Welcome, 2015! K-drama Resolutions for the New Year

You can do it!

It's a new year, and that means it's time to make a whole bunch of promises you have no intention of keeping! It's only January 5, but I'm pretty sure I have already broken some of my resolutions. It's not too late to make some more, though!

Instead of setting goals for ourselves, this time around Coco and I decided to brainstorm some resolutions for K-drama writers. C'mon, writers! We're just trying to help you be the best you! Aren't we so nice and motivational? This idea was partly inspired by Amanda from Outside Seoul and her Christmas wish list of last year. (Hi Amanda! We miss your blog posts.) So, without further ado, here are some resolutions for the K-drama writers of 2015. Let's make this the best K-drama year yet, shall we?

Resolution 1: More realistic female characters

Yeah, you are, but most people are sometimes.

This resolution is brought to you by Discovery of Romance.

I was kind of taken aback by the massive hatred that came down on the female lead of that series. Most of the commentary on the show went something like "She's such a terrible person! What do these hot, wonderful guys see in her???" Yeah, I found Yeo Reum selfish and infuriating for much of the series, but I didn't really think that she was worse than anyone else on the show—wasn't that kind of the point?  I mean, her boyfriend kept running around with his not-really-sister behind her back, so he wasn't exactly a saint.

My point here isn't that you should run out and watch Discovery of Romance because it wasn't a great show overall. My point is that in the real world, women—like men—have flaws. We get so used to watching sweet, innocent, pure-hearted young ladies running around helping old ladies cross the street all day that it's shocking to see female characters with genuine character flaws aside from "too nice" or "too poor." Many female leads grow, but only in predictable, safe ways. They become more confident. They get better hair. You get the picture.

Personally, I would love to see more female leads with a Han Yeo Reum streak. Yes, you can take it too far and make viewers hate all of the characters (and Discovery of Romance definitely pushed that boundary in the first half), but I'm tired of granny-helping sweethearts. Let's get some more complex women addressing complex problems.

Resolution 2: No more amnesia. Period.

You know what I want to forget? This entire part of the series.

Dear Drama Writers, 

If, at any point in the upcoming year, you run out of ideas and think amnesia might be the answer, trust me. It isn't. Put down your pen and walk away from the script. Everyone who watched Trot Lovers will thank you.

Resolution 3: Cast actual high schoolers in high school dramas.

Actual teenager
Via

Obviously not teenagers.
Via

We don't really need to see 27-year-olds running around, pretending to be 16. I'm sure you can find someone who is an actual teenager to squeeze into that school uniform. Too hard? Fine. We'll even let a 20-year-old slide. But if they're pushing 30, we're not buying it.

Resolution 4: Give the second female lead a chance

Second female leads deserve love too!

Second male syndrome is a pretty well-established fact in Dramaland, but what about the second female leads? I hear through the grapevine that Doctor Stranger was a rare unicorn of a case where people were rooting for the second female lead, but that's the only example I have ever heard.  Why not write a script where instead of arguing the merits of the two men, viewers are torn between two fantastic women instead? 

Did your brain just explode at the possibility of this idea?

Heck, while we're dreaming big, why not let the second female lead get the guy sometime? At least it would be memorable!

Resolution 5: Give our villains depth

This face. I MUST KNOW WHAT IT MEANS!

If you could probably compile all of your villain's lines from a montage of other shows, it might be time to rethink things. Do we really need more cookie cutter businessmen and women furrowing their brows and growling "I will destroy them!" as the camera zooms in on their clenched fists? Do you even know for sure which specific drama I'm referencing right now? I rest my case.

Let's look at two illustrative dramas: You Are All Surrounded and Pride and Prejudice. In YAAS, you have the Birkin bag lady and her easily shocked and very villainous dad, played by the same actor who is easily shocked and very villainous in both Heirs and Nine. On the other hand, though, you have Chief Kang. For most of the series, we couldn't be quite sure if she was a hero or a villain, and that made us sit up and pay attention every time she was on the screen.

Pride and Prejudice has a similar character in Moon Hee Man. I'm a couple of episodes behind (so if you spoil it for me, I'll turn into the Birkin bag lady and beat you with a handbag), but I'm almost to the end of the series, and I'm still never sure what to think of his character.

