Category Archives: visual art

Series or Feature Film? Hwang Jin Yi and Shin Yun Bok, a Case Study.

who tells the better story? – who tells the story better? It’s one thing to watch two kdrama adaptations of the same story, like MBC’s  The Return of Iljimae and SBS’s  Iljimae. It’s quite another to have at your disposal feature film interpretations of stories already elaborated in full length dramas as happens with two artistic geniuses of the Joseon era whose lives are dramatized in the television series Hwang Jin Yi and Painter of … Continue reading

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Playing Favorites… the KDrama and Film ‘Must See’ List

Long overdue is the time to tip the nib of my (virtual) pen to those dramas and feature films to which I have been awarding my highest rating, three stars.  If you wish to see a comprehensive list of titles I’ve explored since setting off on this adventure, you may find it in “Curio in KDramaland… (or, Through the Sageuk Lens)“. You will also find the key to the asterisk and numeric annotation. … Continue reading

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Curio in KDramaland… (or, Through the Sageuk Lens)

I have been contemplating the virtues of the well made sageuk and what its persistent appeal to me (and maybe even to other viewers) might mean. Surely, something… It turns out that while I apparently have watched only one third as many sageuks as contemporary fictions (from comedies to melodramas and everything in between), I am more disposed to want to collect historical dramas than I am contemporary fictions. When it comes … Continue reading

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Notes on 돌아온 일지매 (The Return of Iljimae)

Chapters 1-2 Okay… the first adjectives that come to mind during episode 1 and most of 2: “weird” and then “bizarre” and then “camp.” I barely made it past the first (structurally very rocky and disjointed, hyper-didactic, excessively-yet-not-quite-adequately-expositional) episode… Were it not for the fact that I have committed to following this drama through, especially since I enjoyed SBS’s Iljimae so much, I would have had a very difficult time moving on to episode … Continue reading

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일지매 (Iljimae) – birth of a hero…

Just finished watching Iljimae and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went in expecting little more than a two-dimensional comic book hero in a campy fusion sageuk. Instead I got a light-hearted yet touching folk-hero novel that is amusing and moving — with plenty a wink and a nod yet full of pathos as well. And tropes, tropes and more tropes… yet sooo much fun to watch as the story of Lee Joon Gi’s Iljimae … Continue reading

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Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος…

Kar chakruok Wach ne nitie, kendo Wach ne nikod Nyasaye, kendo Wach ne en Nyasaye. Hapo mwanzo, kabla ya kuwapo kitu kingine cho chote, aliku wapo Neno. Huyo Neno alikuwa pamoja na Mungu, naye alikuwa Mungu. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Au commencement était la Parole, et la Parole était avec Dieu, et la Parole était Dieu. in principio erat … Continue reading

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