Hi

Since we had a "Night in the museum event" on the eve of our independence day and the day before that also turned really long, I have been too tired to watch anything.

But I got my drawings scanned and now I can send them for printing! Yay! I am thinking of also making a color-yourself calendar. Haven´t had time to draw anything new, but i might start pictures of Viljandi. It´s cuter than Tallinn anyway

only watched short stints of dramas, not even full episodes. A bit of everything, but they won´t stick. the level of stickiness is not very high. Signal, although a grim police drama, could still flash a smile or two on a lighter moment. Six Flying Dragons seems to be heavily unbalanced regarding some characters. I liked the trust, faith and patience shown by both Moo Hyul and Bang-Won though. Yoo Ah In does not lose in the level of control he has over the whole scene.

Oh, the characters in Come Back, Ajusshi died on my birthday...I howled exitedly, seeing Choi Won-young. Is he a killer again? I ight watch just for him.

I really want to watch Youth Over Flowers: Africa, but it is not fully subbed anywhere.

semifinal of Eesti laul was last Saturday, some suprises . I reaaaally hope Jüri with Play wins, but Cartoon with Immortality seems to be forced upon us by so called "experts". I don `t like being told I am a "lame bi*ch" if I don`t vote for someone. To me, it is a boring song. Laura with Supersonic has really nonsense lyrics in very bad english. If a dark horse wins, like Meisterjaan with Parmupillihullus, well.... it is definitely weird... um I dunno. Could someone actually like it?

You can listen to the songs here if you´d like: http://etv.err.ee/v/7bb99076-84a8-468c-b758-a0c521bd1036

Question: If you had to go on a sudden trip unprepared, which k-celebs (not just actors, but anyone) would you absolutely not want to go without?

Happy Friday! Loving new W-R shows.
I don't know what to say about CITT. I was too optimistic like JB.
CITT with Yo-jung Sunbae is much more interesting. Enough of In-ho's piano scene. Now webtoon writer is complaining loudly.(but I am still enjoying the show)

Time to give some love to In-ha/Lee Sung-kyung. I like her overacting. LSK is a model turned actress, being good at playing piano, singing, dancing. She wanted to major in piano, but became a model when she was 17 (thanks to her parents). She said- she still plays piano 7-8 hours a day when she is at home (Seo Kang-joon/In-ho could have a piano lesson from her.
heh.) About SGJ, She mentioned they were like real siblings- having brown(light-color) eyes and all.

From her interview-
Q: Gossips are plenty for CITT. It is a very popular webtoon even having diehard fans called 'Chi-mother'(CITT + picky mother-in-law).
A:I am upset and can understand how they feel because I was one of them. But it is hard to squeeze hundreds of episodes in webtoon into 16 episodes. We are like "We know the situation but still feel disappointed" rather than being satisfied. Still I tried hard to find the compromising point between the original and new. At the end I am sure the show has its own color.

Q: In the center of gossips, there is Paek In-ha. In the original, she is an evil character who is victim of child abuse and has inferior complex toward her brother, but in the drama she is just portrayed as comical.
A: I was upset about that too. In-ha is a girl who tries to hang on pathetically and pretend to be strong to hide her trauma, but I worried if she was just portrayed as thoughtless and shameless (shopping crazy) girl. I was so frustrated because I have to give the feel "Craziest bitch in this district should be me", rather than being a simple thoughtless girl. In the later part however, her unique 'Cidar' behavior(relieving frustration) will show, and her pain would be revealed. Even though I hear "What an overacting" or "Does she think she is only one in the show?" now, later on people might think "Oh this is another side of Paek In-ha".

Q: What do you think about negative comments on your acting?
A: In-ha is an example. Her face expression is so wild that swollen portion disappears from my face after acting. Actually she was more exaggerated character, but I made her toned down. At the beginning, PD-nim wanted the character to wear blonde wig, and be whimsical at every turn who can't be controlled at all. Like a character you'd say "What's with her? Is she in the cartoon?" -who does not exist in this world. If I could hope, I'd like people understand that is the original In-ha character, rather than saying "Why does she do such overact? I feel upset the most when people say I didn't try my hardest. Under the situation I can't apply my intention 100%, I still found the compromise and tried my best, but I get criticized. I comfort myself saying...

