Lia’s 6 Favorite Korean Dramas

“Kill Me, Heal Me”

I would like to start with one of the most memorable dramas. Many would describe it as a drama that when you least expect it grabs your heart and makes the ride of twenty episodes unforgettable. 

“Everyone has many different personalities in himself. Living with different identities is a defence mechanism to live in this hard world”. When I heard these words, it made me think about the fact that we all have different personalities hidden inside our hearts. When we need to protect ourselves, we let those personalities out. Just like in the drama, Cha Do Hyun had several personalities that helped him when he had a hard time. In the end, those different personalities helped him survive. I would also like to take a minute and mention one of the things I loved about the drama, and that was the OST. Auditory Hallucination By Jang Jae In feat NaShow... In my opinion, the lyrics of the song made a beautiful mix with the drama. In less than four minutes, the song conveyed what the drama was trying to express. An example of this is this part of the song: “What controls me isn’t what lives in me, What can heal me isn’t strong medicine, It’s just love.” This can be interpreted as his personalities didn’t control him and, at the end of the day, not even the greatest treatment could “cure” him, yet as soon as he found the one meant for him, she slowly healed him.

Because This Is My First Life

What I liked about this drama was that we didn’t only have our main leads, we also had side couples, and they were all going through different struggles. 

We became equally invested in the life of all the characters. It showed me that no matter what stage of a relationship, career or life in general we are, it’s still our first life and we learn along the way. As young adults figuring things out can be difficult, especially when it comes to relationships and who we want to spend the rest of our lives with, either alone or with someone else. This drama did an excellent job in bringing up the role society expects Korean women to live up to.  We see that at the end Sehee tells Ji Ho that she doesn’t have to visit his parents during the holidays because at the end of the day she will only have to work as a slave. They set aside the traditions and decided to live life how they wanted even if they were called crazy. We also have Soo Ji who deals with sexism at work and her inability to commit to Mr. Ma, and our lovely couple Won Seok and Ho Rang who love each other, but they can’t understand what the other needs.  Through our main couple, we learned that marriage is not just a piece of paper that you share, but rather it’s a piece of yourself that you give away to the other person. A piece that you have to learn to cherish and love.

My favorite line was, “Meeting someone in life is actually quite astonishing. That’s because someone’s whole life comes along with them. The heart is fragile, so it may have been broken. That heart is coming along too.”

Hwayugi (A Korean Odyssey)

Hwayugi taught us many lessons about love. We learned that when you’re in love, the highs can be very high, but the lows can be, really, love. In this drama, our selfish monkey learns that loving someone means shouldering their burdens, it means smiling when they are happy but feeling your heartbreak when they are sad. Through their love, struggles, tears and smiles, we all learned that love, regardless of how you view it, always means prioritizing the other’s happiness even if it means it will hurt you in the end. You might not want to be in love, but when the right person comes knocking on your door, the only option your heart gives you is to open it despite the warnings your brain might give.  His love for her was so deep that he was willing to destroy a whole world for her.

Something I also loved about this drama was the OSTs. Starting with “Let Me Out” by NU’EST. It described almost perfectly how Son Ogong felt. The more he tried to push her away, the closer she got, he wanted her to let him go, but he was also being pulled towards her.

The other memorable OST was “When I Saw You” by Bumkey. He was always behind her whenever she was in trouble. This song really hit hard at the end.

My favorite line was by Son Oh Gong when he said, “I want her to live the ordinary life she wants. Even if it breaks my heart… the thought of not seeing her hurts me so much that I feel like I’ll burst into tears. Yet I’m getting ready to leave just so she can be happy. Does that make sense? This must be what it’s like to be in love.” 

She Was Pretty

This drama was based on a true story. It features the story of two childhood friends Hye-Jin and  Sung-Joon who meet years later under reversed roles. Although this drama had one of the cliches, old as tale plot, where old friends reunite, yet its relatable plot makes it more refreshing. What made this drama make the favorite list was the meaningful lesson we learned.  Our female lead Hye Jin was ashamed of her appearance, and she can’t meet her now handsome friend Sung-Joon, so she tells her best friend to meet him, but when she starts working at a magazine she meets Sung-Joon again. This showed us that we can’t run away from our problems. Sooner or later, they will come back.  Sometimes we might want to dodge a problem and sometimes we might think it’s okay, but the day may come where that problem pops up again, and you will have no other option but to face it. Another valuable lesson was the importance of self-love. We are all beautiful in our own ways, and when someone starts to love you, they will love you based on personality not because you’re beautiful. 

Favorite quote was delivered by our female lead when she said, “At times, things don’t turn out the way you would hope, but sometimes things turn out a whole lot better than expected. “

 Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Goblin)

The majority of us have probably heard or watched this drama. This drama has everything, from a great bromance to a heart-wrenching love story between our main and secondary couples. Through this drama, we learned that true love is very patient. Through 9 years, our goblin thinks about Ji Eun Tak, without missing a minute. Even after everything happens, he waits 30 years for his bride. If you truly love someone, you will be willing to wait for them for however long it takes. We also learned that we need to cherish the little time we have with our loved ones. We never know what life might throw at us, so we need to appreciate that little time we have. Most importantly, we learned about the great power of forgiveness. The grim reaper did some bad things that greatly impacted the lives of those he loved, but the goblin forgave him. If the goblin didn’t forgive him, the grim reaper would have lived in anger and loneliness. We need to learn how to forgive, after all, no one is perfect, and we all make mistakes. 

Let’s talk about the wonderful OST. “Stay With Me” by Chanyeol and Punch was the type of song you can’t forget and one of the reasons Goblin is so unforgettable. 

My favorite line was “Life is a mixture of all sorts of genres. What genre was your day today? Rom-com? A strange but beautiful fantasy? A sad melodrama? “

Thirty But Seventeen

When you first watch the teasers and read the description of this drama, you might think it’s a light, cute drama, but in reality, this drama contains plenty of life lessons. As humans, we have the tendency to judge people as soon as we look at them, but sometimes what we see is not the reality of things. Take, for example, our main leads in this drama. Woo Seo Ri seems like a bubbly girl who is always smiling, but in reality, she has gone through so much in life, she lost her family and only has herself in this world. Gong Woo Jin seems like he is cold and pushes everyone away, but in reality, he is drowning in his own guilt, he thought he indirectly killed someone, and this drama is constantly chasing him.

 Everyone who has had the pleasure of watching this drama might remember the words “Don’t Think, Feel”, although this might sound simple, it has a very deep meaning. I’m the type of person that overthinks things, that being said this simple quote that was repeated throughout the drama reminded me that sometimes in life, we should listen to our heart instead of our brain. Our hearts definitely can be more honest than our brain when it comes to things we want.

Although I had a couple of favorite quotes from this drama, I would like to share this one, “Not only does time fly by but at the same time, it’s something you can never get back. Anyone is capable of feeling sad about what’s already gone, but whether you let that sadness become something regretful or turn it into a wonderful memory is entirely up to you.”

What are your favorite dramas? 

What have you learned from them? 

Let me know in a comment below! 

Thank you for reading this article!

_{Edited by: Yuanwei (1st editor) & Cookie (2nd editor)}