We have arrived at the halfway mark of 2021, and with the hot summer break comes an exciting list of thrilling dramas returning for new seasons and sequels. June is also the month of roses, which means a slew of romantic comedies in the heat of a passionate summer and plenty of slice-of-life dramas to tide us through the mini circuit breaker situation.
Unfortunate as it may be, we have been back at phase two, plus ‘heightened alert’, for almost a month, which has meant being stuck indoors working from home and ordering food delivery.
Alas, dear cinema fans, we feel your urge to rush to the theatres. But in lieu of lockdown lite, many premiere dates have been delayed, and we advise our readers to stay home as much as possible. While we have included a couple of films showing in cinemas this month, just remember to wear a mask at all times and observe safe distancing rules if you do head out.
With a dozen shows on our to-watch list for June, we have quite the selection lined up, and we are sure the cinema can wait until restrictions are loosened again, which is literally just days away (14 June), so hang in there!
For Netflix- Fans
Fatherhood
Based on the 2011 memoir, Two Kisses for Maddy, A Memoir of Loss and Love, Fatherhood tells Matthew Logelin’s story of being a widower, raising his daughter, Maddy, alone following the unexpected demise of his wife. Our favourite actor-comedian, Kevin Hart, stars as Matthew, who struggles with the loss of his wife while adjusting to single parenthood. In the different phases of his daughter’s life, Matthew faces the everchanging challenges of fatherhood, as he tries his best to play both parental roles and ensure that his daughter feels the love of not one, but both parents in her life.
A heartwarming story that is sure to make us laugh and cry along with our Dads, Fatherhood comes to us on Netflix this Father’s Day weekend, on 18 June.
So Not Worth It
From the creators of Unstoppable High Kick comes So Not Worth It (also known in Korean as I Hope The Earth Collapses Tomorrow), a sitcom revolving around a group of students from multicultural backgrounds residing in a dormitory in Seoul. Making a bold statement with its young and playful vibe, the show introduces many fresh-faced rookie actors to the scene, including rising star Park Se-Wan, newcomer Shin Hyun Seung and idols Choi Young Jae from Got7, and Minnie from G(idle), as well as Nigerian-Korean model Han Hyun Min.
The slice-of-life drama presents a unique take on the sitcom format, exploring the diverse and unique personalities of each Gen-Z student, as they leave their homes to live together with strangers. While the roof over their heads seems to be the only thing they have in common, the everyday moments of laughter they share transcend their differences and we look forward to watching their sweet stories create lifelong friendships.
So Not Worth It is a Netflix Original and will be released on the platform on 18 June.
For the other Couch-Potatoes
The Bold Type Season 5
After a year-long wait, our favourite female trio from Scarlet magazine is back with the fifth season of The Bold Type. Season Four left all three ladies in rough spots in their careers and love lives. Diligent Jane struggles with newfound feelings for her writer subordinate, Scott, and struggles with professional and personal boundaries. After losing her job at Scarlet, Kat finds herself drifting off course, with her new bartending job and budding relationship with Ava, whose Republican views she cannot align with her own Democrat activism. Sutton’s reluctance to have children puts an end to her four-episode long marriage to Richard and drowning her sorrows in alcohol result in regrettable actions that threaten to jeopardise her career. Our ladies’ difficult positions makes for great drama, and a binge-worthy chick-flick.
Spanning a short six episodes, the fifth and final season of The Bold Type was released on 26 May, and it promises to fill our month with lessons on confidence, equality and girl power, before concluding its story on 30 June.
The Mysterious Benedict Society
Based on Trenton Lee Stewart’s book series, The Mysterious Benedict Society follows four orphans, each with a unique skill, who are summoned to a boarding school known as The Institute, by an eccentric benefactor, our titular hero, Mr Benedict (Tony Hale). Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance must infiltrate the mysterious L.I.V.E institute to discover the truth behind a global crisis known as The Emergency. For mysterious reasons, the mission he assigns them can only be accomplished by children. And when the headmaster, the sophisticated Dr Curtain, Mr Benedict’s evil twin brother appears to be behind the worldwide panic, it is up to the kids of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” to defeat him.
