As a continuation of the first anniversary of 5 Things I LOVED in KPOP This Week, today’s stroll down 5 Things memory lane makes a stop in Kdramaland. Here are the Best of 5 Things in Kdramas.
From week 2, some Hong Sisters’ Kdrama gold.
Is that a Sausage in your pants or are you just Happy to see me?
The Hong Sisters just know how to create Kdrama rom-com gold. Mi-ho and Dae-woong go on a walk, not date, to the movies. While there, Mi-ho observes another couple being all lovey-dovey and tries to follow suit with the clueless Dae-woong. Mi-ho tries to cuddle with Dae-woong by slipping her hand in his pocket like the couple in front of them, but he thinks she’s using her gumiho superpowers and could smell the small sausage in his pocket that he was saving for her. Oh. My. Gosh. The action starts at about the 3:00 mark.
Only slightly less classic, was the scene of Mi-ho chanting for Dae-woong to fall off the mats to her then loses patience and kicks him down to her to cuddle.
Week 3 brought this delish post about one of the best Kdramas of 2010.
A SungKyunKwan Scandal Sandwich
What’s a girl to do when she’s parading as a boy at an all boys academy and dorming with two hot roomies? Hold on to her hanbok for dear life! The scenario is nothing new in the cross-dressing drama genre, but it’s still amusing interspersed with the political conflict between the cold-blooded Noron Lee Sun-joon (Micky Yoochun) and the hot -headed Soron Moon Jae-shin (Yoo Ah-in). When Jae-shin, who’s the sunbae, finally shows up he’s outraged to have to dorm with anyone let alone a pretty boy and a Noron. Sun-joon talks Jae-shin into a perplexed speechlessness so he gives up, kicks Kim Yoon-shik (Park Min-young) between them and tells her “From now on, your place is here… forever.” She has essentially become The Great Wall of Salami in the SungKyunKwan Second room of the Eastern dorms’ sandwich.
And, the next night she suffers even more with a drunk and stripping Sun-joon. You Micky fans can thank me later.
I’m glad I decided to check out SungKyunKwan Scandal, it’s much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I’m totally loving Song Joong-ki in the drama and am seriously becoming a fan of his.
Week 13, deals with Mary’s so-called husband
Mary’s fake shillang can sing
I’m a big Jang Geun-suk fan, but his singing skills just continue to amaze me. This scene of him as Kang Moo-kyul in his latest drama Mary Stayed Out All Night singing in a club wowed me.
I liked the ballad “My Precious,” but it kind of reminded me of Gollum. I wasn’t quite feeling Mary, but it’s getting better and getting me more interested in the characters and plot. I’m thankful for talented actors that don’t dissappoint and can make their dramas better than they are.
Week 14 brought out a big switch.
The Secret Switch
I know some of you aren’t feeling Secret Garden, but it’s my current Kdrama crack. I like its style, its like your typical Kdrama, but there are aspects of it that just send it above and beyond. In this week’s episode we finally had the talked about body switch and it was freakin’ hilarious. Hyun Bin needs to get some kind of award for his acting as Ra-im in Joo-won‘s body. Both Hyun Bin and Ha Ji-won have got the body switched parts down to their character’s every little nuance. I like how the story didn’t leave out the embarrassing parts of any body switch that I think a lot of other body switching movies do (especially if they’re the opposite sex) like: using the bathroom, taking a shower, seeing- you know the other person’s parts… Ah, I can’t wait for the next episodes. Hyun Bin really does deserve an award for this…
Week 17 brought the first episode of Athena.
The Pen is mightier than the MMA
Athena: Goddess of War, the much hyped spin-off of last year’s megahit IRIS, finally debuted last week to staggering results. Its debut episode exceeded 20% in viewer ratings which is rare, recently most Kdramas have been considered lucky to have attained 20%+ ratings anytime throughout its run It’s sleek and action packed with luxurious locations throughout the world including my favorite (just a note Athena PDs there are two i in Hawaii:
My favorite scene from the debut episode was the all out slug fest between Cha Seung-won and real life Mixed Martial Artist Yoshihiro Akiyama (aka Choo Sung-hoon).
What did they do to that beautiful restroom? Just goes to show again that the pen is mightier than the sword, the MMAer, etc. Although, in this day and age would the pen be the keyboard?
Week 21 brought the beginning of one of my fave drama couples, the Milky Couple.
Dream High got WooU
It’s official I’m totally a WooU shipper and a new fan of Wooyoung and IU. They are so cute. I love how the unofficial couple finally got some screen time and some quality time at the noraebang.
How adorkable was their Heartbeat? And, Pil-sook on the stairs... total win. By the way, her Jason doll is a hot commodity.
