Tag: Korean drama

  • Contestants on Netflix’s ‘Squid Game Challenge’ are suing the show for injuries suffered

    Netflix released a reality television show based on the popular Korean series ‘Squid Games’, featuring contestants competing in a series of games for a coveted prize. However, news reports reveal that contestants are taking legal action against Netflix and the producers by claiming they suffered extensive injuries during filming.

    The players spoke about their experience in shooting some of the popular games from the show including ‘Red Light, Green Light’, in which players must try to reach the finish line without drawing the attention of the robot doll. British law firm Express Solicitors is representing two clients who had taken part in the contest. Both have said they had no idea about the risks they had to take while shooting during cold periods for long months. Filming for the games took place at Cardington Studios in Bedfordshire during a cold winter in Britain. Several participants required medical treatment.

    “Contestants thought they were taking part in something fun and those injured did not expect to suffer as they did. Now they have been left with injuries after spending time being stuck in painful stress positions in cold temperatures,” said the CEO of Express Solicitors Daniel Slade to The Guardian.

    Slade recalled one client who witnessed “seeing someone faint, then people shouting for medics. We have a case where someone complains of hypothermia. One had his hands turn purple from the cold.”

    The reality television series comes after the successful Korean drama, the most-watched show on Netflix, surpassing the popular British period drama “Bridgerton”. It received several Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series, with Lee Jung-Jae winning Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama series, becoming the first Asian actor to do so.

    The series follows broke father Seong Gi-Hun, who decides to enroll in the games in order to provide for his mother, and win custody of his daughter.

  • Park Hyung-Sik, Park Bo Young to make special cameo in Netflix K-drama ‘Strong Girl Namsoon’

    Park Hyung-Sik, Park Bo Young to make special cameo in Netflix K-drama ‘Strong Girl Namsoon’

    Great news for ‘Strong Girl Bong-Soon’ fans!

    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.

  • Gong Yoo opens up about battling mental health issues after the success of K-drama ‘Guardian’

    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.

  • Here are three reasons why K-drama ‘King The Land’ should be on your watchlist

    Here are three reasons why K-drama ‘King The Land’ should be on your watchlist

    After the release of ‘Crash Course in Romance’, there has been a slump in engrossing Korean dramas, especially rom coms that could keep you captivated from beginning to end. More thrillers and action pack series have been announced including ‘Bloodhounds’, ‘Squid Games Season 2’ and even ‘Alice in Borderland’ but the magic of Korean rom-coms is unlike any other. The way women are the ones leading the narrative, bringing forward complexities they face, and men do not belittle women, but empower and respect them.

    With the arrival of Netflix’s ‘King The Land’, it seems like the K-romance is back. Set in the backdrop of an elite hotel, the story revolves around a hard working concierge who clashes with the grumpy chaebol whose family runs the hotel. It seems like this is the perfect serial every K-drama lover should watch.

    1. Grumpy x sunshine trope

    If fans were missing the magic of dramas like ‘A Business Proposal’ and ‘Crash Course In Romance’ which featured the much beloved grumpy x sunshine trope, where one half of the couple was a grouch, while the other one was the complete opposite by being the cheerful one, then they should certainly keep a lookout for this drama. Gu Won is the son from a chaebol family who is known to be a strict, business-only man. On his arrival back to Korea, he gets involved with his sister in a conflict over who should have control of the hotel, and has to encounter the memories of his mother. When he meets the cheerful and hard working Cheon Sa-Rang, who begins working as a lobby maid for the hotel, the two originally clash because Gu Won loathes fake smiles, and while Sa-Rang is critical of his lackluster attitude towards his family business, over time he begins falling for her even more.

    1. Office romances FTW

    What’s the secret to making a standout K-drama that will decades later be remembered as an iconic pop-culture moment? By making it into an office romance. Looking back at some of the best K-dramas like ‘What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?’, ‘Her Private Life’ and even the critically acclaimed ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’, Korean creators know that the perfect formula that will keep creators hooked is setting up a workplace romance, and adding a mixture of enemies to lovers, it is chef’s kiss.

