Trot Lovers

트로트의 연인 (Trot Lovers) is a South Korean drama series that aired on KBS2 from June 23rd to August 12th 2014. It consits of 16 episodes with average duration of one hour.

Story: Choi Chun-hee is a marathon athlete who caught singer Jang Joon-hyun cheating to win a medal in a competition. As fate kicks in, the two meet again when Joon-hyun gets into a scandal. Meanwhile, Chun-hee's father disappears and leaves her and her sister Byul behind with loan sharks following them around. Joon-hyun gets involved in the trouble and is ordered to be Chun-hee's manager so he can release a comeback album after his scandal while Chun-hee's main reason for agreeing to work together is the fact that she needs money and she hopes to get in contact with her father. She eventually signs with Shine Star Entertainment and meets Jo Geun-woo, the new CEO after his father went on a "holiday" as well as Park Soo-in, Joon-hyun's first love.

Cast: Jung Eun-ji as trot singer Choi Chun-hee gave me life! I'm sad the songs she sang in this drama are not part of an album but they are totally great. Regarding her character I did like the sassy part but the sensitive parts she showcased didn't seem to work well with the beginning of the story. As for the acting I can't really complain, Eun-ji is a good singer but also a good actress in her own way.
Ji Hyun-woo as Jang Joon-hyun seemed a little bit bland to me. The character was a whole new level of jerk even though he did have his sweet moments. I don't think Ji Hyun-woo really suited this character though so I don't quite know what to think about him as an actor after all.
Shin Sung-rok shows a totally different side of his acting skills in this drama as Jo Geun-woo. While I did sincerely enjoy him in his villain-roles the awkward yet sweet President of Shine Star Entertainment was very good and well-portrayed. Even though the behavior of the character seemed a bit too awkward from time to time I think that was part of the writing.
Lee Se-young as Park Soo-in was not really good. It's not that I hated her as a character or anything, it's just that the drama lost all of the energy whenever she appeared which was not good for the pacing nor for the story itself. While she's a pretty woman I think this drama was not made for her - or the other way around. Shin Bo-ra as Na Pil-nyeo seemed to be a much better antagonist in the beginning and her character turned out much better than I thought it would. As a female who has been training for 10 years waiting for her debut the main sentiment at first is jealousy and all her actions portrayed that well. Well, until she met Seol Tae-song played by Son Ho-jun. Seol Tae-song as a character seems kinda clueless but he's not bad, just a kind of confused, cute male side character. I kinda liked the side story between him and Pil-nyeo. As for the acting, it really seemed fine to me.
Other actors in this drama include Jang Won-young, Yoon Bong-kil, Park Hyuk-kwon and Lee Yi-kyung.

Soundtrack: Personally I'm not a huge fan of the OST but as I mentioned above I loved Eun-ji as a trot singer. The problem is just that the songs she sang are not part of the OST even though all of them are awesome, especially the one she sang first, "고추 (Red Pepper)" but as I said it is not part of the OST.


Now this sounded like a solid and fun drama and in the beginning it seemed to be exactly that but turned out that I rated it as 6/10 for reasons.
The positive things that I have to say about this drama only evolve around the cast, acting and the music but that's all.
It started off funny, light-hearted and cheerful but eventually the energy disappeared and was replaced by one K-Drama cliché after another - an evil mother, evil second female lead, poor second male lead, terminal diseases, amnesia, wristgrab, past accidents - this drama literally has everything and it almost made me puke how cliché it is. Just like a poorly written fanfiction in some parts. I was close to dropping this drama after episode 11 but eventually decided against it since I'm still proud I never dropped a drama.
Yes, it eventually got back to the light-hearted and cute atmosphere it had in the beginning but that didn't safe it in the end and I'm glad I finally finished this.
Recommended? Well, if you're a fan of clichés and the typical cheesy love stories in K-Dramaland with an extra portion of famous jerk you might enjoy this. If you don't like that - don't watch this drama or you will end up hating 90% of the characters.

