Park Shin-hye (left) and Lee Min-ho in The Inheritors (Photo: SBS)

If you’re a fan of K-pop, chances are you’re also a fan of Korean dramas and movies. The October 9 release of the TV series The Inheritors is touted to be the biggest in the K-drama space in 2013.

The buzz: The first official trailer of The Inheritors managed to notch up more than 1,50,000 hits within days of it releasing on YouTube. As more information about the drama was released by the official broadcasting channel Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), fans on Twitter and Facebook got into a tizzy discussing their favourite K-pop and K-drama stars in the extended star cast.

The storyline: The Inheritors is an out-and-out high school rom com about the life, love and friendship. What Gossip Girl is to mainstream TV, The Inheritors is to the K-drama fan following. “I’d say it is another one of those poor-girl-meets-rich-boy-and-happily-ever-after theme. To go a bit more into the drama, I’d say there’s a little more than just being a typical teen drama,” said Christina Seo, a representative of SBS, in an email chat with t2.

Where to watch it: It doesn’t release in India #fail. But fans all over will wait for the English subtitled version of the episodes to release online. If a drama is highly anticipated, it is released with subtitles within a day. For other popular K-shows, you ask your cable operator for channels like Arirang (available on Siti Cable) and KBS World (available on Reliance Big TV).

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“I like Park Shin-hye. I saw her in You’re Beautiful and Heartstrings. Lee Min-ho, Park Shin-hye and Kim Woo-bin are some of my favourite actors and are renowned actors in Korea so I’ll look forward to watching it soon!”

— Yeongchae Lee, president of the Korean Youth Association in Calcutta and Class XII student of The Cambridge School

“I am a big fan of Lee Min-ho, who is actually 28 but plays a 19-year-old boy. The storyline is probably going to be similar to Boys Over Flowers, like a Cinderella story. I also like Kang Min-hyuk, a member of the boy band CN Blue. I’m going to watch it online as soon as it releases”

— Nicki Kanam, final-year law student at NUJS

“I am a Korean drama fan. I like manga and since a lot of K-dramas are made after mangas, I started watching them too. I really liked Boys Over Flowers, Playful Kiss and Personal Perference. I think Lee Min-ho’s acting has improved a lot since his performance in Boys Over Flowers. I’m also waiting to watch Kim Woo-bin. I’ve seen him in School 2013 and in Cyrano. I think he is really cute!”

— Nidhi Rao-Gumuluru,fourth-year student of NUJS

10 things t2 is waiting for:

1 Though it looks like a done-to-death theme of poor-girl-meets-rich-boy, nobody’s complaining when you’ve got faces like Lee Min-ho and Kim Woo-bin in lead roles. Lee who? K-drama heart-throb Lee Min-ho, the main lead. Kim Woo-bin is a model-turned-actor whose claim to fame is his bad boy role in K-drama School 2013.

2 The gorgeous sets and locales around California and Seoul.

3 Lee Min-ho weeping in a couple of scenes. (Yes, we’re pretty sure that is happening! Remember the number of times he cried in the mega K-drama hit Boys Over Flowers?)

4 Classic Kim Eun-sook dialogues that tickle the funny bone. (She is the scriptwriter who gave us superhit K-drama, Secret Garden.)

5 Direction by Kang Shin-hyo who also directed hit Korean dramas like Midas and films like Tazza.

6 The super star cast. The makers of the drama were smart enough to tap into some of the best lookin’ K-pop and drama stars out there — the baby-faced Kang Min-hyuk from rock band CN Blue, Krystal Jung from girl group f(x) and Park Hyung-sik from ZE:A.

7 A really catchy soundtrack — if the little of what we heard in the trailer is anything to go by!

8 We hope that Park Shin-hye’s character of Cha Eun-sang will be a strong female lead instead of a simpering Cinderella.

9 Scriptwriter Kim Eun-sook is known to create memorable male lead characters. The buzz online is that the lead character of Kim Tan in the drama was created specifically for Lee Min-ho. Will this be another Hyun Bin in Secret Garden with his on-screen antics and peculiarities? We hope so!

10 Going by the trailers, the stills and an official confirmation by SBS to t2, Kim Woo-bin’s character Choi Young-do will be giving Lee Min-ho’s Kim Tan a run for his money in romancing Park Shin-hye’s Cha Eun-sang. That is certainly going to be interesting because all three characters have displayed very different personalities in the drama’s trailers.

Neha Banka
Why are you a K-drama fan? Tell t2@abp.in' t2@abp.in

For the 250 Koreans (approx) living in Calcutta (according to the Korean Association of Calcutta) and for fans of all-things K-culture, t2 went around town hunting down Korean food spotted in your favourite K-dramas!

FAMILYCHICKEN

KIMCHI

In the drama Cinderella’s Sister, the first episode shows Eun-jo (Moon Geun-young) making some Kimchi Jiggae (a kimchi-based stew) before she runs away with her mother from an abusive step-father.

Trivia: Kimchi, South Korea’s national dish, is a fermented assortment of vegetables mixed with spicy red chilli paste.

Available at: Family Chicken and Tirupati

One of the few places in Calcutta where you get authentic Korean food is a small restaurant called Family Chicken in Sector 1, Salt Lake (near Salt Lake Swimming Pool). Owned by a Korean resident in Calcutta, Jun Rae Cho, the six-year-old restaurant serves up some yummy Bibimbap, Korean-style fried chicken, Kimchi Jiggae (in picture) and other Korean specials.

PS: Another Korean favourite is Bibimbap or mixed rice. All veggies and meats in the bowl are mixed with a spicy red chilli paste called gochujang.

TIRUPATI

t2 found Hyun Joon Seo (left) and Jae Yeop, who were visiting Calcutta from South Korea, eating at Tirupati. The roadside stall at 7 Sudder Street serves an Indianised version of Kimchi-based noodles, rice and soups. “It’s similar to Korean Kimchi but there we don’t have a combination of noodles and Kimchi,” said Yeop, 20, pointing to his dish of Kimchi Fried Noodles. Seo ordered a more conventional Kimchi Bokkeumbap or Kimchi Fried Rice. “It tastes like Korea!” said the 31-year-old pastor.

CHOCOPIE

In this scene from Good Doctor, birthday boy Shi-on (Joo Won) lights a candle on a stack of Chocopies.

Trivia: Two South Korean brands — Lotte and Orion — are the biggestmanufacturers of Chocopie.

Available at: Most convenience stores in Calcutta

WHAT WE WANT: Soju. All K-drama fans know that dinner is incomplete without this drink! Jinro Soju, available in Goa will “soon come to Delhi, Mumbai, AP and Karnataka,” said a spokesperson for Delhi-based Advent Brand House, distributors of the drink. Calcutta will follow.

RAMYUN

This scene from Boys Over Flowers is when Lee Min-ho’s character Gun Jun Pyo tries Ramyun for the very first time in his life and finds it so yummy that he finishes the whole pot!

Trivia: Almost all K-dramas feature one scene with the leading actor slurping this piping hot goodness.

Available at: Nong Shim Neoguri (Spicy Seafood) is one Korean brand of Ramyun noodles available at Spencer’s South City.

Pictures of restaurants: B. Halder