Charlotte

I agree that koreans can evolve however they want, and they have during the seven years and 583 dramas I've watched so far. But I actually do think American-based Netflix has become a big target. Netflix spends a lot of money either co-producing or investing in finished international productions that fit the Netflix style. So then Netflix money can often become a consideration when korean producers create a show. If they write and film towards Netflix preferences it can mean a sale not just to Korea's five TV networks, but also possibly to Netflix, This also garners a lot of extra viewers for k-dramas globally along the huge Netflix matrix . Netflix also does the same in other countries like Turkey and India.

So right, I always check out how many episodes they're releasing on Netflix. If it's only 8...I hold back and wait for a year until they drop the other half. I too have also just started watching C-drama historicals & fantasy and was surprised at how binge-watchable they are. 'Eternal Love, Ten Thousand miles of Peach Blossoms', 'Love & Destiny', 'The Sword and the Brocade' and now, (because of Wallace Huo in that one) I'm dipping into aother one of his, 'The General and Me'. He does a strong but gentle hero like no other. All of these dramas are so gripping, although they're long. Also found some neat East Indian dramas on Netflix for fun. The Turkish ones are a bit too makjang-heavy for me.

For many of us who've watched this same classic rom-com script played and replayed over & over and feel that it's too clichéd, I think we can remember when we all first discovered korean dramas. These shows were korean 'gems' that a lot us enjoyed and stuck with faithfully (I've racked up 589 Kdramas since beginning in 2015.). So I'm thinking that 'A Business Proposal' might be another great 'starter' drama for those who are just discovering their first KDs. (How many of us thought that "Boys Over Flowers" was outstanding when we first watched long ago? Yet for all it's derision now, it's still a gateway drama on Netflix to the korean vault of other great stories.) )The plot line of 'A Business Proposal' won't be chichéd to newcomers because they won't have seen them before. (I can remember loving the piggyback rides when I first saw them...and still never tire of them ). The only thing new KD viewers will miss out on is all the meta references to other shows and tropes that more experienced viewers will pick- up on. I too felt 'A Business Proposal' was a 'good' drama. I didn't find everything in it funny, but I did enjoy all the medley of characters (although the adorable grumpy Grandfather let me down by being inconsistent at the end). All in all, it was a nice 12 hours spent with a light-hearted script. Not necessarily addictive, but still quite a happy drama thoughout.

Ok. that's it for me. Netflix held back on ordering the last half of the season and ended it with a cliffhanger while Netflix considered season two. Korean shows are predominantly one season 'jewels' that tell a story arc from the beginning right to the end. Over. Finished. Done. No need for more seasons. Sadly, Netflix dollars are worth catering to lately, so when Netflix orders korean productions or buys them already produced, they do it from the perspective and tastes of North America. The end result is dramas with more seasons and those with slightly adjusted characters and story arcs which will play better to the western viewer. I worry that if this keeps up, the Korean Drama will abondon its audience-winning formulas & viewpoints along with its cultural richness. As it stands now, even the Netflix subtitlers often unwittingly change the story by substituting american slang words instead of equal-weight translations of the korean words. A word like "hyung' for example, which is what a younger male will call an older male friend in respect and it can also mean 'older brother'. But on Netflix I've heard "Dude" used enough times that it totally changes the relationship and the tone of a drama. However, the biggest problem with making second seasons is the artistic licence used to switch actors in the lead roles and also time periods ("9 Tailed": Season Two will happen in 1939 now as a prequel with a different female lead?) And now they're going to do it for 'Aarthdal Chronicles, yet another 'NetFlix Original'. I love Lee Joon Gi but not matched with Shin Se Kyun. It will be a pass for me. I don't trust the people that fooled us the first time.

