r/KDRAMA challenge 2023

1. A drama that has one or more tropes that are used in The Heirs. Surprisingly quite intense and dark in places despite the ridiculous-sounding premise (which is definitely like....pretty ridiculous in execution, no lie), but also surprisingly good imho?? Hits several school/rich people tropes that are shared by The Heirs.

2. A drama which subverts a trope. I really love this drama. <333

3. A drama that was referenced in another drama. Love IS the moment!!

4. A drama chosen by the Wheel of Chance: Food  (Tteokbokki). I really wanted to like this one and imho the story had a lot of promising elements, but it never reached its full potential for me? 16 episodes instead of 12 would have helped probably.

5. A drama chosen by the Wheel of Chance: Tropes  (Ending up at a playground after drinks). This drama started off VERY fun and then lost some steam as it went on imho, but still glad that I finally watched this!

6. A drama chosen by the Wheel of Chance: PPL (Health Supplements). Solid drama and I always enjoy Lee Sun-kyun, I enjoyed the episodic case stuff more and lost interest a bit with the office politics but that's just my personal taste. I forget the specific episode number but there's a scene where someone gives someone else ginseng!

7. A drama chosen by the  Wheel of Chance: Locations (Hotel) Delicious melodrama!!! Conrad Hotel Seoul and possibly others?

8. A drama with a main lead that started off as a child actor. (Kim So-yeon debuted when she was 14.) I always enjoy scheming rich people w/ secrets narratives! The pacing was surprisingly solid imho.

9. A drama starring a well known supporting actor. Lee Joon-hyuk!! Dysfunctional family dramedy, pretty good for 1 hour.

10. A drama starring one of the actors from your first drama. Park Min-woo was also in Flower Boy Ramyeon Shop! Idk if this was like...."""good""" per se but it was very watchable until it slowed down a little in the last few episodes! Lots of drama lol

11. A drama starring an actor who has previously won the Baeksang best new actor or actress award (Kim Hee-ae!) This drama really surpassed my expectations! The plot was engaging and well-paced (though more violent than I expected? all the bad guys were completely down to commit murder if it would make things even moderately more convenient for them lol), and it was a treat to see a story with so many older female characters portrayed by good actresses. One FYI is that an important side character is played by an actor who was convicted of a sex crime a couple decades ago, which struck me as a rather odd and disappointing casting decision given this show's subject matter.

12. A drama starring an actor who is a member of a Kpop group. Very basic, but charming and fun!

13. A drama where two of the main or support cast have been co-stars on multiple occasions. Rewatch! Kind of a vibes-only drama, but they're VERY nice-looking and pleasant vibes. The older ML and FL were also both in supporting roles in Han River Police apparently.

14. A drama with an OST by an artist who has been nominated for or won a MAMA Award for best OST (Dino (previously won best OST as part of Seventeen) and MeloMance) Idk how to score this one because I don't think anything was objectively wrong with it, but I just did not vibe with it as it went on. Liked beginning and the very ending though!

15. A drama with a multigenerational main cast. A mostly very nicely done and compact thriller! I really liked the way that most of it was structured, but the last ~1.5 episodes of it felt a bit disconnected from the earlier episodes imho which was a bit of a letdown. (Even though that part was also pretty solid on its own merits.)

16. A drama where one of the main cast shares your zodiac sign (Lee Dong-wook!) SO much fan-service and SO many tropes, but with a pretty solid plot underpinning it all! Good times.

17. A drama where the college alma mater of a character was a plot point. (For that one episode w/ the storyline about Joon-gi meeting someone who supposedly knows him from college.) Similar to season 1, the humor was kinda hit or miss for me, but when it was good it was good!!

18. A drama with a dream interpretation. (In episode 14 the ML's mom is bragging about him and mentions having a dream about a dragon while she was pregnant with him.) Some frustrating/poorly paced stretches, but a fun ride overall with a satisfying ending. Contract marriage trope of all time, knitwear of all time, controlling parents of all time.

19. A drama with minimal or no romance. This drama deals in some pretty dark subject matterial, and the pacing and some plot developments are a little iffy at times, but when it's good it's very good imho!!! I can't quite say it's a 9, but if I could give it like....8.75 I would lol.

20. A drama with a main or supporting character that is an athlete. (ML is a runner.) Surprisingly substantial plot for a short drama imho! I think it got a little weaker for me towards the end, but I would have happily watched a standard 16 hour-long episodes of this. Btw it's not a huge thing, but there is a surprisingly big age gap romance (28 year old FL + high school student? ML) which may be either a plus or a minus depending on what you're into lol.

21. A drama featuring disguises or false identities. (Not, like, very successful or long-lived disguises lol. But I think it still counts?) I'm compelled to gobble down every "person in bad circumstances makes an unwise choice that spirals out of control" drama that I can find, this one was good!

22. A drama which features a character seeking revenge. My first 10/10 drama of 2023!! I started this randomly with basically no expectations but was soooo impressed all the way through, especially by the writing.

23. At drama with at least one animal pet. Sometimes animal pets are also human love interests, somehow.

24. A drama you always wanted to watch but for some reason have not watched yet. I loved Kingdom s1 and s2 but randomly never got around to watching this until now! I was not totally sure about it in the middle, but the end was suitably nasty and zombie-packed. Gorgeous cinematography as always.

25. A drama whose poster you liked at first sight. The highlight of this was everything with the two leads, when they weren't together (like when the bad guys were scheming and such) it would start to lose me a little. But still an overall nicely laid-out story, with lots of great performances!

26. A drama from a screenwriter or director whose works you have previously enjoyed I'm not immune to a big flashy Netflix drama or a big flashy KES plot, but I was never SO into this the way that a lot of other ppl seem to have been? =/ It kept me watching though until the end though! I watched both parts even though I'm only putting one entry on this list. Lim Ji-yeon's performance was especially fun.

27. A drama found by searching existing recommendations. It took me a couple of episodes to really get into this, but once I was fully on board I thought it was a very good-quality show and the plot stayed strong all the way through the final episode!

28. A drama inspired by a review, recommendation or comment on r/KDRAMA or r/kdramarecommends. Very fun!! I enjoyed the episodic sex advice parts more than the actual romance plotlines.

29. A drama suggested by a fellow KDC participant. The story was a little one-note grim for me, but very impressive action scenes and also impressive performances by the 3 lead actors!

30. A drama whose title is a direct translation of the Korean title. Pretty nice little friends-to-lovers drama. Lots of drinking, also lots of envy that I have for the ML's house lol.

31. A drama with an episode which received less than 2% overall viewership rate from Nielson Nice little psychological thriller with a highly dramatic vibe that gets into horror territory at times.

32. A single episode drama. I'll never say no to a "one bad decision spirals out of control" psychological thriller.

33. A long form drama A very pleasant watch! I never watch long dramas outside of this challenge, but I enjoyed this one.

34. A drama with less than 500 watchers on MDL. This had under 400 completed watchers when I watched it in April. Another nice little drama, hits most of the plot beats that you would expect from a story set during the Japanese occupation, but with lots of female characters.

35. A drama that is at least 10 years old. This was my second attempt at watching this drama, but once I got a little ways into it it really grabbed me!

36. A drama which fits a challenge from previous KDC years. Not much to say about this one because all the stories are VERY basic without much uniqueness or skill....I definitely did zoom through them all though! Main character under 25 (as much as there are "main characters" here, lol), from the 2022 challenge.