Kannadin

Colorism is a huge issue... literally everywhere unless your skin is white.

K dramas of the early 2000s had actors with darker skin tones... Now with all the filters everybody looks very white except maybe for some actors whose skin tone is just a lot darker than the majority.
Chinese dramas... Well Same... I did notice that web dramas are less heavy on the whitening filter.

I recently watched "A Familiar Stranger" with Cheng Lei and I was REALLY surprised because his skin was literally 2 shades darker than in the first drama I saw him in "My Journey to You" and more recently "Legend of the Female General".

Thailand has a pretty severe case of colorism as well. Native thai are pretty dark skinned. I'm black, where I'm coming from we call my skin tone "milk coffee"... Well, a lot of Thais have darker skin than I have and yet you never see them in series except when they play the villains...

But the worse of the worse is India... The colorism there is ridiculous, especially since most of them are VERY dark.

And Africa is a whole other level of nightmare, with people whitening even the skin of their children with illegal non regulated whitening cream.

All that self-hate is really heartbreaking. I was very very shocked when I saw even Senegalese women doing that to their own kids. They have the darkest skin tone in the world, beautiful ebony skin and they're destroying it with illegal products...

But what can you do when the darker you are, the uglier you're made to feel?

I honestly have only dropped two Chinese dramas so far and that is... The First Frost ( which I dropped after 27 episodes so I gave it a fair shot) and Meteor Garden (after 6 episodes - no adaptation has toped the 2007 Hana Yori Dango with Matsumoto Jun as far as I am concerned).
They tend to take their time in telling their stories, the pace is definitely slower and I personally enjoy the fact that relationships between characters take their time being established, but I guess that's a matter of taste. I don't agree with them being repetitive or draggy.

Of course, that's a generality, I'm not talking about every C dramas.

This being said there's just one little thing you wrote that we don't really disagree with ENTIRELY:

I wrote:

"I've been into K dramaland for over 20 years... Always felt that they were getting better years after years... But past Squid Game?"

You wrote:
"First, I think k-dramas produced from 2017-2018 onwards are on average superior to those produced in prior years."

For me, as written the downfall started past Squid Game i.e 2021... To be more precise, I really started to feel the change after 2023... Basically Netflix and Disney + putting lots of money into the production process and give a bit more year for these new productions to enter the market.

What I mean by that is that before, Netflix would occasionally produce their own series but they would just license other dramas to air on their platflorm. What has changed now, in that even productions mostly financed by Korean companies are getting some money from these American platforms, meaning they have a say in the writing process which leads to... what we're currently getting.

Again that's not to say some of my favorite weren't produced recently... For instance... Lovely Runner, which I absolutely adore and ended up being a sleeper hit ( no Netflix money in that one, drama was first available on Viki in Europe and Netflix, licensed it because obviously this one surprisingly blew up).

But sadly... It's becoming increasingly rare. This year, the only drama so far that stood out for me was Study Group.... Undercover High School was a nice one but not worth rewatching in my opinion though Seo Kang Joon was looking fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine in that one ( sorry).... But apart from that... I'm getting very wary. All the highly praised dramas I've seen this year turned out disappointing imho... which is why no matter how many articles about Bon Appétit Your Majesty are plastered all over MDL, I won't watch that one before it has finished airing... and probably several months AFTER it has wrapped up to have a more balanced comment section.

But it's ok, I've made peace with that. I'm just going to watch that long list of K dramas I wanted to watch for years but which I never had the time to watch.

Nah. Khemjira seems right my alley as well, but I have to admit I'm more excited about that one. Dunno why... Maybe because Peak and Pearl are both SO MUCH MORE MY TYPE ( Yeah I'm totally guilty of being shallow as fudge but I don't care). Also I really enjoyed To Sir With Love and this one has the same vibe with much more emphasis on romance (yeah I did watch quite a lot of snippets of episode 1 and 2 on One 31 Youtube channel).

This being said, I've planned to watch it... One week before the finale so that I can watch the last episode with everyone.
I've carefully avoided going on its page to avoid any spoiler 😀

Right now I'm strongly resisting starting that one... But My GOD I am tempted. I think I'm probably going to give in next week but my Watching List is already too long, so I'm sure gonna resist as much as I can.

Lol. After a while, they get very easy to detect. One common comment is the usual "I'm an American interested in Chinese culture." It's a copy paste comment I've seen so many time that I no longer bother. Sometimes you see other variations when they pretend to be from this or that African country whenever some people complain about what China is currently doing on the African continent. They've invested heavily in recent years, not gonna go into details, but let's just say that what appeared to be an opportunity for lots of these countries turned into a debt nightmare. And that's not even talking about the environmental damage that comes with the Chinese coming.

