Lie to Me

내게 거짓말을 해봐 (Lie to Me) is a Korean drama series that aired from May 9th to June 28th 2011 on SBS.

Story: Gong Ah-jung is a woman in her late 20's. Her best friend stole her first love, and when she meets her best friend and her first love who got married one day, she tells the lie that she got married before as well. Without mentioning whom she got married to, the small lie develops into a big issue and rumors are spread of a civil service officer being married to World Hotel's president Hyun Ki-joon. In order to avoid the truth being exposed, the two of them come to an agreement. Signing a contract, the two of them are married for a certain time to protect Ah-jung's pride and to help Ki-joon to sign with Chinese investors. As if it'd be as easy as it sounds.. Yoon-joo, Ki-joon's ex-fiancee appears, and also his younger brother comes back and so the chaos evolves.

Cast: The two main characters Gong Ah-jung and Hyun Ki-joon are played by Yoon Eun-hye and Kang Ji-hwan. Those two actors have a great chemistry and I really hope I'll see them once again in a drama that might be a little better to show off their great chemistry and abilities. Sung Joon appears as the second male lead character Hyun Sang-hee, Ki-joon's younger brother. While I totally fell for his character in the first few episodes, it seems as if the writer's simply forgot about him later and his acting seemed a little bit.. forced? The same issue appears when it comes to Oh Yoon-joo played by Jo Yoon-hee. Probably the last two characters I'd count to the main characters are Chun Jae-beom played by Ryu Seung-soo and Hong Soo-hyun as Yoo So-ran. To be completely honest those two seemed to be way more important characters than Sang-hee and Yoon-joo somehow, and I admit that I loved to hate So-ran but I seriously don't get who thought about the sudden change of her character.. what in the actual world happened?! Oh, right, the write changed after episode 10 I think..

Soundtrack: The OST is one of the better parts of this drama for me. I'll tell you more about what I personally think about this drama later but M to M's "안녕 정말 안녕 (Goodbye, Really Goodbye)" is pretty much awesome, beautiful and definitely not overused. Probably one of the best drama OST song's I've ever listened to. Comparing it to other ballad songs used in different dramas I definitely fell for this one. I also really liked Kim Hyung-joon "이 밤이 지나가면 (Midnight Passes)". Except for a few really adorable things about the theme song by Yoon Eun-hye and Kang Ji-hwan themselves called "Lovin' Ice Cream" (who in the world thought about that title? geez) and the OST itself I personally feel like the ballad songs were definitely the better choices in this drama.


Conclusion? If someone dares to mention "Lie to Me" around me it's the best to hide because my only reaction by now is:
YES! I'VE MADE IT! HA! I'VE FINISHED THIS DRAMA AS WELL.

Honestly, I've never dropped a drama I've started - not even You're Beautiful which has a really critical review and the lowest rating I've ever given a series - but I was so close to just stop watching this.
I readily admit that this drama has it's up's and down's - and I admit that the kiss scenes are pretty much awesome (I would've loved to add a gif of one of those scenes but such a spoiler would be unfair). What is sad, is that the down's appear about 100 times more often than the up's.
In fact I feel like I would have to rate two parts of the drama. I remember until episode 8 everything was fine. Episodes 9 and 10 were okay. But following episode 10 I found myself thinking "Why am I even doing this to me?.."
The first part definitely deserves a rating about 7.5 or 8/10 because it's cute and funny, a typical romance-comedy serie, nothing special in the plot but at least entertaining.
The second part therefore would get a rating of 1/10 maximum just because there are some cute things about it - but the characters completely change, the story loses it's natural and adorable flow.
Just look at this.. ew. Ah-jung was so strong before and then suddenly people ask her what's wrong and that's her answer? Ew, ew and ew.

As for the rating, the average of those makes 4.5/10. The last episodes ruined that drama for me, I just didn't want to watch it but I kept telling myself that it might get better. In the end. And well, at least the scenery was beautiful from time to time, so there were actually interesting things to look at.

At least it is not completely bad - it also might appeal to those who are new to K-Drama - but I refuse to even consider watching this again. Yes, some scenes, maybe in youtube compilations. That's all.

Anyway, this is just my opinion. Maybe I've finished too many K-Drama's before and couldn't deal with this because it's so much of a typical K-Drama (look at the entries about 'tropes' I've written earlier - everything is included in this one) but also be reading other reviews I've seen some mixed opinions. People either love it or they hate it. Easy as that. I belong to the latter category.

And this picture is perfect to show me while watching it..

Chaebol

This term isn't only used in K-Dramaland - if you're planning to major in Korean studies you'll have to deal with this as well and it's useful to know what we actually mean when talking about chaebol.

Chaebol is a term used for the business conglomerates. Despite for the heirs of such families sometimes being called 'parachutes' usually dealing with chaebol isn't that easy. They have money and friends. You know, in Germany we'd call that 'Vitamin C' - influential contacts.
That being said, they indeed have a huge influence not only in economics but also politics.

But of course, talking about certain characteristics we see in Korean dramas again and again, that is surely overexaggerated. As well as the amount of chaebol I've seen during the last years.

