The shining winner of the weekend K-dramas (and by that I mean anything airing Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun) has to be MBC sageuk Knight Flower. The Honey Lee starring vehicle is nearly doubled in ratings since its premiere and the latest episode 6 got 12.5%. Prestige sageuk Captivating the King with Jo Jung Seok and Shin Se Kyung is steady in ratings in the 3% range through 3 episodes. And newcomer jTBC Sat-Sun medical drama Dr. Slump with Park Shin Hye and Park Hyung Sik is the fresh and different option and premiered to 4.060%. I also don’t want to forget Flexx Cop with Ahn Bo Hyun and Park Ji Hyun which is a Fri-Sat drama and the ratings went up in the second episode to 6.9%. So these are your weekend K-drama options for the next 5-7 weeks and should be plenty of different tastes for different viewers to pick from.
I get that they were trying to make a point. But that very first scene for Dr. Slump was so lame, I lost interest. And I was excited to see Hyung Sik, too. Oh well, will put this on the back burner for the time being.
The court scene?
PSH’s character was in pain and staggering while leaving the hospital. The scene outside was bustling with hospital personnel like herself and people in general. No one seemed to notice her condition. And if they did, they ignored her. Woman sees her slumped on the ground right smack in the middle of a busy intersection crosswalk and ignores her. Lol Vehicles from multiple lanes in both directions zip by as if she was invisible until the truck of doom show up. LOL. It was just ridiculous..
@Peppa, yeah agreed. That scene where she got stuck in the traffic was so amazingly unconvincing. I thought that was in her dream but nope. It’s a huge plot hole so early in the series. Pity! That being said, I’ll continue to watch for PHS since I miss him on screen. I’m also curious about the end of the story.
@Peppa
Ohh thanks, I haven’t had time to watch so I only know some snippet of it. Maybe I’ll wait and see if it’s going to be good
@peppa I felt the exact same thing. A hospital employee wearing scrubs right outside the hospital in obvious pain and no one blinks an eye. Lost all interest. What a horribly lame intro to this drama. Turned me right off
Okay, can someone explain to me why the actors and actresses who almost always bring in high ratings domestically, like Honey Lee, Kim Nam Gil, Namgoong Min, and Shin Hye Sun are not very popular with international fans while those who are popular with international fans almost always have flop projects domestically? IDK, it’s just something I’ve noticed and it’s quite interesting to me lol
Because young international fans love their rom-coms with pretty actors. Most hallyu hits are like so. The hallyu actors will continue to get similar projects that don’t require much from them acting wise, which means shallower scripts that might not bring ratings but will sell well to OTTs and probably get high streaming numbers and tiktok fame (see: My Demon). The more interesting scripts that require actual acting will go to those who have the talent, who probably don’t have superstar looks but built a good repertoire of works and earned trust from viewers. Due to their domestic reputation, they bring in the ratings. Those actors with both hallyu and domestic fame are good looking with at least passable skills. But most of them are in their late 30s or older.
LoL “young internetional fans love romcoms with pretty actors”? Do you remember how popular was King of the land in Korea in 2023?
Lol, “international fans love romkoms with pretty actors”? Do you remember how popular King the land was in Korea in 2023?
Some good dramas more popular among internetional fans and some opposite.
International fans just don’t very like historical or saguek, this dramas are more for korean audience
I agree with I am Yours in some aspects. Because there are some international fans (probably younger or those who watch on OTT) who only love young and good looking actors that are hype, while actors like Honey Lee and Nam Goong Min, are less-well received as they get meatier and substantial roles than the hyped actors. Sadly, most otts don’t really carry their dramas. And it is not just restricted to romcoms (I am trying to be objective, though I am not a fan of cliche genre).
On the other the hand, why is KTL highly popular local and abroad, despite the so many criticism. It is because Yoona and Jun Ho are first and foremost are idols and belonged to two well-known Kpop bands. These automatically converts to viewers.
PY, I don’t understand, why are you adding “international”. We all know 1-2 very-very popular but very weak dramas in Korea. And very good dramas which didn’t get recognition.
And most of popular OTT actors also very popular in Korea.
Some dramas, like D.P., Twinkling watermelon or Good bad mother were popular among international fans, not because of good looking actors.
And i think that romcoms becomes popular because people just likes romcoms.
My demon is just a fluffy predictably thing, people watch this to relax.
Song Kang was filmed in Navillera, but this drama barely known cause it doesn’t have romantic trope.
I suppose you’re talking about Song Kang as “hallyu actor with least passable skills”. As someone who watched Sweet home with him I’m disagree with you. Maybe he’s not so good in romcoms (i didn’t watch his romcoms so idk), but he’s good in dramatic roles. And the same thing i think about Han So Hee. I think she doesn’t really suits for romance dramas, but she was good in My name.
