After more than a year of updating twice a week, I’ve decided to cut back and post on Tuesdays only. (But I will continue to add Random Thoughts whenever something strikes me. Shutting up isn’t my specialty, after all.)

There are lots of really wonderful bloggers who manage to make thoughtful, well-written posts every day, but I don’t know how they do it—between watching dramas and writing about them, I barely have time for personal hygiene. My obsession with Kdrama is by no means flagging, and I can’t imagine giving up this blog anytime soon. I just need a break.

When I started blogging here I never imagined that anyone would actually visit. But you do, which makes maintaining Outside Seoul incredibly rewarding. So thanks for sharing your time (and obsession) with me!

It’s hard for me to believe, but as of August my obsession with Korean drama will be two years old. I went looking for something to watch during the summer dead zone between American television seasons, but I came away with a whole new continent worth of dramas, culture, and history. That’s pretty impressive considering that my gateway drug was Boys over Flowers, a show so ridiculous that my attempts to recapture the magic of first love by rewatching it always fail about halfway through the first episode.

Possible reasons why I don’t have a real post this week:

1. Korean law enforcement raided my home after realizing that I’ve made snide comments about assorted Korean actors and also used questionable methods to acquire subtitled dramas for viewing. I am now awaiting trial in a Seoul-area detention facility. Prison kimchi is surprisingly tasty, but internet access is hard to come by.

2. A bevy of attempts at recording an audio post on my iPad proved fruitless. In more than twenty tries, I never once made it past the one-minute mark without saying something so incredibly stupid that I was compelled to start over from scratch. Javabeans and Girl Friday may make it sound easy to talk about Kdrama, but I can assure you it’s not.

3. The fifteen-minute memory upgrade the computer shop promised me has taken six days and counting, leaving me without easy access to a computer.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which of the above scenarios are true.

Next week I swear I’ll be back on a regular posting schedule, but for now here are a few things I’ve been thinking about lately.

Monstar.I’m still enjoying this drama a lot, but it’s rather less wonderful than I once hoped it would be. The characters and music are great. I love the fantasy sequences. (Last week’s personal troubadours were particularly amusing.) What I don’t like is the listless plotting—the cast has spent the past few episodes pinballing around each other with little real connection or forward momentum. All the fantastic toys in the world are useless if you don’t know what to do with them. Monstar could have used more one-off music challenges, like Dream High, and less makjangy, multi-generational love triangle action.

American Horror Story. I just finished watching season 2 of this FX series. Its violent, sex-crazed subject matter couldn’t be more different from your typical Korean drama, but the show itself actually uses a surprising number of Kdrama tricks: There are nose bleeds of doom, flashbacks to scenes that took place all of two minutes ago, and limitless reappropriation of long-standing clichés. Its short, stand-alone seasons are also reminiscent of Asian dramas—each tells a story that is completed in a twelve- or thirteen-episode running time. If only more US television was like this, maybe I wouldn't have defected to Korea. (More Evan Peters cosplaying broken, beautiful Kurt Cobain wouldn't hurt, either.)

Meteor Garden. As expected, watching the Taiwanese version of Hana Yori Dango/Boys over Flowers is a real treat. It’s goofy and over the top and full of good-looking boys, some of whom even appear to be hot kissers. Its narrative trajectory is almost exactly the same as Korea’s Boys over Flowers, although there are some interesting differences. BoF did away with the female lead’s guy friend in favor of fleshing out her work buddy, which seems like a good decision to me. It may be different from the source material, but I like the tidier Korean take on things (and the swoony romance it developed into). I also miss the brother that both HYD and BoF gave the female lead. It made for some sweet, humanizing scenes showing the male lead getting to try out normal family life. The other members of F4 and the friendship they share isn’t as developed in MG as the other adaptations, which is a pity. But for the first time I can say that I ship the lead couple—Ji Hoo and Rui were just too tempting in the other versions, and the other male leads didn’t capture the petulant little-boy charm of Dao Ming Si. Now if only he wasn’t such a jerk to Shan Cai, I could really be into this pairing.

Welcome to drama city, population 1.  I’ve been having trouble finishing shows lately, which means the Random Thoughts sidebar is getting out of control. I watched the first few episodes of Dating Acency: Cyrano when they first aired, but was seduced away by all the good buzz Monstar was getting. Then came Alone in Love, which is well made but has some lead-likability problems for me. The siren call of Meteor Garden lured me away from that one, and I’m about ready to explode with desire for I Can Hear Your Voice, which is definitely next on my list.  Why are you full of such wonders, Kdrama? I just want to quit life and watch you forever.

Next week, things will be back to normal around here. (Really.)

Highbrow

Lowbrow

A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal’s Korea Real Time blog ran a short piece about Chinese viewers of Korean dramas. It caused something of a furor on the dramaweb, and no wonder. Even from the headline, you knew trouble was ahead: “South Korean Soap Operas: Just Lowbrow Fun?”

When someone is talking about scripted Asian television, they generally use one of two names: drama or soap opera. To speakers of American English, drama is a neutral word that describes a show’s format without judging its content. Soap opera, in contrast, is a loaded term. It tells you not only that the program is a scripted series, but also that it focuses on the domestic realm and is characterized by sensational storytelling. The phrase arises from the early days of the radio, when companies—often manufacturers of soap—funded programming geared toward housewives who would be listening on weekday afternoons. In America, soap opera is still shorthand for a dying breed of schlocky daytime series (although it occasionally pops up in reference to “prime-time soaps” like Dallas and The OC).

The real distinction between these two names is their assumed audience: Anyone can watch a drama. But it’s women who watch soap operas. Their scripts focus on things that are automatically gendered female: relationships and family and home life. They don’t necessary have complicated, self-consciously clever plots or deal with lots of thrilling action. Instead, emotions and the doings of the human heart are their canvas. And that’s exactly what’s undervalued by the sort of people who scoff at Korean television as being simplistic.

Highbrow

Lowbow

The author of the WSJ article—according to his CNN bio, an extensively traveled native of Seoul—may not be familiar with the fraught nature of the phrase soap opera. But I think it’s clear that he’s happy to dismiss Korean drama as an embarrassment. Here’s how he describes Korean shows: “These ‘dramas’ are characterized by the use of plot twists like birth secrets that connect lovers as blood siblings, or conveniently-timed car accidents that lead to temporary amnesia.”

In 2003, this probably would have been a fair assessment of Korea’s currently airing dramas. It’s also true that many Kdramas still rely on these plot points. But this dismissive summation of all of Korean drama doesn’t take into account how well executed these shows might be, or all of the many developments they’ve undergone since the melo heyday of Winter Sonata. 

Without offering any evidence, the WSJ article makes an immediate logical jump: the study shows that people with less education and lower paying jobs prefer Korean drama. Therefore, Korean drama must be lowbrow. This is apparently part of the study’s conclusion, but how it arrived there isn’t something WSJ covers. Another article about the same study isn’t so shy about drawing lines between Western and Korean shows. In its clumsy, Google-translate prose, it discusses the “rational and lightness” seen in series produced for American television. In contrast, Korean drams are described as “irrational” and prone to “excessive feelings.” It’s like gender studies 101: the rational and cold is seen as inherently more valuable than the the emotional and heated. The head—that stereotypical realm belonging to the male of the species—is where true quality and art resides, not the heart, that shameful seat of girlie emotions.

Highbrow

Lowbrow

I’ve Googled until I reached the end of the Internet in several directions, but still can’t find any primary source material about this study in English. What I have found largely discusses it as proof that people who are less educated and earn less prefer Korean dramas to American or Japanese shows. This is silly on a number of levels.

• The researchers polled a total of 398 individuals in Beijing. (It’s unclear whether these people all lived in Beijing or the study was just based there.) This is 0.0017 percent of the city’s total population, which is currently just over 20 million. China’s total population is 1.344 billion. I’m no sociologist, but I think it’s safe to assume that their results are not statistically significant.

• English-language coverage of the study draws lots of conclusions from it, but doesn’t really analyze its data. There are an insane number of factors at play here. One of the few actual facts we’re given is that the people who took the poll were between the ages of 20 and 50. Rates of college attendance have risen in China during the past 30 years, so I would assume that the older the participant is, the less likely they are to have attended college. And if China is anything like America the older participants are more likely to be drawn to the kind of traditional values that Kdramas espouse—the importance of hard work, modesty, and respect for elders. On the other hand, younger people (who probably have higher levels educational attainment) are more likely to feel comfortable with the casual mores portrayed in American television. Out of all these many, many conflicting factors, “dumb, poor people prefer Korean drama” seems like a pretty reductive conclusion.

• Based on the vague language in the WSJ article, I assumed the study involved a bunch of Korean academics cold-calling random Chinese people and asking them about their TV-viewing habits. A South China Morning Postpiece gives a tiny bit more information. The participants were “asked to watch television dramas produced in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US” (emphasis mine). This makes it sound as if the study was essentially a taste-test—at the request of its organizers, people watched shows from a number of countries and reported on how much they liked them. But who chose the shows? And did all viewers watch the same programs? The only series mentioned by name in any of these articles is The Big Bang Theory, which the WSJ noted was “the most popular feature for fans of American TV.” As an American, I’m not convinced that show is representative of my country’s television, which ranges from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to Mad Men to Vampire Diaries. So why is it part of this study instead of ABC’s Mistresses or Lifetime’s Army Wives?

Highbrow

Lowbrow

• To borrow a comment translated for China Smack’s coverage of this story, “According to my knowledge, those who watch Korean TV series are mostly women who have nothing better to do.” There are clearly a lot of preconceived notions about Korean dramas and people who watch them, which even the study seems to have noted as potential concern. The WSJ article says, “The report also offers a caveat: highly-educated and high-income viewers may conceal their fondness of lowbrow entertainment.” I would take issue with all of Korean drama being smeared as “lowbrow entertainment,” but this kind of attitude is bound to impact the responses to a study like this one.

I also have to take a moment to discuss the post about the WSJ article on Drama Fever’s blog: “Wall Street Journal Calls Korean Drama Fans ‘Lowbrow,’ ‘Uneducated.’” My relationships with the DF blog is love-hate to an extent rarely seen outside of Korean dramas. I’m incredibly pleased that they’re incorporating the voices of independent bloggers on their site. But manipulative, troll-baiting posts like this one make me crazy.

They’ve spun what is admittedly a biased, ridiculous (and occasionally inaccurate) article into yellow-journalistic gold. The WSJ post never called any drama fan lowbrow—it called drama lowbrow. But what’s factual accuracy when you could recast the article to whip your readers into a frenzy and ensure lots of comments and shares? Clearly Drama Dan—who also happens to be author of some of the most repellant articles about this spring’s rape case involving Park Shi Hoo—has had some success with this tactic: as of Saturday morning, the WSJ post has 117 comments. Predictably, most of them are from reasonably well-educated, well-heeled Westerners (not unlike myself) being offended by the WSJ article (not unlike myself).

As far as I can tell, Western viewers aren’t addressed in either the study or the other coverage of it. I’m not so sure what the results would be here. In practice, most American viewers of Kdrama are probably fairly educated and well off—just to watch the stuff, we have to pay at least $60 per month for a high-speed internet connection, plus buy computers and memberships in assorted drama sites.

Highbrow

Lowbrow

But all this depends on how the survey was conducted. If the audience was self-selected and therefore potentially open to watching international television, I can think of a number of Kdramas that would be as well received as any American show. But if the study’s participants were chosen at random, that might not be the case. We Americans are notorious for our hatred of subtitles and lack of interest in foreign cultures.

And here’s one unexpected strike against Kdrama in the West: happiness. An NPR article from last year comes to mind at this point. It discusses the disappearance of major-key songs in American popular music.

“I think that people like to think that they’re smart,” [Glenn Schellenberg of the University of Toronto] says. “And unambiguously happy-sounding music has become, over time, to sound more like a cliche. If you think of children’s music like ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or ‘The Wheels on the Bus,’ those are all fast and major, and so there’s a sense in which unambiguously happy-sounding songs sound childish to contemporary ears. I think there’s a sense in which something that sounds purely happy, in particular, has a connotation of naivete.”

Modern Korean dramas, in their heart of hearts, tend to be fundamentally optimistic and hopeful. Which is exactly what we Americans are moving away from in what feels like an era of bitterness and uncertainty. Note, if you will, the posters shown above. All the ones for Korean shows share one detail that isn’t present in their American counterparts—a smiling face.

The more time I spend watching Kdrama, the more I realize that just because I love it doesn’t mean everyone will. (Or even should.) Here’s what I intend to do about all this: I’m going to continue to watch and adore Korean dramas and not worry about what a WSJ blogger or a Korean professor have to say about it.

I’ll close with one more comment from China Smack that hints why Kdrama is right for me: “American TV series attract both men and women, but Korean TV series are mostly for women.”

Grade: B+

Category: Youthful love story/Taiwanese

What it’s about
If you’re visiting this website, you almost certainly know already. Along with its international cousins Boys over Flowers and Hana Yori Dango, Meteor Garden is the most essential of drama romances. The first of four live-action series to be based on an original Japanese manga, Meteor Garden tells the story of an everyday college girl who catches the eye of her richest, meanest classmate. When she stands up to him, he decides to bully her out of school, only to fall madly (and rather inexplicably) in love with her unrelenting stubbornness and brave personality. They overcome countless obstacles on their quest to be together, including a number of other love interests and his nasty, controlling mother.

First impression
Oh, how I love you in all your guises, Hana Yori Dango. You are the queen of Cinderella stories and the ultimate comfort-food viewing. Your Japanese and Korean incarnations introduced me to new cultures—they were the first dramas I watched from each of their respective nations. This makes it strange to come to Meteor Garden with some knowledge of Taiwanese television—I’ve already seen all three of the leads in other shows, and have a good idea what to expect from both this drama’s story and its execution. Tdramas always seem to be more romantic than Jdramas and sexier than Kdramas, so I’m pretty certain that love is in the cards for the two of us.

Final verdict
Meteor Garden has all the shortcomings you’d expect from a drama of this vintage—it looks, feels, and sounds dated and its production values are bargain basement. But I’m still a sucker for its swoony, starry-eyed love story, and this might just be my favorite of its incarnations.


