4 Annoying Things About Lakorns

As much as lakorns can be enjoyable to watch, they are certainly not without their faults. Here are 4 such things that can be really annoying to take in, as a viewer.

#4: LONG RUN-TIME

The usual runtime for a lakorn ranges from 1hr 30 minutes to 1hr 50 minutes.

If you're thinking about dipping your toes into the lakorn world, the runtime is probably one of the things that'll make you hesitate. (Approximately) 2 hours for a single episode! The idea alone seems ridiculous, especially if you're trying to broaden your drama range and branching out from  K/J/C/TW dramas, none of which are that long. The runtime makes it confusing to whether or not to give lakorn a chance.

I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to watch a lakorn, but then I'd look at the runtime and think, "Nah, better watch something else." because it's so time-consuming!

#3: FAKE KISSES

Now, you probably are aware of the frozen kisses in Kdramas, but unless you have seen a few lakorns, you probably aren't familiar with the fake kisses. Now, there are quite a few types of these. There's thumb-kisses, camera angle kisses, sniff kisses, head shift kisses, pan out kisses. There probably could be more, of which I'm not aware of.

Just imagine this scene - Romantic BGM playing out, the leads are inching closer to each other. And just as they are about to kiss, the camera pans out to the floor. Or the ceiling, or just anything else. Can you see why that can be frustrating?

If you're a fan of passionate kisses in dramas, most of the lakorns, especially the older ones, would turn out to be a disappointment in that particular category. Like I said, not all lakorns out there have this problem, but the majority of them do.

However, most of the new lakorns (and some older ones too) like Mussaya, Leh Lub Salub Rarng are starting to have real kiss scenes.

#2: NANG'RAI: THE SATAN INCARNATION

Before I had watched lakorns, I thought the second female leads in K-dramas were annoying. Now I know the truth. The nang'rai in lakorns can give those jealous little girls a run for their money. They are ruthless, malicious, evil incarnation. Once they get their claws into something, something being the male lead, they will not let go. They simply won't stop at anything to get what they want. And that makes up for quite a few frustrating scenes in lakorns.

What, I think, is more annoying than the existence of these crazy b*tches, is the fact that they are, 99% of the times, forgiven. They do everything to make the female lead's life miserable, and in the end, the female lead decides to become this unnecessarily magnanimous person. Which just makes us doubt the sanity of the female lead.

#1: RAPE IS NO-BIG-DEAL

Okay, this one is more angering, than simply annoying. 

It's one thing about lakorns that I've never understood. And it's not because of lack of trying. So if any of you have reasons for why this particular thing happens in lakorns, I'm really curious to know.

I'm sure you're aware of dramas of the infamous Slap & Kiss genre. The male lead assaults the female lead, but then the female lead realizes her love for him, forgives him and then they both live happily-ever-after. The whole concept behind these drama seems stupid. Not to mention, insane!

Let's put aside the Slap & Kiss genre for the meantime, and talk about 'normal' non-rapey lakorns. What always comes to me as a surprise, no matter how many times I watch it, is the way the word 'rape' gets thrown around. Perhaps I'm in the minority here (although I doubt it), but I've never seen the word 'rape' as a word that can be thrown casually into a conversation or made jokes about. In lakorns, the words "he raped me" would get you about the same reaction as "he bumped into it".  Which, for me, at least, is just mind-boggling.

I'm sure this is not just limited to lakorns, but also applies to other Asian dramas. However, I've yet to come across a non-lakorn where the male lead who rapes the girls, also gets the girl. Forced kisses? Yes. Rape? No. (Just a note: I'm not saying that forced kisses in dramas are OK.)

So, those were the 4 things that can be pretty annoying to a viewer while watching a lakorn.

Like I said a few times before, none of these, except #4, is true for all lakorns out there. And even with these faults (except #1, in my case) lakorns can be really enjoying and extremely addicting! 

Which one of these faults gets on your nerves the most?

P.S. Gif(s) credit goes to the owners