The Cohabitation Trope, Hopeful Storytelling, and Kdrama Structure with Paroma

S2 E26 / Paroma from the Dramas Over Flowers podcast and professional fangirl joins me to talk about her journey into Asian media, her recommendations, and the unique joys of Kdramas.

🌼 Paroma shares the story behind how Dramas Over Flowers podcast came about with its cross-cultural perspectives.

  🎉 We explore Paroma’s Kdrama origin story as well as how tropes like cohabitation and found family in the workplace win us over. 

 🫶We also delve into dramas that treat serious subjects with warmth and optimism and discuss endings.

Currently watching: 

• A Dream within a Dream
• Head Over Heels
• Our Movie
• Law and the City 

✋ Spoiler warning! Our wide-ranging conversation touches on the following shows: 

• You’re Beautiful
• Do you Love Brahms? 
• Quartet
• Nirvana in Fire
• Meet Yourself
• Dr. Slump
• Head over Heels
• Because this is my First Life
• We Married as a Job
• Reply 1997
• Judge From Hell
• Be Melodramatic
• Search WWW

Dramas Over Flowers Podcast: 

https://pod.link/1270514773

Dramas Over Flowers Substack:

https://dramasoverflowers.substack.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is the How I Met My K-Drama podcast, and it's all about K-drama origin stories and recommendations. I'm Sarah Rosette, and today Varoma from the Dramas Over Flowers podcast is here with me. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I'm good. Thank you so much for having me here.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Oh, thank you for being here. Your podcast is one of my favorites, and it's one of the ones that it's long running. And if I watch a show and I think, who would have talked about this? Dramas over flowers, and I'll go look in your backlist. Some of you will have usually mentioned this show, which I love that it's so wide-ranging. It covers so much, and I love y'all's takes. So thanks for taking the time to do this today. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Absolutely. I am kind of proud of our backlog, especially in the late 2010s. We were publishing relatively frequently. So we ended up covering a lot of shows. So even if there aren't like um solo episodes like completely dedicated to a drama, it'll probably be part of one of our longer yaks. So if you're talking about like seven different dramas over three hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Yeah. And you do very detailed timestamp show notes, which is fantastic because it helps you find those things that could easily be lost in the you know the backlog. It's a great reference, actually, to go back and see, you know, kind of what people were talking about when things were airing. And I really I just enjoy digging through the backlist and finding, oh, they did talk about this show. This is so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I'm so glad they were useful. Take a while to publish our episodes. So the least we can do is at least provide time stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Well, they're definitely worth the wait. I would highly recommend it. But in case somebody hasn't listened to your podcast, just

Meet Paroma and Dramas Over Flowers Podcast 


SPEAKER_00 1:36

give us a little background on you and you know however much you want to share.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

We have a tagline that I can't, for the life of me, uh, get right whenever I want to say it out loud. It's um so we're basically professional fangirls. This was the term Anisa, my co-host, coin. And we do some uh subjective critiquing and objective fangirling on the podcast. We we basically talk about whatever we are watching, and our conversations tend to center socio-political themes more than anything else. Uh, we bring our own diverse perspectives in. Uh, the three of us live in three different countries, our backgrounds are different. The only commonality we uh have is our uh South Asian ancestry. Everything else is like Anisa is in the US, um Khadija, previously known as Saya, but she's recently started using her own name on the podcast. Khadija is in London, UK, and I am in India. So we bring our very different perspectives into these conversations, and um, on top of that, all three of us have different entry points through which we started consuming East Asian media. So, yeah, all of that gets discussed, and we agree and disagree.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

And I think our most fun episodes are the ones where at least one of us is disagreeing with our it does lead to really good discussion and it's very intelligent discussion of topics and themes related to the K-dramas and how they're made and how that reflects on society. So I really I I enjoy it. I think it's just a really fun podcast. Well,

Currently Watching

SPEAKER_00 3:10

what are you currently watching right now?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

