The Technicians

기술자들 (The Technicians; also known as The Con Artists) is a South Korean movie directed by Kim Hong-sun that was released in 2014 with a running time of 116 minutes.

Story: Lee Ji-hyeok is a safe cracker and counterfeiter - one of the best in his field - and works with Koo-in who introduces him to Park Jong-bae, an elite hacker. Together, the three plan to steal diamonds worth 500.000$. After that Chairman Cho of Chinatown wants them to work with him to steal 150 billion won. But Ji-hyeok and his comrades make their own plans instead which gets them into some trouble..

Cast: Kim Woo-bin as Lee Ji-hyeok was really good in this movie. He played the smart and cocky character so well that I can hardly imagine someone else in this role.
Lee Hyun-woo as Jong-bae was really good, too. He looks so innocent so it was pretty much against the typical cliché but he did well and the role of the youngest of the team who always gets accused of being a traitor somehow worked well for him.
Ko Chang-seok as Koo-in was somehow the naive part of this trio even though he is the oldest and has the most contacts in his field. The acting was really good, especially when getting mad at Ji-hyeok at one point.
Jo Yoon-hee as Oh Eun-ha is the typical helpless female character we all should remember from K-Dramaland I think. There is nothing special and I think her performance was okay but definitely not the strongest.
And I can't leave out Kim Young-chul as Chairman Cho. I recently feel I stumble upon his name way too often and in this movie I think it is one of my favorite roles. He's definitely a good villain and a good actor in my opinion.


8.5/10 was my decision for rating this movie. It is good, definitely on the better side of the scale but some parts of the plot were too obvious - which isn't bad because it is still very strong and has his strong parts. Especially the acting and the characters but also some unique twists make this movie good. Highly recommended!

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!

To The Beautiful You

아름다운 그대에게 (To The Beautiful You) was the first Korean drama I've watched and basically the only drama I've watched online while it was aired. 
Why did I watch that? Oh, well, that's a good question. I've been into K-Pop before, SHINee were the first K-Pop group I've known and after I started studying Korean I thought it might be helpful to hear the language more regularly through - right, dramas. Also, one of my friends loved Hanazakari no kimitachi he (花ざかりの君たちへ), the Japanese version of this drama, a lot.
I've finished this drama in October 2012 after it aired from August 15th to October 4th 2012.

Story: The story is about a girl dressing up as a boy to be close to her 'idol', who, in this case, is a competitor in a high jump competition. While she's living in an all-boy-school and dormitory a lot of trouble is caused because she's hiding her real gender.
Those gender bend stories are old? Yes, absolutely. I don't even know how many dramas exist with girls acting as boys and falling for the male lead. But to be honest this one is not as boring as one might expect but this might be just me because I didn't watch any dramas before and because I didn't watch the Japanese version either.

Cast: The cast is quite awesome for K-Pop fans. Choi Min-ho as Kang Taejoon was the reason why I wanted to watch this drama and I think he did a quite good job. Sulli of f(x) took the role of the female lead Goo Jae-hee/Jay Dawson and I also liked her quite a lot. Lee Hyun-woo was really adorable as Cha Eun-gyeol, the second male lead, and I enjoyed his acting. The cast also includes:
Seo Jun-young as Ha Seung-ri 
Hwang Kwang-hee (ZE:A) as Song Jong-nim
Kang Ha-neul as Min Hyeon-jae
Yoo Min-kyu as Jo Young-man
Kim I-an as Na Cheol-soo
Ki Tae-young as Jang Min-woo
Kang Kyung-joon as Byeon Gwang-min
Kim Ji-won as Seol Han-na
And let me take a minute to mention the dog called Sangchu. It's a fluffy white dog, I love it. >3<

Soundtrack: The soundtrack is filled with songs by SM Entertainment artists. Though I'm not a huge fan of SM Entertainment I admit that their artists are good at singing. I enjoyed the soundtrack as a whole. J-Min's song "일어나 (Stand Up)", the title track was my personal favorite.


After all this drama was alright. My rating would be 6/10, it's not that high, I know, but maybe because I've watched a lot of dramas later I've corrected the rating a few times.