Best romantic K-dramas on Netflix UK: ranking and discussion
After binging obsessively on Netflix, TV Editor Euan Franklin ranks his top five best romantic K-dramas available now and discusses the genre with editor-in-chief Eleonore Dresch.
Shin Min-a and Kim Seon-Ho as Yoon Hye-Jin and Hong Du-Sik in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Netflix (Photo: Netflix)
Since 2020 – when we were locked in our homes and unable to travel beyond the supermarket – TV audiences have been investigating beyond their borders. As well as a new international excitement for French series, K-dramas stormed the West and housed themselves on streaming services (predominantly Netflix) for everyone to enjoy.
It comes from a nearly 30-year cultural history, following South Korea’s release from military rule. The Korean New Wave, or 'Hallyu', spread to trends in TV, film and music. After winning a Golden Globe for Parasite in 2020, director Bong Joon-ho famously described the importance of surmounting the ‘one-inch barrier’ of subtitles to unlock the global wealth of great storytelling.
Culture Whisper’s TV/cinema editor Euan Franklin dove into Netflix’s selection of K-dramas, deliberately avoiding darker series like Squid Game to have a rounder view. Talking with the editor-in-chief Eleonore Dresch, Euan discusses his top five romantic K-dramas on Netflix.
Eleonore (editor-in-chief): 'I got familiar with Korea for family reasons and I was very intrigued about the renaissance of K-dramas. I was a little bit hooked. It’s a bit like romcoms – you start to learn how it all works out and how it’s structured, and then you become a bit picky. I find that when directors start being a little more creative and break through with a certain type of K-drama, they become extremely interesting. The truth is, obviously: K-dramas are very, very long. It’s like you’re getting into a whole world.'
Euan (TV/cinema editor): 'That’s why I quite enjoy them. I’m getting into the 16-episode series, which is like reading a novel. They have all these layers to them. And I think some of the best K-dramas, or the best romantic K-dramas, are those that spiral into different directions. You don’t really get that a lot in British romcoms or American romcoms, where there’s so much nuance and story and character.'
Eleonore: 'I’m struck by the different pace. Action can be slow, [and it] repeats itself. Sometimes it has a flashback to something you’ve seen three times before, and you’re like, "yes, I got that!" But then you get used to it. There are different patterns that I find really interesting. Like, for example, many K-dramas are directed by women. The characters are particularly good-looking. The male characters are usually very sensitive, quite fragile.'
Euan: 'I think in Western films and TV, there’s an emphasis on the extrovert. There’s an idea in masculinity about having to be the loudest voice, whereas K-dramas are very nice in that they focus on these introverted men, and women too. I think that’s a relief, in a way. It’s quite refreshing to see these kinds of representations. In fact, there’s quite an interesting study I read about online [examining] how a lot of Western women have deliberately made voyages to South Korea in order to find the kind of men that are portrayed in K-dramas.'
Eleonore: 'Paradoxically, [South Korea is] known for being quite a paternalist country. It’s quite unfair to women. And that doesn’t always translate in K-dramas, but occasionally it does and you’re like "what is this!?" Do you watch them in English or do you watch them in Korean?'
Euan: 'I watch them in Korean [with English subtitles] because I think when you watch international series or films, you need to watch them in the original language to really grasp the feel and atmosphere of the country you’re stepping into. I’ve talked to people who still watch [these shows] dubbed in English and, unless you're blind or visually impaired, I don’t really understand why you’d want to do that. It seems almost sacrilegious to me because this is born out of their country and now you have the chance to experience their culture in a way that you probably are unable to when you’re even there.'
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Eleonore: 'Do you think it’s quality TV or do you think it’s trash TV?'
Euan: 'I agree there is a certain amount of trash in K-dramas, but I don’t think of it as gratuitous. I think it’s just a part of the entertainment value. And when you get to certain episodes, which are so poignant, there’s a certain value in that. And if you’re able to have fun with it as well, I think that’s valuable. I don’t think I’d call it trash, but I’d call it as it is: pure enjoyable, escapist entertainment.'
Eleonore: 'Does it make you want to travel to Korea?'
Euan: 'It has done. It’s my birthday soon, and I’ve managed to book for me and my family a table at a Korean restaurant in London called Kimchee. Purely because, in all the K-dramas I’ve watched, they take so much pride in their food.'
