Taste of K-dramas

A Mother’s Umbrella: Fierce Love Beneath Palace Skies  The rain comes down hard on the palace rooftops, drumming against dark, weather-worn tiles. Under the low, heavy sky, the queen moves quickly—her breath measured, her hands lifting the hem of her hanbok just enough to keep pace across the slick courtyard stones. She weaves through the open space with urgency, her steps unbothered by the grace expected of a royal figure. The palace behind her murmurs with unrest. A crisis brews, and somewhere within its tangled roots are her sons. There’s no room for hesitation. Something must be prevented—now. It’s not the first time. Sometimes, she runs toward her sons. Other times, she walks beside them, tilting the umbrella just enough to shield them, even as her own shoulder is soaked. That image—quiet, simple, maternal—captures the soul of Under the Queen’s Umbrella ( 슈룹 ). The title 슈룹 comes from an old Korean word for “umbrella,” thought to be a pure Korean ( 순우리말 ) expression preda...

가깝고도 먼 ( Close, Yet Distant) The scene that lingers most vividly after watching  사랑 후에 오는 것들   ( What Comes After Love )—the one that returns like a half-remembered dream—is of cherry blossoms drifting like snow over a quiet lake in a Tokyo park. It’s where Hong jogs each morning, her solitary rhythm echoing beneath the soft flutter of petals. That park, steeped in memory, becomes a quiet stage for reflection, regret, and the slow, uncertain work of healing. The drama, based on a collaborative novel by Korean writer Gong Ji-young and Japanese author Hitonari Tsuji, follows two former lovers—Hong (played by Lee Se-young ) , a Korean editor, and Jungo  (played by Kentaro Sakaguchi) , a Japanese novelist—who meet again in Seoul years after a painful parting in Japan. As they navigate what remains after love has changed—or perhaps faded—the series gently explores identity, silence, and the fragile ties that endure across time and borders. The relationship between Korea an...

빙의 (spirit possession)? 시간여행 (time travel)? Or 환생 (reincarnation)? That’s the question Yoon Hyun-woo—“reborn” as the youngest heir of Korea’s most powerful conglomerate—asks himself in 재벌집 막내아들 (2022, literally The Chaebol House’s Youngest Son ). The drama’s English title, Reborn Rich , captures the essence of its gripping premise: a revenge story in which a man is reborn as 재벌 3세 — the grandson of the very family that betrayed and discarded him in his former life. The Korean phrase 빙의 (bing-ui) —often translated as “spirit possession”—is even used in the show to describe the surreal experience of waking up in someone else’s body, caught between lives and timelines. Song Joong-ki stars as Yoon Hyun-woo, a loyal corporate employee who, after his untimely death, wakes up in the 1980s as Jin Do-jun, the youngest heir to the Soonyang Group. Armed with knowledge of the future, he begins a quiet but calculated campaign to turn the tables on the powerful family that wronged him. Take a p...

What does it mean to dream again—at an age when most people believe dreaming is behind them? Navillera opens with this understated yet radical question. The drama follows Shim Deok-chul (played by Park In-hwan), a 70-year-old retired postman who decides, with unwavering sincerity, to take ballet lessons. At first glance, the premise might seem whimsical, even improbable. But beneath that surface, Navillera unfolds as a deeply moving meditation on passion, regret, and the enduring human desire to live with purpose—regardless of age. Set in the serene yet demanding world of ballet, the story moves with gentle persistence, exploring how people across generations carry unfulfilled dreams. When Deok-chul steps into a ballet studio for the first time, he meets a young dancer, Lee Chae-rok (played by Song Kang), who is navigating his own sense of loss and direction. What develops between them is not a conventional mentorship, but a deeply felt companionship. Chae-rok becomes Deok-chul’s ba...

A Taste of Precarious Power 반짝반짝 작은 별 ( twinkle, twinkle, little star ) 아름답게 비치네 ( how beautifully you shine ) 동쪽 하늘에서도 ( in the eastern sky ) 서쪽 하늘에서도 ( in the western sky ) 반짝반짝 작은 별  (twinkle, twinkle, little star) 아름답게 비치네  ( how beautifully you shine ) The soft and familiar melody of this children’s song appears throughout the director’s cut of 안나  (Anna), not in its innocent original form but as a slow, aching piano variation—unfolding like a memory warped by time, flickering with something both tender and off-key. It threads through all eight episodes with quiet persistence, surfacing during moments where emotion swells yet remains unspoken. What once evoked lullabies now arrives as something more fractured, its purity diffused through the character it shadows: Yoo-mi, played with remarkable restraint by Bae Suzy. In this longer version of the drama, shaped with a studied subtlety by director Lee Joo-young , the soundtrack centers on two emotional pillars: the me...

What genre is your life?  Is it a melodrama, comedy, horror, suspense… or maybe action? And will it end with a happy ending? 멜로 무비 ( Melo Movie , 2025) poses this very question to its viewers—inviting us into a world where life and cinema mirror each other, not only in theme but in tone, memory, and even mise-en-scène. This is a drama made by cinephiles, for cinephiles, and it wears its retro, film-loving heart proudly on its sleeve. At the heart of Melo Movie are four young creatives—people with big dreams and even bigger emotions. Among them is 김무비 (Kim Mu-bi, played by Park Bo-young), a budding film director whose very name—Mu-bi—is the Korean pronunciation of the English word “movie.” Her father, a passionate cinephile who named her after the thing he loved most, spent more time behind a camera than with her. As a result, Mu-bi has always had a love-hate relationship with films—and with her own name. Her dream? To someday create the ultimate melodrama ( 끝내주는 멜로 영화 ). On the o...