Powerful Men

Ahhh!! Some crazy news today, well more like this week~ All in the world of Asia as well.

So starting with some old news, our happy-go-lucky Lee MinHo is becoming the ever so famous City Hunter, the Japanese manga about a detective/cop who is a womanizer but also trips when he sees a beautiful woman. I was reading that he was preparing for the City Hunter role by 'becoming a powerful man' since his last two dramas, Boys Before Flowers and Personal Taste, he was rather fruity and a pretty boy in both.

Lee Min Ho from Boys Before FLower

I haven't seen any images of the City Hunter drama nor know if they have even started shooting it, but since another Hallyu star, Rain (Ninja Assassin, Full House), aka Bi [in Korea], came out with his drama, Fugitive Plan B, there have been lots of talk that Lee Min Ho cannot live up to the 'powerful man' standard. The Rain drama not only has a 'powerful man' in the story, but the stories are both so similar, in which womanizing detective/cops are carefree and go the own way to solve cases while falling in love with a beautiful woman,' the station producing City Hunter is scrambling to find ways to counter such early critiques. Then again, I don't believe there have been any dramas of such nature (detective, thriller, unsolved cases, womanizing, action, etc) that it's really easy to compare these two.

...and then changing into a cop detective in the upcoming City Hunter

But I can see how City Hunter may fall where the current Fugitive Plan B is successful. Besides Rain's all-encompassing stardom, not only within Korea, but internationally as well, he has got to be in most people's eyes, a pretty good image of a 'powerful man.' I mean, his worked out body for Ninja Assassin blew me away. And even if his English was terrible, at least it was super eye candy for me. Lee Min Ho on the other hand, is purely face-eye-candy. I mean, unless in the past 6 months he's also been working out like mad and gained 50 lbs of muscle, I am not sure if he will be able to get City Hunter the 20-30% ratings that Fugitive Plan B has been enjoying until the very end.

Rain's workout for Ninja Assasin

Kdrama: Fugitive, Plan B

Well, I guess it'll just have to wait and see.

Onto more pretty boys~ in the currently airing Secret Garden, which has also been enjoying 20% ratings, I've just found out that Hyun Bin, the leading man who plays a powerful and rich asshole from the nethers of the Asshole Kingdom (joke) is going to be singing the male counter version of "That Man" by Baek Ji Young. I love this song and since I'm rarely a fan of many love songs, I think this is a song with a melody sung in Korean with a beautifully haunting and little sad voice, that fits so perfectly for the theme of the drama which seems to revolve around the idea of The Little Mermaid (the unhappy version).



Speaking of Hyun Bin, on that note, it seems that another sad thing is that he's to be leaving early next year for his military service for South Korea. Because of this, he's been giving it his all to the Secret Garden drama, and it shows, from the body swaps to the complete asshole role, to even kissing his male cousin on the lips (in the story that is, not real life). I think it's pretty crazy but I guess artists need to go all out and crazy on their work before going through the kind of discipline such as military service.

Poster for the drama Secret Garden

I'll miss you Hyun Bin.... 

but not THAT much. 

Heh.

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J-drama is back!!

For a while there, I thought the run of good J-dramas saw its end nearly after the Boys before Flowers boom was over. There weren't a lot of strong, captivating storylines surfacing and nearly everything was trying to milk the teen romance/comedy theme until the dead horse was just  a bloody pulp.

So I guess it explains the few Korean culture and drama posts I had written. Korean dramas are always good to fall back on when nothing good is on tv or I've exhausted my Youtube surfing. But now awaiting the next Korean dramas (Secret Garden, City Hunter with Lee Minho!!OMG, and trying to work on Fugitive Plan B with Rain), I delved back into trying out some new season premieres of J-drama this fall~ it looks like the writers in Japan realized they needed to work on better plots and characters and they did deliver!



First up is ギルティ 悪魔と契約した女。 Besides having Tamaki Hiroshi in it which is always a total sell for me no matter how bad the drama is... well, hmm, no, I wouldnt finish the bad drama but I'd still like to see his work; This drama is all about revenge! yes, good old revenge 12 years in the making. And any revenge story that takes over 10 years to craft, should always be good. Let's hope...




Then, just today as I was refreshing the Mysoju site, I saw  獣医ドリトル which stars Oguri Shun and Inoue Mao (both stars from Boys before Flowers) and i just love Oguri Shun because of his chill personality! After blogging this, I am gonna go watch the first episode! heh!




And lastly, or thirdly really, is 黄金の豚 which stars Shinohara Ryoko, the heroine from the popular Unfair series and movie. I'm not really a fan of her, well, somehow I don't think she's really star material because she just doesn't seem unique or beautiful to me but maybe that's the attractive point about her to people in Japan. Well, nonetheless, as far as acting skills I think she is better than the average J-actor and for females out there, she certainly does a good job with the masculine tomboy type. So I'm curious to see how she will do in this drama. The story is interesting but not sure where it will go. (long story short: Ex-con woman hired by gov to catch ppl who cheat on taxes, etc.)

I'm so happy about having some good stuff to watch and kill time with again! (since the failed ffxiv doesn't keep me as occupied as I would have liked... but that's another blog post for another time)
And so happy Tamaki is playing sexy, badass and cool!!! <3 XoXOoxXOXXoXx drool....

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Conan O'Brien, American Express: Extended Cut

I do enjoy Conan O'brien over that 'other tv dude' and am so glad he's back in the business and using what happened to him in the last year to his advantage! I think he's in a higher and better place this time than if he had stayed host of the Tonight Show to this day. And he gets to be his own creative now too! Now creativity! that's the best stuff!

This commercial just rocks!

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Do you believe in ghosts?

So one of my favorite American TV shows is Ghost Adventures, where three guys travel around the world to haunted locations and try to use science to prove that ghosts (or spirits) really exist.

Half of this show I think is just fake. A lot of it I think is acting. But the really fun and cool thing that I like about the show is the evidence they capture using some really interesting technology. The tape recorder is very typical for capturing ghostly voices and sounds. But sometimes the Ghost Adventures team uses things like a UV camera or device which allows ghosts to channel certain words into a screen... well, it gets complicated to try to explain but this show, if in one word, compared to other ghost shows, is entertaining.

The new season premiere, which aired tonight, New York east coast timezone, at 9:00pm, was kind of interesting. It was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a place which I never expected to really be 'that kind of haunted.' I mean, the United States of America has such a short history, I would think very old places that have seen a lot of bloodshed and strife would be better candidates for haunted hot spots. Yet there were some pretty disturbing places shown at the show.

But besides visiting interesting haunted places, the team of 3, Zak, Nick, and Aaron, do their 'lockdown' as they call it, in complete darkness, no extra people, no extra help. I think this is very new and as being the brave guys as they are, they go into some very dark places I would never in a million lifetimes find myself in. I think it's a great setting for a show and i always get creeped out by the end of it with my arm hairs sticking out! Perhaps there are static ghosts through the television??

For myself, I somewhat believe to a certain extent that spirits do exist out there yet we as human beings, are unable to understand the relevance of the afterlife or beyond to our own existences. So therefore I am considered agnostic to many. But having this tiny bit of belief allows me to enjoy this kind of haunted show. For others who don't get scared so easily, you're no fun. :P

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