K-Dramas crack me up. I love watching them.
First everyone knows the Frozen Kiss. When they finally kiss which is often after quite a bit of time, they can only touch lips and stand there (other stuff is subject to censorship although I have seen some that push the envelope). I always whisper to my wife, “ooh, now they HAVE to get married, they’ve done the Frozen Kiss.” I actually like that a lot of K-Dramas are very G-rated.
Then I like how you can always tell the Bad Guy. If you’re a real criminal you have to wear all black and wear a certain kind of black Korean baseball cap and dark sunglasses. You’re wearing black because you are trying to be inconspicuous, but of course in a K-Drama you stand out like a sore thumb.
Other strange rules. You can show guns, but you can’t show knives (those always get blurred out). And then you have the obligatory one of throwing water at someone or pouring it over their head (saw that one only a couple of nights ago). And they may be using all sorts of obscenities against each other, but it always gets translated as “you witch,” or “you little brat.”
And then they’re always getting some strange disease, often genetic, that nobody has ever heard of and end up in the hospital all the time. But nobody can actually say what the disease is to another. So it’s always, “oh, I just have a little cold,” or “I drank too much soju last night.” And half the time the doctors won’t tell the patients what is actually wrong with them, it’s just “oh you’ll probably feel better in a couple of days.”
And then there are the “you know a disaster is about to happen” scenes. Like when they give a little girl a ball and tell her to go out and play by the busy street. And cars and trucks never slow down or stop when they are about to run someone over. Instead, they just lean on the horn and accelerate.
And boy do they love to drink. Beer isn’t even really like real alcohol, it’s more like water, it has to be shots of soju or whiskey to even be considered alcohol. And I’m always amazed at the surgeons and operating teams that are always doing the most sensitive and demanding brain or heart surgery the morning after they have all been getting blind drunk and passing out.
Chinese dramas are even more entertaining by the way. One is they are even more blatant in product promotion. They are always trying to sell something or convince you to buy and eat some sort of food. Sometimes they will even stop the dialogue and then have the actors do an actual commercial right in the middle of filming. It’s part of the fun in watching the drama.
This is not to say K-Dramas and C-Dramas are not well made. A lot of them are just fantastic. Very enjoyable and then you get hooked.
Kisses. One person is allowed to have their arms around the other. The other is required to keep both arms straight by their sides. Either of them is allowed to be the person who keeps their eyes open, but the other must then close theirs. Kisses aren’t centered. I thought at first that they kept missing, but they seem to be carefully aiming at either the top or bottom lip. Tongues don’t seem to be involved. All looks very clean and sanitary and not drooly and they must not need their brightly colored hankies much. RARELY, is there a sexy kiss.
Yes, the black outfit is useful for all bad guys, but is also useful for disguised idols.
Fashion! I HAVE to make a video showing off the incredible Chinese fashion sense. It’s Paris meets Beijing. Korean not so much. The balloon-like historical costumes end up affecting the modern fashions, but not in a good way. Men’s fashions range from incredibly wonderful to copies of 1890’s suits.
Didn’t notice the knife issue. I’ll look for it. There were quite a few knife scenes in Glamor and in Descendants of the Sun. Very business-like military dramas and the universal military college training and 2 year enlistment is fascinating.
They do say brat and jerk a lot. I don’t swear, so it never occurred to me that they might be translated more gently.
Diseases are fascinating. I called my girlfriend with HD to tell her about the drama that had all the symptoms wrong. And I can’t recognize faces either, so I was thrilled with the drama that was built around that one. (We will not discuss the year and a half I couldn’t tell the difference between my 2 year fiancee and some strange man. I only told when I would start shaking and grab the stair railings or I would be fine and think I was finally over him. Apparently I could subconsciously tell them apart but it was years before I figured that out.) My favorite at the moment is human allergy.
I’ve never drunk alcohol, but it seems to be the national pastime. Is there an Asian movie where the heroine DOESN’T get drunk? And the practice of drinking for someone else? Absolutely fascinating. Besides drinking, the girls all cry like 5 year old children crying aloud. I’d THINK that would be a major turnoff, but it seems not to be. I LOVE that the men cry, but with more dignity than the girls.
I’ll have to look for produce placement. I started with Chinese dramas and moved into Korean. Sleuth is one of the best dramas EVER! I WILL make music videos in that one eventually.