Seven years of Kdramas: 2003-2009’s best and worst

By thundie • December 19, 2009

Exactly three weeks ago I posted a series of polls for the best and worst dramas of 2003-2009. Thank you for your enthusiastic response (especially to the 2009 poll!) and the many comments which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading.

As promised, here is a summary of the voting. Don’t be upset if your favorites don’t make it to the Best 5 or, worse, land up in the ‘other’ category! My own favorites are often different from the popular choices and that actually makes me love them all the more.

Okay, let’s start with 2003 and work our way through the seven years. Dramas that make it, paradoxically, to both best and worst categories are in red.

2003 poll

2003 Best 5

1. Dae Jang Geum
2. Damo
3. Attic Cat
4. All In
5. Stairway to Heaven

2003 Worst 5

1. Stairway to Heaven
2. Summer Scent
3. Thousand Years of Love
4. 1% of Anything
5. Attic Cat

Thundie’s Best 5

1. Damo
2. Attic Cat
3. Sang-doo, Let’s Go to School
4. All In
5. Dae Jang Geum

I admit that Dae Jang Geum is highly addictive; it sucks you in and keeps you on tenterhooks episode after episode. It is well-acted and directed (although you know those aren’t Lee Young-ae’s fingers which are slicing the veggies with such finesse). But Dae Jang Geum didn’t leave me a weepy wreck. It didn’t make me fill a notebook with page after page of quotations. I didn’t listen to its soundtrack every day for more than two years, my eyes filling with tears as I remembered particular scenes with such clarity it was as if I had watched them just moments ago. Only one drama did all that to me. Before the Soompi crash of 2005, my nick there was damoforever. Yes, I’m a Damo maniac and proud of it.

2004 poll

2004 Best 5

1. Sorry I Love You and Full House
2. Sweet 18
3. Save the Last Dance for Me
4. What Happened in Bali

2004 Worst 5

1. Love Story in Harvard
2. Full House
3. Prince’s First Love
4. Lovers in Paris
5. Stained Glass

Thundie’s Best 5

1. More Beautiful Than a Flower
2. Immortal Yi Soon Shin
3. Sorry I Love You
4. Magic
5. What Happened in Bali

I’ve been especially nostalgic this month. Five years ago a drama aired its last episode in December; that same drama would change my life, literally. A person whose childhood nickname was ‘Wood” (because she was quiet and timid) found herself the unlikely founder of a fan club. So Ji-sub’s acting in Sorry I Love You (MiSa) blew me away and made me a crazed fangirl (who is still quiet and timid, alas). But even though I continue to love him and MiSa (above anything else he has done so far), my top drama of 2004 isn’t about abandonment and revenge. No, it’s about a mother and her children. It’s about a man and a woman who fall in love, not realizing their ties began long before they met. It’s about family and the things that really matter in life. Approach More Beautiful Than a Flower cautiously because you won’t be able to uproot it from your heart.

2005 poll

2005 Best 5

1. My Name is Kim Sam-soon
2. My Girl
3. Delightful Girl Choon-hyang
4. Be Strong Geum-soon
5. Resurrection

2005 Worst 5

1. A Love to Kill
2. Princess Lulu
3. Sad Sonata
4. Autumn Shower
5. Delightful Girl Choon-hyang

Thundie’s Best 5

1. Shin Don
2. Resurrection
3. Taereung National Village
4. Green Rose
5. Fashion Seventies

One afternoon four years ago, a group of kdrama addicts met in a Burger King restaurant for lunch. Not much eating took place, though. Even from a distance you could see each member of the group clutching her sides, her tears rolling down her face. It was Samsoon this and Samshik that; every little thing would trigger a fresh round of laughter. It was the craziest and most wonderful drama they had watched in ages and they couldn’t stop talking about it. In contrast, one 2005 drama is rarely discussed. Not many have watched it, because it’s a period drama and a long one, too. Its opening episode may put you off because it’s history, after all; this isn’t something you watch while pottering around the room. You need to pay attention, to what the monks are saying, to the king and his courtiers, to the princess you will grow to love fiercely. Listen carefully, for even a child and a camel, even the rocks, have a story. It’s more than 60 episodes and when you come to the end of it, know that it’ll feel like you’ve been run over by a truck. For some people, Shin Don is THE DRAMA. Seven or seventy years, no drama will come close to being so loved.

