a short guide to korean dramas

hollywood happy ending: everything ends happily, the lovers are reunited, and any damage during the course of the show/movie is miraculously repaired, restored, or otherwise rendered null.

hollywood unhappy ending: main character dies, but everyone else gets a t-shirt and learns to love again.

bollywood-musical happy ending: same as for hollywood, but with spontaneous mass musical sequences. possibly also involving helicopters. and extra dance maneuvers performed while riding camels.

bollywood-musical unhappy ending: unhappiness and bollywood musicals are like matter and anti-matter. it's theoretically possible but would likely cause significant tears in the time-space continuum.

korean happy ending: at least two characters die*. the lovers survive. mostly. except for the dead ones.

korean unhappy ending: everyone dies*.

* alternate option: utter insanity and/or hot pokers stabbed through delicate body parts.

...by k-drama standards, Hamlet isn't a tragedy, it's just a rom-com with a higher body count than average.

a more lengthy list of korean stories

Last week or so, I had a post (now withdrawn pending editing for linkage-consumption) that prompted several folks to give me recs on what-to-read and a few on what-to-watch in re Korean history and folklore. Since other folks asked what I've read and watched already, here's a hodge-podge of fiction & non-fiction read and liked. Some of it's thick academic non-fiction, so maneuver at your own speed; the rest are manhwa. ( Works by Sarah Nelson Milledge, Laurel Kendall, Bongryol Kim, Ki-baik Lee, Ilyon, Young Ran Lee, Yu-rang Han, Soo-yeon Woon, Hajin Yoo, and Yeri Na. )

I'll continue on with historical manhwa & dramas in a follow-up post.