Eleonore: 'You’re right. [In K-dramas] they eat all the time. You wonder how they manage that, and they obviously drink a lot.'
Euan: 'Yeah, and it’s made me really want to try some of the delicacies. I’m hoping after I go to this Korean restaurant that it’ll open my eyes and my palate a bit.'
Eleonore: 'Do you think the K-drama will become mainstream in years to come? At the moment it feels a bit niche, but I was interested about how quickly hooked you were.'
Euan: 'I think it’ll continue to grow. K-dramas grew in the 90s and 00s. They spread through Japan and China, and then spread to Middle Eastern countries. And then they went into Latin America. And then from Latin America they spread to [the US] via Korean supermarkets on VHS tapes. And then, eventually, 10 years down the line, streaming services got hold of various Korean dramas. And then, in 2020, when lockdown happened, Netflix suddenly got the rights to so many Korean dramas. I think we’ll see [them] rise and rise to the point where people who don’t usually watch any international series or films will actually give them a chance. It’s one of Netflix’s most valuable assets at the moment. There are so many to choose from. After you’ve finished one, it’s hard to choose the next one.'
Eleonore: 'Yes, and it’s hard to stop watching them as well. It’s almost like a sort of side life that you go into.'
5. My Liberation Notes
My Liberation Notes follows a working-class family living in the countryside. The grown-up kids, struggling to make ends meet, commute to Seoul every day for work and dream of escaping their current situation. The main character Yeom Mi-jung (Kim Ji-won), an awkward outsider at her place of work, forms a strange relationship with her father's alcoholic assistant Mr Gu (Son Suk-ku).
Euan: '[This] is one that you recommended to me. I thought it was slightly let down by the end, [but] I really enjoyed that the main character was this anxious, introverted woman who had these really depressing thoughts. I slightly fell in love with her because she’d come out of nowhere with just the most existential speech. And watching that family…'
Eleonore: 'It’s interesting.'
Euan: 'Yeah. It’s a family of working-class people, and the kids are trying to move out of their countryside residence in order to move to Seoul and make their lives good. They really struggle to do it because they’re working temp jobs and part-time jobs.'
Eleonore: 'And the commute!'
Euan: 'Yeah, the commute…'
Eleonore: 'Looks terrifying. These characters, to me, feel very real and they’re tackling issues that real people are dealing with on a daily basis. And yet, at the same time, it’s very poetic. And the actress [Kim Ji-won, playing] the main character is a very well-known K-drama actress and she feels so close, so relatable. It was quite extraordinary.'
4. It's Okay to Not Be Okay
It's Okay to Not Be Okay is largely set in a psychiatric facility, where the busy nurse Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun) works. He looks after his autistic brother Moon Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), who also works, draws and loves dinosaurs. Their lives are thrown off balance by the arrival of Ko Moon-young (Seo Ye-Ji), a beautiful children's author with a fierce antisocial personality disorder.
Euan: 'It’s quite an out-there K-drama. It is one of those ones where you have to watch a few K-dramas before in order to understand the format. Another classic trope in K-dramas is Enemies-to-Lovers, and [this] is a really fun way to do that. It’s a kooky series, in that it opens with a Tim Burton-esque animation. It’s mainly about trying to humanise [Ko Moon-young] because she starts off being a really mean and horrible woman with slightly empathetic factors. [Moon Gang-tae], who has his own traumas and issues, understands what kind of psychological condition she has and so he’s able to communicate with her properly. The brother has autism, and it’s about how [Gang-tae] grew up caring for his brother day by day, night by night. At the same time, [Moon Sang-tae] works several jobs and he’s a really talented illustrator. So, it’s not a case of "oh, look how miserable this family is or this disabled person is" – it’s a very touching story.'
Eleonore: 'I agree. I watched it a long time ago. It was the first time, I think, I saw a K-drama that was portraying disability and I think it was done extremely well.'
3. Summer Strike
Summer Strike follows Lee Yeo-reum (Kim Seol-hyun), who leaves behind her depressing life in Seoul and moves to a random seaside town in the country. Although the locals don't warm immediately to her, she finds solace in the local library and comfort with the awkward librarian An Dae-beom (Yim Si-wan).
