Nearly every drama watcher out there will at least once probably ask or seek out advice from more experienced drama watchers for their advice or recommendations on dramas. Whilst this may differ from watcher to watcher ( depending on some of their respected tastes), the common pattern for K-Drama watchers will most likely be one or more the following; Goblin, Strong Woman Do Bong, SKY Castle, Descendants Of The Sun ( and/or) The Heirs.

The Heirs. Oh, where do you even begin with this one? The warning flags that SBS had to cast several top-notch romance drama actors Lee Min Ho, Park Shin Hye and Kim Woo Bin to attract viewer ratings, or the fact that Kim Eun Sook was involved in the scriptwriting for this show, it is hard to tell.

All joking aside The Heirs is probably what most can classify as a '' hot mess'' ; the show has a brilliant cast of very successful actors and ( whilst Eun Sook's writing can be hit or miss) it did have the potential to actually be a well-written satire upon the wealthy debutants of Korean society. Instead the show rode too heavily upon many cliches and thus lead to too many gender, racial and unrealistic stereotypes within the drama.

In the beginning of the show, the usage of LA as a setting is used as '' exotic'' eye candy for Korean viewers, however, there are two notable things here for international watchers; the first being out of all the beautiful and intriguing cities in the world, they had to chose LA in hope of appeasing the satisfaction and interest of ''young'' audiences. The second most notable trait ( even for non-Americans) is that there are some notable racial stereotypes towards foreigners being a little too ''assertive'' and ''laidback'' as well. Whilst it should be noted that a lot of this setting is used to glorify our hero Kim Tan rather than focus on details of racism, ( as an older comment has mentioned) there is also the notable problem of "sweetening" the reality of youth culture as well.

This is particularly seen of course with Kim Tan. Considering that he spent a lot of time in the U.S. and his backstory is far from being a fairytale, you would still perhaps consider that he would have turned to '' other'' methods ( i.e. drugs or alcohol ) or at least had some signs of realistic emotional trauma considering his upbringing. This isn't to glorify or disrespect elements of modesty in Korean culture, however, Kim Tan is most prominently a character in the story who is an '' outcast'' amongst his family. With years of emotional gaslighting and manipulation (particularly by his brother and father), it was hard to actually see Kim-Tan as being a genuinely developed or well-written male lead, especially towards actually developing a bond with someone as cluelessly naive as Eun Sang.

Our female lead Cha Eun Sang ( Park Shin Hye) was sadly just as badly-written as a character. Female leads don't need to be '' sassy'' or '' fighters'' to be well-written and rounded characters. Instead Eun- Sang was more of a ''ragdoll'' between the two bratty male leads Kim Tan and seeming '' dangerous bad boy'' Choi Yeong Do ( Kim Woo Bin- perhaps one of the few likeable actors and characters in the show, until they did viewers over with that usage of terrible story progression) who just happily let her seams be ripped apart by emotional manipulation rather than actually being something called an '' individual'' and putting her foot down when both characters crossed the line. In fact to make this matter worse, it wasn't just the male leads who stepped over her as Rachel ( Kim Ji Won) slowly allowed Eun- Sang to become her own sandbag of bullying and the dreaded and stereotyped female animosity as well. Perhaps my one note of praise does go to the portrayal of the unusual friendship between Eun- Sung's mute mother Park Hee-nam (Kim Mi Kyung) and Kim Tan's mother Han Ki-ae (Kim Sung-ryung) over the course of the show, which was endearingly more intriguing and heart-rendering than any of our main couples.

As countless reviews have stressed this fact before, however, The Heirs is incredibly overrated for what it is actually worth; a good cast goes to waste with poor story writing, characterisation, inconsistencies , cliches and tropes. The Heirs is no more than Boys Over Flowers repackaged with a couple of tweaks here and there by Eun Sook ( well, about from Lee Min Ho) and more headaches for sensible drama watchers as we try to guide ourselves of sixteen episodes through something which is just a hot mess even in the beginning episode. Certainly a waste of time.