Poseidon

포세이돈 (Poseidon) is a South Korean Drama that was aired on KBS2  from September 19th to November 8th 2011. It consists of 16 episodes with an average duration of 60 minutes per episode.

Story: Poseidon is the sea special attack team of South Korea and directly connected to the Coast Guard. Kim Sun-woo joins this unit after being a troublemaker in his school days. Because of an incident he is sent to Gunsan city until Kwon Jung-ryul who formed a new crime investigation unit in Incheon asks Sun-woo to join. The purpose of the unit is to stop the "Heugsahoe", an organisation led by Choi Hee-gon, but officially the investigation unit is responsible for unsolved cases.
This drama is pretty much a crime and action drama that could be compared to other crime dramas easily. While I did enjoy the story by itself and I loved the action I feel like it was just too long for the story. I occasionally found myself getting bored and playing with my phone rather than watching the drama. While it is also supposed to be directly related to the coast guard many parts of this drama actually have nothing to do with the coast guard or the sea in general so I would describe it as an ordinary police drama.

Cast: Lee Sung-jae as Kwon Jung-ryul. It hasn't been too long since I first saw Lee Sung-jae in a drama and while I do like his acting I'm not overly impressed. His acting in this drama, too, was good or okay but not really outstanding.
Choi Si-won as Kim Sun-woo. The same could be said for him. He pretty much carries this drama (at least internationally he's the reason why most people even know about this drama, let's face it) but it's not the best role he played in his life and I certainly think that he improved in the dramas he starred in later. In Poseidon, his acting was decent but could've been better.
Lee Si-young as Lee Soo-yoon. I pretty much hated her character. Usually female characters in action or crime dramas should be smart and tough but she is so dumb and makes so many dumb decisions that sometimes I ended up sitting here wondering how someone like that was able to become a police officer. The acting might have been okay but I just couldn't stand her character. Simple.
Jung Yun-ho as Kang Eun-chul. Yunho is the other actor pretty much bringing attention to this drama and I did enjoy his acting probablythe most. There is no real issue with his character or acting and I probably liked him the most when watching this drama.
Jang Dong-jik as Kang Joo-min. Ooh, one of the charismatic characters in this drama with a quite dark and mysterious aura but I really did like him in some twisted way. The acting pretty much delivered exactly that, and it was more than a solid performance.
Other actors in this drama include Han Jung-soo, Jung Woon-taek, Jin Hee-kyung, Lee Byung-joon, Son Jung-bum and Park Sung-kwang.

Soundtrack: The whole OST sung by Yang Yo-seob, Jo Kyu-hyun, Lee Hae-ri, Heo Ga-yoon and Navi was pretty much love but the instrumentals made it perfect. I loved the music and can't really say anything else about it.


6.5/10
Yes, this drama was okay but it was dragged quite a bit and certainly failed the topic. It wanted to be a coast gard/marine drama but ended up being the normal police drama one can think about. Once again the main character has a personal story and is obsessed with catching the criminal because he was harmed. And Lee Soo-yoon as a character was more or less unbearable.

If you're a fan of action dramas you can watch this and might enjoy parts of this drama but if you're not that much into this genre you might just dislike this drama.

My Beautiful Bride

아름다운 나의 신부 (My Beautiful Bride) is a South Korean drama series that aired on OCN from June 20th to August 09th 2015.

Story: Kim Do-hyung is a manager for at Singuk Bank and leads an ordinary life until one day his fiancee Yoon Joo-young disappears. At first the police refuses to help him but after noticing who it is about Detective Cha Yoon-mi decides to help finding Joo-young. As events developed, the bank manager and the detective become involved with loan sharks and an organisation known as the "Shadows". Do-hyung is willing to do everything to safe Joo-young - and that means he has to find and destroy the Shadows to create a place that's safe for Joo-young.

Cast: Firstly there's Lee Moo-yeol as Kim Do-hyung and let's just admit that for a bank employee he's kind of an interesting character. The acting after all was on spot in most of the scenes though I think as a character he seemed too cold. The situation in this series is a highly emotional one and therefore it just seemed kind of difficult to understand some parts.
Go Sung-hee as Yoon Joo-young is one of those characters I actually can understand but then again she's not cold enough as a character herself. The acting was nice to watch and well done, especially the emotional struggle in the end.
Lee Si-young as Cha Yoon-mi really got on my nerves at some point. Not because of the acting. It was in fact good enough but that being said I hated how unprofessional they made her. Always acting without a partner/ other detective, blindly trusting Kim Do-hyung who was a suspect at first even though she knows about the "Shadows".
Park Hae-joon as Detective Park Hyung-sik was too obvious. The first time I really noticed his character was in Episode 2 (I don't remember if he appeared in the first episode already since I've watched it two months before caring about the rest of the series) and I was able to figure out what exactly was his role in this. I don't know if it was the acting (which I didn't find too impressive after all) but I just KNEW.
And guess what everyone? I was surprised to see Ryu Seung-soo in this series as Seo Jin Ki! I've seen him in a few different roles already and this one might not have been the best but he's doing well as one of the antagonists as well. I'm slowly becoming a fan of his solely for his acting in various different roles. Well, the character in this one though? One can hate him easily but that usually works for the bad guys, doesn't it?
Others in this drama include Jo Han-chul as Park Tae-gyu who's really important in the end(!) and Lee El as Son Hye-jung who once again is nice to see in a role more likely to be an antagonist.

Soundtrack: At first I was kind of scared the soundtrack would be more like an average OST but in the end it's a nice one. The soundtrack consists of only three songs, and none of them is Korean. I came to love at least two of the songs, "Eclipse" by Patrick Joseph for it's calming sound after all and "Stay" by Steelheart. However, the other song by Elsa Kopf, "Days and Moons" isn't bad either. So it was in fact unexpectedly good.



But even as a fan of OCN, this drama can't get a rating better than 7.0/10.
Yes, I love OCN. They create a strong atmosphere in their dramas. The action scenes are some of the best in Korean dramas. The acting is strong and on spot most of the time.
But that being said, this drama lacked a lot of things. Starting with Detective Cha being probably the most unprofessional detective ever. I know that OCN can portray detectives better and therefore this is a huge no-no.
After some time things became repetitive. "Oh, there she is! Aaaaaand gone again... another chance to get her! Oh, sad life, bro~"
And some things were just too obvious. Starting with Detective Park and ending with the fact that the head of the "Shadows", Chairman Kang, is shown too soon. It's too soon that the viewer finds out what they're doing and I also think that it wasn't hard to figure out what's behing this organisation which basically... ruined the suspense.
And then the weirdest thing I've seen in a drama - he's going that far to get his fiancee back though she basically ran away and tried to make him think she died? Actually I would make a guess and argue that if she wants me to think she died she doesn't want to see me anymore. That might be too simple (this drama shows that it indeed is) but that would be the most logical thing.

(The second gif basically represents me while watching roughly 80% of this series..)