Awards, awards, awards! Friday, November 25, was the night of the 2011 Blue Dragon Film Awards, and — no surprise — the winners list was dominated by one of the biggest films of the year, sageuk-action-thriller Bow: The Ultimate Weapon. The film is a David and Goliath story of one man (Park Hae-il) taking down the enemy with his exceptional prowess with the bow and won awards for most of its leading stars.

A few other films also nabbed multiple awards, with best picture going to the thriller Bad Deal. (which also won for director and screenplay).

(...)
Read the rest of 2011 Blue Dragon Film Awards (1,639 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 65 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: awards, Byun Jung-soo, Go Soo, Gong Yoo, Han Chae-young, Jo Sung-ha, Jung Ryeo-won, Kim Haneul, Kim Hye-soo, Kim Soo-hyun, Lee Je-hoon, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Min-ho, Lee Min-jung, Lee Shi-young, Moon Chae-won, Nam Gyuri, Park Bo-young, Park Hae-il, Ryu Hyun-kyung, Ryu Seung-ryong, Su Ae, Yoo Sun, Yoon Kye-sang

Looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer to see Wonderful Radio, the romantic comedy starring Lee Min-jung (Midas) and Lee Jung-jin (Runaway). Man, we’ve been on pins and needles to see it since the project was first announced. Boo. It was originally scheduled to be released by the end of the year, but the premiere’s now been pushed to January. Here’s a look at a slew of stills from the production to sate our appetites till then.

(...)
Read the rest of Wonderful Radio pushes back premiere (252 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lee Jung-jin, Lee Min-jung

Here’s our first look at Lee Jung-jin (Runaway Plan B) and Lee Min-jung (Midas) on the set of their upcoming romantic comedy film Wonderful Radio. I don’t know what’s going on with Lee Jung-jin’s hair there, but perhaps it’s a character quirk? If they’re trying to go for unkempt hair as a character statement, they should take a note from Lee Seon-kyun. Go big or go home.

Wonderful Radio stars Lee Min-jung as a former idol singer from girl group Purple, who becomes a radio DJ. Lee Jung-jin plays a PD brought in to revive her flagging show, and the two butt heads over the new segment that he introduces. Love the setup. Love the pairing.

(...)
Read the rest of Lee Jung-jin and Lee Min-jung in Wonderful Radio (198 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lee Jung-jin, Lee Kwang-soo, Lee Min-jung

I like this pairing, A LOT: Lee Min-jung (Midas) and Lee Jung-jin (Runaway Plan B) have been cast as the leads in a new movie, which’ll feature them in a workplace romance when he’s brought in to save her flagging radio show.

Lee Min-jung plays Jin-ah, the DJ of a radio show with low listener ratings, who enjoyed a former existence as the leader of a popular idol group; they were one of the original girl groups known as being “nation’s fairy girls,” so think S.E.S. Lee Jung-jin plays Jae-ik, the prickly but talented and charming PD who comes in and creates a new segment on her radio show. In the process of presenting “vivid and dramatic” stories of their listeners’ daily lives, they encounter a “miraculous moment” that changes their own lives.

(...)
Read the rest of Lee Min-jung and Lee Jung-jin team up in rom-com (141 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 73 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lee Jung-jin, Lee Min-jung

GQ has a photo spread in its issue this month (as they are wont to do), and it’s like somebody invaded my brain and picked out my favorites, JUST FOR ME! It must be my birthday.

Seriously, it’s uncanny: Yoon Kye-sang! Go Soo! Lee Jung-jin! Kim Kang-woo! (...)
Read the rest of GQ actor round-up, javabeans version (108 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 93 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Go Soo, Kang Ji-hwan, Kim Kang-woo, Lee Jung-jae, Lee Jung-jin, Yoon Kye-sang

There’s a fondness that I’ve had my entire life for best friend rom-coms. That is, dramas where the main couple consists of two best friends who circle each other their whole lives, not realizing that they’re destined to be together. It’s the kind of drama where everyone except for the two best friends knows that they’re in love, and we get a sick sense of pleasure in ranting, “Are you stupid? Don’t you know you love her? Kiss her already!”

One of my favorite old-school dramas was 1997′s Propose, which I’m mentioning twice this week, strangely enough. It had a similar premise, and I’ve always had a soft spot for dramas in this vein ever since. I hadn’t watched 2007′s Bottom of the 9th with 2 Outs when it aired because it just passed under my radar for whatever reason.

Friends had always recommended this drama because they know about my penchant for BFF-rom-coms, so it was on my to-watch list for some time. But then this past year, I saw Lee Jung-jin being all hot and badass in Runaway, and then I saw Su Ae being all hot and badass in Athena, and the thought of them being together just blew my mind.

The fact that it also starred Playful Kiss‘s resident Ducky, Lee Tae-sung was just icing on the cake. So off I went, and sixteen episodes later, I’m happy to report that this drama is totally in my wheelhouse, and worth sharing with the rest of the class.

