I feel like I have watched one too many Korean dramas. This was partially because I was knocked out by a minor illness for nearly a month and it was an easy watch to while away the hours. In retrospect it wasn't a huge number of dramas though sufficient to pick up Korean TV tropes:)
Hello My Teacher and
Pasta was largely because of my Gong Hyo-jin love (I first saw her in
this segment on a flight, nothing special about the segment but I noticed her and I have liked her in almost everything I have seen, the best of her work being
Crush and Blush). Hello My Teacher's "
noona romance" was cute and I surprisingly liked Pasta's depiction of a somewhat sadomasochistic romance. I tried Lovers in Prague (what's with lame Korean drama titles-and let's never speak of the soundtracks) but gave up despite it starring one of my favourite Korean actresses,
Jun Do-yeon. But the best was reserved for the last,
Coffee Prince. It was one of those dramas that suffuse one with a happy feeling at the end, kind of like watching 17 episodes of
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (though the lead actor reminded me more of Shahrukh). It's a great ensemble cast, where the casting is right for even the small parts. And it has a secondary romance with a girl who doesn't go in for simpering innocence or fidelity. And it is based on a
novel - novels that are rooted in genres (in this case romantic fiction and with more than a nod to Shakespearean cross-dressing tropes) but try to do more with it than a paint by numbers plot are always intriguing, if the TV serial is any indication the novel is neatly plotted and well thought out. But without doubt, the thing that makes Coffee Prince such a great drama is
Yoon Eun-hye's portrayal of the
garçon manqué, Eun chan, who never changes colours. There has never been a better or more adorable tomboy on film. So if you have to watch a Korean drama, let it be Coffee Prince!
I am not the greatest fan of TV dramas, it is hard for me to sustain interest even in something like Mad Men. Few K-dramas are perfect and there is a similarity to them once you watch a few - yet they have a certain hook which keeps you watching. But I can't see anything topping Coffee Prince so I will give it a rest. Though for research sake I should probably watch the original K-drama that started it all, Winter Sonata:)
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