'The Queen of SOP'/ 'Sheng Nu De Dai Jia' Review

Name: The Queen of SOP/ Sheng Nu De Dai Jia

Year: 2012

Genre: Romance, Drama

Studio: Hunan TV

Episode Length: 1 Hour

Number of Episodes: 33

My Rating: 9 Hearts

Starring: Chen Qiao En, Zhang Han, Godfrey Gao

Show Premise: Lin Xiao Jie ( Chen Qiao En) is a low level employee at a large shopping center in Taiwan, dreaming of the day when she can travel to England to finish her education. Xiao Jie  is granted her wish to go to England, but only to help out on a photo-shoot for the Shopping Center. It’s in England that she meets Tang Jun for the first time. He runs down the thief that tried to steal her purse, and in thanks for all his help, they spend a day together taking in some of the sites.

When she returns to Taiwan, she tries to rent an apartment in England because she has decided to go there for herself this time. She meets a landlord online by the name of Tom, is none other than Tang Jun. Before she can leave though, she meets Gao Zi Qi (Godfrey Gao) the son of the CEO, as she’s working overtime.  As time goes on Zi Qi and Xiao Jie begin dating, but when it ends in disaster, Xiao Jie leaves the company and ends up working along-side Tang Jun.

Why I Chose This Show: I chose this show because I like Chen Qiao En. I have watched ‘Fated to Love You’ and ‘Easy Fortune Happy Life’, which she starred in and I respect her acting style. It’s been a while since a watched a new CDrama so I thought this was a perfect time to watch. Especially when I found out that Zhang Han and Godfrey Gao would be basically fighting over her. I love stories with two guys liking the same girl, they’re usually funny.

WARNING!!: Spoilers from this point on…don’t say I didn’t warn you

Characters and Actors:

Chen Qiao En a.k.a. Joe Chen as Lin Xiao Jie   This character surprised me in a good way. After Fated and Easy I was expecting a character similar to the one she played in those two shows. If you haven’t watched either, then FYI both of them were kinda whiny for a good portion of the shows, only finding strength and backbone after terrible things happened. THIS character, Lin Xiao Jie, however, was stronger, more decisive than I’ve seen in most Asian dramas. She seemed more like a real person to me, because her flaw wasn’t just letting people walk all over her. 
Her flaws in my opinion were running away and a straight-forward personality that could be grating at times.

It was really great seeing Qiao En stretch her acting wings. I would love to know if she had more roles like this one because it gets pretty tiring watching the “same” girl in different shows.

Zhang Han as Tang Jun  If you’ve been following CDramas for a while, you probably know that Zhang Han was the male lead for the Chinese version of Hana Yori Dango/ Meteor Garden/ Boys Over Flowers. He did a decent job in that show for a newbie, and I’ve been looking forward to how his skills would mature.

Tang Jun is the son of a Shopping Center CEO in Shanghai and should be learning business so that he can take over one day, but instead he spends his time in England only occasionally working on business. After he meets Xiao Jie, his life starts to change. In order to be closer to her he goes back to Shanghai hoping to be a part of her life. When he finds out that she’s with Zi Qi, he’s heartbroken but instead of taking it out on her and becoming a butt-hole, he maintains their online relationship under his English name Tom.

When there is a problem that she can’t solve Xiao Jie knows that she can turn to Tom for help, encouragement and ideas. I really liked this plot device. Tang Jun was able to keep his pride but was able to stay by her side during her difficult times.

Godfrey Gao as Gao Zi Qi  Never seen him as a lead in an Asian drama before. He played one of the pesky brothers in Momo Love and  I just found out he’s going to play Magnus Bane in the Mortal Instruments movies :P anyway… he’s tall, good-looking and basically everything, physically, that I hope a future boyfriend of mine will look like.

His acting was okay, but I think he could use some work on his nuances. There was a few times that his acting felt flat to me. 