As for Chan Eun Woo, well, he chooses very similar roles in every drama. We can talk about his acting when see him in more differently role.
I don’t know which actors also got criticism for “only good looks”, but sometime I noticing prejudice over them.
Like people loves dislake these actors cause of their looks or popularity.
Then someone mentioned “I like Song Kang” someone can say “you like him only cause he’s good looking”.
But international fans also loves actors like Son Suk Ku or Lee Do Hyun, Yim Si Wan not because they’re pretty.
Sorry for being rude, but for me it’s just seems that you don’t like some actors and because of this think that others loves them for their looks.
P.S.: I’m not good in English, so sorry if it was hard to read.
And also, I don’t know if Honey Lee is a good dramatic actress or not, I know her only for Fiery priest and some other comedic roles, and, suppose, the same goes for other international fans. If you can recommend me some of her dramas I’d like to watch them.
@olesya1 You can’t rally compare King The Land with the other rom-coms as it was marketed as an old-school type of rom-com and koreans are probably missing those. It also has Yoona, who is super popular in Korea, and Junho, who was at that time fresh off of The Red Sleeve fame and just gotten his Baeksang, thus korean viewers now trust his acting skills. Another popular rom-com with Koreans was Hometown Chachacha and it had Kim Seon Ho in it who was then just coming off of his Start Up breakout moment. So what @Imyours was saying is still mostly true. I noticed that the rom-coms that did well with koreans are those with actors that already have a good acting reputation (ie. KYL, HTCCC, Crash Landing on You, Secret Garden). Koreans trust those actors and so they watch almost anything they’re in, even if they’re romcoms
Suzie, All of this dramas was popular among international fans as well.
You mentioned only good romcoms, but I watched The Heirs and DOTS and they were soo hella weak, i didn’t get their popularity at all. You also said that korean watch romcoms because of actors, right? So I missed the point what we’re talking about. Like international fans watch romcoms because of actors and korean do the same thing, but korean watch a good dramas, and international bad? As someone who watched Heirs and DOTS I can’t agree with that.
I know dramas with a good plot and without OTT actors which got more popularity from international fans, and the same thing goes for korean.
And I know some dramas with a weak plot and OTT actors, which were very popular in Korea.
But not very much romcoms have so variety in audience, for 2023-2024 years I noticed discussion like this only because of My demon. I often saw that people said like it’s the first romcom they liked for a long time, so maybe it’s not about OTT actors, just people have different taste in dramas.
I agree with most of what you said but think it’s more correct to say that international viewers like anything with romance and popular and/or good-looking actors and actresses rather than to say that they only like rom-coms. For example, Moon Lovers and Hwarang aren’t rom-coms but were both very popular internationally even if they weren’t well-written dramas objectively speaking. So yeah, I think whatever genre a drama is, as long as it has a lot of romance and has eye candy actors, international fans would like it lol
Did you ever see that some from international fans call Namgoong Min or Kim Nam Gil bad actor? Even if they’re not so popular, no one says bad about their acting.
In the same time acting OTT actors discussing every time.
And personally I don’t think that Shin Hye Son is a good actress. She plays a variety of roles, but as for me, she overplays in almost every one of them.
And I saw Honey Lee only on comedians roles, i can’t be her fans if i don’t know how she plays dramatic roles.
Because those actors rarely do romcoms which are more popular to international fans. They play comic roles but not in the romantic comedy genre. Romcoms is also popular with shippers who like to make social media contents these days for the pretty leads which can lead to more buzz because those cute vids get reposted a lot.
Well, it’s exactly as i said, people just likes romcoms.
Flower Knight is a little bit repetitive now.
Dr Slump’s first episode was like a long intro, I’m curious about the rest now.
Flex x Cop is entertaining for now.
I didn’t watch Captivating the King’s last episode yet, but JJS is always delivering.
Really enjoying Captivating the King.Waiting for next episode The female lead is one of my favorites. She played opposite Cha Eun Woo in the Rookie Historian. If you haven’t watched this historical drama / you are in for a treat! I laughed and cried. CEW is crazy adorable in this too!
I kinda have the opposite feelings with this FL. I watched Rookie Historian and didn’t like CEW, his characters was the least interesting except his secret birth, I prefered the historian and the King.
For now , i’m watching Flex x Cop which is entertaining , ABH is in his Military Prosecutor vibe . I’ll watch Dr Slump’s after finishing My happy ending which is alienating but i want to go all the way . Not a fan of SSK so i didn’t watch Captivating the king .
I enjoy Knight Flower mostly thanks to Honey Lee. It is only 12 episodes long, so maybe we will avoid the boredom 16 episode shows hit around ep. 10-11.
I really liked the first episode of Dr. Slump. The school flashbacks sort of made me feel I was 15 years younger too (at the time when I was watching Heirs etc), and it kind of made me think: what would my 18 year old self think if she were to see me now? I found it so moving that both leads were bright stars as teenagers and now, well, life has gotten to them (although in Park Hyung Sik’s case, there was also foulplay too).
