Top 15 Dramas
Or check out the Short and Sweet Version- just the list, nothing else
DISCLAIMER: I've seen approximately 60 complete dramas in my drama-watching career, so of course there's many I haven't watched yet, particularly older ones. Also, my taste runs toward trendy dramas and angsty rom-coms -I've seen a grand total of two sageuks and one was a fusion and the other a fantasy(Hong Gil Dong and The Legend), so keep that in mind as you read this list. Also, in order to ensure that this list really is a list of personal favorites and I don't put dramas on here just because I know they're technically better, I've made a separate list for the Best Dramas I've Seen. The first half of it overlaps with this list but the second is different.
1) Mars (Taiwanese)
Synopsis: Han Qi Luo(Barbie Hsu), an introverted art student, and Chen Ling(Vic Zhou), a popular playboy, attend the same college. One day, meeting by chance, Ling asks her for directions to the nearby hospital. Qi Luo draws him a map on the back of one of her sketches and gives it to him, then runs off. Finding the sketch later, Ling is unexpectedly drawn to it…and so begins one of drama’s great love stories.
My take: Mars may not be the drama by which I judge all other dramas, as it’s in a genre all its own, but it would certainly be extremely extremely difficult for another drama to topple this one out of the #1 place it’s held for 2+ years. I think it was the 5th drama I ever watched, directly after finishing Coffee Prince, and the 2nd Taiwanese(after Meteor Garden). And it single-handedly set up two of my greatest drama-related passions: Vic Zhou and Taiwanese dramas. From the moment that the seemingly heartless playboy walks in on Barbie Hsu being harassed and under cover of casual conversation lets a dark, dangerous side of him show, frightening the harasser so much that he runs away, I fell fast, hard, and deeply, and have never recovered since. Mars has my heart. Often dark, it never pulls its punches, yet it’s got this lovely light romantic feel to it too, as well as an incredible emotional depth and psychological complexity. The acting is superb; both Vic Zhou and Barbie Hsu not only completely and seamlessly integrate with their roles but they also have intense, exquisite, sometimes so-good-it-hurts chemistry(they ended up in a 6-yr or so RL relationship after the drama) as a carefree, daredevil playboy with a tortured soul and a shy, traumatized artist with a past. It is essentially a story of two broken people healing each other. It sags a bit in the middle, with too much repetitiveness/focus on a minor character, but the beginning and end, and so much in between, are amazing beyond all reason. They are probably my favorite OTP of all time.ALL time.
Why you might not like it: if you’re the sensitive type who’s easily affected by dark themes, I wouldn’t recommend it, but really - I have stayed away from Snow Queen, A Love to Kill, etc etc., because they were too dark for me, so how bad can Mars be?
When it gets good/Got me! moment: Er, any given scene in the first episode, but probably one of the scenes halfway through it(the first episode, I mean).
Fav scene/s: when he finds her after the girls beat her up, and when he meets her on the road the morning after their argument and they make up, and when she asks him to help her wipe away those memories, and you know what follows:)
2)The First Shop of Coffee Prince(Korean)-
It was super super hard deciding the rankings of the next three in this list -#1 has been #1 for 2 years and will probably remain that way for a long time, but #s 2,3, and 4 could all be interchanged with each other. However, coming in at #2 is much-loved, wildly famous Coffee Prince, starring Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun-Hye.
Synopsis: Yoon Eun-Hye plays a girl who’s had to grow up with a man’s responsibilities in order to keep her family going after the death of her father, and when a wealthy, irresponsible coffee-shop owner mistakes her for a boy and hires her to pretend to be his boyfriend so that his family will think he’s gay and let him off the marriage hook, a whole series of events are set in motion, starting with her going to work at his male-employee-only coffee shop, and continuing with him starting to fall in love with her, which is a problem because he still thinks she’s a guy!
My take:Coffee Prince is just standout in Korean dramas - it’s well-written, well-acted, well-directed, with a lovely soundtrack featuring indie artists and stellar performances from both Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun-hye; it’s funny, offbeat, and angsty, doesn’t drag until perhaps the very end, has a cast of charmingly quirky(and good-looking!) supporting characters, has an unconventional romance trope(guy falls in love with girl whom he thinks is a guy), and even more importantly has that extra spark of magic that just pulls a whole drama together and makes it out-of-the-world amazing.
