Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Friday, 16 May 2014
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Favorite Romantic Korean Drama/ Film
1. Master's Son (2013)
In this part horror, part romantic comedy drama, Tae Gong Sil (Gong Hyo Jin) is a sweet woman who develops the ability to see ghosts after getting into a bad accident and coming out of a three-year coma. Her boss is the ambitious and cool CEO, Joo Joong Won (So Ji Sub), who loves money more than anything else in the world. But as the haughty executive learns to trust his quirky employee and falls in love with her, can he help save her from her scary world of ghosts?
Watch for free here: http://www.viki.com/tv/11915c-masters-sun
9/10
2. He Was Cool
Sweet movie where tough guy Eun Sung (Song Seung Hun) falls in love with the sweet Ye Won (Jeong Da Bin) when she hilariously falls on him and accidentally kisses him but Ye Won thinks Eun Sung is rude and temperamental and rejects his interests. However the more time she spends with him the further she gets under his cool facade to find he is a sweet guy with a good heart.
Watch for free here: http://www.viki.com/videos/22049v-he-was-cool-official-version
7/10
3. My Love from A Star
The coolest couple in Kdrama history comes in the form Kim Soo Hyun and Gianna Jun. Kim Soo Hyun plays Do Min Joon an alien in the form of a perfect human specimen who arrived on Earth 400 years ago during the Chosun Dynasty. In modern-day Korea, Min Do meets top actress Cheon Song Yi (Gianna Jun) and falls in love with her. Can the cross-species couple possibly have a future together?
Watch the first episode here: www.viki.com/http://www.viki.com/videos/1026409v-my-love-from-the-star-episode-1videos/1026409v-my-love-from-the-star-episode-1
9.5/10
4. Coffee Prince
7/10
5. Protect the Boss
Very, very funny drama.
Watch the first episode here: http://www.viki.com/videos/137453v-protect-the-boss-episode-1
7.5/10
In this part horror, part romantic comedy drama, Tae Gong Sil (Gong Hyo Jin) is a sweet woman who develops the ability to see ghosts after getting into a bad accident and coming out of a three-year coma. Her boss is the ambitious and cool CEO, Joo Joong Won (So Ji Sub), who loves money more than anything else in the world. But as the haughty executive learns to trust his quirky employee and falls in love with her, can he help save her from her scary world of ghosts?
Watch for free here: http://www.viki.com/tv/11915c-masters-sun
9/10
2. He Was Cool
Sweet movie where tough guy Eun Sung (Song Seung Hun) falls in love with the sweet Ye Won (Jeong Da Bin) when she hilariously falls on him and accidentally kisses him but Ye Won thinks Eun Sung is rude and temperamental and rejects his interests. However the more time she spends with him the further she gets under his cool facade to find he is a sweet guy with a good heart.
Watch for free here: http://www.viki.com/videos/22049v-he-was-cool-official-version
7/10
3. My Love from A Star
The coolest couple in Kdrama history comes in the form Kim Soo Hyun and Gianna Jun. Kim Soo Hyun plays Do Min Joon an alien in the form of a perfect human specimen who arrived on Earth 400 years ago during the Chosun Dynasty. In modern-day Korea, Min Do meets top actress Cheon Song Yi (Gianna Jun) and falls in love with her. Can the cross-species couple possibly have a future together?
Watch the first episode here: www.viki.com/http://www.viki.com/videos/1026409v-my-love-from-the-star-episode-1videos/1026409v-my-love-from-the-star-episode-1
9.5/10
4. Coffee Prince
7/10
5. Protect the Boss
Very, very funny drama.
Watch the first episode here: http://www.viki.com/videos/137453v-protect-the-boss-episode-1
7.5/10
Saturday, 26 October 2013
Wuthering Heights Ooops I Mean Twilight!
Although I will be reviewing Twilight, a stand alone text in a separate post, this post is more about the stark similarities between Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, so let the comparisons begin:
Apparently the story of Twilight came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream. However, after finishing this veritable tombe of teenage angst and empty melodrama I have my suspicions that this dream was induced after Mrs Myer finished reading or watching Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. For anyone like me, who had the misfortune to read that awful book for A level English, the strong similarities with Bronte's novel are far from welcome ones.
Characters:
Bella/ Cathy
Edward/Heathcliff
Jacob/Linton
Jumble these names up a bit, give them sharp incisors and we have Twilight.