I just completed this uh C drama, uh, which is called A Dream Within a Dream. And for once, and it's C drama watchers would vouch for me here. For one, it's not this vague open end, it's actually got a good conclusive ending, and it's a fantasy, sort of like a fake historical drama, and um usually those end either in tragedy or like really vaguely, which frustrates you, right? But this one has a solid ending, so I I really enjoy that. Again, I'm watching a bunch of things head over heels, this this Ian uh shamanistic drama, which by the way, have you noticed how many shaman-themed dramas and stuff anything from Demon Hunter just yeah, it keeps you going phases, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

All these different topics that you hit all at once.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

There is definitely a trend of interest in shamanism lately. So, uh, since late last year of these dramas like The Haunted Palace came out a while back. There are a lot of these dramas that have been greenlit uh in the last six months, and you can kind of see that they are clearly um tuned in to the trend. Right, yeah. What else? Our movie, I just started watching that. Me too. Um it's listen, I have been waiting for um, I have been waiting for this guy, uh, this actor. Oh my god, I Nam Nam.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Nam Gooman.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, Gumman.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Goodman, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

I always trip over his name. I've been waiting for his romance era forever. Like before um our dearest, his if he would do a drama that has a romance in it, it would just be so cursory that it would barely register as romance. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but now he's like, he's properly in there. He's decided it's okay now that he's mad and solidly locked in to go and do a romance job. I guess so.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, yeah. I'm watching that one too. And it's not one I would normally pick up because of the terminal illness theme. But I saw that I saw some post where they were talking about how they they said there's no crying for crying's sake. And then I thought, okay, if this is more about living, living well, learning to live well, I was like, okay, I will try this. And I feel like they're not going to surprise us at the end. Like a lot of shows, you know, you you get that twist at the end, it's not what you're expecting. And I feel like we know how this path is gonna go, and I'm okay with that. As long as it doesn't veer off into unexpected territory, I'm okay with a terminal illness storyline.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I agree. I think if you know what you're getting going in, it's so much easier to watch a drama like this. And this is one of the reasons I was attracted to K dramas to begin with. That their ability, it's not true for all uh dramas that come out, but for a good number of them, their ability to treat really serious subject matter with this light touch, where even if there's humor, they're not laughing at the tragedy. And there is warmth and just community and and a lot of I don't know, optimism even around really sad topics. And I I I want to watch those subject matters treated right, and I feel like other industries tend to focus too much on the sadness and tragedy as if they're trying to, I don't know, milk all of the every little tear out of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, I agree, and I feel like this one is really well made because it's just so interesting visually and the characters are interesting, and I'm not it's the one that I've watched recently that I am just I'm not distracted when I'm watching it. I'm into it and I want to see what's happening, and I'm not um, you know, like sometimes things just grip you, and other times you're like, I can watch this while I'm doing some other things, even though I'm like trying to read subtitles, you know. But yeah, I feel like that one's a really good one.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

There's another drama that I just started watching yesterday, Law in the City. Okay. Um, and I um I always at least try out whatever. Oh my god, why am I so bad with names today? Could I do this? He's one of my favorite actors, and I'm just oh god, hold on. So I Jong-Sug, um mad fond of this actor. And again, he's one of my earliest early when I just started watching K dramas, he's one of those actors that I've just watching everything that he does was he fascinated me from the very first thing I watched him in, which was um Secret Garden. He was this kind of character. Anyway, so I Jong-suk is this uh slightly cynical attorney, and instead of I and he plays attorneys or or he does these lore dramas not frequently, but he's done quite a few of them at this point. He is pretty suited to this kind of character. And I like that he is this uh slightly jaded, you know, basically a city worker, and he has other friends who are also attorneys, but working, you know, in different fields.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I yeah, or like specializations or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, and they just all work in the same building, so they uh gather together to have meals and discuss their day at work and stuff and occasionally help each other out, right? And I like the concept so much, it's very uh a day in life. At least I've just watched one episode and it doesn't have high drama, it's just it really familiarizing you with workload, just the personalities of the different characters, and I genuinely love storytelling like this.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So yeah, I like that too. So I will have to check that one out. Well, so how did you get into K-dramas? And what was your first K-drama if you remember?