Why you might not like it: the cross-dressing theme/gay undertones between a guy and a girl might be too weird for some people, particularly guys(my brother loved the drama but that element ruined it for him). Or if you dislike either of the two main leads. Or if you have simply no taste. (kidding…I think).
When it gets good/Got me! moment: end of 2nd episode
Fav scene: it’s tied between The Kiss(you know the one;) and the bumping-into-each-other on the street as they’re both picking up what she dropped
Watch online on Mysoju or Veoh
Or download soft-subs for RAWS
3)Nobuta wo Produce
Synopsis: Kiritani Shuji is the popular guy who gets along with everyone, from the jerks to the nerds to the just plain weird. The one person Shuji cannot stand is Kusano Akira. To Shuji, Akira is just plain annoying. He laughs, talks and acts funny. Things heat up when a new student comes to school. Her name is Kotani Nobuko, a girl who has no self confidence at all and is content at being made fun of and bullied in school. Shuji and Akira come to an accord that in order to make use of their "youth" they will "produce" Nobuko as the next popular girl. One of the conditions, however, is that nobody should find out that they are working together as a team to make this concept possible. Unveiled here is the story of true friendship between three unlikely candidates who would not have been friends if not given the special circumstances.
My take: I came late to the Nobuta fanwagon late, but when I did I fell so hard that I broke into a thousand tiny pieces. It was universally recommended to when to try when I first tried jdramas, and while I liked it then, I just didn't get it, and stopped after a few episodes. Two years later, no longer a drama newbie and with 9 other jdramas under my belt, I tried it again...and magic happened. It instantly shot past all the other jdramas I'd seen to become, not just my favorite jdrama, but one of my favorite dramas ever. And this for a show with very little overt romance! (I am highly romance driven and watch pretty much everything for the romance). Nobuta is just brilliant in a crazily lovable kind of way that makes my heart ache. I wanted to re-watch it the day after I finished it. I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was watching it. I added it to the shortshort list of dramas I could potentially write a thesis on because it's just that good. I don't know, I can't even...I just get incoherent when I talk about this drama. What I can say, however, is that it's pitch-perfect, superbly acted (Kame as Kiritani Shuuji is basically a Japanese cross between Ferris Bueller and Jim Stark and won the Japanese equivalent of an Emmy for his lead role), well-produced and directed (light and dark are often interestingly played with and there's just some lovely shots peppering it throughout), and completely funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and completely heartwarming. A love story for the ages, between three people. I am the last person to support friendship stories over love stories - part of the reason why I avoided jdramas for so long - and I did indeed wildly ship Shuuji/Nobuta during the first three-fourths - but then something happenned. The OT3 just got too perfect. I, the ultimate romantic, had to give up on my dream of romance, because even I could see that what this three had between them was really better than romance, and that a romantic pairing would ruin it. Upon which I fell so deeply in love with the three of them together that the ending still burns a little(not that it's sad. it's just not perfect in a happily-ever-after kind of way). What can I say - if you haven't seen it, you don't even know what you're missing and need to rectify that now. And if you tried it once and it didn't take, try it again - because that's what happened with me.
When it gets good: I already loved it by the end of the first episode, but the 2nd one solidified that
4) THANK YOU(Korean)
Synopsis: Dr. Min, a brilliant, successful surgeon, throws up his career and leaves after being unable to save his girlfriend when she's diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and dies. When his mother sends him off to a small island to recover under the excuse of working for her, he falls in with Lee Young-Shin (Gong Hyo Jin) and her child, and, renting a room from them, quickly gets drawn into the lives of this independent single mother and her incorrigible child with AIDs.
DISCLAIMER: It is not nearly as angsty as it sounds. The AIDs storyline doesn't affect things at all as far as the kid getting sick and only affects them insofar as Lee Young-Shin struggles to keep it a secret from and/or deal with the reactions of the village people to it. I hate uber-angst and avoid all dramas with it but this is not one of them.
