K-Drama: 'God's Gift - 14 Days' episode 11 & 12 (Review) [SPOILERS!]

'God's Gift - 14 Days' is so frustrating right now.

So I'm watching God's Gift - 14 Days at the moment and it's so frustrating. The only reason why Saetbyul keeps getting kidnapped and getting into trouble is because Soohyun keeps gallivanting around with or without her daughter "trying to protect her".
There's one thing I must agree upon with her adulterous husband: if she just stayed put with Saetbyul in sight then nothing would happen to her! It's like on the day of Saetbyul's kidnapping; Soohyun acknowledged that it was the day that Saetbyul was going to be kidnapped, still she went out side of Seoul to a unfamiliar place with Saetbyul (she could have easily run off like she always does). And when they were back in Seoul, she left Saetbyul in the care of people she didn't really know so she could go out and "protect Saetbyul" smh. And then Saetbyul ended up running off to that Snake concert, driven to Te-oh's house and got into a lot of trouble. She could have been killed! This is what I'm talking about. If I was Soohyun, on the day of Saetbyul's kidnapping, I would have stayed put indoors with Saetbyul by my side at Ki Dong Chan's house all day. Why didn't she do that? I guess they wouldn't have a drama otherwise because loads of unnecessary stuff has to keep happening in every episode.
It's gotten to the point where I don't even care about these characters anymore. The only one who I feel anything for is Ki Dong Chan. I don't feel bad for Kim Soohyun who keeps running around and effectively putting her daughter in danger. I don't even care about Saetbyul anymore. I'm sorry but the way I see it is that she's just disobedient and keeps running off all the time, talking and trusting random 아저씨's she meets like there is no evil in the world. Her character is supposed to be 10 Korean-age right, so she's 8/9 international age. I'm absolutely certain that when I was that age I was not as naïve and ignorant as Saetbyul (sorry Saetbyul but it's true). Literally if a dodgy man drove up to Saetbyul while she was wandering about by herself in the street and said, "Hey kid! Get in my car." Saetbyul would be like, "OK 아저씨. Where are we off to?" I'm telling you now, even when I was a few years older than Saetbyul if a man called me into his car I would not have said a word and would have run for my life. I'm serious. And that actually did happen once. My grandmother always used to tell me not to go into a man's car if he calls me so I knew better than to waste any time even conversing with any random men on the street.
The thing is, it's hard to believe that Saetbyul was brought up to believe that there are no murderers or rapists in the world and that every person she sees on the street or invading her own home is going to be all helpful and innocent, as her parents' occupations both involve fighting for justice against those kind of people so why does she run around like that's the case. And I really should have known she was gonna be like this when Ki Dong Chan and his crew broke into her home and then she partied with them. What the heck Saetbyul-ah!
I really have nothing more to say on this subject right now.
However, I still think this drama is awesome. At the same time it's really 짜증나. Watch and get annoyed at it with me.

Update on life! (Studying Korean, Japanese, Uni, The Heirs...)

Arrogance level: 3.8 out of 5

It's been just over a week since I last updated and I left you with a negativity post as well! lol. I'm OK. I didn't get depressed and kill myself. I actually feel quite happy these days. I feel a certain level of security that is rare for me to reach because of the scar left from my high school days. I wrote a post explaining about that scar so maybe you could understand me better but I'm not sure if I want to upload it or not. It might make me look like a loser or will be too sad. I think it's more sad that what you hear in those 'Draw My Life' videos on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube videos, I've been working on doing the '50 Things About Me' tag but as a post on this blog. I think it might me interesting for you to get to know me better by reading some random facts about me. Unless you don't want to know about me. But how could you not. I'm so mysterious. lol
미안...

