overthinkingkdrama

[overthinkingkdrama]

hii I'm not sure if you do recs, but I wanted to ask if you could recommend anything with a love triangle with a girl and a guy fighting over a girl/guy? instead of two guys fighting over a girl and vice versa. also not sure if kdrama really does this trope but wanted to ask anyway, tysm!!

So, I’ve spent some time thinking about this and I couldn’t really think of a good answer. I haven’t watched a lot of dramas that meet this criteria. And that’s largely because of the general handling of LGBT characters in Kdramas. But if I really twist my noodle I feel like I could come up with some stuff that might fit the bill or at least be close.

And PLEASE if any of my followers see this and want to reblog with their own recs or add them in the replies, I know both Nonnie and I would appreciate it.

So for the dramas I’ve seen that might qualify I would say Reply 1997 might qualify. Seo In Guk’s character has a crush on his long term female friend and his long term male friend has a crush on him. So I’m not sure that it quite fits what you’re looking for but it’s close. I consider Chicago Typewriter an OT3. In my opinion the drama kinda ends that way with the main three characters locked in a cycle of death and rebirth where the three of them are destined to be together. But that’s just my interpretation. Most people would probably read this as more of a typical two males one female love triangle. So, YMMV. For my money, My Country: The New Age qualifies, because both Hui Jae and Seon Ho are hopelessly and obviously in love with Hwi. But if we’re being honest everyone is in love with Hwi. Hwi is the sexiest. The drama makes some vague attempts to convince us that Seon Ho is actually in love with Hui Jae in the beginning but I don’t believe it and IMO neither to the show runners. But again, YMMV. I’m highly My Country-Pilled and my agenda is to get everyone to watch it. So take my recommendations with a grain of salt.

Beyond that, I think Sweet Munchies had a love triangle of the type you’re describing, but I didn’t watch it (and I heard it was pretty bad and in questionable taste, so do your own research). I also want to say I heard Ho Gu’s Love has a love triangle like this. I feel like I definitely read that somewhere, but I also haven’t seen this drama and it’s quite possible I completely fabricated this detail in my own mind.

Hope that helps, even though I realize it probably doesn’t.

Jona

#asks #answered #recommendations #love triangles #bi triangles #bi-angles?

[overthinkingkdrama]

my liberation notes and reductress headlines

#my liberation diary #kdrama #lol

[overthinkingkdrama]

Not my usual thing but I want to support my favorite brothers in their creative endeavors! They started a band called SGRNY (pronounced like “Sigourney”) and they just dropped their first EP!

https://open.spotify.com/album/0QwvK7Gj4HZbEKNJdOsfEx?si=fa31icv_SAK8tlHDjbxIRA

If you’re looking for some new music please check them out!

#SGRNY #music #band #not Kdrama stuff #misc #Spotify

[overthinkingkdrama]

Jona's Top 10 Dramas of 2021

Hello and welcome back. I'm as surprised as you are that this got done before the end of January.

It was really hard for me to identify a favorite of 2021. There were a lot of dramas that I enjoyed, but very few that distinguished themselves as new and indispensable favorites. 2021 was kind of a weird year for dramas. The landscape looks quite a bit different than it did in 2020. It's the year of Squid Game and streaming service originals. And not just the sort that aired on a cable stations and then Netflix slapped a logo on them.

Also, I know I said in the last list that my rule for what makes a 2021 drama is that it had to finish airing in 2021, and I'm immediately going to break that rule because (spoiler alert) The Red Sleeve is on this list. But I'm pretty sure that drama finished airing on New Year's Day just to annoy me, and if I don't go ahead and put it on this list and review it then there's a high likelihood it's never going to make it on a list at all. And I want to talk about so...

Alright, let's get back into it.

10. The Silent Sea

I was looking forward to The Silent Sea long before Squid Game was a twinkle in the public consciousness. It's not hard to understand why that is. Getting to see Bae Doo Na and Gong Yoo acting head to head in a high budget spaced-based thriller with (presumably) a nice dose of eerie horror was too delicious a prospect to pass up.

And yet, in the aftermath of the unexpected cult status of Squid Game, Silent Sea was almost inevitably going to hit differently and invite all kinds of narrow comparisons from Western commentators who have next no familiarity with either the actors involved or the state of Korean television over the past 3 years. Needless to say it was frustrating to see.

And yet, I spent my Christmas (snowed in with my parents) watching Silent Sea between bouts of food prep, and generally enjoying myself very much. It gave me the very briefest of glimpses of what it felt like to watch something completely isolated from public discourse, and a sense of warm, cozy isolation to contrast with the cold and inhospitable isolation of the characters. It was definitely the ideal watching situation.

In a better year for dramas, or even in a year where I got more watched than I did in 2021, The Silent Sea would probably not have made it to this list. It's a little bit too long for what it's trying to do (it probably would have worked better as a movie than a short run series) and ended up having to rely heavily on repeated flashbacks and quiet scenes that lasted far too long to pad out the run time. But the cast is exceptional, the plot was surprising in the right measure, and they managed to pull off the brand of space horror they were going for. It works well as a short binge.

9. Move to Heaven

Move to Heaven is the second Netflix exclusive drama on this list, and from what I could tell was generally well received by the fandom, with a overwhelmingly positive rating on MDL. I loved it as a meditation on family and mortality, and overall enjoyed the episodic format focused on getting to know the essential characters of the departed through the objects that they left behind.

