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Drama Recs #15
Still hanging in there (with the help of dramas), only two and a half weeks left... so here's some recs from the last couple of months.
1. The Atypical Family: The Bok family has superpowers – or rather had, considering they lost them due to their various personal problems and hang-ups. Then Do Da-hae enters their lives and starts bringing them back, but her motives may not be as selfless as they first appear… a really good series, all in all! The central romance is good and all, but I especially enjoyed some of the female minor characters, like Grace (who would do anything for money), shy and cute Bok I-na and Bok Dong-hee, who is a lot more than the comic relief she first serves as. I also liked how everything came together in the end, which isn’t always easy to pull of with time-travel-ish shenanigans.
2. Black Out: On the night of his college entrance exams, Jeong-woo got black out drunk. The next morning, he’s arrested for the murder of two of his friends, but he’s got no memory of the night before. Ten years later, fresh out of prison, he returns to his home town hoping to find answers… I really love the tension and the main characters in this one. Jeong-woo and newly reassigned detective No Sang-cheol make a great (if at first somewhat reluctant) team, and it’s just incredibly engrossing to watch the village of Mucheon and its people slowly fall apart as the dominoes begin to fall with Jeong-woo’s arrival.
3. The Kidnapping Day: When Kim Myeong-jun’s daughter is in dire need of expensive medical treatment, he caves to his ex’s demands that he kidnap the daughter of a rich couple – only the couple turn out to be dead when he calls for ransom and the daughter has amnesia… I really love this drama for the relationship between Myeong-jun and his kidnapping victim Ro-hee, who might be eleven, but by episode three she’s the one ordering him around. It reaches the point where not even the workaholic cop (played by an excellent Park Sung-hoon) chasing after them believes Myeong-jun is quite as bad as he’s made out to be. It helps that the drama is only 12 episodes long, so things don’t get dragged out too much.
4. My Dearest: In a time of peace and prosperity in Joseon, avowed misogamist Lee Jang-hyeon meets Yoon Gil-chae, who is very much in love with her father’s star pupil. They argue, sparks fly, but then the Qing invade… So, lots of BIG FEELINGS, drama and sometimes contrived obstacles to keep our hero and heroine apart, but that was just what I needed, and if that’s what you’re craving, this drama absolutely delivers. The two leads do a great job of conveying conflicted feelings, a mixture of love and resentment and generally just work very well together, which helps sell their complicated relationship and makes even their arguments a treat. Another positive for me was that the female main character started off quite obnoxious and self-centred, and that she grows throughout the series. I more used to seeing that with male protagonists.
5. What Comes After Love: Five years ago, Hong and Jungo met in Japan, fell in love and broke up despite it. Now, they meet again by chance, when Jungo travels to Korea, reopening old wounds… this is a very short drama at just six episodes, but it’s a wonderful story about love, how sometimes it’s not enough and how we can carry the wounds it causes forever. It is, of course, a romance, and in tone I’d say it hits the same buttons as One Spring Night for me. Bittersweet and fragile and real. There’s no overblown conflict or drama, but that’s what makes it all the more heart-wrenching for me – it’s quiet and the internal conflicts and blind spots of the characters very relatable.
1. The Atypical Family: The Bok family has superpowers – or rather had, considering they lost them due to their various personal problems and hang-ups. Then Do Da-hae enters their lives and starts bringing them back, but her motives may not be as selfless as they first appear… a really good series, all in all! The central romance is good and all, but I especially enjoyed some of the female minor characters, like Grace (who would do anything for money), shy and cute Bok I-na and Bok Dong-hee, who is a lot more than the comic relief she first serves as. I also liked how everything came together in the end, which isn’t always easy to pull of with time-travel-ish shenanigans.
2. Black Out: On the night of his college entrance exams, Jeong-woo got black out drunk. The next morning, he’s arrested for the murder of two of his friends, but he’s got no memory of the night before. Ten years later, fresh out of prison, he returns to his home town hoping to find answers… I really love the tension and the main characters in this one. Jeong-woo and newly reassigned detective No Sang-cheol make a great (if at first somewhat reluctant) team, and it’s just incredibly engrossing to watch the village of Mucheon and its people slowly fall apart as the dominoes begin to fall with Jeong-woo’s arrival.
3. The Kidnapping Day: When Kim Myeong-jun’s daughter is in dire need of expensive medical treatment, he caves to his ex’s demands that he kidnap the daughter of a rich couple – only the couple turn out to be dead when he calls for ransom and the daughter has amnesia… I really love this drama for the relationship between Myeong-jun and his kidnapping victim Ro-hee, who might be eleven, but by episode three she’s the one ordering him around. It reaches the point where not even the workaholic cop (played by an excellent Park Sung-hoon) chasing after them believes Myeong-jun is quite as bad as he’s made out to be. It helps that the drama is only 12 episodes long, so things don’t get dragged out too much.
4. My Dearest: In a time of peace and prosperity in Joseon, avowed misogamist Lee Jang-hyeon meets Yoon Gil-chae, who is very much in love with her father’s star pupil. They argue, sparks fly, but then the Qing invade… So, lots of BIG FEELINGS, drama and sometimes contrived obstacles to keep our hero and heroine apart, but that was just what I needed, and if that’s what you’re craving, this drama absolutely delivers. The two leads do a great job of conveying conflicted feelings, a mixture of love and resentment and generally just work very well together, which helps sell their complicated relationship and makes even their arguments a treat. Another positive for me was that the female main character started off quite obnoxious and self-centred, and that she grows throughout the series. I more used to seeing that with male protagonists.
5. What Comes After Love: Five years ago, Hong and Jungo met in Japan, fell in love and broke up despite it. Now, they meet again by chance, when Jungo travels to Korea, reopening old wounds… this is a very short drama at just six episodes, but it’s a wonderful story about love, how sometimes it’s not enough and how we can carry the wounds it causes forever. It is, of course, a romance, and in tone I’d say it hits the same buttons as One Spring Night for me. Bittersweet and fragile and real. There’s no overblown conflict or drama, but that’s what makes it all the more heart-wrenching for me – it’s quiet and the internal conflicts and blind spots of the characters very relatable.
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