Skip to main content

K-Dramas Lacking An Attractive Actress VS. Teleseryes With Plenty Of Attractive Actresses

With Crash Landing on You still trending number ONE on Netflix Philippines - I decided I might write another butthurt post. The future of ABiaS-CBN is still uncertain. Some people want to defend it because it's the home of their beloved teleseryes but how many have signed the 1M signatures for ABiaS-CBN's renewal? Did some of them get paid to sign? Maybe, maybe not and I can't be too sure since I'm just a nobody blogger. Now, I'd like to talk about K-Dramas even when I'm just a casual, selective fan of it. It's no secret that I got into K-Drama for the actresses but the more I watch them - the more I realize that PLOT is MORE IMPORTANT than the pretty faces, right?

I was thinking about the time I actually watched Hymn of Death and later Still 17. Shin Hye Sun got a lot of comments about how "ugly" she is. Did it come from some Filipino netizens because she has a resemblance to Sarah Elago? Maybe, maybe not. But Hye Sun has been very graceful in shrugging off comments and her attitude makes her more appealing. Her performance in every show she's in really pays off one way or another.

I remembered watching Still 17 and there was hardly any eye candy. For what the show lacked in an attractive actress - it made up for GOOD ACTING. I still can't get over how Hye Sun managed to pull off the part of a woman who's still mentally 17 years old and struggles to live her 30-year-old life. It's really fun to see her bring the part of a woman still adjusting to the changes of a world she left while unconscious. She's not pretty but the more I watch it - the more attractive she actually becomes on the inside. I would probably call her a beautiful woman even if she's not attractive. True beauty is from within, right? She's not pretty but I bet the boys still want her the more they know her.

The most recent one Crash Landing on You doesn't have a really hot actress either. It didn't have the magnetizing superficial effect that any K-Drama with Suzy Bae on it would. I did watch While You Were Sleeping for Suzy but I soon grew to appreciate it beyond her. I could say the same was for Gu Family Book which was inspired by the Japanese Manga/Anime known as Inuyasha. Crash Landing on You lacks an attractive actress but I could watch it for its plot. Yes, the plot of preposterously landing into North Korea Wizard of Oz style combined with political satires was fun to watch. I guess more Filipinos already have had enough of teleseryes, right? I could imagine the show would probably get attacked by the likes of Bayad Muna because it will expose their self-contradictions such as North Korean politicians hate capitalism while enjoying its products.

Meanwhile, I noticed a lot of teleseryes tend to have a lot of eye candy. I remembered Palyang Robin Hood which had Dingdong Dantes and a couple of bikini scenes. There's also some TV drama with Shaina Magdayao. There's also Angel Locsin COLMENARES and back then - there was also Rhian Denise Ramos Howell in the scenes. I remembered why I even dropped Darna by GMA-7 whether it was Angel or Maria Rivera-Dantes who was acting it. Both were terribly an insult to Mars Ravelo's work if you ask me. True, these TV dramas had eye candy but man they get really F*CKING BORING the more you watch them. It's because teleseryes go for unbearable lengths and the daily schedule doesn't give writers ample time to edit and producers to do a quality check.

I tried giving The Worse Half a shot but not even that bed scene in the first episode can convince me to stay. Then you have the recent Ang Probinsyano where I feel Shaina's addition is just there to boost ratings. Sure, Shaina is HOT no questions asked but the question is does she deliver results for the series or was she just there as an accessory? She can act but was the script good? Not even Shaina in a bikini or well maybe in the nude (if ever that'll get approved by management) would save it. Quite a contrast that K-Dramas tend not to rely too much on bed scenes.

Why can't eye candy save teleseryes from further criticism? You can consider the scenario of packaging vs. content. Let's consider an imagined scenario of two lunchboxes. One box is attractively wrapped but the food inside is either tasteless or worse no longer fit for consumption. Another is a box that's just modestly wrapped but the food inside it is really good. Maybe, we can say that the food in the attractive wrapper costs around PHP 1,000.00 per box while the food in the modest box costs around PHP 150.00 - PHP 300.00 depending on what's inside. For a bonus, let's just imagine one has Shaina selling the expensive but low quality food in the nude. The other has Hye Sun selling it well-covered. You bought the food worth PHP 1,000.00 only to discover that inside the beautiful box is food that's either tasting bad or it's already going to land you in St. Luke's Intensive Care Unit (ICU). You thought you got the value for your money but you didn't. Meanwhile, the food worth PHP 150.00 to PHP 300.00 may not be so expensive but you could really enjoy it. Your PHP 1,000.00 would buy more than one of those food boxes for you to bring home. The beautiful box is just highway robbery. Hye Sun in spite of her not being attractive will eventually sell more boxes in the long run. Shaina (as well as her employer) would get sued for selling food that landed its customers in St. Luke's ICU.

Teleseryes can also be like that. The daily schedule is probably comparable to a highway robbery. I remembered how it became a problem for teachers with students getting into teleseryes. Back then, there were really no DVDs available containing all the episodes of the very long-running teleserye. It's also robbing students of their time to study and do their assignments. I remembered how I submitted my required work in college while teleserye addicts didn't. Some even hated having group meeting because they will miss tonight's episode. That alone makes me happy with the fall of Kris TV for a start. Though there are still lots of teleseryes but are Filipino students still interested in them now that Internet TV is the thing? I guess they're probably just marathoning at the end of the semester with K-Dramas that they stopped watching to do their jobs. The digital age is truly an enemy of the telebasura networks, right?

Comments