News Links - 1/14/07

[dleedlee]

The house of the two Zhangs
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/li ... -headlines

Film"Happy Birthday" Premieres in Beijing
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/01/14/60@184953.htm

Rush Hour 3 photos
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_11014.html

The Allure of K-Pop TV dramas
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfea ... 01&irec=15

Korea's Rain electrifies HK at start of Asia tour
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070113/137/6b3k5.html

Sundance organizers wary about new gizmos
Camera phones, video-sharing sites let a global audience get behind the scenes
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5011981

At Yenching Palace, Five Decades of History to Go
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01272.html

Bollywood Beauty Spices up Britain's 'Big Brother'
Jermaine Jackson, Leo Sayer, Ken Russell and a one-armed, tattooed lesbian mother
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/01/14/60@184928.htm

[ewaffle]

The Allure of K-Pop TV dramas
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfea ... 01&irec=15

Aimee Dawis, the author of the article, really dislikes HK movies and TV:

Compared to Hong Kong-produced series and movies that may seem staid and formulaic, Korean series and movies are innovative and well-edited. They also feature fresh, young faces rather than recycling the same stars over and over again. Their storylines are ingenious and fun, as opposed to unimaginative and serious.

[Brian Thibodeau]

You know, when I read that article yesterday, I was literally going to quote that paragraph here because it really bugged me, but I got sidetracked and forgot all about it! Good to see I'm not the only one who noticed that ridiculous swipe.

I will grant that the makers of Hong Kong TV shows never seemed interested in building up an international, pan-cultural interest in their product, and certainly never shot the curl the way the Koreans are right now, but implying that Hong Kong television is somehow "unimaginative and serious" simply because it's not Korean television, as if that even counts as a qualitative arguement, is more than a little silly.

She's clearly a fan of the stuff, rather than a serious pop culture sociologist, which explains the rather broad, simplistic labelling of Korean TV soaps as "innovated and well edited...ingenious and fun."

Like others here, I enjoy a lot of Korean soaps, but I'd be hard pressed to call the vast majority of them "ingenious," and in fact, if you watch enough of them in succession, even while trying to mix genres a little bit, you can't help but notice the repetitive themes that tend to fuel a lot of Korean entertainment, the TV segment of which has of late started to become derivative of itself (which is still not necessarily a bad thing, if you keep your expectations somewhere in the middle of the road). I think the sheer prettyness of all the people in these shows tends to set the hearts of people like Amiee Dawis aflutter, and common sense goes out the window.

Mind you, while it's nice to see more Hong Kong TV shows available with English subtitles—there still doesn't seem to be enough of it about to indicate their makers see much of a market outside of the Chinas and the Chinese diaspora. Perhaps when the trendiness inevitably wears off of the Korean soaps, some enterprising HK company will start pimping HK's television product beyond its intended audience.

Of course, they might have to do more shows centered around beautiful blind orphan girls who get involved in love quadrangles and die of tragic diseases to help ween people off the K-stuff, but hey, if that's what it takes...

[MrBooth]

The only Korean TV show I've watched was FOX WITH NINE TAILS, in which I don't recall any blind girls... but otherwise, you hit it on the head :-p

I assume god-awful rock ballads every 10 minutes are par for the course too?

[dleedlee]

If you watch MadTV, Bobby Lee does a parody of Korean TV. It even made Asian Pacific Arts Best of YouTube list.

Episode 1;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81CtnGNCXhk
Episode 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc60hwDkm9A

[Gaijin84]

Those are hilarious - Bobby Lee is probably the sole reason to watch that show.

[Brian Thibodeau]

I assume god-awful rock ballads every 10 minutes are par for the course too?

Oh yeah.

And usually regardless of the time period in which the show is set.

Writers & composers of Korean pop ballads seem to have a tendency to move the wailing guitar solos from the bridge to the intro, which is not something I've noticed as much in other Asian pop music (mainly the Chinese and Japanese stuff I've heard), or even Western pop music. It's not that it doesn't happen in songs from those cultures and others around the globe, but the composers of Korean pop tunes, especially the stuff in the dramas, seem to want to get to the soaring melancholy right off the bat!

[dleedlee]

Those are hilarious - Bobby Lee is probably the sole reason to watch that show.

Pretty much the only reason I watch is to catch his segments. Seems like he doesn't get much publicity though.