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YA-Entertainment, the
North American distributor for many Korean TV dramas,
capitalized on the popularity of Choi Ji-Woo earlier this
year with their release of one of her early television
dramas, Truth [reviewed HERE] The same treatment now applies
to Bae Doo-na, whose star has been rising lately with her
appearances in Korea's 2006 blockbuster sci-fi/horror film
The Host and the TV series, Someday. In 2006 Doo-na took the
title role in MBC 2003 multi-leveled series, Country
Princess (aka: Funny Wild Girl.) While billed as
a comedy (just look at that aka), a serious drama about
sibling rivalry that leads one sister to commit multiple
felonies sticks it head above the silliness and takes over
the proceedings for the final half of the series.
Alas, Country Princess can't seem to make up its mind quite
what it is. While some Korean "dramas" are essentially
comedies (Super Rookie) with some serious stuff thrown in to
break the monotony. The "traditional" contemporary K�drama
is the reverse: usually an angst-filled love story, with
dollops of comedy provided by a goofy best friend or two.
But to make the lead character a young woman with the social
and emotional maturity of a five-year old is asking for
trouble. Eun-hee has a voice to match: her shrill cackle and
yelping dialogue is enough to shatter glass � and I have
the shards on my living room floor to prove it. Eun-hee
can't seem to figure out where she leaves off and another
person begins. She laughs herself silly at the damage she
causes them, like a mindless tornado laying waste to a
mid-western town. She is completely oblivious to her own bad
manners, while accusing others of what she feels are theirs.
What we expect with such a character is a gradual maturation
through travail or love and, indeed, that is what occurs but
not until about the last reel. Meanwhile, she and the man
she works for and who gradually falls in love with her,
become the hapless victims of her sister's venom. It is this
story that I feel should have been center stage for this
story. Unfortunately, the writer didn't want to follow
through on her own premises and instead took an easy way
out. By the end of the second episode, the two sisters have
fallen for the same young man, but Keum-hee intervenes to
prevent a going-away present from being delivered, along
with the note. In so doing, she inadvertently causes the
barn to catch fire that, in turn, leads to the death of her
father.
Now you would think that the resulting guilt would be just
about unbearable (especially once she realizes that he was
her real father, not Eun-hee's), but the series completely
forgets about it instead, settling for the sibling rivalry
issues that would have otherwise naturally occurred anyhow.
I believe that this is neglected in order that matters
resolve in the way they do, otherwise confession, expiation
and forgiveness to the extent it occurs would not be
credible. It's a stretch as it is.
Image : 7.5/6
The score of 7.5 indicates a relative level of excellence
compared to other standard definition DVDs on a 10-point
scale for SD DVDs. The second score represents a value for
the image on a 10-point scale that accommodates both
standard and high-definition DVDs where any score above 7
for an SD is outstanding, since the large majority of high
definition DVDs are 8-9.5.
What I wrote about MBC's Truth, applies for the production
values for Country Princess, which goes for a naturalistic
look, making lighting adjustments for some situations,
especially outdoors, where we see more than the usual
tendency to overexpose areas lit by a strong source such as
sunlight. Enhancement and artifacts are at a minimum hardly
noticeable unless you're looking for them. As is usually the
case with YAE DVD productions, it's a pretty good 4:3 image,
considering it's not being progressive, as you can see by
the ample evidence of combing which, by the way, is not
evident with my HD projector.
Audio & Music : 8/8
One of the more consistent and agreeable aspects to this
series is the supporting musical score: It never brings
attention to itself, nor does it have one of those
award-seeking, heart-sobbing songs that typify many Korean
dramas lovely and effective as they may be. On the contrary,
the music, which is well recorded with surprisingly good
bass, is often so self-effacing that you could go the
through many episodes before realizing that there is one.
The audio is clear, clean with well-balanced dialog, ambient
sounds and
music.
Translation & Subtitles : 8/8
The translation into idiomatic English is one of YAE's
better efforts. There are very few grammatical errors or
misspellings, and I never felt confused about the action.
The one area that escaped the translators was in being able
to capture Eun-hee's country dialect, often disparagingly
referred to by others. This is not a major concern as Bae
Doona gets the point across in her manner and articulation
of speech, even if one doesn't understand the language.
Subtitles are unobtrusively sized, white and bordered in
black so as to always be clear against any background.
Operations & Box Design : 8/8
Nothing much of interest about the menu, nor to criticize,
really. The menu is straightforward, while taking advantage
of the medium as do later YAE productions, such as Someday
or White Tower, where the thumbnails reveal scene clips. The
box design is compact: an outer shell housing two gatefold
volumes with 3 discs each. I like this design much better
than the ones with plastic pages that rattle and take up
more room on the shelf. I took a point off for the brutally
difficult to release DVD clasps.
Extras : 3
Diverting from their usual practice of including a complete
one-hour episode from a K-drama they wish to promote, this
time around YAE provides 20-minute excerpts from two of
their series, a romantic drama and a comedy. While twenty
minutes is hardly enough time to draw one in, we do get an
idea of the general tone of the series in these two excerpts
which, in both cases, introduce us to most of the characters
and suggest the themes at play.
-
Leonard Norwitz
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