As a K-drama fanatic, these past couple of months have been a bit disappointing as there’s been a lack of quality k-dramas that are truly worthy of binging. The more modernized and cinematography-focused dramas like The King: Eternal Monarch, It’s Ok Not To Be Okay, and Crash Landing on You made quite the ripple in the Hallyu wave. However, I hate to admit that the more attention a drama receives the less appealing it is to watch. Maybe some of you who have a long history of watching k-dramas can relate to this but it is a strange occurrence that I fall victim to. It’s as if the more people around me or on social media hype the drama up, the higher expectations I have for it; and it is in most cases that this brings me disappointment. Another reason why I have a rather unpopular opinion of those three dramas is because they star two very famous leads. Because the directors believe that the audience only wants to see the well-known actors, most screen time is distributed to the two. At times, this results in shortcomings such as the drama moving too slow, dragging on, or lacking substance.
Currently streaming is the drama Start-Up starring famous actors Nam Joo Hyuk and Bae Suzy. It centers around the encounter between Seo Dal-Mi who has a passion of starting up her own business and her first love Nam Do-San, the founder of Samsan Tech. The two join hands and work to fulfill their dreams as entrepreneurs. This drama undoubtedly took me by surprise; I stopped watching it after what was a slow first episode that only provided a backstory but was encouraged by my friend to continue it. So I did, and I am tuning into Start-Up as new episodes get added to Netflix every week. What I like about this drama is that it pulls in other characters to fully develop the plot all the while revealing the harsh reality of starting up a business (and more importantly there’s a love triangle). I like how there’s notable progress in each episode, especially of the love interests which many dramas fail to execute. At first, I didn’t like the first episode because of how slow and unnecessary it seemed, however, as I rear close to the thirteenth episode, I realized it provided the foundation for an impressive amount of character development for not just one character, but three. If you’re already deep into the k-drama world, I’m sure you’ve already been keeping up with this one, but if you aren’t, I recommend Start-Up if you’re looking for a lighthearted, educational, rom-com type of drama!