Bella/ Cathy
Our protagonist is Bella Swan who we can presume, since she is stuck between two guys, is the Cathy figure in Meyer's text. Unfortunately this is where the similarities between the two characters end. While Cathy is portrayed and actively demonstrates that she is a strong, wilful character (i.e. by making her own choices, selfish as they may seem) Bella on the other hand is happy to sit back in relative inferiority and let her over-protective vamp boyfriend make all her decisions (this is where feminism takes a beating).
Edward/ Heathcliff
Strangely I liked the Heathcliff in Bronte's novel, although he seemed quite dangerous and animalistic, there seemed to be a kind of vulnerability about him. Come on! He was possibly abandoned by his family and so has no real roots except that is Cathy, so we can cut him a little slack when he gets finds that the love of his life, his 'soul mate' has married another. Alas Meyer's Edward has no such real depth, despite being similar to the 'monster-like' Heathcliff -simply because he is a monster, with him being a vamp and all- there is no real substance beneath the model-like looks (despite Meyer half-heartedly trying to throw in some cliche history of him coming from England) in the end he's more vanilla than Cathy's rich husband, Linton.
Jacob/ Linton
Hmmmm! Not much similarities here except their both second best so I feel sorry for them both. Jacob is clearly meant to be portrayed as a hot than hot werewolf and of course like all the attractive guys in Forks he inevitably fall for Bella because....? Honestly I don't know why he falls for her or why Edward does for that matter (except in Edward's case it's kinda explained through the fact that he likes her smell.....? Ok so that's not weird at all). Anway Jacob seems to genuinely like Bella and they have very normal albeit boring and awkward conversations where Jacob tries to make a move on Bella, she keeps knocking him back and he bounces back to her like an eager puppy determined to be loved.
Setting: The Moors/ Forks
The depressing rainy setting of Twilight's setting, Forks took me back to the depressing, rainy moors that Heathcliff and Cathy loved so much. Just thinking about it gives me chills- and not in a good way.
The Romance:
Cathy + Heathcliff
vs.
Bella + Edward
I never understood as to why Cathy and Heathcliff's romance was considered comparable to the greatest literary romances of all time (like Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, Margaret Hale and Mr Thornton and so on). Both Cathy and Heathcliff are incredibly selfish (see Cathy's stupid decision to marry Linton even though she declares Heathcliff as her soul mate), self-destructive (particularly Cathy who although has made her choice to marry Linton, so she can live comfortably, annoyingly continues to bitch and moan and simply won't lie in the bed she made, instead continuing to try and have both her lovers within reach), cruel (both Heathcliff and Cathy are mean to animals and the people around them) and finally they are downright annoying with their tragically forced tale of woe and heartbreak- these two take brooding to a whole new level.
Bella and Edward's relationship is equally self destructive and disturbing. Most of the story is Edward trying to tell Bella that they can't be together; mostly because if they do become a couple he'll lose control and end up biting her and sucking her dry because he's a vampire and she has nice smelling blood or something. Oooh I forgot to mention he can also read minds- yep he's Mystic Meg or something- however he cannot read Bella's mind (lucky for her as all he'd probably hear a variation of "OOOH Sparkly!"or "EEEK! I don't care if he kills me he's just so damn hot *drool*" Then her boring ass would get dropped before her drool touches the floor.Another thing which is equally disturbing and comparable to Wuthering Heights is the fact that Cathy's dead= while Edward is the undead and just as Cathy appears as a ghost and tries to get through the window of her bedroom= in turn Edward seems to creepily watch and enter Bella's room through her window. I'm going to assume that the window is the threshold to the supernatural world.
Anyway I'm going to end it here. If you have spotted any Wuthering Heights similarities I would love to hear about them so drop me a comment below. Thanks.
Apparently the story of Twilight came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream. However, after finishing this veritable tombe of teenage angst and empty melodrama I have my suspicions that this dream was induced after Mrs Myer finished reading or watching Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. For anyone like me, who had the misfortune to read that awful book for A level English, the strong similarities with Bronte's novel are far from welcome ones.
 |
| Replace the soda can with a copy of Wuthering Heights and you'll understand how I feel |
Characters:
Bella/ Cathy
Edward/Heathcliff
Jacob/Linton
Jumble these names up a bit, give them sharp incisors and we have Twilight.
