Beyond the Bar | Recommended Kdrama

Beyond the Bar is over and I'm feeling empty again. Have you ever felt so attached to the characters and story that you can't focus on other new on-going series? You just can't help but think of what might happen if the drama has more episodes? It's this one for me. The last kdrama that made me feel this way was Park Hyung Sik's "Buried Hearts", which I am yet to make a review about here on the blog, that one was absolutely amazing. It's been months since that drama ended but I still think about it up to this time. When a drama really captures my attention from start to finish, I build that kind of connection towards the characters and the story of that series, so when the conclusion arrives and everything ending after 10, 12 or 16 episodes, I am completely left empty. And it's really hard to find nowadays a great Kdrama that captures my attention fully. Really. That's why letting go of a well written Kdrama is not that easy. 

Anyway, let's stop with the drama and get on with this review. Okay, so, Beyond the Bar is a legal drama that aired from August 2 to September 7 of 2025. It showcases the story of rookie lawyer Kang Hyo Min (Jung Chae Yeon) as she represents Yullim Law Firm through the cases that she works on through the help of her mentor and head of litigation department, Yoon Seok Hoon (Lee Jin Uk). As they work on new cases together, their relationship becomes closer and their backstory gets unveiled one by one. I honestly love that way of story telling when it comes to legal dramas. The cases and the story between characters flowed really in synched unlike some of the legal dramas that make these two flow differently. Both are effective, of course, but this kind of story telling from Beyond the Bar was a personal preference of mine. 

The Haunted Palace | Recommended Kdrama

The Haunted Palace starring Yook Sung Jae, Kim Ji Yeon (Bona) and Kim Ji Hoon ended Saturday last week and your guess is right... my mind still thinks of it. It's a romcom fantasy period drama that revolves around an Imoogi and a Shaman's adventure, taking on and sending off resentful spirits inside the palace. 

There were a few resentful spirits that haunts the daily living of the royal family. Queen Dowager's son, Prince Yeong In, was resented by a female ghost in a well because of foul treatment towards her while she was living. He's disgusting so somewhat, he deserves what happened to him in the end. Other that that, there were more but the biggest villain in the story was none other than the Eight-ft Spirit. This resentful spirit was very powerful as it also carry the souls from the village that got massacred because of the coward King 100 years ago. Eight-ft Spirit got summoned by Pung San backed by Kim Bong In, the betrayer among the few trusted people of the King. Together they aim to take down the King and his family. Actually the Eight-ft Spirit wanted more, his grudge towards the Royal family was immense that he wanted to continue taking down the Royal family for eternity. But despite all that, it's still a happy ending as Gangcheori and Yeori won in the end. Yaaaass! 

Gangcheori/ Kang Chul was the name of a dragon that was bound to ascend 100 years ago. But it did not became successful as someone from the Yeongdam Village saw him while the massacre was on-going. Years later, he has found a way to ascend and it's through Yeori. Gangcheori took form into human figure and pursue Yeori but failed. They all thought Gangcheori was the root cause of the unfortunate happenings including the death of Yeori's grandma, so they try to stay away from him. Then one day, the Royal Scribe Yoon Gap appeared and deceived Yeori to take her to the Palace and solve the mystery behind the resentful spirits. However, as they were on their way, Yoon Gap got killed and that's when Gangcheori possessed his body. Since then, Gangcheori was not able to come out from Yoon Gap's body. 

Yeori wanted to find Yoon Gap's soul and bring him back to his body so she continue on with her journey to the palace despite Gangcheori's opposition. Once they were in the palace, they meet the King and the rest is history. 

That's just a teaser for y'all, if you haven't watched the drama then I'll say you should. It's a recommended drama from me. 

This is Yook Sungjae's drama series since Golden Spoon (2022). Tbh, I didn't like that drama and was not able to finish it.. it felt like it's a drag watching it so dropped it along the way. But this one, The Haunted Palace, was really something. There were no boring episodes, I enjoyed every bits of it. The characters were lovely and they grew on me. Love them. 