Although every Hana Yori Dango adaptation is based on the same source material, it’s amazing how different the final products are. It’s as if you gave the same Lego set to three different people, and they all fit the pieces together in their own way to make something totally unique. The builder from Japan chose to foreground the F4 bromance, the one from Korea focused on the central love triangle, and the Taiwanese one lavished her attention on the lead couple.

And what a couple it was. Of all the male leads I’ve seen in his role, I think Jerry Yun did the best job of making his Daoming Si a nuanced character. He doesn’t lose sight of the fact that hidden behind Si’s bluster and arrogance is a sad, lonely little boy. He’s never quite redeemed for being total a jerk, but his kryptonite-style weakness for his leading lady is so incredibly endearing it’s almost impossible to dislike him. Barbie Hsu as Shan Cai is a refreshing change after BoF’s spineless, accident-prone Jan Di. Shan Cai doens’t let anyone push her around—she calls the shots in her life and in her relationships, and is completely lacking the frustrating helplessness that all but destroyed the Korean version of her character.

Like most Taiwanese dramas, the universe around the leads is densely populated, and secondary characters regularly come and go. This makes the show feel bigger and more realistic than its claustrophobic Korean counterpart. Based on what I’ve seen online, this is true to the sprawling Hana Yori Dango manga, which encompasses 37 volumes and ran for 11 years of will-they-or-won’t-they shenanigans.

If Boys over Flowers is the story of Jan Di being saved by Jun Pyo and the F4, Meteor Garden is the story of every single man in greater Taipei falling in love with Shan Cai. The two characters we’re used to thinking of as leads in this story aren’t the only contenders for her affection. I was actually surprised to realize that MG’s Rui/Ji Hoo figure plays a much smaller role than he does in the other adaptations. He also caused me nary a twinge of second lead syndrome. Lei is blank and boring compared to book-mad Rui and 4D Ji Hoo. For the first and only time, this show’s leads made me believe that they could be happier together than apart.

The problem with Boys over Flowers is that it treats Jan Di and Jun Pyo finally getting together as the endgame; the show is utterly dedicated to keeping them apart until the last possible minute. In 25 episodes of BoF, I never once believed that Jan Di felt anything for Jun Pyo but pity and annoyance. Instead of crafting a relationship for its central couple, BoF spent all its time building a giant wall of circumstance and misunderstanding between them. Meteor Garden, in contrast, treats love as a continuum, not a closing scene. Its characters slowly move closer with each episode, growing and changing in response to their interactions. They’re a couple to root for. And that’s what makes MG an incredibly satisfying drama.

For me, Boys over Flowers was the version of this story to beat.Its epic extravagance and depth of characterization have stayed with me for years in spite of the show’s many flaws. (On the other hand, I remember approximately nothing about Hana Yori Dango, which I watched much more recently.) Because the first half of BoF follows the plot of Meteor Garden very closely, I spent most of the early episodes comparing the two shows. But around the halfway point differences started to creep in, and MG’s unique spirit began to show through. It’s less dependent on the school setting and more interested in its characters’ experience of the world around them, which I really liked.

Meteor Garden might be the oldest of the HYD adaptations, but it still holds up surprisingly well and may just be the most engaging of them all. (Now I can’t wait to watch its sequel.)

This show is so old its promotional materials are virtually indistinguishable from early Nsync posters. Nice hair, JT.

Random thoughts
• Episode 1. Poor Tsukushi/Jan Di/Shan Cai. No matter where she’s from, her parents are always flippin’ annoying.

—It’s kind of weird that they didn’t cover over Barbie Hsu’s tattoos in this drama. This show’s female lead doesn’t really seem the type to have so many of them.

—You can tell at one glance who this show’s Jun Pyo is, because his jawline is exactly like Lee Min Ho’s. The second leads aren’t so similar, though: Vic Zhou’s face is much stronger and more interesting than Kim Hyun Joong’s. As has happened with all the other versions of this drama I’ve seen, I fully expect to develop a near-fatal case of second lead syndrome.

—I love how Taiwanese schools apparently use grandfather-clock-essque chimes to announce the end of class. It’s way better than the horrible American bells that make it sound more like an air raid than the end of fourth period.

• Episode 2. This show never really explores Si’s thought process in deciding he likes Shan Cai. BoF gave a stupid sort-of reason (“Hey, she must like me!”) but at least it was something. Must all versions of HYD be so logic averse?

—Well, Meteor Garden has at least one thing in common with BoF—limited and wildly inappropriate music. When Shan Cai is being abducted the car she’s in swerves and we hear “thunk” as one of her captors presumably knocks her out. But the background music is this cheery 1970s sounding twangy guitar, like Burl Ives is about to start singing.

—I like this drama so far, but it’s clear that nothing will ever top Boys over Flowers for me. That first scene showing the F4 walking into school with the sun behind them and “Almost Paradise” blaring in the background wasn’t just a great moment in drama history—it was mythbuilding in its rawest, most powerful form. Both Hana Yori Dango and Meteor Garden are fun to watch, but they just don’t own the epic, legendary bombast the story has to offer. (I might be prejudiced, though, as BoF was literally the gateway drug that led me into the wonderful world of Asian drama.)

• Episode 3. I got an almost Luna Lovegood vibe from Ji Hoo in BoF, but Meteor Garden’s version of the character seems more moody and sad than spacey. I suspect this is closer to the source material, but I prefer Ji Hoo in all this 4D innocence.

—I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks this, but I actually liked Lee Min Ho’s silky curls in BoF. This version of the character looks like he recently stuck his finger in an electric outlet, which is somewhat less than appealing.

• Episode 4. Jan Di’s ball attire was nothing to brag about, but at least she didn’t look like a stripper. Which is more than I can say for Shen Cai. Is the scene where Si tore her dress in half on the cutting room floor or something? [Finale note: Unfortunately, a version of that scene actually makes an appearance in a few episodes.]

—My experience attending balls is relatively limited, but I was under the impression that they required more than 10 guests to be in attendance. I know your budget isn’t sky high, but you could have done better, show.

• Episode 5. Jun Pyo was a jerk in BoF, but I don’t remember a scene where he tried to rape Jan Di, unlike this version of the story. Tdramas are less afraid of sex than Kdramas, but they’re prone to serious issues of consent.

• Episode 6. I like that this drama is set at a college rather than a high school, but I really miss the school uniforms of the other HYD adaptations. The way the F4 dressed in BoF set them apart from the other characters, while their street clothes just blend into the crowd in Meteor Garden. They seem less special and unicorn-esque when they’re slumming around in baggy jeans and vintage t-shirts like everyone else.

• Episode 7. Barbie Hsu is certainly the prettiest girl to play this role. The best actress, not so much.

• Episode 8. Only eight episodes in and this show has already featured a kiss hotter than all the skinship in BoF combined. The best part is that the female lead actually seems to be attracted to the male lead on a physical level, which is something I never sensed in any of the other adaptations. Jan Di barely tolerated Jun Pyo in BoF, and the Japanese couple weren’t much better.

• Episode 10. I am so jealous of Vanness Wu’s satiny bob in this show. All the frizz serum in the world couldn’t make my hair that smooth.

—It’s amazing how thoroughly BoF removed the sex inherent in this story. The end result was a show that was sweet but felt utterly bloodless and neutered. It was fun to watch, but teenagers so totally blind to the existence of physical attraction seemed less realistic than an uber-rich chaebol falling in love with an everygirl like Jan Di. Meteor Garden goes all out—big sis just locked Shan Cai and Lei in a bedroom overnight under the assumption that they’d officially get together by getting it on. I’d like to see a Kdrama give that plot a whirl.

—MG is the first time this love triangle hasn’t given me a major case of second lead syndrome. Si comes off as a spoiled brat, but I still feel bad for him—the girl he’s desperately in love with has just chosen to be with his best friend. Now if only he’d stop trying to force himself on her (twice in 10 episodes? Really?), I would fully be on his side.

• Episode 11. The F4 giving away kisses to sell cake is the exact opposite of what would happen in an American version of this story. On these shores, this scene would involve the old car-wash cliché from teen movies—the F4 would tell Shan Cai that she’d sell more cake if only she were wearing a bikini, and sales would skyrocket the minute she took their advice. In Western entertainment, only girls use sex appeal to get things done. Yay for the power of the female desire in Asian dramas!

• Episode 14. The Korean versions of this show and It Started with a Kiss have the very same problem: They never manage to make their leads seem to like each other. In the end each pair ended up as a couple, but their connection was never the slightest bit believable. In contrast, the Taiwanese shows both manage to foster a real spark between their leads. They might fight and say nasty things to each other, but their relationships feel like they’re based on genuine affection.

— This birthday party scene was infinitely better than BoF’s. Jan Di’s serenade was painful to watch, even if it was supposed to be semi-triumphant. The dramaverese may be very different from our solar system, but I find it hard to believe that even there someone could learn piano through osmosis.

—The key problem in the love story between Shan Cai and Si is that they don’t like each other as human beings. This would be a major stumbling block after they’d been married for a few years and the novelty wore off. I can see their future, and it’s full of frosty dinnertimes and brutal fights. A life lesson from the old and wise: When the sparkles and rainbows of new love wear off, you’d better like the person you’re left with. (And can you imagine any incarnation of the male lead being somebody’s dad without leaving them in desperate need of lifelong therapy? Although I guess I could see him with a daughter he doted on and a son he was incredibly mean to.)

• Episode 15. Vanness Wu is clearly the Kim Bum of this cast—he’s so hot he steals every scene he’s in, even though he’s the third (fourth?) male lead. He was a little better looking back when Meteor Garden was made, I think. Like so many other actors, today he’s too skinny and anemic looking. (Oh my. Further research indicates that he actually grew up in America and speaks English every bit as well as I do. I wonder how his Chinese is?)

—Here’s a valuable new term: “Drama blinders.” As in—“It’s a good thing I have such well-developed drama blinders, or I’d be flying to Taiwan right now to have some severe words with this show’s screenwriter.” I know things are different in other parts of the world, but it’s supremely uncool to promote the kind of thinking Shan Cai is doing during this scene. “I hate guys who use violence,” she thinks in voiceover after being slapped by Si. “But I always mess things up and make him so angry he’d hit me.” It would be one thing if this line was examined in the course of the show, and the female lead realized that the victim of domestic violence is not to blame. But I’m sure that won’t happen.

—As an American viewer, I find the F4 discussing Si’s shocking virginity to be much more plausible than his character’s never-been-kissed status in BoF. The sexual mores in Korea are so different from the ones I’m used to that it’s actually hard to believe they’re real: How could a high school boy who’s that hot not have been fighting girls off with a stick (so to speak) for a decade?

• Episode 16. I can’t imagine what the second season of this show is like. There are 10 more episodes in season 1, which must mean it covers a lot of the territory seen in BoF. So does that mean the second season is mostly new escapades? I’m excited to find out. (Also intriguing is that it was written by In Time with You’s screenwriter. That’s got to be a good sign, right?)

—So far, this episode deviates the most from BoF. It has to, because like 90 percent of its contents could never happen on a network show in Korea—especially one involving high schoolers.

—Oh, Taiwan. You always know how to kick things up a notch. Instead of walking in on the female lead sitting on the toilet like Ji Hoo did in BoF, Lei saves Shan Cai from drowning—while she’s buck naked in a hot spring. Also, this near-drowning is less laughable than all the many times Jan Di—purportedly a swimmer who once had her eyes on the Olympics—almost went to the bottom of a body of water in BoF. At least Shan Cai could blame being overheated on her peril, rather than sheer stupidity.

• Episode 18. Damn, Si. If this was a Korean drama you’d have to be married before you got to kiss a girl like that. (And even then, you probably wouldn’t do it.) But on Taiwanese TV, you remove your tongue from somewhere just south of Shan Cai’s tonsils and say “Let’s officially date.” You’re the best, Taiwan.

—Morning wood. Being something of a dirty bird, that was naturally my first thought when I saw this scene with Shan Cai waking up Si. But even Meteor Garden didn’t dare go there, in spite of the healthy fondness for sex that seems inherent in so many Taiwanese dramas. Bummer.

—As if this story wasn’t problematic enough from a gender standpoint, naturally the female lead would become the male lead’s servant. What cave person could resist putting her in a fancy maid’s uniform and making her service his every whim? It works for me from a cute perspective, if not a moral one. With some tweaks it could have been less troublesome, though—like if Si had a massive change of heart after watching his beloved clean the floor on her hands and knees and started to treat the staff with more kindness and respect. If I recall correctly, that’s not what happened in BoF, and I don’t imagine it will happen here, either.

• Episode 20. Si’s mother has quite the hairstyle—it’s part Republican woman on the campaign trail and part victim of a nightmarish wind-tunnel accident. How could she even sit in a car with that fortress on her head?

• Episode 21. “I drank last night and felt the urge to scuba dive,” says the random young man who doesn’t have a direct parallel in BoF. “Well, if that’s not a Darwin Awardwaiting to happen, I don’t know what is,” says Amanda.

• Episode 23. One of the things that sets this show apart from BoF is the female lead—she’s a bland everygirl, but she doesn’t need to be rescued from physical or moral peril twice an episode, unlike the ill-fated Geum Jan Di. The few Taiwanese dramas I’ve watched have all had stronger female leads than you normally see in Kdramas, which makes them a nice change of pace from the airheaded, “oetekke” wailing types.

• Episode 26. I can’t get over how weird it is to watch these characters inhabit a world where sex not exists, but also could possibly happen to one of them. The other versions of this story were utterly sexless in contrast (which admittedly felt semi-appropriate because their characters were still in high school).

• Episode 27. That was one of the finest drama finales I can remember. It was exciting and moving and full of fabulous characters being fabulous.


You might also like
• Meteor Rain and Meteor Garden II, this drama’s sequels

• The other three series based on the same manga—Hana Yori Dango, Boys over Flowers, and Meteor Shower

• It Started with a Kiss, another Taiwanese drama based on a Japanese manga, and Playful Kiss, a Korean drama based on the show based on the manga. (My god, my head is spinning.)

