This show is quickly starting to rival my favorite family comedies. It’s got a great sense of humor, and it’s not afraid to let characters make massive mistakes, with the understanding that we’re going to be along for the ride when they learn, change, and grow.

Now that I’m at the halfway-ish point, it’s time to check back in with Ojakkyo Brothers, to see how our little duckies are doing. This review covers Episodes 11 through 36 (Here’s 1-10 if you missed it), which is quite a chunk, but it’s really two big arcs for the main story: a stray little ducky waddles into their hearts, and then they get separated before realizing how much she’d already become a part of the family.

(...)
Read the rest of Ojakkyo Brothers: Halftime report (4,286 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 113 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Choi Jung-yoon, featured, Joo-won, Jung Woong-in, Ojakkyo Brothers, Ryu Soo-young, UEE

You’re Here, You’re Here, You’re Really Here is the MBN sitcom that premiered at the start of December, which touted itself as a new style of sitcom modeled after the American sitcom format, with a Friends-like vibe. Supposedly.

At 120 episodes and on a daily airing schedule, it’s not a show I’d normally want to watch… but for the lead actors, whom I love. I’ve wanted to see Jin Yi-han as the central lead in something for a long time — not playing a loser or a baddie — and Lee Soo-kyung is so bright and effervescent in comedy roles.

So here’s an introduction to the series, which covers episodes 1 through 20, putting us just about current with the airing schedule at the time of this posting.

Note: I’ve seen this title mistranslated as Come, Come, Absolutely Come, which makes me cringe (such blatant disregard for verb conjugation!, protests my inner grammar nerd). Sadly enough, it’s probably the title by which this show is better known.

SONG OF THE DAY

Flower – “She” [ Download ]

(...)
Read the rest of You’re Here, You’re Here, You’re Really Here: An introduction (2,689 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 30 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cable programs, featured, first episodes, Jin Yi-han, Lee Kyun, Lee Soo-kyung, Yoo In-young, You're Here You're Here You're Really Here

One of the highest-rated shows of 2011 was actually one that we couldn’t include in the year-end reviews because of its length and that whole space-time continuum thing: the weekend family drama Ojakkyo Brothers, on KBS. I don’t normally pick up family dramas because I find it daunting to start a longer-running show. (I know, I have commitment issues.) But this weekend drama has been far ahead of the pack in the ratings game, and has gotten some rave reviews in Korea. So I decided to check it out, and see for myself if it was hype or well-deserved praise.

I’m ten episodes in, which isn’t very far considering the show’s been extended to 58 episodes. But so far it’s got a good premise, a great cast of characters, and lots of potential for both comedy and heart. Basically I’m just going to introduce the series and give you my first impressions, because while ten episodes might be most of a miniseries, here it’s just the beginning.

(...)
Read the rest of Ojakkyo Brothers: An Introduction (3,313 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 121 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Choi Jung-yoon, featured, Joo-won, Jung Woong-in, Ojakkyo Brothers, Ryu Soo-young, UEE

What the ever-lovin’ reindeer feculence? I get home from my overnight trans-earthian sleigh odyssey, settle back with my hard-earned fifths of whiskey to read up on what I’ve missed in dramaland, and find that they’ve finished the year-end reviews without me? This is an outrage! I know who’s getting their presents revoked this year! Goddamn naughty candy cane stuffers. How could those glumdrops possibly consider a year complete without my gleaming snowballs of wisdom? They can shut me out, but they can’t shut me up! I will be heard, even if I have to bribe my hacker elf and actually watch some dramas to do it.

Here’s the Year-End Review you’ve REALLY been waiting for… *Hic!*

(...)
Read the rest of Santa Strikes Back! [Year In Review, Part 6] (676 words)

© Santa Claus for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 100 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 49 Days, Athena, Baby-Faced Beauty, Best Love, Birdie Buddy, Can You Hear My Heart, Can't Lose, City Hunter, Crime Squad, Dream High, featured, Girl K, High Kick: Counterattack of the Short Legs, I Need Romance, Lie To Me, Man of Honor, Manny, Me Too Flower, My Princess, Myung-wol the Spy, Paradise Ranch, Poseidon, President, Protect the Boss, Royal Family, Scent of a Woman, Sign, The Duo, The Musical, The Princess's Man, Thorn Birds, Tree With Deep Roots, Vampire Prosecutor, Warrior Baek Dong-soo, What's Up, You've Fallen For Me

Part 5 is here!

As in past years, we here at Dramabeans owe huge thanks to guest bloggers — thank you, kaedejun and Dahee Fanel! — for participating in the review series, as well as HeadsNo2 for contributing to our Picks. You guys are awesome and make this time of year extra-special, providing lots of good stuff to read, think on, and, yes, sometimes disagree with. It wouldn’t be as invigorating without a little friendly debate, would it? We’d also like to extend our gratitude to thundie, who was a key part of our selection crew in voting for our Picks below. Much love to all of the reviewers, as well as everyone reading.

On to the Picks!