This character was in a really emotionally difficult situation but there wasn’t much that told me that. I know that there are actors that make this their style, to be almost perfectly expressionless or feel that a character would behave that way, but I don’t think Zi Qi was one of them. Zi Qi was sweet and kind at his root and lacked affection. That’s why Xiao Jie was so perfect for him, but I feel like I missed out on some of the emotion of the finer points in the story because Godfrey couldn’t express the sort of loneliness and sadness that Zi Qi would be experiencing. So, even though he was supposed to be in love with Xiao Jie, I could never really believe it.

He wasn’t terrible in the role. The moment of truth when he discovered what his ex Bai Ji Qing had done with the missing engagement ring, was I think the moment that he showed the most passion, but I do see room for improvement. Hopefully he can get better in the future because skilled eye-candy is always welcome.

Coco Jiang as Bai Ji Qing  A new face to me, never seen this woman before, but boy is she pretty. She played the selfish beauty queen pretty well. There were just some moments where her acting felt a little flimsy, but I forgive her.

Bai Ji Qing is a super model, that everyone loves but she's been in a secret relationship with Gao Zi Qi for a long time. When he asks her to take their relationship public, she decides that she would rather be famous and loved by everyone else than have her populartiy fall and be loved best by him.

Zhang Meng as Zeng Chu Chu The secretary for Tang Lan and a childhood friend of Tang Jun, who has been in love with him since they were young.

Things get complicated when she realizes that Tang Jun is in love with Xiao Jie.

 
Du Ruo Xi as Tang Min The adopted daughter of Tang Lan and Tang Jun's sister. At times you can't figure out whose side she's on. Does she want to help Tang Jun or take the company for herself?

 


Bai Xue as Tang Lan  The CEO of a large shopping center and mother to Tang Jun and Tang Min.
She has worked hard for a long time to make her company a success but now wants to step down and make Tang Jun the new President.

Chemistry: I definitely felt the connection between Xiao Jie and Tang Jun. From the moment they met in England to the last scene of the drama, I was sure that they had a connection to each other. There was a steady thrum of affection as they moved through the phases of their relationship. I could see how these two could be friends and then see how that morphed into love. Very well done.

As I said before I couldn’t really get into the relationship between Xiao Jie and Zi Qi. I wanted to see them together because he is so handsome but that’s about it. They didn’t really fit together to me. The relationship between Ji Qing though, I got that one. They were both a little too selfish to be together but they did make sense together.

Setting/Wardrobe/: Pretty people in pretty clothes in pretty cities. Nothing too flashy but certainly up scale clothing.

Plot Predictability:

There were some of the familiar plot points that anyone that’s watched an Asian drama will know.

1. Attempted suicides with pills and booze just because the person you like doesn’t like you back.

2.The Ex getting in the middle of the new couples happiness, thinking that being mean to the new person will bring their lover back.

3. People plotting a company take over.

4. People working so hard they give themselves nose bleeds or pass out and need to be hospitalized.

But for those I found a few that I haven’t seen much of in Asian dramas. It was a refreshing change.

1. I’m happy that even though Xiao Jie was not an heiress, the screen writers did not use that to push the story. If I had to count the shows that I’ve watched where money was an issue between the couple, I would run out of fingers and toes. So kudos to the team for making a story that didn’t focus on money as the main obstacle to love.

2. I love this new recent wave to couples sticking together. Like King 2 Hearts and Sunshine Angel, this show allowed the main couple to stay together and use trust to build their relationship. That is usually the most annoying aspect about dramas, the point where a simple thing will break up the couple until the last episode. Meanwhile the tears and angst just keep coming with no one smart enough to ask complete questions… sorry… let me get back to the point. Tang Jun and Xiao Jie, once they decided to become a couple, they believed in each other and I really like that. I think that’s romantic.

3. Gao Zi Qi was the indecisive person in this drama. When he broke up with Bai Ji Qing I thought he was sure and determined to move on, but then with a few words from her, he was looking like he wanted to go back to her and their life in the shadows. Then he changed again when Xiao Jie cooked for him, and then again with Ji Qing cooked. It was a hot mess of confusion for him. Which girl was he really in love with? Was he just using Xiao Jie to make Ji Qing jealous? I got a headache from his flip-flopping. All that said, I was expecting him to be like that, because there was vulnerability about Zi Qi. He just wanted to be loved and love someone back, and it was sad that it couldn’t happen for him.

