City Hunter: It's Lee Min Hotter than July

I thought I could contain my L-O-V-E. But the dam has broken. I had to share so you can all catch the wave as its cresting.

Bursting forth, City Hunter is quickly skyrocketing towards being one of my all-time favorite shows. I'm on tenterhooks hoping the ride to the finale will take us into the stratosphere. I will seriously be crestfallen should this be Rocket Love like Daedalus and Icarus instead.

But we're flying high right now and I intend to keep it that way. This fan-freaking-tastic Korean Drama is on the air now, and I am constantly refreshing YouTube after it broadcasts, hoping some kind soul has posted it with English subs. Safe to say, I am full on addicted. No signs of relenting.

It has everything: compelling love interest, taut action, the tension between vengeance and moral rectitude, patriotism and honor, political intrigue, and complicated family relationships, especially twisted roots of paternalism. Not to mention, there's the right dash of comedy (of both the romantic and buddy varieties) thrown in for good measure.

Sure, as with any show, there are a few suspensions of disbelief required, and the interweaving coincidences can feel far-fetched at times, but trust me, this show does its thang so well, you'll pardon those instances. Its gripping storyline, pathos, visual palette, and solid directing make for the perfect all-in-one entertainment package. The venerable Dramabeans recaps tells it better than I ever could. Hit that up to get the premise, and some fab color commentary along the journey as you hop on this show's bandwagon, and never look back.

But I just have to put my two cents in on this one. First, the characters, oh the characters, and the actors playing them make me giggle with glee, clench my fists, and vibrate with emotional resonance. Not a bad apple in the bunch, but these are my fave performances thusfar. Really, more an excuse to rattle off some fun nicknames. Roll call please!



Mr. City Hunter himself, Lee Yoon Sung played by Lee Min Ho a.k.a. Moonlighting Korean Adam Lambert, a.k.a. day job: bein' smexy and employing superb histrionic abilities.
Good bye Goo Jun Pyo, hello tortured hero with complexity, compelling backstory, and total badassery. He's taking mega-smoldering thespian to the highest level possible in the KDrama realm. Okay, I'll admit it, I initially only tuned in for his unbelievable hotness, undeniable charisma, and clear acting chops. (Oh really, that's all?) But this is definitely LMH's finest project to date. And he's so good in this. Dark knight, stealth secret agent, cold womaizer/flirtatious playboy, hurt lovelorn puppy, passionate paramour, brow-furrowing caregiver, friendly joshing jokester, verbal sparing partner, childish brat; he pulls off every single facet without missing a beat. Chameleon skill in spades. Can we all just agree this is a tour de force?

I mean, before City Hunter, I would say this might've been one of his finer works:



Kim Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Means I love you, Kim Nana played by Park Min Young: Obvs our heroine. Judo champ, presidential bodyguard, Yoon Sung's destined ladylove. Sweetness and strength in one pretty and petite package. Irresistibly warm, but with tenacity. Self aware and owning her mistakes but still being able to muster moxie. Min Young, dearie, you're def taking this a notch up from the beloved Sungkunkwan Scandal. Though there's probably some carryover love from that time you turned yourself into a little kimbap sushi roll (3:43):



Prosecutie, Kim Young-Ju played by Lee Jun-hyuk: Shrewd and determined by-the-booker, he's got a good cop facade with a hidden guilt complex. He's the City Hunter's sometime nemesis, sometime ally.

Big Daddy Cane, Lee Jin-Pyo, played by Kim Sang Jung: Basically there ain't no half steppin' with Yoon Sung's adoptive father, hellbent on revenge. And he wants to get the job done. Kill or be killed is this dude's philosophy.

Ajuhssi Mommy a.k.a. Bae Man Duk a.ka. Shik Joong, played by Kim Sang Ho. Yoon Sung's surrogate mother figure in the shape of a hobbity home shopping man, displaying surprising gumption, tenderness, and just an occasional touch of mystique.

Now with a cast like that, plus some other steady showings from their colleagues, you cannot be led astray.

It was about as good a show could get. A riveting start, then further drawing me in, and amping it up at every step. And then in this week's episode 10, semi-SPOILER ALERT, they went and incorporated a major plot point that is so relevant to my own research it hurts. Ha, I guess that's only a spoiler if you know about my academic alias ;)

As if I couldn't love it anymore. Now, I might even get a chance re-watch(though I'd do that anyway) and analyze it in a scholarly capacity. It's like the writers wanted to give me a nice late Happy Birthday present. Too. Good. To. Be. True.

Thus, the dam broke. The enthusiasm overflows without shame.

For those of you who balk at my newfound obsession with KDrama, balk no more. And just watch this show. NOW, NOW NOW.



FYI: Press the cc for subtitles.

Sweetest Anoop

Dear Anoop,

Please DO NOT do this song for next week's "year you were born" (1986) theme:



I have a sick feeling in my tum-tum that you will pick it. That spells D-A-N-G-E-R -Z-O-N-E (another '86 song, a highway to where you should avoid). You dressed for it last week (erm), so if you're gonna go Maverick on me, you can always do this. But it's one of those things that could either be sheer triumph or absolute suicide.

