J-dorama vs K-drama
May. 1st, 2016 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spsnWe heard this too many times. 'I love k-drama, it's the best', 'No, J-dorama is the best' and then it'll lead to another catfight, too often seen on Youtube comments for compilation clips (yeah you know which ones). Recently I've been doing lots of k-drama catch up marathon due to travelling, the super slow dorama season (I'd prefer to have sub for police and medical dramas for me not to work my brain watching them) plus also due to years of not watching k-drama, and really, after watching so many J-dorama, going back to k-drama lets me see k-drama at a different angle, well, more of a different mindset. There are many areas that we can look into when we're talking about drama, in this case particularly is the K and the J. My criteria of watching K-drama is the same as J-dorama, prettiness is a must and no melodrama (I just can't watch this type of K-drama as it affects my emotion), the rest is sort of tolarable to some certain level. I may end up spouting lots of stuffs which are common sense and obvious or even completely different take from common opinions, and be warned, this will be a loooong reading.
If you see my comparison on K-drama later, it's mostly Lee Jun Ki or Jang Geun Suk's drama, that's because I'm running through their resume for the past couple of weeks. Tried Kim Bum's resume but gave up halfway. I can't remember the old ones in detail and I didn't really keep track on what I've watched in the past and I don't plan to rewatch any or going through more unless I developed an interest. As for J-drama, I'll throw in those which I remember on top of my head (not going to do extra researches) as this is supposed to be for fun, not an academic paper.
Let's start dissecting XD!!!
I think before we go through everything else, we have to see who are target audience of J and K-dramas. Japan being Japan, like most of their stuffs, they only have their Japanese viewers in their mind when they create dramas. They don't think their drama as export products, unlike the Korean counterpart. Hence the difference on how the theme is picked, story is told and more importantly how the culture is incorporated. Japan changes culturally, though very slow (really slow especially on their corporate culture), especially after the economy bubble bursted and financial crises, and you can see this reflected to a certain level in the drama, especially those human drama, which touch on social issues. Who watch the drama also changes for J-dorama case. I don't think the older folks are watching Getsu-9 like in the past and they stick with the morning and taiga drama. Hence you can see the more push for idols in drama to grab the younger and housewives audiences. At the same time, the shift of target market also allows J-dorama to have a more complicated and varieties on their stories (supply and demand rule here). The appetite is there. It's totally different for K-drama. If you aim to export your drama to the rest of Asia, you'll be looking at TV rights and your target audiences are TV watchers, and we're mostly talking about aunties who don't follow drama news and watch just what TV is feeding them (excluding the more sophisticated audiences for now as we're talking because this will be another separate target market and they do watch drama in varieties). They don't read drama reviews, but listen to the mouth to mouth grapevine, and read newspapers for entertainment news. Classic example? The aunties who work in my SG office LOL. Then we have the competitors like C-drama, TW-drama, TH-lakorn, PH-drama, SG-drama and even ID-sinetron. The setting maybe different but the gist is more or less the same as products which show what the consumers' appetite is outside KR and JP and they're definitely not ready for complex and complicated plots. Don't even think about MOZU, I don't think BOSS which has lots of comedy can fly across Asia except for niche market. Hanzawa Naoki or Dr X may be able to because corporate drama with lots of scheming and screwing over people is everyday drama theme across Asia anyway. The recent Mrs Cop 2 or Hidden Identity (yes, all Kim Bum drama, I did mention before, right?) is example on how k-drama attempt on complex police plotting (I finished Hidden Identity, but gave up on Mrs Cop 2) and just ended up like any other K-drama and the drama shift the focus to scheming and revenge somewhere in the middle of the series. My brother who is literally used to J-police drama was appaled when he watched one episode of each with me, as there're just too many gaps not explained and ignored and more importantly deductions and procedures (which is part and parcel in police drama) are almost illogical here. In my opinion, Hidden Identity is better in presenting the plot and the story as a whole is as dark as Double Face (which is the J-version of HK's Internal Affairs). However, if both of these drama are presented in J-dorama style, it'll fail to grab the market because there'll be too much talking, less action and more talking (remember, all those police drama in dorama land has TONS of dialogues eg. Galileo, Trick, Shinzanmono, and almost zero action?). From cultural aspect, K-drama is using its uniquely Korean culture as differentiation factors against its competitors. Examples in here are the over the top emphasis on seniority eg. your grandma is basically the god in the house *cough* Shining Inheritance or how you call people due to seniority, and Koreans' perception of beauty, which reflects in most of dialogues somewhere in any drama out there, example of these can be found in She who still wants to marry. With this in mind, you'll understand better why this or that drama is not living up to your expectation (which is very subjective) or didnt flow as what you'd think it would be but other people like this or that drama (because they have a different subjective opinion as well).
I find patterns very interesting. If you watch J-dorama in the span of 30 years (from 1980s to now), you'll notice the changes, the shift of themes. The 80s and early 90s has lots of love story, either Cinderella story or co-worker, whichever works. Then they'll have either one of main characters died, from illness, accident, you name it, bad things happened towards the end. Example, Under the Same Roof, Heaven's Coins, Kamisama mou Sukoshi Dake are the ones I remember. Then as we progressed to heisei era, there's the woman is older theme eg. Kimi wo Petto, Sore wa Totsuzen Arashi no you ni, Sapuri up to the current years, Kyou wa Kaisha Yasumimasu. Then along the years, there're always high school themed drama with bullying as theme, eg. Yankee Bokou ni Kaeru, but after the news of a student died from bullying burst out somewhere in 201x (I forgot exactly which year), there's an influx of high school drama which includes bullying done in 1001 ways, root cause and level of cruelty, including Kazoku Game, and even Suzuki sensei. We also have 2009 where somehow there're so many police drama in that year alone, and slowly but sure, there're less and less romcom or love-themed drama except from live action eg. shitsuren chocolatier, 5 ji kara 9 ji made, dame na watashi ni koi wo shitekudasai and more human, family oriented drama. Don't get me wrong, they are really nice drama eg. Tonbi, Woman, Tenno no Ryouriban, Freeter Ie wo Kau which will make you cry your heart out. And starting from Glass no Ie and Hirugao (all have Saito Takumi for some reason), we have marital affair theme drama every now and then. As for K-drama, well, to be honest it doesn't change much (go back to the customer supply and demand point). From All About Eve to Pretty Man, we have Cinderella stories spun in 1001 ways with different settings and occassionally we have the unconventional female lead like in My Name is Kim Sam Soon (my fave k-drama), or The Girl who Still Want to Marry or we have the specific themed drama like Reply 1997. Then we have the revenge or seeking justice mode drama especially on saeguk drama, from Dae Jang Geum to Goddess of Fire, which are actually based on historical figures but the drama makes it look like all the historical figures suffered lots of injustice throughout the drama aka the drama screw the main characters' lives up side down until finally the bad guys were exposed and then punished. This also applies to the contemporer saeguk as well, including the recent Daebak/Jackpot. In here, I find that it's really up to preference as to what kind of drama you'd like to watch, which is why it's so hard to answer the question 'which drama is good?'.
