The 9 Best K-drama Second Male Leads Who Broke My Heart

It's been a while since I've had a good bout of Second Lead Syndrome—the kind where you spend half the series clutching your heart and shouting at the screen because you know deep down inside that the female lead of a K-drama is going to pick the "wrong" guy.

Recently, I've been in weird limbo with The Best Hit, and I can't tell if my heart is going to be crushed by second lead syndrome for Ji Hoon or if he's actually the romantic endgame for our female lead this time. Usually K-dramas are so blatant about the central pairing that I haven't been this confused since Answer Me 1988 In this case, though, I think it's less about stringing the audience along and more about developing non-romantic parts of the story, which I'm okay with.

Either way, the whole thing's got me reflecting on all my favorite second leads of yore. Here are my 9 favorite K-drama second male leads of all time—the ones I would have picked in a heartbeat if I were in charge of writing the script.

1. Kim Shin Hyuk (played by Siwon), She Was Pretty

Aaaaaaaand now I'm clutching my heart all over again.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I started this series for Park Seo Joon, and I stuck around for Siwon. Siwon stole the show with Shin Hyuk, and this is one case of Second Lead Syndrome where I genuinely think the leads should have swapped partners. Shin Hyuk's quirky sense of humor seemed much better suited to Hye Jin's personality than stick-in-the-mud Sung Joon's grumpiness. 

What made it all worse is that Siwon really threw himself into this role and proved himself as an actor better than any of his previous roles (at least the ones I've seen). And then he finished this show and ran off to military service, and we haven't been able to see him in a leading role since. Sigh.

Full She Was Pretty review

2. Moon Jae Shin/Geol Oh (played by Yoo Ah In), Sungkyungkwan Scandal

Geol Oh. Ohhhhh Geol Oh, my first true K-drama love. In the context of Sungkyungkwan Scandal, I guess I kinda sorta get why Yoon Hee picked who she did, but you'd better believe that if I found myself hiding out in Sungkyungkwan, I'd have heart eyes only for our tousled, grumpy warrior. 

I was already rooting for him as the scruffy Batman type, and then, THEN they went and gave him nervous hiccups around women, and I was a goner.

Full Sungkyungkwan Scandal review

3. Yoon Ji Hoo (played by Kim Hyun Joong), Boys over Flowers

This was the first drama where I actually googled who the female lead chooses as I was watching the show. It was also, incidentally, where I first encountered the term "Second Lead Syndrome."

Jun Pyo spent the entire series being a terrible person. There, I said it. He opened the series bullying someone into attempting suicide. Then he bullied Jan Di into dating him. And you know what? Even if he fell for Jan Di, I never got the sense that he really got over his terrible personality.

Then you have Ji Hoo, who is kind and supportive. Unlike other second leads who never really have a shot with the female lead, Ji Hoo is not only Jan Di's first love but also—as a fortune teller informs the audience in the most rage-inducing piece of second-lead info ever—her true soulmate. Thanks for nothing, fortune teller.

4. "Master" (played by Lee Chun Hee), Dating Agency Cyrano

Exactly what I said to him every time he was on my screen.

Continuing with the theme of "female leads who have nonsensical taste in men," we get to Dating Agency Cyrano, where I spent the entire series wondering what on earth sassy Min Young saw in boring, emotionally stunted Byung Hoon when she could have been dating smart, fun, kind chef with a bad boy side (and Lee Chun Hee's face), "Master."

Out of all the shows on this entire list, I think this one might win for the biggest discrepancy in quality between the first male lead and the guy relegated to the sidelines. I don't get it. I really, really don't.

Full Dating Agency Cyrano review

5. Jung Hwan (played by Ryu Joon Yul), Answer Me 1988

Is it really any surprise that one of the Answer Me series made it to the list? I managed to root for the right guy in the first two installments, but I kinda feel like the Answer Me gods visited their wrath on my heart tenfold with Jung Hwan.