The central conceit of a trauma cleaning service is very strong on its own, and adding on top of that a story of bonding between Le Je Hoon's Cho Sang Gu stepping in as the reluctant care-taker of the neurodivergent Gue Ru, after Gue Ru's father (Sang Gu's brother) suddenly passes away, the drama was well positioned to become an instant favorite for lovers of heartfelt, sentimental slice-of-life.

The highlight of the show for me was the gradual bonding of the highly intelligent and sensitive nephew and his ratty trash uncle. Lee Je Hoon is as usual wildly charismatic, and could probably have carried the whole show on his back if he wanted to. His character is also complex, comedic, absurd, and flawed in a way that made him a joy to watch.

Unfortunately, and the reason that MtH is showing up so low on my list, the show doesn't manage to balance all of its elements consistently throughout the run and the pacing becomes strained in the last leg. Very unnaturally, as though the drama was originally written as a limited run series and the potential for multiple seasons opened up very late in the creative process, the last episode almost feels like it is a part of a different show. It loses its urgency and grounded feeling, and the last moments blatantly pitching for a second season feel awkward and tonally dissonant.

8. The Devil Judge

Although I often asked for and even enjoy artful, naturalistic dramas with true-to-life human stories, deep down, if I'm honest with myself, what I really want is something absolutely bonkers that keeps me coming back to it week after week. I'll admit that I groaned inwardly when I saw that Ji Sung had signed on to play a judge. Yet another dry drama about the legal system, I thought to myself. And I decided that I probably wouldn't watch it. But gradually, as more posters and teasers were released for The Devil Judge I began to realize that what we were dealing with was a different breed of drama entirely.

The Devil Judge portrays a near-future dystopian Korea, trying to claw its way back from a deadly virus outbreak and widespread economic devastation. I don't blame anyone for tensing up immediately upon reading that description. It definitely hits a little too close to home. But the beauty of Devil Judge is the way it grabs that disquietingly familiar premise with both arms and runs sprinting with it off a cliff:

In order to combat what he sees as rampant unchecked injustice and return the power to punish evildoers to the disenfranchised populous, vigilante judge Kang Yo Han conceives and executes a real life courtroom drama by way of reality show. In Yo Han's court people can vote on the verdict through an app and the draconian sentence is then carried out for the enjoyment of the viewing public. It's crackerjack television, with every trial full of twists and turns each more lurid and sensational than the last.

Kang Yo Han fills the role of a sort of amoral Batman, complete with creepily vacant gothic mansion, disguised nighttime excursions to rain down kung fu justice on unsuspecting ne're-do-wells, and cat-and-mouse games with an extensive cast of larger-than-life comic book villains. And I'm not even really scratching the surface of the plot of this drama. Such as his extensive flirtation with junior judge Kim Ga On, his tragic backstory involving a church that was just begging to burn down, or the vast conspiracy of murder and political corruption he's attempting to dismantle. You're just going to have to watch it for yourself.

7. Dali and Gamjatang

I don't know that I'm particularly hard on romcoms, but I certainly seem to have a hard time finding romcoms that will hold my attention through the entire run. Perhaps it's because there are so many elements that have to be working in concert for me to remain invested. I need to like the leads and want to see them together, but I also need there to be adequate conflict not to get bored. All fluff and cuteness doesn't cut the mustard. That being said, if you dial up the angst and the miscommunication too high, there's always the risk of my losing sympathy with the characters and wandering off. I think the romcom is a deceptively simple genre. It's really easy to screw up the balance.

Luckily for me Dali and Gamjatang (or Dali and Cocky Prince) seems to have been written by someone who has opinions about romcoms just as strong or stronger than mine. It watches like the writer cut her teeth watching chaebol romances. The show is definitely a chaebol romance, but it also feels like a light critique of the genre. Both the leads start out the show as wealthy heirs (new money and old) and yet they are genuinely kind and likable individuals. The drama continually plays with class dynamics. Even the second male lead, played by Kwon Yool, feels like a pointed criticism of everything that makes jerk-ass chaebol leads detestable with all the paternalism and entitlement that entails. Every time I thought this drama was going to zig it zagged. Subverting my expectations once or twice is one thing, but managing to surprise me pleasantly throughout is something I always hope for and rarely get.

All that isn't to paint Dali and Gamjatang as some kind of highly intellectual exercise that you have to push your glasses down to the very end of your nose to enjoy. Mostly Dali is a sweet and hilarious romp, with both Kim Min Jae and Park Gyu Young showing a lot of appeal, chemistry and comedic versatility. I've had my eye on Gyu Young since It's Okay to Not Be Okay, but between Dali and Devil Judge it's clear that she's one to watch. Kim Min Jae, for his part, has clearly entered his leading man epoch. And there was much rejoicing.

6. Mr. Queen

To my great chagrin, I've been aware of Shin Hye Sun for some time now--I've watched large swath of her filmography almost by accident--but I've never really fallen in love with her until recently. It's not that I wasn't impressed with her. It was impossible not to be impressed with her when she's played a character like Young Eun Soo in the first season of Stranger or carried the heavy and heartbreaking Hymn of Death. But I suppose she really hadn't made her presence felt as one of my all time favorite female leads, simply because she hadn't yet made a drama that hit the exact intersection of my interests.

And then Mr. Queen came along, and I was justly clobbered for my oversight.

Mr. Queen is both a time-slip drama and a gender bender. It's a rollicking comedy and a fusion sageuk with some legitimately heavy elements. It is the story of Jang Bong Hwan, chef to the Blue House and incorrigible fuckboy, who falls off his apartment balcony into a swimming pool and wakes up to his ample horror in the Joseon era in the body of the queen.

