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Anyone else like Asian dramas?

galleywest

galleywest

Lovable Flake
Premium Member
I've watched a LOT of Asian dramas and movies, largely of the "shojo" (girly, romantic) variety. I'm always looking for new dramas to watch, and am always open to suggestions!

So far, I've watched:

Hana Yori Dango 1 (Japanese)
Hana Yori Dango 2 (Japanese)
Hana Yori Dango Final (Japanese)
It Started with a Kiss (Taiwanese)
They Kiss Again (Taiwanese)
Itazura Na Kiss (Japanese)
Miss No Good (Taiwanese)
Mei-chan No Shitsuji (Japanese)
Samurai High School (Japanese)
No. 1 Shop of Coffee Prince (Korean)
My Tutor Friend (Korean)
My Tutor Friend 2 (Korean)
100 Days With Mr. Arrogant (Korean)
Devil Beside You (Taiwanese)
Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (Japanese)
Personal Taste (Korean)
Atashinchi No Danshi (Japanese)
Millionaire's First Love (Korean)
Zettai Kareshi (Japanese)

I've watched a couple of episodes of:

Boys Before Flowers (Korean)
You're Beautiful (Korean)
Hi My Sweetheart (Taiwanese)
Fated to Love You (Korean)
Tokyo Dogs (Japanese)
Hana Kimi (Japanese)

I know I'm missing some things in here, especially some of the movies I've watched...I'm thinking of watching Nodame Cantabile next, or the rest of Tokyo Dogs, which is excellent.

Anyone else an Asian drama fan??
 
Well I suck. I haven't seen any of those.

I really dig Beat Takashi movies. You should definitely check out some of his Yakuza films (Sonatine in particular).
 
I've seen a few of the bio/drama maxi-series of Japanese Samurai leaders. I got my first message board user name from the first one I saw Hideyoshi. The lead actor just had charisma, I saw him later as the Latin dance specialist on the original Shall We Dance. However life got much better and reading subtitles alone on Saturday nights was no longer a pleasurable option.

I can watch some of the more serious Filipino novellas with my wife. Before the Asian TV network, I forgot its name died I was watching a series about a female pilot in the Indian Air Force and another about a Korean singer whose family was living in China.
 
My gf watches Korean ones.

From what I've seen there sure is a lot of older women slapping younger women.

Taiwanese ones are so cheap looking.
 
I'm currently watching Pandamen (Taiwanese). Super heroes who dress up like panda's (Panda Superman and Panda Heroic), set in future. Lots of girly romance stuff too. I'm enjoying it.

I've also seen,

Full House (Korean) - excellent, and you get to have fun looking at all the ridiculous outfits they make Rain wear.

Sang-Doo, Let's Go to School (Korean) - a few dodgy eps in the middle but it picked up and I was in tears for the last couple of eps.

Love To Kill (Korean) - the amazingly dodgy subs didn't help but I didn't like this one so much. Rain was hot but that was about it.

Super Rookie (Korean) - more of a comedy with a bit of Romance. Very funny though.

My Lovely Sam-Soon (Korean) - Very good.

Meteor Garden (Taiwanese) - it was okay.
 
There was a very interesting Japanese drama called Hojo Tokimune that was on an Asian channel (KTSF?) about 10 years ago that I was trying to get ahold of....
 
Me! I started watching about a year ago and then buying boxsets of my favorite ones. You've seen most of what I've seen, tho.

Nodame Cantabile - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nodame_Cantabile
excellent! A little over the top, especially when Milk-whatisname shows up, but if you give it until the second or third episode you'll be fine with the humor.

The Gokusen (1) - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Gokusen
probably my favorite series. Its about a young teacher that gets assigned to the delinquent class (shades of Great Teacher Onizuka) but the rub is she's secretly the granddaughter of a yakuza head. Very funny, well acted, and touching in ways as she tries to win the boys over, hide her yakuza ties, and give overly dramatic speeches followed by beatdowns of outside troublemakers.
It spawned two more seasons, but while the classes had hotter and hotter guys in it, none have had the enjoyment of the original. I couldn't even finish Gokusen 3.

