Lost in Translation indeed

So Lost is another J.J. Abrams show, which makes me a little nervous. Both Felicity and Alias were excellent their first seasons, but then they went downhill pretty soon after that. Lost is doing really well right now. It's fresh and interesting and the large, diverse cast isn't hindering it all. I like slow revelation of the characters with the flashbacks, and since well, they're stuck on a tropical island, it's not like there need to be THAT much plot development. I'm not sure how long this can go on though...the formula is going to get old. And seriously, I cannot go that long without knowing what exactly what the heck Kate did to be escorted by an armed Federal Marshal.

Anyway, one of the more intriguing things about this show is that there are two Korean characters played by (gasp!) Korean actors. Daniel Dae Kim I know from Angel and 24, both English speaking parts, and I was kind of skeptical of his character speaking only Korean on this show. And in the beginning, I thought his Korean was pretty bad. I mean, he claims to have a Pusan accent, and sure, maybe that was part of it, but his speaking was so stilted and unnatural and I don't think that really had to do with an accent. But because of the ensemble nature of the show, he doesn't really have that many lines week to week, so it wasn't too annoying. This week's episode was a Jin-centered (his character), though, and I think he's improved a lot. His co-star, Yunjin Kim, speaks fluent Korean (she's a popular actress in Korea even though she grew up in the States) and she's definitely helped him out. Her character (Sun) speaks English too though...her acting in both languages is really good.

I'm not fluent in Korean by any means, but I can understand a good amount, and it's a bit strange. Most of their lines are subtitled, but some aren't...in that case, I assume the writers didn't want the viewers to know what they were saying or maybe it was just irrelevant, but I understood, so...yeah. I almost feel like I have some like inside knowledge I'm not supposed to have. (The hardcore fans will go so far as to get translations for the unsubtitled lines anyway.)

Another funny thing is that while I was Korea this winter, I noticed that Lost was being aired there. Which makes sense because of Yunjin Kim...but the entire episode was dubbed. But of course they didn't need to dub Jin and Sun. So...all the normally English-speaking characters are dubbed in Korean and Jin and Sun are speaking Korean but they're not supposed to understand eachother? And with Sun switching between Korean and English...even more confusing! A scenario in this week's episode: Sun is speaking Korean. Then she switches to English, and that gets dubbed. Then another character is like "You speak English??" but that's dubbed in Korean! How strange is that?? Haha, I mean, I'm sure that the viewers in Korea won't have a problem understanding what's going on, but yeah...it's still strange!

Oh, and I'm kind of bothered about their characters just being called Jin and Sun. I don't know very many Korean people that would go by just the first character of their given name, and it was revealed in this episode that Jin's full given name is Jinsoo. Which isn't that hard to say or remember...definitely not harder than Sayid. Oh, well...