Winter Sonata

Waktu tayang : January 14 - March 19, 2002

Waktu menonton : Junior High or Elementary school.
Hal paling berkesan : Beautiful beautiful snow.

Winter Sonata is my mom's favorite drama. She loved loved loved it. She even had Bae Yong Jun's poster on the wall. She played the OST nonstop. She had a boxset edition of the DVD. And Winter Sonata is actually the first KDrama that I remember finishing, because of my mom. And seeing as this is a melodrama tear fest and generally is not my kind of thing, I ended up liking it to a point. It's the most prominent drama that jump start the Hallyu wave, and it's wildly popular.

The story starts when the main character is in high school. Joong-sang (Bae Yong Jun) is a new student at the high school. He moved to the town to find his biological father. He met a fellow student, Yu Jin (Choi Ji Woo), through chance. And they fall in love, no surprise there. He suspect that his biological father is Sang Hyuk's father, a fellow student and Yu Jin's bestfriend, who's also secretly in love with Yu Jin (no surprise there). But then he found out that her mother is actually just friends with Sang Hyuk's father, and she is actually in love with Yu Jin's father. Believing Yu Jin to be her sister (what's with this korean fascination of pseudo incest plot by the way?) , he went away to the city but remember at the last minute that Yu Jin's waiting for him. He decided to go back to give a last goodbye, but an accident claim him and everyone believe that he was dead.

Fast forward ten years later, and Yu Jin is celebrating her engagement with Sang Hyuk. On the way to the engagement party, he saw someone resembling Joong-san and chased him. She never really gotten over the death of Joong-sang. And then she found out that the person is actually Lee Min Hyung (Bae Yong Jun, with brown hair), her friend's boyfriend, there to attend her engagement party. The resemblance is uncanny though, and she can't get over that fact. When they're forced to work together to build a winter resort, they gradually fall in love all over again.

Of course there's still a LOT more conflict. Illness, opposing friends and families, Min Hyung's biological father and past, and a lot more. The truth is I hate this type of drama. I prefer a drama that is centered on the conflict between two people's love story and not about other unrelated stuff. But because this is the first KDrama that I finish, and my mom's love for them, I ended up surprisingly liking it.

Bae Yong Jun is great as Joong-sang/Min Hyung. He can portray the difference between both character. Joong-sang is quiet and cold, and Min Hyung is outgoing and happy. Both are clearly portrayed, and the viewers can see the difference. Choi Ji Woo did a passable job with her role. Too much crying for my taste, but maybe that's the script's fault, not her fault. The others did a passable job too.

This is actually the second drama in the Season series. It consist of Autumn in My Heart, Winter Sonata, Summer Scent, and Spring Waltz. Whereas Autumn in My Heart is filled with brown tone, from the scene, the autumn leaves, to the character's clothes, Winter Sonata is filled with winter tone. It takes place at Winter so there's snow everywhere. The clothes are white and black, sweaters and jackets. But the snow scene are absolutely beautiful. There's actually a tour to see the scene's location in Korea, as the movie Hello Stranger portrayed.

Overall, this is my favorite from the Season series. Note that it didn't count much because I only watch part of Autumn in My Heart, only the first episodes of Spring Waltz, and didn't even bother with Summer Scent. But this is actually somewhat good. I like it even with all the melodrama around, but I didn't love it.

Autumn in My Heart

Waktu tayang : September 18 - November 7, 2000

Waktu menonton : Junior High?
Hal paling berkesan : Song Hye Gyo and Song Seun Hoon. Gorgeous.

NB : Sorry about the low quality of the poster. I can't find better ones.

Autumn in my heart, or Endless Love as they call it in Indonesia, is actually the pioneer of the 'Hallyu wave' as they call it. It's the start of the popularity of korean drama. It's the first popular korean drama aired in Indonesia, and to many, it's the introduction to korean drama. And yet, I didn't watch it. Well, I watch it here and there, bits and pieces. But it never really attracts me. The first reason was because this is a melodrama, a tear fest. It is filled with tears, illness, separation. It's just too exhausting for me. And the second reason was the premise. I mean, pseudo incest? Really?

