by the way, where did you get this list from belleza? is it on his blog?
Oh I took that from thundie/thunderbolt's link. I think X (aka
K.I.N.G., recognize foo'!!
) wrote that very quickly, since yes Tears of the Dragon is from 99-00.
what the heck, Hur June didn't even make it to his list?
Exactly. If THAT doesn't make the list, then those 5 shows must all be heartbreaking works of staggering genius. Respekta!
but i wouldn't rate it higher than White Tower, which was absolutely brilliant.
I haven't made up my mind on White Tower, because Shiroi Kyoto (both movie and drama) itself are classics. And I mean, Shiroi Kyoto is literally on the short list of greatest J-dramas of this decade. But the casting itself was magnificent. It's almost unfair to indulge Kim Myung Min's inner alpha male (is there any other kind for Serious Korean Actor?
) in a realpolitik story. There will be blood ma' boy!
Alone in Love is kinda like that for me. It has a special place for me, even though I'm very aware of where the plaster was laden over the original material. I can enjoy its banter and bossa nova, its delightful people and its sucker punches, drunkily meandering over each episode's ending aphorism. But the actual words, Eun Ho's incomplete thoughts completely disappearing into daily tedium, betray a pulsing anxiety toward relationships and its relation with meaning and mortality. Like Thom Yorke during his premillenial tension, about the inability to ignore emptiness even when everything is in its right place. Novel, as the show is, it still must fit within sensibilities of a K-drama, and thus it eventually gets glossed over. Kim Gab Soo's (probably my favorite actor in K-drama) performance walks in it. Yeh Jin seems most alive conveying it. Maybe if "It" was all over the piece, the work would be unpalatable in a 16-episode format. I don't know.
Sangdo aired on arirang last year. But I couldn't keep up with their airings
I think my mum has that one. Maybe this w/end or next, I'll catalogue what sageuks she has, and we can start sharing them around.
Nice link here:
http://koreanhistory.tv