Secret Love Affair ep. 1 – 4

I originally wasn’t going to even watch this particular drama because its about adultery and having been the jilted spouse, I have strong opinions about that sort of thing.  I also don’t like watching shows that have behavior that I don’t want to emulate.  Monkey see, monkey do really does apply to life.  A friend of mine told me that the first episode has some really great piano playing in it and knowing how I like that sort of thing, she suggested I just watch  the first episode.  Fine.   So, with prejudice in hand, I watched the first episode and found myself intrigued by the characters I saw.

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First was our married couple.   Kang Joon Hyung, played by Park Hyeok-Kwon, is a piano professor who is surrounded by more talented colleagues.  His wife is Oh Hye Won, played by Kim Hee-Ae,  an elegant former pianist who now works for the foundation that sponsers the school that Joon Hyung works at.   She must balance her loyalties between her two bosses who are the second wife and first wife daughter of the foundations/school’s president.  To say that Step Mom and Step daughter are at odds for control of the school is putting it mildly.   Her marriage to Joon Hyung is friendly but loveless.  She is a kind, straight as an arrow sort of person who gets the job done. She lives her life in an upstanding way and is considered almost a stick in the mud by her more corrupt bosses, but they like her anyway.   She also has a knack for knowing excellent piano playing when she hears it and is often asked by her husband to listen to potential new students.

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Lee Sun Jae, played by  Yoo Ah In,  is a poor delivery boy who loves the piano.  He’s basically taught himself to play and has next to no formal training.  He listens to good piano players and then copies their style to improve his own.  He comes from a world where his love of music are unrecognized or seen as just a quirk.  He has a girlfriend who is more into him than he is into her.  He is a very needy character looking for approval.   When he unintentionally plays a piano tuned for a major concert, he comes to the notice of Professor Kang who asks his wife to judge whether he is really as amazing as he seems.

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Sun Jae honest and loving playing captures Hye Won’s musical heart as any music lover knows too well.   She sees before her an amazing talent that needs some direction but that is all.   Sun Jae however is captured by her care and appreciation of him and his music.   Her first evaluation of him lasts like 8 hours and both are emotionally spent by the experience.  Sun Jae quickly develops a crush on his beautiful teacher and in a twist, confides this love to an online confidant that turns out to be Hye Won in disguise, who unbeknownst to them both had been talking to him for awhile over piano playing and an illness that Sun Jae had.  Charmed by his confession but not interested in confusing the boy, she keeps things at arms length.  They convince Sun Jae to enroll in their school but on the day of his audition his mother passes away.

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This puts Sun Jae into a tailspin.   His mother died while she was out getting him something for his audition and he feels guilty about it.  He sells off his piano and enlists for civil service, running away from what he loves most as he tries to hide from the pain.   Not wanting him to totally give up on his music,  Hye Won sends him a book about a famous pianist with underlined phrases to help shake him up and bring him back to his senses.    Moved by her care and desperately needing comfort, he ends up at her house and confronts her with his confused feelings, leading to a kiss neither of them are prepared for.

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While Sun Jae is more than willing to start something with his beautiful teacher,  Hye Won is not about to jeopardize her life.   Once she comes to her senses she tells him to leave and pretends nothing happened.   This hurts and angers Sun Jae and later on contributes to him getting in trouble and lands himself in jail.

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Professor Kang comes to the rescue to get him out and he brings him to his house as a way to protect him.   Hye Won, this whole time, has been mulling over all their interactions and is struggling with his effect on her.

This is where we find ourselves by the end of the 4th episode.   I hadn’t intended to watch all four up to this point, but I was curious how such a straight laced character would get herself into trouble.  Having a needy musician desperately needing your comfort could do it if you don’t keep those boundaries up and I think Sun Jae is going to push them to the limit.

Songwriters beware…

As a singer, I appreciate songwriters.   While anyone can make a song, I hum all sorts of things,   crafting a good song that others will actually want to listen to is not so easy.   Songs often carry a musical signature that identifies the author of the song.   Everyone knows a John Williams piece when they hear it.   Taylor Swift also has a sound you can’t miss.  Madonna and Micheal Jackson also have signature sounds.   As I become more familiar with Kpop, I’m starting to hear those similarities as well.   Some are more glaring then others.   The idea of this post started when I heard  Speed’s new tune,  Don’t Tease Me produced by Shinsadong Tiger.

