Ms Latte’s Daebak Cybercafé (Kdrama Addicts #12)

[boatyardblues]

A quiet corner of MN for serious addicts of Kdrama, or the Kdrama-curious. (MsLatte is a Her Private Life reference.) Most of our viewing is drawn from Netflix and Viki, with a sprinkling of Dramabus (non subscription, maybe dodgy) and AmazonPrime. 

The previous thread is [[
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/streamed_tv/3758420-Ms-Latte-s-Daebak-Cybercaf-Kdrama-Addicts-11?topicid=16582&threadid=3758420&pg=1 here]] but our ‘Addicts Recommend’ list below is cumulative so includes recommendations and favourites from all previous threads.


Shows marked with an asterisk are more uniformly loved or admired. In categorising series, its important to note most Korean dramas have multiple strands - e.g. supernatural, romance and a thriller; crime series with fantasy elements. Genre-busting mash-ups are normal. Series that are tagged as dark may also have moments of comedy or the absurd, likewise fluff can have heavier moments. View the categories below as best approximate & ask if you need guidance, eg about suitability for younger teens.


Comedy (with a side order of absurd)

I picked up a celebrity on the street (Viki)
My Fellow Citizens (Viki)



Crime/Thriller

Come and Hug Me (Dramafast)
Graceful Family (Viki)
Healer (Netflix)*
Heartless City (Viki)

He is Psychometric (Viki)

I Hear Your Voice (Netflix /Viki)

Life on Mars (classy remake of BBC series, Dramafast)

Live (Netflix)

Pride & Prejudice (Netflix)*

Prison Playbook (Netflix)*

Suspicious Partner (Netflix)*
The Lies Within (Netflix)*
Tunnel (Netflix)*



Historical/Period drama (“sageuk”)
Crowned Clown (Viki)*
Mr Sunshine (Netflix)
Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung (Netflix)
Tale of Nokdu (Viki)*



Romance - lighter & fluffier
Beating Again (Netflix)
Coffee Prince (Netflix)
Don’t Dare to Dream (Netflix, or as Jealousy Incarnate on Viki)*
Gogh, The Starry Night (Viki)

Happy Once Again (Netflix)
Her Private Life (Viki)*

His Master’s Sun (Netflix)
Love from a Star (Netflix)*

Pinocchio (Netflix)
Radio Romance (Netflix)

Romance is the Bonus Book (Netflix)*

She Was Pretty (Dramabus/Netflix)*
The Beauty Inside (Viki/Netflix)
The Secret Life of My Secretary (Viki/Netflix)
Thirty Not Seventeen (Viki) or as Still 17 (Netflix)

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (Netflix/Viki)
What’s Up With Secretary Kim (Viki)*

You are my Destiny (Netflix)



Romance - heavier weight/more grown up themes

Another Miss Oh (Netflix)*
Because This Is My First Life (Viki/Netflix)
Chicago Typewriter (Viki/Netflix)
Crash Landing on You (Netflix - still airing)
Descendants of the Sun (Viki/Netflix)
Doctors (Netflix)
Fight For My Way (Viki/Drama bus)*
Go Back Couple (Viki)

Just Between Lovers (Viki)*
Melo is my Nature (Viki)/Be Melodramatic (Dramafast)
My Strange Hero (Viki)
One Spring Night (Netflix)
Red Carpet - film (Netflix, very adult content)
Search: WWW (Viki)*

Something in the Rain (Netflix)
The Package (Viki)



Supernatural/zombies/vampires/fantasy/sci-fi - lighter & fluffier

Goblin (Viki)*

I am not a Robot (Netflix)
Legend of the Blue Sea (Viki/Netflix)
Orange Marmalade (Netflix)

While You Were Sleeping (Viki)*



Supernatural/zombies/vampires/fantasy/sci-fi - darker/more grown up themes

Black (Netflix)*
Hotel del Luna (Viki)*
Kingdom (Netflix)*

The Guest (Dramafast)
Train to Busan - film (Amazon Prime)

