Review: Miss Korea (MBC, 2014)

Premise: Hyun Joon is the owner of a struggling cosmetics company during the 1997 economic crisis. Oh Ji Young, his ex-flame, is an elevator girl facing unemployment and zero prospects for the future. They decide to join forces and enter the Miss Korea contest as a last ditch effort to stay afloat. Will they succeed despite the odds?

Big hair = big dreams

If you’re looking for a thoughtful and rich story about underdogs and picking yourself up after a fall, look no further than Miss Korea. If you’re looking for your next crack drama though, you should probably turn elsewhere because this won’t satisfy any compulsive viewing urges.

However if you do decide to turn away, you’d really be missing out. Because apart from the entirely subjective viewing experience aside, I found Miss Korea to be a delightful drama full of characters who are all shades of interesting and far beyond staid K-drama tropes. In other words, this drama is peopled with…people.

Coffee Prince Episode Guide: Episode 1 and 2

For a drama I deeply love and the one I credit for making me fall down the rabbit hole of drama addiction, Coffee Prince could do with a little more love on this blog. I haven’t even written a review of it, mostly because I fear being unable to adequately describe in words my love and affection for this show. But since this is a new year and there’s no better time to try new things, I thought I’d rewatch this show and compile a guide of sorts, which as you will see, is really a collection of fangirl gushing musings.

I’ve also included a list of songs from each episode from both on and off the official soundtrack, since the music was flawless, and one of the many reasons why this drama is one of my favourites of all time. I’ve shamefully stolen from the amazing work of Dramabeans for this, filling in some gaps where I noticed them. 

Beauty Queen Blues: First Impressions of Miss Korea

I’ve decided to limit my drama consumption to one currently-airing drama in an attempt to impose some structure, and hopefully some focus, to my drama life. Watching too many at one go spreads me too thin and I can feel my energy and attention span dissipate along with. Ironically, in order to decide which one to watch I have to watch more than one currently-airing drama, specifically two–Miss Korea and You From Another Star. I haven’t completely fallen for either of them, so I thought I’d see if putting my thoughts in order would help me decide.

Weekly OCD Drama Digest 2 Dec – 8 December

Happy Sunday all! Trust dramaland has been treating you well and everyone is coping with the mad year-end dash. Onwards with this week’s news…

1. It’s D-DAY: Gong Yoo appears on Running Man today! He and The Suspect co-star Park Hee Sun are first-timers and it looks like they’ll be getting their feet wet quite literally if these SBS promo pics are anything to go by: