Coffee Prince

True romance

like a lot of people I loved watching this drama, I still think about it daily since I first watched it. I started watching kdrama's in 2018 it hasn't been that long, but I've seen my fair share of romance dramas; this has got to be one of the best and well written drama I've watched. This made me fall in love with Gong yoo, it's a story that makes you want to hug each character and want to be part of the found family at prince café. You get annoyed at the characters including the leads, you laugh and cry with them. If you are thinking about skipping this drama because of the premise of this, I would give it a try because it's so worth it. In the beginning I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch myself, I kept pushing it off because I'm not really a fan of a girl pretending to be a guy in dramas because it can come with it's own set of issues, but what I love about this drama is that they address this issues and it becomes a big conflict with the characters they don't just brush this off. So give it a chance.

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I’m genuinely curious about the specifics of what YJ did with DK while secretly seeing him behind HS’ back, before running off with him the first time around. It felt dismissive to reduce such a significant reveal to a brief mention in the later episodes, treating it as a throwaway line at the end, especially while largely ignoring HS’ suffering when he told her he knew. This oversight becomes even more glaring when the narrative equates YJ’s actions to HS’s unrequited mini-crush, a comparison that is both absurd and indicative of a massive double standard.

HS endured over a year of YJ's deception, during which she lied about being at work while meeting DK. She eventually discarded him without explanation and disappeared for years, without as much as a word, only to reappear in his life all of a sudden, as though she could effortlessly resume their relationship. The self entitlement and shamelessness of her taking him for granted to such an absurd degree, coupled with HS’s almost immediate willingness to resume their relationship after barely a half baked apology (if even that), was really hard to swallow. YJ’s intolerance for HS harboring even a fleeting attraction to someone else (particularly considering her own history, where she hurt him so deeply with her actions, and he put up with it) only highlights her unwillingness to take genuine responsibility for the pain she caused.

Her willingness to punish HS by threatening to run off with DK over the mere possibility that he might end their relationship someday, driven entirely by her own ego, represents a shift from her earlier apathy but still demonstrates an alarming lack of regard for his years of suffering. Instead of confronting the damage she inflicted, YJ absurdly equates HS’s unrequited mini-crush to her own actions: the way in the past she lied to HS for over a year while secretly seeing DK, eventually running off to another continent with him.

Context is critical here. YJ did what she did to someone who was entirely loyal and devoted to her. Even if HS had done the same (which he didn’t, let’s have a sense of proportion), his actions would have occurred against the backdrop of her past treatment of him, giving her no grounds to complain. As JA pointed out to YH in My Mister, even if they had slept together, YH still would have no right to complain, given her far worse betrayal.

HS’s insecurities and concerns were rooted in YJ’s past actions, and were a natural and justified emotional response. His inability to express these feelings openly was understandable, given YJ’s tendency to mock, minimize, or dismiss his concerns the few times he raised them. So, he attempted to address the situation by mirroring her own behavior, albeit in a much more watered down way (for instance, by inviting FL to YJ’s exhibition). His efforts were ineffective due to the difference in their starting point, the weight of her past actions contrasted to his willingness to tolerate her more than year long deception, and the way he had previously never had eyes for any other woman besides YJ.

Said more explicitly, the power dynamics in their relationship were never equal. YJ, by her own admission, consistently took HS for granted, doing whatever she pleased with hardly any consideration for his feelings, while expecting him to always be there for her, and only for her. HS, by contrast, in the past endured her deception and remained devoted to her, even during the more than year-long period she lied to his face while seeing DK.

Moreover, HS’s unrequited crush carried no real potential for a relationship (arguably comparable to YJ’s dynamic with HS’s cousin, but less damaging and from a starting point that, in HS’s case, didn’t have baggage of her past actions with DK). By contrast, YJ’s actions with DK had real emotional and relational consequences, and therefore her decision to punish HS by threatening to run off with him again (particularly in light of the fact that the first time around came after her more than year long deception, and that she literally didn’t speak to HS for years after she first went to live with DK, only to suddenly pop up in his life years later) carries an entirely different weight.

