I Need Romance 3

로맨스가 필요해 3 (I Need Romance 3) is a South Korean drama series that aired on tvN from January 13th to March 4th 2014.

Story: Once again this drama revolves around a woman in her 30s and her relationships as well as her 'friends' - which are more colleagues in this case. Shin Joo-yeon works at a home shopping company. Because of some bad experiences she just accepts break-up's. She turned out cold and pretty calculating. When Allen Joo returns from the States after 17 years he can't believe that the cold woman is the same person as the girl he knew while growing up.
Lee Min-jeong, Joo-yeon's colleague, finds herself in a love affair and ends up as a pregnant single woman while Jeong Hee-jae and Lee Woo-young end up with some romantic issues as well. Since all of them are working together, the chaos is perfect when Oh Se-ryeong, a woman Joo-yeon was friends with earlier, appears. Se-ryeong was dating Kang Tae-yoon on whom Joo-yeon has a crush without noticing.

Cast: People asked me "Why do you watch it if you just found the first two seasons 'okay' or 'bearable'?" Well. Excuse you. There are four damn good reasons just in the cast. Firstly, Kim So-yeon as Shin Joo-yeon. That woman is my idol. I loved her more in IRIS and Two Weeks but she still did a good job in here, and just by looking at how different her roles in those series are I can assure you that she is indeed an amazing actress. But her chemistry with Nam Goong-min whom I really liked as well as Kang Tae-yoon could've been better. I don't think I could detect any chemistry between their characters at all. At least compared to the chemistry between Shin Joo-yeon and Allen Joo/ Joo Wan played by Sung Joon. While both of them are good at acting I couldn't really understand Allen's character that well though but then again I feel like that's me and there might have been a reason as to why he behaved that way after 17 years.
The character I hated the most in this drama turned out to be Oh Se-ryeong played by Wang Ji-won though. Geez, I wanted to beat her up. Badly. So annoying but I found myself actually liking her during the last episodes. Now I wonder what made her character change that much. Maybe I missed out on something. Maybe she changed because of hoping to get Tae-yoon back. Or maybe the writer just thought it would be a good idea. I really don't know about that.
Actually one of the reasons to watch this drama is Park Yoo-hwan as Lee Woo-young as well. I definitely hope people will stop referring to him as "Yoochun's brother" once and try to see him as an actor. He did well in this drama, especially with Yoon Seung-ah as Jeong Hee-jae. That clumsy but somewhat shy and loveable couple made this drama totally cute from time to time - and funny. Just let me mention the word "group chat" and you will understand after watching this.
Lastly we have Park Hyo-joo as Lee Min-jeong, a woman who has no intention to get married or think about having a family - until she finds out she's pregnant. And Ahn Min-seok played by Yoo Ha-jun is trying hard to become a good father even before the baby's born. He definitely deserved more time, both together with Park Hyo-joo or alone just because his acting and his character were really cute and seemed a little innocent and clueless.

Soundtrack: Thinking about it carefully, I did like one song. Well, two if we count "Now and Forever", the Allen Joo produced (at least they said so) which was originally performed by Jo Jung-hee. Sung Joon's "사랑이 웃는 것 (Love is Smiling)" made this soundtrack good to me. Now there's nothing wrong with all the other good singers included on the OST just like G.O or Lee Hyori but I sometimes just found myself thinking "Wow, that song's pretty boring..". As a huge fan of music that was and still is a deal breaker for me.


After all this drama got a rating of 8/10 from me. Except for the fact that I didn't like the music I just felt like there's nothing really memorable about the story. It didn't make me laugh too hard nor did I feel really depressed. It's enjoyable but nothing special
But I think it's not the I Need Romance we've seen in the first two seasons. Starting with the first episode, this series has a completely different feeling to it. It focusses more on the male lead than the first two series. In this one, the women aren't friends who've met each other back in school and started to work in different feels, the basically know each other because of working together. And while this is actually a charming point it just doesn't belong to the I Need Romance-series fans might expect.  
So if you want to watch this because you loved the first two seasons - be warned.

Two Weeks

투윅스 (Two Weeks) is a Korean drama series that aired on MBC from August 7th to September 26th 2013.

Story: Jang Tae-san is a small time gangster. Years before the main story starts he met Seo In-hye who saw his good heart. Once she got pregnant he prepared to leave the gang but was blackmailed by the boss who wants Tae-san to go to prison for him. So Tae-san broke up with In-hye and went to prison for several years.
After being released Tae-san runs a small pawnshop. In-hye suddenly contacts him because their daughter, Soo-jin, has been diagnosed with leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Since Tae-san is the only positive match around them, he wants to do something right and meaningful with his life. The transplantation is scheduled to take place in two weeks. But Tae-san is arrested by Detective Im Seung-woo for the murder of an undercover agent who was ordered to enter the gang by prosecutor Park Jae-kyung.
Afte escaping because of an accident the police car had Tae-san is haunted by the police and an assassin but he has to stay alive somehow for those two weeks..

