There are some spoilers in this news article about Warrior Baek Dong Soo, so if you don't want to be ruined about the series, you might just skip the entire post.
But anyway, to proceed...
I think I have some form of reasoning for a lot of things, but undoubtedly, only
I could ever understand why I do things the way that I do. After my three day grieving period over Yeo Woon's piteous death in Warrior Baek Dong Soo, I was finally able to move on and continue the rest of my Korean drama series viewing life. I'm not going to say that I'm over the death, but the only way for me to even start moving on from one series is to begin watching another, or to get myself submerged in other things.
Yea. I have a really, really bad habit of connecting myself to certain story lines or certain fictional characters too much. I start by enjoying, and then I fall in love, and I become so attached that I end up watching the series over and over and over again until I've had enough. But my satisfaction usually is never quenched because the story line won't change no matter how many times I see it. If I didn't like the way it ended, I just have to live with it. If there were certain things I would have changed about the series... well, too bad. But if the series had ended quite lovely and I just find myself trying to seek pleasure with the little details that I had enjoyed so much in the series, it takes a little bit of time to make me happy enough to move on.
However, there is a definite wonder about Korean drama series; moving on to the next great romantic comedy or action or adventure has been fairly easy. Because there are just so many good stars and good story lines and good productions that are just waiting to be viewed.
Now I'm not going to say that I'm the best judge of story lines or characters or anything like that. But I like what I like and my next chosen drama series may not even make much sense to anyone at all. And it doesn't make much sense to me either.
But that's okay.
First of all,
Running Man has come back into play. I'd been biding my time and waiting for that sense of "Joong Ki is no longer a part of Running Man" feeling to go away. Because I had started watching that variety show because of Song Joong Ki and when I got to his last episode, I sort of started avoiding the show. Of course, Running Man is a variety that you can enjoy no matter which artist or celebrity appears on it. It's fun, it's hilarious, and it's attractive. But no Joong Ki meant no more of my initial reasons to watch the show. So it was kind of hard for me to continue where it left off without the young pretty boy.
Nonetheless, Running Man is now back on and for the next month, I'll probably be trying to finish up my
Dedicated to Running Man page. Wait for it.
On a side note, I think the biggest force propelling me to continue watching Running Man was the fact that there is always the possibility that Joong Ki will return. And he DOES return as a guest for one episode. So I'm totally excited about it and I think my own strange reasoning is, if I want to see that episode, I should, at the very least, make sure I've seen every episode leading up to it. It would only be right and respectful for me to do as much.
Don't ask questions. Things could get a bit insane.
Consequentially, after that episode where Joong Ki shows as a guest, there might be yet another lull until I start watching Running Man again, no matter HOW much I enjoy all the members and their fun and games. I might try to watch it for Song Ji Hyo and Yoo Jae Suk, because I DO absolutely adore these two aside from the rest. Ha Ha is a close fourth in my Running Man member favorites.
Strong Heart is also another variety show I've been watching. Unfortunately, this one is fairly inaccessible to me. Having become quite attached and intrigued about Lee Seung Ki (to the point that I've written an individual post about him which will be published in the next few days), I searched out Strong Heart and found that the talk show as quite exciting. With funny, happy and some tearful stories told by guests, I ended up becoming quite intrigued by the rest of the talk show. Again, this one is harder for me to get a hold of. As I am not very fluent in Korean (actually not at all) the only way for me to enjoy would be to have English subtitles. So without them, I'm lost.
But I take what I can get. The only other thing I can do is to either learn Korean, or improve upon my Chinese characters. That way, I can either view Strong Heart in Korean with it's original charm, or I can view Strong Heart with Chinese subtitles and still have an idea what's going on.
Nonetheless... I'll figure out what's to come.
Finally, the next drama series I have officially picked up... well, it's at least one of the ones I had included in my last end of month post. I will be watching Hero, starring Lee Jun Ki and Yoon So Yi. And the only thing I can think of as to why I chose this one over the others I've been hovering over...
I had the need to see Yoon So Yi in a better character role with a possibly better story and love line. After all, if anyone else was like me and had boarded the Baek Dong Soo and Hwang Jin Ju ship since the beginning of the series, then you might feel the same disappointing sentiments as I feel. Not only did their ship sink mercilessly, but Jin Ju's individual ship just kept floating on without a destination until the writers decide to park her somewhere, like Kim Hong Do Island, as a last resort.
It was sorely disappointing and I'm still a bit terse over that. Having crunched Warrior Baek Dong Soo withing a span of 7 days, I was at least hoping that SOME things would happen the way I had idealized it. But nothing came about to satisfy my own desires. Granted, if Yeo Woon hadn't died, then I think I might have been able to accept Jin Ju's conclusion a little bit better. But my rage had taken over and that's not a good thing.
And so now... Hero.
I've been meaning to watch it anyway. And I DO enjoy a bit of Lee Jun Ki ever since his days of My Girl. And with a better hair cut, he certainly DOES look nicer and less like a girl wearing too much make-up. Since my parents are watching Time with Dog and Wolf (also starring Lee Jun Ki) I suddenly had the urge to watch Hero. Make sense? Well, of course not, but that's how I roll.
