Tuesday, March 17, 2009

꽃보다 남자, Or, The Greatest Korean Drama Ever

What do I do after a hard day of work?

I usually get in a few good segments of some Korean drama. Seriously, Korean drama is like the crack cocaine of television. The more I get into it, the more addictive it becomes. I would even go so far to say that I enjoy it more than a lot of Western shows, maybe because it's manga in television form. Or maybe because Korean shows only run for a set number of episodes (usually no more than twenty five), which means that a good idea doesn't get beaten to death.

Right now, I am all caught up in 꽃보다 남자, which translates to "Boys Before Flowers". It's about a group of high school boys who attend the most prestigious private school in Korea. They call themselves "F4", and they generally go around making the lives of other students hell.

Then, one day, one of the targets of their bullying tries to kill himself by jumping off a building. It just so happens that a girl named Jan Di, the daughter of the nearby drycleaner's, is on campus to deliver this boy's laundry, and she ends up saving his life. To keep the school from getting negative publicity, the school's CEO decides to make her a scholarship student.

Of course, Jan Di hasn't even been at school a week before she becomes F4's newest target. However, when she stands up to them instead of taking their crap, the leader, Jun Pyo, falls in love with her. Unfortunately, she's fallen in love with his best friend, Ji Hoo. Oh no!

And it just gets better from there. Kidnapping, stalking, breakups, cheating, spontaneous flights to New Caledonia, near-drownings, confessions of love, heartfelt apologies, nights spent at the top of Namsan Tower...this show is freaking amazing. I love it!

If any of you should feel so inclined, all of the episodes are available here (completely legally too, I might add), with English subtitles, of course!

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Jun Pyo's perm is so ridiculous it's awesome.

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