When you watch a Korean drama, 16 one-hour long episodes might seem too short, especially once you get hooked on the storyline and connect with the characters. As a result, some dramas get renewed for a second season or created into an anthology, leaving a room for viewers to see their favourite protagonists more or enjoy a similar style of storytelling.

Shin Won Ho and Lee Woo Jung, who I will shorten as Shin-Lee, are two combos who have done this recipe through their well-acclaimed series. They revolutionized TV Cable Korean Drama industries with Reply anthology series (Reply 1997 (2012), Reply 1994 (2013), and Reply 1988 (2015)). Reply 1997, as the first series, received above 1% average rating, breaking an amazing record for a cable show during that year. Reply 1988, the most successful installment of the series, received an 18% average rating record. The drama is the fifth highest-rated Korean drama on cable television of all time.

You may have also heard about this prodigious combo from their Wise Life anthology series. 

After bringing nostalgic feelings with the Reply series, Shin Won Ho tried to depict life inside a correctional facility through Prison Playbook (2017, also known as Wise Prison Life) with Jung Bo Hoon as the writer. Currently back on work together with Lee Woo Jung, Shin Won Ho presents a seasonal medical slice-of-life drama, Hospital Playlist (2020-now, also known as Wise Doctor Life) that heals a lot of people’s hearts during a global pandemic. These series also successfully received good responses, even from International fans who get to watch it through over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix.

You may wonder why Shin-Lee dramas are so successful locally and internationally. Creating their own cinematic universe with anthology and seasonal format might be one thing, but a successful story needs more secret formulas to be loved by many people. In this article, we’re going to dig down into the secret formula of Shin-Lee dramas that awarded them title as the Master of Korean Drama Slice-Of-Life genre.

1. A reflection of our ordinary life

First off, Shin-Lee’s drama genre is slice-of-life. You’re going to see basic day-to-day activities of the characters with daily life conflicts. There’s no evil villain or public enemies, just normal people living the most out of their ordinary life. 

It may seem ordinary at first glance, but the simplicity of the story is also what makes Shin-Lee dramas relatable to many audiences. Scenes of siblings and friends fighting over food or trivial matters can be seen throughout all their series. Losing your loved ones or seeing them become ill, or heroic moments of parents’ sacrifice in most of the series are also relatable to our ordinary life. This reflection of our normal life makes it easier to identify ourselves with the characters. And once we see ourselves in the drama, it becomes so easy to fall in love with the characters and root for their happiness.

Since daily life can be boring, Shin-Lee makes sure to put a little twist on each of their dramas with out-of-the-box settings. Nostalgic memories of the late ’80s and ’90s era is the background setting for Reply installments. The series easily brought the audience back in time when they were young and free, having so much fun with no internet and sophisticated gadgets in sight. While for the Wise Life installments, these dramas are set in workplaces with a lot of pressures and tensions, like hospitals and prisons. These two shows turn life inside hospital and prison into daily-life plots full of life lessons that inspire the audience.

By portraying our daily life in a compelling setting, Shin-Lee dramas leave strong impacts to their audience that change the way we see our lives.  After Reply 1997 ended, some news outlets reported the rise of interest to the first generation of K-Pop who appear in the series, resulting in the reunion of 1st generation idols like SECHSKIES and H.O.T later on in their 20th anniversary.  

Hospital Playlist Season 2 featured a story about a man who barely knew his mother, but had to sign for her organ donation when the medical staff diagnosed her with brain death. After that particular story in the series, it inspired many people to be organ donors, with an 11 times increase in organ donation in South Korea compared to the previous year.

Just like the Wise Life name, it truly changes us to see the life that we have wiser and appreciate every little thing we have in this hard time.

2. The plot twist in the love story

Since the story is about daily life, you probably won’t expect a dramatic turn of events happening in the series. But, worry not, you still get surprises watching how the story evolves, especially the romances!

The Reply series starts its timeline in the future, where a woman is already married to one of her male friends. She has five to seven close friends that include of four to five men. We get a glimpse of the husband in the future at the beginning, but it is not clear who it is. The series encourages us to make guesses on who the husband is.

To smoothen the husband-guessing process, there are some signs that you can find in the series. A ring, old pictures, or drinking and smoking habits from the husband that may seem insignificant will help you correctly guess the future husband. Some series are easy to guess, while some others give shocking answers at the end. As the story evolves, we can see a love triangles happening between the woman and two of her close male friends. It divided fans into one team who rooted for future husband A, and another team who rooted for future husband B. 

Reply 1988 has one of the strongest love triangles among the Reply series. Some people rooted for female lead character Sung Duk Sun (played by Girls’ Day Hyeri) to end up with Kim Jung Hwan (played by Ryu Jun Yeol), while the others rooted for Deok Sun to couple up with Choi Taek (played by Park Bo Gum). Fans of each team then pull out their theories and reasonings why she should end up with their chosen guy, leaving more traces of conversations about the drama that make more people curious to watch the ending for the final answer.

Another series with an intriguing love story line from Shin-Lee duo is Hospital Playlist. It once again consists of one female lead, Chae Song Hwa (played by Jeon Mi Do), and her four close male friends from university days, Lee Ik Jun (Jo Jung Suk), Ahn Jeong Won (Yoo Yeon Seok), Kim Jun Wan (Jung Kyung Ho), and Yang Seok Hyeong (Kim Dae Myung). All five characters currently work together in the same hospital as specialist doctors. Even though there are not many triangle love stories going on, the slow-burn style of the story makes us wonder and crave for some clues about the eventual pairing.

