What would happen if the descendants of Joseon-era Robin Hood-like hero Hong Gil Dong were alive today and secretly carrying on his legacy of punishing evildoers and helping the poor?

That’s the premise behind the new movie Hong Gil Dong’s Descendants [홍길동의 후예], and it stars Lee Beom-soo (On Air) as that descendant, We Got Married’s Lee Shi-young as his love interest, and comedian Kim Su-ro (Our School ET) as his nemesis.

If you’ve seen the recent drama version of Hong Gil Dong, you know the basic premise of the story (even if the Hong sisters’ writing is prone to the overly exaggerated comic gag). What Hong Gil Dong’s Descendants does is reinvent the basic tale of a chivalrous bandit and place him in modern times, crossing the old folk legend with a dash of Clark Kent-ian Superman.

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Read the rest of Hong Gil Dong’s descendants carry on the crime-fighting legacy (174 words)

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Post tags: Hong Gil Dong, Kim Su-ro, Lee Beom-soo, Lee Shi-young

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 ]

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Read the rest of Finding Merit in the Mediocre [Year in Review, Part 4] (4,967 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 75 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: A Star's Lover, Beethoven Virus, Bulhandang/Robbers, East of Eden, Gourmet, Hong Gil Dong, I Love You, Iljimae, Love & Marriage, On Air, One Mom, Rivals, Strongest Chil Woo, Tazza, The Last Scandal of My Life, The World They Live In, Three Dads, One Mom, When Night Comes, Who Are You?, year in review

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 ]

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Read the rest of A Grump Reviews 2008 [Year in Review, Part 2] (4,881 words)

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Post tags: Beethoven Virus, Bulhandang/Robbers, Conspiracy in the Court, East of Eden, Gourmet, guest bloggers, Hong Gil Dong, I Love You, Kingdom of Wind, La Dolce Vita, On Air, One Mom, Rivals, Strongest Chil Woo, The Last Scandal of My Life, The Painter of Wind, The World They Live In, Three Dads, One Mom, Who Are You?, year in review

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 ]

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Read the rest of Witterings on 2008 Dramas [Year in Review, Part 1] (2,043 words)

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Post tags: Beethoven Virus, Gourmet, guest bloggers, Hong Gil Dong, Iljimae, The Painter of Wind, year in review

Like MBC before it, KBS has also released its list of year-end acting award nominees.

And while Hong Gil Dong (above) wasn’t the most prominent drama featured among the contenders (that would have to be the daily drama Mom’s Dead Upset, which brought in a whopping four nominations just in the Daesang category), it’s the one I watched and enjoyed in what I thought was a rather lackluster list. (Also! Kang! Ji! Hwan!)

The (very long) list of KBS actors is topped by a subset of nine Daesang contenders, which includes the aforementioned crowd of Mom’s Dead Upset veterans as well as Song Il-kook in the sageuk Kingdom of the Wind, Kim Sang-kyung in the sageuk Great King Sejong, and Kang Ji-hwan in the fusion-sageuk Hong Gil Dong. (A big sageuk year, no?)

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Read the rest of KBS nominates (practically everyone) for acting awards (690 words)

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Post tags: awards, Hometown of Legends, Hong Gil Dong, Jang Geun-seok, Kang Ji-hwan, Kim Ji-soo, Lee Hana, Lee Jong-hyuk, Park Min-young, Rivals, Sung Yuri, Women in the Sun, You're My Destiny

Nominees are out for the 2008 Korea Drama Festival awards, and the list is rather ho-hum. For example, the nominees for Best Drama are: Legend (MBC), Mom’s Dead Upset (KBS), Dae Jo Young (KBS), and Gourmet (SBS).

At first I was disappointed in the list of nominees, but then I thought back to the year and realized it’s just been a ho-hum year for dramas overall. Although, if we’re nominating Legend for Best Drama, which premiered over a year ago in September 2007, surely there are other series that have been overlooked.

The Korean Drama Festival runs from November 1 through 5 in Jinju; see the nominee list beyond the jump.

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Read the rest of Nominees for the 2008 Korea Drama Festival Awards (315 words)

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Post tags: awards, Beethoven Virus, Choi Su-jong, City of Glass, East of Eden, Han Ji-hye, Hong Gil Dong, Jang Geun-seok, Kim Bum, Kim Haneul, Kim Myung-min, Lee Jin-wook, Legend, New Heart, On Air, Sung Yuri, You're My Destiny

This is kind of random, but the recent KBS fusion sageuk Hong Gil Dong just won an award at the second Roma Fiction Fest on July 12.

The competitive categories were TV Movie, Miniseries, and Continuing Series; Hong Gil Dong won for Best Miniseries.

According to the Roma Fiction Fest site, “The Festival confirms and restates the objective of offering itself as an annual event for the worldwide production of television fiction and as a meeting place where the elevated artistic quality of products matches great success in terms of audience.”

The Diamond Award (best of all three categories) went to 10 Days to War, a BBC Two production that also won for best TV Movie. Special Mention went to Boris 2, shown on Fox Channels Italy, which was also the winner of the Best Continuing Series category.

Hong Gil Dong isn’t in bad company: other awards included Best Director (Continuing Series) going to Omar Madha of Spooks, Best Male Lead (Continuing) going to Michael C. Hall of Dexter, and Julianna Margulies for Best Female Lead (Continuing) for Canterbury’s Law.

You can see the full winners list here: Roma Fiction Fest.

SONG OF THE DAY

Yozoh – “Love” [ Download ]

RELATED POSTS

• Hong Gil Dong: Behind-the-scenes special
• Hong Gil Dong finds fans in Japan
• Hong Gil Dong: Episode 1

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: awards, film festivals, Hong Gil Dong, sageuk dramas