Shin Hye Sun is legitimately so good in her dual role as both original-recipe Queen So Yong and extra crispy Bong Hwan that it really doesn't do to try to describe it. You just have to watch it for yourself. She embodies the role with so much energy, range and physical comedy it elevates the whole show. Kim Jung Hyun makes a wonderful counterpart as the hapless himbo, King Cheol Jong, and they have phenomenal chemistry both romantically and comedically, but Shin Hye Sun owns this drama.

It actually breaks my heart to have to put the drama down this low on the list, because up until the last episode it was on track to become an all time favorite of mine. But unfortunately I had to rate the show down dramatically because of the hasty and plot-hole-making no-homo ending the show runners pulled out in the 11th hour. Up until that point the sexual dynamics of this drama were as daring as they were irreverent. I guess tvN wasn't ready to stand by that. I'm not particularly surprised but I am bitterly disappointed nonetheless.

If you choose to watch the drama anyway, I recommend watching only the first 19 episodes and choosing to pretend--as I do--that for some reason those were the only episodes that made it to air.

5. Navillera

It feels like Song Kang has been nearly inescapable the last couple of years. Especially if you're watching dramas on Netflix, because he seems to be in every third one. I'm fairly indifferent to his meteoric rise. I neither stan nor dislike him. Whether or not you have an overall positive impression of him and his abilities probably largely depends on what you've seen him in. Personally, I quite enjoyed Sweet Home and was excited to see more of him after finishing it. I dropped Nevertheless--a drama which holds the dubious distinction of both making my skin crawl and boring me out of my skull--rather later than I should have trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But if you've managed to avoid him so far and you really want to see what Song Kang can do for you, then may I suggest you check out Navillera. Navillera is one of those "healing human dramas" that you watch when you're in the mood to cry a lot and have your heart warmed within an inch of your life. It follows the journey of Shim Deok Chul, a 70-year-old retiree who decides it's not too late for him to pursue his life long dream of dancing ballet on stage, and the grumpy 23-year-old ballerino with a hard home life who reluctantly ends up teaching him to dance.

A lot of people probably came into this show because of Song Kang's involvement, but undoubtedly Park In Hwan as Deok Chul is the star of the show. As soon as I saw harabeoji watching a performance of Swan Lake with such rapture and shining eyes, all I wanted was to for him learn to dance and achieve his dream. For me this drama was just comfort food for the soul, and I really enjoyed it and the whole extended cast.

4. The Red Sleeve

Since I finished The Red Sleeve earlier this month, I've been trying hard articulate my feelings about it. Every time I approach it, I feel like I can't quite get my arms around them, forget distilling them into a few pithy paragraphs for this list.

I'll start with the easy stuff: Lee Jun Ho and Lee Se Young could not have been more perfect. I've talked about it a bit elsewhere, but I genuinely think they left nothing that could be improved on here. This is one of those dramas where a lot is left unsaid, and must be conveyed through the nuance of the actors' performances alone. I can't think of anyone who could have pulled that off better than these two. The Red Sleeve is also a lot of what I want in a sageuk. A drama that focuses on the intricacies of palace life for the servant class, specifically for the ladies of the court. A drama that gives me big emotions, high stakes, messy feelings and no easy answers.

The Red Sleeve is also one of those shows that made me tremendously uncomfortable. In this case I don't mean that as a criticism. If anything it is one of the highest compliments I can pay it. But for the second half of this show, at least for me, this wasn't exactly an enjoyable watch. It left me conflicted and torn up my heart. San, while sympathetic and humanely portrayed by Jun Ho, was profoundly unlikable at times. Despite the seeming inevitability of their connection and their end, I frequently wished for Deok Im to run as far away from him as she could get and never look back.

This drama, overtly and subtextually, interrogates ideas of power and consent. It poses the question of whether consent is ever really possible, even between two people who love each other, when one party doesn't have the personal autonomy to say no. It draws into question the very possibility of love without freedom and what kind of responsibilities we have to ourselves above and in spite of the love we might feel for another person. It examines what types of freedom, of self-determination, can exist in a master-servant relationship. What it means to give yourself to someone. What it means to belong to someone, and what it means to belong to yourself.

I found it disquieting, thoughtful, and highly worth the watch.

3. Lost (aka Human Disqualification)

Rarely have I descended into such paroxysms of undignified fangirlish glee the way I did when Ryu Jun Yeol's return to dramaland was announced. After Lucky Romance I feared we had lost him to Chungmuro forever (and if you saw Lucky Romance then you know it was no more than we deserved). But no! He was coming back, and not only that he was coming back to make a human melodrama involving a older-woman-younger-man dynamic, i.e. catnip for this particular masochist right here.

Then the drama came out and nobody watched it.

Alright, that's not true. A lot of people in my little twitter circle and people who I was aware of through tumblr not only watched it but appreciated the drama for what it was. There were also plenty of people who found it unutterably boring. And the ratings in Korea definitely reflect that people had no idea what to do with this show.

And even as much as I loved Lost (as evidenced by how high on this list it is) there is probably a pretty narrow set of people I would recommend it to. This drama is the slowest of burns. If this drama was a burner on your stove, you could put the kettle on and leave the house on a trip over the weekend, and by the time you got back the water wouldn't even be simmering. I'll even admit that my bruised and battered attention span didn't always stand up to the test and there were times when I watched it at 1.5x speed. You may or may not believe this but it's the truth: As I watched Lost I was often impatient but I was never bored.