So, moving swiftly on... I've made great progress in my studying of Korean. Basically, weeks and weeks ago, my Dad contacted our connections to some Koreans to find me a Korean tutor (that sounds weird but I don't know how else to describe it really) and an old friend got back to us saying there was a girl who wanted to tutor me (yay!). When I finally got through to her and spoke to her (because that took a while) we set up lessons straight away and now I have a personal Korean tutor that I meet once a week. Which is awesome!! I'm so happy with this. I mean, we only had our first lesson last week, my next one is tomorrow. We mostly talked. Well, she did most of the talking ...in Korean. I had to really use my listening skills. But it was all good because she's super genuinely nice and we talked about ma boys EXO and watched two EXO videos. It was awesome.
I've been really motivated to study Korean like everyday this week. I've been using talktomeinkorean.com I've known the site for years and watched a few videos from their youtube channel, but I never used it religiously to study Korean, now I do. It's awesome, I really recommend it if you want to start learning Korean or if you already are and want a useful website to help you learn in a fun way. By no means am I affiliated with this website, I just like using it a lot now. I even followed them on twitter, tumblr and facebook as well as subscribed to their youtube channels. With this I believe I can learn much faster (because I genuinely find studying Korean fun) and be able to talk to my Korean tutor better and understand her more.

So yeah, uni. We recently (well, more like 2 weeks ago) did a test in my Japanese class and we found out the results for the test and guess what.... I came first place out of the entire class! Ye-ah. No seriously, it's a big class as well. I didn't even think my %-age was that high. Ya'll should've done better. Maybe I should make a post about how frustrating my fellow Japanese class students are; maybe not. I already put all my pent up annoyances in my journal. I still enjoy my Japanese classes though, just 'cause I love learning Japanese and the teacher likes me because I'm the best. lol.
You don't understand, I'm never #1 in anything (well, apart from my Korean class two years ago).

In other news, the student union STILL hasn't gotten back to me on withdrawing my membership from the Hip Hop classes. It's ridiculous, it must have been like 6 weeks already since I first contacted them. I'm getting tired of their attitude towards this. They obviously just want my money - my entire £20 smh -__-
Oh well.
I'm just laughing at them really. How a group of people that are supposed to be professional operate so unprofessionally.

Well, I could tell you some other things but I might be the only one who finds them interesting. lol. Things are calming down workload wise, so I will be able to upload more often. If I get ideas. I might put up that '50 Facts About Me' post and I'm watching 'The Heirs' right now and plan to do a review of that once it's all over. I swear it's sooo interesting now. With *spoiler alert* Young Do pushing Eun Sang against the wall. I'm sorry (not sorry) but that was so so sexy! I actually like Young Do's character ever since last week. I was forcing myself not to like him (it wasn't that hard) because although Kim Woobin is one of my top favourite Korean actors, Young Do was such an immature bully; I wanted to put a bucket over his head and push him down the stairs (I want to do that Kim Woobin anyway..). But now things have changed: I now accept Eun Sang and Kim Tan as a couple ever since they were staring at each other with tears flowing from their eyes. But I feel so so bad for Young Do. He's kept Eun Sang and Tan's secret (just about) and he's just heart broken because Eun Sang doesn't want him, she wants his worst enemy. Poor baby. He's just such an unlucky little kid, really. I just want his mother to come back and give him a big hug while he cries into her shoulder. It'll be such a touching scene that someone finally loves him. I also want him to get together with Rachael. Seriously, they were made for each other; both troubled, both abandoned by the ones they love, they need each other and they look so good together. In fact, I ship them in real life. Forget that Yoo Ji Ahn.

Anyway, life's good. How long will this last? When will it get better?

Yo, you should follow me on google+ I post some really interesting stuff on there. :D

K-Drama: 'Secret Garden' review [Almost No Spoilers]

I wrote this review this summer after watching the drama, and I'm putting it up to be read now :) lol
I hope you enjoy!

Starring:
Ha Ji Won
Hyun Bin
Yoon Sang Hyun
Kim Sa Rang
Phillip Lee
Lee Jong Suk
Yoo In Na
(Quite a star-studded cast)

Synopsis:
The drama tells the story of Kim Joo Won (Hyun Bin), an arrogant and eccentric CEO who maintains the image of seeming perfection, and Gil Ra Im (Ha Ji Won), a poor and humble stuntwoman whose beauty and body are the object of envy amongst top actresses. Their accidental meeting, when Joo Won mistakes Ra Im for actress Park Chae Rin, marks the beginning of a tense, bickering relationship, through which Joo Won tries to hide a growing attraction to Ra Im that both confuses and disturbs him. To complicate matters further, a strange sequence of events results in them swapping bodies.