Note: If you’re searching for this drama to give it a watch, sometimes it’s listed as 9 End 2 Outs, which is just how the title was translated (badly) at the time. I watched it over at Dramafever. [Linky]

SERIES REVIEW

So judging from the title, the thing is about baseball, yeah? Nope. Not about baseball at all. It’s just a series-long metaphor for love, work, and the dating game, coupled with that major turn in your life, when you wake up north of 30 and face the fact that things didn’t exactly turn out the way you had imagined when you were young.

The heroine (played by Su Ae) begins the series on her 30th birthday, living in her mom’s house, and still struggling with her dream of becoming a writer. The only things coming out of Mom’s mouth daily are to give up her pipedream and get married already. Never heard that before. Nope. So faced with the harsh reality of folding her dream and getting married off to someone that her mom picks out, she decides to head out on her own.

Her best friend of thirty years (played by Lee Jung-jin) is a charming, playful playboy, who works at an advertising agency. What’s great about his character is that he isn’t the typical cold proud hero. He might occasionally be that guy to other women, but with the heroine, he’s warm, goofy, and childlike because they’ve been this close since they were kids.

Through a series of k-drama machinations, she ends up moving into his apartment, and they become one of the best roommate pairings in all of kdramaland. What’s great about these two is that they aren’t a pair of strangers who end up having to share an uncomfortably close living space (which has its perks in many dramas, don’t get me wrong).

But they’re best friends, who know WAY too much about each other to begin with…and then when coupled with having to live together, they essentially become a hilarious old married couple, mixed with the strange distance of being fully aware of being a grown man and woman who share a sexual attraction.

In short, it’s drama heaven. Sexual tension, adorable friendship, hilarious things they discover about each other as roommates…coupled with a grounded relationship with the one person in the world who tells it like it is, and holds your hand through all your breakups.

Seriously, if I think about it, I’m never jealous of relationships in k-dramas. I might want that kind of guy in my life, or I might want to be this kind of heroine, but usually k-drama relationships are quite…dysfunctional and, well, unrealistic, to say the least. I mean, how many people do you know who sign into contract marriages or fall in love with their abusive bosses?

But this drama actually made me want that kind of relationship (the friendship, not the abusive boss). I love their comfort level, and their realistic discussions about dating, sex, and love. It’s a refreshing kind of honesty that actually reflects the way real friends talk to each other. They have some hilariously frank conversations about the things men and women do, and why they are such different creatures when it comes to dating.

The main couple is surrounded by a group of college friends who’ve spent their twenties in a variety of ways, and then get back in touch. They form a nice context which informs the main couple’s friendship, but also provide another realistic setting of a group of thirtysomethings who knew each other when they were at their most idealistic and youthful.

But the biggest impetus for reflecting on age is the relationship that the heroine begins the drama with: her romance with a 22-year old baseball pitcher who’s still in college, played by Lee Tae-sung. It’s a wonderfully mismatched romance between a writer who’s entering a critical point in her dating life (as in, thinking about marriage and her future) and a kid who has never read an entire book, and is just starting to dream.

What’s nice is that it plays both sides of the coin. One the one hand, their relationship is doomed because the age difference is played realistically, which means that their expectations, their experiences, their futures—are all out of alignment. But on the other hand, because he’s a bleeding-heart 22-year old, and earnest to within an inch of his life, he chases her with utter abandon (which totally makes me swoon, a la The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry and Biscuit Teacher Star Candy).

So we’re with her every step of the way, when she’s completely taken with him, and when she comes up against a wall, and then when she’s reeled back in, and then forced to face another harsh reality. And through it all, her best friend talks her through it with lots and lots of beer, and then holds her hair back when she has to puke.

I love his initial teasing and relentless kid-jokes, all the while being the supportive best friend, and yet…still with that male posturing of I-could-take-that-kid-but-I’m-gonna-be-the-adult…which is equally childish, and hilarious to watch.

As we watch them date other people and struggle to figure out how to do right by their hearts, they grow closer by the day, until eventually their lives become incomplete without each other. It’s a progression that feels organic to the story, but also manages to do that crack-laced number on the audience, as we pick up on the signs faster than they do, and end up wringing our hands in anticipation.

We see through a series of short flashbacks sprinkled throughout the show that they had always loved each other, since they were young, but their timing had always been off. Towards the end of the series, when the six friends reflect on what love is, our heroine answers: “Love is: Timing.”

And that’s just something I believe—that love isn’t just the having of feelings, but two people who make choices to act on them, and in the end it all comes down to timing. Anyone who’s experienced losing that window knows what I mean. And I love a story that shows a realistic friendship between a man and woman that treads those murky waters.

It’s not just about denying feelings either, since they acknowledge the fact that feelings are there, but get scared of what they’ll lose—a potentially lifelong friendship that isn’t so easily disposed of, like other romantic relationships. And it’s a realistic fear, since, let’s be honest…how many of us actually stay friends with our exes?

What I like about this drama is more than just the tone or the story, but its point of view, about life and love. I love that the heroine struggles with the fear that this might be the last chance she’ll get at love, or that she has to face the fact that while her dream is to write, she may not be very good at it. Growing up means facing those fears, and coming to terms with who you are in spite of them.