Believe me when I say this drama was absolutely worth the wait. Lost is an intimate mediation on death, grief, and feeling adrift in your life, and it's restrained-to-the-point-of-pain style is suited perfectly to its tone and themes. This drama is dripping with an otherworldly agony. It captures the very essence of yearning, punctuated throughout with soul-bearing monologues from the characters. As for the actual plot, it gradually unfolds as an ever widening circle of character studies, continuing to reveal hidden depths until the very last episode. One of the most rewarding and unique dramas I've watched in several years.

2. D. P.

I say this as if anyone was waiting for me to weigh in on which Netflix original drama came out on top as the best of the year: for me nothing even touches D.P. Something made all the more remarkable by how short the drama was, at just 6 episodes all clocking in at under an hour runtime. A bit like a car accident. It was all over so fast and yet I'm going to be feeling it in my bones for years to come.

D.P. focuses on the culture of abuse and corruption present within the South Korean military. It follows Jung Hae In as Ahn Joon Ho, a typical young man trying to keep his head down and get through his mandatory military service when he gets pressganged into a special unit responsible for hunting down and dragging back deserters. It portrays the stories of the various deserters Joon Ho and his partner Ho Yul, played by Koo Kyo Hwan, have to track down with a combination of brutal honesty and pitch black comedy. The tone of D.P. is really fascinating. It doesn't flinch away from the genuine trauma and tragedy endemic to the story, but at times it seems to verge on satire, portraying the higher ups and antagonists as both ghoulish and absurd. Watching it reminded me a bit of reading Catch 22.

It's my understanding that the show has already been renewed for a second season, and I will mostly likely watch that when it comes out but unlike dramas such as Move to Heaven and Sweet Home where the pitch for the second season is ham-handedly baked into the last episode, D.P. watches seamlessly as a stand alone series. This is a show I would readily recommend to people who aren't even interested in Korean television at large. Despite some intensely triggering material (and please, do your research ahead of time if you're sensitive to that kind of thing) I think this drama is that good and that universal.

1. Beyond Evil

The Kdrama equivalent of "you had me at hello" seems to be a damn sexy poster. When I first saw the posters they'd released for Beyond Evil I clearly remember thinking to myself, "if this show is half as good as these posters I'm going to be in serious trouble." And I was indeed in trouble.

If you've been hanging around on this blog very long this pick probably won't surprise you very much. There's a cocktail of plot elements that I find nearly irresistible in crime dramas. Beyond Evil has it all. A compelling cast of suspects, a terrifying monster, ambiguous motives, obsession, psychopathy, trauma, and a healthy dash of homoeroticism.

I wrestled with myself as to whether to give the top spot on this list to Beyond Evil or D.P. because I don't necessarily think that one is better than the other. Ultimately it came down to my own personal affinity for the drama and the characters, which is why Beyond Evil won out.

Beyond Evil has a wonderfully twisty plot that continued to surprise and misdirect through out the run, even when I thought for sure the story was going to lose steam. It's masterful mystery writing, which would have been enough for me to recommend it. But what elevates the drama is really the dynamic between Dong Shik and Joo Won. Shin Ha Kyun and Yeo Jin Goo generate so much electricity and breathless intensity between their characters, and the clever scripting helps to escalate that relationship into a thrilling and satisfying denouement. Shin Ha Kyun, in particular, just kept demonstrating, episode after episode, scene after scene, the difference a truly exceptional actor can make to a watching experience. Something preternatural happens when he's on screen, there's no other way to put it. Add on top of that an incredible extended cast without a bad performance in the bunch, and you've got something really special.

***

And with that, I conclude my lists for 2020 and 2021. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them (maybe even a little more than that). I'm still doing quite a bit of writing on personal projects. I'm working on another round of rewrites for my novel, which has to take priority for me. But if I have the ability to be a little more present on this blog, I'm going to endeavor to do so. If you want to hear some occasional ramblings from me outside of this blog, though, think about giving me a follow on @outofmeasure on Twitter.

Until I see you again, please stay safe and try to have fun out there.

Jona

#2021 reviews #kdramas #end of year reviews #top 10 #d.p. netflix #the red sleeve #dali and cocky prince #dali and gamjatang #lost #human disqualification #navillera #the devil judge #the silent sea #move to heaven #mr. queen #beyond evil

[overthinkingkdrama]

Favorite performances from 2020 and also from 2021? (it doesn't matter if you haven't seen much, just curious)

I appreciate this ask since I'm not going to get to do a drama awards type post, and there were definitely some standout performances in the past 2 years that I didn't get the chance to talk about. So, in no particular order, here we go:

Since I already talked about this in my 2020 top 10 I'll mention it again here: I think Oh Jung Se is a strong contender is I was giving out my own personal Daesang. Not only was his role as Moon Sang Tae in It's Okay to Not Be Okay one of the finest pieces of acting I've seen in a drama, during the same period he was also putting in a performance as a chilling sociopath in The Good Detective. I was watching the two dramas at the same time, and seeing him in both roles was giving me whiplash.

In 2021 his performance was probably the single best thing about Jirisan, which turned out to be a ludicrous mess. I haven't watched Uncle yet, but I expect I'm going to like him there too. He's just a consistent and powerful character actor. I'm a big fan.

Recently I finished watching The Red Sleeve, and I have a lot of complicated feelings about it. It's one of those dramas that keeps you unsettled and conflicted until the end. But that isn't to say that the lead actors aren't incredible in it, just the opposite in fact. Lee Jun Ho and Lee Se Young play off each other so well. They manage the ambivalence and complex range of emotions those character require with a subtlety and deftness that was really top notch. I can't imagine anyone else in those roles.

