You’re Beautiful OST

The awesome thing about this OST is the fact that some of the songs are sung by people in the drama. That just makes the songs so much more meaningful ♥ And the other thing is the fact that Jang Geun Suk & Park Shin Hye aren’t even proper singers yet they are probably better at singing than a lot of the ‘proper’ singers out there. There’s only 5 different songs here but the whole OST has 11 songs because some songs are sung twice (i.e. sung by 2 different people) and there are a couple of instrumentals.

1. Still/As Ever (여전히) – Lee Hong Ki
I really like Hong Ki’s husky voice so I’m glad they gave him a couple of songs to sing in the OST even though he’s only the drummer of A.N.JELL. This song sounds like a typical F.T Island song but better because it has the YB feel XD

2. Descend from the sky (하늘에서 내려와) - Miss $ (미스에스) ft. Oh Won Bin (오원빈)
I first heard this song before I started watching YB and I wasn’t really feeling it even though I love Won Bin and miss him so much ♥ Now that I’m watching the drama the song stands out a bit more but I’d have to say it’s one of the weaker songs in the OST. The song reminds me of the scene where Go Mi Nam shops around in Myungdong and Shinwoo is secretly following her ♥

3. Without Saying (말도 없이) - 9th STREET (나인 스트릿)
The guy who’s singing it has a smooth voice but I prefer Park Shin Hye’s version, I feel that she puts more emotion into it. Maybe it’s because she’s in the drama? LOVE the melody though!

4. Lovely Day - Park Shin Hye (박신혜)
PSH sounds so CUTE in this song XD This song is not too overly happy but it’s definitely cheerful. I really like it ^^

5. Promise(약속) - Lee Hong Ki (이홍기) ft. Jung Yong Hwa
Another song full of F.T Island flavour haha. It has a fun pop rock tune with Hong Ki’s awesome vocals and Jung Yong Hwa’s (Shinwoo) rapping.

6. My Heart’s Calling (가슴이 욕해) - Kim Dong Wook (김동욱)
Every OST must have some sad ballads and this is the one for YB. The melody is very soft and slow accompanied by Kim Dong Wook’s strong voice. You don’t have to watch the drama to feel the melancholy. It’s sad how it’s normally played during Shinwoo’s parts T_T Poor guy!

7. Without Saying (말도 없이) – Park Shin Hye (박신혜)
I prefer this version over 9th STREET’s one because I feel that PSH expresses her emotions really well in the song. I actually liked this song before I started watching YB because I heard it on someone’s blog and I fell in love with it. It starts off slow but the verses build up and evolves into a very powerful chorus which is all accompanied by lyrics that match the drama perfectly. Love PSH’s voice! It sounds so different to her voice in Lovely Day though, she sounds really mature here. The song is so sad T_T I loved the scene where she sings it in the recording studio while looking at Tae Kyung ♥

8. Still/As Ever (여전히) - A.N.JELL (에이엔젤)
I seriously wish A.N.JELL was a real band, I’d totally spazzzz over them so badly! This is my favourite song in the OST because it’s sung by the two leads (Jang Geun Suk & Park Shin Hye) which makes you feel the song more since you can relate back to the drama :D The lyrics are so perfect ♥

9. Promise (약속) – A.N.JELL (에이엔젤)
JGS’s voice kinda gives off a different feel for this song but I can’t exactly describe what and how *fail* I love how the 3 A.N.JELL boys all get to sing/rap in this :D JYH’s rap part sounds so cool, or maybe I’m just biased XD I love A.N.JELL so much!

10. Without Saying (말도 없이) (Piano ver.)
One of the sad instrumentals played throughout the drama, I think this would be a great ringtone! I’m totally using it :D

11. Still/As Ever(여전히) (Bossa ver.)
The other instrumental featured in the OST. You’ll also hear it a bit in the drama. A less sad version of Still/As Ever which gives off a fun vibe (:

You’re Beautiful ♥

Let the drama marathons begin ;)

Holidays have started so I can start my drama watching again.