My take: You know, if it weren't for the second half of this drama, Thank You would easily be in 2nd place. (and I fully admit that it is a better drama than most of the ones on this list). But it had certain flaws in the second half that really bothered me, and I personally thought the last few episodes/the ending was rather disappointing(not the ending itself - happy ending:) - but how it was handled) so it goes lower on this list. Having said that, Thank You is brilliant, an incredibly well-written, compelling, addicting drama with an exquisite balance of the funny, the heartbreaking, and the romantic, with amazing performances from Jang Hyuk and Go Hyo Jin, particularly Jang Hyuk as an icy woobie doctor:) If you haven't seen Thank You yet, you should probably drop everything you're watching and go watch it. Oh, and did I mention that it gets off the ground faster than almost any kdrama I've seen? Most kdramas take between 1-3 episodes to really get good/addicting. Thank You is compelling from almost the first moment.
Why you might not like it: Umm, I have to confess it's really hard for me to think of a reason for you to at least not like the first half...umm... I honestly can't think of a single reason. Unless for some reason an element of the plot/story itself bothers you - single mom, kid with AIDs, doctor...but if that's the case why would you watch it at all? And it's MUCH less angsty than it sounds.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: when Dr. Min walks in on the patient strangling his girlfriend in the first episode and instead of stopping him coolly urges him on and gives him tips. And the moment that follows.
Favorite scene/s: The shampoo. It was absolute perfection for every second. I wanted to halt time so that it wouldn't be over. And when he wipes her tears.
I know exactly what my favorite line is and am soo tempted to put it here but it would be spoilery. really did find the best MV for this(there arent' many good ones on Youtube) in her top dramas post so I am shamelessly stealing.
Click to view5) Tsuki no Koibito/Moon Lovers (Japanese)
6)Devil Beside You (Taiwanese)
I know some people who love the other Mike He/Rainie Yang drama Why Why Love a good deal more, but for me this was the first drama I saw them in and one of my first Taiwanese dramas ever, and while it could be argued that WWL has a more consistent plot, DBY has my heart. It was love at first fight when Qi Yue(Rainie Yang), after gathering all her courage to hand a letter of confession to her long-time crush Yuan Yi(Kingone Wang), hands it by accident instead to bad boy Jiang Meng(Mike He), the school troublemaker known as "the Devil". The exchange sparks the Devil's interest and he begins pursuing her, to her horror, which becomes even greater when she realizes that he's the son of the man her mother's going to marry and that they'll be living in the same house from then on...
My take: DBY starts out, in the first ep, over-the-top and strident, but recovers its pace an episode or so into it and reveals itself as an absolutely lovely, funny, delicious romantic comedy, with a chemistry-laden OTP and a gorgeous attention to relationship detail. DBY has several of my favorite drama tropes - forced proximity(they live in the same house), bad boy/good girl(and in this case, he really is a bad boy in that he tends to do whatever the hell he wants regardless of circumstance), reasonably well-handled male jealousy, male bonding, hurt/comfort/grief, tons of OTP time, etc. Oh, and a plus? There are TONS of passionate, thorough, excellent kisses(I've always wondered - do the drama writers/directors feel comfortable having RY get passionately kissed because she always looks and seems so innocent? nothing can "corrupt" her in audience's eyes? Because generally twdramas are highly restrained about their kiss types - but MH and RY never hold back, in fact tongue could so easily be used in these types of kisses...) that make me melt inside. Whatever else its flaws might be, DBY hardly ever falters in its OTP interaction. It's definitely one of the best Taiwanese dramas I've seen.
Why you might not like it: You hate Rainie Yang. Which, I can kind of understand in spite of my love for her, in which case you probably won't enjoy this. Or , Mike He's mullet bothers you too much(don't worry - he still manages to be hot). Or, you can't stand over-the-top Taiwanese dramas...which again, I can understand, but bear in mind that in this one all the cheese/soap-operay-ness is balanced out by the delicate, delightful OTP scenes/moments.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: You know, I need to re-watch this because I haven't seen it in a long time, and it's hard to remember specific moments, but I'm thinking, maybe the scene in the first or second episode in which he goes to hit her and kisses her instead.