I've been a fan of Lee Se Young since I first saw her in The Best Hit. And of course she's been acting since she was a child, and is a well known talent, but in the past couple of years she's cemented herself as one of my favorite female leads. Her performance was the standout for me in Kairos too, but I just love to see her in these historical roles. She was phenomenal in Crowned Clown too, and Red Sleeve feels like the natural continuation and maturation of her abilities. You love to see it.

On the lighter side, Shin Hye Sun came out and absolutely slayed me in a double role as So Yong/Bong Hwan in Mr. Queen. She could not have been more perfect. The way she embodied the character of Bong Hwan, her mannerisms, the tone of her voice, her comedic timing. But she also nailed the heavier scenes. Easily one of my all time favorite comedic performances.

You can't really talk about acting in 2021 without talking about Shin Ha Kyun in Beyond Evil. I don't want to get too deep into it, because I'm going to talk about it more in my 2021 list (spoilers, I guess) but he devoured the role of Lee Dong Shik. That drama is tightly and compellingly written, but without Ha Kyun it wouldn't have lived up to the half of its potential, in my opinion.

A few additional notable mentions: I know a lot of people didn't watch it and it's one of those slow dramas that requires the right kind of temperament to enjoy, but I loved Jeon Do Yeon and Ryu Jun Yeol in Human Disqualification aka Lost. It was also just lovely to see Ryu Jun Yeol return to dramaland after so long exclusively making movies, and to see him give a really wonderful, subtle performance that really had him showing off his acting shops. And then I think the underrated performance of 2021 was Jang Nara as Hong Ji Ah in Sell Your Haunted House. She really just showed us everything in that role. Grit, anger, grief. Her scenes with her mom just tore me up. It was an unusual character from her and I would love to see more like it in the future.

Anyway, I think that covers it for the most part. Hope that satisfied you curiosity :)

Jona

#asks #answered #beyond evil #sell your haunted house #the red sleeve cuff #its okay to not be okay #oh jung se #shin ha kyun #lee se young #lee jun ho #shin hye sun #jeon do yeon #ryu jun yeol #jang na ra

[overthinkingkdrama]

Behind the scenes photos of Park Eun Bin for The Star (Jan. 2022)

#park eun bin #modelling #get on my blog you rare unearthly thing #that second pic would make an amazing profile icon if I was that kind of girl

[overthinkingkdrama]

What was your favorite 2020 kdrama?

Hey, I know that this is incredibly late but I finally managed to finish my list for 2020.

https://overthinkingkdrama.tumblr.com/post/673468630519955457/jonas-top-10-dramas-of-2020

#asks #answered

[overthinkingkdrama]

Jona's Top 10 Dramas of 2020

Is it too late to post this now? Too bad. I’mma do it anyway. I lived through the plague (so far) and I had a strange/sad/productive 2021. If I want to put together my top 10 list for 2020 over a year after the fact, then that’s between me and the drama gods.

Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way: When I put together these lists I try to only include dramas that FINISHED airing in 2020. Which means that I will occasionally include something that started airing in the previous year if it ended after January 1st. (Don’t think that happens here though. Don’t quote me on that.) These rankings doesn't necessarily reflect any sort of objective quality among the dramas listed below, but rather my personal enjoyment.

Also, it’s probably worth saying that I’m assembling this list with the help of hindsight in 2022, so I’ve come back and revisited some of these damages and sometimes my opinion of them has warped and changed in the intervening time.

Alright, let’s just get into it...

10. Nobody Knows

I came away from Nobody Knows with several major impressions. The first was a strong sense of atmosphere that nearly superseded for me the story of the drama itself. An eerie sense of foreboding and of things unspoken. The second was that I need Kim Seo Hyung in more roles like this, just all the time. Give them to me. There can never be too many of them.

The biggest issues I had with this drama, and the reason it’s appearing so low on this list, have to do with the plot itself. There turns out to be essentially 2 different mysteries, one that bleeds into and ultimately gives way to the second. The first is sadly stronger than the second, which quickly descends into contorted plot contrivance, and the primary villains end up devolving into monomaniacal cartoon characters, which somewhat undermines the dramas atmospheric strengths.

Although Nobody Knows cannot in the end match either the religious horror of Save Me or the morally fraught missionary killer aspects of Children of Nobody, it does a respectable job of both. The real highlight of this drama (aside from Seo Hyung’s incredible collarbones) are the ambiguous relationships it explores between the main characters. I love the slow-to-form partnership/comradery between Young Jin and Sun Woo, the tense rivalry/dependence between Young Jin and Eun Ho’s mother, and the surrogate mother/son merged with an unusual friendship-between-peers dynamic between Young Jin and Eun Ho himself.

9. Flower of Evil

I'm slightly embarrassed about how long I spent agonizing about where on this list to place Flower of Evil. The reaction of the fandom to FoE was pretty polarized, with one half enamored by easily the angstiest romance of the year and the other cringing at the regressive "I can fix him with the power of love" themes and the highly suspect police work. Trouble is, I can't help but kind of agree with both parties. I've managed to categorize this drama in my brain somewhere between Healer and Money Flower (which is already going to sound like heresy) because of its sexy, fast paced, makjangness.