Liar Game

라이어게임 (Liar Game) is a Korean drama series that aired on tvN from October 20th to November 25th 2014. The series itself is based on manga.

! I do not know the manga or the Japanese version of this series so I will write this review without comparing the plot and actors. !

Story: Nam Da-jung, an innocent young woman, is asked to help an elderly woman one day. After that woman disappeared leaving her alone with a bag full of money, Da-jung takes the bag home but her conscience tells her to take the money to the police station the next day though she could pay back her debt. By returning that bag filled with money she gets pulled into a TV show called "Liar Game" hosted by Kang Do-young. Since Da-jung is too innocent to win that game and the 10 Million dollar the final winner will receive, loan shark Jo Dal-goo tells her about a smart guy he met in prison - Professor Ha Woo-jin. Since she desperately needs help, Da-jung starts looking for Woo-jin the day he gets out of prison, and though he doesn't want to help her at first, the two of them become a team. Innocent Da-jung learns about people betraying her and that, in order to win, those who betrayed her need to be punished so she finds a circle of players joining her team. But is it right for her to trust all of those people when in the last round 10 Million dollar can be won? And why of all people was she chosen for the show? Was it a plan to get Ha Woo-jin to participate in the game as well?

Cast: The first character to name is Nam Da-jung played by Kim So-eun. While I really liked Kim So-eun since Boys Over Flowers I still liked her - but not that much in this drama, her acting was alright but her character horrible. While I heard people say she's not innocent enough (compared to the Japanese version, that is - found the statement on Mydramalist.com) I wonder how she could be more innocent and even more DUMB. It's not even naive anymore but sometimes I started wondering whether she was just left out when brains were given out for free. Seriously, the one thing that was horrible in this series was how stupid and naive Nam Da-jung was.
Luckily, the main antagonist Kang Do-young played by Shin Sung-rok was awesome. Talking about the actor, can we please talk about his role in You Who Came From The Stars? He was a great villain in a rather basic rom-com series but this time he was even better, maybe because of the setting. I got scared of him in front of my laptop. Kudo's to Shin Sung-rok for creeping me out though I'm still 8000km away. As a character, I enjoyed watching Kang Do-young and Ha Woo-jin caught up in their battle with Woo-jin protecting Da-jung.
Lee Sang-yoon as Ha Woo-jin is someone I've seen for the first time ever in a drama so I might not be able to tell you much about his other series and that is not necessary either. He had this kind of.. aura around him in this series that made me forget that it's actually a K-drama and as I stated above, I loved watching him and Shin Sung-rok in a dangerous battle. While I feel his acting itself was pretty good the combination of two main characters with incredibly charismatic actors made it perfect.
Of course there is a great number of actors involved mainly because of the number of participants as well as the people involved in the production of the show "Liar Game". For example we have Cha Soo-yeon as Lee Yoon-joo who is responsible for the program. At first everything's about the rating for her but she changes and suddenly finds her self under pressure to safe the TV station JVN. Choi Jin-ho as Director Jang is responsible for the pressure and he tends to manipulate what's going on to keep the show interesting.
Among the participants are Lee Si-hoo as Choi Sung-joon, Jang Seung-jo as Kim Bong-geun, Jo Jae-yun as Jo Dal-goo, Lee Cheol-min as Bulldog, Park Jae-hoon as actor Goo In-gi and Lee El as Oh Jung-ah or Jaimie, a character I never thought I would come to like as the series progresses.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack for this series wasn't too special. As far as I remember there was only Dear Cloud's "Liar" that really caught my attention and that is not much but at least that song even made it up to my list of my personal favorite OST songs of all time. But since this drama is filled with suspense I would've wished for something slightly more mysterious. I don't know if you get what I mean but bands like Nell or Hlin would've completed that soundtrack perfectly..