First Kdrama and Recommendations

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Uh, the first K-drama was most definitely you're beautiful. This was holy uh, I don't how many years has it been? 10 years more than that. This was around 2012, I think. Khadija had like we I met Khadija through our mutual love for books, her dislike of dragons in books, and my love for dragons in books. Like both of us were fantasy readers, but we disagreed. Yeah, if dragons were indeed necessary in books, even though she's a huge Merlin fan. Sorry, it's uh digressing. So she was the one who decided, she she got into K Rama's, her sister introduced her, and then she watched this one, You're beautiful, and she was convinced that I would like it. So she had been pushing it for like six months, and I finally gave in and watched one episode, and it was insane. There was a nun running around, and I'm like, are they trying to do sound of music? But no, she has to pretend to be her twin brother who doesn't turn up till the end of the drama. And it's who who is believing that it's a boy, but apparently they are kind of a stretch, right? Yes, a nun in a K-pop boy band is just I I had never I could never have imagined that any industry would take a concept like that and be like, this has serious drama.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

There are a lot of K-dramas that if you just say the concept, it's just too weird.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

You're like, hear me out. Yeah, and and no other industry would be like, yeah, okay, okay, well, uh J dramas would animate.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Oh, yes, yes, J dramas can be a little quirky.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

K dramas just take it to a whole new level. They are like, what if something and then completely something unrelated? What if these two blend together? I just yeah, they do that very frequently. So yeah, I I fell head over heels in love and um I could not recover for a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

That's so interesting. Because I I do feel like the first K-drama I watched, I was like, this is totally different. It was the extraordinary attorney woo, which is pretty tame as far as the storyline. But I remember thinking this is totally different from anything I've watched before. Yeah, they do have their just their own unique way of telling a story.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Even when they don't have uh even when they don't have all of the, I don't know, balances of fact and accuracy exactly right. The fact that a lot of this storytelling is done with tons of sincerity, yeah, and and keeping the viewers' comfort and just the warmth around the story, just prioritizing those things makes it both accessible and like it allows us to forgive a lot of transgressions because they're trying so hard. And it's better that you try than not talk about it at all, um to a large extent. And that seemed to be the general consensus among in the autistic community and um autism community. I'm sorry. And um, I appreciated that. And the fact that so much conversation was created every time an episode would come out, something new would be talked about. I learned so much that I had no idea about, so it's yeah, it was great.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, it and it it it does lead to a lot of interesting conversations, and we can really explore characters. We helps with that too. Well, which K-drama has a really special place in your heart and why does it resonate with you? This is probably hard because you have so many to choose from.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yes, but this is so you sent me the questions, and this is the one that I uh appreciated that question list for the most because I had to think for so long. And uh, there are a lot that I could talk about, but honestly, a drama that has a special place in my heart would be do you like Brahms? It's a drama that hardly, like I hardly know anyone who's watched it. I've watched it, but it's a drama that I I when I was watching it, I was filled with so much, I don't know, optimism and happiness, even though the story isn't like overwhelmingly cheerful, not it's very uh low-key kind of very yes, it's like it will not allow your emotions to go over a certain limit. It's like there is this, you know, that audio limiter that they put in like so it it kind of felt like that. Yeah, however, their treatment of the subject of excellence and do you if you love something, do you have to be the best at it? And also, is your love relevant if you cannot reach the heights of whatever the heights of the that particular profession is? Um, I love that because at the end of the day, I I think we denigrate mediocrity too much. The word itself feels like an insult. On the other hand, most of us are mediocre at most things, even things that we desperately love. We tend not to be excellent at all of those things because we end up loving a lot of things. And our protagonist, she takes up violin at a pretty late stage and she decides to be a classical violinist, and she starts off late enough that it's very hard for her to achieve that peak perfection in performance, and this is something that eats into her for a very long time. I mean, the show is about so much more than that, but this is the part that appealed to me so much and has stuck with me and has made me go back and re-watch the drama because aside from that super gentle romance which I adored with Kim Minji, I was very, very happy with the ending. The fact that she could she could lay her demons to rest and accept that just because she loves something, she doesn't have to be professionally excellent at it, and that she found something else that she's actually really good at and enjoys doing. I I loved all of it. I it's just sheer perfection, then I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, it was it was a rom com with so many layers to it that you get to think about you get the rom-com and you get the romance, but then you get all this other interesting thoughts about all these things. I watched a J drama. I don't know if you've seen this one called Quartet, that it's kind of exploring the same themes. It's about four friends that they form a string for quartet. So it's no romance in that, it's more friendship. But it's the same thing. Like, if we are not great, is it okay to do this? Like, is it is this a worthy use of our time? And if we just play for the love of it, is that good? Is that our we'll never be superstars? So why are we doing this? So I thought that it had the kind of the same themes in it. I really enjoyed that one too.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, a friend of mine who uh watches a lot of J dramas when I was going on and on about Brahms had recommended this exact drama. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Well, do you re-watch dramas? Do you have a comfort rewatch or do you not rewatch it as much?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

