In a recent interview, actress Kim Ha Neul stated that she is seeing a lack of scripts being offered to her and other actors. In the past she would get multiple offers, but now she is lucky to get one. She did not reference ageism as a reason. But it could reflect an accelerating decrease in the number of productions. In 2022, 135 k-dramas were produced, in 2023 it was 125, and this year it will be less than 100.

It is getting bad enough that the Korean government is getting involved to help producers. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Science and ICT formed a 600 billion won ($454 million) investment fund to finance Korean entertainment. The government will utilize the fund to help domestic production studios adapt popular Korean intellectual property across multiple formats rather than selling its rights to overseas streaming platforms. Domestic investment firm Korea Growth Investment Corporation will manage the fund; firms including SLL JoongAng, CJ ENM, Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) and the Korea Development Bank (KDB) will contribute capital in addition to the government.

But this fund does not immediately help studios that pre-produced series without a network or distributor. Overseas OTTs want to own the IP and not pay residuals. And they have studios who completed series over a barrel since local Korean networks and streaming platforms have been cutting back.

But Kim’s plight can also be viewed as cost cutting higher paid actors. Fro example, rookie actress Hong Hwa Young beat out 100 other actors for the lead in the new SBS series Treasure Island. It is a risk to have an inexperienced actor lead a series, but clearly the lower appearance fee is what the network wants as a hedge and to appease a big actor agency, BH.

Lee Yuri complained two years ago that scripts were drying up. Even though he had several successful series, she got no lead offers after 2022. During the pandemic, she was one of four hosts for a family travel variety show. Variety shows apparently now stunt drama opportunities. Last year, she went to China for a support role in a Chinese series that has yet to air. I recently saw that she is hawking department store products on the internet.

Hello again.

I finished 2 extensive presentations this week, one on korean animals in folklore and one on devils and monsters of Estonia & Korea. If I have a bit of time after all the exhibition deadlines pass, I will try and share some of it here

Tomorrow is the big anime fest where I will give a lecture. and sunday I am picking up my stuff from the previous exhibition.

yesterday we had a visitor form Estonian Embassy in Seoul and it was so interesting: she talked about trade relations and which companies are cooperating between the 2 countries and our Eurovision representative Puuluup will have 3 concerts today and tomorrow in Estonian Business Hub I . We also talked a bit about the inequality and treatment of women.

turns out there are way more korean groups coming than I thought but you barely notice in the city. They usually only got time for a dinner and some introduction.

I hope they take on longer trips in the future.

hmm, I dont have much amusing library stuff to share but perhaps something will turn up today.

If you could go or have been to Seoul, what’s the ONE thing you must see or do? Tell me what’s on your wishlist?

Happy Friday, Beanies! Joke of the week goes to domestic LYN's fans begging him to start filming another drama asap so they can rest a bit from his daily updates as a singer lol. I mean, they aren't wrong – man owned media this week, having 2 music show appearances with 4 performances in total on Sunday alone. His October schedule is even worse, btw, and that's without any TSOPG promo events listed so far – there will be some, right?

We open with a bang – literally! - from OUR SONG S6 big finale. Hilariously, just a day prior I saw a complaint (in my native language which took me out, ngl) on sns that LYN's voice is criminally wasted on vanilla pop songs lately and he should go back to his metal roots. Man must've felt that disturbance in the force, because he timely covered Zheng Jun's rock classic from 90s “Naked” together with his bro Da Zhangwei, and oh my lower chakras that was a freaking nuclear blast of the stage! First of all, his voice! I haven't heard him going this sexily smokey in what felt like centuries, even wondered if this kind of sound possible anymore... Short answer is hell yeah – he even screamed to disintegrate all remaining doubts! And overall was vibing to his metalhead heart's content, bouncing around and hyping the crowd into horny insanity. Somehow no guitars were broken in process (I assume fangirls throwing their lingerie on stage is not a thing in China – at least at TV. shame). In fact, I'm shocked this stage happened at all – not only the song is pretty explicit (one strategically removed F-bomb, we'll remember ya!), but they presented it exactly how it is – hot and wild. ”My love is naaaked, you make me going craaazy!”♫
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5blumU7vV0g

Studio fancam – at this point I feel like begging for mercy but he clearly has none:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPg1HuNaeuY

Excuse me for a sec – need to dump a bucket of ice on myself to start thinking rationally again – OK, we're good to continue now. Of course, his second duo had to be NOTHING like the first – mood whiplash is the name of the game here))) To hardly anyone's surprise, his and Malaysian star Shila Amzah's soulful take of Liang Fan's sentimental ballad “That girl, A Chu” was the most popular stage of the night – I knew that local public would be more into romantic ballad about long lost first love than smutty rock, but 1M likes in an hour, damn! Then again, vocals – the harmonies! - were absolutely fabulous. It's rare for him to not need holding back at least a bit to not overpower his partner, esp lady, but here we've got two vocalists with lungs made of the same brand of mithril. Saved him the energy to bring out acting chops – that longing stare at the end!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30dvSjZWEH0

Now that Spice Up Our Love is over, I'm really feeling the loss of NGNL.

Also, Spice Up Our Love (the fake novel, not the two episode drama) reminds me a LOT of I Can't Get Enough of You, a webnovel that's also been adapted into a webcomic. There's an overarching story and a romance between a chaebol boss and his employee, but also just a ton of smutty scenes. Not to mention a childhood connection and a vengeful employee. But I'm also sure that stories like this are a dime a dozen on Naver!

