What I Loved - KDrama

Continuing with my obsession for the Korean Drama series, let me share what I watched and liked among those series since the beginning of January this year.

Coffee Prince, Guardian: The Lonely & Great God, StartUp, Nok-Du, Marriage Contract, Something In The Rain, One Spring Night.

I started watching a few others Oh My Venus, Touch Your Heart, Hometown Cha-Cha, Love ft Marriage & Divorce but left them halfway because the first episode did not grab my attention like the others did. Maybe I will get back to these some other day. 

So Coffee Prince was hilarious, tear-jerky, I also found the male lead, Gong Yoo's character to be very a male chauvinist and rough. There seemed to be shades of narcissism but maybe I am wrong. The female lead was very cute and shown to be extremely hardworking. I watched it for her and slowly started liking the male lead too. 

That took me to Guardian aka Goblin series. 

While the premise can be cliched, it was refreshing to see something mildly historical with respect to Korea. The magic part was good and it does good if we can escape to some other world, albeit for a short while. Great performances, lovely music (OST). Oh I forget to mention the bromance between the Dokkaebi (goblin) and the Joseung Saja (Grim Reaper) and those scenes with the Goblin's nephew,  I can still watch this series on repeat. 

Start-Up was another great series that I enjoyed. While the central theme is that of a love triangle in a start up environment, the way they put out explainers about all the start up related jargon was good. Although I worked at a start up for a few years, I did not know much about what a hackathon was, what Pre-Series A funding meant, so while it was like watching a love story unfold, I also enjoyed the startup theme. It was refreshing to see strong female characters in this series. 

Nok-Du - another historical fiction + romance based series - I am completely floored by the performances of the OTP. Cross dressing for a reason, treason, revenge - it has been a while since we read and watched those stories unfold before us. The emotions displayed by the lead pair is outstanding and I'd watch this on repeat as well. 

                                      

One Spring Night and Something In The Rain - from the same team was ok in my opinion. Of the two, I did not like the latter much. While One Spring Night dealt with societal taboos such as single fathers in the dating scene, divorce, Something In The Rain was about an older woman dating a younger man. At first I thought I liked it but slowly the experience soured. One Spring Night was a better written script. They also addressed the issue of domestic violence and how parents behave when their child faces it. It seemed to show the emotions perfectly, how a parent would naturally react. 

Marriage Contract, as the name suggests, is what the story is about - a rich man marries a single mother who has a terminal illness in exchange for a part of her liver to save his mother. We can expect the usual storyline but the heartwarming performances of the little girl, her mother and basically all the characters makes this series delightful. 

After watching all these shows, I found a few more Korean words that mean the same as in Tamil - Naanu means me or I am or I. 

I will probably do a detailed review of each of these series to pour out all that is going inside my head :D 

So have you watched any? If yes, what are your favourites? Let me know!