Continuing the series as we count backward, see the previous post Favorite Asian Dramas #9-12

6)Devil Beside You (Taiwanese)

I know some people who love the other Mike He/Rainie Yang drama Why Why Love a good deal more, but for me this was the first drama I saw them in and one of my first Taiwanese dramas ever, and while it could be argued that WWL has a more consistent plot, DBY has my heart. It was love at first fight when Qi Yue(Rainie Yang), after gathering all her courage to hand a letter of confession to her long-time crush Yuan Yi(Kingone Wang), hands it by accident instead to bad boy Jiang Meng(Mike He), the school troublemaker known as “the Devil”. The exchange sparks the Devil’s interest and he begins pursuing her, to her horror, which becomes even greater when she realizes that he’s the son of the man her mother’s going to marry and that they’ll be living in the same house from then on…

My take: DBY starts out, in the first ep, over-the-top and strident, but recovers its pace an episode or so into it and reveals itself as an absolutely lovely, funny, delicious romantic comedy, with a chemistry-laden OTP and a gorgeous attention to relationship detail. DBY has several of my favorite drama tropes – forced proximity(they live in the same house), bad boy/good girl(and in this case, he really is a bad boy in that he tends to do whatever the hell he wants regardless of circumstance), reasonably well-handled male jealousy, male bonding, hurt/comfort/grief, tons of central couple time. Good stuff.

7)The Lawyers of the Great Republic Korea (Korean)

Synopsis:
My take:If all dramas were like Lawyers of Korea, I would spend my lifetime staring at a computer screen with a silly smile on my face. It took me a little while to fall completely for it – 2 episodes, but when I did, I fell fast and hard, with a crash that could be heard for a hundred miles. Yi Kyung and Min Gook have the best OTP dynamic I’ve seen outside of Mars, and make up one of my favorite OTPs overall. It’s the small moments, the exquisitely-handled romantic scenes that pepper almost every episode, that lift this drama above average, but it’s not just that; Lawyers showcases one of the most stellar writing jobs I’ve ever seen, with each scene, particularly in the latter half of the drama, unfolding with such perfection and character-and-OTP consistency, that it left me in awe, and a plot that, while refreshingly non-angsty, managed to constantly surprise me. There are a beautifully few number of tears and over-the-top twists in Lawyers, but that doesn’t mean the characters and their lives aren’t compelling – on the contrary, the fact that it was all about character development kept me riveted through 16 episodes. It also has one of my favorite drama tropes- forced proximity-and reminded me often of Full House, and during two specific scenes of My Girl and Mars.

Why you might not like it: if your taste is for drama! drama! and then more drama! or for angsty weepfests, this might not be the drama for you, as it’s all about understated(but incredibly compelling) romance, or if you get impatient easily, as it doesn’t hit that got me! note until a little ways into it.

WATCH

Tagged: Asian dramas, Devil Beside You review, favorite asian dramas, jdrama, Kdrama, Lawyers of Korea, Lawyers of Korea review, Lee Soo Kyung, Love Shuffle drama review, Love Shuffle review, Mike He, Rainie Yang, Twdrama