Favourite Korean Dramas

As I mentioned in my book review of Pachinko, I love Korean dramas, more often known simply as kdramas. There are certain rules that kdramas follow, providing international viewers with insight as to what Koreans value, which I find fascinating. They have often been described as fairytale-esque due to the fact that, as a general rule, justice is served, the guy gets the girl (although victims of Second Male Lead Syndrome may disagree) and there is often an innocence to the main characters who are battling to overcome the cruelty of life and other people.

Still, within that, there is a wide range of genres. The following is my list of my top 10 favourite kdramas.

Solomon’s Perjury (Dec 2016 - January 2017)

In general, these shows aren’t in any particular order, but I do believe that Solomon’s Perjury is one of my all time favourite TV shows. It’s definitely my all time favourite kdrama!
In just 12 hours, we take a deep dive into the lives of a group of high schoolers as they try to figure out just how their classmate died. Where other shows may shy away from intense subjects such as abuse and suicide, Solomon’s Perjury faces them head on, resulting in a show that criticises those who abuse their power and authority, affirms the power of friendship, encourages people to keep living in hope and to seek out the truth with compassion.

I can not recommend this show highly enough. And if any of you are interested in watching it, it’s available on Netflix.

Strong Girl Bong-Soon (2017)

This show is best described as a comedy. Although, like most kdramas, it has a darker plotline that weaves it’s way through it. Do Bong-soon is born to a line of women who have super strength. However, if they misuse that strength, they lose it forever. This premise sets up a 16 episode long show in which Bong-soon learns how to use her strength without abusing it, whilst also trying to figure out love, life and everything else.

This is, for the most part, a fun, lighthearted show. Although, if you are prone to the dreaded Second Male Lead Syndrome (SMLS), prepare to have your heart broken.

This show is available on Netflix.

I Remember You (or Hello, Monster) (2015)

This is the show that really introduced me to the range and ability of my all time favourite actor - Park Bogum. This show falls under the thriller/crime genre with all of the main characters working as police officers, criminal profilers, forensic scientists and lawyers.

Lee Hyun, our male lead, returns to South Korea after a number of years in the States in order to find out the truth of what happened the night his father was murdered and his little brother disappeared. This leads to 16 episodes in which matters of family, morality and love are explored and the question is posed: what is it that makes a monster?

I Hear Your Voice

This show has, in my opinion, a strong blend of romance and intense crime/thriller aspects.

Our leads, Jang Hye-sung and Park Soo-ha are brought together 10 years prior to the events of the show when Hye-sung witnesses the murder of Soo-ha’s father. On the strength of her testimony, the murderer is sent to prison. 10 years later, he is released and vows to get his revenge on Hye-sung and Soo-ha.

This leads to 18 episodes exploring what justice looks like and what it means to live your life with courage.

This show is available on Netflix.

City Hunter (2011)

This show starts explosively with a team of South Korean black ops soldiers being mowed down by their own government after an off the books mission into North Korea. The sole survivor of this massacre disappears into the jungles of Thailand with the new born son of his best friend, vowing revenge on those who betrayed them.

Nearly 30 years later, the son arrives in Seoul with explicit instructions to seek out and kill the five men responsible. What follows is a superhero origin story in which Lee Yoon-sung struggles to walk the line between vengeance and justice, whilst also longing for love and a life that doesn’t involve hurting the people he loves.

He is Psychometric (2019)

I’ll be honest, I never expected this one to become one of my top 10 favourite kdramas - I only started watching it because my one of my favourite kpop artists (GOT7’s Jinyoung) was the star.

It did not take long for me to become engrossed.

The show follows Lee Ahn (Jinyoung’s character) and his friends, Yoon Jae-in, Kang Sung-mo and Eun Ji-soo as they try to find out the full truth behind the fire that killed Ahn’s parents. I can’t really say too much more without spoilers, but I do highly recommend this show!

Encounter (2019)

This is another show starring my favourite actor, Park Bogum. And honestly, it’s a comfort show. Whilst many of the shows I gravitate towards have darker elements to them or are insanely funny, this is a sweet, pure look at what it is to fall in love, and what it takes to make love last.

I don’t have much to say about this one, but if you want to fall in the love, this is the show to watch.

Arthdal Chronicles (2019 - ?)

So, this show wasn’t on my list until today. Mostly because I didn’t watch in until this week. It also isn’t finished as it is on hiatus. Still, I’ve fallen in love with it.

