I remember spending the eve of 2010 watching Part 1 of the 20th Century Boys movie with my family while waiting for the clock to strike 12. This year turned out to be slightly different, in a sense that we managed to avoid watching a sci-fi adventure movie; opting for a frilly romantic comedy that didn't leave you wondering what the hell happened to its protagonist. The best part of it was that it didn't have an apocalyptic spin to it, so we didn't find ourselves distraught over the ending of the movie. All in all, we were better off closing the year on a light, positive note, contrary to how we started it.
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Seeing that I didn't really get to write anything new these past few weeks, I figured this new year's post would not be complete without some blog resolutions that I'll probably end up breaking, to wit:
- Do not create a new blog post until the gazillion other posts that have been pending for over half a year are published.
- Watch and finish one sageuk and/or taiga drama and write about it.
Sit through an entire JE concert.- Make headway on Ninomiya Kazunari's filmography,
including hiskandou ((感動) drama series. - Extend patience in watching trendy dramas
in order not to drop them midway. - Find time to read more books.
- Stop watching actors like Kimura Takuya, Kamenashi Kazuya, Oguri Shun and Miura Haruma play asinine characters.
- When watching a series, stop obsessing about which actor/actress has had plastic surgery or facial contouring
no matter how obvious or drastic the change may be. Stop heartlessly giving away dramas that you do not care about.Reduce clutter.
It's been quite a year and though I still have to iron out a few things about blogging, and have found myself unable to watch enough dramas to do a proper round up for this year, I'd still like to take this opportunity to greet everyone and anyone who's stumbled upon this blog a happy and blessed new year! May there be more good shows to watch and keep us occupied this year. Cheers!
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happy new year!!! my resolution would be to watch quality jkUSTVdrama.
ReplyDeleteseen joseon x files? everyone loved that show. i might give it a try.
Ueno Juri on this year's taiga. definitely not to be missed. im hoping someone will sub on it. for saeguk there is one drama mister x is subbing on. but with 70 episodes. hmm.. a real marathon. my eyes might pop before the series ends.
for trendy dramas, im too old for that s@#$.
oh! Jin 2 this year right? i have a feeling that this will be a good year for dramas.
That's a very nice resolution indeed. My friend gave me a copy of Joseon X Files, so it's on my watch list, unfortunately, I didn't get to watch anything over the holidays.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ueno Juri's drama, I guess, we'll just have to wait and see. The quality of taiga dramas also vary from year to year, it also depends on the character's that depicted and his/her supposed impact in history.
I think I might actually share your dislike for trendy dramas... I don't know if old age is getting to me, but I find them hard to watch lately. :(
HAPPY NEAR YEAR!~ Have you check out the list of upcoming Japanese winter dramas?
ReplyDeletewell for one reason, it's ueno juri. haha.. will watch for eye candy and if someone is willing to sub on it. i think ryomaden is not finished yet and subbing that taiga alone, as far as i can see, takes a lot of work.
ReplyDeletei think the age as well as our maturity(?) made us think that these trendies are such full of crap. but i think if there is a good trendy like love shuffle kind of drama in 2011 that might surprise me, thats a hail mary.
happy new year, zooey! kanpai! (so you rung in 2011 with your family, watching movies? way kewl. i spent it with mine too... lighting firecrackers in the driveway and then running away screaming, lol)
ReplyDeletethat said, i love your blog resolutions! especially the ones i have no intention of keeping! lolz.
i also have a few mid-length sageuk that i bumped up my to-watch list, although a 70-ep taiga still ain't my cuppa, y'know.
"sit though an entire JE concert" - bwahahahaha! i think i know what that was! i still go LULZ! whenever i remember your *horrified* comments via SMS hahaha. as for moi, all i can say is... MOAR!!! MOAR!!! XD
@ chukuma - hullo! XD if i may worm in, the only winter jdorama i plan to watch so far is the one starring miura and toda erika... although it'll prolly be all crap and misery anyway. oh, and ninkyo helper SP (oh JOY! JOY!!!). then there's JIN season 2 come spring. how 'bout you? =D
@ jt - i heard good stuff about joseon x files, too, and i look forward to watching it. after i see SKKS and tamra the island, that is. =D but, yeah, JIN 2 WOOHOO!!!!!! (if they STILL don't resolve that thing with creepus the plastic fetus and the time traveller dude by the end of season 2, i will personally go over and dunk the director/writer/producer in a giant tub of formalin.)