I know Stevie's your hero, but don't do "Overjoyed." It's overdone. You're smarter than that. Right?

However, I would LOVE to see you do this song:



Soooo easy to make contemporary because of the beats, plus the gender crossover always helps you win easy originality points. Smoldering yet earnest. You can be sexy without all the chest puffing and strutting.

Even Les Nubians gives you something to work with that's more recent:



Languorous enough to show off the smooth vocals, but nice n' mid-tempo to keep the energy up.

Do it baby, slam dunk.

Love,

Em

P.S. Found this after the initial post: LOOK! What did I tell you? You got this.

Prefabulous

Okay, so I promised more on Prefab Sprout, and given the glut of free time I have at the moment, I am going to deliver a little.

Given their incredibly devoted cult following I won't exhaust myself by doing a band dossier. Instead, I direct you to this website for the most thorough rundown of this S-U-P-E-R-B (and severely underrated) group. It may not initially be your cup of tea. If it's a bit too sweet for you, or the sound seems dated, please read on and I hope you'll want to consider taking another sip. Or even imbibe it all.

I'll cull a few choice things about Prefab Sprout that I'd like to highlight:

Their most fruitful collaborator, super-producer Thomas "She Blinded Me With Science (hey, don't call me that)" Dolby mentions in his blog a recent encounter with Stevie Wonder, who was a Sprout supporter. On From Langley Park to Memphis, Stevie plays his patented harmonica on Nightingales, one of my fave Sprout tunes.

And Sondre Lerche, whom you know I am gaga for, is a huge fan of theirs. He covered Nightingales on his jazzy venture Duper Sessions.

Let me also say, frontman Paddy McAloon is one of the greatest living songwriters. Just a few top notch picks:

Okay I find their videos pretty awful, but the simple wisdom in this song is incomparable.



Off of their first album Swoon (a.k.a. Songs Written Out Of Necessity), "Cruel" is perhaps one of the greatest lyrical masterworks about jealousy and love. In fact, this vid has a play by play of the lyrics to drive the point home.



If you hear the lyrics for this tune, and then Sondre Lerche's "Two Way Monologue" (I love the dueling Sondres, don't you?), you'll see there's a Sprout reference, natch.




Paddy-Joe's lyrical derring-do has indubitably paved the way for other verbose and obtuse troubadours who have made considerable inroads, Sondre being the cuddliest of the bunch. But there's definitely a touch of his word-o-rama that similarly afflicts narrative-loving, eloquent tunesmiths like Colin Meloy. Essentially, the whole literate hipster music brigade should hold Paddy as an antecedent. They owe him big time for making verbosity work for the songwriting craft in a masterful way. Any discerning listener can surely see that he occasionally pushes the envelope and that it doesn't always work organically and can seem rather forced. But to go to the edge fearlessly, unafraid to takes risks, that's true artistry. The way that his vocabulary is all cylinders go, dizzying with the poetic imagery, alongside melodic restraint--pure gold when it's done right.

One the things I really want to talk about in relation to Prefab Sprout, however, is the lost art of the album. If we were to further discuss music, I am sure that this would be a recurring theme. Looking at Prefab Sprout's body of work, you can see how McAloon didn't just write songs, he wrote entire albums. Jordan: The Comeback is one of the best examples as it is loosely a concept album, a tapestry of interwoven melodies and ideas that blend from song to song. McAloon's clear fascination with Americana and various figures of American masculinity (coming from an Englishman) recurs in his work (e.g. Cowboy Dreams, an expressed love for Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb, and an album entitled Steve McQueen). But Jordan is the most forceful and complex meditation on this.

In the instant download, YouTube, iTunes music-sphere it's hard enough to make money and sustain oneself as an artist. Driven by a singles-oriented market, the true album is increasingly becoming a unicorn; an enchanted, mystical creature that only exists in legend, too impossible to actually survive. Take in a Prefab Sprout album in its entirety and you'll see what's sorely missing from today's pop fodder.

Although, there is the argument that music is more accessible than ever. Certainly the accumulative hoarding culture of music geekery has always been a bit uncomfortable to me. With so much more free access to whet my cash-poor musical appetite, I am certainly happy from this end of the development. But already having been able to at least gain some ground with buying used CD's and vinyl I always felt like I got more value for money with an album when I was paying for the music. While I can never claim to always appreciate the cohesiveness of an album's work because of distraction or short attention span, when I have taken it all in with repeated listens something richer and greater than the individual tracks often emerges. So I guess it's a double edged sword. What's your two cents, mate?

To end, here's a link to a little treat: a list of hypothetical albums Paddy McAloon has mentioned but never actually released. Use your imagination...

P.S. Thank you to PSA for the sole responsibility of converting me into a Sprouthead.

Overjoyed

OMG check out Stevie Wonder's sweater in this. The first appearance is at 1:32.

Then close your eyes and focus on how beautiful the song is.