Next in the Dramabeans Glossary series is jondaemal, which can be described as “polite speech” or “formal speech.” (Jondae means “honorific,” while mal is the suffix for “speech.”)

Just as oppa and noona are two terms that are closely related, so are jondaemal and its casual counterpart banmal; girlfriday will follow up with the latter term. There will be some necessary overlap in our entries because they’re really two sides of the same coin, but I’ll focus more on the polite side while girlfriday will explain the familiar side.

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Read the rest of Glossary: Jondaemal (1,659 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2010. | Permalink | 81 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bad Guy, Cinderella's Sister, My Fair Lady, Soulmate, The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry

After a pretty meh 2008, I was ready for the drama landscape to fire back up with 2009. And while there were a number of misses and disappointments — isn’t there always? — I was pretty satisfied with the dramas I watched in 2009. I still don’t think there were as many top offerings as, say, 2007, but I found a number of series to entertain me and satisfy my drama craving. There were a few selections early on that got me pumped for the year and things lagged during and after the summer months, but all told, I had an entertaining year.

(Okay, this is LONG. I tried to contain myself, really.)

SONG OF THE DAY

IRIS – “Empty” by Juni [ Download ]

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Read the rest of All Told, A Pretty Fun Year [Year In Review, Part 4] (7,596 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 141 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Boys Before Flowers, Cinderella Man, Dream, Heading to the Ground, Hero, Hon, IRIS, Kyung Sook Kyung Sook's Father, My Fair Lady, Partner, Queen Seon-deok, Return of Iljimae, Smile, Sons of Sol Pharmacy House, Story of a Man, Style, Swallow the Sun, Tamra the Island, Triple, Will It Snow For Christmas, year in review, You're Beautiful

My pick for Drama of the Year: City Hall.

I’ll start of with an admission.  When javabeans asked me to give my thoughts on 2009, I was pretty excited, and agreed without much thought.  After all, 2009 was the best year of k-drama watching I’ve ever had.  But then it hit me: 2009 was also the only year of k-drama watching I’ve ever had. lol. And so, even given the number of dramas as I have seen this year (probably topping 50) I feel a bit out of my league.  How can I be critique-ing with any legitimacy?  

Nevertheless, I do think a newbie’s perspective on dramas is not necessarily a bad thing - since everything is new to me, it is tougher for me to be jaded.  Like when I saw Save The Last Dance For Me (my third k-drama ever!), I spent days afterwords thinking about what it would be like to have amnesia and then a second round of amnesia where I would forget what I had promised to remember while being forgetful the first time time around…

So while I can’t do an expert review, since I’m not an expert, I can give a newbie opinion on what worked for me, and what didn’t.  First though, a little background on me so that you know where I am coming from.  Sample of pre-2009 dramas that I liked:  My Love Patzzi, Who Are You, Full House, Save The Last Dance For Me, Two Outs In The Bottom of the Ninth, and Super Rookie.  These dramas tend to mix cuteness and heart together in a way that Western television shows still haven’t figured out how to do consistently.  I think it has something to do with the soundtrack songs that act as demi leit motifs and burrow the sentiment of the drama into your heart and mind. I mean would Full House have been as good, without “I Think I” by Byul? Or how good would Save The Last Dance For Me have been, without Edward Chun’s breath-y lyrics?

And taking it up a notch, here is a sample of pre-2009 dramas I loved:  Goong, Coffee Prince, Bad Family, Dal Ja’s Spring, Hong Gil Dong and My Girl.  Even more than the first group, these latter dramas did more than just create a nice balance of cuteness and heart; these dramas created a love story so palpable and real that, if you wanted to, you would need both hands to reach out and hold onto one.  And lastly, my first and still favorite drama of all is My Name is Kim Sam Soon, which combined everything – the cuteness, heart, love story, wonderful acting and a kickass OST.

Enough with the old, however. In no particular order, here are my thoughts on 2009 (oh, btw, hit “play” for the mp3 so you get the full technicolor and sound effects of this review. if the song ends, and you’re not done reading, then just scroll back up and hit play again. hehehe!):

SONG OF THE DAY

City Hall OST – “웃어봐” (Laugh) by Chae Dong-ha [ Download ]

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Read the rest of A Newbie Reviews 2009 [Year In Review, Part 3] (3,980 words)

© samsooki for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 155 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Accidental Couple, Assorted Gems, Cinderella Man, City Hall, Friend Our Legend, IRIS, Job Well Done, Kyung Sook Kyung Sook's Father, My Fair Lady, Partner, Queen Seon-deok, Sons of Sol Pharmacy House, Story of a Man, Tamra the Island, Temptation of Wife, year in review, You're Beautiful

With the year coming to an end, that means it’s time to take stock of the past twelve months (well, eleven really) in kdramas. The broadcast stations will be holding their awards ceremonies at the end of the month, and I’m working on my wrap-up of 2009′s offerings — as are some very talented (and prolific!) drama-watching fans — which I’ll post up closer to the end of the year.

But this is your turn to weigh in on what you liked or didn’t. I didn’t do a year-end poll last year (after putting one up in 2007) and people seemed to really want one, so it’s back.