About Cheese

Last Wednesday morning, I became rather upset. I tried to stay civil in a certain commenting section on DB, but I might have partially failed in that attempt. I'd like to apologise to everyone who I might have offended (Miranda, TJ, ...).

Sometimes you and a show you watch simply do not match. And then you part ways relatively amicably (There might be some name-calling though. Like, me and 'Mask': "Well, you are trashy!" -- "I am, sue me!"). That's okay, no harm done, move on.

But when you are getting along very well with a show, and suddenly the show decides to spit in your face, and continues to do so, that kind of hurts. Especially when there is simply no conceivable reason for it. At all. It's not the lack of competence or skill in any aspect of the production, it's not any kind of misguided expectations either. It's just sheer, willfull disrespect for the audience. I don't even care what kind of politics went on behind the scenes that might have made the show-runners more inclined to spit in my face. I'm not your bitch.

I don't care whether you break with tradition, you get fancy with an adaption, you happen to disrespect the original writer, you overstress your staff, you reshoot scenes differently because of a new and different concept. I don't care about screen-time ratios. I don't care about ships. If you deliver, I'll accept all of that and more. It's your production and maybe the end justifies the means. But, the end of the show is the audience. There is absolutely no justifiable reason to fuck with the audience.

I don't know how or why this happened, and I don't want to know. In the end, tvN is responsible for the show it releases to the viewers.

DOTS - looks good. Doesn't seem anything pathbreaking till now though. Seems like just a love story set in exotic places - which makes me wonder how do they justify the expense. But otherwise we should be able to get along happily till the end

pls come back mister - i am stragely devoid of any thoughts about it. i'm not really sure what to feel about it. Let me see episode 2.

MA - is a complete mess. I discounted the absolute dodgy psychology (why? why ? why ?) but i still can't figure out when exactly did the leads fell in love considering theey both said "i love you' (which is a huge deal) rather than 'i like you'. The rom-com strangely skipped over the Rom part

CITT - pls finish soon so we can stop getting mad and crashing the DB server

Hi everyone, I think it’s my first post on Open thread, so some random thoughts about my week in Korean entertaining world :
- Cheese in the trap (aka CITT) : ep 13 & 14 : too much In Ho for me (personal opinion), Jung x Seol moments loved it
- CITT behind the scenes : ugly, shady, just wth is that !!!
- Descendants of then Sun ep 1-2 : seemed too perfect, dating a little too fast, too much music , but I’m not blind : SJK is gorgeous, I knew about the abs scene while training but episode 2 with all soldiers shirtless wasn’t too bad for my sight
But after all the CITT behind the scenes stories and screen time not equal or which don’t serve the true story development : I will watch DOTS, and just drink all the romance there will be, just like I did with Secret Garden even if sometimes it was overload
- Come back Ahjussi : 1st ep was so-so (and guy seriously, you did not commit suicide LOL look at the situation !) , but the 2nd ep made me laugh so I will give it a try, but don’t turn out like OMHE
- so came One More Happy Ending ep 11 & 12 : I started it because I thought maybe I will have some cohabitation or nonsense comical situation, but they skipped the “com” and try to do something deeper, but I appreciated it though, the story of Da Joung being more interesting. And hey, with new haircut I thought I was watching Falling for Innocence, hahahaha
- marathon of Twenty Again during last weekend : it was a pleasure to see again Sir Dimples from Goddess of Fire :) , also the story was good and nice , easy watching
- Variety shows : Running man : was good (much more than the detective special), 1N2D (better than RM) and Infinity Challenge (funny and touching !)

For next week : CITT the end, I don’t know what they will give us :/ , fearing the worst,
DOTS : SJK I’m coming, I need a shoulder to cry upon, CITT cheated on everyone T_T

Signal continue to be awesome and tugging at heartstring. I didn't expect to get a case where SH was emotionally invested in it. And boy, what a creepy and super awesome scene those were. Can't wait for next case, seems like it's HY's time to deal with his emotional burden.

After reading recent post about CITT, I know now why this week eps felt rather off. (And I thought I was just being weird). It's such a pity that the story gone off the rail after that perfect first half. I hope they still can manage a satisfying wrap up for the last 2 eps.

