K-drama finales are always highly-anticipated by fans. However, sometimes they bring more pain and frustration than satisfaction.
When watching a K-drama, every viewer expects to see an ending that solves all issues and ties up all knots. However, some finales leave us with more questions than ever, or basically turn everything around and deliver heavy blows to the heart. And below are the prime examples of K-dramas that end in a shocking and painful manner.
Youth of May
“Youth of May” revolves around a dream-like romance between a couple who met through unexpected circumstances, and fell in love during a turbulent period in Korea. They went through various hardships and challenges together, before finally getting to join hands as a married couple.
However, by the end of the series, the female lead Kim Myung Hee (Go Min Si) was shot to death, leaving her lover, male lead Hwang Hee Tae (Lee Do Hyun) in pain for the next 41 years. Even worse, her body was only found decades later as white bones, and the male lead lived on, burdened with his survivor’s guilt.
While the ending makes sense in the context of the story, it is painful nevertheless, as the male lead never sees a happy day nor a conclusion after the passing of his beloved.
Penthouse
“Penthouse” has been filled with twists and turns way before the ending even draws near, but the trilogy’s finale really took it to the next level.
In particular, by the final episode of season 3, almost every main character has died, from the protagonists to the antagonists. A main antagonist, Cheon Seo Jin (Kim So Yeon), committed suicide in prison, while the female lead Shim Su Ryeon (Lee Ji Ah) threw herself down a cliff after overcoming all the villains. Another female lead, Oh Yoon Hee (Eugene), was murdered early on.
Even Logan Lee (Park Eun Seok), who survived a bombing scheme, was brought out alive, only to died later on because of resurging cancer. The very final scene showed him walking hand in hand with Shim Su Ryeon as they made their ways to heaven, leaving the audience shell-shocked.
Worst of all is that the ending neither added to the series nor made any sense, and the evil and the good enjoyed the same fate.
Alchemy of Souls
If the penultimate episode of “Alchemy of Souls” showed the good side triumphing and everything going well, then everything was reversed in the final episode.
The female lead was controlled by the main villain, and so murdered a lot of people, including the male lead. Meanwhile, the 2nd male lead still suffers from a previous incident, and the villain is still smirking, undefeated and undetected.
With numerous cliff-hangers, the series is supposed to have everything wrapped up with a second season, but for now, its conclusion was frustrating enough for some audiences’ jaws to drop.
Twenty Five Twenty One
Thought it would be a healing work with beautiful footage of youth, but the screenwriter Twenty Five, Twenty One proved that the audience was wrong to believe in a perfect ending for the main couple. Despite going through many ups and downs in life together, in the end, the main couple of the drama broke up for a reason that could not be more sloppy.
In the final episode, the couple Baek Yi Jin (Nam Joo Hyuk) and Na Hee Do (Kim Tae Ri) decided to put an end to their long-distance relationship. This ending confused many viewers. How can a strong, full of love Na Hee Do easily break up with her boyfriend just because of having a long-distance relationship? How can her boyfriend Yi Jin, who has been silently protecting her for many years, decide to end their relationship even though their feelings for each other are still there? This forced ending is truly a huge disappointment to many fans of Twenty Five Twenty One.
In addition, other details such as the identity of the husband and daughter of Na Hee Do were also not revealed in the final episode of the drama. Many viewers think that the ending of Twenty Five Twenty One can not carry the healing message like the drama’s original intention, but on the contrary, hurts the drama’s fans deeply.
Lovers In Paris
“Love In Paris” tells the story of a Cinderella love story between the businessman Han Ki Joo (Park Shin Yang) and her maid Kang Tae Young (Kim Jung Eun). However, at the end of the drama, the dream-like love story turned out to be just a scenario imagined by the female lead Kang Tae Young. After all, the male and female who used to be lovers at first suddenly became strangers.
The ending of “Love In Paris” caused a lot of controversies at the time of its release. The scriptwriter was heavily criticized by many fans of the drama for being disrespectful to the audience by giving them such a bad and unbelievable ending.
High Kick 2
“High Kick 2” received a record that no other K-Dramas want to have, the title of “The drama with the worst ending among all K-Dramas in history“. Throughout the episodes, the drama filled the hearts of viewers with humorous and thrilling situations revolving around the characters’ daily lives. However, in the final episode, after all, High Kick 2 ended with a story that can not be more tragic.
The film ends with Ji Hoon (Choi Daniel) driving the family’s maid Se Kyung (Shin Se Kyung) to the airport. Having been secretly in love with Ji Hoon for a long time, in the car, Se Kyung looked at him and confided, “I wish time would stop”. Right after that, the scene suddenly turned to black and white with absolute silence, and the time stopped according to her “wish”.
Many fans of K-Drama considered this to be the most pathetic ending that a K-Drama could ever have. Obviously, letting two people who have nothing to do with each other die together is such an ungrateful, selfish and cruel situation. Fans of the drama said that the scriptwriter was too careless by giving a good drama a bad ending.