I would generally say that, for any actions of his that YJ might have found objectionable, she had been guilty of the same, only a billion times worse, and against someone who, at the time, had always been nothing else than loyal and completely devoted to her. YJ’s behavior was a 10, while HS’ actions barely registered as a 1, if even that.

By her own admission, HS was consistently putting up with anything from her, despite the suffering it caused him, including a more than year long deception while he fully knew she was lying about working and seeing DK behind his back, and yet consistently told himself to forgive her, and ended up groveling and begging when she run off with the guy.

By contrast, YJ’s reaction to HS’ unrequited mini-crush and one one-sided stamp kiss was to break him by exploiting the wounds she herself had caused, her jealousy and insecurity leading her to punish him for daring to feel the faintest shred of attraction to someone that 1) had never hurt him as profoundly as she did and 2) didn’t take him absolutely for granted (shocker that he would feel attracted to her really :irony:) by dredging up memories of DK and even threatening to run off with him again, a cruel and calculated move that succeeded in breaking HS down.

Ironically, this showed that she cared enough to act out, in stark contrast to her earlier indifference. However, her double standard remained glaring: while she expected HS to stay devoted to her unconditionally, she dismissed his legitimate grievances and diminished his pain with baseless comparisons. The fact that it worked, reducing HS to groveling once more, only reinforced the skewed and toxic dynamic of their relationship. All in all, I must say that I found HS’s family’s skepticism toward their relationship was entirely understandable (not sure they objected for the right reasons, though).

While the drama’s conclusion attempted to address the imbalance, showcasing YJ’s controlling behavior and HS’s excessive tolerance, the resolution felt insufficient in fully acknowledging the emotional toll on HS or holding YJ accountable for her actions. The contrast between her earlier apathy and her punitive jealousy revealed a relationship fraught with inequities, where YJ’s failure to grapple with the consequences of her actions and their failure to take the effect they had on HS and their relationship seriously, as opposed to turning it into a joking matter.

What did she do with DK while she was deceiving HS? Why did she and DK split up, and she suddenly decided to rekindle her relationship with HS? And so on… none of these questions are tackled, and they very much should have, I cannot imagine a healthy relationship where they are brushed aside because HS is too scared of her running off again, and she suddenly felt inclined to make some concessions because she realized he might feel attracted to someone else that didn’t cause him horrible pain in the past, and didn’t take him for granted.

For his part HS remained in the position of having to plain these toxic games with a master who was going to win every time, as evidenced by the fact that, even after she deceived him for more than a year and run off with DK despite his begging and groveling, not speaking another word for him for years, only to suddenly reappear in his life, she is the one that, once again, is punishing him by threatening to run off with DK again, and he is still the one grovelling.

His concerns are not actually aired and discussed seriously, but rather mocked, while her own jealousy and bruised ego at the mere notion the might even find someone else attractive, even when there was no indication he was ever going to leave her for someone else, are taken absolutely seriously, to the point where she explicitly punished him by threatening him with his worst nightmare, and actually succeeded in beating him into compliance.

Bottom line, no hope whatsoever for him to have a normal relationship like the one he was starting to have with FL. Of course, any issues with trust, etc. are conveniently brushed aside, as are the consequences of his traumatic experiences: he was successfully “scared into submission”, nevermind the fact that her being willing to put him through something like that, fully knowing (because he told her as such) how much her more than year long deception and her running off with DK had hurt him before, should in and of itself have made him question the wisdom of pursuing a relationship with such a person.

I mean, it’s one thing to tease and push one’s boundaries, it quite another to do that given the knowledge that she had been lying to HS’ fare for more than a year and run off with someone, and even beyond that to do that with the very same person she was seeing behind his back and had run off with (I mean, she didn’t use his cousin in this capacity, but the very person she did this with the last time around).

Again, the show did try to make the relationship appear more equitable by the end, but it was always whatever YJ was deigning to give, there was never a moment where HS’ concerns were addressed and he actually set boundaries, the situation was that he was more or less willing to stand around and do whatever and put up with anything YJ would do to him, because of some mystical sense of predestination or something equally absurd.