Fav scene: When he throws open the door suddenly and she's charging forward to hit him and he kisses her instead. Then shuts the door and gets back on the phone with her, that smile playing around his lips...:)
MV: my favorite one of them(highly spoilerish)
7)The Lawyers of the Great Republic Korea (Korean)
Synopsis:
My take:If all dramas were like Lawyers of Korea, I would spend my lifetime staring at a computer screen with a silly smile on my face. It took me a little while to fall completely for it - 2 episodes, but when I did, I fell fast and hard, with a crash that could be heard for a hundred miles. Yi Kyung and Min Gook have the best OTP dynamic I’ve seen outside of Mars, and make up one of my favorite OTPs overall. It’s the small moments, the exquisitely-handled romantic scenes that pepper almost every episode, that lift this drama above average, but it’s not just that; Lawyers showcases one of the most stellar writing jobs I’ve ever seen, with each scene, particularly in the latter half of the drama, unfolding with such perfection and character-and-OTP consistency, that it left me in awe, and a plot that, while refreshingly non-angsty, managed to constantly surprise me. There are a beautifully few number of tears and over-the-top twists in Lawyers, but that doesn’t mean the characters and their lives aren’t compelling - on the contrary, the fact that it was all about character development kept me riveted through 16 episodes. It also has one of my favorite drama tropes- forced proximity-and reminded me often of Full House, and during two specific scenes of My Girl and Mars.
Why you might not like it: if your taste is for drama! drama! and then more drama! or for angsty weepfests, this might not be the drama for you, as it’s all about understated(but incredibly compelling) romance, or if you get impatient easily, as it doesn’t hit that got me! note until a little ways into it.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: The end of the 2nd episode, when she finally makes up her mind and steps forward and speaks up for him, and he turns and watches her as she acts with such assertiveness and courage as if he’s seeing her for the first time(and liking what he sees).
Fav scene: there are so many, many to choose from, but I’d say the two that standout are when she lies on his arm, the first time when she falls asleep and the other time when they’re outside staring at the sky
Watch online on Mysoju or download RAWS(or watch online) from Veoh and softsubs from D-addicts
8)Love Shuffle
Synopsis: Usami Kei is a salaryman who has risen in status due to his engagement with Mei, the wealthy daughter of his company's president. Shortly after she breaks off the engagement, a power failure leaves him stuck in the elevator of his apartment building. Trapped with him are three others living on the same floor - Airu, a trilingual interpreter, Ojiro, a model photographer, and Masato, a psychiatrist. While waiting, their conversation hits upon their love lives and the question of whether there is truly only one fated partner for everyone. As a result, they decide to try "shuffling" their relationships with each other.
My take: Quirky, hilarious, romantic, and brilliant, this is easily one of the best(directed, and produced at least) Asian dramas I've seen thus far; a bit Before Sunset, a bit Lost in Translation, and a bit every good romantic comedy you've ever seen(with the best of Japanese crack added on), Love Shuffle is that rarest of things; a really really good drama, one that you can recommend to your friends and which you want to go shout from the housetops after finishing it. It's very rare to find a drama which manages so well to be both dark and heartwarming, laugh-out loud hilarious and yet deeply serious. Angsty, well-written and clever, it's populated with oddball, hilarious characters who are all played by beautiful people who can also act (it's superbly cast and the characterization is across-the board excellent; I adore almost every single one of the characters and even those whom I don't adore I find amusing). Finally, even by Japanese standards it's exquisitely produced with careful, stunning cinematography.
(See also the mini-pusher post I did for it while watching it).
In summary, it somehow manages to be romantic, a great friendship story, funny and deadly serious at the same time, a growing-up tale for all the adults in it, a suave, sophisticated artsy piece, and to touch on art, death, love, sex, unemployment, friendship, self-destructive impulses, insecurity and self-identity - in 10 episodes. WHY ARE YOU NOT WATCHING IT NOW?
When it gets good: First episode is dull, no two ways about it. Get through it by dint of fastforwarding if necessary, pausing every now and then to pick up important details. It's basically all background and set-up. The drama picks up speed rapidly in ep 2 and is AWESOME by ep 3
You can download or torrent the RAWs here and get the subs from D-Addicts.
