Drama memo: A drama everyone should watch

Asian dramas are one of those things that people are very particular about, no doubt people may have read comments on our blog and thought: are these girls insane that drama was so much crap and here they are gushing about it? We know we sure have, but isn’t that the best thing about dramas- how  it manages to invoke such strong feelings in people regardless of whether it’s pure frustration or utter love at first viewing.

Here are a few of our selected dramas that we think everyone should watch at one stage of their drama viewing experience.

First up is our Taiwanese pick: MARS

We know for a fact that many of you guys will agree with this pick and if you haven’t seen it- what are you waiting for?  This is T-drama gold, simple as that. This drama was an example of love at first viewing, honestly it grabbed us so quickly that we were really sad when it finished because it was that good. Barbie Hsu and Vic Zhou are amazing in this drama and ultimately the reason why you will be glued to your screens. As individuals they are both so broken and damaged but together they make such a romantic OTP that you won’t be able to resist rooting for them until the very end.

Like we said this is a T-drama at its best- it’s got angst, CRAZY drama, a lovely romance and most importantly of all its got depth. It’s about healing, moving forward and falling in love against all the odds.

Watch it, you won’t regret it.  

Our Korean Pick: Que Sera Sera

Granted that this drama is not for everyone but if you get- you will love it. We thought about our Korean pick a lot and of course there are so many dramas to pick from but this drama sticks out for us for so many reasons. This drama is the perfect remedy for those people that are semi new to dramas- what we mean is for those people that have exhausted all the classics and are officially fed up all of the fluffy dramas. The drama is as far away from fluffy as it gets. It’s intense, so very angsty and oh so good! It’s labelled as a drama about the redemption of a bastard to a man- which it is but for us it’s all about the OTP. This drama has just the most haunting relationship between a OTP, their relationship will definitely stick out in your mind for a long after you have finished watching it.

It’s screwed up, the characters are so damaged and it’s just crazy good to watch !

Our Japanese pick: Hana Yori Dango

In contrast to Que Sera Sera this drama is one that everyone should watch, re-watch and watch again because we love it and we know for a fact, we’re not alone on this pick!

Our love for this drama is scattered across our blog and frankly we don’t get bored about gushing about how much we adore this drama. Everyone knows the story- mean/ crazy rich boy falls hard for tough poor girl add multiple issues keeping our OTP apart including; insane love rivals, crazier mothers and add memory loss for good measure.
The J-drama version has a special place in our hearts, in our opinion it’s the best remake out of the lot; it’s brilliantly acted especially by the leads, it’s well written and it has the right combination of laughs, angst and heart.

You will fall hard for this drama regardless of your age or the number of dramas you have watched in the past and if you don’t- there is something wrong with you- there we said it! Muhaha.

random rambles

As we’re still in no man’s land when it comes to dramas, well at least for the time being anyway, we thought we’d ramble on a bit about drama news that’s caught our eye:

Welcome back J-dramas- we’ve missed you:

We’ll forgive and forget how absolutely rubbish the J-dramas have been this year and happily welcome the new lot of dramas currently airing. We don’t know if either of them will be any good but we live in hope.

First up is: Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku/ Summer Romance shines in rainbow color

Hello! it’s got Matsumoto Jun in it. We adore him- end of. It’s also got Takeuchi Yuko as the leading lady; something we’re also very pleased about because she was brilliant in Pride.

Love at first sight, opposites attract, Jun playing a prickly, serious kind of guy- yep we’re sold (for now). Also it’s written by the same people as My Boss My Hero, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

 Second on our list is: Unubore Deka / Conceited Detective:

There is only one reason to tune in and that’s simply: Nagase Tomoya! Easy as that, we love him and think he’s going to be over the top and very funny in this drama.

Come on, his catch phase is: "If you marry me, I won’t arrest you." – It’s worth tuning in for that alone.

J-dramas don’t let us down, we’ve missed you far too much!

Rain + 2cm too short:

Just when we thought fan girls couldn’t get more superficial, we hear about the public uproar about a possible white lie about Rain’s height. Hello, are people blind- 2 cm, 4cm whatever- Rain is short- get over it, who cares!? We really hope that there is a Press conference- how funny would that be, Rain apologising for lying about his height!? Just watching him try and look sincerely apologetic for something so trivial and stupid would be funny, we’d tune in for sure.

