Top 5ish – Gong Hyo-Jin Love Interests in Dramaland (Update: Vote for Your Favorite!)

With this weeks premier of her latest show, It’s Okay That’s Love, I realized that this will be my 6th (!) Gong Hyo Jin drama.  Which means I have spent more hours watching GHJ than either Lee Min Ho or Lee Seung Gi, though she still doesn’t top my apparent love affair with Ahn Suk-Hwan (UGH. 7 dramas!).

Why are you and your mustache twirling ways in every drama ever?!?

Truth is, whenever I choose a drama, my criteria is based on critical reaction and premise rather than the actors in question, which is why it’s rather amazing the streak GHJ has going on.  To the best of my knowledge, her past six dramas have pretty much been critical or ratings successes (usually both), with zero “forgotten dramas”.  She’s also worked with some of the dramaland’s best, and though I will be focussing on her male co-stars this time around, the creative talent should make anyone jealous considering she’s worked with Lee Kyung Hee (twice), the Hong Sister’s (twice), and now also reuniting with Noh Hee Kyung.  Sounds like your typical bitchy diva who you’d never want to work with. (JK, she’s obviously amazing)

Warning: nothing but nonsense from here on out!

Top 5 – Secret Garden References

Much too long intro:

Secret Garden was my gateway drug into Korean pop-culture, stemming from randomly watching it on Netflix. I fully embraced the crazy, the repetitiveness, the odd couple(s), and the ridiculata.  It wasn’t till months later I started watching dramas regularly, so I really had no idea of just how crazy popular it was both in Korea and world-wide.  But once you watch three dramas in a row using the Secret Garden OST, suddenly the 8th billed actor is getting their own starring roles, and you see articles from the WSJ on Hyun Bin’s return date from the military, one begins to think that this show might have had some cultural impact.

It will be interesting to see if such similar phenomenon will occur with My Love From the Star, which IMO has been the next drama that enraptured world and provided gangbusters ratings.  Thus far MLFTS has sold out lip-stick, opened drama based-exhibits, and made Jeon Ji-Hyun (and chicken with beer) more popular than what was thought not possible, but I feel it’s star will fade faster then SG.  Mostly because there is so much more material rife for parody with SG.  Simply put, the humor from SG came from a mix between laughing at it, as well as with it, whereas MLFTS has decidedly less mockability.  This may seem like a total take-down, but it’s not my number one drama for nothing.  It’s much easier to remember Gil Rae Im and Kim Joo Won walking at a turtles pace in tandem then even a well-crafted joke or one-liner.  Which is why I took note of the many, many times Korean shows payed homage to the body-switching phenom, and before you can say “but the cheesecake, that was some other bitch” here is number 5.

Top 5 – Alternative Pairings/Couples in Dramaland

When watching Pasta,(no major spoilers here)  my 2nd favorite relationship outside the main couples epicenter of cuteness, was the blossoming friendship of Gong Hyo-Jin and Choi Jae-Hwan’s characters.  They were lowest on the literal and metaphorical food chain (basically kitchen grunts), and often helped each other out when in dire straits.

I then realized that outside of a OTP (and let’s face it, sometimes in spite of) it’s these types of relationships that are my favorite part of any show.  Not to deviate from K-Dramas but Mad Men has perhaps the greatest male-female platonic relationship of all-time, but watching I realize how rare that is in any storytelling medium.  So that was the basis for this top 5, but I’m making it a little bit more interpretive.  Basically any sort kind of special connection between two characters that is not easily definable (mom daughter for example), a one true pairing, or a 2nd leads thang is fair game. Hopefully that works…

Good to know! and without further ado, here is number 5!

Greatest. Mashup. Everrrrr. (and the new game inspired by it!)

That was fan-freaking-hilariously-delicious! this mash up uses her love interests Chep! and Dokko Jin from Pasta and Greatest Love respectively, and without giving anything away things take a bromantic turn in the ladder half of the vid.

So now I just  really want to combine all her TV love interests in some sort of epic movie or reality show death match. Imagine… the Coffee Prince lads with the Something Happened in Bali boys, add a Dokko Jin, and just a pinch of Thank You‘s Jang Hyuk for good measure and you’ve got…. Well dunno exactly but it sure sounds like a smexy good time! In fact…