Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #329

Trotwood: I have to start going back in to work today, and I had nearly a full blow panic attack about it. Heart palpitations, sweating through clothes, nausea to the point of almost vomiting. I ended up mopping all my floors to get through it. At least I only have to go in twice a week for rest of semester, and once I get used to it again, I should be fine. Plus my floors are sparkling! 

Kakashi, see my comment on Asian Web Dramas and Shorts below. Have we ever reviewed a Vietnamese drama on RAWR before? 

kakashi: I don't believe so! It's an excellent idea to do short reviews. I am sorry to hear about your work situation, Trot. I'm back in full home office as of yesterday. We're under lockdown again. In other news, I nearly fainted when I saw Levi in the latest Attack on Titan episode. My god, he is so damn sexy! I admit to having watched those few seconds at least ten times already. I demand a Levi spin-off.   

KOREA

The Uncanny Counter

I continue to love this show, but I am worried not only about the fact that they are already booked for a season 2 but because, apparently, the original writer has left because of creative differences with the director. I will be so mad if they mess this up. They have an original source to base the plot on, but we've all seen that this doesn't necessarily help. However, this week's episodes were stellar once again. Where Mr. Queen seems to struggle combing warmth, pathos, and humor, this show seems to do it effortlessly (which is why a change of writer is concerning). For example, the parking lot scene where Mo Tak is looking for evidence starts so sad but changes to hilarity when he meets the owner of one of the vehicles that has a dash cam. So many quiet moments and opportunities for even people with small parts to shine. We all knew that the mayor was evil, but this new alliance is really scary.

Mr. Queen

When I found myself trying to force time to watch this show, I realized that I should just drop it. I still want to know what happens, but not enough to watch each week. I only like the two leads, especially now that they seem to have taken the 2nd leads down the stereotypical sageuk path, which I think is unfortunate. I will probably read recaps and watch the ending because I can't figure out how they are going to help this queen AND help the chef in the present. I do hear that this past weekend's episodes were really good and may answer some of my questions. Ratings broke even more records.

Wish You: Your Melody From My Heart (series review and movie)

Korea is slowly dipping it's feet into the lucrative world of BL short dramas. All of the actors in this were quite good and having an actually kpop trainee as the person playing a singer songwriter means that you actually have someone who can sing and play an instrument. The problem with the show is that they spent too much time on the MV aspect of it, when they really made us want to see the story between In Soo and Sang Yi develop. I want to know more about the struggle with In Soo's father who is CEO of music company but doesn't want his own son to be a musician. It's a really interesting plot twist, especially considering we all know by now the real struggles of artists in a conglomerate. The "movie" version, which seems to just be a director's cut of the series but just put all together, gives more of their development, but not of anything else. I would love to see more of all the actors in this though.

THAILAND

Manner of Death

As promised, episode 7 did have topless scenes of Max, but also Tul and our very tight uniform wearing Inspector M. Max and Tul do inevitably succumb to the attraction that they have for each other, but to honest, the placement of the scene didn't make a lot of sense. I don't know about you, but if I had just broke into a police inspector's car to steal a laptop that might have incriminating evidence on it only to almost caught, I wouldn't be thinking about sexy times. However, we move ahead quite a bit with the plot here--outing a congressman and the police chief himself--in the ring of men who drug women to play their sexual games with them. I'm really routing for Sorn and Tat as a couple and because they are steadfastly looking for clues since we know that Nam, unlike Jane, is still alive.

None of the topless shots I have are very good either because everything was always happening so fast or he was on top of Tul. Sorry.

PHILIPPINES

Pearl Next Door

So many people were so angry about the end of this show, but it was actually the ending I wanted because I didn't like either of the partners for Pearl. To be fair, many of the Alex shippers were mad because the writers had made her so perfect (to some--I found her eagerness troubling) that the negative aspect of her personality seemed to come out of left field (as I said in my last post), but still it was too fast I thought for Pearl to switch from loving the person she had for so long. Too often shows are deemed successful if people are paired up--like we are doing s school play about Noah's ark. No one wants to ever say, unfortunately, that it is okay to be alone. That people, especially women, are okay being alone and can be happy that way and that too often we make bad choices out of the fear of being alone (or being in love with love) rather than because we have a great potential partner for us.

ASIAN WEB DRAMAS

Some of you have suggested various web dramas and short dramas, especially in the BL category. It's a perfect time for these to come out because it's easier for me to digest shorter drama. Some of them, though, are such bad quality. I've seen better cinematography from second year film students with wooden acting. Some are better, over all, than many of the full-length dramas I have watched over the past year. I'm actually currently watching nine, including three from Vietnam. Instead of reviewing them every week. I will review them after I finish them if they were good enough. I'll only review weekly if they are really good like Gaya sa Pelikula was or Hello Stranger.