SONG OF THE DAY

Dear Cloud – “반짝이는 밤, 메리 크리스마” (Twinkling Night, Merry Christmas)
[ Download ]

(...)
Read the rest of 2011 Editors’ Picks [Year In Review, Part 5] (4,602 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 375 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Athena, Best Love, City Hunter, featured, Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Girl K, Lie To Me, Me Too Flower, Miss Ripley, Paradise Ranch, Scent of a Woman, The Princess's Man, Thousand Day Promise, Warrior Baek Dong-soo, year in review

 
Wow, another year of dramas, come and gone. Where does the sanity go? I decided that for this year’s review, I would learn to be impartial and precise, and give systematic mathematical ratings for every show. Because numbers are fun. But then, I found that trying to rate a year’s worth of dramas was a lot like comparing apples and oranges and giraffes. It made my brain hurt and then I was all sleepy. So I did what anyone would do. I built a machine to do it for me.

Meet… the DramaMeter (patent pending): a highly scientific, totally foolproof system of computation, fine-tuned to measure any drama in any circumstance. It uses complex algorithms, longitudinal matrices, and other mathy things, to calculate a drama’s rating with exact precision, every time, without fail. I know. It’s likely to blow your mind. So without further ado, the dramas of 2011:

(...)
Read the rest of The DramaMeter: highly scientific and foolproof [Year in Review, Part 4] (8,317 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 180 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Best Love, Can't Lose, City Hunter, Dream High, featured, Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Girl K, High Kick: Counterattack of the Short Legs, I Need Romance, Lie To Me, Man of Honor, Miss Ripley, My Princess, Myung-wol the Spy, Scent of a Woman, Thousand Day Promise, Vampire Prosecutor, Warrior Baek Dong-soo, year in review, You've Fallen For Me

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.

(...)
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

First off, I have to deeply thank – and bow to – Javabeans and Girlfriday - it’s an honor to be included with the most respected K-drama writers for this year. Compared to these fine people, I am an utter noob.

Speaking of being such a noob, I shall now complain: It’s so hard to write a year-end review! It requires going back to all the dramas I have seen in the past year and then come up with something intelligent to say about them. Can’t I just say, “Me Likey!” “Me No Likey?” and be done with it? No? (I can feel the death glares coming from Javabeans and Girlfriday right now…*SQUEAK*)

OK – I’ll start in chronological order, because I have no other way to do it. This year, I became a truly picky watcher. I have not watched a lot of dramas this year because I don’t just consume everything and anything like I used to. This time, if I don’t like a drama, I stop watching it, rather than painfully suffer to the end. I was vicious with the chopping block – with Lie To Me, Queen of Reversals, A Thousand Days’ Promise, Greatest Love, Spy Myung Wol, and even The Princess’ Man suffering the sad fate. (Although I may resuscitate The Princess’ Man for the winter break, it won’t make it to this year-end review.)

Here goes!

(...)
Read the rest of The Good, The Bad, and The Hmmm… of 2011 [Year In Review, Part 2] (6,090 words)

© kaedejun for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 254 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 49 Days, Athena, Best Love, Birdie Buddy, featured, I Need Romance, Myung-wol the Spy, Paradise Ranch, Romance Town, Sign, The Musical, Tree With Deep Roots, Vampire Prosecutor, year in review, You've Fallen For Me

Time for another Year In Review series! How did a year pass by so quickly? I guess when you’re busy watching dramas, time flies.

This is my fifth year (eek) doing this series, which means you basically know the drill by now. (You can refer to the year-ender tag to catch up on past posts.) You had a chance to vote for your favorites of 2011, and now it’s our turn to weigh in on the dramas we’ve seen.

This year I’ve tacked on a little stickymeter to my reviews, based on the discussion girlfriday and I had in our last podcast about “drama stickiness.” Which is to say, regardless of a drama’s quality, how much of an impression does it leave three, six, twelve months down the line?

As in past years, you’ll notice I didn’t watch every series that aired this year, despite my best attempts to swap sleep for dramas. Also, I’m not reviewing shows that I haven’t seen fully (with the exception of those that are still airing). However, looking over the series that’ll be covered in the upcoming Parts 2 through 5 of the review series, I can assure you that we’ve got a pretty good spread covered, so please keep an eye out for the posts to come.

SONG OF THE DAY

Me Too, Flower OST – “Sunset Street” [ Download ]

(...)
Read the rest of Measuring 2011 on the Sticky Scale [Year In Review, Part 1] (9,317 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 199 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 49 Days, Baby-Faced Beauty, Best Love, Can't Lose, City Hunter, Dream High, featured, Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Girl K, High Kick: Counterattack of the Short Legs, Lie To Me, Manny, Me Too Flower, Miss Ripley, My Princess, Myung-wol the Spy, Poseidon, Scent of a Woman, The Princess's Man, Thousand Day Promise, Tree With Deep Roots, Vampire Prosecutor, year in review

It’s that time of year again: Polls, polls, polls!

To keep up the Dramabeans year-end tradition, here we are with the Best, the Funniest, the Crackiest, and yes, also the Underwhelmingest dramas of the year. (To see how past years shook out, take a look at the 2007 Polls, 2009 Polls, and 2010 Polls. Yes, I skipped 2008, which was a decidedly unpopular decision, so who am I to mess with tradition?)

As in years past, this also kicks off our annual Year End Review Extravaganza. In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out our wrap-up reviews summing up 2011′s offerings, so keep your eyes peeled for them! Past years can be found with this handy-dandy Year In Review tag.

But for now, it’s time for YOU to cast your votes and tell us what rocked your socks, buttered your toast, and tickled your fancy this year.

(...)
Read the rest of 2011 Beanie Awards: Vote for your favorite dramas of the past year (298 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 455 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: featured, year in review