4. There wasn’t just alcohol abuse in this one, but food abuse as well. A lot of times there is only drinking in dramas when things don’t go your way, but SOP remembered that there are other ways that people drown their sorrows. One of the biggest is eating a large percentage of their weight in junk food. I appreciated that they made Ji Qing binge on pizza, fried chicken and other fatty foods when Zi Qi broke up with her. Honestly it’s really common in real life, but rare in dramas. Why is that?

5. There was just one other thing that I thought was refreshing to see, even as it frustrated me. It was Xiao Jie’s ability to separate her feelings of friendship and affection for Tang Jun, from her decision making abilities while they were at work. My soft side wished she was a bit nicer in the office, but I’m happy that she wasn’t the type to go around agreeing to things just because the person saying it was cute and a friend. Even when she was working with Tang Jun and Zi Qi at the same time, she didn’t just automatically side with either of them. I think it was good to see a character like this because, sometimes we need to be reminded to make choices based on what WE think not what everyone else is doing.

Who Would I Recommend This To: I think someone who is looking for a little freshness would like this one. There wasn’t too much that would turn off a newbie, but I think an experienced watcher would find this cute and enjoyable.

Re-watchability: I plan on watching this one again; I really enjoyed the chemistry between Qiao En and Zhang Han.

Boring/Fast-forward Parts: I will probably fast forward the parts with Godfrey and Coco, I didn’t really care about their problems or selfish tug of war.

Final Thoughts: This was really cute and romantic. I liked the fact that this drama filmed in all the actual locations. They didn’t try to fool us with a fake London set, and I’m grateful. Although there were some of the same old plot devices, I like the fact that there were enough new ones or twists on the old ones that the show isn’t melding into all the others that I’ve watched.

Places To Watch: Viki

The Great Queen SeonDeok Review

NOTE:Please be kind, this is my first full length review. If you see anything that I could improve on or any opinions about the show, don't be scared to share:)

The very first episode had me hooked. Since this was my very first Korean Historical drama, I was so excited to be trying something new that I would have been all in, no matter what. Now, since this was my first historical drama, I have nothing to really base my opinons on. I don’t know what is usual or special in this genre in Korea. Even most of the actors were new to me. With the exception of Kim Nam Gil, Go Hyun Jung and Park Ye Jin that I saw in ‘Bad Guy’, ‘What’s Up Fox’ and 'My Princess respectively, I had never watched a drama with any of the other main actors. All that being said, I’ll write a review anyway, teehee ^.^

Full Title: The Great Queen Seondeok/ 선덕여왕

Year: 2009

Studio: MBC

Number of Episodes:62

Episode Length: 1 Hour

Director: Park Hong Kyun (The Greatest Love) and Kim Keun Hong (Yi San)

Screenwriter: Kim Young Hyun (Jewel in the Palace) and Park Sang Yeon (H.I.T.)

Starring: Lee Yoo Won, Go Hyun Jung, and Uhm Tae Woong 
My Rating: 9 Hearts
Where To Watch: Viki, Hulu, DramaFever



Show Premise: Mishil a royal concubine has her eyes on the throne and will do anything she can to get there. Through her schemes and pressure, King Jinpyeon has his maid sneak one of his newly born twins out of the palace. The Maid is chased by Mishil’s warriors as she tries to get away with the tiny Princess, but with luck, and help from a fierce warrior, they manage to escape.

Deokman (Lee Yo Won) grew up in the deserts of China with her mother Seo Hwa ( Seo Young Hee), they didn’t live an easy life, but they loved each other very much and survived with determination in their harsh surroundings. One day, a lost traveler is helped by Deokman, and is the very warrior that chased her and her mother all those years ago. When the warrior Chil Sook ( Ahn Gil Kang) finally puts the pieces together, he begins to hunt the pair again.

