It's no Fuyu no Sonata...
Nov. 4th, 2005 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanDaejangeum aka Kuntei Jyokan Changumu aka The Jewel in the Palace has officially eaten my life. (OMG Daejangeum give me my life back I need my life back you can't have it).
For those of you not in the know, Daejangeum is a 60 hour long Korean drama centering on a cook in the Joseon royal court. Or that's the short story. After all, said description encompases 60 life-devouring hours of plot development and Gratuitous Cooking.
So how did I get suckered into all of this, I who despise Asian dorama? It's all thanks to the soundtrack, which I picked up in China solely on the basis of its cool cover art and (from what I could make out of the characters in the Chinese language blurb) the fact that it was apparently some sort of Korean techno.
Well, it wasn't techno at all, but it was damn good. To be sure, it has the requisite 80s AOR power ballad English language love song and a smarmy male tenor on a number of other tracks, but even those can't destroy the all-around goodness of the soundtrack. It's eclectic, cohesive and more importantly, made me want to find out just what the hell it was a soundtrack to, because it was that good. I can't think of any other soundtrack that's made me want to do that.
So anyway, I pulled the dorama up online and discovered that it had been subtitled in English and aired on my local PBS station back in the States. This sent me down to the neighborhood Tsutaya rental franchise, where I located the first four DVDs in the Korean section, and the rest was history.
Daejangeum is, of course an Asian drama, which means it is hokey more often than not with buckets of crocodile tears, over-exaggerated mugging for the camera, heavy-handed 'humorous' moments, copious amounts of bathroom break filler and plot exposition so heavy it'll concuss if you try to watch too much in one sitting. (Think I'm joking? The Major Plot Development of episode 12 is explained four different times in four different scenes over a total of eight consecutive minutes.)
So why do I like it? It's just engaging enough to keep me coming back for more. The production values are leaps and bounds higher than those I've seen in any other dorama, and most other dorama take place in modern times. Daejangeum is set in the Choseon era, and they don't pull out any stops. Think LotR here - on site sets (read: Korean palaces) and everyone from the leads to the extras wearing the colorful, minutely detailed costumes. The lighting is good, the image is crisp, and the story is unique.
True, there's about five or more minutes of food preparation filler in each episode, which I don't really mind because it tends to be integrated into the plot, and because they make the food look sexy. (Which food is, but I just can't take 30 uninterrupted minutes of it, which is why I was never a fan of cooking shows.)
The lead female is pretty remarkable for a dorama too, in that she's earnest (often annoyingly so), but not cloying and cutesy like a lot of dorama female leads tend to be. She's also earnest-looking but not particularly beautiful, which is refreshing.
Of course there are things that grate on the nerves, like the fact that rain only seems to fall directly in front of the camera lens but never on people or objects standing farther back, or the fact that the heroine is apparently biologically incapable of shedding more than a single, photogenic tear from her right eye as she weeps. The Spielberg-esqu linger shots on people's faces in order to make the audience understand that this is a Tense/Happy/Upsetting/Terrifying Moment are also overdone, but most Western fare isn't any better in that regard these days.
The non-CD soundtrack is consistently good as well, although it rather inexplicably features a lot of Irish music. No, really. (Don't believe me? Check out episode 13.) I only wish NHK hadn't overhauled the original credits when they dubbed/subtitled the show into Japanese. I would have liked to have known what Irish group was responsible for the tracks and so I could go purchase their CD.
So yeah. I'm about halfway through with this bastard. I might have more to say onceit gives me my life back I'm finished watching.
That will be all.
For those of you not in the know, Daejangeum is a 60 hour long Korean drama centering on a cook in the Joseon royal court. Or that's the short story. After all, said description encompases 60 life-devouring hours of plot development and Gratuitous Cooking.
So how did I get suckered into all of this, I who despise Asian dorama? It's all thanks to the soundtrack, which I picked up in China solely on the basis of its cool cover art and (from what I could make out of the characters in the Chinese language blurb) the fact that it was apparently some sort of Korean techno.
Well, it wasn't techno at all, but it was damn good. To be sure, it has the requisite 80s AOR power ballad English language love song and a smarmy male tenor on a number of other tracks, but even those can't destroy the all-around goodness of the soundtrack. It's eclectic, cohesive and more importantly, made me want to find out just what the hell it was a soundtrack to, because it was that good. I can't think of any other soundtrack that's made me want to do that.
So anyway, I pulled the dorama up online and discovered that it had been subtitled in English and aired on my local PBS station back in the States. This sent me down to the neighborhood Tsutaya rental franchise, where I located the first four DVDs in the Korean section, and the rest was history.
Daejangeum is, of course an Asian drama, which means it is hokey more often than not with buckets of crocodile tears, over-exaggerated mugging for the camera, heavy-handed 'humorous' moments, copious amounts of bathroom break filler and plot exposition so heavy it'll concuss if you try to watch too much in one sitting. (Think I'm joking? The Major Plot Development of episode 12 is explained four different times in four different scenes over a total of eight consecutive minutes.)
So why do I like it? It's just engaging enough to keep me coming back for more. The production values are leaps and bounds higher than those I've seen in any other dorama, and most other dorama take place in modern times. Daejangeum is set in the Choseon era, and they don't pull out any stops. Think LotR here - on site sets (read: Korean palaces) and everyone from the leads to the extras wearing the colorful, minutely detailed costumes. The lighting is good, the image is crisp, and the story is unique.
True, there's about five or more minutes of food preparation filler in each episode, which I don't really mind because it tends to be integrated into the plot, and because they make the food look sexy. (Which food is, but I just can't take 30 uninterrupted minutes of it, which is why I was never a fan of cooking shows.)
The lead female is pretty remarkable for a dorama too, in that she's earnest (often annoyingly so), but not cloying and cutesy like a lot of dorama female leads tend to be. She's also earnest-looking but not particularly beautiful, which is refreshing.
Of course there are things that grate on the nerves, like the fact that rain only seems to fall directly in front of the camera lens but never on people or objects standing farther back, or the fact that the heroine is apparently biologically incapable of shedding more than a single, photogenic tear from her right eye as she weeps. The Spielberg-esqu linger shots on people's faces in order to make the audience understand that this is a Tense/Happy/Upsetting/Terrifying Moment are also overdone, but most Western fare isn't any better in that regard these days.
The non-CD soundtrack is consistently good as well, although it rather inexplicably features a lot of Irish music. No, really. (Don't believe me? Check out episode 13.) I only wish NHK hadn't overhauled the original credits when they dubbed/subtitled the show into Japanese. I would have liked to have known what Irish group was responsible for the tracks and so I could go purchase their CD.
So yeah. I'm about halfway through with this bastard. I might have more to say once
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2005-11-04 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-04 07:51 pm (UTC)the interminableWinter Sonata!! (but is there a drinking game with it???)