Korean dramas!

[Mrs. P]

So it turns out that there are at least two K-Drama fans in this forum -- CaroLiza_fan and I.

Anyway, thought it would be fun to start this thread and share some of our favorites!

My first drama was Boys over Flowers. Looking back it wasn't the most well-produced, but somehow the rags-to-rich storyline, the bromance between the F4 and some of the fun exotic locales got me hooked.

Sort of related to that is a drama called Cheongdamdong Alice , which is currently airing right now. It's a drama that plays on an Alice in Wonderland theme and it's about a woman in her late 20s. who tries to get into the richest neighborhood in Seoul, Cheongdamdong (which is part of the Gangnam area). It's full of hilarious characters, including the the guy who serves as the "White Rabbit," who clearly has mental issues, but a heart of gold.

 

[FTnoona]

I will say the only reason I continued watching BoF was b/c of the Soeul couple. I've seen both the Taiwanese and Japanese version, so watching it a third time was kinda eh..... Have you seen Gentlemen's Dignity? It's like F4 when they are 40 except it isn't as over the top
I loved Baker King Kim Tak Goo - Yoon Siyoon's character was awesome but the kid playing his characters younger self was really good too. At first I thought a drama about baking was going to be weird, but I'm happy I gave it a chance.
One of my fav was Secret Garden. Hyun Bin's character was hilarious. Now that I think about it the story was kinda similar to BoF. Rich guy falls in love with poor stunt actress. The side couple was great too. I would definitely recommend watching this drama if you haven't.

*Sorry in advance to any korean posters if i butcher names and such >.<

 

[Mrs. P]

I will say the only reason I continued watching BoF was b/c of the Soeul couple. I've seen both the Taiwanese and Japanese version, so watching it a third time was kinda eh..... Have you seen Gentlemen's Dignity? It's like F4 when they are 40 except it isn't as over the top
I loved Baker King Kim Tak Goo - Yoon Siyoon's character was awesome but the kid playing his characters younger self was really good too. At first I thought a drama about baking was going to be weird, but I'm happy I gave it a chance.
One of my fav was Secret Garden. Hyun Bin's character was hilarious. Now that I think about it the story was kinda similar to BoF. Rich guy falls in love with poor stunt actress. The side couple was great too. I would definitely recommend watching this drama if you haven't.

*Sorry in advance to any korean posters if i butcher names and such >.<

Ohhh. I loved the the So-Eul couple! (For those who don't know what FTnoona is talking about, she's referring to the second couple featured on the show, So Yi Jung and Chu Ga Eul.) Yeah, I heard it was a letdown if you seen the Japanese/Taiwanese version.

A bit of trivia: Gentlemen's Dignity and Secret Garden are from the same directing team/screenwriter. So, it's probably not surprising you liked both! I have not seen Secret Garden (heard a lot about it) but I loved Gentlemen's Dignity. I like the F44 a ton. And I just liked sort of the slice of life nature of the storyline as opposed to the company battles/love struggles we see with a lot of dramas.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Oh sure...and here I thought we were gonna hear about Yuna!
Chris who went SC skiing at his home near spokane today

 

[Mrs. P]

Oh sure...and here I thought we were gonna hear about Yuna!
Chris who went SC skiing at his home near spokane today

Hehe, Yuna gets reference in lots of dramas! ( In Boys over Flowers, the mother of the main character tells her that she needs to stop eating so much rice so she can be as pretty Yuna Kim. )

Also Yuna Kim sang her rendition of the song "Can you Hear Me," which was from the soundtrack of a drama called "Beethoven Virus": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFY8fhN7q54 (This is a duet with a famous singer named Taeyeon, who is from a well-known group called Girls Generation).
And here's her rendition of "If" from the drama Hong Gil Dong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz8nyYmWr3c

 

[DianaSelene]

Hehe, Yuna gets reference in lots of dramas! ( In Boys over Flowers, the mother of the main character tells her that she needs to stop eating so much rice so she can be as pretty Yuna Kim. )

Also Yuna Kim sang her rendition of the song "Can you Hear Me," which was from the soundtrack of a drama called "Beethoven Virus": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFY8fhN7q54 (This is a duet with a famous singer named Taeyeon, who is from a well-known group called Girls Generation).
And here's her rendition of "If" from the drama Hong Gil Dong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz8nyYmWr3c

Cool, I had not idea Kim sang.