With amazing amount of luck Deokman escapes with her life, but the seemingly insane series of events, cause her to question who she really is. Soon she sets out to find out.

The rest is the journey that she must take in order to become the first Great Queen in the history of Silla (now known as Korea).

Why I Chose This Show: As I said before, I’ve never watched a historical drama (sageuk) from Korea before. I wanted to broaden my perspective, I had read some really great things about this show and figured it was a good place to start. Another reason was that, of all the other dramas I looked up, this was the only one with TWO female leads, gotta love girl-power!

Characters and Actors: 

Deokman/ Queen Seondeok – Lee Yo Won As a young woman Deokman showed a great deal of bravery, cleverness and at times a foolish disregard for her own safety. She was able to maintain her sense of integrity far longer than I think I would have been able to, in the same situation. With all the crazy machinations carried out by Mishil, I probably would have been running around the palace screaming crying and trying to lop off her head with my super sharp sword.

I was surprised at how well Lee Yo Won was able to portray this character. Her expressions were so clear, I could tell when Deokman had reached a conclusion, when her failing courage was bolstered by something she was seeing or hearing. As the episodes flowed along I could feel myself falling deeper into Deokman as she morphed from warrior to princess and finally to queen.

Mishil- Ko Hyun Jung Began as a warrior but because of her beauty and skill she soon became the mistress of the King Jin Heung (Deokman’s Grandfather), but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to be Queen and as she lost out on the opportunity time and time again, her schemes got more and more desperate. 

I watched ‘What’s Up Fox (WUF) before I began this series so I’ve seen Ko Hyun Jung before, but her skills in WUF were nothing in comparison to the job she did in this drama. Was it experience that made her better? WUF was filmed three years before GQS. I don’t follow her so, I really can’t tell the reason for the improvement, but let me say that it was nothing short of amazing. She played the controlling, power-hungry Mishil perfectly. She was as beautiful as she was terrifying in her quest to sit on the throne. Most times the ‘bad guy’ of the drama is detestable, and most of the time Mishil was as well, but in the end you could understand her.

Yushin-Uhm Tae Woong The captain of the weakest division of warriors in the Shilla kingdom, was all talk and no strength in the beginning. His ideals were so pure and singular that it was annoying. Fortunately he became the greatest and most loyal supporter to Deokman. Without his strength and guidance she wouldn’t have been able to become Queen.

Uhm Tae Woong is another new face for me. He played the upright Yushin very well. Always steady and honest. That was the energy that he brought to this role. I was like with all the chaos, he was the one constant, the pillar for not only Deokman but for us viewers as well.

Bidam- Kim Nam Gil  A mysterious fighter that meets Deokman on the road one day and becomes embroiled in her plan to take the throne. A great fighter who takes on fights over dropped chicken, and promises help on nothing more than a whim. I couldn’t tell what he was up to. Was he really helping Deokman or did he have his own secret plans? Deadly, kooky and needy all rolled into one package.

I watched ‘Bad Guy’ before this series. I was waiting for Kim Nam Gil to appear from the opening credits but I had to wait about 25 episodes for it to happen. But boy-o-boy when you came, he came with the thunder. Just as I was getting a little bored, Bidam came into the picture adding a whole new dynamic to the show. I wanted to see more of him after ‘Bad Guy’, and I was not disappointed by his performance here. There were plenty of scenes to fulfill my Nam Gil craving.

Cheon Myeong- Park Ye Jin As the twin that stayed in the palace, she grew up rich and pampered but terrorized by Mishil. From childhood, she feared Mishil and made efforts to stay out of her way but when her husband is killed due to Mishil’s latest plot, she finds the courage and resolve to try and fight back. 

In ‘My Princess’ Park Ye Jin played the mean woman standing in the way of the princess and it’s funny that in the role previous to that one, just happened to be this series where SHE is the princess being harassed. I think her skills were on better display here than in MP, because MP was pretty light-hearted and simple. GQS is anything but simple, and because of that, I think she was able to really show what she can do in this role. The fear of Mishil was so old and ingrained and Park Ye Jin did a really great job showing that sort of discomfort.

