A K-drama worth watching - Gold Land

If you are looking for something different to watch, Gold Land is not a bad choice. The drama is rated 91 on Asianwiki.

The story is what you would expect. Park Bo-Young helped her boy friend to smuggle a coffin (filled with gold) into Korea. In their infinite wisdom, they decided to steal the coffin from the gangster.

Unlike many other K-dramas, nothing soft and cuddly about Gold Land. It is a crime drama about greed. It is a thriller, with lots of gory scenes. In a way, I am happy that it only has 10 episodes. If it is any longer, I don't know if I can take it.

My analogy to watching Gold Land is a very spicy Malatang. I have an American friend, Scott. Every time he came to Sydney, I would take him to some interesting restaurants. He once told me he could eat spicy food. I took him to a Malatang place and got him a 大辣 soup base. Let's just say he had a memorable night.

So why watching Gold Land was like having a super spicy Malatang ? Watching Gold Land was almost oppressive. The greed. How ugly some people were. It was almost too much. It was like you stack your Malatang with too much food and too spicy to boot but you felt like you need to finish every single last bit even though the aftermath won't be pretty. I couldn't binge watch it. One night I had to stop after 3/4 of an episode.

It was a good drama also because of the baddies. The antagonists were just evil. You-hope- they-would-die-a-horrible-end kind of evil, which they did by the way.

But at another level, Gold Land was a love story. By my count, there were three tragic love stories in Gold Land. If you ask me, the real male lead in Gold Land was Kim Hee-Won, the old cop.

The plot wasn't the most imaginative but through the series I became invested enough to want to know what happened to everyone in Gold Land. An edge-of-the-seat thriller.

Spoiler alert. The ending was happy enough.

In short, if you are in an angry with the world or the human race mode, Gold Land would suit your mood. Quite a dark K-drama. But there were enough heart touching bits to believe in the human race yet again. Something different. Worth watching.