de Soju, Agosto 26, 2020
117

If there is anything my friends know about me and my viewing habits it is that (1) I obsessively research on a drama or movie before I actually begin watching it, and (2) I avoid dramas with sad endings like my life depends on it. Unless… well… let's say the female protagonist desires revenge from the start, and the entire drama is just about
her killing the other characters one by one, until in the end… she kills the ML.

I'm sorry, I'm getting out of topic here. Alright, so the main aim of this list is to bring 10 dramas that I would have watched, and I'm sure would have liked, had the ending not been so sad.
The second aim is to maybe give SE lovers something new to watch. Something that is even acknowledged by a SE avoider; that is me.

Also, I hope this colour scheme makes this article less depressing for you all.
Please enjoy!
(ಥ﹏ಥ)

Click on the images to be redirected. ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD.

Episodes: 11
Duration: 54min
Country: Japan


Summary:
Kyoko 
(Tokiwa Takako), a young woman with an unhindered spirit despite being physically bound to a wheelchair due to illness, and Shuji (Kimura Takuya), a stylish and popular fashion magazine hairstylist, are brought together in a fateful traffic incident. Despite their confrontational meeting, they soon find themselves falling in love, with Shuji drawn to her courage and enthusiasm and Kyoko attracted to his ability to look beyond her physical limitations and into her heart. However, Kyoko's protective older brother (Watabe Atsuro) and her worsening condition begin to test the bounds of their love for each other and threaten to end their beautiful life together.

Episodes: 20
Duration: 1hr 10min
Country: Korea

Summary:
The relationship of childhood sweethearts Cha Song Joo (Kwon Sang Woo) and Hang Jung Suh (Choi Ji Woo) becomes complicated when Jung Suh's father remarries. Along with a new stepmother, Jung Suh also has a new introverted stepbrother, Han Tae Hwa (Shin Hyun Joon) and a scheming stepsister, Han Yuri (Kim Tae Hee). Gradually, Tae Hwa falls in love with kind-hearted Jung Suh, and Yuri decides to pursue Song Joo. Nothing can shake the bond between Jung Suh and Song Joo, however, Song Joo has to leave to study in America.

On the night of his return, however, Jung Suh is mysteriously hit by a car and believed dead. Having lost her memory in the crash, she is taken in by Tae Hwa, who relocates and gives her another name. Five years later, on the eve of his engagement to Yuri, Song Joo sees someone who looks exactly like his lost love Jung Suh.

I think I would have watched this for the sake of nostalgia and to have proper eye cleanse therapy.  But then she had just to go ahead and die. It also looks like her stepbrother had something for her, in which case...
wow, so scandalous.  ¬‿¬
Since I don't think I can waste my time shedding so much sodium and water just to have a death in the end, I guess I'll just go listen to the ost instead.

[I miss you,
 only belong to me]





Episodes: 15
Duration: 1hr 20min
Country: Korea

Summary:
Nestled deep in the heart of Seoul's thriving downtown sits a curious hotel, the like of which no one has ever seen before. Old beyond measure, the building has stood for millennia, an ever-present testament to the fact that things are not always what they seem. Running this hotel is Jang Man Wol (IU).

A greedy, suspicious soul who has spent the past thousand years acting as the establishment's CEO.  Cursed for a sin she can no longer remember committing, Man Wol is doomed to spend all of the eternity running this odd establishment, catering to the needs of the most peculiar clientele. Her only hope of escape is to find someone who has committed a worse sin than her own, but after a thousand years, she's beginning to lose hope.

However, things take an interesting turn when Goo Chan Sung (Yeo Jin Goo)  shows up. Once the youngest assistant manager ever to work at a multinational hotel corporation, Chan Sung finds himself forced to manage the Hotel del Luna because of a deal his father made with Man Wol years ago. A stickler for rules and regulations, he's a perfectionist to the extreme, but that may be exactly what this odd establishment and its cursed CEO needs.


And before you @ me saying: "it's not a sad ending, it's an open ending" — an open ending is a sad ending until I see them holding hands and walking into the light to be together forever. Thank you. 
Yes, okay! I'm bitter! I'm bitter because for the last 3 IU dramas I have not been able to get a single HE. Can I just please see her get the man in the end and live happily ever after?
Here, please ignore me and listen to my fav tracks.

[can you see my heart?,
done for me]

Episodes:16
Duration: 1hr 2min
Country: Korea

Summary:
In A Love to Kill, Bi plays a tough guy as the role of a K-1 Fighter, Kang Bok Gu. Bok Gu is a character who is dynamic in nature and grew up in a foster home. He falls in love with a woman whom he should not love. It was because of the woman, his emotionally-wounded brother fell off from the rooftop and became a nursing case. So, his love is forbidden and inevitably tragic.
The woman is Cha Eun Seok (Shin Min Ah), who is a TV talent and movie actress. It was not that she jilted his brother on purpose, but upon a basis of misunderstanding, his hatred toward Cha Eun Seok grows more and more burning.
By becoming Cha Eun Seok's private bodyguard, Bok Gu keeps concretely practicing his revenge upon her. He only desires 'to bring his brother's woman to her knees'. He is gradually taking Cha Eun Seok to destruction, while he feels his love toward her growing deeper and deeper in his heart.
Bok Gu is a cold guy character without any special concern for women. The martial art of hand-to-hand fighting was just kind of his escape he chose from the shock of a spinster's death whom he loved from a distance.

