KDrama Addicts Anonymous (thread 2)

[boatyardblues]

A quiet corner of MN for serious addicts of Kdrama, or the Kdrama-curious. Most of our viewing is drawn from Netflix and Viki, but the more seriously addicted have other sources, including dramabus. To our surprise, we managed to fill a whole thread, which is full of recommendations (and ones to swerve): www.mumsnet.com/Talk/streamed_tv/3337309-K-Drama-recommendations?pg=1

We have some recommendations for newbies:

My (current) top 5 – all Netflix
Live
Prison Playbook
Don’t Dare to Dream
Black
His Master’s Sun

Betty’s top 5
Black (Netflix)
Fight For My Way (Drama bus)
What’s Up With Secretary Kim (Viki)
I Hear Your Voice (Netflix /Viki)
Don’t Dare To Dream (Netflix / Viki)

Bea’s top 5
Strong Girl Bong Soon (netflix)
What's Wrong With Secretary kim (Viki)
She Was Pretty (dramabus)
Healer (netflix)

Our lovely occasional posters who have lived in Korea, are Korean or have Korean partners/family members pop up to provide the context for some of the more baffling cultural references.

We love a good kdrama bingo card to mark off the regular tropes – white truck of doom, drunk/med evac piggybacks, stalkers, rooftop apartments etc

We also stray into Korean cookery and kpop when the mood takes us. To get to grips with the lingo, try dramaloveaddicts.proboards.com/thread/24/korean-word-day?page=1

If you want to join us down the kdrama rabbit hole, pull up a chair, say goodbye to early nights and get stuck in…

I may go back to it, as I don’t like to quit,but I needed something a bit nippier & with more likeable leads.

The bus station proposal is brilliant. “By any chance, do you like me?” “Nope.”

I'm absolutely hooked on pinnochio... I love this one!... But I say that to each one I've watched!... I'm loving this one much more than "I Can Hear Your Voice"... I'm finding the relationships much more convincing!... The family are sooooo gorgeous! And they're all sooo likeable... ❤️😍

So far in the blubfest stakes... "My Love From The Stars".... 😭😭😭Tops it... With "pinnochio" coming second....! 😩😭

Need sleep....

Sleeping is for Losers!!..... 😂

Word!

Word??

Bettys! 5.28??...
I need to go to sleep earlier!... I'm sooo tired!! 😭😭😭

Had to let the dog out for a wee - on phone while waiting for him to do his business🥺

Bettys... Ahhh! Real life!!

Betty: www.internetslang.com/WORD-meaning-definition.asp

Oh right....

just looking back at my original Top 5.... and wondering have your top 5 changed recently?

i think mine has.... but it's soo hard to pick faves as they're all brilliant for diff reasons!!!!

More my top 10 than top 5...debating inwardly whether it's more important that a drama sticks in my mind for the story or the lush ML.

Currently weighing up While You Were Sleeping against Chicago Typewriter for a place in the top 10. WYWS has Toasty LYS and the demon captain (not) from Prison Playbook while CT has a story that's stayed with me.

Hmmm... I think W with Toasty LJS will make an appearance somewhere as its just sooo beautifully done... And Love From The Stars for the blubicity and I Iove the FL in that... ❤️❤️

IAmAlwaysLikeThis I have a question for you!

How does marriage work? In some dramas the couple seems to just have a ceremony, and in others there is a marriage contract mentioned. Do you have to do both or is one legal without the other?

IAm - No questions from me today, but a sincere thank you for providing additional cultural context. The’jealousy as caring’ explanation upthread was really helpful, as I was finding it off-putting in the male leads. I will modify my irritation accordingly.

bettys you can basically just sign a contract in the government office and then it’s done, no ceremony necessary. So when I got married, I signed the contract three or four months before the actual ceremony, and we never actually needed the ceremony.

boatyard personally I hate the jealousy thing and I think it’s a really unhealthy way of expressing emotion. I try to accept cultural norms as much as possible here (eg my MIL nagging me, a 40 year old woman, to put on a scarf or gloves or sunscreen or a hat etc etc.) but the jealousy thing is really shitty imo. It’s so controlling. But then so much of Korean society IS about social control. And everyone hates it and it makes everyone depressed and anxious. And yet everyone still does it!

IAmAlwaysLikeThis thank you! I was wondering if it was something like that - so is the ceremony for fun and not actually legally binding?

I've read that less women in South Korea are interested in the whole marriage & family thing, yet of course in dramaland it's the ideal.

IAm - Agreed about jealousy being controlling and unhealthy. You’ll have seen upthread that I did not find the ML in What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim at all appealing, quite the reverse, so it bothers me a lot.

What’s the significance of being born in 1988 in Korea? There are many references to the “ill-fated 1988ers” in Because this is my first life. Did they all come of age in the middle of an awful recession or something?

Love CEO Ma’s cheesy dance routine in ep 8. 😆

bettys the ceremony is basically just for the family to gather a ton of money from people and take a million photos...sad but true. It’s not fun, over in half an hour, and a bit of a waste of time. I sound really down on all things Korea all the time, sorry. Maybe it’s cos it’s January...

I spose you could think of those born in 1988 as millenials, they have much the same problems as the same generation in the west. Not much job stability, pressure to follow Korean social norms while looking to the west and wanting to be more like that, life is getting more and more pressured, there’s so much pressure here to compete and keep up with others and I feel like that’s getting worse year by year. There is pressure to marry and have kids but at the same time, no one wants to get married til they have a ‘good’ job, a big apartment etc...there’s no feeling of it being ok to struggle for the first few years of marriage. It’s like ‘you don’t have a good job and therefore you’re a loser and no one wants to marry you.’

Plus a good job is a very limited definition ie working for a chaebol/being a doctor/engineer. Nothing else will do.

It actually makes me angry because everyone puts all this pressure on each other but they all think it’s bs but at the same time none of them can stop doing it to each other. Life is so rarely fun here, there’s always someone looking to knock you down a peg or two or try to force you into doing something you’re not actually interested in.

I wouldn’t say there’s exactly anything special about 1988, but that generation in general is definitely struggling.

I really hope Korea finds a way through all this stuff.

It’s good isn’t it?😆