You are cordially invited to a Kdrama chat!

Where:Amanda’s place

When: 2 pm EST on Saturday, August 10

Attire: Casual (This is a text-only chat)

Why: Because we just don’t think about Korean drama enough

When I first started watching Korean drama, I spent a lot of time being preoccupied by things I don’t even notice nowadays. I would zone out for entire scenes because I was so transfixed by someone’s expert use of chopsticks, or so stunned by just how much makeup the male lead was wearing. But after two years of being the world’s most obsessed fan of Kdrama, this sort of stuff is second nature to me.

A comment on my recent review of Queen of Reversals made me realize that I’ve also become blind to something else: sexual violence. The commenter, Vivi, asked about the first kiss shared by that show’s leads. “That moment was really problematic for me,” she said. And I didn’t even remember what she was talking about, because you can only see something like this so many times before developing defense mechanisms to tune it out.

The kiss in question occurred at the very end of episode 20, with its aftermath playing out at the beginning of episode 21. In this scene, the male lead is shown as sad, upset, and a little desperate. He has just met his birth mother for the first time and discovered that she had borne and raised other children after abandoning him. It’s a snowy midwinter night and he sits on a bench surrounded by bright Christmas decorations. It’s the kind of sublimely romantic setting Kdramas are so fond of—colored lights sparkle, a scattering of snowflakes falls, and a moody rendition of “The First Noel” plays in the background.


(Spoilers and triggers ahead.)

The female lead, who also happens to be his subordinate at work, arrives and is immediately concerned to see him sitting there in the cold. She asks him what’s wrong, but he demands that she leave him alone. Meeting her gaze for one defeated second, he stands and steps forward. She’s silent, but her expression says it all: she cares about his welfare, but she’s uncertain and apprehensive, and maybe even dreading what she thinks might be coming next.

“You were warned,” he proclaims. “But you wouldn’t go.”

With this, she finally turns away. It does no good—he grabs her wrist, spins her to face him, and fixes his mouth other hers. The background music swells; it’s all swooning strings and twinkling piano. His his hands are on either side of her face and he holds her steady as she struggles to free herself. Finally she shoves him away with enough force to send him reeling. Outraged, she raises a hand to strike him. But he just grabs her arm and pulls her to him again, moving his hands up to grasp the back of her head as he forces her to accept his kiss.



The camera spins slowly around the couple, examining their faces from every angle. The female lead has frozen, her arms hanging limply at her sides, neither fighting the kiss nor consenting to it. The scene stops and zooms in to focus on the male lead’s closed eyes and his hand on her face, fingers turning white with the force of his grip. The image turns honey-colored and out-of-focus, and the credits roll.

In a post about a similar scenario in Coffee Prince, Idle Revelry’s Ladida points out that scene’s saving grace: it has the good sense to treat Han Gyul’s vicious kiss in episode 11 as something other than a highlight of the lead couple’s relationship. It’s filmed as what it is: a cruel act that he eventually apologizes for.

But Queen of Reversals is giving us a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On the outside, it’s fluffy and cute and we’re expected to respond with weak knees and adoring coos. But imagine the scene filmed in a different way—without the music and the spinning camera and the dreamy setting. Even if nothing else about it changed, it would have unmistakably been a kiss of aggression, one taking place against the will of the female lead. But its direction behaves as if forced physical intimacy in no way differs from mutual ardor.

Here’s the ugly truth: Compared to other dramas, this scene is pretty tame. For all their attention to girl-friendly love stories, Korean dramas are riddled with acts of physical intimidation disguised as romance. See, for example, the door lean in the risible A Gentleman’s Dignity. In that show, the open-shirted male lead pins his crush against a door after she has unknowingly walked in on him in the bathroom. She is left starring with chagrin at his nipple as he immobilizes her. Like this kiss in Queen of Reversals, the door lean is treated as a romantic moment by both the drama and the characters themselves.

And, as it turns out, by some of us.

A Gentleman’s Dignity: Not hot.

Clips of Kdrama kisses are all over YouTube, and the one in episode 20 of Queen of Reversals is no exception. One upload has been viewed 223,147 times. It has received 163 positive votes and 9 negative ones, and 42 people have commented about it. Most of these comments marvel at how young the forty-something female lead looks, or bemoan Park Shi Hoo’s long absence from dramaland. One commenter muses, “aahhh to bad my love life isnt close to this.” But nobody mentions how worried the female lead looks, or wonders why the male lead might think it’s okay for him to hold her still and do whatever he wants to her.

Most bloggers who have written about this kiss acknowledge how problematic it is, to borrow Vivi’s word choice. But that’s not true of everyone. “He just can’t help himself,” one person posted, describing the kiss as “an act of desperate need.” Which is true—this character is at what’s probably the lowest moment of his life. He’s been deserted by his mother, manipulated by his father and brother, and kept at arm’s length by the woman he loves. This kiss is about all those things. It’s also about his need for control and his feeling of impotency. What it’s not about his love for the female lead, no matter what the director’s take on the situation is.



A recent pair of unreciprocated kisses bothered me even in spite of my desensitization to the issue of sexual violence. Monstar, a music drama geared at teens, isn’t any more enlightened than its older counterparts. In one instance, its bad-boy rock star lead spends no less than a full minute trying to talk the female lead into closing her mouth so he can kiss her. (In his world forced kisses are acceptable, but open-mouthed ones are “porny.”) She just stands there, dazed but clearly not eager to comply. When he finally does kiss her several episodes later, she wears a wide-eyed expression of horror and scrabbles for purchase against his arms, looking for ways to break away. In the background, the music raises as she finally gives in and closes her eyes a full twenty seconds into the kiss.

But why are these involuntary kisses so common in Kdrama? A patriarchal society is certainly fertile ground for violence-disguised-as-love. Dramas constantly remind us in subtle ways that men are the ones who control the world: wrist grabbing and possessiveness and noble idiocy abound. Male leads call their girlfriends stupid, and tell them they shouldn’t cry/laugh/smile around other men. If the world assumes men are the leaders of every relationship and always know best, why shouldn’t they singlehandedly make the decisions when it comes to physical intimacy?

Answer Me 1997: Shi Won works hard to avoid cooties

And then there’s the issue of female desire, which is essentially nonexistent on Korean television outside of a few candid cable shows. Take the otherwise wonderful Answer Me, 1997. While none of that show’s kisses quite fit into the “forced” category, they’re all awfully close. Shi Won spends every kiss trying to be as far away from her partner as possible, literally bending over backward to do so. Even after marriage, she refuses to admit to enjoying sex. She works hard to clarify that intercourse is something she does on her significant other’s behalf, not her own. When modesty is prized and sex is utterly forbidden fruit, it’s a transgressive act for a woman to claim her sexuality. If these male leads didn’t make kisses happen by any means necessary, would they ever happen at all?

Now that I’m watching dramas from other Asian countries, I’m seeing different perspectives on this issue. Taiwanese dramas, for example, approach physical relationships from a vantage point that’s much more familiar to Western viewers. These shows take place in a universe where sex exists and is seen as a natural part of romantic relationships. Everywhere you turn, there are hot kisses.

But all that sex has a shadow cousin: sexual violence. Of the six dramas I’ve seen from Taiwan, there have been two cases of childhood sexual abuse (one hinted at and the other shown in brutal detail), a man who set up an elaborate scheme involving gangsters in order to trick a woman into sleeping with him, and a high schooler who repeatedly uses his superior strength to force physical contact on a very unwilling girl. Worst of all, though, was episode 13 of Mars.

Mars: I know your mother was literally insane, but didn’t she treat you to respect girls?

From the very beginning, this drama made it obvious to viewers that its female lead had been molested. The male lead doesn’t know this, but he starts to wonder if something is wrong when she shies away from heated contact with him: Every time he tries to move their make-out sessions to another level she panics to the point of flat-out hysteria. Instead of taking the hint and talking with her about the situation or encouraging her to get real professional help, he takes matters into his own hands.

The episode’s first “bed” scene starts off with the female lead just as into things as her boyfriend is. He may be too involved in the moment to see when things start to change for her, but we can’t miss it—her face is shown over his shoulder, distended in a terrified scream, and the scene is intercut with frames from her earlier sexual abuse. She brings everything to a halt and pushes him away with all her strength. “I’m sorry,” she pants. “I don’t mean to be like this.... Please don’t hate me.” Sobbing and covering her face with one hand, she leaves.

The next night, he calls her over to his place. As soon as she enters, he does something he’s never done before—closes and locks the front door behind her. I was going to describe the following scene in detail, but I can’t even bring myself to do it. Suffice it to say that he very avidly and aggressively attempts to rape her, even though he purportedly loves and her and knows how scared she is. She begs, she pleads, but he won’t stop.

Throughout this scene, the drama wants us to experience her fear. And we do. The atmosphere becomes palpably ominous from the moment he locks the door. The background music is tense and threatening, and her face claustrophobically fills the screen. We watch from above, only seeing him from the rear and in profile as he puts his lips on her skin. (I wouldn’t even call it a kiss—she’s mostly too busy screaming for that.)

But when she finally, completely breaks down and throws him off so she can run for the door, everything changes. The show’s “romance” theme song kicks in and he says, “I know everything now. I’m sorry. So sorry.” He comforts her, wrapping his arms around her and huddling next to the locked door with her. “I’ll never do it again.”

I do not understand this scene. Did he really not get the hint the last time she flipped out when he tried to touch her? Or is this supposed to be some sort of sexual healing? By forcing her to confront her fears but ultimately giving way, are we to believe the male lead is a hero? He doesn’t actually go through with the rape even though he clearly could have. Does this mean Mars wants us to see him as having earned her trust?

To me, it’s clear that this is an act of torture. The male lead didn’t inadvertently go against her wishes—he set out, cold and premeditated, to do something he knew was cruel beyond measure. All the apologies in the world don’t make up for this, and it ruined the entire drama for me.

So I guess that’s why Queen of Reversals was barely a blip on my radar. In its measured, Kdrama way it was an act of sexual violence. What the female lead wanted was immaterial, because a man who was interested in her—her boss—wanted to kiss her. But once you’ve seen Mars construe attempted rape as a romantic gesture, where do you go from there?

I’m not sure I know the answer, especially not when it comes to Taiwanese dramas. They’re an ocean I’m just starting to swim in, so I can’t tell if Mars is part of a greater trend or a one-time blip of misery.

I Need Romance: When a girl wants a boy

I have a lot of hope for Korean shows, though. On the one hand, female characters are slowly but surely taking control of their own sexuality. The best moment of the original I Need Romance involved a woman who became obsessed with the lovely forearms of a handsome man. There was no doubt that she found his body arousing, and no doubt what she wanted to do with him. And Queen In-hyun’s Man may have adored calling its female lead “stupid,” but she still got to initiate a lot of wonderful kisses and ultimately earn the respect of her male lead. On the other hand, male characters are evolving away from the caveman mentality that was all the rage a few years ago. Yoon Si Yoon’s entire oeuvre is indicative of a kinder, gentler Kdrama lead. If we’re lucky, his turn as the sensitive and respectful Enrique Geum in Flower Boy Next Doorwill be an evolutionary step toward the kind of male lead who will understand that loving someone is different from silencing them.

Grade: A-

Category
Courtroom romance

What it’s about
As a young boy, Park Soo Ha watches the murder of his father and is only saved from the same fate by Jang Hye Sung, a reluctant hero in the form of an uncertain teenaged girl. When she stands up for him in court against her better judgment, Soo Ha vows to spend the rest of his life protecting her. The two meet again ten years later, after she has become a public defender and he has started his senior year in high school. They work together to solve cases and bring his father’s killer to justice. (And did I mention Park Soo Ha can hear people’s thoughts?)

First impression
This breezy and bright drama finds a perfect middle ground between melodramatic romance and light comedy. Although not without failings, the first few episodes are enjoyable and set the stage for an epic lead couple (or OTP, in Internet parlance).

Final verdict
Despite being about two episodes too long and a little shaky in the logic department, I Can Hear Your Voice is a charming distraction with a cast of likeable characters and an impossibly compelling central romance. It gives viewers a mouthwatering taste of many of Kdrama’s biggest tropes—noona romance, cohabitation farce, revenge quest, supernatural drama, and birth secret mystery.



This is a show I liked, not loved. It was warm and cozy and the leads gave me heart palpitations with their cuteness, but the swiftly advancing plot came at the expense of verisimilitude and depth of character development. Its courtroom escapades were interesting early on, but eventually started to feel repetitive and preposterous. And while it made for some cute laughs and occasionally moved the story forward, the weirdly matter-of-fact telepathy aspect felt largely unnecessary.

For me at least, I Hear Your Voice’s darling lead couple is what elevated it from a grade B series. It’s obvious that they actually liked being together. They even managed to spend most of their time enjoying each other’s company rather than fighting over standard-issue drama clichés, which is miraculous indeed. It’s amazing how rarely this sort of relationship comes up in Kdrama love stories. Most shows are built around romantic back-and-forth, relying until the last minute on the couple staying apart—either because they’re so busy bickering or because the whole world is against their union—for their dramatic tension. In contrast, Voice used its multiple episodic mysteries and hell-bent Big Bad to give the show its form, allowing Soo Ha and Hye Sung lots of time to cuddle and nest in her quirky, sun-drenched apartment. They don’t even fight about the usual suspects like sharing bathrooms or who ends up on cleaning detail; instead, they compromise and build a believably homey life together.

I wouldn’t mind if this show continued airing forever, but I’d want a supercut version—all the domestic bliss, none of the legal drama.

Random thoughts
• Episode 1. At last, the moment I’ve been eagerly awaiting for more than two months: I’m finally going to watch the first episode of this recently completed drama. It has been buzzy from beginning to end, and has met near universal acclaim. If word on the street is to be believed, even the finale is good. But then again, I’d probably like this show even if it was mediocre. It’s my favorite genre, after all—the noona romance. Now please excuse me while I run around in dizzy, fangirl circles and flail my arms with glee.

• Episode 1. How wise of this show’s network to preface the first episode with a note about it being pure fiction. Because thought-hearing flower boys are clearly a dime a dozen in Korea, so people might be confused about whether it was a true story.

