Shows | photovideoportfolio

Netflix Shows

A great way to experience a culture is to watch their shows that they are creating. Fortunately, Netflix has a great variety of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese dramas all with English subtitles that we can watch here in the states. The shows recommended are shows I have seen or my two best friends have seen and would highly recommend.

Fun Facts About Asian Dramas

Most Asian Dramas only have one season, however, they can some time range anywhere between 30-50 episodes in that season.

Ratings are different between here and Asia which is more conservative. Something can be rated PG in the States, but rated R in Korea. The common cause for this is content containing anything LGBTQ+ is frowned upon in these cultures and can cause for the more strict rating

Variety shows are popular in these countires, and depending on the show lot of content is shot by the hosts or guest themselves.

Korean Shows

Itaewon Class

Park Saeroyi's life has been turned upside down after he gets expelled from school for punching a bully and his father is killed in an accident. Following his father's steps, he opens a pub named "DanBam" in Itaewon and, along with his manager and staff, strive towards success and reaching greater heights.

16 Episodes, 1 H 10 Min per episode

Main Topics: Race, Gender Identity, and Ageism

It's Okay to Not Be Okay

Moon Gang Tae is a community health worker at a psychiatric ward who was blessed with everything including a great body, smarts, ability to sympathize with others, patience, ability to react quickly, stamina, and more. Meanwhile, Ko Moon Young is a popular writer of children’s literature who, due to suffering from an antisocial personality disorder, seems extremely selfish, arrogant, and rude. Moon Gang Tae denies love and Ko Moon Young doesn’t know it. The two defy fate and fall in love, finding their souls and identities in the process.

16 Episodes 1 H 15 Min per episode

Main Topics: Mental Health. Romance, Family Relations

Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung

The story takes place at the beginning of the 19th century. Goo Hae Ryung is an intern to become a palace historian. However, it was not acceptable for women to write historical records at that time. She takes one step at a time to create her own destiny in Joseon, where Confucian ideas are deeply rooted. She wants to fulfill her duties as a historian and prove to the world that everyone is equal. Along with the fight of the female palace historians, the drama will tell her romance with Prince Lee Rim who has a secret of his own.

40 Episodes, 35 Min per episode

Main Topics: Historical Drama, Korean Class System / Politics

Busted

Tackling different mysteries in each episode of this game show, seven sleuths get closer to solving the biggest one of all: What happened to Project D? Seven celebrity sleuths discover that they are a part of an operation called Project D, in which they are implanted with a chip containing the DNA of famous detectives throughout history. Led by a man only known as "K" (Ahn Nae-sang), they are recruited as private detectives and are given a new case in each episode, all the while figuring out the mystery behind Project D and its inception

10 Episode per Season, 3 Seasons, 1 H 30 Min per episode

Main Topics: Variety, Murder Mystery

Good Morning Call

Japanese Shows

Yoshikawa Nao stays behind to live by herself when her parents leave to inherit her grandpa's farm in the country. On the day she moves into her new apartment, she discovers that it was rented also to Uehara Hisashi; a cute, super-cool, popular guy from her school. Not only did their housing agency unexpectedly close down, the landlord of the apartment tells them that they had to pay more for their apartment than they had expected. With no money and no home to return to, Nao and Hisashi decide to live together as flatmates

17 Episodes, Two Seasons, 45 Min per Episode

Main Topics: High School Love, Cohabitation

Erased

Satoru Fujinuma is an unpopular manga artist, who doesn't like having relationships with other people, although he also works part-time delivering pizzas. Satoru has the special ability of "revival", that allows him to go back in time before terrible incidents occurred and right whatever wrong occurred. He goes back continually until the incidents are prevented. 18 years ago, a serial murder case took place with the victims being children. Satoru, using the body of an elementary school student, travels to that time to catch the killer and to save his mother who faced the criminal.

12 Episode, 2 H per Episode

Main Topics: Suspense, Child Abuse, Time Travel

Chinese Shows

The Untamed

* my favorite show of all time FYI

Wei Wu Xian and Lan Wang Ji, two talented disciples of respectable clans, meet during a cultivation training and accidentally discover a secret carefully hidden for many years. Taking on the legacy of their ancestors, they decide to rid the world of the ominous threat, but in a dramatic turn of events, Wei Wu Xian dies. Sixteen years later, Wei Wu Xian is brought back to life through a self-sacrificing ritual. He conceals himself behind a mask and assumes the identity of his summoner. Soon Wei Wu Xian reunites with Lan Wang Ji, and the pair starts working together to solve the mysteries of the present and unravel the truth behind the events of the past.

50 Episodes, 45 Min per Episode

Main Topics: Historical Fantasy, Bromance,

Meteor Garden

An ordinary girl is admitted to the most prestigious school in the country where she encounters F4, an exclusive group comprised of the four wealthiest and handsomest boys in the school - Dao Ming Si, Hua Ze Lei, Xi Men and Mei Zuo. Shan Cai is an 18-year-old girl from a family that's barely able to make ends meet. Due to a turn of events, she gets accepted into a school that only accepts the upper class elites. She immediately clashes with her classmates especially Dao Ming Si who is spoiled, arrogant and a bully. She remains defiant even after becoming a target of a series of pranks intended to torment her and just when she's about to give up, Hua Ze Lei always seems to show up to lend her a helping hand. Eventually, the four boys begin to acknowledge Shan Cai's unyielding personality that is like her namesake which is that of a weed that can never be brought down. She also begins to see the good in the boys, which paves the way for friendship and an eventual romance.