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Since I was introduced to Korean dramas a few months ago, I must have been lent more than a dozen of them by my neighbours. Some, like the highly popular You are Beautiful and Boys over Flowers, I dislike so much that I gave up after just one episode; some, like Pizza, I stopped watching after several episodes despite my best efforts to do otherwise. Some, like Coffee Shop, could keep me watching till the last episode but with the benefit of hindsight, does not register so well. The following is a list of Korean dramas that I would like to remember for various reasons:

1 My Lovely Sam Soon:
A 'fresh air' in Korean drama in many ways: a leading actress with less than perfect appearance, a 30 year old from the lower-middle class in pursuit of love and is never shy in fighting for what she wants. Great performance from all, especially that of Kim Sun-ah and the then, newcomer, Hyun Bin, with lots of memorable sequences and comic moments. A Cinderella story with lots of twists.

2 Wedding:
A surprisingly low profile one despite its excellent script and convincing performance, it is a focused and fine exploration on how we allow the past to haunt our relationships.

3 My Girl:
How two people fall in love despite their differences in background and temperaments and their determination to stay away from each other. The last two episodes are the most enjoyable one when the protagonist ignores the emotional blackmail of the patriarch and fights for himself. A typical Cinderella story. Lee Da-Hae is simply excellent.

4 Winter Sonata:
Doesn't the final scene look similar to that in Jane Eyre when the well-off hero becomes blind and the love of his life has risen to become, presumably, a successful architect?

5 Stairways to Heaven:
Again a typical Cinderella story albeit with a sad ending. An absolute tearjerker. I watched all the episodes when the heroine is tortured by her step mother and step sister in fast forward mode.

6 Full House:
Rain's performance is the highlight in a story that relies too much on impossible plots. It does grip you though despite the silly lines.

7 World within:
An unusual Korean drama in its exploration of the behind-the-scene stories of the making of Korean dramas. It is however not the sort of insightful story that one might expect. Could definitely have been much better if the director had better ideas of what he wanted and stayed focused on it.

8 Snow Queen:
The only reason I can come up with on why Hyun Bin picked this project is that the character he plays is almost the exact opposite of the one in his last project My Lovely Sam Soon. What kept me watching though was not just because of Hyun Bin, but also because I wanted to find out how long his character could keep on denying his own ambition and bury his talents.

9 Beautiful Days

In watching Korean dramas, I have been kept pleasantly surprised by just how closely related the Korean languages is to Chinese, or its dialects to be exact. The first time I realised this was when a character counted numbers from one to ten which sounds almost identical to Hakka. Due to the lack of fluency of Hakka, I cannot tell how close Korean is to it, but what I can tell is that while there are many words that share similar pronunciations with Hakka,there are times they sound like, say, Mandarin or Cantonese, such as the word for hubby. This keeps me wonder if there is a Chinese linguistics who knows all the dialect in China whether the myths would be solved in regard to the similarities between Korean and Chinese languages.

Another aspect of Korean drama that impresses me most is how talented those involved in the industry are: from screenwriter, director, music editor, to the actors and actresses. This high quality of the team has certainly contributed to the overall good quality of their production.