 

[Olympia]

Oh, yes, she sings very well, in a pop style. There are lots of examples on YouTube.

Golly, I love this site. You can learn about everything on here. I've never heard of Korean Dramas, and they sound totally cool.

 

[Mrs. P]

Oh, yes, she sings very well, in a pop style. There are lots of examples on YouTube.

Golly, I love this site. You can learn about everything on here. I've never heard of Korean Dramas, and they sound totally cool.

They are addicting for sure.

Olympica, you can watch them here: www.dramafever.com. Basically two Korean-Americans teamed up to startup this streaming service in NYC. They do a lot of different dramas (including Japanese, Taiwanese and Telenovellas) but Korean dramas are their mainstay. They got the financial support of YouTube co-founder Steve Chen and then got a huge boost when they got an angel investment from AMC and Bertelsmann: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/amc-dramafever/

I actually am a premium member, and for $10 a month it's well worth it -- you get access to dramas on multiple devices, no ads, and HD picture quality.

The best part about Korean dramas is there's not a ton of commitment -- with the exception of a few dramas- most take a mini-series format with an average drama lasting on average 16 to 22 episodes. The worst part is after watching a bunch of them you may grow weary of some of the formulas/plot tricks (which ironically make them addicting in the first place).

Also another weakness is their crazy live shooting system. Basically it's not unusual for an episode to not finish filming and editing until HOURS before the episode is supposed to air. One thing that is driving this is the influence of internet postings. If a production team sees that fans like a certain plot line or character, they will literally change a script overnight to accommodate that demand. (It would be like a skater changing their FS based on our posts at Golden Skate!) This has created sleep deprived actors, dropped plot lines and a number of other problems. Here's a great blog post that explains this issue: http://www.dramabeans.com/2011/03/the-perils-of-the-live-shoot-drama-system/

That said, Korean dramas are quite fun to watch, flaws and all. I am a bit embarrassed to say that I've spent one too many late nights watching these dramas...as I said, they're addicting!

Other dramas you should checkout (they are all on Drama Fever):

King of Dramas - This drama is airing now. This is a super META drama as it goes through a production company's effort to develop, film and edit a successful drama. The main character is a formerly successful drama producer who reaches rock bottom and is now looking for a new drama to launch him back into drama riches.

Gaksital (or Bridal Mask)- Set in 1930s occupied Korea and tells the stored of a regular man who becomes the hero of Koreans when he dons a traditional Korean bridal mask and fights the injustice of their Japanese occupants. Obviously not a true story, but the historical context is pretty accurate. It's not a light drama, though.

Reply 1997 - A drama set in the late 1990s. The references might be lost if you do not know much about 1990s Korean pop culture, but I think most will find some nostalgia (especially with the technological references) in this drama. The strength of this drama is in the relationships between the different characters in particular the two main characters.

Flower Boy Raymen Shop - The main character, who is struggling to pass the teacher examination, ends up working at her father's Raymen shop and ends up falling for a man who is the hair to his father's food conglomerate. (Ironically his dad is trying to shut down the shop so he could build something new on it). I was always hungry after watching this show.

 

[FTnoona]

Another good site to watch dramas (korean, thai, japanese, chinese, taiwanese, etc) is viki.com
I think there is a free viki ap for you phone and you get HD quality for free. You can even use ad block on firefox to skip the annoying ads in the middle of your episode. The subtitles come in multiple languages too. Plus viki comes with entertaining comments by fans on the top of the screen that you can turn on and off
Once you watch one you might become addicted

 

[Olympia]

It's amazing that anyone is ever bored in this life. There's always something new to find out about and see.

I've seen bits of telenovelas. I think that like the Korean dramas, they are of limited duration, so you don't have to follow a plot for five years the way you do with the soaps. Makes so much more sense!

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Hey Mrs. P

I first started watching Korean dramas a few years ago on Arirang TV.

OK, so I admit that I first started watching Korean TV because I have always found Korean girls attractive (no prizes for guessing who it was that made me discover that… *cough* Kim Yu-Na *cough*!!!)

I was flicking through the channels at breakfast time one day, and came across a historical drama (“The Merchant of Joseon”). And I stopped to see what it was like.