The cinematography is stunning, the characters are complex and relatable, and it took me a long time to figure out who I was rooting for. Actually, no, I knew who I am rooting for to win ultimately from the second episode. It took me longer to work out who I am rooting against and who I am supporting for the time being.

Arthdal Chronicles is perhaps unique of all the kdramas I’ve watched as it is a high fantasy drama set long before any recognisable civilisation existed. In it are explorations of power and scathing criticisms of slavery and abuse of power.

As I said, it’s currently on hiatus, but I recommend you go watch it on Netflix right away. Then you can suffer the wait for more episodes with me.

W Two Worlds

This is another incredibly unique story with a complex world and interesting characters. It is set in modern times, but could probably be described as fantasy? I don’t know a better word for “a comic book character gains sentience and starts fighting for the right to live”. It’s so much fun, with so many twists and turns and that I’m left on the edge of my seat. Despite having seen it before!

10/10 would recommend. And it’s available on Netflix.

1% of Something (2016)

This is another one that is pure, light hearted fun. A remake of a kdrama made in 2003, watching both dramas provides amazing insight into the change in South Korean culture and attitudes towards romantic relationships.

With a relationship that starts off as a contract relationship to appease his peculiar (and rich) grandfather, the two soon find themselves falling in love. This is another great one to watch if you want to see two people falling in love and figuring out how to make it work.

Shoutout

Dramaworld (2016)

This show is not a kdrama, but it absolutely deserves a shoutout in a post talking about my favourite kdramas.

Main character Claire, a major kdrama fan, finds herself sucked into the world of kdramas - also known as Dramaworld. In there, she’s informed that it’s her job to keep this drama from falling apart, or it will be the end of all kdramas, everywhere. Over 10 episodes, we follow Claire as she bumbles her way through this world, and figures out all the rules of Dramaworld: the first male lead MUST kiss the first female lead, if a female faints a male lead WILL catch her, saving a character’s life means they instantly fall in love with their saviour… well, you get the picture.

This show is just a lot of fun, and is clearly written by people who appreciate the world of kdramas.

But don’t watch it until you’ve watched a few kdramas. You won’t get the jokes otherwise.

This show is available on Netflix.

Honourable Mentions

As with last month’s post, there were a few shows I considered, but that ultimately did not make it onto my list. So, I’ve included them here as honourable mentions. They are:

• Bring it on, Ghost (2016)

• Faith (2012)

• Pinocchio (2014) available on Netflix

• Kingdom (2019 - ?) available on Netflix

• Birth of a Beauty (2014) available on Netflix.

Over to you

Have you ever watched any kdramas? If so, what are some of your favourites?

Let me know in the comments down below!

Pachinko and History

“History has failed us, but no matter.”

— Min Jin Lee

Isn’t it great when a number of things you're interested in come together? This book has been catching my eye on and off ever since it came out, but I kept putting off reading it. So, when Emma Watson’s online book club Our Shared Shelf selected it as the book of the month, it was the kick up the butt I needed to hunt down a copy and get reading!

Why this book?

Well, there is the obvious reason of it being the book of the month(s) for Our Shared Shelf, but honestly, I would have gotten around to reading it eventually.

Anyone who has gotten to know me over the last few years will know that I have had a growing fascination with Korea and Korean culture over the last several years. I may be stating it mildly, as a cousin of mine has accused me of being “such a koreaboo!”

It all started at the end of 2014 when a dear friend of mine introduced me to my first kdrama - “You are Beautiful”. Which, whilst it’s not the gateway kdrama (that’s Boys over Flowers) it is certainly one of them.

But what’s kdrama? I hear a number of people ask.

Well, very simply, it’s Korean dramas. But in this context “drama” just means fictional TV shows. So, reality shows and contests do not fall under the “kdrama” umbrella. Nor do movies. Within kdrama, though, is every type of story genre available to humanity, as far as I can tell. There are rom-coms, thrillers, procedurals (both medical and criminal), mysteries, fantasies, sci-fis, periods (known as sageuk) and probably a number that I’m missing.

Kdramas as a phenomenon and a thing that exists are being analysed and discussed by people much more qualified than me. That’s not why I am here. If you’re interested in that, a quick Google search will probably yield some interesting results.

Anyway, it was through kdramas that I began to see more of this country and culture that before I only knew in terms of the Korean War, the division between North and South, and the secrecy and persecution of Christians in the north. And, like, this list was the entirety of my knowledge prior to watching kdramas. I didn’t even have details.

So, as kdramas and, later, kpop (Korean pop music) began to introduce me to this culture and people I had previously known nothing about, I began to want to learn more. So, so much.

