K-Drama Drama

 The other day I logged into my streaming app and got the following distressing news:

What is this??  Four days to find out if the Sovereign of the Spirit World is going to get back together with the mortal world's most dashing general??? How am I going to make it?

Technically this show is a C-Drama since it is Chinese not Korean, but I lump my J's and C's into K's.  I mean, if a show has the requisite moves, it's a k-drama to me:

-the wrist grab

-the camera pan-out (from multiple angles!) while the leads stand about 5 feet apart, stationary, gazing intensely into each other's eyes.

-a chaste piggy-back ride (usually gratuitous to the plot)

-a focus on food, especially the slurping of noodles

-a drunken confession

-a sudden, impulsive, un-signaled kiss which the other the other person unexpectedly melts into, only to have one of them push the other away in denial

-the 'hold your hand (or grab your arm) suddenly while I'm sleeping' move

-the over-arching stretching of the audience's emotions by thwarting the romantic pairing at the heart of the show because one (or both!) of the leads thinks they are not good enough or will ultimately hurt or put in harm's way the other one (with good reason such as:  they are from a different time period, a different level of society, they are undying and the other is mortal, they are an alien, a goblin, a grim reaper, sworn-to-kill-you-because-you-are-the-enemy (or the child of an enemy), they are in the middle of a body-swap incident and so not who they appear, they are actually a cat or a fox or something - in other words, the usual stuff we all have to deal with)

-over-the-top emotive soundtrack (examples here and here)

-the mandatory flashback sequence of 'all those signs I missed but the audience noticed' as well as always backing up a full scene at the start of a new episode

I remember my mother reading these derivative, unoriginal romance novels when I was a kid and then, many years later, my mother-in-law watching various C-Dramas (she even told me confidently once that I would like them).  I thought "what is wrong with them?" 

Over ten years ago, for reasons I can no longer recall, I secretly watched my first K-drama:

My First

My heart raced, I cried, I didn't understand what was happening, I stayed up all night binging episodes in the corner of the living room after the fam had gone to bed.  Little did I know it was just the start of my K-drama journey.

Now, I'm proud and out.  I've thought about doing a top 10 list for K-dramas but I thought I would first make this post and see how it sits with me.  Younger Ken mortified, Current Ken bemused for sure but what about Older Ken?  I'll have to ask him when he reads this post in a couple of years...

By the way, Younger Ken - don't be so quick to judge your own mother and mother-in-law!

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