We say goodbye to February this week and hello to March and the coming Spring. 2014 where have you gone? Other than the quickly passing new year, what has been going on in the K-popiverse? Lots, and if only the PD had made Kim Soo-hyun‘s fingertip light up in this scene from You From Another Star it would have been perfection (for a you young ‘uns who don’t know what I’m taking about please go watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial)
The following are the top 5 Things that happened in K-pop last week that I thought were a bit more special than the rest. If you’re not up-to-date on your K-pop turn back now because spoilers most definitely will ensue. You have been warned.
5. I Got a Feeling
It was an enjoyable episode of Weekly Idol with guests B1A4, but what had me in stitches was a game played by MCs Coni and Doni (Defconn and Jung Hyung-don) and their side kicks Hooni and Bomi (BTOB’s Il-hoon and APink‘s Bomi). To win a chance to answer several idol-centric questions, the sidekicks had to guess what the MCs were rubbing on their necks when blindfolded. Il-hoon and Bomi’s reactions to the various items were hilarious.
4. Another Parting
I’ve long been a fan of Loen Entertainment‘s efforts to bring K-entertainment to the international masses. They were the first major company to start having English subtitles to their content on YouTube and I am now loving that they are showing Seo In-guk‘s latest mini drama Another Parting on their channel. The series is just five episodes and each episode is only about 10 minutes long, but the fact that it is available on Loen’s channel with subtitles is great (it’s also available to fans around the globe on Melon TV, Dramacube, SK Broadband BTV, BTV Mobile, and Naver TV Cast. Episode 4 has just been released and the last episode should be released soon, so if you’re interested you’ soon be able to marathon the whole series. Loen Entertainment seems to be making all the right movie towards globalization–well, except for their recent name change to 1theK–what the heck.
3. Only Look at Me
One of my favorite performances from the last episode of K-pop Star season 3 was Heo Eun-yool‘s take on Taeyang‘s hit “Only Look At Me.” She did great and had a fighting chance against favorites Bernard Park and Lee Chae-young who had less than stellar performances. There are a lot of great acts in this year’s show, it was super hard picking the top 10, with fan and judge favorites like Lee Chae-young, Brody, Peter Han and the Chae Sisters not making it and The Shorties just making the cut with an awesome last chance performance of “Stand Up For Love.”
2. Oppa On My Mind
C.N. Blue along with actress Shim Eun-kyung were guests on the latest episode of Running Man. They split into three teams and raced around Seoul playing various games to win coins to use in the final challenge. We all know that Yong-hwa has always been game on the show, but all the members are competitors and at one point during the show had Kim Jong-kook running away from them (there was no clip of this game). I would have loved to see C.N. Blue challenging the cast members in a name tag ripping game. In the clip below, one poor fan girl finds herself on the wrong team and seriously distracted by her C.N. Blue oppas to the consternation of Song Ji-hyo and Kim Jong-kook until she gets a little loving from C.N. Blue.
1. If I Could Turn Back Time
If you haven’t been watching You From Another Star I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that you haven’t been watching one of the best dramas of 2014–yeah, yeah it’s only the beginning of 2014, but seriously You From Another Star is great. I always wondered what the big deal was about Jun Ji-hyun, yes I watched My Sassy Girl and yes she’s like a vampire looking the same for the past 20 years, but so what? I can honestly say she is perfect as Cheon Song-yi, even though the character could essentially be her life story–other than the whole falling in love with a 400 year old alien thing–maybe, someone do a blood test on her husband.
The show has the perfect mixture of amusement, heartbreak, suspense and romance–kudos to the writer and PD for jobs well done. Kim Soo-hyun? Love him. Park Hae-jin? Love him even more now and happy that his career is finally getting back on track. Yoo In-na? It’s a sad role for any actress to play, after the hit that was Queen In-hyun’s Man where’s all her juicy lead roles? Shin Sung-rock? Scared of his murderous crazy. And the good news for any of you that haven’t been watching? The drama ends this week so you can marathon it. The best part of the clip below got cut off at the end–after she says her long heart felt love confession they kiss–and then he gets sick and she has to carry him back to their room. The sickness after kissing has been one of the best running gags in the whole drama.
Those were the 5 Things I LOVED in K-pop last week, were they yours?