Lovely Complex - a movie about a tall girl and a short guy. The anime was much, much better, but its still good for a view.

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Yankee-kun_to_Megane-chan
another show about a girl ex-delinquint now turned class rep who takes a delinquint classmate under her wing, no matter how hard he resists.

Hana Kimi (Hanazakari no Kimitachi e) - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Hanazakari_no_Kimitachi_e
girl dresses like a boy in order to attend an all-boys high school. A little angsty, but the guy playing Nakatsu makes up for it with hiliarity! Homo ja nai!

Hana Yori Dango - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Hana_Yori_Dango
(spoilers in link! don't read past the synopsis if you're interested in watching!)
my second fave dorama. A poor girl who attends a high school for the super rich ends up inadvertantly becoming the target of the four most elite boys (calling themselves F4) who have the run of the school, who then sick the rest of the school on her to make her life miserable. Of course, nobody has ever decided to stand up to them, but Tsukushi is a 'strong weed' after all.

Salad Days (Doremisora) - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Doremisora
I've only been able to track down the first four episodes, but its another 'teacher given the class of outcasts' show.


Others that were good:

Great Teacher Onizuka
Buzzer Beat
Nobuta wo Produce
Honey and Clover
Hotaru no Hikari


Its not out yet, but I'm very looking forward to the live action version of Beck. :)
 
Wyse said:
Nodame Cantabile - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nodame_Cantabile
excellent! A little over the top, especially when Milk-whatisname shows up, but if you give it until the second or third episode you'll be fine with the humor.
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Great! I will definitely check it out.

The Gokusen (1) - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Gokusen
probably my favorite series. Its about a young teacher that gets assigned to the delinquent class (shades of Great Teacher Onizuka) but the rub is she's secretly the granddaughter of a yakuza head. Very funny, well acted, and touching in ways as she tries to win the boys over, hide her yakuza ties, and give overly dramatic speeches followed by beatdowns of outside troublemakers.
It spawned two more seasons, but while the classes had hotter and hotter guys in it, none have had the enjoyment of the original. I couldn't even finish Gokusen 3.
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I have a friend who really likes Gokusen, I keep saying I'm going to check it out. It's always rated as a fan favorite on dramacrazy.net and mysoju.com.


Yankee-kun to Megane-chan - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Yankee-kun_to_Megane-chan
another show about a girl ex-delinquint now turned class rep who takes a delinquint classmate under her wing, no matter how hard he resists.
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I'm waiting for this one to be complete before I watch it, but it's definitely on my list. My rule is that something has to be complete before I will watch it. I'm also waiting for PS Man to go through its run, that one looks like a lot of fun.


Hana Yori Dango - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Hana_Yori_Dango
(spoilers in link! don't read past the synopsis if you're interested in watching!)
my second fave dorama. A poor girl who attends a high school for the super rich ends up inadvertantly becoming the target of the four most elite boys (calling themselves F4) who have the run of the school, who then sick the rest of the school on her to make her life miserable. Of course, nobody has ever decided to stand up to them, but Tsukushi is a 'strong weed' after all.
Click to expand...
I :adore: Hana Yori Dango!! Loooove it. I tried to watch the Korean version and even though I liked both leads a lot, they really muddled the Domyouji/Makino/Rui relationship too much for me. I like the definitive outcome of Hana Yori Dango, and enjoyed the second season and the movie as well. I love the Domyouji character--he's so dopey, naive, and violent in many ways, but so loyal to Makino that he can't help but make me smile. One of my favorite scenes is how totally baffled he is on the "commoner double-date" at the zoo when Yuki's boyfriend suggests that Makino is not pretty. Also, love the crazy outfits the F4 wear!

Lady Conqueror, I thought about watching Meteor Garden, since it's Boys Before Flowers (Hana Yori Dango), but I hesitate because I'm already so familiar with the story. I've heard good things about Full House, however. It can't hurt that Rain's in it! I've never seen a drama with him in it, is he pretty good? Hey, I'll just add it to my list too!! :P

What is Let's Go to School about?

