Goong Drama

Okay, so my last post was about the manhwa for this series. So, I was a little curious about the drama. One of the most respected Escaflowne author's on fanfiction.net said that she was hopelessly addicted to Korean dramas. Well, I didn't want to start out with a story that I was unfamiliar with so I decided to start with 'Goong' instead of 'Gokusen' (that one has a Japanese drama to go with it). Maybe I'll do 'Gokusen' next week.

Anyway, I found this great website where it's really easy to find subbed Japanese and Korean drama. www.silentregrets.com

So, right now I'm on episode 11 and I'm really surprised at what goes into making a manhwa a drama. That must be a lot of work ... but at the same time the idea of working on the adaptation screenplay makes my mouth fill with saliva. That would be SO MUCH FUN! Since dialogue is my specialty, I just get all gooie thinking about it.

I'm also impressed with how different it is from English language T.V. Not that I should necessarily compare one piece of asian cinema with the bulk of ours. But the lighting seems to be a trifle more like stage lighting than what we use - even for soap operas. It's sort of like 'Absolutely Fabulous' in England. And when these people go through the trouble of getting extras - they show them. And I mean they really show them. What would normally be a shot worthy only a couple seconds in our world - they take minutes to film - showing the extras and sweeping landscapes. Also, I noticed that there is considerably less dialogue than in our stuff. Instead, people are silently thinking and their facial expressions are what you must read in order to understand. In english language stuff, we tend to make the characters talk to someone about their feelings, even if they are denying them. Also, the episodes in this drama seem long. T.V. shows here are probably only 45 minutes long with 15 minutes for commercials. I didn't realize how indoctrinated in that I was until I started watching 'Goong' and I realized that the episodes (with no commericals) were probably over an hour each.

Now I'll talk about how the plot is advancing and the adaptation. There were lots of aspects to this story that would undoubtably occur in real life, but might not seem like such a big deal in the manhwa world. For instance, our hero (Shin) is constantly being teased by his friends in the drama about how awful it is for him to be forced to marry a commoner. In the manhwa, his friends welcomed ChaeGyung like it was great to have her. Anyway, I thought this part of the drama was very well played out. Now as for how the plot is advancing. I'm not going to lie to you, so I'll admit that I'm used to something with more horns than this. Meaning, I think they could cram at least an episode and a half into each episode's time slot. It's those big sweeping shots of the extras that take up the time.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the experience. Go to the silentregrets and find something fun to watch - lots of it looks cute.