ISWAK...DISCUSSION (Page 3)

actually there are nine kiss scenes (there was a big issue about this in the one of the variety show, will try finding video for you)
the accidental kiss during tutoring
the angry kiss after the fight at the graduation
the compassionate kiss in the hospital
the kiss in the rain
the kiss at wedding
the smooch at the office of hui lan
apart from these there is a fleeting kiss at wedding video, a kiss when they fall in water after the wedding and one more kiss tucked in somewhere.
anyways the issue has persisted in the sequel when the actor(joe)demanded more kisses on the honeymoon episode.apparently he was given free rein after the consent of ariel but he hesitated going beyond a certain limit because the scene had become too hot(or something like that). in manga almost every volume has atleast one kiss, so well we are going to see a lot more of those in near future.

hmm i wonder which ones were the spontaneous ones though...?

well my guess is one during tutoring( this was was not even kiss but sleepy ariel ending up falling on joe )and the smooch at director bai's office (this was the oddest kiss of all , ariel seemed completely unprepared and surprised). the angry kiss, the kiss at hospital and the kiss in the rain are in the original script. the wedding had to have a kiss so well . but then who knows

excellent analysis puja! hi btw!!! i lovve wat u do for the asian forums here...

AHHHHHHHH IM SOO HAPPY !!! FINALLY ISWAK.... !! the bestest taiwanese serial ever!!!! i know there are many ppl here who are die-hard fans of DBY... but i much rather like ISWAK.. it was the first taiwanese drama i completed (well.. my friend started me with hana kimi but it was wayyy too overboard) and then SOMEHOW... i found ISWAK...and everrr since thennn OMG.. my obsession with asian dramas .... has crossed limits...(i stay up ALL NITE WITH EYES GLUED TO VIDEOS WHEN I HAVE EXAMS THE NEXT MORN!!!! AM I THE ONLY WEIRDO HERE WITH NO SENSE OF SELF CONTROL??!)

well... the thing i like about ISWAK is that unlike other dramas.. the characters were develped a LOT.. as in each character has soo much depth into them..(be it jiro and his dreams of being a chef and love for xiang chi.. the mom ... yu-shu the bro....dad etc and obvio zhi shu and xiang chi) In DBY... in my eyes.. rainie and ahmon's love was veryy shallow..(no offense guys... please dont kill me)... i kinda felt that watever they developed for each other was only cause of physical attraction and seduction... but ISWAK... i looovvee how the journey of zhi shu's love is portrayed.... for an all-perfect guy like him to actually be able to stand xiang chi ...that is sumthn to see!!! altho i too sumtimes thot that xiang chi went a lil too overboard with her love for him....(as in she had no dignity for herself) she had to (btw arie l did a fantastic job portraying her)... because only some one her extreme and stupid wud change zhi shu... if any sensible and practical girl wud have been in her place they wud have given up long back and zhi-shu wud never have changed. the two wud have gone seperate ways.. and zhi shu wud have succeeded once again in alienating himself... soo i feel that xiang shi's stupidity was needed... she was a whole different world for zhi shu to figure out and thats wat made him like her.. she gave a whole new perspective of life to him (if she was sensible like others...she wud never stand out and make zhu-shu intrigued)
Zhi shu's character too... everything in life came sooo easy to him... except being human and having feelings. In fact in the manga..(which will probably be shown in ISWAK 2) he doesnt even noe wat he feels is jealousy when he sees xiang chi with someone else... jiro's character has to tell him that! soo he dint noe how it was to struggle and not get what he wants... thats y he leaves his home to go struggle in the outside world.. and the first time he felt he really wanted smthn for himself(xiang chi) she was going to be someone else's (jiro's) and that was when he felt human.. with emotions.. with sadness.. pain and longing and jealosy... (joe cheng portrays his character soo well.. i never feel they are 2 different personalities!- the emotions zhi shu feels for the first time are portrayed sooo well by joe!!! )

Zhi Shu dint noe how to feel.. and xiang chi on the other hand... noes nothing except how to feel(she does everything with her heart...except in the end ..going to jiro) ...so they obviously fill in for each other when it comes to dealing with life... but when it comes to dealing with each other.. they are 2 COMPLETELY different ppl with very different expectations from the each other and how they deal with each other is just what is going to make ISWAK 2 soo intriguing...

dying for ISWAK 2 to come out!

overall.. there are times when u can fast fwd scenes... the drama goes slow in some parts BUT ITS STILL EXCELLENT!! with excellent music, direction and cast and other stufff... IT IS A MUST WATCH (bear with it for a while in the beginning tho).. i specailly recommend not skipping any scenes between zhi-shu and xiang chi tho.. every scene has smthn to tell abt their characters!

SORRY TO COMPLETELY BORE U GUYS!!!!!! but i hope it helps understand the characters better...so u noe why each character is doing what he/she is doing !!