OMHE still doing good and I still enjoy it a lot. The 'let's go to states since live in Korea is too hard' trope wasn't too bad since SH's reason was quite valid. And I also love the other friends story, especially Dajeong. Though, music director-nim, don't you think you overplay Kyuhyun's song lately? We know that THAT's the moment.

K dramas:

Glamorous Expectations: Waiting on Subs.

CITT: Poor story/time management rests on the Director.

Signal: Looking forward to this weeks shows.

CBA: I like it so far

C dramas:

Imperial Doctress: Getting better

Legend of Qin: On hold

Tried the first 4 episodes of Go Princess Go, lol

Tried first 2 episodes of 3 Heroes 5 Gallants

J dramas:

Kazoku no Katachi, Gomen ne Seishun, Yae no Sakura

You might be tired, but one more interview with Na PD and YOF Africa-
Q: First episode had the highest raings among all flower series.
A: I feel good, but I am not doing everything in the show. I work with junior PDs. Even if I involve in planing and filming, they do a lot. That was the reason I could do the 'Sinsuyoogi/trip to the west 2'.

Q: Do you get the help from tourism departments of the country, since the YOF destination can be Daebak with travelers?
A: I don't feel good if I receive help. Also If I receive help, I have to go there. There is possiblity of having unexpected situations, which might prevent us from going to the place we are supposed to go. So far Taiwan and Dubai were the only places we took their offer.

Q: It looks that there was unexpected situation already in this trip, like trying to rent a car from 'One lady' and failed. It would be difficult to cover all situations when you research the place through a trip beforehand.
A: It is not hard. There is a knowhow. For example, imagine if a foreigner comes to Korea. Once they arrive in the airport, they decide to go somewhere, but they make decisions by checking a guidebook for limited time(like 10 days), so route is kind of easily determined. When we do the trial trip, we can see how casts will move. We just don't know the order of places they might take, so we check 120% of expected trip routes. Still there is no need to check every single place in the country.

For 'One Lady' situation, it was unexpected. We were sure they will rent a car in the airport. In the trial trip, we only checked the rental places. But the place they went was not official rental car company. It was like a private rental place where taxi driver recommended. They wanted to go to downtown, and we had to follow them. I usually don't stop the casts. But we have people who are familiar with local area with us. We ask them if it is dangerous. If they say they don't think it is dangeous, we just let them decide. In the case of 'One Lady', production team follow them without any knowledge. We just let them as long as we decide there is no danger like being robbed with guns.

Q: How production team feel with such situations?
A: Get nervous. I worry and hope nothing bad happens, and worry how it will look when it airs. But once you start to control that kind of situation, you can't do anything. The casts don't want to do anything once you stop them. And about after 3 days they ask, "How do we do this?". The charm of a Reality show is when casts get over the hardship with their free will. If it is safe, I don't stop them.

"Sometimes frustrated (with their decisions). If they rented when they arrived in the airport, they would have been able to do some downtown sightseeing at least. Once casts make mistakes, they freeze. Wonder if they did something wrong. But you can record the changes in their dealing with situations gradually. So I leave them alone if possible."

In regards to Cheese, since we have not been talking about it that much. I'm trying to understand the whole thing, even though this might come as rude. Why does it matter for us viewers that they change the stories in CITT halfway through? I mean, kdrama industry has been doing that for so long, so why is this a much bigger issue now? The production can change the story the way they want to, and to their liking. It will be terrible, I”m sure. And I will end up grading the drama lower than what it would have been when the drama started. But it’s not something I will be so thoroughly upset and mad about that I need to make this a bigger issue than it should have been. Now that it became a bigger issue, then definitely the ending will get change again to satisfy the other netizens who still hasn’t been disappointed.

Now, if I were Park Hae Jin or Soonkie, the writer, I will be frustrated too. And they have the right to do so. Since they worked hard for it. However, we the viewers don’t have the right to make a big deal out of the drama. It’s a drama. There will be new dramas after this. We don’t need to blame SKJ for it either. We will probably be mad to the director, and might not watch her dramas going forward. But she could not possibly care if I watch or not, she will be paid no matter what.

So people, watch the ending. Don’t watch the ending. Either way, no one will be crying if you do or you don’t.

Hello, all:

I think i'm getting tired of winter. I just want it over and done with already. Other than that, I'm still wading through the contest entries and trying to judge them. Some are very good, some are very bad, some are in the wrong genre category entirely. It's so hard to pick the top five stories when there are seven outstanding perfect ones.