When I heard, I loved it.  I loved the beat and the tone of the song.  However there was something very familiar about this song.   I couldn’t place it but I was getting flashes of something else and it took me a few hours to place it.    I finally had a memory flash strong enough to remember that the chorus sounded strongly like a part in Block B’s NalinA sung specifically by P.O.   Take a listen and see if you can hear it.  Start the video at 1:00.

I knew Speed wasn’t copying their sound so that could only mean the songwriter/producer had to be the same.    While I couldn’t find anything concrete that said Tiger worked on both,  if you pay attention to the first minute of the Block B video, you’ll see one of the “team” names is “team tiger”.    Between that and the similarities of the songs,  I’m going on a limb to say its the same guy.

Songwriters will let many groups use their music, and that’s great for them.  Just watch out when the songs sound the same.   I’ve already seen a few comments where people were talking about copycat sounds and that’s not the groups fault nor the songwriters fault.   Just something to keep in mind.

As a bonus, I’m including a link to the stunt practice Speed took part in so they could do the more amazing stunts in this dance.  These kids have some skills.

 

 

Its a J explosion

This week saw the release of  Jackie Chan’s new boy group JJCC and also Super Junior M released a new single.   Its an explosion of J this week and I couldn’t be happier.

First  here is JJCC

This is Jackie Chan’s first venture into his own boy group.  From what I’ve read the best description for the JJCC name is “Jackie ‘Joint Culture’ Chan”  Comprised of 4 Koreans and one Chinese Australian, this group can speak English, Korean and Chinese, which will be a big help as they promote in the various countries they will perform in.  Their first video only shows the 4 Korean members because the Australian was scouted and joined later.   Now I’m not a big fan of groups where rapping is the main vocal part.  This is why I haven’t been able to get into bands such as BTS or BAP,  but this song, while rapping all the verses and only singing the chorus has an appeal that I like.   The mellowness of the song really allows the boys and their musicality to shine through.  Here is a link to one of their debut stage performances for this song with all five members.

The popular sub group Super Junior M also released their new single Swing in China this week.

I almost like the sub group better than the what the full group releases in Korean.  Almost.   Siwon has pretty much slayed the Latin fans with his mustache and calling for Maria.   Why they use Maria for a name when this song is being released in China, I can’t quite figure out.   I love the dancing.  The song moves from fast to slow movements giving the song a fun life of its own.  The lyrics are an excellent example of why I prefer Asian music.  This song is about letting go of fear and dancing away your worries.  Being willing to risk loving again and not hiding away.   So often American songs are about how fast we can get you into bed, and don’t get me wrong,  there are Korean songs that have the same meanings, but for the most part, the upbeat dance stuff is clean and positive.   I really appreciate that.

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Blue eyes in a Blue World

I have a thing for blue eyes.  I can’t help it.  I see them and I quiver.   So my liking of Asian flower boys has always been a bit of a dichotomy because I don’t get all that excited by dark eyes and hair.   But, pair dark hair with blue eyes and I’m melting like butter on a hot griddle.

HOWEVER… Super Junior released a song in December called Blue World.  I don’t know how I missed this one till now, but  its a fun video full of my favorite color splashed all over the place.  Nice song, good beat, danceable.   However, those little stinkers in editing took that dark vibrant shade of blue and flashed it through their eyes.  *Whimper*

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My favorite member Kyuhyun with blue eyes.   This is mean torture for this Ajumma.  This boy was already beautiful to begin with.  *sigh*

If you also like blue eyes,  there is an artist who photoshopped Kpop Idols, both sexes, with blue eyes and those pictures were shared by another on Pinterest.

Here’s Super Junior’s Blue World

 

 

Not quite the target audience.

I was watching a new video today.    Key from Shinee and WooHyun from  Infinate collaborated on a new mini album called Toheart.   Since I love both groups, I happily clicked to watch the first video from the album.  It didn’t take me long to realize……  wow, I’m so not the targeted age group.  ROFL!

This adorable video is clearly aimed at the teen crowd.   As a DJ, I’d play this in any junior high/middle school dance.  I really liked the 1950’s feel to the sets and wardrobe.  There was such an innocence to this whole video that I even commented on youtube:  “Are they even old enough to shave? ”

This video however, did remind me that being older, I don’t necessarily respond to certain videos the way the target audience is expected to respond because, after all, I’m not the target audience.  I’ll give you a few examples of this.