2006 poll

2006 Best 5

1. Goong
2. Soulmate
3. Fantasy Couple
4. What’s Up, Fox?
5. Bad Family

2006 Worst 5

1. Exhibition of Fireworks
2. Spring Waltz
3. Goong, Snow Queen and What Star Did You Come From?

Thundie’s Best 5

1. Hyena
2. Soulmate
3. Goodbye Solo
4. Bad Family
5. Alone in Love

Ah, Goong. I ran from you thrice, unable to stomach the awful acting in the first episode. Then I watched Devil and found myself rooting for the lawyer in the story. Because I loved him in Devil and because he was playing your lead, I tried watching you again and this time I succeeded, all the way to the end. Your sets were so lavish, your production values solid as steel (even if the acting was generally putrid). I was addicted, for about 15 episodes, and then you started going downhill. Your last four episodes made me paw the wall, so frustrated was I by the incredibly loopy and mindless plot twists. Thankfully several other 2006 dramas were good from start to end. This was a great year for dramas and it’s hard to pick a No. 1 because I love every one of the dramas in my top 5 with almost the same passion. In the end Hyena wins… because of Oh Man-seok and Shin Sung-rok, and because it is so daringly written and so criminally underrated.

2007 poll

2007 Best 5

1. Coffee Prince
2. Dal Ja’s Spring
3. Thank You
4. Que Sera Sera
5. 9 End 2 Outs

2007 Worst 5

1. Witch Amusement
2. Goong S
3. Bad Love
4. Hello! Miss
5. Air City

Thundie’s Best 5

1. Conspiracy in the Court
2. White Tower
3. Evasive Inquiry Agency
4. Devil
5. Que Sera Sera

One day I will finish Coffee Prince. I liked it for about six episodes, so why did I stop abruptly? I even forgot completely about it, aigoo! Tsk, tsk, Thundie. But wait. In a year of fantastic pickings, it’s forgivable to overlook one gem among so many gems, right? Just look at the list! White Tower, Devil… Someone please knock me senseless so that I can stay stuck in 2007 and not have to fall back to Earth with a thud. On second thought, if I hadn’t gone on to 2008, I would not have discovered my top drama of 2007. January 2008 was when that drama dropped into my lap and left me reeling. Only eight episodes, yet filled with so much intrigue you need to watch each episode twice to fully understand what is going on. This little drama will raise the bar for all other period dramas to come. Three young and untried leads helm Conspiracy in the Court; you will never forget their acting. Never.

2008 poll

2008 Best 5

1. Hong Gil Dong
2. Last Scandal of My Life
3. Who Are You?
4. Beethoven Virus
5. Painter of the Wind

2008 Worst 5

1. East of Eden
2. One Mom and Three Dads
3. On Air and Worlds Within
4. Beethoven Virus and Robber

Thundie’s Best 5

1. Bittersweet Life
2. Scale of Providence
3. Fight
4. Who Are You?
5. Women of the Sun

Hong Gil Dong, did I drop you after the fourth episode? Goodness, what was I thinking? Fear not, you are one of the first dramas that I’m going to resume watching when 2010 rolls around. (If you suspect the reason is because of a You’re Beautiful connection, you are absolutely… RIGHT.) Anyway, I dropped so many dramas in 2008, some after just one episode, so making it to Episode 4 for Hong Gil Dong was quite the feat especially given that it felt like all kinds of silly (albeit of a charming kind). Perhaps I was in the mood for serious? Because you can’t find a more serious and intense 2008 offering than the one I fell head over heels for. A cheating husband and his cheating wife. One psycho and another. A really cute dog. The same writer-director pair that gave me the drama of my heart, Shin Don. Acting so sublime it makes me want to weep. Is it possible for me not to love Bittersweet Life?

2009 poll

2009 Best 5

1. City Hall
2. You’re Beautiful
3. Queen Seondeok
4. Brilliant Legacy
5. Boys Before Flowers

2009 Worst 5

1. You’re Beautiful
2. Boys Before Flowers
3. City Hall
4. Take Care of the Young Lady
5. IRIS

Thundie’s Best 5 (undecided)

I will unveil my top 5 dramas in the year-end review which I’m writing for Dramabeans. As of today I have a best drama in mind, but that may change as I catch up (most frantically) with a few more dramas before the review deadline. I still have not decided which are my top 5 dramas, but I have certainly decided which are the worst 3! (Psst, Brilliant Legacy and You’re Beautiful recaps will resume as soon as I get that year-end review written. So sorry to keep you waiting!)

Thank you again for voting. The polls will remain open until December 31.

Categorised in: K-dramas, Polls, Reviews

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