My picks for entertainment ~ suggested movies, TV shows, music, and books ~ so you can enjoy some quality ME time! (ATTN Korean drama addicts! This blog has lots of K-drama love.)
Recommending a Korean historical period drama: “The King's Affection” (2021-). It is set during the Joseon Dynasty
and this series started on a very serious note. Twins were born to the
royal princess: a boy and a girl. The king wanted to kill the baby girl
and ordered a massacre. All of those who knew about the birth of the
twins had to be killed, and the twin girl who was born had to die!
Like any loving mother would, the royal princess hatched a plan to
save her child's life. The mother faked the death of her daughter and
had her taken away to grow up elsewhere. But there was a fire, and the
child lost the home that she grew up in an her caretaker also died.
Consequently, she took to begging on the streets. A woman took her into
the palace and she became a maid.
She was outside doing her chores and her brother, the crown prince
was outside doing whatever princes do. Accidentally, she, a lowly maid,
crossed paths with her twin brother, the crown prince, and that's where the story begins.
It's a Netflix series; 20 episodes for Season 1.
I am already in love with the main characters.
The first episode was dynamite!! I can't wait to finish it!!
I did my review after the first episode, because I am always afraid I
might give away the ending and spoil it for those who have not watched
this series.
Rewatched “My Only Love Song”
(2017). It's a Korean drama, a Netflix Original Series. It's silly,
cute, adorable, and totally unbelievable! And yes, I did say
“rewatched”. I watched it a few years back and wanted to watch
something that wasn't really serious, so I watched it again.
It's one of those time-travel series.
An actress who was starring in a fictional historical Korean drama,
gets into a van named “Boong Boong” and the van sets the GPS
destination and takes her through the time portal where she ends up
in a real life historical Korean drama
What I like about the main character,
On Dal (played by Lee Jong-hyun), is that he looks like Johnny Depp
from Pirates of the Caribbean when he puts on his fake moustache.
LOL.
I also like the two guys who are
support actors.
(1) Byun Sam-yong (played by Lee
Jae-jin) who looks like such a sweet baby boy. You want everything
to work out for him in the end.
(2) Moo-myung (played by Ahn Bo-hyun).
He is the humble and loyal bodyguard for the princess but he is also
in love with her. He never talks, yet everybody knows what he's
saying. LOL. To best decribe him, I borrowed a line from Byun
Sam-yong: “He looks cool without even trying.”
The leading ladies and the support
female cast? Song Soo-jung (played by Gong Seung-yeon) and Princess
Pyunggang (played by Jin Ye-ju). Eh! They were OK. But it's the
guys who actually carried the series through from start to finish.
Watching Korean dramas is my guilty pleasure. I especially like the
historical period dramas, during the Joseon period. I have published a
few detailed reviews of K-dramas here on Read.Cash. But I also shared some quickie reviews on its partner site, Noise.Cash, which I am recapping below.
If you have not watched these you should add them to your watch list.
If you have watched them, let me know if enjoyed them too!
The main character is a feisty little innocent girl who is fiercely
loyal to her family and friends, but has the courage, inner strength and
determination to break with tradition, and find her own way in a cruel
world that is not a very nice place for a low-born; especially not a
low-born young girl.
This series is 60 episodes, with an extraordinary cast, and based on a
true story. It is a real life love story between a king and a woman he
took to be his concubine: Dong Yi (played by Han Hyo-joo) and King
Sukjong (played by Ji Jin-hee).
It's a love story with a bold and daring hero who is not only an
expert swordsman, but knows how to handle a pistol and a rifle. His love
interest is an intelligent woman whose father is a scholar and allowed
her to learn (although she had to dress up like a man to attend school).
They both dream of their country, Joseon, as a land that will one day
be populated with free people. His enemies thought they had killed him,
but he was saved and taken to another country. He returned to Joseon
with a new identity, and determined to settle old scores. The first time
his beloved sees him again, she faints. He may be wearing different
clothes and using a different name, but he still looked to her like the
man she loved. She thought she had seen a ghost.
A baby who was born in a prison turns out to be a princess. But
before she learned her true identity she was taught by a martial arts
master and first learned how to kick butt!! It's a handy skill to have
if you're going after the bad guys who caused your mother's death. The
main character is Ok Nyeo played by Jin Se Yeon who is on my list for
favorite Korean actresses.
A young prince witnesses horrific bloodshed and commands that it be
stopped. Since he is a small child, his command is disregarded and he is
returned to his father; only to learn that it was his father who
ordered the bloodshed. To add insult to injury, his mother is
“accidentally” killed (really she was murdered). From that day forward,
he not only hates his father, HE HATES EVERYBODY! Everybody except his
close friend. He was forced into a marriage of convenience. His wife,
the princess, becomes pregnant by another man. In an effort to cover
this up, the father-in-law (the father of the princess) attempts to kill
the prince. The attempt fails. Trying to escape his assassins, the
prince falls down a slope and hits his head. A poor man finds him, takes
care of him as best he can while he is unconscious. When he regains his
consciousness, he does not remember who he is. The poor man tells him
that he is his daughter's husband-to-be and that they must marry
immediately or his daughter will be flogged.
For 100 days, he lives the simple life of a commoner and falls in
love. He is found by his father-in-law and brought back to the palace.
His memory has not returned. But slowly bits and pieces of incidents
from his past, like puzzle pieces, begin to come together. His story
begins … AGAIN! He realizes who he is and what he needs to do. He also
knows what he wants to do. He wants to marry the woman he fell in love
with as a commoner, who is also the little girl he met when he was a
child and had promised he would marry some day.
