PrettyCarEye

Hey Coffee, sorry for late reply! I love your profile! Very informative and the beach pic is making me homesick! :)
Don't forget to come hang out in the feeds with us some time. We're a lively bunch! :)
How's Black & White going? Are you watching anything else or just that? I just started Can You Hear My Heart. Everyone's told me it's pretty good.
By the way, I see that you plan to watch Padam Padam. Great choice!

Thx for the warning, my lovely dongsæng. It is well heeded! :)

I haven't seen New World yet, no, but I will! It's on the list.

What else have you been shipping lately? I see Good Doctor & Two Weeks still going strong. How's Secretly, Greatly? That's a Chinese drama, cræshi?

:: In my best annoying ahjumma voice::

Aigooo, look at you playing the victim when you can not speak your lady love's language! :)
What will happen to your children, huh?

Ye Jina should throw you out of the house! Aigooo, aigooo!

Bahaha! Don't mind me, Knight, I'm just messin' witcha! ;)
Just boil it down to the mad rantings & ravings of a chronic insomniac! ha ha

Now what results are you talking about? Your drop rate you mean? Are you returning to your state of tranquility? Gotta say, I kinda like our mercurial knight better! :)

As for Eriko Kitagawa, I love her, I do. She really knows how to write a good, sweet romance. I've seen Tatta. I did like it, but you're right I'm not very big on young love so that one didn't leave as big an impression on me like OD and Aishiteiru. Actually with a better ending Aishiteiru would have surpassed OD for me because I felt Kohji & Hiroko's story was more romantic, intense & mature. They existed in an adult world that I really liked. It was very refreshing to see that single motherhood, premarital sex & cohabitation were not stigmatized & frowned upon in Aishiteiru.

I was shocked because this drama is quite old so I was expecting things to be more conservative back then than it is now, but ironically the opposite seems to be true! I've seen jdramas from the mid to late 2000s where the characters barely kiss & where couples living together when they're not married was implied to be somewhat taboo.

So this is what I've decided, I'm going to watch every single one of Kitagawa dramas that appeal to me (1 Mill Star included), but I will quit the minute I sense things are about to go downhill. I've heard that One Million Stars contains some controversial themes & that Kimo plays a rather nefarious character. Interesting. I don't mind, I love weird, effed up characters & stories (pardon the dutch! :). LOL! I have Beautiful Life in my sights too, and Love Letter. Seen these? What did you think? :)

This:

"Of course not bad but the difference between Japanese and Korean cinema keeps me longing for whichever country I´m not watching. Ah got to love the differences."

::nods head:: Totally agree!

After the roller coaster ride that was Que Sera Sera I wanted something calm and soothing & the Japanese never fails to deliver.

A bad ending can ruin a great drama for me, as was the case with Aishiteiru, because I want to imagine the characters living happily together. When things end so ambiguously as it did, even though you can arrive at your own conclusions ... if things are too open then I don't feel like I have enough information to determine their common fate. Am I making sense?

My point is go ahead & leave things open if you love open endings so bloody much, but at least IMPLY that they most likely end up together. Based on the ending we got I can imagine Kohji & Hiroko just exchanging pleasantries & going their separate ways bcuz it's been what 2 - 3 yrs? & they're both likely to be assuming dumb shit, like oh he/she probably doesn't love me anymore and all the stupid assumptions human beings make, esp given Kohji's deafness which makes communication difficult. You know what I'm saying? Would Hiroko even remember how to sign??These are the things I sit & think about. That's why I hate, hate, hate the ending.

Between eps 9 - 12 I was still willing to forgive everything IF the ending turned out to be good. I kept hoping until the last few mins bcuz I know in Asian dramas they love to torture the audience. But to the very end, no joy.

Under normal circumstances this would've influenced my rating negatively, but I chose to go against my usual rating style & rate the drama a 9 because eps 1-8 were just so wonderful. I couldn't bring myself to rate it lower.

My chingu friend, lol glad to know that you won't kill me over minor dissimilarities in our tastes! Phew! haha you're the best! :)

Totally agree with you about Le Jun Kai. Usually dramas with an ending like that would devastate me, but I didn't really feel much because you were given so little time to invest in the characters. I think I mentioned this in my review as well. Also I LOVE your take on how it should have it. That would have been more dramatic & the guy would have deserved the emotional turmoil since he was such a downright beast to that poor girl!

Oh I'm glad you liked Mi Joo in Lovers! I LOOOVED her because she was such a practical, sensible woman. HOW many times I have seen drama heroines act all stupid out of misplaced pride & noble idiocy??? I don't even know the answer! But I loved Mi Joo for thanking Kang Jæ when he got her the job instead of throwing a hissy fit about him interfering in her business. I think what she said to him while thanking him (that jobs are hard to come by so she's grateful for any help she can get) made perfect sense & was the right thing to say under the circumstances.

