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kdrama: City Hunter: end
Aug. 1st, 2011 09:35 pmMy thoughts on the first 14 episodes: OMG this is such cracky addictive fun and it has lots of women Doing Things and they have careers and are confident and aren't rivals and a main heroine who says "stuf u" to attempts to sideline or "protect" her and the women like each other and I apparently can like manpainy woobies and the romantic plotline is lots of fun and I guess I do sometimes like contemporary kdramas!
My thoughts on episodes 15-16: Writers, I think you kinda ran out of plot and are scarmbling a bit, but this is still fun.
My thoughts on 17-20: What the hell happened to this show where are all the women (unless men need to angst or need a pep talk) when did Yoon Sung start being kinda dull and when did Na Na stop being "the heroine who does things" and start being "the girl who stands around" and why is this show suddenly and endless barrage of Men Talking and ok I'm not paying as close attention anymore but half of this doesn't make sense an this is why most of my kdramas are period dramas isn't it?
Also, it's really weird when I predicthe ending less than halfway through. And I want to rewatch Rondo now.
kdrama: City Hunter ep 15-16
Jul. 16th, 2011 05:22 pmAlas, the dreaded kdrama slump-that period in the last 3rd of modern kdramas where little actually happens and the development in the main relationship is basically put on hold wile the show throws complications and random angst-reveals at us to keep things going for the final episodes-has arrived. Granted, not nearly as bad as most modern kdramas I've seen, but still.
But you know, between Na Na being able to pick up hospital couches and Yoon Sung using bottles as lethal weapons, those are going to be some interesting kids those two have.
( spoilers )
Meanwhile, I have apparently made 200 icons of the sow that I haven't posted. I should fix that.
I offer up this IM conversation as proof that watching Asian TeeVee as it comes out and waiting for subtitles makes my sense of entitlement escalate. For prosperity.
( I am owed instant subtitles. No, really. )
Incidentally, the titular character of Warrior Baek Dong Soo when he's twelve basically has identical expressions, delivery and vocal tones as 20-something Yoon Sung in City Hunter any time they're sulking/annoyed/want something. I feel so much is explained.
(no subject)
Jul. 2nd, 2011 11:35 amIf anyone here is thinking about watching City Hunter but isn't sold yet, here's an incentive:
Meanwhile, Dichen Lachman is apparently going to be a regular is season 2 of the US version of Being Human. I watched up through the second episode of the UK version before I couldn't take the universe (especially women's pain and experiences, because how important can those be, right?) being all about George's Man Pain, even though there were other things I liked.
I've heard mixed things about the US version, but Lachman was one of the few goos things about Dollhouse and she and her character were the only reason I stuck with it as long as i did, until I got to the episode with her origin an it pissed me off so muxh that the rest of the series could have been nothing but the Sierra and Victor Show, and I probably still wouldn't have watched. But I suppose Lachman as a vampire is worth checking it out. I just need to decide if i'm going to watch season one first.
It's ok though, because Starz has cancelled Camelot, freeing me up a TV spot. Camelot's cancelation is actually a relief? I probably would have watched season 2 despite my resolutions and been consistently annoyed at how it had interesting elements in it's take on the elements and how their setup could have been brilliantly deconstructive if it hadn't been so hung up on The Great Tales Of Men (and it actually did address some of the issues with the legends, especially Ygraine and Ygraine/Uther and Uther in general, it just...all got mixed in with the Fail).
On the subject of Camelot, let me take a moment to rant a bit about how this was treated as an inconvenient roadblock in The Path of True and Epic Love:
I've heard mixed things about the US version, but Lachman was one of the few goos things about Dollhouse and she and her character were the only reason I stuck with it as long as i did, until I got to the episode with her origin an it pissed me off so muxh that the rest of the series could have been nothing but the Sierra and Victor Show, and I probably still wouldn't have watched. But I suppose Lachman as a vampire is worth checking it out. I just need to decide if i'm going to watch season one first.
It's ok though, because Starz has cancelled Camelot, freeing me up a TV spot. Camelot's cancelation is actually a relief? I probably would have watched season 2 despite my resolutions and been consistently annoyed at how it had interesting elements in it's take on the elements and how their setup could have been brilliantly deconstructive if it hadn't been so hung up on The Great Tales Of Men (and it actually did address some of the issues with the legends, especially Ygraine and Ygraine/Uther and Uther in general, it just...all got mixed in with the Fail).
On the subject of Camelot, let me take a moment to rant a bit about how this was treated as an inconvenient roadblock in The Path of True and Epic Love:
( spoilers )
kdrama: City Hunter ep 11-12
Jul. 1st, 2011 09:30 pm
The shamelessness! There is no end to the shamelessness of this show! In fact, I think it's left Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei in the dust at this point, and that's an ccomplishment.
50 x Camelot
50 x City Hunter
50 x Game of Thrones
50 x Nikita
50 x Paladins in Troubled Times
50 x Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei/Vigilantes in Masks
the rest at my lj
kdrama: City Hunter eps 1-10
Jun. 28th, 2011 12:57 amCity Hunter is, quite simply, the most ridiculously addicting TV show I’ve seen in ages.