9)Me Too Flower
10)FULL HOUSE (Korean)
Synopsis: One of the most famous Korean dramas of all time, Full House is the first Asian drama for many people and the one that gets them hooked on the genre. When Han Ji Eun(Song Hye Kyo)'s friends buy her a plane ticket and a vacation to China, she is ecstatic, having never left the country before. On the flight from Korea to China, she ends up sitting next to superstar actor Lee Young Jae(Rain), and promptly throws up on him as an introduction as the plane takes off. Once in China, however, the paid vacation vaporizes and she realizes her friends have pulled a hoax on her. Stranded in a foreign country without money and unable to contact her friends, Ji Eun manages to swindle money from Lee Young Jae, who is staying at the same hotel. She returns to Korea expecting never to see him again, but, surprise! her money-scheming friends have sold her house and run away, and guess which celebrity they have sold it to? Yup, Lee Young Jae. Young Jae agrees to let Ji Eun buy back the house if she works for her him as a housekeeper/cook for a while, and bam, you have one of Korea's penultimate romances.
My take: Full House is just so completely adorable. As is common with many, it was my first Asian television series ever, and sold me on the genre. In retrospect, and having watched many dramas since, it is riddled with flaws (overly and repetitive in the second half being the main one), but there's an indefinable magic about it that holds up and which has won it a place in so many heards. And as such it was always keep a place in my affections:) It's hilarious, well-written, with great characterizations, sufficiently angsty subplots underneath the OTP bickering/cuteness to anchor the story, and scads of adorableness and chemistry between the OTP made up of Rain and Song Hye Kyo(and I don't care what people say - I find it hard to believe too, but I stand by my opinion that Rain actually is a good actor).
Why you might not like it: If you hate Rain or Song Hye-kyo, it's over. Although in my personal opinion, and to my own utter disbelief, Rain actually is a good actor and does a good job in this one. Also, like most older dramas, the production values ain't the greatest. What it lacks in glossiness, however, it makes up for in script.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: The moment she decides to scam him - whenever in the first or second eps that was:)
Fav scene: er, maybe when she's sick and he takes care of her? or the adorable chicken dance:)
11)SOULMATE(Korean)
Synopsis: When Lee Soo Kyung(yes, all the characters in this drama go by their real-life names)'s long-term boyfriend proposes, she expects to be overjoyed. Instead she finds herself embarrassed, confused, and oddly reluctant to accept, but ultimately does so anyway. Shin Dong Wook, meanwhile, is an inveterate playboy who has finally met a woman he believes he can have a serious relationship with, sweet, old-fashioned Hong Yu Jin(Sa Kang), a friend and co-worker of Soo Kyung's. When Soo Kyung's fiance falls for another woman, man-eater Jang Min Ae(coincidentally Hong Yu Jin's mentor and - roommate, if I remember correctly) and breaks up with her, the stage is set for these two soulmates, whose lives have brushed past each other so many times already but who have yet to meet, to finally collide.
My take: Oddly enough, two of my top 10 dramas star Lee Soo Kyung(the other being Lawyers of Korea), and both are as overlooked as she is. Soulmate is a lighter drama, in some ways, although in some ways also very wistful and sad(everyone has lost out in some way by the end of the drama). It also has hands-down the most beautiful and compelling first meeting between the OTP of any drama I've ever seen apart from perhaps Kurosagi. Soulmate marketed itself as a different sort of drama - it's more frank about sex than usual for a kdrama, for instance, and all the main characters go by their real life names, and indeed it is, but not for any of those reasons. Soulmate is just totally different in vibe and concept than any other kdrama I've seen - it's simultaneously somehow very modern and very sweet, combining the freshness of approach with the pure-love heart of the traditional kdrama. More than that, however, it it somehow captures something of the wistfulness and transcendent beauty of life, the way, living in a world with millions of people, sometimes, the lives of strangers can collide - or can just as easily slip past each other, never knowing...The only other drama I've seen do this - capture something of the fragile wonder and mystery of life and human interactions - is Taiwanese drama Silence. Soulmate is also beautifully filmed, with a delicacy to it that creates many ethereally, heartbreakingly beautiful shots and scenes, and deeply romantic, with a standout indie soundtrack only rivaled by Coffee Prince(if you notice on Dramabeans, the soundtracks/song lists of Soulmate and Coffee Prince are the only ones she features). What can I say? It's funny, it's beautiful, it's heartbreaking, it's heartwarming and addicting...go watch it.
Why you might not like it: People tend to stay away from Soulmate for one of three reasons: 1)it looks like it's all about sex based on the alternate cover 2)The love in it looks too "pure" and overly childlike based on above cover 3)The lead doesn't look attractive, again based on above cover. I'm here to assure you that, whatever reasons you might not have to like Soulmate, none of those three should be it, as they're all rampant misrepresentations.
There's also a number of supporting characters who figure largely, from man-eater Min-Ae to Dong Wook's adorkable wannabe-womanizer friends to good-hearted Ryo Hei; I personally enjoyed all of them and found them pretty harmless but if you are easily impatient or like your supporting characters of a certain type then this drama might not be the one for you. It also does have its sexual moments, though nothing too terrible or overt, but I wouldn't recommend it for a kid.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: it's hard to remember, actually, but I think it was partway through the first episode when Lee Soo Kyung plops down on her bed after her fiance proposes to her and all sorts of ridiculous scenarios start going through her head on the ideal marriage proposal, and then eventually of course she realizes that it wasn't the mode but the man himself that's the problem
Fav scene: when he sees her crying and puts his earbud in her ear(runners-up: when he rescues her at the restaurant and when she passes by him outside the window before they meet, near the beginning of the drama)
MV: this isn't my favorite Soulmate MV but it is I think the least spoilerish
12)METEOR GARDEN (Taiwanese)
Synopsis: Shancai(Barbie Hsu) is a poor girl unhappily attending a wealthy school in which she doesn't fit in at all. The school is led by four boys called the F4, a group of handsome, incredibly wealthy, domineering boys who hold absolute sway over all the school attendees and are headed by Daoming Si(Jerry Yan) the richest of them all. When one of Shancai's friends is bullied by them one day, Shancai snaps and openly defies them, and immediately finds herself the target of bullying by the whole school. Daoming Si, however, fascinated by her stubborn courage, soon finds himself falling for her...Meteor Garden is a little bit of everything - part underdog story, part tragedy, part comedy, but mostly a Cinderella tale, and one of the original Asian dramas that contributed to the craze. It's pretty much a must-see for Asian drama watchers. It's also the drama that started Vic Zhou and Rainie Yang on their road to fame. And it came before Hana Yori Dango, the Japanese adaptation of the same manga(and of course that addicting trainwreck BOF).
My take:You know, I was watching an MV of Meteor Garden the other day, and just remembering how much Iove it. It was my first Taiwanese and my second Asian drama ever, and while I wasn't initially impressed with it, I fell fast and hard at some point. Barbie Hsu absolutely lights up the screen as the most kick-ass girl ever(easily the best interpretation of her manga character) and she and Jerry have amazing chemistry and the script is just incredibly well-written and well, it's just really good and has this magic about it that I can't quite pin-down. It's one of those classic stories that draws on some of the most basic ideas and impulses that drive us as human beings.
Why you might not like it: its production values are kind of low(it's one of the older dramas) and Jerry Yan isn't the best actor in the world. And the male fashion is odd at best, though nowhere near approaching the atrocity of Full House.
When it gets good/Got me! moment: When Lei comes by and picks up the basket that the others kicked over(1st episode if I remember correctly)
Fav scene/s: still one of my fav drama scenes of all time - so epic. The getting-beaten-up to protect the girl scene. Till this one, I thought that such overtly, satisfyingly romantic scenes could only exist in my imagination. I was wrong:)
My favorite shippy MV can't be embedded but is found here.
(Wow, I totally want to re-watch this now...)
13) PARTNER (Korean)
ETA: I originally wrote this post when I was about three-fourths of the way through Partner, which was subsequently mostly ruined for me by a mediocre, not-particularly-shippy ending. After some thought, I decided to leave Partner on the list, but as soon as I find a better drama Partner is getting bumped straight off(can you tell I'm rather bitter?). That's not to say you shouldn't watch it, however - it wasn't a horrible ending, just a disappointing one, and Partner remains an excellent drama overall.
