NO WRITERS. Simple as that. The K-drama industry is too successful for anything to evolve in the right direction (creativity).
They have a very limited bank of themes they draw from, with minimalistic storylines and screenplays relying on the same bag of tricks and templates. These are usually centered around exaggerated abuse—whether at school, home, or the workplace. To achieve this, series are often plotted unrealistically.
They depend on misunderstandings, things left unsaid, and unfinished sentences to keep the story moving somehow. Actors are pushed into awkward and embarrassing comic gags to fill gaps, often accompanied by a lot of ridiculous shouting you just want to skip. Someone mentioned templates earlier, and they were absolutely right.
Personally, I don’t think Korean writers have completed any formal training. In France, for instance, there are schools for that! You couldn’t possibly submit a screenplay without proper education.
I love Korean culture and would love to see more elaborate work. But is there even a market for it? Urban C-dramas are doing a better job, in my opinion. They don’t fall into ridicule so easily.
Your answer is too wide sweeping, may I suggest. Yes, I recognise the culture of cliches and overstretched coincidences you characterise but there are many dramas way above that tide mark and what makes the best stand out is the excellent quality of the writing.
I’ve just recently revisited Hospital Playlist 2 which is a wonderfully sustained drama.
Others in my top list include Signal, D.P., Stranger, The Queen’s Umbrella, Missing: the Other Side, Live Up To Your Name, Move to Heaven, Extracurricular, My Mister.
In Korea I’m sure there’s an equivalent to Uber where you can log onto an app and access the hundreds of heavily laden lorries that lurk in every side street, poised to eliminate the whistleblower, the journalist, or anyone with the crucial USB stick at just the right moment … ‘your killer HGV ride is just three minutes away. Don’t forget to rate this service!!’
Here’s a comment I made about eighteen months ago on all thoise cliches …
"I have been dating a Korean guy lately which has been nice, but some things about him are not as I expected.
His father isn’t president of a major corporation facing a corruption enquiry while fighting off a hostile takeover bid.
He didn’t grow up surrounded by bodyguards in dark suits talking into their cuffs. On the other hand, neither did he grow up in an orphanage, his parents having died in a mysterious car crash which his secret brother (that he never knew he had) had survived, and who had ended up being fostered by the president of a major corp … (er, see above).
Nor does he have any special powers and seems to be completely incapable of time travelling back to the Joseon era and he struggles even to open a tin can in the kitchen, never mind any portal to a parallel universe.
What’s more, he doesn’t have an overbearing mother that hijacks him with Kimchi every 48 hours!!!
I’m beginning to wonder if this guy’s Korean at all … or, have I maybe watching too much K-Drama?!!"
“too wide sweeping”, really? Doesn’t this cover at least 80% of all K-dramas by any standard?
90% of all important questions in Kdramas have this themplate:
question -“important question (or statement)”,
answer - (deh?) “what”
response - “anyeo…”(oh nothing)
Isn’t there almost always a misunderstanding or things left unsaid at the heart of every plot for some obscure reason?
Isn’t the contrast between submissive (unexplicably obedient victims) and evil always cartoonish and exaggerated?
I could go on and on about their bag of tricks. I’m not saying there haven’t been nice productions I’ve enjoyed in the past. But I’m looking elsewhere nowadays—it’s just almost always a waste of time.
The last one I watched: Something in the Rain (2018). They had everything to make an amazing series, and the theme was great. I loved how it started, almost like an urban Chinese drama. Nothing felt forced or overly exaggerated, no unjustified violence or instances of unbearable abuse. The plot made sense, and the writing was subtle. But after episode 10, they just couldn’t help themselves. Nothing made sense after that…
Yes, in some cases they are exaggerated / sensationalized, but don’t you think that it being this prevalent reflects something about their society? If you look further into it, you’ll find numerous cases of abuse in all layers of their society, from underaged minors who know they won’t be held accountable for their crimes because of laws, to chaebols who just don’t care because of the power and money they have.
Again, making the same point for this one. Based on the culture, it’s not always easy for people to say what’s on their mind.
Do writers abuse this and make certain characters make really dumb decisions? Absolutely. Have I met people in real life, not only Koreans, who don’t finish what they say or let misunderstandings brew that could’ve easily be avoided? Definitely.
Again, I’m not excusing lazy writing. Lazy writing is frustrating.
Why compare the two? Different cultures, different lenses. C-dramas are also heavily censored, so there are certain subjects that you just won’t see in a Cdrama unless the censors mess up (abuse, to a certain extent does show up in Cdramas).
It’s good that you have found a genre you like now. I have no problem that you dislike Kdrama tropes and your second statement seemed reasonable, but the first statement you made seemed too generalizing.
I feel bad whenever I post in this thread, not helped by the fact that I started it! I honestly do love my Kdramas and watch them every single day. I’ve lost count of how many I have watched now.
But I have just finished back-to-back “The Secret House” and “Battle of Witches,” and my goodness, they are absolute carbon copies of each other. I know there are only so many stories you can tell, but the similarities between these two series were insane!
