I paused my watch at this cap 5:27 into ep1:
White Christmas (2011) have been on my to watch list since I’ve heard a few good words from my odd RL friend last year, a jdorama fiend but can count in a hand the kdramas she can tolerate. I always crave snow this time of the year like a lot of us southerner. I did not read a word of the synopsis, I dive in totally blind. So far I have a crisp perfectly directed and edited montage of the elite school deep in a snowy outpost that frankly looks like it’s built on some uber reclusive fiord. It’s December 24th and the entire school body will have 8 days off, bused back home except for a handful left behind in the boarding school. A letter written on black paper in a black envelope is read, it doesn’t sound all puppies and unicorns. From a few sentences read, we will have discussions on monsters and how they are made, in 8 days, or is it a letter of love lost and loathing? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, it reads. *But I curse you to damnation the day Christ is born* Oooooooo! I’m a super wimp, I already got the memo this is not for night watch alone.
I can not remember the last time my interest is so piqued so fast. It’s usually the other way when I turn full on cynic and criticize everything to death for a good 5 min till I bored myself with my snark and let myself be distracted by some pretty or some reasons I check it out to begin with and try to be nice to it and then after maybe at the end of the ep, I do not hate it, and sth will hit me a few eps later, or I’m just tardy, and a typical drama love affair blossoms, again. But this one, I am liking every frame I’ve seen in the 5 minutes and the CWGM alums here are sooooooooooooo not hurting!!! *hihi Sung Joon and Kim Young Kwang you boys just need one more good job and I’m shoving you in my manrem forever and throwing away the keys* The rest of the main bunch are all quite promising up and coming talents I should keep note of, and I can check them out for the first time in sth quite exciting! Many birds, one stone/drama. YAY!
mookie 
Oooo… White Christmas has been sitting in my HD for ages too. There are quite a few promising young ‘uns in it and I’ve been (sorta) keeping tabs on ’em for a while now. Maybe I should give it a go as well. I’ve been meaning to but never found the time.
Oh watch along! I liked the first ep, but I do think as it progresses the storytelling feels like its more than the director can chew.
Watched ep 1 today and yup, it’s definitely The Equator Man director. Here’s what I wrote in one of my TEM posts “He’s too much in love with enhancing his scenes to notice that he is going TOTALLY overboard with it. The stylistic flourishes have been used in a bunch of other dramas too, only he is being really heavy handed and overindulging with them. So much so that the actual flow of the scenes is disrupted while he grandstands.” He’s doing exactly that here too…. Plus all the ‘preagnant’ pauses… what’s with those? He does have a way with framing his scenes, granted but he already uses that gimmic far too much. The cinematography is really lovely though.
I didn’t like this PD’s directing style in TEM and I’m not liking it much here either. The story seems interesting and most of the kids are pretty good (Kwak Jung Wook is SO different from the grumpy bully he’s playing in School 2013 – I like this kid *g*), so I am going watch the rest of the epis.
Argh. So not impressed with TEM, I only lasted till e4 and although I can’t honestly judge it with any depth, I can fully trust your opinion on it. I also remember how awful and heavyhanded the violin of doom was.
The kids are doing ok to fine here, I’m most familiar with Baek Sung Joon, but he’s not too impressive, yet. I’m drawn to every Esom scene, I’m not sure if she’s terrific, but there is sth very alluring about her screen presence. Kwak Jung Wook is quite scene-stealing too! I’ve yet to see more of Sung Joon, but so far he’s a bit stiff and reminding me of Taecyeon, which is not a compliment haha.
The worst offenders in TEM were the PD and the music director. I think it stayed afloat only because the story was interesting and most of the actors delivered. The problem with White Christmas is that the director is working with green actors and they are not quite up to holding the thing together the way UTW, Lee Joon Hyuk et al were able to.
You can pretty much tell which of the kids have more acting experience. 🙂 Esom is quite good for a noob though. I also think that Sung Joon (and the rest of the noobie bunch) needed a better director to shine, he was perfectly fine in SUFFB. But then, that PD was kinda awesome with the raw cast.
I’m going to watch a few more epis today. Nothing else happening as I don’t really do the usual New Year stuff (I’ll probably doze off around 11pm latest, LOL!).
You know, I’ve been thinking about watching this one for a few days now. It also had sit in my hdd for months ever since I discovered Sung Joon but I couldn’t muster any real interest until ‘omg Kim Woobin was also in it?…!’
So your post prompted me to watch 2 eps last night. Story is intriguing enough, but the flow feels off. And omg acting is kinda horrible all around. There’s always an odd extra half-beat wedged in where they shouldn’t be. It being only 8 eps I’ll stick around… it’s.just.that. the director seems to not know how to direct humans. He can only do landscape.
Oh really?! I only managed to finish one and although the initial glowing luster is not as sparkly because I find the storytelling a bit clunky, I do not have any gripe on the acting. Maybe I have no expectations and I’m not watching it with a critical eye, it’s more on the story I’m intrigued. This feels like an episode of Kindaichi Investigative Files to me, so they are obviously faring better than anime characters. XD
I don’t necessarily think it’s the kids’ entire fault their acting is horrible, and they certainly get better. It’s more a director thing. Like when Sung Joon entered the room to deliver his icy cool lines and left, the half silent beats between his entrance and exit on top of his as-a-matter-of-factly monotonous delivery makes it highly awkward. But he’s not solely responsible for that awkwardness, because the same deliberate feeling exists all throughout the drama. And it’s prob intentional. I just don’t like it. It makes me want to hurl something at the screen yelling ‘move it!’
I get what you are saying more apparently in ep2, which is so oddly draggy at places, unnec indulgent. I’m a bit disappointed because I do think the premise is very interesting, but it seems like it’s out of steam already
Starting this one soon too! The synopsis caught me straight away and I’m pretty set on watching it once I finish BBJX and King of Dramas.
PS. First post here me thinks! Digging the blog! 🙂
Hihi! 🙂 Ohhh BBJX, I have fond memories, esp with the half-assed Cdramas I’ve watched this year, it is a sincere piece of work.
Admittedly the storytelling/directing is clunky here in White Christmas after 2 eps, but I’ve heard the ending is quite surprising, so I’m sticking around, I think the thought behind is still interesting, even when the drama proper is not delivering it properly