To be honest, I started watching dramas like a week ago but this will be guilt-free drama watching ;)

Last week I started watching kdrama You’re Beautiful and I have to confess I AM INSANELY ADDICTED AND OBSESSED with it! It has been an incredibly incredibly long time since I was last in love with a drama like this, I managed to watch and catch up with the episodes in like 2-3 days even though I had exams to study for. I normally dislike korean dramas because they’re either too sad for me or the acting just bores me e.g. Goong, Full House, Boys over Flowers…the list goes on and on. So far the one and only kdrama I have managed to finish and thoroughly enjoy was My Girl even though there were still some little things that annoyed me (like Lee Dong Wook’s crazy *I’m having a heart attack* expressions). But as of now You’re Beautiful hasn’t particularly annoyed me yet, I’ll write up a full review when I finish it though.

I’ve also started watching Nodame Cantabile…actually, I’m technically half way through it but I think YB has wrecked NC for me XD I’m not enjoying it as much now that YB has taken over my life but I’ll try to have it finished and write a review on it anyway. The drama seems to be a bit exaggerated for me but after reading various websites on it I think it’s meant to be like that since it’s based on a manga?

Can anyone recommend me a drama to add to my list? Go under the cut to see the list I have…

Black & White Episode 1

With English Subs; Credit: ooxxTW

This is only Part 1, all the other parts can be found HERE

——

I have officially started watching this <3 The first episode was quite intense I must say. It starts off with a Vic Zhou bed scene HAHA what a great start ;) Vic’s kind of like a playboy but he’s also a really good detective but he gets kicked out of his HQ to another one because he slept with his boss’s daughter haha. Anyways his move means that he ends up being teamed up with Mark Chao who he met before as Vic was one of the people hiding while Mark was trying to chase and catch Kingone and that was when Mark began disliking Vic; first impressions mean everything. Also, these 2 are the total opposite of each other because Vic is the relaxed and carefree kind of cop while Mark works really hard to try and solve cases [and a lot of the time he works a bit too hard and ends up ruining the original plans]. So as expected these two don’t get along too well.

There’s more to the episode as a lot of things happened but I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone who hasn’t watched it. And I actually found the Chinese in it to be quite difficult compared to normal dramas so I think I might have to rewatch it with english subs to clear a couple of things ^___^” FAIL haha.

Thoughts?

I think my excitement before I started watching it kind of wrecked it for me because I was expecting wayyy too much but to be honest (please don’t kill me ^_^”) I thought it was only average. I think its because I watch TOO MUCH TVB which means I’ve seen countless numbers of police action dramas and so most storylines involving cops/robbers seem old to me. This is not the drama’s fault or any of the actors because Taiwanese idol dramas are seriously NEVER this intense so it doesn’t surprise me how epic people are finding this. I’m sure I’d feel the same way too if I didn’t watch so much TVB ^^
However, this will not stop me from watching it because maybe the storyline will get better and more unique? I’ve only watched the first episode afterall and first episodes are never that good even for my favourite dramas like Fated to Love You and Wish to See You Again.
As for the acting, I FREAKING LOVE KINGONE WANG ♥ He really stood out and just oh my gosh his facial expressions were so amazing! His eyes seriously freaked me out…that stare was like so creepy. AND OMG did I mention he speaks in KOREAN in the drama?! It sounds really fluent as well ♥ ♥ I also enjoyed Vic’s performance but I’m just not use to seeing him as a playboy, not after his cute shy role in WTSYA ♥ Nevertheless, he has also done a brilliant job so far in B&W. Mark Chao isn’t bad either, I’ve never seen him act before (actually I’ve never even heard of him before this *rolleyes*) but yes, not bad (: Haven’t seen much of the females yet, Janine Zhang appears a little (she’s a forensic investigator) and Ivy Chen also appears near the end but I haven’t watched them enough to opinionate yet.