• Episode 1. I’m just going to come out and say it: This show’s male lead is cute, but he let the plastic surgeon take it one step too far with his nose job. It looks as if the doctor was working from a 2003 picture of Michael Jackson. He also resembles Can You Hear My Heart’s Kim Jae Won, an actor who’s so creepily anemic and sandblasted to bland perfection that I can’t even stand watching him on screen.

• Episode 1. If this show is to be trusted, Seoul’s courthouse looks a lot like the Ministry of Magic. And not in a good way.

• Episode 1. Hello, Oska. Secret Garden, must you taint all that is good in the world with your foul memory?

• Episode 2. Several people I follow on Tumblr commented about how odd this noona romance is. In most cases, noona love stories represent a switch in the traditional power dynamics—the older, more experienced woman is the one who’s in control of the relationship. But in this show, the male lead is like a grown man who happens to be wearing a school uniform. He lives on his own and spends all his time coming up with ways to protect his older love interest. From the minute they meet as adults, he’s the one in charge, to the point of hoisting her up onto his shoulder and carrying her around against her will.

• Episode 2. I like that the female lead is so nontraditional. She’s the exact opposite of cheerful and hardworking, and actually reminds me of the disenfranchised teacher in Monstar with her sloppy, I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass ways. They’re a glimpse of the real world invading into drama—we can’t all be perfect, after all.

• Episode 2. While this isn’t a traditional noona romance, it has some great things going for it. Between being an older woman and her knowledge that Park Soo Ha can read her mind, the female lead is utterly free around him. There’s no posturing or reserve—instead, the characters share an easy, uncomplicated intimacy. They’re also incredibly cute together. He’s about ten feet taller, but lavishes her with such puppyish attention that she seems like the center of gravity in every scene.

• Episode 2. I can see why people were all worked up about this show when it was airing. It’s a near-perfect blend of mystery-of-the-week plots, intriguing backstory, and cuddly leads. In spite of its dark subject matter, it’s mostly cute, lighthearted fun. And who doesn’t love that?

• Episode 5. I’m not sure how an American show would distinguish between identical twins, but I suspect it wouldn’t be by dubbing one the older brother and one the younger brother. Here, that would be considered a distinction without a difference. Who cares which is which, if they were born minutes apart?

• Episode 6. Product placement (apparently known as PPL in Korea) may be nasty, but it sure is effective. After a year of seeing them used in all the new Kdramas, I lust these Samsung phones like you can’t even imagine. The iPhone looks clunky and old fashioned in comparison.

• Episode 6. This show is the porniest of domesticity porn. One more shot of the leads sharing their lives across the dinner table and I’ll expire from an excess of swoon.

• Episode 6. My legal training is limited to accidentally watching an episode of Law and Order circa 2003, but I suspect this show’s courtroom story is about as plausible as Gong Yoo appearing at my door wearing nothing but a strategically placed bow. The law is actually about a lot more than guilt and innocence, and it’s probably not the best idea for lawyers to play God.

• Episode 6. I really dig the birthmark Lee Jong Suk has just under his eye. It’s what a Westerner might call a beauty mark—a mole that’s actually seen as a point of attraction, like the one on Marilyn Monroe’s cheek. They’re especially desirable when they draw attention to a facial feature—say, Lee Jong Suk’s lovely almond eyes. But here’s random item 8 million that being obsessed with Kdrama will teach us: To Asians, this is called a tear mole. (Lee Jong Suk mentions his in this interview with Ceci.) According to traditional Chinese medicine, people who have them are emotional and act impetuously. We human beings are a strange, strange species to have developed so many interpretations of what’s essentially a dark spot on someone’s skin.

• Episode 6. I’m confused—how can the female lead giver her mother her entire paycheck? Doesn’t she have to pay rent and put food on the table for her growing boy toy? (Who must somehow be independently wealthy himself.) I know that Asian cultures expect adult children to care for their parents in ways Americans aren’t used to, but this seems a bit extreme. Plus, it must be nice to be able to afford to buy a car with just one paycheck—I’ll be paying for mine for the next two years.

• Episode 7. Oh, cruel Drama Overlords! How do you always know to leave a horrifying cliffhanger just when I have to go to sleep?

• Episode 9. I’m guzzling this drama like water on a hot day. It’s brisk and fast-moving and wastes no time on melo angst. The characters are great, the plot is speedy (if not particularly smart or textured), and the OTP is adorable.

• Episode 9.“You have to die so I can live”? Somebody’s read a lot of Harry Potter.

• Episode 10. Unlike a lot of Korean dramas, the true star of this show is its plot. Usually characters take precedent over narrative development, which is one of the reasons why I like Kdrama so much. But Voice’s surging forward momentum turns out to be a refreshing change. It does, however, make it hard to talk about watching the show without getting into lengthy, spoilerific explanations of things I don’t really want to explain.

• Episode 10. The noona-romance sweet spot is always just out of this show’s reach. Early on, the younger man acted as the smarter, savvier leader in their relationship, in spite of an age balance that should have favored the older woman. And now things have reversed completely—he desperately needs her to be his protector and voice in the world. So desperately, in fact, that his character has been utterly sapped of all vitality, which isn’t that great, either. 

• Episode 11. These court scenes are so ridiculously abstract that they could have been written by an eight year old. Sure, there are three sets of footprints at the crime scene. But how many people in Korea wear the same size and style of shoe on any given day? Hundreds? Thousands? How can you be sure that those footprints belong to the people you think they do? To say nothing about the stupidity of the fundamental assumption that there’s been a crime in the first place. I hate reading mystery novels because they always make me feel like an idiot for not solving the case before the big reveal. But this show’s legal intrigue is like a letter written with those big, fat crayons they give little kids: It may be clumsy and awkward, but I could still solve it from outer space while blindfolded.

• Episode 13. I enjoy most everything about this show, but my favorite part of all is the domestic cuteness. Voice is the best cohabitation drama ever, full to the rafters with laundry folding, dinner making, and harmonious bathroom sharing. I have a serious yen for some fanfic about these two lovebirds preparing for his dad’s memorial day together. There would be lots of hugging and earnest discussions about where to get the best price for whole octopuses. Please tell me that the Internet will slack this hunger?

• Episode 14. I’m sure lots of people loved this cameo by Kim Min Jong, but I see it a bit differently, having been one of five people on planet Earth to hate A Gentleman’s Dignity. And here’s one of the F44 sitting down to dinner with the guy who played Oska in Secret Garden—my other least favorite drama of all time. The suck embodied in this one scene is staggering.

• Episode 16. Could you make your hand gestures a little more bizarre and obvious, Park Soo Ha? They’re going to put you on psychiatric watch if you don’t tone down all that twitching.

• Episode 16. So the bad guy is walking down a seamy looking aisle of shelves as he adds items to a shopping basket: industrial-sized duct tape, a coil of sturdy looking rope, a comically giant wrench. But there has been no establishing shot and the interior is invisible beyond a small area of light. What, is he shopping at Korea’s newest chain store, Murders R Us? (“Where every killing spree starts with a shopping spree!”)

• Episode 16. I love the lead couple and am glad that they’ve gotten together without a lot of fuss or makjang obstacles, but it is kind of silly that nobody at all has commented about their age difference. When he was in high school she was telling people she was his guardian, and now they’re walking around holding hands without drawing funny looks? I suspect that’s about as likely as the whole telepathy thing.

• Episode 16. This show is stuffed to the gills with product placements for everything from hiking boots and laundry detergent to vitamins, but they’re so low key and such an excellent fit with the domesticity porn vibe that they aren’t even annoying.

You might also like
• Prosecutor Princess for its Legally-Blonde take on courtroom drama and romance

• Did somebody say domestic supercut?

Last week’s contrasting posts—one about the problem of consent in Asian dramas, the other about the coziest lead pairing of 2013 thus far—got me thinking about my favorite kind of Kdrama couple: the best friends.

Some dramas revolve around lovers who have exactly one thing in common: mutual attraction. Take Boys over Flowers. What do Jan Di and Jun Pyo talk about when they’re by themselves? Not much, beyond whatever obstacle is currently keeping them apart. Their union is based solely on a whim that’s heightened by the forbidden-fruit thrill of his mother’s objections to their relationship. The hardest work of their romance—building something lasting and real that can weather the difficulties of life—is still ahead of them.

But best friend couples, in life and in drama, already share a meaningful connection; they start out spending time together because they like and respect each other. When they fall in love, it’s with another human being, not just a fantasy of what someone would be like as a mate. And being best friends allows them to step outside the traditional roles that define the interactions between so many Kdrama lovers. BFF guys are hardly ever physically aggressive with BFF girls, and they don’t force kisses on them. In turn, BFF girls aren’t modest or retiring; they are simply themselves.

Here’s a brief catalog of the BFF couples I’ve enjoyed most.


Coffee Prince
As frequent readers of this blog know, my love for Coffee Prince knows no bounds. And that’s mostly thanks to the relationship of its leads: Choi Han Gyul and Go Eun Chan are the ultimate best friend couple. Even before their romance begins, they have long, candid conversations about their lives and dreams. They goof off together, work together, and share a common goal—the success of Han Gyul’s coffee shop. All this goodwill and kindness makes their eventual romance one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen. No other Kdrama couple is as connected this one—in every scene they share, their awareness of each other is like a crackling live wire. Pulled together by friendship, there’s no obstacle can keep them apart.

BFF-iest scene: Episode 3’s slumber party at Han Gyul’s house

Bestie level: Meat and salt



In Time with You
When this show begins, Chen You Qing and Li Da Ren have been best friends for over a decade, and their relationship has remained a key part of their lives even as they’ve dated other people. They’re together through the good and bad, whether that means picking a dress for a little sister who’s impossible to please or driving all night to provide a shoulder for crying on. They represent home to each other just as surely as their own families do, and when they finally admit their feelings they evolve into drama’s most gentle lovers.

BFF-iest scene: The knowing glances and silent understandings of the lead couple’s joint vacation in episode 5

Bestie level: Matt and Ben



Sungkyunkwan Scandal
Gender-bending shows are especially ripe for best-friend pairings. Instead of being separated by the old-fashioned roles ascribed to men and women, gender-bending leads meet on equal footing as peers and spend time together as people before they’re lovers. Sungkyunkwan Scandal’sOTP is among the most epic of these cross-dressing delights—he’s a rigidly principled scholar from powerful family; she’s a slightly smart-alecky poor girl who’s not afraid to break the rules to get what she wants, even if it means dressing as a boy. They form an unbreakable friendship as classmates at a prestigious university. And when the truth about the female lead’s gender is revealed, that friendship turns into one of the swooniest romances Korean drama has ever produced.

BFF-iest scene: The archery lessons in episode 4

Bestie level: Wedding dresses and Spanx



Answer Me 1997
Shi Won and Yoon Jae fit together so perfectly it actually took me a while to realize they weren’t brother and sister. Having grown up side by side, they know every detail about each other’s life—from first periods to family tragedies. Their shared history finally grows into a romantic relationship but never moves away from the casual intimacy they shared as children.

BFF-iest scene: Shi Won’s attempts to make Yoon Jae laugh at his parents’ funeral in episode 1

Bestie level: Dorothy and Rose



I Hear Your Voice
Who needs telepathy when your leads are as simpatico as these two? Their easy, drama-less camaraderie suffuses the show, filling all its voids with cozy, shared domestic rituals. When not dodging murderous bad guys, this pairing is building a strong friendship that seamlessly evolves into a cuddly romance.

BFF-iest scene: All those homey, shared dinners

Bestie level: Macaroni and cheese



Personal Taste
In a novel spin on the cross-dressing drama, Personal Taste’s male lead pretends to be gay so he can move into a woman’s house and learn its architectural secrets. (This is less kinky than it sounds, unfortunately.) Even as Kae In struggles with a massive crush on her tenant, the cohabitans grow to understand and appreciate each other for what they are—a fussily well-dressed guy and an over-eager girl with a penchant for power tools.

BFF-iest scene: Lounging on the couch in episode 4

Bestie level: Lane and Rory


I Need Romance 2012
Friends with benefits Yeol Mae and Suk Hyun lived together since they were teenagers, back when their moms built a conjoined house. They constantly bicker and battle but can never bring themselves to split up or get together for real. As a viewer, I never wanted them to do either—they were more like family members than lovers and their relationship was so incredibly important to their happiness that a romance seemed risky.

BFF-iest scene: When Yeol Mae leaves Suk Hyun alone to recover from his stormy mood, just as he wants her to

Bestie level: Willow and Zander




Painter of the Wind
When Shin Yoon Bok is forced to hide her gender to attend the Joseon era’s greatest academy for painters, the man who starts off as her mentor ends up as something more—her greatest companion, guide, and friend. Together, they risk their lives to learn more about art and the world around them. As far as I’m concerned, their romance didn’t work as well as their friendship. They just weren’t compatible on a physical level (he’s huge and she’s tiny), and Shin Yoon Bok’s amazing chemistry with her gisaeng counterpart left me convinced she was too into girls to need a male lead. (That doesn’t make the show any less of a joy to watch, though.)

BFF-iest scene: Episode 6’s painting adventures

Bestie level: Timmy and Lassie


(P.S.: I don't have a Thursday post this week, as I’m only partway through Can We Get Married and am too meh about Monstar to bother watching its ending.)

Korean dramas hold sacred the magical powers of the makeover. In their world, fake eyelashes and a name-brand outfit are all it takes for an ugly duckling to be reborn as a swan. And these transformations are more than just skin deep—to Kdrama characters, they represent both new beginnings and opportunities to be seen in a different way by the world around them.

Here is a brief taxonomy of the principal makeover species that have been spotted in the Kdrama wild.


