Happy Thanksgiving! Instead of stuffing myself with the various goodies awaiting me downstairs I am trying to get my TEN PAGE LONG term paper done...yeah. Obviously I am procrastinating. But I am here to get a monkey off my back. In the summer I was watching tons upon tons of dramas, or so it seemed. And I wanted to write stuff up on them. But I never had true drive. So I plan to just write up some issues and comments and try to make them brief.
Tokyo Wankei...I dug up the mysterious notes I wrote on the show:
"Koichi-bad hair, stiff posture, tall.
Druggie, writers on crack, hundreds of yards w/o anyone seeing him.
Park Yong Ha-hot!
Mother/daughter-blah"
I swear I wrote more. Okay I am done. Haha I lie. I did try watching Tokyo Wankei back in the day...boring. Not that it got any better with age. My tolerance level increased. I, for the record, did not finish the show. Nakama Yukie plays the second generation Korean woman, Mika, living in Japan. She also plays her character's mother. I was confused because I thought they were the same person. Just joking. I am bashing Nakama-san. She definitely did some funky acting. Pain upon pain.
Tokyo Wankei is about a young woman experiencing the same painful love as her mother had.
Nakama's character falls for a Japanese man, as her mother had done. But due to strict family values both women experienced resistance. Yawn. Where is the real drama and action?
Wada Soko plays Ryosuke, the creepy pale and skinny love interest. He is the sensitive artist type. Ahhh. Not that that makes him any less creepy. Oh, and I got flashed...mooned rather. No one wants to see his booty!
Nakamura Shunsuke plays Koichi, the stiff and freakishly tall weirdo other man. He wants to marry Mika because of a business deal...or something underhanded like that. So I am going to lay out a big SPOILER. He gets stabbed. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAH! Hilarious. He gets stabbed by some hobo trudging through an airport with a big bloody knife. Yeah. And no one noticed the weirdo. Like I said the writers are on crack. "Let's spice up the show. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense because no one is watching the show anyway."
Okay two actual highlights of the show. Park Yong Ha and Hayami Mokomichi. Park had a SMOKING HOT cameo. Being all cute. He was just eye candy. And I bet they were trying to boost ratings with a star from the popular Winter Sonata. Too bad he wasn't Yon-sama. Maybe it would have worked.
Hayami played a dimwitted character with a very tiny role. Can't say he did a good job with what he had. But I never admitted he was a good actor. More eye candy for moi!
Just because Koichi's hair is so bad I'll give this show a low rating. Haha.
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
t h e . r o s e . b r i d e
Here I am on my 21st birthday typing up a little something on a book I don't particularly like. Yay! Fun stuff. What have I been doing lately? Slacking off avoiding everything and a ten page term paper due very soon. It feels as if I am finding it harder to find the drive to batter a drama or even gush over one for that matter. Plus I have the inkling I may have precious few words to say about anything. Noooooooo! My well is almost dry? Say it ain't so.
Okay on to the terror that is Nancy Holder's writing. The Rose Bride is a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale The White and the Black Bride. I wasn't too familiar with the tale so I was in for a joyous new experience. If you call literature (or rather future firewood) that puts you in a zombie like state joyous. You need the shock of eating another's flesh to wake you from the stupor. Okay, I was expecting something bad. I read her other book in the Once Upon a Time series. So I was actually bracing myself for the worst. I was prepared to not finish the book.
The Rose Bride is about a young girl by the name of Rose (what a coinkidink!) who endures unspeakable (just because I don't care, that's why they're unspeakable) horrors while searching for the meaning of true love.
While this book is slightly tolerable, it is definitely not masterful writing. My big problem was that you never got to know the characters. I never cared for any of them. Never picking a side. Never hoping that the abnormally gorgeous heroine Rose found true love. Oh gourd that love thing was everywhere.
Now I am gonna lay some big spoilers on you all. Don't flinch while I pelt them erratically. The whole story starts confusingly enough in a temple for the Greek god Zeus. A lonely King is finally finding (brief) happiness as the priests perform a kooky ceremony to bless the child in the womb of his new found (and soon to be dead) lady love. Apparently the king is favored by Zeus...how nice. Well, so I was led on to believe that this story was set in ancient Greece...it really isn't. What time period in Grecian history is it set then you ask? Well they do mention 'the colonies,' that being America. And to add another intriguing twist everyone is French. Ah! French people residing in Greece. Nope, French people in France. French people worshipping Greek gods of the olden day. Ah, now it all makes sense.
Yeah, well to burn it in our tiny brains the author decides to pepper in some French. A oui oui here, a oui oui there, here a oui, there a oui, everywhere a oui oui. We get it! They're French despite the fact they act like modern day Americans...sorta. Besides Nancy Holder's barrage of high school French we get a display of weird lingo. Nancy drops names as if to impress us. 'Doublet,' 'ermine' and 'boon companion' don't really conjure the image of elegance, fantasy and 17th century France.
The whole feel of the book is that of a watered down romance novel. The general romance fare being that the author of sets up a romantic or tension inducing situation and lets the madness unfold. Nancy did manage to slip in some questionable and very unnecessary lines (blah blah blah nekkid blah blah blah) into her watery stew for some spice. Neither juicy or romantic...just gross.
