Jumong was my gateway drama. Someone might as well have handed me 81 packets of heroin and said “Go for it!”. Epic in all the best ways, it steals shamelessly from adventure stories ranging from the Odyssey to The Three Kingdoms to Robin Hood, traversing decades of time and miles of gorgeous mountain scenery as it crams in battles, family strife, romance, betrayal and the occasional heavenly portent. It has a sweeping, old-school Hollywood feel, but with modern touches that include a smart, independent heroine and a trans/non-binary character who actually gets to have an adorable romantic relationship with the most unlikely of partners.

The plot lines may hardly be original, but the complexity of the main characters gives the old stories a freshness and power they would otherwise lack. Song Il Guk does a fine job as the young prince destined to found an empire, but my favorite actors (and characters) were Hu Joon Ho as the grizzled veteran Haemosu and Jun Kwang Ryul as the tormented king Kumwa. Hu exudes presence every moment he’s onscreen, and Jun’s portrayal of the king’s increasingly conflicted and destructive loyalties is devastating. The show also uses its length to draw us so completely into its web of relationships that many of its most powerful scenes are not the giant battles but the quiet moments where a truth is revealed or a lie is told or a heart is broken.

Does everything work? No. The plot meanders in the final third, with wild goose chases down narrative lines that seem designed to kill time rather than actually deliver meaningful revelations. I could have lived without the saccharine pop ballad love songs on endless repeat and you could get rip-roaring drunk in no time if you took a shot whenever someone stages an ambush, falls off a cliff, discusses an evil plan around an ornate wooden table or survives getting shot by multiple arrows. However, if you’re looking for ridiculously immersive popular entertainment and don’t mind sleep deprivation, you’re in for a hell of a ride. Just be careful – this whole drama thing can get addictive . . . .

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Who knew that road construction could make for compelling drama? Or boilers? Or building permits? It is a testament to the skill of the Giant production team that they are able to turn such seemingly mundane matters into taut, dynamic story arcs. While Giant draws on plenty of tricks from the melodrama playbook, it’s distinguished by its complex characters, sharp writing and an extraordinary ensemble cast.

The writing is a bit sketchy in the initial episodes, with extra servings of trauma and some odd lapses in logic. However, the child actors are terrific (why hello, future stars!), and they morph into equally terrific adult actors. The male characters are particularly nuanced, as we watch two generations struggle to drag themselves and their country out of dire poverty. It isn’t always pretty, and I appreciated the show’s willingness to give all of its characters dark edges, especially since it’s equally willing to give them all moments of insight and grace. The female characters initially tend towards angelic but dim or shrewish and evil, but they also become more complex as the show progresses.

Keeping a 60 episode show engaging is no easy task, and Giant does it with sophistication, style and humanity. It has plenty of “big” moments, but it never forgets that even the most ordinary activities can be dramatic. It finds poetry in mud flats and rock piles, and in the rough-edged men fighting to build a nation from them at any cost.

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I don’t like serial killer dramas. I also don’t like shows that pair cold male geniuses with spunky heroines so he can give her a brain and she can give him a heart. Plus, prosecutors and cops up against institutional corruption? Been there, done that. And yet, despite its clichéd premise, Forest of Secrets works. It works because it has Jo Seung Woo and Bae Doo Na as the leads and they act their asses off, refusing to be reduced to stereotypes. It works because it’s as much about human relationships as it is about crime, exploring how the social networks we build can both sustain and corrupt us, about how easy it is to excuse the misdeeds of a friend, a colleague, or a family member. It also shows how an outsider can take those networks down, but it never lets you forget the gut-wrenching loneliness of such isolation. And finally, it works because the writer and the director pay attention to details. Without gushing tears, blaring pop songs, or graphic violence they present smart professionals methodically uncovering the truth.

The show does drag out the denouement, with more moralizing speeches than I’d prefer. It’s also not a ringing endorsement of the idea that people can change. It is however, a lovely example of how good writing, acting and directing can bring an old genre to vibrant, urgent life.

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If the wild historical liberties of fusion sageuk are grating on you, The Great King Sejong is a refreshing alternative. Hewing relatively closely to fact, it generates its dramatic power through complex characterizations and thoughtful explorations of moral quandaries. Sejong’s reign may have been lauded precisely for its lack of drama, but the writers find plenty of conflict to build engaging story lines around, as they explore the challenges of ruling with benevolence rather than terror. They do an excellent job exploring how political systems stymie or support progress, as they build a compelling argument for governing to the better angels of our nature. That being said, this is not a fast show to watch. There are no love triangles, gorgeous warriors with great hair, gravity defying ninja moves, or epic cliffhangers. Many of the best acted and most intriguing characters are the various grey-haired ministers in their matching robes and odd hats, who for once are given compelling personalities instead of serving as indistinguishable agents of repression.

