Secert Love

시크릿 러브 (Secret Love) is a South Korean drama series that aired on Dramacube network from June 13th to July 11th 2014. The series consists of 5 episodes telling different stories. It is also known as KARA's Secret Love because a member of Kara starring in each of the episodes.

Story:
1. Min Ji-hye is a model who lost her longterm boyfriend Jang Hyun-jin because of a car accident. In a bar she gets offered to travel to the past and stop them from meeting to save Hyun-jin. However, the price she has to pay for changing the past is high: She has to give up all of her memories involving Hyun-jin.
2. Lee Hyun-jung is diagnosed with cancer and the doctor tells her she only has three to six months left to live. She writes a bucket list and starts to do what she really wants to do before her time has come. One day she meets Yoon Joon-moon who's currently a soldier and has three months left until his discharge. When he finds out that Hyun-jung will probably die he decides to help her fulfill her wishes.
3. Park So-yeol collapses on a highschool festival one day and is brought to the hospital. There she meets Hyun-joon, a man who's a lot older than her. But the two of them start going on short trips together and So-yeol finds herself becoming attracted to a man only she can hear and see...
4. Melly/Mary Jung comes back to Korea after hearing that her birth father died. While she never met him as far as she knows, she has to solve a puzzle in order to receive the money he left behind. The only hint she got is Tae-yang, a boy she has been playing with when she spent one week in Korea years ago.
5. Park Sun-woo is helplessly in love with her senior Woo-bin but got turned down for four years. After graduating from university she starts working for the same company. One night she makes an earnest wish that she'll end up with Woo-bin. Her guardian angel Chun Sa-nam has to help her and can only return to heaven when her wish came true.
All of the stories are completely different and, as far as I know, written by different writers, too. What bothered me the most, though, is in fact, that cancer played a huge part in two of five stories, while another deadly disease is mentioned in another episode. Now if someone really has seen people deal with those diseases or lost beloved ones.. I don't like how often they used this without considering that the repeated use might hurt people a lot.

Cast: 1. Han Seung-yeon as Min Ji-hye did a far better job in this series compared to Her Lovely Heels. I liked her acting overall, in some scenes I still thought she seemed to be a little cold but she has improved her acting. Yeon Woo-jin as Jang Hyun-jin was excellent in this series, I really enjoyed his acting and the end of this series almost made me cry because of him.
2. Goo Ha-ra as Lee Hyun-jung was a lot better than I expected her to be. I somehow found her acting a little bit too much from time to time as well but since it was my first time seeing her in a series I think it was a solid performance. Kim Young-kwang as Yoon Joon-moon was good as well but his character changed within five minutes completely. Sure that's because they lacked time but it could've been portrayed better.
3. Kang Ji-young as Park So-yeol simply delivered. I was impressed with her acting, especially in the end. There's nothing I can really criticize about her. Bae Soo-bin as Hyun-joon was a good counterpart and his acting especially when he finally learns the truth was simply awesome.
4. Nicole Jung as Melly/Mary Jung was pretty much alright. I can understand her feelings towards the father she never had but then again in the end she took the shocking message who her father was and why he died to lightly though. Humans are different but I would've imagined something more emotional, especially since she seems to have quite a temper. Lee Kwang-soo as Tae-yang is a chaotic personality in need of money. He seemed goofy but has a serious side to him as well that was kind of interesting to watch.
5. Park Gyu-ri as Park Sun-woo is probably one of the characters I really disliked at first but came to like in the end and her acting was good. She might be one of the few female idols I like to see in K-Dramas. Ji Chang-wook as Chun Sa-nam or Guardian Angel No. 2013 (this sounds so weird though) did a great job. Especially when complaining about humans and scolding Sun-woo.


Rating this series as a whole is rather difficult to me so I somehow calculated an average that happened to be 7.5/10. There are some things I feel I need to mention.
Some things (for example the disease-topic) became repetitve. Of course the writers just used topics that are typical for K-Drama but it's actually annyoing to see how often it's used.
Even if episode 3 deals with this topic, it managed to be memorable and is my favorite episode of this series.
Episode 5 was probably the most interesting one for me since I loved the angel-part of that. I sincerely hope for a longer series probably dealing with the topic of guardian angels or fallen angels since aliens and vampires already were a topic in K-Drama.
Why didn't I mention the soundtrack? Well, it didn't do much for me in this series and I felt like there were loads of different songs involved so I decided to just leave it be.

And I just HAVE to mention how much I loved the settings in Ep. 1, 4 and 5. Those pictures shown are really beautiful.