A couple of caps to give you a glimpse of Kingone ;)

BLACK & WHITE

 

CLICK FOR TRAILER

I’ve just downloaded the first episode but I haven’t watched it yet since I’m technically meant to be “working” on a 3000 word essay D8 I am so excited about it because I’ve heard like SOOOOO many good comments on it and how it’s a breakthrough for taiwanese dramas and Kingone/Vic =D 

This seems to be quite an action packed drama with Vic as an incredibly hot cop while Kingone’s the sexy villain. From what I’ve read so far he seems to be playing a role that’s similar to The Joker from The Dark Knight which sounds so interesting! I love how Vic and Kingone are always in dramas together because I love them both :D

Did I mention Janine Zhang is in this as well? She’s not the best actress out there but I really liked her in The Hospital with Jerry so it’s going to be awesome to see her with Vic. This girl is like so PRETTY, I’m so jealous xD

I can’t wait until I can start watching it…just need to wait another 2 weeks and then uni finishes ^_^ I’ll just have to look at pictures for now….so many hot photo’s of Vic ^^

Teaser ;]

NOTE: They’re all Vic because I couldn’t find proper Kingone ones :(

*drools*

 

Wish to See You Again…extremely underated!

I hate how you never feel like blogging after you finish an awesome drama because you just spend all your time thinking about it but when you do come around to blogging about it you forget everything you were going to type. This is what’s happening to me right now and it’s driving me nuts! I’m also becoming slightly illiterate ever since I’ve been on holidays so my vocabulary has shrunk even more. Soon my english will be equivalent to a 10 year old if this continues. I think it’s a sign telling me to start reading more books >.< Lately the only books I’ve been reading are chinese ones which don’t really help me in any way *rolleyes* Wait do reading chinese subtitles during dramas count as reading? =P

I’ve just finished yet another idol drama. This time I watched Wish to See You Again which I thoroughly enjoyed! I guess WTSYA aired during a really bad time because it was competing with Bull Fighting AND They Kiss Again so the ratings would have flattened out a bit. These 3 dramas are all really interesting in their own ways so if I was living in Taiwan during that period I would have so much trouble choosing which drama to watch. Three of my all time favourite dramas airing at the same time, that would make life OH SO DIFFICULT!

For me, I think WTSYA started out a bit slow so viewers would probably switch dramas after watching the 1st episode. I remember thinking to myself “Oh no! Why did I waste my money on this drama? It’s kinda boring =.=” after watching the first episode but I decided to continue watching because I didn’t want to waste my money but it turned out to be worth it after all.

To be honest, I think there’s really not many complaints about this drama besides the slow start because everything else is perfect. The storyline is original, acting is spot on (Vic/Kingone <3), great scenic views of Taiwan and the OST is love <33 Of course as with any other drama there were things that annoyed me but that’s truely inevitable.  I loved how the plot is based on friendship but mixes in romance within it which creates originality because idol dramas are ALWAYS romance based. I loved Vic <33 His portrayal of XL was close to perfect. Some of his expressions crack me up and he really managed to express his emotions well. He was just so interesting to watch! I also found XL x Nancy really cute <3 BUT I got really annoyed with XL during the end of the drama because he was being really cruel to Nancy. You can’t blame her for being suspicious about LY, like why couldn’t he just tell her about LY and AH? Nancy doesn’t seem like the type of person that would go around telling everyone. And I was also frustrated with the fact that XL always kept everything to himself but that’s also a good thing because it proves that he’s actually flawed making his character more realistic.

I also LOVED Kingone’s portrayal of XM. He’s also improved A LOT. I usually find him kinda boring in dramas but I totally love XM. He’s such a good friend and boyfriend and I love how he makes everyone happy. XM is probably my favourite character in the drama, he’s just so lovable <3

I didn’t know either of the two lead females but I thought they did a pretty good job. I have to mention again how adorable XL and Nancy (Michelle Chen) were together…they made me awww so badly!! Some people didn’t like Michelle’s acting but she didn’t bother me at all. I thought she did very well for her first lead role. And the girl who acted as LY was perfect for that role…she was so beautiful and elegant! Loved her!!

