Lee Yo-won — Dramabeans

Graduation day

Posted on February 16th, 2008

Go Ara

It’s graduation season in Korea, and as with everything else, stars always attract the most attention.

Fifteen-year-old So Hee of the teen pop group Wonder Girls has just graduated from middle school (ceremony was held on the 15th) — MIDDLE SCHOOL — which just tinges the group’s exaggerated flirtiness and coquetry with unsavory overtones, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s one thing for an adult to dress up as a schoolgirl and indulge one’s own adult fantasies, but when you put a middle schooler into that role and teach her how to dance and dress suggestively to cater to that same sexual fetishization, it kinda grosses me out. (And that doesn’t even have anything to do with the Wonder Girls’ tepid brand of weak-vocaled bubblegum pop. I will forever resent JYP for inflicting “Tell Me” upon the world.)

Graduating on the same day, but from high school, were So Hee’s fellow groupmate Ye Eun and actress Go Ara (Sharp 1 & 2, Snowflake). Ye Eun plans to enroll in Kyung Hee University’s art design school (postmodern music department) as a vocal major. Go Ara, who seems to be dropping her last name more and more to go by simply “Ara,” will move on to study theater and film at Joong Ang University’s performance and media school.

Other new high school graduates include Girls’ Generation’s (Sonyeo shidae) Tae Yeon on the 11th and Yuri on the 14th. Both SoShi girls have decided to forgo education in favor of their, um, artistic pursuits, and gave up any ideas of taking the national college entrance exam. (Wonder Girl Sun Ye, on the other hand, failed her attempt to pass the exam and plans to retake it.)

As for college grads, the 15th was ceremony day for actress Lee Yowon and comedian Choi Hyung Man, both theater and film majors at Dankook University. Lee Yowon, who starred in last year’s popular medical drama Surgeon Bong Dal Hee and the recent melodrama Bad Love, graduates late (after nine years), while Choi Hyung Man has accomplished the task in just six semesters, graduating early with honors.

Lee Yowon

Via Sports Seoul, Sports Khan

SONG OF THE DAY

Garina Project - “공부해” (Study) A little literal, perhaps. Oh well. [ zShare download ]

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Tags: Girls Generation, Go Ara, Lee Yo-won, Wonder Girls

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Why is Bad Love so bad?

Posted on January 16th, 2008

I gave up watching KBS’s over-the-top melodrama Bad Love because from what I saw, it was horrible. And yet, part of me thinks it could’ve been a lot of fun to watch even despite — or because of — how ridiculously bad the series is. Alas I don’t have twenty hours to commit to unabashedly cheesy histrionics.

The viewers are also flagging for the Monday-Tuesday drama, which finds itself “unable to revive from its slump”; after its thirteenth episode, ratings are in the 7% range. What could be the reasons for its failure to catch on? A few possible reasons are offered up by Newsen:

First off, it’s behind the times:

Bad Love was planned with the ambitious goal to revive the languishing melodrama genre. The drama set sail aiming to become a new-generation melo, but has failed to capture viewer interest. …

The melodramas that swept the late ’90s and early 2000s have long since been on the downtrend. The “season” dramas [Autumn Love Story, Winter Sonata], quintessential melo series, ended in resounding failure and trampled pride with Summer Scent and Spring Waltz.

It’s because viewers have started becoming fed up with such tearjerkers. They aren’t entertained by these “Korean-style” melodramas with their obvious love triangles, or the lead characters with fatal diseases who die in the end.

It seems Bad Love has failed to captivate audiences because it has followed the footsteps and adopted the characteristics of these passé dramas.

Moreover, sources related to the broadcast station credit considerable audience distaste to the adulterous storylines used in the drama.

Secondly, the drama is unconvincing in its developments, and the characters are unable to convey emotion well:

Viewers by and large feel that Bad Love has lost believability. The four men and women’s lives connect and entangle in an excess of coincidences, and audiences find it difficult to focus on the story when its sense of reality is lost. …

They also point to the matter of the characters’ emotions. Kwon Sang Woo, Lee Yo Won and the other actors display their acting talents in strong performances, but that is insufficient to allow the viewers to connect with their characters’ emotions. The characters struggle, love, and break up, but some viewers still say, “It’s difficult to understand their actions.”

The article mentions that Bad Love was supposedly the dark horse, facing off against large-scale sageuk dramas like Yi San and King and I, but I think that point is overly generous — when you’ve got such outstanding flaws within the drama itself, you don’t really need to go looking at the competition for more reasons for its failure.

With only six more episodes remaining, Newsen wonders, “Will it be able to revive itself in its remaining episodes? Will Bad Love end up as Bad Ratings or Kind Ratings? The answers can only be given by the series itself.”

(I say: Don’t hold your breath.)

Via Newsen

SONG OF THE DAY

Bad Love OST - “중독” (addiction) [ zShare download ]

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