The Fairy Godfather
makeoverus oppaknowsbestus

As seen in: Personal Taste and Boys over Flowers

Natural habitat: Tony salons and upscale department stores

Distinguishing characteristics: Everyday guys who just happen to have a crack team of hairstylists, cosmetologists, and fashion consultants on staff; girls who mistakenly think there may be things in life that could be more important than looking good; Lee Min Ho

A single human body isn’t a canvas large enough to express the glorious and refined sense of style prized by Korea’s enormous population of flawlessly groomed flower boys. Having attained bodily perfection themselves, these extreme metrosexuals have been seen to develop symbiotic relationships with girls who have bad fashion sense. The flower boys step in and—with a cheery exclamation of “Project!”—remake their less chic companions into the ideal woman. (And then fall in love with them.)


The Fat Girl
makeoverus thighgapus

As seen in: Dream High and Prosecutor Princess

Natural habitat: Wherever food isn’t

Distinguishing characteristics: Cheap jokes about weight accompanied by even cheaper fat suits, a halo supporting characters obsessed with The Fat Girl’s BMI

No creature on planet earth loves an underdog as much as Human beingus spp. Kdramatis. This proclivity is most perfectly expressed in The Fat Girl makeover—whether by her own means or through the intervention of others, this female lead transforms from a lumpy, undateable caterpillar to a gorgeously slender butterfly, thereby rendering everything about her life completely and utterly perfect. This enviable transformation has not been substantiated outside of on-screen populations.



The Faustian Bargain
makeoverus soulsmirch

As seen in: What Happened in Bali and Que Sera Sera

Natural habitat: Matthew 4:1–11

Distinguishing characteristics: Girls who value brand name goods more than their souls; guys who are willing to buy love (or at least complacency)

Like a cat playing with a mouse, Kdrama males have been observed toying with their prey. They repeatedly offer their female counterparts expensive goods and services that would be otherwise unattainable, driving their quarry mad with desire. When her lust is at a true fever pitch and can no longer be contained, the male will begin the makeover process as a distraction. These dark Fairy Godfathers then consume the female, body and soul. Many researchers have philosophical objections to  the study of the Faustian Bargain, as a lack of intervention in such destructive relationships is tantamount to approval of their horrific techniques.



The From Bad to Worse
makeoverus doggicus

As seen in: Boys over Flowers and Coffee Prince

Natural habitat: Glamour Shots at the mall

While Human beingus spp. Kdramatis is remarkably susceptible to makeovers, the results are sometimes less than aesthetically pleasing to outsiders. Balancing every stunning metamorphosis is an epic fail, complete with bad hair, ugly dresses, and wraps that look like mummified Muppets. The exact cause for these monstrous anomalies is unclear, although some scholars suspect ulterior motives on the part of the makeovers’ instigators.


The Viola
makeoverus breastbindus

As seen in: Coffee Prince and Sungkyunkwan Scandal

Natural habitat: Any school, business, or institution that does not allow women

There comes a time in the life of every Korean drama female when it would be more convenient to be a Korean drama male. Makeovers of this family are so common that—according to some estimates—more than 50 percent of all “males” in any gender-specific organization are actually females. Naturally, a thriving industry has grown up around breast binding materials and innocuous tampon disposal devices, so the gender switch is as easy as getting a haircut and putting on a pair of baggy pants.


The Tootsie
makeoverus hiddensausagus

As seen in: Ma Boy and I Do, I Do

Natural habitat: Daehan and environs

Sightings of this makeover—a male counterpart to The Viola—are extremely rare. It has been hypothesized that the limited benefits associated with femaleness (Outside Seoul 2012) discourage its proliferation. The Tootsie has recently been added to Korean drama’s critically endangered species list. With the increased protections that come with this designation, the scientific community is guardedly optimistic that Tootsie populations will experience a resurgence.

The Time Lapse
makeoverus offscreenicus

As seen in: Flower Boy Next Door and Coffee Prince

Natural habitat: The last ten minutes

Even the most dogged of observers have been stymied when attempting to obtain hard proof of this  covert subset of the makeover genus. As the Time Lapse has never been replicated in a lab environment, skeptics have called into question its very existence. While the actual physical metamorphosis has not been witnessed, most open-minded researchers believe its results speak for themselves: After a long separation, Kdrama lovers are seen to have experienced significant physical changes. Hair color, clothing styles, and even personal attitudes all undergo revolutionary transfigurations.

Family drama

What it’s about
Can We Get Married explores the stormy romantic and family relationships of six women of different ages, including a brash middle-class widow and her two daughters. Its story charts their interconnected lives through breakups and reunions, weddings and divorces, late-arriving love and contented parenthood.

First impression
This stylish and cinematic opener suggests a more sophisticated take on life and loves than most rom-coms. (Now if only the characters would speak a little more slowly....) I’m still fairly apprehensive about this show, however. I’ve read wildly varied reviews about it, many of which weren’t positive. Other bloggers have reported hating all the characters and finding the plot draggy. But I’ve also heard that it’s realistic and more nuanced and well made than the typical Kdrama romance. All I know is that I better like it, because I’ve sworn to stop being so wishy-washy and giving up on dramas midway through their runs.

Final verdict
Can We Get Married is a realistic, quietly funny and subtly feminist take on modern love.

Its narrative spine is about as standard-issue Kdrama as you can get—the central plot is a young teacher’s quest to marry her sweetheart in the face of strenuous family objections. But unlike Secret Garden, Boys over Flowers, and the 8 trillion other dramas that use family as a narrative device to keep their lead couples apart, this show adds another dimension to their struggles: personal doubt and uncertainty. The mothers play a role in the couple’s difficulties, but there’s no sense that vanquishing these two dragons will solve all their problems. Instead, what really drives the lovers apart is not yet having figured out how to work as a team in good times and bad.

And about those mothers-in-law. Yes, their never-ending manipulations were frustrating and sometimes made me wonder why I was bothering to watch this show. But I kept coming back, and by the time the final episode rolled around I was actually looking forward to their bickering interactions. Whenever the two of them were together it was like watching an incredibly skilled game of tennis, only instead of balls they were volleying subtly veiled digs in an attempt to maneuver each other into position for the final kill.

Adjacent to the young lovers and their interfering mothers are a number of other characters that have their own narrative trajectories. An older sister suffers through the end of her marriage, a best friend realizes that being in love means sharing even the things you don’t like about yourself, and a maiden aunt finds liberation, freedom, and happiness with the help of a younger man. Wonderfully, the script allows all these characters to be persnickety and volatile, just like real people are. There are no cardboard-cut-out Kdrama saints in this cast.

Can We Get Married is a show with room in its heart for many perspectives and people. In its world, women can be naive and experienced, sweet and sour, traditional and rebelleous, strong and weak—sometimes all at once.

Random thoughts
• Episode 2. This show’s structure is a bit like the typical Korean home drama—it tells the interlocking stories of five women related by blood or friendship. But what sets Married apart is that everything is done at warp speed—the narration hops from character to character many times in a single episode. Most home dramas I’ve seen have felt slow and methodical, focusing on a single storyline until it’s resolved and then moving on to another one. This show is totally different, a swirling vortex of people and places. This can be kind of dizzying before you’ve sorted out who’s who, but quickly comes to feel rewarding. Its fast and fragmented nature actually reminds me of the American daytime soaps I watched when I was growing up. (And I mean that as a compliment.)

• Episode 2. In the course of this episode, no fewer than four glasses of liquid were thrown in people’s faces. Now that’swhat I’m talking about.

• Episode 2. The lonelyheart aunt better not end up with Min Ho. His bike, sure. She deserves better than the man. [Finale note: Don’t let his unfortunate headwear turn you off—Min Ho is awesome and ends up just where he belongs.]

• Episode 3. I can’t believe it—does this drama actually feature a girl who isn’t obsessed with fashion? I feel like this is so improbable it’s likely to cause a tear in the space time continuum, like if you traveled back in time to kill your grandfather or tried to order a Big Mac at Burger King or something.

•Episode 3. Every scene featuring the older couple includes a fabulous soundtrack right out of an 80s teen movie. From Fine Young Cannibals to Abba, they’ve got all the greatest hits of my childhood.

• Episode 3. The uber fancy restaurant they went to toward the end of this episode is the same spot that was featured in The Thousandth Man last year. Does that mean it’s actually a real place, not a set created for the dramas, or is it the other way around?

• Episode 3. Can We Get Married clearly thinks its signature move involves a glass of liquid being thrown in someone’s face. This episode has two more instances of water rage.

• Episode 4. I was just trying to think of examples of Kdrama girls instigating back hugs, and this episode delivers a doozy. As her boyfriend is walking away from a nasty fight, the female lead grabs him before explaining her behavior and apologizing for being bratty. Her motivation is twofold: the hug keeps him from leaving, and it also gives her an opportunity to be truthful when she’s feeling too embarrassed to meet his eyes. She even follows up the move with a forehead kiss, which is pretty revolutionary when it comes to the power dynamics of rom-com relationships.

• Episode 5. I can already see why so many people had bad reactions to this show. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch the characters being manipulated by the mom who seems to have stolen Dolly’s Parton’s eyeshadow kit, circa 1981. Instead of just saying what they want and why, everyone’s being passive aggressive and making the people around them miserable. This, I think, is a case of a drama being culturally accurate in a way that’s hard for Americans to swallow. It’s based in a complicated web of interpersonal relationships that are very different from what we’re used to.

• Episode 5. A character just said “A wedding is the first step to independence from parents.” That was once true in America, but nowadays most people would probably say independence starts a lot earlier than marriage. Leaving home for college was my first big step as a grownup, and I think that’s true for many. (I still remember how weird it was going to the grocery store for the first time and knowing I could get anything I wanted. I bought a lifetime supply of Froot Loops that day, just for the thrill of it.) But based on dramaland, the standard approach to emerging adulthood in Korea is what we’d probably call “helicopter parenting” here. For good or for bad, once you’re in your early twenties, Americans assume you’ll make your decisions for yourself.

• Episode 5. Funny that things happen in twos in this show—two glasses of water in somebody’s face, two weddings, two girls giving back hugs, and two other women riding motorcycles.

• Episode 7. Here’s a quotable moment from the male lead: “This is why I hate women in dramas. It’s all their fault. They make women think that all men should save women. Doesn’t a woman have hands or a brain?” While I kind of agree with this in the abstract, I’m not so crazy about it in these circumstances—he’s talking about a guy not intervening when a drunk girl is about to be taken advantage of (maybe even raped?). Still, this probably the most candid discussion of gender representation in entertainment that I’ve seen in any Kdrama.

• Episode 7. Although some of the girls on this show seem to have a lot more equality in their relationships than many Kdrama characters, the married woman is still being treated like a maid. Is a woman buying herself expensive things and not taking care of the house really grounds for divorce?

• Episode 8. I came into this series expecting to hate Blue Eye Shadow more than the other mother in law, but things have gone all topsy-turvy on me. Blue Eye Shadow works hard for her family and lives and dies for their happiness. She’s loud and brash and pushy, but that’s because she wants her girls to find men who will live up to the responsibility of caring for them. She just happens to be so wrapped up seeing that her daughters’ physical needs are cared for that she’s forgetting that emotional needs are important too—which is exactly what she’s done in her own hardscrabble life. The other mother in law seems nice on the surface, but she’s primarily concerned with status and her own wants, not what her son needs to begin his life as an adult. She’s too divorced from reality to understand that not everyone can afford fancy purses meant as trophies.

• Episode 8. When I think about “traditional” gender roles in marriage, the thing that usually makes me bristle is the wife’s expected subservience to her husband and the loss of power that comes along with it. But this episode is showing the flip side of that particular coin: as the husband, you have total responsibility for another person, and it’s your job to provide them with everything they need. That’s a heavy burden, as this male lead is learning. He’s young and inexperienced but on some level he still expects himself to be the leader and provider in his relationship. (People always say that Korea is like America in the 1950s on this front, and in this episode I really see it. This series is appearance from John Hamm away from being Mad Men.)

• Episode 8. It’s nice to see the young leads doing so well in this drama. Both actors have been in other high-profile shows, but nothing as sophisticated and mature as these roles.

• Episode 8. The mistress in this show is so skinny that her kneecap is the widest part of her leg. She has pretty much the same body as Ramses the Great—and he’s been mummified for three thousand years.

• Episode 9. Two things Kdrama people do while fully clothed that gross me out: (1) sit on toilets in public restrooms, and (2) crawl into bed. Ick.

• Episode 9. I’ve read a lot of reviews saying that this show is good, but not groundbreaking. I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong—on the groundbreaking part, anyway. Its subject matter really is the same old stuff—romantic and family relationships are tested in a domestic setting. But thanks to its candid and nuanced execution, Can We Get Married is something special and utterly unique. Its characters do things that real people do, but most drama bots would never imagine. Plotlines include promiscuity and divorce, kids who yell at their parents, and old maids who put aggressive men in their place with forced kisses. And all these things are intended not for melodrama but to evoke genuine emotions as they might truly be experienced.

• Episode 9. It took me a while to be captured by this show, but now that I am I just wish I could keep watching forever. It’s a soapy, slice-of-lifey delight in which every interaction is a battlefield. The combatants aren’t only the people who are present—their entire families are clashing, too, pushing and pulling any one individual’s will until they join the rest. Everybody has a dog in every fight, no matter what that fight might be.

• Episode 10. And the award for the most prepared second male lead goes to...the guy in this show who keeps a barf bag in his car’s glove compartment, just in case. Do they have Boy Scouts in Korea? If so, he’s definitely one of them.

• Episode 10. The montage of drama-inspired kisses in this episode was hysterical—they even used the background music from the original shows. I could only identify two, though: the stair kiss from the end of My Lovely Sam Soon and the foam kiss from Secret Garden.

• Episode 14. The mom’s over-the-top makeup is a rarity for Korean dramas. Most drama actresses always have the very same make up on, no matter what they’re doing—taking a bath at home or going out for a night on the town. I’m sure it’s easier that way, given the hectic filming schedules and the amount of time it would take to change looks for every scene. But with her stark, dark-red blush and aquamarine eyeshadow, this mom is something different. We see her at home looking bare-faced and pretty, but before leaving the house she always trowels on the same outlandish make up my 1980s-era country and western Barbie used to wear. For her, cosmetics are like war paint. They set her apart from the rest of the world as a physical being, and build a barrier to keep away the uninvited. They’re also how she’s kept her family afloat all those years, and one of the things that distinguish her from most of the other mothers in this show: She works for a living, selling cosmetics at her own store.