The first half of the show is particularly strong, in part due to outstanding performances by Kim Young Chul as Taejong and Choi Myung Gil as his embittered queen. Taejong may be monstrous, but he’s also powerfully human, and the show loses some of its spark when he exits the scene. The second half is weaker, perhaps because the series was cut down from 100 episodes to 86. This causes pacing issues, as some events are rushed through while drawn-out moments of pathos feel unearned due to a lack of dramatic set-up. Subplots get dropped and major characters disappear without acknowledgment or comment. It also means that Sejong comes off as far more serious than perhaps he was, as the show leaves out such “frivolous” elements of his life as his love of music and his passionate relationships with his concubines. In general, the show is more comfortable in the elegiac than the celebratory mode, but its tendency to emphasize loss sometimes deflects attention from just how extraordinary Sejong’s achievements were. It may be difficult to do great things, but there is great joy in such success as well.

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Romantic comedies aren’t usually my cup of java, but Coffee Prince is everything a rom-com should be: sweet, funny, and sexy. If you can get past the silliness of the mistaken identity premise, you’ll be rewarded with a show full of carefully observed human moments, played out by an eclectic, engaging ensemble cast. The poor girl/rich guy love story may not be especially original, but it’s told with a great deal of heart and refreshingly little artifice. The characters come across as fleshed-out human beings instead of walking plot devices and the show understands how to create scenes of real emotional impact without heaping on the melodrama or resorting to cheap dramatic tricks. It’s also genuinely hilarious, with a central couple whose on-screen chemistry is off the charts.

Coffee Prince is hardly an undiscovered gem, but like the best coffee shops, it’s a warm, inviting place to pass the time. It gently reminds that life’s small pleasures should be noticed and savored, and that choosing love, for a person, a profession, or a place, is worth whatever heartache or stigma may tag along.

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An Anti-Romance in the Best Possible Way

The Red Sleeve does something I never thought I’d see in a K-drama - it dares to suggest that love may not conquer all. Most “romantic” sageuks start with the premise that every commoner or court lady dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome prince, but few look closely at the power dynamics of such relationships, especially in the Joseon era where the patriarchy was so rigid that even the most powerful woman in the kingdom, the Queen Dowager, was essentially under house arrest. To its credit, The Red Sleeve centers this fundamental inequality, suggesting that consenting relationships are impossible if one person is the master and the other, functionally, a slave. It’s also smart enough to feature one of Joseon’s “best” kings as its male lead, emphasizing that the issue is systemic, not individual, and that no ruler, no matter how just, upright and swoony can be an ideal partner as long as they view their love interest as a possession. And when a woman must obey, the line between rape and mutual affection quickly blurs, even if the man is doing it “for her own good.” The discomfort the show induces is magnified by the fact that it includes no easy villains. Everyone has an agenda, but everyone is also trying to do their best in a world where protocol and order take precedence over human feeling. But when human feelings must be excised in the name of duty, the drama reminds us that it’s often women who take the fall. It asks us to reconsider whose lives matter, and argues that agency, even the agency to choose heartbreak, may be preferable to even the dreamiest of suitors.

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Great roles for middle-aged actresses are rare. I loved that Secret Love Affair was anchored by a smart, sexy, morally complicated 40-something female protagonist, and it was obvious that the phenomenal Kim Hee Ae was having a blast playing the part. Yoo Ah In also does a fine job as a young piano prodigy, and when he’s onscreen with Kim, they make beautiful music together, both literally and figuratively. The love story generates plenty of heat, and, despite its salacious premise, feels genuine and ultimately quite moving. As long as the two leads are playing duets together or sharing bowls of noodles the show sings.

Unfortunately, I found the world surrounding the lovers to be less fleshed out and compelling. While I understand that the awfulness of most of the other major characters is meant to highlight just how terrible Hye Won’s life is despite its surface luxuries, I would have loved for there to have been more layers to the antagonists. Their universal loathsomeness did draw sympathy to the protagonists, but it also undermined the realism of the show and simplified its conflicts. It’s not hard to cheat on a husband with no redeeming characteristics, but that felt like an easy out for the screenwriter (and the audience) rather than an honest exploration of the challenges of marriage.

The directing of the show is carefully composed and the pacing slow. This allows for some lovely, unhurried emotional beats, but it can also feel a bit stifling. There were times I would have liked less precision and more abandon. The technique mirrors Hye Won’s fierce control, but when the fissures open in her life I wish the show had cracked open more deliriously as well. The main couple and the music are amazing. Everything else feels well worth losing for their stolen moments of joy.