Ji Hoo Sunbae is all grown up:

A Playful Kiss is pretty much a fiasco already, so we shall succumb to the madness and enjoy what will either be a real train wreck of drama or sheer brilliance… hopefully a bit of both- it’s always more fun that way! Hehe.

So the first stills are out for the drama and it can’t be just us that thinks that Ji Hoo Sunbae aka  Kim Hyun Joong is really pushing the school boy look to the limits- especially with his 5 O’ clock shadow.  He’s definitely looking more man than school boy. Not that we’re complaining- two out of the three of us Musthavesubs Girls are ridiculous fan girls- that lose all rationality and forget the fact that the guy can’t act to save his life. Damn that pretty, pretty face of his.

Loving you a thousand times:

We have officially had a massive overdose of over the top melodrama at its best and now we need to let our brains recover from the insane storylines that make up this unexpectedly addictive drama. We became unhealthily obsessed pretty much from the very start of the LYATT, we watched far too many episodes too quickly and now we literally have to force ourselves to take a break because it’s all become too much to take.

We definitely intend to return to finish this drama because boy, it’s good!

 

Okay we’re 30+ episodes in and seriously we haven’t seen a bad episode yet, it’s put together so well and you can’t help but be completely engrossed in the insane nature of the drama. The writing is pretty great; it moves along at a nice pace, keeping a good balance between light and dark issues, as well presenting a lovely mix of complicated characters that manage to get you fired up for all the right reasons.

 

The OTP’s relationship in this drama is what’s keeping us tuned in. In all of the madness and angst that make up this drama, their relationship happens to be the sweetest and most enduring thing about it all. If the leading man, Kang Ho didn’t love Eun Nim as much as he did, we would have switched off long ago because the woman suffers; she gets treated like a glorified servant and she’s constantly insulted by her NASTY in-laws but she puts up with it because they love each other and it’s shown often in the course of the drama. He’s outrageously sweet with her and regardless of how bad things get, as a viewer you know that he would always have her back. It’s been ages since we’ve seen such a compelling and lovely OTP and we can’t wait to see their HEA, because man they deserve it!

 

Aside from loving the OTP and covering our eyes in fear that something horrible is going to happen whenever they’re too happy; this drama makes us passionately hate on multiple characters – in particular Kang Ho’s Grandma and Mother; they need to die in a hot pot of boiling oil- they are that EVIL to the leading lady.

If we were Eun Nim we would have poisoned the old Hags already… wait there is still 25 episodes to go, so we’ll live in hope. Muhaha. 

P.S Man – Episode 21/Finale

We’ve been in two minds about finishing P.S. Man because frankly it pretty much became a waste of time after episode 9. However having watched 18 episodes, we decided to skip all of the unnecessarily extended episodes and just watch the drama finale and all we can say is UGH! Seriously, what a waste of time that was. What is up with T-Dramas and their outrageously cheesy endings? We actually had high hopes for this drama, because we absolutely loved it until about episode 9 and then it became pointlessly dragged out.

Our main issue with this drama was the OTP’s relationship. Man, it’s been a long time since we’ve watched a drama where the OTP were as frustrating as these two were. This couple had no issues stopping them from being a couple from the very start.

The leading lady was hesitant right up until the final minutes of episode 21 and why?

·         She didn’t have a past love that had scarred her from loving another.

·         She didn’t have a big, bad secret which threatened to ruin her happiness.

·         No evil love rivals/ family members forcing her apart from her OTP.

·         NOTHING!

She was simply a chicken, who couldn’t confess her feelings for a guy she loved but she could at the same time string along a lovely but naive LR who thought he had a shot with her. Yeah makes perfect sense right.

We are so annoyed by how this OTP got together at the end, just yuck. It took a faked kidnapping/ murder scenario to make this leading lady realise that she couldn’t live without her OTP. Did we mention that this little scheme involving real guns and a very realistic set of bad guys- was set up by the LR?? Yep, pass us the bucket once you’re done using it, because it was that cheesy!

