Starring: Park Eun-Bin, Rowon, Nam Yoon-Soo, Choi Byung-Chan
Synopsis: The Crown Prince's wife gave birth to twins, but twins were considered an ominous sign. The twin daughter was supposed to be killed, but her mother begged to save her life. Secretly, the twin daughter is sent out of the palace. A few years later, the twin son Lee Hwi is killed. The Crown Prince's wife hides her twin son's death and brings her twin daughter back to the palace and raises her as Prince Lee Hwi. Lee Hwi eventually becomes a crown prince, but she is afraid her real identity will be revealed. Because of her secret, Lee Hwi is unable to have anyone close to her.
Positives: Very well written romantic drama with great characters, interesting plot, the right amount of intriquing evil ministers and heartwarming scenes full of love and friendship. Suprisingly well handled love triangle and the story ending.
Negatives: The main plot itself (the woman dressing up as a man) is little bit cheesy, because it would suprise me that no one would be suspicious earlier. Some characters are not the sharpest pencils in the box.
Conclusion: Very good historical romance that is fun to watch.
As June marked the last month of my classes for the term, I grabbed the opportunity to marathon K-Drama as much as I can. With that goal in mind, I was able to finish 7 K-dramas and would like to give my thoughts with the following. This might be a spoiler full review-ish so disclaimer for that.
p.s. if you haven't watched all of the drama on the list, I recommend just scrolling past that title you haven't watch yet and go back to this blog post when you're already done!
p.p.s. Trigger warning too, I have watched some K-dramas that might be sensitive for others, please read with caution.
Tomorrow
The first K-drama I've watched last June was Tomorrow. I watched this in a whim because even though I have a lot to watch on my K-drama list, I am only comfortable watching K-dramas on mobile, so Netflix and Viu. It was newly released during the time I've decided to watch it and I've heard good things about it so I gave it a go without any information or a tiny bit of synopsis (just watching it blindly ehe). First few episodes and I'm already hooked! Since I am really interested into concepts where it's not part of my culture aka something new (e.g. Afterlife, Reincarnation, Grim Reapers etc.). Learning things about the East-Asian culture has always been a fascinating thing to me and I wanted to learn more.
This drama also touched one of the taboo topics in Korea, which is suicide. It is a very heavy topic to portray in media but I do think that they were able to nail it and was able to convey a message regarding suicide and how to overcome it.
The cast dynamics is one of the factors that made me continue to watch, although everyone is new to me, as I haven't watched any dramas that they starred in, I was able to enjoy their performance and how they are able to pull off each character.
What made me add this drama to my favorites list is how things were connected, how the character's attitudes and perception towards suicide is based on their experiences from their past lives and how the story intertwined with the character's pasts. I especially liked how Ryeon and Joong-gil were lovers in their past lives (even though this drama is not romance heavy, I still manage to get kilig during the time we're they were still together).
One thing that felt short for me is the lack of depth and focus on Junwoong's past life. I do think that him being in a comma for months in the present is a sad thing and I won't question that but regarding his past life, I feel like the integration of that is something that wasn't thought very well. I've expected Junwoong's past life to be more meaningful as he was one of the main leads. But I guess it won't really make sense if he is connected with the other lead's past lives as he just accidentally got into the squad. I honestly wish there was more to it but I'm gonna just accept that he did great things in the past and be contented with that.
A Korean Odyssey
After watching Tomorrow, I immediately started watching A Korean Odyssey. It is a fantasy, lil comedy, romance, horror-ish, star-crossed lovers K-drama. This drama has been added to my list for a bit, maybe a year ago, because of that short preview from Netflix and that intrigued me because of well... it's a bit of a jumpscare so I was curious. (If you have watched that preview video, you know what I mean plus I watched that like 10pm so it scared the sh** out of me)
All I can say is that this drama deserves more recognition. It's a good balance between the good stuff and the tragic happenings and it is also accompanied by a comedic relief which somewhat gave a light tone. It is romance heavy and when I say romance heavy I meant that kind of romance . The cast are all so good in portraying their characters and they aren't that forgettable. The actors really nailed their roles and it also added to the cohesiveness of the drama as a whole.