Here's where you cannot compare K-drama and J-dorama apple to apple as both drama has different format so I think it's unfair to both side when people do that. J-drama standard format is 10 episode and if it's got good rating perhaps it'll go up to 12 episode and years later we'll have season 2 or SP (if we're lucky). Or the other way around, we have SP first to test market and then drama and probability of a movie, eg Strawberry Night and Specialist. For taiga drama, definitely it's the whole year, about 52 episodes of drama and the order is by historical dates, moments including the political scheming and the result (wars/massacres/treaties etc). For K-drama, normally we'll have 16 episode and later dragged to 20 plus if the drama becomes so big in popularity. For contemporary saeguk (like so many Lee Jun Ki's drama eg. Iljimae, Arang & Magistrate, Joseon Gunmen), we'll have about 20 to 20 plus episode, and for the more big budget collosal saeguk, we'll have on and on episodes with no telling when it's going to end (can still remember I became impatient when I watched Dae Jang Geum, 54 episodes for goodness sake, can't remember the exact plot but the frustration remains). So under those formats, plot and focus of drama is different. Classic example, Hana Yori Dango vs Boys over Flower. Hanadan expanded into 2 season and without much of side story and focus on Domyouji and Makino only, but Boys over Flower was a straight 20 over episodes including more detail side story. I myself will never ever watch BoF (me no like Lee Min Ho, period), but I watched the cuts of the side story on Yi Jung and Ga Eul (because of Kim Bum), and they're definitely more detailed compared to Hanadan (we don't get to see Soujiro's side story much in both seasons). I find J-dorama evolves over time as well, it's plot and sequence gets more complicated and outragously detailed eg. Liar Games, Bloody Monday, SPECS, MOZU, and even Legal High is very detailed on Komikado sensei's script. The 10 episode format makes the plot and story telling quicker compared to K-drama, and when you're used to this format, you'll find watching K-drama is draggy, long and your patience runs out by Epi 4. Standard J-dorama formula will have roughly Epi 1 to 4 with excellent phase then a drag from Epi 5 to 7 and suddenly speed up from Epi 8 to the finish line Epi 10, and big boss (big villain) start showing its real face on the last part. How about K-drama? Epi 1 to 2 is the introduction, in saeguk themed, it'll drag up to Epi 6, then the plotting, scheming and basically screwing over main characters' lives will happened up till Epi 7 or 10 until the main character starts seeing lights aka almost died or hit rock bottom and changes (basically the plot moves) and the big boss scheming starts to fail all over the place and practically on fire by Epi 14 or 18, and if the drama is not smart enough to prorate its plot, we'll have a rush killing spree on all of your supporting characters (ehem, Joseon Gunmen) and or screw over your villains in Epi 15 to 16 or Epi 19 to 20. Sounds familiar? This is one of the reasons why I develop the habit of skipping and fast forwarding when I watch K-drama. For example, for Inspiring Generation, basically I just watched Epi 1-3, 10, 18, 23 and 24 plus skipping all the villains scheming scenes and I didn't even feel like I missed anything. On contrary, although lots of J-dorama run by 1 episode means 1 problem solved except for the last 3 epidoses, regardless whether it's police drama or human drama, I'll miss little bits of details here and there if I don't watch the whole thing in order. For example, Ourosboros or Tokyo Dogs, if I watched it the way I watch K-drama including skipping all the bad guys scheming scenes, I'll have no idea what I'm watching by Epi 6 because they shows the bigger picture in pieces scattered everywhere. Occassionally K-drama has something similar to this pattern whereby you need to watch in order, example in here is Two Weeks. It follows the standard K-drama plot pattern but the story order makes it difficult if you just jump episodes (which I tried by skipping from Epi 1 to 14 and I had to go back and ended up watching in order LOL). We also have the reversed pattern as in J-dorama done in K-drama style but still in J-dorama format, eg. Boku to Star no 99 Nichi. I never thought that I'm going to enjoy this drama, but I did and the style works for this drama. However, I'd rule this as a few exceptions that will occur once in blue moon.
If you watch enough K-drama, you'll notice 1 thing, most of the main characters are with mother or father complex. They cannot escape the parental authority claw in the decision making, which making it frustrating to watch after some time. Part of this is due to the culture (remember, seniority?) and another part is the target audiences who watch this will love this as that's what they dream to have, that perfect obidient good looking sons with over the top filial pitty. Next is the dreamy, perfect, spotless 2nd lead dude who never gets the girl. This is enough to make any ladies to dream about that perfect oppa. And lastly, we have the main dudes with perfect background materialistically, Asian style, in one way or another (I call this the baggage) but shitty attitude and experience a transformation due to LOVE over the series. And along the way, one of the characters, particularly in modern drama will have some connection to some Chaebol, eg. illegitimate child (Pretty Man), the daughter (Hero 2009), whatever. Stirring all these into 1 drama is enough for your female audiences to be dreamy over drama. Even in saeguk drama, your main dudes are mostly (originally) coming from noble class, legitimate or not, not low class. The drama just screw them over to be slaves etc but later on justice will prefail. In contrast, J-dorama take the characters from different angle. First and foremost, it has to have the looks. Useless, penniless, shitty attitude, dark or complicated past but good looking? You're the main character. These characters will then take the journey in drama style to become a better person. Example? Love Generation, Engine, Beautiful Life, Kimi wo Petto, Sapuri, Buzzer Beat, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi etc etc, there're too many in here. Occassionally, you do have those with all including the baggage and pedegree but still with shitty attitude eg. in Nodame or Tsuki no Koibito. But again, the emphasis is the main character has to be damn kakkoii or dekiru otoko (dudes who can do everything perfectly). On top of this standard, there'll be characters which totally depend on the story and situation, for example, Bloody Monday, Orthros no Inu or Tenno no Ryouriban. Still good looking (else, I'd probably refrain myself from watching), but in these drama this point is not emphasized. The ladies? Well, if we're talking about romantic drama, especially those with love triangles, both J & K have their own share of having stupid indecisive oblivious main ladies aka liability eg. Lover in Paris, Hotelier, Bethooven Virus, You're Beautiful from the K side, and from J side, lots of the main ladies is not really indecisive or stupid in who to choose, but it's more on in denial eg. Pride, Beautiful Life, Love Revolution, Kimi wo Petto, etc. Then, we have the cool kick ass ladies eg in BOSS, Unfair, Strawberry Night or the darker ones eg in Alice no Toge. So again, it reaches to the point where it depends on your preference, what kind of characters that you'd like to spend your time watching. Personally I like to see characters with varieties in backgrounds and in more realistic environment over the dreamy perfect ones, which is why I like watching human drama. If I'm in the mood to swoon over a drama, then I'll jolly well watch K-drama LOL.