Perhaps the answer to the common second-half drama slump is to give some nuance to our baddies and keep us coming back for more.

Conclusions

See? That's only five resolutions! So reasonable! Now come back next December and let us know how you did.

What resolutions would you like to give to the K-drama writers this year?

Is Age Just a Number? Kdramas and Noona Romances

I've been going through phases with King of High School. Sometimes, the age difference doesn't really bother me. Other times, it's harder for me to see past it. Based on the debates that have been raging on Dramabeans and elsewhere, it looks like I'm not the only one who's a little conflicted. On nearly every episode, you have some people saying that it's icky for them, and then you have other people telling them to shut up about age already and just enjoy the show.

The debate over noona romances definitely aren't confined to this drama. Witch's Romance and I Need Romance 3 are two of the other dramas I've watched just this year that feature an age gap between the female lead and the male lead. Since it looks like older female leads are here to stay, let's take a look at what makes noona romances really work:

Benefits of an older female lead

At their best, noona romances allow writers to give female characters some power in the relationship. Given the emphasis on seniority in Korean culture, having a woman who is older than the man offers a balance to the control that rude chaebol-type leads tend to have. Noona leads have established lives. They have careers. They know who they are as people. Oftentimes, they aren't total novices at romance, which means that they also have a sex drive of their own (not that they're just hopping into bed with any random man, but it means that they reciprocate kisses instead of staring blankly ahead). All of these things are beneficial not only to having well-rounded relationships, but also to having well-rounded characters in general.

At their worst, noona romances ignore these possibilities and make their female leads extra infantile to make sure that the guy still gets to be the boss of everything. When noona romances go wrong, they go very, very wrong. It's like adding insult to injury if the writers have an easy option for writing a competent female character and then immediately let it go to waste. 

The case in point would be I Need Romance 3, where the female lead was headstrong and great at her job--but had the emotional development of a turnip. Sung Joon's character was a gentle second male lead type, and yet he still spent the majority of the show telling his lady love how she did and should feel. 

How old is too old?

Sure, noona romances can be great, but that still doesn't answer the question of whether there's some kind of limit on love. It's nice to say that age is just a number, but I don't really have much interest in watching a show where an 18-year-old guy is macking on an 87-year-old woman. (Or DO I? I'm imagining the old lady from Titanic with the curly-haired guy in One Direction, and it's slightly fantastic.)

A love so strong that not even arthritis could keep them apart...

What I've noticed in discussions about age gaps is that people tend to break down their views in three different ways:

1. Literal age difference

For some people, what matters most is the actual age difference between the leads. I don't know how they draw the cutoff, but at some point, there are too many years between the characters, and that's when it starts to feel uncomfortable. Is it that old rule of being allowed to date someone half your age plus seven years? I don't know. It seems to vary person to person, but usually if you're in the age camp, the ten years between the leads in King of High School is less offensive than, say, the fourteen years in Witch's Romance.

A quick note on gender bias

Before moving on, I want to pause for a second and mention gender bias. I'm a pretty big fan of gender equality, and that extends to noona romances. To me, the best test for whether or not an age gap is "creepy" is to think about whether or not it would feel uncomfortable if the genders were reversed. If it were an ahjussi romance instead of a noona romance, would it still be okay? If not, why is it okay if the woman is older?

I have heard the argument that in the traditional setup, men domineer women, so having an older man just makes that domineering worse, whereas having an older woman makes it more equal. A few paragraphs ago, I said something similar, but I think this argument only extends so far. I like having female characters who are old enough to feel confident in their own identities, but that's very different from using age to bully or dominate the other party. To assume that men can use an age gap to manipulate and domineer but that women can't is not only shortsighted, but also a little condescending.

Regardless of gender, there may be a point when an age gap creates a situation where one party has control, and that's where it becomes a problem for me.

2. A difference in life status

This is generally where I fall. I don't know that there's some magic number where you're too old for the other person, but I tend to feel a little iffy cheering for couples who are in completely different stages of life. For me personally, there's a pretty firm line drawn with high school students paired with established adults--especially if that adult is a teacher or other authority figure. The big objection is that high school students aren't adults (and yes, we can quibble about consent laws state to state, but that's not the point). 

