I think you misunderstood. NIF does end with Su's death. We were given a brief false hope that Lin Chen could keep him alive longer than expected but when Su decided to lead the army into war, his death became a done deal.

However, there will be a "season 2" which is actually a prequel.

@marybethany's new comment at Healer ep 20 recap mentioned that YSH in Remember is looking like Healer. The disguise itself is similar to what we see in Healer but much more Park Bong Soo (without the adorkable) and much less Healer.

Finished The Myth with a lot of skipping. Hu Ge's character waited over 2,000 years to reunite with his one true love. She died shortly after. He ended up all alone.

I watched three Hu Ge dramas: his character either ended up all alone or dead. He must have an affinity for dramas that torment the character he plays.

I'm in the minority, but I feel actively participating and experiencing historical events is much more interesting than the love story.

I'm rethinking my approaches to storytelling... I've really been thinking about what draws in a female audience - and what grows a male / female audience. I'm really interested in your opinions, too.

So, here's my first posit: A love story can't sustain itself. A Kdrama (for example) can only sustain the pure romance without significant outside obstacle for maybe 4 -6 episodes. Then it loses steam. Best is when there's an outside obstacle the entire time.

Here's my second posit: We all like adventure and action related conflict. Girls just like it with a dose of romance in the middle. These shows (Healer) seem to hold our attention longer than just drama.

Third posit: Politics are boring. Whether it's Mask or The Three Musketeers or Oh My Venus the politics are only interesting in how they drives the characters and the situations they're in. Too much chat chat about politics this and chaebol that and we cease to care.

Fourth posit: Our favorite shows have an internal logic - City Hunter, Healer, Two Weeks, 3 Days, Pinocchio, The Return of Iljimae, My Love from A Star.... every single one has some internal conflict that has nothing special to do with outside factors. We're made to care about the characters' issues rather than larger societal ones (or tropes like chaebol anything.)

Okay, girls, thoughts? I'm hoping this turns into a long discussion.

I'm going to skip the OT. People don't seem to be able to stay on topic there and I'll have to manage a thread that goes off in 42 directions and ends with people listing their favorite dramas.

@Susan ?????

I'll thinking about your posits. Nirvana in Fire did something to me. Right now I have nothing both intellectually and emotionally.

At this time, I think I want to watch a 'brainless' comfort show (to replace comfort food, because I had a very big and late lunch and am still feeling stuffed). Therefore NIF is a no-no for now.

Bu Bu Jing Xin/Scarlet Heart

It's an easy watch. After ep 11, it moves along pretty well, very few draggy parts.

Because she met many of the princes early and they all have favorable opinions of her, her life inside the palace has been a breeze- no fights, no setups, no beatings, no poison.

I'm indifferent to the love triangle between Prince #4, the heroine and Prince #8. Put it another way, I don't care about the focus of this drama.

The competitions for Crown Prince position feels like children's games after watching NIF.

Prince #10 is likable- not smart but sincere. My favorite prince is #13 who is unorthodox and open-minded, a good mix of traditional and modern mindset. Both are the heroine's buddies.

Both this drama and The Myth are time-traveling stories with the main characters actually knowing a good deal of the historical periods they are in. How convenient!

Demi Gods and Semi Devils

Looks like there were two separate productions around the same time. I dropped one adaptation. Just found the "better" one. So far, this cast fit better with the book's descriptions, and this drama's story lines are more coherent.

Another thing I noticed about cdrama:

Some actors & actresses often come in sets- When one is in a project, there is a good chance that the others are in the same project.

Don't know whether the production company outsources casting to an agency or looks for actors & actresses who are known to work well together.

Here's a totally out of the drama verse question. My manager suddenly cannot do a demonstration and has asked me to help out. However, it has some technical bits. I'm now trying to find out what an MVC Entity Framework is, just in case I'm asked!!! There's also a an MS .Net framework somewhere in the slides... but that one I can find some info on.

I just bumped up against DRM issues for my music (for which I own the CDs). What an albatross! Music distributors have become sabotiers!

I've got meetings and running about to do, so all shows are on hold. I did start another short webdrama... 6 episodes Flowers of or for the Vampire. I did not complete the musical one, A Better Tomorrow. I think I just don't care for the male lead.

