[Article] City Conquest or TOC the Paradoxical Drama and Its Hero Paradoxical

By: aprilstarr

A paradox refers to a situation, event, views containing contradictions. The true paradox is that both opposing views will reconcile eventually. 

City Conquest, the manhwa still to be turned into a drama has become a paradox. It has started to be criticized even just hearing the news coming out in trickles : the main leads, the scriptwriter, the story itself and the lack of a broadcasting network (SBS ?). On the other hand, even without a single day of shooting, the drama was presold overseas to a record high of almost 11 billion won. Now if that is not a belief in KHJ power I don’t know what else is. 

The common denominator between the two opposite reactions to the drama is the interest the drama has generated. The business interest is understandable. Anything that has something to do with KHJ is like mining sure gold not mere speculations. On the other hand, the critics and their noises show they are watching intently KHJ news, otherwise why bother. Without fail, KHJ tirades direct or indirect sure brings in the blog traffic. 

What further feeds some of Kim hyun joong’s public and business attraction to him is his continuing presence in closely occuring activities as shown in the deluge of pictures : Fanmeets, Heat MV, Faceshop cocktails, Lotte Duty Free cocktails, the infamous online voting, soccer, the Heat single declared best selling by Towers even before it is released in Japan on July 4th and its promotion through a free concert.Perhaps there are more, only we get to know about them ipso facto. 

What makes the whole thing even more paradoxical is the man starring in the drama himself.They say he is not good to act in it but instead of being discouraged he continues to show acting is something learned like any other skill. The preparation is not something easy to do if one did not have prior background. Fighting, for example, like dancing is choreographed. This was shown in his recently released video though it is just the mini miniest portion of it (no spoilers this early). Fighting scenes whether in Sageuk dramas, war movies or contemporary dramas -sword fighting, martial arts,hand to hand combat, shooting arrows while riding the raging horses,getting blown up by landmines, getting shot by an assassin, mugged by gangsters -they are all meticuously planned and arranged. Even dying is choreographed.

Acting like any other skill gets better with practice. As they say practice makes perfect -so the more acting jobs he takes the more improvement will show like in PK. Nobody has any right to render irrevocable judgement on his acting more so on a drama still yet to be seen. 

If there are doubters , the more KHJ believes in himself -what he is capable of doing. The results are 2 A’s: amazing and awesome. Thus, the final paradox is arrived at – the soldier gets shot at but that makes him bolder and more courageous. KHJ goes All forward And Gung Ho! CC is just one more hurdle to win.