It's not that I disliked Taek as a husband—it's that a giant chunk of the narrative structure was built to make me feel root for Jung Hwan, and then we got the rug pulled out from under us and didn't even get a satisfying resolution to his story. No, I'm not at all bitter about this anymore! (Yes, I am.)

Full Answer Me 1988 review

6. Jeremy or Shin Woo (played by Lee Hong Ki and Jung Yong Hwa), You're Beautiful)

Pretty much anyone—anyone—would have been better than Jerkface McJerkerton Tae Kyung. I think this might be where my weird aversion to Jang Geun Suk comes from. Try as I might, I cannot talk myself into watching any of his other shows after the trash fire that was this romance.

Go Mi Nyu could have picked the lovable and playful Jeremy. She could have picked the secretly supportive Shin Woo. She could have gone back to the nunnery. Any of those options would have been fine. But no, she threw up in Tae Kyung's mouth, and so the laws of all dramadom decreed that she would love him forever. *Shudders*

Full You're Beautiful review

7. Choi Young Do (played by Kim Woo Bin), Heirs

Ok, if I had a friend who asked me if she should date Kim Tan or Young Do, I would probably tell her to ditch them both and run as fast as she could from that toxic school (and then sell that super expensive uniform on eBay or something). That being said, I couldn't help but root for Young Do, who Kim Woo Bin made genuinely intriguing and heartbreaking to watch in comparison to Lee Min Ho's Kim Tan, who had the personality of a potato.

Don't date bullies in real life. But maybe it's okay to clutch your heart a little when they're crying over noodles on a show.

Full Heirs review

8. Chief Gook (played by Lee Mil Mo), Emergency Couple

Coco and I were on exact opposite sides of the shipping fence for this show. She was 100% in favor of Chang Min and his rippling muscles, and meanwhile I was pining away for Chief Gook, the scruffy, gruff second male lead (mayyyybe I'm seeing a pattern here with Geol Oh...).  I mean, just look at these texts I sent back in the day:

You know you've got it bad when you're insisting that other people share your second lead pain. 

Full Emergency Couple review

9. Hwang Wook (played by Kim Sung Oh), Warm and Cozy

I loooooove me some Yoo Yun Suk, but the character of Gun Woo needed to fall off a cliff into the ocean, get eaten by fish, digested, and pooped out far, far away from Jung Joo so she could get over him and his emotionally manipulative ways and date the goofy mayor instead.

As if I didn't already love Kim Sung Oh enough, this role has endeared him to me forever. He may or may not have been the only thing that kept me watching to the end—that, and I was watching with a group of friends, all of whom kept squealing with glee whenever Hwang Wook showed up.

What about second female lead syndrome?

K-dramas are typically constructed to favor second male lead syndrome. In order to properly play out the reverse harem fantasy, show writers often make second female leads either completely irrelevant to the main loveline (aka the best friend with her own story going on) or a terrible bitch who no one would root for in the first place. Most second female leads are disqualified as actual threats to the central pairing the second they show up on screen, and they're relegated to being annoying plot devices that keep our leads apart for as long as possible until they pair up with the second male lead, turn so evil that they become murderers and go to jail, or both.

Still, second female lead syndrome does sometimes happen—In She Was Pretty, I for sure thought Hye Jin's best friend Ha Ri would be a better fit for Sung Joon (which would conveniently leave Hye Jin to date Shin Hyuk...), and I've heard from a lot of viewers that the second female lead in Doctor Strange far outshone the female lead. 

My one true case of second female lead was Joseon Gunman, where Jeon Hye Bin's Hye Won had awesome chemistry with Yoon Kang, and I definitely wanted them to get together for the entire first half of the show (after which I dropped it so I wouldn't have to watch her go evil.) As it turns out, Lee Joon Ki and Jeon Hye Bin eventually started dating in real life, which makes me feel extra validated about the chemistry vibes I was getting!

Image via Namoo Actors

But really, Second Female Lead Syndrome happens few and far between, and it's usually the men we're left heartbroken over at the end of the show.