Eleonore: 'I really liked [Summer Strike]. I thought [Lee Yeo-reum] was particularly charming. It’s basically the story of a girl who’s bullied at the office, works really hard, she has a tiny flat, she loses her mother. And then [she’s] decided that she’s had enough and moves somewhere, she doesn’t know where, in a little seaside town where she decides to do nothing, which I find quite fascinating. Korean people are super-hard-working and the idea of not doing anything is very unusual. And she decides to spend her day reading in the local library! I think the library is another important element in K-dramas. It made me think a lot about the French director Éric Rohmer. There’s something very bucolic about this [series]. It’s quite realistic in the sense that the locals are not welcoming.'
Euan: 'That’s another familiar trope in these romantic K-dramas: the city-dwellers moving to the country or escaping to the country. The rough-and-tumble of city life has got them down. It’s almost Dickensian, but it’s also quite refreshing for those of us who live in cities. I was raised in Kent and I’ve moved to London, and it’s quite nice watching that kind of story because it’s a nice, serene break from the city without having to move out [of it]. Summer Strike was the first K-drama I properly watched, aside from things like Squid Game. It was only released on Netflix in the UK a few months ago. It’s weird, though, how some of these K-dramas that are ostensibly calming and about romance eventually turn into dark, psychological thriller[s].'
Eleonore: 'Yes, I agree. There’s something there, always. It’s strange, we’re not used to that.'
Euan: 'Exactly. I think a lot of Western shows and movies really want to stick to the plot. It’s more of a marketing thing: "if it goes off-tangent tonally, then the audience would be confused." But K-dramas aren’t afraid of that at all, and I respect that because it keeps you on your toes. The thing is with Summer Strike is that it’s really nice and peaceful for about 10 episodes and then it turns into this Luther-like story. If they were to do that in this country, it’d be self-aware or it wouldn’t be aware at all or it’d be a mistake in the production – whereas in K-dramas, they know what they’re doing and they like what they’re doing. There’s always a surprise or a twist that you’re not expecting.'
2. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is about Yoon Hye-jin (Shin Min-a), an elite, intelligent dentist from Seoul who sets up her own clinic in a small seaside town, but clashes with the local residents. She begins a rivalry with the well-liked all-rounder 'Chief Hong' (Kim Seon-ho) before falling in love with him, and he with her.
Euan: 'I’d had this recommended to me for a while. I’d avoided it mainly because most of the episodes are at least 70 minutes long. I was like, "oh, can I be bothered with 70-, sometimes 80-, sometimes 90-minute episodes?" And then I was so consumed. It’s a very similar plot to Summer Strike in that it’s about a woman, a dentist, who moves from Seoul to a seaside town and starts to build a life for herself. The culture change is a lot more extreme than Summer Strike, in that the main character is very city-bound and pompous and pretentious and arrogant. She doesn’t really like the residents at all, and I think at first she feels they’re rather primitive and the residents know that.'
Eleonore: 'Yes, it’s hilarious!'
Euan: 'And that’s a great dynamic. I recognise that occasionally whenever I return to the country and there are things you can’t get in the city, and stuff like that. It’s quite relatable.'
Eleonore: 'And the way she’s dressed is quite hilarious because she’s a sort of super-fancy Seoul girl. Fashion is something very important in K-dramas, the showcase of fashion. She dresses ridiculously well, impossible in terms of budget!'
Euan: 'Yeah! That was another feature of It’s Okay to Not Be Okay: the fashion of the author is like Emily in Paris where every episode [has] a new ridiculously lavish outfit. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is another Enemies-to-Lovers story between her and the ‘local sheriff’ Chief Hong…'
Eleonore: 'He does everything.'
Euan: 'He does everything. He does all the odd jobs that need doing around the town. Another trope: it’s usually the men, sometimes the women, who are harbouring a massive trauma inside them that they’ve buried. It’s usually the penultimate episode when you find out what’s happened to them. Again, they’ve made the series mostly relaxing, [examining] the intricacies of the town – it’s very much a community drama – and then you get to episode 15, and you find out what the trauma is. It’s directed so wonderfully, so dramatically, and you’re thrown. That whole episode has so many waves of emotion that you don’t know what to do afterwards.'
Eleonore: 'With this one, I actually watched it when it was released. I felt that [experience] was particularly enjoyable. The problem, when you watch K-dramas, is that [they’re] quite addictive so you end up watching two episodes, three episodes sometimes, in a row. The downside of the K-drama is that it turns you into a bit of a zombie. But when you watch it on a weekly basis, it’s almost like you’re peeling it off – you’re enjoying the slowness of it much more.'
