Looking for a bit more ehh 'mature' Kdrama

[simi11]

Im currently watching “Dear, My Friends”, sadly not on viki (perhaps more licence requests are needed).
This is very realistic drama and I think every generation should watch it, you will see all the mature veteran actors, Im amazed at their performance… it’s about aging, relationships, human mistakes intentionally and unknowlingly, some beautiful cinematographic scenes and a really touching script, laugh and cry with them, get your box of tissues ready…

[irmar]

Does it have a happy or sad ending? I’m okay with crying, provided it finishes well. When you have watched it all, please come back and tell us. No need to spoil, just if it has a happy ending.

[simi11]

Im half way through but some of the eps have really sad tissue moments, maybe because it captures beautifully the human emotions or because I can feel them.
I recommend this if you have aging parents or if you have older children and prepare for aging… I think there are few eye openers…
I let you the “ending” know when done

[ajumma2]

It’s not one of those unrealistic fairy tale “lived happily ever after” type, but the ending is good.

[irmar]

That’s fine for me!
Actually, you know, sometimes, when everything around you is a mess, your friends are jobless, your pension is about to be cut AGAIN in a month, and your love life… let’s not even talk about it… You feel you really cannot take heartbreak even in films and series.
I mean, it needn’t be too saccharine, I’m not enjoying Cinderella and the Four Knights Disney-style stuff, because it’s too fake so it doesn’t deliver comfort. But yes, I call it a happy ending when people are content and smiling at life with no regrets. That’s enough for me.
For instance I was very pissed off with the Love Rain ending, where, after all those really heartbreaking moments, the older couple decided to be “just friends”, although they were in the U.S. and nobody could even know what the heck they were doing behind closed doors.
And in the Japanese version of Second to Last Love, at the end of part 2, again they don’t become a real couple at the end. She refuses his proposal, and they end up as just friends hugging a bit and being comfortable with each other. Why on earth? (or maybe were they planning part 3?) Amazing series, othewise, at a wholly different level than k-drama.

[prekushwaha1998_324]

Can u tell me some Korean drama with more action or thrill

[prekushwaha1998_324]

while

No
Chines drama boss and me.

[klp2013_kp_217]

No regrets on the drama marriage, not dating is absolutely hilarious/romantic/sweet! Leaves you feeling inside all warm and fuzzy …

[klp2013_kp_217]

City hunter that’s top!!!

[dee_chavanne_829]

OH MY VENUS my favorite drama and has some romantic scenes!

[chemellelott]

Heartless City/Cruel City

[irmar]

May I also recommend the film “Sunny”. It’s about the friendship of seven women in high school, and how they find each other again when they are middle aged and revive their bonds. Exceptional!

https://www.viki.com/movies/29558c-sunny

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/sunny-movie-review-271391

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_(2011_film)

https://dramarants.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/movie-review-sunny-2011/

http://variety.com/2011/film/reviews/sunny-1117946487/

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/sunny-2011-movie-review/

[kirbservc_732]

One more: Eungyo (Netflix). This movie - after only 25 minutes into it - is provocative, mature, sometimes spellbinding, and teases the line between romance, attachment, and renewing what the feeling of teenage love is about. It’s not about teenagers, though, so no well worn tropes are thrown in to reduce your interest. Subtle visual storytelling, too: it’s not all in the script!. Enjoy.

[kirbservc_732]

Finished Eungyo. Solid all the way through. Small spoiler coming… At times, I wondered about how provocative some of the scenes are in the movie. Not “typical” Korean film making (as in naked bodies and all). But, we’re all adults, right?

[irmar]

Eungyo

Here is a review of that film by Hollywood Reporter
and a review of Seoulbeats (careful, this one contains spoilers)
and another review from Screenanarchy.com. Not really enlightening, this one, though.

[kirbservc_732]

Thanks for that! When this thread started, I thought that there should be a good number of people looking for the best of Asian Drama, but post age 30 or so. To all those who have posted your favorite “mature” dramas, thank you. There is nothing like not being Asian and getting a view to the culture through this lens. Is it realistic? When it is good, it is, and the best of A-drama is always a good story well told. I hope this thread keeps going mostly because I knew there just had to be a niche audience for stories like Heard It Through the Grapevine and Secret Love Affair. The people that are on this thread make it possible for me to find the good stuff without having to watch a drama just to find out if it is good. When it isn’t, I always feel cheated and immediately want my time back. When it’s good, it feels like a gift.

