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skylee

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I've watched quite a few korean dramas.. the ones with with diseased/sick person dying is getting old...(Autumn Tale, Winter Sonata, Stairway to Heaven, Im sorry I love you) I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND people watch ***DAMO 茶母*** this one combines historical/action/fighting/romance.. no sick people. It is superb.. a masterpiece. :clap

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I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND people watch ***DAMO 茶母*** this one combines historical/action/fighting/romance.. no sick people. It is superb.. a masterpiece.

Yeah that's what I heard. Does the lady and the rebel leader in DAMO know that they are brother and sister? I'm going to watch Full House first. My Korean cousin said it is very funny. At first I was hesitant to watch it because I thought it might be silly and childish, and only women watch it. But my cousin, who is a guy, liked it a lot and said that Song Hye Gyo and Bi have excellent chemistry. So I don't feel too embarrassed in watching it. :mrgreen: Plus it doesn't hurt to have the lovely Song Hye Go in it. (She's coming to LA pretty soon)

I am also getting sick of the female lead dying of sickness, etc. Due to this reason, I do not plan on watching Autumn Fairy Tale. I like strong, independent women who retain their feminity and spunk at the same time. Full House seems like a refreshingly good choice.

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I've watched Damo. It is ok. But it was poorly received in HK, which was quite understandable. One of its selling points is the fighting scenes. But we who grew up watching all sorts of flying/fighting scenes (think CTHD) don't find them fascinating at all.

Does the lady and the rebel leader in DAMO know that they are brother and sister?

You see even if the deadly illness plot is not used, still the brother/sister plot is used :lol:. Yes, at the last moments. First the court officical (1st male lead) gets to know it and tells the rebel leader when the latter kills him. Then the rebel leader tells the lady when she kills him. :D And all three die.

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I've watched Damo. It is ok. But it was poorly received in HK' date=' which was quite understandable. One of its selling points is the fighting scenes. But we who grew up watching all sorts of flying/fighting scenes (think CTHD) don't find them fascinating at all.

You see even if the deadly illness plot is not used, still the brother/sister plot is used :lol:. Yes, at the last moments. First the court officical (1st male lead) gets to know it and tells the rebel leader when the latter kills him. Then the rebel leader tells the lady when she kills him. :D And all three die.[/quote']

Pfft. HK audience dont know what good is :P It was a big hit in Taiwan too :P

"A drama on an unprecedented scale, Damo tells a tale of love, conspiracy, loyalty, and honor. Setting a new standard with breathtaking cinematography, dazzling special effects, and mystical martial art scenes, Damo was awarded as the best drama at the 9th Asian TV Awards in Singapore in 2004. Even though the TV series had only 14 episodes, it stole the hearts of Korean TV viewers. Some were literally addicted to the drama, watching every episode of Damo from beginning to end, opening a Damo website with their fellow addicts, and even using lines from the drama in everyday life. After huge success in Korea, Damo was released to audiences in other nations. The drama went on to become a big hit in Taiwan."

Taken from http://english.tour2korea.com/03Sightseeing/TravelSpot/travelspot_read.asp?oid=2189&konum=subm1_1&kosm=m3_9

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Pfft. HK audience dont know what good is :P

言重了 ...

Here is an interesting article on 李英愛and 大長今 -> http://www.jfdaily.com.cn/gb/node2/node17/node160/node54881/node54887/userobject1ai843963.html

同样是热极一时的宫廷戏,《金枝欲孽》看了让人牙齿发寒,觉得人生如同黑白底片,斗来斗去到头来还是一场空。看完《大长今》,观众心底里却涌起一股暖流。暖意不仅仅是缠绕的亲情、友情、爱情,更重要的是一棵“杂草”逆境生长的不屈。
只可惜《大长今》里,关于爱情的篇幅少而又少,且异常纯净——近60个小时的镜头里只晃过一两次的牵手和灾难中的拥抱。但是,“超级大绿叶”闵政浩扮演者的“粉丝”却呈几何级数增长。她们把张东健、元彬、李秉宪……藏入仓库,从此只认一人:池振熙。

超級大綠葉 ... 笑死我。 :lol: BTW, I didn't know terms like "師奶" and "鹹魚翻身" were also used in the mainland.