This OTP had HOT chemistry together and it was so good to watch their relationship develop on screen but once they got over the fact they both mutually liked each other they should have got together, not got together- they should have done something! Instead all we got were multiple episodes where this OTP would have really hot scenes together where the sexual tension was electric and we would sit in anticipation waiting for them to confess their feelings for each other, so then we can move on with the storyline but no, instead the scenes would end with one or both running away, because heaven forbid they get together before the last seconds of the whole drama!

We have a pretty good idea why there was so much fan love for the LR Meng Cheng En and the leading lady Xiao Qian – there was even a flipping public poll. Sadly for the LR, it’s got very little to do with the fact that he was hot, charming and has steamy chemistry with the leading lady and more to do with the fact that the writers put a nail in any affection we may have had the for the OTP in this drama by having them act like complete losers and frustrating the hell out of us by having sooooo many aborted love confession scenes from the leading man- the guy was keeping the Taiwanese florist business alive all by himself! Don’t get us started on how much we wanted to shake the leading lady and make her come to her senses.

The drama was missing many of the components that make a great T-drama in this case; the OTP’s relationship fell completely flat and the storyline ran out of steam far too quickly, this was made worst by the show being extended by another 4 episodes. There was also a lack of excitement or drama that T-dramas are famous for; instead this drama was rather ordinary…well as ordinary as T-dramas came.

Reasons why you should tune in:

-Pretty much every episode up until episode 9 was great.

-It’s worth checking out the LR Meng Cheng En, who somehow managed to capture the hearts of most P.S Man viewers- it’s been ages since we watched a T-drama where there was so much love for the LR. We definitely intend to check out James Wen’s next project, well only the projects where he actually gets the girl at the end of the drama.

-Blue Lan and James Wen’s rivalry/ trash talk was hilarious in this drama.

-Blue Lan fans won’t be disappointed by this drama- he’s great as the leading man- even if you spend the majority of the drama wondering what the feck is going on with his hair. Ha!

Drama memo: Love Rivals

A drama without a love rival?? Unthinkable right, whether you like it or not, a drama is not the same without those delusional, annoying, sometimes sweet love rivals, all of whom end up completely heart broken by the end of the drama- sometimes we’re gutted for those poor sods that love the leading man/ woman but more often than not we’re glad that these pesky annoying creatures are finally out of the way, so then our OTP can finally get their HEA.

So here is our quick rundown of notable love rivals that stayed with us:

A love rival who had a real shot with the leading lady:
Thank You- Choi Suk Hyun

Are you fed up watching dramas where the love rivals are completely pathetic and right from the get go have no chance with the leading man/ woman? Then, we recommend you check out the K-drama Thank You because we swear it was our first experience of watching a drama where the leading lady could have had everything she ever dreamed of and lived happily ever after with a love rival that happened to:

a. Be her first love

b. The father of her HIV+ child

c. Never stopped loving her

d. Was willing to drop everything in his life to love her and their child

Yep- first love + baby daddy= complicated and oh sooo good. A major factor that made this drama so compelling and memorable was the relationship between the LR and the leading lady. It was so lovely to watch on screen. They not only shared great chemistry together but there were so many mixed emotions thrown around in this drama as this couple interacted; trying to grasp how they felt/ feel about each other. Their relationship was handled so well and the conclusion to this relationship doesn’t fail to disappoint, we dare even the most cynical drama viewer not to be touched just alittle by this relationship. 

A love rival we wanted to slap: Pick the Stars- Jung Jae Young

This section pretty much applies to every Hong Sister’s drama, however Pick the star’s love rival Jae Young wins first place for a love rival that made us want to reach into the T.V screen and slap the woman to death until she came to her senses- that’s how annoying she was!

Delusional, clingy and sooooo annoying. The worst thing about her was the fact that the writers redeemed her character. Yuck. UGH.

A Love rival we would happily take home to meet the folks:
Easy Fortune Happy Life-Han Dong Jie

Alright we admit we would take Roy Qiu home to meet the parents any day of the week, he’s hot- simple as that. However we also adored his Love Rival role in Easy Fortune Happy Life.

A gangster with a conscience and a heart. Yes please! He was by far the best thing about this drama, aside from the obvious- the brooding pretty stares and hot body, he was also far too good to the silly leading lady who was too blind and stupid to notice that her leading man was an idiot who got redeemed far too quickly and was a complete loser compared to this love rival.