The story is this. Two siblings, Yoo Joon-Seo and Yoo Eun-Seo, is very close. Veeery close. They are the children of a rich professor. And then Eun-Seo got into an accident, and in the aftermath of the blood transfusion, they discover that they are not siblings after all. There's been an accidental baby switch in the hospital. Eun-Seo is actually the daughter of a very poor and very troubled family. So then they decided to switch the children back and cut all ties to one another. I mean, after raising a child for 15 years, you suddenly cut all ties to that said child and just switch them back as easy as that? Really?

Years pass, and both siblings are now grown up. They meet again through chance and become close, then fall in love. But they pretend that they are just a close sibling to everyone else. Eun-Seo even calls him brother. But certainly it's not a melodrama without conflict. The parents were against them, Joon-Seo's girlfriend threatened to commit suicide, Won Bin (I forgot his actual name in the drama) tried to get close to Eun-Seo, and then there's the illness of course. Leukimia. All in all, there's a LOT of crying in this drama. It's exhausting. And let me tell you a spoiler. They died. They both died. How great. I didn't even bother finishing this one and I just ask someone else about the ending.

I love korean drama, but I hate this type. Melodrama type. It's all tears and illness. Why do you want to watch something that is so filled with tears? I watch it here and there on TV, and I don't like what I see. The three main leads, Song Seun Hoon, Song Hye Kyo, and Won Bin, are now great stars. They made their debut here. Even Han Chae Young from Sassy Girl Chun Hyang fame, and the very talented young Moon Geun Young made her debut here too. It's no doubt that this is a memorable drama. But maybe it's for all the wrong reason. I didn't enjoy this one bit.

PS : This drama is actually part of an unrelated series of drama. Others were Winter Sonata, Summer Scent, and Spring Waltz. They all portray a different season tone. Autumn in My Heart portray Autumn with its brown scene, brown clothes, and brown everything. The four dramas all share similarities besides the tone though. All were melodrama tear fest, and I'm not a fan of them. But they're wildly popular.

The Borrower's Arriety

Waktu edar : July 17, 2010

Waktu menonton : October 2011
Hal paling berkesan : The beyond gorgeous 2D animations. It's like looking at a gorgeous picture.

When I was in junior high, I watched a movie called The Borrowers. It's a typical slapstick comedy movie, with a dumb villain and slapstick humor. But I loved that movie because of the premise. Below our house, there's a family of Borrowers, little people that live like us, had a tiny home under our house and borrow our stuff. It's cute and I love it. Thinking back, it's not a very great movie, but tell that to a 10-year-old me.

The Borrowers is actually based on a novel with the same name, and Studio Ghibli tried to make their own animated version of it. And strangely, it's very different even though the premise is the same.

A family of Borrowers, little people that lives by borrowing stuff from a house, lives under a house of an old lady and her maid. They have been living there a long time, with three families at first, but now it's just them. Every other families either moved away or disappeared. Arriety, the daughter in the family, is 14 and preparing for her first borrowing. But a young boy came to stay at the house, the nephew of the old lady. And the young boy, Sho, accidentally saw Arriety in the garden when he first arrived. When Sho saw Arriety again accidentally on her first borrowing, the whole family consider moving away.

This is a movie where nothing ever really happens. The story progress very little from the summary I have just described. There's a feeling of peace and quiet throughout the whole movie, like the feeling you get when you stayed at a quiet country house. Ghibli's movies tend to do that, even more for their animated drama ones, like Ocean Waves, but even for their fantasy one, like My Name is Totoro and Ponyo.

The plus side is it's really peaceful to watch. The animation is as gorgeous as ever. When you watch a Ghibli movie, you'll be reminded of how much more gorgeous animation is when it's hand drawned like this, compared to a 3D one. The feeling of being in a peaceful country house surrounded by flowers is very evident throughout the movie.

