4 K-Dramas That Need To Be On Your ‘To Watch’ List Right Now
This is definitely the season for new Korean dramas, with three new dramas from different channels premiering on the same day last week. With the annual drama awards coming up soon, the competition between the dramas in their respective timeslots is heating up. Out of the many dramas airing at the moment, here are four exceptional dramas that need to be on your ‘to watch’ list right now.
1. “Twenty Again”
If you are looking for a new drama to encourage you and brighten up your day, this is the right one for you.
This drama is reaching the end of its airing, but for people who have yet to catch it, it is a must-watch for several reasons. For starters, if you are a person who enjoys watching romantic comedy, this drama is a perfect fit for you because of the adorable chemistry between the two main characters No-ra (Choi Ji-Woo) and Hyun-seok (Lee Sangyoon). What makes this couple a winning pair, however, isn’t just the actors who play them but rather the fact thattheir characters feel well-fleshed out and developed, which makes their relationship all the more believable. The strength of this drama’s scriptwriter (So Hyun Kyung) is that she is able to come up with an admittedly basic plot but turn it into an engaging and lively story, with well-thought out plot lines and character interactions.
This drama isn’t just about romance however. More importantly, it is an empowering story about how a middle-aged housewife, No-ra, can return to college and continue to pursue her dreams. It is heartwarming to see the transformation in her character as the series goes along, especially as she regains her spirit and confidence of her youth. Choi Ji-Woo fits this role to a tee, with her never-ageing beauty and her cheerful personality. Lee Sangyoon finally has a chance to smile in this drama, after serious dramas like “Liar Game,” and it is definitely great to be able to see his amazing dimples so often this time around.
2. “She Was Pretty”
If you are looking for body gags and a lot of laughs, this is the drama for you.
If you were a fan of Oh Ri-Jin and Oh Ri-On’s relationship in the drama “Kill Me Heal Me,” you cannot miss this show. This drama is centered around a magazine company with Hye Jin (Hwang Jung Eum) and Sung-Joon (Park Seo Joon) working in the same office. Not just that, they used to know each other when they were younger, and Hye Jin was Sung-Joon’s first love. As the title suggests, Hye Jin, who used to be a pretty girl, grew up to look very different. The conflict of this drama is born out of Hye Jin’s hesitance to show herself to Sung-Joon, creating lots of comedy and melodrama along the way.
The storyline does get frustrating sometimes when Hye Jin constantly hides her identity from Sung-Joon, but the characters are endearing enough to make this drama a fan favourite. A highlight of the drama would be the character of Shin Hyuk (Choi Siwon of Super Junior). He’s eccentric, handsome, and super caring. Although he is playing the second lead of the drama, Choi has been drawing a lot of attention for his realistic acting and at times has even stolen the spotlight of the other actors in the drama. His character may be too awesome to exist in real life, but it is well-written and developed. He also enjoys great chemistry with his fellow co-stars, especially with Hwang Jung Eum and Go Joon Hee, who rounds out the rest of this love square. With great performances put out by the cast and a fun storyline, this drama is well worth a shot.
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3. “The Village: Achiara’s Secret”
If you are looking for something to scare you at night, this is the drama for you.
Personally, I’m more attracted to dramas filled with suspense rather than predictable romantic ones, and ever since the promotions for this drama came out, I was super excited to begin watching it. Currently only two episodes have aired so far, but it shows a lot of promise and lives up to the high expectations created by the posters and teasers. So we have a mysterious village called Achiara (a fake Korean village) filled with even more mysterious characters, and the drama follows Han So-Yoon’s (Moon Geun Young) arrival in the village as a new English teacher. She encounters a lot of weird and creepy things in her first few days, such as being followed by a scary guy in the pouring rain, living in the house of a “missing” person, and finding a skeleton. All of these suspenseful and horrifying moments are played out very well with Moon Geun Young’s acting and the accompanying music, which just serves to hype up the tension.
What I’m loving the most about the drama so far are the supporting characters, the other people living in the village. Whether they are artists, pharmacists or school teachers, they all have complex characters and are all painted in a shade of grey;none of them seem to be completely good or completely evil. Of these characters, Yoon Ji-Sook (Shin Eun Kyung) is slowly becoming my favourite, for the sole reason that she has so many layers to her character. It confuses me but it keeps me guessing as well. There is an exception, however, with Park Woo-Jae(BTOB’s Sungjae), who plays a cheerful police officer in the village. He’s literally the only bright spot around, and Sungjae’s acting is definitely on point here. He’s an extremely promising idol actor and I hope his skills will improve over the course of this drama.
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4. “D-Day”
If you like to watch “Gray’s Anatomy”, this is the drama for you.
The only reason why I was initially attracted to this drama was because of INFINITE’s Sungyeol, who is starring in this drama as a medical intern. When I started to learn more about the drama however, its storyline drew me in right away. Dramas or movies about natural disasters are not new. In fact, a setting of a natural disaster often makes for a good story and production. What is different about this drama, apart from the fact that it is almost entirely pre-produced rather than shot live like most Korean dramas, is that it doesn’t focus as much on the disaster as much as it does on how people from different professions and lifestyles deal with its aftermath. Although “D-Day” is essentially a medical drama, it isn’t just about doctors or the medical profession. t also glorifies the efforts of other heroes such as firefighters and the random kindhearted strangers. In spite of all the tragedy and cruelty depicted in this drama, there are also several heart-warming moments which, to put it dramatically, allows viewers to restore their faith in humanity. (Trust me, it’s not easy when you watch hospitals prioritize VIP patients at the expense of others.)
Another aspect I am enjoying of the drama would be how realistic it is. Don’t get me wrong, I know how unrealistic the portrayal of the earthquake and its aftermath (destruction of buildings etc) is, and I definitely can see how it is rather impossible for a band of doctors and patients to escape death narrowly so many times in a single episode. To me, it is realistic in the way it presents the moral dilemmas and hardships the characters face every single episode. In the case of Hye-Sung (Kim Young Kwang), he constantly has to choose which patients to treat and which to abandon, for the devastating reason that the hospital no longer has supplies. In their own way, almost every character in the drama has to face their own moral battles, but it is precisely through these instances that the characters grow and change. For a drama with so many characters, it is amazing the way the characters have continual development (so far, at least) and I hope it continues. The drama may be more serious than all the other dramas listed above but it has an important message and is definitely a drama that you need to watch right now.
Which K-drama are you watching now? Are there any K-dramas that you want to put on your ‘To Watch’ list? Share your throughts in the comment section below and be sure to subscribe to the site and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to keep up with all of our posts.