Drama Memo: OMG WTF? Drama finale

We struggled with this topic simply because we’ve got to the stage in our drama viewing experience where we can pretty much tell where a drama is heading and as a result we usually drop a drama before we allow it to get to that WTF ranting stage, little lone to the finale. However unfortunately for us, we occasionally naively hope that we’re wrong and complete a drama, only to regret it later and end up ranting about the stupidity of it all in our blog!

First on our list is a drama that started off so well and then descended into pure frustration- Cinderella Unni. The fact that it was so good at the start makes it all the more annoying, seriously, what were the writers thinking? Even the most tolerant drama viewers would have been disappointed by the end of this train wreck of a drama. We’ll give the writers props because pretty much every episode up until the time leap was perfect- so much tormented angst, heart and the sweetest budding romance between two people that couldn’t have been more different from each other. The acting and writing was so good and we were utterly engrossed in this drama- like obsessed but then the time leap happened and the writers decided to fill 15 episodes with a whole lot of irrational behaviour, repeated scenes where the leading lady would reject the leading man’s heart, swiftly followed by her running off and crying…oh yes and more crying. Ugh.

So the WTF finale happened because; having stuck with this weep fest and hoping to conclude it in a satisfactory fashion- the writers decide to annoy the hell out of us viewers by prolonging this miserable drama by having the leading lady run away for no good reason at all. First of all this was an action she really wouldn’t do but more importantly at this point we really didn’t care what happened to this OTP. The finale was filled with a lot of lukewarm heartache and a leading man searching for a leading lady that really needed at least a couple years worth of therapy before she entered any type of relationship- she was that screwed up. There reunion was half assed and anti-climactic and pretty much as soon as the credits rolled we thought: WTF- did we just waste 20 hours of our life for this crap?

Our advice: Ignore the hype; it’s really not worth it.

Our second pick would definitely have to go to: Down with Love. We’ll keep this one short simply because we had a weekly bitch fest about this drama (see DWL tag for rant central).  This was another drama many adored but we have no clue why because it was just plain stupid. The only reason why we stuck with it was because Shams crushes on Jerry Yan on an unhealthy level but even he wasn’t enough to make us forget how vomit inducing sweet this drama’s finale was. It was just cheesy, silly and yuck.  To top it off the only couple we liked in the whole drama didn’t even get together, now what the hell’s that about?

Lessons we learnt from this ordeal:

Never watch a drama just because you crush on the leading man (although Jerry is so hot). Also avoid all future Ella dramas because she plays pretty much the same character in everything she’s in.

Our final pick is slightly cheating but we don’t care. We picked Alias season two finale, because we swear that even to this day we have not seen a season finale that tops that one- it was and still is the only drama finale that made us go OMG WTF- in a GOOD way and as a result it cemented its place in our all time favourite American dramas list. It was just perfect and so unexpected. The drama is similar to Asian dramas in the sense that it’s centred on the OTP and family ties first and everything else second, in this case that would be the Spy business.

So the whole of season two was building to the OTP relationship and by the end of the season they were a couple and like all the best K-dramas they get together in spectacular fashion and as viewers you just couldn’t be happier for this OTP, but then like the best dramas their happiness is short lived with our favourite season finale episode ever- which consisted of lots of revelations, the best girl on girl fight scene we have seen to date (there was nothing sissy about this fight) and a time leap with heart breaking consequences. We won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it but those who love Alias and have watched this season finale, you will no doubt know what we’re talking about- it’s so good and we’re pretty sure it wasn’t just us who went OMG WTF? by the end of that season!

Only watch the following video if you want to be spoiled:

 

(Man, we need to re-watch Alias – ASAP!)

Drama memo: A drama you unexpectedly fell in love with

We always have high expectations when we start a drama, or else why bother wasting your time right? Sometimes we regret it but then again sometimes you stumble across a drama that gets you so unexpectedly hooked that you can’t believe it took you so long to find it.

Here are our top picks for those dramas that we started hoping to enjoy but instead fell madly in love with:

Pride:

We are completely aware that this J-drama is much beloved by many but sadly for us we only came across it this year with very little knowledge of anything about it, little lone how great it is. This drama is a prime example of a J-drama at its best- seriously what is it with J-dramas? – They only come in two forms- really good or damn right rubbish.