So it's hard for me because I rarely forget stories easily. If it's a drama that is very action-driven or like very plot-driven, so something happens and then something happens, and thus something happens. If it's going like that, it's hard for me to revisit that drama because I remember all of the scenes, I remember all of the dialogues. My memory works like that. I have a crap memory, but give me a story, tell me once, I'll remember the entire thing for a very long time. I find that I enjoy revisiting dramas either like maybe a decade apart. I I watched You're beautiful, but like but the first time I watched it, I was in that haze of obsession. So I watched it, I think Multiple was right, yeah, after the other. But after that, I think I next rewatched it some five, six years later. So that tends to be how I revisit, but I have recently found so C dramas have been doing this. Uh, I started watching C dramas around 2016, 2017, like regularly. Uh, I watched Nirvana and Fire and then didn't watch anything for like a couple of years, and then realized that there are other dramas that I could be watching from that industry. There is this very laid-back and stretched out approach to storytelling that a lot of C dramas have, not all of them, but a lot of them. And uh there is like this very East Asian, you know, a four-act. And it there are none of those rise and falls. It's all very episodal. Um, and it's again, like I said, very relaxed. This structure, I it would be going into too much detail if I uh talk about how much Western storytelling formulas have affected and influenced C dramas and K-dramas. They have very much. But if you go back to their theater, if you go back to books, then you can see this relaxed approach to storytelling more. There is a lot of influence on C dramas and K dramas, but modern storytellers are um the fondness for that relaxed storytelling hasn't gone anywhere. It's it's in their folklore, it's in their music, it's in a lot of different places, and you can see that in modern dramas now. Um, where something like uh meet yourself, for instance. What is the story? She her friend dies, she's really sad, goes to a village. That's it, it's no it's not driven. Yeah, it's life. Like she's meeting you, people, minor problems are cropping up, which are immediately getting solved. There is no stress. You it just it's life, but in some 30 episodes, and you also get like a sweet romance that's being developed in this relaxed structure of storytelling that is more episodal and low conflict, it's also easier to um tell better romantic stories because you can actually show the relationship developing at its own pace instead of trying to blend in romance between the plot action and that that is why key dramas are so full of tropes because they have to hit the milestones of romance, which is why all romances develop through tropes. So that is the type of story, like this kind of story, meet yourself. And nowadays, when you uh key dramas are doing it with things like Dr. Slump, for instance. I can re-watch these because they are not plot-driven, they are not this action results in this, and then this happens, and then this. It's more like it's just a living life, which which creates a more soothing environment because of the lack of conflict. You're you're not, I don't know, driven to stress over what's happening in the plot. Yeah, but it's also harder for my memory to keep track of what what's happening, which makes it easier for me to rewatch.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

