Arang and the Magistrate

Many years ago, there were lots of these chinese dramas involving ghosts, martial arts and supernatural powers that it’s just so amazing to watch as the story unfolds its plot. But later these dramas have dwindled and have been overtaken with other melodramatic stories in other genres. Finally, after all these years I’ve found this korean drama called Arang and the Magistrate. It reminded me of this Chinese movie I once saw many years ago called The Chinese Ghost Story where it involved a scholar falling in love with a ghost and trying to save her soul from this powerful evil spirit.

Arang is a spirit who died and roamed the world trying to find the cause of her death while running away from the grim reapers (far left of the pic above is one of the main grip reaper that tries to catch her). During one of her escapes, she encounters scholar Kim Eun Oh in the forest. This scholar is no ordinary person. He is the son of the Prime Minister, knows martial arts and what’s more, he can see dead people. Arang tries to enlist his help to her plight but Eun Oh has a personal mission of his own and that is to find his missing mother. However, fate is a curious thing. Eun Oh discovers that Arang has an object on her that belonged to his mother and so finally he agreed to help her hoping that that would lead to his mother. The only problem is, Arang has no memories of her living life.

 

The lead actor for this drama is Lee Jun Ki. You may have seen him in dramas such as My Girl, Iljimae and Time between Dog and Wolf. His sharp features and narrow eyes is really one of a kind, feminine almost and often times I think to myself if he were to dress up as a woman, he would actually pass for one. In fact, he did play a role as a homosexual clown before in The King and the Clown. However, I very much prefer his present role in this drama as a dashing noble and skilled protector of the weak that knows no fear in the face of justice.

Lead actress Shin Min Ah was most famous for her role in My Girlfriend is a Nine-tailed Fox, also a supernatural drama. It’s from this drama that she won the 2010 SBS award as Best actress. I have not seen this drama but after knowing this fact and seeing her as Arang, I’m more than likely to watch it after this. lol

The side characters are also worth noting. The Jade Emperor (aka God of Heaven) is Yeu Seong Ho from Warrior Baek Dong Soo. Instead of appearing as an old man like how most Jade Emperors in dramas look like, he maintains a youthful appearance and even has a flirtatious side towards his female angels. tsk tsk. The King of the Underworld (aka Hades) isn’t evil as you would think. Despite his job of punishing spirits that have committed sins in their life, he is actually pretty close to the Jade Emperor and often times blames the Jade Emperor for giving him a bad reputation of cleaning up his mess. The rest of the characters play a role of assisting them and also as a second love interest of Arang in her past life. I won’t say more cause it’s a bit of a spoiler I think. ^_^”

There are already hints as to the truth behind Arang’s death and Eun Oh’s missing mother. But will Arang be able to solve the mystery before her time is up on earth and would Eun Oh invest in his love for a ghost eventhough he knows better than to fall for a dead person? Would the mystery surrounding these two to the point that it involved the Kings of Heaven and Underworld and the grim reaper be uncovered and balance is restored? Stay tuned for the next episode!

Sword Art Online…

Everybody plays some sort of video games these days. What if one day you find yourself playing World of Warcraft and you’re stuck there forever? Well, that’s what happened in this anime called Sword Art Online (SAO). The year is 2022 and a popular game is out that everybody is trying out. It’s called Sword Art Online, a virtual reality massive multiplayer online role playing game (VRMMORPG – omg, can these abbreviations get any longer…) where players fight a boss at the end of each level to rise up to the next level. All a person needs to do is wear this head gear that hooks them up through the nerve system and they can control their character with their mind. You can see where the danger lies, right? Nothing good ever happens when you’re messing around with technology and the human brain. duh.

Anyway, one day, while Kirito our main male protagonist and many others were online, the creator of the game Akihiko Kayaba decided to remove the ‘quit’ option from the main menu. This prevented any of the players already online from exiting the game. What is this all about? Well, it would appear that the creator has gone crazy and wants everybody to play the game indefinitely, try to best all 100 levels of the game or die trying. That’s the only way out of the game it would appear. If anybody tried to unplug the players in the real world, they would die. If any of the players dies during a battle, they would die. With that message, the creator disappears from the screen, leaving behind stunned players that proceeded to panic as reality sets in.

