Short, breezy, and polished, Soundtrack #1 is a friends-to-lovers nugget of a drama that should scratch that drama itch nicely, particularly if you:
(a) like Park Hyung Sik &/or Han So Hee;
(b) enjoy friends-to-lovers stories; &/or
(c) just want something quick and easy as a drama snack.
Really quite satisfying, for a short little thing of just 4 episodes of 45 minutes each.
If you didn’t already know, we’ve got a special series to kick off the new year! Guests posts, by patrons on Patreon, sharing their personal drama stories, mostly around the topic of “How did you get into dramas?” and “What does your first drama mean to you?” – with flexibility to go off on personal tangents, of course. 😁 Feel free to share your stories too, in the comments!
This guest series is MC‘s brainchild (thanks MC! ❤️). You can check out the earlier posts in this series as follows: MC, Sean, Shahz, JJ, Martina, Beth & Uyen. After today’s post, there will be two more guest posts by mystery guest writers, whose identities will be revealed when their various posts go live. Woot! 🥳
Today’s post is brought to you by Ella, whom you may have seen around the blog, and on Patreon as well. I just love how effusive Ella is, in her drama love, and I’m so glad she’s taken this bold step, of introducing herself properly to us, through this guest post!
I hope you guys enjoy!
~ KFG ❤️
Surprise, everyone!!
This month, we’re going to be treated to another series of guest posts, by mystery writers from the Patreon community. Woot! (Thank you so much, you guys. I love that you all are so up for this! ❤️)
This guest series is MC‘s brainchild, and is, essentially, a sharing of stories from the community, mostly around the topic of “How did you get into dramas?” and “What does your first drama mean to you?” – with flexibility to go off on personal tangents, of course. 😁 Feel free to share your stories too, in the comments!
We will be enjoying a total of 9 guest posts over the next few weeks (yay!!); I really hope you all enjoy.
I’m especially grateful to MC for thinking of this, and volunteering to write this post, because she’s got so much on her personal plate, with her job, and her baby too. Thank you so much, MC, for making time for this, for us!! LOVE YA. 😘😘
KFG ❤️
Today’s Dear kfangurl post is inspired by j3ffc‘s and Trent‘s comments on my recent VOGUE India collab post, where I talk about the male gaze vs. the female gaze in kdramas over the years.
In response, j3ffc basically wanted to know which classic dramas I think drama fans should check out (which would demonstrate the shift in gaze over the years), and Trent heartily seconded the idea and expanded on it:
“The question I’ve been thinking about is along the lines of how do you think kdramas have evolved over the last couple decades? Do you see discernible or important trends in that time?
(Broadly considered: thematically, in treatment of tropes, genre or sub-genre expansion (or contraction), production values, stylistic changes, acting and\or casting type trends: it’s all fair game).
You touched on a bit of this in this Vogue interview, but I’d be very interested in a broader look, and I just don’t have the range of experience to even attempt a synthesis. You do, though. 😁”
So today I thought I’d talk about kdramas which I would consider iconic, over the years, and how kdramas have been evolving, in broad strokes.
Shahz writes:
Hey KFG. Hope you are well. An idea for “ask KFG” post was one around what your guilty pleasures are? And opening that same question up to the KFG community. In particular those that you couldn’t explain to a non K drama lover.
So for me three immediately come to mind. The first being “Secret Garden”. Body shifting, toxic couple. Female lead sometimes one note, an annoying mother but even though I watched this ten years after it was shown I still fell for all the iconic lines.
The second ” “You are Beautiful”. Cross dressing nun joins a pop band pretending to be her male twin. The chemistry between the OTP never sizzles but it is oh so sweet and actually what develops is a nurturing relationship despite the communication problems. And Jang Keun-suk is so mesmerising beautiful that you can’t take your eyes off him.
The third is” Don’t dare to dream”. Questionable OTP and questionable decisions and at one point the female lead dates both the ML and the second lead at the same but the sparkling chemistry between the leads makes this a great binge watch.
And an honourable mention for Masters Sun. FL sees ghosts and ML acts as a barrier to those ghosts but uses this power to manipulate the FL into furthering his interests but again the sizzling chemistry between the leads makes the show so bingeable”
Reka writes:
Dear kfangurl,
thank you very much for your answer to my previous question, the one about strong and nuanced women 😀 I already started watching “The Story of Minglan’ and I am loving it so much! (Btw it’s also one of my first C-dramas, so thank you for the new experience!)
This time too, I have a similar question about couples. I love romance and I’ll never have enough of it, but many times it seems to me that the characters end up together just because it’s a “plot requirement” and because we expect them to get together.
So there may be no chemistry at all, or plot holes about their coming together, things can feel clichéd and may lack of depth.
I read your review of “Crash landing on you” and since you appreciated the OTP, I went to watch the show and yes! The OTP was marvellous! They were very believable and engaging. Thus I ask for your advice once again xD
Can you recommend me some dramas with believable couples and good chemistry?
Reka writes:
Dear kfangurl,
I love you blog! Your reviews are very interesting!
I started watching kdramas last year, and haven’t stopped since xD
I was wondering, can you recommend me any kdramas with good, compelling, interesting female characters? Because I find this aspect kind of lacking D:
One thing that Dramaland has taught me, is that true love simply cannot be forced.
Whether you’re one of the leads trying to make it work with a chaebol-parent-approved love interest, or a second lead working hard to earn the affection of the lead that you’re one-sidedly crushing on, no amount of effort will produce true love.
I don’t know which I am in this drama analogy (maybe I’m a lead character and Boyfriend is a chaebol-parent-approved, er, boyfriend? Hur); what I do know is, after 10 episodes of trying – like, really working – to love Boyfriend, I’m finally realizing that I’m just never going to love this show, no matter how hard I try.
If you’ve known me for a while, you’d probably know that I don’t generally do well with legal-themed dramas – even if they are very good.
Case in point: 2016’s The Good Wife, which I started watching, and which I found very good indeed – but which I also never got around to finishing.
So it definitely says something that I not only enjoyed Suits quite well, but I even – gasp! – finished it! And I’m not even that behind the live airing schedule either. Woah, right?
Many moons ago, when I was in college, I picked as many film courses as I was allowed, coz they were the coolest, and also, the funnest, and therefore, I got to watch a whole lot of movies as part of my curriculum.
(See? Film really was the coolest and the funnest, heh. Especially when we got to the part on animation and sat around watching cartoons together.)
To tell you the honest truth, though, I never was a great film student, and I often didn’t see the genius in certain films, unless it was pointed out to me.
I mean, while most of my classmates were blown away by the brilliance of Prospero’s Books, a strongly avant-garde adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, I was sitting in my seat, trying to digest – what was to me, anyway – a very, very weird film. I didn’t naturally geddit, y’know?
Kinda the same thing with this show, for me, methinks. I know there are folks who love this one, and some who even revel in its reportedly clever use of metaphors and imagery, but I think it’s time for me to admit that I just don’t geddit, with this one.