Cast: At first we have a really good male lead character and actor. Jang Tae-san actually is a rather round character, I'm actually fascinated by Lee Joon-ki's acting in this drama since the role of a minor gangster who's treated like garbage but who seriously wants to at least save his daughter. Park Ha-sun accepted the role of Seo In-hye, Tae-san's ex-girlfriend. To me, her character wasn't that important - she's a worried mother after all - and always says she's over Tae-san. (well, if you think so..). One of my favorite actresses, Kim So-yeon, took the role of prosecutor Park Jae-kyung. She's overly ambitious, yes, that's true, and sometimes you just want her to leave the others alone but after all she's doing her job and trying to find out the truth. Detective Im Seung-woo who became more like a father to Soo-jin and has been with In-hye for quite some time was played by Ryu Soo-young. Caught somewhere between his love for Soo-jin and therefore the will to protect the person who can save her life and his duty as a detective. I think he did a good job portraying the almost 'split' personally who tries to manage his career and his emotions at the same time though it actually wouldn't work together.
Others we see? We have Jo Min-ki as the bad guy and gangster boss Moon Il-seok, and damn, his character made me go wild sometimes. He's trying to avoid going to prison but won't stop killing people. Tsk, tsk. That won't work for long, Sir. Another actor I just need to mention because of his rising popularity lately is Song Jae-rim as Killer Kim. And despite for the fact that this quiet character fits almost too well with his looks, I really enjoyed seeing his character's plans in general, it was interesting to watch. I would've liked some more screen time for him.
And the cutie Seo Soo-jin was played by Lee Chae-mi. She's... adorable, Soo-jin is like the cute and bright sun in the middle of a huge chaos and investigations.

Soundtrack: This drama is a perfect example for the use of sounds and music.
First I need to mention the instrumental parts. I think I forgot to mention it in my IRIS reviews but I have to talk about it here - the instrumental tracks that are used everywhere in the drama are well-placed, so is the silence that is used. Many producers seriously should reduce the number of songs performed by singers and add more instrumental tracks to highlight the feeling of a scene.
Talking about the 'normal' OST works fine for this drama as well. At first, my favorite track was "가슴을 쳐봐도 (Hitting My Heart/Heart Hurt)" by Kim Bo-kyung just because I was and still am a huge fan of her voice. And this song still gives me goosebumps. But by now I'm completely in love with Nell's "Run", I would've loved to see an MV for this song. After all the other tracks by The One, Dickpunks, Yoo Seung-woo and Toxic were also great. I mean for sure it's not the typical poppish soundtrack many K-Pop-fans would love but then there's me who's also a huge fan of rock music and the OST was my favorite OST of 2013.


My personal rating is 8.5/10 mostly because I think some scenes didn't really fit the drama and some other didn't really do anything for the story so.. there was some unnecessary. And this drama indeed failed to make me cry (a cute child has leukemia and has to go through a lot and I'm cold as stone.. something's seriously wrong with me..) but it is quite good and enjoyable if you can deal with some melodrama.

(*come on, this second gif is incredibly cute, lovely, adorable, sweet and I love it)

IRIS 2

아이리스2 (IRIS 2) also known as IRIS II: New Generation is the second season of IRIS, like the name actually says, and aired from February 13th to April 18th 2013 on KBS2.

Story:The story starts three years after the end of the first season and the death of Kim Hyun-joon. The story tries to reveal what happened in the past while the new agents of the NSS also have to deal with IRIS and the attacks this organization plans. Nothing more to be said about it. If you've watched the first season you'll understand that this is enough to fill the 20 episodes.

Cast: Almost the complete cast changed. The male lead role Jung Yoo-gun was taken by Jang Hyuk. The female lead, Ji Soo-yun, was played by Lee Da-hee. Oh Yun-soo was included in the cast as Choi Min. One of the very few actors also active in the first season is Kim Young-chul as Baek San. And Mr. Black or Yoo Jung-hoon finally has a face more commonly known as Kim Gab-soo. Im Soo-hyang is one of the more important female members of IRIS as Kim Yun-hwa.
There's another person who appeared in the first season: Kim So-yeon has a cameo in episode 20 as Kim Sun-hwa.
As for the reason why this might be a good option for K-Pop fans: There's Yoon Doo-joon of BEAST/B2ST as Seo Hyun-woo included in the main cast. Yoon Shi-hyuk was acted by Lee Joon of MBLAQ (I hated this character deeply after some time). And there's Kim Hyeong-kon of A-JAX as Song Young-min, a rookie agent (and an adorable agent). Last but not least, belonging to the North Korea Party is Park Se-joon of SPEED as Ri Hyuk-soo.
The acting was great after all, I loved this drama to death (and finished it in about three days) and I think that's mainly because all of those people and also the rest of the cast did an amazing job.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. I enjoyed the instrumentals that actually fit the atmosphere almost too well. But there are more treasures.
At first there's Davichi's "모르시나요 (Don't You Know)". I love Davichi's vocals a lot, both of them are great vocalists. My personal favorite track is "Black Paradise" by BEAST (B2ST), it's one of my favorite songs by BEAST and I love this song a lot. It works fine with the drama but is not a typical soundtrack song after all.
And there's one song they reused - originally it was sung by Baek Ji-young, the remake was performed by So Hyang and it's called "잊지말아요 (Don't Forget)". Since this song was basically the most played song in the first season I wasn't really happy about a remake version but they didn't overuse it and So Hyang's vocals are impressive.


Rating this isn't difficult, for me it's a 10/10 and there's no need to discuss the reasons. The soundtrack is amazing, the cast flawless, the acting really good and the story still really interesting and less focused on the love story which makes this season so much better in my opinion. And I do need to mention Baek Sung-hyun. Thanks to this drama I became a huge fan of his though he's not even included in the main cast.
As a K-Pop fan there's one thing that was really too much for me. Hyeong-kon is one of my first bias' ever, I can fangirl way too hard because of him. Also, Doo-joon is my bias in BEAST and I like and respect him a lot. And then there's Park Se-joon who managed to ruin my whole ranking already a long time ago. That's enough to give me a heart attack, alright? Thanks to Lee Joon I've felt my heart breaking from time to time in this drama and got really mad at his character but it's not his fault and I actually like Lee Joon a lot as well.

So, yeah, my ranking is biased - but how is it possible to dislike those cuties?