It's hardly the first reworking of the myth (any more than Disney's the first to redo the Little Mermaid) but I do think the Hong sisters managed to pull off a pretty successfully feminist (or should we say humanist?) version of the story. There are a few points where they stumble -- at least in my eyes, as a Westerner, who probably is layering on slightly higher standards, but then again, maybe not, seeing how most Western entertainment fails against my standards anyway, so maybe that much is personal... uhm. ANYWAY. There are a few points where they stumble, but compared to the other kdramas I've watched and/or are watching, the number of stumbles are remarkably few. And the number of gorgeously wistful or sweet cinematographic touches are pretty high, rivaling HGD, come to think of it.
Okay, put subtitles on the bottom of your post! Hmm... really need to learn the phonetic system, WAIT, what-what, ANOTHER project!? -- do you mean Lee Seung-ki (the primary male lead) or No Min-woo (the secondary male lead, appears at the very end of the first video, and I think -- not sure, but internet rumors say -- is half of the duet singing the second song). Me, I think Lee comes across as a lightweight at first, but by the second episode, I couldn't imagine anyone but him in that role. That's one other thing I do like about the Hong sisters -- in every series I've seen of them, they have a knack for finding actors that don't seem like they'd have the chops for the role, and then whammo, the actors pull it out of somewhere and really surprise you.
I wouldn't say I liked Hye-In, though at times I could see where she was coming from. She was still pretty unlikeable, so it's to the drama's credit that I was willing to see her as redeemable at the end, and I think that's because the Hong sisters' scripts don't condemn characters but leave that kind of in the gaps, if you get what I mean.
(remember: subtitles! oi, I'm still figuring out when that series of sounds means "no" and when a way-too-similar to untrained-ears series of sounds means "hello". aaaauuuughhhh.)
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Date: 23 Nov 2010 04:18 am (UTC)Okay, put subtitles on the bottom of your post! Hmm... really need to learn the phonetic system, WAIT, what-what, ANOTHER project!? -- do you mean Lee Seung-ki (the primary male lead) or No Min-woo (the secondary male lead, appears at the very end of the first video, and I think -- not sure, but internet rumors say -- is half of the duet singing the second song). Me, I think Lee comes across as a lightweight at first, but by the second episode, I couldn't imagine anyone but him in that role. That's one other thing I do like about the Hong sisters -- in every series I've seen of them, they have a knack for finding actors that don't seem like they'd have the chops for the role, and then whammo, the actors pull it out of somewhere and really surprise you.
I wouldn't say I liked Hye-In, though at times I could see where she was coming from. She was still pretty unlikeable, so it's to the drama's credit that I was willing to see her as redeemable at the end, and I think that's because the Hong sisters' scripts don't condemn characters but leave that kind of in the gaps, if you get what I mean.
(remember: subtitles! oi, I'm still figuring out when that series of sounds means "no" and when a way-too-similar to untrained-ears series of sounds means "hello". aaaauuuughhhh.)