That's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

It was such a long answer.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

That's okay. Well, what about uh tropes? So you mentioned tropes. Is there any trope in particular that you're just there for it?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Okay, so I really like anything that has like a cohabitation and not forced proximity exactly, because I don't think sea dramas do that too much, except for you know, things like in Head Over Heels, you have the shaman girl becoming like a human uh poojok sort of so she she has to touch the boy's hand or something to make the ghosts around him go away. So it's like that that's cute, but I mean more like because it's my first life, the the cohabitation trope, I really like that. Strangers trying to figure each other out in close proximity and they can't escape, that is immediately an extremely uncomfortable thing in real life, but also creates a really interesting Petri dish for um, you know, mayhem.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I like those too because if you have somebody that's for like they're together, but they're usually the way it's set up is they're together, but they're not in a romantic relationship. So there's no like, you know, oh, I have to look good, and their barriers are down, and they're like, this is just me. And so they get to know each other through their real selves. And so I feel like that's a type of romance storyline that we don't see, you know. Sometimes it's it's like everyone puts on their best face to go date, and these you you're getting the real person from the beginning, and it can be really funny, and it can be, and they you can get some conflicts that way too. So I like that too, because this is my first life. It's one of my early, early dramas, and I loved it. I was just like, I was literally like, next episode, next episode.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

I agree, and it's um the Japanese drama that it was inspired by. It's not an official remake or anything, but you can really see the the parallels. You can see the yeah, palace is um we married as a job, which has a different Netflix title. I keep forgetting what it is, but it's done so well and so respectfully, and also giving the giving the wife, especially a stay-at-home one who takes care of the entire house and keeps things running, like giving her an actual salary for her work. I'd never seen that on TV before, and they took that so seriously, and it was never uh uh a subject that they anybody joked about, like people were surprised, but it was very serious between the two of them, like when they discussed it that every labor should be compensated. And I yeah, I I deeply love both the Japanese version and because it's my first yeah we both love it.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

We'll get the title here in a minute.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

There is one trope that I used to love before I started watching K dramas, and then K-dramas killed my love for it. Oh no. That's uh that's the childhood connection. Yeah, the childhood basically friends to lovers. I still like friends to lovers, except K-dramas are absurdly bad at friends to lovers. The only thing they can do is make them, you know, childhood companions who were just fated to be together as adults. That's not that's not friends to lovers.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, I've seen a couple of really good friends to lovers, but not a lot. There's not a whole lot.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Reply 1997 is what a few really good friends to lovers. There are uh some more where you know you have adult friendship slowly turning into love, but you know, not a lot, like you said. Mostly they are like, oh, they were so close together as children. As soon as you show them as childhood companions, you know it's fated, and I hate that. I hate that so much.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

I know it's not my favorite trip either. And sometimes I'm just like, oh no, now we're back in the memories. Fast forward because you know, you kind of know where it's going. So yeah, I agree. Well, do you have a character or a couple that resonated with you that stays with you that you think about any iconic couples or characters?

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Iconic couples. See, again, reply 1997 is one of my favorite dramas. So I I really loved both Yunji and uh Soengok in it. Um, so they are kind of iconic in my mind. But I don't know. And you're beautiful, just I was mad hooked on Hong Tikyong for like very unhealthy reasons. Actor's name is uh Jungkyun Suk. He, by the way, is uh uh Japanese K-pop superstar. Um, as in like he's a K-pop superstar, but like as a solo singer, he's mad popular in Japan. And he he has I I love that he gave himself the name Asia Prince. Everybody was calling him that, and he's like, Well, you know, I crowned myself Prince. I made it happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