Bella/ Cathy
Our protagonist is Bella Swan who we can presume, since she is stuck between two guys, is the Cathy figure in Meyer's text. Unfortunately this is where the similarities between the two characters end. While Cathy is portrayed and actively demonstrates that she is a strong, wilful character (i.e. by making her own choices, selfish as they may seem) Bella on the other hand is happy to sit back in relative inferiority and let her over-protective vamp boyfriend make all her decisions (this is where feminism takes a beating).
 |
| Bella fulfilling her potential |
Edward/ Heathcliff
Strangely I liked the Heathcliff in Bronte's novel, although he seemed quite dangerous and animalistic, there seemed to be a kind of vulnerability about him. Come on! He was possibly abandoned by his family and so has no real roots except that is Cathy, so we can cut him a little slack when he gets finds that the love of his life, his 'soul mate' has married another. Alas Meyer's Edward has no such real depth, despite being similar to the 'monster-like' Heathcliff -simply because he is a monster, with him being a vamp and all- there is no real substance beneath the model-like looks (despite Meyer half-heartedly trying to throw in some cliche history of him coming from England) in the end he's more vanilla than Cathy's rich husband, Linton.
 |
| Even Alice is bored but to be fair she is used to talking rabbits. |
Jacob/ Linton
Hmmmm! Not much similarities here except their both second best so I feel sorry for them both. Jacob is clearly meant to be portrayed as a hot than hot werewolf and of course like all the attractive guys in Forks he inevitably fall for Bella because....? Honestly I don't know why he falls for her or why Edward does for that matter (except in Edward's case it's kinda explained through the fact that he likes her smell.....? Ok so that's not weird at all). Anway Jacob seems to genuinely like Bella and they have very normal albeit boring and awkward conversations where Jacob tries to make a move on Bella, she keeps knocking him back and he bounces back to her like an eager puppy determined to be loved.
Setting: The Moors/ Forks
The depressing rainy setting of Twilight's setting, Forks took me back to the depressing, rainy moors that Heathcliff and Cathy loved so much. Just thinking about it gives me chills- and not in a good way.
The Romance:
Cathy + Heathcliff
vs.
Bella + Edward
I never understood as to why Cathy and Heathcliff's romance was considered comparable to the greatest literary romances of all time (like Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, Margaret Hale and Mr Thornton and so on). Both Cathy and Heathcliff are incredibly selfish (see Cathy's stupid decision to marry Linton even though she declares Heathcliff as her soul mate), self-destructive (particularly Cathy who although has made her choice to marry Linton, so she can live comfortably, annoyingly continues to bitch and moan and simply won't lie in the bed she made, instead continuing to try and have both her lovers within reach), cruel (both Heathcliff and Cathy are mean to animals and the people around them) and finally they are downright annoying with their tragically forced tale of woe and heartbreak- these two take brooding to a whole new level.
Bella and Edward's relationship is equally self destructive and disturbing. Most of the story is Edward trying to tell Bella that they can't be together; mostly because if they do become a couple he'll lose control and end up biting her and sucking her dry because he's a vampire and she has nice smelling blood or something. Oooh I forgot to mention he can also read minds- yep he's Mystic Meg or something- however he cannot read Bella's mind (lucky for her as all he'd probably hear a variation of "OOOH Sparkly!"or "EEEK! I don't care if he kills me he's just so damn hot *drool*" Then her boring ass would get dropped before her drool touches the floor.Another thing which is equally disturbing and comparable to Wuthering Heights is the fact that Cathy's dead= while Edward is the undead and just as Cathy appears as a ghost and tries to get through the window of her bedroom= in turn Edward seems to creepily watch and enter Bella's room through her window. I'm going to assume that the window is the threshold to the supernatural world.
Anyway I'm going to end it here. If you have spotted any Wuthering Heights similarities I would love to hear about them so drop me a comment below. Thanks.
Friday, 25 October 2013
Book Review: White Cat by Holly Black
Hello all! So a friend of mine has recently given me a mountain of Young Adult fiction after my revelation that I consciously avoid YA fiction. Although to be fair it was not much of a revelation since my eyes usually glaze over when she tells me about the new 'big' thing in YA fiction. Its not that I hate YA fiction so much as the whole YA genre bores me to death. I find the plots predictable, the characters annoyingly immature and so I kind of just stopped reading them when I was about 16. However times change and so at the ripe old age of 21 and with some free time on my hands I have decided to jump back into the foray of YA fiction. You'll find out whether I regret this recursion below:
The Novel: White Cat, first in the Curse Workers Series
The Author: Holly Black
The Cover:
The length: 320 pages
The Genre: Fantasy, with a hint of romance.
The Story:
Cassel Sharpe is a seventeen year old from a family of 'workers', no, not the kind that you see on the street corner but in this fantasy world people who have magic abilities are known as 'workers'. All but itty bitty Cassel the youngest member of the Sharpe family seem to posses some kind of power, which is sad and inevitably leads to a semi- depressed, restless Catcher and the Rye, Holden-esque narrative where Sharpe feels out of place and excluded from his own family.