The thing about FoE is that it doesn't really work as a thriller and it doesn't really work as an investigative murder mystery. There's just too much about the script that is over-the-top self-indulgent to be taken seriously. Objectively speaking, FoE is not a better drama than Nobody Knows. But I had way more fun watching it. I consistently enjoyed myself during the run time, and looked forward to it during the week. This was helped by the solid chemistry between Lee Joon Gi and Moon Chae Won throughout, as well as Lee Joon Gi's irrepressible penchant for chewing every piece of scenery in sight. Also, shout out to Kim Ji Hoon for his turn the hottest unhinged psycho of the year.

Flower of Evil watches like a fantasy wish fulfillment for a very specific kink. What if your husband was the perfect house husband? He cooks, he cleans, he's great with your daughter, and he's a babe to boot. Except he's secretly a psychopath with a dark past who is soft for only you. You pile on a whole lot of whumpy physical and emotional suffering for said husband and well...turns out I happen to share that kink.

8. When the Weather is Fine

In my MDL notes I called When the Weather is Fine the "generic coffeeshop AU of Kdramas" and now in 2022 I can't seem to come up with a more fitting description than that. Hats off to past me. When the Weather is Fine does also feel like the result of stretching 2018's Little Forest into a full length drama. It's a cozy drama, and it unfolds at a gradual pace. There are a variety of melo elements which I found to be appealing and well done, while the drama consistently continued to serve soft, healing romance. I did get the feeling that there was a little bit of something missing toward the end, and maybe the writer felt that too, as the plot seemed to shift its focus to the heroine's mother and aunt instead of the leads in the last week. That being said, I was still glad I watched it. This is the kind of thing that I wish Park Min Young would make, instead of the trendier office dramas she seems to favor that all blend together after a while.

Side note, in a twist that nobody could have seen coming in 2020, it turns out that WTWIF might actually be a better mountain rescue drama than Jirisan. Huh.

7. Mystic Pop Up Bar

Mystic Pop Up Bar has a premise that is pretty well trodden out both in anime and dramas generally, and for that reason I went into the show with zero expectations because as many times as I've wanted a really good "wish granting" drama surrounding some kind of magical business, it almost never works out the way I want. And there have been quite a few of them (just in the last year there was the drama special Handmade Love and The Witch's Diner). Much in the way that no matter how many times they make robot/AI romance stories, they somehow never manage to scratch the itch for me in particular, and so I keep waiting.

The thing that makes MPUB work is not that it's attempting to turn the trope on its head, or that it's doing something I've never seen before. The magic is that it plays its story almost entirely straight, even taking into account it's frequently comedic tone. It knew exactly what it wanted to be and it kept it tight and lean, telling the story it wanted to tell cleanly in 12 episodes and then gracefully bowing out. It escalates to a beautiful, emotional climax that kept me invested to the end. It served up some great found family material. It also gave me Hwang Jung Eum as the sort of heroine I've wanted from her for such a long time. And I was pleased to see Choi Won Young really living up to his full "daddy" potential.

6. Do You Like Brahms?

Do You Like Brahms? has a lot of the gradually paced, comforting romance elements that I liked in When the Weather is Fine, but wound up being a more fully fleshed version, in my opinion. I was a fan of both Eun Bin and Min Jae going in, but this drama really cemented Min Jae as a full blown romantic lead in my mind, which he went on to confirm was not a fluke in the far more comedic Dali and Gamjatang in 2021. Also, I think I might just be enamored with dramas that deal with classical music and the industry that surrounds it.

The things that really put DYLB? a cut above for me, came down to the character writing. I thought they really captured the wonderful mixture of longing and insecurity felt by each of the characters in different ways throughout the story. I was particularly struck by the heartwarming and heartrending incompatibility of the particular insecurities of the leads and how that took its toll on the relationship in a really realistic way, despite the fact that they clearly adored one another. I was also impressed by the handling of Jung Kyung's character. From scene to scene she swung radically from making me want to throttle her to breaking my heart, all of which was captured masterfully by Park Ji Hyun, making her one of the most interesting and fully fleshed second female leads in recent memory. Although the drama gets a bit bogged down in the last 3rd during the inevitable "angst arc" the ending was so satisfying it made me forgive everything.

5. Hospital Playlist

I've made it no secret either here or on twitter that I hate medical dramas. I can't stand them. It takes a lot for me to get over a dramas medicalness so that I can watch it. Usually that means there better be psychopaths or murder or it's gonna be a hard pass from me. So you can imagine my distress when this incredible cast was secured for not just one, but three seasons (though mercifully it wound up being only 2) of a slice-of-life medical drama helmed by none other than Lee PD and screen writer Shin Won Ho of Reply series fame. It felt like a cruel prank the universe was playing on me in particular. I knew that I had to watch it and I was quite frankly ticked off about it.

Hospital Playlist doesn't even attempt to be anything other than a medical drama focusing on the day to day lives of doctors, though the many fan-servicey scenes of the lead 5 friends playing in their hobby band worked as a sort of peace offering for me in particular. Virtually none of the character arcs or love lines panned out the way I wanted them to, and yet the trouble with this show is that no matter how hard I tried to be dissatisfied with it, it had my heart almost immediately. There was just something magical and profoundly human about it. I cried all the way through it, I loved every character in spite of myself. Touche, show, touche.

4. Kairos

Much like Mystic Pop Up Bar, Kairos is a drama that is playing with a very familiar concept in dramas of the past five or so years, that simply executes on that concept exceptionally well. As recently as 2021 with the drama Times staring Lee Seo Jin and Lee Joo Young we seem to fairly regularly get dramas involving supernatural phone calls from the past or the future allowing the characters to communicate crucial information and change the past before tragedy strikes. It's a compelling idea, but so specific that you would think it would be hard to wring much plot variety out of it. Plus, with the exceptional and beloved Signal sharing the same playing field, it's easy to make unflattering comparisons.

