Good news for Tamra the Island fans: Not only is the mania trendy-sageuk series getting a director’s cut DVD set, it’s been announced that the DVD set will have an extra episode.

The drama had been planned for 20 episodes (and filmed months in advance) before MBC cut it down to 16 episodes due to low ratings despite fan fervor and general praise. That sparked massive fan outcry and an extended campaign first to save the series, then to release a full DVD set with the unaired episodes. The former failed, but the latter was successful. As a result, beginning with Episode 11, the production had to quickly edit down the remaining ten episodes into six, leaving a lot of material on the cutting room floor.

The DVD is good news for fans who felt that emotions changed too quickly in the broadcast version, since a lot of development was omitted for time. In particular, the box set promises to show Park Kyu’s (Im Joo-hwan) management of the port opening and its problems with “much more detailed development.”

In total, it will contain an extra episode’s worth of material from its original plan. Group Eight CEO Song Byung-joon explained on November 10, “After editing the complete series, the DVD came to 21 parts. … The video editing is complete, and now the sound editing is being worked on.” Note that this does not mean there is additional material after the series’ end; it means that when the material was re-edited into its originally planned components, they came to an extra hour’s worth.

The DVD set will release in early December. The full series will also be re-broadcast next year on cable television, beginning in March.

Via Herald Biz

RELATED POSTS

• Tamra will get a full director’s cut DVD
• The business of kdrama extensions and cuts
• Tamra will air complete version overseas, not at home
• Fans are spitting mad at Tamra’s curtailment
• Western actors becoming more visible on Korean TV
• Tamra the Island: Episode 1

Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 45 Comments →

Hello! I’m Gallivanter, the other half of the Nazreal-Gallivanter team. I’m so happy to be given this opportunity to spread the love on my favorite drama from this summer. But, if I’m going to be retrospective, I don’t know that yet.

Episode four starts to get a little more serious. Not a lot, but some as our characters are now familiar with each other, and no longer care about the language barrier. Or is it that the show no longer cares about making jokes about Korean-English? Either way, I’m thankful. Tamra has all the makings for a quality drama; cinematography, acting, writing, the history and plot, but it’s the unnecessarily silly things that hinder Tamra, and I’m hoping episode four is a sign we’re moving away from that.

[Read more →]

Filed under: Drama Recaps by Gallivanter - 14 Comments →

Although Tamra the Island has finished airing, gallivanter and myself have volunteered to continue Javabeans’ efforts to offer recaps to Dramabeans readers. So, in the next weeks, we’re hoping to share detailed recaps, thoughts and opinions on this little treasure of a drama.

Now a side note for Tamra: Unfortunately the powers of MBC decided to cut the original 20 episodes to 16 episodes and by Episode 10 we start seeing the weird effects of crazy editing to keep the storylines flowing. What we’re also hoping to do is recap the original episodes once the DVD release comes out. It’ll be interesting to do a comparison between the editions and look at how much more of the characters/plot/themes we see in an extra 4 hours of viewing time- watch this space!

Otherwise, it’s easy to write about Tamra retrospectively but this could spoil it for first time readers/watchers so we’ll try to recap as we watched it the first time round, keeping the surprises and discoveries fresh.

We really hope you enjoy the recaps; happy reading!

[Read more →]

Filed under: Drama Recaps by Nazreal - 28 Comments →

Good news for fans of MBC’s Tamra the Island, which was shortened by four episodes in its original broadcast run and just wrapped this past weekend: The drama will be getting a director’s cut DVD set, which will contain all 20 of its originally planned episodes (rather than the edited-down 16-episode version).

Fans had rallied in defense of the series and launched a protest of MBC’s decision to cut the drama, circulating petitions, picketing in protest, and taking out multiple newspaper ads. They were unsuccessful in getting MBC to change its mind, but their extensive efforts (which are unprecedented in scope) did touch the hearts of the production team; fans even opened a bank account devoted to collecting funds on behalf of a 20-episode DVD set and received 1,100 responses within the first two days.

One member from the production team said, “It’s a difficult situation, but we were touched at the viewers’ petitions, so we decided to make a director’s cut DVD that restores the parts that had been cut out.”

In addition, Tamra the Island begins its Japanese broadcast on October 26.

Via OSEN

RELATED POSTS

• The business of kdrama extensions and cuts
• Tamra will air complete version overseas, not at home
• Fans are spitting mad at Tamra’s curtailment
• Tamra gets shortened to 16 episodes
• Western actors becoming more visible on Korean TV
• Tamra the Island: Episode 1

Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 40 Comments →

Queen Seon-deok

Yep, we as drama-lovers tend to have a love-hate (mostly hate, I think) relationship with drama extensions and, even worse, unexpected cuts. Even a good drama can be ruined in the end by unnecessary extensions — a long-running epic series may suffer less from adding episodes than a short drama whose story was never meant to go beyond 16 or 20 installments. I know that this trend stems from that pernicious habit of broadcast stations’ knee-jerk reactions to ratings, but as much as we hate that, I think we all kind of understand why a station places so much importance on ratings. Here’s an article that discusses the trend.

[Read more →]

Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 44 Comments →