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Reviews
Siti hyunteo (2011)
Absurd
This show is absurd.
There are some conventions in K-dramas that you know you must accept: people sleep fully clothed, doors are never locked, a few hospital scenes, one or both characters are orphans, mobile phones are used extensively except when most needed, and so on. I accept all of those.
But I can't get past the impossible coincidences, the gigantic plot holes, the irrational behavior...
The screenplay is so consistently poor and childish that you wonder if the writers were elementary school kids.
Once again I'm left with the impression that the only truly good K-drama is "My lovely Kim Sam-soon"
Nae Yeojachinguneun Gumiho (2010)
Another great premise wasted
THE GOOD
- An interesting premise
- The first half is consistently funny
- The smile of the lead actress lights up the screen
THE BAD
I think this is best described as a product for kids: light in tone, little story development, and with plot holes so immediately evident it is impossible to brush them aside and remain engaged in the product.
There are some conventions in K-dramas that you know you must accept: people sleep fully clothed, doors are never locked, a few hospital scenes, one or both characters are orphans, mobile phones are used extensively except when most needed, and so on. I accept all of those. But here are a few other major problems of this show, assuming you are older than twelve.
A premise of UNLIMITED potential (supernatural immortal being awakes in a modern world totally unfamiliar to her, guy has to manage both her power and her ignorance) is criminally underutilized. Unnumbered gags were set aside in the name of conventional K-drama staples.
The lead actress is excellent in her role, conveying cuteness, innocence, and making you wish you could be there to help her out and protect her: you simply struggle to imagine someone else doing a better job. But what of the show beside her performance? It would lose a lot of its appeal, right?
The gumiho being is not realistically portrayed. She is full-innocent bordering on dumb. For comparison take the Japanese animated series "Spice and Wolf", which has a very similar premise: an immortal wolf-goddess somehow joins a guy and gets to live in the world of men. She is ignorant of most things yet, since she has countless years of experience and is a superior being, she is able to figure out things in her own way; also, her moods continuously straddle between cocky confident and scared ignorant. It seems likely that would be her reaction and behavior, no?
In a show that lasts 16 episodes/hours, there is basically only one story told, that of the main couple. The usual sidekick couple story arc (in this case the aunt and the director) is pure comedy fodder and does not present any drama: we are never in any doubt that they will be happy together in the end.
The story of the doctor/teacher/phantom and his past could have been developed into something more consistent, but instead is limited to one single flashback repeated over and over: I felt that there was a great story in his past to be told to explain his feelings and decisions, but because it isn't properly told I never really connected with him.
Episodes 10 and 15 are particularly infuriating, both because they seem edited by a madman with no regard for chronology and consequentiality, and because they exaggerate in their use of tired plot devices.
Because the show is generally light, the cliffhangers at the end of most episodes are not very strong, totally absent, or botched. For example they managed to ruin the first kiss: you have waited eleven episodes for it, and when it finally arrives the episode ends mid-scene.
Up until the twelfth episode the male lead shows no signs of sexual attraction towards either his original girlfriend or his new roommate (and in the latter case it can't be attributed to her being a gumiho, since he himself clearly states that he's not afraid of her). This is a complaint that I have with most of the K-dramas I have watched. I understand the decision to refrain from going into the sexual aspect of relationships, but I can't be asked to believe that young people have no physical impulses. Find a plot excuse to forbid/prevent them from having a sexual relationship (as they do in episode 12), or simply imply it off screen.
Considering that you're never in doubt that the main couple will live happily ever after, there was too much drama at the expense of good comedy. In the same way, once the old lady shows up at the beginning of the last episode, a happy ending is implied, and that robbed me of any hand-wringing uncertainty.
The talents of the male lead are poorly used: in the first few episodes he shows a nice comedic range of expressions and body language, but as the story progresses the script only requires him to look worried.
In my humble opinion of western person, at least one scene depicting Miho's feral nature was needed to make her believable as potentially scary (something like her face gory with blood), but maybe for Korean/Asian people knowing she is a gumiho is enough.
Sikeurit Gadeun (2010)
Problems I have with Secret Garden
SPOILERS !!!
1- It's not funny, I hardly ever laughed. Part of it could be poor subtitles, but you don't need those for physical comedy, and there's precious little of that.
2- The main premise of the body swap, which offered unlimited possibilities, is terribly underutilized.
3- Characters do not behave in a realistic way, for example we are asked to believe that while swapped they aren't curious about their new bodies. Also why pretend they don't feel any kind of sexual impulse? If the creators didn't want them to have sex before marriage they could have found some perfectly good excuse.
4- How and why the female lead, from the original distaste for him, comes to love the male lead, is poorly explained, we are left to assume she gets tired of him insisting so much and gives in.
5- The story arc of the sidekick couple, even in its simplicity, is a lot more interesting than the protagonists' one.
6- While the bodies are swapped they are sometimes showed as un-swapped (for the viewer benefit I guess?) but this only causes confusion and negates the premise.
7- The main actress shows good acting skills when she does a man in a woman's body, but below average ones otherwise.
8- The two most important conflicts (the difficult love stories of the two couples) are resolved too soon, so the final episode lacks any punch and is reduced to some 50 minutes of happy ending, which is way too many.
9- The evil mother thing is overdone.
10- The sister of the main character is first introduced and then completely forgotten about.
11- Other characters which either had the potential for an interesting sub-plot (the gay musician) or were genuinely funny (the assistant of the department store director Park) were underdeveloped/underutilized.
12- To an extent this is to be expected in most TV shows, but when it comes to Secret Garden there are way too many plot holes and inconsistencies.
13- For a series produced in 2010, there are too many K-drama stereotypes: rich boy/poor girl, evil mother, sidekick couple, hospital
we've seen this for a decade now. Still it would be OK if at least it was well done, but it isn't.
The series by which I jusge all others is "Kim Sam-soon" which, with all the limitations inherent to a family TV program / k drama, is funny, realistic enough, not too syrupy, and sports the best female lead character in the history of television.
That show set the standard for rom-coms, and therefore we can expect it to be copied a lot, but Secret Garden went to far: - same actor in the male lead role - in both shows there's a trip to Jeju island - in both shows the male lead had a life threatening accident when younger - said accident left the male lead unable to ride a transport (car/elevator)
Jing wu men (1972)
Didn't like it...
With all the due respect to Bruce Lee and his fans, I found this movie quite boring. I understand the reasons why people liked it in '72, but for today standards it's really a poor movie, with laughable acting and fake fighting. Watch instead the '94 remake "Fist of legend" starring Jet Li. It's got a better plot and, more important since we're talking about martial arts, way better fight scenes (Actually this is one of the best M.A. flicks ever). Once again, Bruce Lee is a legend, but that's not enough to save this film.