Uh, do we really need this?

Both Le Grand Chef and Tazza were originally manhwas that were turned into movies that were turned into drama series. Now, both franchises are getting a movie sequel.

A rep from the production behind Le Grand Chef 2 said, “Currently we’re busy working on the screenplay. New director Baek Dong-hoon will take this on as his debut film. It will show a different side and new entertaining stories from the previous film.” The original film released in November 2007 starred Kim Kang-woo, Lee Hana, and Im Won-hee and sold over 2.5 million tickets. The drama version, Gourmet, starred Kim Rae-won and Nam Sang-mi and was a hit for SBS last year.

Tazza 2 will be both written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan (Hair) and is currently casting. The original gambling-themed film sold more than 6.8 million tickets in 2006 and starred Jo Seung-woo and Kim Hye-soo; SBS’s series adaptation starred Jang Hyuk and Han Ye-seul and was a modest success last year.

Talk about trying to milk that dead horse. Uh, I think that metaphor got a little mixed, but funny enough, makes more sense that way anyway.

Via OSEN

RELATED POSTS

• Tazza ends (Open thread)
• Tazza: Episode 1
• Gourmet (SBS)

Filed under: Chungmuro/Film by javabeans - 3 Comments →

2007 was a rich year for drama-land. There was something for everyone, whether your tastes ran toward dark thrillers (Devil), intense dramas (White Tower), heart-warmers (Thank You), off-the-wall eccentrics (Mixed-up Investigative Agency), trendy fare (Coffee Prince), romantic comedies (Dal Ja’s Spring), and so on.

2008, on the other hand… not so much.

Every drama has its good and bad points, but it’s a lot easier to decide how you feel about one when those qualities are expressed in the extreme — i.e., very good, or very bad. When everything is a muddle in the middle, though, it’s harder to draw the lines.

That’s why in contrast to last year’s “Best” and “The Rest” designations, this year I don’t really distinguish “good” versus “bad” — or even “favorites” and “hated dramas” — and can only grade on a spectrum. I call that spectrum “MEH” with the extreme poles representing “generally watchable” and “generally unwatchable.” It’s just been that kind of year.

SONG OF THE DAY

Painter of the Wind OST – “색” (Color) by JOO [ Download ]

O, the mediocrity >>

Filed under: Drama Reactions & Reviews by javabeans - 75 Comments →

How should one convey bad news in writing? By creating a buffer first. Avoid traumatizing your audience with the bad news all at once, but instead cushion the blow so that you can maintain goodwill. That textbook approach (business communication, by the way) would be dandy if the crop of 2008 dramas I watched was anything like the stellar quality of 2007. But no, this was a harvest to make one downright grumpy.

This time last year, eight dramas vied to be in my Top 3. Even the ones that disappointed weren’t half bad and at least I finished them. Not this year. I picked up around twenty dramas and dropped at least fifteen. “Dropped” is putting it mildly. I ran from some of them like a kid fleeing an apparition: hands in the air and hair standing on end. As the year wore on, my patience wore thin and my grumpiness increased.

So, no, I can’t use the buffer approach when reviewing this year’s dramas. Hedging doesn’t work for this grumpy cookie. I will present to you the worst dramas first, followed by the so-so ones, and then the few gems of 2008. Even though the year was overcast and gloomy, the sun broke through the clouds occasionally and when it did the effect was glorious. Let’s get the bad news out of the way and we can enjoy the good stuff, shall we?

SONG OF THE DAY

Jin Yi-han – “This is the Moment” which he sang (live!) in Episode 3 of Who Are You. [ Download ]

[Read more →]

Filed under: Drama Reactions & Reviews, Oh snap by thunderbolt - 87 Comments →

[And thus begins the year-in-review series for 2008 dramas! This'll be a four-part series, and I'm honored to have three lovely bloggers -- Sevenses, thunderbolt, and Dahee_Fanel -- offering up their reviews in addition to mine. Hope you enjoy! --javabeans]

Year in Review – 2008
- In which I practiced my ?? face a lot.

Well, I’m but a wee babe in dramaland compared to Sarah, thundie and Dahee – I really started watching kdrama in earnest in late 2007. *pause while everyone picks their jaws up from the floor*

Caveat: I don’t have a huge base from which to compare, so this is all in my own humble opinion. You don’t have to agree, and you are definitely welcome to discuss. (No trolling, though, or I will start waving the Baton of Baleetion.) First of all, I’d like to say that my watching dramas is purely for the sake of relaxation – I have enough stress and overwork from school already, plskthx. Therefore it’s rather unlikely for me to take a huge tearjearker and run with it, if you know what I mean.

(And the concept of tearjerkers in general just baffle me a little. Why make yourself unhappy? I do love Atonement to the itty bitty pieces of my fairly battered heart, though that’s neither here nor there.)

So, looking over at the ones I watched this year, I’m actually fairly monogamous about my dramas. (Yay for having schoolwork?) The one thing that kind of stood out in my memory of this year, however, is that mostly all of them tended to have many ‘bleh’ moments – including the ones I’d loved and watched like an obsessed thing.

SONG OF THE DAY

Alanis Morissette – “Orchid,” as it is currently my favourite song ever and I wanted to share it.
[ Download ]

If you really want to know >>

Filed under: Drama Reactions & Reviews by Sevenses - 49 Comments →

Instead of another foodpr0n montage, I thought it would be fitting to do something a little different for this last episode.

Gourmet really has been, all along, more about execution than inventiveness (ordinary events, but depicted well), and this is once again exemplified in Episode 24. To wit: I could sum up the episode in about two sentences — and nothing in those two sentences would surprise anybody, since we could have predicted this all far in advance — but that didn’t stop the episode from being satisfying.

SONG OF THE DAY

Gourmet OST – “새로운 세상” (New world) by Kim Rae-won. [ Download ]

GOURMET Episode 24 (Final) >>

Filed under: Drama Recaps by javabeans - 44 Comments →