Descendants of the Sun

태양의 후예 (Descendants of the Sun) is a popular South Korean drama series that consists of 16 episodes that aired from February 24th to April 14th 2016 on KBS2.

Story: Yoo Si-jin is a Captain in the Korean army and specifially in the special forces. He catches a thief with Sergeant Major Seo Dae-young one day and sends him to a hospital with the medical notes written on the thiefs arm. Soon they figure out Seo Dae-young's phone was stolen and go to look for the thief who is in big trouble at the moment.
Kang Mo-yeon is responsible for the patient and suspects Yoo Si-jin and Seo Dae-young of beating him up but a CCTV record shows the truth.
Because of a wound that needs to be treated Si-jin decides to drive one and a half hours to the hospital where Mo-yeon works in order to see her and get treated by her specifically.
The two of them start to date but their dates don't go well due to their jobs - emergencies just keep on happening and eventually they break up.
Si-jin is transferred to Urk for eight months with his unit. Haesung Hospital is supposed to send a medicube and doctors who volunteer.
Instead of volunteering Kang Mo-yeon is sent to Urk as the leader of the team as a punishment by the director of the hospital for personal revenge. Eventually, Si-jin and Mo-yeon meet again and work together in a country devastated because of war and starvation.

Cast: Song Joong-ki as Captain Yoo Si-jin is incredibly popular everywhere. His acting was good, he managed to balance the cute charm and the tough and loyal sides of Yoo Si-jin quite well. I personally did like his acting in this drama and think that the role suits him well.
Song Hye-kyo as Kang Mo-yeon did well, too. I personally saw her in one other drama before and was honestly not that impressed with that so I wasn't too happy about her being in this drama. But she is a good actress and she did deliver her parts nicely, especially as the professional doctor saving someone's life. (I considered her English pronounciation to be a little weird though.)
Jin Goo as Sergeant Major Seo Dae-young mainly impressed me with his strict discipline when acting in military bases. I guess he has to be my favorite character and actor in this drama because I really enjoyed watching his scenes.
Kim Ji-won as Lieutenant Yoon Myeong-ju. She is a great actress and I really liked her in this series, too. The romance between her and Seo Dae-young was really good and they did have a good chemistry on screen.
Kang Shin-il as Lieutenant General Yoon and Myeong-ju's father was for a long time the typical father in many stories you personally want to just ignore. But he changed and it made me like him a little bit more. Of course as an actor the character was portrayed well.
Other actors in this drama include (prepare for a long list): Kim Byung-chul as Colonel Park Byung-soo, Park Hoon as Sergeant Choi Woo Geun, Choi Woong as Staff Sergeant Gong Chul-ho, Ahn Bo-hyun as Sergeant Im Kwang-nam, Kim Min-suk as Private Kim Ki-bum, Lee Seung-joon as Song Sang-hyun, Seo Jung-yeon as Ha Ja-ae, Onew as Lee Chi-hun, Park Hwan-hee as Choi Min-ji and so many more that it would take me years to name all of them.

Soundtrack: When I came to Korea, the soundtrack for this drama was played all day in the Ewha shopping street, especially in spring, and I started listening to the songs before I even knew that they belonged to this drama. Some of my favorite songs are Mad Clown's and Kim Na-young's "다시 너를 (Come Again)", and K.Will's "말해! 뭐해? (Say It! What Are You Doing?)". I honestly love both songs in their own ways a lot. But also "Everytime" by EXO's Chen and Punch is a song I really came to like a lot.


I honestly did not plan to watch this drama this year. Or to review it in 2016. But after hearing about the big hype and seeing Song Joong-ki's pictures at every corner in Seoul because of this drama I think I had to find out what it was about.
I personally rated this drama as an 8/10 which might surprise some people since it is so damn popular and has so many fans.
Let's say I do get the hype but I can't really follow it. I loved the military and the medical scenes. I loved the romance between Seo Dae-young and Yoon Myeong-ju, and I really liked Song Sang-hyun's and Ha Ja-ae's story a lot. But the main story was cheesy (I like cheese but somehow.. so much cheese that you feel too full after some time).