Super Junior  “Sexy Free and Single”

Undoubtedly Super Junior is comprised of some seriously handsome young men.  Their songs tend to be aimed at the High School/College age group.  And while I love the eye candy and excellent dancing afforded in this video, as a single woman my age,  I hear that chorus and I think, “Jerk! Thanks for the warning!”.  *chuckles*  The lyrics themselves are are on the clean side, which is what I love about kpop, but the message of the chorus to my jaded dating ears is “Its all about me and let me use you for the night”.   While a 20 year old girl might be open to these lines just because the guy is cute,  not so much for me since I know these type of guys aren’t worth my time.

The next example is  Gdragon’s  Michigo.

This song has no redeeming quality whatsoever.   My DJ response is “meh”.   Its a club song, and not even a very clever club song.   I’ll talk about the lyrics in just a moment.   Every artist has two types of songs.  There is the music they make when they are using all their creativity, and then there are those songs you just do because you know they are going to make money.  This song is a cheap example of this.  This song probably took Gdragon all of an hour to think up and I’m probably being generous at that.

Now to the lyrics and video content….  This is a very imaginative video.   All of Gdragon’s videos are.   However, the first time I saw this I couldn’t understand why there were so many groin innuendos in it.  And not even sexy groin innuendos, just blatant, in your face, look at my size innuendos.   Pink elephant between his legs,  big hands and feet,  dancing in a urinal,  getting spanked by mom and dad, getting worked over by the embarrassed doctor….ehem.   Yeah…   Curious, I then went and looked up the lyrics.   Oh….its about a guy wanting his willie jerked all night long.   Lovely.    If I was 20 years old, I would have probably swooned and thought how beautiful and sexy Gdragon is, because lets face it, the boy has a very pretty face.   Being twice that age…  *evil chuckles*  I had a very different response.   I watched the video again and started laughing.   There is only one question I have after watching this video….. who got laughed at?   This is a male compensation video if there EVER was one.   Now, I’m not saying that Gdragon would have been the one laughed at (giving the idol the benefit of the doubt)   …. but clearly somebody on that production team was feeling insecure.  lol

Being a Kpop fan is fun.  Fun music, fun videos,  the artists themselves are usually humble and nice, which is a nice switch from the blantant meglomania of some american artists.  But it also comes with a lot of humor because I’m not a teenager and so I’m going to respond a little differently on occasion then what is intended.

I will end this post with my favorite Kpop song that is all eye candy, good music and excellent dancing.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting a Man to like Kdramas

I had a lot of fun this last week introducing a friend of mine to Kdramas.  He’s a manly sort of guy,  likes his southern rock,  works as a welder, not the sort you’d think would at first want to even watch a show with pretty men in it. lol

However, when I found out that he liked anime, I realized, I had an opening.  Considering his age, close to mine, and his manly man type of nature, I suggested that he might really like a show called Gentleman’s Dignity.

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Why was this my first suggestion?

The easy answer is that this is a clever drama that caters to those of us who count as Gen X’ers.   This drama is also told from the perspectives of the 4 men.   Yes, you get some of what the ladies are going through too, but only in regards to how it impacts the men.

I love this drama.  Its one of my all time favorites.  The little vignettes before each episode  are mostly about things that are quirks for men, but they are all age related.  For a woman our age, we all know men like these four and I laughed and laughed.  When they made fun of things that pertained to anyone our age, I laughed even harder.   When the men  hurt, you hurt with them, this was also true for my male friend.

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He liked the different female characters when they were tough and when they were cute.  He really identified with Jang Dong Gun’s character Do Jin.   He liked that he was a take charge type of character that knew what he liked, what he wanted and kept working towards it.   The charcter of Yi Soo,  Do Jin’s love interest, quickly got on my friend’s nerves, ( “He should drop her and keep walking)  but he still kept watching.    He liked that Do Jin was an alpha male type of character and he really identified with him when Colin shows up to complicate the story.   When Do Jin cried  at the idea of losing Yi Soo my friend’s response was , “Oh sh*t, he’s crying!”.

He also liked the character of Kim Dong Hyeob played by Kim Woo Bin.  He starts off as a trouble maker, but then you find out that he’s in a tough situation just trying to do his best and you can’t help but respect the kid.

What it all boils down to is finding something that peaks your guys interest.  I went for an age related comedy, you might have a guy who likes action more, so maybe City Hunter or Iris  or Two Weeks might be a good suggestion.   If nothing else, have him try Gentleman’s Dignity and see if he likes it.

I leave you with the text I got after he finished it:

“I liked it. As Korean shows..a bit too dramatic and not the right kind of communication but all in all, I really enjoyed it. They love American culture that is for sure. I would love to dress like those guys in some case..I cant wear turquoise or white pants tho.”

ROFL!!