K-drama screenwriter Noh Hee Kyung has won me back to her good graces completely after It’s Okay, It’s Love, not that I ever grew fully disenchanted with her but IOIL did make me love her 100% again. Her few dramas before IOIL such as Padam Padam and That Winter, the Wind Blows were all too clinical for me, I never quite connected with the characters or world building in those dramas because it felt too posed. I love when she’s going for the raw visceral emotions with an intelligent lens, and I hope she can continue along that vein for her upcoming cable network tvN drama Dear My Friends.

I love the name of the drama because it evokes the same wistful mood as one of her earlier amazing works Goodbye Solo. It’s also quite fitting as a Noh Hee Kyung drama because she’s got so many friends in the drama industry, loyal friends who choose to accept less to do her dramas, or even accept a token gesture to do a cameo. That’s what’s happening as Noh Hee Kyung drama alum and A-list actor Jo In Sung is reportedly going to do an important cameo for Dear My Friends, while his good buddy and also Noh Hee Kyung alum Kwang Soo is in talks to also do the drama in a supporting role.

I mentioned Kwang Soo and Jo In Sung’s involvement with Dear My Friends but neither are going to headline the drama. That honor is likely going to veteran actress Go Hyun Jung and veteran singer-actor Shin Sung Woo. Dear My Friends is apparently about the lives of urban Seoul residents in their mid-to-late forties, and that’s exactly the age range that the two leads occupy. Dear My Friends is currently scheduled for the first half of 2016 on tvN.