After watching this K-Drama, I have found another actor to look out for, which is Lee SeungGi. He is actually a household name in the Korean Media Industry and I have heard of him many times, due to the famous My Girlfriend is a Gumiho and him being able to sing, but this is the first time I've actually watched a drama that he is the main character. Given I've really liked his acting here, I've added him to my favorite actors list! which btw is non existent but let's pretend it does Because of that admiration of his performance, I did watched another K-drama that he starred in in this list.
I recommend this drama if you are looking for a binge-worthy fantasy with comedy, horror-ish and also tragedy on the side. However though, I'd say the ending is a bit unfortunate. It suggests a season 2 but 5 years after it's release, I doubt that there will be a season 2 unless...
Two Cops
While watching Tomorrow, I also watched this drama with a friend; Two Cops! I'd say its a fun watch, generic but still worth the time.
It's about a police and a con artist that got into an accident and then the con artist possessed the body of the police. Sounds scary? It's not under a horror genre though. The purpose of the unexplainable possession is to uncover the truth that lies between the two leads and the other characters related to them. This follows a similar structure of intertwined lives as they have crossed paths once just like tomorrow minus the past lives as this one is from childhood to adulthood.
It's my first time watching Jo Jungsuk even after the famous hospital playlist which btw I haven't watched yet. I like the duality in his role here and his performance is convincing. He has the serious side and the goofy side which I enjoyed watching. It's also fun to see Hyeri here as I haven't watched her in a while after dropping Reply 1988 please don't come after me, a lot has enjoyed that drama but during the time that I've watched it.. I just didn't feel it. She's still the goofy and fun Hyeri that I've watched in Reply 1988 though, which is not really bad but nostalgic. As for Seonho, I did watch this drama because of him. My friend was a super fan of this guy, we call this oppa (and our other oppas) samcheon, due to having 10+ age gap between us and our favorite actors, and I've decided to binge Seonho dramas with her to let the lady enjoy and as for me I wanted to see more of his acting.
This drama is okay though, not something that made my mind blown or something. As I've mentioned, it's generic but still worth watching especially to Seonho fans. Though I can say that I'm quite disappointed that Seonho had a lil less screen time compared to Jungsuk but nonetheless they both carried the show well.
Mouse
Here is another Lee SeungGi drama as promised, (from that A Korean Odyssey post). Mouse. After watching A Korean Odyssey and enjoyed SeungGi's performance, I followed it up with another one of his dramas.
Mouse is a thriller, mystery, twisty and dark drama about psychopaths and whether or not they are born not made. This drama focuses on discovering the Psychopath gene, due to Korea's advancing technology, a Doctor was able to detect a gene that is present among Psychopaths to fetuses. It is an interesting concept but as the disclaimer in every start of the episode, it is a work of fiction, so Psychopath gene ain't real hopefully.
I'd say throughout the whole 20 episodes that I've endured, it was interesting rather than enjoyable. Giving you a grave warning that this drama isn't for the light-hearted, it's always about murder and killings, since the story focuses on Serial Killers.
Aside from the serial killings and psychopaths, Of course it focuses on a handful of characters and let's the viewers know their inner conflicts and struggles. There's no room of certainty in this drama as every episode ends with a question.
After a few episodes, I thought that this drama would overthrow my favorite K-drama of all time which is Law School but after the second half, it didn't. I had high expectations with it but after answers were revealed, it felt confusing and overwhelming as for the first 14 eps, they left me with questions and suddenly they bombarded some answers which it was too much for me to comprehend. Adding to that, there were too many characters to focus on, though the main focus would be the two main leads, there were other side characters that are also related to the story line that were also given too much stress and that made the experience dense. I'd say 16 episodes would be sufficient as the duration of 20 eps felt dragging but alright I guess they need that many episodes for the narrative.
Overall, if you are ready for a heavy drama with killings involved, I recommend this. It will make you question whether what's shown is the whole picture or details were left out. Kudos to the actors, I can really feel their stress and conflicts.
That would conclude the first part of this post. I decided that 7 dramas in one post might give a cognitive overload so stay tuned for the second part!
Thanks for making this far, it's a long post but I hope you find it interesting (or I hope it makes sense hehe).