There's a simple difference between bad guys in K-drama and J-dorama. They're evil in K-drama, period. I don't even have any symphaty towards any villains in all K-drama that I've watched. Even in Two Weeks when drama tried to humanize the evil Senator by showing her autism kid, it didn't compelling enough for me to believe she's evil for a reason. There's so little back story about the villains there that it just ended up as the villains are evil. Another example, in Joseon Gunman, the villain was portrayed as a slave before he raised to the upper class by being a disguised assasin, and he went through tough time (his wife died, his daughter got rape, what's worse than that?). But that's it, no further development as to why what he's doing in the present time had no reflection of his past, hence the villain's past became irrelavent and left with just pure evil and obsession. This is where J-dorama excels because there's always a reason why people become the villains. They like to complicate the villains. Tragic pasts, desperation, way of life, willingness to live, faith or just pure hate, bundled and packaged together and you have your villain. A lot of times when I watch J-dorama, I felt like I can't really blame the villain as to why they do things in certain way, lots of them are even on the psychopath kind of mode. Example, MOZU (this one has all kinds of psycho villains), or Unfair franchise, there're villains which are purely evil, but there're also villains by circumstances or chain of event, eg. Jiken Kyuumei SPs. Specialist is a good example of drama which always explore criminal motives from the crazy psychopath ones to the ones under circumstances. Even more so in taiga drama, behind any cruel massacres in the history (especially during Sengoku era) there're always reasons behind them. Whether it made sense or not, it's another different issue, but cruelty was explained and it's part of the brutal history of humanity. This is the reason why I find that I cannot continuously watch K-drama because the villains evilness and scheming actually affects my emotion and it's draining to watch. In other words, I invested emotion when I watch drama and it's frustrating to see that bad guys has no boundaries of being bad even if it's just a drama. Am sure real life may even more gruesome, as evil people exists, but we're talking about drama here, fiction.
If it's 20 years ago, the magic belongs to J-drama, thanks to Kimutaku's Long Vacation, Ordinary People and many more. We remember the magic ball scene, the back hug scene 'Ore ga dame desu ka?', and for me it's the Pride's 'May be, must be' pick up line and the apple glass from Love Generation (all Kimutaku drama, why? Coz he's making those scenes squeel worthy and not forgotten). I don't really remember the memorable ones from K-drama that I watched long ago. But K-drama is getting good at this given the time and now, if we're talking about romantic and dreamy scenes, K-drama will win hands down. Majorly thanks to slow-mo, glistening yearning eyes, and amazeball ballad OST and beautiful cinematography close up or not, and lastly, merchandise, eg. Pig Rabbit doll in You're Beautiful, that star necklace in Winter Sonata (I still have that even I hate the drama). Fast forward to current J-dorama, it's all about kabe-don aka Fukushi Shota's specialty (until not long ago, the last kabe-don I saw was on Kyou Kaisha Yamemasu), and now it's ago-kui, and if not it's the backhug or rolling the sleeves (thanks to too many shoujo manga live action). The emphasis of these is a guarantee munekyun scene, according to TV station. Well, not really a munekyun if every romantic themed drama have these scenes, especially those live action. And what miffed me the most is that those scenes are too imaginative, as in it works in manga, but you'll most likely get sued for sexual harrashment or got beaten up for initiating violance in real life. K-drama has its share of this from piggy back, grabbing the wrist and dragging the girl to the latest staple, doing something with the lady's shoe/foot, whatever. I thought the shoe scene is unique to Descendant of the Sun since so many posts on my FB dashboard only on this and even mention in local newspaper, until I watched some older K-drama (Scholar who Walks the Night, Joseon Gunman, Arang & Magistrate), and they also have this scene, so I'm not sure how squeel worthy these scenes are. The particular scene that moved me recently is the blood bath (yes literally) scene in Scholar who Walks the Night when Sung Yeol worked on saving Yang Sun's live. The emotion there is intense and probably because it's bloody hence memorable LOL. Going back to J-dorama, we suddenly have bed scenes after so much absent over the years eg. in Shitsuren Chocolatier, Second Love, which I find actually lost its magic as the drama don't develop so much story of what could be better drama but focus on those scenes instead. Older K-drama have more bed scenes over the recent ones eg. Coffee Prince, and better kissing scenes too. I don't understand why now lip touching (side eyeing JGS drama and tons of J-drama) equals to kissing and squeel worthy. Another thought in this area is it really depends on who's in the drama. Some actors are just not suitable doing these kinds of scenes (*cough* Nino). K-drama has better supply for this, or maybe we just stuck with the same Johnny's over and over again for J-dorama (maybe it's time to rewatch Kimutaku old dorama, hmm).
I find this also depends on who's on the drama to make the fighting scenes look believable and bad ass. K-drama has lots of options here especially for their saeguk drama, accompanied with the pretty field scenaries. Example, Epi 1 of Scholar who Walks the Night. And while I'm at this, since I've been watching Lee Jun Ki's drama, most of his drama do have bad ass fighting scenes, almost every episode, not stingy at all, and with quality. My favorite badassery scenes are on Joseon Gunmen (towards the end of Epi 4 for when Yoon Gang tried to pass the city border, and in the middle of Epi 5 when Hanjo beat up the disgruntled merchants while Hye Won gawked at him). The quality can be compared to Kenshin movie trilogy. But like what I said earlier, it depends on who do the scenes. The action scenes that I saw in Inspiring Generation were so dissapointing that I skipped most of them (random and not fast enough hitting and kicking is not pretty), same as Hidden Identity (better but still can see the slowness). In J-dorama land, we have drama like SP (Okada), Ourosboros (Oguri & Toma), Lucky Seven (Matsujun & Eita) or Musashi (Kimutaku). Not every episode, but done nicely enough to show that our lead characters are damn kakkoii and able to do some kick ass stuffs.