I think the real charm of Kairos resides in the cast and the (platonic) relationship that develops between two strangers, living three months apart, devastated by loss, connected only by the brief conversations they are able to have once a night. Shin Sung Rok and Lee Se Young are phenomenal here. For as much as she has gained recent attention with The Red Sleeve and I generally admire her body of work, I think her role in Kairos is my favorite to date.

This is also a remarkably stylish production, with some really clever and unique camera work. I appreciated the use of the orange and blue color grading to distinguish the past from future. If you're interested in a thrilling, twisty plot with a healthy dose of delicious melodrama, then this one for you.

3. Stranger 2

Second seasons are still fairly rare in Kdramaland (as much as Netflix seems dead set on throwing off the ratio) and truly excellent second seasons are nearly non-existent. The fact that Kdramas tend to be limited run series that tell a complete story is one of the things that attracted me to the genre. Even when they aren't complete recasts and misguided disasters, the sequel can rarely hold a candle to the original. (Spoiler alert for my 2021 list: Hosplay 2 is not gonna be on there.) Make the act you're trying to follow a near masterpiece in its own right, then you've really got your work cut out for you.

And yet, despite all this, I was looking forward to the second season of Stranger almost as soon as I finished the first one. Myself and its many other fans then waited patiently for 3 years for it to come out. And miracle of miracles, it did not disappoint me.

This drama does a wonderful job of picking up where we left off, not just in terms of the characters and their story, but more importantly in terms of tone and taut absorbing plotting. I watched this one breathlessly every week and despite its slow burn nature and the frequently technical aspects of the plot, I enjoyed ever episode.

Due largely to the choice to keep a certain favorite dirtbag prosecutor largely off screen for much of the season, and that of keeping the leads apart or in forced adversarial positions for the majority of the first half, I would still not say that Stranger 2 matched or surpassed its predecessor. But it came damn close, and I would recommend it without hesitation.

2. Extracurricular

In my time watching and commentating on Kdramas, I've watched quite a few shows about adults that behave like children. I've also watched quite a few dramas about teenagers who are written like adults. It kind of comes with the territory, to the extent that it feels notable when a drama comes out that writes its teenagers like teenagers, while portraying them as getting into decidedly adult trouble.

In general I have mixed feelings about the prestige television approach to Korean dramas through streaming platforms like Netflix, Apple TV and Disney+. On the one hand, many of the dramas I've watched on these platforms seem to have all the problems endemic of the Western shows that drove me into the arms of Kdramas in the first place. (Specifically, gratuitous violence and sex scenes that do not drive the plot and incomplete stories transparently angling for future seasons that may or may not materialize.) But I'm also conscious that the freedom and inflated budgets that such dramas generally afford their creators make it possible to put out dramas we would never get to see on Korean network broadcast stations. Extracurricular is one of those shows that I can only imagine watching on Netflix, and its an example of what such platforms can uniquely offer.

My memories of watching Extracurricular the first time involve binging the whole thing in a very short period of time with a sense of stomach-clenching suspense about what was going to happen to the characters. While I did go back and rewatch parts of it recently, and I'm not sure that the show stands up to multiple viewings, I still really respect what the show was trying to do. It was frequently dark, morally ambiguous, with challenging and unlikable characters doing bad things. It watches more like a piece of Korean crime cinema than a Kdrama. It kept me consistently off balance. Even though it ends on a cliffhanger and no future seasons seem forthcoming, the open-ended nature of the drama suits the material, making it worth the watch regardless.

1. It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

Every once in a while, I come across a piece of media that seems to have come about through my own unspoken desires. As though the creators went spelunking in my brain looking for material. It's Okay To Not Be Okay is one of those dramas. But don't get it twisted, this drama has definitely achieved something well beyond my own skills and imagination.

From the themes to the aesthetics, IOTNBO seems specifically designed to make me fall in love with it. From the gothic romance elements and twisted fairytale motifs to the unflinching yet supremely empathetic take on mental health and trauma, it had my number from episode one. It manages to both allegorize and deromanticize it's very heavy psychological themes in a way that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. Somehow through all of that it manages to weave a compelling and affective love story about two very flawed people slowly trying to get better. And that doesn't even really scratch the surface of everything that I loved about this drama. As much as Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Ye Jin absolutely devour their scenes, they aren't even the highlight!

Oh Jung Se as Sang Tae is nothing short of perfect. I believe that the writer and show runners as well as Oh Jung Se himself must have felt very strongly about representing this character in a fully realized, intensely human way. Clearly a lot of thought and love and research went into writing a character with autism and doing it right. The dramatic arc that character goes through, working through his trauma, growing and changing and becoming a better older brother is so beautiful. I've really never seen anything that holds a candle to it.

I could go on, and maybe I should do so elsewhere, but I just loved this drama from beginning to end. It really touched me. It took the top prize in 2020 easily, and became an immediate entrant to my top 10 dramas of all time.