Meanwhile the rest of his family use there abilities for bad: His absent mother can manipulate people by making them fall in love with her and so usually ends up in compromising situations because of it (one of them which is jail).
His grandfather comes across an old mafia- type, his older brother has super strength and his other brother can alter memories- (all three of the guys in his family work for an influential crime family who use workers to do their dirty work). Thus the family of superheros is complete:
However nothing is ever that simple is it? With cool abilities come crappy responsibilities or in this case crappy 'blowbacks' which are serious repercussions to using your powers e.g. if you use your mind altering ability to alter someones memories you lose some of your memories; so you might one day end up trawling the streets not having a clue as to who you are.
Hello all! So a friend of mine has recently given me a mountain of Young Adult fiction after my revelation that I consciously avoid YA fiction. Although to be fair it was not much of a revelation since my eyes usually glaze over when she tells me about the new 'big' thing in YA fiction. Its not that I hate YA fiction so much as the whole YA genre bores me to death. I find the plots predictable, the characters annoyingly immature and so I kind of just stopped reading them when I was about 16. However times change and so at the ripe old age of 21 and with some free time on my hands I have decided to jump back into the foray of YA fiction. You'll find out whether I regret this recursion below:
The Novel: White Cat, first in the Curse Workers Series
The Author: Holly Black
The Cover:
The length: 320 pages
The Genre: Fantasy, with a hint of romance.
The Story:
Cassel Sharpe is a seventeen year old from a family of 'workers', no, not the kind that you see on the street corner but in this fantasy world people who have magic abilities are known as 'workers'. All but itty bitty Cassel the youngest member of the Sharpe family seem to posses some kind of power, which is sad and inevitably leads to a semi- depressed, restless Catcher and the Rye, Holden-esque narrative where Sharpe feels out of place and excluded from his own family.
Meanwhile the rest of his family use there abilities for bad: His absent mother can manipulate people by making them fall in love with her and so usually ends up in compromising situations because of it (one of them which is jail).
 |
| Not if Cassel's mother has anything to do with it... |
His grandfather comes across an old mafia- type, his older brother has super strength and his other brother can alter memories- (all three of the guys in his family work for an influential crime family who use workers to do their dirty work). Thus the family of superheros is complete:
However nothing is ever that simple is it? With cool abilities come crappy responsibilities or in this case crappy 'blowbacks' which are serious repercussions to using your powers e.g. if you use your mind altering ability to alter someones memories you lose some of your memories; so you might one day end up trawling the streets not having a clue as to who you are.
Anyway the plot centres around the boarding- school stranded Cassel and the weird dreams he has of a white cat, hence the title (but I won't spoil the significance of the cat). He also narrates the guilt he feels at killing his best friend Lila when they were 14 (there, there Cassel; I would feel guilty too).
Theres also a kind of hierarchical structure within the story with some 'workers' abilities being more rare that others and so in turn being more sought after than others. Also like with most fantasy worlds where the people with abilities are outed to society there's a general mistrust with government seeing the workers as a threat as so there is a government vs. workers theme.
Best bits: The Hogwarts-esque vibe you get from Cassel's boarding school and the magical element, which brings back bitter-sweet Harry Potter memories (aaah! I miss Hogwarts days).
- The Holden- esque narrative (Catcher and the Rye is one of my favorite books so you can imagine how much I loved the writing style).
- Cassel's childhood love and longing for Lila (sooo sweet)
- Cassel's James Dean coolness. I like when the authors portray a character as too- cool- for- school (lol forgive me for my slip back to the 90's), we get a sense that Cassel is a cool dude (forgive me once again) not from what he says and does but from how others react towards him, which is mostly with fear or respect. He's also pretty much a lone wolf throughout most of the novel which enhances his coolness vibe.
James Dean looking cool and smexy
Dislikes:
Overall my first foray back into YA fiction was not too bad. I wasn't blown away by "White Cat" but I did like it more than I think I would so I'm glad I gave YA fiction another chance.
- I pieced things together a lot faster than Cassel so most chapters were spent being annoyed at Cassel's obvious stupidity.
- The subplot, which generally consists of a boringly awkward romance between his friend's Sam and Daneca.
Overall my first foray back into YA fiction was not too bad. I wasn't blown away by "White Cat" but I did like it more than I think I would so I'm glad I gave YA fiction another chance.
The Verdict: 7/ 10 (Lucky my friend has had the foresight to include all three of the trilogy so I will be reading the next two) Toodles.
Worth the read: Yes
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