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Discussing tone in the context of a review is tricky. A show’s atmosphere is something so ephemeral it’s hard to even define, much less evaluate. That being said, The Return of Iljimae is most remarkable for its evocation of mood. A fantasia in a minor key, it weaves a bittersweet, melancholy spell, accented not so much by its characters’ tragedies as by their loneliness.

Intentionally structured like a storybook (complete with an initially over-intrusive narrator), the show jettisons many of k-drama’s structural clichés as it follows the growth of its protagonist from innocent young man to wiser hero. Jung Il Woo gives a lovely (in more ways than one) restrained performance full of moments of quiet sweetness and pathos. Jung Hye Young, as his mother, is also exceptional, radiating warmth and longing. There are plenty of fight scenes and large helpings of occasionally distracting slapstick comedy, but the show never loses its contemplative feel. The characters find fleeting moments of connection in sex, friendship, compassion, and sacrifice but the world’s injustices are always there, calling them away from comfort. The show suggests that heroism is not a natural gift, but something learned and struggled for and easily lost if the passion for justice tips over into hatred. There are occasional missteps, including a bizarre first episode, but once the show finds its rhythm, it becomes a hero’s journey very much worth the taking.

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I usually approach shows about artists with trepidation. Even if the artist’s work is extraordinary, the act of creating art – of painting a picture or writing a novel – is rarely dramatically compelling. It can literally be as fun as watching paint dry. It is a testament to the skills of the director and writer of this show that they make the artistic process revelatory and exciting. Partly this is accomplished through gorgeous visual storytelling, as paintings literally come to life, revealing the secrets of their composition. More critically though, Painter of the Wind looks at why art matters – how it can reinforce or challenge power, how it can scandalize and seduce, how it can not only capture the world but remake it in a different image.

However, while this is obviously a show about art, it is equally a show about sex. It uses its cross-dressing premise as a starting point to pose provocative questions about gender and sexuality, and unlike many other shows, it consistently refuses to default to safe, easy choices. It suggests that there is more than one way to read a painting or a relationship, and that societally sanctioned views that champion heterosexual male privilege will miss a great deal of meaning. Like Shin Yun Bok’s paintings, this is a daring, sexy show that is quite happy to reveal more about its world than its inhabitants may want to see.

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I doubt many writers wake up and say “Hey, let’s do a show about creating an alphabet! That will be exciting!” I suspect even fewer producers would greenlight such a project. Presumably, in the case of Tree with Deep Roots, the authors sold it as a conspiracy thriller, emphasizing the murders, mysteries and epic fight scenes. There is plenty of stylishly choreographed action and several hot guys with swords. However, as befits the show’s subject, the real battles are fought with words. And those battles are some of the most extraordinary I’ve ever seen on film.

“Tree” took a while to pull me in, but once the writers found their groove and the verbal fireworks began, it was riveting. Against the backdrop of a violent era, it asks if the brush can ever be mightier than the sword. If there is power in writing, and if so, who deserves to use it. If literacy is liberation or a different kind of slavery. Characters wield speech like blades in philosophical duels where systems of government and social orders hang in the balance. This is argument as blood sport – spectacular, visceral and deadly.

The cast tackles their paragraphs of text with gusto, and the director keeps the camera moving and the tension high. The final episodes falter a bit, veering away from ideas and more towards traditional action, with an ending that felt yanked from a summer blockbuster instead of developing organically from the drama's themes. Perhaps this was designed to appease nervous studio execs desperate to get to away from all the talking. It’s a small price to pay though for a show that is otherwise so smart, unconventional, and emotionally engaged as it teases out the limits and possibilities of language.

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Like its lead characters, Kill Me, Heal Me is a splendid mess. If you’re looking for subtlety, good medical ethics, or a realistic exploration of mental illness, watch something else. However, if you’re willing to be swept up in the show’s campy, gonzo universe, it’s a hoot, and, towards the end, surprisingly moving as well. Ji Sung gives a fabulous performance (performances?), transitioning effortlessly from hilarity to pathos, guyliner to pink lip gloss, teen angst to adult longing. The tonal shifts are equally dramatic, and more effective than one might think, in part because the show never takes itself too seriously. It’s happy to acknowledge its inherent absurdities, winking at viewers while welcoming them, often quite literally, into its world. This is fundamentally a piece about performance, and its meta-theatricality is an apt medium for exploring the many roles people voluntarily and involuntarily play. Cha Do Hyun’s disorder is simply the most extreme version of the multiple sides all of the characters exhibit as they struggle with the challenges of life.

The writing can be structurally erratic, but it’s always balanced and humane in its portrayal of both its heroes and its demons. This is a show driven by the “Heal Me” part of its title, emphasizing not vengeance for past wrongs, but reconciliation and re-integration for future happiness. Some plot threads are left hanging, but its exploration of how people are broken and put back together, medically implausible as it may be, is metaphorically lovely. It’s fiction, but it’s a show that knows that the stories we tell have the power to reshape our lives.