Who's Your Worst Case of Second Lead Syndrome?

Have you ever suffered from Second Lead Syndrome? Who got you worst?

If you want to discuss more Second Lead Syndrome, check out this post from way back in the day, when we talked about all the reasons we catch (or don't catch) the second lead disease. 

When Ratings Trump Narrative: Answer Me 1988/Reply 1988 Korean Drama Review

Source

I have composed this review in my head approximately 11,454,697,239 times, and it still feels like a mammoth undertaking. Maybe it's because Answer Me 1988 was 20 episodes that each ranged from an hour and a half to two hours each. There's so much content to cover that I don't really feel like I can talk about all of it This is why I don't watch long dramas, people!

So, instead of being a responsible blogger and talking about each and every aspect of this show, I'm going to do what I want, which is to rush through the majority of the show so that I can get on my soapbox and vent my very intense feelings about how this series ended. At least I'm giving fair warning, right?


On the whole, Answer Me 1988 was a beautiful, nostalgic, slice-of-life show. While I admit that the production team could have edited some of the scenes more efficiently (less isn't always more), I mostly didn't mind the narrative's leisurely pace or the focus on the mundane.

Instead of the absurd amnesia plot devices, what really drove this series was its heart. Yes, there was a love triangle (and oh boy, I'll get to that in a minute), but really, this series was more about the individual trials of every member of the neighborhood than it was about the puppy love blossoming with the three "main" leads.

I love how, more than any other Answer Me installment, this series was about community, and the adults all had their own lives and trajectories. I often had a hard time choosing a favorite character or storyline. (Cheetah Ahjumma vs. the Bear falling in love? Don't make me choose!) The neighborhood came to life, and the way I resonated with the various narrative threads really made me feel invested in the series.

Before the drama began, the writer said that there would be no "husband hunt" this time around, and, if that had been the case, this series would have been practically perfect in every way.

That initial promise ended up being a dirty, dirty lie, and I feel far more trolled than I ever did in the previous Answer Me shows. While the love triangle certainly wasn't front and center for most of the series, the way it was woven into the last few episodes of the drama really made it impossible to ignore and—for me, at least—ended the drama on a bit of a sour note.

SPOILER ALERT—HERE BEGINS VIVI'S ANGRY SOAPBOX, IN WHICH I DISCUSS THE OUTCOME OF THE SERIES. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

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Is it safe to begin?

To be perfectly candid before my rant, I was pretty solidly Team Jung Hwan from episode 1, so I was obviously going to be a little disappointed if Taek was the husband. However, I said from the very early episodes that all of the guys had their pros and cons as potential spouse material, so I could have been okay with any outcome.

I'm still not entirely convinced that Dong Ryong isn't Deok Sun's true soulmate, but that's a discussion for another day....

When I saw the last few episodes of the series, I liked the sweet moments between Deok Sun and Taek, and I loved seeing how tender their relationship is as adults (or the episodes 18-20 version of them, at least). I was completely convinced that they ended up as a perfectly content couple, and I could even see why Deok Sun would choose Taek (something that doesn't always happen when I'm rooting for the guy the female lead doesn't choose). It's also refreshing to see the second male lead type win out every once in a while, and I've seen several dramas where a twist in the endgame romance worked immensely well.

So far, all of these are good things — why, then, was this one of the least-satisfying drama endings I've seen? Frankly, my complaints aren't about the outcome of the romance so much as the handling of the romance. To be honest, it felt as though the writer sold out her narrative for the sake of ratings.

I'm sorry—somehow I missed the part where I signed up to watch Sherlock Holmes: '80s Romance Edition

I guess whether or not the last few episodes are satisfying depends on what you enjoy out of a romance. If you're only in it for the surprise, then this drama is probably fantastic, but I, at least, watch romances not to see who gets together, but rather to enjoy seeing how they fall in love. In this series, the writer kept Deok Sun's feelings hidden for so long in order to preserve the mystery that we really didn't get to see much romantic development on her side until the very end of the show.