A young prince meets and makes friends with a nobleman's daughter,
when they were children. An accident happens on a boat and the girl he
met is tossed overboard. Her father believes that she drowned. Her
sister grows up and the prince, now king chooses her to be his bride;
not realizing that she is the twin sister and NOT the girl he met when
he was younger. Corrupt officials arrange to have both King Lee Kyung
and his queen, Kang Eun Bo, assassinated on their wedding day. They
succeed in killing the sister but the king miraculously comes back to
life. The people are terrified of him. How can he possibly come back
from the dead? The twin sister realizes that her sister has been
murdered. She takes her sister's body and secretly buries it. Then she
returns to the palace AS IF she has also risen from the dead, just like
the king. The king not knowing that she is the young girl he had met as a
child, also believes his wife has come back to life. However, the twin
sister's main purpose for returning to the palace is to discover who
murdered her sister. For all she knew, even the king may have been
involved. But she eventually realizes his innocence and falls in love
with him. The problem is that she has already deceived him into
believing that she is the one who died. This makes their personal
relationship very complicated. As if life in the palace wasn't already
complicated with all of the scheming, conniving, ruthless, greedy
politicking that was going on. Oh! Did I mention the prophecy?
Goo Hae-ryung is a female historian. Prince Dowon (or Yi Rim) is a
young prince who has been sheltered from the outside world. These two
main characters are adorably cute! But they have had some tragedy in
their young lives. They both lost their fathers through violence. Of
course, the adults around them try to hide the truth. But the two of
them trying to uncover the truth makes for a good plot.
The time is during the transitional period between the end of the
Goryeo dynasty and the beginning of the Joseon dynasty, which is why it
is “The New Age”. A king, princes, military leaders, all engaged in a
power struggle to build a new country. Seo Hwi and Nam Seon-ho are two
childhood friends have the power of their friendship “tested”. Things
happen to them, they get separated, and become enemies due to a
misunderstanding about "my country." One of them decides his country is
“the country of the abandoned”.
“'Bossam' in the Korean title refers to a customary remarriage
procedure that took place during the Joseon period. At that time, a
widow could not remarry. A single man or widower would kidnap the widow
and marry her. Some of the kidnappings were agreed upon in advance and
others were by force.” (Quote Source: https://asianwiki.com/Bossam:_Steal_the_Fate)
Here's the story. Two friends earn their living by kidnapping widows.
It's a steady paying job because … evidently, a lot of widows want to
be kidnapped and remarried. However, there is one widow who does not
have this on her mind. She just happened to be sitting outside and the
kidnapper happened to go to the wrong house and … uh oh! … she is
accidentally kidnapped. You think this problem is easy to solve. The guy
made a mistake, so all he needs to do is take her back home. Right?
WRONG! The lady who was kidnapped turns put to be a princess. Her
father, the king, wants to see her. Since her father-in-law did not know
how or why she disappeared or where she was, HE LIED! He told the king
his daughter committed suicide, having died from the grief of being a
widow. The king finds out that his daughter is alive and wants to use
this fact to trap the father-in-law and get rid of him for treason. The
father-in-law also finds out she is alive and the entire series is him
trying to have her killed so that he doesn't get caught in his LIE!
You would probably not think that a
series with a title like “Mr. Sunshine” would be a Korean drama,
would you? But it is! It is a Netflix Original and it is intense!
The lead actor is Lee Byung-hun and he
is the reason this series caught my eye. He's Korean but the first
time I saw him was in one of the Terminator movies. He was one of
the terminators: T-1000 in “Terminator Genisys” (2015). He was
awesome! So when I saw he was the main character in “Mr.Sunshine”, I had to watch! I was not disappointed.
It is an historical period war drama
which depicts conflicts involving the Americans, the Japanese, and
the Koreans. His character starts off as a young child who was a
slave but he escaped to America. The name given to him by the
kind-hearted and generous American who saved his life was Eugene
Choi. His Korean name was Choi Yoo-jin. He grew up and became a
high-ranking officer in the American military and they sent him back
to Korea on a special assignment. He was not exactly thrilled about
being sent back home to a country where he was never treated like it
was his home. Nevertheless, when you're a soldier you obey orders.
Not only was this series entertaining,
but it was also very educational and emotional. I got caught up in
the lives of each of the main characters listed below.
~ Lee Byung-hun as Eugene Choi / Choi
Yoo-jin who became a Captain in the United States Marine Corps.
~ Kim Tae-ri as Go Ae-shin, a Joseon
noblewoman, a skilled sniper and loyal member the Righteous Army.
~ Yoo Yeon-seok as Goo Dong-mae (his
Korean name) / Ishida Sho (his Japanese name), whose father was
killed fighting in the war and he fled to Japan. He joined a
Japanese criminal organization and when he returned to Korea, he
wanted revenge!
~ Kim Min-jung as Lee Yang-hwa (her
Korean name) / Kudo Hina (her name when her father forced her to
marry a rich Japanese man so he could get at his money). She became
a widow and returned to Korea to run the "Glory Hotel", a
property she inherited after her husband's death.
~ Byun Yo-han as Kim Hee-sung, an
extremely wealthy Joseon nobleman who was supposed to marry Go
Ae-shin, only she fell in love with Eugene Choi. But that didn't
stop him from loving her anyway.
Korean dramas always have to have a
love triangle.
I fell in love with each one of these
characters. They were so real to me.
I will have to do follow-up research to
find out if there was a group called the Righteous Army.
A one-word description for this Netflix
Original Series? Outstanding!
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