It's been quite a long time since I last updated this blog. And on this occasion, I'm going to share what I've been up to lately.
During my holiday, I've been following some Turkish series. As you guys may have known, I'm a fan of Korean stuff and that's including Korean dramas (although I don't watch dramas often now). The obvious difference between Turkish series and Korean dramas is the amount of episodes they have. Most Turkish series have longer episodes than Korean dramas. Some of them even have season 2 or more which each season consists of at least 20 episodes or more.
I haven't watched that many Turkish series. Sometimes, I stop watching it midway due to the episodes being too long (they have approximately 2 hours duration for every episode) and the storylines are getting boring. The only two series that I really like are Paramparça (Broken Pieces) and Afili Aşk. Though, I have no idea what's the exact english title for the second one, but this series owns a special place in my heart!
It is a story about Ayşe Ozkayali, a girl who came from a lower-middle class family and had 2 older brothers which one of them was hot-headed and very strict, and Kerem Yigiter, a rich womanizer who always made it to the news headline whenever he hung out with different girls.
Ayşe worked in a garment company owned by the Yigiter family. Though, they hadn't known each other, Muhsin Yigiter, Kerem's dad, had known Ayşe and her family due to the fact that she was his late friend's daughter. It was actually Ayşe who first saw Kerem. The Yigiter family had an appointment with a journalist for a tour of their company buildings, the headquarter and the manufacturing section. Kerem was late to join them and the situation got worse when suddenly the girl he slept with last night came and yelled for his name because apparently, he left her just like that this early morning. It became the the talk of the company.
Muhsin baba invited that girl to have a talk and as always, he found his son was at guilt. He demanded Kerem to replace the sick manager here for a while instead of going back to work in the headquarter as a punishment—therefore, making him the boss of Ayşe. Being a womanizer as he was, he asked her out and asked for her name right at the very first time he noticed her existence during a lunch break. Uh-oh, Kerem. But she wasn't buying it and instead, went to have a lunch with her... uh, lover? Yes, Ayşe had a 'boyfriend' called Berk and he was surprisingly quite well-off. Though, she made some kind of boundaries with him because as I said before, her brother was strict. No hugging, no kissing.
Ayşe also had an admirer called Sabri, a rich geeky boy in her neighborhood, but Ayşe never had any interest in him. One day, Sabri asked his father to meet with Ayşe's brothers to ask her for a marriage. Finding that out, Ayşe definitely refused to do it. Well, duh, it's 21st century, who even still do an arranged marriage? Unfortunately, her brother never accepted 'no', especially if it had to do with his sister.
The next thing that happened, she ran away on the engagement night. She was going to her friend's house but what she found there was very surprising. She found Berk half-naked inside. She was betrayed by her 'boyfriend' and 'best friend'. Woah, what a worst night you had, Ayşe. There was no place to go other than the company, so there she went.
On the other side of the town, Kerem was having dinner with his family. It felt boring, moreover, it seemed like his dad was still mad at him. He decided to leave and told them that there was something urgent at the office. Yep, you could guess yourself of what would happen next.
He met Ayşe again. No, he wouldn't be teasing her again this time. He noticed that she seemed quite gloomy and instead, asked her if she would talk to him about her problems.
It seems like a good start, right? Not until her brothers came and accused Kerem of kidnapping their sister. They threatened him to burn the office if they wouldn't come out of there. Kerem told them to calm down and let Ayşe explain of what actually happened between them. This was what she told them:
"Kerem and I love each other very much. We've known each other for a long time and no one can separate us, not until we die."
Kerem's reaction was right exactly like the gif above. He fainted.
Fascinating enough, right? I actually hide some important details from episode one. The first episode is much more interesting.
What I like about this series: Good plot and lots of funny scenes. Kerem’s goofy personality always brings us to laugh. And how the idea of two people with different personalities try to adjust with each other through a fake marriage just blows my mind away. This is the kind of genre that I really like. Romance-comedy. Yeah, I don’t really like watching something complicated. I like something light or something that can make me at ease and have fun while watching it.
The unfortunate thing about this series is that if you're used to watch korean, chinese, or japanese dramas which already have large fanbases and people who are willing to translate the whole series so the international fans can watch it as well, Afili Aşk (or perhaps some other turkish series too) does not. Some turkish series do not provide grammatically correct english subtitles. Tho, if you're that good at english, maybe you'll still able to understand it.
Last but not least, I must admit turkish series do have a good cinematography, almost as good as american series. xx