Euan: 'I wonder if I’d be able to do that because I find them quite addictive. My method of watching K-dramas at the moment is to watch bits of episodes between things, which is a horrendous way to watch anything. But I tend to watch them in the morning, as I’m having my breakfast, and then as I’m having my lunch break, and then to settle down in the evening. It’s an all-day thing, like a three-act structure throughout my day.'
1. Our Beloved Summer
In Our Beloved Summer, the academically excellent Gook Yeon-soo (Kim Da-mi) and the student slacker Choi Ung (Choi Woo-sik) are filmed as teenagers for a documentary. Ten years later, they meet each other again and Ung's childhood friend Kim Ji-ung (Kim Sung-cheol) decides to film their reunion.
Eleonore: 'I’m watching [Our Beloved Summer] to be able to discuss it with you. I wasn’t sure why you put it at No.1 because, for me, I’m struggling a little bit. Basically, it’s a love story between a man and a woman who were filmed when they were teenagers at school in a documentary. She was at the top of the class, he was at the bottom. Ten years later, they’re reunited and he’s this very famous artist and she’s got a good job, but she’s clearly not very happy. They’re deeply in love with each other, but they’re not together. We know they’re going to be together at some point, and it’s taking an awful lot of time. Why are you liking this so much?'
Euan: 'It was the first time I’d seen that kind of narrative structure in a romcom series. It is a fractured narrative. I really like the dynamic of starting when they were younger and in love, and then progressing till they get older. As you get older, your definition of love and romance and lust changes. It’s a weird example to choose because of the innate sexlessness in K-dramas, but it reminded me a lot of Normal People in how it showed you how they were as kids and then showed as they gradually grew up and how they matured and how they changed. And again, it’s that kind of introversion that you don’t see in a lot of Western movies and TV – especially [with Gook Yeon-soo], who doesn’t really like spending time with her colleagues outside of work. And you’ve got this artist bloke [Choi Ung] who’s like Banksy, an anonymous artist who paints these nice building paintings.
'I also really liked the side characters. I found myself sympathising more with [Kim Ji-ung], who’s in love with [Gook Yeon-soo]. I hadn’t seen before that kind of display of what having a crush is, how horrible having a crush can be. Over here, we often take the attitude of "get over it", "suck it up", "move on". Whereas, in Our Beloved Summer, it’s treated with so much reverence. It doesn’t just show love between two people, Enemies-to-Lovers, whatever, it also shows unrequited love, which I think is a really underrated dramatic direction.'
It comes from a nearly 30-year cultural history, following South Korea’s release from military rule. The Korean New Wave, or 'Hallyu', spread to trends in TV, film and music. After winning a Golden Globe for Parasite in 2020, director Bong Joon-ho famously described the importance of surmounting the ‘one-inch barrier’ of subtitles to unlock the global wealth of great storytelling.
Culture Whisper’s TV/cinema editor Euan Franklin dove into Netflix’s selection of K-dramas, deliberately avoiding darker series like Squid Game to have a rounder view. Talking with the editor-in-chief Eleonore Dresch, Euan discusses his top five romantic K-dramas on Netflix.
Eleonore (editor-in-chief): 'I got familiar with Korea for family reasons and I was very intrigued about the renaissance of K-dramas. I was a little bit hooked. It’s a bit like romcoms – you start to learn how it all works out and how it’s structured, and then you become a bit picky. I find that when directors start being a little more creative and break through with a certain type of K-drama, they become extremely interesting. The truth is, obviously: K-dramas are very, very long. It’s like you’re getting into a whole world.'
Euan (TV/cinema editor): 'That’s why I quite enjoy them. I’m getting into the 16-episode series, which is like reading a novel. They have all these layers to them. And I think some of the best K-dramas, or the best romantic K-dramas, are those that spiral into different directions. You don’t really get that a lot in British romcoms or American romcoms, where there’s so much nuance and story and character.'
Eleonore: 'I’m struck by the different pace. Action can be slow, [and it] repeats itself. Sometimes it has a flashback to something you’ve seen three times before, and you’re like, "yes, I got that!" But then you get used to it. There are different patterns that I find really interesting. Like, for example, many K-dramas are directed by women. The characters are particularly good-looking. The male characters are usually very sensitive, quite fragile.'
