a short guide to korean dramas

[kaigou]

hollywood happy ending: everything ends happily, the lovers are reunited, and any damage during the course of the show/movie is miraculously repaired, restored, or otherwise rendered null.

hollywood unhappy ending: main character dies, but everyone else gets a t-shirt and learns to love again.

bollywood-musical happy ending: same as for hollywood, but with spontaneous mass musical sequences. possibly also involving helicopters. and extra dance maneuvers performed while riding camels.

bollywood-musical unhappy ending: unhappiness and bollywood musicals are like matter and anti-matter. it's theoretically possible but would likely cause significant tears in the time-space continuum.

korean happy ending: at least two characters die*. the lovers survive. mostly. except for the dead ones.

korean unhappy ending: everyone dies*.

* alternate option: utter insanity and/or hot pokers stabbed through delicate body parts.

...by k-drama standards, Hamlet isn't a tragedy, it's just a rom-com with a higher body count than average.

Comments

[kaigou]

If we step away from the hyperbole, then just about every culture I can name -- well, make that "any culture anyone can name", really -- probably has some major doozies. I don't think tragedy (or comedy, or any genre) is cultural -- although humor definitely is, especially when you get into situational humor -- but that instead our appetite or tolerance for tragic elements is just part of being human.

My favorite retelling of the Ramayana story is actually Fire -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_%281996_film%29 -- a 1996 film by Deepa Mehta. Unsurprisingly, it caused a furor of controversy in India, but taken in light of other gay-content films I've seen, I think the director speaks with some accuracy when she says it's not a lesbian film, but a film about the choices we make. Placed against that statement, the retelling/remix of the Rama/Sita love story works really well, because it gives Sita (Nita, in the film) the chance to make her own choice/s.

Thing is, my appreciation for musicals just about begins and ends with Porgy and Bess -- any other (American) musical or operetta you can name, I hear four notes and think, man, this is boring. That puts my finger on the fast-forward button during Bollywood productions, but it's not a slam on Bollywood, just a recognition of my tastes when it comes to how music and dance are incorporated into storytelling. The exception might (since it's not a true Bollywood production, in terms of the genre, I'm told) be Monsoon Wedding, which did have song-and-dance but in a very organic and realistic way. With no sudden appearances of camels or helicopters or even lead female protagonists bathing under scenic waterfalls while fully dressed.

Not that I'm against any of the above, it's just... Bollywood is, like a lot of niche-genre filmic cultures, very much an acquired taste.

[(Anonymous)]

I just meant that in the specific category of bollywood = 'lavish, musical spectacle', there are plenty of operatic tragedies. Though I think it is fair to say they are less in fashion now, and don't get nearly the exposure in the US markets as the happy endings.

Re Swades: I just found the musical aeronautical engineer getting compared to Rama to be absolute crack. Having the movie alternate between dance numbers and MacGyver-like engineering solutions hit the geek centers of my brain pretty squarely. Then to top it off, his love interest insists on staying in the boonies to use her degree to help the poor, because that is way more important than some guy. Made me happy, and I highly recommend. S'all.