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KDramas/Asian Dramas
Over the past year, I've become addicted to Asian Dramas - primarily KDramas. While I am no aficionado, I am an enthusiastic consumer of these trope-heavy, romance focused 'miniseries' (usually ranging from 16 - 27 episodes, though some have 90+ episodes).
After consuming Lee Min-ho's entire body of work (including The Heirs, unfortunately) and watching at least a few episodes of each Asian Drama available on Netflix (some I watched to the end, others were either too bad or too glaringly anti-female to stand), I sought out recommendations and ratings of other dramas on blogs and review sites; I particularly like Dramabeans for their entertaining recaps and having a rating system that indicates the quality of a show as well as how much the review enjoyed the show.
What have you watched/are you watching?
After consuming Lee Min-ho's entire body of work (including The Heirs, unfortunately) and watching at least a few episodes of each Asian Drama available on Netflix (some I watched to the end, others were either too bad or too glaringly anti-female to stand), I sought out recommendations and ratings of other dramas on blogs and review sites; I particularly like Dramabeans for their entertaining recaps and having a rating system that indicates the quality of a show as well as how much the review enjoyed the show.
What have you watched/are you watching?
Post edited by Kate Monster on
Comments
The only ones I've seen all the way through are Amachan and GeGeGe no Nyobo. Amachan is about a skin diver in northern Japan who ends up becoming an idol. It had a lot of cultural things that I didn't know about the north, and was cool to hear the strange dialect (and is definitely the funnier of the two). GeGeGe no Nyobo is about Shigeru Mizuki's (author of GeGeGe no Kitaro) wife, Fumie. It goes into a lot of detail into the manga industry in early Japan, and the difficulties they had before he Mizuki became a huge success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gokusen
Running Man is deeply entertaining.
There are three major TV networks in Korea. KBS, MBC, and SBS. There are also cable networks and web-only shows. It's a modern place! *gasp*. But most of the shows peopel care about are on the three major networks. Shows on cable are much more niche interest.
KBS is a government network. It's like the BBC of Korea, but its content is more censored than the other networks. It's not North Korean TV, but for example there will quite often be things that are free to be shown on other networks that are deemed inappropriate and banned from KBS without being modified. Everything that is on KBS is subtitled and distributed on KBS World via cable or (more likely) satellite TV. There is also an official KBSWorld Youtube channel!
MBC and SBS are just the two other major networks. They compete with each other and KBS. There is nothing notable about them other than that they aren't KBS, and are private commercial enterprises.
Korean TV is just like TV in every other country on earth. There is news, weather, sports, movies, cooking, and everything else. But as a foreigner who does not speak the language, you will have no interest in most of them. Even if you were interested, they are unlikely to be subtitled unless they are on KBS. There are three main types of shows that people outside Korea care about, these are music, drama, and variety.
Music shows don't really need subtitles, unless you really want to understand KPop lyrics (you don't). On these shows all the currently promoting KPop acts will perform their latest songs. Some performances are done before a live crowd. Some are pre-recorded. At the end of each show, one group is declared the winner. Each show calculates slightly differently based on fan votes, streaming numbers (from Spotify equivalents like Melon), downloads, CD purchases, etc.
The top music shows are Music Bank, M Countdown!, Show: Music Core, and Inkigayo. I don't recommend actually watching these. Instead, if there is a KPop group you are interested in, there is definitely a YouTube video showing just their performance and nothing else. There is a great YouTube channel Ch. MPD which shows unedited footage from M! Countdown. Really awesome if you care about TV production. Fan-cams created by the pros.
Dramas are pretty self explanatory. There are tons of them on every channel. They are like soap operas with limited runs. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. Quality and subject matter varies wildly. One important category is the historical drama. Imagine if we had soap operas on TV all the time that took place during the 1700s. Some of these are pretty cool. They have some of the feel you get watching Kung-Fu movies, without necessarily having any action whatsoever. Lots of plots involving Kings and shit as well.
Variety shows are the big deal. Reality shows are also sort of incorporated in this as well. These shows mostly involve celebrities candidly interacting and playing games. The pretense of each show is different, but the fundamentals are the same. These are called variety, even if they are reality, because they provide a variety of entertainment. You will get comedy, music, serious drama, cooking, suspense, action, and more all in one show.
All three major networks have a block of programming late Sunday afternoon with two big time variety shows. KBS is winning in that time slot right now with "1 Night 2 Days" and "Superman is Back". MBC has "Real Man" and "Dad! Where Are We Going?" while SBS has "Roommate" and "Running Man". These shows are on at the same time in Korea that NFL football is on in the US. They are a big deal.
The core of Korean TV is that it's really all about knowing the celebrities. A group with new music will cameo on a drama and promote on a variety show. Actors and actresses in new dramas will go on variety shows. The regular cast of the variety shows are comedians, actors, actresses, and idols. Until you learn who people are, a lot of things don't make sense. I learned over time just by watching so many things and seeing the same people over and over. Once you do learn, you can start to figure out what to watch and what to avoid based on the cast.
Another important thing is comedy. There is one show on KBS that is very important known as Gag Concert. I do not recommend this show. Korean comedy to my American sensibilities is not funny, corny, and often offensive. But it is important to know how central this show is to the rest of Korean TV. Pretty much it is the sole generator of all comedy. Almost all the famous comedic talent comes from this one show. I watched it once, and never again. But it's important to understand what it is to get context for every other variety show.
The other most significant show in variety is Infinite Challenge. This is the king of variety shows. It almost has 400 episodes. It's the #1 show on Saturday night in Korea. All modern variety shows stem from this show. It shares two cast members with Running Man: Haha and Yoo Jae-Suk.
You may recognize "Lord Yoo" as the guy in the yellow suit in the Gagnam style music video. The other cameos in that video, and in Psy's Gentleman, are also the cast of Inifinite Challenge. The thrusting guy is Noh Hong-chul, also from Infinite Challenge.
here is the list of shows that I personally watch regularly.
Running Man - celebrities playing games
Roommate - celebrities living together in a fancy house
Happy Together - celebrities chatting in a fake sauna
Hello! Counselor - like Jerry Springer, except everyone is nice
Onstyle:TTS - Taeyon, Tiffany and Seohyun from Girls' Generation doing their thing
Hyuna's Free Month - Hyuna doing her thing
Lastly, there are subreddits for all of these things.
http://koreanvariety.reddit.com/
http://kpop.reddit.com/
http://kdrama.reddit.com/
Bonus, the actor who played the "I Attack Only One" dude from Attack the Gas Station portrays the over-the-top deliciously evil bad guy.
MBC is now going to legitimately subtitle many of their shows and put them on YouTube to watch legally. KBS already does this. SBS is the only major Korean network not doing so. I don't understand why every single TV network seeking a global audience for their programming doesn't do this. Imagine if like, a South African TV station subtitled their programs and put them on YouTube. Maybe one would become a worldwide hit.
Despite the weird cameo, the show was a One More Happy Ending was a B+ rom com that bucked some, though by no means all, of the tropes and expected plotting of the rom com Kdrama formula. The lead actors were great, the side plots and characters provided substance and not just the usual filler, and there were some truly funny and touching moments.