Review:

I first planned to watch Secret Garden because I watched Big Bang’s parody of it for their big 2011 comeback which really took the funniest parts of Secret Garden and made it seem like a really light-hearted drama and after seeing Big Bang portray these characters from the drama I totally had to see the original. Another reason why I planned to watch Secret Garden is that it was such a huge success when it was broadcasting in South Korea. I remember that Se7en as well as other Korean celebrities were watching it at the time and were really addicted to it, so I thought it must be good. Another reason was, of course because there was a certain someone I wanted to see act in it; Lee Jongsuk that is. After watching School 2013 early on this year, I became totally obsessed with him (lol) as I’m sure a lot of girls did after watching that drama, so I began to watch Secret Garden.

Now, Secret Garden certainly isn’t what I expected it to be at all. For one, Big Bang definitely played up the whole “Freaky Friday” kind of theme a lot more than it actually featured in the 20-episode drama. However, the biggest difference from what I expected and what I actually saw from watching the drama was the depth this drama went to and the dramatic storyline. I was expecting a light hearted funny drama but instead I found a much deeper storyline. That was no relief after watching such a tear-jerking drama as School 2013 but it was amazingly clever and I can definitely say it was unlike any Korean drama I’ve ever watched.

Secret Garden starts off very slow. The first four episodes just seems to drag on and while watching those I doubted why the drama had been so successful and was so famous, but I soon came to realise that even though those few episodes were slow, they were necessary to build up the back story, because this story does not just start as the drama starts, the characters story cleverly starts many years before the time the drama begins. By episode 5, that’s when the body swap happens and things hype up a lot. This is of course consequently followed by many hilarious moments and encounters like the time when Gil Ra Im (Joo Won’s body) and Oska go to the jimjilbang – I’ll leave that to your imagination. It’s that kind of humour that Secret Garden is filled with but it’s not too much so that it takes away from the seriousness of the drama. For example, Secretary Kim’s character I find absolutely hilarious. The way he’s so OTT sometimes, his affection towards Gil Ra Im’s best friend Ah Young and the way he gets jealous of his boss Joo Won in that one episode and his little temper tantrums are the cutest thing.

There are two things that make this drama really stand out from the others, firstly it’s supernatural element of the body swap – although I still do not understand how or why that happened – I guess Gil Ra Im and Kim Joo Won could not have gotten so emotionally close without it being forced by something so extreme as a body swap. In the normal world, someone like Ra Im (a stunt woman) would not have so easily crossed paths and began a relationship with Joo Won (a department store CEO). This point is heavily enforced throughout the drama. The fact that they are not supposed to be together as it is so unusual and therefore unacceptable. As a writer who loves to write about forbidden and unusual love, I find this storyline comes very close to heart.

That brings me on to the next point that makes this drama stand out, the entire amazingly written storyline of a man and woman that came to know each other under such tragic and unusual circumstances. Unusual because of their different levels of in social class; tragic because… you’ll see when you watch the drama (but this is what I mean of how their storylines go back many years before the drama begins.

It is like Joo Won and Ra Im are star-crossed lovers, like it was meant to be that they would stir up something different in each other’s hearts. Deep, I know. But this is why this drama is so different. It’s not a cute high school romance; Secret Garden deals with death, loss, heartbreak, unrequited love and inevitability like I’ve never seen in any other drama I’ve watched (and I’ve watched quite a good amount; those for younger audiences like Dream High and Heartstrings and those for older audiences like Iris and Coffee Prince). These two characters love each other so much and do not want to let each other go despite the consequences and I’ve never seen a love more intense and inspiring in any other Korean drama I’ve watched.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

cr: asianwiki.com, dramawiki.com

K-Drama: 'White Christmas' review [No Spoilers]

I watched White Christmas in July this year (quite a funny time to watch a drama set around Christmas but it didn't affect the mood). I wrote a little review of it afterwards with zero amount of spoilers. It's basically my feelings on the drama with a rating out of 5 at the end.
Anyway, I forgot all about this rating until I was surfing through my files today so I'm uploading it now.
You may already be interested in this drama is you like model/actors like Kim Woobin, Lee Soohyuk, Hong Jonghyun, Bang Sungjoon, Kim Young Kwang. They're all in this.

