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SHUT_UP_FLOWER
February 1, 2018
May 13, 2018
"Shut Up Flower Boy Band" (2012)
(Jan 2022)
Recently I've been enthusiastic about "Oh My Ghost",
and despite the fact that the acting was one of the Now, at asianwiki
most impressive things about it, I wondered what I I just see one writer
would find if I tried tracing the names of the writers. for "Oh My Ghost":
Yang Hee-Seung
The are two writers: I noted that one of them
previously worked on "Shut Up Flower Boy Band", This show also has
and so-- one writer:
Seo Yoon-Hee
At first glance this looked pretty silly-- and with no other
maybe at second glance: There's this loopy work credited.
high-school kid who wears emo-boy eye makeup
who's the leader of a pretty-boy rock band named
"Eye Candy" (interestingly, everyone in the story
seems to regard that as a really dorky name).
There's some schtick here that isn't brilliant,
but it's okay, like one day the band is all
hanging around on the street, and the loopy
emo-boy is saying things like "The next woman My favorite silly bit:
who crosses the street will be my Muse!" the band leader is
about to walk out of
Then-- oh and you know about spoilers? Well: the school's practice
room, but before he
SPOILERS goes he takes an
aluminum guitar pick
At the end of the second episode, the emo-boy is and flings it at a dart
hit by a truck and dies, after which it's a story board, where it sticks,
about the fragments of the band picking up the point first in the
pieces and learning how to carry on without him bullseye.
while trying to live up to his memory...
Throughout the rest
That's a pretty weird, ungainly transition that of the show, there's
only sort-of works, but it's not the main a minor character who
problem this show has-- many of the problems are keeps practicing this,
endemic to Korean television shows-- there's trying to learn how to
that shift-in-tone midway through that amounts imitate this Cool
to a bait-and-switch. Then there's the problem Geste.
with the new band leader (and new main
character) being the strong-and-silent dude,
which means he's too tongue-tied to say anything
that needs to be said or even to come up with
any interesting dialog.
But I would say the show's biggest strength is it's
biggest weakness-- this band has many enemies: the bad
boys who want to pick fights with them, the rich kids
who want them banned from the band-practice room, the
psycho-rich boy who got their friend killed, the
public and paparazzi who want to make trouble for them
once they're famous...
The band's biggest enemy though, is their record
label-- in reality, that's often the case, and it's
one of the things they've definitely got right
here... what they don't have right, though, is the
*way* that their label messes with them: it makes
*absolutely* no sense, and it's actually the
*opposite* of actual band-label disputes: the label
keeps putting them on short-term contracts, acting as
though they need to "prove" themselves-- actual
record labels are well known for trying to sew up
bands with long term contracts, and only *then*
deciding if they want to invest enough in the band
for them to prove themselves.
And even *after* they've succeeded in delivering not
one, but two hits, management at their label
continues to act like they don't care what happens to
them. Oh well, so what if you break up, bands don't
stay together forever. Oh, you got involved with a
Scandal? Well, don't expect *our* help, you brought
it on yourselves. (What? Even if so, so what?).
A little of this would leave me feeling like "Oh
well, things are weird in Korea", but it all makes so
little sense it's more like "Oh well, it's a weird
universe inside that writer's head. I'm glad I don't
live there."
By the way: given the background of some of
the members of the band, it's inconceivable
that it would not have occurred to them to
hire a lawyer (and maybe, like, an agent?),
and given the level of success they reached
(before *Scandal* struck!) it's bizarre that I've seen similar
they don't shop around harder for a new phenomena in other
label. shows like "Star's
Lovers"-- a succesful
Yeah okay: that Japanese offer was a actress ten year
little lame (we want you to become a contract is up, the
Visual Kei band!), but why not president of her
continue negotiating with them? agency is an obnoxious
control freak... why
doesn't she walk?
And why doesn't she talk
to a lawyer before
re-upping her contract?
IDIOT_PLOT
(Jan 2022)
So this seemed like a strike against
the idea of tracing the writers...
it seems there was a glitch in that
process, and I ended up following a
broken chain.
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