Sadly, that means that nothing ever really happens in this movie. There's very little plot development here. I was expecting some thrilling chase through the city, where everything is big and some fantastic rescue by Sho. There was a rescue scene by Sho, and a chase scene somewhat, but it's so underwhelming, with a very limited location. There's a whole house to be explored, but the movie never really explored that. I guess I was expecting something like Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away.

What shines though, is the human element, or shall I say the little human element too. The relationship between Arriety and her parents, between Sho and Arriety, and even little background elements about Sho's past is well done, but also feels a little underdeveloped. It was good, but it could have been explored further.

There's a lot of unsolved plot though, like whether Sho survives the heart surgery, what happened to the family of Borrowers that disappeared, and whether Arriety's family makes it OK. Maybe it's intended to be like that, since for me this movie seems to be a slice of life. This is a movie about a couple of days in the quiet country house, and it never really progress beyond that. It's peaceful and nice, but a bit simple for my liking. And for someone who loves thrilling scenes, this movie will bore you.

All in all, this is a nice animation by Ghibli as usual, but a little bit underwhelming for me. And I find it funny that The Borrowers Arriety and The Borrowers is two different movie based on the same novel, but it could never be more different.

Princess Isabella : a Witch's Curse

Waktu edar : 2009

Waktu main : September 2011

Hal paling berkesan : The expansive castle.

I've been in the mood to play some Hidden Object Games lately, so I downloaded a bunch of the really good ones. And I'm in the mood for reviewing them too, so I will.

What is hidden object games actually? It's kind of like a puzzle and adventure game hybrid where you have to search some particular object in a cluttered screen. The genre hidden object games have been around a while, but back then mostly we're just given a screen and told to look for objects in the list. But now hidden object games have evolved and it's becoming more fun and with a great story to boot.

The hidden object games I'm gonna review now is called Princess Isabella : a Witch's Curse. It's not a new game by any means. It's released in 2009. I've been looking for hidden object games with great reviews and here it is. And it's actually quite good, though the graphics are not as beautiful as recent hidden object games.

We play Princess Isabella, who's about to marry a prince. She's out riding one day when the whole castle suddenly cursed by an unknown witch. All the people in the castle are trapped in a mirror, and it's up to you to rescue the people, un-curse the castle, and save the prince from the evil witch. Granted, it's not a very deep story, but for a casual games, it'll do.

In this game, you explore the expansive castle, undo the curse one by one in each room. To do this, you have to search for hidden objects and solve puzzles. The hidden object games are really really easy compared to other similar games. Sometimes I didn't even look at the items list and just click at the screen at random and I can still solve it. But the puzzle is varied. There's some slider puzzle, block puzzle, zuma-like puzzle, and there's even a quiz. It's not particularly hard though. I hate puzzles but I found myself solving every puzzle save for one.

The environment are great though. You'll get to explore the castle, and it's quite big for a hidden object games. There's lots of rooms and it's quite easy to get lost. There's an excellent map features though, and you can even click at the rooms in the map and warp there instantly for backtracking.

During the journey, you'll be accompanied by a talking fairy, and she's really useful. Apart from providing hints, she's got some skills like turning into rock, fire, water, or wind to solve puzzles. Some skills, like rock, will be used often but some skills like wind is just used once and never used again.

Overall, it's an entertaining and breezy game, clocking in under three hours to finish. It's great for a lazy afternoon when you've got nothing to do. One minor gripe about this game is the voice acting though. The fairy's voice gets annoying and the queen sounded... strange. But overall it's a rather entertaining hidden object game.

Half-Minute Horrors

Half-Minute Horrors

by Susan Rich (editor)

Waktu edar : September 1st, 2009 Waktu membaca : September 2011
Hal paling berkesan : The unexpected creepyness of a short story children anthology.

Prior to reading this, I expected this to be an anthology of short horror stories aimed at children. I was partially right on both count. What I didn’t expect was how short those stories were and how creepy some of them are, considering this is a children’s story.

