Starring: Lee Na-Young, Lee Jong-Suk, Jung Eugene, Wi Ha-Joon
If you love Kdrama, and you love books, than this is the PERFECT show for you!
Netflix is releasing new episodes of Romance is a Bonus Book, every Saturday and Sunday in Canada and its got us on our toes!
See the Trailer below:
The Drama revolves around Kang Dan-Yi (Lee Na-Young), and her “little brother” Cha Eun-Ho (Lee Jong-Suk).
Dan-Yi is a recent divorcee and is desperate to find work in order to support her daughter. She eventually finds work at her best friend/ honorary “little brother”‘s publishing company.
Cha Eun-Ho, an English professor, genius writer and chief editor at a publishing company is helplessly in love with Dan-Yi and fights to find his way out of the friend-zone.
Things become complicated when the charming Ji Seo-Joon (Wi Ha-Joon) begins to show interest in Kang Dan-Yi, filling Cha Eun-Ho with jealousy.
While I’m sure Eun-Ho will win Dan-Yi’s heart in the end, I can’t help but love Seo-Joon’s character. I can’ decide who suits Eun-Ho better!
Who do you want to see as a couple?
Can’t wait to see how this drama plays out!
On Publishing:
As a bookworm, I absolutely love the publishing atmosphere and how important literature is to the characters within the drama.
While i’m usually not one to cry during dramas, my heart was torn to pieces when the publishing company takes its new employees to view the shredding process.
Their goal to have their books make a difference in the lives of their readers is beautiful.
If you’ve watched a K Drama then drawn out scenes in slow motion are not new to you.
EVERY drama uses slow motion and that’s because they have an important function:
Suspense: Slow motion is used as a device to heighten suspense and to torture the viewer.
Build relationship: these scenes set the two leads up for a romantic encounter. These moments slowly strengthen their relationship and shows them getting closer to one another. These moments set the viewer up for the final resolution when the two main characters will finally fall in love and either sleep together or get married.
Playing hard to get: The oftener you have these near misses, the more the audience wants the event (kiss) to happen. If they compile these scenes well, there will be a point when the viewer can hardly handle it anymore- it increases the audiences desire for that moment to take place as it becomes the embodiment of the viewer’s plot desire.
You will recognize these moments when you see
long shared glances
watching their crush sleep
leaning in for a kiss
And when you see them- you know that the episode will probably end RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the slow motion- carrying over to the next episode- leaving the viewer EXASPERATED, and ya, you’ve got to watch the next episode or else you won’t be able to sleep.
My advice to you? always stop watching a K drama 10 minutes into the NEXT episode. You’ll get a peaceful nights sleep that way.
When we watched The K2, we found one of the MOST aggravating, agonizing, exasperating drawn out scene we have ever seen in a k drama.
We almost couldn’t handle the stupid suspense. It was too much.
If you’ve seen the scene in episode 9 , you know- it takes them 6 minutes to decide whether they should speak to each other/ knock on a door. 6 MINUTES+
It was too much. One of the most agonizing moments I’ve ever experienced in a drama.
All things considered – it is hilarious.
In good humor we decided to mock the moment. Check out our parody of this epically drawn-out moment!
JUST OPEN THE DOOR GUYS!!!
*******************SPOILER******************
For those of you who have yet to watch The K2– No, THEY NEVER OPEN THE DOOR to talk to each other. So all that suspense WAS FOR NOTHING
We took great pains to mimic the camera angles and costume- YES I even cut my hair to pull off the Ji Chang Wook/ Justin Bieber hairstyle.
Enjoy the bloopers at the end!
What is the most drawn out moment in K drama that got you?
If you are a Kdrama skeptic, or new to the genre, we highly recommend this drama. The show leans away from the cutesy romance and focuses heavily on its political plot and is filled with action scenes.
Watch our video for a quick version of our Reaction and Review
Synopsis
The plot follows the story of a former soldier (Kim Je-Ha) who is dishonorably discharged from the military. Wanted for committing a military crime, he is constantly in hiding and on the run, until he is caught at the wrong place and the wrong time and becomes a witness that needs to be eliminated. Je-Ha becomes involved with powerful political candidates for whom he becomes a bodyguard. Things become complicated when Je-Ha learns he is the body guard of the presidential candidate’s love child. He becomes conflicted when he struggles to understand whether he is safeguarding or holding the young woman hostage, especially after falling in love with her.