還有,香港的配音和字幕謹慎得要命。不用朕、寡人、皇上、皇后,只用孤王、王上、王后。

Some English information on this series "Daejangguem" -> http://english.tour2korea.com/02Culture/TVMiniseries/daejangguem.asp?konum=1&kosm=m2_6

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Song Seung Hyun and Song Hae Gyo have been selected as the most handsome Korean actor and the most beautiful Korean actress by poll respondents on sina.com. http://www.chosun.com/se/news/200504/200504210464.html

4/21/05 - Chinese netizens select the couple Song Seung Hun and Song Hye Gyo of the drama "Autumn Tales" as "The most handsome Korean male star and the most beautiful Korean female star". The largest portal website of China "sina.com (시나닷컴)" announces the voting result of "The most handsome Korean male star" and "The most beautiful Korean female star" on 4/21.

There are 234,591 votes and Song Hye Gyo gets 23.56% votes while Song Seung Hun receives 24.77% votes, which put them at the first place of each chart. Singer Lee Hyo Ri is at the 2nd place with 14.77% votes which surprises Chinese entertainment world because she hasn't extended her activities in China yet.

The voting result of "The most beautiful Korean female star - Top 10" is: Song Hye Gyo (23.56%), Lee Hyo Ri (14.77%), Kim Hee Sun (14.49%), Choi Ji Woo (13.39%), Lee Young Ae (11.73%), Jang Suh Hee (10.6%), Chae Rim (10.43%), Jun Ji Hyun (10.41%), Jang Na Ra (7.77%), Kim Tae Hee (7.68%).

The voting result of "The most handsome Korean male star - Top 10" is: Song Seung Hun (24.77%), Ahn Jae Wook (20.92%), Jang Dong Gun (20%), Bae Yong Jun (19.88%), Won Bin (17.45%), Bi (10.56%), Kwon Sang Woo (10.51%), Han Jae Suk (8.4%), Kim Rae Won (6.09%), and Lee Byung Hun (5.85%).

200504210464_00.jpg

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Koreans are using television series as marketing tools to attract tourist $$ to scenic spots and film locations in Korea. That is very shrewd (if it was meant to be used that way)

The success of 대장금 (Dae Jang Geum) has even sparked Hong Kongers' interest in Korean cuisine in Hong Kong.

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I normally don’t like Korean TV series but I loved “大长今”! I just finished the last 10 episodes last Saturday by sitting up all night. :mrgreen: I bought the compressed DVDs. 7 discs for all 54 episodes!

54 episodes? I'm borrowing the VCD collection of it from a friend, and I think that version has 70 episodes. What worries me, is that 70 hrs of TV is the equivalent of 2 full weeks of work!

They've started 大长今 on the Phoenix Chinese channel on satellite TV in the UK now, (channel 805 on sky at 7.30pm Mon to Fri). However the version they're showing is in mandarin, and the VCD copy I have is Korean/Cantonese audio with subtitles. I'm tempted to watch the series with the korean soundtrack, in an attempt to increase my reading speed by forcing myself to rely on the subtitles, although to be honest I'll probably give up after 5 mins and then use the cantonese sound track. I wonder how much Korean you could pick up after watching 70 hrs of Korean period drama? :mrgreen:

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Don't worry about giving up. 大長今 is addictive. The korean version has 54 episodes, Taiwan and HK 70 episodes (each episode is shorter).

I have watched three versions of it (bought 2 sets and watched the TV version) and I like TVB's subtitles and Cantonese dubbing most (both were done superbly). However, personally I prefer the original korean soundtrack.

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Anyone watching the "Emperor of Sea"? It talked about Silla mercantile ships anchoring in Yangzhou and the expatriates' community in Tang China.

Many Korean actors and actresses dress in Tang costume and speak in lousy Mandarin with a lot of martial art fighting scene.

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Anyone watching the "Emperor of Sea"? It talked about Silla mercantile ships anchoring in Yangzhou and the expatriates' community in Tang China.

My grandmother is watching that right now and I have watched it briefly with her. She has been renting the videocassettes for 海神.

I don't find it very interesting, and the Mandarin is horrible. I guess that is probably how the precursor of today's Mandarin sounded back then, and the actors were probably trying to imitate "old" Mandarin. 8)

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The scenes in 大長今 that I like most -

- Jang Geum and Min Jeong Ho play at the sea shore

- their elopement

- the archery race between Min Jeong Ho and the king

BTW, could anyone tell me if the king loses the last shot on purpose?

