Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
When “W” begins, we meet Chul, who is a 17-year-old wunderkind who wins a gold medal in the Air Pistol Shooting competition at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Not long afterwards, he is framed for murdering his parents and two younger siblings.
There’s very little wrong with the chemistry in the Korean series, “What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim.” The attraction between the main characters is so strong that (of course) the off-screen dating rumors have surfaced. Both Park Seo-Joon and Park Min-Young deny they are anything more than friends, but you almost can’t blame netizens for their wishful thinking.
“The K2” is billed as an action thriller, but it’s really a story about people who are so thoroughly broken that their sense of morality and justice is skewed to an absurd level.
If you could re-live a part of your life, knowing that the time you had with your loved ones would be fleeting, would you risk it? The Korean feature film “Be With You” (지금 만나러 갑니다) offers this intriguing concept. It wasn’t perfect, but it made my heart hurt … and happy.
“Five Fingers” is what I categorize as a “Melrose Place” series, where an evil character treats people like garbage, but viewers are expected to root for them, because they occasionally show signs of humanity. No. Just no!
A smart, 20-episode series that was well cast, it offered intrigue, action, comedy and a bittersweet love story that ends in such a way that the viewer is left assured that the couple stays together forever. This is also one of the rare Korean dramas I’ve seen where the lead characters aren’t involved in a love triangle (though there is a sub-plot where unrequited love between secondary cast members plays a role).
A common element running throughout the plot is that you are not a “real” child if you don’t share your parents’ DNA. One of the central characters views herself as superior to her adopted sister, because … adoption. The emphasis on a family’s pure bloodline is still in effect today in Korea. And though more adoptive families are telling their children about their adoption stories, many still let their kids assume they are biologically related to their adoptive parents.
“You get to decide what kind of King you are going to be.” Don’t remember that line from “Hwarang”? That’s because it’s a quote from the blockbuster film, “Black Panther.” When the newly crowned king, T’challa, worries about how he will rule over his subjects, Nakia tells him, “You cannot let your father’s actions define your life.
If you could go back to your past, would you? And, if so, what would you change? That’s the premise for “Go Back Couple,” a thoroughly-enjoyable drama filled with charismatic leads and a plot that is both funny and touching — especially for those of us who are already parents.
One of the things I enjoy about Korean dramas is that many tend to focus of the main characters’ childhood friendships and how that camaraderie evolves into their adulthood. Such is the case here, where four friends grow up with each other and, eventually, end up falling in and out of love with each other.
Many years ago, the road manager for a very famous band called me a chink bitch and waited for me to go away. I’m still here.
The first Korean film to be shot in the Caribbean, “Way Back Home” was shot in a real women’s prison, with some of the actual guards and detainees serving as background characters. The filmmakers clearly believe that while Jang Mi-Jeong (the woman on whom the movie is based) may have been guilty, her crime was less egregious than the way the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handled her case.
I had a difficult time reconciling myself with the fact that I enjoyed “Boys Over Flowers,” while being disgusted that the showrunners never addressed how cruel the main characters were to kids outside of their circle.
Let’s cut to the chase: the plot revolves around a high school student and a doctor who switch bodies after an accident. Yoon-Jae, the 30something doctor is in a vegetative state in the body of 17-year-old Kyung-Joon. Meanwhile, the teenager is alive and well, but he is trapped in the buff body belonging to Gong Yoo, er, I mean Yoon-Jae. Caught between these two is Gil Da-Ran, a wet dishrag of a woman, who (despite her beauty) has absolutely no confidence in herself. When she realizes that Yoon-Jae really isn’t Yoon-Jae and that it may take a while for the two to switch bodies again, she plays along with the charade.
There are few things in life that would be more difficult than to watch generations of loved ones grow old and die, while you live on for centuries without them. Such is the case with Kim Shin, a dokkaebi (goblin). For more than 900 years, he has been cursed to live a life of loneliness as atonement for all the enemies he killed during his days as an unbeatable general. Yes, his victims would’ve slain him if they had the opportunity. But, as God says in the narration, they were all precious creations, as well.
I always viewed “The Heirs” as a much-better followup to “Boys Over Flowers.” Park Shin-Hye and Lee Min-Ho share amazing chemistry as the lead couple.
What would you do if you knew that you had three months left to live? Would you spend it with the ones you love, or would you try to right the wrongs in which you played a part? That’s the dilemma for Korea’s top Hallyu star Joon-Young, who is dying. I don’t feel bad about revealing this bit of information, because it’s revealed early on in this series.
In a review that ran in the New York Times, film critic Jeannette Catsoulis gave “Ode to My Father” a big thumbs down for being “syrupy” and for having “packaged pain … likely to leave Western audiences cold.” While there is no doubt that director Yoo Je-Kyoon would’ve loved for American audiences to embrace his movie, it’s also undeniable that this film was not made with Western moviegoers in mind. It was made for Koreans.
“Doctor Crush” is full of bad characters full of bad intentions: the money-hungry father-son duo trying to take over the hospital; Ji-Hong’s uncle, who steals his inheritance and then dumps him off at an orphanage; Hye-Jung’s father, who abandons her; and even Hye-Jung’s raison d’etre for much of the series: revenge.
If you commit a crime against a system that is gender biased, is it really a crime? And, just as importantly, should you be punished?