We loved this drama so much; we literally gobbled it up in a week and cursed our greedy drama obsessed selves after we finished it. Like we’ve posted before this drama had many of the elements that we adore in our dramas- a lovely OTP that we fell hard for- this OTP both happened to be two messed up individuals but together they were so compelling and very real as a couple, so all the angst, tears and waiting was so worth it. The drama also had plenty of bromance. Yes that’s right we can’t resist the bromance and this drama had lots of it- we loved the amount of male bonding and friendship going on, it was both heartfelt and so entertaining. This drama had so many different components which make it such a great drama. The acting of the whole cast especially the OTP, plus the original and solid story line made this drama a stand out. All of this makes this drama a must see, we can’t think of anyone who would dislike this drama, it has a bit of everything for every type of viewer. All we can say is we are so thrilled that we found this drama, the saying better late than never couldn’t be more fitting!

 My Last Scandal:

This was our first “Ajumma” drama and also our first drama which really stood out above the rest, the best thing about it is was we weren’t expecting it at all! It happened to be both incredibly hilarious and heartfelt. Once again the writing was great, which made all the better by the spot on acting. The drama consists of your typical K drama madness; wherein an Ajumma maid falls in love with a celebrity, add a birth secret and adultery to top it off and you have a winner!!
This drama may not sound wildly original but the top class comedy and acting makes this drama one definitely worth watching.

 Prosecutor Princess:

This is definitely our unexpected love of 2010, it’s so much more than the very silly title suggests. We gushed far too much in our PP posts so we will keep it short. We adored this leading lady with all her faults and loved watching her grow throughout this drama. Usually it’s the guy who learns from the “kind, loving and perfect” leading lady but in this case our leading lady is far from perfect and she goes through hardships and struggles to become a really memorable and lovable leading lady. What can we say about the leading man, he might possibly be the cutest stalker in Korea! You will love these characters both individually and together.
So if you’re looking for a drama with a mystery, romance and a whole lot of heart then we highly recommend this drama.

None of the above dramas have anything typical about them. They are totally original, well acted and well written. For those how have seen them you’ll understand what we’re saying, and  for those who haven’t- we couldn’t recommend these dramas enough, they are really that good. J 

Drama Memos: Favourite Drama scenes

 As we’ve said before we’re not really watching anything in particular just because nothing seems to have compelled us enough to tune in so we thought we’d post our 10 Day Drama Memos- reflecting on the dramas that we’ve already watched and loved (or hated). We tend to avoid following structures just because their too restrictive, so we’re just going to go with the flow and post memos that we like.

Starting with….

Best Scenes Ever:

We thought about this category a lot and didn’t really want to limit our choice to just one scene, so we decided to go with our three favourite dramas scenes.

The First Shop of Coffee prince: Love Confession:

 “Whether you’re a man or an alien, I don’t care anymore. I tried getting rid of my feelings but I couldn’t. So let’s go as far as we can go…… Let’s give it a try.”   

We adored this scene to bits, it was just such a romantic love confession filled with so many mixed emotions. Gong Yoo’s Choi Han Kul was such a lovely character and definitely one of our favourite K-dramas male leads- come on! The guy loved her despite thinking she was a guy.

Hana Yori Dango – The phone scene:

The scene: Makino calls Domyoji on ‘their phone’ when he returns to Japan after being in America for two years.

This is a scene that always stands out in our mind when we think about this drama, we love it to bits. It’s just such a bittersweet, heartbreaking scene. Inoue Mao is brilliant as Makino but in this scene she out does herself- when she confessed that she never thought she would hear his voice on their phone again, we swear we felt our hearts tighten just a little bit, it was just a really great scene. It was definitely the scene that made us fall for this OTP and in particular love this leading lady.  

Soulmate: The headphone scene:

The scene: The OTP of the drama Dong Wook and Soo Kyung officially meet.

We love this scene because the whole drama has been leading up this OTP’s meeting and it was just perfect and so original. Seriously how sweet was it when Dong Wook put his headphone in her ear because he thought it would make her feel better? Totally unrealistic but oh so romantic. 

Here are some MV’s for your viewing pleasure: 

Autumn seems so far away….

