There are so many reasons why I leave dramas unfinished; sometimes there aren’t any subs available, and sometimes they’re being streamed at sites I don’t care for. In rare cases, they’re just shows I need to give a second chance to — I thought I was going to hate PRIDE because I hated hockey. Fortunately I thought wrong, and you should all watch it because it’s wonderful! Hockey is still 100% whatever though. While the list of dramas I’ve left unfinished is somewhat lengthy, none of them bother me as much as these three:
“Yae no Sakura” (NHK / 2013)
“Arang and the Magistrate” (MBC / 2012)
“Deep Rooted Tree” (SBS / 2011)
Common factor: they’re historical dramas! Jidaigeki or (fusion) sageuk, it’s not happening. It’s a big miracle that I was able to get through the second season of JIN, because while the political intrigue was really interesting at first, I started getting bored. BAKUMATS-WHO?
Despite my aversion to actually finishing anything even remotely historical, I plan on starting “Secret Door”. I never really gave Han Seok-kyu a chance in Deep Rooted Tree (after an amazing first four episodes with Song Joong-ki as young Lee Do, it’s a little hard to), but playing a king who eventually locks his son in a chest full of rice sounds pretty gangster, so I’m down.
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(More) Reasons to Watch: Yae no Sakura is still as beautiful as I remember it. NHK really doesn’t play around when it comes to jidaigeki! While I can’t vouch for the story, you’re guaranteed stunning visuals and an all-star cast. Arang and the Magistrate is the only fictitious story out of the bunch, but I keep going back to it (and watching the first few episodes multiple times…) because I have a huge soft spot for the two leads (Shin Mina and Lee Junki). They represent the very early stages of my interest in Korean pop culture, so I’m usually about watching whatever I can find them in! The story is also a very good one, too.
Other Unfinished Dramas: “Joseon X-Files” … another fusion sageuk that I watched for a hot minute (tvN / 2010), “Woman” (NTV / 2013), “High School King of Savvy” (tvN / 2014).