[irmar]

The people that are on this thread make it possible for me to find the good stuff without having to watch a drama just to find out if it is good.

Well, just keep in mind that your taste and my taste or someone else’s taste may be different.

[mariana_sindrome_79]

I was looking the same, now I am going to check all the titles but I think I already seen almost all of them. I think some people didn’t understand what dudie was telling. It’s very difficult to find skinship dramas. I would like to know if real life in Asia (specially in Korea, not so much at chinese dramas) is like you said dudie, barely holding hands weekly and kissing monthly. ;D

I don’t think Discovery of Romance is on the list. You can find some skinship scenes on it (I liked very much the cast)
Not too much but seeable 9 End 2 Outs
Also the movie: My PS Partner with Ji Sung (that I think is great, not so much the actress but…)

I have seen around 150 dramas, some of them I don’t remember, let me check my history and maybe I can find more.

[irmar]

I would like to know if real life in Asia (specially in Korea, not so much at chinese dramas) is like you said dudie, barely holding hands weekly and kissing monthly. ;D

Hey, if you go to youtube it’s full of Korean porn, so…
I was also wondering, seeing how on dramas at least people who think about having sex or seem to like to look at women etc. are called “perverts” (they probably mean “sex maniacs”, maybe they don’t know the meaning of the word “pervert”, but even “sex maniac” would be inappropriate! for such innocent things as looking at a girl’s legs and wanting to hold and kiss them.
Korean vikians tell me that public displays of affection are somehow restricted. It’s much more accepted to see same-sex friends holding hands in public etc. It must be a bit like India in that respect.
But I also see that generally people touch much less than in southern Europe. I mean, even parents with children, even best friends, they rarely hug. I have seen this on American films as well, though (except those whose characters are Italian or Greek or Hispanic). A parent sees his child leave for a trip and there is just a tap on the shoulder? We would be one over the other, crying our hearts out. Of course feelings are the same all over the world, just that some cultures believe in not expressing them too openly. And for the rest of us it’s very very as in very very weird.

Here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article on sexuality in N. Korea. Granted, it’s old news, and much must have changed by now, twenty years later. But if as late as 1997 they were thinking like that, I don’t know the rate of the change.

Adolescents
In a survey given in 1997, 44.4% of female high school students reported that they had had heterosexual relationships and 7.5% of the entire group had had coital experiences. Of the group who had had coital experiences, 38.7% claimed to have been coerced and 32.3% attributed the reason to love. In a group of students who had not performed vaginal intercourse, about half the students were open to the idea of having sex and blamed their lack of experience on the lack of opportunities. However, 44.7% of students accepted light kissing and 31.6% accepted holding hands as permissible behavior in dating. The majority view was that virginity should be kept until marriage, with 88.1% of the group. For the survey of male students, 16.2% admitted to having had coital experiences, mostly with their girlfriends (74.7%). On the other hand, 65.7% of male high school students indicated a positive attitude towards premarital sexual activity, but only 7.5% had had previous sexual experiences. As a whole, the rate of students who had had sexual experiences increased in the late 20th century.
Adults
A survey in 1991 indicated that, of surveyed adult males aged from 20 to 40, over 80% had had previous heterosexual relationships. Of the 80%, 44.7% reported their first sexual experience to have been with a prostitute. A study of married couples revealed that about half the people studied thought negatively about premarital relationships; in general, the female partners were more open to premarital and extramarital relationships. The double standard of relationships was hypothesized to cause psychological and physical (especially sexual) stress for females. Hymenorrhaphy, or hymen reconstruction surgery, is also popular in Korea, as the hymen is prized as the symbol for virginity.

OK, this operation was done in my country up to the '70s maximum.