We’ve got to confess that pretty much all of the currently airing dramas at the moment have not interested us in the slightest, that’s probably why the majority of our currently watching list of dramas consist of already aired dramas. Don’t even get us started on how disappointing all of the recent J-dramas have been- what’s going on with that?

So for now we’re just watching Loving you… which we are pretty much eating up like greedy children. The OTP have officially met and are in the early stages of falling in love and seriously it’s so lovely to watch. Sigh* Although we know that the road to a happy ending in this drama is going to be crazy dramatic, we can’t wait because we adore this leading lady and if anyone deserves a HEA it’s this woman. If you like you drama women- strong, intelligent and broken than this is the drama for you, she’s that great.

 

Anyway as we’ve already gushed about LYATT (again), we thought we’d reflect on some drama news as we have zero interest on anything that’s currently airing. We can only hope that the next lot of dramas are more interesting or at least so bad its good- then we can mock them relentlessly. Muhhahah!

 

Firstly we really don’t want to hear anymore about DaeMul, it just makes us more excited and then we remember that this drama is going to be aired in October which is far too long away. Also our expectations are already sky high- we like the cast, the story and expect that it will be well written considering it been two years in the making. Come on! How can we not be excited? – A Gigolo paid to seduce the future would-be female President. We unashamedly hope that it’s a cross between a Mills and Boon novel and City Hall. Anything close will make us very happy. 

 

Dr Champ

Really, as a writer you spend a huge chunk of your time writing a script – putting your blood, sweat and tears into it and you name your drama- Dr Champ!

 

Aside from mocking the title of this upcoming drama, we’ve decided to let it slide because we remember scoffing at Prosecutor Princess and thinking- what da hell? We all know how that turned out; we learnt the lesson of never judging a drama but its outrageously stupid title.

Okay so the idea of a sports medical drama sounds … blah, we won’t lie, it doesn’t fill us with a burning desire to watch it ASAP but a couple things really do make us want to tune in:

 

1. Kim So Yeon! Yep, we’ve been waiting to hear about her next project and here it is. We utterly adored her in Prosecutor Princess and definitely look forward to watching her in this drama. Also we think she will look absolutely lovely opposite her chosen OTP.

 

2. Jung Gyu Woon from our currently viewing drama Loving You a Thousand times. If he can bring half of the charm and charisma he has from LYATT then we’ll be very happy because honestly we love him. He’s got a great presence on screen plus he can act…hmm he’s going to play a Judo player right? We wonder if that involves lots of topless scenes. Suddenly the idea of watching this drama has became a lot more appealing. He -he.

 

Sungkyunkwan Scandal:

We don’t know why but we’re actually quite interested in watching this drama. We don’t even like historical Sageuk dramas; we simply never really got into them, however there is something about this drama that makes us want to tune in. It could have something to do with the fact that it’s pretty much a cross between Hana Kimi, You’re Beautiful and Boys before Flowers, oh and add She’s the Man to that list that makes it so appealing. Also the news that it’s really a romantic comedy first and a Sageuk second helps. We really do like the idea of a historical F4- smart one, playboy, rebel and of course a girl pretending to be a boy but that’s a given right, it appears that every boys school has one, even the historical ones.

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho:

Okay pretty much everyone loves at least one Hong Sister’s drama- however over the weeks we’ve been getting trickles of information about this upcoming drama and the more we read the more we’re turned off. Don’t get us wrong, we’ll be watching, maybe tentatively but still watching because like we said when the Hong Sister’s deliver, they do it really well. So our main issue with this drama was the news of its multiple love rival set up. There is reported to be at least two love rivals for Lee Seung Gi’s character. We don’t usually mind this- it’s a K-drama after all. However, sadly for the Hong Sisters their Love Rivals tend to be unbearable to watch on screen- they are that ridiculously annoying! For example; You’re Beautiful’s female love rival played by UEE is the epitome of annoying. Also, both Love Rival’s in Delightful girl were revolting- insane + repulsive.

Anyway we’ve made our point; we just hope that the love rivals are second to the OTP’s relationship and don’t overshadow what we hope will be a really fun drama. Plus it will be great to see Lee Seung Gi in a more comedic role as the wimpy leading man; it’s definitely a bit of variation in the atypical K-drama leading man character profile.

