TrashyMctrashPicker Form

I must be one of the few people who loved I Told Sunset about You. It had stellar story telling and to me, a more realistic approach to relationships. I do think people who love BL push absolutely crap storylines to the forefront of the popular list with high ratings, but this is one of the few dramas was stellar. I've seen people thumb it down for not liking certain themes in the story, but it to me execution matters and those themes were executed very well.

To be fair, the most watched western shows aren't romance. Even with Netflix churning out Tall Girl and kissing Booth, there's a sense that people watch them for the same reason Boys Over Flowers is watched in drama land. Romance tends to be included as part of a plot but it's never the main focus. There are quite a lot of romantic shows still around, and romantic reality TV shows especially thrive on Netflix, but generally, sappy romances a la K-drama style aren't that palatable to western audiences. Let's face it, K-drama romances are very formulaic. I personally don't find a lot of stuff in K-dramas romantic and I veer more towards Harem dramas or non-romantic dramas. I actually wish Netflix could make more grounded romantic K-dramas. Waiting for them to do that. I know people here will hate it because escapism is part of the equation, but I'm tired of mid twenties couples pretending seeing someone shirtless is the most scandalous thing.

The most watched Netflix shows don't particularly feature a lot of that. Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Maid, The Witcher, etc are not what I would call particularly violent. They may have violence, but a lot of it is Sci-fi/fantasy. As someone who watches a lot of Netflix, I actually feel there's a saturation of crappy teen dramas across the board. I don't know what happened to American streaming sites but everyone seems to be pumping some High School based crap. From Grand Army, Elite, Sex Education, 13 reasons Why. I swear, every time I log in to Netflix, they're shoving some teen drama down my throat. Don't even get me started on the movies.

He honestly gets bad scripts. He's for some odd reason chosen a route I don't think he should have. He was great in Hwayi. Then he decided on a bunch of mediocre rom-coms... Seems to be the fate of all these child actors.

He's genuinely one of my favorite actors, but generally, he acts the hell out of some of the mediocre drama scripts he's been given. My unpopular opinion here was that the bromance was pretty stale. Mind you I liked both characters but like 80% of the bromance is because Yeo Jin Gu's character is a bad detective who constantly chirps around Shin Ha Kyun's character asking him pointless questions. "Why? Why did you do that? Did you do that? Was it you? Who did you kill?" At one point, I genuinely was like, they should just get some Soju and play 21 questions.

I think on paper he is all of those things but I truly wish the script writers had explored him more. He's got so much emotional baggage and so much complexity but on screen, the megalomanic laughs really didn't do him justice. If Shin Ha Kyun hadn't brought him to life, he could have easily been a very irritating character. I've said it before, but a lot of the emotional aspects of this drama completely didn't move me. Including scenes that should have been carthatic. The drama also heavily waned during the second half with that really drawn out, unnecessary storyline,

I guess this makes sense. I didn't know the full story so I wasn't sure why the focus was on historical accuracy. I can see why the people involved wouldn't like it. There are a lot of mediocre historical shows where history is more of a backdrop for a budding romance than anything. The tragedies are merely props to fuel romance. Makes sense that people would find it distasteful if it's a recent tragedy.

I guess it's like if an American show tried to shove in a love story in a show about the Sandy Hook Massacre, people would find it distasteful.

I've never watched a historically accurate drama which is where my confusion lies. Literally, all the most well known Sageuk's are historical fiction.

I swear I remember this manhwa from High School before the era of webtoons, but I don't know if I dropped it because it wasn't good or it was rarely updated. It was a time though when a lot of manhwas weren't translated much. I'd love to see my favorite manhwa (Shin Angyo Onshi) as a live action but Korea would never do it justice. This is one reason I never watch live adaptations of fantasy. The money is never there for the budget or the scale.

The only way I see the Western version being a hit is if it were to just suck up the story of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. Also, a western audience isn't going to suspend their belief the way a K-drama audience would. For instance, the idea of an adopted Korean guy being accepted as a right hand man in a Sicilian crime family, pfft? I mean a lot of shows require suspension of belief, but some things push that bar.

I now realize I watch entirely too many gang based shows and maybe that's why I haven't touched Vincenzo. The ones I listed above aren't even the best rated. There's still The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, etc. U.S gang based shows have honestly set a massive high bar.

I haven't watched this drama but the synopsis and story actually makes me think, this would work better as an international remake.

The problem though is there are so many good gang shows, this will probably completely go under the radar. We've had Boardwalk Empire, Snowfall, Peaky Blinders, Sons of Anarchy, Narcos, Ozark, etc. Weirdly, the West does very good gang based shows and movies.

The King in Ruyi's Royal Love seemed to have infuriated everyone but me.

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty was a really fun drama. Tang Fan is definitely not the typical male lead. I like Joy of Life but Fang Xian does have a lot of traits that are pretty pervasive in the xianxia genre. I just find that Joy of Life is better written. The xianxia world is full of shameless, yet intelligent leads.

I think a lot of these traits depend on what dramas you're watching. Harem dramas tend to not have a-typical leads because of the nature of the show. The Kings as the male leads tend to have different traits than male leads in other dramas simply because of history. For example, Ruyi's Royal Love, and Story of Yanxi Palace both have the Qianlong Emperor, and he is very different in both.

As someone who is looking for plotting and non of that romance crap, let me advance. I am not into sugary harem dramas. I need some plotting, someone evil schemes, pregnant ladies miscarrying, and all that shit.

The Good, The Bad and The Weird is a Korean movie that kind of plays with this concept. It was a fun watch although, apparently they used real horses, so there was some animal abuse on that part. It is a remake though of an actual western. Not a fan of the chosen cast in this article with the exception of Ma Dong Seok. Westerns tend to go for a raggedy more mature vibe.

My picks would be actors like: Hwang Jung Min, Cha Sung Won, Jang Hyuk, etc.


I'm of course leaving out the film actors who cost a fortune like Lee Jung Jae, Choi Min Sik, Song Kang Ho, etc.

Dramas I’m surprised I didn’t see: Joy of Life. I genuinely thought this one would be well rated even in China…

I think culture and language also play a role in how a domestic audience might view a show vs an international audience. For many of us, when we started watching dramas, the eastern approach to romance, fantasy, history, etc was different. It’s only after getting used to it, that you realize, the first drama you watched was a collection of drama tropes. For the domestic audience, they are probably already used to it. For me, Chinese historical dramas are my thing. It used to be so for Korean historical dramas too. This was new and refreshing, but now that I’ve watched a lot, it’s easier to rate the stories and execution. A good example for me is also xianxia dramas, the first one I read was super popular and a fun read, but now that I’ve read so many online, I’d give it a 7 at best for being a collection of xianxia tropes.

Legal High is a drama that gets no love here but I laughed at it. It shouldn’t absolutely not appeal to my sense of humor the way it did.

Lol, you’ve made me laugh so hard. Now let’s go back to never voicing these thoughts under our feeds, lest the fans eat us alive.

I will say this. A lot of people rave about drama acting and that is for me, 100% not where the good actors are. Yoon Ah In made a great decision. Yes, he had to do some terrible stuff to get there but he was a genuinely good actor. I wish Ji Chang Wook had also branched out from drama land. It pains me to see him in mediocre rom-coms.