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Does anyone find out that actually each Korean drama episode lasts over 1 hour (I mean the authentic version broadcasted in US)?

According to the TV Guide, each episode lasts one hour. But even though I set my VCR to an 1 hr 5 min recording time, very often I miss either the beginning or the ending.

Considering that there is relatively few commercials in the Korean channel, each episode's duration looks like exceeding 50 minutes.

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I was watching Yi Soon Shin last week (It is kind of boring) and it doesn't reserve good comment for Ming assistance even though Ming almost exhausted itself to aid Yi Dynasty against Hideyoshi's invasion.

Well, the Korean guy who acted as Hideyoshi was quite convincing especially at the scene that he mourned his toddler son's death.

I would say he acted better than the actor in NHK's drama "Hideyoshi" broadcasted 3 years ago.

The only problem is that the Korean actors do not really shave their foreheads like their Japanese counterparts do.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The scenes in 大長今 that I like most -

- Jang Geum and Min Jeong Ho play at the sea shore

- their elopement

- the archery race between Min Jeong Ho and the king

I love the sea shore scene too. And the one where Min Jeong Ho rescues Jang Geum from the burning building when she thinks everyone has forsaken her.

Actually, my main memories of 大長今 are of people preparing and tasting food. :oops:

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  • 1 month later...

I have just finished watching 해신 (海神). This is an excellent drama. Usually I have trouble finishing historical dramas, but this one I watched to the end. My interest level increased as the series progressed, and my approval rating was much, much higher at the end than when I first started watching it. I'm not going to bore everyone with all the details.

The series was partially filmed in China, in Dunhuang and Shanghai.

Here is the haunting theme song from 海神, sung by 김범수 (金範秀).

ni ga nal dduh na

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Today's New York Times published an article on the growing wave of Korean culture (namely Korean television series) across Asia, most notably Taiwan and China. Koreans have long worried about being culturally dominated by China and Japan, but they need not worry. Dae Jang Geum is even a hit in Mongolia. Women in North Korea are imitating Song Hae Gyo's hairstyle.

Korean television series are inadvertently becoming powerful marketing tools. Consumers in Asia are buying more Korean products and travelling to South Korea.

Since Korean culture and history are unknown (to a much greater extent than its other two East Asian neighbors) to many people, one starts to develop an interest in the culture after becoming a big fan of one or two television series. As the article mentioned, Korean dramas are more emotionally powerful, and when one starts to watch it, the viewer tends to get addicted like a glue to the television screen.

I was at Borders bookstore the other day, and was browsing the travel section. There were only one or two travel books on Korea, while there were tons of travel books on China and Japan. That may change in the future as more people become aware of the country's culture and heritage. Korea was once called the Hermit Kingdom.

Had South Korea not become democratic and more open during the late 1980's and early 1990's, I doubt this wave of Korean culture would have swept across Asia like a tsunami.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/international/asia/28wave.html?

"Here in one of the first corners of Asia hit by the "Korean Wave" of cultural exports, a television series about a royal cook, "A Jewel in the Palace," proved so popular that it is now used to advertise South Korea on the Taipei subway. A huge hit in Mongolia, the drama also fueled a boom in tourists from Hong Kong visiting South Korea.

South Korean products and stars like Gweon Sang Woo are popular in Taipei.

A weepy love story, "Winter Sonata," became the rage in Uzbekistan after driving the Japanese into a frenzy last year. In Thailand and Malaysia, people devoured "A Tale of Autumn," and Vietnamese were glued to "Lovers in Paris." In China, South Korean dramas are sold, and pirated, everywhere, and the young adopt the clothing and hairstyles made cool by South Korean stars.

South Korea, historically more worried about fending off cultural domination by China and Japan than spreading its own culture abroad, is emerging as the pop culture leader of Asia. From well-packaged television dramas to slick movies, from pop music to online games, South Korean companies and stars are increasingly defining what the disparate people in East Asia watch, listen to and play.

The size of South Korea's entertainment industry, which began attracting heavy government investment only in the late 1990's, jumped from $8.5 billion in 1999 to $43.5 billion in 2003. In 2003, South Korea exported $650 million in cultural products; the amount was so insignificant before 1998 that the government could not provide figures.

But the figures tell only part of the story. The booming South Korean presence on television and in the movies has spurred Asians to buy up South Korean goods and to travel to South Korea, traditionally not a popular tourist destination. The images that Asians traditionally have associated with the country - violent student marches, the demilitarized zone, division - have given way to trendy entertainers and cutting-edge technology.

Candy Hsieh, 22, who was browsing through shelves of South Korean dramas at a video store here, said her parents became fans and visited South Korea last year.

"I used to think that Korea was a feudalistic, male-centered society," Ms. Hsieh said. "Now I don't have the same image as I had before. It seems like an open society, democratic."

South Korea's entertainment industry was born for business and political reasons in the late 1990's. Increasingly rich Asians were thought to be receptive to new sources of entertainment. What is more, South Korea, which long banned cultural imports from Japan, its former colonial ruler, was preparing to lift restrictions starting in 1998.

Seoul was worried about the onslaught of Japanese music, videos and dramas, already popular on the black market. So in 1998 the Culture Ministry, armed with a substantial budget increase, carried out its first five-year plan to build up the domestic industry. The ministry encouraged colleges to open culture industry departments, providing equipment and scholarships. The number of such departments has risen from almost zero to more than 300.

In 2002, the ministry opened the Korea Culture and Content Agency to encourage exports. By the time almost all restrictions on Japanese culture were lifted in January 2004, the Korean Wave - a term coined in China - had washed across Asia.

To South Koreans like Kim Hyun Kyung, a director at Cheil Communications, an advertising agency in Seoul, feeling the reach of their culture for the first time was surprising. In 2001, during a trip to Los Angeles, she met a Chinese woman who brightened up when she learned that she was Korean.

"She was a big fan of Kim Hee Sun," Ms. Kim said, referring to a South Korean actress who is now more popular in China than at home. "She was happy that I had the same last name as she did. We were meeting for the first time, but she had a favorable image of Korea."

South Korean dramas and music have started edging out American and Japanese ones in Taiwan, which caught the Korean Wave early this decade.

Five years ago, Gala TV here paid $1,000 for one hour of a South Korean drama, compared with $15,000 to $20,000 for a Japanese one, said the network's vice president, Lai Tsung Pi. Now, a South Korean drama commands $7,000 to $15,000; a Japanese, $6,000 to $12,000.

"Korean dramas are considered more emotionally powerful, and their actors are willing to come here to promote them," Mr. Lai said. "Because of the Korean dramas, Taiwanese people have become more willing to buy their products."

Sales of South Korean consumer goods and cars have risen sharply here in the last five years as well. The number of Taiwanese going to South Korea rose from 108,831 in 2000 to 298,325 last year, even though the overall number of Taiwanese traveling abroad fell during that period.

South Korea has also begun wielding the non-economic side of its new soft power. The official Korean Overseas Information Service last year gave "Winter Sonata" to Egyptian television, paying for the Arabic subtitles. The goal was to generate positive feelings in the Arab world toward the 3,200 South Korean soldiers stationed in northern Iraq.

There have been unintended effects too. Copies of South Korean dramas and music are being increasingly smuggled from China into North Korea. One popular drama in the Communist North was "All In," the true story of a South Korean gambler who went to Las Vegas with only $18 and became a millionaire.

North Korean women began copying the hairstyle of its lead actress, Song Hae Kyo, prompting the authorities there to crack down on "untidy" hair, said Kim Yang Rae, director general of the Korean Foundation for Asian Culture Exchange.

In mid-June, a 20-year-old North Korean soldier, Yi Yong Su, defected across the demilitarized zone into the town of Chorwon in central South Korea. The private said he had grown to admire and yearn for South Korea after watching its television programs, South Korean military officials told reporters.

But the worry of a possible backlash - Taiwan, for instance, is considering levying a 20 percent tariff on Korean programs - impelled the Culture Ministry two years ago to form the cultural exchange foundation, to prevent Southeast Asian countries from feeling that they are regarded only as markets.

"We've never had this experience of seeing our culture spread outside our country," Mr. Kim said about Korea's modern history. "I'm very proud, but also very cautious."

At the New Fantasy Travel agency here, about 80 percent of travelers to South Korea pick television theme tours, visiting spots where their favorites dramas were filmed, said the general manager, Louis Wang.

Mr. Wang himself is not a huge fan. But his children, who are, now feel closer to South Korea than to the country that considers Taiwan a renegade province. "They've been learning the lifestyle of Koreans, their fashion and their food," Mr. Wang said. "So now they're more familiar with Korea's lifestyle than China's." "

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