The Trailer
The Plot
I found the plot a little to politically heavy. Without an understanding of Korean government structure, it was difficult to follow what was going on and why certain developments were a big deal.
The politics got boring when the candidates continued to play a back and forth game, each trying to damaged their rival’s public appearance. While it made sense, it just got repetitive after a while.
However, I enjoyed the suspense and mystery aspect (though it was not as compelling as other dramas) as it kept you guessing.
The drama was full of action shots featuring Ji Chang Wook that was full of fantastic stunts. It was nice to see some fights that did not look pathetic (such as the PATHETIC fight between the boys at the amusement park in Accidentally in Love)
Kim Je-Ha: Great character development. We get a backstory early on in the drama which helps the viewer to get a good sense of his head space. Je-Ha is badass but cute, serious but funny, fighter but gentle, is suffering from PTSD.
Everything he does makes sense. His character is complex and interesting and while he embodies many contradictions- they all make sense. We know where he’s coming from, and we love him.
Ko An-Na: Is not a believable character. She is incredibly weak and feeble, except in some rare moments where she shows courage and resourcefulness- but this is rare and only lasts a few minutes. Her character was not well thought through, not consistent and not really well acted. She didn’t deserve Je-Ha though we can see why he fell for her.
Choi Yoo-Jin: Is absolutely psychotic. Her character is overacted- her fits are overplayed and ridiculous. Just when the viewer starts to/ wants to respect her, she falls into her psycho personality (like she is schizophrenic or something) one can’t take her seriously. We liked her strong personality that although ruthless and selfish showed a strong woman. Taking this into consideration, we were extremely disappointed that she didn’t actually persue the one thing she wanted- Je-Ha – even though it would have complicated the plot and morally been wrong, she should have expressed her desires.
Overall
I enjoyed the show, and it was really refreshing to get away from the cutesy, cliche packed, over sweet dramas.
I have to compare this drama to Healer, since they are in the same genre and have the same leading actor (Ji Chang-Wook).
While I strongly prefer the character of Je-Ha to that of Healer’s, I found the plot and supporting cast more compelling in Healer.
This Drama makes it to my top 5, but is a FAR cry from top 3 due to its weak characters and plot.
What do you think of The K2?
Do you disagree with our review?
What is your favorite Kdrama with Ji Chang-Wook?
let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you!
If we are completely honest, we once started watching a drama at 3am. We can’t remember what it was, but we do remember being unable to get through the first episode.
After this random introduction, we had no interest in exploring the genre any further. ever.
But a prank war with our housemates would turn this all around.
For efficiency’s sake, there was one housemate who payed for the Netflix and in order to get back at us, he did the most annoying thing ever: he put a parental lock on our Netflix account.
That was when we decided to turn the tables and absolutely ruin the settings on his personal account. We demolished his suggestions and currently watching lists by running children’s programs in the background while we studied. Barbie’s Dreamhouse, Peppa Pig, you name it. As we scrolled through, we noticed an Asian drama section and noting the incredibly cheesy titles and thumbnails, turned them on.
and this is where we got hooked. Before we knew it, our laptops screensavers were shining back at us- but we didn’t notice, cause our eyes were fixed on the TV.
Our First Drama
YUP! we had fallen right into our own trap. We accidentally fell right into the genre and have to this day, never recovered.
So what was it that caught our attention?
The South Korean Drama Noble My Love staring Sung Hoon and Kim Jae-kyung.
So if we thought it was so cheesy, why on earthy did we watch it?
Short Episodes
One definite perk to this TV show is its length. With 15 minute episodes, we had watched several before we could decide whether we liked it or not.
We were slowly drawn into the drama with the many cliffhangers- just when we were starting to get interested, the episode would end which quickly prompted us to continue watching.
We felt less guilty since time was going by slowly- by increments of 15 minutes- and suddenly before we knew it, our afternoon was gone, and we had binged the entire thing.
New Experience
Noble My Love gave us a peak into a new culture which is different from our own.
The style of the show, its plot and filming- even the kdrama cliches (which we all know too well) were new to us and we were fascinated.
While Noble My Love is definately not the best drama out there, we’ve got to give it credit of its own OST sung by Sung Hoon.
Check it out:
We’ll leave our discussion of the TV show itself for another time.