More Korean TV series
Friday, 26 May 2023 12:27![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
claidheamhmorI've watched a whole bunch more Korean TV series, and enjoyed most.
(ML = Male Lead, FL = Female Lead)
Her Private Life (2019)
Lots of fun, this one. The FL (played by the talented Park Min-young) is a museum curator, but she has a secret identity: she's the creator of the biggest fan site for a very popular pop star. A new museum director joins the museum; he's an artist who cannot paint anymore, and who was abandoned as a child. Lots of other characters, all with their own stories.
The Glory (2022)
The plot sounds trivial: woman bullied at high school becomes a primary school teacher in order to get revenge. The series is actually partly based on a true event from 2006. The FL was brutally tortured at school, burnt with a curling iron, and she has dedicated her life to destroying the lives of her bullies. The ML ends up helping her. This series is amazing; brutal, but for those who like revenge tales, just perfect.
Dr. Jin (2012)
A gifted but cold neurosurgeon whose girlfriend has just been critically injured is flung back in time to the Joseon dynasty in 1860. There he invents neurosurgery, anaesthetic, penicillin, and medical devices, and meets and teaches a young woman (who is just like his girlfriend) to be his assistant. The concept is interesting, and it's entertaining to see Park Min-young playing another Joseon woman doing a man's job, just like in Sungkyunkwan Scandal, but the Joseon court politics become very tedious, and it's a bit frustrating having a ML who doesn't communicate.
When the Weather Is Fine (2020)
Another one starring the talented Park Min-young (she is so good at looking very different in every role). She plays a cellist who leaves Seoul and goes back to the little village where she spent high school, and stays with her bitter aunt, a retired writer. She meets up with an old classmate who runs a bookstore and blog. She spends the winter there, dealing with family issues (her mother, who murdered her father, get released from prison), and with the cold winter. The series is a slow burn, gentle, with lots of Korean literature and poetry.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)
This was so much fun. A Seoul dentist finds herself blackballed in the city, and goes back to a little fishing village where she had a moment of happiness before her mother died, and starts a dental practice there. There she runs into the ridiculously likeable Chief Hong, a jack-of-all-trades, and they slowly get to like each other, as she discovers that her "big city ways" are not liked in the village. It's a heartwarming romance, with nice characters with their own backgrounds and stories.
Forecasting Love and Weather (2022)
Park Min-young again! I never knew weather forecasting was so important, but it looks like it really is in Korea, where the weather forecasts can affect farmers and fishermen so much. Park Min-young plays a dedicated team director at the national weather forecaster, as she falls in love with the ML, her younger spontaneous co-worker (subordinate, actually). She just broke up with her fiancé, after she caught him in bed with another woman...and it turns out the woman is the ML's ex. Complications abound!
The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016)
This is way more complicated than it sounds, but basically a mermaid meets a con man in Spain, then follows him back to Korea to meet up with him. He's looking for the next big score, but has been searching for his mother for many years. His stepmother wants to get rid of him so that her own son can inherit the father's fortune. All this is against a background of the characters being reincarnated from people in the Joseon era. It was such a good series, with a really satisfying ending.
Hotel del Luna (2019)
I loved this series so much. Jang Man-wol ("Full Moon") is the moody, extravagant, utterly beautiful owner of the Hotel del Luna, played by Lee Ji-eun (known as IU, one of Korea's most successful singers). The hotel is a hotel for ghosts, those who have died but cannot yet cross the bridge to the afterlife. Man-wol is 1300 years old, cursed to own the hotel for a long-ago crime, and now she needs a new human manager, Koo Chan-sung, a young, highly qualified sincere man. The ghosts staffing the hotel have their own histories, and Man-wol's original sin lurks behind everything. So many other little stories too, like the serial killer whose victims arrive at the hotel, or the girl who was bullied and killed. Highly recommended!
Strong Girl Bong-soon (2017)
Bong-soon has superhuman strength, and gets hired by the CEO of a computer game company to be his bodyguard. They start falling in love, but her childhood friend, a cop, really likes her too. There's a kidnapper, various entertaining criminals, and some funny bits, but the biggest flaws are that the FL is a bit of a dimwit, and the ML is a childish twat who is quite happy with a bit of nepotism at his company.
Rooftop Prince (2012)
This was so much fun. A prince from 1700s Joseon era finds his princess murdered. He gets three experts to help him solve the murder, and they mysteriously find themselves thrown into modern-day Seoul, into the rooftop house rented by Park Ha (played by Han Ji-min, who also played Ha-na in the awesome series "Hyde, Jekyll, Me"), and she has to deal with four arrogant men from the past. They discover that Ha's half-sister is the prince's princess in modern day, and the prince looks just like the Yong family's heir who disappeared mysteriously two years before. So many intertwined stories and intrigue! The prince tries to solve the modern day mysteries as well as his princess's death before he disappears from the modern world. The ML is played by Park Yoo-chun, who played the ML in Sungkyunkwan Scandal.