Edited by music89 - 15 June 2007 at 10:42am

music 89: you are not the only one...i completely lose myself in these shows to the extent of insanity. i promise myself that i will quit for a while but a few days later i scouring all the sites to decide what to watch now.i too have no sense of controlwhen i am seeing a good show.
   i agree with you that dby was way shallow , however a number of hot scenes(including a make out sequence) pushed it to the top. while i can understand how they had hard time keeping those hands to themselves, thier lack of control was deplorable. what surprised me is no one raised a question about the ethical aspect of the show
   anyways coming back to iswak...yep the progression is great though slow. the director is wise enuf to show zhi shu's reactions even when he is not in forefront ..examples are when wu ren comes to give gift to XQ , you see zhi first surprised and then rolling his eyes upwards in the back and later saying young ensemble sarcastically. when xq meets wu ren in the restaurant and he puts his arms around her ,if you see the mirror behind the couple , you can see reflection of zhi shu getting madder and ready to strangle them though he knows xq's ploy, he calms down only when he sees xq's discomfort. similarily when she pretends to give a romantic call to senior hao(the tennis guy) you see angry zhi walking towards her and then walking away in frustation in the background. i really admire the director for thinking so deeply about the scenes and joe to deliver the impact. until now i have seen this kind of subtlety only in jdoramas (hyd series specifically)

yeaa... the making out in DBY was pretty hot!!! hehe..
neways... yea wat u said is exactly true puja! the scenes u just mentioned... i noticed all of it!! :D hehe.. loveee the director's emphasis and joe's acting of the details... this showz that joe actually gets into the character's head...(no wonder the spontaneous kiss in the company office begging for mercy..ariel was sooo surprised!) hehe...

i have never seen any jdorama... taiwanese.. i watch coz they are mostly light hearted... and korean.. the actors are hot and i like seeing love triangles quadrangles.. altho i am sick of it now.... but japanese... wat is their speciality? i have seen nearly gazillions of taiwanese, chinese and korean...but japanese...they are soo many in number i dont noe where to start...i like ISWAK kinda of stuff...wat do u recommend for a MUST see jdorama?

music89 :i must admit you have missed the best of them...the way i see it koreans are good at polished, family oriented love stories, taiwanese are good or light hearted romances(really concentrated on young 18-24 year old couple) and having an over the top way about it. japanese are masters at fast pace (thier shows average out at 10 episodes) , extreme attention to detail, very good acting (these guys are master at casting)even if the cast is not a looker as taiwanese ones and lastly subtlety of romance (let us just say romance is not necesarrily focus of all thier shows). thier shows have a varied range of stories...action, thriller, romance, brain teaser, scifi, fantasy...etc
   where to start ...i would suggest with hana yori dango which is based on same manga as meteor garden .i can assure you you will find a huge difference in the treatment of the story. the show is there on allthe asian sites (veoh,cr, youtube but if you like to download then the links are there in our archive thread).warning....if you were a fan of mg you are gonna start hating that one after watching this.

 another shows worth watching are gokusen1(a yakuza heir tries to realise the dream of becoming a teacher, no romance), kurosagi (a swindler swindles other swindlers), nobuta wo produce(all about friendship, two bored guys try to reinvent a classmate), liar game(really a brain teaser)

   another show awaited jap show is hanakimi(jap version) which starts airing on 3rd july. this 10 episode series is already showing a lot of promise based on actors. if you have read the original manga the hero(athlete) in hanakimi does not fall for the female easily (as shown in taiwanese version). in fact it is his curosity (why is she here like that) and sense of gentlemanly responsibility (she is here for me, she is in my room so she is under my protection) that initially brings them closer.also in actuality the girl is very girlie and not a tomboy which is why she constantly makes mistakes and the hero is left to help her out.the whole idea was completely bungled up in taiwanese version and did i mention my pet peeve...ella's odd face expressions(what was with them) and wu zun..he is cute , he can even sing but hell he needs to work on his acting.he reminds me of salman khan who has almost same base expression no matter what he is conveying.
    anyways i think i love the jdoramas the most (as long as i pick the right one)

Edited by pj04 - 15 June 2007 at 3:01pm

thanks soo much puja for all ur efforts into giving me suggestions!! i reallyy appreciate it. i dont noe.. whenever i go to the japanese section in dramawiki( a good site for all asian dramas) there are soo many of them.. also..since its soo short i always felt that characters wont be given enuf depth... and the story will just fly by only for the sake of entertainment. i like doing the analysis and going under a character's psyche, but if enuf of these characters is not portrayed then im pretty put off.. i need to force myself to continue.. like if u noe/have been watching hello! miss (new korean series which i started to watch coz of lee da hae) characters arent developed properly. that throws me off. i havent been able to finish the series.
Also ...rite now since its summer break..i want something lite hearted and happy and funny and preferably romance.. and jdorama i feel does not have enuf such series but since u have soo enthusiastically recommended these.. i will surely watch them!!

btw.. meteor garden.. oh lord! i have forced myself soo many times to watch it( my friend recommended it to me 2 years back and is still bonkers over it!) but i still havent watched it except maybe 2-3 scenes.. i noe the story.. but somehow i cant stand the barbie and the lead guy... altho i lovee vic..still... that show put me off.. and thats y i wasnt able to bring myself to watch the jdorama version. Also, i watched the anime for hana yori dango on youtube.. i skipped around a lot of scenes as i read the manga before...it was ehh-okay types.. so that was another reason to put off the jdorama...
BUT when u say to me that hana yori dango is muchhh better than MG and that it will even be like more than the die-hard fans of MG...comes as a VERY PLEASANT SURPRISE to me.. and now im excited to watch hana yori dango..!!!! THANKS SOO MUCH!!!!