I love that she doesn’t succeed as a writer in one fell swoop, but that she adjusts her expectations, and learns to become a better editor in the meantime. In facing her biggest fear—the possibility of losing her best friend and the love of her life—she gains the courage to keep working at her dream.

This drama isn’t particularly snazzy, and it doesn’t have a hook that sounds zippy as a one-liner. But it captures something fantastically rare. It shows that becoming an adult is actually a painful process, and one that we only begin to unfold at the quarter-life crisis. But the struggle that we go through is worth the reward on the other side: self-awareness, a broader sense of the world around you, and an appreciation for the people in your life who make you who you are. And if that just so happens to be your uber-hot BFF, then well, YOU WIN.

RELATED POSTS

• Lee Jung-jin in High Cut (…in bed)
• Dramabeans Podcast #4
• Runaway (Plan B): Episodes 1-2
• Runaway Plan B: Halftime report
• Athena: Episode 1
• Su Ae and Yoo Ji-tae face off in Midnight FM
• Lee Tae-sung and the boys in Playful Kiss
• Playful Kiss: Episode 1

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 232 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: featured, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Tae-sung, Su Ae

Mrowr. This is an Lee-Jung-jin-looking-mighty-pretty post, so I may just run out of brainpower halfway through it. Something about this man just makes my brain shut off, leaving me with just enough energy to drool. Um, figuratively speaking.

So here we have a photo shoot for High Cut magazine, in which Lee Jung-jin is lounging around, cavorting on a bed, baring chest and belly and boxer shorts. Also looking mighty carefree and happy, which is like a cheap shot to get us to Awww over him given how tortured and hurty he was in his last drama, Runaway Plan B. There there, Mr. Hot Scruffy Cop, Rain will make it better.

(...)
Read the rest of Lee Jung-jin in High Cut (…in bed) (136 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 73 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lee Jung-jin, photo shoots

In which javabeans and girlfriday discuss:

• Frequently asked questions;
• kpop, new and old-school, and idol stars;
• some of our favorite plots and devices;
• favorite old dramas like Last Match and Propose;
• Runaway;
• anticipating My Princess;
• Bae Yong-joon and Hallyu;
• our Korean mothers and the dramas they watch;
• and body-swaps, Secret Garden, and Who Are You.

(...)
Read the rest of Dramabeans Podcast #4 (92 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 97 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: featured, Lee Jung-jae, Lee Jung-jin, Mary Stayed Out All Night, Runaway, Secret Garden, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, The Last Match

All right, folks, time to check back in with Runaway Plan B. I’ve been watching the episodes despite not recapping it, and now at the halfway mark, I can say that the show is better now than it was at the outset. I’m still a few points away from loving it, but I’m more invested than I was.

I said in the initial recap (and the podcast) that I liked it with some reservations, because there were a few key points that kept me from jumping fully onboard. Like the super-slickness, the style-without-a-heart vibe, the bravado. And one main weak point still holds it back: While the individual episodes move briskly (how can they not, with all that running?), the overall story progresses at a creepy-crawl. If you cut through the action and the fighting and boil down what actually happened in an episode, you’ll see that plot movement only actually makes up small fraction of the real estate. There’s a lot of time spent on filler stuff, like the other PIs in other countries and whatnot. But maybe that’s intentional.

On the upside, Runaway IS very easy to watch. And it may have taken about six episodes before I cared anything about any character, but here at Episode 10, we’re making some nice movements forward. (Finally!)

Here’s the thing, though: You absolutely can’t take it seriously. You have to approach the drama knowing it’s all fun fluff, whether we’re talking about everyone’s magic designer wardrobe — despite being on the run five times per episode — or escaping from handcuffs with a bendy straw. You’ve gotta roll with the ridiculous punches and laugh at the cheekiness, rather than rolling your eyes in derision, because otherwise you’ll just strain yourself (and said eyes).

[Watch the series at DramaFever]

SONG OF THE DAY

MBLAQ – “Running and Running” [ Download ]

(...)
Read the rest of Runaway Plan B: Halftime report (4,947 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 65 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Daniel Henney, featured, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Na-young, Rain, Runaway, Yoon Jin-seo, Yoon Son-ha

Runaway: Plan B premiered this past week to huge intro ratings, setting KBS up for yet another hit this year. (You may know the title as Fugitive: Plan B but don’t worry if you’re confused, since not even the drama’s official site is keeping things consistent.)

What we get here is a stylish action drama that is — let’s face it — pretty fluffy entertainment but executed well and with a cheeky attitude. It knows exactly what it is, and plays that to the hilt. The casting is spot-on and the action sequences are designed to achieve maximum cool effect.

Did I like it? Very much in parts, and not much at all in other parts. It’s complicated. We’ll get to that.

[Watch the series at DramaFever]

SONG OF THE DAY

Mate – “Go” [ Download ]

(...)
Read the rest of Runaway (Plan B): Episodes 1-2 (3,984 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 140 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Daniel Henney, featured, first episodes, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Na-young, Rain, Runaway, Yoon Jin-seo, Yoon Son-ha