Of course, China is not entirely to blame, shitty African leaders are also responsible for selling out their land for some quick cash. As usual the population is paying the cost and obviously you see some of these victims complaining online. You get lots of these Chinese paid commenters under these videos, trying to turn the comment section to their advantage.

Now, I'm not anti-anything. As far as I'm concerned, all these big nations are the same, none of them are clean. The bigger, the dirtier. I'm not American, but my God my own country is truly disgusting. Given I'm a child from Immigrants... from the African continent, I'm obviously more sensitive to these subjects. But if it wasn't for my own research, basically all the dirt is never talked about in mass media. The narrative is very different, and I find it very funny when they're giving lessons to the Chinese about freedom of expression and propaganda when you see what they do.

Sure It's not as controlled as in China... But it's a WAY smaller country, and as much as I'm not a fan of censorship, I can understand the logic with a country of 1.4 billion people, because if some people complain, it can get nasty quickly.

I'm not really sure how their job works though. Maybe they're paid to be as obnoxious as possible because whatever happens, instead of admitting that China is not perfect and could do better, they're bent on pointing fingers at others to "show" that other countries are way worse and that they're literally blameless. Who the heck is going to believe this?

I really don't get it. If I was a Chinese agent trying to change the overall perception of China, I'd start to learn to be more subtle because these commenters...
They're just SO EASY to trigger for nothing and so OBVIOUS I just can't see how it can work.

EDIT: Btw, I just checked in a private window, and they've tried to put their "Hong Kong and Taiwan are Chinese" propaganda in the comment section. I guess they no longer see the point of trying to pretend to be what they're not.

Legend of the Female General: A HUGE amount of suspension of disbelief needed though. Great for the romance, a fair amount of plotholes though... I loved it like most people in spite of its flaws, but it's better to warn you just in case you're part of the people who can't get past some elements. If you can't get past them, you won't be able to enjoy this series.

Story of Kunning Palace: I heard good words about that one though I haven't seen it yet. HE but BUT they did keep the reincarnation thing so you get two endings in one due to censorship. Both are "happy" though ( man I hate when they do the whole "it was all a dream" BS).

Blossom: I didn't like it... But most people did.

Till the End of the Moon: Wuxia. The end... is more a question of interpretation but it's not necessarily a bad one. The series was planned for more episodes, but the 40 episodes rule came out as it was about to be released and they had to remove 18 episodes from what I remember which explains the ending.

I don't know for Story of Kunning Palace, but neither Blossom nor LOTG nor TTOTM has a plot as tightly written as the Double. They're all great series in their own right, and have their unique charm... But the Double is on a class of its own. Better not compare them to it.

Blocked. As I said, they always want to have the last word. Also the account is very fishy as well. Seems to only serve that specific purpose. Typical.
I'm actually glad sometimes we get these articles, makes it easier to root them out and block them.

Sure. I believe you.

I don't think this person is worth arguing with. China is known to have people roaming the internet arguing with anybody making a negative comment about their country.

Anybody making a simple research online about any country would find some dirt about them, the simple fact that this person is asking for examples just goes to show they want to engage into an endless argument until one of the party ( probably me in that case) is tired of arguing and let them have the last word.

I've met that type too many times online. I won't bother.

That's not here nor there. Historically China has done atrocities to other nations as well and still does. Japanese got nuclear bombed, Korea got occupied, invaded or literally forced to serve both China and Japan at some point (under different names - Qin dinasty and on). Neither Japan nor South Korea indulge in as much propaganda against other nations that has done terrible things to them as much as Chinese do.

Attrocities. EVERY SINGLE MAJOR countries on this planet has done it to others. Some still do, and their national media make sure to not talk about all the dirt they're doing in countries not their own.

Even South Korea whose whole history is basically being invaded repeatedly has done some dirty things to other weaker nations.

This is a drama with a small scene, what the fudge are they complaining about?

There's not a single developed country that can parade and brandish the "don't attack me card" because none is completely clean.
This is a drama, just chill and relax.

I'm very curious as to why the Princess thinks she can make anybody like her given how shitty her personality is. Fudging Psycho. The actress is nailing her role but I can't bear to see her on my screen.

OOOOHHH
Finally a BL that makes me excited after RESET!!!
Since I'm not a "heavy BL" watcher I really stumbled upon the trailer totally by chance but it looked SO GOOD!

But err... Well. Waiting to know if it's HE before I start. I'm definitely l planning on watching this, but I'd rather be mentally prepared for the ending in case it's a bad one.

Yeah. as much as I enjoy Chinese dramas... The anti Japanese propaganda is very veryyyyyyyyyyyy strong in their Republican dramas. Do Chinese care if people complain about it?

Yeah I made the calculation taking only into account the average length of K dramas of the early 2000s not their current average length...