I have gazillion cdramas lined up, actually watching 3 right now. I'm wondering whether tdrama Bromance is worth checking out. A woman can pretend and live like a man in contemporary society sounds preposterous enough to pique my interest.

Latest Moon Lover casting news.

http://www.allkpop.com/article/2016/01/moon-lovers-secures-its-flower-boy-cast-of-exos-baekhyun-kang-ha-neul-hong-jong-hyun-nam-joo-hyuk-and-ji-soo

Hong Jong Hyun plays Prince #3. I'm about half-way through with the cdrama. #3 showed up only briefly. Unless the Korean version changes things up, Hong Jong Hyun will be totally underused while idol actors will have much more screen time as #10, 13 and 14.

"General" observations on cdrama and kdrama main female characters, based on relatively small sample sizes. I'm aware of the antithetical nature of the above.

Cdramas: She is highly intelligent, unyielding and competent. She uses sincerity and intelligence, instead of pity, to win over people. Exhibition of spunkiness can be persistent or strategic.

Kdramas: She may be intelligent but often just average, indecisive, and ineffectual/incompetent (until the plot suddenly needs her to be competent). She is either domineering or pitiful. Exhibition of spunkiness is more random. More damsel-in-distress incidents.

I've been doing an eclectic mix of running about, trying to catch bits of the early episodes of Reply 1988 to scout out clues about the husband's identity (it has returned to the fore as the central focus) and the continuation of clearing out stuff. I was hoping it would be a therapeutic thing, the clearing out, I mean. Clearing physical space is often used as a reflection of clearing the head.

I also just remembered that I'm supposed to plan a schedule. But I think I'd rather sleep right now!

Lots of people have been getting sick around me, with more flu like symptoms, but now I'm getting what might be called a nervous stomach. I'm taking a yoghurt drink that usually help a bit, and a digestive enzyme tablet.

I tried another web drama, We Broke Up. Another simple premise of a couple in a shared house with the guy's other band members who break up but still end up living under the same roof.

It could have worked as well as One Sunny Day which was even simpler and managed the story very well, but it didn't really. Somehow the lead and second lead actors/actresses in We Broke Up just could not convey or convince with their portrayal of emotion. I looked them up... model, singer, singer-song writer... the only one not too bad was the 2nd lead male actor-model. On top of that the lead in to the ending was missing. I just did not feel right.

Would be nice if DB recaps Moorim School. Really prefer not to watch a high-school, but plot and characters may not be typical. If similar to wuxia novels/dramas, the school would actually teach them ethics/morality and have them follow a code of honor.

It seems Jung Il Woo is keeping himself busy and visible. Show sounds like another one of those single female surrounded by 4 guys kind of romances. I like seeing girl becoming the unifying factor (and not the divisive one) and get on well as chums with the rest of the guys, that is usually played out in these kinds of groupings.

@Susan ?????

Long tail theory of media consumption. Generally true or not?

How does payment and receipt of royalty work after decades when the people & company originally involved are no longer around?

About Cheese in TT, 4 episodes and still OK. The show is making it appear that the 2nd lead is more suitable for Seol, and in this show, Seo Kang Joon is actually pretty good.

Moorim School is being recapped. Ep 1 seems uninspiring. If I notice interesting elements in ep 2 recap, I will start watching ep 2.

Moon Lovers looks to be a far more complex than its cdrama predecessor, and a stereotypical SK political saguek drama, with an ambitious, power-grabbing queen and more scheming women not featured than the cdrama.

One of Bu Bu Jing Xin/Scarlet Heart's redeeming factor is that the princes, except for one, acknowledging women should not be dragged into and become casualties of their power struggle. They and they alone should pay the price for losing. Collectively and individually they try to protect the heroine as much as possible. Thus, on certain matters, she can unite the factions. Her kdrama counterpart probably won't be so lucky.

Chinese Paladin series of dramas are based on video games. There are definitely many stupid/irritating/distracting video game like elements/scenes. I couldn't get through Chinese Paladin ep 1. Skipping large sections helped me get through 16 episodes of Chinese Paladin 3.