It is a real doll by blabla, it’s called the Otto mini. It is a free-trade product handmade in Peru with natural fibers and certified eco-friendly. It has a slightly unfriendly price of 54,000 won (about $49 us) and can be ordered here (unfortunately, I’m not sure that international fans can order it).
It’s time for the Best Love in week 36.
Of Divos and Panties
The Best Love is at times hilarious and kind of scary. Cha Seung-won as the divo actor Dokko Jin is brilliant yet at sometimes kind of eerily psycho. The Hong Sisters’ Kdramas always have so much layers, inside jokes, and symbolism so it’s always good to read some recaps by someone in the know even though watching the drama with English subtitles. I like the references in the drama to things in real life like Dokko Jin talking about top actors like Cha Seung-won, and the reference to Dokko Jin’s mustache looking like a 소 (cow).
The most disturbingly hilarious moment of last week’s episodes has got to be Dokko-jin yelling at Ae-jung to return his panties in a jealous rage because she was talking to Yoon Pil-joo when she was trying to leave his house after a whole fiasco only a Kdrama heroine could get herself into .
Yoon Kye-sang as the adorably clueless (at times) Pil-joo has been an unexpected treat. I’ve also enjoyed the performances of Im Ji-kyu as Dokko Jin‘s mistreated manager Kim Jae-suk and Yang Han-yeol who plays Ae-jung‘s cute nephew Hyung-kyu aka Ding Dong.
Best ‘Sh*t Just Got Real’ Moment
City Hunter, is not quite my type of Kdrama because seriously, I’m all about the rom-com fluff. But how could I pass up a drama with Lee Min-ho in it? The drama is wonderfully shot, the storyline progresses well, and Lee Min-ho is awesome. I’m hooked. One scene that I didn’t see coming was when Min-ho’s character, Lee Yoon-sung, tries to stop his revenge crazy ‘father.’ What daddy dearest did made me go “Daayummm.”
It was sooo hard for me to choose between my favorite of 5 Things from the Kdrama “You’ve Fallen For Me.” The top three were The Boy who would be King, A moment in the Rain, and this from week 46.
I Will… Forget You…
Has a song ever matched an episode of a drama better? C.N.Blue’s song “I Will… Forget You…” was the theme of You’ve Fallen For Me‘s episode 7 and a better fit in a Kdrama, I’ve maybe never known. After believing that her new found love of Lee Shin is a losing battle when he calls her on it in such a mean way and then she sees him in the arms of his crush Yoon-soo- Kyu-won resolves to forget her feelings for Shin. When she auditions for the lead in the 100th anniversary’s show she picks the song that has a theme of love that she can totally relate to- the same C.N. Blue song “I Will…Forget You…”.
Ah, I totally died at then end of episode 7. So good. Little does she know that the event that broke her was probably the event that sealed the deal in the end of Shin’s feelings for Yoon-soo. Boys, they’re sooo slow sometimes. Not that Kyu–won was so bright either when all the signs from Shin were there indicating that he might like her a little bit more than she thought, but she was hurting and trying to be all cold and noble, right?
And last, but not least from week 49:
Protecting your Boss
Shouldn’t be this hard, should it? It’s bad enough that everyone thinks your boss is childish and crazy, you constantly get threatened of getting fired, and you have to deal with stuck up co-workers, but having to take an ice cream to the butt from his ex? That’s just too much.
The leads who play the love quadrangle are all awesome, some of the best parts of the show are their bickering interactions like the ice cream incident above between Noh Eun-seol (Choi Kang-hee) and Seo Na-yoon (Wang Ji-hye). Choi Kang-hee’s Eun-seol is so charming that I’m now totally a fan. Other than Eun-seol‘s crazy antics with her boss Cha Ji-heon, wonderfully played by Ji Sung, I love the interactions between the two cousins Ji-heon and god Mu-won, oops I mean Cha Mu-won played by Kim Jae-joong. My favorite scene so far, is this one of the cousins ‘walking’ back to their offices after a meeting.
I seriously hope that god Mu-won isn’t really evil and that he’s just conflicted because of the fight between his mom and Ji-heon‘s dad. And by the way, I totally think that the actress that play’s god Mu-won‘s mom totally ad-libbed the part after his ‘date’ with Noh Eun-seol because she wanted to cop-a-feel of our Jae-joongie.
Protect the Boss has been a really pleasant surprise, seriously I only began watching for, ummm… curiosity. It had nothing at all to do with Jae-joong being on it. Yup. The story and writing is so refreshing with characters that you can relate to because they are all human, not seemingly perfect and cold chaebols like normal. The story line really zips along making me wonder what else they have up their sleeves for the next 10 episodes, I only hope they don’t loose steam towards the end. I’m with Amy on this one… Watch. This. Now.
Now you know my favorite Kdrama moments from the past year, what were some of yours?
