Remember the cute baseball-playing kid who played Moon Geun-young‘s age-appropriate boyfriend (before she hooks up with Kim Rae-won) in the cute 2004 romantic comedy My Little Bride? Well, the two are pairing up again, because Park Jin-woo has just been cast in SBS’s upcoming high-profile sageuk drama The Painter of... More »

Most of the time when music is used to tell you how to react to a scene, I find it annoying and a mark of poor writing, or poor music direction, or both. Because while music enhances a scene, the moment shouldn’t NEED a song to tell me when to... More »

Bad Love, Rivals Perhaps as a corollary to this discussion of why ratings are important, for better or for worse (usually for worse), here’s an article that discusses one such ramification: actors who come attached with high price tags that the drama then is unable to recoup when a drama... More »

Although the “kimchi Western” The Good, the Bad, the Weird already had its international screening at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (to general praise), its official Korean release doesn’t come until later this month. The cast was on hand at the press conference for the film on July 7... More »

Gourmet got off to a really good start. I understand why it’s winning the Monday-Tuesday drama battle (it’s poised to break the 20% mark any day now) because it’s well-made, well-directed, well-acted, and well-paced. (The assured pacing is more readily achieved in SBS’s recent trend of airing dramas that are... More »

Go Jun-hee (the new stage name for the model-actress formerly known by her real name, Kim Eun-joo) poses for July’s issue of In Style. She’s been popping up in the news more these days, which means she’s probably about to start on a promotional round for her next project, which... More »

The debut directing project for actress Gu Hye-sun — currently starring in KBS’s Strongest Chil Woo — now has a name, thanks to CEO Jung Seung-hye of Morning [아침] film studio. Jung had suggested the title The Cheerful Caretaker [유쾌한 도우미], which Gu Hye-sun liked and has now adopted. The... More »

MBC’s When Night Comes, SBS’s Iljimae   The following article from OSEN takes a look at the difference between the types of dramas on the air these days. I find a lot of mainstream entertainment press to be oversimplified (I’m sure I’m just not looking in the right places), but... More »

  Happy Fourth of July!! May you all have too much to eat and drink, plenty of sun in which to bask (heed faux Vonnegut! Wear sunscreen), and lots of fireworks to watch. Me, I’m gonna have a nice, relaxing day that hopefully requires as little thinking as possible. Something... More »

Hmm. I didn’t really love the first half of Episode 7, although that wasn’t because it was bad. I think we’re just in that phase where plot setups start to bear results, and some of those can lead to uncomfortable moments. The developments are necessary, of course, and we get... More »