That is hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

He is excellent, he is uh some executor or something, he owns like companies now. He's I think in his 40s at this point, and he does not give a crap. I recently watched an interview with him and another actor in Your Beautiful Day, they are friends, who portrayed Jeremy, who was a second, third lead, actually, because all the boys in the bands were in love with uh his character, of course. And so the both actors are own companies right now, they both came from K-Pop, they were pretty successful, and it's so clear like he he so does not give a crap. Just doesn't care how he looks, how he comes across, he says stuff that you know that he couldn't say for the decades when he was like there's probably a freedom once you're out of that because every the way their lives are very restricted in what they can talk about.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

There what if you're able to go on and be successful in something else, I can see how you'd be like, I can tell you now exactly what I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, I mean, he's as rich as he ever wanted to be, yeah, is really powerful in the industry. Like, who's gonna do what to him at this point? So he talks about like not just again, you know, it's not a confessional, he he's joking with his friends because it's more of like a discussion than an interview. And he's joking about how the others, you know, the kind of women the others date, and they are ribbing him on kind of you know his bad taste in like how he how many failed relationships and and also the other thing that I found more fascinating than all of the relationship talk is how openly he talks about how much money he and his friends have spent on stupid things like a really expensive car that none of them needed, and they kind of one bought because the other one had bought it, and because we are not allowed to talk about stuff like this, but it's a very realistic depiction of what a K-pop star would actually be doing in his real life. In uh Hindi, uh we say dut kadhulala, like washed in milk. Um, very pure image that you have, which is a performance for their fans, and uh it's just interesting to see him freed from that again. Such a digression from what you asked. I don't even remember what you asked me.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

It's okay, it's about characters, and obviously, he's a character that stays with you, even in real life. So that's true.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

The reason I brought that up was because Huang Thi Kyung, even though Huang Te Kyung's character is supposed to be like this top idol, his personality in the drama hooked me so much. But then I watched the interview with the actor playing him, and his personality is wildly different, and I'm like to hear it, yeah. And then when he went on to do other dramas, it was nothing like none of those characters were like Huang Thai Kyung. I had no interest. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Is there a drama that you were surprised you liked?

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Surprise I liked? Um I can't think of one right now. I I I had been racking my brain uh to answer this one, but I I really can't think of one. Um because I and I if I have started a drama, it's usually either because I really like the concept, so I go in very ready to love it, yes, and and then get deeply disappointed in the second half. Um but surprised that I have been surprised when a drama has ended well, and I've been yeah, I could see that.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

You've done a whole series or a whole sh uh video, right? A YouTube video on why the dramas often go off a cliff at the end. Yeah, the second half, yeah. And that it does happen. And it is nice if they land the plane because then you're like, oh, now I can go back and ri recommend this to people, or I can talk about it and and have that. Oh, it did great feeling.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Exactly. And it's so rare for me to be able to actually finish a drama and then still be enthusiastic about it enough to go and recommend. What I end up doing is if I like the first half, I immediately start going, hey guys, watch this. The first half is so good. And all of my friends already know this about me. And they're like, I think we are gonna wait till the We're just gonna hang out and see what your reaction is at that point. But I want them to start because I want them to feel the joy of the first half, but they won't.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, I tend to kind of I like to kind of see how things shake out because you know there's a lot of dramas out there, so I tend to kind of hold off a little bit unless I get swept up. It but it is a lot of fun to watch a drama when everyone else is watching it and be involved in those discussions online and see what people are talking about and know what they're talking about without trying to not see anything because you're gonna be spoiled.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

We get spoiled so much these days, especially with like Instagram and stuff, like the fan and it's that come up there.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

I know. Yeah, it's hard, it's super hard. Well, how do you pick what you're gonna watch next? Do you just kind of see what's coming out and kind of go with what's newly released?