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Read the rest of How was 2009 for you? (1,304 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 410 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: A Star's Lover, Accidental Couple, Angel's Temptation, Boys Before Flowers, Brilliant Legacy, Cain and Abel, Cinderella Man, City Hall, Dream, Friend, Heading to the Ground, Hero, Hon, IRIS, Ja Myung Go, Job Well Done, Loving You a Thousand Times, My Fair Lady, Partner, Queen of Housewives, Queen Seon-deok, Return of Iljimae, Smile, Sons of Sol Pharmacy House, Story of a Man, Strike Love, Style, Tamra the Island, Triple, year in review

(These are short mp3 clips that you can download onto your phone IF your phone is capable of mp3 ringtones. I know some phones have size limits for mp3s — mine is 500kb — and most of these clips are under 30 seconds and in the 200kb-400kb range. Download link at bottom.)

For example:

YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this soundtrack so I don’t need to post clips, but I’ll put them up just in case:

Jang Geun-seok – “말도 없이” (Without Words)

Jang Geun-seok – “Good Bye”

A.N.JELL – “Promise” verse

A.N.JELL – “Promise” chorus

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Read the rest of Drama theme-song ringtones (721 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 159 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Boys Before Flowers, Coffee Prince, Goong, Goong S, My Fair Lady, My Name Is Kim Samsoon, Return of Iljimae, Story of a Man, Strongest Chil Woo, The World They Live In, You're Beautiful

Oh my gosh, this was one of the worst finales I’ve ever seen. I’ve been leaving room for the drama to upswing at the eleventh hour, but now that it’s over I can say with certainty that this is a gross disappointment. I can’t say it’s the worst last episode EVER (because there are many dramas I have never seen finale episodes for, of course), but certainly one of the most disjointed, nonsensical, pointless finales I’ve actually watched. It’s as bad as Witch Amusement for weirdness — but maybe even worse because at least Witch Amusement‘s finale was amusing to watch.

SONG OF THE DAY

My Fair Lady OST – “I Love You” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of My Fair Lady: Episode 16 (Final) (3,184 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 254 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Jung Il-woo, Moon Chae-won, My Fair Lady, Yoon Eun-hye, Yoon Sang-hyun

I know, at this point it’s probably more “appropriate” to post a pic of our main couple… but eh, whatever. This one is very cute.

Episode 15 makes me sorry for all of us who were holding out hope for an exciting ending, because this episode was rather boring. Things that should have been heart-tugging lost their pull because they’d already been done before in previous episodes, and I think we’ve had enough of the endless repetition. Although, if you want to play a drinking game, you could probably get pretty far along by taking a shot every time this episode employed a pointless cliche.

SONG OF THE DAY

My Fair Lady OST – “사랑은 어쩔 수 없네요” (Can’t control love) by Yoon Sang-hyun [ Download ]

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Read the rest of My Fair Lady: Episode 15 (2,809 words)

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Post tags: Jung Il-woo, Moon Chae-won, My Fair Lady, Yoon Eun-hye, Yoon Sang-hyun

Like the past three (or so) episodes, I think Episode 14 is rife with weird, illogical moments. But unlike the past three episodes, at least this one has a couple of nice, conflict-ridden scenes to make up for it. No, it doesn’t make up for all of the shortcomings, but there were a couple bits of dialogue that were really nice (okay, maybe just one great line) and a burst of emotion. Finally!

SONG OF THE DAY

Taesabiae – “이 노래를 들으면” (When hearing this song) [ Download ]

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Read the rest of My Fair Lady: Episode 14 (3,252 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 90 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Jung Il-woo, Moon Chae-won, My Fair Lady, Yoon Eun-hye, Yoon Sang-hyun

I wish My Fair Lady would go full-on crazy, because even though they’re halfway there already, the drama’s still clinging to the semblance of a conventional trendy series. I think at this point they’d do better to have fun running wild with the nonsense rather than struggling to play it straight. I didn’t think this episode was bad so much as it was puzzling, and the cast probably finds it puzzling as well.

SONG OF THE DAY

Park Hyo-shin – “이름 모를 새” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of My Fair Lady: Episode 13 (2,984 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 65 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Jung Il-woo, Moon Chae-won, My Fair Lady, Yoon Eun-hye, Yoon Sang-hyun

There have been several discussions on this site about this topic, so I found the following article pretty timely. I both agree and disagree with the points outlined below, but regardless of my personal take on the matter, I’m certain there is enough room for convincing arguments on both sides of the issue…

“Who’s to blame when characters are criticized?”… “Incomprehensible” lead characters, damaged dramas

“I can’t understand my character myself, so how can I act in a way that viewers would sympathize? It’s disappointment upon disappointment.”

This is the confession of Ryu Shi-won, who was thrown into confusion at his incomprehensible character in SBS’s Style, which ended on September 20. With twenty years of acting experience, he found his character’s sudden changes difficult to handle. And it’s not just with Ryu Shi-won. Jung Il-woo, who is currently appearing in KBS’s My Fair Lady, expressed disappointment for similar reasons.

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Read the rest of Who’s to blame for confusing characters? (1,472 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 86 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: drama production, East of Eden, Jung Il-woo, Lee Da-hae, My Fair Lady, Ryu Shi-won, Style