My take: Partner came out of nowhere for me - even after Lawyers of Korea shot to one of the top spots in my list of favorite dramas, I was still suffering from the misapprehension that lawyers dramas just weren't for me, right up there with food, fashion, and doctor dramas. However, as it turns out, apparently it all depends on how they're handled, and with two - two! - lawyer dramas on my list of all-time favorites, clearly I'll have to withdraw my stance. Regardless, I went into Partner for the cast - while I only remembered Lee Dong Wook vaguely from My Girl, I remembered liking him, and I adored Kim Hyun-Joo after her alternately charming and ball-busting turn in Boys Before Flowers, and was expecting to highly enjoy but not love this drama.
After the first two episodes, I found it enjoyable but unexceptional. Then, somewhere between the 2nd and 4th episodes, I fell for it, and the next week I found myself looking forward to it all week, and after that I fell more deeply in love with it every episode until by around the 9th episode I'd reached the peak and since then I've just consistently loved it at that level. Partner is just really really well-written - it doesn't falter via plot, style, pace, or vibe, and Lee Dong Wook and Kim Hyun Joo were just perfectly cast as two lawyers who start out antagonists, become friends, and then fall in love.
Why you might not like it: Partner is after a legal drama, which means a big part of the plot is the legal cases which Tao Jo and Eun Ho take on. I personally found them surprisingly interesting and addicting, but some are less interesting than others and if that kind of thing bores you utterly to begin with then you'll probably end up wanting to fast-forward through those scenes. Which could get problematic as the personal/relationship stuff is very interwoven with it. Also, there are a couple side stories, including an office romance, which you may or may not find interesting(personally, I tend to watch the legal parts but fastforward through the office romance, which is quite unlike me but there you have it). I am not counting the romance between Honey Lee's character and Tae Jo's brother as a side story because it's a major part of the plot.
When it gets good/got me moment: I don't remember an exact moment, but I do remember that I was hooked by the end of the 3rd episode.
Fav scene: I have two, and they were more of moments, really: the first when they're in the car and he completely unexpectedly leans over in the middle of a conversation and it looks like he's going to hug her but doesn't and instead he puts her seatbelt on - watching her the whole time. I died a thousand deaths. It was such a small moment but so good. Inexplicable to describe - you have to see it. And the second is...you know, I was going to pick a certain one, but even as I speak at least six different other potentials are flooding into my head, and I can't choose.
Spoilery MV:
14) Pride (Jdrama)
Synopsis/My take: Pride is one of the most perfect and seamlessly written dramas I've ever seen. It's about a lot of things - people and their relationships and how they work and what drives them, and hockey and friendship and loyalty and "pride" - but above and beyond all that - it's a story about two people. Halu, a smart-mouthed, offbeat, bad-boy hockey captain with a playboy past and a set of issues an inch deep, and Aki, an old-fashioned, spunky "good girl" committed to her long-distance boyfriend whom she hasn't heard from in two years. Highlighted by exquisite acting and a fiery OTP chemistry that can shift from nuanced and low-key to heartbreakingly intense in the space of a second, it's just a brilliant love story and a really really good story, so real sometimes that it hurts. It's never over the top but can pack a powerful emotional punch in a single scene or moment, and the writing is impeccable, as is the production and directing(Queen's "I Was Born to Love You" is a wacky but inspired choice as the theme song, and the opening credits are so so pretty). If I were to describe it, I would say that it's a cross between Mars and Tatta Hitotsu no Koi(the former for content and the latter for the straightforwardness of the plot/story arc).
When it gets good: End-ish of episode 1
Download at Silent Regrets
15) Mysterious Incredible Terminator (Twdrama)
In conclusion-
Drama I marathoned the fastest/most obsessively: Hana Kimi
Drama I've loved the longest and most passionately: Mars
Drama which made me hyperventilate the most but ultimately made me the most bitter perhaps: Partner
Drama that made me worship the ground the writer walks on: Lawyers of Korea
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Prosecutor Princess, Brilliant Legacy, Who Are You?, My Girl, Goong, Aishiteiru to itte Kure, Hana Yori Dango 1 &2, 1 Litre of Tears, Yamato Nadeshiko Shiche Henge, Corner with Love, My Lucky Star, Silence, Wish to See You Again, ToGetHer, and Smiling Pasta. These are all dramas which are well-written, compelling, and hugely enjoyable, which I definitely recommend watching if you haven't seen yet, but just didn't quite have that spark of consistent magic that I require in my top dramas, or just don't have my heart in the definitive way the others do.