Speaking of webcomics, Lee Hye has a new webcomic up and I am super excited. I am also still following the Korean release of Obsidian Bride, which is insisting on dragging out a potential love triangle and confusing readers about who the ML is (sigh). And Operation True Love remains on hiatus without a return date to be seen. There's a new webcomic that sort of has the same vibe, In Between, that I'm enjoying but I'm already caught up to the English translation and can't find translated newer episodes. Daily Jojo updates on Tuesdays and Fridays, so I'll check out the Kr release of that this morning (less than an hour now). I mainly follow it to see the S1 couple that I love, but I haven't seen them yet this season.

Happy weekend Beanies and keep Beaning On!

Long time no see! I haven’t seen my home as much as usual these past two weeks, and well, home is where the Dramabeans laptop is.🫡

During the first week all our windows, shutters and blinds got replaced and this week my parents have been busy painting, cleaning and finally putting things back in their rightful place. While they tackled room by room, I spent a couple days in work formation away from all the dirt and noise.👷👷

The escape to work was convenient, but once I returned home chaos and exhaustion would reign. I could not reach or even find my stuff underneath all the old blankets that served as protection during the renovation, so my October schedule is still missing!🤭

Tomorrow I am having my regular city meet-up with my friends for another escape from home. As much as I want to see my friends, I cannot help but yearn for a cozy weekend binge on my sofa. Fortunately I have some time off work coming up!😴

I am knitting again, which at this time, for me, is improving productivity.
As almost always I have decided that what I need is something that can only be put together from three or four different patterns, and so I am right now making a chain (fair isle) of roses, the same rose turned this way and that and polstered with a few less or extra stitches so the whole thing looks more rose bed-ish. I have a an incredibly bad working memory, and so, I count, and count, and count, ... Why did I decide I needed these roses?
Anyways, this too will pass.

FINALLY found something to watch. took a time machine back to 2010 to see "personal taste" with Lee Min Ho. i love older dramas! they're so campy and goofy and awful, which is what makes them wonderful 🤣 but why are the female leads always so damn annoying and dumb? LOL

I was watching a reaction video about the drama Happiness and it made think about korean zombie movies and shows. Over recent years, people keep saying how koreans do the zombie genre so well and maybe it's just me but I don't get how they take such a novel approach. Zombie stories are almost always about stories of survival and that's my takeaway (I don't think on it too deep). Now, I'm not much of zombie or horror watcher but I've seen The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later (though I don't remember much of the latter) and I saw the same or similar beats play out as in Train to Busan or All of Us are Dead.

In this video https://youtu.be/jQ9KsATrlvc?si=F5Ue9YR0OgKv0DGQ
The youtuber says korean zombie stories seem to have a different emphasis and appeal because of the culture. The language difference, the default collectivism.

This also reminded me of @welh 's comment weeks ago about how the western movie making world was entranced by korean movies but it was like chefs trying to recreate foods and missing that *something*.

Sometimes I feel that way about how dramas are preceived nowadays. It all seems the same to me but the formulas are out of whack for others.

I was really disappointed in the ending episode (actually the last two episodes) of No Gain No Love, mainly because I was enjoying the rom-com a great deal, and the writer up to that point had been deft at using tropes but slightly subverting them; but then got heavy handed in the sentimental messaging and the FL’s “growth” at the end, totally neglected the story of the ML— not to mention the entire main couples romance—until an extremely unsatisfying “happy” resolution. I was NOT happy. In fact the ending of this show ranks among my most disappointing ever.

When I say “most disappointing” here I mean a drama that up until the ending, I really liked, and then after the ending, felt totally let down about the whole production. We’ve talked a lot about bad endings here, but there are some endings that are bad, but for bad dramas (like Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol, or Bad Memory Eraser recently—it was a terrible ending, but the drama itself was terrible).

There are other endings that end unhappily, and become notorious for their endings— but since the whole drama was trending that way, while the endings were widely disliked, (and I also disliked them) they weren’t deeply disappointing to me since I already knew what was coming (Heartbeat, 25-21).

But I was wondering for anyone willing to respond what your most disappointing ending was, with the criteria that you really liked the drama up until the ending, and then were “What the..?” and your whole opinion of the show soured after the last episode. I want to be sure to prepare myself if I ever watch them!

Because I'm missing No Gain No Love, I've been rewatching it and I still enjoy even though I know how it ends. Rewatching made me think about when I've rewatched other dramas. From what I remember, I don't tend to change my feelings when I rewatch a drama; if I thought it was okay during the initial viewing, that's usually my take and it doesn't change. However, my outlook or appreciation maybe affected by fanvids or reaction videos.

For example, I didn't like Hwayugi/A Korean Odyssey much. I especially didn't like the ending (a little tidbit: that was the first show I commented about on here YEARS after it aired and I was unregistered so whatever comments I made are just lost in the sea of comments for that show haha)

Anyhoo, I didn't like the show much, it was alright to me, but once saw fanvids for it, specifically the videos for Son O Gong, I gained a new appreciation for it and rewatched it focusing on his character rather than the romance. I ended up liking it much more when I think about the parts rather than the whole.

Similarly, I felt that way with Happiness and Sh**ting Stars. The shows were whatever but the fanvids and edits ended up making me interested in the shows more. But when I actually watch the show, my feelings are generally the same haha

I wonder how other people feel when they rewatch shows years later. Like if you disliked Kokdu: Season of Deity in the past, can you like it in the future?