Both K and J have their plus in here. J-dorama normally pay attention on details on props eg. the name cards, folders etc. Example of over the top attention to details is on Last Hope surgery scenes. It looks so bloody real and seriously bloody. So far I haven't seen details that really out of place and purely WTF and noticeable in J-drama. Whereas for K-drama, though we have lots of pretty scenes, pretty costumes etc, every now and then we'll see the lack of detailing that it'll make you wonder what the hell drama staffs were doing. The most blatant one is Scholar who Walks the Night, Epi 2 on our vampire hero did CPR on the heroine scene. For goodness sake drama, it took only 1 minute to google WHEN CPR was invented and definitely not during Joseon era. This scene gave me a scare in the later episodes when the heroine got drowned again and we'll see another CPR scene (thank goodness, they don't repeat that). Another one is at the final episode of Josean Gunmen, how many bullets do old riffles have? Why we never see Yoon Kang refill his gun? Even Tokyo Dogs, Ourosboros, or even Library Wars counted their bullets or at least don't make it look so obvious. What J-dorama couldn't care less though is on English. You're just lucky if the actor can speak good English. 5-ji kara 9-ji made shared this as the setting is English course classes. Even Yamapi whose English is considered very good for Japan standard still comes with the accent, and honestly, Japan couldn't give a damn about it (again, back to target market point). You'll see a totally different approach in K-drama, they'll place those who are actually equivalent to native English speakers for these roles, so rarely you'll hear Engrish or the actors struggled in pronouncing the English but came out weird.
Remakes are dangerous. Some remakes maybe OK or successful. Best example in here is Meteor Garden, Hana Yori Dango & Boys Over Flower. But remakes which only counting on the franchise with lousy casting, script and effort is a no no. Example? J-dorama remakes of Hotelier & You're Beautiful. Both has the main lead from the original K-drama making appearance in the J-dorama and I find that other than desperation for rating, it's very unnecessary. Why Hana Yori Dango franchise works? Because the original story is quite universal in a sense, it can be applied to any culture and it doesn't come out weird. The formula of 4 good looking rich dudes vs 1 poor average girl plus 1 scarry future mother in law is a universal reversed harem story that any culture could adapt, especially in Asia. You're Beautiful is about 3 good looking successful dudes vs 1 girl plus gender bender, why this doesn't work though? The answer? Casting. J-dorama turned it into a Johnny's drama and it lost all its magic. To make it worse, Jang Geun Suk made Tae Kyung character totally his own (especially on the crying scenes) that you can't copy paste the style or the quirks into J-dorama if you want it to be a successful remake. The only successful K-drama remake that I can think of is Maou. The drama can hold up by itself and if I didn't google it out I won't know that it's a remake. And to end this point, I seriously hope nobody is thinking of making a Korean remake of Hanakimi, please don't. Just, don't.
If you manage to read all at 1 go and still stay sane, congrats, good on you LOL. Both K-drama and J-dorama have their fair share of good and bad points. There're always those really well made drama and also really butchered and disaster drama, no exception. So, it's all now down to preference and purely subjective choises. I find that reading drama review is a good exercise but to be taken with lots of consideration. Drama reviews are mostly subjectively written. At some point in time, you may agree, but if you read it at another time, you'll disagree. So, I always try to educate my surroundings whenever they're asking me what 'good' drama to watch. What kind of storyline do you like? Does prettiness important to you? What genre you're feeling like watching now? In what emotional state you're now? The list that I'd give to the same person will change over time and when they ask. There're never a straight forward answer. I find that synopsis is more important than drama review, above all. Do you like what you read and got some interest? Well, then you should try at least 1-2 episodes, and for all you know, you may find a gem which everybody else hate. You'd never know until you do this. The same drama that you watched years ago may give different vibes and feels when you watch it now. Why? Coz people change, their preference, circumstances and mind change over time. That's why sometimes, I have a parking lot for drama, those drama which I'm not kind of in the mood watching it now for whatever reason but maybe someday in the future.
I think telling people K-drama or J-dorama is better than xxxx (put in whatever drama in it) is completely irrelevant. Maybe now you hate J-dorama, but years later you find J-dorama interesting, and then? Eat your own words?
If you see my comparison on K-drama later, it's mostly Lee Jun Ki or Jang Geun Suk's drama, that's because I'm running through their resume for the past couple of weeks. Tried Kim Bum's resume but gave up halfway. I can't remember the old ones in detail and I didn't really keep track on what I've watched in the past and I don't plan to rewatch any or going through more unless I developed an interest. As for J-drama, I'll throw in those which I remember on top of my head (not going to do extra researches) as this is supposed to be for fun, not an academic paper.
Let's start dissecting XD!!!
I think before we go through everything else, we have to see who are target audience of J and K-dramas. Japan being Japan, like most of their stuffs, they only have their Japanese viewers in their mind when they create dramas. They don't think their drama as export products, unlike the Korean counterpart. Hence the difference on how the theme is picked, story is told and more importantly how the culture is incorporated. Japan changes culturally, though very slow (really slow especially on their corporate culture), especially after the economy bubble bursted and financial crises, and you can see this reflected to a certain level in the drama, especially those human drama, which touch on social issues. Who watch the drama also changes for J-dorama case. I don't think the older folks are watching Getsu-9 like in the past and they stick with the morning and taiga drama. Hence you can see the more push for idols in drama to grab the younger and housewives audiences. At the same time, the shift of target market also allows J-dorama to have a more complicated and varieties on their stories (supply and demand rule here). The appetite is there. It's totally different for K-drama. If you aim to export your drama to the rest of Asia, you'll be looking at TV rights and your target audiences are TV watchers, and we're mostly talking about aunties who don't follow drama news and watch just what TV is feeding them (excluding the more sophisticated audiences for now as we're talking because this will be another separate target market and they do watch drama in varieties). They don't read drama reviews, but listen to the mouth to mouth grapevine, and read newspapers for entertainment news. Classic example? The aunties who work in my SG office LOL. Then we have the competitors like C-drama, TW-drama, TH-lakorn, PH-drama, SG-drama and even ID-sinetron. The setting maybe different but the gist is more or less the same as products which show what the consumers' appetite is outside KR and JP and they're definitely not ready for complex and complicated plots. Don't even think about MOZU, I don't think BOSS which has lots of comedy can fly across Asia except for niche market. Hanzawa Naoki or Dr X may be able to because corporate drama with lots of scheming and screwing over people is everyday drama theme across Asia anyway. The recent Mrs Cop 2 or Hidden Identity (yes, all Kim Bum drama, I did mention before, right?) is example on how k-drama attempt on complex police plotting (I finished Hidden Identity, but gave up on Mrs Cop 2) and just ended up like any other K-drama and the drama shift the focus to scheming and revenge somewhere in the middle of the series. My brother who is literally used to J-police drama was appaled when he watched one episode of each with me, as there're just too many gaps not explained and ignored and more importantly deductions and procedures (which is part and parcel in police drama) are almost illogical here. In my opinion, Hidden Identity is better in presenting the plot and the story as a whole is as dark as Double Face (which is the J-version of HK's Internal Affairs). However, if both of these drama are presented in J-dorama style, it'll fail to grab the market because there'll be too much talking, less action and more talking (remember, all those police drama in dorama land has TONS of dialogues eg. Galileo, Trick, Shinzanmono, and almost zero action?). From cultural aspect, K-drama is using its uniquely Korean culture as differentiation factors against its competitors. Examples in here are the over the top emphasis on seniority eg. your grandma is basically the god in the house *cough* Shining Inheritance or how you call people due to seniority, and Koreans' perception of beauty, which reflects in most of dialogues somewhere in any drama out there, example of these can be found in She who still wants to marry. With this in mind, you'll understand better why this or that drama is not living up to your expectation (which is very subjective) or didnt flow as what you'd think it would be but other people like this or that drama (because they have a different subjective opinion as well).
I find patterns very interesting. If you watch J-dorama in the span of 30 years (from 1980s to now), you'll notice the changes, the shift of themes. The 80s and early 90s has lots of love story, either Cinderella story or co-worker, whichever works. Then they'll have either one of main characters died, from illness, accident, you name it, bad things happened towards the end. Example, Under the Same Roof, Heaven's Coins, Kamisama mou Sukoshi Dake are the ones I remember. Then as we progressed to heisei era, there's the woman is older theme eg. Kimi wo Petto, Sore wa Totsuzen Arashi no you ni, Sapuri up to the current years, Kyou wa Kaisha Yasumimasu. Then along the years, there're always high school themed drama with bullying as theme, eg. Yankee Bokou ni Kaeru, but after the news of a student died from bullying burst out somewhere in 201x (I forgot exactly which year), there's an influx of high school drama which includes bullying done in 1001 ways, root cause and level of cruelty, including Kazoku Game, and even Suzuki sensei. We also have 2009 where somehow there're so many police drama in that year alone, and slowly but sure, there're less and less romcom or love-themed drama except from live action eg. shitsuren chocolatier, 5 ji kara 9 ji made, dame na watashi ni koi wo shitekudasai and more human, family oriented drama. Don't get me wrong, they are really nice drama eg. Tonbi, Woman, Tenno no Ryouriban, Freeter Ie wo Kau which will make you cry your heart out. And starting from Glass no Ie and Hirugao (all have Saito Takumi for some reason), we have marital affair theme drama every now and then. As for K-drama, well, to be honest it doesn't change much (go back to the customer supply and demand point). From All About Eve to Pretty Man, we have Cinderella stories spun in 1001 ways with different settings and occassionally we have the unconventional female lead like in My Name is Kim Sam Soon (my fave k-drama), or The Girl who Still Want to Marry or we have the specific themed drama like Reply 1997. Then we have the revenge or seeking justice mode drama especially on saeguk drama, from Dae Jang Geum to Goddess of Fire, which are actually based on historical figures but the drama makes it look like all the historical figures suffered lots of injustice throughout the drama aka the drama screw the main characters' lives up side down until finally the bad guys were exposed and then punished. This also applies to the contemporer saeguk as well, including the recent Daebak/Jackpot. In here, I find that it's really up to preference as to what kind of drama you'd like to watch, which is why it's so hard to answer the question 'which drama is good?'.
Here's where you cannot compare K-drama and J-dorama apple to apple as both drama has different format so I think it's unfair to both side when people do that. J-drama standard format is 10 episode and if it's got good rating perhaps it'll go up to 12 episode and years later we'll have season 2 or SP (if we're lucky). Or the other way around, we have SP first to test market and then drama and probability of a movie, eg Strawberry Night and Specialist. For taiga drama, definitely it's the whole year, about 52 episodes of drama and the order is by historical dates, moments including the political scheming and the result (wars/massacres/treaties etc). For K-drama, normally we'll have 16 episode and later dragged to 20 plus if the drama becomes so big in popularity. For contemporary saeguk (like so many Lee Jun Ki's drama eg. Iljimae, Arang & Magistrate, Joseon Gunmen), we'll have about 20 to 20 plus episode, and for the more big budget collosal saeguk, we'll have on and on episodes with no telling when it's going to end (can still remember I became impatient when I watched Dae Jang Geum, 54 episodes for goodness sake, can't remember the exact plot but the frustration remains). So under those formats, plot and focus of drama is different. Classic example, Hana Yori Dango vs Boys over Flower. Hanadan expanded into 2 season and without much of side story and focus on Domyouji and Makino only, but Boys over Flower was a straight 20 over episodes including more detail side story. I myself will never ever watch BoF (me no like Lee Min Ho, period), but I watched the cuts of the side story on Yi Jung and Ga Eul (because of Kim Bum), and they're definitely more detailed compared to Hanadan (we don't get to see Soujiro's side story much in both seasons). I find J-dorama evolves over time as well, it's plot and sequence gets more complicated and outragously detailed eg. Liar Games, Bloody Monday, SPECS, MOZU, and even Legal High is very detailed on Komikado sensei's script. The 10 episode format makes the plot and story telling quicker compared to K-drama, and when you're used to this format, you'll find watching K-drama is draggy, long and your patience runs out by Epi 4. Standard J-dorama formula will have roughly Epi 1 to 4 with excellent phase then a drag from Epi 5 to 7 and suddenly speed up from Epi 8 to the finish line Epi 10, and big boss (big villain) start showing its real face on the last part. How about K-drama? Epi 1 to 2 is the introduction, in saeguk themed, it'll drag up to Epi 6, then the plotting, scheming and basically screwing over main characters' lives will happened up till Epi 7 or 10 until the main character starts seeing lights aka almost died or hit rock bottom and changes (basically the plot moves) and the big boss scheming starts to fail all over the place and practically on fire by Epi 14 or 18, and if the drama is not smart enough to prorate its plot, we'll have a rush killing spree on all of your supporting characters (ehem, Joseon Gunmen) and or screw over your villains in Epi 15 to 16 or Epi 19 to 20. Sounds familiar? This is one of the reasons why I develop the habit of skipping and fast forwarding when I watch K-drama. For example, for Inspiring Generation, basically I just watched Epi 1-3, 10, 18, 23 and 24 plus skipping all the villains scheming scenes and I didn't even feel like I missed anything. On contrary, although lots of J-dorama run by 1 episode means 1 problem solved except for the last 3 epidoses, regardless whether it's police drama or human drama, I'll miss little bits of details here and there if I don't watch the whole thing in order. For example, Ourosboros or Tokyo Dogs, if I watched it the way I watch K-drama including skipping all the bad guys scheming scenes, I'll have no idea what I'm watching by Epi 6 because they shows the bigger picture in pieces scattered everywhere. Occassionally K-drama has something similar to this pattern whereby you need to watch in order, example in here is Two Weeks. It follows the standard K-drama plot pattern but the story order makes it difficult if you just jump episodes (which I tried by skipping from Epi 1 to 14 and I had to go back and ended up watching in order LOL). We also have the reversed pattern as in J-dorama done in K-drama style but still in J-dorama format, eg. Boku to Star no 99 Nichi. I never thought that I'm going to enjoy this drama, but I did and the style works for this drama. However, I'd rule this as a few exceptions that will occur once in blue moon.
