Historical Dramas Club

 WandereR:

Btw, do you have a link to your notes? I'd love to read them. 😁

Well it’s on my harddrive, so no link. Plus, I’m not sure it’s fit for public consumption (though you’re really the only person who would want to read this), some of it makes my ramble-y feed posts seem coherent and concise, lol. I am adding the most pertinent parts as list comments (the 2000 character limit is killing me, though :P). It’s not done, but you could read what I’ve added so far.

 WandereR:

I couldn't complete Haechi but you could give that a try to see how you like it. 

Maybe I’ll try Haechi one day, though currently I have plenty of other sageuks on my plate. I’ve just never really heard anyone talk about it. I guess you weren't really a fan. :)

 WandereR:

Haechi... Let's put it this way. If you enjoyed Vincenzo (which I know you did), I think you'll enjoy this one lol. When it comes to sageuk, I'm more of the SFD type. 

Well, Vincenzo wasn't exactly my most favorite thing either, and if the issue was over the top humor, it would probably bother me more in a sageuk, since I kinda watched Vincenzo as a fluff drama (strangely). Might give it chance one day, but I'll take this as a warning. :)

 WandereR:

Speaking of Queen Seondeok, I was curious of your thoughts from the past because I'm still halfway through it. 

About Queen Seondeok ... I was annoyed at Munno for being self-righteous. I appreciated that Yushin actually stuck by his principles, even though he was a snooze. I think I wrote something along the lines of, "If you're going to make me watch him for 60+ episodes, he ought to have at least a little personality." I thought Mishil's characterization as a bit inconsistent. I also thought Chunchu might be a better ruler than either Deokman or Mishil. I liked Alcheon even though he didn't always have the biggest role. I think there was probably more ... Obviously this is the very short version, and I'm not sure exactly where you're at and I don't want to spoil things that haven't come yet.

Oh, I forgot Misaeng! I liked him too. I guess he's pretty fun. He gets this epic speech at the end. The funny thing is the same actor plays another villain in Empress Ki, who also gets a big speech, so that's kinda how I think of Jung Woong In. But he's not enough to have made me want to root for the villains, because Mishil annoyed me as much as Munno.

Speaking of Munno, what a huge disappointment. You spend such a long time waiting for him to show up and then he's not even helpful, just annoying. :/

I actually liked Chunchu. I agree he's bratty and smug, though. But somehow he was my favorite anyway, haha.

I actually liked the second half better, I thought the first half just went in circles and took forever to get anywhere, but I've heard from someone else that they preferred the first half too. I don't have your aversion to melodrama (I don't particularly remember thinking that about it) and my favorite parts of the drama were mostly from the second half. I'm predicting you're not going to be a fan of Empress Ki. You'll probably hate my favorite character too. It will be your "revenge" on me for all the negative things I've said about your favorite dramas. :P

There are a few events portrayed that come form the Samguk sagi, but I remember at least one of them is portrayed quite differently (the reason being Korean Nationalism I think). I think a lot of it is a complete invention and some comes from the Hwarang segi.

 WandereR:

In any case, C-historicals are next. 

You decided on Chang'an, right? Maybe we'll actually get to watch something together again. :)

 WandereR:

This week I'm looking forward to 2 new dramas, one of which is a xianxia (your most disliked genre lol). 

I was about to say that I dislike psychological thrillers more, but then I remembered that my track record actually isn't entirely dreadful with that genre, since I actually really enjoyed White Christmas. Scary horror stuff, though, that's probably the worst. Every time I think I should give Kingdom a try for my historical drama love, I think "Can a really stomach the gore and zombies?" and it ends up back in the "not watching" pile. There are actually lots of horror dramas these days people say are good, maybe one day I'll work up the courage to give it a real shot.

I am of course curious to hear your thoughts on the new xianxia, even if the chances I'll watch it are slim (especially since I still have Ashes of Love on my plate). 

 WandereR:

atm I'm going that really slowly. 

The snail's pace has ensnared you. :)

 WandereR:

Yes! I'm totally ensnared ?

The first half flew by but now things are slowing down. 

Somehow we have a totally opposite experience of this. For me the first half was snail's pace and the second half flew by. This is really interesting.

 xinya:

Haechi (2019)
How is this one?

For some reason or another, I'm still watching this show for 6 months now!! 

It's not that I should have anything objective to complain about if I wanted to nitpick, in fact it's a quite brainy one, whose mere quotes or dialogue on philosophy, politics, right or wrong etc could fill half a notebook! 

But it's heavy and relatively slow for me, and for some reason I can't seem to binge it, or even watch more than 2-3 episodes of it at one sitting -- which is weird, cause I used to love sageuks that focus on politics, schemes, and smart characters, but I guess it's been a while now (in fact I've been unable to binge anything Korean for more than a year). 

The biggest draw to the drama is the writing of the characters & acting, of both the main lead (Jung Il Woo carries the drama to his heavy shoulders, he's magnetising in here!) and most of the antagonists.

It does have some humour and friendship between the heavy parts, but it feels crude to me & nowhere near as funny as, say, Rebel (who has some of the funniest LOL moments of all sageuks I've come across, despite its heavy subject matter, not to mention the friendships, bromance, and squad goals, yeah I know this is out of subject but it's your fault for reminding me of it recently :P ). 

And the writing and the overall direction tends to lean towards melodrama more times than not, which is a hit or miss for me usually.

Probably one of my biggest complains is the romance, which feels forced. I'm not one of Go Ah Ra's haters (for some reason she seems to have a lot), but I must blame the writer of her character (I don't have a problem with her acting personally) for its inconsistency. At the start & up to the middle of the drama, she was basically this quirky and aloof fighter woman who was just one part of the whole Yi Geum squad, more like a supporting character who I liked! But then, they had to introduce a romance, and as the standard procedure for each female drama character who falls in love goes, her character became boring (not that she was all that interesting or groundbreaking to begin with, but still).

Fortunately, she's not much in it anyway, and they don't focus that much (or any) to the romance, so really, I don't know what my problem is with Haechi, just blame my mood!! And I still recommend it to anyone who'd like to give it a shot… 

Hi, I just wanted to give you some praise for both beautiful banners and allot of interesting information. I tried to start Heachi with my husband but he was quickly annoyed by the humor, and I didn't really pick it up after that...