• Episode 16. Here’s a sure sign of being unhealthily obsessed with Korean drama: You not only recognize a random street corner where something was filmed, but can also name multiple times you’ve used screen caps from that location on your blog. I might genuinely need psychiatric attention.

• Episode 16. Finally, a sensible Kdrama couple! They like each other and want to live together, so they plan a casual wedding and don’t get all worked up about the traditions and rituals that the Wedding Industrial Complex tries to make us believe we need. I will be incredibly disappointed if the show makes her go back on her offhanded shrug about a big wedding—“I don’t have a fantasy like that.”

• Episode 17. Dramafever’s subs for this show aren’t the best. They’re not terrible, but they could have used a final edit by someone who’s good with English verb tenses and rules of pluralization. In some ways I like rough sounds—it lets the Korean peek through. I’ve probably seen a hundred Kdrama characters tell someone to get on or off a car. We native speakers of English would never say that—people get in or out of cars—but it’s such a common translation quirk that it must arise from the original Korean word use.

• Episode 19. The issue of won amounts in subtitles is kind of weird. Many subbers convert the figures into US dollars—or at least some currency that deals with numbers that are less astronomically enormous. In these subs, they seem to have used the figures for Korean won, which—according to the conversion app I just downloaded for my trusty new phone—means the 5 billion won they’re talking about in this episode is around 4.5 million dollars.

• Episode 19. On the one hand, it’s kind of cute that the mom always retreats to her son’s (empty) bed after she fights with the dad. On the other hand, Eww.


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Korean drama and I are celebrating our two-year anniversary this month. I’m prone to random pop-culture fixations, but this one might be the most unexpected—and educational. In the course of watching a truly embarrassing number of Kdramas, I’ve learned more about Korean language and culture than I ever thought possible.

So in honor of this auspicious occasion and my constant curiosity about other people’s drama biographies, here’s a brief rundown of the chronology of my obsession.



Summer 2006—The first drama.What international fan can forget that first Korean drama they watched? Funny or tragic, good or bad, it opened a door into a new world. My introduction to dramaland was a DVD box set of My Lovely Sam Soon that belonged to the friend of a friend. When it finally found its way to me, I watched all 16 episodes over the course of one summer weekend. I loved the actors, the show, and the finite length of the series. But back then Kdramas were hard to find in the rural outpost I call home, so I made a mental note to keep an eye out for more of them and carried on with my life.




August 2011—The hook, line, and sinker drama. I have Netflix to blame for my current state of obsession. After deciding that I had been wasting money on a membership I hardly ever used, I vowed to watch something they carried before the new television season began in America. I was clearly defenseless against Boys over Flowers. In spite of its flaws, it checked all the boxes:It was a youth-oriented show featuring handsome young men, a scrappy heroine, and the most epic of Cinderella plot lines. I mainlined episode after episode, breathless with anticipation: would Jan Di choose nasty Jun Pyo or thoughtful, supportive Ji Hoo? In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that I was ever innocent enough to believe this love triangle’s resolution wasn’t foreordained. But the most important thing I learned from BoF was that I would never run out of romantic comedies, if only I looked beyond the borders of America. Girl-centered television series are relatively rare here, so it’s possible to have seen everything on offer at any given time. But the sheer volume of series produced every year in Korea ensures an almost constant supply of new shows, many of which are just my type.



September 2011—Drama in the wild.After burning through Netflix’s then-scant Kdrama offerings, I found the dearly departed Drama Crazy and Mysoju. (If you had told me then that both would be gone forever within two years, I would have laughed—at that point, they seemed as eternal and inexorable as Amazon.) With their impossibly encyclopedic offerings, these sites made me realize just how vast the Kdrama empire really was: I could never possibly run out of new shows to watch. And the first drama I watched on Mysoju was the only thing could have made me happier about this: Shining Inheritance, which introduced me to the genre of Korean melodrama. As disorienting it was at first to keep track of all the characters and plotlines, watching Shining Inheritance felt like coming home. It was like one of the Lifetime original movies I grew up watching—one with over-the-top backstabbing, family intrigue, and a girl doing everything she could to salvage a life gone horribly wrong. In the U.S., programming that revolves around a female leads is usually ghettoized on the outer reaches of cable. But in Korea? It’s prime time viewing.



October 2011—The soul mate. It seems that most everyone has that one drama, the one that they could happily watch on an infinite loop. Mine is a little show called Coffee Prince. (Maybe you’ve heard of it?) The only bad thing about Coffee Prince is that it’s one of a kind—funny and serious, sweet and thought-provoking, silly and genuine. Even though I’ve seen tens (hundreds?) of dramas since I picked Coffee Prince at random from of Drama Crazy’s list of popular shows, none of them have made me smile as spontaneously, squee as intensely, or want to come back to them quite as often. Coffee Prince also inspired my very first drama-related comment on the Internet: I was so woozy with joy by the end of the final episode that I posted about how much I loved Sweeper’s bath in Drama Crazy’s comments.

November 2011—No, this is the song of my people. Dramafever appeared in my life at about this point, like a playground crack dealer with the finest, cheapest supply on the block. Comcast probably misses me, but shortly after I signed up for a year of Dramafever I dropped my American cable package—possibly forever.


November 2011—The first sageuk.I thought I’d never watch historical Kdramas. The clothes seemed too crazy—men in dresses! mesh pilgrim hats! Women with deely bobbers woven into their hair!—and the episode counts were too high. Hungry for more cross-dressing shenanigans, though, I found the perfect introduction to the breed: Sungkyunkwan Scandal. In twenty (not so) short episodes, it made me fall in love with Joseon scholars, hanboks, and its cast of up-and-coming young actors. Its status as a fusion show allowed SKKS to explore gender and economic inequities in anachronistic ways (and also invited memorable scenes with elevators, couples’ rings, and primitive telegraphs). Nowadays the only thing that’s holding me back from becoming a complete sageuk hound is the extreme length of most historical Kdramas—any show longer than about 25 episodes feels like an unthinkable commitment, and sageuks are often much, much longer.



December 2011—Off the deep end. Like many Americans, I grew up eating ramen. But until I started watching Korean drama, I never ate it the right way (mixed an egg and lots of green onion) or in the proper position (off a saucepan lid while sitting on my living room floor). But one snowy afternoon during winter break when I was midway through Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, I broke down and gave it a try. It was a big day for me all around: it was also the first time I posted on the Friday open thread at Dramabeans, which led me to realize just how much I liked writing about Korean drama, which led me to start this blog.

December 2011—The birth of Outside Seoul. During my boring two-week holiday vacation, I had (perhaps too much) time to think about dramas. I’ve had an internet presence since the late 90s, and I began to think about creating a new spot to vent about my Kdrama obsession. It was high time: people in my life were starting to flinch reflexively whenever I said a word that started with the letter K, but I still could barely contain all the random fun facts I had picked up during my excursions in dramaland. It must have been like hanging out with an older, less cute version of Hermione Ganger: “It’s raining but sunny out? That’s fox rain.” “In Korea, it’s a compliment to tell someone they have a small face.” “You should never give shoes to someone you love, because they’ll walk away from you in them.” The one stumbling block to starting this blog was my acute awareness that I had nothing much to offer—I have no particular interest in film criticism, no knowledge of Korean language or culture, and no kimchi-making grandma. But if people wrote about only what they knew, the Internet would be a pretty quiet place. So I decided that maybe being utterly clueless had merits in itself, and Outside Seoul was born.



January 2012—The first inside joke. For the first six months or so, watching Kdrama was like wandering through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory without a map. Everywhere I looked there were marvels and wonders, but I understood none of them. As I watched more and more dramas, though, my K-ent vocabulary grew and I started to see things for what they were: Sam Dong’s dream sequence in Dream High played off the epically effective scene introducing the F4 in Boys over Flowers. (Say what you will about Korean drama, but I can’t think of the last time any U.S. show had a scene as iconic as the “Almost Paradise” intro.) That first time I understood an inside joke was like a baby’s first steps—inevitably, it was followed by more of the same.When Ha Ji Won squealed “Binny!” at the sight of a Hyun Bin poster in King 2 Hearts, the scene was more than a comment about cute Korean actors—it was a nod to the spotlight she had shared with him in Secret Garden. 



February, 2012—The first drama drop. Early on in my drama career, it never even occurred to me that it was possible to stop watching a show after you started it. I even barreled through the entirety of Secret Garden in spite hating almost every minute of it. But then came Can You Hear My Heart, a series completely ruined by its profoundly annoying lead couple: Kim Jae Won, always uncannily pasty and wan, was so “milky” looking he actually creeped me out. And vacant-eyed, empty headed Hwang Jung-eum capered around like a dim-bulb cheerleader on speed. In combination with the drama’s bloated, pointless script they pushed me over the edge—I dropped the show by episode 14 and haven’t looked back since. These days I’ve realized that it’s not worth my time to watch shows I don’t click with. (Sorry, I Love Tae Ri.)


Ongoing—The extracurricular activities. To paraphrase a much-loved meme: One does not simply watch Korean drama. The food is too yummy looking, the places are too gorgeous, and the beauty products are too enticing. I’ve bought detoxifying face masks, ramyun, and even a cell phone based almost exclusively on my exposure to them on Korean television shows. (Learning how to use the Samsung Galaxy has been a snap. Thanks to all its product placement, I knew how to do everything before I even picked it up the first time.) Although an actual trip to Korea is probably never going to fit into my budget, I’ve read Lonely Planet’s guide to Seoul cover to cover, and my shelf of books to read contains a few volumes of Korean folk tales. (Unfortunately, I haven’t found much Korean fiction in translation.) I think the South Korean government is on to something with their campaign for “soft power”—global power gained through the cultural cachet earned by Kpop and Kdrama.


Two years is actually an incredibly long time to be obsessed with something. Will I be around for two more? I can’t say for sure—but it is just long enough for Song Joong Ki to finish his tour of duty. That’s a pretty powerful incentive.

Boys over Flowers: Cake wreck in 3... 2...1...

With the American TV series Dexter and Breaking Bad ending, there has been a lot of talk in the entertainment press about antiheroes. Korean drama tends to shy away from the leads quite as unsavory as the ones in these two shows—one a “good” serial killer, the other a meth-cooking drug kingpin.

But Kdrama does traffic in antiheroes. There’s the recently wrapped Cruel City, which by all reports was peopled by drug dealers and prostitutes. Essentially every male lead written by Lee Kyung Hee obviously fits the bill, from tricksy former gigolo Ma Roo in Nice Guy to I’m Sorry I Love You’s dirty, mean Moo Hyuk. And you can also find a cache of antiheroes in an unexpected place: romantic comedies and melodramas.

What else can you call a character like Boys over Flowers’s Joon Pyo? He doesn’t eat orphans for breakfast or spend his spare time torturing kittens, but he’s certainly no hero. Instead of being morally upright and sympathetic, he’s self-centered and devoted to making people miserable. When a girl with a crush on him gives Joon Pyo a cake, he throws it in her face in front of their whole school. And when somebody offends him, they’re marked for destruction by Shin Hwa’s entire student body with the dreaded red card of the F4.

But the drama never really acknowledges that his behavior makes him something less than desirable. He goes about his business without remorse or repercussion, with girls falling at his feet wherever he goes. He’s rich and powerful and handsome, so naturally they want him. The fact that he would be happier to crush you than look at you is never really discussed—by the drama, or by us. Nobody writes about Joon Pyo as anti-hero, because we’re so wrapped up in Joon Pyo as babe.

This character does have some things going for him. He’s loyal, has keen fashion sense, and is willing to to follow his heart wherever it leads—even into the arms of the poorest, loneliest girl in his status-obsessed school. By the end of the show, his love for that girl also gives him something like redemption. He grows up some, and finds more constructive ways to spend his time. (Whether Joon Pyo’s redemption is more than skin deep, we never really know—he doesn’t apologize to any of the people he squashed and never repents for what he’s done. It’s all water under the bridge as soon as he decides he loves Jan Di, the show’s pseudo-spunky female lead.)

Playful Kiss: True heroes usually spend less time making “Bitch, please” faces.

To someone new to Asian dramas, Joon Pyo might seem like an anomaly, a jerk who gets the girl in spite of himself. But the rest of us know that the exact opposite is true; being a jerk can seem like a requirementfor getting the girl. From My Lovely Sam Soon to Playful Kiss and Master’s Sun, the male leads of Korean romantic comedies are usually cut from the same cloth—they’re powerful, privileged, creeps with few personal charms.

I’ve been making my way through They Kiss Again, sequel to the 2005 Taiwanese drama It Started with a Kiss and predecessor to Korea’s Playful Kiss. The male leads in all the various incarnations of this series are also secret antiheroes. They’re mean and arrogant and like to laugh at the failings of their goofy, imperfect female lead. And yet they’re always treated as a trophy of inestimable value—they’re handsome, rich, and smart, and acquiring them is literally the only thing the show’s female lead ever cares about. The nasty temper and proclivity toward yelling that come with those things are just unquestioned parts of his personality, and are rarely shown in a negative light or used as a source of comedy. (In an American setting, this kind of character morphs into a Sheldon from Big Bang Theory—he’s fussy and fastidious and painfully out of step with the world around him.)

In contrast, the horrible behavior of the male lead in Master’s Sun is played for laughs. The Hong sisters, its writers, are notoriously fond of toying with Kdrama tropes, and they’ve built a number of funny moments around Joong Won’s kingly attitude. The best so far involved a rescue mission that was aborted midstream, lest it offend a potential investor in his company. Instead of freeing the female lead from captivity in the investor’s house, Joong Won backs off the instant money comes up. “Don’t open the door,” says the investor as the two of them stand outside of Gong Shil’s prison. After about two seconds of deliberation, he decides to comply—only to see the female lead come busting out under her own steam. “I didn’t open the door!” he proclaims several times over the course of the next scene, just to be sure that nobody believes he would actually put do-gooding before his personal interests.

Master’s Sun: “Just a reminder—I didn’t open the door.”

