Discovery of Romance

연애의 발견 (Discovery of Romance) is a South Korean rom-com drama that was aired from August 18th to October 7th 2014 on KBS2. The 16 episodes have an average duration of 60 minutes.

Story: Han Yeo-reum is in love with her boyfriend of more than 1 year, Nam Ha-jin, who works as a plastic surgeon. However, as she catches her boyfriend going on a blind date arranged by his mom, she eventually meets her ex-boyfriend and owner of a construction company, Kang Tae-ha, and their phones get exchanged. The day after the meeting, Yeo-reum calls her phone while she is drunk and ends up spending the night at her ex-boyfriend's house. Of course she ends up getting caught and her best friend Yoon Sol as well as their roommate Do Joon-ho, who is a close friend of Ha-jin, try to help her out. But suddenly the small woodcraft company Sol and Yeo-reum own together has to work with Tae-ha's construction company so of course they run into each other quite often.
This story is something I personally haven't seen often in K-Dramas yet but I'm pretty sure I have a bunch of stories with the "second chance for the first love"-story line on my list of dramas I still intend to watch. Now was this drama refreshing? Yes and no. I did enjoy the interviews even though it was a little bit awkward at first. But the actual story is not the most unique nor exciting one I've ever seen. I would personally say that this drama is a light, quick watch (I finished it within two days but I'm currently on a drama marathon anyways).

Cast: Jung Yoo-mi as Han Yeo-reum. I was totally surprised to see her in this drama to be honest because she looks totally different on the posters. I still don't know how I should rate her as an actress for sure but her acting wasn't bad. The main problem was that she seemed to be sad or annoyed most of the time. Maybe that's a trait that the writer gave to the character though but it doesn't make it really easy to watch her in this drama.
Eric Moon as Kang Tae-ha. I don't know why but most of the time I found Tae-ha to be a very funny character that was portrayed well. I can't really say anything about Eric's acting that bothered me, he did a good job.
Sung Joon as Nam Ha-jin. I know I've actually watched quite a few dramas with Sung Joon, thank you very much to anyone who wanted to point that out. It's an accident he usually acts in dramas I want to watch sooner or later and I can guarantee that more of his dramas will be on this blog. I really think he is an amazing actor as I liked him in almost all roles I've seen him in so far and this one is no exception, I totally adored his character and his acting. I don't think I need to explain exactly what I mean.
Yoon Hyun-min as Do Joon-ho. I really enjoyed Yoon Hyun-min's acting. Do Joon-ho is a lovable idiot and sometimes his behavior made me facepalm but after all it's adorable even though he also has a serious side when he tries to protect the relationship between Yeo-reum and Ha-jin. The acting was good enough to make me believe almost every line so it's all good and I'm looking forward to seeing him in the future.
Kim Seul-gi as Yoon Sol. Kim Seul-gi also is definitely a good actress that can take over different roles but usually her characters seem to be a little bit grumpy and moody. Sol is no exception, she's picky and gets drunk often. The only thing that bothered me in the long run to be very honest was her voice, I don't know why. However, I think she also did a good job in this drama.
Yoon Jin-yi as An Ah-rim. She seems to be the nice girl living next door. The acting was fair enough but something just didn't work for me. I don't know what exactly it was but something literally bothered me about her acting in general. While she was still not bad I do believe it could've been better.
Other actors in this drama include Lee Seung-joon, Kim Hye-ok, Gu Won and Sung Byung-sook-

Soundtrack: I think the soundtrack, the artists and the titles were well chosen. I can't really point out a song that fit the drama more than the others but I do have to admit that "어린애처럼 (Like A Child)" by Shinhwa's Shin Hye-sung (신혜성) really hit me in that moment and had me sitting straight up. I absolutely love Hye-sung's voice so I had to put this here.


6.5/10
As I mentioned before this is a light watch in between, something romantic and fun but it does have some weaknesses mainly in the story. There are hardly any memorable scenes so I don't really know what I should do or say about this specifically. The story itself is not totally bad but I found my thoughts wandering off many times because it wasn't as catchy as other dramas can be. It is still not bad.
Recommended to those who like romantic comedy dramas that are not too long and who might be interested in the emotional struggle between past and current love.

Second-Female-Lead-Syndrome

After following the Second-Male-Lead-Syndrome - we cannot forget about their female counterparts. We could actually summarize it as the Second-Lead-Syndrome but both have different effects.

Let's be honest, in most dramas the second female leads belong to a not-so-positive category. It's not only that they're trying to manipulate everything and anyone for their personal benefits - most of them are pretty annoying as well and sometimes I just reach the point when I want to beat them up because they are seriously pissing me off. But I admit that they usually are really beautiful women - that's why they're not used to being rejected.
Sure there are some good second female leads, sometimes this manipulative type of character is represented by the mother of the male lead, or maybe someone else who's related to the male lead or female lead in any way.

Who were the most annoying Second-Female-Lead-Syndrome characters then?

The first one that appears in my list is Ok Joo-hyun in The Musical". Yes, at some point her character was pitiful but still one of the most annoying female characters I've ever seen in a Korean drama.