If you watch enough K-drama, you'll notice 1 thing, most of the main characters are with mother or father complex. They cannot escape the parental authority claw in the decision making, which making it frustrating to watch after some time. Part of this is due to the culture (remember, seniority?) and another part is the target audiences who watch this will love this as that's what they dream to have, that perfect obidient good looking sons with over the top filial pitty. Next is the dreamy, perfect, spotless 2nd lead dude who never gets the girl. This is enough to make any ladies to dream about that perfect oppa. And lastly, we have the main dudes with perfect background materialistically, Asian style, in one way or another (I call this the baggage) but shitty attitude and experience a transformation due to LOVE over the series. And along the way, one of the characters, particularly in modern drama will have some connection to some Chaebol, eg. illegitimate child (Pretty Man), the daughter (Hero 2009), whatever. Stirring all these into 1 drama is enough for your female audiences to be dreamy over drama. Even in saeguk drama, your main dudes are mostly (originally) coming from noble class, legitimate or not, not low class. The drama just screw them over to be slaves etc but later on justice will prefail. In contrast, J-dorama take the characters from different angle. First and foremost, it has to have the looks. Useless, penniless, shitty attitude, dark or complicated past but good looking? You're the main character. These characters will then take the journey in drama style to become a better person. Example? Love Generation, Engine, Beautiful Life, Kimi wo Petto, Sapuri, Buzzer Beat, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi etc etc, there're too many in here. Occassionally, you do have those with all including the baggage and pedegree but still with shitty attitude eg. in Nodame or Tsuki no Koibito. But again, the emphasis is the main character has to be damn kakkoii or dekiru otoko (dudes who can do everything perfectly). On top of this standard, there'll be characters which totally depend on the story and situation, for example, Bloody Monday, Orthros no Inu or Tenno no Ryouriban. Still good looking (else, I'd probably refrain myself from watching), but in these drama this point is not emphasized. The ladies? Well, if we're talking about romantic drama, especially those with love triangles, both J & K have their own share of having stupid indecisive oblivious main ladies aka liability eg. Lover in Paris, Hotelier, Bethooven Virus, You're Beautiful from the K side, and from J side, lots of the main ladies is not really indecisive or stupid in who to choose, but it's more on in denial eg. Pride, Beautiful Life, Love Revolution, Kimi wo Petto, etc. Then, we have the cool kick ass ladies eg in BOSS, Unfair, Strawberry Night or the darker ones eg in Alice no Toge. So again, it reaches to the point where it depends on your preference, what kind of characters that you'd like to spend your time watching. Personally I like to see characters with varieties in backgrounds and in more realistic environment over the dreamy perfect ones, which is why I like watching human drama. If I'm in the mood to swoon over a drama, then I'll jolly well watch K-drama LOL.
There's a simple difference between bad guys in K-drama and J-dorama. They're evil in K-drama, period. I don't even have any symphaty towards any villains in all K-drama that I've watched. Even in Two Weeks when drama tried to humanize the evil Senator by showing her autism kid, it didn't compelling enough for me to believe she's evil for a reason. There's so little back story about the villains there that it just ended up as the villains are evil. Another example, in Joseon Gunman, the villain was portrayed as a slave before he raised to the upper class by being a disguised assasin, and he went through tough time (his wife died, his daughter got rape, what's worse than that?). But that's it, no further development as to why what he's doing in the present time had no reflection of his past, hence the villain's past became irrelavent and left with just pure evil and obsession. This is where J-dorama excels because there's always a reason why people become the villains. They like to complicate the villains. Tragic pasts, desperation, way of life, willingness to live, faith or just pure hate, bundled and packaged together and you have your villain. A lot of times when I watch J-dorama, I felt like I can't really blame the villain as to why they do things in certain way, lots of them are even on the psychopath kind of mode. Example, MOZU (this one has all kinds of psycho villains), or Unfair franchise, there're villains which are purely evil, but there're also villains by circumstances or chain of event, eg. Jiken Kyuumei SPs. Specialist is a good example of drama which always explore criminal motives from the crazy psychopath ones to the ones under circumstances. Even more so in taiga drama, behind any cruel massacres in the history (especially during Sengoku era) there're always reasons behind them. Whether it made sense or not, it's another different issue, but cruelty was explained and it's part of the brutal history of humanity. This is the reason why I find that I cannot continuously watch K-drama because the villains evilness and scheming actually affects my emotion and it's draining to watch. In other words, I invested emotion when I watch drama and it's frustrating to see that bad guys has no boundaries of being bad even if it's just a drama. Am sure real life may even more gruesome, as evil people exists, but we're talking about drama here, fiction.
