A general thread about Korean dramas

[jian]

Ah, time for my absolute favourite K-drama so far.

Sky Castle (Netflix, 2018)

We all lie
Just tell me the truth
Shout it out!
What you want from the world
Money, honour, beauty
Everything you want

Those are the iconic lyrics to We All Lie, the iconic OST of the most popular drama of 2018.

Sky Castle is brilliant about Korean education and hypocrisy, and as such is not the best choice for your first K-drama - get a few others under your belt and get used to some tropes first.

It's a true ensemble piece, with five gen-X couples and their teenaged children, who all live at the eponymous elite apartment complex which is provided by a university trust for their best professors.

- The Kangs: Dr Kang is an arrogant neurosurgeon who is very proud of his position and of having been top of his class at Seoul National (SNU). His wife Seo-Jin is obsessed with getting her older daughter (Ye-Seo, a spoiled monster) into SNU. They both hate the Hwangs (see below) for different reasons. They also have a younger daughter (Ye-Bin) whom they neglect.

- The Hwangs: Dr Hwang is basically perfect - a kind empathic neurosurgeon who specialises in minimal invasive treatment and who's very popular with his patients, and is an adoring and supportive husband and father. His wife Su-Im is nearly as perfect but is something of an interfering moralist, but that's because unlike most of the other characters she has a functional conscience. Their son Uju is also perfect.

- The Chas: Professor Cha is not a doctor and boy does he resent it. He's a law professor who used to be a public prosecutor and would-be politician and is bitter about the collapse of his political career; he takes this out on his twin sons, pressurising them as hard as possible, holding up the example of their older sister who’s already made it into Harvard. His wife Seung-Hye is calm and gentle, and does her best to shield her children from her husband; as the story progresses she decides that's not enough and fights back hard. She's my favourite character in the series.

- The Woos: Dr Woo is Dr Kang's subordinate and is a natural follower; his wife Jin-Hee is a Sloane (sorry, English term - she's from a rich family from a rich part of the city, not clever) who follows Seo-Jin's lead in doing her best for her young son but is often conflicted about how to keep him happy but also on track.

- The Parks: Dr Park was Hwang's predecessor at the hospital; his son Young-Jae gets into SNU in the first episode to general congratulations, and then the family falls apart. Not main characters but very present in spirit (and occasionally in person).

The last important character is Coach Kim, an elite academic coordinator with a 100% success rate at getting kids into SNU. She was Young-Jae's coordinator and is now Ye-Seo's.

The story is complex and incredibly tightly and well plotted, with barely a spare moment. Everyone gets their time in the spotlight and their scene where you'll weep for them (yes, even Dr Kang). There's a lot of unexpected dry comedy (take a bow, Seung-Hye). The writers delight in building up various characters' pomposity and hypocrisy and then puncturing them fiercely. This show is about education, sure, but more than that it's about how the foundations of Korean and every society are built on hypocrisy and lies we tell ourselves and each other.

Sky Castle was very popular and controversial in Korea when it was released and remains extremely influential. If you can take the time and have a Netflix account, I urge you to get into it at your earliest convenience.

 

[jian]

And here’s Queenmaker!

Queenmaker (Netflix, 2023)

A short, sharp, and beautifully made drama at a succinct 11 episodes, Queenmaker has two middle-aged female protagonists. The first one we meet, Hwang Do-Hee, is the fixer and spin doctor for Eunsung Group, a powerful chaebol. She is extremely loyal to Son Young-Sim, the very competent and evil matriarch and CEO of Eunsung, and less so to Son's daughters. She bonds somewhat with Baek Jae-Min, Son's son-in-law and apparently decent chap who plans to run for Mayor of Seoul on Eunsung's behalf.

Our second protagonist is Oh Kyung-Sook, a forthright and brave human rights lawyer and activist who is protesting Eunsung's poor treatment of its female employees on the roof of their flagship department store. Of course, Do-Hee is tasked with removing her and making this PR problem go away - but as she does so, she discovers certain truths about Eunsung and Jae-Min particularly that shatter her loyalties. Impulsively, she leaves Eunsung and makes an amazing offer to Kyung-Sook - run for Mayor of Seoul and she'll run her campaign, using her inside knowledge of Eunsung to ensure she wins and becomes a mayor who can genuinely root out corruption and chaebol influence in Seoul.

Let the games begin.

As a short political drama full of intrigue, Queenmaker is astonishingly tightly plotted and relentless about Korean political and social hypocrisy and inequality. It's a hard watch at times - our intrepid duo go through hellfire for their beliefs, but they never let go of each other and they earn their endings (which aren't entirely happy). Sadly, despite a certain amount of probably intentional ho yay between our protagonists, there's no romance in this series.

By the way, running for Mayor of Seoul is said to be a huge deal in this drama (as in others) because it's said to be a major stepping stone to running for President. This isn't actually particularly true - only one Mayor of Seoul has ever become President and he was already so well-connected, corrupt, and stupid that he was a shoo-in for right-wing candidacy anyway. Of course, plenty of ex-Mayors have become ministers, assemblymen, and party leaders.

 

[GreyLord]

I've never watched a K-Drama. You said they started to be readily available in the UK around 15 years ago?

Do you find them on netflix, or where do you find them?

 

[jian]

I've never watched a K-Drama. You said they started to be readily available in the UK around 15 years ago?

Do you find them on netflix, or where do you find them?

They’re very available on Netflix (as noted under specific dramas above) - Netflix has commissioned a fair few. Most other streamers have at least a couple - No Gain No Love and Marry My Husband on Amazon, Golden Spoon and One Dollar Lawyer on Disney Plus, and so on. The biggest selection is probably on Rakuten Viki.

Before the streaming revolution or whatever we call it, we could only watch them on DVDs imported from Korea - the last one we watched like that was probably The King 2 Hearts in 2013.

 

[jian]

On to the next one!

Celebrity (Netflix, 2023)

Celebrity is another short and tightly-plotted series (12 episodes) with primarily female major characters. It's not quite as good as Queenmaker, in my opinion - at times it feels a little bit like an older person's guide to how social media influencers work - but it is pretty good about social media and influencers in Korea, as well as a good story in and of itself.

Our protagonist (there's only one this time) is Seo Ah-Ri, a poor door-to-door cosmetics salesperson who almost accidentally becomes a fashion influencer, becoming very popular for her excellent taste in vintage clothes and personal style. She therefore runs foul of the Gabin Society, a group of established influencers which is led by her childhood rival. Ah-Ri negotiates a tangled web of alliances, betrayals, and intrigue (at least one Gabin member is sympathetic to her) to survive and become successful, opposed by the ladies of Gabin at every turn - and she dies for it.

That isn't a spoiler, we more or less know that from the beginning. And we know that a few months after Ah-Ri's death, someone who claims to be her is back on livestream from a hidden location, narrating the events that led to Ah-Ri's rise and fall, exposing all the Gabin Society's secrets as she goes. That's the framing device for the series.

Like most Korean dramas, Celebrity has very little sex and violence (there's one drug taking scene, which is very scandalous in Korea) and so you may consider this series as a good introduction to Korean dramas for younger (as in, young teen) viewers who probably know more about social media and influencers than you do and think Korean culture, fashion, and beauty are interesting.

 

[Tonguez]

I've never watched a K-Drama. You said they started to be readily available in the UK around 15 years ago?

Do you find them on netflix, or where do you find them?

They are so available on Netflix that you can stream K-Dramas 24 hours a day for 12 months and still not see all of whats on offer