Now we have Kim Yoo-ri in The Master's Sun. In the end she's not that bad though she is annoying throughout the story, yes, but she's not one of the typical characters falling into the category of this syndrome.

However, NOW we have the personification of this syndrome! I think I've never, never, never hated a female character as much as I did hate Jung Yoo-mi in Rooftop Prince. There wasn't even one time when I was freaking out because of a second female lead this much. But what should I say.. People always get what they deserve. So does Hong Se-na. Yes, karma is a bitch.

Another female character that seriously made me freak out.. I don't even know what to say about such a malicious person. Park Soo-jin was seriously getting on my nerves in Flower Boy Next Door. She wasn't trying to get involved with the male lead, that's the only thing she did right, but her character was still one of the most annoying ones I remember.

The next one is Yoo In-na in You Who Came From The Stars. I somehow couldn't dislike her that much though because in fact I do understand her frustration after years of hard work. However, back-stabbing someone who thought of you as their best friend for years definitely isn't the right thing to do.

Of course there are more female characters that fit into this category. But compared to the male leads these manipulative characters are sometimes taken by others as well. We still have to mention Choi Ji-woo in Winter Sonata and Han Chae-ah in All About My Romance.

Sure I know that those actresses might be completely different in real life but somehow they tend to get on my nerves just when I see them in a drama again. However, when they're characters are okay in the next drama, I'm usually able to forgive them.

Rooftop Prince

옥탑방 왕세자 (Rooftop Prince) is a Korean drama series that aired from March 21st to May 24th 2012 on SBS and consists of 20 episodes.

Story: After the Crown Prince Lee Gak's wife dies in 18th Century Joseon he tries to find out who killed his wife and finds himself transported 300 years into the future, in 21st Century Seoul together with the three members of his investigation team.
Landing in the rooftop apartment of Park Ha the chaos starts. Somehow she believes the quartets story and becomes their guardian as well as their teacher on living in the 21st Century with all those modern technologies. Lee Gak meets Park Ha's stepsister and believes that she is the reincarnation of his wife. He takes on the identity of his reincarnation Yong Tae-yong and tries to figure out what happened to the real Yong Tae-yong (whom he thinks got murdered because the reincarnation can't exist in the same time as he does) while solving the murder that happened 300 years ago.

Cast: The four time travelers are Crown Prince Lee Gak played by Park Yoo-chun, Lee Min-ho (born in 1993, not to be confused with the other, more popular actor Lee Min-ho) accepted the role of the incredibly smart Song Man-bo, the sword fighter Woo Yong-sool was played by Jung Suk-won and we see Choi Woo-sik as Do Chi-san who becomes a really good friend to Park Ha. Surely those four overact a little in the beginning but regarding the fact that they've never heard about a shower since that didn't exist in the Joseon Dynasty I think those reactions are quite understandable so I think they were the right ones to do the job. And I have to mention that this extremely.. gay character (excuse me, I lack words to describe this.. maybe swishy would be an option?) Choi Woo-sik accepted was hilarious. I'm not even surprised some people think the actor is gay as well (and it wouldn't be bad if he was).
Park Ha as well as her past character Boo-yong were played by Han Ji-min and I really felt like she accepted the story she was told too fast. Imagine four strangers in historical clothing appear in your apartment and tell you they come from the same place but time travelled. But that's the writer's fault, not her's, and I really like her family-oriented behavior. It seems completely true, and no matter how much her stepsister Se-na tries to get rid of her and how bad the things are Se-na says - Park Ha forgives her all the time and tries to become closer to her sister. Talking about Hong Se-na already - we have Jung Yoo-mi in that role that once again falls under the category bitchy-second-female-lead. As well as her past-self Hwa-yong who was Boo-yong's real sister.
And because every Korean drama needs a bad guy we have Lee Tae-sung as Yong Tae-moo and Lee Gak's cousin Prince Moo-chang. He's probably the character many people dislike for his motives and his personality. I agree with them. But Lee Tae-sung did an incredibly good job, I think I'll have trouble thinking about him as a good guy (if I manage to watch a drama with him in a 'good guy'-role).

Soundtrack: Talking about the OST the first thing I need to talk about is Vol. 1. I really like the fact that there are various instrumental parts that work for both, the historical part as well as the modern era-parts. And since I'm a huge fan of instrumentals used in OST's I'm definitely happy about that. But then I was a little annoyed by the songs Baek Ji-young and ALi sang for the drama. I like both of them as singers but I couldn't really connect it with the drama.
Another OST was released in late April and I have to admit that I don't remember anything - I've read that rookie group Twilight recorded a song for the second OST but don't remember the song at all (and I don't think the group still exists though, they disappeared in 2012 already). Besides for hearing their group name, I don't think there are any other artists included in the second OST that most people are familiar with. Because it is Korea and most singers are trained for years I think they can sing, yes, but that's all I can say.

My personal rating is 9/10. I'm not a huge fan of sad endings nor of supernatural things like time travelling but this one made me laugh so hard that I had to watch some scenes around four times so I could stop laughing and actually noticed what happened. It's hilarious, especially the expressions shown by the time travelling characters.