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‘Splash Splash Love’ is a Refreshing Take on Fusion Sageuk

December 30, 2015/in Entertainment, Television /by Anna Cheang

MBC’s latest mini-series “Splash Splash Love” premiered this month and concluded after a course of two episodes. Though the drama was short, it garnered a lot of attention, both locally and internationally – and for good reason. There were several factors as to why this drama was so special, despite the fact that it was […]

Let’s Discuss: TC Candler’s List, Nana, & Why It’s Bad For K-Pop Fans

December 29, 2015/in Features, Let's Discuss /by Tamar Herman

This may be a crazy idea, but here goes: K-pop will only become a viable, long-term music scene when the industry no longer seeks validation from Western media. The reason? Because it means that the people behind K-pop will finally respect its fans as something more than just a money making machine, but actually the […]

‘Splash Splash Love’ is a Refreshing Take on Fusion Sageuk

December 30, 2015/in Entertainment, Television /by Anna Cheang

Let’s Discuss: TC Candler’s List, Nana, & Why It’s Bad For K-Pop Fans

December 29, 2015/in Features, Let's Discuss /by Tamar Herman

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‘Splash Splash Love’ is a Refreshing Take on Fusion Sageuk

December 30, 2015/in Entertainment, Television /by Anna Cheang

MBC’s latest mini-series “Splash Splash Love” premiered this month and concluded after a course of two episodes. Though the drama was short, it garnered a lot of attention, both locally and internationally – and for good reason. There were several factors as to why this drama was so special, despite the fact that it was another fusion sageuk (a period drama with a modern touch, most of the time involving some form of time travel) and had a pretty predictable storyline.

[Disclaimer: There are some spoilers ahead!]

As alluded to in the title, this drama had a lot to do with rain. Heroine Jang Dan Bi (played by Kim Seulgi) is a modern day high school student who wanted to escape her college aptitude tests desperately. When she discovered a magical puddle on a rainy day she decided to jump through it and found herself in the Joseon period, right in the middle of a three year drought. Ruler at the time, Lee Do (played by Beast’s Yoon Dojoon) is an enthusiastic and curious learner who was immediately attracted to Dan Bi, not because of her physical appearance but because of her knowledge from the future. Right from the get-go, the chemistry between these two leads was natural and extremely adorable; I thoroughly enjoyed their progression from having a master-servant relationship to becoming firm friends and finally passionate lovers. It wasn’t rushed despite the fact that this drama was only two episodes long, rather it was fast paced and well-developed. Both actors also acted very well together which made the watch very enjoyable because of how believable their romance was.

taken from @uaena-vip from tumblr

This drama was aplenty with K-drama cliches, but that doesn’t mean that it was boring or typical. It turned out to be very refreshing, because the drama kept adding fun twists to each cliche that it utilized. For example, for a good part of the drama Dan Bi was cosplaying as a male eunuch. While this cliche can be seen in several other dramas, both modern and period ones, it was a slightly different situation here. She didn’t intend to disguise herself at the start, rather it was her use of the term “go-sam” (in modern day context it means a high school senior but in a historical context it actually refers to eunuchs) in her self-introduction that led to this whole misunderstanding. While she did continue the cosplay after realising its benefits, the continued use of this pun served to inject humor in the storyline and created some hilarious scenes, especially between Dan Bi and Lee Do.

Also on Kultscene: 8 Korean Shows To Cuddle Up With This Holiday Season

Another cliche that appears very often in time travel dramas is the use of reincarnated characters, especially for the two main leads (think “Rooftop Prince”). This drama was no exception, as each modern character had its historical counterpart. The adorable part of it was that the historical characters shared the same characteristics and personality as their future selves, like Queen Sohun’s (Jin Ki Joo) love for midnight snacking and instant food. Although I enjoyed the parallels and found myself laughing because of them, I did get worried that this drama would give the romance a trashy ending by letting Dan Bi meet and fall in love with future Lee Do, just because he was also played by Dojoon. I got even more worried when they did reunite at the end of the drama and he said (in a swoony way, admittedly): “We’ve met before, a long time ago.”

taken from @sufbb on tumblr

I assumed immediately (as did Dan Bi, I’m guessing) that he meant during the Joseon period, but thankfully he clarified that he had actually met her on her way to school, at the first part of the drama. It was a twist that I didn’t expect but loved, simply because it defied K-drama norms and was something new.