W (Viki & Netflix)*



Guilty Pleasures (for the joy, not the quality)
Bride of Habaek (Netflix)
Hwarang (Viki/Netflix)
The Last Empress (Viki/Netflix)
Sassy Go Go (Netflix)



Mad as a box of frogs/uncategorisable

Strong Girl Bong Soon (Netflix)

Not Korean but just try it

Regulars occasionally branch out into Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese drama. The Chinese & Taiwanese stuff is much more variable quality-wise, so we’ve noted anything decent here:

Before We Get Married (Viki - Taiwanese)
Love O2O (Viki - Chinese)
Morning Call (Netflix - Japanese)
Put Your Head on My Shoulder (Netflix - Chinese)

Thread Regulars’ Top 5 Dramas of 2019 (courtesy of Hello’s kdrama spreadsheet, scores range from +10 if very good to -10 for truly awful)

1. Her Private Life - 9.40 (5 votes)
2. Melo is My Nature - 9.00 (5 votes)

3.= Crash Landing On You, The Crowned Clown, The Lies Within, and The Tale of Nokdu - 8.75 (4 votes)

1. Hotel del Luna - 8.50 (4 votes)

5.= Romance is a Bonus Book, and Search: WWW - 8.17 (6 votes)

The Most Disappointing Dramas of 2019

1. Melting Me Softly -4.17 (3 votes)
2. Abyss -3.33 (3 votes)
3. When The Devil Calls Your Name -2.33 (3 votes)
4. Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency - 0.33 (3 votes)
5. Vagabond 1.25 (4 votes)

Honourable mention for the worst drama of the year goes to Chinese/Mandarin Well Intended Love on Netflix, which scored -10 (2 votes). It beggars belief that Netflix commissioned a second series, but there you go. 🤷‍♂️

We have some lovely occasional posters with links to Korea who pop in from time to time to provide the context for some of the more baffling cultural references.

We are generally fans of all things Korean, so equally happy to talk about Korean cookery, language, film and music when the mood takes us.



We have a few frequently used acronyms:
FL/2FL = female lead/2nd female lead
ML/2ML = male lead/2nd male lead
SLS = Second Lead Syndrome (where the FL/MLis too dense to realise how much better the 2ML/2FL is)
🥾🍑 (boot, peach) = kick up the arse to go to bed



We also abbreviate titles if they’re long, but usually only after using the full title & acronym together or an obvious abbreviation. Some favourite actors & actresses have been abbreviated for speed/efficiency, eg Lee Jong-Suk (LJS), Park Min Young (PMY), Ji Chang Wook (JCW) and his hotness Kim Jae Wook (HH KJW). Don’t be afraid to ask for help/clues if we’re not making sense or have descended into acronym soup.



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

Aaaah. Holo was lovely & Netflix managed to behave and follow the ‘one and done’ principle. I really enjoyed it.

It was nice, and I really liked the ending 😊

Me too. I liked the bit where her Mum and flatmate were angsting over their lack of relationship progress & the reaction when they realised there were people in the house.

Evening! I've just finished Terrius, which was lovely. Although the last episode was about 75% product placement 🙄, as someone mentioned up thread. But lots of So Ji Sub looking v tall and handsome so I'm not complaining too much.

I have 4 episodes of Stove League to catch up with but my chromecast is playing up so I can't watch it on the big TV. 😭. Hopefully I can make it work tomorrow as I've got the day off and plenty of time for watching stuff!

Sitter all sorted. We are go for Parasite. I am officially excited.

I've been abandoning all my currently airing dramas to watch tonnes of East Asian films that DP and I have been meaning to catch. Parasite has started something in this house.

The Witness is a Chinese thriller film we really enjoyed. Although if you're sensitive to animal deaths a guide dog does get murdered in it.

It's really nice to have DP on side. I think he's been replaced by an alien as he's been asking to wttch dramas and films with me lately.

Sounds good hello. I rewatched Witch: The Subversion last night for a bit of Choi Woo Sik in handsome killer mode.
And also a bit of Snowpiercer as it happened to be on telly and DH said ‘oh look, a Korean film’ but I still didn’t really like it

I’ve tried to watch Snowpiercer before but didn’t really get into it then either. There’s a few films on my list I haven’t watched yet, think I might watch them before my next binge.

