My K-Drama Journey
BRIEF REVIEWS OF THE SHOWS I’VE SEEN, LISTED SEQUENTIALLY
the journey started with Extraordinary Attorney Woo.
k-drama fans call this journey a ‘rabbit hole,’ and i’m here for it!
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.
A young school girl (Moon Dong-eun, played by Song Hye-kyo) is physically tortured by older classmates and then plots revenge against them…one girl in particular…nearly two decades later. The girl is aided in her plot by others (including Joo Yeo-jeong, played by Lim Dong-hyun). The intricate and strategic board game GO is used as a plot device by Moon as she plots against her tormenters. This series was rather difficult to watch, with characters who were largely unlikeable to a greater or lesser degree. The performances, while all very good, couldn’t overcome a sad story overall.
I simply could get no traction with this and gave up after Ep. 9. A meandering, somewhat disjointed story involving two young adults growing up in a seaside fishing village, where commerce is measured in abalone and conches.
I would have preferred a more ‘linear’ approach to the storytelling. Instead, there was no continuity. Moving from one episode to the next felt like watching a whole different show.
After laboring to reach the halfway point of the 16-episode ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines,’ I decided to tackle a show much shorter than that. ‘CA$HERO’ is only eight episodes long and it tells the story of three superheroes, each with unique strengths.
One of them—our protagonist—becomes powerful in the midst of money (‘CA$HERO’); another gets his through consuming alcohol; the third gets her strength from chowing down on carbohydrates. There are villains, obviously, who are trying to extract these powers for nefarious purposes.
‘CA$HERO’ isn’t award-winning stuff, and the characters aren’t the kind you’d necessarily pick as friends. Nonetheless, it’s light, fanciful fun where good versus evil goes the way you’d want it to.
Let’s start with the negatives: People in this romantic drama eat porridge. A lot. There are characters we see at the beginning but never again across 14 episodes. Our male lead is trapped in a burning building before exiting without a smudge or a hair out of place.
HOWEVER…it’s a great story (and a humorous one) about a woman of modest means who becomes the target of two suitors. Of course, they duel in all sorts of ways to win her affections. Who will win??? It’s not a new story, but is very well done. Layered on top of this is another plot line having to do with a billion-dollar, family-owned baby products company where infighting runs rampant.
I liked ‘Dynamite Kiss’ enough to give it a solid four stars.
The story is a familiar one: boy and girl meet while in summer school, where they’re both placed due to family difficulties. They fall in love, but by age 19 go in different paths. ‘Still Shining’ explores how these two young adults break up while making clear that reuniting isn’t a simple thing. It’s a 'first love’ story, but it evolves into an ‘only love’ one across ten episodes.
I thought it was very well done, and it definitely moves in different directions than you’d otherwise expect. The episodes are mostly linear, but occasional flashbacks shed light on the reasons for present-day complications.
Joo Ho-jin is a genius who speaks eight languages but doesn't understand people. He lives by logic, staying far away from anything as messy as romance. Ho-jin first encounters Cha Mu-hee in Japan when she is still an unknown actress. Mu-hee rises to global stardom after her breakout role as Do Ra-mi in a hit zombie film. The two are reunited during an international interview where Ho-jin serves as her interpreter. His predictablele life changes when he takes a job as an interpreter on a global dating show, Romantic Trip, featuring Mu-hee and a Japanese actor named Hiro Kurosawa. As they travel the world, Ho-jin realizes his biggest challenge isn't the foreign languages. Instead, he has to make sense of Mu-hee's complicated feelings and the painful secrets she is hiding.
Well done, especially the first four and last four episodes. The middle four were a bit difficult to get through.
Sold Out On You tells a great, interwoven story about two businesses: Television home shopping, and cosmetics. I learned about what goes into both, and it was fascinating.
Dam Ye-jin is a rising host at HIT Homeshopping, but she suffers from insomnia because of her meticulous round-the-clock research on the products she pitches. In the home shopping industry, big money is found in cosmetics. Matthew Lee is a young farmer in a small village who cultivates white-flowered mushrooms as a raw material for high-end cosmetics.
Ye-Jin and Lee have had major, career-crushing events happen to them. And what brings them together is a search for absolution.
I loved Sold Out On You. The plot lines were terrific and the acting was top-notch.
I absolutely LOVED this one! A terrific 12-episode show about a rising-star judge who gets falsely accused of taking a bribe and is stripped of his role. He is ‘rescued’ by the CEO at a prestigious Seoul law firm, who gives him the menial task of heading up a group of pro bono lawyers at the firm. He is told that he’ll win his judgeship back if he can win 70% of the cases his team tackles.
Outstanding performances by the cast, and a storyline that is engaging, thought-provoking, and humorous at just the right moments.
Pro Bono ends with a promise of a second season, and I’m so thrilled to see that!
This was a phenomenal series, recommended to me by my sister. To describe the plot would give too much away, but at its core the story revolves around a mother and her son who are both given a second chance to remedy past regrets.
Having watched a good number of these K-Dramas, a recurring plot device is to have a main story supplemented by a cast of characters in a nearby village. It’s not quite right to call these people ‘village idiots,’ because they add humor and poignancy to the overall story. The Good Bad Mother, true to form, has one of these villages. It also has a little white pig that plays a supporting role…at least during the opening credits of each episode.
One other thing that impressed me about this series was the storyline; it was very involved. There were eye-opening twists throughout, which you’ll come to identify as you watch. A hearty ‘Thumbs Up’ for The Good Bad Mother.