I remember that day, three years ago, browsing back and forth between Instagram and Facebook, I was so bored out of my mind when I saw an article on Facebook, ‘Popular Korean dramas to watch’, they had 10 kdramas on the list with a small synopsis, and I read them all.
I decided to give ‘Boys over flowers’ a watch, just to see what the hype was about. If you’re a kdrama watcher (Is there any name for people like us?) Then you’ll have come across BOF, a classic.Boys over flowers
It’s a story about a girl, Ghum jan di getting into a elite high school and facing the leader of the elitist group F4 Gu Jun Pyo, leading to bullying, angst, comedy and romance. So yeah, I started watching the first episode on my computer and boy was I hooked! I stared at the screen and read each and every word of the English subtitle and slowly, a whole new world unveiled in front of me. I completed 8 episodes in one sitting and stopped only because my mom started yelling at me to study. But damn, that day started my love for Korean dramas and Lee Min Ho (the male lead)
I started browsing all of his kdramas and religiously watched each of them starting from ‘Personal Taste’ in which he acts as a gay man so that he could rent the female lead’s room. It’s a cute and funny romance, ‘Faith’ followed it and my obessession for him ended with the ‘Heirs’ drama. Heirs gave me the second lead syndrome (where you love the second lead more and root for them to get the girl)
The second lead was Kim Woo Bin. The moment Woo Bin entered the screen, I couldn’t take my eyes off him! He looked so evil and rude and cunning and hot! and his signature eyebrows. yes I said it, His evil looking eyebrows were hot. Yeah you can say I fell hard for the bad boy. Kim Woo Bin in heirs
And I haven’t stopped loving him since. I searched for his other dramas and loved his red haired look in ‘White Christmas’, a murder mystery kdrama about a group of students stuck at their boarding school for the holidays, with a killer on the loose. It’s quiet engaging and would 100% recommend if you want to watch something with minimum romance. But Kim Woo Bin was never the main lead in any of them, yet. Then came his first ever leading drama ‘Uncontrollably fond’ and I bawled my eyes out watching it, as he acts as a terminally ill hero. I am eagerly waiting now for a new drama of his. Meanwhile I watched his movie ‘Twenty’, which is about 3 friends in their twenties navigating through life. It’s light and funny romance, I recommend watching it when you are bored and would love a laugh.
Along the course of these three years, I watched many more Korean dramas and dabbled a little in Chinese dramas too (‘Lady and liar’, ‘Across the ocean to see you’) I must confess, I love the sound of Mandarin more than Hangul (Korean language). It’s more soothing to the ears, But Korean dramas will always have my heart.
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So now I’ve told how I fell into the amazing and whimsical rabbit hole that’s kdramas, I’ll tell what I like and dislike the most in them. Let’s dig deeper shall we?
What makes them so addicting, is the element of newness; the new Korean culture, the new faces that we see and fall in love with on screen. By having our biases (favorite Korean actors), the European standard of beauty, changes for us and we open up to finding beauty in East Asian features. Of course the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of South Korea is equally enticing, making us wish we could visit there atleast once.
There’s always new concepts that’s woven around a plot, be it a supernatural element or a psychological disorder. That doesn’t mean that, there’s no typical cliche romance or revenge plots at all, but there’s always other amazing stories to compensate.
But as I started watching more and more dramas, I’ve realized the lack of strong female leads in them. The male is, most of the time dominant while the female acts cute and stereotypical feminine. While there is nothing wrong in being more “feminine”, but after a certain amount of kdramas, the sexism gets boring.
But I did find a few good feminist romance among the classics like ‘Coffee Prince’, my first gender bender drama, where the girl pretends to be a boy to secure a job at the coffee shop owned by the guy. It was refreshing to see the male lead accept that he’s fallen for a guy and respects that feeling, as opposed to being homophobic.
Later as the show progresses, the female lead’s identity is revealed and the romance keeps blossoming. Coffee Prince did an amazing job at not falling into that stereotype and made the female lead pretty darn independent. After that, I started searching for drama with badass female leads and fell in love with Ha Ji Won in ‘King 2 hearts’ in which she is a North Korean special forces officer (pretty badass I must say) while the male lead is the prince of South Korean. While by the end of the drama she turned docile, which I prefer wouldn’t have happened, I still loved this Ass kicking heroine.
Her other drama, ‘Secret garden’, where she plays the role of a stunt woman while the hero is a Chaebol (a rich business man), revolves around them switching bodies! A concept that’s quite fun to watch. Her dramas are a must if you want romance between equally strong leads.
There should also be a limit to the amount of wrist grabbing and abrupt kissing that happen to the female leads, it’s not romantic. But now I’ve started seeing a change in our modern dramas where they are trying to balance the male/female power dynamics. ‘Weightlifting fairy Kim Bok Joo’ being one of the best lighthearted romance I’ve ever seen, where the female lead is a weight lifter and the male is a swimmer. The drama breaks stereotypes with such subtlety that’s pleasing to the eye. and the male lead, with his cute gestures and non domineering personality is a true boyfriend material.
Among others, ‘It’s okay that’s love’, ‘Strong woman Do Bong Soon’, ‘Descendents of the sun’ ‘Fight my way’ and the latest ‘Hyena’ are proofs of how script writers are now striving for a stronger no nonsense female leads and creative romance plots. As always, I can’t wait to watch them. So here’s to enjoying many more phenomenal kdramas to come!
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For the best kdrama recommendations, stay tuned for my next blog. Tah tah!
Lourdes Sheejo 