I like ones with happy endings--I can't help it, I get too attached to the characters! I watched some of Koizora not too long ago but had to stop--too sad for me. My all-time favorite dramas are It Started With a Kiss and They Kiss Again. I don't know why, I just really, really enjoyed the play of personalities between all the characters. It's about a girl in class F (the class for the worst students) who decides she loves the school's super-handsome, athletic genius student. Her father and his parents are old friends and after her house collapses, she and her father move in with he and his family. He makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with her (she is very straightforward about her intentions), but she refuses to give up on him. His mother whole-heartedly approves of the match and is constantly trying to get them together. *SPOILER* Turns out, at the end, that he's loved he all along and finally decides he has to confess or risk losing her to another man. It's so freaking cute!!
 
Personally I prefer story-driven dramas (e.g., ROMES or Bloody Monday) but I got started with GTO, Sutaa No Koi, Great Inheritance and Engine, so I definitely like comedy and romance shows as well.
And I'm a sucker for anything with Abe Hiroshi in it. :D
 
I can't quite understand the appeal of Asian soap operas (or any kind of soap opera at that), but what astonishes me is their popularity. How did all this happen?

I'm in Chicago and my friend is an Asian-American high school teacher; while she herself doesn't watch much of those soap operas, she had one class with primarily Hispanic teens and they brought up and discussed Korean and Japanese soap operas at great length. There's a crossover appeal sure, but I'd like to know what that appeal is.

I'm not saying all this to be judgmental nor do I think there's anything wrong with it, I'm just confuzzled is all. If you love these shows, then more power to you and I hope you they won't disappoint. Keep loving them shows!
 
Cyke101 said:
I can't quite understand the appeal of Asian soap operas (or any kind of soap opera at that), but what astonishes me is their popularity. How did all this happen?

I'm in Chicago and my friend is an Asian-American high school teacher; while she herself doesn't watch much of those soap operas, she had one class with primarily Hispanic teens and they brought up and discussed Korean and Japanese soap operas at great length. There's a crossover appeal sure, but I'd like to know what that appeal is.

I'm not saying all this to be judgmental nor do I think there's anything wrong with it, I'm just confuzzled is all. If you love these shows, then more power to you and I hope you they won't disappoint. Keep loving them shows!
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Try it. It's nothing like the Hispanic crap about the gay gardener's evil twin sister's gynecologist's receptionist's math teacher.
 
Aside from liking the storylines and the characters, one of the major points of appeal for me with Asian dramas is the fact that they tell a finite story. They are often only 10-20 episodes long, so the entire story has to unfold within that many episodes. It's such a refreshing change from US shows that go on and on and on and on, where there's romantic tension between some of the characters that never gets resolved because the writers are thinking about the longevity of the show. An Asian drama moves. And I can get involved in an entire storyline and watch the whole series in a week or two, usually.

There are definitely lots of US shows I like, so I appreciate both storytelling formats, don't get me wrong!

Oh, I forgot to mention above that I've also seen Attention Please, which is about a rebel punk girl who becomes a Japan Airlines flight attendant. I high recommend this series, it's very funny!
 
Or with the Japanese Taiga dramas you get a history lesson. Its like PBS as opposed to networks in that you will have a 50 week bio/documentary and the first four hours may not even have the main character yet born.

It can be a good or bad thing. I came across Hidyoshi and Naoto Takenaka as the title character just held my attention as I started to read the subtitles. If I came across a child's story in the first few episodes I probably wouldn't have stayed.

When I got online they were easier to take as once I identified who the leader was I could easily look him up and see if that historical period interested me
 
I'm not familiar with any of these. The Japanese films Hubby has are almost all old samurai flicks. A few newer ones.

He's got a lot of Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub. He said if we had had a son, the boy's middle name would've been Daigoro after the kid in LWaC. Uh...we have no children. I like the "new" Zatoichi film from a few years back. Especially the big dance number at the end. I kid you not. A dance number at the end of a samurai film. Supposed to be traditional?
 
I liked Bloody Monday up until the second last episode, at which point it just became so ridiculous that its manga origins were just impossible to disguise.
Still, when it started it was a fairly competent 24 "homage" complete with their own CTU-like secret base, which I found pretty neat since I was also watching 24 at the time.