Park Eun Bin Transforms into a Genius Doctor who Works in the Shadow in "Hyper Knife"

Park Eun Bin once again left me in awe by her versatility as an actress. I love her for that! This new series of hers, Hyper Knife, is a medical/crime/thriller drama that I absolutely enjoy watching lately. This got me really excited, tbh. I wasn't really expecting anything much from it when I started watching it, as I don't really read synopsis before watching anything, but it just got me hooked as episode 1 gone by. The concept where the one who oppressed the protagonist before and seeking her help now is what made me really excited. lol I want to see Jung Se Ok to disregard the old man's wishes to help him. haha! But the old man does dirty works too, he's persuading her to operate on him by threatening her to stop her from doing surgeries in the shadows. 

It's A Happy Ending for Got 7's Jin Young and Roh Jeong Eui's in "The Witch" Finale

Another Kdrama has ended and it's The Witch starring Got 7's Jin Young as Lee Dong Jin and Roh Jeong Eui as Park Mi Jung. Basically, the story revolves around Dong Jin finding the truth behind Mi Jung's real identity and curse. It's entitled The Witch because it refers to the existence of those who happen to have a curse with them. When someone confesses that they like Mi Jung, they all ended up severely hurt if not dead. The Witch thing only started as a mere mockery from a jealous person towards Mi Jung but it got bigger as more deaths and accidents happen around Mi Jung's close vicinity. During their high school, Dong Jin witnessed how Mi Jung isolated herself from the other students. But he tried his best to serve comfort for her in her solitude even from afar. And as he continues to observe Mi Jung, Dong Jin fell in love with her to which became his driving force to unveil the truth behind Mi Jung's mysterious curse. 

Dong Jin's chosen path was to take analytics to prove that the existence of a Witch is not true. He wanted to prove that the deaths and accidents surrounding Mi Jung were just mere coincidences with facts and data. However, he failed doing so. Eventually, Dong Jin's research turn from dismissing the idea of Mi Jung as a witch towards finding out the rules of her curse as a witch. And there, he found out the rules of death as he tried and tested each hypothesis he came up with through observation and data gathering. 

1. Being with a 10m radius of her for over 10 minutes is dangerous.

2. Holding a conversation with her is dangerous.

3. If she knows your name it's dangerous.

4. Confessing your feelings to her is dangerous.

5. Breaking all these rules will result in death. 

Friendly Rivalry Kdrama Caught My Heart Instantly | Honest Review

Nobody expected much of this drama of Hyeri and Subin to become a hit. Honestly, I didn't expect it either. We all know how conservative SK really is when it comes to GL or BL dramas, right? And some Kdrama fans are not into GL either. I've seen a lot of commenters on my FB page about not wanting to watch it because of that particular theme but hey, look at how it did! It's a hit! It's actually a really good drama, I tell you. It's not that typical GL drama where the females are having the smooching and bed scenes as the highlight. It has a veeeery good story to tell and how it was told was truly beautiful. I suggest you watch it if you haven't. 

Anyway, the story revolves mainly around Woo Seulgi (Chung Su Bin) and Yoo Jae Yi (Lee Hyeri) but some interesting characters are also present here like Joo Yeri (Kang Hye Won), Choi Kyeong (Oh Woo Ri), Jo Ara (Chae So Eun) and more. The story started with young Seulgi getting lost in a field trip and ended up in an orphanage. She grew up there, struggling to make a presence and the only way she saw her life to acquire good changes was through studying. She tried to get away from life miseries and school bullies by getting good grades. Seulgi's ranking went from 15 in the entire class to rank 15 in the whole school and later on (after staying up all night by drinking unprescribed medicine), she managed to rank 1st in the whole school. One day, she left the orphanage because she has been found by her dad. But it turned out that her dad has passed away and the only person left to be her guardian was her step mom. 

