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1.01 - 14 Elements of Every K Drama


This is the pilot episode for K Drama Chat. In this episode, we introduce ourselves, Joanna Pineda and Jen McWhorter, and talk about why we love K Dramas and why we decided to create this podcast.

K Drama Chat is available on your favorite podcast service: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

Rather than just do a surface review our favorite K Dramas, we want to go deep and analyze each episode of our favorite series. For our first season, we have chosen Hotel Del Luna. This series is on Netflix, so it's easy for everyone to watch. This series features amazing actors, an amazing storyline, gorgeous cinematography, layers of myth and symbolism, and plenty of side stories and surprises.

But before delving in Hotel Del Luna, we talk about the 14 elements that, our experience, exist in every K Drama series. Some of our favorites are:

  1. Beautiful actors
  2. Crying, by both women and men
  3. Gorgeous OSTs (original sound tracks)
  4. Food; there's lot of eating in K Dramas
  5. Alcohol; drinking by both men and women
  6. The trip and catch
  7. Piggyback rides
  8. The back hug
  9. Product placements
  10. Holding hands
  11. The wrist grab
  12. Flowers
  13. Love triangles
  14. Umbrella scene

K Drama Chat is a weekly series, with new episodes dropping every Friday. 

We welcome your comments about our shows, what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we missed. We also want to hear your insights into the episodes that we cover, and your suggestions for shows to cover in future seasons.

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K Drama Chat is a weekly podcast where we take one Korean (K) Drama each season and and recap and analyze each episode. K Drama Chat is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

Comments

  1. Joanna PinedaApril 2, 2022 at 4:56 PM

    In future episodes, we actually come up with other K Drama Elements: #15: Rich/poor tension, #16: Quirky best friend or roommate, #17: Deep Lean, #18: Arm Rest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TimTTMay 25, 2022 at 7:29 PM

    Hi Joanna and Jen. My name is Tim. I am happy to hear you guys are starting a podcast about recapping and talking about kdramas. I got into to kdramas in the same way Joanna did: the pandemic. My fiancee, now wife, was the one who got me introduced to kdrama with Crash Landing on You. Ever since I have been obsessed with watching kdramas on Netflix and other streaming services. I am excited to hear your thoughts about Hotel Del Luna. If I may make a suggestion, once you are done with Hotel Del Luna, I recommend Crash Landing on You. It is my first and favorite kdrama. I even made my own review of the show at the link below. Hope you enjoy it.

    https://medium.com/@timtran649/crash-landing-on-you-review-a00d51a41fde

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sung-HeeSeptember 13, 2025 at 5:52 PM

      Hello TimTT! Sorry for the very delayed reply, we don't always get the notifications that a comment has been made on earlier episodes. You'll be happy to know, if you haven't noticed already, that we have covered Crash Landing on You, in season 8 of Kdramachat. Here is a current list of what we have or are covering:
      Season 1: Hotel Del Luna
      Season 2: It's Okay to not be Okay
      Season 3: Mr. Sunshine
      Season 4: 25, 21
      Season 5: Mr Queen
      Season 6: Gyeongseong Creature (the initial half of the show)
      Season 7: Queen of Tears
      Season 8: Crash Landing
      Season 9: Kingdom
      Season 10: See you in my 19th life
      Season 11: When Life Gives you Tangerines
      Season 12 (currently dropping): Extraordinary Attorney Woo
      We have also done some bonus episodes, covering several movies as well as a one episode review of When the Phone Rings
      Join us, if you haven't already!

      Delete

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