So why are antihero types at the heart of so many romances, when you probably wouldn’t want to actually spend time with them in real life? And why do they always win in the end? I’m sure part of the reason is that they’re interesting characters—nice guys make for boring leads. A male lead who starts off as a jerk is a great thing from a drama’s perspective: it allows for stories about him being a creep and about his redemption, and gives the actor who plays him lots of room to grow the character into something new. Jerkhood has its wish-fulfillment appeal for viewers. What could be better than  changing the very DNA of a cold, heartless man so much that he’ll love you forever, with bottomless passion and eternal fervor? (Which, of course, is almost always what happens by the end of the show.) Another added bonus is that winning him brings financial gain and almost godlike power—when you control the king of the world, it makes you empress of the universe.

The lineage of these characters is often traced back to Mr. Darcy, the dashing hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But it seems to me that Kdramas miss a key element of Darcy’s story: He sometimes misbehaved, but was ultimately revealed to have been a decent guy all along. (Darcy acted like a bastard because he was all torn up about the book’s true creep having taken advantage of his sister and left her with a ruined reputation.) For Kdrama leads, on the other hand, decency isn’t an inherent personality trait; instead, it’s usually inspired by the love of their everygirl female lead.

What Happened in Bali: So much pretty, so many antihero antics. (So Ji Sub was way cuter before he got his eyes done, wasn't he?)

A Selection of Antiheroes
Woo Han, Shining Inheritance. Relatable every-guy Lee Seung Gi convincingly morphs from a spoiled slacker to a besotted workaholic. Redemption status: Full

Lee Shin, Heartstrings. Forcing girls to buy coffee for you is not courtship. And noble idiocy can’t save your character after you’ve manhandled your female lead—even if you thought it was for her own good. Redemption status: Epic fail

Jun Pyo, Boys over Flowers. If you cause someone to almost jump off a building in the first five minutes of your drama, you’re automatically an antihero.Redemption status: Questionable

Jee Ha, Spring Waltz. Perhaps the most Mr. Darcy of them all, Jee Ha’s bad behavior arises from the painful loss of his first love. Redemption status: Sublime

Joo Won, Secret Garden. In spite of what this drama might lead you to believe, belittling a girl’s purse is not the way to her heart. (The foam kiss, on the other hand, just might be.) Redemption status: This mean boy metamorphosed into a domesticated pussycat

Tae Joo, Que Sera, Sera. From aggressive gigolo to responsible husband material in 16 episodes. Well played, Kdrama. Redemption status: Ongoing

Kang Jae, Lovers. A gangster with a heart of steel brings turf warfare into the life of a shallow-as-a-teaspoon plastic surgeon. Sorrow and misery commence, along with some hot kissing. Redemption status: An all-around success

Moo Hyuk, I’m Sorry, I Love You. I just hope his dirty, callous, and mean personality isn’t contagious. On the bright side, he didn’t make out with his sister—much. Redemption status: If he was redeemed, it was by accident

Jae Min and In Wook, What Happened in Bali. This pair of true antiheroes breaks laws and hearts wherever they go. Redemption status: Not happening. Ever


P.S.—No Thursday review this week. I’m still in the middle of They Kiss Again. Next up, some more contemporary (and shorter!) dramas, I think.

As hard as it might be to believe, I’m even more of a book geek than a drama geek: I live for used bookstores and have a whole bookcase full of things waiting to be read. Of course my two great obsessions overlap, which means a lot my reading list is related to Korea in one way or another. In honor of Eleanor and Park, a sweet, swoony romance I tore through (twice) last week, I thought I’d share some titles that are on my radar.



Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell. This novel geared toward young adults is only tangentially related to Korea, but it’s still the perfect read for drama fans who are into coming-of-age love stories. As the only (half-)Korean kid in his middle-American high school, Park never feels as if he really fits in. When he strikes up a friendship with the new girl at school—heavyset, crazy-haired Eleanor—Park realizes just how lucky he is. Eleanor is bullied by the other kids for being strange, and her home life is a nightmare. She hates her abusive stepfather and her mother is too broken to care if Eleanor is happy, or even safe. Park and Eleanor fall in punk-rock misfit love over comics shared on the school bus, and the rest of the story deals with their attempts to be together. If you read this book I promise you will laugh and cry, and also perv over the delicious Park, who’s described as all honey-colored skin and sharp cheekbones.

Since You Asked, Maurene Goo. The heroine of Since You Asked, another YA novel during the dark days of high school,is torn between modern American life and the traditional Korean values of her parents. She writes a snarky article for her school newspaper that’s accidentally published, and the book explores the aftermath. This one is near the top of my wish list, but I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet.




Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan. I reviewed this book a while ago, but it’s worth mentioning again. Screen rights were just acquired by one of the producers of the Hunger Games movies, so maybe we’ll get to see this Boys over Flowers-flavored beach read on the big screen someday. (Then again, maybe not. Screen rights are acquired for lots of books that never get made into movies. I’m having a hard time imagining a movie about crazy rich Asians being a smash in the U.S., and fear its producers would do something untoward like turn Rachel into a white girl.)

The Surrendered, Chang-Rae Lee. An awful confession: I don’t really like literary fiction. I prefer my books sensational and just a bit trashy (see Crazy Rich Asians, above), which is exactly why this novel by a creative writing professor from Princeton has been lurking on my to-read list for so long. Its cover and first few pages are loaded with positive reviews from sources as diverse as the Oprah magazine and the New York Times, but everything about its packaging reeks of self-righteous pretension. Will I ever get around to reading it? Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.



Peony in Love, Lisa See.Set in seventeenth-century China, this novel tells the story of a young girl who wastes away with longing for a man she thinks she can never have. It’s full of historical detail about the creative arts of women, and explains lots of the supernatural beliefs that come up in dramas, including the ghost wedding that almost took place in Master’s Sun.See doesn’t write about Korea specifically, but the Confucian practices explored in this book impacted Korea just as much as China. (If not more—“The ceremonious people to the east” and all that.) The most unforgettable things about this book are its twin descriptions of foot binding: When you read the first one, you’ll be horrified by how cruel it was for mothers to bind their daughters’ feet. By the time you get to the second one, you’ll understand why they did it anyway.

Butterfly Swords, Jeannie Lin. A smutty Tang-Dynasty bodice ripper? Yes, please! Like many American girls, I grew up reading lowbrow fiction published by Harlequin. Their books are hardly ever actually good, but they’re often fun, and this story of a sword-wielding princess promises hours of amusement. (Oh, all right. Thirty minutes of amusement—it‘s really short.)




Tales of a Korean Grandmother, Frances Carpenter. This book’s publisher positions it as an authentic collection of Korean folktales, but I would take that with a grain of salt: It was written in the 1960s by an American woman who traveled only briefly in Korea. Still, it’s an interesting collection of fables about traditional Korean themes and paints a vivid picture of life in a traditional Korean household.

The Korean Table, Debra Samuels and Taekyung Chung. Guess how many recipes I’ve made from this gorgeous, glossy cookbook? That’s right: None. I’m too lazy and inept for dishes that require more than three ingredients, but I still like looking at the pretty pictures, and I’ve read most of the recipes just out of curiosity. There are bigger, more authentic Korean cookbooks out there, but none of them are as lavishly photographed as this mouth-watering collection of recipes.


At Least We Can Apologize, Lee Ki Ho. There isn’t a lot of Korean literature available in English translation, especially when it comes to the sort of thing I’d like to read: mainstream books skewed toward a younger, female readership. This tantalizing title from Dalkey Archive Press sounds like a distant relative to Cyrano Dating Agency: “[At Least We Can Apologize] focuses on an agency whose only purpose is to offer apologies—for a fee—on behalf of its clients. This seemingly insignificant service leads us into an examination of sin, guilt, and the often irrational demands of society. A kaleidoscope of minor nuisances and major grievances, this novel heralds a new comic voice in Korean letters.” When it comes out in October I’ll probably order it, just to see what real Korean literature is like.

Candy. It’s oddly uncool to admit such a thing, but I’m no fan of graphic novels of any stripe. The right word is worth a thousand pictures as far as I’m concerned, which means this visual kind of storytelling isn’t of much interest to me. But Candy seems the patron saint of Kdrama girls. How can I understand our Kdrama leads if I don’t understand their heritage?

Any other suggestions for Korean reading?

After sitting through approximately 1.5 of the dramas you penned, I vowed to never again watch a program you’d been involved with. It was for my own sanity—I’m not sure how you did it, but in both Secret Garden and Gentleman’s Dignity you found a foolproof recipe for combining characters I hated, copious amounts of misogynism, and frustratingly go-nowhere plots in such a way that made me want to scratch my eyes out with a spork rather than continue watching.

Lots of people disagree with me, and even I admit that you have some strong suits. You write funny scenes well, and your female leads are reasonably capable. (When your male leads aren’t around, anyway.) Based on my limited experience, you also tend to write men who are passionately involved with the pursuit of a woman, which is kind of cool—when it doesn’t involve physical intimidation or aggression, anyway.

I’ve been thinking about you as I wait for the premiere of your awkwardly named new drama, He Who Wears the Crown, Endure Its Weight—Heirs. (Are they paying you by the word or something?) The dramaweb has been abuzz with talk of this show for months already, and it’s definitely going to be what everyone is watching this fall. Even I intend to give it a try: my love for high school stories and Park Shin Hye just barely outweigh my distaste for your work.

I like what I’ve read about Heirs so far.It’s purportedly about a group of chaebol teens at a posh school who struggle with the responsibilities of being filthy, stinking rich and being in line to inherit major commercial dynasties. The female lead is a classic Kdrama poor girl who navigates through the world for her mute mom, who just happens to be a maid in the male lead’s house. (Somehow they’ve never met, though?) I imagine their love story will fill the bulk of the show’s air time, which the rest being devoted to the many secondary characters. The most exhaustive information I’ve found about the show is on Koala’s Playground and the Heirs Facebook group.

It sounds as if you want this drama be a mixture of Gossip Girl, The O.C., and Boys over Flowers. I whole-heartedly approve, but would like to suggest one additional pop-culture influence: Sabrina, the 1954 American movie starring Audrey Hepburn. It’s got everything you want—a rich family, a twisty love triangle, and a female lead who’s gorgeous, hard working, and appealingly naïve (but not stupid). You should really watch this movie, and then plagiarize it lots.

Here are a few other notes I’d like to pass along in hopes that the long-standing rift between us can be mended.

Is this really all you’ve got?

• Make the show better than its promotional materials. What is this character shot supposed to be? A page from the Kohl’s back-to-school catalog? I understand that you’re going for a realistic vibe and the drama’s premise doesn’t necessarily lend itself to fancy cloud-walking posters. But somebody was really asleep on the job when they planned these images, which are boring and utterly devoid of personality. The first teaser trailer is similarly underwhelming, although at least it manages to pack a lot of information into a very short amount of time. Also, the music isn’t bad.

I respect what you’re trying to do with the casual t-shirt and little-boy haircut, but it’s just not working. He looks like a student’s dad.

• Give us an early and significant time jump. Viewers are used to seeing your lead couple as the twenty-somethings they are in real life, not high schoolers. It’s going to be especially hard to accept Lee Min Ho in this role when he’s only played adults since his 2009 breakthrough in Boys over Flowers. While it’s not impossible for a 26 year old to fill a high school role, it works better when they actually look the part. Willowy Lee Jong Sook is only a few years Lee Min Ho’s junior and pulls it off just fine. Lee Min Ho, on the other hand, has looked like a full-blown man for a some time now. (Not that that’s a bad thing.) Another good reason for a time jump? Korean high school shows hardly ever include any kissing beyond the most chaste of lip presses. Why would you hire Lee Min Hot for this role if you’re not going to take full advantage of that luscious mouth of his?

• You’ve got a great ensemble cast—use it. The F44’s epic bromance was the best thing about Gentleman’s Dignity. How about you give that a try again? Let’s see these chaebol kids be friends (and maybe frenemies) who are bound together by shared pasts and futures. The fact that your promotional materials include a cast of thousands seems to indicate that this is actually the direction you’re going in. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were friendship plots, not just romances?

Neither that nose nor that car came cheap.

• Bring on the rich stuff. Years ago, I watched a documentary called Born Richthat was made by one of the heirs to the Johnson and Johnson empire. (I almost suspect that someone involved with your drama has seen it, too. The Heirs teaser steals its intro wholesale—both feature character shots labeled with names and the person’s particular dynasty.) The one scene that really sticks with me from Born Rich is a story told by Josiah Hornblower, heir to the Vanderbilt and Whitney fortunes. When he was a little boy his uncle took him to New York City’s Grand Central Station, gestured around the huge, marble-paved atrium, and said, “This is yours.” Understandably, his mind was blown. The real implications of being born into fabulous wealth were hinted at in Boys over Flowers, from being kidnapped for ransom to knowing that the welfare of thousands of people rests on your every decision. Sure, there’s fun to be had if you’re loaded—maybe you get your own lounge at school, or commute via helicopter. But how about using wealth as something more than an excuse for product placement, and instead offering a genuine exploration of the negative, scary sides of money?

• Make your female lead not suck. Park Shin Hye is my girl, especially after her heartrending turn as Dok Mi in Flower Boy Next Door. But we both know her performances can skew toward the tragically ditzy without the the right direction. (You’re Beautiful, right?) If you give Shin Hye a real character with depth and nuance, flaws and abilities, I don’t think she’ll let either of us down. Maybe she could even be smart—why else would she be going to school with the little lord chaebols? I’d love to see her end up tutoring the slacker male lead in something like Korean literature, allowing them to spend lots of time in close proximity discussing things like feelings and hidden identities. (Because, of course, she’s definitely going to realize her mom is his maid first and try to keep him from finding out. Hijinks are certain to ensue.) Whatever you do, please, please, please don’t make her mad for fashion design, which is the single most overused trope in modern Kdrama.

Less this...

...and more this.

• No evil mother-in-laws. I worry that the only members of male lead’s family listed on Dramawiki are his older half-brother and a woman almost certain to be his stepmother. It’s fine with me if this show is your attempt to make a good version of Boys over Flowers. But you know the one thing in that drama that you’ll never improve upon? Dragon-mommy Madame Kang. She was epically cruel and elegant, like an early Disney villain. If you want to make it out of Heirs with the two of us on speaking terms, find some other reason to keep your lead couple apart.