King of High School is the perfect example here. Yes, Min Suk is mature for an 18-year-old (but we need to note that it's 18 in Korea, which means that he's only 17 by western counting), but he still has a full year of high school left. Soo Young, on the other hand, has been out of college for several years, which means that her life experiences are very different from his. Not only is she an established adult, but she acts as the primary mother figure for a girl Min Suk's age. That's why, when she comforts him at the end of episode 12, it was hard for me to see it in a non-maternal way. I could go on about brain development and stuff, but you get the point.

That's not to say that cases like this don't or can't work out. It's also not to say that I dislike this drama or the actors in it (because I love Seo In Guk in this role). It's just to say that it's more likely to make me, as a viewer, hesitate before being able to cheer them on wholeheartedly.

On the other hand, Witch's Romance boasts a larger age gap that bothered me much less. Both were consenting adults. Both had lived independent lives for several years. Both had previous dating experience that put them on equal footing. Both of them also knew about the age gap from day 1, so they entered the relationship with eyes wide open.

If we apply the gender-reversal rule here, it still applies. A 27-year-old man dating a 17-year-old girl would give me pause. A larger age gap between adults (like the one in Prime Minister and I) doesn't really bother me. Even though I haven't seen it, the 20-year age difference in Secret Love Affair was also fine by me for the same reason.

3. The actors' actual ages

Now this one's interesting to me, and I'm curious to hear what all of you think about it. Some people worry less about the ages of the characters and more about the literal age gap between the actors themselves. Seo In Guk is only five years younger than Lee Ha Na in real life. He's also 26 years old, not 17. 

To give a contrasting example, there has been some recent controversy over the casting in High School--Love On, where Nam Woo Hyun is 23 in real life, but his costar, Kim Sae Ron, is only 14. In the drama itself, both characters are supposed to be 18 (though she's an angel, so her technical age is probably older).

 

If the characters were 14 and 23, that would definitely be too much (even worse than 17 and 27, for the reasons stated above), but should actor ages be a factor? I can see why actor ages would impact our feelings about the onscreen couple, but I also feel like we should give the actors credit if they can play a convincing role. Seo In Guk has been incredible at capturing the mannerisms of an 17-year-old boy. Should viewers discount that effort because he's 26 in real life?

This isn't a perfect comparison, but in some ways, it reminds me of the complaints in romance movies when a gay actor plays a straight character or vice versa. If they're acting out a fictional story either way, why should their real life make a difference in how we view the characters?

Conclusions

Like I said at the beginning, I go back and forth in my feelings about King of High School, and I'm genuinely curious to hear how everyone else feels. Does age ever matter? Do you have a hard time watching certain dramas? Or do you wish everyone would shut up and let your favorite characters fall in love in peace?

Expectation and Fulfillment in Dramaland

Yes, I know it's been three weeks since we've blogged. You can blame a combination of hiding out in a cabin in the mountains for a week, having to work extra to make up for hiding out in a cabin for a week, and then just feeling like I wanted to vegetate and watch dramas instead of writing about them. But now I'm back in a writing mood, so look forward to more consistent posts!

In all of my vegetative drama watching, I've developed kind of a bad habit. I used to be a pretty strict one-drama-at-a-time kind of girl. Maaaaaybe two dramas if they were airing simultaneously. Over the last couple of months, however, I keep starting new dramas, getting to the last three to five episodes, and then putting them on the back burner for a new drama.

Part of the problem is that I'm woefully behind on reviews, so I don't want to finish more dramas before I review the old ones, but that's just a big fatty excuse because the truth is that I love drama beginnings. I love the excitement of a new drama. I love the suspense that builds to the moment of romance shared and feelings expressed.

This obsession with beginnings has made me think about what it is that compels viewers to watch (and love) entire dramas. I think a lot of it comes down to the balance between expectation and fulfillment in the drama structure.


The best writers build a sense of expectation at the front end of dramas. They give us little moments of partial fulfillment throughout the first few episodes, pushing us to keep clicking the "next episode" button in hopes of getting more. And more. And more.

The problem with expectation is that you can't put it off forever. If you only give your viewers little breadcrumbs for too many episodes, they will eventually feel bored and move elsewhere. For me, this was one of the big problems with Heirs. I think we all kept hoping that interesting things would happen, but nothing ever did. It was just the same love triangle standoff at the end of nearly every episode, and it eventually got dull.

