Super excited about having joined the DB Book Club!! Thanks to @linarrick @mellowarmadillo @reply1988 and all the Leadership Team for their efforts 😜. I have a drive to make today that is hours and hours long, and the audiobook is a-comin' with me.

Actually, today is quite exciting. After some morning chores, I’m going to have time to exercise…then I’m gonna get my hair cut. My hairstyle right now is modeled after the one that Yeh Ji-won sported in Heavenly Idol, like, as in, I literally took a still in from that drama to my stylist and said “This.”

ANYWAY (spoken like Jeon Do-yeon does in Crash Course), then I get to drive and drive, listening to the book club book, and then once I get to my destination I'll have 18 hours alone in a hotel to get some serious drama-watching done, as well as (potentially) make a few gifs. So excited...

When a place gets a reputation for quality, people will come. Chosen Ilbo newspaper reported this week that Seoul's trendy Gangnam district, Myeong-dong shopping hub and Han River are popular film locations for more and more foreign movies and dramas. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, domestic and foreign producers of 632 movies and dramas asked the city to find locations and limit traffic for filming last year, and the city government provided support for 268 of them. The number of requests has risen from 206 productions in 2018, and in the first half of this year alone 185 movies and dramas were filmed in the capital. Last year 13 were foreign productions -- 11 of them the result of the city government's outreach to Netflix and Amazon. In the first half of this year alone, Amazon filmed 18 movies in Seoul.

The number of foreign movies and dramas filmed in Seoul increased from seven in 2018 to 19 in 2019, but fell to four in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and rose to seven in 2021. "The global popularity of K-pop and 'Squid Game' is bringing foreign production companies to Seoul," a city official said. Netflix' rom-com series "XO, Kitty," which was unveiled in May of this year, was filmed at Seoul N Tower on Mt. Nam, Bukchon Hanok Village and Dongdaemun Design Plaza. "XO, Kitty" is about an American girl who decides to move all the way to Korea to be reunited with her long- distance boyfriend. The 10-episode series logged a total 72 million viewing hours in the first week of its release, ranking among the top 10 in 90 countries.
A Netflix staffer said, "'XO, Kitty' is an American comedy, but the setting is Seoul. If Seoul's major attractions drew attention in the past, now, it has become the spaces where the stories are told."


In 2021, Apple TV+'s "Pachinko" and French movie "Return to Seoul" were also filmed in Korea. Seoul has been supporting productions since 2002 to publicize itself as a tourist destination. Support came in the form of restricting traffic and even money. A budget of about W1.24 billion is earmarked for such projects. "XO, Kitty" for example got W150 million (US$1=W1,328). "We gave W320 million in support to four productions, including 'XO, Kitty' and found that it led to the hiring of more than 570 people, and cast and crew spent five times more than the amount of support during their stay here," the city official said.

September - hot - It's summer - not the autumn - clouds just to tease you and let you feel it's summer - Already recording making September - Seriously.
June - July - August - September - made records. Today's drizzle brought temp down a bit but overall it's hot.

Typhoon season - Frustrating.

October - is hot too and all now depends upon November.

This is the new normal and i'm expecting short but powerful cold season too - and both season don't gem well with me.

Now all hope on mother earth.

There was a drama soundtrack I heard once with a fluffy song that had a recurring part of “kiss, kiss” with, as far as I recall, a female singer. Can anyone point me to which song that could have been?

almost forgot this hopefullY have time before the workday ends yet I wrote this in caps 6 times and wasted time.

been making a presentation about South Korean music shows, streams, channels, voting system and charts, so I spend a lot of time on Youtube. I was watching Music Bank live stream just now and a reader asked "is it eurovision again already?"

crazy happenings in the library, um, nothing much. someone lost a gold tooth.
im also spending way too much time on WeVerse hoping to catch some lives.
exited for this show:
https://www.soompi.com/article/1613957wpp/kim-woo-bin-exos-d-o-lee-kwang-soo-and-kim-ki-bangs-new-variety-show-announces-premiere-date
been wishing for something like this, but with D.O. and Kim Woo Bin. one will use death threats to cabbage and the other will try to charm them with awkward aegyo... um they can totally ask for my help im so up for it tho I do not know SK soil.

love the funky groove here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1CSy01CM6M
but I am reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MukzEtvNuW4

ok gotta go scavenge some fabric leftovers from the waste storage

Many musings.

1. There are a number of dramas that are very fine on recaps but definitely not on screen. I've been on a spree of watching dramas past dramas and I happened to start watching Dinner Mate. Contrasting this with The Crowned Clown, Dinner Mate paled in comparison. Sadly, it one drama I finished and ended up wishing I had only read via DB recaps but didn't watch. It wasn't bad. It actually had many strengths. Those strengths, for me, sadly weren't in the main romance. It made up for it but I'm not as giddy about the romance as I was when I read the recaps the year it aired.
And, it's my weakest Seo Ji-hye drama.

That aside...

