The other day, I sat down and thought long and hard about all of the various dramas that I’ve seen over the course of my life. I remembered secretly turning on the T.V. as a small child and pressing my nose against the glass, fascinated with the powerful, forbidden emotions at play somewhere inside that magical box (forbidden because my mother had deemed that I was too young to watch a story about cheating husbands and raging women). I remembered how, as a preteen, I would rent boxfuls of dramas at a time, taking out one video tape as soon as it was done and putting in the next, the addiction overpowering silly needs like food or drink.

And I looked at how I’m approaching dramas today. How the initial addiction has worn away, and how that magic sheen that had coated my eyes is long gone. I am no longer capable of returning to those golden days when I watched everything and anything without judgment, and always with a sense of pleasure. It’s a frame of mind that is lost to me. This sense of having slipped into a different viewpoint when approaching dramas has never been as strong as it was this year.

Because you know what? I took a look at the list of dramas that have aired this year. I remembered every twinge of disappointment, every flicker of anger. And I thought, “It’s no friggin’ wonder I’ve become so grumpy. 2011 SUCKED FLAMING CHICKEN BALLS.”

But for the sake of space and time, I will not mention the dozens of dramas that I tried to watch (and love), and ultimately ended up abandoning out of sheer disgust. I will not mention Shitty Hunter, Can You Hear My Bowel Movement, Smile Diarrhea, Best Lard, or Lie To My Bladder. Instead, I will stick to the dramas I stuck to (although that will require mention of a few duds), and try to shed light on some shows that I feel were tragically ignored this year. Because despite this being one of the worst years for K-dramas in recent memory, there were still a few gems that appeared out of the blue, and helped me to endure what has been the most tiring and frustrating year for me as a K-drama fan since the terrible year that was 2008. Maybe this means that we’re due for another good year? While the current crop of dramas airing right now don’t exactly support that view, there’s always hope…

The following are arranged in alphabetical order, and are divided between long dramas and short dramas.

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Read the rest of Somewhere Over the K-Drama Rainbow [Year In Review, Part 3] (4,670 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 219 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Drama Special, Dream High, featured, Girl K, President, Scent of a Woman, The Duo, The Princess's Man, year in review

What a fascinating roller coaster of a ride this year has been. There were many disappointments (most of which I stopped watching halfway, because Life Is Too Short For Bad Dramas (copyright Gangsta Kitteh and hjkomo)), but also so many unexpected gems that shone with a light that proved impossible to stifle. Maybe it’s just the swan song before an untimely death, but in 2010 at least, K-dramas had their moment of rebellion and glory. And I. Am. Ecstatic.

The following are divided between long dramas and short dramas, and are in alphabetical order.

SONG OF THE DAY

Comrades OST – “친구여” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Finding the gems among the stones [Year In Review, Part 2] (7,162 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 174 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chuno, Cinderella's Sister, Comrades, Drama Special, featured, Gloria, Joseon X-Files, My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho, Pasta, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, year in review

Hi, Dahee here. Hjkomo asked me to fill in for her for recapping episode ten, as she really does like her beauty sleep and would like to get back to doing it. I happily agreed, so here I am. No worries – she’ll be back for episode twelve (and Samsooki for eleven).

Ten episodes in, Chuno has really hit its stride, and is showing signs of a major shift in focus and direction – especially in the relationships between characters. Episode ten is also easily the best episode that Chuno has had to offer so far. And considering that the previous nine episodes were amazing stuff, that can only mean one thing: GENIUS. We have GENIUS on our hands here, people.

SONG OF THE DAY

Kim Gwang Seok – “잊어야 한다는 마음으로” (With the Intention of Forgetting You)
[ Download ]

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Read the rest of Chuno: Episode 10 (4,066 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 65 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chuno, Jang Hyuk, Lee Jong-hyuk, Oh Ji-ho

Once upon a time there lived a wee little goldfish. From her little plastic castle inside her little glass fish bowl she often glimpsed views of a television screen that housed human beings, many of whom cried rivers of tears due to something called “cancer” and sometimes bowed down to bearded men in red robes, intoning “Jeon-haaaaaa!”. At the time, she gobbled down Korean dramas by the truckload, swallowing each one like fish food, not caring about the taste or any possible health benefits. She just enjoyed watching them. Brainlessly. Forgetting them the instant her three second memory span was up.

She watched the 2002 MBC drama My Love Patzzi in this way. Alas, this drama turned out to be a puzzling one. Why was Jang Nara acting so ghoulish, and contorting her face into such strange expressions? And Kim Jae Won! Had he always been this boring? Why hadn’t she realized this before? And who was this young upstart Kim Rae Won, with his angsty ways? Was she supposed to be feeling sorry for him? What was going on here?

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Read the rest of Rebuttal #2: A case against My Love Patzzi and the delusions of Samsooki’s Jang Nara obsession (1,368 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 85 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Jang Nara, Kim Rae-won, My Love Patzzi

And to think that I headed into 2009 feeling so hopeful, too.

2008 was an awful year for K-dramas. That year ended with me feeling like I’d just swum through an ocean of excrement, and I figured that I’d need to soak myself in some good dramas for at least another year before I’d manage to wash the stink off of me.

Alas, that was not to be the case.

Thinking back on which dramas I saw in 2009, it occurred to me that, goddammit, I’m a lot more resilient than I’d thought. It awed me that I’d managed to watch crap like Cain and Abel and Everybody Cha Cha Cha all the way through, without even any fastforwarding! A year ago, this would not have been possible. A year ago, my stomach would have protested three seconds in, and I’d have had to be rushed to the doctor’s, only to be told (again) by dear old Dr. C that my condition is a complete mystery to him.

