November/December 2017 Korean Drama Reviews December 15, 2017

So I was trying to get this done at the end of November but I couldn’t so then I finished up the dramas I was watching and made it for December too!

So the first drama that I finished watching was While You Were Sleeping. When I first read that title I thought it was going to have something to do with the Hollywood movie “While You were Sleeping” with Sandra bullock but in reality it had nothing to do with it. I would have loved a remake of that movie though! So this was a fantasy/legal drama that starred Suzy and Lee Jong Suk which I think gave enough of a reason for people to tune into this drama. The story is about Suzy who when she sleeps she has dreams about people’s future and their deaths. When she awakens she writes down the dream and is unaware of when it will happen but she has to learn the hard way that people don’t believe even if she tries to warn others. It also stars Lee Jong-Suk who is a brand new prosecutor and he and Suzy become neighbors and on his first day he also meets an old fr-enemy who is a lawyer.

So I loved this drama and even by the last episodes it didn’t feel like it was supposed to be ending yet, unlike some dramas where I can feel that it has lost it’s steam and you are waiting for the conclusion already. Instead I was still excited about watching this drama, I think mainly I really enjoyed Lee Jong Suk in his role and taking on different cases with his prosecution. He is such a charming actor and I hope he makes another drama soon, I also have really enjoyed the story lines of his last couple of dramas! The side characters were pretty good also and they have some really good comedy scenes that I think really makes the drama special and memorable!

One thing that might not feel original was the prosecutor theme because it feels like we have had a lot of dramas about that lately, but I really liked the cases that they picked up and it felt original to me. Another thing I didn’t love about this drama was Suzy, I know that it sounds bad but I didn’t feel that much chemistry between her and Lee Jong Suk, I don’t know why but I just wasn’t buying it. She does a good job but I could maybe see the difference is skills compared to Lee Jong Suk?

I think overall that this was the best drama of November and I would recommend checking out this one if you can only watch one from this list!

 

 

The Second drama that I finished was Borg Mom which was a little different because it only released an episode once a week ending with 12 episodes. This drama is about a robotic scientist Choi Go-Bong (Yang Dong-Geun) who has developed a robot who is supposed to replace his dead wife who died after giving birth to their son (Park Han-Byul). Choi Yool their son believes that his mom was away doing research and has finally come back home even though his mom died giving birth to him. Choi Yool gets accepted into a prestigious kindergarten and Borg Mom meets the other mothers which becomes a tricky social experiment to try to fit in.

So I had decided to check this out because the cast sounded fun with a bunch of lovely actors and I thought it would be a good comedy. There are some funny moments but it is a bit cheesy and seems low budget. The more I thought about the story line I thought it was kinda disturbing that he didn’t tell his son that his mother had passed away and instead made a robot that looks exactly like his mother. I mean if she had family I think that would have been disturbing to them and then let his son get attached to the robot, I mean how would you make her age since she is a robot? There are so many things you could question, but I get they just wanted to make a comedy and not to read too much into it. I didn’t particularly love it.

I liked Han-Byul’s acting and the other moms could be funny at times but I really didn’t like the Dad’s acting it was really the worst! It just was a strange drama that I can’t say I would recommend unless you just want to watch something without thinking at all! It seems like robots are going to be the next thing for dramas to be about but this was really not a great start to the theme!

 

The third drama I finished watching was Witch’s Court/ Witch at Court. This drama is about a go getting female prosecutor Ma Yi-Deum (Jung Ryeo-Won) who is unafraid to step on others and make hard decisions to get ahead in her career gets transferred to a special division dealing with sex crimes. It also stars Yoon Hyun-Min (Yeo Jin-Wook) who I have enjoyed in other dramas as a newly graduated prosecutor who also works in the same division and they have to work together to solve the crimes.

