Mr. Sunshine
미스터 션샤인Checked and re-read
Twenty-four episodes at eighty minutes, the most expensive looking thing here, and it does not respect your time. Kim Eun Sook writing Korea under Japanese pressure in the 1900s produces extraordinary images and about six hours that could be cut without losing anything. Lee Byung Hun is magnetic, and the two men orbiting the noblewoman are better served than the romance is. It is a nationalist tragedy that ends where it has to, so do not go in wanting comfort. Watch it for the scale, and be prepared to skip.
Set in the early 1900s, this drama tells the story of a young man from Korea who grows up in the United States. When he returns to Korea as a US Marine Corps officer, he meets and falls in love with a noblewoman who is fighting for Korean independence. Their romance is complicated by social class and political ideology.
Slow start Episode 5, once all three men circling her are in play. The opening hours are a history lesson, and the real barrier is the writing register: the dialogue is elliptical and the flashbacks last seconds, and that is where it either has you or loses you.
Where we recommend it
On 10 lists- Dramas like My DearestClosest
- Dramas like Chicago TypewriterClosest
- Dramas like Descendants of the SunStrong thread
- Dramas like Youth of MayStrong thread
- Dramas like Gyeongseong CreatureStrong thread
- Dramas like Uncle SamsikStrong thread
- Dramas like The Red SleeveStrong thread
- Dramas like GoblinSame feeling
- Dramas like Crash Landing on YouSame feeling
- Dramas like Twenty-Five Twenty-OneSame feeling
Recommended alongside
All dramas →Taken from our own list for Mr. Sunshine, in the order we ranked it.
