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meganbmoore) wrote2007-06-26 01:30 pm
doramas: Devil Beside You, The Little Fairy, Hu Ge
Eight episodes into Devil Beside You now, and liking it much more. Though, pretty much just for the secondary OTP.. Qi Yue and Ah Meng are ok, but there's too much "Look how cute she is!" with Rainie and "Look! He's a hot, violent bad boy in leather" with Mike and both feel really forced and over the top in that regard. Plus, Ah Meng left "bad boy" behind and crossed into "punk" about 10 levels of characterization earlier. They're both likable enough and they have decent enough chemistry, but I'm getting whacked over the head with cute/dangerous just a little too much to really get into them. Plus, I need a little more than "Mom walked out on me" for me to accept this level of behavior and attitude(yeah, in RL it can cause it, but for a romantic hero who I'm supposed to see as the poor woobie, I need a little more...)
But Qing Zi and Yuan Yi? Pure love. Well...pure love for her from the start. Yuan Yi was as interesting as the dirt in your backyard the first few episodes, at at first, all liking and OTP approval was of the "because Qing Zi likes him and Qing Zi should get what she wants" variety(and some still is, though he's FAR better now) but I like them on his merits, too, though he hasn't quite regained all the points he lost when he forgot about their date because he was with Qi Yue, though he's regained most, between realizing how much he screwed up there and that he didn't really deserve the second chance he was giving her, and then for going out and buying her shoes the right size because the ones she had were too small and hurting her feet.
It's kinda odd, actually. Normally a character like Qing Zi doesn't appeal too me-the kinda flashy friend always hanging around with advice that may or may not be that worthwhile...actually, I usually just don't care a lot for the best friends in dramas...maybe because they often end up disappearing when there's trouble and being more talk than anything else, but Qing Zi I loved almost immediately, and she was the first one I latched on to, and still my favorite. I also have a thing for unrequitted crushes when they're done well, and this one was. I liked thatshe kept quiet about her crush on Yuan Yi because she knew Qi Yue liked him but was never jealous, but the second she knew Qi Yue liked someone else and that admitting her crush wouldn't make them rivals, she wasted no time. While I like Qi Yue well enough-I just need less cutesy-Yuan Yi definitely traded up (his and Qi Yue's scenes were the most boring thing ever.)
I also really like Ah Meng's dad(and Qi Yue's mom as an extension) I usually can't stand the "useless but oh so lovable parents who make the poor woobie with no idea what a real family is like fel at home" type-I FF-edthrough every non-crucial looking scene with the heroine's parents in Meteor Garden, Goong and Hana Yori Dango-but I like them. The only other one I've liked is Yu Rin's dad in My Girl. I think it's because the parents here really are good and responsible parents, as silly as they seem, and in My Girl, he wasn't portrayed as "useless but oh so loveable" but as a screw-up who really did love his daughter and tried to do what was best for her, he just always messed up(and, unlike the others, they didn't portray his uselessness as a reason to love him and think he was cute, but as a flaw, which made him likeable.)
Also, I decided to see what trailers my The Little Fairy dvds had, and check out the opening credits. The trailer was for The Hero and the Legend...didn't catch much about it except that it looked very pretty and had Fan Bing Bing, but it looked like she might play a villain. But The Little Fairy itself had a scene before the credits, and it was one of those that was events from later in the series. In it, Ariel Lin is abducted to the heaven's by her father, the king of the heavens(or so I gathered) and Hu Ge stormed the heavens to get her back. Despite acquitting himself well(it IS Hu Ge in a wuxia role...) he would have literally ended up extra crispy if he hadn't brought along a pair of more experienced friends. When Hu Ge confronted the king, he challenged the king's undermining their love, saying that he'd love Ariel in every life and would follow her into hell if he had to, and the king basically says "ok" and opens the floor beneath him and he starts plummetting. There were still a few miles between him and the ground when it cut to the credits, so who knows, but it looks really good. It's probably my next dorama.
Also, I don't know how, but in all his wuxia roles(which is all I've seen him in or have on my list, but then, I don't know of any non-wuxia series he's done...) he manages to look completely heroic and dashing, while still somehow being completely adorkable. Also,
calixa spammed me (in a good way) with Hu Ge pics, yesterday and one was of him and Ady An and it made me really want them to do another drama together. Preferably one where they get together and it doesn't end in a giant ball of angst.
