K-Drama Reviews

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 12/14/2025

Top 5 K-Dramas of 2025

I only saw about 25 K-dramas this year that I wrote about. And I'm not really sure 10 were worth mentioning. So many shows failed in their second half of the season including ones I started to recommend to people...and that might be more upsetting than ones that were just meh all along.But here are five worth checking out.

I only saw about 25 K-dramas this year that I wrote about. And I'm not really sure 10 were worth mentioning. So many shows failed in their second half of the season including...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 12/14/2025

November-December 2025: Found Family

I took a little pause in drama watching in November for a big trip to Spain for my birthday. It had been a WHILE since I had traveled to Europe. I started off in Barcelona with a focus on 20th century architecture. Now back to work and reality. And the couple of dramas I finally managed to finish.I truly wasn't sure what exactly The Murky Stream wanted to be. It feels mostly like a historical drama (prepare ye for sadness) and then a bit of a revenge tale. But at nine episodes with an abrupt end...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 10/26/2025

October 2025: Food, Comebacks, and Sexy Bodyguards

Had a fun month with a quick Are You Sure-themed trip to Connecticut. Glamping a la Jimin and Jungkook with less diarrhea but a spider bite. Stll have not encountered any AMAZING dramas lately but I'm watching a mix of old and new ones waiting for the next big hit.

Had a fun month with a quick Are You Sure-themed trip to Connecticut. Glamping a la Jimin and Jungkook with less diarrhea but a spider bite. Stll have not encountered any AMAZING dramas lately but I'm watching a mix of old and new on...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 09/28/2025

September 2025: Throwbacks

But when she gets injured while hiking and is rescued by Yoo Min-woo (Song Seung-heon) her heart beats like it never has before. Min-woo is just back from Italy (where he happened to meet Jung-ah) and has been nursing a broken heart since his fiancee died. Jung-ah has just decided Min-woo will fall for her, but he also finds himself inexplicably drawn to Hye-won. Hye-won is sweet but Jung-jae is boring, patronizing, and infantilizes her. He may have been in her life for a long time, but their re...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 08/24/2025

July-August 2025: Summer Blur

I was so fidgety and unhappy with dramas this summer that I hardly have notes on any of them. So bear with me this month even remembering why I was grumpy about these.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 07/06/2025

June 2025: Suffering Alone, Stalkers, Borrowed Eyes

All seven members of BTS returned from the military this month. We finally got to peep Min Yoongi at J-Hope's concert and then see his full FACE upon the first OT7 live announcing they will work on an album and a world tour for next spring. My savings account is ready. I also saw Stray Kids during their world tour in NY. We had some adverse weather conditions but after the nightmare of Ateez's NY show last summer we were ready for this one. A good time was had by all. One of my closest friends m...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 06/15/2025

April-May 2025: Gay Teen Romance, Betrayal, and Bad Remakes

Yet another busy couple of months so I am combining what I saw over two months. And I don't have time to write about The Haunted Palace (lots o' shamanism) or Into the Ring (oh I like this, oh I'm bored) or Spring of Youth (if this is going where I think it is I will be mad so I'm stopping watching).

M • 05/04/2025

February-March 2025: Comic Book Violence, Inner Children, and Bad Princes

Life got away from me with concerts, surgery, and a busy work project. Saw J-Hope's solo show, Hwasa's world tour, and got very buried in my job. But there were a few dramas I wanted to talk about from February and March.Study GroupHappy to see Hwang Min-hyun in a more playful, action-comedy role in this high octane high school drama that feels a bit like Muppet Babies Fight Club.Everything in this show plays delightfully against type. It is centered around a nerdy high school student, Yoon Ga-m...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 02/17/2025

January 2025: Parenting and Abandonment

A belated New Year's greeting as my December-January shows took a while to wrap-up. Praying the terrible drama drought of 2024 comes to an end soon!

