Thursday, June 20, 2013

Review: We Got Married Global Edition

Happy Thursday! 

Are you a fan of We Got Married? I am! I have been watching this show since Season 1 (2008) and although I don't like and watch every couple, I still enjoyed seeing the show. It is currently on its 4th season and although I love the new concept of a WGM Village, this season have been hit hard because of controversies and stuff so the first 3 couples were changed consecutively and replaced with new ones. MBC then tried their hand to make an international We Got Married (because there are a lot of foreign fans) so they created a Global Version wherein they made couples from Korea, Taiwan and Japan and it gets aired to many countries through the cable channels. Locally, it is aired through Animax but since I don't have an Animax channel in our cable subscription I just watched it online at WonderfulGeneration :)

THE COUPLES

Ok Taecyeon - rapper of Korean group 2PM (24y/o)
Gui Gui / Emma Wu - an actress from Taiwan (23y/o)

Lee Hong Ki - lead singer of Korean band FT Island (23y/o)
Fujii Mina - an actress from Japan (24y/o)


MY THOUGHTS:

I actually liked the concept of pairing a Korean singer and an actress from another country because it gave more dimension and opportunities for a story. They have different culture, working environment and views so you can really see how they adjust with each other. I also liked the fact that both couples were of marrying age because that's sometimes the problem with the Korean WGM -- They pair up very young idols (20-21 y/o) so it's not really realistic and viewers see them as "dating" instead of "married" which is what the show is supposed to be about. Anyway, there's no problem with the maturity too and viewers can enjoy the scenes without any awkward situations regarding skinship between the couple. They actually looked relaxed with each other and they progressed naturally throughout the episodes. The difference in language is also interesting to watch. Taecyeon and Gui Gui usually talks in English while Hong Ki and Mina talks in Korean and Japanese since both know how. The locations shown were also awesome! They were so beautiful and postcard perfect which added a more romantic feel to everything. Perfect backdrop :)

I only have two gripes about this Global Edition of We Got Married:
(1) This feels so scripted compared to the Korean version. Every scene and action lacks emotions and it felt forced. It's like the director said we should do this so I'll do this and your reaction will be this...that kind of feeling, you know what I mean? I guess because they don't meet regularly (like in the Korean version where they meet 2x a week to shoot) and doesn't communicate outside of shooting (they live in different countries), they lack the real feeling and it shows during filming. The language barrier, I believe, is a factor too which is very evident with Taecyeon and Gui Gui. Her English is not that good and she doesn't understand Korean that well so Taecyeon needs to talk very slowly in English as if talking to a kid. It made their relationship more like a father-daughter haha.

(2) This whole show is like one big advertisement for Samsung LOL! Really! After only one episode, I noticed it already and as I watch the following episodes it got more obvious. The cellphones are Galaxy Note 2, they uses Galaxy 10.1 tablets, they use smart TV and the most used is the galaxy camera and printer. It's like they kept on advertising every latest gadget Samsung is offering in the market.They even show and talk about the features of each gadget :(


OVER-ALL RATING: 3.5/5



I love the concept and the places shown but I still prefer the original We Got Married because this felt so scripted and there's too much screen time spent on promoting Samsung products. I started watching this for Taecyeon but I liked to watch Fujii Mina now because she and Hongki gives a more realistic couple feeling.


If you want to watch English Subbed episodes of We Got Married Global, just click the links below. Enjoy! :) 



Thanks for dropping by!




2 comments:

JA said...

That's true.
But because I want to enjoy the show, I didn't mind it that much. haha.
But I feel that Taecyeon must be the most fake among the 4. LOL! XD

Crystal Gale said...

So agree with you. Taecyeon feels like he's really faking it haha. No other way to see it so I switched to the Fujii Mina couple. I still watch the show though :)