Prosecutor Princess Korean Drama

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Prosecutor Princess

My Score: 7.5/10

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Lead Actors:  Kim So Yeon Park Shi Hoo Han Jung Soo Choi Song Hyun

Episodes: 16

Summary: Ma Hye Ri has just graduated and is starting her new job as a prosecutor. However, the job wasn’t quite what she expected and she has a hard time admitting that she has a lot to learn.

She meets a mysterious man named Seo In Woo who claims to like her and she falls in love with her colleague Yoon Se Joon.

Review: At first I didn’t find this drama to be anything real special. It wasn’t boring, but I didn’t think it would be anything more than a copy of Legally Blonde. Then at the end of episode 3, the love triangle started getting serious and I was hooked. After that started, there were more legal cases that caught my interest as well as Seo In Woo’s past… which was really mysterious and kept me trying to figure things out.

I loved the characters in this drama and the character development was great. At first, the girl was really irritatingly self-oriented and snobby; a rich know-it-all. However, I couldn’t really hate her since she had good points too. For example, she wasn’t selfish in a mean way, she was just oblivious to other people. She was also honest and really good at memorizing things and the way she could talk her way out of things amused me quite a bit. She became really mature by the end of the show. The actress was pretty good, but I did not like how she cried… it felt unrealistic and somewhat annoying.

Yoon Se Joon, the girl’s crush, was sweet in his own way as well. He had a 7-year-old daughter and was a widower. It was cute to see him get back into the dating game.

Seo In Woo was really cool, but at first it seemed like he had no flaws, (besides his creepy stalking habits)… which would’ve been a flaw in itself. However as time went on and we got to know him better, it turned out he wasn’t perfect, which made him even more attractive. His expressions were really good for the most part. I just wish they would’ve had more scenes where he would argue with Ma Hye Ri since they were both so quick and smart at talking back.

Jin Jung Sun was a female co-worker who also had a crush on Yoon Se Joon. I found her really adorable, though at first she was a bit annoying with her ridged ways. When we got to know her more, we found that she was easily flustered and cute.

The storyline was really intricate and everything fell together perfectly. A few things happened that I wasn’t expecting at all, and it was pretty difficult for me to confidently predict anything that was going to happen, (which is rare for me… I usually easily predict things in dramas). The last episode was really adorable and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Only one episode really disappointed me… and it was enough of a disappointment to give this drama a 7.5 instead of an 8.5, (that and the way there was no kiss in the last episode). Episode 13 had a major climatic scene but I didn’t really feel as much as I was expecting to when it finally happened. I don’t know if they just didn’t properly build it up right before it happened or if they tried to keep the audience in the dark about the guy’s true feelings needlessly. The actor had really good facial expressions and nice show of emotions until Episode 13… where he was talking about the death of someone important to him and he didn’t really show any emotion at all towards that. Plus, we didn’t see how it hurt him to hurt her as much as the earlier episodes. That’s fine and realistic since he was trying to hide it from her and he was expecting to feel this way, but it really hurt the climatic build-up.

So, I think this is a good romantic-comedy with quite a bit of mystery, but it’s not really a drama-genre drama. There were a lot of dramatic parts in the show, but it still felt light to me. If you don’t like heavy drama and you like romance, then you’ll probably like this.

My Score: 7.5/10

Liar Game Japanese Drama

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Liar Game

My Score: 7.5/10

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Lead Actors:  Toda Erika Matsuda Shota

Episodes: 11

Summary: An honest and gullible girl named Nao mysteriously receives one hundred million yen at her doorstep. It turns out that it’s part of a game where each participant gets a large sum of money and they each have to trick each other to get the other player’s money.  When the game ends, the winner gets the money and the losers owe the amount lost.

Knowing herself well enough, Nao seeks out Shinichi, who is an expert con-artist  just getting out of jail. He eventually agrees to help her… which turns out to be a very good thing since this is only the first game out of many.

Review: Apparently this is based after a manga that I have yet to read. It became so popular that it had a sequel as well as two movies and a spin-off mini featuring an alternate character.

I found the drama really interesting, but I’m the type that loves solving mysteries and watching how puzzles are completed, (though I hate solving them myself, haha). It was fun to watch how Shinichi totally analyzed everything and came up with genius solutions. Though I think a lot of the problems were easy or predictable, not all of them were. It was fun and engaging either way.

The characters were just as interesting as any manga/anime characters. Very diverse and often colorful. It wasn’t a comedy drama, but some of the characters are so strange that it’s enough humor-wise. Shinichi was a kind of stoic genius-type character that made me feel excited when he explained things. Nao was cute, though almost annoying in how she was pretty much always really pure and innocent.

The acting was good. I saw Matsuda Shota in Hana Yori Dango, but didn’t notice him as much until he was the lead in this drama. Erika was really good acting as a sweet and likable character. There was no apparent romance, but there was enough there to interpret/imagine romantic interest between the main two characters if you wanted to.

For directing, there was sometimes a case of the crazies… characters went hysterical one way or another and the way it was portrayed was just… creepy. Sometimes I didn’t know whether to laugh or be freaked out by it. Anyway, it was entertaining.

People tend to compare this story to Death Note, but the only way they’re alike is that they’re both psychological/thriller-type genres. I do think there was a slight influence from the American horror series Saw in this drama… the bad guy uses a puppet like Jigsaw used and there’s a pretty eerie atmosphere at times. This drama did come out a bit after the first Saw movie, so maybe that was it? I haven’t read the manga so I wouldn’t know.