#surprise bitches #bet you thought you'd seen the last of me #kdramas #2020 reviews #nobody knows #when the weather is fine #flower of evil #it's okay to not be okay #mystic pop up bar #extracurricular #stranger 2 #secret forest 2 #do you like brahms #do you like brahms? #kairos #hospital playlist #never underestimate my ability to be late to a party #end of year reviews #top ten #I would say stay tuned for 2021 but you might want to flip the channel for a bit cause who knows when that's going to be finished

[overthinkingkdrama]

my thoughts on how hye-jin and dusik differ on their ~relationship~ thus far, bc why not

at this point, there’s something there, for both of them. but they deal with it so differently.

dusik wants it, but halfway. he wants to know her, but he doesn’t want to be known. he wants to see her, but he doesn’t want to be seen. he wants her attention, but not her love (which is the same thing, but homeboy here doesn’t realize it). and so, he oscillates between forcing distance and cultivating closeness. he tells hye-jin that there’s nothing between them, that their kiss was nothing more than a “”biological crisis””. but then he turns around and goes to her at the show, tells her to cross the line, tells her to look at him, please look at him. bc the thing is, he wants to love, not be loved. 

(and honestly, more can be said about dusik’s clumsy way of handling this whole thing. like boi, i love u, but you don’t make a friend by constantly saying she has princess syndrome for reading the room.)

but hye-jin doesn’t want this halfway dance, this almost love story. when you’ve had the life she has, you’re always on guard, always on the lookout for the next thing coming to hurt you. so, she’s made herself untouchable, unreachable by anything so painful as human connection. she’s curated this careful separation from everyone, being kind only when she feels able, only from a distance, only through charity donations from her kitchen table. she’s calcified that softness inside her, like an oyster hiding its pearl, until all the world sees is the impenetrable shell, shined to perfection.

but now, she’s come to this seaside town, and is offered a community that could almost be a family, a man who could almost be a home. but the thing is, dusik has seen her, not just the carefully crafted exterior, but her: the broken, lonely woman stripped of the veneer that she thought made her desirable. he’s seen her, and as far as she knows, he doesn’t want her. so this almost that dusik offers her? this halfway, this maybe? it hurts more than she would like. “almost” carries the hint of rejection with it, carries dusik’s insistence to not read too much into it, to not be delusional. 

and so she protects herself the only way she knows how: she runs. of course she does. she lashes out like a cornered animal, terrified and furious. if not for ju-ri and the show, hye-jin would have retreated fully back into her armored shell until whatever fragile connection she’s built crumbles into ruin. bc for someone who hasn’t been loved, who doesn’t even know that they want to be loved, almost is worse than nothing.

dusik wants half a life, half a love, but hye-jin? she wants none of it.

#help I may have fallen for this show and I can’t get up #hometown cha cha cha #I love seeing good character meta on my dash

[overthinkingkdrama]

How to Make Your Boss Fall for You: A Guide By Kim Ga On

#fuck #why is this just exactly the drama #that’s it #that’s Devil Judge #lmao how is this a real show #the devil judge #ji sung

[overthinkingkdrama]

#jeon yeo bin #get on my blog you rare unearthly thing #that first pic has me beside myself

[overthinkingkdrama]

An Introspective interview with Overthinkingkdrama

Polished and Precise, Overthinkingkdrama shares her insights on romance, Kdramas and more controversial outtakes while candidly discussing her journey as a blogger.  I was introduced to Overthinkingkdrama when I was searching for answers and closure. At that time, I had just watched a painfully tragic Korean drama that had left me with more questions than answers and I was looking to recover…

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#I know it’s been a while and I haven’t been very active #but I thought y’all might enjoy reading this interview I did recently #hope to be back again very soon

[overthinkingkdrama]

KIM JUNG HYUN for ESQUIRE KOREA (2021)

#holy fork #his face tho #it is very good #Mr Queen might have ticked me off #but not because of him #(not because of SHS either btw) #I want him to be in another melo #a good one #is that too much to ask? #(I always want my faves in good Melos and it’s always too much to ask) #kim jung hyun #photoshoot #modelling

[overthinkingkdrama]

I was wondering if a 2020 drama roundup was in the plans or not (not that you *have* to do one, just curious).

It’s one of those things that I meant to do in January and just fell by the wayside. I would really like to do it, but I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance. I didn’t watch as much in 2020 as I have in past years.

Jona

#asks #answered

[overthinkingkdrama]

Well, Yoon Shi Yoon’s filmography is a good place to start. (The Best Hit, Your Honor, Train, arguably Psychopath Diary).

Moon Geun Young plays twins in Catch the Ghost.

King: The Eternal Monarch has a lot of double roles, but Woo Do Hwan’s is probably the most notable because he interacts with himself a lot. But Kim Go Eun does as well.

Yang Se Jong in Duel.

Yeo Jin Goo in The Crowned Clown.

Song Joong Ki in Arthdal Chronicles.

Yoo Ah In and Im Soo Jung in Chicagon Typewriter.

Seo In Guk plays brothers in Highschool King of Savvy, although the screen time for the second character is limited.

I think that’s all I can think of for now.

I'd like to create a list of kdrama which involves an actor/actress playing two (or more) characters, or even twins.

Do you have some recommendations? :)

#korean drama #twins #lists

[overthinkingkdrama]

It’s past. It’s all gone. We have to face what we should face.

#this is precisely what I’m here for #the rebel princess #monarch industry #zhang zi yi #zhou yi wei #thank you for all your hard work making these gifs #you’re fighting the good fight and I salute you

[overthinkingkdrama]

If you wish to stay, Ningshuo will be your home. If you don’t want to, I can send you home any time but only if you’re fine.

#you have given me a trope that completely destroys me 100% of the time #and for that I am grateful drama #(actually they’ve given me several) #he’s so gentle? and decent? and cares what she wants? #unlike every other godforsaken man in this drama #and it’s just... #hnnng #give me all the wound tending #give me all the arranged marriage/domesticity #I need it to live #the rebel princess #monarch industry