Half-Minute Horrors is literally a collection of horror stories so short that you can spend only half a minute to read one. This collection of horror stories were comprised of many versions. There’s the classic short stories. And then there’s also one page drawings, comics, limericks, and poems. The only similarities between them is they were all really short, some more than other.

I confess that I did enjoy some of the stories, and I’m creeped out by them too. If you have read Goosebumps series by R.L.Stine, you know how some of them go. Even though they are all really short, there’s almost always a twist ending at the end. It’s clearly aimed at children though, so it’s not gonna be very frightening, even though some of them are a little bit too creepy for children. Some of them were classic stories, like the creepy babysitter or things in the closet. Some were random and abstract stories like the one titled The Chicken or the Egg by Jerry Spinelly. And some of it doesn’t make any sense whatsover. Some classic stories that I love were In Hiding by Kenneth Oppel, The Legend of Alexandra & Rose by Jon Klassen (which is actually just one picture, but a creepy one nonetheless) , One of a Kind by Sarah Weeks, and A Very Short Stories by Holly Black. Some of the good abstract one were Grand Entrance by James Patterson, Chocolate Cake by Francine Prose, and Easy Over by Frank Viva. There’s everything in here. There’s aliens, ghosts, murder, werewolves, and a lot more. I can’t tell you what’s the story’s about though, because it’s so short so doing summaries is just a waste.

I enjoyed reading it, and it literally took me just half an hour to read the whole thing since they’re so short. It’s an enjoyable 30 minutes though, so it’s not a waste of your time. Some really well know author is contributing too, like Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket, and Holly Black. But be warned though that this is a children’s book so adjust your expectations as much. It’s very enjoyable though.

A Kiss in Time

A Kiss in Time

a novel by by Alex Flinn

Waktu edar : May 1st, 2009

Waktu membaca : June or July 2011

Hal paling berkesan : The alternating chapter. It's so cute.

Talia fell under a spell … . Jack broke the curse.

I was told to beware the accursed spindle, but it was so enchanting, so hypnotic

I was looking for a little adventure the day I ditched my tour group. But finding a comatose town, with a hot-looking chick asleep in it, was so not what I had in mind.

I awakened in the same place but in another time - to a stranger’s soft kiss.

I couldn’t help kissing her. Sometimes you just have to kiss someone. I didn’t know this would happen.

Now I am in dire trouble because my father, the king, says I have brought ruin upon our country. I have no choice but to run away with this commoner!

Now I’m stuck with a bratty princess and a trunk full of her jewels… . The good news: My parents will freak!

Think you have dating issues? Try locking lips with a snoozing stunner who turns out to be 316 years old. Can a kiss transcend all - even time?

REVIEW :

Perhaps some of you have watched the completely ordinary movie called Beastly starring the gorgeous Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens in the past month. Perhaps a few of you knew beforehand that the movie was based on a book with the same name by Alex Flinn. Maybe some of you have read it. But let me tell you this : if you haven’t read the book and you judge Beastly only by watching the movie, DON’T. This book deserve more than that crap movie.

If you’re wondering why I’m discussing Beastly instead of A Kiss in Time, well it’s because they were both written by Alex Flinn and they were both a fairy tale reimagining. Whereas Beastly is the reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, A Kiss in Time is the reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty. And let me tell you this one fact : it’s adorable. Maybe it’s not a book that will get awards. It’s not a serious book. But it’s adorable to bits. And sometimes we need a little bit cuteness in our life.

The story starts with a guy named Jack who’s taking a vacation in a country in Europe. Feeling bored following the tour guides everywhere, he strays towards the forest. And there he finds something weird : a whole town straight from the medieval era that seems to be frozen in time. At first he thinks that this is some sort of new attraction for new tourist. But when he went inside a castle in the center of the village, he discovered a very beautiful girl lying in the bed, asleep. And he felt compelled to kiss her. But it turns out that single kiss not only woke the girl up, but the whole medieval town that’s been stuck in time. And things get even more complicated when Talia, the girl, decides to follow Jack everywhere, even to his home.

