This year is sure flying by fast, can you believe it’s February already? I can’t. Another Thursday, another 5 Things: Idol royalty, chaos and calm in virtual nuptials, dance battle throwdowns, Chocolate for the New Year, and what could possibly happen in 200 days? A lot. These are the 5 Things that happened in Kpop last week that I think were a little bit more special than the rest.
Kpop Royalty hits Thailand
One of the best things about the Lunar New Year are new year’s specials. This year, eighteen of your favorite Kpop idols headed to Thailand to compete for idol domination in King of Idol. Those competing in the special were Big Bang maknae Seungri, Super Junior‘s Eunhyuk and Donghae, Onew and Minho of SHINee, 2PM‘s Nichkhun and Chansung, Park Jungmin, and 2AM maknae Jinwoon for the namjas and After School‘s Uee and Lizzy, KARA‘s Hara and Seungyeon, f(x)‘s Krystal, Secret‘s Sunhwa, Sistar‘s Hyorin, 4Minute‘s Hyuna, and T-ARA‘s Hyomin for the yeojas.
To introduce themselves, all the idols did a little shimmy to try and impress, my fave performance was by Seungyeon to FEM‘s “Like a G6,” check it out.
No, I’m not trying to be mean by laughing at her falling down, but I liked how everyone laughed along with her and supported her in her second try. I’m sure they all have had similar experiences. Of course they could’ve edited out the whole incident, but what fun would that have been.
Next up, were a bunch of physical challenges for the idols. First up ssireum in the pool, the beast maknaes of One Day were up first.
Here’s Hara taking out Sunhwa, I really like Hara because even though she’s a little thing she’s tough as nails.
Chansung went on to dominate beating hyung Nichkhun for the ssireum crown and Hara took out Krystal who suprisingly took out Uee for the women’s crown.
Next up, the idols paired up to play the game where you have to bite down a piece of kim hanging from a string above them. One of the most hilarious battles was Seungri & Hyomin versus Donghae & Hara, check it out.
Other good battles were between Minho & Krystal and Chansung & Sunhwa, and a fierce battle between Jinwoon & Hyuna and Jungmin & Hyorin in which Hyuna snaps when Hyorin knocks her down, lol. Come on Hyuna, you gotta know that all’s fair in love and Korean variety shows…
Uee was named Queen and Seungri was picked as King which moved him to tears. There is some controversy around the show with Big Bang fans attacking Uee and Hyomin for slights to Seungri and netizens accusing Hyuna of grabbing Krystal’s shirt and revealing some skin. Uh, people it’s all fun and games- chillax.
Calm and Chaos on We Got Married
Seohyun gets Yonghwa to go to the doctor for a check up and she tags along. She’s told she needs to gain 9kg of muscle weight and Yonghwa needs to loose 1.3 kg of fat. Not so bad off physically for both of them. As a reward for finally going to the clinic, Yonghwa wanted to go and get a couple massage and how cute was this.
Also on this episode, the 2PM boys came to visit Khuntoria with promises of food and entertainment from the couple. I was a little disappointed that Victoria wasn’t able to finish the food for the boys because of time, but how cute were they helping (?) out with the mandoo. Kpop’s resident beastly idols make the couple’s love nest feel, oh so small, as they stomp around checking out the apartment. The funniest part though, was Nichkhun getting jealous and protective of Victoria with Chansung around, lol.
Star Dance Battle 2011
A guarantee must see ever year is the Star Dance Battle. While this year’s show was missing a lot of Kpop’s heavy hitting sunbaes, the hoobaes did good.
First up a bunch of gagmen (I think they’re all gagmen, but I’m not sure about the second group) throw it down.
I have no idea who he is (someone tell me), but I totally call dibs on the tall guy in the second group with the one shoulder get up and the great thighs.
The performances that really impressed me were by the rookie boy groups. Check out this battle between ZE:A and INFINITE, even the judges couldn’t pick a winner giving both groups a 93.
And, this battle between MBLAQ and Park Jungmin was also one of my faves.
Teen Top did a great routine in their battle, also. If you’re interested, you can find a couple more vids of the show here.
Chocolate for the New Year
It was another great show for Kim Jung-eun’s Chocolate with guests that included Seungri, Jewelry and Mighty Mouth.
First up a medley done by Seungri of “Lies,” “I Need a Girl,” “Heartbreaker,” and “Sunset Glow.”
His interview with Jung-eun was pretty hilarious, too with him doing impressions of his Big Bang hyungs. You can check out a subbed version of it, here.
Jewelry finally made their comeback with new members Semi and Yewon joining Baby J and Eunjung with their new album Back It Up. Check out their performance here which includes one of, if not the biggest hit of theirs “Baby, One More Time” (come on who didn’t love the ET dance?) and some surprise guests.
It was so sweet of Park Jung-ah and Seo In-young to join them. It’s good to see that they’re supporting the new Jewelry and that they’re on good terms after leaving to pursue their solo careers.
A lot happens in 200 days
Dream High really hit its stride with episodes 8 & 9, the twists and turn in the storyline come at the turning point in the drama as we see more dreams come true and other expectations fall short. One of my favorite scenes occurred when the Hye-mi and Pil-sook friendship grows as Hye-mi encourages Pil-sook to be the leading lady and as they nurse their broken hearts.
I thought it was really meaningful how in the first round of their table heading Pil-sook uses her Jason doll for her head support, but in the second round after he turned down her affections and she was double crossed by Ri-ah the doll is missing. I’m so happy that the show didn’t make Jason out to be a shallow tool, making his reason to agreeing to Pil-sook‘s 200 days being about what was best for her debut chances and not just getting skinny for him. Although the 200 days seemed like a super fast forward in the episode, I loved how they showed Pil-sook‘s transition in the ‘200 days in a minute’ they gave it and her big reveal to Jason.
It is kind of ridiculous that like 7 months went by and they all never saw each other even though the K group were still supposed to be in school. I totally loved that Pil-sook and Jason didn’t automatically get together and how she called him out on cruising through life without any dreams or goals.
It was great to see the change in Hye-mi and how she and Sam-dong begin to make their transition into the winners. The scene where Sam-dong steals a kiss from Hye-mi after the dance competition and she asks him if he wants to die and then as he runs away he says that even if he dies today it was worth it was a total win. Ah, just revisiting how happy he was back in episode 9 and knowing everything that happens in episodes 10 and 11 breaks my heart for Sam-dong. Dang it Dream High, why you must you put Sam-dong through so much? Kim Soo-hyun is totally one of my fave new actors, he’s pure genius as Sam-dong. When I saw the scene where he’s drawing the manhwa characters and found out he was a leftie, it totally sealed the deal (I know it’s weird, but I got this thing for lefties).
Those were the 5 things that I LOVED in Kpop last week, were they yours?