My Score: 7.5/10

Artist of the Week: Clover

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Here is the Artist of the Week! Posted on Wednesdays as something to get you through the rest of the week~

This week’s artist is…

Clover

This rap group was started by former Sechs Kies member Eun Ji Won. (Sechs Kies is a famous Kpop group from the 90′s)

Eun Ji Won supposedly gained a bit of criticism from the public when he decided to become a rapper instead of remaining a pop artist after the group disbanded, (though he was in the rap division of Sechs Kies…), however he proved himself and the public has accepted and enjoyed his genre of choice.

March 31, 2011 is when he created Clover. He got Gilme and Tyfoon to form this group with him, since they all had a similar style and had worked together on a few tracks in the past. Plus, Gilme was signed under his own company anyway.

Clover’s style most often has a Latin sound to it.

Trivia:

Tyfoon is reportedly part Mexican.

Videos:

Moto Kare Japanese Drama

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Moto Kare/My Ex

My Score: 6/10

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

Lead Actors: Domoto Tsuyoshi Hirosue Ryoko Uchiyama Rina

Episodes: 10

Summary: A guy named Toji gets a new job… which ends up being difficult because of his boss. Things get better for him when he starts dating Nao, but suddenly, his ex-girlfriend shows up and he has to work with her. He never truly got over his ex, but she pretends she doesn’t know him. His girlfriend becomes jealous and paranoid while Toji doesn’t know what to do.

Review: The story had a “real” feeling to it. There wasn’t any over-the-top things and not much comedy. Some people might consider that slow and boring, but if you’re the type that enjoys a truly “slice-of-life” genre, then you might like this drama.

Ryoko and Tsuyoshi were romantic leads in Summer Snow, so I didn’t want to miss this drama, (especially since I had developed a big crush on Tsuyoshi).  However, this drama was really not up to Summer Snow’s level.

It wasn’t impossible to watch, but it just didn’t make me feel anything but frustration. It was hard for me to really accept either of the pairings and Tsuyoshi’s character was pretty wishy-washy or just… not very nice, haha. Basically, he can’t let go of his feelings for his ex, but at the same time, he refuses to break up with his girlfriend; he just keeps leading her on causing her to suffer. I also couldn’t really like either of the girls. Nao goes over-board a few times with her lack of self-respect and the ex-girlfriend was just mean for half the drama.

At least it was a consolation to me when Tsuyoshi said, (in a nutshell), that he didn’t really like Toji himself and would’ve treated his girlfriend much better.

The acting wasn’t bad. I think they all portrayed the characters well. For example, Tsuyoshi really was different as Toji than he was as Natsuo in Summer Snow. Ryoko was good at playing a tough-girl, which wasn’t a usual role for her. They were all convincing to me.

My Score: 6/10

Miss Ripley Korean Drama

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Miss Ripley

My Score: 7/10

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Lead Actors: Lee Da Hae Park Yoo Chun Kim Seung Woo Kang Hye Jung

Episodes: 16

Summary: Miri is a girl without a lot of luck. After working in a shady Japanese bar as a hostess of sorts, she escapes from her employer/boyfriend and gets away to Korea with fake ID papers. She becomes increasingly greedy and decides to stop at nothing to gain what she feels life robbed her of.

Meanwhile, two rich and powerful men fall in love with her. With no conscience, she doesn’t waste time in using their attention for her own gain.

Review: This drama is loosely based after a woman named Shin Jeong Ah who forged her graduation papers in real life… and who also used a man of power to get what she wanted. The name “Miss Ripley” is based after Ripley’s Syndrome, in which a person delude’s themselves that their lies are real.

Well. Miss Ripley’s Miri is a criminal… at first I felt sorry for her, but then I realized just how criminal she really was. However, I couldn’t really hate her and I did understand why she did the things she did. She was so desperate to escape her bad life, that she decided once she would start lying, she would go all out and let nothing stop her. It was really interesting watching how easily she could lie and see how far she could go with it. Though… I found myself wondering if she was a sociopath or something since she could lie so easily without a second thought.

I was impressed with the acting. The last real drama I saw Lee Da Hae in was My Girl so I was expecting some kind of overly exaggerated comedy-type acting. Miss Ripley is not a comedy… there was nothing funny in it, (though I probably smiled quite a few times, heh). I did think it was a bit annoying how in every episode she’d do a scene where she’s all wide-eyed and breathing strangely in shock, but other than that, she was good. Yoo Hyun’s stepmother also really stood out to me in her acting. It was so believable to me. Miri’s friend Moon Hee Joo… well I liked her in the beginning, but I was also suspicious since I am used to the rival-friend girl character that always seems to be in dramas. However, in this case, the main character is the rival-friend-! So Moon Hee Joo became lovable… until I got annoyed with how much she let herself be pushed around, (though I can understand why it happened. Haha, they even got her zodiac sign right for her personality…).

The ending was good as well. Even though some parts could be easily predicted, the other plots distracted you enough so that you completely forgot to even think about it until it was about to happen… and when it did, it was satisfying. Some people might not like the whole ending, but for me, it worked well. I mean, this drama isn’t a romance.

Another reason to watch this drama is the male leads. They’re all endearing in some way… yes, even the criminal ex-boyfriend was pitiable in his love for Miri, especially in the last episode he was in. Yoochun’s – yeah, Yoochun from JYJ – character Yoo Hyun was adorable. I loved seeing him as a more innocent and pure character. And, though I usually really don’t go for older men, the ajusshi that Miri dated first, played by Kim Seung Woo, was so sweet and also had an innocent/pure vibe to him as well.

However, like I said before, I don’t think this drama is really a romance. And even though it kind of markets Yoo Hyun with Miri as a couple, I don’t really believe that Miri loved either of them, and she both played them pretty equally.

Basically, this is a crime/thriller kind of drama that’s about the exploits of a con artist and the men who fell in love with her.

My Score: 7/10