@ender's girl - reading your new year experience seems fun. as for me and my bro were smoking outside the house as we watch the little girls playing with sparklers.
ReplyDeletei read it somewhere that jin 2 will be the last and no more movie attempts or a season 3 will happen. which i think will jump the ratings more than the previous season. but, im not sure with that. if they tend to drag the story.. contact me so i will join yah to put those fellas in the tub with formalin.
i just want to say that the taiga this year with Ueno Juri will have 49 episodes only or maybe less if the ratings are low and i think the males in japan will help raise the ratings.
@ chukuma - Haven't really decided what winter dorama to follow this season but I've gone over the ones you listed on your blog and kept notes on which ones to look out for in order to at least catch the first few episodes when they come out. I'm not so sure about the Miura x Erika drama... I've got this bad feeling it's gonna be this weepy/sappy venture. Hope I'm wrong in this. Besides, what kind of "affair" would Miura have with a student, anyway? I'm gonna be pissed if they just end up holding hands but then again I might not be ready to see the kid bed someone either.
ReplyDelete@ jt - Don't worry, the taigas of late have been full of eye candy. Whether there's a male or female lead, rest assured that there's going to be eye candy for EVERYBODY.
The last sageuk I saw was Queen Seonduk, haven't checked out Mister X's recent subs, but for as long as they're not the trying-hard-highfalutin kind, I might check it out.
Right now, I'm kinda hooked on Flames of Ambition. Giant also just went into my list of things to watch and now I don't know if I'll ever get to cover anything new this year. As for trendies, I'm still stuck in the middle of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, haven't picked up the thing in over a month. It just reminded me of too many other dramas I've seen. I even dropped "My Girlfriend is a Gumiho" when I'm 3 episodes shy of the ending. I really have an issue with trendies.
@ E.G. - We kinda have a no-firecracker policy at home so we basically just kill time till 12 and then if one feels like it, just go out and watch the fireworks display in the neighborhood.
Best of luck with Jin 2... I don't want to raise my expectations so I won't speculate on how they'll move things along. Part of me though is kinda hoping it would bomb now if only to see how you and jt will go about dunking people in a tub of formalin. haha!
Happy New Year zooey!!!!! Nice spending quality time with the fam bonding over film, esp a romance, that's amazing! I couldn't get my family members to watch a romance with me no matter how much money I paid them, even my Mum has an aversion to them lol I think we ended up watching the soccer & then Rush Hour 2- that was good enough for me :)
ReplyDeleteHope you fulfill your resolutions to your heart's content! I'm keen on seeing Nino in Gantz, but as much as I love him I have to admit it's more Matsuyama Kenichi that I would be watching it for *polishes Arashi CD collection*
Although I'm not a teeny bopper anymore, I am still unfortunately every now & then in the mood for a trendy drama. But it has to be GOOD ^^ And hells yes to what you said about Kimura, Kame, Shuny & Miura playing whacked out characters >< I can't believe someone in this universe is allowing this to happen! (Shun is on his last straw, the others still have a couple more strikes...) Hmm, if I make it my resolution too, maybe the madness will stop...
@zooey - i finished queen seon duk thinking that it was great only to find out it was boring in the end. but it's not the ending(last 20 episodes i think) that matters but as the story goes on.
ReplyDeleteflames of ambition has good reviews. they said it was the supporting cast made it worth it. as soon as i have access, i'll definitely watch it. for now, i can only read mails and blogs. i watched episode one of Giant and dropped it because the older version of the lead actor looks fake to me. i think i need to watch it again, but with korean dramas failing to appeal me, i should stick to jdramas and USTV. hopefully, the new saeguk that mrX is subbing now will be much entertaining.
i did watch one episode of my gf is a gumiho. i then realized that i should stop watching it because i kept murmuring the whole time instead of laughing. i hope that the Hong sisters would try to make stories for older peeps as it is two years now running that they are making childish stories. i guess it's the idol effect in korea. i apologise for the fans. i do like kpop and the female idols, but it depresses me as they are trying too much that they loose the quality of the story.
as for Jin 2, there will be no Jin 3 or Movie because the ending of Jin 2 *spoiler alert!*, wait for it... will be me and EG dunking the cast in a formalin.