Euan: 'I think in Western films and TV, there’s an emphasis on the extrovert. There’s an idea in masculinity about having to be the loudest voice, whereas K-dramas are very nice in that they focus on these introverted men, and women too. I think that’s a relief, in a way. It’s quite refreshing to see these kinds of representations. In fact, there’s quite an interesting study I read about online [examining] how a lot of Western women have deliberately made voyages to South Korea in order to find the kind of men that are portrayed in K-dramas.'
Eleonore: 'Paradoxically, [South Korea is] known for being quite a paternalist country. It’s quite unfair to women. And that doesn’t always translate in K-dramas, but occasionally it does and you’re like "what is this!?" Do you watch them in English or do you watch them in Korean?'
Euan: 'I watch them in Korean [with English subtitles] because I think when you watch international series or films, you need to watch them in the original language to really grasp the feel and atmosphere of the country you’re stepping into. I’ve talked to people who still watch [these shows] dubbed in English and, unless you're blind or visually impaired, I don’t really understand why you’d want to do that. It seems almost sacrilegious to me because this is born out of their country and now you have the chance to experience their culture in a way that you probably are unable to when you’re even there.'
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Eleonore: 'Do you think it’s quality TV or do you think it’s trash TV?'
Euan: 'I agree there is a certain amount of trash in K-dramas, but I don’t think of it as gratuitous. I think it’s just a part of the entertainment value. And when you get to certain episodes, which are so poignant, there’s a certain value in that. And if you’re able to have fun with it as well, I think that’s valuable. I don’t think I’d call it trash, but I’d call it as it is: pure enjoyable, escapist entertainment.'
Eleonore: 'Does it make you want to travel to Korea?'
Euan: 'It has done. It’s my birthday soon, and I’ve managed to book for me and my family a table at a Korean restaurant in London called Kimchee. Purely because, in all the K-dramas I’ve watched, they take so much pride in their food.'
Eleonore: 'You’re right. [In K-dramas] they eat all the time. You wonder how they manage that, and they obviously drink a lot.'
Euan: 'Yeah, and it’s made me really want to try some of the delicacies. I’m hoping after I go to this Korean restaurant that it’ll open my eyes and my palate a bit.'
Eleonore: 'Do you think the K-drama will become mainstream in years to come? At the moment it feels a bit niche, but I was interested about how quickly hooked you were.'
Euan: 'I think it’ll continue to grow. K-dramas grew in the 90s and 00s. They spread through Japan and China, and then spread to Middle Eastern countries. And then they went into Latin America. And then from Latin America they spread to [the US] via Korean supermarkets on VHS tapes. And then, eventually, 10 years down the line, streaming services got hold of various Korean dramas. And then, in 2020, when lockdown happened, Netflix suddenly got the rights to so many Korean dramas. I think we’ll see [them] rise and rise to the point where people who don’t usually watch any international series or films will actually give them a chance. It’s one of Netflix’s most valuable assets at the moment. There are so many to choose from. After you’ve finished one, it’s hard to choose the next one.'
Eleonore: 'Yes, and it’s hard to stop watching them as well. It’s almost like a sort of side life that you go into.'
5. My Liberation Notes
My Liberation Notes follows a working-class family living in the countryside. The grown-up kids, struggling to make ends meet, commute to Seoul every day for work and dream of escaping their current situation. The main character Yeom Mi-jung (Kim Ji-won), an awkward outsider at her place of work, forms a strange relationship with her father's alcoholic assistant Mr Gu (Son Suk-ku).
Euan: '[This] is one that you recommended to me. I thought it was slightly let down by the end, [but] I really enjoyed that the main character was this anxious, introverted woman who had these really depressing thoughts. I slightly fell in love with her because she’d come out of nowhere with just the most existential speech. And watching that family…'
Eleonore: 'It’s interesting.'
Euan: 'Yeah. It’s a family of working-class people, and the kids are trying to move out of their countryside residence in order to move to Seoul and make their lives good. They really struggle to do it because they’re working temp jobs and part-time jobs.'
Eleonore: 'And the commute!'
Euan: 'Yeah, the commute…'
Eleonore: 'Looks terrifying. These characters, to me, feel very real and they’re tackling issues that real people are dealing with on a daily basis. And yet, at the same time, it’s very poetic. And the actress [Kim Ji-won, playing] the main character is a very well-known K-drama actress and she feels so close, so relatable. It was quite extraordinary.'