The Mysterious Benedict Society arrives on Disney+ on 25 June.
For K-Drama Addicts
Hospital Playlist Season 2
The long-anticipated slice-of-life medical drama that topped ratings in 2020 is finally back with a second season!
The second instalment of the Wise Life series reunites writer Lee Woo Jung and director, PD Shin Won-Ho, to tell the stories of five doctors who have been best friends since they entered medical school together in 1999. If you are a fan of Hospital Playlist, you would have noticed the huge cliffhangers left from Season One that left us waiting on the edge of our seats for an entire year.
For a naturalistic drama, Hospital Playlist sure knows how to bait its audience with mystery and we, at TheHomeGround Asia, are burning with questions.: Do Lee Ik-Joon and Chae Song-Hwa begin a relationship? Are our Winter Garden (the ship name of Ahn Jung-Won and Jang Gyo-Wool) couple finally together? Are Kim Jun-Wan and Ik-Soon breaking up? Why did Yang Seok-Hyeong divorce his wife, and what did her last phone call to him mean?
We wish that the show would stick to the usual K-drama schedule of showing two episodes a week so it can offer us more answers in record time. But Hospital Playlist is a drama that takes its time to tell its story, and it will be back to its special single-episode weekly slot every Thursday, beginning 17 June on Netflix.
Voice 4: Judgement Hour
South Korean cable television channel OCN’s most highly rated series yet, Voice has been picked up by tvN and is back for a fourth season. The police procedural crime drama follows the lives of 112 emergency call centre police officers as they fight against crimes using the sounds that they hear.
Lee Ha-Na reprises her role as Kang Kwon-Joo, a tough policewoman gifted with perfect psycho-acoustic skills, trained to decipher different sounds and identify criminals via voice profiling. Following the death of her partner, Do Kang-Woo in the finale of Voice 3, the fourth season introduces a new leading male, American police officer, Derek Jo, played by Hallyu star Song Seung Heon, as the muscle of the Golden Time team. A unit leader at the LAPD, Derek Jo is a tough perfectionist, intolerant of the smallest mistake, who winds up collaborating with the golden time team through a common case. Together with Kwon-Joo, Derek Jo will learn to confront his inner demons, as Voice 4: Judgement Hour pits the Golden Time team in a race against time and yet another vicious villain.
Season four of Voice will take OCN’s Friday-Saturday night slots, and will premiere on 18 June.
Monthly Magazine Home
Monthly Magazine Home tells the story of a romance between a man who enjoys buying houses, and a woman who is a homebody. Na Young-Won (Jung So-Min) is an editor of the monthly living magazine ‘House’, who appreciates home as the place where she can be her true self. As per the natural course of things in the world of K-dramas, she clashes with our male lead, Yu Ja-Seong (Kim Ji-Seok), who sees homes as merely properties that he can buy and sell for profit. Following their disastrous first encounter, Young-Won is mortified to find Ja-Seong as her new boss, leading to a bickering dynamic between the two. But what can polar opposites do, apart from attracting each other?
Monthly Magazine Home airs on JTBC, premiering on 16 June, following the end of Law School.
For Cinephiles
A Quiet Place Part II
The sequel to John Krasinski’s award-winning film The Quiet Place, comes part two of the story. Starring Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt, who reprises her role as Evelyn Abbott, we follow the Abbott family in their journey through a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by blind monsters with an acute sense of hearing. Following the events of the previous film, Evelyn is now left widowed after her husband sacrificed himself to save his surviving family. With her three remaining children by her side, the Abbott family are forced to venture into the unknown to face the terrors of the world. Soon, they come to the horrifying realisation that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.
A Quiet Place Part II premiered in local theatres on 10 June.
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