I’m a list person. I have a list for every single thing in my life from a to-do list, a list of books that I want to read, a running shopping list, and in the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing different k-entertainment lists that I’ve been keeping track of. You’ll be seeing my top 5 lists of stuff like my current celebrity crushes, my favorite k-drama female protagonists, my favorite k-drama male protagonists, my to-be-watched k-dramas, and you know, stuff like that.
K-Drama Characters I Hate
This week’s Wednesday Five will feature the five characters that I hate with the rage of a thousand fires. These are characters that instantly put me in a bad mood if I think of them so I try not to think of them at all. Let’s get on with the list, shall we?
There are a lot of reasons that I get mad while watching Love is for Suckers but this woman is at the very top of that list of reasons. She pisses me off more than the female lead does and that’s saying something because I be wanting to fight the main female lead a lot. I wouldn’t be able to work with this woman because she consistently goes overboard and crosses the line of what’s good and what’s bad. She blows past the line every time and cares not one bit. So yeah, fuck her.
This bitch. Ugh. If you’ve watched Itaewon Class then you know exactly why I hate this bitch. Honestly, fuck this bitch. Fuck him. His Mama. His baby. His life. Just…gah. I’d chop off both of my knees before I ever kneel to him.
Ugh. This guy is definitely his father’s son. Ol’ bitch ass. I hated this guy so much so that I wouldn’t watch Ahn Bo Hyun in another drama because just seeing him pissed me off. I love him now but he played this character so well that I didn’t want to see him anywhere else. I’m glad that I wised up on that end because I really, truly adore Ahn Bo Hyun now. But this character? Yeah, fuck that guy.
I lost count of how many times I wanted to strangle this bitch. She was absolutely the worse person in this show. I even hated her more than the guy that refused to stay dead. Every episode that she stayed alive, I wanted to punch her in the throat and feed her to the zombies. Ugh, she was such a terrible character.
This evil piece of shit is another character that I absolutely hate. He was more than just disgusting though. He was mean and he was abusive and tried to act like he was this upstanding citizen and every episode I wanted to kick in the dick over and over and over again. I was sad when Little Women ended but I was more than happy to leave this punk ass character in the dust.
Who are some characters that you have hated in K-Dramas?
Bong-Soon (Park Bo-Young) was born with superhuman like strength. Her strength is hereditary and passed along only to the women in her family. Her dream is to create a video game with herself as the main character. One day, Bong-Soon helps out a bus driver who is being attacked by a thug. Soon, a small mob of thugs attack Bong-Soon, but she is easily able to wipe the floor with them. During this time, Min-Hyuk (Park Hyung-Sik) drives up to the scene of Bong-Soon beating up the group of thugs. Min-Hyuk is the CEO of video gaming company Ainsoft. He has recently received anonymous threats and even followed by an unknown person. Min-Hyuk believes Bong-Soon would make a great bodyguard with her amazing strength. Besides offering Bong-Soon high pay, he even offers her the chance of working in the planning department of his gaming company if she does well.
Meanwhile, crimes against women take place in the neighborhood where Bong-Soon lives. Detective Kook-Doo (Ji Soo) also lives in the same neighborhood. They have been friends since they were kids. Bong-Soon is also madly in love with him, but he has a girlfriend. Kook-Doo tries to solve the case and Bong-Soon and Min-Hyuk are pulled in.
This show was brought to my attention by my k drama bestie, B Nice and it was such a big hit with me that even till this day, and many dramas later, I still find myself watching my favorite scenes from this show over and over again. The triple threat of Park Hyung Sik, Park Bo Young, and Ji Soo was a major score for me. I enjoyed all of their characters and they brought this story to life like nobody else could and I loved the hell out of their work in this one.
So this story follows our main lead, Bong Soon. Bong Soon has grown up in a family where the women have super-human strength and she’s no different. She can pick up a bus full of people, punch through houses, and she benchpress everything. Trying to get a job at a gaming company is out of reach for her but her luck turns around when her strength gets her hired on as the CEO of her dream company’s bodyguard. An Min Hyuk is intrigued by the small little woman that he witnessed kick the shit out of a bunch of bad guys who bullied a bus driver and the kids that he was driving to school. He follows her to the police station where she’s giving her statement to her detective friend. The more that he sees of the woman, the more interested he is in her. He needs a bodyguard and thinks that this woman has just what he’s looking for in a bodyguard. It doesn’t hurt that she’s easy on the eyes, not that it matters anyway. Bong Soon ain’t trying to look his way. He annoys the hell out of her and thinks he’s gay so he’s out of the running for our girl.
