Korean TV, July and August 2024

 Here are the TV shows I've watched since July:

The Atypical Family (2024)

This was entertaining. Do Do-hae is a con artist who has been tasked with marrying the eligible bachelor in a wealthy family. The family, unbeknownst to her, has superpowers, but due to modern lifestyle issues, can't use their powers. The matriarch, Man-heum, can dream the future, including lottery tickets and stocks, which is why they're wealthy, but she now has insomnia and can't dream. Her son, Gwi-ju, can travel back in time to times he was happy - but his wife died, and all the happy events of his life have been tainted, and he's now an alcoholic. His sister, Dong-hee, can fly- but she's massively overweight, and can't fly anymore. And his daughter, I-na, thought the family doesn't know, can read peoples minds if she looks directly into their eyes...but she's short-sighted, and wears strong glasses. Very amusing! Lots in interesting time travel twists (did Gwi-ju save Do-hae from a fire at school? Or will he?)

Love in the Moonlight (2016)

This highly rated series set in the Joseon Era features the amazing Kim Yoo-jung (in her first lead role) as a young woman, Ra-on, raised as a boy. Due to debts, "he" is sold off to the royal palace as a eunuch, and she manages to cleverly avoid the eunuch process. She becomes a personal servant to the unpredictable prince, Yeong, and starts to fall in love with him, and he to her (though he doesn't know she's a woman). What the prince doesn't know is that Ra-on is the secret daughter of the leader of an uprising a decade before, and the prince's father is still terrified of another uprising. This was a great series, lots of fun, with good characters.
 
Clean With Passion For Now (2018)

Jang Seon-kyul is a man with a phobia of dirt and bacteria, and he runs into Gil Oh-sol, a young woman who is messy and untidy, when she joins his cleaning company. It's a pretty entertaining series, but Kim Yoo-jung (again) takes the show. Lots of good supporting characters too. The only thing that irked me is that the male lead, Yoon Kyun-sang, is a little odd looking - he is tall, but his head seems too small and his hips too wide.

Backstreet Rookie (2020)

Another series starring Kim Yoo-jung, as Saet-byul, a woman who has been a bit obsessed with a handsome man, Dae-hyun (played by the excellent Ji Chang-wook), she meets in passing when she was at school. Years later, she applies at his convenience store as a part-timer, and she proves to be excellent. Dae-hyun is dating a wealthy woman at the time. Things get very much more complicated, with a rival for Dae-hyun's date, Saet-byul's sister going off to a talent agency, the sisters losing their home, and a budding romance between Dae-hyun's friend, a reggae soft-porn comic writer, and Seat-byul's friend, the writer's biggest fan. I loved the characters in this show, and it was so much fun. 

The Heirs (The Inheritors) 2013

This is a show about a group of wealthy heirs at an exclusive private school. Eun-sang (played by the talented Park Shin-hye) is a poor young woman who runs into Kim Tan in LA, where he's been exiled by his family. Back in Korea, Eun-sang's mute mother, player by the prolific Kim Mi-kyung, works for Kim Tan's family, and they grant a scholarship to the school to Eun-sang. The show is complex, but there are a lot of good characters, and it was very highly rated.

She Was Pretty (2015)

As a child, the pretty and popular Hye-jin befriended the overweight boy Sung-joon, but then he moved away. Years later, he has returned to Korea from the US, and wants to meet up. He now now handsome and well-off, while Hye-jin got her dad's prominent freckles and frizzy hair. When she sees what he looks like, she sends her beautiful friend in her place, and Sung-joon and the friend start seeing each other. Meanwhile Hye-jin gets a job at the glamour magazine that Sung-joon now runs, and works there still in love with him while he things she is just a clumsy, idiotic intern. She reminds him a bit of his childhood friend though... A good show, and I enjoyed it.

Reunited Worlds (2017)

A senior schoolboy, Hae-sung, is dating Jung-won. Jung-won is preparing a birthday party for him, and sends him to the school to delay him. There he stumbles on a murdered schoolboy, and as he's rushing to get help, he is killed by a car, and subsequently framed for the murder. His siblings, who he'd been looking after, fall apart. 12 years later, he wakes up, still 19, in the school grounds. His girlfriend and his best friends are now 31, and his siblings are not doing well. He comes back into their lives, and tries to fix everything that's gone wrong, while trying to solve the 12 year old murder mystery that can exonerate him. He finds out he only has limited time there. This was a good show, and I liked the plot and characters a lot. the weakest point, I thought, was the male lead, Yeo Jin-goo; I like him a lot, but he only seemed to have two expressions when the show was on in 2017.

I'm currently watching Romance in the House (which is only two episodes in), and the highly-acclaimed Alchemy of Souls.