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Drama Review: Soulmate (2006)
Grade: B+CategoryUrban romantic comedyWhat it’s aboutA group of thirty-something friends discuss their love lives over street food and gym machines.First impressionA grown-up (and occasionally naughty)...
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Cultural Exchange, Kdrama Style
Put down that silverware, Eun Kyul!(And stop laughing at my lousy screen capture, while you’re at it.It’s hard to take them, you know.)I’ve spent essentially my entire life in the northeastern United...
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Drama Review: Arang and the Magistrate (2012)
Grade: A-CategorySupernatural fusion sageukWhat it’s aboutIn the Joseon era, a memory-less ghost and wayward young nobleman cope with a host of supernatural beings while working together to solve the...
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Drama Fever: A Lovely Way to Burn?
(HOT OFF THE PRESSES! [Erm... HOT OFF THE INTERWEBS?] According to a number of posts on the November 9, 2012, Drama Beans open thread, Drama Fever is testing the water by allowing international viewers...
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Drama Review: Vineyard Man (2006)
Grade: B-CategoryRural (!) Romantic comedyWhat it’s aboutA city girl who’s strapped for cash moves to her great-uncle’s vineyard in hopes of inheriting the land. Unprepared for the rustic conditions...
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Next, Please: Can We Get Married? Preview
(If you two were any more adorable, my brain would explode.)Ah, it’s that time of the drama cycle again—new and upcoming shows are getting a lot of press, and I’m doing a lot of drooling over them....
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Next, Please: I Miss You Preview
I Miss YouMelodrama20 episodesCurrently airing Wednesdays and Thursdays, MBC(This poster is just like I like my melos: DRIPPING! WITH! MISERY!)This drama shows all signs of being a classic K-melo: it’s...
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Next, Please: Alice in Cheongdam-dong Preview
(I guess this show will be filmed in 12 Grimmauld Place?)Alice in Cheongdam-dongRomantic comedy16 episodesDecember 1, SBSI’m willing to bet that by the time this drama makes it to mainstream...
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Drama Review: Faith (2012)
Grade: BCategoryRomance, dressed up as fusion sageukWhat it’s aboutAfter being kidnapped and brought back in time by a noble Goryeo warrior bent on saving his Queen, a modern plastic surgeon finds...
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Next, Please: School 2012
(The biggest cast this side of the movie 300)School 2013Family drama? episodesDecember 3, KBS2I’m a sucker for coming of age stories set during high school, so this new drama is at the top of my...
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Next, Please: Flower Boy Next Door
(The only thing cuter than this......is this)Flower Boy Next DoorRomantic comedy16 episodesJanuary 7, tvNHave you been hearing a mysterious, high-pitched “EEE!!!” sound for the past week or so? Well, I...
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A Dictionary of Kdrama Words to “Borrow”
While watching Korean dramas, I often come across words American speakers of the English language are tragically lacking. Sure, we have bon mots like kerfuffle, mooncalf, and onomatopoeia. But what...
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Drama Review: Nice Guy (2012)
Grade: A-CategoryRevenge melodramaWhat it’s aboutA young man out for revenge falls in love with the stepdaughter of his first love, a woman who betrayed him after he gave up everything in his life to...
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Three Notes
Note 1. When I was bitten by the Kdrama bug, Soompi was one of the first websites I started visiting regularly. It’s huge and frequently updated, and the scope of its coverage is amazing: from dramas...
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Can You Hear I Miss You?
(Includes light spoilers)Amnesia, antiheroes, voiceover bargains with god, and romantic leads staring at each other from opposite sides of busy roads.Why is it that so many Korean dramas include the...
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Drama Review: I’m Sorry, I Love You (2004)
Grade: A-CategoryRevenge melodramaWhat it’s aboutWhile seeking vengeance against the birth mother he believes abandoned him for frivolous reasons, a tortured young man falls in love with his...
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The Korean Phrasebook for Drama Lovers Abroad
Welcome to Korea!hangug e osin geos-eul hwan-yeonghabnida! / 한국에 오신 것을 환영합니다!Like every international addict of K-entertainment, I’ve wondered what it would be like to go to Korea. In the unlikely...
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Drama Review: Fated to Love You (2008)
Grade: BCategoryTaiwanese romantic comedyWhat it’s aboutAfter the most ridiculous case of mistaken identity in drama history, an average office girl finds herself pregnant with the tenth-generation...
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Movie Review: A Werewolf Boy (2012)
Grade: B+A Werewolf Boy is no Twilight.I mean that in the best way possible—in spite of the comparisons you may read elsewhere, Korea’s lycanthropic yarn is no easy wish-fulfillment love story. In...
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Drama Review: Equator Man (2012)
Grade: BCategoryRevenge melodramaWhat it’s aboutA young man’s quest for answers in the wake of his father’s murder results in fourteen years of melodramatic secrets, lies, and double-crosses for him...
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