 SAO is a light japanese novel series created by Reki Kawahara. When I first heard of this anime, a friend introduced it to me and its resemblance to Accel World piqued my interest. As it turned out, Accel World was also created by Reki Kawahara with the same VRMMORPG plot going on. Although Accel World was made into an anime first before SAO did, SAO’s original japanese novels was written way back in 2002. You can find out more information on wikipedia.

After the creator made the announcement, beta testers that have an advantage of playing the game much earlier and learning the tricks and secrets of the game formed strategies and abandoned the noobs to fend for themselves and as a result many of the players died. Ever since then, beta players have been viewed with scorn. Kirito being a beta tester decides to hide this fact from others but his silence ended up costing lives. Kirito being a socially awkward person, ultimately chooses to play solo without joining any particular guild. Luckily for him, he is a very good player able to gain skills and levels surpassing many.

As the story progresses, he meets up with other players, made friends, fought with them side by side yet still solo and always moving towards the goal of reaching level 100. One particular character holds my interest during his encounters. A girl named Asuna is like a Felicia Day from the Guild. Beautiful and one heck of a player. She gained skills and levels that earned her a spot as Vice Commander of the guild called Knights of the Blood Oath.

The one problem I have with this anime is that it lacks a natural character development. In each episode you see a different Kirito with higher skills than before and a story that progressed so fast you’re not sure how it happened. It just is. Friendships are already formed and broken with no warning that you kinda miss the epic feel of the moment. The attraction you see between Kirito and one of the characters also happened kinda suddenly and although it’s a great romance, it just feels like the chemistry wasn’t quite there.

At least one can take comfort in the fact that the animation and action sequence is kinda cool. You’ll see lots of familiar game features found in similar games you play everyday. Weapons and food are gained by either trade or mastery of a certain skill set to make them. Imagine preparing a stew by just tapping it once and the ingredients are chopped up, all mixed and ready in the oven in a matter of seconds. Now that’s a skill set I’d like to attain!

Despite the giant leaps in story development, I’m still greatly intrigued by this anime. The anime Accel World which I had left off at episode 3 has suddenly gained my interest again all because it’s created by the same person. But unlike Accel World, SAO has more action than dialogue so we’ll see which is the better one.

Will Kirito and the others escape this virtual game or live the rest of their lives fighting while their real body wastes away leaving behind aggrieved family members? Will we ever discover the reason behind the creator’s mad scheme of trapping thousands if not millions of players in this game that logically in real life should have been apprehended by now and forced into releasing the players from their virtual prison. Let this be a warning to all gaming geeks out there. Play less video games. lol.

To the Beautiful You…

To those that may not know it just by the title (like me…) To the Beautiful You is actually an adaptation of Hana Kimi! Hana Kimi is a shoujo manga series written by Hisaya Nakajo many years ago back in 2004 and was published as a manga in the U.S by Viz Media. Ever since then, there has been a Taiwanese drama adaptation starring Ella Chen of S.H.E. Wu Chun and Jiro Wang of Fahrenheit and Danson Tang. And then there’s the Japanese drama adaptation starring Atsuko Maeda from the group AKB48 and apparently “another” japanese adaptation starring Maki Horikita…and a whole load of other people (ahem. Too lazy to mention the rest of them).

Anyway, to sum it up briefly this drama like the rest of its predecessor is about a girl that pretends to be a boy in an all boys school just so that she could see her idol doing the high jump. She ends up being his roommate and classmate, helps him get past his issues while trying to hide her gender. As much as she tries, her secret is eventually found out but rather than tell on her, the people she meets chose to help her keep it. Love and laughter ensues in between.