Under her step mom's custody, Seulgi transferred to Chaehwa High School and there she met the "perfect" top student, Yoo Jae Yi. And meeting Jae Yi made Seulgi's life filled with colors and true safety was met. TBH, up until now, I'm still in awe with how amazing Yoo Jae Yi really is. I'm not gonna lie, I was doubtful of her intentions towards Seulgi at the first half of the series but... as the story goes by, I can already see the green flag patterns being made by Jae Yi. Obviously, Jae Yi was made to be misunderstood because she was built to show no emotions at all by her father. She grew up in an environment where she was raised like a robot, therefore, it became a flaw for her to be misunderstood by her peers. But thankfully, despite having on and off special friendship with Jae Yi, Seulgi was able to understand the deepest contents of Jae Yi's heart in the end. 

Jae Yi promised to keep Seulgi safe and she kept the promise until the very end after sacrificing everything for her. Jae Yi managed to break free from her dad too and Seulgi became one of her reasons to do so aside from her other own interests like saving Jena and all. 

Anyway, to make everything short, Friendly Rivalry made me realize what genre I really like the most in watching Kdramas. It's the mystery and thriller/suspense kind of drama. Recently, I've been watching a lot of Kdramas that I ended up dropping because they don't meet my expectations or they're just boring enough not to make me hooked with each episodes. But with Friendly Rivalry, it's different. I got hooked the very first episode until the very end. Aside from the interesting story, direction and cinematography of the drama, perhaps it also have something to do with the short duration of each episode. I've watched this series while it was on-going and it's aired every Mon-Thu. There's not a day or night I was not excited to see an episode because every end of the episode made me curious of what's next to happen. Seriously, when was the last time I felt this way for a kdrama? It's probably been a long time. I'm glad I really watched Friendly Rivalry. It's definitely part of my HIGHLY recommended Kdrama of all time now. So if you haven't watched it yet, I suggest you start NOW. 

Hwang Min Hyun's "Study Group" | Highly Recommended K-drama!

When gangster-like students are really involved in a drama, it means it won't get boring at all. The entire run of Study Group was a chef's kiss. It was good! Like reeeeally good! It started off introducing the main character Yun Ga Min (Hwang Min Hyun) who has difficulty in achieving decent grades at school ever since he started studying. He did all the things he can just to improve his grades, but to no luck, his grades remain at the bottom of the ranking. Then one time, he heard his mom and her friend talking about joining study group so other students could help him out with his grades. That made him determined to join one but nobody wanted a bottom ranking student to join their study groups. Ga Min got humiliated from wanting to join such groups. 

Since Ga Min's dream was to go to college, he heard other students gossiping about transferring to Yuseong Technical High School which was famous for delinquent students. The school has a bad reputation and so other students from other schools thought that if they transfer there, there won't be competition and that they'll get proper scores to apply for college. So that's what Ga Min did and the rest was history. He was able to create his own study group and finally improve his ranking by 10.  

So basically this drama became so popular despite not having enough promotions. It just means that it's really good drama. Plus, multiple young starting actors were casted here alongside actor Hwang Min Hyun so the visuals will never disappoint you. All characters were very fun to watch and Hwang Min Hyun's character Ga Min was absolutely adorable with his study adventures. Oh, have I said that Ga Min was poor at studying but was actually good at fighting?? Yep, that's the twist. And that where the story would revolve. 

If you haven't watched this drama, I suggest you start now because it's definitely a recommended kdrama from me.

The Tale of Lady Ok | HIGHLY Recommended K-drama!

The Tale of Lady Ok has become one of my favorite period K-drama of all time. It adds to my list with The Crowned Clown and Captivating the King on it. It's just special in a way that the female protagonist was born as a lowly slave, pretended to be a noble and served the people (noble and slaves) equally as a Legal Advocate and then when her real identity got revealed in the end, people were still very accepting of her because of the life she has led as a Legal Advocate. In short, a lowly slave has saved a lot of people and that became her saving grace from being convicted and criticized for the rest of her life. 

Another thing that made the whole drama special to me was the male protagonist, Seung Hwi. He has displayed his undying love for Gudeok/Tae Young all throughout the series. Without him, I don't think Tae Young would have survive a life full of enemies that wants to bring her down. Obviously, as a Legal Advocate, Tae Young earned a lot of enemies but she also gained a lot of allies like my favorite ally of her, Lady Kim. I seriously like her. She's basically that first enemy that Taeyoung helped as a Legal Advocate that became loyal to her throughout the series. Tbh, if Seung Hwi was Tae Young's loyal lover then Lady Kim is Tae Young's loyal friend. 

The storyline of this drama was really good and every character has distinguished developments as the story progressed. You'll come to love even more the characters you've already loved before and you'll learn to forgive and love as well those characters you've hated before. However, there's this one character that was obviously used only to pull everything back together at the end after all the chaos that has been made, and it's none other than, Yoon Gyum. Yes, that doppelganger of of Cheon Seung Hwi and brother of Do Gyum. Till the very end we didn't know why he and Seung Hwi looked alike. lol But because of that, the main characters were able to get saved several times in the drama. I guess we shouldn't question that anymore if it's the case. kkk In The Crowned Clown drama, a performer looked the same as the King as well and that's where the story evolved too... yet the drama turned out really good as well. (One of my favorites too!) Well, perhaps it's a norm in a period drama with such theme to not ask further question as long as it's executed really well. kkk

Anyway, the drama was well received locally (SK) as it reached double digits in the viewership ratings. The finale got its all time high nationwide viewership rating of 13.575%. It's also part of top 10 TV series on Netflix during its run. It may not have been as popular as those mainstream dramas to kdrama fans around the world but it's still considered a success for sure!

The final verdict is here. Will I recommend this K-drama?! Definitely YES! Tbh, it's been a while since I have listed a new kdrama to add on this special list of mine and I'm so glad that it's finally here. 

When the Phone Rings Ended with 8.6% Nationwide Viewership Ratings with Finale Episode

When the Phone Rings ended with 12th episode airing last night. The nationwide viewership rating failed to achieve double digits with only 8.6% but this still marked to be their all time high personal record throughout its run. 

It was a happy ending. It turned out the secret that got revealed by 406 to Saeon was about Paik Jang Ho being the mastermind of the car accident that the Hong siblings were involved in during their childhood. It took the life of Heejoo and Ina's little brother so Saeon felt responsible and shameful to them that leads him to going far from Heejoo. Saeon ended up in Argan where rebels exists but Heejoo went after him. There, Heejoo and Saeon reunited and later marry each other as Heejoo and Yu Yeon. 

406 died in the hands of the police and his mother got life imprisonment. Ui-yong ended up losing in the presidential race showing how his public service career got ruined. Min Do Ki confessed to his sins and got imprisoned for 5 years. Heejoo's mom had a change of heart and is now a kind parent to Heejoo and same goes with her husband. Hong Ina apologized to Heejoo for how she was to her during their childhood and is now working on getting closer with her as a big sister. Park Do Jae came back to Saeon's side, Yuri and Sang Woo ended up together and everyone else was happy. THE END.

Hmmmm.... It's a happy ending but if I'm gonna be honest, I was really disappointed with the ending. I know that it's only after the webtoon but still, the ending turned out to be too much of a stretch. I was laughing my ass off when Heejoo stubbornly went after Saeon in Argan where rebels exist and ended up getting caught in the end. And obviously, Saeon came to the rescue. lol I was like, WTF was that?! Hahaha I know the writer wanted to exaggerate how much Heejoo loves Saeon that she's willing to risk her life and same goes with Saeon but still... like wtf was that! Can't they think of a better and a little 'realistic' for an ending? Suddenly they're invincible from an on-going war in Argan because love conquers all. 🤣 I find that very ridiculous. 

When the Phone Rings, I thought it was overly hyped. I admit that it started really veeeeery interesting but I dont know...when Saeon and Heejoo came together, the excitement faltered for me. Everything became overly sweet and at most, scenes were a little too cringey. But overall, it's still a decent and fun to watch drama. Kudos to the cast especially Yeon Yun Seok. 

When the Phone Rings Achieved 8.3% Nationwide Viewership Ratings with Episode 11 | Best Personal Record

January 3, episode 11 of When the Phone Rings aired and it achieved 8.3% nationwide viewership ratings. It's 2nd to the last episode of the show and it's gaining attention from the general public. Does this mean we could expect even higher viewership for the finale?! We'll see about that.

