“Doctor Cha” (닥터 차정숙)
“Doctor Cha” showcases a woman’s liberation.
Tag: Substack
“Joseon Attorney: A Morality” (조선변호사)
There has been an uptick in engaging K-dramas where the protagonist becomes a lawyer to avenge the wrongs committed against his family. “The Good Bad Mother” and “Divorce Attorney Shin” are set in the modern day era. “Joseon Attorney: A Morality” adds a twist to this conceit by taking us way back to the Joseon era (1392 to 1897), before Korea was called Korea and there was no Seoul — the city was known as Hanyang.
“Yaksha: Ruthless Operations” (야차)
A fast-moving action film, “Yaksha: Ruthless Operations” is a spy thriller full of special ops, backstabbing and political intrigue. Last year, I stopped watching about 20 minutes into the movie, because it didn’t hold my interest. But when I went back to it this year, I found it to be thoroughly entertaining. Is this a prestige film? Absolutely not. But it was a fun ride with a (straight-laced) fish-out-of-water concept.
“XO, Kitty” Tackles Adoption, Diaspora & Maintaining Korean Ties
“XO, Kitty” tackles adoption, diaspora and maintaining Korean ties. But is it any good? Not really.
“Somebody” (썸바디)
A psychological thriller that sounded much better than it actually is, “Somebody” revolves a serial killer (Kim Young-kwang) who uses a dating app to find his victims — and the app developer (Kang Hae-lim) who identifies with him, even after finding out his true identity.
When Strangers Destroyed Our Korean Lunch
To them it may have been smelly and weird. To us, it was a taste of home.
“Unlocked” (스마트폰을 떨어뜨렸을 뿐인데)
“Unlocked” came out a few months after the Korean series “Somebody.” Both revolve around cunning, good-looking serial killers who utilize technology to hack their way into their victims’ lives. In this 2022 film, the cell phone is the device of choice.
“Jinny’s Kitchen” (서진이네)
The concept? A group of telegenic Korean celebrities run a snack bar in Bacalar, Mexico, for one week (haha!). In its own way, it had all the elements of a fun K-drama minus any love triangles. Was there a 2nd male lead? Of course! As well as a 3rd and a 4th and so on. It shifted every few minutes, depending on who’s on screen — Park Seo-joon of “Itaewon Class,” “Parasite” actor Choi Woo-shik, BTS vocalist V, and the dimpled head of Jinny’s Kitchen, Lee Seo-jin (“Behind Every Star”).
“Summer Strike” (아무것도 하고 싶지 않아)
“Summer Strike” is one of those series that I started started, was meh about, and then returned to a few months later and found myself binging the rest of the show. The premiere episode was strong, focusing on a young office worker whose good nature is taken advantage of both at work and in her long-term relationship with a man who breaks up with her.
Losing My Korean Didn’t Make Me Any More American
Back in my era, the teachers encouraged immigrants to only speak English at home so that we wouldn’t fall behind. But what they didn’t know at the time — or perhaps they didn’t really care about — was that in the rush to make us understand English, many of us lost our ability to converse in our birth language.
“Queenmaker” (퀸메이커)
One of the best K-dramas of the year, “Queenmaker” is the latest female-centric series led by women in their 40s (and older) that in nail-bitingly good. A political thriller with twists and turns, two foes unite to take down a corrupt chaebol family that will stop at nothing to protect their financial and familial interests.
“Taxi Driver” (모범택시): Season 2
This second season of the revenge series “Taxi Driver” is adept at tackling inspired-by-real-life cases, like the Burning Sun scandal, where privileged male clubgoers were given access to drug and assault women.
“Divorce Attorney Shin” (신성한, 이혼)
At the center of this series is a trio of middle-aged male friends. Sung-han (Cho Seung-woo) is a classical pianist turned divorce attorney. Kim Sung-kyun plays his best friend Hyung-geun, who is reticent to give his wife — who is already pregnant with her new partner’s baby — a divorce. And Jeong-sik (Jung Moon-sung) runs a real estate business in a building owned by Sung-han.
“Suga: Road to D-Day”
“It’s my dream to travel around the world and play with local musicians playing their traditional instruments,” Suga says in his documentary Suga: Road to D-Day. “It’s my dream to record them and make music based on that.” But he has trepidation, too. “I worry that I won’t have anything to talk about,” Suga says. “I have fears that I have no more dreams to follow.”
On Being Reprimanded for Writing About More Than 1 Korean “Boy Band”
To many misguided editors, one Asian is enough. Two Asians is overkill. Three Asians will get you called in to the office to be reprimanded. And also… Epik High is not a boy band. But they wouldn’t know that, would they?
Do Koreans Swear?
Do Koreans swear? You betcha! You’ve probably heard them plenty of times in your favorite K-dramas, but they weren’t subtitled as such.
“Crash Course in Romance” (일타 스캔들)
“Crash Course in Romance” is about an elite hagwon math tutor who is so popular that mothers line up at all hours to get their children seats at his lectures. By chance, he encounters a former national handball player who gave up her dreams of competing on an international level to care for her niece, who was abandoned by her mother.
“Payback” (법쩐)
The early episodes of “Payback” held promise for a truly compelling thriller with the always great Lee Sun-kyung in the lead role. Lee plays Eung Yong, an ambitious man with a photographic memory when it comes to numbers. But the storylines get progressively more convoluted as the show progresses.
“j-hope IN THE BOX”
“j-hope IN THE BOX” is told in a non linear way, starting in Seoul 52 days before j-hope’s performance at Lollapalooza, where he made history as the festival’s first Korean headliner — a feat that even he found surprising. The lead up to the concert — which fans dubbed Hobipalooza — depicts the pain the rapper took to ensure that his debut as BTS’ first solo artist would be nothing short of perfection.
“Tale of the Nine Tailed” (구미호뎐)
In Korean folk-lore, 구미호 — which literally translates into nine-tailed foxes — are cunning creatures who live to be about 100. As they age, they grow an extra tail. 구미호 are usually young women who seduce men to eat their livers or hearts. But in the K-drama “Tale of the Nine Tailed,” the alpha fox is Lee Yeon. Once the mountain God of Baekdudaegan, he was kicked out for a variety of reasons that revolved around his love for a human woman named Ah-eum.