"Because the drama became a seasonal system, there will also be a change in the time setting and background." Yes, and the heroine is different in this one too. To be honest, I love Kim So Yeon, and liked the original "Tale of the 9 Tailed", but one of the reasons I've stopped watching western tv is the constant seasons created by the producers of a hit series so that they can wring out more ad revenues from the main concept. But then the changes begin....the story line arc from the 1st season is changed along with the relationships, as the characters shuffle their positions, fall out of love and in again, morph into different personalities and face bigger monsters (especially themselves) and this goes on and on, losing more & more consistency. By the 3rd season they've changed so much you don't remember who they started out as. If this is a prequel and we learn more about the past, it likely won't be the past we were told about in the 1st season, which invalidates the original story we were told about his past life. Even if I prefer Kim So Yeon as an actress, it won't be fun to see our 9 Tail fall in love with her in the 1930's. It will make the original love story, which happens later in modern day, play more like a rebound. I wish the screenwriter had come up with a fresh new idea for story about the 9 Tailed Fox and given us some new characters to watch and enjoy instead of taking the original characters and building a new world around them. Korean dramas are famous for their brilliant storytelling with a beginning, a middle and end...like a novel. That's why we get such a rich variety of stories and a multi-verse of characters. Ok...that's it...sorry for the rant...

Still a big Lee Min Ho Fan. Oh Jung Se is awesome....especially after his Having fun re-watching him in Touch Your Heart. He's everywhere these days. Just finished "Jirisan". Great part for him...super-fit and courageous.

Not interest at all. I LOVED the first season and want to enjoy it as is. Riding on the coat-tails of the first has never made a second season better for me. Gi Hun's next adventure with other characters will dull the advantage that season one's amazing 'shock and awe' scripting surprised the viewers with. I mean, once you know the real meaning of "eliminated" in the game, there's no surprise going into each game, there's just expectations. You 'expect' gore and violence for a second season and nothing much surprises you. As for characters, we'll all be expecting 'the good the bad and the ugly' among the players, all facing off against the evil rich. Even if the wealthy club members are different, it will become the same old series. I'd rather move on to the many other great stories that koreans produce. They have a great taste for variety in their stories, and thank goodness they don't yet need to keep going back to the latest hyped cereal box of ideas to feed their hunger for good entertainment. That is...unless Netflix keeps throwing money at Korean content providers to americanize their work. So Netflix, if it ain’t broke…don’t fix it. Korean dramas created a Hallilu Wave that spread around the world before Netflix even began to notice them. Sigh….

You hit the nail on the head with the 'half-shows' they try out on us but drop if there aren't enough fans. The stories are cut in two. I also stick with the more korean formatted ones, knowing they'll actually get to an end.

Netflix and their habit of turning a Korean series into seasons is lost on me. It just seems to milk the characters dry of freshness. There's so many stories out there to tell, why dress up a series every year and keep repeating it? Korean Dramas are loved around the globe for their over-arching storylines. Their 'once upon a time' tale, whether it's a thriller, sci-fi, crime series, rom-com or a makjang soap drama... always has an ending. Then it's on to the next drama with a completely new plot, characters, place and action. Yes, I loved Squid Games, but no second season please... where new players face off the old bad guys in some new games. Then sadly, instead of remaining a one-of-a-kind gem, it just becomes another 'Survivor ' or a police procedural like 'CSI', where the never-changing old characters take on season after season of new bad guys. Korean television rarely had seasons when I began watching 6 years ago, but Netflix has been tinkering with the ‘magic’, likely so they can reflect a more familiar style and content to the US audience. Can't really call them K-Dramas anymore. Because they aren't. The only thing Korean about them is the content providers, who, like everyone else, are chasing the American Dream. Apologies, I needed to get that one off my chest. Thanks.

So true. That character is off the tracks delusional about how great she is. Narcissistic to the nth degree. My teeth hurt from cleanching my jaw when she's on! I'm hoping that the target of her very smug "I-will-make you-mine" obsession escapes her. He'll be under her thumb forever.

Thanks for your take on the drama Jojo! Perhaps it was the thought of 50 episodes that helped me make the decision. Or maybe because this was my 567th korean drama that my patience got a bit thin for both the female lead that the writer gave us, and the unconvincing job the actress did of portraying her. If this was the debut project for her then the director made a mistake that could cost the production in its ratings. I hope not. I usually hate to leave a story unfinished but must move on. Actually, out of the 567 dramas I've seen...I have only dropped about ten of them. Cheers.

