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.

Vampire Prosecutor (Season 2)

Please note that this entry may involve fangirling, ranting and cursing about a TV channel. Don't mind me, it's just me freaking out because of frustration.

뱀파이어 검사 2
(Vampire Prosecutor) is a South Korean drama series that aired on OCN from September 9th to November 18th 2012.

Story: Prosecutor Min Tae-yeon is a vampire using his special abilities to solve crimes and catch the criminals. However, he stumbles upon another vampire in is series that becomes more commonly known as "L" who seems to enjoy playing games. Trying to safe his team consisting of Detective Hwang Soon-bum, Prosecutor Yoo Jung-in and Choi Dong-man, he solves some cases with them but has to deal with the final enemy on his own..

Cast: We see Yeon Jung-hoon again as Prosecutor Min Tae-yeon. His acting is just awesome, I seriously fell for his character but then again the end left me seriously frustrated (I won't say anything else about this). As Yoo Jung-in we see Lee Young-ah and I definitely prefer her in this season. It's just like her character isn't nagging as much as I remember from the first season so that might be the reason. Lee Won-jung appears as Hwang Soon-bum again and after this season I somehow find his character more and more interesting. Sure he doesn't seem to be an incredibly smart detective but then again, with his good instincts, he's an important member of the team. Choi Dong-man was played by Kim Joo-young again and I seriously came to like his character for lightening up the dark atmosphere in this series.
Lee Kyung-young is new in this series as Jo Jung-hyun. And this man.. I don't know what I should think about him. Weird but effective and him not being a part of the team anymore will be a huge loss? Not the most charming or lovable character but his love for Kim Ji-young as Lee Ji-ae is really touching. I think you'd need to watch the series to understand what's behind this but it's adorable how much he's caring for her.
Kwon Hyun-sang appears as "L". So, except for me wondering why there are so many characters named "L" in Asia (is this some nickname based on stereotypical features?), his madness is damn well acted. I loved to hate him. But he seriously had too much time making plans and observing his enemies.
Others in the main cast include Jung Hwan as Park Hoon, Park Jae-hoon as Ra Jae-wook, Yoshitaka Yuriko as Luna (and seeing a Japanese fortune-teller made this series a lot better in my opinion, I loved her character) and Kim Bo-young as Chief Prosecutor Joo Hyun-ah.

Soundtrack: The ending theme is "Danger" by MC Sniper. Now I'm not a huge fan of rap but I came to like the rock and crossover influence in this song. It's not used that much in the drama though and only appears at the end. As for the instrumentals, they worked well - supported the atmosphere. Watching the drama without sound would make most of the scenes less atmospheric.


My personal rating is a 9.5/10. There was one episode (I think it was Ep. 8, Rude Min Tae-yeon) that seriously got on my nerves. Yes, the last five minutes are important. The rest of the episode seems to be a complete joke. I'm not saying that a few scenes that make you smile or laugh are bad but this episode just didn't fit the overall atmosphere at all.
We get some more information on the characters though, and that is actually really well-played by OCN. Since I've heard that they're still talking about a 3rd season (as of January 2015 it might be aired in Summer/Fall 2016) they need to keep people interested. Same with the ending which seriously leaves me frustrated. If they would liked an open ending or a cliff hanger, I think about 2 minutes earlier (right after the explosion - I hope I'm not saying too much about this) would have been better in my honest opinion.

Overall I'd definitely recommend this to people into crime, mystery and some 'hinted-romance' stuff. While it bothers me that the hints become actually really strong in this season (I prefer my crime series without romance at all), others seem to like that a lot.
But if you want to watch a typical vampire-teenage-romance, this is definitely not the right drama for you.
One more thing I have to add: The fights were awesome. Just awesome. Loved it more than anything.

Vampire Prosecutor (Season 1)

뱀파이어 검사  (Vampire Prosecutor) is a Korean drama series that aired from October 2nd to December 18th 2011 on OCN.

I'm not a huge fan of vampires. Like not at all. Personally, I think that since Twilight it's already a good sign if vampires don't sparkle. But then again, thanks to this topic being used over and over again after the hype a certain movie series caused, I just came to think that it's all about popularity and I probably shouldn't watch anything involving vampires anymore except for the good old horror movies.
So how did I end up watching this? Just by reading the first paragraph of this entry, you might be able to notice something. It's an OCN Original series, and that's basically a guarantee for a crime series with 100% quality.
That being said, this entry might include fangirling, ranting and cursing because of a certain love-hate-relationship I've mentioned already like ten times before.

Story: Prosecutor Min Tae-yeon becomes part of a Joint Investigation Unit consisting of detectives and prosecutors. He seems to have worked with Detective Hwang Soon-bum before who's one of the few people who know Tae-yeon's secret: The prosecutor, after being bitten by someone he doesn't know one day, became a vampire and uses his abilities to solve mysterious cases. Soon, he figures out that a serial murder called the 'Vampire case' from years ago was committed by a vampire and while solving some cases with his team, he tries to find the other vampire.

Cast: Yeon Jung-hoon accepted the role of Min Tae-yeon, and to be completely honest, if vampires would be like this - I'm want them to come out, we need them. Speaking all honestly I loved his acting from the first minute to the last. It's as simple as that. Lee Young-ah as Yoo Jung-in is the female member of the team, and she's one of the strong and confident female characters in a drama series that I come to like a lot usually. Lee Won-jung as Hwang Soon-bum is a detective who works well with Min Tae-yeon. After having roughly 25 years of experience, he has seen a lot of things. To be honest, after watching the first season, I still wonder why he knows of Tae-yeon being a vampire and basically no one else does but then again I'll try to be patient and I hope I'll be able to figure that out when watching the second season.
Kim Joo-young joined the cast as Choi Dong-man. Though the use of his character might not be that obvious at first, I found myself thinking that he lightens up the atmosphere with his bright and somewhat funny character.
Jang Hyun-sung can be seen as Chief Prosecutor Jang Chul-oh, and while one cannot understand his intentions at first, I was confused even in the end. But nonetheless, I feel like this role was perfect for him, the whole atmosphere fit well. So either he's just good at playing that kind of characters or he's simply a really really really good actor.
As the bartender Ra Jae-Wook (and yes, I did look this up because I think all we get in the first season is "Mr. La") we seen Park Jae-hoon. Sure he did something bad when he was still a doctor but then again I seriously can't judge him for doing that and as someone who has been helping Tae-yeon all along I really liked this role as well.

Soundtrack: Oh, there was a soundtrack? Okay, okay, joking, I did notice like one song and after looking that up I think it was performed by Lee Jung but that's basically everything. And since it is not used that often, it doesn't get boring. I'd love to listen to the instrumentals played during the action scenes though since especially crime series tend to have a quite interesting and exciting soundtrack.

Conclusion? 9.5/10. The first episodes seemed a little bit chaotic to me but good nonetheless.
But then again I'm a huge fan of crime series and to be completely honest I think the 'vampire'-element wouldn't have been necessary. They could've just used a human who's good at observing as well so I think THAT actually was to get attention for the series. And that's not bad at all, sure they need people to watch a production.

*I never thought that a Korean with bright blue eyes could be that attractive since I usually prefer dark eyes but then again it's perfect.

**One of my favorite scenes, I had to laugh so hard and that smirk is seriously worth to capture.

***Excuse the quality of those screenshots, and yes, it's pretty much not my style but I've been watching a few episodes online due to some technical issues. BUT why am I sharing those screencaps? To be completely honest it's just because.. I went to that place. And my friend and I took a photo using that mirror as well. Forgive me, I was pretty much done seeing those pictures in a drama series now.