It is far from bad but also some plot-twists especially in the end didn't do much for the story so I thought they just started dragging it. However, a bonus is that I finished this quite fast actually and didn't start to skip scenes.

One Sunny Day

좋은 날 (One Sunny Day, literally: A Good Day) is a Korean mini drama series broadcasted through the Line TV App aimed at a Thai audience from December 19th to December 30th 2014. It consists of 10 episodes with a duration between 10 and 14 minutes.

Story: The story evolves about Kim Ji-ho who travelled to Jeju Island because of finding a location for a festival his company is organizing. He meets a woman who's name is kept secret until the end of the drama. While spending their time on Jeju together, they fall in love with each other. Meeting again in Seoul, things become a little more complicated.

Cast: We have So Ji-sub in this drama as the male lead character Kim Ji-ho. I openly admit that I'm more into his badass roles but then again he's doing an awesome job in this cute mini series. The female lead role is played by Kim Ji-won whom I didn't quite like when I first saw her in a drama and you can hate me for this but I really liked her in this series, she just fits the cute girl somehow. What really confused me was the existing chemistry between the two leads though they have an age gap of 15 years. Now I'm not a person to really care about age that much but I think it's still surprising.
Other actors in this drama include Im Joo-eun as Kim Ji-ho's ex-girlfriend, Lee Jong-hyuk as Young-ho and Lee Jong-hyun of CNBLUE as.. well, the couple guy. We never get to know his name.

Soundtrack: There's basically one song by GgotJam Project called "Everyday" on the OST and it perfectly works with the cute love story and the beautiful scenery. Don't believe me? I admit that it's not one of the most memorable tracks. It definitely isn't. But it's a nice indie-folk-ballad song one might love listening to in spring.

So after all, my rating turns out to be a 8.5/10 because it is cute, has a beautiful scenery, is light-hearted without too many annoying misunderstandings - but it's simply too short for character development. It's basically the length of a movie. But then again, regarding the fact Line TV aired it and it's an app, it's not really surprising. A must-watch for fans of So Ji-sub and Kim Ji-won. If you're here for other actors, it's not really what you're looking for since the others rarely have any screentime.

Looking Forward To Romance

연애를 기대해 (Looking Forward To Romance/ Waiting For Love/  Hope For Love/ Expect To Date) is a Korean mini drama series consisting of two episodes that aired on September 11th and September 12th 2013 on KBS2.

Story: The drama centers around Joo Yeon-ae who is a romantist in a world where dating is about money and brain. Though she has the looks and a good personality she never gets the man she wants and is therefore quite unexperienced when it comes to relationships. Cha Gi-dae is a dating coach and starts to coach Yeon-ae through SNS. Though he is an expert at dating he has trouble getting the girl he wants as well.
This drama focusses on the love stories that evolve between two young adults and their different views on relationships.

Cast: At first we have Boa as Joo Yeon-ae. Though I'm definitely not one of her fans (one of my friends once asked me how I can be a K-Pop fan but not care about Boa at all) I think she really did a good job in this series. It was fun to watch her. Choi Daniel accepted the role of Cha Gi-dae and watching him was definitely entertaining, mostly because of his sometimes overly self-confident character who claims to be an expert at dating but fails to get the woman he wants. I think his character was really awesome. Im Siwan of ZE:A was acting in this drama as Jung Jin-gook and.. he's adorable in this drama, I totally fell for his character though I can't really explain why exactly. And last but not least is Kim Ji-won whom I've seen in To The Beautiful You before as Choi Sae-rom. As far as I remember (yes, it has been a while since I've seen this drama) her character in this series wasn't annoyingly cute but pretty much alright. She'll probably never be one of my favorite actresses but hey, her acting was good, not that much overdone.

After all this series got a rating of 8/10 from me but that's mainly because I'm not that much into love stories, especially not into the typical ones. It's something I definitely would rewatch (maybe just with a better subtitle or in a few years completely without subtitles) around Christmas because that's the only time of the year when I end up completely overly emotional.