Usually, in Korean drama, we see conceited, mysophobic and rude male characters. Yes, usually the heirs of such families take over the spotlight and once they realize they can't get anything just by buying it - they tend to freak out or make a 180° turn and change their whole personality. But, oh, well, the latter usually just seems to be a weakness for the female lead.
So how come this kind of character is so irresistible? To be honest I have no idea. That's just my personal opinion but I don't care about their looks if they are rude as hell. They end up as completely loveable characters in the end though after falling for the female lead..

The only case I understand is actually the case of Joo Joong-won and the sun in The Master's Sun because he can actually help her dealing with the ghosts. No matter how bad he treats her, he's the only person who can help her getting rid of the ghosts.

A short collection of chaebol characters in Korean dramas? Yes, sure, here you go:

But to be completely fair, not all of them are bad characters - some are rather charming, a few are willing to give up everything for the person they love and there are a few female chaebol as well.

No matter where you go - I bet you'll find one kind or another of chaebol. But thinking about it logically the amount of families falling into this category in K-Dramaland is really large, even if some of them aren't even mentioned as main characters, they just happen to be there.

Boys Over Flowers

꽃보다 남자 (Boys Over Flowers or Boys Before Flowers) is the Korean remake of the Japanese dram Hana yori dango (花より男子) that aired originally in 2005 and 2007 in Japan. The Korean remake first aired from  January 5th to March 31st 2009 on KBS.
As far as I remember it's one of the most famous Korean dramas internationally and I think I haven't met anyone who didn't watch it.


Story: Oh, if you hear about the story now - believe me, it'll seem quite familiar to you. Why? Uhm, well, that's simple. In short a poor girl, Geum Jan-di, is delivering dry cleaning for her parents shop. One day she saves a student of the prestigious Shin Hwa High and gets a scholarship because of being good at swimming. Being the poor girl surrounded by rich students she has to deal with some issues. Soon she gets terrorized by the leader of the F4, Gu Jun-pyo. He and his friends are the most popular and richest boys in school. While bullying her Jun-pyo begins to realize he's attracted to Jan-di, but Jan-di has a crush on his best friend, Yoon Ji-hoo. And so the drama starts.
If you're looking for THE typical K-Drama - well, congrats, you've found it, though it's actually based on a manga and the Japanese series. Don't believe me? Well, look at this:

Please pay attention to.. well, almost all of those points explained on there. You'll understand when you've finished this drama.
Don't get me wrong, talking about Boys Over Flowers as THE typical K-Drama makes it sound worse I think. Because actually I really adored this one. I remember I had trouble with the first episode and had to wait a few.. well, weeks, until I started the second. But after watching the second episode I've finished the drama in around three days (which is a lot considering I've watched 23 episodes in three days, makes about 8 episodes per day.. now you can guess what else I did during that time except for sleeping and eating and watching this drama).
I admit there are a lot and I mean a whole freaking lot of misunderstandings and after some time you might feel like it's just a strategy so they can produce more episodes and therefore make more money - which might be true up to some point - but everything actually makes sense.

Cast: When I started watching this I didn't really care about actors at all. Sure I knew that Kim Hyun-joong as Yoon Ji-hoo was in it but that was basically everything. Oh, and I've heard about Lee Min-ho who took the role of the male lead Gu Jun-pyo here before but couldn't really connect him to any popular drama. However, this drama was the first one I've watched with Kim Bum who's my absolute favorite actor. As So Yi-jung his smile made my heart melt like.. icecream. This sounds weird but it IS actually really weird (and I'm embarrassed to admit that I was really squealing like a 12-year-old back then). Anyways, the last member of the F4 missing on here is Song Woo-bin played by Kim Joon. Sadly I couldn't find that much info on Kim Joon, the last thing I've heard was that he went to the army after his group T-MAX disbanded (they were good, I remember I've downloaded some songs).
Well, after mentioning all of the F4 now we can't leave out our Geum Jan-di played by Koo Hye-sun. I admit I've also become a fan of hers, I like those princesses who can protect themselves. Don't get what I mean? Watch the first few episodes of this drama and you'll understand that.
The last one I'll name on here would be Kim So-eun who took the role of Jan-di's best friend Chu Ga-eul.

Soundtrack: Well, the soundtrack.. While I sincerely loves some songs like Lee Jung-sik's Saxophone instrumental "I Know" and Kim Bum's "지금 만나러 갑니다 (I'm Going To Meet You Now)" there were some songs that seriously pissed me off after hearing them about 15 times per day just like T-Max's "Paradise" which is the title song. Listening to it now it's actually a good and cheerful song but used way too often. And that's weird because the actual soundtrack consists of two CDs with a total of 26 songs PLUS there's an F4 Special Edition which includes 10 tracks as well. Why did they have to overuse one song that much? I really don't know and I'm not sure if I'll ever find out.


So in total I gave 9/10. Like, come on, I've already told you how fast I've finished that. If that doesn't qualify as being addicted to a drama then.. I don't even know.