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You know, I think I finally understand your attitude to Goong because it's exactly mine to DBY. I like it well enough, find it cute etc etc, but I don't love it like everyone else seems to and actually I don't really get why they do. It's nice but I don't see the awesomeness.
I also much prefer the secondary OTP in this one. It's the only time in my drama watching where I picked secondary over lead. I think Rainie is cute and not even the horrible hair can ruin Mike He's hotness, and their chemistry is good, but somehow, YY and QZ grab me so much more. I really really love how she can be so mature and how her crush comes true and I actually really like YY as he is a lot more my rl type :) There is a scene coming up that will make you die of glee on the OTP front.
Recently I remember you posting that with the exception of ISWAK, Taiwanese dramas don't click with you as much and I meant to reply to this and forgot so am doing it here :)
It's interesting to me, as they are usually my favorites. On some level, they get to me in a way even my beloved Korean dramas don't. My number 1 and 2 dramas are Taiwanese :) Weird emotional wavelength or something (Japanese dramas are my least fave but I am in a tiny minority there)...
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YY is very nice and responsible, yet somehow socially inept when it comes to girl(QZ is the relationship experienced one here) and QZ manages to simultaneously be very mature and very much a teenaged girl about it.
I think ISWAK is why other twdramas have never completely clicked for me. I've LIKED every other one I've seen, but not unconditionally loved like I do ISWAK. There isn't a single character there I didn't like, or who even really irritated me as a character, as opposed to just a few scenes. Also, if you think about it, it had to be hard to pull off for Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin...they were playing a brilliant jerk(or so he often came across, though, IMO, he just didn't like this girl he didn't know suddenly hanging all over him) and a dumb girl who was all heart, and it was a romance where one half of the OTP actively avoided the other for most of the show and not in a "push you away for your own good" way like Kurosagi, but in a "get away from me, oh annoying one" way and the other endlessly pursued them, no matter how much of a fool they made them selves, and they had to make that work. The end result is pure fluffy love, but its a romance that's harder to pull off than something with a more complex plot and characters like Mars or Meteor Garden, where, while the stories are more complex, the romances them selves are much more straightforward and much closer to being conventional. (hopes all that made sense)
Plus, while I like Rainie and Barbie, I think Ariel Lin is the most appealing of the Taiwanese actresses I've encountered.
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I get the distinction between MG and Mars/ISWAK. I don't know which is more complicated though.
I like Rainie and Barbie, I think Ariel Lin is the most appealing of the Taiwanese actresses I've encountered
For me, it's the other way around: Barbie, then Rainie, then Ariel (though I love all three) :)
Re: evil smirk. That just cracked me up in DBY. DBY is so incredibly shoujoishly over the top :D
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The actual stories and characters in Mars and MG are more complicated, but, IMO, the ISWAK OTP was harder to pull off because the OTP is just so incredibly unlikely.
Oh, the evil smirk cracks me up, I just can't help but compare the two though, and Zhi SHu's wins(Ah Meng's is getting kinda old, though)
This whole discussion is very classic us: we almost always like the exact same thing but at different levels and for different reasons. I think the only real exceptions are Damo and Buffy(well...except the awesome of Cordelia, but then, most of my adoration comes from the first 2 1/2 seasons of Angel, which I THINK you've said you never really watched Angel much? Or am I thinking of someone else?)
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And yeah on the similarities in tastes (and re: Damo. I really like it, but I don't think as much as you do. Not sure it will make into my Top 10, though it might).
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I prefer Zhi Shu over Ah Meng. Zhi SHu came across as a genuine person who for the life of him, couldn't understand why there was this annoying girl in his life, and so reacted accordingly. Ah Meng on the other hand, just kind of pretended to be a bad boy with hair pins and bad hair, not to mention the Harry Potter reading. But he also came across as being selfish when he decided unilaterally to go live with his mom. I understand why, but there are better ways of telling your girlfriend!
I think that in as far as XiangQin and QiYue are concerned, I think that QiYue is the one with a bendier spine. XiangQin did have a spine and was determined to forget ZhiShu on more than 1 occasion, but what's a girl to do when he blows hot and cold! I just didn't like how teary QiYue became at the end when Ah Meng basically announced that he was leaving.
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And yeah, XQ definately had more spine. She fought back instead of just complaining and letting him do whatever, it's just that all she wanted was him, so it may not always come across that way.