Woot! Woot!
Here we are at our last stop in our Kdrama Beginner’s Tour! Thank you so much for riding the newb train with us, and I hope you’ve found some entertaining Korean Dramas to get you going with your addiction.
So far, we’ve looked at gateway dramas, young love dramas, action dramas, and sageuk (historical) dramas. For our last stop, I wanted to throw out a bunch of my other favorite dramas that didn’t make it to the previous lists.
Introducing…
The Rest of the Best
Let’s kick this off with a classic. I have seen this drama three times all the way through, and after looking for pictures to put in this post, I might be tempted to watch it a fourth.
Secret Garden
This beloved drama. There are so many things that put this one in my top 5 dramas of all time, and still holding. At the time, a lot of the Kdrama “tropes” were still new to me, and the plot felt completely original.
This drama is about a wealthy CEO who finds himself captivated by a poor stuntwoman. At first he chases her based on curiosity, but then mystical forces intervene in their lives, and ZAP! Body swap. The body swap was hilarious, don’t get me wrong, but it’s their chemistry and interactions that made this one of my top dramas. Hyun Bin plays the CEO jerk-turned-besotted-lover extraordinarily well. Hawt.
My next random, must-see drama is one that recently finished airing. I might be taking a gamble in posting this now, because I’m still swooning over the feels from the show, and might not be clear-headed about it. But I don’t care. I know you’ll enjoy it.
Goblin: The Great and Lonely God
Wow, how do I count the ways I loved this show? The music was entrancing. The scenery was jaw-dropping. The love story was epic. I really couldn’t ask for anything more!
Goblin is actually the story of a dokkaebi, which is a Korean supernatural creature that we don’t have a good word for. Someone decided “goblin” would be a good translation, which I don’t agree with, but oh well. It is what it is. The dokkaebi is an immortal being, cursed to live forever with a blade in his heart as punishment for the thousands of men he killed as a soldier 900 years ago. The only way he can pass on to the next life is if he finds the goblin’s bride, and she pulls it out for him.
As you can imagine, the tragedy of finding his bride is that he loves her, only to have the sword ripped from his chest, and his life ended. How does one overcome this????
That is the epic love story told in this drama, and I loved. it. Loved it.
My only word of caution is that the pacing is a little slow-ish. They spend a lot of time focusing on pretty imagery and inner conflict in the middle of the plot, but personally, I didn’t mind one bit. Because they were nice to look at, and I enjoyed the characters so much.
But if epic isn’t what you’re hankering for, I’ll give you a hilarious comedy, and see if that grabs your interest.
Marriage, Not Dating
The main girl in this drama is a hoot! She’s completely outrageous, but her antics gave me several hours of laughter. Also the skinship in this drama is pretty significant, and I enjoyed their chemistry as a whole. Looking back, the plot is really simple, but the shenanigans they get into were too much fun to pass up! Basically, a successful plastic surgeon has parents nagging him to get a wife, so he presents this crazy chick as his girlfriend to get the ‘rents to shut up. Only, it backfires, and she turns out to be just the kind of mania he never knew he needed.
Also in the RomCom category, and not to be missed is this one:
Personal Taste
Oh baby, there’s that Lee Min Ho guy again. Can he do no wrong? (Heirs…>.>)
Here we have the hilarious, but heart-felt RomCom about a young woman who is a little strapped for cash, and puts out an ad for a roommate in her lovely, one-of-a-kind home that her father built. It just so happens that an architect who is desperate to get into that house, sees the room for rent. In order to live with her, he allows our main girl to mistakenly believe that he is gay, so she doesn’t feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.
The thing I really loved about this show was that it was initially built on a silly pretense, but quickly built into a memorable relationship that is chock full of romantic gooeyness. Also, this is the drama with the infamous “game over” kiss.
That might be a bit of a spoiler, but I’ll bet you’re wondering what “game over” means, and how they even got to that point right? Right?!
Right.
And that, my friends, is the end of our journey together!
Of course, after you’ve watched a few of these, and find yourself intractably gripped with all things Korean, you can hop right back to our blog and follow along as we review dramas and give you updates on our Kdrama-inspired romance novel!
So how about it, friends? Did you watch any of the dramas we suggested? Let us know which ones are your favorites!
And thanks for visiting our blog!
-Devon-
Devon & Cornwall 