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[Beanie Recs] City dweller stuck in the countryside?


Ahoy, Beanies! It’s time to gather your collective genius for a recommendation series that features you and your drama knowledge. Each week we’ll drop a drama conundrum and leave it up to you to provide a drama rec, and the appropriate rationale behind it, be it long or short. Respond below!
 

I know it’s a total trope that can range from cloying to enjoyable, but I’m looking for other dramas like Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha and Welcome to Samdal-ri that feature a city person now stuck living in a seaside village or rural location and struggling to adjust. What are some dramas that do this well that I can line up after Samdal-ri is over?


Have a very particular drama itch that needs scratching? In need of a Beanie Rec? Email us at hello @ dramabeans.com and we’ll feature your topic in a future post.
 
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Once upon a small town
Racket boys
Top Star Yoo-Baek

These also have a variation of the same trope:
Crash Landing on You
Our Blues
When the Camelia Blooms
When the Weather is fine

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Top Star Yoo-Baek It was fun!

When the Weather is Fine Park Min-Young goes back in the town she grew up.

Once Upon a Small Town It was a cute little drama.

Racket Boys But it's not a rom-com. It's a family with their 2 kids who moves in the countryside. The parents are badminton trainer and they live with their athletes. It was a great drama!

Summer Strike It's young woman who is tired by the city life and goes in the countryside. But it wasn't really a healing drama, they were too many mean people.

The Man of the Vineyard It's quite an old drama now, I don't know how it aged.

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I loved The man of the Vineyard. I hope it is still watchable cause that is one I might try again. Its where I fell in love with Oh Man Seok.

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It also has Yoon Eun Hye. It aired in 2006 but Viki still has it.

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That's why I watched it, I'd just got into kdrama and watched Coffee Prince so I looked for anything else with YEH in it.

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Yes! She was adorable in this! Good to know it is still available!

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Another older show with YEH still available on Viki is the 2011 drama LIE TO ME which has one of the best final scenes and lines to conclude a drama that I have ever seen.

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I only have one winner and recommendation
Mr. Gu : My Liberation Notes.

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Perhaps Mr Gu should have stayed in the country building cupboards.

Maybe Dramabeans could run a thread on best non-villain-yet-flawed characters who still possess distinctive allure.

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I felt that the rural summer heat was a supporting character in Liberation Notes.

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Once Upon A Small Town is the obvious choice here. It’s very cute and sweet - there are even puppies! It’s also a quick watch, and you can feel free to skip the annoying screechy ajummas with no loss of story if you like.

The sageuk version of this trope is probably 100 Days My Prince. The CP may not be a city-dweller in the traditional sense, but you get a lot of the same small town folk hijinks at his expense. I thought it was really fun!

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I second @jls943 in every respect!!

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I particularly like the first half of “100 days my Prince”. It is a comedy of manners but in the impoverished Joseon(esque) countryside. D.O., Nam Jihyun and Jung Haekyun were a riot. It got sad in the second half but it was so worth it.

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If you're up for Cdramas, Meet Yourself fits the bill and is a wonderful drama.

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Second this and add New life begins as the historical Chinese drama equivalent.

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I may check both of these. Thanks for the recs!

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If you do try them please let us know how you find them in a What we are watching thread.

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I heartily agree with all of the above comments.

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I will once I can find them in one of my subscriptions. 😊

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They are both on Viki in my area.

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I tried Meet Yourself after seeing the recommendations and while it’s very good so far, I didn’t properly read the blurb and so was not expecting the early tragedy 😭😭😭😭 (not a spoiler, it’s in the description of the drama if you actually read it 😅)

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Modern Farmer - members of a band move to the countryside to farm and earn money to fund a comeback

When The Weather is Fine - FL had an extended stay in her hometown after her career took a nosedive in Seoul. It wasn't so much adjusting to life in the country, but more about rediscovering herself and the people there.

Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol - rich FL lost everything she had and opened a small piano academy in the countryside. More than adjusting to the area, she had to get used to being poor.

Island - totally different genre, but chaebol FL got stuck in Jeju island

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Once Upon a small town
Hometown Cha Cha Cha

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I highly recommend c-drama Meet Yourself, already mentioned by @stacya .

And of course, Crash Landing on you.