Nonetheless, the first episode was quite interesting, even IF it dragged for quite a bit. To be totally honest, I'm not even quite sure I know what was going on. But I will tough it out and finish it, if only for Lee Jun Ki and the love line. Since Yoon So Yi's Warrior Baek character had been so cheated, I figured I'd try and enjoy a different side of her coupled with the good looking Lee Jun Ki. This will be quite fun.
And it was also kind of interesting to see Ji Chang Wook as a supporting cast in this series with his character remarking on how "the Kara back up dancer" had a "hot body", referring to Yoon So Yi's character. If Baek Dong Soo had had such thoughts about Yoon So Yi's Jin Ju, then my beloved ship would have been golden!
But no, the idea didn't settle well and so I'm actually kind of interested to see if these two have any interaction in Hero at all; good or bad. But the love line is a definite Lee Jun Ki and Yoon So Yi based, which I don't really have a problem with anyway. Yoon So Yi is pretty in her own way and her role is that of a tough girl police detective. Lee Jun Ki is always good looking, though I haven't quite pegged his role's personality yet. We'll just keep watching and see, I guess.
As an end note about Lee Jun Ki: Before, I had always pegged him as a pretty boy because he looked a lot like a girl in the series My Girl. I'm not saying that he's NOT a pretty boy anymore, but there's a separate type of charm to him now that gives him a more manly handsomeness coupled with that pretty face that doesn't make him as suited for the pretty boy category as others (such as Song Joong Ki or Yoo Seung Ho) would be.
On a side, I'm looking forward to seeing what series he will be in as his comeback to the industry after he finishes serving in the army. Some news articles I've read had made mention that Lee Jun Ki should be returning to acting fairly soon. I'm totally looking forward to that.
Finally, the month of October had proven to be a pretty slow one at first and I think the saving grace of my article posting lay in Warrior Baek Dong Soo. Granted, the articles turned out to be novel-length, but I at least felt productive about my October posting. Otherwise, My Girlfriend Is A Gumiho would have been my highlight of October and I'd be kind of stuck. While the series is a great one, the month seemed rather boring with just that much.
Of course, now that I think about it, the Warrior Baek articles as well as this end of month post is really just another reason for me to find ways to splash a few Yeo Woon pictures everywhere. There's no harm in that, right?
Coming up soon will be the article over Lee Seung Gi, which I'm trying to figure out when to publish. It's already completed, but for some reason it seems a bit awkward to throw that article in after my humongous ranting about Warrior Baek Dong Soo's ending. Then again, the only other article I want to post for this month is the intro info piece for Warrior Baek... although having so many Warrior Baek articles posted in a row might make things too monotonous. Who knows, I might just let it all slide and wait until November to post both of them.
After all, it's not like there's a crucial moment for me to do something like planning. I just figured I wanted to be uniform and get all the Warrior Baek business out of the way so that I can move on a little bit easier. I still have to finish up a couple other articles and figure out how to start writing about Brilliant Legacy. Scent of a Woman needs priority as I haven't even finished watching the series yet, and while I feel really inclined to give up on Love Keeps Going, I know I need to get to the end of it and form an opinion (even if it will end up being a rather superficial opinion).
November is going to be an even slower month than October had turned out to be. After all, if not for Warrior Baek, I probably wouldn't have had much to publish aside from some forced info intro articles. But the for the meantime, as already stated, I will be working on the "Dedicated to Running Man" page, and finishing up some other articles that need closure. My drama viewing might be slimmed down so that I can play catch-up, which means that even though I have plans to watch Hero, it won't be a fast breeze through like I had always done with other Korean drama series.
I will also be re-watching episodes of Running Man, Brilliant Legacy, and what have you, in order to get some articles written.
Hopefully by December, blogging will pick up a little better.
And now something completely off the topic:
My parents just finished watching You're Beautiful a few days ago. I didn't know whether or not they would like that series, but apparently they enjoyed it quite a bit. They laughed at all the funny parts and they got irritated at all the same things I got irritated with. It was pretty awesome. We all agreed that every character in that series at their own strange issues. Yesterday, my mom came up to me and asked me the strangest question I would have never expected from her; because Mom tends to remain detached from most drama series she watches and will just sit and watch whatever dad pull up.
"That guy who plays Shin Woo... in that series we just finished... Is he in anything else?"
And I balked. Then I just nodded. "Yea. You're Beautiful was his first ever role," I told her. And then I told her about Heartstrings and how it was not bad. But since Mom and Dad prefer to watch series wherein there is Cantonese dubbing, I disappointed her by saying, "It's fairly new and just recently broadcasted. So there won't be any Cantonese dubbing for a while." Nonetheless, she seemed satisfied with that answer.
And the first thing I thought of was: "Hmm... is Mom interest in Jung Yong Hwa?" Very rare will she ask me specifically about certain drama series or certain actors and actresses. She just watches the series, enjoys them and then moves on.
I'm usually the one who becomes attached to characters and actors like sticky tape.
So... My conclusion: I guess You're Beautiful was as influential to my mom as it had been to me. And of all the things she could have taken away from the series, she grew a shine to Jung Yong Hwa's Kang Shin Woo. Very interesting, considering this was the series that made him shine so much that they had to pair him up with Park Shin Hye again in a new series where he gets to be the main male leade.
Jung Yong Hwa, you totally rock it. Even my mom thinks you're handsome and charming and the best character in the series. That's so cute!