But this year, I discovered the secret to watching bad dramas without ending up gagging over a toilet. That secret has been spread so thick over my digestive organs that no amount of stress or disgust can penetrate it. We’ll get to what that secret is later, but the point of all this rambling is, I’ve discovered other reasons for watching dramas besides their innate quality. Call it a survival instinct. Reasons for drama-watching are a lot more complicated than I’d once thought.

So for this year’s write-up, I’m dividing the categories into the various reasons I watched the dramas in the first place. It’s going to be kinda embarrassing, but honest. I’ve found that honesty is always best in the end, whether people like it or not. As my mom likes to say: “If I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll turn your legs black and blue.”

SONG OF THE DAY

Broccoli, You Too? – “2009년의 우리들” (Us in 2009) [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Duds and Delights of 2009 [Year In Review, Part 1] (6,376 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 240 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Accidental Couple, Boys Before Flowers, Cain and Abel, Everybody Cha Cha Cha, Friend Our Legend, Kyung Sook Kyung Sook's Father, Queen Seon-deok, Smile, Style, The Man Who Can't Get Married, Will It Snow For Christmas, year in review, You're Beautiful

Once again, I’m thrilled to have Dahee Fanel guest-posting her thoughts on a drama — in this case, KBS’s recently ended Wednesday-Thursday drama Accidental Couple, aka Just Looking aka That Fool. It’s always a pleasure, Dahee! –javabeans

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Judy Garland – “Over the Rainbow.” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Accidental Couple: A review (1,658 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 67 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Accidental Couple, Baek Sung-hyun, Hwang Jung-min, Kim Ah-joong

The K-drama world rolled into 2008 still riding the high that was 2007, a year in which a startling number of quality dramas were made, and enjoyed. Maybe it rolled in too fast. It ended up getting smothered by the waves of its previous success. In fact, you could say that it even got hit on the head by a stray surfboard, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Depressing enough intro for ya?

But seriously, 2008 was a dark year for the K-entertainment industry, with not only dramas, but also movies suffering and generally showing poor quality. And not only that, but the economy went kablooie, and we suffered a sobering amount of tragic K-celebrity news.

Personally, this was a supremely frustrating year for a longtime and devoted K-drama fan like me. Before this year, I always gave dramas the benefit of the doubt, and would usually watch at least a certain number of episodes before I passed judgment on them, and decided to continue or discontinue watching. But this year, with every stomach-churning dud, I became more and more impatient, and started going through drama episodes like a vulture searching for roadkill. And boy, did I find a lot of roadkill.

I’m pretty sure 2008 was a record year for me in terms of abandoning dramas. And to think that I used to be the girl who would finish every drama she started, no matter how bad or how boring they were! But the older I get, the less patience I have, and the more critical I become. Besides, I’ve now realized just how precious my time really is. I don’t want to waste it on useless pap, thankyouverymuch.

Still, despite all that, there were a small handful of quality dramas this year. None of them quite matched the heights of some of the dramas of 2007, but still, any kind of quality was more than welcome in this gloomy year.

SONG OF THE DAY

La Dolce Vita – “사랑 꽃” (Love Flower) [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Dahee Fanel’s 2008 Review [Year in Review, Part 3] (4,255 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 60 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: A Star's Lover, Beethoven Virus, East of Eden, I Love You, Iljimae, Kingdom of Wind, La Dolce Vita, My Sweet Seoul, On Air, Rivals, Spotlight, Strongest Chil Woo, Tazza, The Painter of Wind, The World They Live In, When Night Comes, Who Are You?, year in review

Eek! I am so, so behind. *facepalm* I actually considered mushing some of the episodes together into one giant recap, just so I could catch up, but then realized that this drama has waaaaay too many important details to leave out. Also, I don’t know when to shut up. But y’all probably already know that by now.

POTW has now entered what I like to think of as the second phase in its love story process. First was Yoon-bok and Jeong-hyang, and now, we get to see some Yoon-bok/Hong-do action. Also, Jeong-jo plays a much bigger role in this episode! Ahhh, the smell of sexy politics…I’M LOVIN’ IT!

SONG OF THE DAY

The Strokes – “Heart in a Cage” The first concert I ever attended was a Strokes concert, so of course they hold a special place in my heart. Fabrizio Moretti is too hot for this planet. [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Painter of the Wind: Episode 7 (2,563 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 41 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Moon Geun-young, Park Shin-yang, The Painter of Wind

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the lateness of these recaps. Things are rather busy with school at the moment, and unfortunately, my education comes first. (Trust me, though, I would much rather be writing these recaps than writing a paper on Thomas King. My heart is with youuuuu!)

Anyway. This episode was: More lesbian action + feminist themes = one happy Dahee.

SONG OF THE DAY

Ani DiFranco – “Not A Pretty Girl” – I often listen to dear Ani whenever I write – she tends to get the creative juices flowing for me. This song in particular inspires me to write angry feminist poetry. Lol.
[ Download ]

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Read the rest of Painter of the Wind: Episode 6 (3,244 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Moon Geun-young, Park Shin-yang, The Painter of Wind

This episode had some aggravating scenes, which made me a little grumpy. But it also had some really beautiful scenes (GAYNESS!), and that pretty much balanced everything out. I will note, however, that I’m still waiting for a really stand-out episode from Painter, quality-wise. But good things come to those who wait, I suppose?

SONG OF THE DAY

Bobby Kim – “Weak Man.” Bobby Kim = coolness personified. [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Painter of the Wind: Episode 5 (2,755 words)

© Dahee_Fanel for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 37 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Moon Geun-young, Park Shin-yang, The Painter of Wind