they were so cute.
Han Sung and Yoo Joo were way more complicated but I did like them, even if Yoo Joo was kind of hard to get along with and also she seemed emotionally fickle. But I do believe they could get to a good place and I'm glad they ended up together and happy. My heart ACHED at the miscarraige/barrenness plotline. Poor kids.
Oh, and a GREAT soundtrack. Obviously I downloaded all the available ones.
Blah blah blah. Lots of feelings. Probably left some stuff out, but whatever.
I also watched the first half of Shut Up Flower Boy Band yesterday, which I actually ended up enjoying way more than I thought I would.
First of all: HAHAHA THIS KID. ♥
I love him and his coked-out whackjob amoral androgynous nonsense. THE EYELINER ALONE. I mean, I knew going in that he would only be in the first two episodes, and it broke my heart because: LOOK AT THIS KID. This show got 6,000% less punk after he was gone. But writing him out makes sense for Watsonian reasons, too, because the life that this boy would lead would never, ever be airable on Korean TV. He would take all the drugs and sleep with all the people and probably have severe mental health problems all the time and then die young. This. Kid.
But I started loving all the other kids, too, after the first few episodes where I couldn't tell them apart.
Ji Hyuk really grew on me. He didn't stand out until Byung Hee died, actually, but now he's won my heart. He's a good guy, really, but very alone and with a lot of feelings he's not sure how to deal with. I ship him and Soo Ah super hard, which is strange because she doesn't have a ton of personality? But I like how they are together. I have a thing for couples who rely on each other. And yes, I agree with her: his voice is awesome.
Do Il is, I think, a good solid guy, and I hope we get some more development with him later.
Hyun Soo has won me over as well with how hard he worked on his guitar solo and then THE SCENE WITH THE BLOOD. Also when he confessed to his little sister how he got into music and how much he misses being Ji Hyuk's BFF, my heart melted. He's cocky, but he has this fierce pride, and I like him. Also: L is a pretty, pretty child.
Kyung Jong and Ha Jin mostly crack me up with how they constantly hang all over each other. OH BOYS. And then when they have a fight and everyone's like, "Did you two have a lover's quarrel?" "I'm uncomfortable with how much space there is between you. Switch seats with me!"
So yeah. I'm liking it. It's an easy watch.
And I never realized till recently just how much LONGER an hour-long episode feels than a 40-minute one. But the difference is staggering.
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I only watched bits of this b/c my roomie is incapable of waiting for me before blazing through ALL THE THINGS... But I recall being super touched by this plotting.
Plus, all the FANTASTIC gender-bendy is hard to walk away from.
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It really humanized Yoo Joo and showed that their relationship was built on more than just this inability to let each other go. It made me sad.
Plus, all the FANTASTIC gender-bendy is hard to walk away from.
So true!
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Just checking: when Han-Gyul is convincing himself to hire Eun Chan as an escort, and the scenes before on his blind dates, she wasn't actually there, right? That was just his imagination?
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when he's with Eun Chan
Yeah, I get that! She brings out the best in everybody!
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Plus my eyes are pretty much glued to Eun Chan whenever she's on-screen; the girl/not-girl tension there fascinates me. You're right, this actress is really marvelous at physically inhabiting her role.
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one is Srs Drama and the other is total Shakespearean crack.
HAHAHA YES.
Yoon Eun Hye is one of my favorite Korean actresses, definitely. I don't think she's necessarily technically the best actress around, but she's got great screen presence and gives everything she has to every role. I love her lots. Have an icon of her being pin-up gorgeous.
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You mean when she was demanding that he apologize? No, she was really there.
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also because I couldn't see his dates putting up with this random person interrupting that way
Oh, that's just for the sake of the drama. It doesn't have to make sense. :D Kdramas are a lot less married to whether something makes sense or seems realistic than American TV is.
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I've gotten into kdramas pretty seriously. Originally I just saw a graphic from Goong used in a fandom_secret (I think it was this graphic) and was like I HAVE TO WATCH THAT. And once I started watching that one, I wanted to look for other Korean dramas. From there, I was lost.
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