I love this column very, very much!! (Well, I love all of them.) I frequently tell people that Crash Landing on You is The Gateway Drug -- it certainly was for me! My nephew and niece were visiting us in May 2022, and our niece suggested CLOY. We watched about 6 episodes during their visit, and then I binged the rest of it on my own. And there has been no going back.
I remember feeling frantic immediately after finishing CLOY -- what's next???? And I stumbled onto some classics almost immediately -- Hometown Cha, It's Okay to Not Be Okay, Itaewon Class, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? Then, I subscribed to Viki and found my "life dramas" -- Misaeng and Into the Ring. I count the those two among my favorite TV shows of all time -- alongside The Wire and The Americans.
And now, I am eagerly waiting for dramas -- Chief Detective 1958; thrilled that Lee Je Hoon signed on for a third season of Taxi Driver; Because I Want No Loss; even Squid Game now that Im Si Wan and Park Sung Hoon are in the cast. Completely addicted!
Mar 30·edited Mar 30Liked by K-Culture with Jae-Ha Kim
I'm obsessed with anything set in the Joseon Period. Rookie Historian, 100 days my prince, Jang Ok Jung Living by Love, Queens Umbrella, Captivating the King etc. My mom is 84 years old and she cannot get enough of her Kdramas. She call them her Korean Stories, the shows make her so happy and give her a reason to get up every day.
(Tone: Honest) 사랑의 불시착 (Crash Landing On You 2019) was my first drama on my Birthday March 9th, 2020 and it has forever changed me. Fast forward 4 years and I’m over 600 dramas and counting (I haven’t ditched/dropped a single drama; although, I admit to the “fast forward skim.” If something is too gore-y, bloody, horror-ish it gets 5-12 minutes an episode– that’s just me!) Loved the dramas you mentioned (they fall in my first 100 drama list) as there is so much more out there to Love than simply what the big name streamers offer!
“Crash Landing on You”! Although I think I watched “The Heirs” first (so Lee Minho is still responsible), got my husband to watch it and then found CLOY. “Descendants of the Sun” was another early one. We’ve rewatched all of these to see if we picked up or understood more with a couple of years of watching KDramas under our belt. Haven’t seen “Boys Over Flowers” or “Goblin” but the latter is because it’s behind a Viki paywall and we’ve agreed that when we’ve run out of KDramas on Netflix and Prime, we”kk add Viki to our subscriptions. Obviously, this may never happen.😀
I love how you (and your husband) have it all planned out! 😂 Some people have told me that they wait until they're ready to binge a bunch of shows on Hulu or Prime (or whatever service they don't have) and subscribe for a month to watch what they want to and then cancel after they're all done.
I really miss the days of Dramafever and kind of one-stop shopping for all the Korean content. Warner Bros. really messed that up!
I actually stopped and started watching K-Dramas three times. And my gateways for those three times were Descendants of the Sun, Goblin, and Crash Landing on You. I haven't seen Boys Over Flowers, Coffee Prince, or Healer yet, but keep hearing raves about them. Maybe I'll try some day when things are less busy.
Boys Over Flowers has not aged well... but Coffee Prince and Healer are delightful. I hope that you enjoy them if you get the chance to watch them one day!
My addiction goes a little further back to Forbidden Love (2004) which was required watching for a fan of Shinhwa. Those were the days when Kdrama was a little harder to get hold of in the UK, so my viewing was a little patchy at times. I was enthralled by "the Slingshot" and "Harvest Villa" but "Boys over Flowers" was a massive hype in my kpop forum days. I even helped run a competition for people to make a fan video - was great fun seeing how creative people were and what songs they used.
I wrote about this previously, but before all these streaming sites were available, my parents rented VHS (!!) tapes from our local Korean grocer. And they were all bootlegged, grainy dubs of whatever was popular in Korea. What a world we live in now where we can watch shows at the same time or very close to it as Koreans in Korea!
I dropped DOS on ep 8 (too boring) and I don’t plan to watch BOF (too toxic, but I did watch F4 Thailand). I watched all the others within my first year of watching KDramas. The series that completely pulled me down the KDrama rabbit hole was Hometown Cha Cha Cha. I loved the tropes- “adversaries to lovers”, found family; the music, the funny townspeople, the scenery. Kim Seon Ho became my first crush. Him and Shin Min Ah were fantastic together. I still rewatch favorites episodes.
I love this column very, very much!! (Well, I love all of them.) I frequently tell people that Crash Landing on You is The Gateway Drug -- it certainly was for me! My nephew and niece were visiting us in May 2022, and our niece suggested CLOY. We watched about 6 episodes during their visit, and then I binged the rest of it on my own. And there has been no going back.
I remember feeling frantic immediately after finishing CLOY -- what's next???? And I stumbled onto some classics almost immediately -- Hometown Cha, It's Okay to Not Be Okay, Itaewon Class, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? Then, I subscribed to Viki and found my "life dramas" -- Misaeng and Into the Ring. I count the those two among my favorite TV shows of all time -- alongside The Wire and The Americans.
