An insult to snails

By thundie • October 4, 2012

It’s October. This fact may mean something or nothing to you, but to an occasional kdrama reviewer—one with her own kdrama blog to boot—the tenth month of the year is usually that time to start checking numbers and planning a list of sorts, or maybe even three or more lists: crack, crap, hot, not.

These lists are only possible, of course, if you have finished four or more dramas and they conveniently happen to be crack, crap, hot and not respectively (“hot” and “not” referring to actors; a drama is never “hot,” not even when it leaves you all hot and bothered). The ideal is finishing at least nine by this time (one a month?), not a feat when you consider how many dramas air in a year. (Less ideal is merely watching fifteen minutes of the first episode and then judging the whole drama based on that cursory viewing.) In the past I’ve sometimes managed to watch close to twenty dramas, finishing twelve or more by mid-December. Not this year, though. As of now I’ve only finished Fermentation Family. That makes for a grand total of ONE.

In a decade of addiction I’ve not clocked a slower pace. No wonder I hear all these noises in the night and find more droppings than usual; the lizards in my room are displeased and they make sure I know it.

The days when I would devour dramas the way I inhale edamame seem so distant now. Spending thirty hours a week on everything kdrama-related (so many things to do for a single obsession hobby!) and still feeling like it wasn’t enough (watch more, write more, c’mon!). Staying up till five in the morning to finish a recap (the things I did for you, Song Joong-ki!). Panicking (and almost crying) when a certain mammoth file-sharing site got taken down and I thought I had to revert to my Stone Age (aka ten years ago) practice of waiting for a drama to hit the stores before I could watch it.

Those days.

I think it was that Tree With Deep Roots recap written a year ago that triggered some soul-searching. I felt physically ill, like I needed to throw up, because it was five o’clock and in just a couple of hours I would have to leave for work. (Thundie is a beast if she does not get her sleep.) This is insane, I thought. Don’t do this ever again, I added.

So in the last year I’ve reined myself in, sort of. Still, finishing just one drama in nine months is a joke, is it not? What has happened to that sense of urgency I once possessed about downloads and subtitles (grab the links before they disappear, yo!)? Am I not curious about Arang and her magistrate? Don’t I want to know if Nice Guy is nice?

Answers to the above: Yes. No idea. A little. If that’s the new drama with Song Joong-ki, maybe.

To show that I’m not one without conscience (I do often feel remiss about not updating the blog), I did something last week that I had not done in ages. Yup, I watched a drama and a movie. Seven hours. All on a Saturday. Which meant I did not bathe the dogs or step out of the house to get myself another chinchilla.

The drama I watched because I saw it in the store and the box set was gorgeous. Never mind that I had watched thirty-eight episodes last year and had already downloaded the remaining twenty episodes. On Saturday I rewatched Episodes 1-5. In a nutshell, it was as funny as I remembered it, it was more boring than I remembered it, the characters yelled a lot, and I missed Kang Dong-won terribly. Of the last point I ought to be ashamed of myself because it’s akin to going on a date with one guy but thinking of another guy the entire time. Sorry, Joo Won.

(Why I watched an old drama instead of current or more recent fare is a question the lizards in my room want an immediate answer to. What can I say? I fell on my head—from a great height, I must add—when I was a baby. It explains many things.)

The movie was about bows and arrows and the male lead was one of my first k-loves. If you do a search on Soompi, you will see that I even started a thread for him in the Actors forum. (Of course you will also see that I’ve done a disgraceful job updating the thread. For that I have no explanation whatsoever.) The movie was very exciting and I did not yawn a single time even though it was past three in the morning when I finished. I loved the hero (you go, Park Hae-il!) but loved the villain more (oops). The plot had holes as large as tiger traps but I didn’t mind one bit because any movie that makes me laugh out loud (look, they fly!) is a keeper.

(Humor is huge in my book these days. More, more!)

To recap, I’ve finished one drama so far and it’s a shoo-in for my “crack” list (just seeing its name makes me go all melty-soft; don’t listen to those who diss it). I don’t know how many more I will finish the rest of the year, but I need to get cracking if I want to make any headway. Better slow than not to move at all, right?

So while I scramble with my watching, tell me about your crack and crap. Without revealing spoilers (I may be a tardy viewer but ze strong principles have not changed!), what dramas have you really enjoyed this year? Which actors have burned up the screen for you? Have you watched more or fewer dramas in 2012? How many in all?

Categorised in: K-dramas, K-reflections

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