Asian dramas

Any series that isn't anime as well as live action movies.
anon

Asian dramas

Post by anon »

I'm torn between making separate drama threads to Korea, Japan, etc. and making a general Asian drama thread since I know how messy huge general threads can be when storytelling and budgets may be different... but if discussions become too big, feel free to start a separate thread!

Okay, so I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Asian dramas in general. The actual biggest problem I have is the acting. Lots of Asian dramas I've seen have over-the-top stuff played for comedy and it just gives me second-hand embarrassment for some reason. There's also the "this obviously would never happen in real life but suspend your beliefs for a second" type of stuff, like... a lot of school dramas are like, oh, this dumpy chick (who is actually happens to be one of the better looking girls among the extras) somehow gets with this impossibly hard-to-get hot guy who is a jerk but warms up to her. That's not to say that I never enjoyed some of them. I do like some surrealism thrown into my shows but when people actually expect me to treat it as something "real" without it being something I could see appropriate I'm just like MEH.

My mom watches a lot of them so I grew up catching them watching whatever is on television at 9 PM, and it's usually Chinese period dramas (I like making fun of how the stunt actors "run on air" during their fight scenes) or those Taiwanese coming-of-age dramas that take place in a rural area. I couldn't get into those shows because I couldn't relate to any of them, though I did like one of the rural coming-of-age dramas whose name slips my memory at the moment. I've also seen some Taiwanese romantic comedies like Smiling Pasta (which I enjoyed) but, again, the bad acting kind of ruined some of the scenes.

Well, okay, onto the shows themselves: I watch a lot of tokusatsu (special effects) shows and at one point in my life did go through a Kamen Rider/Super Sentai phase. I've seen Gaoranger (halfway through), Hurricanger (a little bit), Abaranger (half of it), Dekaranger, Magiranger, Boukenger (dropped it halfway), Gekiranger, Go-onger (DROPPED IT BECAUSE IT WAS BAD), and Shinkenger. For Kamen Rider (which I liked because its acting is a little better than Super Sentai and is less formulatic), I've seen Faiz, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, W, and OOO.

I also like watching dramas if they're adaptations of manga. If I like the drama version I may be interested in seeking out the manga itself. If I've already read the manga I watch the drama to see how closely they adapted it. This happened with ChocoMimi and a lot of manga-to-film adaptations like High School Debut and Lovely Complex.

The only Korean drama I've seen is their version of Boys Over Flowers, and I just watched it for the Soujirou/Yuki parts (whatever their names are in the Korean version)... just like almost everyone else.
Destinie
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Destinie »

Wow! I am thinking about getting into them but I find that I personally have little patience for watching them. My Fiance and I started watching "Full House" on Hulu (The one with Rain, not the American one with the Olsen twins). We put it on just because we wanted to see Rain's acting in Korean Dramas. (We are big Speed Racer fans, K?)

I can't believe how long each episode is! It's almost an hour and a half! It's crazy~! And it's so much filler that we can't even finish one episode. I wonder if I just have a poor attention span but I agree that the acting is very over-the-top.

I'd be interested in looking into some other ones, though. I just wanted to give the genre a couple shots before coming do a decision about being completely disinterested.
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Cherri »

There is a channel on my TV that plays Korea Dramas, so I've seen a couple of them. None all the way through because I didn't know which days played what and I'm normally tired when they come on. Then I started watching City Hunter (on Netflix but it disappeared and came back and I'm not very far in it).

On TV there was OB/GYN, Smile, Mom, Ghost and like four others that I don't remember the names of. Though they are currently playing one that has Heaven's Doctor but I don't remember the name of that either but it could be Heaven's Doctor.

I don't watch a lot of them because I never come in at the beginning and I always miss a bunch of episodes. I enjoy them but don't watch often.

How is Full House with Rain? I saw him in Speed Racer and in Ninja Assassin.
;o; *** pew! pew!
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Destinie »

Full House is...uh..Ok. I've only watched 2 episodes and I'm not thrilled with it. I feel like it's mostly fanservice. Oh, and he plays a famous singer/actor in it. Hah! So he's kind of playing himself..? It was hard to figure out what was going on in the first episode so we had to go to wikipedia and read the synopsis of the story. The pacing was pretty horrendous and didn't explain any details.
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Cherri »

That sounds....terrible. I'm so sorry. Maybe it will get better?
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anon

Re: Asian dramas

Post by anon »

Destinie wrote:I can't believe how long each episode is! It's almost an hour and a half! It's crazy~! And it's so much filler that we can't even finish one episode. I wonder if I just have a poor attention span but I agree that the acting is very over-the-top.
YEAH! Asian dramas are soooo long! They're like a freaking hour per episode!! Some local Asian channels split the episodes in half when they broadcast it. I think having an hour's worth of episodes feels like it's too much. Drags on and on.

