Oh, 2023, you strange beast. If I made a graph charting how I felt every day of 2023, the general trend would show a steep ascension from the pits of January into the cozy highs of December. In reality, of course, the day-to-day experience hasn’t been so simple – while my life changed drastically in …
Screenwriter Park Hye-ryun is very close to my heart. Park Hye-ryun is an extremely successful writer who, in 2014, changed the way I watch dramas completely with the fantasy-romance-thriller-comedy dramas I Can Hear Your Voice and Pinocchio. The hybridity she introduced through these stories has taught me more about the power of storytelling and what …
I'm aware that literally no-one cares about the KBS Drama Specials the way I do, and no-one was waiting with baited breath for this review, but it's still without a doubt my favourite post to write every year! I've talked extensively about why I love the KBS Drama Specials the way I do, but for …
Because if I don't do it, no-one will. Tropes are integral to K-dramas. But do you ever feel like K-drama fans tend to look down on the tropes that got them into this fandom in the first place? Once upon a time, a reveal that the main character had gotten amnesia would be considered an …
Off the back of King the Land ending, I've seen a very interesting criticism going around: that King the Land's lack of conflict is to its detriment, because it doesn't properly explore the class consciousness inherent to a rich man/poor woman drama. That the appeal of this subgenre of romance dramas is the struggles the …
Continue reading Accepting Influence in Rich Man/Poor Woman Dramas
Everyone enjoying King the Land? That's a trick question, I've seen your tweets. While King the Land is hardly the best drama ever, I'm enjoying it! This essay isn't a dig, this is just an observation I had that I wanted to talk about. So King the Land has a classic "he's this, she's this" …
Curious about those 50+ episode weekend dramas that you don't have the time or energy to dig into? Good news for you! I'm starting a new (sporadic) series where I recap and analyse them! First up, we have Young Lady and Gentleman, which in short is about a romance blossoming between a 41-year-old chaebol widow …
(For Ayan, Daisy and Turtie - sorry I couldn't find a way to work Mr Slime into this.) Last year, I hosted a rewatch of the 2015 Korean drama Healer with a few of my friends, and my renewed grasp on the show has left me eager to write about it since! Even though it …
As much fun as watching and discussing new dramas can be, I love looking back to the things I watched in my first few years as a drama fan. I love revisiting, re-evaluating, and noticing things that went over my head before, or things that are surprisingly interesting in hindsight. Here is one such drama, …
I binged the entirety of The Glory over the weekend, and for the most part it was excellent; a well-paced, addictive revenge drama that features Kim Eun-sook's classic show-stopping writing, the best performance from Song Hye-kyo in a long time and an ensemble of despicable characters receiving mortifying and gruesome justice. The best thing about …
Crabby For Dramas 