4. It's Okay to Not Be Okay
It's Okay to Not Be Okay is largely set in a psychiatric facility, where the busy nurse Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun) works. He looks after his autistic brother Moon Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), who also works, draws and loves dinosaurs. Their lives are thrown off balance by the arrival of Ko Moon-young (Seo Ye-Ji), a beautiful children's author with a fierce antisocial personality disorder.
Euan: 'It’s quite an out-there K-drama. It is one of those ones where you have to watch a few K-dramas before in order to understand the format. Another classic trope in K-dramas is Enemies-to-Lovers, and [this] is a really fun way to do that. It’s a kooky series, in that it opens with a Tim Burton-esque animation. It’s mainly about trying to humanise [Ko Moon-young] because she starts off being a really mean and horrible woman with slightly empathetic factors. [Moon Gang-tae], who has his own traumas and issues, understands what kind of psychological condition she has and so he’s able to communicate with her properly. The brother has autism, and it’s about how [Gang-tae] grew up caring for his brother day by day, night by night. At the same time, [Moon Sang-tae] works several jobs and he’s a really talented illustrator. So, it’s not a case of "oh, look how miserable this family is or this disabled person is" – it’s a very touching story.'
Eleonore: 'I agree. I watched it a long time ago. It was the first time, I think, I saw a K-drama that was portraying disability and I think it was done extremely well.'
3. Summer Strike
Summer Strike follows Lee Yeo-reum (Kim Seol-hyun), who leaves behind her depressing life in Seoul and moves to a random seaside town in the country. Although the locals don't warm immediately to her, she finds solace in the local library and comfort with the awkward librarian An Dae-beom (Yim Si-wan).
Eleonore: 'I really liked [Summer Strike]. I thought [Lee Yeo-reum] was particularly charming. It’s basically the story of a girl who’s bullied at the office, works really hard, she has a tiny flat, she loses her mother. And then [she’s] decided that she’s had enough and moves somewhere, she doesn’t know where, in a little seaside town where she decides to do nothing, which I find quite fascinating. Korean people are super-hard-working and the idea of not doing anything is very unusual. And she decides to spend her day reading in the local library! I think the library is another important element in K-dramas. It made me think a lot about the French director Éric Rohmer. There’s something very bucolic about this [series]. It’s quite realistic in the sense that the locals are not welcoming.'
Euan: 'That’s another familiar trope in these romantic K-dramas: the city-dwellers moving to the country or escaping to the country. The rough-and-tumble of city life has got them down. It’s almost Dickensian, but it’s also quite refreshing for those of us who live in cities. I was raised in Kent and I’ve moved to London, and it’s quite nice watching that kind of story because it’s a nice, serene break from the city without having to move out [of it]. Summer Strike was the first K-drama I properly watched, aside from things like Squid Game. It was only released on Netflix in the UK a few months ago. It’s weird, though, how some of these K-dramas that are ostensibly calming and about romance eventually turn into dark, psychological thriller[s].'
Eleonore: 'Yes, I agree. There’s something there, always. It’s strange, we’re not used to that.'
Euan: 'Exactly. I think a lot of Western shows and movies really want to stick to the plot. It’s more of a marketing thing: "if it goes off-tangent tonally, then the audience would be confused." But K-dramas aren’t afraid of that at all, and I respect that because it keeps you on your toes. The thing is with Summer Strike is that it’s really nice and peaceful for about 10 episodes and then it turns into this Luther-like story. If they were to do that in this country, it’d be self-aware or it wouldn’t be aware at all or it’d be a mistake in the production – whereas in K-dramas, they know what they’re doing and they like what they’re doing. There’s always a surprise or a twist that you’re not expecting.'
2. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is about Yoon Hye-jin (Shin Min-a), an elite, intelligent dentist from Seoul who sets up her own clinic in a small seaside town, but clashes with the local residents. She begins a rivalry with the well-liked all-rounder 'Chief Hong' (Kim Seon-ho) before falling in love with him, and he with her.
Euan: 'I’d had this recommended to me for a while. I’d avoided it mainly because most of the episodes are at least 70 minutes long. I was like, "oh, can I be bothered with 70-, sometimes 80-, sometimes 90-minute episodes?" And then I was so consumed. It’s a very similar plot to Summer Strike in that it’s about a woman, a dentist, who moves from Seoul to a seaside town and starts to build a life for herself. The culture change is a lot more extreme than Summer Strike, in that the main character is very city-bound and pompous and pretentious and arrogant. She doesn’t really like the residents at all, and I think at first she feels they’re rather primitive and the residents know that.'
