Thoughts and Feelings: How do I start my K-drama obsession?

Salam and hi everyone!

I have received a lot of questions that asking me when and how I started my K-drama adventure *ehem*  obsession. To be honest, I started way back in 2002. When Winter Sonata  been a hot, ache and addictive drama. I was 14 at that time, and my point of view was never been taken care of. The one who dragged me to this K-drama world was my mother. She was soooooo obsess with Kang Jun Sang and Yoo Jin and the fact that the drama was very different from Malay drama, we are absolutely enjoying it. I also have a pleasant introduction from TW-drama, Meteor Garden at this time. 

Credit: wikipedia

So, recently I watching Winter Sonata  again just to remind me how nostalgic it was. Oh boy! The charm was never faded! I am drowned into the emotion and felt so much memory with the drama. Back in the days, we do not have online streaming. So my mother bought a bunch of CD sets with various K-dramas. Sometimes we watched together, but most of the time I like to watch alone. Because I tend to cry and so much love for melodrama, so it best when I watch it alone. The OST caught my attention so effectively that, I found myself digging the OST album in music store.

Getting older, and entering college (2005-2008), the K-drama waves seems infested my student life. Not only that, most of the student in my college willingly stay up at night to do an assignment  to watch K-drama. At this time, my genre changed to romantic comedy (rom-com). From Full House, My lovely Kim Sam Soon, My Girl, Coffee Prince, to Goong. You name it! The obsession game is soooo strong during this year and lead me to buy/borrowed K-drama CD sets illegally, watch on my laptop and burn to my very own CD. However, my grades were never affected. *wink*. The OST was downloadable, and I save it my laptop player and play it every time I'm working on my assignment. I started to watch Jdorama as well and very hooked to HanaKimi series. The drama left me with strong post-drama withdrawal and luckily they produced the special few years later. 

From left: Coffee prince, Goong, Full House, My Girl, My Lovely Kim Sam Soon, Hana Kimi

As soon as I entering university (2009-2011). The circle of people who watching K-drama is getting wider. I'm using my ACER laptop for 3 years, and sometimes it started to behave strangely whenever I putting my CD in. It's either does not want to read or the CD scratch. In order to limit the space of CD storage, I bought 1 TB external drive. I found it more convenient than CD, because I don't have to change CD from time to time, I can just select from the external. The number of K-drama massively increase and I started to obsess with Jdorama too. I started collecting numbers of drama by simply save it in my external when I borrowed from a friend. Some of the drama still remain in my external, and some of them were deleted if I found it not rewatchable in the future. During this time, the obsession was taken to a new level, by reading recaps, review, KPOP and info about the cast outside from the set. 

After 14 years of obsession, I NEVER getting tired! The game is too strong. I manage to be live-recapper at Soompi even though my Korean was lacking. *Ha* I found the K-dramas was improving a lot and I enjoy it as much as other K-drama junkie. I'm not going to lie. There are some dramas that left me with bitter, bitter sweet experiences and that's when recaps and review come in handy. I trust DRAMABEANS especially Javabeans opinion and point of view because she has similar taste in judging K-drama.

2016 has offered toooo many watchable dramas and I caught between them. I was so excited to continue my adventure in the future with lots of promising drama and cast. See ya!

Do email me for any inquiries: nurulsyahirahazmi87@gmail.com

Leave a comment will ya? :)

Thoughts and Feelings: Cheese in the Trap (K-Drama)

Salam and Hi!

It's been a while since my last post. I have a lottt to catch up and I'm gonna start with this post. Recently, I've just happened to watch very hype and controversial drama : Cheese in the trap. I know, I was very outdated. And the reason I started to watch the drama is because this month is full packed with a lot of interesting drama from Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, Scarlet Heart: Goryeo, W,  and Cinderella and the Four Knights. Since I thought waiting for new episodes was like a torture to me, so I went to KissAsian to look for more drama to satisfy my craves. 

From Itazura Kiss: Love in Tokyo to Kindaichi  and suddenly I stumbled upon this drama. I read about the controversies wrapping around the drama, from so many parties gave their statements before I started to watch the drama. The drama was an adaptation from webtoon with the same title. You can go here to read the webtoon series in English. I will conclude my thoughts at the end of this post.

To start with, I'm not a fan of any cast that working with the drama and the only actor I know is Park Hae Jin from Family Outing andddd I didn't favor him on that show. If you are like me, read the synopsis below from Wikipedia to understand better.

The drama focuses on the life and relationships of a group of university students, particularly the difficult relationship between Hong Seol (Kim Go-eun) and her senior Yoo Jung (Park Hae-jin).