Bong Soon has grown up with a huge crush on her childhood friend, Kook Doo but she’s never felt it was the right time for them and it’s thrown in her face when she finds out that Kook Doo’s got a girlfriend. She’s hurt and she’s frustrated but she can’t help who she loves any more than she can help the strength that she has that others don’t. But she has to try to get over him because she’s not a homewrecker so when she gets closer and closer to her annoying boss, she starts to realize that he’s not as bad as she initially thought. He’s actually a really great guy and he’s not gay either, haha.
Seeing both Bong Soon and Min Hyuk grow into their feelings for each other at the same time that they’re fighting bad guys left and right, was a lot of fun. This was a comedy, a romance, and even had some action thrown in and I was here for it all. I am such a huge fan of the three main leads because of their work in this show. I loved the romance in this, I loved the friendship that developed between Min Hyuk and Kook Doo and I really, really loved this scene:
I was a giant ball of emotions when I watched this scene. The way that he kept putting himself out there for her, hoping that she would stop looking at the guy that’s not looking at her and look at him instead. He was so good to her and he loved her so much and gahhhhh, I loved it! They’re one of my favorite couples to date. This show was a damn good show and I just adored it to pieces so I definitely recommend it to everyone.
Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok who, as a child, lost the ability to feel empathy joins a police lieutenant to try to uncover the true identity of a serial killer. While looking into the case, he must fight rampant corruption within the police department that continuously undermines the investigation. Si-mok vows to find the perpetrator within two months, but rumors about his violent nature pop up and lead to questions about his ability to lead the case. He eventually sets out to meet the person who he believes is the real murderer.
I chose to watch this drama because I saw that Bae Doona was in it. I became a fan of hers when I watched Sense 8 and wanted to see some of her other works so this worked out. This isn’t a romantic Korean drama. It’s a drama about an emotionless prosecutor who teams up with a police detective to find a serial killer. The writers of this show did a great job of bringing this everything together. The details, the characters, and the setting all played a part in making this show an interesting one. I had a couple of issues with the pacing in the beginning but I’m glad that I stuck with it because once everything came together, made sense and I got to know our main character, Hwang Si Mok better, the show really shined.
It took me a while to come to warm up to Si Mok’s character. He wasn’t a very likable person. Everything is black and white to him, there’s no room for the gray area that most everyone lives in and he’s not swayed by emotion so when things would happen around him, he didn’t react the way normal people would and I struggled with that and with him. The way that Bae Doona’s character, Han Yeo Jin was around Si Mok was exactly the way that I felt. She didn’t give up on him even though it would have been easier for her and I’m glad that she didn’t because they became a really great team that I came to like over the course of the show.
There were so many corrupt ass characters in this show that I spent a good amount of time pissed off at everyone and everything. But the more the story unfolds, the more interesting it was and the more interested I became in finding out how it all ended. So even though the pacing, in the beginning, was slow, the story picks up, the details fall in place and I was rewarded for sticking with this. Bae Doona was once again a freaking badass character that I adored and I want to keep watching her in another show and another show and another show. She’s so freaking great.
In a colorful Seoul neighborhood, an ex-con and his friends fight a mighty foe to make their ambitious dreams for their street bar a reality.
When Quarantine first started, my nephew Chase recommended that I watch this show. I’ve never been interested in reading subtitles so I’ve never really tried very many Korean dramas, though they’re very popular in the Polynesian community. I remember watching Boys over Flowers and Flower Boy Ramen Shop a long time ago but I can’t remember much about those shows. I binged watched the hell out of them with my nieces Meghan and Chaylene back in the day but I couldn’t tell you what they were about, who was in them, or even if I liked them. So needless to say, I was low key skeptical about trying out this show. Chase was adamant that I would enjoy it and he was absolutely right.
