Monday, November 08, 2010

Bury Me, Mary!

   If you think this picture is weird, you're right. And this stays as weird. And not that kind of weird that would make me anticipate the next weirdness. The next weirdness is displayed and visible from the start.
The song-motif for this drama is:
 ***
Let me never see the sun
And never see you smile
Let us be so dead and so gone
So far away from life
Just close my eyes
Hold me tight
And bury me deep inside your heart.
***
(HIM: Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart)


    Let's put it like this: I'm a first episode girl. If it doesn't click, it doesn't stay. I had my 3 approaches to YAB last year, and I warmed up only in Episode 05, I guess mostly because I was repeatedly told it was good. But hell, YAB was funny. Yes, it was hilariously funny. Not a great drama, not even a good one, but funny. So it did make up for cardboard characters and predictable plot.
Marry Me, Mary, on the other hand, is full of false pretenses. I watched it, as I may say it, "on a hungry drama stomach", that means, I have not watched anything this weekend, so my short memory wouldn't be filled with another drama. I didn't want to have a comparing point. As I see it now, I did wrong, I could watch any drama and the effect would be the same. But I wanted to take this as much "objectively" as I could afford.
Actually there are good points and bad points in this drama. The thing is - when I weight them on the scale, good points don't outweight those bad ones.
So, lets start from good ones, less time to enumerate them, heh.

1. First good point: Kim Jaewuk:
He is not a brilliant actor, but a nice one. The problem is, I'm afraid he may be stuck with the same types of roles, like JGS is. He looks tired also, don't know if it was for a drama or he is just exhausted. I liked the scene with him as the part of jury in the singing contest and his slanting the girl. Oh well, I do have a weakness for arrogant guys, true.
How drunk I was that I signed this??
 2. Mary. I like Mun Geunyong, but not that much to watch the entire series solely for her. She's a lively girl here, and a stubborn one, but... somehow doesn't attract me as a character. and this bad joke about Harry Potter because of her scar on the forehead. Tsk...
This scene below I found so meaningful and deep... Almost as deep as all of the songs of H.I.M. See, their eyes met in a fangirl-orgasm-inducing slo-mo, and all is basked in the light. No, Light. Headlights light to be precise. I thought of that verse from Upanishads (all people of India heritage, not my fault I read too much, I'm not going to be sorry for that), and this fragment below casts a light (from a bulb) on the future of the pair on the street.
There the sun shines not, nor the moon and the stars,
nor the lightning, let alone this earthly fire.
Only when illumining Light shines,
everything else shines;
the self-revealing Light illumines the entire universe.
(The Upanishads)



3. The guys from the band. If only they had a bit more screen-time. A little, tiny bit more. And judging from the behavior we, I mean you who decide to continue on this one, will probably witness the clash of interest between the leather leader and the rest of the guys. And the moment when he will choose his love instead of fame and money, and screaming fangirls... Ah... don't care.
Just one question, why do they have normal hair and normal clothes? If it was meant to be believable, they should make fancy-pansy out of all of them. Just don't get it. They did it so Mugyeol could stand out against them? Hell, he would even with them in tutus.


Bad points: everything else.
1. The filming of this drama is heavy, it's not versatile, it's not unexpected. All angles are done in a way that you can almost guess what will be the next shot. 
2. It is supposed to be a comedy? I didn't laugh. Although the scene of Mugyeol tearing the paper was nice. Still, too TK-like. 
3. Acting: umm... Mun is nice. Her friends are not. JGS is not bad, but I never even once said he can't act. He can. He just doesn't improve. That's all. Mary's father was OK, albeit too loud for my liking. Jaewuk was a bit too much sedated. If only the band had bigger part in it... aigoo...
4. The rock song: a mess. I couldn't understand a word.
5. I had my doubts whether a rock-star after a concert walks away with still perfectly balanced hair-waves, not sweating like a ... umm... nevermind, all clean and without make-up running on his face à la Alice Cooper. But I guess I've been to different concerts.

Fanservice chapter 1: A Water Nymph Resurrection.
Too many moments calculated to heat up the regular demographic of such dramas: 14-years-olds. JGS showing off his famous S-line he likes to brag about. I think maybe Miss Mun should do that, since she's a genetically woman, but well, I am an ignorant Westerner.
Fanservice chapter 2: when you thought he can't get any sexier...
 And this was the moment I decided to severe all my umblical cords with this drama. Don't like the way of filming it. Not only it's heavy and predictable, but what's more, it's focusing on this drama main appeal: JGS girly body and his poses.
I think drama should depend on something else, like a story, perhaps?

...

 And I'm sorry, Jaewuk, you look dashing and probably will rock in this one if the screenplay allows you to it, but even you won't make me glued to the screen every two days of the week.


So, to sum it up: I'm dropping this off. I would be more excited about the drama on horse raising than this one. I can clearly see where it's going. I didn't like the first episode and I don't love anyone who plays in it to the extent of self-sacrifice and watching it.
The beginning with the tenebrous wedding was bad. Not funny and not even satyrical, or whatever it supposed to be. I don't get any layers to this one.
And as the wonderful and talented to the beyond of any comparison band H.I.M. sang in this song: this drama is "so dead and so gone. So far away from life..."
I want to feel alive while watching, I want to laugh, I want to cry. Plus I really want to connect with the characters. Right now I connected to the wall the band was leaning on. It's a bit too 8th-plan role as for me.
Even though in Shakespear's play (A Midsummer Night's Dream) the Wall was playing a major role hehe. You know...

Good night and good luck.
You will need it.

See, if you don't believe my moderate bashing of this one: First review on Asiae, and it's... well...