Have just caught a bit of Dr Romantic ep 11 - Head Nurse Oh is truly formidable!

And Nurse Eun Tak in woolly jumper & flying jacket 😍

Films are a great way to break up binges. I love to watch 2 or 3 films from different genres between big binge sessions as a little media sorbet.

I've just browsed through MyDramaList to see upcoming 2020 films and there's some promising entries to my watch list.

I couldn’t get on with Snowpiercer either and I found Okja weird, and not in a good way. Having talked my lark husband into an evening showing on a school night, I’m hoping Parasite delivers or else my goodwill and credibility are shot. 😕

I like films as an amuse bouche too, though love Hello’s ‘media sorbet’ descriptor. I’m between binge dramas, so catching up on my currently airing shows. It’s all a bit discombobulating now there are so many on the go. A good problem to have, but still a problem.

I love this song... (one of the rare songs that isn't BTS!)... and I twigged the other day.... it's Choi Woo Shik!!!

The english version is lovely too!....

I quite like this track by Choi Woo Sik and Jang Ki Yong from The Boy Next Door

Bettys....

Hahaha. I persuaded DH to add Red Velvet’s Red Flavour to his playlist for his journey home this evening. His verdict: like eating too much candy*

• Note: we are not American. Not sure what influences he’s been subject to recently.

By the way if you haven't seen The Boy Next Door, its a web drama available on You tube and very funny

Well from that video The Boy Next Door looks like it's worth checking out 👀👀👀😁😁😁

bettys.. On the list! 👍👍

I saw this and instantly thought of this thread. I must admit this is my thought process every time someone asks an actors/director/musician why they only do project/songs in Korean.

Americans are so used to their behemoth of a film industry flattening everything else, I don’t think it occurs to them there are perfectly vibrant, highly ambitious and creative film cultures elsewhere. Since falling down the kdrama rabbit hole, I’ve had quite a few people comment on my extensive consumption of “foreign telly”. I point out I spent the first forty-something years of my life consuming a heavy diet of US films & TV and that’s not my culture either, yet somehow that’s seen as entirely normal. There does seem to be a kind of linguistic preciousness about the whole thing. I can honestly say that embracing Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese TV and film has brought me considerable insight into cultures I’d known very little about previously and it’s (mostly*) been an unalloyed pleasure.

• Still a bit about some of the sexism and related attitudes, but that’s not unique to that part of the world. Also, I can’t “unknow” the twist in Oldboy which was just urgh.

hello & boatyard yep, it’s baffling how some people assume there can’t be anything culturally good outside the English language and also that you would feel the need to produce an English speaking film to succeed or be accepted. Or even that you are odd for watching stuff outside your cultural sphere

In the BTS universe you cannot believe the questions that are asked of them.... Kim Namjoon has that polite fake laugh smile down to a fine art when one of these nonsense questions comes up...

It's always a "Are You going to put out an all english version?" or "Why are all your songs in korean?" One of my favourite clips I've seen at the moment which is doing the rounds due to Bong Joon Ho silly questions is a radio interview...
caller asks... "will you produce a whole album in English ?"....
RM - "Is That A Question?"

Kim Namjoon!!!! I Love Ya!

Bea! 🤣 Gotta love Namjoon 💜 and all of them for being so unfailingly polite when it must be soooo tempting to roll your eyes 🙄

I have an important deadline on Monday so of course I have started a potential binge-watch ( My Mister on Viki) alongside all the other on-air must-sees.

I am also spending too much time musing over a comment of boatyards from last week -

The worst of it is that Sung Dong-il is not much older than me and, in reality, would be more my celeb dating pool than all the lovely young oppas. 🤯

• and researching more mature oppa material.

So far there is Han Seok Kyu 55 (Romantic Dr Kim)
Lee Byung Hun 49 Mr Sunshine
and Cha Seung Won 49 Korean Odyssey

but aside from them it's looking pretty sketchy

Crikey! Kim Young Min who is in My Mister and also The Rat in CLOY is 48!

Although possibly a bit short for boatyard as he is 5' 6"