Friday, March 22, 2013

Korean Peninsula Dirty Talk - 'IRIS2' Edition



Because Twitter. This conversation was born when Yours Truly, the lovely Jeelisa and the foxy JoAnne started discussing 'IRIS2' pairings. Jeelisa was kind enough to lead the discussion to the eye-sex couple of Joong Won (Lee Beom Soo) and Choi Min (Oh Yeon Soo).

To those who don't know of the series, one is a North Korean terrorist threatening the South with missiles and the lady is the South's secret service deputy director. They hold private meetings where they negotiate the situation and their chemistry as enemies is quite the sight. Hence, eye-sex.

Since the pairing is popular, we were kind enough and lend a hand to their job.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

'IRIS 2' - Midpoint Review

IRIS2 Logo


If you had an at least semi-functional childhood, you'll have experienced twirling around yourself a few times. It's a special feeling. The world is spinning around you, you're thrilled, dizzy and then you fall on your ass. It hurts and you feel like you're gonna puke. You're thinking "Oh God, I'm dying... This can't be healthy and I'm never doing it again". You get up, shake it off... and do it again.

This is kind of how I'm experiencing 'IRIS 2' so far. I like watching it. I do. Despite many problems and plot points that make you want to rip your hair out in anger, I keep watching. After the disappointment I call 'IRIS', maybe my expectations were so low that I'm just enjoying this due to desensitization. Also, I have fun by simply not taking it too seriously. It spins me around, makes me sick, but keeps me excited. I know it's bad for me and generally bad and yet there I am, twirling again. Why? Because I am creating my own fun.

And this is the problem with 'IRIS 2'. It's not trying to be good. It's not good. Any fun I am having is because of the characters and cast members I like and choose to focus on and the way I watch the series. With friends, commenting on Twitter and Soompi. Here I am, putting in effort to watch it and it is not even trying.

This may or may not become the final review, but let's look at how I feel so far.

Obviously, here be SPOILERS!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Dramafan Scorned


I think the word above is perfect for describing this recent situation. For those of you not living under a cave, like most dramafans do (we love it in there), here is a little summary of the situation. Popular Korean film and drama entertainment blog 'Dramabeans' had been doing recaps for 'Level 7 Civil Servant', until they received a DMCA takedown notice from none other than 'Dramafever'; an online streaming site for Canada and the US which provides subtitled videos for Korean dramas. According to 'Dramafever', they own the license to air the show in the US and the screencaps 'Dramabeans' add to their recaps are therefore copyright infringement.

The girls who own 'Dramabeans' being less than willing to get smacked around by corporate bullying went ahead and removed all of their images from the recaps, let everyone know about it in this post and even apologized for the removal to visitors. And that is when the feces met with the revolving blades of the cooling apparatus.

'Dramabeans' users and dramafans around the globe unleashed a wave of ruthless, brutally honest and enraged comments, tweets, messages on social platforms, 'Dramabeans' and 'Dramafever'. Within a few hours, 'Dramafever' issued this post, claiming this was a third party mess-up and buttering up the angry netizens and Dramabeans alike, saying it will be taken care of and that the notice is not valid. As you can see by the majority of comments, ranging from "this is your last chance" to "F*** you, you f****** bullies! Stop bullsh****** us!", netizens did not buy it.

It seems 'Dramafever' has done this before and is the reason why a lot of streaming sites and blogs have disappeared off the internet in the past few years. There are a few topics of interest I'd like to mention about this whole mess.

Friday, March 1, 2013

'The Virus' Not-Really-Vs 'End of the World'

Virus and End


As I mentioned a while back in my first videogame post (I should pick those up again), I love apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic settings. I love the exploration of what happens to people, rules, morality when the world seems to be going, or has long gone, to the crapper.

The two new Korean dramas I mention in the title are tapping into that interest and are therefore on my radar. Both 'The Virus' and 'End of the World' are about a mysterious disease outbreak and the people who need to fight it. While we don't know if the world really will end or even suffer a big blow, this is very interesting.

For one thing, Korea has issues with sci-fi and Kdrama, especially, has issues with pushing the boundaries and trying different genres. If these two touch upon science-fiction or are at least something we've never seen before and if they do well, even a little, it will hopefully be a very big nudge for the industry to realize breaking the mold can be good.

So here come descriptions, a couple of stills and videos, as well as my take on both series and explanation for the "Not-Really-Vs" part in the title.

 
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