Adventures in Asia

My glorious return to romantic comedy kdrama was rather anticlimactic with the oh-so-predictable “ Flower Boy Ramyun Shop ,” so for my next drama I watched cop show / romance “Who Are You” (2013). Plus, one of the leads is 2PM’s Taecyeon, whom I hadn’t seen since his singing and dancing days in “Dream High.” Good to see you again, T! “Who are you?” Police officer Yang Si Ohn wakes up after a six-year coma with no memories of the day she fell unconscious. Assigned to the Lost and Found Unit, she starts working with T, er, Cha Gun Woo. Since waking up, she as the ability to see ghosts, conveniently of people who’ve been murdered, which results in her solving closed cases. But the ultimate mystery still looms: What happened that day six years ago? Who is the handsome spirit with sad eyes who occasionally appears? This drama is a brilliant combination of mystery, suspense, action and romance, with a side of ghostly heebie-jeebies. The plot was downright delightful (especially ...

I can’t even… my feeeeeeeeeeeeeeels! I don’t usually watch recently aired Korean TV shows, but after thoroughly enjoying “Man from the Stars” I decided to go ahead a watch another drama from within the last year: the highly-anticipated, star-studded, the one, the only, “The Heirs”! Written by Kim Eun Sook, who also wrote “Secret Garden” (my favorite drama), and starring Lee Min Ho of “City Hunter” (also another favorite). Also starring… a ridiculous number of Korean celebrities. Where to begin? Here’s my rendition of the cast list: Mr. Terrible Sweater (Kim Tan): Lee Min Ho (LMH) of “Boys Over Flowers” and “City Hunter” Miss Lost Puppy (Cha Eun Sang): wide-eyed Park Shin Hye of “You’re Beautiful” and “Heartstrings” Creeper (Choi Young Do): Kim Woo Bin – Okay, IDK where he came from, but he should def stick around (Apparently he’s a model) Best Friend (Yoon Chan Young): Kang Min Hyuk of “Heartstrings” and band CN Blue Miss Ditz (Lee Bo Na): Krystal Jung of ...

Kdrama. In case you didn’t know, Korean TV is currently translated into a plethora of languages and is viewed around the world. And secret’s out: I’m hooked. I barely watch any American TV, just an episode or so of whatever my family or friends have on. But Korean? I can’t stop. In under a year I’ve watched 8.5 kdramas (and re-watched 3), each about 16 winsome, exciting, heart wrenching, blissful episodes long. (And yes, I am currently in the middle of one.) There are some definite reasons why kdrama is taking over the world. Here are my theories: 1. Kdrama is plot driven. Story is king. It’s not about the wit or comedy, though that’s there. It’s not about sex. It’s not about shallow, stereotypical selfish-people-backstabbing-each-other drama. This is K drama, in which good, old-fashioned “What’s going to happen next???” keeps me clicking the next episode – and analyzing every twist and turn in the plot, every moment of character development. 2. Kdrama doe...