If it's 20 years ago, the magic belongs to J-drama, thanks to Kimutaku's Long Vacation, Ordinary People and many more. We remember the magic ball scene, the back hug scene 'Ore ga dame desu ka?', and for me it's the Pride's 'May be, must be' pick up line and the apple glass from Love Generation (all Kimutaku drama, why? Coz he's making those scenes squeel worthy and not forgotten). I don't really remember the memorable ones from K-drama that I watched long ago. But K-drama is getting good at this given the time and now, if we're talking about romantic and dreamy scenes, K-drama will win hands down. Majorly thanks to slow-mo, glistening yearning eyes, and amazeball ballad OST and beautiful cinematography close up or not, and lastly, merchandise, eg. Pig Rabbit doll in You're Beautiful, that star necklace in Winter Sonata (I still have that even I hate the drama). Fast forward to current J-dorama, it's all about kabe-don aka Fukushi Shota's specialty (until not long ago, the last kabe-don I saw was on Kyou Kaisha Yamemasu), and now it's ago-kui, and if not it's the backhug or rolling the sleeves (thanks to too many shoujo manga live action). The emphasis of these is a guarantee munekyun scene, according to TV station. Well, not really a munekyun if every romantic themed drama have these scenes, especially those live action. And what miffed me the most is that those scenes are too imaginative, as in it works in manga, but you'll most likely get sued for sexual harrashment or got beaten up for initiating violance in real life. K-drama has its share of this from piggy back, grabbing the wrist and dragging the girl to the latest staple, doing something with the lady's shoe/foot, whatever. I thought the shoe scene is unique to Descendant of the Sun since so many posts on my FB dashboard only on this and even mention in local newspaper, until I watched some older K-drama (Scholar who Walks the Night, Joseon Gunman, Arang & Magistrate), and they also have this scene, so I'm not sure how squeel worthy these scenes are. The particular scene that moved me recently is the blood bath (yes literally) scene in Scholar who Walks the Night when Sung Yeol worked on saving Yang Sun's live. The emotion there is intense and probably because it's bloody hence memorable LOL. Going back to J-dorama, we suddenly have bed scenes after so much absent over the years eg. in Shitsuren Chocolatier, Second Love, which I find actually lost its magic as the drama don't develop so much story of what could be better drama but focus on those scenes instead. Older K-drama have more bed scenes over the recent ones eg. Coffee Prince, and better kissing scenes too. I don't understand why now lip touching (side eyeing JGS drama and tons of J-drama) equals to kissing and squeel worthy. Another thought in this area is it really depends on who's in the drama. Some actors are just not suitable doing these kinds of scenes (*cough* Nino). K-drama has better supply for this, or maybe we just stuck with the same Johnny's over and over again for J-dorama (maybe it's time to rewatch Kimutaku old dorama, hmm).
I find this also depends on who's on the drama to make the fighting scenes look believable and bad ass. K-drama has lots of options here especially for their saeguk drama, accompanied with the pretty field scenaries. Example, Epi 1 of Scholar who Walks the Night. And while I'm at this, since I've been watching Lee Jun Ki's drama, most of his drama do have bad ass fighting scenes, almost every episode, not stingy at all, and with quality. My favorite badassery scenes are on Joseon Gunmen (towards the end of Epi 4 for when Yoon Gang tried to pass the city border, and in the middle of Epi 5 when Hanjo beat up the disgruntled merchants while Hye Won gawked at him). The quality can be compared to Kenshin movie trilogy. But like what I said earlier, it depends on who do the scenes. The action scenes that I saw in Inspiring Generation were so dissapointing that I skipped most of them (random and not fast enough hitting and kicking is not pretty), same as Hidden Identity (better but still can see the slowness). In J-dorama land, we have drama like SP (Okada), Ourosboros (Oguri & Toma), Lucky Seven (Matsujun & Eita) or Musashi (Kimutaku). Not every episode, but done nicely enough to show that our lead characters are damn kakkoii and able to do some kick ass stuffs.
Both K and J have their plus in here. J-dorama normally pay attention on details on props eg. the name cards, folders etc. Example of over the top attention to details is on Last Hope surgery scenes. It looks so bloody real and seriously bloody. So far I haven't seen details that really out of place and purely WTF and noticeable in J-drama. Whereas for K-drama, though we have lots of pretty scenes, pretty costumes etc, every now and then we'll see the lack of detailing that it'll make you wonder what the hell drama staffs were doing. The most blatant one is Scholar who Walks the Night, Epi 2 on our vampire hero did CPR on the heroine scene. For goodness sake drama, it took only 1 minute to google WHEN CPR was invented and definitely not during Joseon era. This scene gave me a scare in the later episodes when the heroine got drowned again and we'll see another CPR scene (thank goodness, they don't repeat that). Another one is at the final episode of Josean Gunmen, how many bullets do old riffles have? Why we never see Yoon Kang refill his gun? Even Tokyo Dogs, Ourosboros, or even Library Wars counted their bullets or at least don't make it look so obvious. What J-dorama couldn't care less though is on English. You're just lucky if the actor can speak good English. 5-ji kara 9-ji made shared this as the setting is English course classes. Even Yamapi whose English is considered very good for Japan standard still comes with the accent, and honestly, Japan couldn't give a damn about it (again, back to target market point). You'll see a totally different approach in K-drama, they'll place those who are actually equivalent to native English speakers for these roles, so rarely you'll hear Engrish or the actors struggled in pronouncing the English but came out weird.
Remakes are dangerous. Some remakes maybe OK or successful. Best example in here is Meteor Garden, Hana Yori Dango & Boys Over Flower. But remakes which only counting on the franchise with lousy casting, script and effort is a no no. Example? J-dorama remakes of Hotelier & You're Beautiful. Both has the main lead from the original K-drama making appearance in the J-dorama and I find that other than desperation for rating, it's very unnecessary. Why Hana Yori Dango franchise works? Because the original story is quite universal in a sense, it can be applied to any culture and it doesn't come out weird. The formula of 4 good looking rich dudes vs 1 poor average girl plus 1 scarry future mother in law is a universal reversed harem story that any culture could adapt, especially in Asia. You're Beautiful is about 3 good looking successful dudes vs 1 girl plus gender bender, why this doesn't work though? The answer? Casting. J-dorama turned it into a Johnny's drama and it lost all its magic. To make it worse, Jang Geun Suk made Tae Kyung character totally his own (especially on the crying scenes) that you can't copy paste the style or the quirks into J-dorama if you want it to be a successful remake. The only successful K-drama remake that I can think of is Maou. The drama can hold up by itself and if I didn't google it out I won't know that it's a remake. And to end this point, I seriously hope nobody is thinking of making a Korean remake of Hanakimi, please don't. Just, don't.
If you manage to read all at 1 go and still stay sane, congrats, good on you LOL. Both K-drama and J-dorama have their fair share of good and bad points. There're always those really well made drama and also really butchered and disaster drama, no exception. So, it's all now down to preference and purely subjective choises. I find that reading drama review is a good exercise but to be taken with lots of consideration. Drama reviews are mostly subjectively written. At some point in time, you may agree, but if you read it at another time, you'll disagree. So, I always try to educate my surroundings whenever they're asking me what 'good' drama to watch. What kind of storyline do you like? Does prettiness important to you? What genre you're feeling like watching now? In what emotional state you're now? The list that I'd give to the same person will change over time and when they ask. There're never a straight forward answer. I find that synopsis is more important than drama review, above all. Do you like what you read and got some interest? Well, then you should try at least 1-2 episodes, and for all you know, you may find a gem which everybody else hate. You'd never know until you do this. The same drama that you watched years ago may give different vibes and feels when you watch it now. Why? Coz people change, their preference, circumstances and mind change over time. That's why sometimes, I have a parking lot for drama, those drama which I'm not kind of in the mood watching it now for whatever reason but maybe someday in the future.