Chinese Paladin 3 has bits and pieces of a good story with interesting mythology scattered among lots of bad special effects/CGI, repetitive fillers and video game like adventures. AND a (princess) sister's very unnatural attachment to her (prince) brother that made me squirm and think of ancient Egyptian royal family siblings.

Time-travel cdrama 太子妃升職記 Go Princess Go! with a gender switch spin.

viki fansite description:

Zhang Peng is a playboy who hits his head as he falls into a pool when he's trying to run away from an ex-girlfriend. He wakes up to find that he's traveled a thousand years into the past. But, that's not even the biggest problem, he also wakes up as the crown princess of the dynasty - Zhang Peng Peng. Hilarity ensues as Zhang Peng weighs between trying to get back to his time and leveraging his new female identity to seduce all the concubines and women he can.

I want to see how raunchy a saguek cdrama can get ?

High End Crush and Madame Antoine are coming to DF next week. Should I save myself from the aggravation or not?

Reply 1988 - I just FFDed the raw Ep 20. Very nostalgic as is to be expected. Hits close to home in the family relationships and also makes one think of areas where one's own relationships could improve. I'd say, that a show that has managed that without being preachy or annoying and which has given us characters to 'love' even into a fictional future of theirs is to be applauded.

It's not exactly a show that I can re-watch though. There's a lot of emotion to be mined so it actually drains me and some episodes are almost 2 hours long!!! I wonder why they didn't go for 25 or more episodes instead of 20, since it kept to a nice leisurely pace and filled every minute with life.

I just noticed that we've hit 2,900 comments here.

I resting after standing up in the kitchen. Shows how much sitting I do that a little standing gets me tired.

Cheese in the Trap - Lately I have little desire to comment on the recap thread. I'd rather just post here quietly.

***SPOILERS***

It requires a lot of thinking and wondering in order to 'enjoy' the show. Motives are the things in question all the time. At least now Jung is given a voice-over for his thoughts. Previously we only had Seol's thoughts and had to infer everything else from behavior... and found ourselves often stumped.

One thing good... the romance turns some of the tropes around. For eg Girl does not like to be touched by the boyfriend (strange?) but does not seem to notice or mind other guys who touch her unconsciously. Or she is afraid to touch and be touched, or she has trust issues... probably something of the latter when it comes to the boyfriend. Girl appears to be a wimp but suddenly does vocalise her questions and protest. Guy appears distant and indifferent and yet tries to 'learn' how to be a boyfriend. Many mixed signals and challenges in interpreting what's going on. The viewers are having a grand time commenting on this.

My own feeling about the relationship is that Guy did not really care about Girl to begin with. He was playing her a bit because she did not 'like' him. He manipulated things to get her on his side and it was only after that, that he began to behave more like a boyfriend. He however cannot be said to have behaved like the typical man in love. All or most of those usual tropes are missing. Thus the puzzlement of the viewers.

Perhaps he does like her a little, but even that I feel has a selfish element to it. He manipulated things to get her nearby, it was to suit himself and most action that he takes does have that element of "me first" in it.

Something I posted disappeared. I'll wait and see if it turns up.

Cdrama The Little Fairy (2006). The side characters were loads of fun.

A guy whose family wealth came by in not so ethical and moral manner started out often being piggy-backed by one of his servants because he was too lazy. Still, he was a good person who never picked on the less fortunate, sincerely treated his friends, and helped out when needed. After his ill-gotten family fortune was lost and his "bad" father became unable to walk due to an illness, he piggy-backed his father everywhere.

A girl whose family wealth came by in extremely unethical and immoral manner seemed to be a typical arrogant bully who usually walked around with her chin held up abnormally high. Oddly, her bullying was one-time only. She never continued torturing anyone.

There are outtakes at the end of the final episode. Thus confirming Hu Ge's voice in his dramas is his own voice. However, he apparently uses another name as a voice actor. After this drama and Chinese Paladin, his left lateral incisor and canine teeth were "fixed." Strange to me that these teeth weren't fixed earlier.

Cdrama Love Me If You Dare seems to be popular and has rave reviews. I couldn't get through the first 10 minutes of ep 1. All the elements just felt too familiar.

DF released all 20 episodes of High End Crush. I'll start with ep 4. With such simple overused premise, I doubt there is a need to go back to the beginning.