Prince Chun Chu- Yoo Seung Ho Born after the death of his father to the widowed Princess Cheon Myeon, he was raised at a monastery outside of the country. When he returns after the death of his mother, he plays a dangerous game trying to pit Mishil and Deokman against each other. He hates everyone in the palace and holds them responsible for the death of his mother.

I have heard a lot about Yoo Seung Ho because of his role in 'God of Study', but the premise of that show doesn't really interest me and so, I haven't tried watching it yet. He has a cute innocent look, that in this role, was completely misleading about the personality and mind of this character. I can't say for sure if it's his looks or his talent in acting, but Yoo Seung Ho gives me the feeling that he's so nice

Honorable Mentions: (The following actors were a part of the supporting cast, but their performances were so good that I thought that they should be acknowledged for making this a really great show.

Lee Seung Hyo as Alcheon  Another really great warrior. Never seen this actor before but I really liked what I saw. I hope to see him again in something else.

 Seo Young Hee as Seo Hwa Deokman's mother. She was supposed to be a simple maid but ended up being so much more. This actress knocked my socks off. Really believably simple-minded and weak with out appearing stupid. Hard line to walk.

Ahn Gil Kang as Chil Sook Mishil's most trusted warrior. This is the same goofy gangster from Dream High. At first I wasn't sure this was the same actor because of the difference, but he really turned it up in this one too.

 Lee Moon Sik as Jook Bang A conman that can't seem to stay out of trouble. This is the dog feeding Ajusshi from 'Rooftop Prince' and even though he didn't provide much comedy in RP, he was my source of fun during GQS.

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Setting/Wardrobe/ Directing: There were a lot of open fields and mountains in this show. Plenty of shots showing just how big the country side is over there, but not much truly breath-taking. What was done well in my opinion, was the attention to detail in the enclosed sets. The palace rooms and corridors were beautifully furnished, with little knick-knacks to make it believable that these characters lived in the spaces.

Since this was my first sageuk, I didn’t know how BIG the hair was back then. My goodness, the actress’ probably had head and neck-aches after filming all day with those crazy big wigs on! It just makes the acting all that much more powerful when you think of the physical discomfort they had to endure while still maintaining the mood of the scenes. The costumes seemed official to me..hehe.. but again this is my first so don't take my opinion too seriously on that.
The directors kept the cinematography pretty straight-forward. No real tricks in lighting or special angles. I really appreciated that. It reminds me of movies from the past when they used to let the actors make the create the atmosphere in a scene. That is something that I think is missing in a lot of shows and movies these days.  

Boring/ Fast Forward Parts: Honestly, the last couple of episodes were anti-climactic for me. After watching 50 episodes feeling frustration and anger towards Mishil, I was at a loss once she was defeated. My first thought was ‘Wait, there’s more?’ I had assumed that the end would be the point where Deokman managed to win over her. I was wrong. The rest of the 10 or so episodes were about how she consolidated her power to become Queen.

These episodes weren’t boring, but this was the part of the series that if I ever decide to re-watch it, I would probably skip.

Who I Would Recommend This To:  I think that anyone looking for a really great show, would enjoy this. If you are looking for something with substance that will make you cry bitter tears of disappointment, shake you fists at evil people, and feel the steady beat of love, I don’t really think you can go wrong here.

Re-Watchablity: Since this series is so long, I’m not sure I’ll ever re-watch the whole thing. I may go back and watch some of my favorite scenes again, but this one is waaay too long to revisit right now.

Final Thoughts: I really really REALLY liked this show. The acting was great, the story (and from what I read seems to follow history pretty well) was filled with many twists, ups and downs. I think that this is a perfect drama to watch on the weekends. Don’t be like me and try to watch during the week, or like me, you’ll be upset when the alarm rings only two hours after you were able to go to sleep. The cliff-hangers on the episodes will keep you up all night.