Enjoy! :)

Starring:
Kim Sang Kyung
Baek Sung Hyun
Kim Young Kwang
Lee Soo Hyuk
Kwak Jung Wook
Hong Jong Hyun
Esom
Kim Woobin
Sung Joon
Jung Suk Won
Lee El

Sypnosis:

In the mountains of Gangwando, there is a prestigious private high school named Soo-Sin. The school is located in an isolated area and all the students and staff stay in dormitories. The students at Soo-Sin comprise of the top 0.1% of all the students in South Korea.
In order to get into Soo-Sin, students must prepare from elementary school. It is even harder to get into than Seoul National University. Because of this, students at Soo-Sin must compete fiercely and study even on weekends. Their only vacation days are the 8 days from Christmas Eve to the first day of the new year. During this time, the students and faculty leave the school. The school becomes empty.
On December 24, 2010, a bus full of students leaves the school. Diligent honor student Park Moo-Yul (Baek Sung-Hyun) stays behind because of a letter a received a couple of days ago. The letter is full of hate and states they will die, but leave a curse on Park Moo-Yul. At the school, only 7 students stay behind...

Review:

Let me warn you now, you heart will ache and your mind will tire from watching this drama. This is the first drama that has honestly made me want to watch episode after episode even though it wasn't doing me any good. Despite there only being eight episodes, each character held a special place in my heart in the blink of an eye because the story is so fast paced and each character has their own individuality that makes you want to protect them and the most heartbreaking thing is that anyone one of them could die at any moment, and later on in the drama any one of them could die by any one of them because the list potential murderers expands.

I barely sat on the edge of my seat and I bit my nails until there was nothing left of them. I squealed and gasped and covered my eyes too many times. I paused the drama in a high intensity moment screaming that I would not watch any more of it. I don’t know if everyone who has watched this has had the same experience as me as watching it but I don’t see how anyone could not. It got too much at times but I kept watching. I don’t even know how. It was heartbreaking in one moment but elating in the next. How could the writer have messed so much with the audience like that?

I must say, White Christmas was absolutely amazing. I have never seen any other Korean drama like it and I don’t think I ever will. The way it was written was genius; there was a lot of thought put into the characters and the way the storyline all came together. It makes you think. It makes you think about how someone could be so obsessive; how a normal person could become a monster; what it takes; how much can one endure. The high school students were all very strong and smart in my opinion. I can’t imagine myself being in their shoes.

Overall rating: 5 out of 5


cr: asianwiki.com

Choi Young Do...

I need to write about Choi Young Do.

I stayed up late to watch The Heirs on viki last night and the episode was actually really interesting because of Choi Young Do. He's evil, but I'm so amused by it all. I hate bullies, but I don't want him to go away... there's something so interesting and complex about his character.
And Kim Woo Bin's face... let's just leave it at that.

Update on things...

Still so ill. It's been just over a week now. This is bad. It's because when I got ill in the past, I usually take over a week off of school to get better and get my immune system up, but I've been going to uni, walking in the rain and cold for long periods of time; getting on germ infested public transport. It's all because I cannot afford to miss any lectures or seminars. You don't know which ones are important and which ones are not until you go there and sit through the whole thing. Seriously. It's Thursday today, so I have the next three days to rest at home. I hope I get better so I'll be fine by Monday.

Today, I planned to work on an essay that I have to do for uni (that I haven't even started) but I spent most of my day when I got home watching loads of episodes of High Kick 3. I watched 10 episodes! That's the most I've ever watched at once. It was only because I was inspired by my friend telling me today that she once watched 180 episodes of a drama in one night. I wouldn't do that, but it's nice to just sit down and watch loads of episodes of drama/sitcom at once, especially if it's as awesome as High Kick 3.

Talking of dramas; I watched The Heirs episode 3 today. I tried to watch it last night on Viki (because I was that desperate to see it) but the subs weren't complete, so I came home from uni today and watched it on gooddrama. That scene with half naked Kim Woo Bin though. I saw it on tumblr before hand and I almost died! No, I died. I definitely did die.

Oh right, about that hip hop dance class that I joined. After doing it, I started to feel that I shouldn't carry on with it because it's not nice walking around last at night/ or early in the morning when it's dark by myself - around this time of year. For that same reason I won't be going to the Christian Union either which is on the same day and time. I asked my parents for advice on whether I should do it or not but they weren't any help; I ended up paying my membership to the sport and then I regretted it a lot. I emailed the students union asking if I could withdraw my membership and get my money back but they still haven't replied. I'm a bit scared because it looks like I just missed practice today without saying anything. Oh well.
They better email me back tomorrow.

