May 2017 Korean Drama Reviews May 22, 2017

The first drama that I finished was Radiant Office and the only familiar faces in this drama is Lee Dong-Hwi from Reply 1988 and Han Sun-Hwa from the girl drop Secret. This drama is about a jobless woman Eun Ho-Won who is trying her best to become am employee at a company. She fall into despair and jumps into the Han River wanting to die. She ends being saved and while in the emergency room she overhears the doctors talking about a patient that has a fatal disease and she escapes the hospital. She doesn’t have money and she makes friends with two other people escaping the emergency room and they are unsure who the doctor is talking about. Eun Ho-Won manages to get a temporary job in the meantime and she decides to give it her all despite knowing whether or not she has a fatal disease. 

So first of all this is not much of a romantic drama if that is what you were expecting, there is some romance but it is not the focus. The characters all kinda fun and I find the actor playing Eun Ho-Won refreshing and I liked the boldness her character portrayed. It is an office setting drama which I feel like I have watched a lot lately but it was still fun and interesting. This drama has a good sense of humour throughout and I really looked forward to watching this drama. I really liked the whole mystery aspect of the drama with not knowing who is dying and just seeing the misunderstandings happening from this problem. I also really liked that they tried to address the problem with how women are treated in the workplace. I liked first of all they admitted there is a problem with a glass ceiling for women, that they do not get to positions that they deserve because they are women. They also didn’t try to portray it in a completely unrealistic way. There were a lot of aspects that I enjoyed about the drama.

I do have some problems with this drama in respect to how they addressed suicide. Eun Ho-Won attempted suicide and she did not get any psychological treatment. They just treated it as she didn’t get the job she wanted so it was just because of that. Suicide is not a physical problem it is a mental problem. It needs to be addressed in a responsible and careful way. Even when other people found out about this it wasn’t like anyone came and talked to her about it. I mean if something bad happened again who is to say she wouldn’t try attempt something like this again. It just bothers me that she had no aftereffects of her acts. I mean at the very least they should have checked her  out for depression or anything psychological. I just don’t think the drama was sending a very responsible idea about suicide, especially because South Korea has a problem with students committing suicide. I just wish they would have addressed this issue in a more of a serious way.

Overall I think this was a pretty fun drama even though there are a few dark issues that come along with it.

The second drama that I finished was The Liar And His Lover which is originally based on a manga called “Kanojo wa Uso o Aishisugiteru” and has also been made into a Japanese Movie. This drama stars Lee Hyun-Woo who was in Moorim School and To The Beautiful You. When I first started watching this drama I almost thought that he was Park Bo Gum, maybe it was the way his hair was styled in this drama. The leading lady is Joy from Red Velvet which surprised me since she has not acted before and she got the lead. The drama is all about singing so it makes sense since she can sing but it was taking a risk with no acting experience. Sung Joo is also in the drama and he is from the boy band UNIQ. This drama is about  Kang Han-Kyeol (Hyun-Woo) who is a talented composer for one of the biggest bands in music Crude Play. His identity is kept a secret but he is the one that writes all their music. He meets Yoon So-Rim (Joy) who has a gifted voice and wants to become a singer with her band. They meet by chance and Hyun-Woo borrows her phone to record a new song he is making. She falls in love with him and his song and wants to try to help him in any way possible. He forgets to delete his song off of her phone and he has to keep meeting up with her to convince her to delete it.

I have to say I really did not like at least the first 2 episodes, there was too much singing and it just felt corny. I also found it boring and it reminded me a bit of the drama Entertainer which I was terribly impressed with either. It did get a bit better after that but it still wasn’t that exciting of a drama to me. I didn’t really like Joy’s acting in this drama, it felt forced especially with the storyline of her having to be madly in love with Han-Kyeol. I guess I didn’t like their relationship that much and I didn’t really like him in the drama either. Something just didn’t flow that well for me with this drama I guess it felt amateurish. Maybe because it felt unrealistic and not in a fun fantasy way just the relationships and even the story line of the band crude play not playing instruments. I guess it felt like nothing fresh was being brought to this drama. That is maybe too harsh but this was not the best drama of the month for me. I thought parts of it were cute and it made me a little bit curious but overall it was very much a teen drama.

I did like that it dealt with some issues in the music industry and what it means to be an idol, singer or a band. How authentic do you need to be to be loved by others unconditionally. I think they could have gone much deeper in these issues and found it a bit disappointing that everything gets glossed over and quickly wrapped up. I guess they were following a storyline since it has been made from a manga so I guess they were following a set storyline. Maybe the Japanese movie is better? I don’t know but after this drama I have no desire to watch the movie or read the manga. I have to say I feel bad for Lee Hyun-Woo, I wish he could get a drama that was going to do well. I don’t think it is his acting is that bad!

Overall I think this drama would be a pass, I think there are better music industry dramas out there to watch!

The third drama that I finished was Tunnel which is about a Detective Park Gwang-Ho (Choi Jin-Hyuk) in 1986 that is trying to catch a serial killer in a tunnel and when he gets to the other side he is in present day. He doesn’t know why he is in the present day but he thinks that he must be here to solve the mystery of the serial killer and it has been 30 years. It also stars Kim Sun-Jae (Yoon Hyun-Min) who is a fellow detective.

I wasn’t really wanting to watch this drama because I don’t really care for police stories I feel like that area has really been overdone. I mean I don’t mind if a drama has some of it in it, but when the whole drama is about it I feel hesitant to watch it. Since this drama has a time traveling element I thought it could be more interesting and I am sure glad that I decided to watch it. I also wasn’t that excited to watch Choi Jin-Hyuk, I don’t know why I don’t really like him? Maybe it is his growly voice or just his acting, I just don’t really like him that much? But he was okay with him in this drama maybe because it wasn’t focused on a love line at all?

This drama I think has been the best one for this month for me, it is really interesting how they told the story and I found the criminal psychology aspect of this drama fascinating. I have to say that it was frustrating that the police couldn’t pin the person to the crime very easily and made me wonder if it was that hard in real life? I think they did a good job in being more realistic in the story then some dramas even though it was a fantasy drama. The time traveling was a bit strange in how that worked and the rules weren’t terribly logical. The ending made me slightly confused because the current place he was in would completely change when he would go back in time. It seems a bit counter productive and I would think that they would have talked more about the time traveling in the drama but it is almost pushed aside. They also had some filler episodes where they would solve a murder mystery per episode which seemed a bit predictable type of conducting an episode.

For the most part I enjoyed watching this drama although it was a bit dark with so many murders and dealing with psychopaths. I would recommend this drama to anyone that enjoys watching police shows and mysteries. There really is not much romance in this drama and it reminded me of the show Criminal Minds except with time traveling.! But seriously this drama was really a good mystery to follow and really made you think. I even liked the ending which can be hard with time traveling because things don’t always make sense.

I am currently watching:

Chicago Typewriter: This is ending soon and I think it has been a pretty interesting drama even if I don’t care for ghosts and past lives and such.

Man To Man: I feel like this drama was a disappointment, I don’t see that much bromance and instead it is all spy stuff and the characters don’t have that much chemistry. I was hoping for more humor and silly story lines instead it is serious and stiff.

The Dramas that I plan to watch next are:

Circle

Lookout

My Sassy Girl

Seven Day Queen