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Arrgh! In Cheese, the production team conjures up a dark, fascinating antihero in the character of Jung, and then spends the second half of the show running from its own creation. It’s as if they have no idea what to do with the monster they’ve made, especially as embodied in Park Hae Jin’s riveting performance. The norms of romantic comedy crash headlong into the uncomfortable reality of a male lead who can’t be whitewashed into a perfect life partner, sending the show on a desperate hunt for an alternative. Unfortunately, their attempts to turn audience sympathy elsewhere (hey, perhaps a scruffy but lovable second lead will do the trick!) feel forced and underhanded. Instead of letting their heroine tease out the risks and benefits of her problematic relationship on her own, they take away her agency, refusing to allow her to make choices that might lead into disturbing territory. It’s a grave injustice to Kim Go-Eun’s lovely acting work and to the character of Seol, and it completely undermines the central premise of the drama as the story of a shy young woman’s empowerment. It also squanders everything that is unique about the show’s set up in the first place. Because why take the road less traveled if all you’re going to do is literally or metaphorically throw your leads under the bus at the end?

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Somewhere inside Goblin, buried under a mound of PPL and tears, is a good show trying to get out. The first two episodes suggest what might have been, deftly mixing intense action and off-beat humor in a dark world filled with ominous reapers, wounded goblins, ghost-seeing teenagers and cabbage-wielding grannies. The stage seems set for a life and death clash of epic proportions. Alas, it soon becomes apparent that the writer forgot to include an antagonist. The goblin-reaper face-off devolves into a chummy bromance, leaving “fate” to play the role of spoiler. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fight disembodied destiny. Whole episodes are spent weeping in pretty scenery and eating Subway sandwiches. The talented cast tries to up the urgency, but with nothing tangible to battle, the pacing slows to a crawl. The extended episode lengths and the director’s tendency to linger a little too long on every moment exacerbate the problem. Even the romance falters on the uncomfortable age gap between the protagonists.

Every so often. interesting ideas pop up about guilt, redemption, and the role of kindness in a cosmos more random than rewarding. Alas, the fickle gods that rule this universe stay above the fray. A drama that actually allowed its characters to take them on rather than simply lamenting their cruelty could have been powerful indeed.

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Chief Kim does something miraculous. It turns a show about accounting fraud into an absolute delight. Bookkeeping and balance sheets may not sound especially sexy, but if you’re in the mood for a quirky comedy underpinned by serious themes, you’ve come to the right show. Namgoong Min is stellar as a petty crook who decides that taking down the man is more fun than working for him, and he’s surrounded by an off-beat band of misfits whose superpowers range from strategic coffee delivery to aggressive janitorial espionage. I also highly appreciated Nam Sang Mi’s female lead, a sharp, capable career woman who was never relegated to token love interest.

While I don’t claim to have emerged from the show as an expert on cooking the books, the writer’s clearly done his research, displaying an impressive command of both the intricacies of financial fraud and the real world pain that such chicanery can cause. The drama argues that the devil is often very much in the details, showing how numbers on spreadsheets can destroy lives. While there’s tons of broad humor, the rage at the specific ways the system’s rigged is palpable, and the show knows how to land its serious moments as effectively as its silly ones. Best of all, it allows its characters to grow and change. Its sinners aren’t magically transformed into saints, but they learn how to come together to fight for a better future for themselves and others.

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In a beauty pageant, Emperor of the Sea would win hands-down. From sweeping vistas of windy cliffs to carefully composed interiors to torch-lit ships fanning out across the darkened sea, it is one of the most beautifully filmed k-dramas that I’ve watched. It also features an intriguing central triangle anchored by a break-through performance by a dynamic, dangerous Song Il-Guk. Unfortunately, the directing, acting and cinematography can’t make up for the weaknesses in the writing. As long as the screenwriters are dealing with the characters’ early lives where few historical facts are available, things clip along fairly well. The writing is solid if not exceptional, and the show’s other strengths outweigh the script’s drawbacks. However, once the characters collide with reasonably well documented historical facts in the final third of the show, things start to go awry. Character motivations change inexplicably and the narrative becomes confused and repetitive. The writers seem unable to fit the characters they’ve created to the actions that, at least according to extant sources, they actually commit. Lots of stuff, much of it bad, happens, but it often feels arbitrary, robbing the climatic scenes of the feeling of inevitability needed for maximum dramatic impact. It’s as if you’ve spent 50 hours with a set of characters only to watch them get randomly flattened by a meteor at the end. It may be spectacular but it’s not especially satisfying.

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