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pockiiee Joined: 24 Dec 2003 Total posts: 282 Location: Europe Gender: Female |
 Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:32 am Post subject: K-drama = Soap Opera...my views Post Rating: 0 |
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OK, so today my guy asked me why I was so addicted to Korean soap Operas... and I was a bit taken aback because I'd never really compared the two before - I didn't make the connection between dramas and soaps, but I think he has a point. I'll list them - I'm going to compare K-dramas to the American Soap Days of our Lives, which as cheesy as it is has a special place in my heart as I used to watch it with my mother over the summer holidays
1. Both seem to revolve around personal relationships - work is just a background- a place to receive phone calls.
2. Everyone is either ridiculously successful, like a hotel Mogul - or the exact opposite.
3. Evil characters. You know, those (mostly women) who will stop at nothing to break up our star studded beautiful couple - they never quit on Soaps, but in the drama they eventually give up.
4. Absurd plot twists - If anyone is following tree of heaven, the whole transformation from the animal that can barely speak to big powerful gangster. And if you watch Days of out Lives, there was a weird Demon possession/priest things a few years - or keeping one character alive buried in her coffin for a month -
5. Last but not least the beauty factor, even the "ugly" characters are so darn pretty - The men in American soaps look like a chisled Fabio - and there are numerous threads about hot Korean actors from K-drama - the women are OK too 
Well, no point to this really except that I like both soaps and K-dramas, although I'm curious about whether you think the two are the same.
On a side note, any Dutch D-addicts watching the drama Lotte? This is the first time anything on Dutch TV has been like a drama series - It's adapted from the famous Colombian soap :http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/933647.stm which was so popular the president mentioned it in his speech - I think there is also a German and a Russian version going too - basically a cute little ugly duckling story like "Snow White, Taste Sweet Love" -
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CoronaJoined: 20 Sep 2005 Total posts: 167 Location: Netherlands Age: 26 Gender: Female |
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Néa VanilleJoined: 26 Mar 2005 Total posts: 49 Location: Seoul, South Korea (whooooza!) Gender: Female |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:42 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| Of course they are a little like soaps, since KDrama usually revolves around love and relationships only... though there are, of course, exceptions such as Sandglass. The big difference is there has obviously gone more money into KDrama to make everything look nice and polished. The acting standard is usually much better as well, as are the script and soundtrack. I still like KDrama, though.
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pockiieeJoined: 24 Dec 2003 Total posts: 282 Location: Europe Gender: Female |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:42 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| Corona wrote: | Well the big difference is, that unlike soap opera's. It often does not involve as many people..and even bigger. It has a final resolution!
I haven't seen Lotte yet..maybe I should ^^ Talpa goes at it again ^^ |
Good point -I'd like to see more programmes here with a resolution, soaps included, they stretch every show out as long as possible - i.e. Friends ran for 10 years.
( Oh, and you can watch all the Lotte eps on the talpa site under programma gemist)
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who90210Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Total posts: 46 Gender: Male |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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my biggest concern with K-Drama is the love triangle. It seems there's no K drama without annoying love triangles. Other than that, I love watching beautiful ppl in K-drama.
I dunno ppl, do you like watching k-drama better or J-drama? I just recently watched hana yori dango, not bad at all.
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:04 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| Aren't these threads really old? It doesn't take insight or a genius to find and point out the common tropes in popular K dramas and compare them to whatever, soap operas, romance novels, or else. I can criticize many dramas but their problems aren't the triangles or whatever, so much as it's the way they are done. A love triangle done right can make for the GREATEST ENTERTAINMENT IN THE UNIVERSE!! Hahaha.
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Athaclena42Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Total posts: 415 Location: Reading, PA, USA Age: 25 Gender: Female |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:11 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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I personally think that the acting is much better in K-dramas than in American soaps. The other kicker with American soaps is that one day you might be admiring an actress named, say, "Kate", who has brown hair and green eyes, and the next day you tune in and find she has been replaced by someone that has blonde hair and blue eyes. It's not always that extreme, but sometimes the replacement actor or actress looks completely different from the previous one. It usually takes me awhile to get used to that. Also, when a character dies in an American soap, there's a like, 99% chance that that person isn't really dead or will somehow be resurrected. From what I've watched, people in K-dramas stay dead, if they happen to die.
I used to watch Days Of Our Lives, Another World (before it was cancelled), and Passions (which replaced Another World). I can't bring myself to watch them anymore, and neither can my mother, because they're just too silly. Does anyone remember the weird "doll" Timmy in Passions? I don't know how much weirder it gets than that.
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groinkLocation: Hawaii Age: 41 Gender: Male |
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pockiieeJoined: 24 Dec 2003 Total posts: 282 Location: Europe Gender: Female |
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RuroshinJoined: 05 Dec 2003 Total posts: 2747 Gender: Male |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:19 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| who90210 wrote: | | my biggest concern with K-Drama is the love triangle. It seems there's no K drama without annoying love triangles. |
You mean love squares  always 4 there are, 2 guys and 2 girls.
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ovoJoined: 08 Nov 2005 Total posts: 53 Gender: Unknown |
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PaniolagirlGender: Female |
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groinkLocation: Hawaii Age: 41 Gender: Male |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:48 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| pockiiee wrote: | | Well, my point wasn't to criticize - or to show any particular insight or genius - it's just that Soap operas and dramas seemed very seperate to me |
I can understand the distinction but I think it depends on how particular or broad one's notion of "soap opera" is, as a term or else. Also, of course, it depends on what one thinks K drama is.
| Quote: | | - but as Groink points out maybe it was just me, Koreans seem to think of them as soaps. |
Hawaiians seem to use the term soap opera. I don't think Koreans do. But, again, I can understand the use of the term. If soap opera is taken broadly to mean something like highly social drama with a close focus on romance, etc.. then the term fits.
Other people, Filipinos for instance, refer to these dramas as'novellas' (I'm not sure if that is just a common term used to refer to tv shows or what), but I think the connotations in that term fit too.
In truth, "soap opera" reveals more about those who are either watching K drama or those from the sidelines who think they are clever enough to criticize K drama. K drama is anything. I think it's more appropriate to think of it in terms of "modes"; in K drama there's sometimes a "soap opera" mode, and sometimes there is a "novella" mode, as well as politcal modes, theater and cinema, and sitcom modes, if you know what I mean.
Well, since I just watched ep 2 of Spring Waltz a few miniutes ago (the ep was adorable), I'll post some caps. I think it's relevant. Does this look like a soap opera to anyone?
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mangosteenJoined: 13 Apr 2004 Total posts: 1756 |
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)? I think those things make the drama more interesting and fun to watch...if there is just 2 people then woudn't it make love to easy, too smooth and too boring for us to watch???
