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Before I get into the nitty gritty of it all and start name dropping some Kdramas, here is a little fyi for all of you. The purpose of today’s post ain’t gonna be to go picking out the 5 bestest dramas ever or even the ones I think will last the test of time for that matter. Instead what I’ll be trying to do is to keep things real basic and pick from the recent dramas that have stuck in my mind the most after watching them. Although I will admit with a couple caveats thrown in for good measure.

Since I be will limiting my picks within ones you could find on dramafever and more importantly for free on there too. That’s because I thought I’d be cool for this to serve a second purpose as well. To have this be an easy starting off point for any people who may stumble on this but who may have never watched a Kdrama in their life before. And to make it even super easier for you I will also be linking to each of these. So if something catches your attention click on it and you can start watching immediately!

Now on wards my fellow peeps! 😀

#5 Let’s Fight Ghost

Ok this makes sense to start with because if you haven’t noticed Halloween is literally around the corner being only a few days away. And yeah as the title suggests, this does have people fighting Ghosts in it! Ok maybe more like one person and his female ghost companion. Isn’t it sounding interesting already? 🙂 The only thing is don’t expect a fright fest going in because aside from maybe an occasional scare here and there, this is surprisingly cute and indeed very much funny.

That’s cuz this is a romance drama(like a lot of these will be to a degree) centered around around Bong Bal an exorcist and Hyun Ji who is a dead high school girl. An interesting pair if I may say, who really make the drama worthwhile because the two have a great chemistry and an overall unusual dynamic. You see unlike what you might expect based on the character descriptions Bong Pal is no badass. He may be an exorcist but the only types of ghosts he goes after are the weakest among them…. because well who would be crazy enough to do otherwise! 😛 Meanwhile the high school girl is your true badass of the two since I mean what does she have to loose…she’s DEAD already right? lol

But for as interesting as all that shizz may already sound, I thinks it’s the more chill slice of life kind of vibe from it that shines through the most. The drama focuses on a lot on their day to day and aside from helping with their character development it also helps flesh out the world and it’s rules. Specially since the ghost girl gets to move in with the male lead early on. Making it possible for many cute, sweet, steamy, and awkward type moments to arise from the get go. Oh and there is a surprising amount of skinship between the two thanks to that. I swear if I could rank all the human-ghost relationships I’ve ever seen on screen, this would be up there.

BTW here is a scene of the second time our leads meet each other. I think it speaks volumes about their characters.

#4 Twenty Again

Moving on we now get to this little gem. I actually have reviewed it before so if you want something more in depth you can click here. Otherwise all you pretty much need to know is that it’s a coming of age tale. Except with a little bit of an interesting spin given. That’s that your female lead who is on a newfound journey of self discovery is already a middle aged woman with a husband and kid. 😮

I’m pretty sure that alone sets it apart from most dramas you are gonna find. Mostly due to most type of “coming of age tales” usually focusing on 15-25yr olds. But anyways if that wasn’t enough there’s even more to this story to hook you. As were her life picks up in the drama things aren’t going so good. She has a son who doesn’t respect her and a husband who wants a divorce. Why a divorce? Cuz he says she doesn’t match him on an intellectual level and thus things have gotten boring between them.

And does a comment like that hurt, you betcha. However feeling she has invested too much time in her man and family to give up she decides to enroll back into college! Thinking if she can make it through, then she can have her son respect her again and be able to win back her husband. But this is Kdrama land so stuff doesn’t happen so easily and things only get trickier when a guy who use to like her shows up as one of her teachers at the college. Who will she pick in the end? Watch to find out.

But hey if you get turned off thinking this is solely about a woman who only does everything for the sake of her crappy husband, don’t worry about that and stick through. A main part of the drama is about self reflection like I said and one aspect is looking back at that and growing/changing going forward. So this ultimately has good life lessons and is inspirational as it shows it’s never too late to take control of your life. 😀

I mean just check out it’s intro. Does it look like the intro for a depressing show? I don’t think so.

 

#3 Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo

Which moves us right along to this next fluffy piece and when I say fluffy I mean it. It doesn’t get any more smile inducing than Bok-joo and Joon-hyung.  I would recommend this one for all the peeps out there who enjoy slow burn romances. And by slow burn I mean seeing characters organically go through all the phases before officially becoming “gf-bf” That to me was this drama’s greatest strength because the characters always did a fantastic job of keeping you in the moment and never having you worry about predicting which episode they would finally hook up in.

Instead it was able to get you invested in their every day problems and how they could step up to help each other out when most needed. By working to build a solid friendship first and foremost and to me I like relationships that come from that the best. Because it just makes sense to me to fall for someone you have slowly learned to trust over time as opposed to love at first sight type stories.

But to get a first hand look at just how heart warming this is, how about I share with you the ost MV that put this drama on my radar. Maybe there are a couple spoilery things in it but it was what convinced me to check it out and it may do the same for you. I think the biggest things you will notice from watching it is how real the two main characters feel even from only a 3 minute video. Everything from the clumsiness, to how they get a long, to how they tease each other, feels real to how people in actual life would react. And I think it’s this relatability that gives it a whole other layer to appreciate.

 

#2 The K2

Then next up is The K2. Which truthfully I had gone into blind. I knew nothing other than the poster I had seen for it and that Yoona from the girl group Girl’s Generation was the female lead. And boy was I in for quite a shock when i gave it a try. It was captivating from the very first episode.

For starters the stunt work and fight choreography was top notch. Specially for a Kdrama, I remember thinking it was more along the lines of movie quality. Because most I had seen prior was shaky cam, too many edits, like hits weren’t connecting, etc. Here it was the complete opposite and it was intense.

Then added on top of it all you had good performances all around. Ji Chang-wook played the heroic and stoic role perfectly and Yoona made for a good pairing with him. And both their romance scenes made for a nice break from the intensity of the plot. It has a lot of story and characters and can get melodrama-y fast but its worth it. This also had one of my fave female villains in awhile. She was so good at being bad and was so matter a fact about it, it made me wanna see more of her because her charisma was next level.

Here is a scene to showcase the action. Truly a melodrama-action series that needs to be watched.

 

#1 Kill Me, Heal Me

Lastly I haaad to put this special drama on the list if only for Ji Sung’s performance or should I say performances. Since the dude in this drama had the scary task of portraying 7 different characters. Why? Cuz he plays the part of a guy who has to deal with  dissociative identity disorder caused from a childhood trauma.

And I can’t begin to tell you how much joy there is to be had in watching his different personas all interact with other people. Specially with his love interest because it makes for a rare on screen dynamic. Like I’m sure you would be hard pressed to name a handful of dramas that have tackled that sorta romance right? And plus the actor did such an amazing job that he even got a big time award for it… so there’s that too.

Now I will say that it may be a little weird to get into at first because it is somewhat over the top. And yeah clearly some liberties are taken with regards to the dissorder but you also have to keep in mind this is more of a comedy than not, so it is expected. With that said by episode 2 I think you will be on board because once you get into the groove of things, it’s hard to not wanna binge.

P.S. Here is a scene showing what is probs his most out there personality. If you can accept this one scene then you will probs be down for the whole drama. Haha

 

Welp there you have it. Hope to make more of these type of lists every once and a while. Maybe next time it won’t be so romance centric. In the meantime was there anything that got your attention? Or maybe you’ve watched some of these already? Don’t be a stranger and share your thoughts with me. ^___^