I freaking love this show.
Discovering this show has kick-started a love of all things Korean for me and I’m sad to report that I am not reading books much. The only thing that I’m reading much of these days are subtitles and it’s like I’m trying to make up for lost time because my entertainment of choice these days are Korean dramas and so I figured that I’ll start reviewing them and tracking what I’m watching, who I’m loving right here on the blog.
I’m counting Itaewon Class as my first Korean Drama because I actually remember it and don’t think that I’ll forget anything about it, like ever. From the very beginning, I was hooked. I went through the wringer with this show. There were lots of ups, lots of downs, lots of times when I wanted to beat every single person, and plenty of times where I thought I would burst from happiness. I also cried a lot too. Like, ugly cry. It only took me about 18 hours to watch this show from beginning to end so it was a short watch but I loved every single minute. The writers did such an amazing job with this show that I ate every single episode up.
So this show features the life of Park Saeroyi. A young man who just wanted to make his Dad proud. He was a no-nonsense kind of person, who dreamed of becoming a police officer. When he transfers schools, he meets the boy who will become the literal bane of his existence. Saeroyi witnesses, a rich kid bullying another kid and doesn’t stand for it. He punches the rich kid out and his life is forever flipped upside down. The rich kid ends up being the son of the CEO of Jangga Co., who is also Saeroyi’s father’s boss. Needless to say, Saeroyi gets expelled from his brand-spankin’ new school and his father is forced out of his job. Saeroyi is devastated that in one fell blow, the life he was working toward falls out of his reach. Over the course of the show, we see Saeroyi start from the bottom and work his ass off to have a prayer of making it to the top. He doesn’t do it by himself though. With every setback, different people fall into his life and kind of stick. I loved seeing him collect more people for his family because Saeroyi was loyal AF and his circle of friends was loyal AF right back to him.
Saeroyi’s dream of becoming a police officer goes right out the window when he goes to prison for almost killing that same rich kid that got him expelled from school. In another incident, of course. So while serving time, he studies and he researches and he plans. Once he’s released from prison, his plan goes into full effect. He works different jobs to save money to open a street bar and that street bar is the jump-off point for his real plan. To get revenge on the rich kid and his family by opening the company that is going to take the top spot as the biggest food company in Korea away from them.
A lot of different social issues are covered in this show and the way that they were all handled, worked really well for me. Transgender issues, racism, social injustices, discrimination, all of these issues are addressed throughout this show and I connected with every single character and every single storyline. These characters became family to me over the course of the show and I was such a huge fan of each of my Danbam fam.
They were all three-dimensional characters that went through their own obstacles and learned their own life lessons and I really enjoyed getting to know each of them. They all added something different and something fresh to an already fantastic show and I was here for all of them.
The romance in this show really rocked my socks. I cried so hard when things went so wrong for them and I cheered so much and so loud when things went right for them. When the light goes on for Saeroyi and he realizes who he belongs with? OMG, the smile on my face almost broke my face. I just…this was me when he finally gets his shit together and goes after his girl. The girl who has been his ride or die partner throughout the entire freaking show and he was so blind to her in every way that mattered.
I just….gah. I fucking loved them. So stinkin’ much.
This is a fantastic show. I can’t say that enough. I loved this show so much that I have made so many of my family members watch this show and it was a hit with every single one of them. I have become obsessed with finding the next Korean drama that I will love as much as I loved this one and some have come close but none have surpassed my love for this show. Park Seo Joon’s acting is superb and the rest of the cast are no slouches either. Everyone played their parts well and I am looking forward to seeing them all in different shows and movies because they all have wormed their way into my heart and I’ll support the shit out of all of them. I highly recommend this show to anyone wanting a feel good show about a man down on his luck who turns shit around and gets shit done with a solid support group along for the ride. There is some serious squad goals in this show and I loved it so much. I can’t recommend it enough. Chase did good with his pimping of this show. I’m SO glad that I watched it.
Listen to the OST
I didn’t understand a word of any of the songs that played throughout this show but the music is banging. I can now sing along with every single song because I listen to the shit out of this soundtrack. My favorite song is the main song, Start by Gaho. That shit goes hard. So good.