I would argue though that making longer episodes doesn't play in these shows' favor. There's a reason why most countries have adopted 45 minutes per episodes for most series regardless of the continent.
Instead of doing 12 episodes of 80 minutes which as you've mentioned is indeed 16 episodes of 1 hour, for viewers' experience, 16 episodes of 1 hour would be more efficient. No matter how good the series is, if your episode average the length of a movie, viewers are gonna feel the length.

Mu Cheng is officially the most frustrating FL I've seen in a while.

Depends on how long you've been watching K dramas... But I sound like a broken record. We had exactly the same discussion on yet another of Lee Jae Wook upcoming drama here:

https://kisskh.at/776063-last-summer#comment-23486120

I gave a long answer to one of the comment that basically went into your direction. I really should let this subject go because I had already forgotten I had made that very same comment here 20 days ago, but that just goes to show how disappointed I've been with K dramas in the last few years.

Literally every K dramas from the early 2000s to later to late 2010s were 16 episodes, occasionally 20 up to 24 episodes

[ Apart from family or sageuk weekenders which were around 50 episodes even more ==> Example Giant ( https://kisskh.at/365-giant ), planned for 40 episodes, stretched to 60 episodes due to its success (average viewership above 30%) or Jumong ( https://kisskh.at/661-jumong )
planned for 50 episodes, stretched to 60 than to 81... more than 50% average viewership every weekend when it aired. I dropped both back then because you had to rely on fansubs and releases were S.L.O.W as fudge ]

The problem currently with 16 episodes series is not the length, it's the overall quality of the stories that is just going downhill.
When the story sucks, it's easier to hide how badly it's written when you shorten it. If your story has no substance, of course, it deserves no more than 12 episodes.

Every 16 episodes K dramas I've watched recently all went downhill/became repetitive along the way/were so simplistic they didn't deserve such length. Not to say there weren't bad dramas back then, but honestly 16 episodes felt like the right length. Not now.

Again Chinese have most series that go up to 40 episodes sometimes even more. If you convert considering a C drama episode is on average 45 minutes and a K drama episode 1h ( well obviously most are longer now but when I started to watch them 20 years ago, the norm was 55minutes to 1h with eventually the final being slightly longer with 1h15 mn)...

That means a classic 40 episodes C dramas is the equivalent of a 30 episodes K drama.

And yet it rarely feels like it's dragging. You might feel occasionally that they're taking their sweet time telling their stories, but it never feels like they're dragging things for the sake of dragging things.

I've expressed myself repeatedly on the subject on MDL. I could rant for hours about how much K dramas have changed and not in a good way.
I've been into K dramaland for over 20 years... Always felt that they were getting better years after years... But past Squid Game? My God, it quickly went to sh***. Every year, there's less and less bangers...

Each drama is even more expensive than the previous one, yet the stories are soulless without any substance. It's high time, they refocused on writing good stories, instead of capitalizing on old recipes and/or trying to imitate what Western media does. That's not what brought people to K dramas in the first place.

Not to say all is bad, but the change is here, permanent and as Deguchi Yvonne wrote, K dramas are losing their magic.

Lol well as you know... Drama is Life. Once you're fallen into that rabbit hole, you're cursed for life 🤣

Oh I'm definitely planning to watch it... It's just that I can't keep up with Chinese release schedule. There are so many C dramas coming out so fast that my pile of "To Be watched" C dramas is twice as long as the Korean pile which is already twice as long as the Thai Pile and the Japanese Pile combined.

This is a drama that I've put on my mental "To be Watched" List.
Man...
Chinese people are harsh! Not saying that blunders are normal given they literally can check everything in advance since everything is preproduced...

I mean... in early K dramas days, it was not uncommon that some episodes would be finished just a couple of hours BEFORE it even aired on TV so having messy editing would be completely understandble. See https://kisskh.at/4996-the-king-of-dramas to see what REAL "live editing" is made. Truly the stuff of nightmare.

So I guess Chinese directors really have no excuse but come on' there's always a couple of scenes which can be a little rough.

I LOVED the Legend of the Female General but my God the whole scene with the wolves was horrendous... And it was quite long unlike here, people complaining about scenes lasting a couple of seconds at most. Just blink and you've already missed the blunder in question.

Well I guess, such level of exigence is also why I think most of their big productions look terrific but it must be really hard for people working on said projects. Glad that's not my job.

Yeah well... Just like those who are defending their oppa in the comment section. If this member bothers you, just block them. I personally can't see most of the comments posted here because I've blocked quite a lot of this actor's fans who can't help throwing fits whenever a negative comment about their oppa is thrown.

And how do I know? Very simple. This comment section to me is full of people replying to... themselves. A sure sign that lots of comments are missing since I can't view them... which means lots of blocked overzealous annoying fans.

Still at it months later. Haven't gone on this actor's page nor drama related page for over 6 months at least and they're still there.
Everyone should just get a life.