Second-Male-Lead-Syndrome

Welcome to a journey through the tropes of the K-Dramaland!

After watching some TV series, especially Korean ones, I came to realize that they love their tropes. Oh, yes, the writers do love their tropes.

The first thing I want to talk about is the Second-Male-Lead-Syndrome. It sounds longer than it actually is but if you've watched five Korean drama series you probably realized what happens to the poor second male lead.
When the male lead lets the girl down, the second male lead comes over and comforts her. He treats her like a princess, is ready to help her anytime with almost everything - and still is the forever alone friendzoned character in the end while the one who treats her like sh*t usually gets the girl.

I remember once reading a discussion on forums why good guys always end up like this. But I don't think they always do. Honestly speaking I get the excitement girls feel while chasing the one we like. And I do understand that this leaves a lot of options to use it in dramas in various ways.
BUT we all know the effect by now. Once I start a drama and there are two male leads, I can already make a guess how it's going to end. I would be more surprised when a girl would suddenly turn to the second lead and act like "Well, YOU, Sir, treated me like I'm worthless, your loss" towards the male lead. But as long as the Korean audience doesn't think that it's boring and that the writers probably should change something about it - they won't do anything. Who cares about the international audience? After all it's not us who watch dramas for free online who's paying them.

So, who were victims to the Second-Male-Lead-Syndrome so far in the dramas I've watched?


The very first friendzoned Second-Male-Lead I've seen is Lee Hyun-woo in To The Beautiful You.
Sure there's another problem - the female lead character dresses up as a boy so he thinks he's gay after falling for him eh, her - but even after he figures out the truth and forgives her, he's not the lucky one.

The second victim I stumbled upon is Song Jong-ho in Reply 1997. In this drama the one who gets the girl in the end is even a member of his family. In this drama it wasn't as bad though - there were times when I was seriously wondering whom the female lead will choose.

A really popular victim was Kim Hyun-joong in Boys Over Flowers. While the female lead fell for him first, he lost his chance and became friendzoned. Sad, sad, he actually had a chance but didn't want it then.. His own fault.

In You're Beautiful we see Jung Yong-hwa struggle with the same effect. Sure it's a genderbend drama as well but he figures out that the female lead actually is female quite fast. I'm not sure whether he's the first one to know but he somehow knows. However, being a close friend trying to protect her and her secret, he ends up in the friendzone as well. Sad for the character that actually made the drama bearable.

In the first season of IRIS we see a really serious case of this Second-Male-Lead-Syndrome since the poor friendzoned guy ends up suddenly fighting against both, his former best friend and the girl both of them love. Jung Joon-ho even tries to kill the male lead from time to time. Now this is a friendzoned character that shouldn't be pitied. But then again he's just like that because of being hurt and jealous.

In Monstar Kang Ha-neul gets dumped in favor of Yong Jun-hyung. Now he was really someone who didn't deserve this at all, I felt unbelievable sorry for him. He's not even one of my favorite actors but he definitely didn't deserve it. He even broke some 'rules' but still - it didn't help him out.

After winning the girls heart in Reply 1997 Seo In-guk ends up friendzoned by Gong Hyo-jin in The Master's Sun. He's not as poor as one might think since he's not alone in the end.

Of course there are many more friendzoned male second leads! But I don't want to write something about all of them. Just mentioning the dramas, we have Lee Ki-woo in Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Kim Ji-hoon in Flower Boy Next Door, Park Hae-jin in You Who Came From The Stars, Park Yong-ha in Winter Sonata and Park Hee-soon in All About My Romance. Looking at the number of victims of this syndrome I just listed - well, you can guess that this syndrome is one of the most common in K-Dramaland.

But let's be honest, ladies - if the female lead doesn't want them, there's more left for us!

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.