Thanks Jeanna. Actually, I came here thinking you had watched these series. I do get why you might consider it a waste of time to keep going when your interest lags , because after all, there's so many other stories out there in the dramaverse, and of course that's your perogative. No one says you have to, but there are so many great ones out there that seem a bit slower upfront because they spend the extra time introducing the characters and their pasts, setting us all up for some emotional time-bombs much later. When I first started watching K-dramas in 2015 ( that was #561 dramas ago, when Dramafever.com was still alive) other commenters would encourage others who were about to jump from a dramaship, not to give up, that 4 episodes were a mandatory rule of thumb in order to get a good enough taste for the story. Which you have done for many of the ones above. I like rating the dramas I watch so I can compare and contrast what makes one fail while another with the exact same tropes, can succeed. Often my impulse to quit a drama comes when there is an obnoxious female lead, but when I stick to it, I've often been surprised by how well the writer turns the character around and reclaims her by the end. But that's just me. As you say, "you do you". I have five friends that Face Time often to talk about what we’re watching and share recommends, and we've agreed that if we want to recommend or 'thumbs down' something, we must have watched it all the way through, otherwise we might be trashing something that one of us with different tastes might have actually have liked. a lot because of our personal bias. I guess that's what it all comes down to.... personal taste.

Scriptwriters Lee Sae-Bom and An Hye-Jin, disappointed in "Times". The acting is great, the editing lacks smoothness but most limiting is the writing team's lack of ingenuity & freshness in their plot points. Time warps and travel dramas have been done with far better credibility (Tunnel and Kairosh), so as the newest entry in this type of genre , I was hoping to see something a bit different. The characters could have been better layered, to encourage us to engage in their desperateness throughout the story. Just my viewpoint, but it seemed to be focused on being an action movie with car chases and the many planning photo boards for the NEXT fiasco that will happen when their newest efforts fail. And the characters kept making the traditional "dumb" moves like going alone to a possible crime scene, or having a lone woman stop on a dark street in traffic to turn around when she's called from behind. Who does that when he couldn't show her his ID earlier? Korean dramas are traditionally written under the overarcing direction of one writer, just as an author would write a book, which makes it more cohesive and allows continuity of character and action, as opposed to american series, written by a 'troop' of writers who are assigned different characters and plot-lines. This team of writers didn't do it for me at all, and I guess I sound so diappointed because all of the actors are so professional and just couldn't seem to make me care enough about their fates. Apologies, to the writers for being so harsh, but from what I could tell on IMDB, this is the first big drama they've worked on. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrible, but disappointing, so I'm offering an opinion to say why it didn't lift off for me.

Scriptwriters Lee Sae-Bom and An Hye-Jin, disappointed in "Times". The acting is great, the editing lacks smoothness but most limiting is the writing team's lack of ingenuity & freshness in their plot points. Time warps and travel dramas have been done with far better credibility (Tunnel and Kairosh), so as the newest entry in this type of genre , I was hoping to see something a bit different. The characters could have been better layered, to encourage us to engage in their desperateness throughout the story. Just my viewpoint, but it seemed to be focused on being an action movie with car chases and the many planning photo boards for the NEXT fiasco that will happen when their newest efforts fail. And the characters kept making the traditional "dumb" moves like going alone to a possible crime scene, or having a lone woman stop on a dark street in traffic to turn around when she's called from behind. Who does that when he couldn't show her his ID earlier? Korean dramas are traditionally written under the overarcing direction of one writer, just as an author would write a book, which makes it more cohesive and allows continuity of character and action, as opposed to american series, written by a 'troop' of writers who are assigned different characters and plot-lines. This team of writers didn't do it for me at all, and I guess I sound so diappointed because all of the actors are so professional and just couldn't seem to make me care enough about their fates. Apologies, to the writers for being so harsh, but from what I could tell on IMDB, this is the first big drama they've worked on. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrible, but disappointing, so I'm offering an opinion to say why it didn't lift off for me.

Watching this on Viki. Mesmerized by the 'family' of characters. The great pacing in this allows you to breathe with easygoing laughs and tender scenes before the tension grabs you by the throat again. Actors are all consummate KD professionals. Music is korean and so hauntingly beautiful.

Watched it on Netflix Feb/2020

Kudos. Well done. I'm reading a book on Korean History and was wondering how all the historicals line up with recorded history. This helped a lot.