Surplus Princess

잉여공주 (Surplus Princess) is a South Korean drama series consisting of 10 episodes that aired on tvN from August 7th to October 9th 2014.

Story: Aileen is the 18th mermaid princess and has a crush on Kwon Shi-kyung. She wants to become a human and steals a potion from An Ma-nyeo. The big problem after drinking the portion is - that she has to find true love within 100 days or she will die or, more correctly, disappear without a trace.
She moves into the "Surplus house" and her new housemates are all unemployed job seekers who experience various difficulties together. Trying to hide her real identity Aileen, going by the name Kim Ha-ni,  tries to gets closer to Shi-kyung not only because of her feelings but also to save her life.

Cast: Another drama on this blog with Jo Bo-ah, in this case as Kim Ha-ni or Aileen. I really like her as an actress but I have a feeling the very bright and cheerful (and somehow stupid) character didn't really suit her well. Also the helplessness in some scenes just didn't feel right.
Ohn Joo-wan as Lee Hyun-myung definitely did an awesome job acting in this drama as the hero always around to save the damsel in mistress. Definitely a very likeable and sweet character but somehow his relationship with Jin-ah in the beginning just made him seem too weak.
Chef Kwon Shi-kyung was played by Song Jae-rim and I think he did a very good job regarding the disease (you will find out more about this when watching the drama but it is not thaaaat bad). For a male lead in a rom-com drama he was actually very nice and charming.
Park Ji-soo as Yoon Jin-ah probably became my most hated character in the drama. The acting was really good and I really enjoyed hating her character a lot. I'm just going to mention the second-female-lead-syndrome and I guess many of you actually understand what I mean.
Kim Seul-gi as Ahn Hye-young was just brilliant in my opinion. I really love her as an actress by now, her singing in this drama was also nice and she was weird at first but turned out so supportive. The character was well played and I don't know what else I should say.

Nam Joo-hyuk as Big was the youngest person in the sharehouse. His character was acted well, too, but I feel like sometimes it lacked some depth in writing or acting, I don't know what is the reason but it was just my impression.
Ahn Kil-kang as An Ma-nyeo had the weird darkness that totally didn't fit the drama this much and that is 100% about the writing. The acting was nice and fit the actor but I personally liked the less mysterious parts of him a little better and thought that it works better with this drama.
Other actors in this drama include Jin Hee-kyung, Kim Min-kyo, Kim Jae-hwa and Lee Sun-kyu.

Soundtrack: I don't know how they did it but a lot of songs that were not the OST for this drama were played. However, sometimes it was just not the right timing and sometimes the songs were a little out of place for me but in total I would say they supported the light and humorous atmosphere.


My rating of this drama is a simple 5.5/10.
The reason is simple: I was so close to dropping this drama during the first episodes. Somewhere in episode 4 or 5 it became bearable and I didn't want to kill the main character anymore (yaaay). Still the humor in this drama was so flat in the first episodes that I could just sit here, shake my head and hope the writer stopped taking whatever he or she took while writing the first episodes. If a drama has 10 episodes and I would rate the first 4 episodes as a 0 or maybe 1 of 10 something is seriously off.
However, as I said it became bearable and even enjoyable even though some of the jokes were still stupid but maybe I just got used to it.
The idea itself wasn't bad, it kinda reminds me of the little mermaid, but also has it's differences.
Oh, and what is still in my mind is the ending. I'm not sure if I like it or not but.. it is refreshing but something I would wish for in any drama with those annoying and rude male leads..
I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone, honestly, unless this is totally your kind of humor but.. you know the risk and don't say I didn't warn you.

Missing Noir M

실종 느와르 M (Missing Noir M) that aired on OCN from March 28th to May 30th 2015.

"사라진 사람, 숨겨진 진실" (the sentence on the poster) directly translates to "Missing People. Hidden Truth." So you might make a guess if this drama is appealing to you just by knowing that.