No, really. It’s almost embarrassing.
It’s basically about a fake playboy raised to be an evil assassin out for revenge who wants to be a superhero. Or something like that. Dude jumps off buildings a lot and randomly starts wearing a mask halfway through the aired episodes.
The first episode, I admit, almost put me to sleep because it was all the manpainy backstory about how Our Hero, Yoon Sung’s, father and a bunch of other soldiers were betrayed by the Korean government in 1983, and the sole survivor stole Yoon Sung from his mother (Babystealer left her a note saying that her life would be better and she’d be happier without a baby, then he tells Yoon Sung that his mother abandoned him to have an easier life.) and raises Yoon Sung to be his personal killing machine, while he becomes an international drug lord based out of Thailand in order to finance his revenge.
Babystealer is something else. He’d get along great with numerous versions of Merlin though, I think.
Anyway, I think I missed a lot in the first episode because I was whining to calixa that nobody praising it warned me that it started with an hour of manpainy backstory, and that it was a good thing that I was assured I’d like it once we got to the main story.
However! After that is when it gets absurdly addicting. The main story is Yoon Sung and Babystealer getting revenge. Yoon Sung votes for outting all the bad guys’ dirty secrets so that they’ll be humiliated and in jail. Babystealer is all “kill them all and kick their families out on the street.” Yoon Sung would like to not be a murderer so that he can settled down and have a real job and a family some day. Babystealer seems to think that once they get revenge, they’ll go back to Thailand shoot each other in the head or something. Then Yoon Sung goes and falls in love with Na Na, who is the bodyguard of both the president’s teenage daughter and one of the men Babystealer is after.
Na Na is kind of universally awesome and I like Joon Sung a lot when he’s being himself (as opposed to his playboy cover persona, which annoys me a lot) but what makes it great is the Drama. Things that you’d expect to not show up until, like, the last 3 episodes just randomly show up in early episodes for extra twists, and once you hit I think episode 5 practically every episode ends with a cliffhanger that’s basically a game changer. (It’s like the first season and a half of Vampire Diaries, but with secret identities, way way less misogyny and woobifying of rapists and abusers, and no supernatural elements. Uhm…and a completely different plot. But similar Drama and random reveals.)
( spoilery )
Incidentally, this is the first modern kdrama (I mostly watch traditional and fusion sageuks when it comes to kdramas) I've been into and didn't drop relatively early since...Spring Waltz? I may have watched Vineyard Man after that, but while I watched all of it and enjoyed, I wasn't hugely into it.
No, really. It’s almost embarrassing.
It’s basically about a fake playboy raised to be an evil assassin out for revenge who wants to be a superhero. Or something like that. Dude jumps off buildings a lot and randomly starts wearing a mask halfway through the aired episodes.
The first episode, I admit, almost put me to sleep because it was all the manpainy backstory about how Our Hero, Yoon Sung’s, father and a bunch of other soldiers were betrayed by the Korean government in 1983, and the sole survivor stole Yoon Sung from his mother (Babystealer left her a note saying that her life would be better and she’d be happier without a baby, then he tells Yoon Sung that his mother abandoned him to have an easier life.) and raises Yoon Sung to be his personal killing machine, while he becomes an international drug lord based out of Thailand in order to finance his revenge.
Babystealer is something else. He’d get along great with numerous versions of Merlin though, I think.
Anyway, I think I missed a lot in the first episode because I was whining to calixa that nobody praising it warned me that it started with an hour of manpainy backstory, and that it was a good thing that I was assured I’d like it once we got to the main story.
However! After that is when it gets absurdly addicting. The main story is Yoon Sung and Babystealer getting revenge. Yoon Sung votes for outting all the bad guys’ dirty secrets so that they’ll be humiliated and in jail. Babystealer is all “kill them all and kick their families out on the street.” Yoon Sung would like to not be a murderer so that he can settled down and have a real job and a family some day. Babystealer seems to think that once they get revenge, they’ll go back to Thailand shoot each other in the head or something. Then Yoon Sung goes and falls in love with Na Na, who is the bodyguard of both the president’s teenage daughter and one of the men Babystealer is after.
Na Na is kind of universally awesome and I like Joon Sung a lot when he’s being himself (as opposed to his playboy cover persona, which annoys me a lot) but what makes it great is the Drama. Things that you’d expect to not show up until, like, the last 3 episodes just randomly show up in early episodes for extra twists, and once you hit I think episode 5 practically every episode ends with a cliffhanger that’s basically a game changer. (It’s like the first season and a half of Vampire Diaries, but with secret identities, way way less misogyny and woobifying of rapists and abusers, and no supernatural elements. Uhm…and a completely different plot. But similar Drama and random reveals.)
( spoilery )
Incidentally, this is the first modern kdrama (I mostly watch traditional and fusion sageuks when it comes to kdramas) I've been into and didn't drop relatively early since...Spring Waltz? I may have watched Vineyard Man after that, but while I watched all of it and enjoyed, I wasn't hugely into it.