That leads me to another point that I loved about the show, every minute of the show, every scene, no matter how insignificant it seemed turned out to be useful in the end. When I finished it I felt like I had just watched a movie rather than a drama because of how all the plot points fitted together. The writing was so tight that there was purpose in every event that occurred. For instance, a simple scene showing Dan Bi lying on the couch and watching an episode of “Mask Singer” could be used later on as evidence of her ability to recognise voices. For such a short drama it sure made full use of its time.

At the core of the drama it was the strong message that no matter how insignificant we may feel because of our bad grades or lack of talent, we still have a part to play in this world. Dan Bi was such an underachiever at school that she lost confidence in herself and her worth, but going back to the Joseon times and being able to share her knowledge with the king helped her to realise that she was valuable after all. Even when she failed, Lee Do was there to encourage her and help her to carry on.

The struggles that Dan Bi faced were so relatable even to people who weren’t students that it made this message all the more encouraging and inspiring, a big reason why this drama succeeded.

That being said, this show wasn’t perfect and there were many illogical plot lines which led to some confusion for me as I watched the drama. Yes, the entire premise of the show was absurd but there has to be some logic, especially between scenes. For one thing, there never was a “big reveal” for Dan Bi who had been masquerading as a male eunuch but all of a sudden all the characters in the show (including the court ministers) knew that she was actually a female and she was nominated to be a concubine. I’m sorry but what? From other historical dramas and the scant information that I know about the Joseon dynasty I’m pretty sure that there’s a penalty for intentionally deceiving the court, let alone the King. Even if we ignore the legislature, I was surprised at the lack of reaction from the ministers because what is the point of cosplaying if there are no stakes involved?

Also on Kultscene: K-Drama’s Latest Trend: Alzheimer’s Disease

Another problem I had with the plot was what happened one particular day, when Dan Bi escaped the city after an attempt made at her life. She literally spent the whole night out with the king at a beach, while the queen spent her whole night out at her childhood friend’s house. Even better, when she tried to go back to the palace, the gates were locked. For the queen. It’s simply crazy to imagine that when both rulers are out of the palace no one would be looking for them or even be alarmed. I mean, what are all the servants and soldiers for if not to keep the rulers safe?

At the end of it all however, “Splash Splash” Love never took itself seriously and this helped viewers to focus more on the heartfelt storyline rather than the sometimes gaping plot holes as we watched the drama. There were so many adorable moments that I enjoyed from this show (Lee Do reciting the times table was fantastic) that made me forget the parts I disliked about it and this makes it a winning drama in my books. I would tell you more, but I hope you’ll watch it yourself. I won’t spoil the magic for you!

taken from @uaena-vip

Did you watch Splash Splash Love? Share your thoughts on the drama in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.

Let’s Discuss: TC Candler’s List, Nana, & Why It’s Bad For K-Pop Fans

December 29, 2015/in Features, Let's Discuss /by Tamar Herman

You may wonder what brought along this thought, but after this week’s annual “freak out over a totally random blog’s ranking of the most beautiful people in the world” (this one,) I just felt like there was something to discuss here.

It’s not that I personally care that many foreign-language articles written about Korean celebrities and pop culture are ignored by Korean media outlets. That doesn’t matter, because they don’t need validation from Korea to talk about Korea. It’s about the fact that TC Candler, a film critic with little to no pull in the entertainment world, garners attention year after year for a list of physical rankings solely because Candler lacks any apparent connection to the Korean entertainment world and so is seen as a validating figure separate from “K-pop bloggers.”

Essentially, the less connected you are to K-pop, the better you are to the Korean entertainment industry. The Korea Herald’s K-pop site went further than usual and not only highlighted After School’s Nana as the clear winner, but also used the list to declare that TWICE’s Tzuyu is the prettiest face in China.

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It doesn’t matter that there are countless international news sites dedicated to K-pop for K-pop fans. It doesn’t matter that Billboard has people writing about it regularly. It doesn’t matter that 2015 alone has seen more K-pop concerts outside of Asia than ever before. To Korean entertainment related-agencies and individuals, K-pop fans are nothing when compared to validation from the outside.

Never-mind the fact that K-pop fans around the globe cough up millions of dollars each year to sign up for K-drama streaming services and to buy merchandise, albums, and concert tickets. Or that there are multi-million websites dedicated to K-pop and Korean entertainment. These fans don’t matter, because they’re already fans.

As long as a random English website says that a K-pop star is the most beautiful person in the world, that is newsworthy.

Forget the fact that TC Candler’s list is unimportant to anyone outside of K-pop, and that TC Candler has no credibility outside of his own website (which is seemingly devoted to film reviews, not beauty ranking).