    1. The female gaze is here to stay

    Korean rom-coms have surged in popularity with their detailed attention the female gaze plays. Along side Sa-Rang’s experience of navigating life as a lowly hotel maid, are the experiences of her friends who work as shop manager and an air hostess, and how they tackle discrimination, discriminating bosses and long hours, but most importantly, how they stick with each other through thick and thin.

  • ‘Crash Course in Romance’ should be on your watch list and here’s why!

    ‘Crash Course in Romance’ should be on your watch list and here’s why!

    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.

  • Korean actor Song Joon-Ki is married and expecting a baby

    Korean actor Song Joon-Ki is married and expecting a baby

    Korean actor Song Joon-Ki has announced his marriage and wife’s pregnancy to his fans on social media, as reported by Korean entertainment page Soompi.
    In a letter uploaded on his fan club, the ‘Vincenzo’ actor revealed that he had married his longtime British girlfriend, Katy Louise Saunders.
    “Hello. This is Joong Ki.
    Today, I am greeting you because I want to share a promise that is more happy and valuable to me than anything.
    I have promised to continue life together with Katy Louise Saunders, who has been by my side supporting me and who I have spent valuable time with while cherishing each other.
    She has a kind heart, and she has lived her life passionately. She is a sensible and amazing person to the point that I revere her.
    Thanks to her, I am becoming a better person.

    “We naturally dreamed of creating a happy family together. We have put in much effort to keep each other’s promises, and we are sincerely thankful as a new life has come to us.
    And today, based on our deep trust and love for each other, we are on our way back from registering our marriage to begin life as a married couple.
    As we are now, the two of us will walk our days ahead beautifully while facing the same direction.
    I sincerely thank all the fans who always cherish me no matter what.
    Especially following the wishes and support of Ki Aile (Song Joong Ki’s fan club) who provide the greatest strength to me throughout my acting career, I will work to fly higher as an actor and individual with the wings of greater responsibility and passion.
    I hope everyone will be happy and healthy until the day I can greet you in person.”
    The “Reborn Rich’ actor confirmed in December that he was in a relationship with Saunders.
    Song was previously married to Song Hye-Ko in 2017, and parted ways two years later due to what their agency said was ‘differences of personality’.

  • Hollywood remake of ‘Crash Landing On You’ might have sci fi re-touch

    Hollywood remake of ‘Crash Landing On You’ might have sci fi re-touch

    The popular Korean drama ‘Crash Landing On You’ is reportedly getting a re-make in Hollywood, with a strong possibility that it will have sci-fi influences.
    The idea originated from the New Yorker profile of Netflix’s Global Head of Television Bela Bajaria, where he and the streaming service’s head of drama development, Jim Howe, discuss how they might remake the hit K-drama as it was specifically about North and South Korea.

    “So, I think we’re gonna see if maybe we can make that divide a little bit more symbolic. We’re looking into sci-fi,” Howe replied.

    “Well, you need a world, right?” Bajaria responded. “Because it is the culture clash of two people who don’t fit together but were meant for each other.”

    ‘Crash Landing On You’ stars Son Ye-Jin as a South Korean heiress and business woman who accidently lands in North Korean part of the demilitarized zone after paragliding. She meets Captain Ri Jeong-hyeok (played by Hyun Bin) who agrees to hide her in his home and pretend they are fiancees. The two begin to fall in love with each other.

  • Park Hyung Sik shares teaser of upcoming k-drama ‘Our Blooming Youth’

    Park Hyung Sik shares teaser of upcoming k-drama ‘Our Blooming Youth’

    Korean actor Park Hyung Sik has shared a teaser of his upcoming fantasy drama ‘Our Blooming Youth’ on his Instagram page.
    According to details, Sik plays a prince who suffers from a mysterious curse and encounters a genius woman (played by Min Jae Yi) who is being accused of murdering her family members. Both of them agree to help each other and soon develop a closer bond.

    Other prominent Korean actors like Choi Woo Shik (Our Beloved Summer) and Lee Young-Joon reached out to congratulate the actor in the comments

    K-drama fans would remember Hyung Sik from the popular comedy drama “Strong Girl Bong-Soon” where stars as the CEO of a video game company who hires a woman with incredible strength Bong Soon (played by Park Bo-Young) to become his bodyguard.