My K-Drama Journey
BRIEF REVIEWS OF THE SHOWS I’VE SEEN, LISTED SEQUENTIALLY
It started with Extraordinary Attorney Woo. With every show, I found characters I loved and storylines that were brilliantly conceived.
Woo Young-woo is an autistic female rookie attorney hired by a major law firm in Seoul. Park Sun-bin, in the title role, is absolutely fantastic. Each of the 16 episodes largely stands on its own, focusing on a legal case that Woo tackles in her own brilliant and extraordinary way.
An office drama about Kang Hyo-min, a rookie lawyer at Yullim Law Firm, who is upright and confident but awkward in social life. With the help of her partner, the cold but experienced and talented lawyer Yoon Seok-hoon, she flourishes into a full-fledged lawyer. Episode 5, dealing with a potentially forged painting, is magnificent. The relationship between these two characters nicely evolves to a point where you’re certain a second season is coming.
Cho Seung-woo plays Shin Sung-han, a professor at a music college in Germany until he receives shocking news, and consequently becomes a lawyer specializing in divorce litigation. This 12-episode series has a wonderful ensemble cast of characters that I came to love immediately.
Probably the best I’ve yet seen. This 16-episode series tells the magnificent story of a successful entrepreneur from South Korea who accidentally finds herself in North Korea. The story is intricately woven with side stories and a cast of characters who (for the most part) you’ll love. Just when you think you know where this story is going, you don’t.
I’m not into ‘fantasy’ or ‘mystical’ themes that much; there were things I didn’t really ‘get’ while watching this one. Nonetheless, this 30-part series captivated me as the episodes progressed. There were characters I really liked (and would have noodles with), and one villain I despised. Set in a fictional country called Daeho, I would have liked to have seen a map of the various locations. It was somewhat difficult for me to understand who was from where, and the distances between the cities.