When it comes to this drama, the main female protagonist is very important in making the character convincing as a guy. On the top left is the current korean actress played by f(x)’s Sulli, next to her is Ella Chen and the ones below are the Japanese actresses Maki Horikita and Atsuko Maeda. Of the four, Ella played a very convincing guy since in real life she has that tom boyish appearance and deeper voice. The rest of the actresses however just shouts to me as ‘woman’ alert! Who in their right mind would think of them as a guy?! Eventhough Sulli doesn’t play a good ‘guy’ she certainly turns out to be the prettiest girl.

But like all korean adaptations, the story seem to have a more romantic and cuter touch to it with far better looking cast. As for the supporting actors they almost always fail to meet with my expectations. In the original manga, the main guy is supposed to be this malancholy yet cool and very atheletic and is even attractive enough to pass on as a female model. Korean actor Choi MinHo has this role and yet he has this baby face look and smiles too much. I guess it’s too much to hope that they could find the perfect person to fill this role.

If you’re a fan of the story, just watch it and enjoy how good or bad an adaptation it is.

Faith…You’ve got to have faith!

It’s been drama after drama for the past few weeks (and other stuff) until I totally forgot to blog about them. One of the dramas I’m currently following from Korea is called Faith. As the name suggests, the main plot seems to be all about having faith in people for various reasons. My main draw for this historical drama was because of Lee Min Ho. I know that’s a poor excuse to follow a drama but ever since City Hunter I could not resist seeing him in another action drama again. And what’s more, this time he wears cool looking battle gear!

There’s another element to this drama that may turn some people off. It involves time travelling. Yep…So, the story starts off with a legend of a mysterious medicine man that was able to cure any illness or heal any injury of that time using mysterious tools. When offered to be the palace’s royal high doctor he refused and vanished through a portal in the mountains that people believed led to the heavens. This person was known as Hwata. Hundreds (or was it thousands) of years have passed and a need for a medicine man rose again due to a sword wound to the queen’s neck. General Choi Yong (Lee Min Ho) was given the task to fetch a medicine man from the heaven’s door to save the queen.

After being freaked out by modern Korea which he still thinks is heaven, Choi Yong gets directions to this medicine convention where a lot of doctors appear to give talks and promote their skills (wow, I didn’t know there was such a thing but I suppose there is…). He happened to walk in on Yoo Eun-Soo’s seminar and decided she would be the one. Of course it’s not because she was a pretty lady that she was selected. Choi Yong doesn’t have romantic feelings like that. The way he decided was to up and kidnap her, grab a random person from the crowd and gave a similar wound that the queen had onto said victim’s neck (ack!) and asked if she could repair an injury like that. Not given much of a choice, she proceeded to save the guy’s life and succeeded, thus sealing her fate.

With the promise of bringing her back to the heavens once she had saved the queen, Eun-Soo was dragged back to the past. The queen was saved and just as she was about to return to her time, the king demanded Choi Yong stop her from leaving. The general ever the loyal person, obeys but because he was also an honorable person, allowed himself to be stabbed with his own sword by the angry Eun-Soo for breaking a promise he sworn to fulfill.

Enough mini spoilers for now. All one needs to know is that word got out that she was another Hwata and with ‘magic’ healing skills like that, the king’s enemies are eager to claim her to give their side an advantage. All Eun-Soo cares about is returning back to her time. All the general cares about is trying to fulfill his promise to her and at the same time protect the current king from enemies.

The dialog in this drama is rather draggy and at times it’s hard to understand why they do the things that they do. Or even why the king isn’t doing much to protect his throne. But I suppose one can’t do much when surrounded by enemies in his own court. Lee Min Ho plays his role well in becoming this melancholy and somber general that has stopped living for anything else other than his duty. Not sure if I dig his hairstyle but whatever. The doctor played by Kim Hee-Seon, is rather playful and so far her character hasn’t stand out much other than being sought after.

As this is still an ongoing drama, much of the story has yet to be unfolded. One can expect lots of magic and battle scenes and if you can swallow the time travelling aspect, you might just like this drama and see if the stoic general will break and fall for the flighty female doctor. Will he follow back to her time? Or will she remain in his time? I think that’s the main question I want answered.