Overrated Dramas?

Boys Over Flowers: There are absolutely no words to describe how overrated this drama is. A lot of people make it out to be one of the best dramas ever made, and I find it absolutely horrific. The acting wasn't much to write home about and the chemistry between characters just wasn't there for me. The actors were attractive (although Lee Min Ho's hair made me wanna rip my eyes out) and the scenery was gorgeous, but that's all. I watched Hana Yori Dango and Meteor Garden after this and had to ask myself where the Korean version went wrong. The other ones are amazing (Meteor Garden could easily be put up in my top 10 dramas), and this one just fell so short.

Dream High 2: A lot of people really seemed to enjoy this sequel to Dream High, and I can't understand why. It was bad. Just bad. Where Dream High had singing, Dream High 2 had a love square; where DH had a storyline, DH2 had a love square; where DH had moments that could drive you to tears; DH2 had a love square. See where I'm going with this? Dream High 2's sole focus was the love square between the four main characters in the show and it was horrible.

Heartstrings & You're Beautiful: I'm lumping these two together simply because they both have Park Shin Hye and Yong Hwa. As much as I love Yong Hwa, even he couldn't save these dramas for me. In both of them, Park Shin Hye's played an incredibly dense girl who's pretty much obsessed with a musician to the point of ignoring everybody but him, and it's really irritating to watch. Her singing voice, to me, is hard to listen to (maybe it's just me, but she sounds extremely nasally when she sings), yet in both of these shows, everybody praises her for her perfect voice while ignoring people with better ones.

Playful Kiss: Ah~, Playful Kiss. Another one that gets such high praise from people for being an amazing drama. Another one that gets absolutely no praise from me. The main girl in this, like all of the previous ones I mentioned, is obsessed with just one guy, and that is virtually the whole show. She relentlessly stalks him, and not only do people not care about this, her friends (and the main guy's mother) actually encourage it. Yeah, because that's an amazing message to send young people. The only time she wasn't busy stalking him was when she was sulking because she couldn't figure out where he was to stalk him some more or because she was jealous of a girl. When they finally did get together, it was all about them hurrying to get married and, yes, her being jealous of other girls.

The only thing about this drama I really enjoyed (other than Kim Hyun Joong's face) was the fact that, for once, they were in school a lot of the time. In other school themed dramas, they're never there and there are never teachers. This drama gets points for that.

To The Beautiful You: And to finish off my list, we have yet another high school drama where the main girl is (are you ready for this?) obsessed with the main guy. This drama, like Boys Over Flowers, has been told multiple times before in Japanese and Taiwanese. Seeing the original and the Taiwanese one (I'll get to the Japanese remake one day!) and being a fan of both, I had to see this one. Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for this one (Korea has a habit of absolutely wrecking dramas that have already been told), and I wasn't disappointed.

In usual Korea fashion, we took away the actual enjoyable characters (we get one hint that the doctor might actually be gay, but that's it [literally, a few seconds], and the guy who sees spirits is nowhere to be found) and replaced them with more screen time for the main couple that we all got sick of seeing. And not to disappoint, they even went and tossed in the overused second female that was nowhere to be seen in other versions.

To make sure we got to watch the main couple even more, they took away events that were, in my opinion, needed. In other versions, there were tons of events between all of the houses, and we got to watch everybody within them connect and grow as a whole. You could count on both hands the total minutes you even see people from the other houses. Really, the only events they kept in this adaptation were the ones that would be able to bring the main couple closer. That's it. Really; that's all.

The music was a pain to listen to. You could definitely tell this was an SM drama. SM artists as the two stars, nothing but SM artists sang the OST, the school was named Genie (something SM followers know all about by now), and even the music playing in stores that weren't part of the OST were almost always SM artists as well. All in all, this drama was just a pain to watch.



TL;DR: I'll sum up my list for you with just a few things. Most overrated dramas all have the same themes. High school aged characters that are attractive but can't act to save their life, gorgeous scenery, and a female lead that's obsessed with the male lead.
I can almost guarantee that, 9 times out of 10, when you ask someone their favorite drama and one with those themes is their answer, they will be ~18.