Dramas:

Descendants -- Bring it on, charming sexy alpha male rescue worker. It's okay and I think I could enjoy this if I allow myself to be swept away by the testosteroneyness of it all. Feels like an old-fashioned war movie, a weepy from the forties.

Come back mister - I feel as if I've seen it before. It's okay until something better comes along. It's good seeing the actor from What's with this family. I'm not shipping any living women with any dead guy. Their lives are over; they have to do what they have to do (whatever that is) and move on to the choir invisible and the heavenly realm. So I won't be caring much about these dead-now-temporarily-living lovelorn folks.

Cheese in the trap -- Dang I hate intrusive entitled aimless clothes horses who have nothing better to do than to bother other people's lives.

Six Flying Dragon - is it stupid of me to want a lovelife and wife for MooHyul? Is it also stupid of me that I'm unhappy about Boonyi slowly turning into the Lady of Banchon and forsaking her love?

Signal - I seriously hate sneaky backstabbing authority figures who are out to undermine everything righteous for his selfish murderous reasons. Yes, that's you Captain Cover-up. Yep, I'm speaking to you.

Glamorous Temptation -- I dived in for a coupla episodes around epi 39, then I dropped back out when Prime Minister inexplicably got out of jail. What's happening now?

Trying to find a good weekend drama. I watched the first epi of Five Children and just couldn't deal with the whole "she kept the adultery a secret for 3 years" thing. I want the family formed already. Soo will see. There's a weekender on SBS I might watch. Will see.

Not much else other than that. Happy weekend, all.

I want to thank whoever recommended/mentioned Orange Days in the last open thread. So THANK YOU!!!

Wholy moly...THE FEELS. I managed to marathon this drama in 1.5 days because it was so amazing. Props to all the actors who learned to sign for this drama because WOW. I'm new to Satoshi Tsumabuki and man is he handsome, I'd love to see more of his stuff. My favorite character was obviously Sae - her toughness and vulnerability rolled into this awesome female character that just didn't give a damn, just awesome! I hope Ko Shibasaki got a bunch of awards for her portrayal of this character because she deserves it.

I could go on and on about it..it's been a while since I've seen such a well paced and thought out drama...if any other jdrama viewers have more recommendations like this, please share!

Hello Beanies!!

CITT - actually stopped watching at episode 9 and just read the recaps. Poor cast, just wondering who benefits from all these fiasco.

OMHE - still sticking to it despite the faults I find in the editing and flow of the show. I still dislike HJ and the way he interpret all his ex-wife's comments about the way he handles a relationship. DJ and GH are a jewel to watch. DM and JW, don't age define your relationship and I do want more of your story than the noona-romance. AE and DB, sweet and I love how he's invested in AE now. Me thinks those ex gfs on the wedding were fling just to lessen his pain from getting hurt in loving AE, although that's not an excuse for cheating,

CBA and DOTS - giving it another week before I start marathon ing

SFD - took a break for two weeks now. Will definitely get back to it.

Cruel City - I wanted to see more JKH in a suit hahaha but still on episode two. Couldn't find a soft sub that would sync in a 540p that I DLed.

Have a great weekend ahead beanies!

I can't believe the scale of the mess that's been going down behind the scenes of Cheese in the Trap - they really did Soonkki and Park Hae-jin dirty, for them to be speaking up at all.

The funniest thing in this scenario, though, are those who are fans of the direction the drama has taken and are now running around claiming everyone else is too invested, or that maybe it was just an accident that the PD shut the webtoon writer out of consultation for the drama and that Park Hae-jin's scenes mostly ended up on the cutting room floor. It's one thing to be a fan of a character, but to try and excuse disrespect and unprofessionalism shown towards real-life people just because you don't like their work/characters, is beyond disingenuous.

For me, the worst thing is that what was originally a heroine-centric, female-led story with a pretty great and nuanced heroine, has now turned into a self-indulgent wank about the life and times of an impulsive pretty-boy who feels less like a person and more like a construct designed to cause Second Lead Syndrome.

People kept saying that this was justified because the drama didn't hew to rules about first and second leads etc, but I found that the more time the drama spent in wank about The Unfortunate Life of Baek In-ho, the more trite and typically kdrama-like it got.