I'm kind of curious to watch the J and T drama versions of Honey and Clover, partly just to see how they manage to find a short pixie girl and to see how it would translate over into the "real world". I'd also consider watching Nodame for the same reason (and the Sailor Moon adaptation for that matter).

I did manage to watch some of You're Under Arrest (J-drama) before I started watching the show. It's about a couple of women who are partnered together as traffic cops. It's not bad, but it's hard to compete with nearly a decade of anime episodes.

I've only watched the anime version of Winter Sonata, but given that they filmed a live action ending with all the original actors from the show to replace the ending of the original K-drama, I figure I can count that as well. I'm not sure if it's "good", because it's just so ridiculous and overwrought, but it's a show that's been translated into many Asian languages so it seems to be hugely popular across Asia, so I figured it's worth looking at anyway.

There was an HK half hour drama I watched for a bit before giving up (it's 300 episodes long!!) called Best Selling Secrets. It was a way to just practice Cantonese... and it's also notable because it's one of the few Asian shows that I've watched that had a white cast member speaking the local language. That almost never happens anywhere else in Asia. :lol:

I'm more versed on the film side, mostly because I generally find them to be a bit easier to watch than the TV stuff, but I'm mostly into HK and Taiwanese stuff by accident really.

In terms of Japanese stuff, I liked Adrift in Tokyo - which is essentially a travelling samurai/ronin story set in modern Tokyo, Detroit Metal City - based on the manga about a guy who gets roped into fronting a metal band (cameo by Gene Simmons!) and Love my Life - also based on a manga, it's one of the first queer Asian films that I've seen and is about two women who have to deal with coming out to their parents (with some unexpected results).
There's also Love Exposure... I haven't seen it because it's 4 hours long, but everyone seems to think it's the best Japanese movie ever made. :lol:

In terms of HK and Taiwanese stuff, I'm sure it's stuff that everyone has seen if you're into that kind of thing... Cape no 7, Blue Gate Crossing, Winds of September, etc, etc.

Sadly, I've exhausted all of the non-gangster/crime/comedy movies from there though. Indie rom-coms seem to be hard to come by because most films from HK and Taiwan are basically vehicles to promote the newest Idols rather than films that are "interesting". For example, I was surprised that there were a few queer films in Taiwan mostly because I just assumed queerness was on the 'down-low' over there.

galleywest said:
Aside from liking the storylines and the characters, one of the major points of appeal for me with Asian dramas is the fact that they tell a finite story. They are often only 10-20 episodes long, so the entire story has to unfold within that many episodes. It's such a refreshing change from US shows that go on and on and on and on, where there's romantic tension between some of the characters that never gets resolved because the writers are thinking about the longevity of the show. An Asian drama moves. And I can get involved in an entire storyline and watch the whole series in a week or two, usually.

There are definitely lots of US shows I like, so I appreciate both storytelling formats, don't get me wrong!

Oh, I forgot to mention above that I've also seen Attention Please, which is about a rebel punk girl who becomes a Japan Airlines flight attendant. I high recommend this series, it's very funny!
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You should watch British and Australian shows to get the best of both words. :lol:

But one of the reason it works, especially now that I look at my list, is because a lot of these shows are adaptations. There's already an established arc and the only thing they really have to do is find a place in the manga that would serve as a good end point (or, alternatively, make up their own ending).
 
galleywest said:
Lady Conqueror, I thought about watching Meteor Garden, since it's Boys Before Flowers (Hana Yori Dango), but I hesitate because I'm already so familiar with the story. I've heard good things about Full House, however. It can't hurt that Rain's in it! I've never seen a drama with him in it, is he pretty good? Hey, I'll just add it to my list too!! :P
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I haven't seen Hana Yori Dango to compare - they do change it from high school to college but I don't know if there are any other changes.

I definitely recommend Full House and yes Rain is pretty good.

What is Let's Go to School about?
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Rain plays Sang Doo a high school dropout who is working as a gigolo to pay for his daughter's hospital bills. He runs into his old school days love and because she's a teacher now he decides to go back to school and straighten out his life to try and win her over again.
 
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