And now, I am eagerly waiting for dramas -- Chief Detective 1958; thrilled that Lee Je Hoon signed on for a third season of Taxi Driver; Because I Want No Loss; even Squid Game now that Im Si Wan and Park Sung Hoon are in the cast. Completely addicted!
Wow! Thank you for sharing your K-drama journey! I'm a huge fan of Lee Je-hoon as well and cannot wait! Great actor (and fun to look at, too)...
I'm obsessed with anything set in the Joseon Period. Rookie Historian, 100 days my prince, Jang Ok Jung Living by Love, Queens Umbrella, Captivating the King etc. My mom is 84 years old and she cannot get enough of her Kdramas. She call them her Korean Stories, the shows make her so happy and give her a reason to get up every day.
Thank you for sharing that with me! If you or your mother haven't seen The Moon Embracing the Sun, I highly recommend it. I reviewed that period piece here: https://jaehakim.substack.com/p/moon-embracing-the-sun-kdrama-review-kim-soo-hyu
(Tone: Honest) 사랑의 불시착 (Crash Landing On You 2019) was my first drama on my Birthday March 9th, 2020 and it has forever changed me. Fast forward 4 years and I’m over 600 dramas and counting (I haven’t ditched/dropped a single drama; although, I admit to the “fast forward skim.” If something is too gore-y, bloody, horror-ish it gets 5-12 minutes an episode– that’s just me!) Loved the dramas you mentioned (they fall in my first 100 drama list) as there is so much more out there to Love than simply what the big name streamers offer!
As always- so grateful for your shares!! 💜🖤✌🏼
Wow, you are hardcore (and I mean that in the best possible way) when it comes to your K-dramas. I love it!
(Tone: Happy) Thank you for the kind words! I’d say ‘hardcore’ & endlessly passionate about Kdramas describes my drama watching 💯 ! 💜🖤✌🏼
“Crash Landing on You”! Although I think I watched “The Heirs” first (so Lee Minho is still responsible), got my husband to watch it and then found CLOY. “Descendants of the Sun” was another early one. We’ve rewatched all of these to see if we picked up or understood more with a couple of years of watching KDramas under our belt. Haven’t seen “Boys Over Flowers” or “Goblin” but the latter is because it’s behind a Viki paywall and we’ve agreed that when we’ve run out of KDramas on Netflix and Prime, we”kk add Viki to our subscriptions. Obviously, this may never happen.😀
I love how you (and your husband) have it all planned out! 😂 Some people have told me that they wait until they're ready to binge a bunch of shows on Hulu or Prime (or whatever service they don't have) and subscribe for a month to watch what they want to and then cancel after they're all done.
I really miss the days of Dramafever and kind of one-stop shopping for all the Korean content. Warner Bros. really messed that up!
I actually stopped and started watching K-Dramas three times. And my gateways for those three times were Descendants of the Sun, Goblin, and Crash Landing on You. I haven't seen Boys Over Flowers, Coffee Prince, or Healer yet, but keep hearing raves about them. Maybe I'll try some day when things are less busy.
Boys Over Flowers has not aged well... but Coffee Prince and Healer are delightful. I hope that you enjoy them if you get the chance to watch them one day!
Jae, I just hosted Easter lunch over here at my house, and I listed these dramas to my sisters. They both were super impressed with your picks. :)
😊 Thank you for sharing! This makes me so happy to hear! 🫰
My addiction goes a little further back to Forbidden Love (2004) which was required watching for a fan of Shinhwa. Those were the days when Kdrama was a little harder to get hold of in the UK, so my viewing was a little patchy at times. I was enthralled by "the Slingshot" and "Harvest Villa" but "Boys over Flowers" was a massive hype in my kpop forum days. I even helped run a competition for people to make a fan video - was great fun seeing how creative people were and what songs they used.
I wrote about this previously, but before all these streaming sites were available, my parents rented VHS (!!) tapes from our local Korean grocer. And they were all bootlegged, grainy dubs of whatever was popular in Korea. What a world we live in now where we can watch shows at the same time or very close to it as Koreans in Korea!
Winter Sonata and that quartet. Hooked me.
They got a lot of us!
I dropped DOS on ep 8 (too boring) and I don’t plan to watch BOF (too toxic, but I did watch F4 Thailand). I watched all the others within my first year of watching KDramas. The series that completely pulled me down the KDrama rabbit hole was Hometown Cha Cha Cha. I loved the tropes- “adversaries to lovers”, found family; the music, the funny townspeople, the scenery. Kim Seon Ho became my first crush. Him and Shin Min Ah were fantastic together. I still rewatch favorites episodes.
Shin Min-ah is one of my faves! Such a versatile actress. They were the Dimples Couple in this series!