(ML = Male Lead, FL = Female Lead)
Her Private Life (2019)
Lots of fun, this one. The FL (played by the talented Park Min-young) is a museum curator, but she has a secret identity: she's the creator of the biggest fan site for a very popular pop star. A new museum director joins the museum; he's an artist who cannot paint anymore, and who was abandoned as a child. Lots of other characters, all with their own stories.
The Glory (2022)
The plot sounds trivial: woman bullied at high school becomes a primary school teacher in order to get revenge. The series is actually partly based on a true event from 2006. The FL was brutally tortured at school, burnt with a curling iron, and she has dedicated her life to destroying the lives of her bullies. The ML ends up helping her. This series is amazing; brutal, but for those who like revenge tales, just perfect.
Dr. Jin (2012)
A gifted but cold neurosurgeon whose girlfriend has just been critically injured is flung back in time to the Joseon dynasty in 1860. There he invents neurosurgery, anaesthetic, penicillin, and medical devices, and meets and teaches a young woman (who is just like his girlfriend) to be his assistant. The concept is interesting, and it's entertaining to see Park Min-young playing another Joseon woman doing a man's job, just like in Sungkyunkwan Scandal, but the Joseon court politics become very tedious, and it's a bit frustrating having a ML who doesn't communicate.
When the Weather Is Fine (2020)
Another one starring the talented Park Min-young (she is so good at looking very different in every role). She plays a cellist who leaves Seoul and goes back to the little village where she spent high school, and stays with her bitter aunt, a retired writer. She meets up with an old classmate who runs a bookstore and blog. She spends the winter there, dealing with family issues (her mother, who murdered her father, get released from prison), and with the cold winter. The series is a slow burn, gentle, with lots of Korean literature and poetry.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)
This was so much fun. A Seoul dentist finds herself blackballed in the city, and goes back to a little fishing village where she had a moment of happiness before her mother died, and starts a dental practice there. There she runs into the ridiculously likeable Chief Hong, a jack-of-all-trades, and they slowly get to like each other, as she discovers that her "big city ways" are not liked in the village. It's a heartwarming romance, with nice characters with their own backgrounds and stories.
Forecasting Love and Weather (2022)
Park Min-young again! I never knew weather forecasting was so important, but it looks like it really is in Korea, where the weather forecasts can affect farmers and fishermen so much. Park Min-young plays a dedicated team director at the national weather forecaster, as she falls in love with the ML, her younger spontaneous co-worker (subordinate, actually). She just broke up with her fiancé, after she caught him in bed with another woman...and it turns out the woman is the ML's ex. Complications abound!
The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016)
This is way more complicated than it sounds, but basically a mermaid meets a con man in Spain, then follows him back to Korea to meet up with him. He's looking for the next big score, but has been searching for his mother for many years. His stepmother wants to get rid of him so that her own son can inherit the father's fortune. All this is against a background of the characters being reincarnated from people in the Joseon era. It was such a good series, with a really satisfying ending.
Hotel del Luna (2019)
I loved this series so much. Jang Man-wol ("Full Moon") is the moody, extravagant, utterly beautiful owner of the Hotel del Luna, played by Lee Ji-eun (known as IU, one of Korea's most successful singers). The hotel is a hotel for ghosts, those who have died but cannot yet cross the bridge to the afterlife. Man-wol is 1300 years old, cursed to own the hotel for a long-ago crime, and now she needs a new human manager, Koo Chan-sung, a young, highly qualified sincere man. The ghosts staffing the hotel have their own histories, and Man-wol's original sin lurks behind everything. So many other little stories too, like the serial killer whose victims arrive at the hotel, or the girl who was bullied and killed. Highly recommended!
Strong Girl Bong-soon (2017)
Bong-soon has superhuman strength, and gets hired by the CEO of a computer game company to be his bodyguard. They start falling in love, but her childhood friend, a cop, really likes her too. There's a kidnapper, various entertaining criminals, and some funny bits, but the biggest flaws are that the FL is a bit of a dimwit, and the ML is a childish twat who is quite happy with a bit of nepotism at his company.
Rooftop Prince (2012)
This was so much fun. A prince from 1700s Joseon era finds his princess murdered. He gets three experts to help him solve the murder, and they mysteriously find themselves thrown into modern-day Seoul, into the rooftop house rented by Park Ha (played by Han Ji-min, who also played Ha-na in the awesome series "Hyde, Jekyll, Me"), and she has to deal with four arrogant men from the past. They discover that Ha's half-sister is the prince's princess in modern day, and the prince looks just like the Yong family's heir who disappeared mysteriously two years before. So many intertwined stories and intrigue! The prince tries to solve the modern day mysteries as well as his princess's death before he disappears from the modern world. The ML is played by Park Yoo-chun, who played the ML in Sungkyunkwan Scandal.
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