This drama is very different then the average KBS drama, yes again it is about prosecutors which seems to be a heavy theme this fall. The are tackling a sensitive subject matter which I wasn’t sure how they were going to be able to do but yet they seem to handle the subject matter well. I mean this was a more mature drama which is to be expected given the subject matter. I have to say I am surprised to see a female lead portrayed as a strong woman at least not in this way. She almost reminds me more of a male lead, which I thought was so refreshing. Showing that there is nothing wrong with a woman standing up for what she thinks and not believing that women can only act one way to be acceptable. There are interesting story lines in the drama that are so prevalent now a days especially with what is going on in the world with the discussion of sexual assault.

This drama might seem a bit repetitive as they are fighting against a corrupt politician which I feel like is a common theme, always fighting against money and power. I still found it interesting despite that and also there is not really romance in this drama that might bother others who are looking for that subject matter. I thought that this drama had interesting subject matter and I would recommend this one if you like prosecutors and strong female leads!

The Fourth drama that I finished is Revolutionary Love/ Byun Hyuk’s Love. This drama is about Byun Hyun(Choi Si-Won) who is a second son in a wealthy company who runs into trouble for his rich family and as he is trying to stay out of trouble he meets Baek-Joon (Kang So-Ra) who doesn’t know who he is mistakes him as someone that lost his job because of her so she takes him under his wing and tries to help him get a job.

So I was curious about this drama and was wondering how Choi Si-Won would do in a lead role, I was a little leery since he seems to act over the top and I can find somewhat annoying. But surprisingly I thought he did well in this type of comedy and I started to enjoy all the facial expressions that he uses and started to like his sincere and funny character. It also stars Gong Myung as (Kwon Je-Hoon) which I was surprised that he got a minor character again but I thought he did well acting his character, I liked him on We Got Married. I thought that the story line was a bit unique but it is about the weaker rising up and taking over and they did it in a more of a comedy way which was surprising since it seems like such a serious topic.

One part that stuck out that I loved was when Si-Won is sent to wash windows outside of the building and his father is inside taking selfless with him hanging outside the window, I thought it was so cute and sweet. It has an interesting take on family relationships and seems to push the boundaries on the typical characters that are being portrayed. A loving mother in law, a goofy male lead instead of the stiff blunt one. I thought that it was an interesting drama because of the ways they tried to problem solve and maybe because it wasn’t just focused on the romance it had other ideas it wanted to get across. I did like Baek Joon (Kang So-Ra) as the female lead and I liked how she was a smart and independent woman that had her own mind and wasn’t swayed by flirtations. She wasn’t annoying and always crying which is refreshing from a female lead.

So I thought the ending was a bit lacking and I feel like they should have done more to finish off the drama with romance. I think it needed Baek Joon to take a step towards someone to show how she really felt about love and that she needed to make a decision with that in mind. It seems like it was just forced on her and that she is kinda being stalked. Also it seemed like they skipped some parts and you not really sure what is happening with the relationships so the ending feels a bit disjointed. There are parts that are a little bit cheesy but it still fit the drama because it was more of a comedy. I was actually expecting to dislike this drama more but I guess it grew on me and I did enjoy it for the most part.

The Fifth Drama that I finished watching was Black which is an OCN drama so it has many dark parts to this drama. I would classify this drama as mature because of the violence and disturbing scenes. I almost wanted to stop this drama at some points but then I wanted to find out what happened so I kept watching. This drama is a fantasy/thriller genre that really keeps you on your toes. So the story is about a grim reaper 444 who is awesome at his job and one day he has to jump into a human’s body to fix a situation, but this is considered an unacceptable choice to go into a human’s body. He meets a girl who mistakes him for being her old friend and she has the ability to see death so they join together to save people and 444 needs her to solve his problem as well.

First of all the first two episodes are so overwhelming with the information and disjointed story lines. I could see that people would just stop watching because it feels like it is too overwhelming with everything but I kept watching because I wanted to see what happens. I figure they were going to explain things on the way and they did but at times I was still confused when they talked about different names and I couldn’t keep it all straight. I thought through everything the story was pieced together with time and I was satisfied with the humanly investigation. The fantasy aspect was somewhat lacking with the grim reapers and how that all worked and how it can influence the world. I would watch it again for the plot twists and turns that are in this drama that really shocked me at times and I enjoyed that aspect. The last episode was very uncharacteristic with the rest of the drama and it seemed to lack direction overall. It seemed like it was completely unoriginal and was a mixture of other endings I have seen therefore leaving it a hot mess!