[thai remake, 2017]

Episodes: 40
Duration: 45min
Country: China



Summary:
A world beyond scientific understanding with a group of passionate adults trying to solve cases done by such forces. Zhao Yunlan (Johnny Bai) and Shen Wei (Zhu Yi Long) are tasked with upholding peace between deities, demons, and humans, and the story will focus on their friendship that transcends past and present lifetimes.

Honestly, I've tried watching this three times. And all of those three times I have chickened out and withdrawn into the comfort of my happy endings. Because I know both of them are just going to sacrifice themselves for certain reasons in the end. I have not even been able to pick up the danmei and read it. Although I do understand that some people say that the danmei has a HE — in which case: Thanks again, China.
Episodes: 48
Duration: 45min
Country: China

Summary:
Gong Sun Li (Dilraba), is the grand-daughter and disciple of military commander Gong Sun Yu (Yang Ze). Jing Ke (first disciple, Liu Chang) and Sun Li are childhood lovers and were forced to escape when Qin troops attacked. However, Sun Li's wall-shattering beauty seizes the interest of the Qin Emperor, Ying Zheng (Vin Zhang), and she's captured and sent to his palace. It's then that she discovers she's pregnant with Jing Ke's child. Ying Zheng treats him as if he's his own child. The tragic day arrives when Jing Ke tries to assassinate Ying Zheng.
[sobs somewhere
                       in a dark corner]
This entire thing is so depressing. Like just thinking about it is so sad. She loved another man, but the King fell for her. He abducted her and did everything within his power to keep her. Then, in the end, she is unable to kill him — showing that she has come to love him — but his paranoia makes him push that knife into her skin. Who do I feel sadder for in the end? His obsession with her was the cause of his lifelong misery, and her heart was the cause of her destruction. Guess in the end, she truly did become... the King's woman. ಠ_ಠ
[67 episodes and then he drowns in the end? 
— I'll just go read the book instead.]
Episodes: 67
Duration: 45min
Country: China

Summary:
The story takes place during the chaotic times of Wei, where innocent citizens are often kidnapped and turned into slaves. Slave girl, Chu Qiao (Zanilia Zhao) was thrown into a forest along with other slaves and becomes the next hunting target for the rich lords. She is saved by the Prince of Yanbei, Yan Xun (Shawn Dou). Afterwards, she is brought into a powerful family of Yu Wen (Kenny Lin) and witnesses their bloody power struggle. Seeing this, she swears to take her younger sister and flee from the situation. However, she catches the attention of Yu Wen Yue and undergoes strict training while building a sense of companionship with Yan Xun. The drama focuses on Chu Qiao's life beliefs and her struggle to survive in a cruel and unfair world.
Episodes: 36
Duration: 35min
Country: Thailand

Summary:
Ployrampa (Nonny Nutcha), a noblewoman falls in love with Pakin (Lang Sittha), a young man destined to have a hidden spirit in his body. Once he's 25 years old, he will be half-human, half-tiger. As a deadly beast, he's chased by hunters, especially the villainous village headman Kongdate (Athiwat Sanitwong) who wants the magic in his body.
Ployrampa and Pakin love each other without fear, but the only way for them to truly be together is if he's fully human again. Will Pakin survive all the evil hunters chasing after him? What's the truth about his birth and the tiger spirit?

Why? Why can't a half tiger-half human hybrid be together with a human girl? Have the producers not read "Beauty and the Beast"? Are they unaware of the craze surrounding Edward Cullen? Damon Salvatore? Jeff the Killer? — sigh

[I guess it's cause it was a period drama. Things were different then. It's alright, he's probably happier being a tiger.]


ML is cute, though. hehe

Episodes: 24
Duration: 1hr 20min
Country: Korea

Summary:
Mr. Sunshine centers on a young boy born into a house servant's family and travels to the United States during the 1871 Shinmiyangyo (U.S. expedition to Korea). He returns to his homeland later as a U.S. marine officer (Lee Byung Hun). He meets and falls in love with an aristocrat's daughter (Kim Tae Ri). At the same time, he discovers a plot by foreign forces to colonize Korea.
⎡let us all forget that he dies in the end and just listen to my favourite tracks from this drama —

                       ⌜days without tears

let me also forget that this looks like an extremely older man-young girl romance⎦

Episodes: 74
Duration: 45min
Country: China

Summary:
Zhou Ying (Betty Sun) is sold to the powerful Shen (Shen Xing Yi) family by her foster father, yet successfully escapes by sneaking into merchant Wu Ping's (Wu Pin) palanquin. The Wu family agreed to take her in after witnessing her remarkable business acumen. Shen Xingyi, the pampered young master of the Shen family, will end up falling in love with Zhou Ying.


[74 episodes and both dudes died... 
ಠ_ಠ. just kill the FL too while you're at it then.]

⌜I would also like to acknowledge dramas that I have lost to or did not make the list.⌟

































Scarlet Heart Ryeo
I was feeling very self-destructive when I decided to watch this. Needless to say, I still cry when I hear the soundtracks. 




Make Our Days Count
I will forever claim that this drama only has 9 episodes. 10th episode who?




Remembering Lichuan
Thankfully, I have not watched this. Definitely not planning to. RIP Godfrey.












And so we arrive at the end.

SE lovers, 
did you find a drama that you have not watched but would like to? 


HE lovers,
how happy are you that you now know which dramas to avoid? (¬‿¬ )
To me, open endings are just open because they can not be happy, and they are usually always more sad  — so I often find myself seeing them as sad anyway (╥_╥). Anyways, despite the sad theme of this article, I hope you all enjoyed reading it and found something useful or laughed because of something. 
Thank you for reading my article and see you in another one!


Edited by: Yuanwei (1st editor) & Jojo (2nd editor)

dramas recommendation sad ending