Thanks everyone, for your many suggestions, thoughts and contributions on the Group Watch brainstorm!
Lots of worthy titles were floated, and as promised, I sifted through all of them, and shortlisted the most popular titles for this poll. Thanks, too, to those of you who shared other regions where shows are available, on top of the ones I mentioned. Super helpful! 😘
Except for Beautiful Mind and Stranger, I’ve seen the other shortlisted dramas, and therefore can personally vouch for their worthiness of your drama hours. 😉
I hope you guys have been having fun with the group watches! I especially appreciate those of you who managed to join both group watches &/or have been active on the Open Threads. Sharing your reactions and your thoughts really makes the experience richer for everyone. Thank you for playing! ❤️
What I’d like to find out from you guys, via this post, is
(a) whether you guys are keen to keep going, with the group watch, and
(b) what you’d like to watch together, if you want to keep going?
I have a Dear kfangurl question to ask! My question is whether you’ve ever had a problem watching the same actor in a different role, because you have such a strong impression of him/her in the first show you saw the actor in?
Asking because I just started watching K dramas last year, and i started with highly rated ones like Crash Landing on You and Healer, where the OTPs are so smashing that I was reluctant to see the actors in other shows as it would feel to me almost like they were cheating on their original OTP! Lol.
So far I haven’t “repeated” any actors besides Lee Jun Ki – I first saw him in Arang and the Magistrate and a few months later in Flower of Evil. But to me that felt ok as his performance made the two characters feel completely different. It probably helped that his Flower of Evil character was supposed to have antisocial personality disorder so has flattened emotions.
But now almost a year after watching Healer, I’m watching Park Min Young in Her Private Life and I keep getting flashbacks to her Healer performance, especially when the two characters overlap on certain traits like optimism, pluckiness and sunny smiles.
It’s probably a personal quirk but I do wonder if anyone faces this issue too! For now there are so many dramas out there that I can avoid repeats of actors but soon it won’t be an option! Ha ha.
I discovered your blog after watching Crash Landing on You and searching for reviews online. After that I immediately would read your reviews after watching a show and using your ratings for recommendations. I absolutely love your format and style of writing. I have some questions I am highly curious about.
What are the shows you have dropped which are not on the list of shows. This started after I watched Goblin and was searching for your take. It wasn’t on the list and learned reading one of your year end recaps that it was not for you. This got me curious to know which shows you have tried and dropped. No need to write any review or explanation, just a straight up list would be great.
What are shows you dropped but plan to continue. I read on one of your replies that you eventually plan to return to Dear My Friends (a show I loved) and Signal (I loved it as well.) What are famous shows that you have no intention of watching. I remember mentioning Kingdom. Are shows like Dr Romantic and Stranger included in this list?
They don’t have to be 100% complete and maybe they could also help as well by lessening the number of requests you get from new members wondering about some old shows.
Of course if this is too time consuming or not something you are interested in answering then no problem whatsoever.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on dramas with the best OSTs! Just dramas worth watching because of how well the OST works- thinking Healer and One Spring Night and Suspicious Partner!
* Shout-out to MC, who’d also mentioned that she’d love me to write about drama OSTs!
Cheerful, sweet and engaging, this show is easy to love.
The conflicts and character journeys all feel relatable and real, with poignant coming-of-age struggles taking centerstage.
The friendship-to-romance is treated with sensitivity and good humor, and the search for meaning and identity underscores everything with a lovely heartfelt poignance.
The excellent cast makes everything pop, and Nam Joo Hyuk is more melty – and more excellent – than I’ve seen him, ever.
A fairly typical contract-marriage-meets-terminal-illness sort of melodrama that doesn’t pack many narrative surprises.
The surprises mostly come in the form of the fantastic deliveries by the main cast. Namely, UEE is flat-out fantastic in this. So is Lee Seo Jin, and so is little munchkin Shin Rin Ah. The chemistry between these three, any which way you slice it, is golden, and alone is worth the watch.
I can hardly believe that 2015 is coming to a close and 2016’s almost upon us. I know I said this last year too, but seriously guys, time is flying.
Even more so when you count the year in drama milestones, or so it seems, since there are more dramas in dramaland than ever before, vying for our limited drama hours.
Everything feels like it’s flying by in a blur, and even though I’m dedicated to my dramas, it’s just not humanly possible to stay on top of everything – and that’s before taking Real Life responsibilities into account! XD
Still, I’m pleased to report that I managed to watch at least as much drama as I did last year, if not a little bit more. I’m sorta behind on the reviewing front, but I promise to catch up on that, pinky swear!
So recently, a couple of comments on the blog have combined to give me pause for thought.
And instead of just answering the latest question in the comments section, I thought it was interesting enough, and thought-provoking enough, to put it all in a new post, and see what you guys think.
Well ok, that, and the fact that as I chewed on my answer to the latest comment, I realized that there were just too many facets to the answer than I felt could fit reasonably into a simple comment.
Basically, the question is, have kdramas gotten worse / more “dumbed down” in recent years?
Thanks to NeeNee, who hosts Asian Addicts Anonymous, for nominating me for this blogging award – which I hadn’t ever heard of, in fact, until she nominated me!
To be honest, the moment I set eyes on the name of this award, I thought of the movie “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”
Have you seen it? It’s a cute 2005 movie that revolves around four friends, and explores friendships, growing up, and the magical pair of jeans that fits all four friends, despite their very different builds and physiques.
I enjoyed the movie quite a lot, and I think the movie poster is cute – which is why I couldn’t resist doing a cheeky take on the movie poster concept, to be my sisterhood blogging award badge.