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 01/01/2025

December 2024: Found Family and Haunted Exes

Closing out a weak year of dramas...with dramas that started out promising or offer some good performances in less than stellar material.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 12/15/2024

Top 10 K-Dramas of 2024

I decided to do a Top 10 list based on what I saw this year (though they may have been released in another year). I really found it a rough year for dramas.  A lot of these did not end up high in my lifetime rankings...which is really saying something about the shows that came out this year. But I feel like I can recommend them still.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 12/01/2024

October-November 2024: Love in the Big City et al

Love in the Big City really changes the landscape for gay representation in Korean drama. It is a true journey into gay culture as well as being a bittersweet story about looking for love.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 10/14/2024

September 2024: Meh Romance

I feel like my drama slump kind of continues. SIGH. There have a been a slew of recent romance dramas but they all started to blur together. Love Next DoorI could not help but see some parallels between Love Next Door and the recent series, Doctor Slump. Here, childhood neighbors Bae Seok-ryu (Jung So-min) and Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in) haven’t seen each other in a long time. Seok-ryu has been working for a prestigious tech company in the US and is engaged. But she shows up unexpectedly back i...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 10/14/2024

My Favorite K-Dramas Ranked

A ranking of the K-dramas I have watched and written about

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 09/15/2024

August 2024: Drama Slump Continues

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 08/11/2024

June-July 2024: A Drab Summer of Dramas

What the hell have I been watching all summer? I cannot think of any other time since I started my K-drama journey that I have floundered for so long looking for a show to catch my attention. Even my Korean teacher was complaining about this so I feel like it's not just me. We're having a dud summer of dramas. In less of a review and more of an issue of record-keeping, these are the shows I poked around with this summer but (mostly) could not finish.Missing Crown PrinceThis is the one show I man...

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 06/16/2024

May 2024: Time Travel, Superpowers, and Serial Killers

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 05/19/2024

April 2024: Tears, Trauma, and Giving Up

I was a little off my game this month. With all the Broadway openings in April, I was mentally spent so I didn't keep great notes on the shows I was watching. I felt compelled to catch up on some K-drama "classics" but with older dramas sometimes the age issues make them tough to get through. I kept giving up on shows before the end. But here's my April rundown such as it is.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 05/11/2024

Book Review: K-Drama School

Grace Jung’s educational and frequently breezy bookis a great starting place if you don’t have any Korean cultural or historic context to K-dramas.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 04/07/2024

March 2024: Depressingly Bad at Consent

Maybe I was just on a road to be disappointed by all my shows this month. It's not unusual for a K-drama to start strong and then completely collapse. But some real bummers this month and some bad takes on consent and homosexuality.

Reuniting stars of fan fave The Heirs, this series about career setbacks, mental illness, and living a different path in Korea's competitive society should have been a slam dunk. And it was for about 10 episodes. But it could not deliver on its second half. Yeo Jeon

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 03/03/2024

February 2024: Demons Mental and Literal

I've had a bit too much time on my hands and have been watching too much TV. Some shows were not even worth finishing. I'm listing them for completeness. But 12 shows in one month is too many (ethe shortest month with only 1 extra day) and I was scraping the bottom of the TV barrel at times.

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 02/07/2024

January 2024: Creatures from the Past

In January, New York City broke it's 700-day no-snow streak and I encountered some real stellar dramas.

Gyeongseong Creature sets an incredible stage for how the Japanese occupation, Japanese military violence, and the people of Korea survived such atrocities. It then kind of sells out its own nuanced and careful character development for a "second season." I'm reserving some judgment on this until I see this future second season, but I didn't love the way the final episodes wrap-up. On the who

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 01/07/2024

December 2023: Korean Sojourn

I spent three weeks in Korea this December. While it was cold and we got snow (a white Christmas!), I was glad to see the country at this time of year. Winter light festivals brightened the frigid nights. There were an incredible number of concerts to attend. And I went to see some theater (which I wrote about here). Some places I went had few tourists (which I love) and I got to drink my favorite Korean warm beverage, Omija tea.

I went to Gwangju for a few days to see some of the historic site

Mildly Bitter's Musings • 11/29/2023

November 2023: Destiny

I'm deep in Korea travel planning but here are some interesting shows from November.

In Destined With You, Rowoon plays a rude, standoffish lawyer, Jang Shin-yu, who is haunted by a hand covered in blood. Totes normal. In a new job at city hall, he encounters and immediately dislikes civil servant, Lee Hong-jo (Jo Bo-ah). Meanwhile, Hong-jo has a crush on Kwon Jae-kyung (Ha Jun) another lawyer who works at city hall. Jae-kyung rejects her confession which sets the stage for her casting a love s