Besides questionable dialogue there were some very questionable relationships. The king and love interest Jean-Marc marries a minor...a sixteen-year-old girl (evil stepsister Desiree disguised as our beautiful heroine Rose). We never do find out his age, but I am guessing late thirties onward. Moreover he hardly knows the girl. When he first meets her he grabs her in his tight embrace and smacks a wet one on her lips...her minor lips. Child molestation! Not even the excuse of Rose (Desiree in disguise still) looking eerily similar to Jean-Marc's dead wife would make that okay.
The book limps along like a half dead animal. The climax was short and not so sweet. I was keeping the hope alive that the story would get better eventually. The prologue was pretty rough, as were the first few chapters. The story never got interesting. I did read it from start to end though. I guess I was hoping the end would be fantastic. Yeah...no. I think the whole reason I read it was to say how bad it was. I have two other fantasy/fairy tale books lined up for my reading pleasure, both of which I suspect are horrid but quick reads.
I know Nancy tried at least a little to bring us an interesting retelling of this Grimm piece. I mean her writing, for a sentence or two, sounded very much like her fellow Once Upon a Time writer Dokey. But just like every possible avenue Nancy could have taken to make the tale more interesting we were left to wonder what could have happened. Not that I want to dwell on the possibilities.
If you love Nancy's writing, even though you know her style, please feel free to read the better of her two books in this fairy tale series. For me The Rose Bride will quickly fade from my memory taking with it a few precious brain cells. Purple roses constantly saying "You are loved" can do that to you.
My Rating: 1.5/5
Okay on to the terror that is Nancy Holder's writing. The Rose Bride is a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale The White and the Black Bride. I wasn't too familiar with the tale so I was in for a joyous new experience. If you call literature (or rather future firewood) that puts you in a zombie like state joyous. You need the shock of eating another's flesh to wake you from the stupor. Okay, I was expecting something bad. I read her other book in the Once Upon a Time series. So I was actually bracing myself for the worst. I was prepared to not finish the book.
The Rose Bride is about a young girl by the name of Rose (what a coinkidink!) who endures unspeakable (just because I don't care, that's why they're unspeakable) horrors while searching for the meaning of true love.
While this book is slightly tolerable, it is definitely not masterful writing. My big problem was that you never got to know the characters. I never cared for any of them. Never picking a side. Never hoping that the abnormally gorgeous heroine Rose found true love. Oh gourd that love thing was everywhere.
Now I am gonna lay some big spoilers on you all. Don't flinch while I pelt them erratically. The whole story starts confusingly enough in a temple for the Greek god Zeus. A lonely King is finally finding (brief) happiness as the priests perform a kooky ceremony to bless the child in the womb of his new found (and soon to be dead) lady love. Apparently the king is favored by Zeus...how nice. Well, so I was led on to believe that this story was set in ancient Greece...it really isn't. What time period in Grecian history is it set then you ask? Well they do mention 'the colonies,' that being America. And to add another intriguing twist everyone is French. Ah! French people residing in Greece. Nope, French people in France. French people worshipping Greek gods of the olden day. Ah, now it all makes sense.
Yeah, well to burn it in our tiny brains the author decides to pepper in some French. A oui oui here, a oui oui there, here a oui, there a oui, everywhere a oui oui. We get it! They're French despite the fact they act like modern day Americans...sorta. Besides Nancy Holder's barrage of high school French we get a display of weird lingo. Nancy drops names as if to impress us. 'Doublet,' 'ermine' and 'boon companion' don't really conjure the image of elegance, fantasy and 17th century France.
The whole feel of the book is that of a watered down romance novel. The general romance fare being that the author of sets up a romantic or tension inducing situation and lets the madness unfold. Nancy did manage to slip in some questionable and very unnecessary lines (blah blah blah nekkid blah blah blah) into her watery stew for some spice. Neither juicy or romantic...just gross.
Besides questionable dialogue there were some very questionable relationships. The king and love interest Jean-Marc marries a minor...a sixteen-year-old girl (evil stepsister Desiree disguised as our beautiful heroine Rose). We never do find out his age, but I am guessing late thirties onward. Moreover he hardly knows the girl. When he first meets her he grabs her in his tight embrace and smacks a wet one on her lips...her minor lips. Child molestation! Not even the excuse of Rose (Desiree in disguise still) looking eerily similar to Jean-Marc's dead wife would make that okay.
The book limps along like a half dead animal. The climax was short and not so sweet. I was keeping the hope alive that the story would get better eventually. The prologue was pretty rough, as were the first few chapters. The story never got interesting. I did read it from start to end though. I guess I was hoping the end would be fantastic. Yeah...no. I think the whole reason I read it was to say how bad it was. I have two other fantasy/fairy tale books lined up for my reading pleasure, both of which I suspect are horrid but quick reads.
I know Nancy tried at least a little to bring us an interesting retelling of this Grimm piece. I mean her writing, for a sentence or two, sounded very much like her fellow Once Upon a Time writer Dokey. But just like every possible avenue Nancy could have taken to make the tale more interesting we were left to wonder what could have happened. Not that I want to dwell on the possibilities.
If you love Nancy's writing, even though you know her style, please feel free to read the better of her two books in this fairy tale series. For me The Rose Bride will quickly fade from my memory taking with it a few precious brain cells. Purple roses constantly saying "You are loved" can do that to you.
My Rating: 1.5/5
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