Wild Romance? Where? Did I Miss It?

Last weekend I decided to finally finish watching Wild Romance after many, many months of it being on my on hold list.  The drama originally aired between January and February of 2012, I watched the first episode probably sometime in March of last year and then promptly dropped it.  I hated the first episode.  I hated the characters, I wanted to bitch slap them so hard they would see cartoon birds circling their heads.  Last weekend, I was in the mood to give second chances so I decided to watch Wild Romance from beginning to end, damn it I was going to finish it no matter how many alcoholic drinks it took, the vodka did help by the way.
The drama stars Lee Dong Wook as Park Mu Yeol, a famous baseball player, and Lee Si Young, as Yoo Eun Jae, his spunky female bodyguard.

If only they looked this good in the drama...sigh.

The drama starts off with our two leads meeting in a karaoke bar and getting into a drunken scuffle since Eun Jae is a diehard fan of the rival baseball team.  This being dramaland it leads to her becoming his bodyguard to protect his image and her job.  They instantly hate each other, and I can see why because I hate them too. It seems that Mu Yeol is being stalked and that is the cover that they use for her becoming his bodyguard.  The first half of the drama they spend sniping at each other and making funny faces as they try to go about their daily lives.  She slowly warms up to him realizing that she has feelings for him that move beyond disgust, and just when you think that maybe this drama will be good in walks the crazy ex-girlfriend.
She is literally crazy something about her being bipolar and prone to go into catatonic stages.  She comes in to add a wrench to our main couple's pursuit of happily ever after.  It really pissed me off that our lead male has more kissing scenes and make out scenes with the crazy ex than he did with the main lead.  For an episode there I thought the drama was going to really surprise me and he was going to work it out with the ex and they would have the happily ever after.  Maybe that would have been more enjoyable.
The last fifth of the drama finally comes back around to the stalking plot, and it was meh.  It seemed to much like they were trying to turn what should have been an entertaining rom-com into a thriller complete with murder, psycho best friend, and bat shit crazy housekeeper.  I didn't buy it and only mildly entertained.  I knew from almost the start that the housekeeper was the stalker; she was just plain weird and overly hovering.
The only reason I didn't drop this drama a second time was because of the hilarious side couple of Manager Kim and Kim Dong Ah.  These two had more chemistry than the lead couple and more ahhh moments also.  They were wonderful.  From her asking about his fantasies and offering to watch porn with him to him losing his robot facade to defend her against the psycho bad guy.  I just loved them.  I want to see them in a drama again with more airtime.

 

 

Flower Boy Next Door Series Review

  I adored this drama.  I thought it was so cute and it never failed to make me smile.  It is the Seinfeld of rom-coms.  Nothing really happened, there were no evil mothers, long lost loves coming back, nor amnesia,  and yet the characters were able to grow and develop and become complete and beautiful people at the end.  Having given myself a week so as to not gush all over this drama, I can honestly say that I still feel like gushing.  From beginning to end it was one of my favorite dramas, it might even replace one of my top four or maybe I’ll just bend to the masses and make it a top five.  Now, I’m not blind to the shortcomings of the drama, but I loved this drama so much I am able to gloss over the shortcomings like the ones I talk about here, and the lack of romantic scenes.  Now the lack of romantic scenes is one of my personal gripes with kdramas but I’ll leave that for another post.
    For those who haven’t watched, you could go do that now, or for those who haven’t made it to the finale, I must warn you there will be spoilers.
  The drama starts with what I think is one of the cutest openings I’ve seen.  We see our main female lead Go Dok Mi waking up from where she had been asleep in a sleeping bag on the floor and then we see her spy on her neighbor across the way and imitate his daily routine in a completely cute, stalkery, creepy way.

  Go Dok Mi is a modern day Rapunzel, she, however, is locked up in her tower by choice.  She doesn't like to venture out into the outside world and wants to have a little interaction with others as humanly possible.  Her little world is her apartment, the travel shows she watches on t.v., and the neighbor she spies on with her funky yellow binoculars.  This little world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of our male lead Enrique Geum.

Enrique is a game designer who is ruled by his inner child.  He's as happy go lucky as it comes, talking a mile a minute, always smiling, and enjoying life or the polar opposite of Go Dok Mi.  He arrives from Spain to play "cupid," and along the way he stumbles upon Dok Mi and decides that it is his responsibility to make sure she goes out and starts experiencing the real world.  He may not have sequestered himself inside an apartment, but Enrique is just as lonely as Dok Mi except he hides it under a layer of laughter and words.
The third side of our love triangle is Jin Rak.  I have to admit that at first I wanted Dok Mi to end up with him because they are so similar, but as time went by I realized that with Jin Rak Dok Mi would never grow as a person.  Where Enrique wants Dok Mi to go out and experience the real world, Jin Rak is content to have her continue to live in her own world; he just wants to be able to step into it with her.  Which seems ahhh, how romantic, but really is just fear that holds him back and would hold her back as well.

 I truthfully really did enjoy this drama I didn't fast forward through any of if which is nothing short of miraculous.  I think the whole drama had a very mellow feel to it.  It wasn't exciting or edge of your seat worry about what would happen next, and to me that was the beauty of it.  I didn't have to worry about a big misunderstanding breaking up the main couple because believe it or not these characters actually talked to each other.  There were no ungrounded accusations flying, no crying over hurt feelings and refusing to communicate clearly people said what they were thinking and what they felt, with the exception of Do Hwi, and that was a breath of fresh air.  
This drama was extremely entertaining, as I've come to expect from TVN.  It was heartfelt with well rounded characters that drove the story forward without the contrived issues  that other dramas throw at their main couple.  
And most importantly, this drama provided the mostly entertaining secondary pairing ever.