And I have been hooked to the dramas ever since!

Although I have been watching both historical and modern dramas, I prefer the historical ones. There are probably 2 reasons for this. Firstly, history was always my favourite subject at school. Secondly, you get to see more of the Korean culture in the historical dramas. Life in modern Korea is just too similar to our own lives!

Here is a list of some of the dramas I have watched.

Historical dramas:

Jang Gil-san
Heo Jun
The Land

Modern dramas:

All In
Alone in Love
Dr. Gang
Franceska
Heaven's Fate
Love Truly
Lovers
Lovers In Paris
Queen of the Game
Something Special in My Life
Summer Beach
Super Rookie Ranger
Working Mom

There are more, but I am not very good at remembering the names! (For goodness sake, there is a drama set during the American War Of Independence that I watched when I was a youngster that I really enjoyed, and I have been trying to remember it’s name for years, but I can’t!) I can remember the storylines, but the names can sometimes escape me! Especially for those historical dramas that are named after the main characters.

For the past couple of years, it has been modern drama after modern drama, and I was getting fed up with all these love stories. I was really missing the historical dramas. But during the summer, Arirang finally started showing another historical drama, “The Land”. It’s still on, but I reckon that we are getting near the end of it. Put it like this, there are hardly any of the original characters still living!

Hehe, Yuna gets reference in lots of dramas! ( In Boys over Flowers, the mother of the main character tells her that she needs to stop eating so much rice so she can be as pretty Yuna Kim. )

You mentioned about a lot of dramas making reference to Yu-Na. One of the modern dramas I watched was about a fashion designer, and the company was called Yu-Na. Then, in another drama (I think it was a different one, anyway!), one of the characters was named after her. But they didn’t just call the character Yu-Na – they used her surname and all!

Can’t really imagine any other country making so many references to a figure skater, somehow!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[OS]

Wow didn't realise there are so many kdrama watchers here.

CaroLiza_fan:

If you are big fan of Korean historical drama, Dae Jang Geum aka "A jewel in the palace" is a total must seet!
It is the EPIC drama that started the Hallyu wave in Asia and then took it beyond. It will also makes you craving for Korean food. Watch it and you will see what I mean. IMO, nothing has surpassed it since even if we are almost an decade on.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409546/combined
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dae_Jang_Geum


Best drama last year: Nice Guy and Padam Padam
I highly recommend Nice Guy which epitomize the premise of Drama in Kdrama from one of the its best writers.
Nicely acted and put together and is a total nail biter.

The same writer also wrote Sorry I love you which another must see.
(Yeah they all have weird titles, but the meaning is understandable once you seen the drama)

 

[Mrs. P]

Best drama last year: Nice Guy and Padam Padam
I highly recommend Nice Guy which epitomize the premise of Drama in Kdrama from one of the its best writers.
Nicely acted and put together and is a total nail biter.

The same writer also wrote Sorry I love you which another must see.
(Yeah they all have weird titles, but the meaning is understandable once you seen the drama)

I also enjoyed Nice Guy. Great acting by all the actors and the writer did a great job in character development. I was dreading that the female lead was going to deal with amnesia, which is one of those K-Drama cliche plot devices, but this drama actually did a good job incorporating it into the story line and it actually played a key role in the development of the two leads.

I like the writer didn't also make the villain a straight villain, but a person dealing with lots of different internal conflicts.

I'm currently going through "Will it Snow for Christmas," which is the last drama by the same writer. You can really catch this writer's style after watching a couple of her dramas. I like she doesn't just focus on the leads in the dramas, but develops strong storylines for the secondary characters as well. (Also it's worth noting the actor who was the lead in Nice Guy (Song Joong Ki) has a small, but important, role in this drama as well). And again in this drama, "the villain" is not strictly a bad guy, but rather a foil for the male lead.

Finally, if you want to see more of Song Joong Ki, he was recently in a music video and his acting is spot on. The story is actually sort of sad; I know I shed a tear or two when I first watched it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eVFXT9eIw

 

[OS]

I also enjoyed Nice Guy. Great acting by all the actors and the writer did a great job in character development. I was dreading that the female lead was going to deal with amnesia, which is one of those K-Drama cliche plot devices, but this drama actually did a good job incorporating it into the story line and it actually played a key role in the development of the two leads.