Eleonore: 'Yes, it’s hilarious!'
Euan: 'And that’s a great dynamic. I recognise that occasionally whenever I return to the country and there are things you can’t get in the city, and stuff like that. It’s quite relatable.'
Eleonore: 'And the way she’s dressed is quite hilarious because she’s a sort of super-fancy Seoul girl. Fashion is something very important in K-dramas, the showcase of fashion. She dresses ridiculously well, impossible in terms of budget!'
Euan: 'Yeah! That was another feature of It’s Okay to Not Be Okay: the fashion of the author is like Emily in Paris where every episode [has] a new ridiculously lavish outfit. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is another Enemies-to-Lovers story between her and the ‘local sheriff’ Chief Hong…'
Eleonore: 'He does everything.'
Euan: 'He does everything. He does all the odd jobs that need doing around the town. Another trope: it’s usually the men, sometimes the women, who are harbouring a massive trauma inside them that they’ve buried. It’s usually the penultimate episode when you find out what’s happened to them. Again, they’ve made the series mostly relaxing, [examining] the intricacies of the town – it’s very much a community drama – and then you get to episode 15, and you find out what the trauma is. It’s directed so wonderfully, so dramatically, and you’re thrown. That whole episode has so many waves of emotion that you don’t know what to do afterwards.'
Eleonore: 'With this one, I actually watched it when it was released. I felt that [experience] was particularly enjoyable. The problem, when you watch K-dramas, is that [they’re] quite addictive so you end up watching two episodes, three episodes sometimes, in a row. The downside of the K-drama is that it turns you into a bit of a zombie. But when you watch it on a weekly basis, it’s almost like you’re peeling it off – you’re enjoying the slowness of it much more.'
Euan: 'I wonder if I’d be able to do that because I find them quite addictive. My method of watching K-dramas at the moment is to watch bits of episodes between things, which is a horrendous way to watch anything. But I tend to watch them in the morning, as I’m having my breakfast, and then as I’m having my lunch break, and then to settle down in the evening. It’s an all-day thing, like a three-act structure throughout my day.'
1. Our Beloved Summer
In Our Beloved Summer, the academically excellent Gook Yeon-soo (Kim Da-mi) and the student slacker Choi Ung (Choi Woo-sik) are filmed as teenagers for a documentary. Ten years later, they meet each other again and Ung's childhood friend Kim Ji-ung (Kim Sung-cheol) decides to film their reunion.
Eleonore: 'I’m watching [Our Beloved Summer] to be able to discuss it with you. I wasn’t sure why you put it at No.1 because, for me, I’m struggling a little bit. Basically, it’s a love story between a man and a woman who were filmed when they were teenagers at school in a documentary. She was at the top of the class, he was at the bottom. Ten years later, they’re reunited and he’s this very famous artist and she’s got a good job, but she’s clearly not very happy. They’re deeply in love with each other, but they’re not together. We know they’re going to be together at some point, and it’s taking an awful lot of time. Why are you liking this so much?'
Euan: 'It was the first time I’d seen that kind of narrative structure in a romcom series. It is a fractured narrative. I really like the dynamic of starting when they were younger and in love, and then progressing till they get older. As you get older, your definition of love and romance and lust changes. It’s a weird example to choose because of the innate sexlessness in K-dramas, but it reminded me a lot of Normal People in how it showed you how they were as kids and then showed as they gradually grew up and how they matured and how they changed. And again, it’s that kind of introversion that you don’t see in a lot of Western movies and TV – especially [with Gook Yeon-soo], who doesn’t really like spending time with her colleagues outside of work. And you’ve got this artist bloke [Choi Ung] who’s like Banksy, an anonymous artist who paints these nice building paintings.
'I also really liked the side characters. I found myself sympathising more with [Kim Ji-ung], who’s in love with [Gook Yeon-soo]. I hadn’t seen before that kind of display of what having a crush is, how horrible having a crush can be. Over here, we often take the attitude of "get over it", "suck it up", "move on". Whereas, in Our Beloved Summer, it’s treated with so much reverence. It doesn’t just show love between two people, Enemies-to-Lovers, whatever, it also shows unrequited love, which I think is a really underrated dramatic direction.'
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