I hate when heroines stubbornly refuse help out of stupid pride even when they, their kid or one of their parents are dying, dead or incapaciated! I mean wtf?!? You feel me, chingu? #smdh

I've been meaning to check out the actress in other stuff, but didn't know where to start. I looked into Lovers in Paris & it didn't really appeal to me so thx for the recs!

As for the man himself, hot damn! Honestly Kang Jæ can pounce on me anytime, anywhere!!! haha

Last but not least I see reviews for Golden Empire have started to go up! Are you satisfied with the end result?

As for In Another Country, if you're a fan of Isabelle then you should totally watch this movie. It's a quirky and kind of weird treatise on the misunderstandings that can arise when you're, well ... in another country (and you don't speak the language).

Pride, there's a lot of hockey, but it's not the main focus. I am not much of a hockey fan myself & this was able to keep my interest because the human relationships were at centre stage. Try it! If you don't like it after the first 5 eps just drop it. :)

My aversion to age gap stories is not really universal. A combination of circumstances can lead me to watch (and enjoy) them, but I don't actively seek them out. And it can be somewhat difficult to avoid them in Asian cinema & TV when they seems to be all the rage in Asia right now.

Anyway, I think it's interesting how our lives influence what we like to watch. I have a lot of friends (as well as my own mom!) who have dated immature, irresponsible younger guys & their experience has totally turned me off stories where the age gap is a focus of the story. I have too tried dating guys a few years younger than me when I was in college. I always felt like I was forced into a mentoring role when what I wanted was a partner on equal footing. Ugh. Just give me my ahjussis. I like them way better. At least you know when they're a couple years older they're likely to be a little more reflected & mature (though this is not always the case either, mind you!).

Generally I like when the characters in tv shows and movies are around the same age with similar levels of maturity & life experience.

Okay two looong posts in a row! Sorry! :)

You wouldn't be remiss to watch Aishiteiru just for Kohji & his problems. He's not bad to look at & his vulnerability as a result of his disability makes him quite the sympathetic figure. I hated the way things turned out in the end mainly for his sake. Just about the only thing I didn't like about him was that he chain smoked like crazy! But this drama is from 1995 so smoking was the norm rather the exception back then, esp in Asia.

All throughout the show, though, I kept wondering how in the world does the female lead (& indeed the actress playing the part) stand kissing him? Smoker's breath is THE worst things I know! lol Otherwise he's a real catch. The female lead wasn't bad either until her character derailed.

It's exactly as you say the big misunderstanding felt totally contrived. I hate when writers do stupid sh-t that insult the intelligence of their audience, when they throw in unnecessary conflict just for the sake of having conflict & not bcuz it makes a lick of sense to the story.

But anyway it is what it is. If/when you get around to watching it I hope you enjoy it.

When it comes to endings I'm the complete opposite! A bad ending can ruin a great drama for me, as was the case here. Under normal circumstances this would influence my rating negatively, but for Aishiteiru I chose to go against my usual rating style & rate the drama a 9 because eps 1-8 were just so wonderful. I couldn't bring myself to rate it down.

Between eps 9 - 12 I was still willing to forgive everything IF the ending turned out to be good. I kept hoping until the last few mins bcuz I know in Asian dramas they love to torture the audience. But to the very end, no joy.

Pien-ssi, so you finally got out of your lazy faze! hehe Welcome back, chingu. You were missed.

You should definitely check out Love & Honour with our boy KimuTaku! It's lovely! And perhaps the best installment of Yoji's trilogy, imho.

Actually neither, I went for Que Sera Sera (total emotional roller coaster, but good, good!) & Aishiteiru instead. I loved eps 1-8 of the latter, but eps 9 - 12 was a let down and a disappointment. You can read my read review to have an idea what bugged me. Let me know if you agree/disagree. I've been wanting to confer to someone who has watched it, just to hear their take on the ending episodes.

I was going to watch City Hall next (even watched the 1st ep), but decided to skip it for Can You Hear My Heart. I was in the mood for another deaf hero after Aishiteiru. I plan to watch CH after Heart, then Wolf & Dog or maybe King of Dramas.

A great black comedy to watch is In Another Country. That's the only one I can think of here & now. There are others but I'll have to get back to you.

City Hall is said to be really good. It's written by the same screenwriter who wrote Lovers, one of my all time favourite dramas EVER. So even though I hate politics I'm kind of expecting it'll be good! Hope I won't be disappointed!

Omo, you should definitely check out Pride. It's a great drama & Kimura Takuya is just divine in it.

What's keeping me from IHYV is that the storyline doesn't appeal to me. Plus a lot of my friends who share my tastes in dramas have tried to watch it & couldn't finish. They all dropped it after 3 episodes. Last but not least noona/dongsæng dramas don't appeal me, esp when noona looks like dongsæng's mother rather than his lover. Not my cup of tea. I don't like older man/younger woman dramas either, but in general I find them more tolerable.