I don’t have the time or the will to watch the other two, until for now.
I’m happy with Knight Flower and have been closely following it each week. Honey Lee is badass and hilarious at the same time. I also enjoyed her chemistry with the ML whom I ‘m not familiar with at all. I just watched ep1 of Dr. Slump for PHS not PSH. LOL. One ep can’t hardly tell anything unless it’s extremely bad like many recently released C dramas I checked. I’m looking forward to more of Dr. Slump. May check Flexx Cop if time’s available. Not interested in any drama of Jo Jung Seok. He’s never captivated me. So, I will pass Captivating the King. LOL.
Honey Lee has often this badass and hilarious side in her dramas . My Fiery Priest, One Woman, …10 years ago in Modern Farmer . She is an actress i enjoy to watch , 15 years ago she did a drama ” Partner” with Lee Dong Wook and Kim Hyun Joo, and back then i never thought that she would become an A list atcress . I ‘m glad . In the same drama Kim Dong Wook had a small role and now he is a daesang lead actor ! I like the outsiders !
I heard about Modern Farmer but never checked it out. Is it worth? Now I’ll ask for recommendation as much since it’s really time consuming to check each drama myself. I’ve learned lessons from repeated mistakes checking out Cdramas.
If you don’t like country side’s drama, you can pass . The story if i remenber well isn’t all that . It’s a comedy about farmers ans 4 young musicians whom for some reason are there . The drama aired in 2014 so i can’t say if it’s still watchable in 2024 ! Sorry !
.
Modern Farmer was a fun drama. I don’t remember much from the show but I remember laughing so much while watching the show. One thing that was creepy was Kwak Dong Yeon who was still a minor was paired opposite an actress 10 yrs old than him. And they even had a kiss scene.
Knight Flower has been a fun watch. Enjoying every episode. Loving the female version of Hong Gil Dong. Plus,Honey is so badass.
Captivating The King would’ve been much more interesting if not for the poor acting of the female lead and the second male lead…those two needs major acting lessons.
As for Doctor Slump….I enjoyed the first episode. Will be sticking around for few more episodes to see how it goes.
I’m actually enjoying Flex x Cop a lot so far – it’s one of those fun shows that doesn’t go into slapstick humor territory (yet?) la Military Prosecutor Doberman. Captivating the King is interesting in how dark it is so far – reminding me of my favorite saeguk of recent times, Bloody Heart. Knight Flower is not doing it for me yet although Honey Lee is always great – will probably keep it for later. Skipping Doctor Slump, may revisit later if the ratings climb like cray.
Dr. Slump is so good. PHS/PSH are such cuties, funny, beautiful, sophisticated, and charismatic. Their chemistry is explosive and it’s just into 2nd ep. They went all out with most magnetic performances in all their dramas I’ve watched so far. I haven’t seen such a charming OTP on screen for a while. If this vibrant dynamic continues, it’s reasonable to predict the drama will be a hit soon regardless of the plot development, let alone there’s already a hint of potential thriller and suspension in the plot. I’m so excited about the development and looking forward to new eps.
Seeing how you dislike Park Shinhye but giving this drama such high praise, I’m now convinced to watch it lol!
Yup! She progressed so obviously after her comeback from maternity leave. It’s always enlightening to see actors mature years later. I’ve already observed this happened to some K actors including Lee Jun-ho, Suzy, and now Park Shinhye. She really emoted pretty well without looking forced in the first 2 eps. The acting of both her and Hyungsik is pretty nuanced so far. Her crying scene with Hyungsik at the end of ep2 touched me. I felt their pains. So it’s successful acting! I’m only speaking of the facts I’ve observed and trying to give my own opinions as objective as possible (although it’s impossible to be completely objective LOL). I do have personal preference of visuals. But other than that, got to be fair when actors deserve credits.
Just betting on acting alone, I’m looking forward to experience highs and lows of the characters in Dr. Slump. It has now become the most anticipated drama I’m excited about among all I’m watching.
I just finished to watch the first 2 episodes of Dr Slump and i like it . I’m wasn’t a fan of PSH’s acting in the past but she is good in this one and PHS is BacK ! Last year , he wasn’t at his best in “Blooming youth ” and i miss his develish stare ! I’m waiting to see more of Yoon Park ! And talking about depression and the mechanism of it , it’s great . Yes, It’s an illness not a motive to escape work, domestic work, it’s insidious . It doesn’t mean your are worthless , you are suffering and need medical help . Don’t drink when you are under medication !
haha. So, I’m not alone about Dr. Slump. Love Hyungsik every minute in this drama. He’s so immaturely winsome! LOL
Yes , that’s what i wanted to say ” immaturely winsome ” ; My english really sucks !