Heejoo went missing after the intentional car crash, it turned out that professor Sim Kyu Jin was the one who kept her hidden with the help of Min Do Ki. Sim Kyu Jin wanted Seaon, the son of Paik Jang Ho, to suffer the same as her for losing a loved one. She's avenging for what had happened to her and her son, 406. No wonder 406 became a psych0path, it's because she's the mother! When Sim Kyu Jin told her husband that 406 took after him, I doubted. Because 406 is took after her, they're the same crazy! 

Saeon successfully made the police arrest professor Sim Kyu Jin despite Paik U-yong being a presidential candidate. Saeon shared to the police a video of Kyu Jin killing Paik Jang Ho in the hospital. All this time, Saeon was keeping this secret as well as knowing that he's Jang Ho's son instead of Ui-yong. Once Kyu Jin got arrested, Saeon discovered the whereabouts of Heejoo through the police investigation. 

Saeon found Heejoo while she's running away from 406 but before this, Min Do Ki set Heejoo free while he chose to lock up 406. However, his plans got busted by Ui Yong who followed him after the failed press conference. This is why 406 got out and went after Heejoo and Saeon. 

In the end, 406 caught up with them and asked Saeon to get out of his car and speak to him. 406 whispered something to Saeon that made him disappear later on. I wonder what it was that he told him. Hmmm...

Anyway, last episode tonight!!

Check In Hanyang Episodes 1-4 Recap | Yeongcheonru Explained

Yongcheonru - the palace built across from the royal palace. Joseon's premier inn, built on a site blessed by a dragon. At Yeongcheonru, the guest is the king. Guests can be anyone they wanted to be in here as long as they have money. Being one of Yongcheonru's employees became the dream jobs of youth in Hangyan, social classes do not matter and talent was all that was needed to succeed. All Yongcheonru's employees were led by the innkeeper. 10 chests of gold were offered every month to the king by Yongcheonru's Cheon. The power of gold was what feeds the people and so the King just let Yongcheonru operate. 

Lee Eun/ Lee Eun Ho, the crown prince of Joseon asked the King to let him enter Yongcheonru with an excuse to master the craft of business. But Cheon reminded him that social status ain't a thing there and so the crown prince will be treated equally as the other new apprentices that will enter Yongcheonru. When the King and the crown prince was left alone, the King brought up about a 'shadow ledger'. He mentioned that it was the only weakness he has that made him a puppet of those who knew about its existence. These people think that the throne/the King was powerless because of it and Cheon was one of them. It's why Yongcheonru became untouchable as well. Cheon and the Ministry of War were the ones who put the King to the throne to become their puppet and they have the power to put their own candidate again to ascend it. 

The crown prince offered to find the shadow ledger and so the King revealed about the 'brass key' that's the only key to the safe where the shadow ledger's located. The brass key was composed of 2 pieces, one was already in the hands of Yeongcheonru's Cheon and the other one is nowhere to be found yet.

It turned out that half of the key was in possession of Hong Deok Su whose real name was Hong Jae On. The key was passed down to her by her father, Hong Min Sik, during her childhood. Their residence was once attacked and her father asked her to pretend to be a boy to save her life. While she was escaping, she saw a very familiar person close to her and her father's hearts holding a sword covered in blood. It turned out to be the innkeeper of Yeongcheonru, Mae Hwa. It became Jae On's driving force to successfully get inside Yeongcheonru, to seek answers from the innkeeper.

Jae On managed to escape and after 12 years, she became Hong Deok Su. A woman disguising as a man. Up until this period of time, a poster was still put up everywhere in Hanyang looking for Hong Min Sik's only daughter. In the end, they're after the brass key. 

Both the crown prince and Hong Deok Su meet each other as an apprentice with individual secret goals. There. they were grouped with other apprentices who later became their close friends as they take on the tasks given to them by Yeongcheonru's masters. 

So far, I'm really loving this drama. It's a fun period drama and has less serious theme/topic involved than The Tale of Lady Ok. It doesn't make it any less though because it still remain very entertaining, all thanks to the 4 main characters involved.