And the main couple wasn't so bad either.

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Flower Boy Next Door - The Most Perfect Imperfect Drama - The Bad

*************SPOILERS***************

*Disclaimer: My view of this drama may be slightly skewed due to my long standing infatuation with Park Shin Hye and my new found gay girl crush on Yoon Shi Yoon.

They're adorable, right??

    A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I love all dramas equally, well that was all right lie because truth be told I love Flower Boy Next Door(FBND) more than all the rest.  At the time I wrote that post, this one, I already had twinges of favoritism toward FBND, but I tried to ignore it because I was afraid of being disappointed.  But now that the drama is over, I can honestly say that I was not disappointed and I enjoyed every single one of the sixteen episodes.  They each added to the overall drama and showcased the growth of the characters.  Now, I’m not say that this was the perfect drama, came close though, but it was a damn good one.  

There being no such thing as perfect FBND did have a couple of flaws.  Such as Do Hwi, the whole issue with who the owner of the building was, and the stalker panda hat girl/fanclub losers.

I never really gave a rat's ass about the whole building issue or who the owner was.  I must admit that I kinda thought it was the security guard because he was just a little too involved in the what happened in the building with the demonstration and what not.  I think I would have preferred if they fleshed out the relationship between the security guard and the older lady rather than spend any time with the mystery of the owner.

Although, I do see the importance of having Do Hwi as a character, she is the key to explaining why Dok Mi hides herself away, I think the last we should of seen of her is when she tried to hurt Dok Mi by inviting the scumbag teacher to her party.  Since then she's just been wasting airtime that could have been taken up by one of my favorite side characters, Kim Seul-gi the webtoon editor.

The other waste of time and space was the whole panda hat girl stalker, fan club idiots.  They truly served no purpose other than to give me a minute to go refill my water bottle.  They just were not needed.  I was kinda okay with the older stalker lady mostly because that developed into something that kinda sorta dealt with Enrique's work the game addiction angle, but the panda hat girl should have maybe had one appearance and that is stretching it.  It was just not needed.  Dok Mi had enough issues with Enrique leaving or even being able to ask him to stay without added the outside interference. 

Flower Boy Next Door Episode 1 in Pictures

Reply 1997(2012)

    I like to watch dramas after they finished airing so that I can marathon them from start to finish in a couple of days or sometimes even one.  Reply 1997 ended its run on TvN in September of 2012 and since then I have started it and turned it off within the first fifteen minutes on numerous occasions, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, while Lambo was taking his morning nap and again and again I tried to watch it but there was something about it that didn’t appeal to me so I would stop it put it back on my plan to watch list and pick something else.  About a week ago I started it again,  and maybe this time I was ready to watch it because I made it through the first twenty minutes and two days later I had watched the entire thing wondering why I had put if off for so long.    This drama blew me away.  It is unlike anything else I have ever watched, kudos to TvN for showcasing interesting dramas that are oh so good and different.  Please be advised there will be spoilers.

The drama opens in the present where a group of friends have gathered for their high school reunion.  The voice over lets us know that it has been 15 years since their high school years and that at this reunion one of the couples would be announcing their upcoming marriage.  The story about this group of six friends is told through a series of flashbacks that take the viewer back to 1997 the year of boy bands and dial-up modems.  It is through these flashbacks that we see these young men and women stumble their way through the end of their childhood and into adulthood. 
    I’ve never been one to like anything told in flashbacks mostly because I lack patience.  If we are already in the present just fucking tell me what’s going on quickly, there is really no need to take me to the long last past really just a quick synopsis and away we go.  With Reply 1997, I didn’t mind the constant traveling back in time, in fact, I loved it.  I loved absolutely everything about this drama.  I loved the friendship between the characters, first loves, first heartbreak everything was handled so beautifully in this drama that at times it took my breath away.
    The main character is Sung Shi Won, played extremely well by Jung Eun-ji.  ShiWon is a total fangirl of ‘90s kpop group H.O.T.  She stakes out the singer’s home just to be able to catch a glimpse of him, she camps out with other fans in front of a record store just to be able to be one of the first to get their new album which she of course pre-ordered, her walls are plastered with their posters and when her father rips them from her wall in a fit of rage her whole world is on the brink of ending.

I’m not going to delve into the plot of the drama just going to say that you need to watch it.  It’s a kdrama so you know who it’s going to end but the journey that this group of friends take is beautiful to watch.
    Now, personally the best and most heartbreaking part of this drama is Hoya’s character Kang Joon-hee.  Joon Hee is the male lead’s best friend and he is also in love with his best friend.  You see his heart break bit by bit as he tries not to let his feelings affect his friendship.  As someone who during high school constantly questioned my sexuality and had to keep feelings and preferences bottled in, watching Joon Hee struggle through the minefield that is high school made my breath catch.  Watching him loving someone he knew very well he would never be able to have, made my heart ache for him.  Truth be told, I really wanted Joon Hee to have his happy ending with his first love. That would have made a good drama perfect.