You're Beautiful - First drama I didn't finish. Didn't drop it (yet), but I doubt I'll watch it any time soon.

nopez wrote: My Girlfriend is a Gumiho - I couldn't even get through the first episode, so I probably didn't really give it a chance.. But I just hated the whole idea from the beginning.

How dare you!?

And yeah, you definitely didn't give it a chance, I didn't exactly like the first episode but turned out to be my favorite drama!

Ooooh yes, yes yes. City Hunter- Poorly written, silly and with a really ambiguous/unsatisfying ending. Queen InHyun's Man- Romantic as hell, yes. Greatest drama ever told? No. The writing in this drama is sloppy and over dramatic. You're Beautiful- Admittedly, I have not watched this entire drama. I could only handle the first episode. But I can't tolerate a drama with a stupid heroine. Add to that, everyone else in the drama is stupid because she is OBVIOUSLY A GIRL. At least in Coffee Prince, the heroine genuinely passes for a boy. And lately, Arang and the Magistrate-- This is the most boring drama I made myself watch this year. It was so slow and tedious. I wish I could see these drams through other people's eyes. I just don't understand why people feel so strongly (and defensive) about these particular dramas. I must have been watching something else entirely.

shaz22 wrote: Looks like I'm not alone in this. I get it, Hyun Bin is great, but 'magic' of the story killed it for me.

Nope, neither of you are alone! I felt the same way about Secret Garden. She was super strong until about 3/4 of the way through the drama. Once she lost her fighting spirit, I totally lost interest and it fell into the same old drama patterns. I have so many complaints about that drama but no one ever agrees with me. lol

.....now that I have flooded this thread..... sowwies. :)

Heartstrings.. i think it was kind of dull.. though i gave it a 9.. idk. maybe the otp didnt show much sweetness as what i have expected?

There are a lot of overrated dramas that I have forced myself through. I am a firm believer in finishing what you start but some of these were just painful to watch. BBF: Thank goodness I am not the only one who didn't like this version. Hana Yori Dango was my first drama ever. So as my frist Kdrama I decided to watch the korean version and it was just terrible. LMH's hair enough said. Not to mention Koo Hye Sun can't act to save her life. No idea why so many people like her. The girl can't even pull off a proper kiss scene. She's all dead fish lips and bored eyes. Secret Garden: I am a huge fan of Hyun Bin and Ha Ji Won but I never really understood why this drama was so popular. The acting was amazing but the story was all over the place. It was like they were trying to crush every possible drama twist they could into 20 episodes. Full House: Don't even get me started on this drama. Song Hye Kyo's character was so bad that not even Bi Rain's hotness could save. What person in their right minds would stay friends with people who stole everything from her? and the worst thing is that she's not even a stupid character! Goong: Now I am all for Yoon Eun Hye but this drama has been sitting on my On Hold listen for about 6 months now. I will eventually force my way through it but it drags on so much. I actually feel myself falling asleep whenever the grandmother comes on screen. Now this is not a drama but I have to mention the movie 200 Pound Beauty. I have no idea why people actually liked this film. It was so superficial and actually pissed me off most of the time. The guy was a terrible actor and his character was a jerk. Not to mention the Main Character was pathetic and had no real depth to her. Plus what was the point of the evil character? she showed up like twice in the entire film and didn't even contribute much to the movie so why did they have her at all? It was a pointless film that I just don't understand why it's popular.

I forgot to mention two Kdramas: Dream High & Coffee Prince I don't get the fuss about them -_- If not for the Pil Suk/ Jason couple, I would've dropped it after ep one. And please tell me that I'm not the only one to find Coffee Prince extremely slow and boring. It takes ages before the guy discovers that she' a girl. I mean, during the whole thing I was like: "Dude, are doing it on purpose or do you really can't tell that she's a girl?" Seriously...