Well, other than that, life at uni is going well. I have been gifted with awesome people on my course so...
I have so much to do tomorrow, I better get round to doing it. Should I wake up early and go to the library?

Let's Talk: 'The Heirs' episode 1 & 2 *spoiler alert*

So let's talk about the long awaited drama full of pretty faces with genuine acting talent, 'The Heirs'.

Yes, I'd been looking forward to this drama to come for a long time, actually anticipating gloomy month of
October (which I never do) because that's when The Heirs would be beginning. But I just have to say I am quite disappointed in this drama so far. I didn't like episode 1 at all, episode 2 was a little better but...
I don't like the fact that Kim Tan and Eun Sang are in California because there a lot of opportunities to stereotype because of this. I'm talking about the whole stereotype of white American males. Also what's with all the white people; it reinforces the fact that Koreans think America is full of white people and that being American is actually an ethinicity. No it's not. I mean, we all know that L.A. stands for Lots of Asians*.
I really don't like the way white males are depicted in this drama and I'm not even a white male, neither am I white. But I can't believe no one else has picked this up. I am very open minded of how different races of people are stereotyped in the media and this drama is just reaking in nasty stereotypes.
Take for example, Eun Sang's sister's ex-boyfriend just happens to be a down and out mess whose moved on to another girl just as Stella moved out. I was quite surprised at this because I thought they would show perfect successful rich people instead of what was in this drama (sort of like Julien's character of Daniel in 'To The Beautiful You').

And all the sleazy guys that were hitting on Stella left right and center. Where do they get the information that American guys are like this and the rest of the Korean guys in the drama were walking around in their suits being all professional. The "American" guys were just:

running away from a young girl for a bag of "drugs". smh.

I surprised there wasn't a gang of ghetto-looking African Americans chasing Eun Sang for no reason than just to cause trouble and promote a thug-stereotype.

I have to say those fat guys running after Tan and Eun Sang in the second episode were funny though. "I'm gonna kill you." lol. Stella's ex has some funny friends.

Moving away from the depictations and on to the cringeful English. Aigoo... that's what I hate about Kim Eun Sook's dramas. They always contain way too much English and the thing is, it doesn't have to be that way. I can tell the way they're attempting the English is by writing it out for actors in hangul; bear in mind that the hangul alphabet does not have all the components for English pronounciation. There is no f, no v, no z. Lee Minho's English ends up unfortunetly sounding terrible. It was the same with Gil Ra Im and Kim Joo Won in Secret Garden.
There are coaches that can train the actors to pronounce the English in the correct or coherent way but still with a natural accent. Think Memoirs of a Geisha because that is exactly what I'm talking about. Some of those actresses/actors could not speak a word of English in real life yet on screen their English flowed effortlessly. It's not because they wrote it out in their alphabet and learnt it that way. It's because they worked closely with a coach that taught them the correct way to pronounce things. I just wish Kim Eun Sook's drama production would employ a coach like this. Please.
One of the things I just cannot stand in the world is the cringey English like what is in these dramas. Korean people don't sound like that when they speak English. Please, someone, fix this.

No Tan, it's really not. -__-

What I hope is that by the next episode Tan and Eun Sang will somehow find themselves returning to Korea so we can return to the comfortable normality of a korean drama.

Another thing, how the heck is Kim Woo Bin supposed to playing an 18-year-old, he already looks older than he is at 24, does anyone really thinks he can pull off the whole school boy thing anymore especially as he's gained more muscle after School 2013 and the characters are not wearing uniforms yet. Ji Won's character Rachael definitely looks like she should be attending University rather than high school.
I'm really watching this drama for Kim Jiwon and Krystal after woob broke my heart. I was a bit disappointed that Jiwon turned out to be the villain like in To The Beautiful You. I prefer her playing roles like in High Kick 3.
Krystal's character Bo Na, I love. She has a funny character again and I totally ship her with Young Do after the second episode.

Positively, I'm looking forward to seeing how things will go forward with Eun Sang and Chan Young (Minhyuk) as Bo Na (Krystal) is jealous of Eun Sang and Tan is jealous of Chan Young.

Well, we'll see...



credit: stills taken from gooddrama.net