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Lee Min-Ki was hilariously fish out of water as a cop from Seoul sent to a small town as a disciplinary measure in Behind Your Touch.

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I enjoyed his kimchi duties in Because This Is My First Life.

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Two more sageuk versions of the trope:

Poong the Joseon Psychiatrist (season 1)
Bossam

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Fantasy Couple
My Husband Mr. Oh
Haeundae Lovers

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You will love the "Mountain Grannies" in MY HUSBAND MR. OH.

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Just remembered Chef Moon.

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What Star Did You Come From

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I guess to some extent this also applies to the ROMANTIC DOCTOR TEACHER KIM series. At least, it’s always a big deal for the young doctors from Seoul to be assigned to the „small town hospital“. 🤔 However, I don’t remember any of the usual „village shenanigans“ 😂 - like (m)any external characters… The hospital crew is almost always among themselves, be it at work or at that very small bar run by the anesthesiologist (wasn’t it…?). But do we see „village life“? I don’t think so (or I simply don’t remember😅).
But the fish out of water premise is there!

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The Good bad mother had two city gangsters who went under cover as farmers and were comedy gold but they were side characters in a quite dark drama.

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Sound Candy idol group are sent to Jeju to write a debut song and choreograph a routine.

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Thank You (2007) - very poignant drama
Crash Landing On You - fun and romance
Top Star Yoo Baek - campy and fun
100 Days My Prince - rural area during Joseon period

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Diary of a Prosecutor

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I have to rewatch everything with Lee Sun-kyun. I loved the fishing scene.

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“stuck living in a seaside village” is the key phase: SUMMER STRIKE (2022). My word, what a collection of horrible people.

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100 days my price works for sure!!
I am really going to stretch it an say parts of Attorney Woo. They spent a lot of time gaining experience and love of the countryside. And relationships are stating. My found respect for the circumstances and they could help.

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I will go to you when weather is nice and Meet Yourself are gems. In It's okay not to be okay they move to countryside /small town but country side living is not exactly its main feature.

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Great choices, Beanies!

-When the Camellia Blooms, since the owner moved back to a small town to get away from her ex-husband, famous baseball player and fell for the local policeman.

-Pachinko had the country girl (actually Jeju) move to the big city in Japan.

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Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol - Lee Jae-wook's first role as ML. Whatever you do, skip the last 15 minutes of episode 16. It is set in the beautiful fictional town of Eunpo which is the real-life Mokpo in Korea. 😊

Link: Eat, Love, Kill - no recommendation required other than Yeo Jin-goo ... as chef.

Warm and Cozy - no recommendation required other than Yoo Yeon-seok ... as chef.

Once Upon A Small Town - short, sweet, cute, bicycle riding cop FL, vet ML, animals and a peach farmer with a coffee machine!! What's not to love.

My Perfect Stranger - countryside in 1987 with a side of murder.

Island - well it is Jeju (as never seen before) and FL is stuck there so ... 🤷‍♀️ ... viewer discretion advised. 😉

Our Blues - also set in Jeju. Again proceed at your own risk.

The Good Bad Mother 🤐

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Heirs - second lead Young-Do looked and found his mom.
When a Man Loves (2013) - Main hero meets his mother (and eventually his father) is second part of story.
Both doramas were rather famous, I generally liked them.

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A subsection of this trope is the visit to the outhouse—with the city slicker disgusted and/or terrified to use it. I remember this kind of scene with Jung Il-Woo in High-End Crush. I can picture several other instances, but don’t recall which dramas they’re from. In one of them, the scaredy-cat insists that the host stand guard outside the outhouse and whistle or sing while he’s doing his business.

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There’s a scene like scaredy cat one from You’re All Surrounded, where they’re both city cops visiting a rural place for a case but he’s scared of the dark because Trauma so he asks her to sing. There may be many versions of that scene though 😄

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I just remembered there’s a scene in episode 10 of Shopping King Louis where Louis and Joong-won are staying overnight at Bok-shil‘s rural home. Louis makes Joong-won stand outside the outhouse while he’s answering the call of nature late at night.

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Just wish to add an ‘oldy’ from 2006 - Which Stars Are You From starring Jung Ryeo-won and Kim Rae-won. Lovely chemistry of the two leads and JRW’s country pumpkin is winning. I remember pulling an all-nighter to finish it in one go.

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