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Um, it it depends. Sometimes I just come across stuff on Sungy or my drama list, like there'll be a news announcement that this thing is coming out. I look up when it vaguely they plan on releasing it, and I'll like mark it in my calendar and I'll look it up closer to the date. But that's usually when I'm very interested in the premise or very interested in a certain actor's comeback. I haven't seen them in a couple of years or something like that. So when Parkshine came back with um Judge from Hell, I was already anticipating it for like a good six months. Yeah, but most of the time, I it's purely coincidental. Like back when on the podcast, we used to do these monthly upcoming drama episodes, we would watch like 10 trailers and discuss these really badly translated synopsis. It would be fun to speculate about what these dramas were actually about, and then nine out of ten times they would not be about what the synopsis said, too. So because they release really badly worded, not badly, it's basically deliberately obfuscated synopsis.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yes, yes, I agree, but yeah, yeah, it's like it's it's got details from the story, but it's you didn't really tell me what the plot is.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

No, and also like it's completely disconnected from because they're trying to hide so much, yeah. People translating are trying to put things together somehow, and it's so they end up adding to what the synopsis said, and the additions are completely few picture, or yeah, it's just uh it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

So sometimes I I will look at if it's on Vicky, if you look at the name of the subtitle team, it's like okay, I know what this is about now, because it's like a little encapsulation. And I'm like, okay, I I might watch this now.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah, they they actually do such a good job of titling uh the subtitle teams. Like, if they had actually titled the drama, whatever the game was, it'd be perfect. The drama was actually bad. So yeah, that I used to stay on top of whatever is coming out back when we used to do that. Um, but now that we have like a very loose publishing schedule, we no longer do that. Oh, also back when we used to regularly do this, uh we used to like those episodes wouldn't get like really high listenership. So we thought nobody wanted them. And um, now that we have stopped those are the episodes with the highest listenership, people keep going back and listening to them. Yeah, like oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, it's hard to hit exactly what people want. We're kind of getting close to the end, but I definitely want to ask you, what drama do you feel is overlooked and you wish more people knew about?

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Well, there are a couple. A drama, it's it's not so much that it's overlooked, but I would say more people should watch it than have actually watched it, is be melodramatic or Mellow is my nature. Um and another one that I would recommend is search www.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Both of these uh have trios of female friends, um, but they have very different treatment of female friendship in the two of them. And I I like both treatment, which is why I'm kind of like pairing the recommendations. Um in Be Melodramatic, the friend group, um, which is three women, one guy, they're really close friends, they share an apartment. There is a kid, one of them has a kid. Um, and the friends group is this is basically a found family, and every day, all four of them go out into the world, they have their struggles. Some of it is really funny, uh, there is romance, uh, some of that it is heartbreaking. And then at the end of the day, they come home and sort of debrief and relax with each other, and that's where they kind of just let the stress go. And it's it's so warm, it's so centered around that unit that it doesn't matter what went wrong throughout the day, they will come back home, they will have that friends group kind of like to hold them together, and it's very hard to explain what being melodramatic is unless you watch it because it's so different from other K-dramas. The one thing that might interest you beyond the pitch I just gave is that for one of the characters, she is a writer of K-dramas, so you actually get a very accurate portrayal of how the production system works. Another friend is uh an agent who works for PPLs, basically. Like she goes to a set, makes sure that product placements are done, you know. Like if there is like an ice cream or a yoga or whatever that has to be in a scene, she's going to make sure to pester the director or the actor to make sure that it is there for you know as long as the company said they need it. And it's just it's a very interesting and it's hilarious. All of it is treated, like they make it funny, but still it's actually accurate, um, which I found so interesting. It's one of the better looks into the production process if that is something you're interested in. Also, if you like John Yubin from Vincenzo or uh A Time Called You or Our Movie, this is the drama that shot her to fame, and for really good reasons. Also, Sonsuku for fans of My Liberation.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Okay. Oh, yeah, my Liberation.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Um Sonsugu, yeah. So again, he also he didn't shoot to fame in this one, but he really should have, because oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Such a good role. Okay, cool. So tell me a little bit about because I've seen search WW it's hard to say. Oh, okay, but I don't know much about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