Story: Gil Soo-hyun (or James Gil) is an extremely intelligent former FBI agent who attended Harvard University at the age of 10. Because of Lee Jung-soo, who only wants to talk to him, he comes back to Korea and solves the first case with the help of Detective Oh Dae-young and hacker Jin Seo-joon. Those three become the Special Investigation Unit for Missing Persons. As they solve cases, they also discover rather personal cases as well as dark family backgrounds and the fact that power can be more important than the law.

Cast: I openly admit not knowing much about the actors and I'll just talk about what I see in this series. Kim Kang-woo as James Gil Soo-hyun is extremely fascinating in this drama. I just wanted to know more and more about him and noticed that there's another drama with him in the main cast I am planning to watch. Anyways, what was the most fascinating except for his well-hidden past is actually his eyecolor. I know this sounds weird. But especially in Ep. 9 I noticed that it's almost a mix of gold and brown and I really find this interesting and beautiful. (This is not intense fangirling though, so please forgive me..)
Well, Park Hee-soon... is it weird that I just noticed I've watched another drama with him before? He looks so different as Oh Dae-young, I never would've noticed that without MDL and/or asianwiki. I love the way he's portraying the veteran detecive (who is a typical character in every OCN series in case you missed it). Long story short, I loved his acting. A lot.
The last person who's around almost all the time is Jin Seo-joon played by Jo Bo-ah. She is really beautiful. That's what I'm going to admit first. Her acting wasn't bad but I felt like her character wasn't shown enough to really judge her as an actress - sure there was one outstanding episode and I loved her in that episode but the rest of the time she's just a typical team member following what she's told to do by her seniors and her acting seemed a bit awkward or.. rather monotonous? Does that make sense to those who are reading this?
Anyway, others in the cast include Kim Kyu-chul as Park Jung-do and Park So-hyun as Kang Joo-young. They both were good in their respecitve roles, and Park Jung-do as a character even managed to surprise me in the end.

Soundtrack: The music in this drama deserves 10/10 without a doubt! This is one of the few dramas only including one song, "자각몽 (Lucid Dream)" by Kim Yun-ah, but this song is great and atmospheric. But as much as I love this, the Original Score owns this drama. The song that really makes me shiver is actually "Was Justice Delivered" by No Hyung-woo but also "Story of the Victim" is a great instrumental. However, if you're not that much into instrumentals and classical instruments, there is a chance you might not like this at all. The atmosphere those pieces (as well as most of the others on the Original Score) deliver still makes me shiver.



So do we need to talk about my rating? It's a definite 10/10 and I'm not joking when I say this is one of the best crime series in Korea as well.

The atmosphere becomes darker and darker, some cases basically killed me inside (I think especially Ep. 5 or 6 did an awesome job living me behind as an emotional mess). The cases are great and filled with suspense so you won't end up bored. Some plottwists seemed individual and I didn't expect some things at all. And you know, this series is probably more realistic than others and not always comes up with a happy ending.
Looking at my notes, the only negative things I wrote down always ended with "But that's SO OCN! I hate them for doing this.." while I still love this channel more than any other. Okay, I still criticize that we only get a tiny little bit of background information about James. And OCN still leaves an option about Oh Dae-young as well. I would've loved more concrete facts but then again we'll probably get a second season and therefore there is a chance we get to know more then. Which leads to the point that I hate waiting for episodes. Especially, if two episodes are directly connected and you just want to know what's going to happen next. Which leads to the next point I more or less criticize - TOO MANY SPLIT CASES. I do understand that not every episode could have a duration of two hours but waiting for the second part drove me nuts (since I've been watching this drama while it was airing). Now all the episodes are up and the problem just disappeared, yay for those who were able to wait.
Just one thing I found to be rather acceptable - there are some English parts when it comes to FBI stories. Which are messed up. It sounds too clear and too simple. But then again it's not surprising - productions from other countries would probably mess up Korean worse so I'm willing to forgive them since it's not complete nonsense either and we can understand it.


Watch this if you like crime, suspense and thriller. It's worth it.

Oh, and the last GIF - that's almost the way I used to sit there after finishing this drama. Severe Post-Drama Depression.