Oh, my gosh, that is one of the STUPIDEST titles I've ever seen for a drama (yes, even for a drama) and it's not even translated correctly. Also, just for future reference, I will be comparing this show primarily to the Korean version of this drama, mostly because overall that is the most popular one and the one that most people are comparing it to (at least most people that I've talked to). This will NOT be a side-by-side comparison of the shows, however. This is mostly so I can rant about whatever the hell I want.
Now, before I go into what I'm going to discuss, I want to make something perfectly clear: I'm an American fan of Asian dramas. I do not pretend to know everything about Asian culture, nor do I know everything about Asian stereotypes (in Asia, not America). I also do not claim to be the be-all-end-all judge of a show's quality. I do think, however, that I'm qualified enough to rant about everything that I will rant about later, mostly because I have seen so many dramas, but this one in particular.
Also, one more thing. Feel free to disagree with me. Remember, this is entirely my opinion and my problems with the show (or the things that I feel are done well...though I don't expect many of those). I don't care whether or not you agree with my analysis - honestly. However, that being said, if you're going to disagree with me in writing, don't do it to pick a fight. I will not respond nicely to you if you do not respond nicely to me. Okay, enough said.
Now that that's out of the way, before I get going on this rant - with a post for each episode as they come out - I want to just set the bar, so to speak, about what I'm expecting from this series (I don't know that I can actually call it a "drama", just because that seems a bit weird to me). I have several problems just with the concept of adapting this to an American audience, let alone what I've seen thus far. So let's begin, shall we?
Okay, my first problem with this whole idea of taking this series and adapting it for an American audience is simply this: this story takes place in high school. Granted, I've never actually been to a real Asian high school (hell, I've never even SEEN a real Asian high school), but I do know that Asian high schools are VASTLY different from American high schools (and before you point out that they changed it to a university, when you talk about American schools versus Asian schools, there are still a ton of differences). When you try to take a story set in an Asian high school and adapt it to what it might be like in America, most of the problem comes from the mentality in an Asian high school versus the mentality in an American high school. In most parts of Asia, there is sort of an accepted practice of that when a girl likes a guy (sometimes it's the other way around, but most often it's the girl that makes the move) she will bake a cake or write a letter or some other such effort and present to the boy she likes in a very public (most of the time) setting. Americans do not do this. This is considered childish and stupid in most parts of America that I'm aware of. In America, it's usually the guy who makes the first move, and he usually asks the girl out on a date. That's just a basic cultural difference between us and them (oh, and even if this doesn't happen in real life Asian high schools, this is an adaptation of a drama, and thus is not required to reflect real life).
The real problem in all of this is that, for this particular story, there is a series of instances in the first few episodes of the drama (it's different in every version, but the core idea is still the same) wherein someone "confessing" to the leader of F4 is the driving force behind the core plot. When you try to bring that over to the American version, it's not going to feel right (at least it will be very difficult to make it feel right). It's going to feel unnatural and forced at worst, strange and bit out of place at best. What I'm trying to get at is that this type of thing just doesn't happen in an American setting.
My other main problem (there many other smaller nitpicky issues that I have with this whole thing, but I'll spare you the full force of it) is the fact that Americans suck at doing adaptations. Now, when I say this I know I'm going to piss some people off, but if you're looking at the general bigger picture, it's true. Hollywood has this way of taking wonderful source material (like, say, the Chronicles of Narnia books...I'm not sore about that one, but there are some things in the new movies that REALLY piss me off) and turning it into complete crap. This coupled with the fact that Americans in general know nothing about how to do an Asian-style drama properly (the closest we have to that is something along the lines of Gossip Girl, maybe...and look at how THAT turned out) means that this show is on the rocks to begin with. I mean, once in a while you get a good adaptation, but look at all the crappy ones that are taken from AMERICAN SOURCE MATERIAL. If we can't even do ourselves the courtesy of getting things right, how can we even remotely hope to do an Asian adaptation well?
All right, so now that the bar has been set, so to speak, I will say that, while I know it's going to bad and it can't possibly hope to live up to the expectations set by its Asian counterparts, I'm going into this with an open mind and my critical thinking glasses on. While my expectations of this show are so low as to be underground, I'm trying to stay as objective as possible and look at it from as many different points of view as possible. Here's hoping I can succeed on at least one of these fronts.
No comments:
Post a Comment