I don't know if you guys would feel the same way I did about that drama, because there were a lot of very legitimate criticisms of how they they treated certain relationships, but what I absolutely loved is that they portrayed like proper girl crushing. I studied in a girl school, went to a girls' college. There were these older students, like upperclassmen, that you just admired and you were like anything they did was so super cool. And if they paid you any attention, you would just die on the spot. Um and that feeling is not something that you really I don't know, it doesn't get portrayed.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

It doesn't, it's not portrayed much, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah, because you you do see this in men, like, oh, the you know, this young rookie, he looks up to this um senior and you know, like really thinks the world of him and that senior mentors him. Like you see that relationship portrayed, but somehow it's completely absent when it comes to any media with women in it. Yeah. And such WWW does that, and it has three women in three different stages of their life, kind of. So you both see a mentor-mentee relationship that once used to be really close, but then started cracking because their moral paths diverged, which is kind of like the center, it's the core of the story. Yeah, and you also have a story of like two frenemies, like these two women who are frenemies who get closer and become best friends. And it's like three different women with three different dynamics, and then the other end of that triangle, like the senior mentor and like the uh the youngest member of that trio, they also have a mentor-ment relationship, but that is more of a I it I can't really explain it. You have to watch it. Their personalities are widely different, their struggles they're going through are widely different, but it's both a cinematic. There are so many cool moments, like just you know, those uh mind drop moments basically. And of course, the director here likes using lens flares like crazy. But if you are not offended by that, you would actually probably enjoy it. It's beautifully short. The cinematography is excellent. Oh, also, this is one of the only dramas where a female lead tells her male romantic interest, I have no interest in marrying, and that remains true till then.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

She doesn't suddenly have a change of heart. That is interesting. So, okay, so my to watch list is like twice as long as it was. So this has been so much fun. Thank you for taking the time to share all these wrecks with us. Where can people find the podcast? Because I should definitely go listen to it.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

So, anyway, you can just uh Google uh dramas over flowers, it'll turn up on your Apple Podcast, Spotify, whatever you listen to.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

You have a substack for it too, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

I do have a we do have a substack, and it's literally substab.com slash uh dramas overflowers. You'll find that. I would suggest just looking through the backlog and seeing if there is a drama that you enjoyed because we we will probably have a chaotic discussion on those are the most fun. Yeah, yeah. But for more recent dramas, yeah, our episodes are a bit scarce. We are trying to get episodes out, but all of us have like very different commitments at this point. It gets very difficult to get together and record.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah, but you have a huge backlog, so people can go back and listen or back catalog and find there's plenty to listen to there. So and it's just a great when y'all when you do release one, it's very special. And so I think there is value in that. It doesn't, it's better to have a really good one than have a couple mediocre ones. You know what I mean? Like when you're doing a project, it'd be better to have the fullness that that you can get when you get a little more time.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

So that's I I really believe in that, but um, I'm also aware that the way the algorithm works, any algorithm during the podcasting one, the more frequently you have an episode out, the more relevant you can stay to your listener's mind, as well as on any search engine. Um, however, knowing that professionally and doing that on top of the work that you do is gets a lot. So we're trying our best. And the thing is, we have such a great community around the podcast, which is completely not it, it was never something that we expected. Um, because we were just basically recording our Haywar discussion. Um but our community is excellent, and every time we post, when we get like comments under Substack or long emails, they you can tell that they didn't just listen, like they properly locked in. I I I couldn't be more thankful. Um somehow we ended up with, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

I think, yeah, I I'm not surprised at all. But yes, definitely check out Dramas Over Flowers, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. So thanks for being here today. Really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a few minutes to write your review wherever you listen to podcasts. That will help K Drama fans find the podcast. And I'll see you next time. Bye everyone.