No, actually it was none of those things. It's not tragic at all. Perhaps I should edit my review to make that clear. Nobody gets sick or dies. It's surprisingly wonderful in how 'normal' it is. What brought the show down was the use of the 'big misunderstanding' as the main driver of conflict in the last 3 episodes. The female lead misconstrued certain events & went bat shit crazy. I wanted to kill her. lol

I don't know what the writer was thinking. It was such a stupid move because in the grand scheme of the show it was totally uncalled for. The guy's deafness created a whole heap of conflict all on its own because he's very insecure/sensitive about it & it's annoying for the heroine to communicate with him when she doesn't fully understand sign language.

For him it's frustrating when he can't get his point across quickly enough. Or if someone chooses not to talk to him there's really nothing he can do about it. He's completely powerless. For hearing people you can say what you want whether the person is in front of you or not, but for him you have to stand directly in front of him so he can read your lips or write down what he wants to say. So in light of this his disability IS the perfect conflict! I don't way they had to introduce a lot of outside forces which really added nothing to the story/plot.

If you're a fan of romance then you should definitely watch it. You'll love the first 8 eps guaranteed, and you may or may not be dissatisfied (as I was) with the last 4. It is likely that you're less sentimental than me, in which case the huge open ending probably won't affect you in any way.

Aishiteiru to Ittekure is a romance drama about a deaf-mute artist and a struggling actress. Basically the show is all about how they meet and fall in love. Eps 1-8 are amazing! Eps 9-12 not so much. But I still gave it a 9. Read my review of it if you want a broader impression of the show.

Well, I don't know if you read my profile page but romance is my # 1 genre, then crime, thriller, suspense. I don't like melos either & comedy depends on my mood. Under normal circumstances I usually like black comedies over rom-coms.

I don't like politics themed dramas either, but I'm so going to watch City Hall just for the sake of Cha Seung-woo (did you see him in The Greatest Love? The guy was hilarious!!! haha). I like sport themed dramas if there's a heavy dose of romance. Good examples are Pride (hockey) & Buzzer Beat (basketball). Totally worth the watch, both of them.

I haven't seen any of the other dramas you mentioned & I know for sure I'll never watch Kings2Heart and I Hear Your Voice. So I'm biased toward OD! You should watch that one! :)

No worries! Thx for the request! :)
And yes, watch Orange Days asap! You're going to love it!
Such a beautiful drama. The screenwriter is known for her sweet love stories and OD is by far one of her best!
So far I've watched 3 of her shows and they were all decent. I just completed Aishiteiru to Ittekure. If the last episodes and ending were better it would have surpassed Orange Days as my absolute favourite drama from her.

I'm going to check your list and see what we have in common! :) What kind of genre/s do you like?

Rain, what Angelito said! :p

Haha, Angel, tell me about it! :)

And wonderful response to Raincat! Very well said indeed & couldn't agree more! :)

Flower, I specifically chose CYHMH because of the hero's deafness so it's all good. I just completed a Japanese drama where the hero was deaf and I enjoyed watching the unique challenges the disability introduced to his life and relationships.

As for King of Dramas, thx for letting me know. Since I work in the industry I didn't mind the focus on the technicalities in Worlds Within. If the show is anything to go by I found the contrast in Western and Korean tv production deeply fascinating. But I too tend to prefer when the focus remains on the human relationships.

I'll watch CYHMH now, City Hall after I think (I hear that's another underrated, but very good one) and then I might give KoD a go!

Edinaa, have you seen Aishiteiru?

I didn't dislike it. Well, not ALL of it. I LOVED the first 8 eps, but hated the last 4. The story after ep 9 took a drastic turn for the worse. The female lead became so inexplicably infuriating! I really wanted to slap her. The ending was bad too. Not bad in that it was sad or anything, but bad in the sense that you don't really know what happens. It's just very open-ended and frustrating. Worse kind of ending ever.

That said I decided to give it a 9 because the first 8 eps were truly AMAZING. I loved every bit of it and in my mind I've chosen to believe that the drama ended at episode 8 so a 9 was in order.

Awesome! Good to know! :)
Well I'm off to finish the first ep. After throwing away an entire weekend with drama watching AND skipping work yesterday because Aishiteiru kept me up until almost 5am Monday morning, I got a good day's work in today and I'm totally guilt free! Yay! :)
So I can watch CYHMV with a clear conscience. haha
Speak soon, chingu!

Hello there, no I can not remember having sent you a friend's request at any time! :)
It might be because MDL is still a bit buggy so phantom requests get sent out to people all the time. You're not the first it has happened to. I have had people on my list that I didn't accept a request from.
But not to worry I love making new friends so if you don't mind being friends with me, we can be friends. Let me know. We're around the same age too, so awesome! :-)