Viajero

I wish MDL would fix this. I really like historical dramas, whether they feature action, romance, political intrigue, or even humor, as long as they don't have too many fantasy elements (I'm fine with science fiction and time-travel, its the pure fantasy/magic stuff I don't like)). There are a lot of excellent historical series with minimal or no fantasy that could be recommended, including those mentioned above by loladesu. Others of my favorites would include Mr. Sunshine, My Dearest, Empress Ki, and The Red Sleeve from Korea. The Long Ballad, Blossoms in Adversity, and Love Like the Galaxy from China.

These recommendations include 3 of my 6 favorite k-dramas (Mr. Sunshine, Flower of Evil, and My Name), while missing My Mister, Twinkling Watermelon, and Mr. Queen. It also includes 3 of my top 6 non-Korean Asian series (Alice in Borderland, Reset, and Tsuiraku JK to Haijin Kyoshi), while missing Someday or One Day, The Long Ballad, and First Love: Hatsukoi. That's better than most similar lists I've seen.

You are not missing much. I thought it the most overrated k-drama of 2020. It didn't help that I was also watching Dr. Romantic at a time, which I found to be a much better and more entertaining hospital drama.

Alice in Borderland and Revenant are among my top favorites and I liked the movie version of Bad Genius (haven't watched the series yet). I thought the second seasons of Sweet Home and Uncanny Counter were huge disappointments to the point where I don't even recommend starting those shows.

I'm kind of surprised I've watched well over half of these shows. Turns out my tastes align a lot more with Mon and Xiao Xi. In both cases, I generally agree with 7 recommendations each, strongly disagree with a couple each, somewhat disagree with a couple more each, and haven't seen 4 each. In contrast I only agree with two of the shows recommended by Awkward Potato (¨Reset¨ & ¨Silent¨).

I'm not normally into horror, but her acting in Revenant was so fantastic that it was worth watching just for her.

Hulu is only available in the U.S.

I just wish Disney+ (or any other streamer) was showing this in my region. But they don't show any k-dramas here. They do allow Star+ to show about 3 new k-dramas a year, but often not the better ones. So far this year, of all shows Disney+ has the rights to, for some crazy reason they decided to only offer us A Shop for Killers (which at least was pretty good), Seoul Busters, and Gangham B Side. What makes this particularly crazy from a business point of view is that k-dramas are very popular here. At any given time, there is almost always at least one k-drama (if not more) in the Netflix Top 10 for this country.

While I do think 2023 was a stronger year for k-dramas, there have been several pretty good series this year. My favorites for 2024 so far include Pyramid Game, The Judge from Hell, Lovely Runner, Parasyte, Marry My Husband, and A Shop for Killers (in roughly that order).

I do generally like horror and action thrillers, as well as romances, but of the shows you mention, I was honestly only really impressed by Parasyte. I thought both Bequeathed and Hellbound (S1 & S2) were particularly disappointing. I think my favorite relatively recent horror k-dramas were last year's Revenant (particularly due to an exceptional acting tour de force performance from Kim Tae-ri), and 2022's All of Us Are Dead.

I would generally agree that its an overused trope. But one of the best Netflix original movies I've watched this year was ¨Drawing Closer¨ out of Japan, in which both leads have terminal diseases. Yes, its depressing in a way, but it can also be somehow uplifting. If its done right with really good actors (and Deguchi Natsuki was simply outstanding in that movie), this trope can still make for a worthwhile watch. That's one movie for which I completely agree with the very high rating here on MDL.

I thought part of the purpose of this comments section was to give our honest opinion about a show . Is it really considered hate just to criticize a show for specific reasons? Particularly one that was widely panned by a large number of people on this very website for much the same reasons. I personally value reading different opinions about shows I'm considering watching.

I thought King the Land was one of the worst k-dramas I´d ever watched. It' s certainly the worst (by far) that I ended up watching until the end. Admittedly there was great chemistry between leads, but the plot was almost non-existent, mostly consisting a series of poorly developed and poorly connected scenes that came across as transparent excuses to put the leads together in different situations. 16 long episodes consisting of very repetitive cute scenes between the leads with only a pretense of anything else happening is way too much. I didn't drop the series only because I kept hoping something would happen.

I can understand not remembering Sound of Magic. A light piece of fluff that was eminently forgettable, all the more so because of the really lame music (not a good thing for a musical). I didn't think it was horrible, but there just wasn't much there.

I wouldn't even count Tune in for Love as good. I thought the script was a mess, which pretty much drained all emotional tension from the story.

I don´t really think you can compare Korean Sageuk with Chinese Wuxia. I like historical fiction, but this whole ancient magical martial arts world of most wuxia just isn't my thing. When it comes to straight up historical series of the kind I prefer, I've found k-dramas are usually better. Though there are exceptions, on average, Korean historical dramas tend to have better writing with deeper more sophisticated plots, better acting, better cinematography, and often better overall production values. But if you are more into the fantasy and magic, than c-dramas may be more to your liking.

My favorite k-drama so far in 2024 has been (much to my own surprise) Pyramid Game. But as a low profile TVING show, I´m not surprised it didn't win anything. I do want to watch Boyhood, but can't find it anywhere.

Agree 100%. If they were going to give a best villain award to Marry My Children, it should have been to Song Ha Yoon

I thought both were about equally good, but neither was quite as good as Lovely Runner.

We still have 4 episodes to go in my region and I´m wondering if this show suddenly goes downhill in those final episodes because of the way the ratings dropped so sharply both here on MDL and on IMDb at the end of the season. I've really enjoyed the show so far (I'm up to episode 10) and I'd hate to see it ruined by a poor ending.