@ jicks - Although I'm about a week late, happy new year to you, too! Well, technically my Dad just sat down and dozed off... but hey, I reckon it still counts as quality time with the family.
ReplyDeleteI'm also looking forward to watching Gantz, not so much because of Nino and MatsuKen (okay, so maybe that's a HUGE part of it), but because I'm interested in seeing how well they would adapt such a crazy-out-of-this-world manga to the big screen.
I also find it funny how Nino's headlining a blockbuster movie but considering how the main character in the manga is also short, awkward and yet somehow arrogant and sarcastic, I don't think it would be quite a stretch for him. Heck, for all we know, it was tailor-made for him. And the suits! They're fighting aliens, running around the metro, in tight, black suits! That alone should be funny. For all we know, the movie could suck big time but for sure, it's gonna be one hell of a ride. :D
(Shun is on his last straw, the others still have a couple more strikes...)
Awww, poor Shun. Let's hope he gets to do something better this year. Redemption might just be around the corner...maybe.
@ jt - Was disappointed with Queen Seonduk because of the way the story progressed. I wasn't really that impressed with the plot because I already expected it to have the usual stuff you find in sageuks--secret birth, power struggle, betrayal by loved one, etc.--but the way it was written made it too predictable and prone to cliche that by the time I reached episode 40 I was about ready forget about the whole thing. What really pissed me off though was that I expected to watch a series about a queen and not about Mishil's illegitimate offspring who made a play for the throne out of love *blech*. I also didn't like how it ended on such a negative note, it kinda defeated the purpose of the first half of the series.
As for Flames of Ambition, forget about Seo Woo and Yoo Seung Ho, I kinda think of them as supporting characters, this series belongs to Shin Eun Kyung. Call me crazy, but so far, the series isn't so much about the young lovers but more about which of the siblings will take control of the family fortune.
I'm sorry to hear that the lead actor of Giant turned out to be less than convincing. I'll still check it out though since I kinda like Lee Beom Soo... he does have a tendency to overact and try too hard, but I can't really blame him since he has to compete with a younger and more good looking batch of actors. Still find it refreshing that he gets to play the lead, as you may already know, the guy isn't exactly your typical male lead.
@zooey - nah.. is there anything interesting other than what you describe from saeguks? im tired of the same shizzle every year and still have good ratings in korea. i prefer taiga because it is close to historical events plus there's a travelogue after it that made me all convinced.
ReplyDeletei thought shin eun kyung is the supporting actress? i think she brought the show as what the other bloggers say. is Seo Woo still has that irritating voice again?
Lee Beom Soo has the most fake make up for the old guy i guess. i havent seen him acting other than the Movie More Than Blue.
is there anything interesting other than what you describe from saeguks?
ReplyDeleteI know that these things have to be part of every saeguk but would it really be too much to ask for a lead character not to harbor a secret birth? Or a lead actress who can act for that matter? Would it not be possible not to come up with a strategy or a political maneuver that's so elementary that even a 10 year old can guess what's coming? What's worse is that they spread a story over a span of 3-5 episodes... and of course, don't get me started with the amount of flashbacks they cram in every episode.
Sa taigas, bihira lang din ata ang accurate talaga, except for the travelogue that they have. The only consolation is that it's not as formulaic as sageuks.
what you had just described is a typical filipino drama. haha.. MrX is subbing King Geuncho, pero 70 episodes. Next year pa matapos yan. haha.. MrX might not sub a jdrama this year i guess.
ReplyDeleteHaha, pwede...minus the political maneuvers. :P
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I think we do have better actresses than actors on primetime tv.
You know, I think the Anarchist might be able to squeeze in at least one jdorama this year after subbing Flames of Ambition.
agree with you on the acting side sa pinas. maybe with the bad scriptwriting sa pinas, bawi nalng sa acting.
ReplyDelete