I watched this drama over a month ago so I’m having trouble thinking of things to write but I definitely recommend ALL drama lovers to watch this. Even if you’re not a drama lover, please watch it because it really is worth watching. I promote WTSYA so badly because its so underated and unrecognised, it deserves better!! I should also add the fact that this drama has totally raised my expectations for idol dramas…which is not a good thing because what am I going to watch now???

櫻野三加一 (Ying Ye 3+1)

Another drama finished. I actually never thought about watching YY3+1 because my goal was to watch Prince turn into Frog first but the DVD shop didn’t have PTF so I was left with this or Wish to See You Again. My cousin told me to get this because the cover looked better so I bought it without knowing a thing about it. The only thing I knew was the two main leads =P I guess that’s enough to prove that I watch dramas for the cast and not the plot; one of my many bad habits =|

Plot:
The whole story is revolved around this school called Ying Ye. I think its a college but I’m not sure because some say its a highschool. They wear school uniform but when they graduate it’s similar to graduating from college/university so I’d say its some sort of post highschool place. Anyways, that’s not very important :P So Xia Tian (Qiao En), Ah Jiang (Ming Dao), Fang Wei (Jason Huang) and Bulu (Jason Hsu) all attend Ying Ye and are best friends who grew up together…YAY haha. They are known as Ying Ye 3+1 and that’s where the title comes from. These 4 are all fairly skilled at martial arts and the start of the drama showcases a lot of their awesome moves. Conflict arises when Xia Tian’s dad who’s a police officer loses his gun a few days before his retirement which forced him to postpone his retirement date. Ying Ye 3+1 are all really close with XT’s dad so they all go on a quest to find his gun.

They’re the basics of the drama but a lot of other stuff happens as well. One thing I must say is that the first half of YY3+1 is VERY different to the second half; for the better or for the worse is a matter of oppinion but I enjoyed the first half more. The script was badly written but I liked the way they developed Xia Tian or maybe I’m just biased xD However, I didn’t like how they randomly faded the Kung Fu out of the drama because it was interesting to watch Xia Tian and Ah Jiang fight with their awesome moves! I swear the scriptwriter forgot about XT’s martial arts skills during the later half of the drama because there were a lot of moments where she could have used her skills to get herself out of trouble. That bothered me a bit *sigh*
In my oppinion, if it wasn’t for MingEn this drama would have failed pretty badly.

Cast

Qiao En as Xia Tian
I felt that the character XT was a bit ambiguous but Qiao En portrayed her brilliantly. XT is a bit of a tomboy who seems to be tough on the outside but really emotional on the inside. I don’t like to use the word weak on her because even though she’s a bit of a cry baby I don’t find her weak, she just expresses her emotions in the form of tears very often. The ambiguity within this character is that she seems to be a really different person at the start of the drama compared to the later half. I guess this must be from maturity and a sign of XT growing up. Qiao En really knows how to immerse herself into her characters and she’s just so natural when she acts, you look at her eyes and you can feel XT’s emotions. Since XT is a bit of a cry baby, I turned into a cry baby as well because no one can make me cry like Qiao En can lol. I think I cried in this more than in Bull Fighting and that’s really bad because BF made me bawl *blush* I swear I only cry easily when watching dramas, I don’t really cry easily in real life xD Qiao En is such an amazing actress and I love her to bits!! That line pretty much sums my thoughts up =D I also find her really really pretty in YY3+1!!