Haha, Rain is all about fanservice. Have you seen his music videos? The ones I've seen of him always end up with him ripping up his shirt to show off his six-pack.
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Mikari »

I don't find the hour long episodes to be too long. There are also non-Asian dramas that are that long so it kind of fits since it's a drama that's bit different from the usual series. Kind of like soap operas in length and dragging... Though I do very much prefer episodes that don't drag, if they're an hour that's fine as long as it's an hour of good content.
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Destinie »

Joe wrote:
Destinie wrote:I can't believe how long each episode is! It's almost an hour and a half! It's crazy~! And it's so much filler that we can't even finish one episode. I wonder if I just have a poor attention span but I agree that the acting is very over-the-top.
YEAH! Asian dramas are soooo long! They're like a freaking hour per episode!! Some local Asian channels split the episodes in half when they broadcast it. I think having an hour's worth of episodes feels like it's too much. Drags on and on.

Haha, Rain is all about fanservice. Have you seen his music videos? The ones I've seen of him always end up with him ripping up his shirt to show off his six-pack.
They really do drag on! I feel like we could have gotten a lot more out of it in a half hour or maybe 45 minutes but it was just a lot of time spent watching the characters sulk.

And I have not seen these music videos but NOW I AM SUDDENLY INTERESTED. XD
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Eden »

The only Asian live-action thingy I ever saw was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
Not just another romantic comedy. ~ Get Dropbox!
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Re: Asian dramas

Post by Yuzuki »

I love love LOVE Asian dramas!!! When you grow up watching soap operas in Spanish, with over 200 episodes which are always about a poor girl who falls in love with a rich guy with an overbearing mother who separates them. During the course of the story the female will suffer from three or more of the following: become blind, become paralyzed, be falsely accused of murder, get her baby stolen, get lost while everybody thinks she is dead, lose her memory or get sent into a mental institution. On the last episodes all sickness are cured, innocence proven, babies found, evil guys die an horrible death oh, and she discovers she was the love-child of some rich dude who leaves her a fortune, so now she can marry her love. Most of the times they there is an extremely sappy happy ending.

Asian dramas are so very different to this: they are usually short (9-30 episodes), there are many types of stories (romance, comedy, crime/detective, fantasy, medical, horror), there are not always happy ending or miracle cures. For me it was a transition of many of the things I liked about anime and manga but with sexy asian guys. >.<

If you wanna get more into drama you can see some at Viki, there have been recently some at Netflix too.

Some of my favorites are

1. My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (Korea) - Fantasy/Romance/Comedy :heart:
On one day after Cha Dae Woong ran away from his grandfather, he accidentally freed a nine-tailed fox who was closed in a painting for about 500 years. He didn't realize what he has done, until the Gumiho (nine-tailed fox),who took the form of a beautiful woman, appeared in front of him.

2. Nodame Cantabile (Japan) - Music / Comedy / Romance [based on manga/anime] :music:
Megumi Noda, or "Nodame" is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. Shinichi Chiaki, is Momogaoka's top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor.

3. Personal Taste (Korea) - Comedy / Romance :heart:
After being dumped by her long-time boyfriend, Kae In wants to befriend a gay man who can become her roommate and help her out with living expenses. When Kae In mistakes Jin Ho as being gay at their first meeting, he goes along with it.

4. The King 2 Hearts (Korea) - Politics / Romance / Action :heart:
Crown Prince Lee Jae Ha rules in a modern-day Korean monarchy. Thrust in the midst of political turmoil, he is forced to work with Kim Hang Ah, a female North Korean military officer. Will the two discover that their interests are more aligned than they originally thought?

5. Change (Japan) - Politics/Romance
With the deaths of ruling party's Fukuoka Member of Parliament and his eldest son, his heir apparent, in an plane accident, a by-election had to be held right away and, Kanbayashi Masaichi, the House secretary of the ruling party,conceived the idea of fielding the second son, Asakura Keita, and sent his secretary Miyama Rika to complete the task. Keita was an elementary school teacher in Nagano and his hobby was star gazing.He had no interest in politics. At Rika's persuasion and the pressure of his family, he reluctantly agreed to run for office but with no intention of winning.

6. Long Vacation (Japan) Romance
Sena is a college graduate who dreams of becoming a world class pianist. He teaches piano at a local piano school. Minami is an out of work model. On her wedding day, she gets dumped by her fiance and loses all of her savings, which she gave to her fiance. Her fiance turns out to be Senna's former roommate. She rushes to Sena's apartment and finds out that her fiance has skipped town. With no money and no where to go, she moves in with Sena.

7. Kimi wa Petto (Japan) - Comedy/Romance [based on a manga]
Smart, successful and good-looking Iwaya Sumire works for a big newspaper. However, her boss asks her to leave for being too "perfect" a woman. Feeling angry and dejected Iwaya returns home depressed, and most of all lonely. However, when she finds an unconscious young man lying in a box out the front of her home and takes him in. He looks like a dog she used to own called Momo. She dubs him Momo and decides to "keep him as a pet." It's the start of an unexpected life together as they overcome obstacles and become quite attached to one another.
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