More than a year and a half ago, while watching my first wuxia drama since I was a kid, a main character in
, a fantasy action comedy C-drama, when a character got a nosebleed at the sight of a pretty girl. This wasn’t a delicate trickle either — he was having the most ridiculous
And then there were So. Many. Cold. Executives. Along with cold, studious, college geniuses. And they were invariably always male. With scatterbrained love interests who rarely excelled in school.
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(For the completely uninitiated, a trope is simply a plot device, like a theme, an element, a character archetype, a visual cue, that is easily recognizable and can convey an idea. There’s an entire website devoted to mostly Hollywood/English language TV and media tropes.) Some tropes are, of course, universal, and not exclusive to Asian dramas. Tropes done well can be an effective or fun storytelling device — even the cheesy ones. Done poorly and it can be incredibly tedious and annoying (cue that FF button!).
For our amusement (and now hopefully yours!), my friends — who collectively have well over a century’s worth of HK/Chinese/Taiwane, se/Korean drama watching “expertise” — and I hashed out some common tropes based on our viewing experiences. That’s how this post was born (my opinions with the occasional side comment from one of my friends). Generally, I’ve focused on tropes that are common across
Genres of drama — rom coms, wuxia, melodramas, etc. Wuxia/Xianxia-specific tropes, for example, could be its own giant category, and are not specifically covered here.
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Feel free to comment, share your favourite (or most-hated) trope or drama example that you think is missing from our list (they can be any Asian drama, not just Chinese or Korean)!
A lot can happen on a bus ride. You could be sitting beside your mortal enemy/future love interest and fall asleep with your head on their shoulders. Or he could be standing behind you on a crowded bus, protecting you from all the pushing, shoving, and falling luggage from above. When the bus suddenly stops, you crash into each other — and even if your lips do not meet, you certainly get close enough to lock eyes and feel that spark.
The male lead is a top executive, is incredibly successful in their profession, or is a top student at the high school/university where the story is set, etc.
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To be honest, this trope can be a little toxic and problematic — even when I’m enjoying the drama. The idea is that the male lead is driven, difficult to please (often because they have some kind of OCD or they are on the spectrum, but it’s usually not explicitly stated) and find most people unengaging — until they meet the love of their life. The male lead continues to act bossy and aloof, sometimes even kind of mean (or a straight-up bully), but they’re in fact constantly looking out for the female lead, often in secret (which at times can definitely feel a little stalker-ish). As a viewer, you might wonder sometimes what she sees in him.
I’ve mainly encountered this in period C-dramas, where the evil nature of a villain is either “explained” simply by the fact that they are mentally unstable, or that a villain is depicted as mentally unstable which drives them to do terrible things to achieve their goals and ambitions. Sometimes it involves a main character, but in my experience, it is a common trait in secondary villains. More often than not, in my view, this is lazy storytelling — it does not give depth or substance to a villain’s motivations beyond mental illness. But most importantly, what bothers me the most is that the trope perpetuates the stigma around people with mental illness.
Oh just remembered the one where the FL cross dresses and nobody knows. But her hair falls down and suddenly it's obvious she's a girl.
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The “obvious disguise” part of this trope is self-explanatory. Somehow nobody recognizes the main character’s disguise even though they’re just wearing a Zorro mask that only covers their eyes. I’ve mainly seen this in wuxia dramas. Or the female main character is obviously wearing a fake moustache or wig, but is somehow unrecognizable until they literally let down their hair.
The cross-dressing/gender disguise is another popular form of this trope. In many cases, the female lead is in disguise in order to navigate or circumvent a situation or rule that does not allow her to participate or be present as a woman. Often, the male lead discovers her secret within the first episode or so, but for “comedic” purposes, doesn’t let on, leading to situations that are meant to be awkward but humorous.
I don’t mind the trope in itself, especially since it highlights the strength and fortitude of the female character and her refusal to let “rules” and expectations around gender be an obstacle. But in a conservative culture where LGBTQ content in media is censored/self-censored, the set-up and/or early interactions around this trope sometimes does not sit well with me.
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It’s not a cross-dressing/gender-swap trope in the traditional sense, but rather a misunderstanding on the part of the male lead, who does not find out for a while. It is quite clear from the storytelling that after struggling initially, he comes to accept his feelings long before he finds out the person he loves is in fact a girl. He also makes it clear that his feelings would be unchanged regardless of what or who she is. In some ways, I was amazed this made it through the censors frankly, but in other ways, I could also see how it was possible. Then again, Chinese censorship for dramas can be pretty arbitrary…
I have interviewed enough executives in my career to know they look nothing like these guys, and they are definitely not this young. These characters look like they should still be in high school. When I look up the ages of the actors, they’re usually in their mid-20s or early 30s, so not quite high school, but still pretty young to be running a major company, surrounded by mostly men who look like they’re ready to retire.
Masks. I’ve only seen them used in Chinese period/wuxia dramas. Not to be confused with the obvious disguise, or the gender/cross-dressing disguise, which is a separate entry.
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I think one of the most tragic use of the face mask was in Demi God & Semi Devil (by Jin Yong). Ah Zhu disguised herself as her father to meet her lover in a duel (ML thinks that her father killed his family). ML kills her and only discovers what he's done after she dies.
UGHHHHH. Tragic C-drama endings -- specifically historical/wuxia ones -- might deserve its own trope entry. Even the “happy ending” ones are often tinged with tragedy and sadness.
Example: No need to draw attention to this one. Suffice to say I’ve definitely come across it more than once — usually instigated by a female villain.
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This is not limited to just Asian dramas. Either way, I hate this trope and my feelings about it have intensified in a post-#MeToo world. Countless women have told their horror stories of why they kept quiet, why they were afraid to tell someone, why they continued to be friendly with the perpetrator, and so many other “whys”. We don’t need popular culture (East or West) perpetuating myths that women commonly lie about rape and sexual assault. (And when an assault
Depicted in a drama, rarely do I see the emotional and psychological trauma addressed beyond the episode in question, let alone explored with any nuance or care.)
This is a classic. Two people enter into a fake relationship or a marriage contract for a number of reasons, including needing a place to live, needing a fake boy/girlfriend/spouse to fullfill a dying wish, or so family members can stop pestering them about finding someone to marry.
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These are pretty much inescapable in Korean and Chinese dramas. I think some of it ties into themes of Fate, but I am not very well-versed in the mythologies around fate in East Asian literature/culture/history. In my experience, fate and coincidences in K-dramas and contemporary C-dramas are the “good” kind — the two lovers were meant to be, destined since childhood, crossed-paths without realizing, etc. In period/wuxia/xianxia C-dramas, however, fate is best avoided, since it’s often used to basically rip the character’s — and viewer’s — heart out.
Many — most? — of the Asian dramas I’ve watched feature a firefly scene. It almost always sets the scene for a romantic connection. One friend joked recently that seeing a firefly was on her Bucket List, given how C- and K-dramas make them seem about as common as mosquitoes and flies.
Not to be confused with a timeline jump back in time to shed new light into a character’s past. The flashbacks I’m talking about are when they replay previously aired scenes to show a character reminiscing about a particular moment (or series of moments). Sometimes flashbacks are great reminders of an earlier scene you may have forgotten,
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