I think telling people K-drama or J-dorama is better than xxxx (put in whatever drama in it) is completely irrelevant. Maybe now you hate J-dorama, but years later you find J-dorama interesting, and then? Eat your own words?
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no subject
Date: 2016-05-01 12:41 pm (UTC)Really? And I thought J-police dramas were bad about that (despite all the talking lol).
So do you think Jdramas have gotten more interesting and/or more variety over the years since the 80s? I agree there is a lot less romance now (and what there is is less "romantic:--all these dramas about not wanting to get married too), but I found there to be more variety in the romance of the past and a lot of stuff in the non-romance dramas that you would never get now. My personal opinion is that over the past several years jdramas have been very uninteresting compared to most points in the past.
Stirring all these into 1 drama is enough for your female audiences to be dreamy over drama.
ROFL (Then why do I just get irritated?! XD)
Sometimes I just wish there were more "normal" people in Jdramas (for the most part I don' think there's any hope for Kdramas). So many characters either seem to have had an awful life or have tons of emotional baggage or a bad personality. Or all of the above. I feel like it has gotten worse over the years too, like dramas are relying on those things to make the characters "interesting" or develop some kind of a "plot."
not really a munekyun if every romantic themed drama have these scenes
I never found it munekyun to begin with but now it's gotten to the point where I can't even laugh at it!
I agree with what you said about the Jdrama remake of You're Beautiful, but I also think the way they condensed the story to fit less episodes contributed to making it even worse. It was like the digest version of the original with no room for personality, emotion, humor, etc.
I thought Maou stood well on it's own too, though all my Japanese friends who had seen the original Kdrama totally looked down on it.
I haven't actually seen most of the dramas you've mentioned in your examples, but this was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
no subject
Date: 2016-05-02 07:18 am (UTC)There are bad J-police drama, but at least the ones that I watch has deductions and not ruled by emotions (some emotion is OK, but not over the top, it's police, not mobs) LOL.
So do you think Jdramas have gotten more interesting and/or more variety over the years since the 80s?
Yes and no, Yes in more variety of genre because now they have something else other than romance aka romance is not the priority selling point, doesn't mean it's good quality though, it just means there're more options (different product lines). Bad in a sense that those with romance as selling point goes down the drain, no creativity. They used to be so good in spinning good romance drama. I think few reason why it becomes like this. Change in demographic. The younger generation has less appetite on this kind of drama, hence the horrific kissing scenes, no rabu2 scene, and more fan service (BL borderline) scenes. Too much reliant on shojo manga live action is another culprit. Somehow TV station got lazy or not willing to pay the good script writer or just want a quick bucks, and later blame the franchise if rating got screwed.
Sometimes I just wish there were more "normal" people in Jdramas (for the most part I don' think there's any hope for Kdramas).
I do feel the same on this, every now and then would like to see a more normal person (w/ no emotional baggage, etc) in a drama. But I think it's very difficult to spin this into an interesting drama. Let's say we have a financial analyst or system engineer who work 9 to 5, plus OT (Japan style) or the super normal workers on contract term. I think it'll be hard to swallow for public to watch a very real life fact of their lives and it sucks big time.
They seriously need to stop marketing those munekyun stuffs, not healthy at all, not even at manga level.
I thought Maou stood well on it's own too, though all my Japanese friends who had seen the original Kdrama totally looked down on it.
Ah, I never watch the K version (not good for my emotional health), but I can imagine how much more intense the scheming and screwing over plus the mind game (I'm using Two Weeks as the gauge here). It'll always got lighter when it's translated to J-drama due to the format. :)
no subject
Date: 2016-05-01 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-01 11:25 pm (UTC)I have to add one thing on the villain part for the fun of it, they seem to live in the drama just to screw over our hero/heroine, the amount of hatred and obsession that they have invested is telling us that they're too free. At least the villains in J-drama do something else and while at it screw over our hero LOL.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-04 04:50 am (UTC)and there was nodame remake too and it was badd so baddd...
and the universal plot of K drama is love story whatever genre the drama they make 4 sided love story is a must be included into the plot and make the viewers feel a pity into the nice 2nd lead :P
the only exception i think is Misaeng the story is based on web toon and it is about corporate culture in Korea and no love story after all :D
and it will be remake into J drama this year..
Oh I agree with you for fast forwarding all the kdrama i watch i always feel after episode 9 the story is dragged on until the last 2 episode :P
what else, the korean staff couldnt make any detailed scene because the production is usually rushed before it is aired in TV so yeah forget the detailed sometimes the stars get sick or accident or fly away from the shooting place because of the rushing shoot takes :D
no subject
Date: 2016-05-04 12:10 pm (UTC)Yeah, I used to pity the 2nd lead but after too many same formula I LOL at the 2nd lead and if the same dude keep on playing 2nd lead it's not even funny anymore LOL.
I saw the news on Misaeng, but not sure if I want to pick up the K version first. It's rather sad if they butcher it since the concept and premise is actually interesting.
I thought J-drama is also made in the rushing mode, but guess K is worse? I read somewhere how they literally rushing and actors/actresses actually got sick etc... how to put out good products if it's made this way is beyond me LOL
no subject
Date: 2016-05-05 05:16 am (UTC)K drama are airing twice a week hence the rush shoot and more episodes ..
Oh i tried watchin Mawang (the original maou) the story was better but the pace line was sooo slow i ended up just skipping the side character story...and the Toma korean version was great and i ended up watching the other drama with somilar theme from the same director lol
And in mawang most of the character dird because of car accident...so lack of varieties lol
no subject
Date: 2016-05-07 05:34 am (UTC)2 times a week with 1 hours duration each. I just notice when watching the streaming that each file for k-drama is about 1 hour plus, so that means plus CMs it'll be about 1.5 hours of airtime, compared to J-dorama of 45 minutes plus CM is 1 hours. I feel sorry for those who works in the industry, esp those editors who will be crunched last minutes to do their job... maybe this is also why there're so many fillers in each episode aka blank staring at the wall while crying with OST BGM, I'd fast forward those without thinking anymore.