It's pretty ridiculous if you step back and look at the whole deal. Most of the stories are variations on one theme and it's usually a love triangle, with some terminal illness thrown in. A lot of the appeal is definitely in the "damn good-looking guys and gals" as you say, and I think it takes all the middle age folks who make up the bulk of the fanatics back to their own days of young love and heartache. Our 20-something year old niece thinks they're stupid. There are lots of them available on DVD and we've been buying ours through eBay. Certain actors are really popular just as in the West. Some have terrible subtitling, often funny, while others are fine. Some stories have a humorous slant, but most are sad to the point of depressing, ha! I told myself I'd had it because it's not good to get so sad watching 'entertainment', but we're still 'going to Korea' every other night or so, nuts! It's the typical thing of having to see what happens next. And I guess it's popular also because it is Asian and for us as Asians, there's a lot we can relate to in a cultural sense, like things left unspoken, and self-denial, sacrifice, etc.