Orange Marmalade

오렌지 마말레이드 (Orange Marmalade) is a South Korean drama series based on a webtoon that aired from May 15th to July 24th 2015 on KBS2.

Story: In a fictional world, vampires and humans coexist in the same society. However, vampires are still discriminated against so they have to hide their true identity. Baek Ma-ri is a high school student who had to move with her family after being found out a few times already. After moving again, she becomes more careful so she won't need to transfer to another school again. In school she meets Jung Jae-min who hates vampires because of past events involving his mother. Jo Ah-ra who has a crush on Jae-min creates some difficult situations for Ma-ri while she's getting closer to Jae-min. Shortly after that, Han Shi-hoo transfers to the same school. Since he remembers Ma-ri from his childhood, he recognizes her in a tough situation and decides to help her out a few more times.

Cast: The cast and the acting in general is okay. Yeo Jin-goo did a good job as Jung Jae-min though I felt like sometimes he was too cold - something was missing in his expression. Kim Seol-hyun in general did have similar issues as Baek Ma-ri. She seemed too stiff but overall her performance in this drama was okay, nothing especially good or bad either.
Lee Jong-hyun as Han Shi-hoo simply delivered. Now I am not biased but I liked his acting and I liked his character - probably these factors are basically the same but I'm not really sure how to describe it. When the first highschool part ended, I was frustrated because I just thought they couldn't do that to him. Jo Ah-ra played by Gil Eun-hye was someone on the other hand I hated at first but came to like during the "past events" part. Her character in itself was understandable but the change from liking one person to just accepting without doing anything was faster than I expected but then again that's what I liked about her.
A rather unknown actress, but I loved Oh Kyung-min as Choi Soo-ri in this series. Sure she did have some of her insecure moments but she's definitely an actress I should look out for.
Lastly, I need to mention Song Jong-ho as teacher Han Yoon-jae and Lee Il-hwa as Kang Min-ha. While I personally liked Han Yoon-jae more that might be because he was in more scenes - a caring teacher always trying to support his students. Kang Min-ha, Jae-min's mother, was a respectable person, too. She didn't try to force her son into seeing her. She just accepted his wishes though it was obvious how glad she was when he finally met her again.

OST: There were basically two songs included in the soundtrack I sincerely loved and still love. One of them is "끌리는 여자 (Attracted Woman)" by Monsta X's Kihyun and Jooheon. It's a beautiful and light song that captured the atmosphere in quite a few of the scenes, not some overly dramatic sad love song. And then there's Hwanhee's "아프다 (Heartbreaking)", the kind of rather sad but beautiful songs performed by a great vocalist.

In total this drama received a 7/10 rating from me. The first few episodes were okay, the parts playing in back in the Joseon Dynasty were awesome (I loved that, they could've turned that into another drama..) and the last high school part was also nice but nothing too special. The ending was a rather open one but did not leave too many questions. It's something short and fun to watch and plays with tropes while I did see some critical ideas in this drama as well. (E.g. bullying someone because he/she is different.)
Something short, light and nice to enjoy between melodramas I'd say~.