Similarly, while I get that "future husband" dropped equal clues for Taek and Jung Hwan (though it seems odd that she married Taek only for him to grow up and act like Jung Hwan), the narrative structure itself favored Jung Hwan because it showed us so much romantic development from his perspective.

The perfect example here is the concert in episode 18. This was a pivotal moment not only in Jung Hwan's feelings, but also in Deok Sun and Taek's relationship. But whose perspective do we see? The emotional focus of the scene is on Jung Hwan and his race to declare his feelings.

If Deok Sun/Taek is the romance we should be watching, the scene would have felt much more satisfying if we saw it from Taek's perspective as he leaves the match and races to her (and then we could see Jung Hwan's perspective in a flashback or something). Alternately, we could have seen everything from Deok Sun's view, where we feel her rising disappointment building up until we see her relief at seeing Taek.

What kind of monster wouldn't be happy to see this face?
The kind of monster that just watched Jung Hwan stuck at every freaking red light in Seoul, that's who.
(Sidenote: Park Bo Gum's gigantic smile makes me feel like I'm playing with unicorns in a field full of flowers.)

When scene after scene focuses on the love triangle from Jung Hwan's lens, of course it's going to feel like a massive letdown when his romance putters out with one of the most beautiful confessions in K-drama history, only to have it turn into a joke that never gets mentioned again. We also distance the audience from Deok Sun and Taek's relationship in order to preserve the mystery, thereby doing all three characters a disservice.

I don't even cry when people die in K-dramas, but I swear Jung Hwan's earnest face makes me feel like a tractor is driving over my heart.
I'm not crying—I just have very dirty eyeballs that need to get clean!

While I would have preferred that Jung Hwan and Taek just talk it out back in 1989, I could have settled for more clear resolution after Jung Hwan's confession. Did you notice that after the confession, Deok Sun and Jung Hwan never make eye contact again for the remaining two episodes (four hours) of the series? Would it have killed them to have a little more closure after six years of one-sided love?

All I wanted was a clear indication that Deok Sun was choosing Taek over Jung Hwan. Some sort of recognition that she knew his confession was sincere would have sufficed. Instead, we get that scene between Jung Hwan and Taek where he's basically saying, "No, no no, good sir, you take her," which makes all this waiting for Deok Sun's feelings seem like a moot point. Sure, she chose Taek, but she also didn't have any other options.

I wanted to see Deok Sun falling for Taek, understand how she felt during their years of separation, watch them announce their relationship to their friends and family, etc., but hanging on to the husband mystery undermined all of that.

I read some fan comments basically arguing that it's Jung Hwan's own fault for being too passive and letting Deok Sun get away, but that makes Deok Sun way too passive for me. So she's only there to be passed around by the male characters? If she's really an active agent in all of this, why not let her know everyone's feelings out in the open so that she can make her own choice? If the only thing keeping Deok Sun and Taek apart was Jung Hwan's passiveness, you clearly didn't have a convincing romance in the first place.

Then, to add salt to the wound, we completely drop Jung Hwan off the face of the planet for the end of the series. Not only does he have zero one-on-one interaction with Deok Sun, but he has a grand total of maybe three minutes of screentime in the entire last episode. Every other Answer Me series gave us glimpses into the future for the entire friend group, but both Jung Hwan and Dong Ryong get ditched in the end. I didn't need to see them getting married, but it's like they didn't even exist.

Again, I read some fan explanations saying that it's natural that Deok Sun and Taek would lose contact with their old friends over time. I've also read people arguing that the romance wasn't the point of the show, so we shouldn't get hung up on the romantic outcome.

Unfortunately, neither gives a satisfactory explanation for the omission. If the series wasn't focused on the romance, then why are the romantic couples suddenly the only ones who matter at the end of the show? It shouldn't make a difference if Deok Sun hangs out with Jung Hwan or not because she wasn't the only main character to begin with. Remember how we totally ignored her POV for five episodes so that you could string our emotions along? Yeah, you can't take that back now. Give me my Dong Ryong! Give me My Jung Hwan! GIVE ME JIN JOO OR GIVE ME DEATH! (Too much? Fiiiine, I'll tone it down.)