I like the writer didn't also make the villain a straight villain, but a person dealing with lots of different internal conflicts.

I'm currently going through "Will it Snow for Christmas," which is the last drama by the same writer. You can really catch this writer's style after watching a couple of her dramas. I like she doesn't just focus on the leads in the dramas, but develops strong storylines for the secondary characters as well. (Also it's worth noting the actor who was the lead in Nice Guy (Song Joong Ki) has a small, but important, role in this drama as well). And again in this drama, "the villain" is not strictly a bad guy, but rather a foil for the male lead.

Finally, if you want to see more of Song Joong Ki, he was recently in a music video and his acting is spot on. The story is actually sort of sad; I know I shed a tear or two when I first watched it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eVFXT9eIw

Hehe yeah WISFC is actually one of my sentimental fav, I love the Child actors too!! Unfortunately that 2nd half suffered from typical problems of Korean drama too. It is a flawed gem for me. Have you seen Thank you? Another great drama by the same writer and I love the music in that one too. Mrs.P are you watching it with English subtitles?

 

[Tonichelle]

by "dramas" are we talking US equivilent of soaps or primetime?

 

[Mrs. P]

by "dramas" are we talking US equivilent of soaps or primetime?

Korean dramas are aired in primetime. There are a few different types of dramas. The most common ones are in a miniseries format with 16 to 22 episodes on average (though some dramas can go up to 50 to 100 episodes). These dramas generally are aired twice a week (Monday + Tuesday; Wednesday + Thursday and Saturday + Sunday) usually around the 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. hour. Each episode is an hour long (commercials, I believe, are run in between shows; plus these shows tend to have a heavy amount of product placement.)

There are also dramas called "daily dramas," which would be the equivalent of soap operas (though they don't necessarily have the same over the top plot lines; they're likely more similar to longer-term prime time shows here in the US).

Another good site to watch dramas (korean, thai, japanese, chinese, taiwanese, etc) is viki.com
I think there is a free viki ap for you phone and you get HD quality for free. You can even use ad block on firefox to skip the annoying ads in the middle of your episode. The subtitles come in multiple languages too. Plus viki comes with entertaining comments by fans on the top of the screen that you can turn on and off
Once you watch one you might become addicted

I like Viki.com as well. It's really neat because basically people contribute to the content of the site, namely by providing subtitles in different languages (as FTNoona noted). I think the name Viki is a combination of "Video" and "Wiki" I do appreciate both these companies making a bonafide effort to get the rights from the broadcasting companies, so while it's nice to see things for free, I don't mind letting the ads air on viki (or pay for premium on drama fever) cause I know it allows these startups to propser and give us access to all this incredible content we didn't have access to 5 years ago.

Hehe yeah WISFC is actually one of my sentimental fav, I love the Child actors too!! Unfortunately that 2nd half suffered from typical problems of Korean drama too. It is a flawed gem for me. Have you seen Thank you? Another great drama by the same writer and I love the music in that one too. Mrs.P are you watching it with English subtitles?

yes os168, I too love hte child actors. To be honest, I'm not super impressed with the female lead (the grown-up one). She's not terrible, but compared to the male lead and his foil, she falls quite short. i did hear that the drama falls apart a bit in the second half. I heard Thank You is quite good, it's on my list.

Yes, Dramafever offers English subtitles! Although I find myself picking up a bit of the Korean as I watch more of them.

 

[Mrs. P]

Hey Mrs. P

I first started watching Korean dramas a few years ago on Arirang TV.

OK, so I admit that I first started watching Korean TV because I have always found Korean girls attractive (no prizes for guessing who it was that made me discover that… *cough* Kim Yu-Na *cough*!!!)

I was flicking through the channels at breakfast time one day, and came across a historical drama (“The Merchant of Joseon”). And I stopped to see what it was like.

And I have been hooked to the dramas ever since!

Although I have been watching both historical and modern dramas, I prefer the historical ones. There are probably 2 reasons for this. Firstly, history was always my favourite subject at school. Secondly, you get to see more of the Korean culture in the historical dramas. Life in modern Korea is just too similar to our own lives!

Here is a list of some of the dramas I have watched.

