So this morning, I was reliving some childhood memories by going through the Wikipedia pages of old Korean shows, as well as their remakes. As an Asian-American guy, my family was really into Korean shows, so even if I never watched them, all these shows sounded familiar to an extent.
After reading through several plot summaries, I feel like these shows can be split into two categories:
1) The really sad melodrama (Example: Person A and Person B were childhood friends until Person B moved to another country. Years later, they meet again, with Person A being an aspiring writer while Person B is a successful businessperson. They fall in love but Person B’s mom doesn’t want their kid to end up with a poor person. Also, Person B’s lover interferes with A and B’s romance. To make things even more complicated, Person A is already engaged to someone else)
2) The fanfic-y romantic comedy (Example: Person A is a dumb idiot who means well. Despite being dumb, they care for their family and is generally a really wholesome person. One day, they accidentally bump into Person B, a cold rich person who views poor people as their servants. They don’t get along at first due to a misunderstanding when they first met. But through a series of shenanigans, they’re forced to work together when they find out that they need to pretend to be married in order to please their parents. As they play out their fake marriage, A and B slowly fall in love with each other)