Similarly, one of the fastest ways to infuriate viewers is to build infinite expectation without an equal payout at the end. If you're going to put off viewer fulfillment for a full twenty episodes, you'd better be a screenwriting genius and give us an entire episode that is twenty episodes worth of satisfaction. If you give us a handshake at the end of it all, we're gonna start throwing things at our televisions and inventing new profanities to express just how cheated we feel.

Not to name names, but....
You know who you are. Now go in a corner and think about what you did.

Sometimes, drama writers want to play with expectations, and that's okay. It's refreshing when the second lead suddenly turns into the first lead or when a clever twist pushes viewers to think. But even if you toss in a twist, it needs to have some hint of expectation. We want the second lead to get the girl, but it has to feel earned. We want to know that she's going to be happy with her choice. That's why the ending of Marry Him If You Dare was so infuriating. The show focused so heavily on building romantic expectations that refusing to fulfill that expectation made the entire series feel somewhat hollow. I would have been okay with a series about her personal journey and individual development if the every episode hadn't shouted "WHICH MAN WILL SHE CHOOSE???"

"No, no, we meant for it to be a searing statement on women and romance! That's why we spent the whole series building a tedious, endless love triangle! We swear!"

At the other end of the spectrum, you have dramas that are great at building tension for the first half of the series, but they fulfill the expectation too early, leaving empty space for the second half of the series. It's pretty typical to have the leads first kiss somewhere between episodes 7 and 12, which is a great gift to keep viewers invested. The problem is that many writers seem genuinely baffled after the big kiss. They spend the rest of the series scrambling to come up with appropriate romantic hurdles, but we all know they're just killing time to the inevitable finale. Does anyone actually get excited when a drama moves into the noble idiocy/birth secret/corporate shenanigans phase of the show?

This is one reason why I'm a pretty strong advocate of the 16-episode series for most shows. Series extensions are one of the biggest enemies to narrative tension. I have seen only a handful of shows where the episode extension was okay (and only because I loved those shows), and I'm not entirely convinced that I have seen any shows where it was a narrative necessity. Even shows that feel rushed in the last five minutes could have avoided trouble with better pacing in the middle sections. Wait, I take that back. The extension for Queen of Reversals allowed it develop a satisfying, if unexpected, ending, so that one is the exception that proves the rule.

Maybe it's just because it was my first drama, but a good example of the balance between expectation and fulfillment has got to be Coffee Prince. As I watched, one of the things that enthralled me was how many heartfelt, meaningful moments it had sprinkled throughout the show. Unlike American romcom movies that ended after the big confession, Coffee Prince kept giving, and that's why I kept watching. It's proof that you don't need seven rounds of amnesia to keep people involved. With smart pacing, characters we can care about, and obstacles based in reality, shows can keep viewers engaged and satisfied.

One of the things that keeps me so engaged with You Are All Surrounded (aside from my love of action comedies) is the way that it builds expectation. With both the central mystery and the romance, the first ten episodes gave us enough hints to string us along. Episodes 11 and 12 get a pass because Lee Seung Gi's eye injury probably altered some of the script plans, but I keep hoping that the show will fulfill my expectations. It's getting to that stage in the series where the romance needs to start moving if it's going to keep my interest, and there's an opportunity for an engaging mystery as well.

In episode 12, we finally get a scene where Soo Sun starts to recognize Dae Gu as more than a little brother or a detective partner, but I have to admit that the reliance on the old rescue hug left me wanting more. Here's hoping episode 13 starts to move towards the fulfillment end of the spectrum!

Told You Kdramas Were The New Twilight!: Interview With Justin Chon

Remember how my very first post on our blog was about how Korean drama is the new Twilight? Well, what's really funny about that is that I was just able to interview Justin Chon, the Korean American actor who played Eric in the Twilight series, yesterday for DramaFever! I feel like my life is finally coming full circle!

Justin is a truly genuine, fun guy, and it was a pleasure to interview him about his upcoming film roles, his experience acting in Twilight, the challenges of being an Asian American actor, and what else? Kdramas!

Isn't he a cutie?

Check out my full interview on DramaFever:
Justin Chon talks Kdramas, Twilight, and being a Korean American actor with DramaFever

And the best part of the interview? He gave me a sneak attack back hug when he left, Kdrama style!