Kingdom of the Wind for its Jumong-like cast and theme.

Beethoven Virus for its Sujini X Nodame Cantabile ensemble and

Painter of the Wind for Moon Geun Young’s comeback to the small screen.

http://www.viikii.net/channels/goto/thekingdomofthewindsen

I kinda see Lee Jae Kyu as something like the Michael Mann/Radiohead of K-drama directors. It’s not that his tricks are “new”, it’s that his tricks are complete. Each show he does brings in the precedent of a imported, package film grammar, and then everybody else ends up studying the style guide to prop up the new circus event drama. Damo made fusion fashionable by bringing multi-frame rate bravado, thriller heat and Wuxia Eurodance; and you see shows like Sad Seoul, Iljimae and Hong Gil Dong speak conversational Damo in their own work. Fashion 70s made colour filtering and post-production treatments fashionable for telling sentimental contexts and subjecting the present to the melancholy of hindsight. And you see that use in dramas like Le Dolce Vita. Not sure if he’ll manage the same trick with Beethoven Virus, but it’s pretty dang awesome to see well-thought jump cuts provide metre and stresses to a slack vignette of plot points.

@favoree,

Yeah, from what I’ve read over at Soompi, Episode 2 is much better, and there’s real themes coming into the story. The fact that they share the same name belies a brewing “Talent vs. Skill” debate between the two men. And the conductor may share an Axl Rose-like obsession with perfection, which belies a fearful denial of his limitations?

Then again, I also read that they still haven’t figured out how to sync up the instruments with the music. Boo?

I’m SO intrigued by the underwater sequence.

Yeah Nodame was delightfully, deliriously, deliciously all over the map. But not in a way that it distracts from the actual flow and telling of the story. One problem with recent J-dramas, especially in the getsu9 spot, is that directors will get carried away with the budget and promotion, and start creating the story purely from editing and special effects (i.e. Hana Kimi, Nobuta wo Produce, Galileo, Liar Game, etc.) Takeuchi Hideki, who’s often called onto to direct G9 dramas (still kinda saddened what happened with First Kiss), managed to convey the manga’s heady rush while keeping it fluffy, happy, and just totally in love with being in love with music. So, there’s lots and lots and lots of crazy, cartoony effects and soft-focus delusions of grandeur, but it managed to keep the tenor of the original josei flowing.

Most K-drama comedies tend not be as broad (and I’m actually not sure if half of Coffee Prince’s gags actually were that funny.) Most of the humour comes from screwball dynamics, just nutty situational stuff; if there is a really good script, you’ll get verbal wit and more adult and pungent observational irony. Neither element is in Beethoven Virus. I don’t think either element would be appropriate for this story. And in that regard, I thought Lee Jae Gyu did a really good job depicting the humour in a more matter-of-fact, concise approach without overselling the gags or trying to turn BV into a psuedo-music video. It was much better done than, say, the barf of “styles” that Hong Gil Dong tried and utterly failed at in its early episodes.

And there’s a lot of interesting stuff if you look for it. The way he lets the camera roam around a scene, such as the orchestral “classroom”, thereby letting you notice different things while concentrating on the main actors. The way he juxtaposes multiple Du Ru Mis in a frame, to quickly summarize her efforts in finding new players. The brownish filter he applies to the 1998 flashbacks, which enhances the crustiness and vinegary disposition of conductor Kang Gun Woo, which is in sharp relief to the fashionable image we see him as he returns to South Korea. The way he cuts certain scenes much longer than others, often using medium shots so that you can pick up the body language and (at least to me) sexy chemistry between trumpet player Kang Gun Woo and Du Ru Mi before coming in.

Actually I’m not 100% sure how good the first episode really is. The direction itself is amazing (there’s this one bit where a woman talks to a photo of deceased mum. That picture changes as she’s talking to it), and I’m kinda surprised everybody’s glossed over it. Recent dramas that exhibitted big, show style (Le Dolce Vita, East of Eden, Iljimae, and Hong Gil Dong), but Beethoven Virus is the only one with a well-thought sense of film grammar and visual rhythm.

The structure of the story more fits what you associate with a light Korean comedy. The story is more vignette-ish and relies more on some quirky visual gags (see the bimbo violin duo performance) and slapstick than true screwball elements. . There’s dramatic bits, it just kinda comes in and out of the story. KMM is only in like 10-15 minutes of the first episode, and right now it’s not clear whether KMM is exhibiting exceptionally dry humour or he genuinely believes that Beethoven Virus is Mr. Holland’s Opus.

There were some complaints about the realism in regards to the musicianship, but it’s really no better or worse than Nodame Cantabile. It’s not nearly as wacky as Nodame Cantabile either, and BV doesn’t really have the same music-is-love sweetness that was shared by both the conductor and student. In its place, though, is a stronger Bad News Bears element to the story, which I hope they keep as the story goes.