Dramas I Wouldn't Recommend Part II

Time and time again, you've heard me ramble about well-written, beautifully-acted dramas--shows with lovable characters and addictive storylines that continue to live rent-free in my brain long after the screen has gone dark. Well, now the time has come to address the other end of the spectrum: dramas I absolutely would not recommend you watch (including ones I low-key wish I'd never watched either). 

Apologies in advance if one of these is your favorite dramas of all time--I don't think poorly of you if you enjoy them, I promise. Unless you're like 'ooh yeah I love racism so that part was my fave', because if that's the case, then yes, I do think poorly of you and we're not friends, actually. Now, if you are inspired by my ranting to hate-watch any of these? Go for it. If our tastes differ and you find some of the non-problematic elements that I just didn't enjoy to be enticing? Lovely. In the words of RM, "Do what you wanna do, V. Go get it". <3

WARNING: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I Hear You (2019 Chinese drama) - this show had good elements but the longer it went on, the more its potential was wasted. Zhao Lu Si was a charming and ambitious female lead, and her conflicts with her mother and her career lended some depth to her character beyond the romance. The initial premise of joining a reality show as a pretend couple that slowly turns real seemed like a fun plot rife with drama...but after the mid-point, the episodes started to feel monotonous and boring. Why have the majority the stuff with the reality show happen off screen? Why spend a chunk of every episode dangling the will-they-won't they of the secondary couple in our faces, only to spirit the secondary female lead off with some pushy Italian dude in the final moments? Why did the male lead have one singular facial expression for every situation? 

The worst part was the conflict at the ending, both how overblown the problem was and how it was resolved. All that "you have to choose violin making in Europe over me and I have to choose voice acting in Japan over you!!! WE CAN'T GET MARRIED OR BE TOGETHER AT ALL!!!" when the violin-making assignment would only take three months, and then he can just join her in Japan after all? Also if you're going to break up over something ridiculous like that, "I'm going to steal your passport, board the plane, abandon you at the airport and block you for three months until you show up in Japan" is probably the worst way to do it. 

Miss in Kiss (2016 Taiwanese drama) - Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that part of my distaste for this drama is because I don't like bully romances, and that's on me for watching it anyway. As they say, don't order a chicken sandwich and then complain there's chicken in it. That said, it is my right to complain, and as someone who loves complaining, I'm going to wield that right like Rapunzel wields a frying pan. :) 

This is only one adaptation of many of this particular story, and it is common knowledge that the guy is a massive jerk in all of them (and the female lead is supposed to be an air-head)...but even for a bully romance, the male lead is incredibly mean and self-absorbed. He not only bullies the female lead but also looks down on everyone around him, which makes it impossible to understand why everyone is so obsessed with him. The stereotypical "perfect girl" vying against the female lead for his affection even admits to giving up her university plans to follow him to his preferred school, and discards all hobbies and talents other than what he is involved in just to get close to him--like, why? One of the most annoying things is that all the characters insist he's a brilliant genius, but when he's "helping" the female lead study for exams (i.e yelling at her and calling her stupid for not knowing how to find the solutions), he reveals that he has a photographic memory and he doesn't need to study because he memorizes the textbook during class. He keeps bullying her for not being able to do the same thing, and no one ever calls him on the fact that SHE DOESN'T HAVE THE SUPER SPECIAL MEMORY YOU DO SIR!!! STUDYING REQUIRES MORE THAN JUST LOOKING AT A TEXTBOOK FOR HER!!! She not only does well on exams but actually does the best out of her entire class, who also got his help (they are considered the "dumb kids" in the grade and yet he treats them all way more politely than he treats her--love it when a relationship means he treats you the worst of everyone he knows). But does she ever get any props for this? Nope. Her "reward" from her classmates is a wedding topper for her and the guy because everything has to come back to him and the inevitability of their relationship, of course. It's actually really sad: the rest of the cast is either pushing the female lead to continue crushing on him even though he's been mean to her and told her he doesn't like her and never will (her classmates/friends, the male lead's mother) or they're treating her like she's an idiot for assuming someone like him would ever look at her twice (the perfect girl vying for his affections, her own father who FORMALLY APOLOGIZES to the male lead's parents when they get caught in a compromising position because he genuinely believes she's delusional when she explains there's something going on between them).  

Also, because it still grinds my gears--the male lead ends up dropping out of college to run the family business. Somehow this means he has to give up his budding romance to the female lead (who also drops out to work alongside him???) and enter a forced engagement with a business colleague's daughter. It's framed as this massive sacrifice he doesn't want to make but does anyway because he's soooo filial and selfless, to the point where he resents his parents for forcing him into it...except the parents don't want him to do it and are not forcing him at all??? There's even multiple scenes where they are actively begging him not to do it and it's all his idea??? Like WHY is this show so dedicated to making him the good guy in every situation and yet also dedicated to not writing him as an actual good guy at the same time???

The kicker is that of the five or so kisses shared by the main couple in this drama, not a SINGLE one is mutually consensual. Now, is a surprise kiss or two pretty normal for this genre? Sure, but not a single one??? NOT EVEN THE WEDDING KISS? 

Lovestruck In the City (2020 Korean drama) - This kills me because I LOVE Ji Chang Wook, but this drama was so meh. The framing device of the documentary is fresh and well-utilized, the design elements of the drama are executed well (music, filming, costuming, locations), and the acting is excellent, but the plot threads just unravel into a tangled mess that, despite the attempts of the writers, cannot be tied into a neat bow at the end. Of the three couples, the easiest ones to root for are Kang Geon and Oh Seon-yeong, who offer comedic levity to the more somber problems of the other two pairs, but unfortunately, many of their scenes devolve into the trope of using female-on-male violence to get laughs. The actors playing Seo Rin-i and Choi Kyeong-jun give convincing, layered performances of a couple that, while sweet and shippable, struggle to overcome their incompatibilities--a story that would have been more successful if their breakup hadn't happened last minute and been left completely unresolved. The main couple, Park Jae-won (the excellent-as-always Ji Chang Wook, who broke my heart with his tears) and Lee Eun-oh / Yoon Seon-ah, have what should be the most interesting dynamic but are just impossible to root for. Why Jae-won would ever take Eun-oh back after what she has done is never addressed, and the distance between Eun-oh and the audience is never minimized enough for us to fully trust her feelings for Jae-won. Logically, I can assume from the story's themes that I'm supposed to justify Eun-oh's inability to let Jae-won go as proof of her love for him. To me, the way her character was portrayed made it seem more like she couldn't leave him alone because that would mean not being able to emotionally manipulate him anymore, and she needed that power trip as an outlet for her rage and resentment over what happened with her ex. Seeing them to stroll off hand-in-hand into the sunset at the end of the drama while their friend group lies in pieces as collateral damage felt gross. I also thought the director made a mistake in writing the final episode as an introduction to a follow-up series with different characters (which never materialized, which makes it even more out-of-place)  instead of taking that time to wrap up the stories already in motion.