Overall I did enjoy this series a lot but it still only gets a 9/10 for mainly two reasons. I was really bothered by Nam Da-jung's stupid and naive behavior and I just cannot look past that fact. The other reason is indeed the soundtrack. I explained it before in the post regarding my favorite soundtracks I think and the OST can in fact save a series - or kind of destroy it. Now the music did not destroy this but it's a minus for me.
There's only a hint of romance in this series - if you want to see it like that so I think you can very well ignore it if you don't like it.
Some people said that certain aspects of the games were hard to understand without knowing the Japanese version - but I do not agree with this. Yes, I sometimes needed to rewatch a scene because I didn't really get the explanation but as soon as examples were shown it made sense.

As far as I've heard many fans of the Japanese version didn't like the Korean version and that's okay but standing for itself the series is definitely worth watching. It's interesting, suspenseful and will keep you excited if you like this kind of series.

I'll just leave you wiht some gifs you will understand after watching the series - the last one was one of my favorite scenes in the whole 12 episodes.

You Who Came From The Stars

별에서 온 그대 (You Who Came From The Stars/ My Love From Another Star) is a Korean drama series that aired on SBS from December 18th 2013 to February 27th 2014. The drama consists of 21 episodes, a special episode was aired on February 7th 2014 as well.

Story: Do Min-joon is an alien who came to Earth 400 years ago. In the past he experienced that his extraordinary abilities can cause him a lot of trouble so he's trying to stay on his own without getting involved with humans too much.
Actress Cheon Song-yi ends up in his class in university and by chance also moves into the apartment next to his so the two of them get to meet often. Since Cheon Song-yi is the reincarnation of a girl Do Min-joon used to know he tries to protect her as good as possible and therefore has trouble hiding his true identity..

Cast: Kim Soo-hyun accepted the role of the cold-hearted alien Do Min-joon. What can I say? He's good and he knows that.. now I really want an alien invasion because come on, those abilities are like super cool, plus, his body isn't getting older. At least in the drama. Jeon Ji-hyun can be seen as Cheon Song-yi. She's pretty, and the role of an arrogant top star is definitely made for her, it was indeed realistic. Her acting therefore is great! Park Hae-jin as Lee Hee-kyung is the heir of a company and has been in love with Song-yi for ages. He actually does a really nice job as well seeming like a lovesick fool from time to time but he's cute the way he is. Yoo Se-mi played by Yoo In-na has been Song-Yi's best friend for a long time and she has been in love with Hee-kyung for a long time as well. So in this drama we have a love triangle that's more complicated than the usual triangles are.
But every drama with more than 10 episodes needs a crime story in the background, right? What makes it more complicated in this drama is, that the people involved are siblings of some of the main characters - or close friends.
Lee Jae-kyung, Lee Hee-young's older brother, played be Shin Sung-rok is involved in the whole thing as well and finds himself in a conflict with Do Min-joon because of it (a war he obviously can't win if you ask me). On the other side is Oh Sang-jin as prosecutor Yoo Seok, Yoo Se-mi's older brother.
As you might see by reading this cast/character part the relations between the characters are way more complicated than they seem to be. All of the actors were amazing though so the cast is a huge plus for this drama, I just feel like a correlation chart would take about half of my wall because there are so many characters and they all are somewhere connected to almost everyone else..

Soundtrack: The soundtrack is love, okay?
It's just the typical effect for me - the most played song in the drama which happens to be "My Destiny" by Lyn happened to get on my nerves like nothing else after some time. Personally, I'm in love with the two songs performed by Kim Soo-hyun himself, "너의 집 앞 (In Front of Your House)" and "약속 (Promise)". But sure with vocalists like Huh Gak, K.Will and Hyorin singing songs for the soundtrack it can't be that bad.

So at the end of the day the drama is good. Yes, it's a basic and romance-comedy drama and it's definitely worth watching it. But my personal rating is 8.5/10 though. Yes, I like it but I don't get the hype about this. Someone please tell me why like everyone said it was soooo amazing and definitely the most amazing drama ever and so on and so forth. I can only guess that it's like this because of Kim Soo-hyun and Park Hae-jin (they both make fangirl hearts flutter) and Jeon Ji-hyun and Yoo In-na for the fanboys (they ARE pretty, omg..)

What made this drama as successful as it was? I'm really curious but we'll probably never know.