Every K-drama fan who loved the 2017 rom-com drama ‘Strong Girl Bong-Soon’ are in for a special treat, as main leads Park Hyung-Sik and Park Bo-Young, who played Min Hyuk and Do Bong Soon, are set to make a special cameo in the currently airing Netflix spin-off ‘Strong Girl Nam-Soon’.
Today, stills were released of the duo’s upcoming appearance in Saturday’s episode, and from the looks of it, they’re going to remain the obsessed married couple they were in the previous drama.
‘Strong Girl Nam-Soon’ is a comedy drama that revolves around three generations of women with super-human strength as they investigate drug cases in the Gangnam area. It stars Lee Yoo-Mi as Gang Naam Soon, a woman born with super powers. As a child, Nam Soon loses her parents while on a vacation to Mongolia, and now as an adult she travels back to Korea to find her mother.
South Korean actor Gong Yoo cemented himself as an international star after his critically acclaimed drama ‘Guardian: The Great and Lonely God’ aired on Netflix in 2016. The quest for an immortal man or ‘Goblin’, to find his bride who might undo his curse was an instant hit.
At a recent appearance at the South Korean talk show Pinggyego, Gong Yoo revealed that the success of ‘Goblin’ began taking a toll on his mental health.
“Guardian: The Lonely and the Great God did very well, but I wasn’t happy. I was happy it did well, but apart from that, there was a time when I felt so empty and I couldn’t wake myself up. It’s not that the work was hard or that it went well, I wasn’t able to enjoy spotlight when projects were a success,” the actor confessed.
The ‘Coffee Prince’ actor further elaborated that it wasn’t easy to open up about the mental health issues he was dealing with, because it would have made other people seem like he wasn’t grateful for the success the show achieved.
“It feels like I’m not grateful. After going through a hard time like that, the way I look at people around me changed. I felt like I was more nosy in that I didn’t want them to go through the same hurt.”
‘Guardian: The Great and Lonely God’ centers around the Goryeo Dynasty military general Kim-Shin (played by Gong Yoo) who is cursed with immortality after he’s killed by the King. He must live on for generations until he finds the Goblin’s bride: a woman who has the power to pull out the sword in his chest to end his immortality. The drama also stars prominent Korean actress Kim Go-eun and Lee Dong-Wook. On it’s release, ‘Goblin’ was declared a cultural phenomenon in Korea and won numerous awards, including Best Actor for Gong Yoo, and Best Writer for script writer Kim Eun-Sook.
Social media users were over joyed when after seven long years, Korean stars Gong Yoo and Lee Dong-Wook reunited in a commercial for SK Enmove. The duo, who are known to be good friends and have publicly supported each other’s projects, rocked to stardom with their 2016 drama ‘Goblin’, one of the best K-dramas to come out so far. Gong Yoo plays the immortal guardian Kim Shin and Lee plays the Grim Reaper Wang Yeo, who agrees to help him.
The Korean heart-throbs broke social media a few days ago when they hinted at the collaboration with a polaroid shared on their Instagram accounts.
We have to agree with fans that after falling in love with ‘Goblin’, this was truly a treat to witness.
gong yoo and lee dong wook smiling and giggling at each other was not in my 2023 bingo card but i accept this wholeheartedly i love them so mcuh pic.twitter.com/b5982f0GSG
At a time when both Bollywood and Lollywood seem to be contesting to out cringe the other by producing the most awkward movies anyone has ever seen, we’re here to provide you a K-drama recommendation that is currently among the top ten most popular shows on Netflix. Take a step back from the saas-bahu kay jhagray, the satti savitri verses the slutty savitri trope and take a deep dive with us in to this enemies to lovers K-drama that revolves around a blossoming relationship between a celebrity math teacher and a single mother.
1 Food as a love language
If you’re a food lover, and want to escape from reality to take a deep dive in to a different culture worlds, then this is the perfect show. The central bond that keeps the main characters together is their love for food. This is what has helped K-dramas establish their own space, an emphasis on how love can be found in the most simple things, like making food for someone. We have two broken characters who have suffered hardships because of finances, poor mental health and poverty, learn to come close to one another because of their shared love for a particular dish.
2 The greenest of green flag enemies to lovers story out there.
Unlike Pakistani dramas where apparently enemies to lovers means adding aik kilo badtameezi and do chamach thappar to make the most recoiling drama ever, K-dramas have been lauded for championing unproblematic, wholesome male leads who respect and empower the women around them. Choi Chi-Yeol is a celebrity math professor whose in popular demand among students all across Korea to ace math in high school, however his crippling anxiety and depression is giving him insomnia and an eating disorder. However, when he crosses paths with Haeng-Seon, a hard working single mother who runs a cafe to support her daughter’s education, they both help each other overcome their trauma and soon start falling for each other.
3 Explores the cut-throat competition within private schools and mental health struggles of students
Aside from the comedy and the light-hearted banter between the main leads, the show is not afraid to address the practice of private schooling, and how the mental health of students is impacted as they compete for the best grades and colleges. The drama is set in the backdrop of the upcoming CSATs in Korea, and how students are pressurized by their parents and teachers to work hard everyday to get the best results. Mostly, the show also reflects how the privilege’s of good education comes at a high cost, with the struggles of Nam Haeyi, who comes from a working class background, and struggles to get good grades like the rest of her peers because she is unable to afford expensive private tuitions offered by academies after school.
4 Wholesome supporting characters
One of the most endearing tropes that have kept setting k-dramas apart from any other form of entertainment is the emphasis over found families, that as we grow old we can pick and choose our own family members, rather than the ones we are linked to by blood. In this show, aside from the male leads, side characters like Haeng-Seon’s autistic brother Jae-Woo, are fleshed out to provide more depth to the story, and especially with the way he forms a bond with loner characters like Chi-Yeol, to help him learn about the bond of family for the first time.
Crash Course in Romance plays every Saturday and Sunday on 8 pm on Netflix.