How DARE you ignore this face?

Part of me suspects that the writer was worried that keeping Ryu Joon Yeol and his insane on-screen charisma around would be a distraction from the Deok Sun/Taek story, but maybe not. Maybe the writer genuinely believed that the romance was all that mattered all along, and it was the rest of us who were fooled into thinking we were watching a community narrative instead of Deok Sun's Husband Hunt.

Ultimately, I can't help but feel that the writing hurt both the characters and the plot development. The only benefit to some of the narrative choices was keeping people glued to their screens, and that's exactly what happened. With the record-busting ratings for this show, the writer got her reward—at the expense of the ending.

Conclusions

Does a bad ending ruin the show? For this series, I would argue no. The conclusion certainly left me feeling upset and cheated, but there were also so many beautiful community moments woven throughout the drama, including in the last few episodes, that I don't think you can write off the series for the romance.

Where to watch:

DramaFever

New Drama Alert: Answer Me 1988/ Reply 1988

There's a new installation in the nostalgia-filled Answer Me series on the block! In spite of my hesitations about yet another trip back in time to guess the husband, it's shaping up to be a comfortable little drama that stands on its own merits.

What it's about: The year is 1988, and five childhood friends from the same neighborhood learn to navigate all the emotional ups and downs of transitioning from childhood to adulthood, including first loves, family strife, and undying friendship.

Number of episodes watched: 4


Thoughts so far: Having watched both Answer Me 1997 (which Coco reviewed) and Answer Me 1994 (which I reviewed), I honestly wasn't sure if the third time around could maintain the charm of the first two. I also wasn't totally sold on the idea of Hyeri carrying a show, which made me hesitant to even start it at all. With 20 episodes that are each at least 90 minutes long, it's a big commitment!

As it turns out, I shouldn't have been worried about Hyeri. If there's one thing the Answer Me series consistently does right, it's choosing the cast. While I can't always say that they choose the best actors or actresses to fill the roles, they always, without fail, choose the right ones. Hyeri makes Deok Sun come alive, and it's impressive that the director saw that potential and insisted on casting her in the face of criticism.

In terms of the plot, I'm also pleasantly surprised. While I really loved a lot of things about Answer Me 1994, the long episode length and the determined focus on the husband question did the series a disservice. When I found out that the writer/director team went back on their word about not having a husband guessing game this time around, I was somewhat annoyed, but at this point in the show, I'm okay with the direction the series is headed.

Even if the flashback framework places a huge emphasis on guessing the husband, that element was never really what drove either previous series for me. What keeps me watching series after series is the cozy, relatable feeling they give. Answer Me 1994 spoke to me because my own love story was so similar to the one in the drama. Similarly, Answer Me 1997 reminded me of all the fangirl wars my friends had over N'Sync vs. Backstreet Boys in the '90s. The central friendships and the throwback nostalgia suck me in every single time, regardless of who the husband is.

So far, Answer Me 1988 is, if anything, even more relatable than the other two were, at least for me. I love that this time around, we're seeing stories from the entire neighborhood, so there's a character who speaks to everyone. From the first few minutes of the first episode when all of the kids were running back and forth with their various side dishes, I realized that this series was on to something special. It's a full community packed with characters who live and breathe, and within minutes, I was already laughing and crying with all of them.

Is there a love triangle (or square or pentagon) on the way? Yes, obviously. But the inevitable shipping wars don't bother me right now because there are so many other threads to enjoy. Hopefully the series can focus on those human stories instead of narrowly focusing in on the one thread of Deok Sun's husband.

As long as I continue to feel like I'm part of the neighborhood, this drama will be a success in my book. What about you?

Ok, ok, but I'l admit finding the husband is a little bit fun too.

Where to watch:
DramaFever