But, there are limits to how much one can learn through TV shows and music. I started learning about the food, day-to-day relations, cultural expectations and something of the heroes from their past. But nothing concrete about how Korea became the Korea we know today - division and all. And I couldn’t find anything to help me get started on that. All the books and information I came across was about modern relations with North Korea, or about the Korean War from a very western perspective.

Then came this book. A book about Koreans in the last century, written by a Korean. I knew I had to read it.

What is this book about?

Pachinko is, first and foremost, a novel. I would describe the genre as a historical, family saga. If you’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude, it has a similar vibe to that.

Pachinko is entirely about the Korean perspective on the Japanese occupation from 1910 - 1945, which I had known very little about, the withdrawal of the Japanese from Korea and the effect that had on Koreans living in Japan, how the division of North and South Korea affected the Koreans and the ongoing discrimination that Koreans living in Japan face.

It does this by focusing in on the Baek family. Sunja is the matriarch of the family, and the book starts with her father, Hoonie, in Yoeng-do, near Busan and follows them down to her grandson, Solomon. The change from the family being situated in Yoeng-do to Japan happens early on, after Sunja finds herself pregnant out of wedlock. A disaster for any woman of that time. Fortunately, a young pastor on his way to Japan is staying with them and he offers to marry her and take her with him.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you more than this without spoiling things for you. But within this story and historical setting, Lee explores issues of discrimination, persecution, family, the role of men and women in Korean and Japanese cultures, racism, displacement, war, and a whole range of other difficult topics.

My thoughts on the book

I really enjoyed reading Pachinko. I do have some criticism of it, so I’ll discuss those first, but I will state right now, I enjoyed this book immensely.

So, what are my criticisms?

Well, pretty much all of them come back to the scope of what Lee was trying to accomplish. It was huge and amazing, and, for the most part, incredible, but did lead to a few issues in the writing.

For one thing, this book could get ponderous. There was just so much going on all the time, and it necessarily flow as well as it could have. She jumped between time periods and point of view frequently, which could get confusing and overwhelming. Her use of language was also not necessarily the smoothest and I did have to take a week long break between books two and three (all in one book though) as my mind felt overloaded.

She also tried to do too much. Within the story of the family, I didn’t mind so much, but I do think she should not have tried to explore what life was like for a homosexual Japanese man as much as she did. Please note: I do think it is important to have stories that explore this aspect of life, I just felt it didn’t belong in this book. There was an entire chapter dedicated to it from his wife’s perspective that did nothing but interrupt the flow of the story and pull us away from the main narrative. Especially as this is also the only time we even see his wife or get her perspective. It just added length to an already incredibly long story.

And that’s it for my criticisms.

As I said, I did enjoy this book immensely.

I loved being able to learn about an entire aspect of (ongoing) Korean history I had previously known nothing about. I loved the deep dive into one family’s experience of an incredibly difficult life in occupied Korea and then in Japan as a stateless family. I loved each member of the family and have a hearty respect for both Sunja and her sister-in-law, Kyunghee.

All in all, I would recommend this book and encourage people to read it.

How this book affected me

I learnt so much.

My the time I got to this book, I knew that during the second world war, Japan has occupied Korea and was fighting China. I knew that as part of that, Korean women were taken and sent as “companions” for Japanese soldiers.

I did not, however, know that the Japanese occupation of Korea started during the first world war. Or that during it a large number of Koreans moved to Japan in search of a better life. I did not know that the Koreans where treated as second class citizens and despised by their Japanese contemporaries.

I did not know that when Japan withdrew from Korea, the Koreans living in Japan suddenly stopped being Japanese citizens. I did not know that a number of them had originated from the north of Korea, and found themselves unable to go home.

I did not know that, until this day, a number of Koreans living in Japan are technically stateless. Even if their families have been there for a century. For more on this, I found this article to be helpful.

This book has shown me yet another way in which the North/South division is affecting Koreans in very real and ongoing ways. And not just in the Koreas themselves. It helped me to understand a little more about what it means to be displaced.

It also has not diminished my fascination, dare I say love, of Korea and her people and culture. If anything, it has grown. I sincerely hope to be able to visit sometime in the next five years, and hopefully more going into the future.

Did you know…

Pachinko is a Japanese game that is similar to Western pinball. Similar, but not the same. Works as a mechanical arcade game, but is used most commonly in gambling. Which is why the Baek family are not thought of particularly highly, despite their wealth.