Forget everything. Just think about the fact that After School’s Nana is now receiving a title that, had it been from a K-pop related website, would have been ignored.

If a K-pop outlet such as AllKPop or KpopStarz, both of which are read by thousands around the globe each day, or drama purveyors like DramaFever or Viki, which have brought K-dramas and films to millions of people, decided to release a list of this sort, it would be ignored. (And don’t even get me started on what would happen if KultScene released it. We’re a small fish amongst a big sea of K-pop literature, and we wouldn’t even register a blip in South Korea).

More so than the fact that “The Most Beautiful List” is a silly way to determine Nana’s overseas popularity (I’m going to guess here that maybe, maybe one out of every thousand Americans would know who Nana is), the list is an interesting point of contention for K-pop fans because it seeks credibility for Korean celebrities from an outside, non K-pop related media outlet. Regardless of what that outlet is or who writes for it.

I reached out to Candler via email to get a statement regarding the popularity of the list and received no response. The list is in its 26th year, but there is still little information about Candler or what the criteria for the Most Beautiful List is. I’m not honestly clear about why the Independent Critics List is, other than it being a website that reviews film. There is nothing appearance related other than the yearly Beautiful/Handsome lists.

Korean entertainment is widely popular. It is a solid genre of its own. But as long as the Korean entertainment industry and K-pop as a whole looks to receive validation from the outside with no regards credibility, the fans that K-pop and Hallyu as a whole have become the butt of a joke. These fans, and their opinions, are diminished and viewed as crazy fanatics rather than the supporters of K-pop.

Not only does Korean media and entertainment companies not value the opinion of Korean fans, but so do K-pop fans themselves. It’s as if K-pop hasn’t made it yet, so we need to know it’s cool, rather than being a pretty solid industry that is recognized around the globe.

The K-Pop industry’s reaction to non-K-pop media looks like a child crying because there’s no pink M&Ms in a bag, even though that’s not the normal color found in M&M’s bags; it’s something nice, but it’s not needed and doesn’t make K-pop better. It just looks juvenile.

Also on Kultscene: Top 50 Korean Songs of 2015

Psy is a perfect example. Back in 2012, Super Junior, Girls’ Generation, and Big Bang were everywhere. The rapper? Less so. Psy had always been more controversial than popular in South Korea, but international fans hardly noticed the musician before his hit song. I was in Seoul after the song was released, but pre-craze, and it was pretty popular. But people were already sick of the song and the horse dance. The craze would have died down, and it would have been a summer hit.

Then “Gangnam Style” went viral and it was suddenly cool to like Psy. Which is great, he is a talented musician. But that doesn’t mean that Korean music itself isn’t innately valuable as a genre of music for the fans of it.

Belittling outlets devoted to K-pop as “fansites” and not valuing them in Korea is fine; but blowing a tiny blog’s list out of proportion year after year because it is not a solely Korea-oriented site is obnoxious. Not just to the writers who painstakingly create year end lists, but to all K-pop fans who are really devoted to the genre. This attitude of preferring a non-outwardly K-pop related site to one dedicated to Korean entertainment is akin to saying “K-pop fans aren’t good enough for us.”

If Korean entertainment purveyors want K-pop to become popular, it has to happen naturally. Jumping on something rather unimportant year and year again, while ignoring the adoration of those fans it already has, would be akin to rock stars turning their back on the fans have supported them since the start just in order to appeal to seemingly higher-class classical music audiences.

K-pop, you’ve made it. You’re a multi-million dollar genre of music with fans around the globe. Grow up and stop looking for validation. Not everyone likes, or talks about, metal. That doesn’t mean it’s not a real thing. But it doesn’t mean that bigtime metal musicians snatch up the most random bit of publicity from whatever outlet that doesn’t usually cover metal.

It’s 2015. The World Wide Web is older than I am (by about 50 days). There’s a lot on it. That doesn’t mean that anything about K-pop anywhere is something to get excited about. Google “K-pop” or “Nana” or “Beautiful Face” or “After School” or, I don’t know, “Turbo’s Again.” There will be thousands, if not millions, of hits.

We have to stop micro analyzing K-pop for what we want it to be (which, I think, most K-pop fans would agree, would be a mainstream genre of music worldwide) and start noticing the fact that it’s already here and we like it for what it is.

So, yes, good list TC Candler. No, I’m not going to link to it because it’s not any more reputable than me making a list.

You know what? Here goes:

KultScene Most Beautiful Faces List of 2015

Nah, I’m just joking.

What do you think about the situation?Let us know in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.