I also think that the widespread prostitution is meaningful, an indication of the difficulty of having sex in the normal ways with a consenting partner.

according to The Korea Women’s Development Institute, the sex trade in Korea was estimated to amount to 14 trillion South Korean won ($13 billion) in 2007, roughly 1.6% of the nation’s gross domestic product.[2][3] According to the Korean Institute of Criminology, 20% of adult males aged between 20–64 purchase sex at an average of 693,000 won ($580) per month.[4] According to a study conducted by the Medical College of Korea University, 23.1% of males and 2.6% of females have their first sexual experience with a prostitute.

And it seems that Koreans are the best clients of prostitutes in all East Asia, including child prostitutes.

Here is a 2014 article which pinpoints the problems of couples working long hours (yes, but this does not explain the “once a month” thing. They don’t have one day off every week?)

A survey conducted by the Hankyoreh of 59 full-time homemakers in their 30s and 40s from an online message board for homemakers in Gimpo New Town found that nearly half of respondents barely have a chance to see their husbands. The women had 1.6 children on average, and their average age was 36.5 years.
The majority of these women are still able to have children, but many of them are virtually sexless. When asked about how often they have sexual intercourse, 25 out of 55 said just once a month.
Staying late at the office and working for long hours has an effect on childbirth for full-time housewives who are not working alongside their husbands. On average, the husbands of the respondents leave home at 7:03 am and don’t return until 9:12 pm. In other words, the average time these husbands spend at home each day is less than 10 hours. Husbands are only able to leave the office on time an average of 1.5 times per week.

On the other hand a recent survey (last June) on a much larger number of married couples (more than 1000) in Korea said that on average they had sex quite seldom and many not at all. I was appalled.

Here it is. And here. For the lazy among you, here is the gist of the article.

The percentage of married Koreans who do not have sex with their spouses has reached 36.1 percent, one of the highest levels in the world, a survey showed Friday.
Nearly 40 percent of Korea’s married couples live without sex or have it just once a month, startling figures show.
According to the survey, Korea has the second-highest rate of “sexless” married couples after Japan.

Married couples that do not have sex for more than a month are classified as “sexless.”
According to the report published by life insurance company LINA’s health magazine “Heyday” and the Kang Dong-woo Institute for Sexual and Couples’ Health, 38 percent of 1,090 adults in Korea confessed they had sex once a month or less. The institutions surveyed over 784 married and 306 unmarried adults to gauge the sexual life of Koreans.
Among the married respondents, 36 percent said they are sexless. The rate reached 44 percent among married people over 50.
The longer the couples have been married, the more sexless they are. The portion of couples who have sex once a month or not at all is 30.7 percent for couples married for 11-20 years, 37.2 percent for those married 21-30 years and 54.9 percent for those married 31 years or longer, the survey showed.
Particularly 64.9 percent of couples who sleep in separate bedrooms do not have sex at all, compared with 23.3 percent for those who sleep in the same room, according to the survey of 1,090 people aged 20 or older conducted by Research and Research, at the request of Lina Korea, a life insurance company.

“Given the international average of sexless couples is about 20 percent, and that of Japan, regarded as the most sexless country in the world, is between 35 and 40 percent, Korea’s sexless ratio is one of the world’s highest,” said Kang Dong-woo, head of a sex clinic.

Among Koreans aged 20 or older,
the largest share, or 26.8 percent, said they have sex two to three times a month but

• 21.8 percent said they have sex only one time a month, and
  -18.4 percent said they have no sex at all. Also,
  -17.9 percent said they have sex every week,
• 12.7 percent two to three times a week,
• 1.8 percent every other day and
• 0.6 percent almost every day.

Only 0.6 percent of married couples have sex almost every day?
What about twice a day, once when the children are asleep at night and once in the morning to start off the day nicely? And a bit more on weekends and holidays? Oh, I feel like a strange person now, LOL!

So my dears, if you’re still dreaming of a Korean boyfriend, think twice. He might be an exception to the rule, but then again he might not.

[lutra]

Sorry I didn’t notice your question, if you are still interested in a recommendation from me, then just answer and tell 2-3 dramas you did actually watch and liked or dislike. So I can narrow down what you might like.
I am sorry, I didn’t reply sooner but I was logged out and couldn’t participate here for 3 months for technical reasons.