I like this book more than Beastly, even though at first I had some reservation to read it because of the summary. I thought that the character was unlikable, but boy was I ever wrong. They both have flaws and I love them for it. Jack is an arrogant boy. He’s selfish and never seem to think about others. Talia is a spoiled brat because she’s been raised that way. When they both fall for each other, and start to gradually change to protect each other, I love it. And I love that the chapter alternate between the point of view of Talia and Jack. This book is so very adorable.

Truth is, it’s not my favorite book out there. There are far more genius books and great books out there. But this is so very adorable and for that, I give it a special award. If you thought that Beastly could’ve been great but not, well, try to read this book. Because it’s just like Beastly, only better.

The Declaration

The Declaration (2007)

a novel by Gemma Malley

Waktu edar : October 2nd, 2007

Waktu membaca : This year, forgot when.

Hal paling berkesan : The world building, no doubt. Classic distopian awesomeness.

What would you do in a world where humans live forever?

I was always on the lookout for great science fiction books. And I found just the thing when I found this book, about a distant future where humans have discovered a way to live forever.

In the distant future, humans have found out a way to live forever. They have developed a drug, Longevity drug, that can enable them to live forever. Not forever young, but forever static. Frozen in the age that you are now. In this world, it is forbidden to have children. Because of the ever dwindling energy source and food, and because humans now live forever, it’s a very big crime to have a child.

In this world, there lived Anna, a Surplus. A Surplus is an illegal children. It is forbidden to have a child in this world while still live forever, so every Surplus is considered an abomination, a waste. The parents that were found having a child will be immediately sent to prison and the child will be sent to Surplus Hall, a school where Surplus were taught to learn their proper place in life. They were taught to cook, sew, and basically serve the Legal humans, and they were reminded every day of how they are evil and thieves for stealing energy source and how they were lucky even to be allowed to breathe.

Anna was content living like this. She was the favorite surplus because she knew her place and didn’t dare question about the Longevity drugs or about life on the Outside. She was content to be a good servant someday to a Legal human.

Then came Peter. He was a new Surplus on Surplus Hall, discovered on the age of fifteen. And he told her the most amazing stories. About life on the Outside, about being free. And most importantly, about Anna’s parents, who’s looking for her. And Anna’s life would be forever changed.

Wow. What an amazing book. I read dozens of books about the future. I read the very awesome The Giver series by Lois Lowry. Recently, I read Delirium by Lauren Oliver about a distant future where love is treated as a disease. I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan about a distant future where zombies have taken over the world. In short, I read a lot of books about the future.

But this book really got to me. The plot is great, but it’s not the most important thing for me. For me, there are two things about this book that made it absolutely amazing. The world building, and the characterization.

The world building for me is just amazing. I always love books about the future because the world they described is often fascinating. And I love it here as well. Mostly we were only shown life in the Surplus Hall for Anna, but sometimes we get a glimpse of the back story, about the history of the creation of the Longevity drugs. About the people and the country outside. About how the people there lived. The description of life in the Surplus Hall is equally amazing as well. I can picture it very well, and I read every last detail on the book without skipping even one paragraph. I love the world building here. It’s shown in glimpse at first, but with a very straightforward decription so that we can picture the scene very clearly in our mind.

The second is the charaterization. I love Anna. She’s amazing. We can read about her character development, about a girl who’s afraid to question everything around her, to a girl that’s brave enough to defy the authorities. But not even once I felt her characterization is unbelievable. Everything is progressing very naturally and I felt for her. I like Peter too, but the romance between Anna and Peter is not shown very much for my taste so their chemistry is not as strong as other books I’ve read.

Overall, this book benefit from great characterization and descriptive world building. I love this book, and I’m so delighted that this is a three book series. I’m looking forward to reading the next book soon. This is one dystopian book you won’t soon forget.