How would I rank the episodes based on my personal preference?
1. Kang Ji-young/ Bae Soo-bin - Ep.3
2. Park Gyu-ri/ Ji Chang-wook - Ep. 5
3. Han Seung-yeon/ Yeon Woo-jin - Ep. 1
4. Nicole Jung/ Lee Kwang-soo - Ep. 4
5. Goo Ha-ra/ Kim Young-kwang - Ep.2

Marriage, not Dating

연애 말고 결혼 (Marriage, not Dating) is a South Korean drama series that was aired from July 4th to August 23rd 2014 on tvN.

Usually I tend to write about my thoughts at the end of an entry but this time I need to tell you what I honestly think in a really short summary:

This drama shows Korean romance-comedy at its finest.

Story: Joo Jang-mi has been dating Lee Hoon-dong for a while and wants to propose to him. However, Hoon-dong doesn't even think about it and asks his friend Gong Gi-tae who happens to be in the same hotel to help him out.
Gong Gi-tae is a bachelor who doesn't even think about getting married but his family sends him on blind dates often to make him marry a girl.
After Jang-mi is heartbroken because of Hoon-dong breaking up with her after playing around, he decides to help her with revenge but the deal is that she becomes his fake-fiancee so his family would stop making him go on blind dates. Knowing that his family wouldn't accept Jang-mi, Gi-tae hopes that his family would rather see him staying alone forever than marrying someone like Jang-mi.
But because of Jang-mi's revenge Hoon-dong shows interest in her again, as well as his employee Han Yeo-reum while Gi-tae's ex-fiancee Kang Se-ah keeps being around.

Cast: To be completely honest I think I've seen most of the actors for the first time in this drama. For example Yeon Woo-jin as Gong Gi-tae. He doesn't understand women and openly admits to that at one point. And at some point it is also explained why he prefers staying single. I think Yeon Woo-jin's acting was just very well done and I'll happily watch other dramas with him again. As Joo Jang-mi we see Han Groo. I did not she was active as a singer so I think I've heard about her back in 2012 for the first time but I didn't know she was acting as well. I shouldn't be surprised anyways. In this drama, she's a professional trouble maker you just need to love at some point. And actually she's pitiful. Being in a similar position with my parents I understand her quite well. I could connect with her character at some point. And that's definitely a good point, she deserves a lot of attention for her role in this drama.
Jeong Jin-woon of 2AM is in this drama as well as Han Yeo-reum. Despite for me loving his name (that could also translate to "One Summer") he seems to be the perfect man. He's caring, has a nice smile, knows how to cook and would save Jang-mi whenever he's around. But maybe, just maybe, that's why he ends up in the friendzone. However, he's not a typical pitiful second male lead! He accepts the fact that life goes on though he's hurt at first.
Han Sun-hwa of Secret accepted the role of Kang Se-ah. At first I was willing to accept her. Then I hated her. And in the end, I actually came to like her. The way her character developed was actually good to watch though I really thought the writer went a bit too far giving her the typical Second-Female-Lead characteristics. Sun-hwa is a beautiful woman, nonetheless, and her acting just fit the role, I can't really complain about her acting.
Others in the main cast include Heo Jeong-min as Lee Hoon-dong, Yoon So-hee as Nam Hyun-hee, Lim Ye-jin as Na So-nyeo, Park Jun-gyu as Joo Gyung-pyo and Kim Hae-sook as Shin Bong-hyang. But to be completely honest, there are too many actors involved in this series to even consider mentioning all of them.

Soundtrack: Let me talk about the sound effects first. I seriously loved the way they used. Be it dogs, cats, Kakao Talk alarm ringtones - it was just to funny! Especially when Jang-mi and Gi-tae were fighting.
The soundtrack is nice so far. There are some songs that just make you feel like it's a summer drama (which it indeed is) like Mamamoo's "Love Lane". And there are some wonderful ballads like Son Ho-young and Danny Ahn's "하루만 (Just One Day)". Both songs would be included if I'd ever rank my favorite OST tracks.


At the end of the day, the rating is rather untypical. It's a 10/10, definitely.
Unlike many other dramas, this is not the typical romance-comedy series. Sure, the story isn't the most unique but starting with the setting and ending with the sound effects this drama managed to capture my attention all the way through. And it manages to be cute and funny until the very end. Even the last ten minutes of the last episodes were awesome enough.
What I really enjoyed was the structure of the episodes. In the very beginning, you see an event happening and feel like you've missed an episode or something. How this scene was created - well, that's shown within the episode. And since some of those scenes they used to open the episodes just seemed completely different from the atmosphere you've seen before, you'll want to know what in the world happened.

Much love for this drama. For being different, for being funny, for being cute, with only a few really sad and melodramatic moments!

And a little bonus of Han Yeo-reum and Lee Hoon-dong (or Jinwoon and Heo Jeong-min) bromance. This scene made me laugh harder than I should have.

LOOK AT THIS EXPRESSION! PRICELESS!