Jung is the rich heir to Taerang Group and seemingly has the perfect life, but also displays psychopathic tendencies, which causes Seol to take time off school to get away from him. When she returns through a scholarship that was intended for Jung, he is unexpectedly nice to her and asks her on a date. They begin an awkward relationship which is further complicated by the arrival of Baek In-ho and his sister Baek In-ha, childhood friends of Jung who were both adopted into his family after running away from their abusive aunt as children.

                                                            Credit to dramafever

The show starts with giddy, charming, suspense, love and hate. I like it so much at the beginning and love it till the end despite people hating the ending. I like that all the cast did such an amazing job to portray their characters so well. Job well done! From Min Soo, Kang Chul sunbae to Oh Young Gon. The drama is very complex and to understand it better, I have to read the webtoon series to dig what actually happened in Jung past. This is what upsets Park Hae Jin  because the drama does not do justice to his characters. I truly understand his disappointment because I also wondering the same, why Jung did this and that in order to protect Seol. 

Jung is dark, smart and protective. I like him compared to In-Ho. But I didn't approve what he did is right. He solves thing with his own way by manipulating others to take revenge or 'correcting situation' but can't fool Seol. It just that, when things get tangled up, he regrets what he did in order to protect Seol. People wondering if Jung is psycho, maybe? he has tendencies to be one, but he has never go overboard by hurting people but people who keep upsetting him with their jerk behaviour. 

Seol is a very lovable and real character and I like the fact that Kim Go Eun was cast for this character even though she does not look like Seol in the webtoon. Sometimes I felt that the actors are dating outside of the drama, because the chemistry was real. More than that, most of the scene in the college made me swooning especially when they start to date. 

Baek In-Ho is one of the most memorable characters. He is one of the reasons people going brouhaha about. People get angry because too much In-Ho cantabile that I also thought it was not necessary. But I like him, he is so straight forward and helpful. 

Baek In-Ha. Ha. One of my favorite character and cast! She is loud but funny. Money is the one that drives her nuts! She is ok, as long as all her needs been fulfilled. But, beware once her wish does not granted, she hunts you down!

                                             Credit to http://cheeseinthetrapfans.tumblr.com/

Overall this is my thoughts. I personally didn't hate the ending. I found it appropriate and parallel with the plot from episode 11-14. As we have been diverted from the main plot in the webtoon, so I think this is acceptable. Imagine that, how many time does Seol been admitted because of Jung? (directly and indirectly) so Jung decided to take sometimes off from their relationship to understand people and himself better. Moreover, the webtoon hasn't finished yet so to conclude the drama early was not a good move.  According to a source, the author of the webtoon Soonki, does not want the same ending as what she planned for the popular webtoon. So, the drama writers might have to divert their plot so that is why the plot was messy. Addition to that I personally think that in order for people to understand the drama or Jung (for those who never read the webtoon), they have to read the webtoon, so credit goes to the author because people want to resolve their issues with the drama plotline. 

For example, I wasn't sure what is going on with Jung and Joo Yong (Seol's neighbour). They seem  to know each other, but never been justified in the drama, so I have to read the webtoon ( Season 1) to know the details. Park Hae Jin  also said in one of the interviews, that he had already shot for the scene that should be the back story of how Jung seems to know Joo Yong but never been aired. 

The other one, people wasn't sure how Jung develops feeling for Seol. As the one who keep rewatching the drama *ehem *ehem I found that Jung feels Seol is the only one who know who he is behind his mask. Even though Seol wasn't clear about her feeling, it proves at the final episode that she is still waiting for Jung sunbae to be back and continue their relationship. 

As for the one question that keeps lingering around the net/forum is whether Jung is really going to be back by reading the recent email from Seol? I said yes! I know it seems to please the crowd after what happened before, but we have to respect the open ending. The webtoon hasn't finished yet and, of course the writers have to respect that. So they made it that way, so people can figure it out, after 3 years, he didn't read the email or say hello to Seol, now he is back and ready to love. I found it interesting that actually, the writers seem to ask the audience to wait for how the webtoon ended. Plus, the scene that they crossed each other, I will say it is Jung who got back and look for Seol, but because of it is from Seol perspective, so we didn't manage to confirm it. 

I didn't deny the fact they were actually rushing to wrap everything, so they didn't have time to properly ended it, so they use the flashback to conclude it. Now, how I rated this drama? For sure it will be top 3 list and one of the best drama of 2016. 

Now! off to rewatch!

                                                                 Credit to asianwiki

Leave your comment below! I want to know your thoughts! Do you want more Thoughts and Feelings for any K-drama or J-drama leave your comments too!!!