2. It's very important that we root for our favorite actors right? Really important. And we want to see them again on our screens in another project.
Well, upon reflecting on the dramas I've watched over the recent years I noticed two things - the fact that I loved an actor so much in project a doesn't mean I'll be watching all their subsequent projects.
Start Up made me a Kim Seon-ho fan. Han Ji-pyeong will give you all the details. Surprisingly, it didn't make me want to watch Hometown Cha Cha Cha despite being excited to see him again. And I happen to see the pattern repeat itself more than once.
I love love Kim Dong-wook but I'm struggling through Beneficial Fraud despite watching side-by-side-airing My Perfect Stranger.
Love In Contract turned me into a strong Go Kyung-pyo fan. Did this tune me into Connect? Nope.
I like Kim Young-kwang but stayed metres away from Somebody.
I liked Ahn Eun-jin in Hospital Playlist but stayed away from The Good Bad Mother.
I've longed to see Kim Hae-sook in an antagonist capacity but didn't watch Revenant or Inspector Koo. I did enjoy Under The Queen's Umbrella. Revenant on the other hand, failed to pull me in to seeing her go anti- one more time.
I almost didn't watch Moving despite it having range of actors I can't help but not watch. It took learning Kim Sung-kyun's story was next to finally dip my legs in and watch (I've been following the recaps all along). And, yes, I'm finally enjoying and getting to see the performances of the actors beanies rave about in the comment section, fan wall and WWW.
.
.
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And with the aforementioned I came to the conclusion : For me, it goes beyond liking the actor or actress. The project itself has to draw me in. Else, it'll just be me being excited at them being attached to another project and nothing more.

I just caught up on MLL because I had a busy week, and it is a train wreck. It’s still pretty to look at, but the revelation of the real culprit was just so badly done. I’ll wait to watch the final two eps before giving the verdict.

On a side note, a Beanie recommended Pegasus Market to me and I howled with laughter many times even in ep1 alone.

I just also finished watching an American movie named Love at First Sight which is supposed to have been dropped recently on Netflix and it was just SO GOOD. Production-wise, it was really pretty to look at. And I actually have this feeling that part of the plot may have been inspired by Goblin 😜

Deliberately taking a 3-day off from study this weekend. Now, what should I watch? 🧐

As of this week, I have read three books from June Hur. I started with The Red Palace and was thoroughly satisfied with the book that I continued with The Forest of Stolen Girls, and the most recent was The Silence of Bones.

Reading them equals to the feelings I get from watching legal thriller dramas. It was so good that I wish more people to read them.

After the recent DWY moment involving Hong-jo learning what Sin-yu has her listed as in his contacts, I have been thinking more about this trope/story device in terms of how it's used in Kdramas. I am wondering why western romances don't use it more. I'm trying to think if I've ever encountered it in a western romance. It's especially odd because a lot of romance books loooove the use of nicknames.

Also, a western romance I read recently had the "buys her first aid materials and gives them to her" and I could only think of Kdramas.

Request for help

1.  Many Beanies (including me) have different username and display name. While replying to someone how can I ensure I am @ the username and not display name.

2. On my fanwall I wasn't able to post 2-3 pictures with text between them. Then I tried to post one picture with text and the second picture with text as a reply to the first one but found I can only reply with text and cannot add a picture.

Please help me post on my fanwall whereby I can post pictures in reply to my original text.

Thanks in advance!

Happy weekend Beanies and keep Beaning On!

My parents spent this morning in the ER because dad could no longer stand or walk properly.🦵🏻 He has been suffering from lower back hernia and arthritis for years and with time leg, knee and meniscus got involved as well. Now the other knee got fluid in it with probably another torn meniscus.🦿He strained himself because both my mother and I cannot drive, so he has been driving us around, getting my sister’s kids to school and back home and all the other heavy lifting. Fortunately, he can see an orthopedic next week and he has crutches to hop around, so there is hope.🩼The ER doctor ordered my dad to rest the whole weekend and mom and I will certainly will take that advice to heart as well!🛌

I was thinking about The Law Cafe and how it always makes me curious about the original source material (the webcomic which in turn was based on a webnovel) and it just made me think about adaptations in general.

How it's hard to find that right balance. What do you keep, what do you change, what do you alter. How the same premise can be done a number of times yet somehow works or falls flat. Boys Over Flowers comes to mind solely because I know it is like obe of 3 or 4 (maybe more) adaptations.

Once again it seems like stars have to align.

As someone who reads webtoons, I can say they OFTEN feel like they go on forever or get tedious. Especially when it's the popular ones so sometimes I do look forward to a drama adaptation just to get a condensed version that gets to the point. Sometimes, I'm just looking forward to the how it's adapted.

I’ve been thinking about romance k dramas and how many of them I’ve dropped in rapid succession of late - King the Land, Heartbeat, My Lovely Liar, Crash Course in Romance. What is going on? When I think of Crash Landing that tugged at my heartstrings and Human Disqualification (life drama with a slice of romance) with its poignant storytelling and multilayered characters the romance genre of late seems like a hot disappointing mess.

Wondering if Dramabeans is going to do another Drama Hangout for Live Your Own Life which is the new KBS weekender following The Real Has Come.

I admit - I don't even know who or where to ask.

I just saw "the glory" and... yeah. so much hype! i was quite let down. i mean, i don't know, i guess i expected MORE. the acting was amazing. the lead's strategy to make the bullies destroy each other was fantastic. lee do hyun *swoon*. but... yeah. which is why i usually avoid whatever show/movie is being hyped at the moment. i will watch part 2, however, because lee do hyun.

last month i watched "encounter" with song hye kyo and park bo gum and it's like they're the same characters. song hye kyo is almost the same character in both shows. deadpan. no emotions. no smile. she showed crazy emotion in the glory in like, 2 scenes. but sheesh, lady, don't be a robot.

Why are some beanies “unregistered”?
How do you even do that?
I noticed it on older posts.
Not that I’m planning on it, but I don’t even see the option to unregister my account.