Loving you a thousand times

We are really enjoying this drama- in a strictly guilty pleasure kind of way. Ha! Generally we’re not into melodramas, we tend to avoid them like the plague but somehow we found ourselves in the mood for something depressing so we thought we’d check it out and drop it when it became too unbearable to watch, however we’ve been completely sucked in by all the over the top drama and angst. The drama on the whole gives off the same vibe as Shining Inheritance in the sense that you relate to the leading lady and all the horrors she suffers, it’s also similar in pace and mood- all good news in our opinion because we adored that drama. 

 

The last melodrama we watched was Cinderella Unni and frankly that simply became unbearable to watch towards the end with all its flipping crying scenes and stupidity- however in this drama, although it’s heavy on the angst and in practically every episode someone will cry a river worth of tears, we swear it’s so good and all those tears are completely valid. For those who have watched Shining Inheritance, you will know that Eun Soo suffered and went through so much pain before she got her happily ever after, the leading lady, Eun Nim’s in LYATT- suffering in this drama makes Eun Soo’s hardship look like a trip to Disneyland- the woman suffers that much! Although we’re at the start of the drama, we can’t help but really feel for this leading lady and root for her eventual happy ending. Lee Soo Kyung, most recently of My Country Calls is just fantastic as the leading lady; she manages to convey a character that is both strong and kind but at the same time a character that is so vulnerable and pitiful that it makes your heart ache in the best way possible of course. 

 

Here’s a quick rundown of what the drama is about:

Go Eun Nim is left in possibly the worst position imaginable when she is faced with finding enough money to save her father’s life, as well as get a roof over her family’s heads after they are evicted from their home. As time is ticking and her father one step closer to death, she ends up being a surrogate mother for a super rich family who are desperate for a child.

However this being a K-drama and a melodrama at that, look forward to the following things:

• Fake pregnancies
• Evil mother in laws
• Baby stealing
• Suicide attempts
• Adultery
• Plus multiple time leaps

And we’re only on episode eight!

 

We seriously can’t get over how much is covered in one episode, especially for such a long drama, not once since we started this drama did we watch a filler episode or feel that the drama was treating it’s viewers like idiots who find it hard to follow a story (ahem T-dramas and their multiple flashback scenes).

 

Okay as it is a 55 episode drama and we have already had so much drama (see list above) we predict the following issues will arise over the course of the drama:

 

• Of course someone will have to die- possibly the sick father and elderly grandmother (please no, not the grandmother!)
• Someone will get Cancer- that’s a given, it’s melodrama gold.
• There will be a birth secret- another melodrama must.
• Amnesia or a coma- possibly both- writers can’t resist the Who are you? scene between the OTP –Oh the tears!

 

We totally wouldn’t be surprised if all of the above happened.

 

There are so many morally ambiguous characters in this drama, which in many ways sets it apart from other dramas and makes it so interesting to watch. The writers have done really well in presenting multiple characters, all of whom on one level or another we can understand and appreciate. There is a great sense of desperation in many of the characters in this drama leading them to go to the extremes and do some really insane things- however rather than switching off and scoffing at the silliness, we’re totally engaged and hooked on what’s going to happen next, much of which we think is down to some seller acting from the majority of the cast as well as the writing.

 

The OTP:

Naturally being the romantics we are, we have to mention the OTP or lack of OTP so far. Shockingly enough the OTP of this drama didn’t properly meet until episode 8, we know unbelievable right!? The build up to their meeting was very similar to Soulmate– in the sense that the OTP knew of each other through circumstances but spend multiple episodes walking past each other without knowing or just missing each other before they eventually meet. In a way this is better because it allows the viewers to get an understanding of both the OTP as individuals before they ultimately become a couple. Too often in drama the OTP get together rather quickly and as a result we only get a representation of the type of person they are in comparison to their OTP. We can’t really talk about them as a couple yet as they have only just met- however she has slapped him, called him trash and thrown a glass of water in his face- so we’re hopeful. He-He- all the best OTPs start off that way, can’t go wrong with the typical hate turns to love approach in K-dramas.

 

So for now we remain firmly engrossed in this guilty pleasure and expect to stay that way until we can’t take the tears any longer or worse its goes down the Million Dollar Baby route, where we are left so heartbroken that we can no longer bare to watch.