Nowadays, to be the best Korean drama is actually pretty difficult. There are some guidelines that can propel Korean dramas further along, and sometimes it truly just a popularity contest.

In these sorts of television shows being aired live on Korean television first, you gotta have people who can act. Korean dramas tend to be filled with people who are there because singing or dancing talents. They became famous music pop stars and then went into the acting world. Like ‘Or, you’re popular – then put them in a drama!’ So, generally speaking, a lot of your famous, well known Asian stars are expected to be singers, dancers, actors as well as models, where their American counterparts are only expected to fill one of those roles.

6. “When a Man Loves”

This one started off with all the promise in the world. Not sure exactly where it went wrong for me, but it might have been in episode 1 when she just kept making funny faces in the hotel room. Nevertheless I pulled and pulled for this one and, what do you know: it made the list!

5. “Incarnation of Money”

Money is the root of all evil. And that point couldn’t be more driven home in the opening scene of the first episode. Construction workers are standing undeneather a bulldozer or lift that had scooped out a chuncful of money from the ground. Money starts falling from the sky, and all hell breaks loose! As people are fighting, and practically killing each other from money, a more poignant viewpoint occurs. Is everyone like this out there? Are people everywhere just money hungry? It all ended up being pointless because they had to give it up anyway.. BUT! That is pretty miraculous that money might fall from the sky like that.

4. “Cruel City”

After some further consideration, this one should be higher on the list. Mind you, I hate all things scary. Scary movies, haunter houses, roller coaster, cockroaches.. that’s about it……. Water.. there’s a few other things……….. well that’s it.

This is one of the best Korean dramas I’ve seen in a long time. It’s not one of the mainstream type of dramas if that’s what you’re expecting. I flinched almost as much as I saw the SCALE dude beat the guy up with the golf club as I do when I watch the typical episode of Game of Thrones. Cruel City I think is so brutal that you can’t evcen really believe it, and living 30 min. outside of Seoul, I have a hard time believing that there’s this whole super big thing like this going on. I know there was a meth lab discovered last year, but that’s one whole meth lab in a country. That’s less than even Arkansas. (No offense to the lovely people from the state of AK)

The amazing thing is with all the glamorous angled shots of the city and high intensity rock music, and the OMG lighting, it was almost like CSI Las Vegas, which I caught a few episodes of before Kdramas.

3. “Gu Family Book”

I’ve been an Lee Seung Gi fan since 2009. In 2012, he really won me over as the main role in the King 2 Hearts. Unfortunately, I was never able to finish that drama for one reason or another. Anyways I liked his character in the King 2 Hearts so much that I knee Gu Family Book would be popular, especially partnered with the ‘It’ girl of Korea. You know, fate is something that is alive and ties us all together. And sometimes, it even ties the non humans to us.. if there are such things as supernatural dramas. Heck, human and gumiho are together in this one! Like father like son..

2. “Nine: Nine Time Travels”

This one is not very popular, so I know I’m going out on a limb here. This one might actually be pretty low on the Kdrama popularity contest list. But I don’t care. The whole draw to Nine Time Tracels to me, is besides the kisses are completely believeable, and the scenes being well set up, I really like the concept. While it has been done before, short term time travels haven’t really been done before. Traveling back way in time to some ancient time period in Korea is way more common for Korean Drama executive to green light than a drama that travels back to when you were 15 years old. Because frankly when you get down to it, isn’t there a point for all of us that we’d like to go back to visit the past we so fondly remember, maybe possibly changing the future of the better. And because this one has that, it has the attitude that ‘Hey, things can get better.’ Good news: they actually do.

1. “That Winter, the Wind Blows”

It was like the return of major stars, a new chapter in my drama watching career. I’ll never forget there was this one scene where this guy who has been helping here and getting arrested just as she’s looking for her long lost brother. But she’s blind. So she meets Jo In Sung’s character who getting arrested. Trying to help Jo In Sung’s charcter is her brother who gets hit by a car in front of her, as she’s trying to hail down a taxi, but she can’t see it.

This one couldn’t be anything other than #1 at the top of the list. Dude! That Winter the Wind Blows was such a popular drama in Korea, as well as the international community. To me, I knew it would be popular but I didn’t know how much. Song Hye Kyo and Jo In Sung were both really popular when I first started watching Korean dramas. And as some of you know, they hadn’t made a drama in years. Neither of them.

I’m really looking forward to the second half of 2013, because some of my favorite Korean actors are coming up!

Bloopers: