Someone said to me on Formspring that they noticed I’ve been reblogging a lot of Exo on Tumblr, and if that means I’m “back” into K-pop. I guess you can say that based on my K-pop activity as of late. I started watching dramas religiously mid-2009-ish onwards and while I still knew what happened to groups, I didn’t follow anyone intensely and then my energy for K-pop seriously took a hit in 2010 when 1) the dramas got even better and 2) DBSK split.

It’s May and maybe there will be an upswing of things in the second part of the year, but 2012 has been extremely disappointing in terms of drama quality and output. This seems to be the year of cable, which offers a healthy number of alternatives, but that’s not enough to take away the extremely bad taste that MBC, KBS, and SBS have left in my mouth thus far. It’s drama after drama of mediocrity and sometimes it’s even dipping into feces territory -_-

So there are a ton of dramas in the horizon that are in the midst of production, or at the very least, have casts and I thought I’d weigh in on what I think of them before they premiere.

…And guess what? The rest of 2012 ain’t looking too hot either. With that little to work with, reblogging awkward screencaps of half-blinking Kris and Hangeng occupying the same space, gifs of Kyungsoo choking on water, etc. seem necessary.

COME ON DRAMA GODS, THROW ME A BONE HERE.

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Well, this ended up being an easy write -_- Being compared to SM and their Exo teaser deluge was an analogy so shameful that it brought you the final edits to this post, something I’ve struggled to write for two months. I don’t even know why it was that hard to write, but finally finishing feels like a writing weight has been lifted off my shoulders…

Out of 100 points, I would give Tree With Deep Roots a 90, which is the highest I’ve ever rated a drama. I’m such a Tiger Mom.

Tree isn’t perfect — in fact, there are some huge glaring flaws about it too — but it was nothing short of an explosion as a drama. It really stirred me as a history student and gave me more food for the brain than any other drama has. More importantly, it gave me a craving to learn more, and an obsessiveness in using what I learn to apply to other realms of Asian culture, which I think is the ultimate mark of successful storytelling.

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It’s bad if my favorite scene in the last four episodes is this one, right?

So, it took me quicker to fall out of love with this show than it did for me to fall in love. Last time I wrote about Moon, I didn’t feel that I was being entirely fair because we had only gotten into the meat of the adult story for three episodes and thus maybe I was speaking negatively too early, but now that we’re done with 12 episodes, I’m afraid my hesitation and disappointment have settled in and solidified. I’m praying that they don’t extend this drama another 4 episodes, because I’m too close to checking out as it is.

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Where do I even start with Tree With Deep Roots? There’s so much I want to say, but this first part is dedicated solely to the aesthetic value that Tree provided, which I think is unrivaled with any other drama I’ve seen in terms of production value and sheer ambitiousness of artistic vision: set design, costume design, music direction, cinematography. Everything was lush and inspiring, from start to finish, and the fact that this was only a drama belies just how meticulously crafted the final product was.

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I find that a general problem with K-dramas that are based solely on romantic relationships and the getting together of two people is that romance alone can’t sustain a story; there has to be other elements. With sageuks in particular, a lot of writers often times feel the need to fill their stories with a certain amount of politics — almost to fulfill a quota — or else, hey, their dramas would just be regular ol’ dramas.

And that’s what I’m starting to feel with The Moon That Embraces the Sun: what the writer of the original source material really want is for King Hwon to mack at it all day with Yeon-woo, but because they can’t, he’s gonna throw in a bunch of plotting ministers and rich nobles taking advantage of The Common Folk so that it feels somewhat historical, and call it a day. I love the relationship between Hwon and Yeon-woo, but I am wary already of how much fluff we’re going to have to sit through in order for the two to get together. It would be fine if the fluff were well-written and well-acted, but it’s not, so I’m gnashing my teeth a bit.

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