The acting was really done well, all the actors were pretty amazing. I know that Go Ara gets a bad rap in her dramas and that people didn’t like her but I thought she fit well enough into this drama and thankfully she didn’t have too many crying scenes but I thought she had done well. Of course Kim Won-Hae was in this drama he was also in While You Were Sleeping this season, it felt like he was everywhere! But I really enjoyed him in Chief Kim and he was hilarious in Strong Woman. It was a very intense drama and has a different feel, it felt more like an action movie rather than a tv drama.

There are some things that left me really confused by the end that I will discuss but there will be spoilers.

 

 

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So the ending was just terrible and nothing was really explained properly

I hate how Joon just jumps off of the cliff, even though he wasn’t able to get out of the body earlier, what was so different? Really I hated how he killed people, I really don’t think that was necessary it would have been better if once they had the tape they will sentenced to prison or had the death sentence or something. It seemed wrong and out of character.

So Joon gets his existence erased and therefore Kang Ha-Ram’s parents don’t die in an accident, her mom doesn’t have children with a grim reaper and Kang Ha-Ram doesn’t have the power to see death. That doesn’t make sense because Joon had nothing to do with her parents and have no power over the accident. The only explanation is that Joon was erased from the earthly memories but the grim reapers will remember it and therefore Je Soo-Dong living in Leo would still remember it and stop it but he would have been a baby in Leo’s body when the accident happened? So not really sure how that was an explanation. I also wondered how she didn’t’ see the half shadow on Leo since she saw him many times without wearing black. Also how did she not see the shadow on Moo-Gang he was in a hospital gown many times when she saw him? Also even if Joon had not been born wouldn’t have the rapes still happen and all the bad things still have happened?

The other thing that was terrible was the makeup on Ha-Ram and Leo, it was laughable how terrible it was, it seemed like a comedy skit,ugh so embarrassing!

Then she is babysitting some children not explaining who they were? and talks about her late husband who they did not explain?at first I thought it was Leo but then she explains he is a friend and she had a late husband. I am just going to assume it was Oh Man-Soo because she never explains who it was.

Leo gives her the bracelet and she then is able to remember Joon/Moo-Gang which I wouldn’t think was possible and she passes away and Joon with Moo-Gang’s face comes to pick her up. So I don’t get why Joon still had Moo-Gang’s face? I thought once they are found they go to their original face which would not be Moo-Gang’s face, unless it was assumed they would just look alike? Or he wanted to keep the face that Ha-Ram would recognize? But if you think about it, it seems like people forgetting about you on earth is a nicer sentence then just disappearing altogether! Is it really a happy ending because he won’t be able to join Ha-Ram in paradise? Unless he was just waiting for her?

I wanted to see Han Moo Gang once more time and see what the brothers would have to say to each other. We never got to see the reaction of Kang Ha-Ram finding out that she was with Joon all this time! Also what happened to Man-Soo and his family and everything! ugh it just feels sad that they could not have wrapped up this story properly because it had such great potential to be a great drama if they would have wrapped up the investigation earlier and focused on the human aspect of this drama. To be honest I would have been content without having it be a love story but I still needed proper closure. It could have been done better and I found it very gory which was disturbing at times but the mystery kept me watching!

 

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Dramas that I am planning to watch next

1. Just Between Lovers- Two people struggling people meet and find comfort in each other.

2. Jugglers- Is a about a secretary and boss relationship

3. I Am Not A Robot- It is about a man who is allergic to people and meets a woman who is supposed to be a robot.

4. Kounodori/Stork 2- It is a continuation of the story of a obstetrics and everything that goes into pregnancy and giving birth.