 

Ming Dao as Ah Jiang
This is my first Ming Dao series and I like him but I don’t like like him. His acting is average but a little bit better than Joe and Ethan I think. Ah Jiang is just a typical male in idol dramas; mean and doesn’t like to face his own feelings. However AJ can be really romantic and sweet and from some angles MD looks really hot *blush* I also noticed that he’s actually a really good cryer, one of the better guys when it comes to crying scenes^^

 

Jason Huang as Fang Wei
Unlike many other idol dramas, the main male lead is NOT rich BUT there has to be a rich guy in it or else it wouldn’t be a complete drama so the supporting actor is rich instead. FW is like a prince; he’s rich, kind and romantic and at the start he was the one that was pursuing XT. I like his character because he really is willing to do a lot for his best friends but I wish he would compete with AJ to win XT’s heart instead of giving up. Jason’s acting was mediocre but he’s actually a model so I’ll forgive him for that^^
Note: He is like REALLY tall, he towers over MD!

Jason Hsu as Bulu
Bulu is so cute! He seems to be the quietest one out of the four but there’s just something about his character that makes him stand out. Can’t think of anything to say about him at the moment so I’ll just leave this as it is.

Zhang Xin Yu as Xiao Hui
I need to mention Xiao Hui (or ZXY) because she’s coupled with Bulu in YY3+1 and they are adorable together. This is the first time I’ve heard of ZXY and I find her really really cute! Her character wasn’t much of a challenge so her acting was pleasant to watch but I was really hoping to see more of her in the drama. It was quite hard to find more info about her because she doesn’t seem to be very active but here’s her Facebook PAGE

–
Half way through the show there’s a major change in the storyline when the character DK appears. To be honest I thought the drama would have done better if they didn’t bring in DK so I was slightly annoyed when he appeared. I would have been fine with a love triangle between Ah Jiang, Xia Tian and Fang Wei. But the scriptwriter changed his mind and decided to create a love triangle involving Ah Jiang, Xia Tian and DK so Fang Wei and Bulu didn’t get very many scenes =/
–

Fan Zhi Wei as DK
I don’t want to say much about DK because I don’t want to include any spoilers in this but lets just say DK is a bit of a pot stirer. He doesn’t do it for fun as he has other intentions hence he really frustrated me. I think this is the second most frustrating idol drama I’ve watched with the first one being The Hospital but that’s a totally different story. Why couldn’t DK just leave Ah Jiang alone? xD

Memorable Scenes
I cried way too much watching this so I can’t do what I normally do and list the scenes that made me cry so I choose to use the last part of episode 2 as the scene that left the deepest impression on me. It was the part where Xia Tian and Ah Jiang were about to have some sort of duel and than XT suddenly stops and says “I really hope my prince can appear quicker” and than runs of crying. This was only episode 2 and its like the first time you get to see the emotional side of XT so it was so unexpected since she’s always been so tough. And the look Qiao En had was just really undescribable, that expression of sorrow in her eyes just amazed me.
NB: Before this part XT mentioned how one day a prince will come and help her deal with Ah Jiang the big bully so it was really sad to see her get hurt by him.

After all that I’d have to admit I enjoyed watching YY3+1. It was fun and exciting to start a new drama without knowing a thing about it and it was interesting to see Qiao En as Xia Tian. I finally understand why there’s so many MingEn shippers out there, they really do have that extra spark to them! I now have ANOTHER favourite on-screen couple, surprise surprise. MingEn just seem so comfortable with each other and even though I say this A LOT, I have to say it again; THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER!! Can’t wait until their new drama, even though they haven’t even started filming yet xD Third collaboration=MORE SPARKS! YAY!! Now I’ll just have to see if the DVD store has PTF so I can watch their first collab xD

If you’re a fan of Qiao En or MingDao or both, I highly recommend you watch this. Minus the terrible script, you get to see some very solid acting by the two and some amazing chemistry between them. For others, I guess this would be a nice drama to watch when you’re bored and have nothing to do but I guess there are better ones out there. I’m just so glad I watched this alone otherwise it would have been awkward trying to hold the tears back =P

Some pics to beautify this post up xD

 

Isn’t QE pretty?^^