3. Creating a cinematic universe

If you’re familiar with the Marvel cinematic universe, Shin-Lee also created their own shared universe in the series that some fans love to call “The Shin-Lee Cinematic Universe”. Crossover of characters from one series to another, still with the same personality or background story, makes us feel like the stories are connected to one another, even when it’s not. This cameo appearance is now one of the things that people look forward to when watching Shin-Lee dramas.

In Reply 1994, we can see Reply 1997 characters as high-schoolers who ride the bus together to school, meeting Trash, the male lead in Reply 1994. There was also a scene when Reply 1994 couple came to their noisy apartment neighbor in 2002, which turns out to be the couple from Reply 1997. In Reply 1988, the man who replaced Trash for a blind date in Reply 1994 turned out to be Sung Sun Woo, one of the male leads in Reply 1988.

Other than story crossover, short cameos of characters also happened in this cinematic universe. Some of the patients in Hospital Playlist played roles in Prison Playbook, with Prison Playbook OST playing in the background as the nuance when they appear. Choi Moo Sung and Kim Sun Kyung who took the role as Choi Taek’s parents in Reply 1988, appeared as husband and wife in Hospital Playlist, with Kim Sun Kyung joking about his husband’s resemblance to Park Bo Gum (actor who played Choi Taek) when he was younger.

Crossovers of characters is not something common in Korean Drama, until Shin-Lee started the trend in the Reply series and Wise Life series universe. With appearance of characters, storylines, or even background music from his older works, Shin-Lee successfully brought people’s attention to his previous dramas, slowly but surely making sure that people watched all of his series.

4. Casting new faces with hidden talents

When you watch Shin-Lee dramas, you can see experienced actors like Sung Dong Il, Kim Hae Sook, and Jo Jung Suk showing their highly-praised acting skills and perfecting the remarkable story line. At the same time, you also get to see new talents and faces who perform just as incredibly as their well-experienced actor partners.

There are several idols and singers who appeared on Shin-Lee dramas such as Apink’s Eunji, Seo In Guk, Sechskies’ Eun Ji Won, Hoya, Baro, and Girl’s Day’s Hyeri. For some of them, the Reply series was their first foray into the acting industry. Breaking the stereotype of bad acting from idols-turned-actors, they passed their casting auditions and showed an A-level acting performances that later on led them to earn several awards and recognition. With their excellent portfolio from Reply series, these idols were casted for other dramas, and some of them now even decided to focus their career on acting.

Meanwhile, in the Wise Life installments, you will get to see a lot of experienced musical actors who just started their journey in television acting. Jeon Mi Do, who plays Chae Song Hwa in Hospital Playlist, is one of the successful examples. Jeon Mi Do started her acting career in plays and musicals since 2006, but only just began to enter television drama in 2018 through a small role in the drama Mother. Auditioning as one of the patients for Hospital Playlist, Shin-Lee found her more suitable as the female lead in this seasonal drama. Her years in musicals resulted in a stellar portrayal of a super busy and independent doctor who got confused after receiving a confession from her close friend of 20 years.

Since there are usually many characters in Shin-Lee dramas, you will also get to see rookie actors with promising talents throughout the series. Ryu Jun Yeol who played Kim Jung Hwan in Reply 1988 was a then-rookie actor and is now highly popular. He is now considered an A-class actor with many box-office movies after his portrayal of a tsundere high school boy in Reply 1988.

Those are just some examples of many great talents you will see and love in Shin-Lee dramas. The casts are carefully picked through a long audition and casting process to deliver tremendous acting skills that will make the dramas more impactful. 

You can see the long and complicated audition process of Hospital Playlist Season 1 casts, even for the supporting casts, here:

5. Funny casts both on and off screen

Other than life lessons and relatable storyline, funny and witty jokes are also the backbone of Shin-Lee dramas to grab the audience’s attention. Whether it’s a funny pun or slapstick comedy, you will be guaranteed to have a good laugh after one or two relatable sad scenes that cost you a box of tissues. 

Crazy fangirl fights in Reply 1997, Samchunpo’s culture shock in Reply 1994, Dong Ryong the farting bomb in Reply 1988, Lee Ik Jun with his witty pun in Hospital Playlist, and Haerong’s bickering with Captain Yoo in Prison Playbook are some moments that you can look forward to when following the series.

To get you started, here’s a compilation of Lee Ik Jun’s silly jokes in Hospital Playlist:

Other than showing their good chemistry in comedy scenes on-screen, Shin-Lee drama casts also give natural funny moments in variety shows. After Reply 1994 ended, Baro, Yoo Yeon Seok, and Son Ho Jun filmed travel reality series Youth Over Flowers in Laos. The same goes for Reply 1988 cast members who spent their celebratory vacation in Phuket, Thailand, before flying to South Africa for the show. In the middle of the sudden trip, they encountered obstacles and made clumsy decisions that generated laughter from the audience.

Hospital Playlist casts also spent a healing time together through a camping night near their shooting location in Wise Camping Life. The healing trip that is supposed to be filled with exchanging life stories and non-stop eating suddenly turned into a war zone when Na PD, variety producer who worked on Youth Over Flowers, appeared and challenged the team with several quizzes.

P.S: It is confirmed that Na PD will work with Hospital Playlist casts again on a new variety show after Hospital Playlist season 2 ends. Can’t wait to see the bond and more funny moments from them!

Shin-Lee duo proves that Korean dramas too can have cinematic universes. It only takes many nights of research to create the stories, many trials and errors to form the team, and many self reflections to share valuable life lessons to the audience to create strong television drama series like Shin-Lee did. 

In your own version, what is the secret formula behind the success of Shin-Lee Cinematic Universe?

Written by: Evi
Featured Image by: Agnes