• Go light on the English. I know the action starts off in an English-speaking country. It can be fun to hear Korean actors speaking a language I actually understand, but usually it’s more amusing than effective. So how about we agree to limit the English in the script to three words: “It’s okay, baby”?

Thank you very much for your time, Kim Eun Sook. I look forward to October 9th, when you’ll either be my new favorite person or the newest addition to my (extremely lengthy) “Dead to Me” list.

Sincerely, 
Amanda

Grade: B-

Category
Taiwanese romantic comedy

What it’s about
This sequel to 2005’s It Started with a Kiss follows Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin as they settle into married married life and try to find their places in the world.

First impressions
They Kiss Again starts off a lot like its predecessor—add one part goofy, I Love Lucy-style antics; one part adorable, fanficy love story; and one part taciturn male lead, and you’ve got it exactly. Playing spot-the-grin is quite fun—Zhi Shu might not be fully domesticated yet, but he obviously finds his new wife to be quite amusing. He keeps hiding smiles whenever she does something silly.

Final verdict
The first half of this drama was a pleasure to watch. Its setting and characters were cozy and familiar, and it did a great job of surrounding its lead couple with a constellation of family, friends, and colleagues who provided interesting, almost free-standing, plots for each episode. It was funny and silly and cute, and the couple scenes featuring Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin made my heart go pitter-patter.


But by the time the midpoint rolled around, the same problems that plagued It Started with a Kiss were impossible to ignore. Both shows share a reason for being: the clashing of their diametrically opposed couple. Even after they’re married, Xiang Qin is insecure and obsessed with their relationship, and Zhi Shu doles out affection as if it’s something more costly than diamonds. There’s a lot to enjoy in the episodic stories along the way, but I started to feel like the female lead: I was being strung along by the promise of a love that never really materialized. We’d get a few minutes of adorable snuggling by the leads, but it would be immediately followed by three episodes of Zhi Shu being nasty and cold and harping on Xiang Qin’s eternal failings.

Which is not to say that I wanted this drama to be all unicorns and rainbows—I appreciate that martial discord is great fodder for stories, and They Kiss Again made good use of the device. I enjoyed it a lot whenever the plot skewed toward melodrama. But the show’s merciless depiction of clownishly inept Xiang Qin and the written-in-stone personalities of the lead characters eventually did me in. Like the show itself, they aged and moved forward in their lives, but never really changed or evolved into adulthood.

If you liked the first series, this drama is definitely worth watching just to see more of its lovable cast of characters. But if you’re impatient and prefer shows with strong central narratives (not entirely unlike yours truly), I have an alternate suggestion: watch the first and last episodes and skip everything in between. You’ll miss out on a lot of stories about the peripheral characters, but you’ll see the best the series has to offer, and you might just come away loving Zhi Shu and Xiang Qin instead of being frustrated by them.

Random thoughts
• Episode 1. Dramafever has the long versions of this show’s episodes—each one lasts an hour and a half. I much prefer the half-episodes that Sugoideas had for ISWAK. I may have an insane attention span, but even I find these long episodes to be a stretch. On the bright side, Dramafever’s video quality is great. On Sugoideas it was so bad you could barely read people’s facial expressions.

• Episode 1.So in a drama it’s mildly cute if someone insists that their wedding video be played on an airplane’s central entertainment system. In real life, I’ve killed over significantly less obnoxious behavior.

• Episode 1.An embarrassing confession: I was all, “Huh, they speak English in Guam. Who knew?” And then I looked on Wikipedia and realized that there’s an excellent reason for this--it’s an American territory. My lack of knowledge about the modern world—and my own country—is pretty staggering.

• Episode 1. Well, there really is a first time for everything: the 37 thousand gifs I’ve seen of this episode’s big kissing scene don’t even begin to do justice to its epic, scorching hotness. I always suspected this golden-boy character’s natural aptitude for everything ever might not fail him at the key conjugal moment, and I think this ear nuzzling, neck hickeying, hand-wandering make-out session on the balcony proves me right. I genuinely believe this scene would have been too steamy for network TV even in America.

• Episode 2. A lot of people say this sequel is actually better than the original. It’s a bit too soon for me to decide if I agree, but I know one thing for sure: Joe Chen’s hair is about 150 percent less horrifying than it was in ISWAK. Were mullets a thing in 2005 Taiwan?

• Episode 2.All sorts of characters in this episode ran past a sign reading ”Medical Students Only.” You know what you’re likely to see if you do that? Cadavers, that’s what.

• Episode 4. It’s always so weird to see foreigners represented in Asian dramas. The heroine and her friends were just so freaked out by a white girl asking them for directions that they didn’t even realize she was speaking Chinese, not English. This must be the character that showed up in the last few episodes of Playful Kiss—the Westerner who’s destined to be with the second male lead. Impressive that she supposedly speaks great Chinese after just three months of study (and that she can’t speak English, even though she’s supposedly from London.)

• Episode 4. The show is kind of making a joke out of its dim female lead becoming a teacher, but I actually think she’d be great at it. She’s kind and compassionate and unfailingly believes that anything is possible—what more could you ask for an elementary school classroom? She’s definitely out of her league in high school, but that’s not the only game in town.

• Episode 5. This episode really gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “food baby.” It’s also clearly the basis for one of the more wonderful Playful Kiss YouTube episodes.

• Episode 5.According to this show, ”a girl’s best friend” is a euphemism for menstruation. Frenemy would be more appropriate, I think. Also, you don’t get a lot of jokes about period sex on television. Unbeknownst to the writers of They Kiss Again, that might be a good thing.

• Episode 5.A-Jin looks great in sleeveless shirts. I’m not so sure how I feel about them while serving food at the school cafeteria, though. Oh, wait. I am sure how I feel: grossed out. Would you like your soup with a side of armpit hair?

• Episode 6. I liked the later Korean version of this drama well enough, but it’s kind of amazing how many great story lines they let go to waste. The Taiwanese original and its sequel add up to way more hours of television, but they never got repetitive and dull the way Playful Kiss did by the end of its 16-episode run.

• Episode 7.There’s a party scene in this episode where a bunch of characters sit around a birthday cake that mysteriously takes the form of two pink mounds with red bows on top. The question is: Were they supposed to look like like two huge breasts, or is that just a surprise bonus?

• Episode 7. Finally, a drama with a realistic airport scene. Instead of stepping out of a cab just in time to see the person he must stop from boarding a plane meandering toward an easily accessible gate, this guy is wandering through terminal B like Moses through the desert. (Only without mana.)

• Episode 9.This episode’s big enema scene was...unexpected. I could do with less mocking of the female lead and more cuteness, show. The jealousy plotline you seem to have cooking is a big improvement, but no more icky medical treatments played for laughs, okay?

• Episode 12.Hooray for progressive gender politics in dramas. The charter member of the male lead’s fan club is another guy, and one who clearly likes him for more than just his mind. The fact that the guy also wants to be “crowned” as a nurse with the girls in his graduating class is just icing on the cake. (Now if only he’d get himself a cute boyfriend...)

• Episode 12. Like many Taiwanese series, the great thing about this show is how well it handles its extended cast. Kdramas can start to feel claustrophobic with the same few characters filling every minute of air time, but Taiwanese shows are full of secondary characters that seem to be living interesting lives off-screen while we’re watching their friends do something else. They just pop by to break the monotony with an occasional shotgun wedding, job crisis, or tragic breakup.

• Episode 13. At first I was kind of weirded out by the granny who’s obsessed with this show’s male lead. Then I thought about the age difference between me and Lee Hyun Woo, which put it all in perspective. Older women and younger men are totally on trend, right?

• Episode 15. I’ve now officially seen the best piggyback ride Asian drama has to offer. Somewhat unexpectedly, it involves a very small girl and a very large dog. Thank god Cutie Pie is okay—he’s second in my heart only to Sweeper.

• Episode 15. I’ve quite enjoyed this show up until now, but it’s quickly turning into an annoyance. The female lead is still the same idiot she was in episode 1—instead of growing and changing, she’s stuck in a rut of doing stupid things for the sake of her relationship with Zhi Shu. And he still barely tolerates her (although there are some rare moments of cute couple action). Unlike most Asian dramas, They Kiss Again doesn’t really have an overarching, novelistic plot. The leads are already together, so it’s all just wheel spinning to fill screen time. It may yet recover, but as of now I wish the second season had been about 10 episodes long.

• Episode 15. Was Zhi Shu attacked with a weed whacker on his way to the island? That’s the only possible excuse for his jagged rats-nest of a hairdo in this episode.

• Episode 15. After 35 episodes, they changed out the actor who played the younger brother without a word, which is Lynchian in its surreality. I was like...who’s that stranger at the dinner table? I don’t care if the series had a time jump—the original actor should have remained in the role until the end of the show :b

• Episode 20. You know, I’m not crazy about Dramafever’s Google TV app. It almost never tracks the episodes I’ve watched, and I just accidentally skipped from episode 15 to 20 without realizing it because the numbers are these tiny little buttons, rather than being front and center like they are on the website. On the bright side, this drama has a great, 4-hankie finale. That Joe Cheng isn’t the best looking drama hero, but he can convey emotional and physical longing like nobody else. So the question is: do I backtrack to episode 16 after watching this, or move on? [Finale note: I think fate stepped in. It’s time to leave this one behind.]

You might also like
The other dramas based on They Kiss Again’s source material—Korea’s Playful Kiss and Japan’s Playful Kiss—Love in Tokyo

In Time with You, which sees this show’s lead actress playing a capable grownup who gets shit done

If watching Korean drama has taught me anything, it’s that originality is overrated. Last year’s gaggle of time travel dramas are evidence of one of life’s great hidden truths: What really counts isn’t how novel an idea is—it’s how well it’s executed.

Which is why this week’s post is about Kdrama life lessons. Yes, the topic is cheesy and trite. And yes, I’m not the first (or the hundredth) person to blog about it. But the combination of shows I’ve been watching lately keep bringing me back to the same point: Asian dramas have some good advice about how to live.

Cruel City—The world is a mirror; it will treat you as you treat it.All the characters in this show have ample reason to be pissed off at life. They’ve been abused and abandoned, and nothing has ever been easy or safe for them. The Doctor’s Son is the most wronged of them all: even when he tries to do the right thing, the people he trusts most let him down. But he still tries to protect the people he loves by reminding them of this old truism, which we’ve been telling each other in one form or another for thousands of years. The world gives us what we give it. If we’re nasty and vicious, people will be nasty and vicious to us. But if we’re kind, they’ll probably be kind back.

Playful Kiss: As improbable as it may seem, you can annoy him into loving you.

Playful Kiss (et al)—Never give up. This show’s female lead is so foolish she makes my head hurt. But there’s one thing she’s got right: If you work hard enough for what you want, you can make incredible things happen. She may not be smart enough to come in from the rain without the male lead telling her to (literally), but in the end her one-minded determination won the day. She got the man she wanted, the career she dreamed of, and the family she needed, all because she never let herself believe any of them were impossible to attain.

Coffee Prince—Be yourself. This seems like a pretty crazy thing to learn from a show about a girl pretending to be a boy. But no matter where she was or whom she was with—whether they were young or old, stranger or friend—Eun Chan was never anything but Eun Chan. She was genuine and sincere and didn’t change how she thought or behaved to be like other people. She said what she wanted, went where she wanted, and ate what she wanted. In some ways, stepping outside her gender even made Eun Chan more free to be herself: she didn’t have to worry about her skin or her shoes or being feminine. Even as she hid one truth about herself she happily exposed many others, allowing her to forge lasting connections with the people around her.

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho: You know it’s true love when he gives you a stuffed chicken leg.

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho—Don’t be ashamed of what you love. As far as potentially organ-munching mythical beasts go, Gu Mi Ho is the one to beat. Her childlike faith and delight in the world truly made every day a miracle. And most miraculous thing of all was the meat she was always in search of: chicken, pork, or beef, it was Gu Mi Ho’s ultimate pleasure. In real life, we often treat the simple and uncomplicated as somehow inferior to the intense and nuanced—but why should that be? Love what you love, ands don’t worry about what other people think. (Kdrama much?)

Love Rain—Ask for what you want. The first few episodes of this show are a negative life lesson if ever there was one. The male lead falls in love at first sight but steps back from the object of his affection rather than compete with his best friend. The meek may yet inherit the earth, but until that happens they’re going to be sad and alone. Fate can’t work for you without your help.

Vineyard Man—Things are just things, not happiness. This show’s heroine starts off like a lot of us: caught up wanting physical things instead of valuing substance and meaning. But after moving to her great uncle’s broken-down vineyard to learn how to farm, that changes. She realizes that being a worthy steward of the land and living up to her uncle’s expectations are more important than having the right shoes. (But, of course, not more important than having a flush toilet. Priorities, people!) The desire for things makes it possible to forget what you really need to be happy: Safety, comfort, people to love, and meaningful work.

In Time with You: Laughter really is the best medicine. (Closely followed by Bo Lin Chen’s chest.)

In Time with You—A mature woman knows laughter can overcome her enemies and herself. This drama is actually packed with things that are too good to forget, but this is one of my favorites. I suspect it was a hard-learned lesson for the show’s female lead—type-A perfectionists like Cheng You Qing can be so tied up in their own expectations that they forget how funny the world is. But there’s nothing to set you free—and to bring you together with the people around you—like a good laugh.

Master’s Sun—Even the things you hate about yourself really are worthy of love. Why shouldn’t seeing ghosts be a point of attraction for the right person? Just like this show’s female lead, maybe someday we’ll all realize that the things we don’t like about ourselves can be just what someone else needs.

Scent of a Woman—Take care of yourself in more than just the obvious ways. This show’s female lead found out the hard way that living for the future isn’t really living. It took a cancer diagnosis to remind her that today was worth experiencing, too. All the good things we do for ourselves—saving money and exercising and working hard—should be tempered with things that will make us happy right now, not in ten years.