Historical dramas:

Jang Gil-san
Heo Jun
The Land

Modern dramas:

All In
Alone in Love
Dr. Gang
Franceska
Heaven's Fate
Love Truly
Lovers
Lovers In Paris
Queen of the Game
Something Special in My Life
Summer Beach
Super Rookie Ranger
Working Mom

There are more, but I am not very good at remembering the names! (For goodness sake, there is a drama set during the American War Of Independence that I watched when I was a youngster that I really enjoyed, and I have been trying to remember it’s name for years, but I can’t!) I can remember the storylines, but the names can sometimes escape me! Especially for those historical dramas that are named after the main characters.

Wow, I'll have to check those dramas out! Yes, the dramas, modern ones in particular, can fall into a few tired plot line namely: birth secrets, corporate struggle (in the context of chaebol, which is a basically a family-owned corporation/conglomerate. , something that is pretty foreign in the U.S.), amnesia, noble idioticy (namely one of the leads acting stupid for the sake of being "noble" to the one he or she loves), etc. etc. Also if you think product placement in U.S. shows is bad, it's downright crazy in Korean Dramas. There was one drama where Vitamin Water was a sponsor and there was a scene where the male lead opens the fridge stocked with Vitamin Water. LOL. The historical ones do tend to not go there and tend to show more of the Korean culture. ( I am always curious what sponsors for period-era dramas get...Gakistal, the drama aired in 1930s occupied Korea had a fried chicken restaurant as one of its sponsors -- can't exactly have period characters eating at a modern-day fried chicken chain!).

I don't know if I would agree that you couldn't green any insight on Korean culture from the modern-day dramas. I think it's harder because on the outside Koreans seem quite westernized, but I think if you look carefully you can see Korean cultural nuances. Cheongdamdong Alice, the drama I talked about earlier, actually has a lot on the materialism/looks-oriented issues facing modern Korean society. Status is very important in Korea, and I feel this drama really shows that in action.

 

[pitterpatter]

Wow, I used to watch these all the time!

I haven't watched very many in recent years, but I did watch Secret Garden and second whoever recommended it - it's hilarious, and the main actors are great. I also watched most of You're Beautiful and enjoyed that, as well as Dream High (only watch season 1! I couldn't watch season 2 past the second episode). Older favourites include Coffee Prince, Goong, and Full House.

I prefer the original Taiwanese version of Boys Over Flowers over the Japanese and Korean versions, but I was introduced to Lee Min Ho through that drama and he's done some great work since. I haven't watched it myself, but apparently City Hunter is very very good.

 

[MiRé]

omg. you HAVE to watch these.........
* Sungkyunkwan scandal (historic background themed drama!)
* Iris (Kind of like sci-fi mysterious)
* My girlfriend is a nine-tailed fox (Corny, but adorable to watch)
* Sign (Drama created from Autopsy containing love, friendship, etc)
* YuRyung(Ghost) (Same director from Sign, but this time it's about friendship and love background with hacking computers)

 

[Mrs. P]

Wow, I used to watch these all the time!

I haven't watched very many in recent years, but I did watch Secret Garden and second whoever recommended it - it's hilarious, and the main actors are great. I also watched most of You're Beautiful and enjoyed that, as well as Dream High (only watch season 1! I couldn't watch season 2 past the second episode). Older favourites include Coffee Prince, Goong, and Full House.

I prefer the original Taiwanese version of Boys Over Flowers over the Japanese and Korean versions, but I was introduced to Lee Min Ho through that drama and he's done some great work since. I haven't watched it myself, but apparently City Hunter is very very good.

City Hunter is quite good! I tried to watch his newest drama, Faith, which is sort of a time-traveling medical drama, but I couldn't get through it. The plotlines were a bit too complicated. I think I could get back to it, but I have a lot of other dramas I'm watching and only so much time to watch them. (For the record, I'm currently actively watching four dramas: "King of Dramas" "I Miss You" "Cheongdamdong Alice" and "Will it Snow for Christmas" I'm further along on some than others due to the fact that if you tried to watch them in real time (though Will it Snow is an 2010 drama, so I can watch it at any pace), that would mean committing 8 hours a week! That's a whole work day. As a result, I tend to not watch them as they are aired.)

Full House has a new season that was just completed! I haven't seen it, but inclined to because the male lead was in Gaksital, which you all know that I absolutely loved!