Basically, he would have put up with anything because he was broken by her threat, and had she actually run off, he would have waited around for a moment that might never have come, rather than actually pursued a relationship which could have made him happier… This makes it impossible for me to truly see them as equal, any effort to make the situation equal feels to me like they come as YJ’s concessions.

Let’s be explicit about this. There was nothing guaranteeing YJ would have come back the first time around. He certainly didn’t think there was, at the time, otherwise he wouldn’t have been as distraught as he was (note that she was with DK for years, and he never heard a word from her in all that time, and it was far from a given that she would break up with the guy… again, they never even discussed why things between her and DK ended and she was apparently inclined to rekindle her relationship with HS, that’s surely something any normal person would want to know in his position? After all, wasn’t she in love with DK at the time?). Even the second time around, obviously he didn’t appear to truly believe it was a mere temporary inconvenience, otherwise he wouldn’t have felt such agony. In both cases, it would be good for him not to take her return for granted, because it wasn’t.

In terms of him being someone YJ can take for granted, she suddenly discovered he wasn’t (and proceeded to use the trauma she had originally inflicted to try to break him into compliance). The issue is, he wasn’t for about the time it took to go from her reappearance in his life to her second time running off with DK (which she almost did). In that period, he very briefly contemplated the possibility of letting himself be attracted to someone he might have had, in other circumstances, a normal, non toxic relationship where she hadn’t horribly hurt him, didn’t take him for granted and wouldn’t attempt to punish him via the very same man that in the past she had been seeing behind his back and run off with the first time around, threatening to run off with the guy a second time.

By the time she left the second time, what remained was only someone that she could indeed take for granted, and that would be willing to stay around for her to pick up at her convenience, and wouldn’t leave no matter what she did. That’s not a good situation for either of them. It was good for her not to take him for granted, and that was only possible when he was the kind of person that would be willing to entertain, at least for a brief moment, the possibility that he could be happy with someone else, at least in principle.

This is a disaster because one could very well imagine an alternative scenario where she runs off and never comes back, and he waits around pining for her, and even in the best case scenario, by essentially stipulating he would stick around no matter what she does to him, he is making himself reliant on her being there (or being willing to come back) and making his happiness reliant dependent on her concessions.

Again, as for her intentionally using the trauma she had originally caused him as leverage to punish and threaten him, because she couldn’t put up with the idea of him being attracted to someone else, one cannot help but think that hopefully the mystical predestination stuff would be just a way for him to encourage himself (if that wasn’t the case, he might have been less agitated at the prospect of her leaving). The alternative would be delusional. I like to think that in time he would have pursued another relationship, and that he wouldn’t really stay with her literally regardless of how much she hurt him. I don’t think that would be a healthy mind state to inhabit.

I mean, they don't talk about her deceiving him for more than a year while she was with HS, nor about what she felt for DK, why she broke up with him and then wanted to rekindle her relationship with HS, etc. Like, how does what she felt for DK differ from her feelings towards HS? This sounds like the kind of questions one would ask when they saw her popping up all of a sudden outside their place of work and door after years of complete silence. And it's certainly not unreasonable to try to understand why things are supposed to be different this time and why he should put any trust into her claim of love and commitment. Because it's entirely non obvious to me that he should, based on her prior actions.

That's what they should have ironed out, not how they feel about her drinking habits while pregnant (spoiler: not good because it hurts the baby... I don't care whether HS likes drinking as well, if he wants to be supportive he should refrain, but it doesn't change the fact that he is not pregnant, she is, and this is not about her, it's about the fact that it could harm the baby and she knows it). Same thing, frankly, with her making kimchi: not a good idea. And really, am I supposed to be impressed by the cheap emotional manipulation, and forget about her thoughtlessly drinking while pregnant, or the whole story with DK, or trying to use the trauma she inflicted on HS to punish and control him? That's intellectually insulting. And yes, cheesy promises during the marriage scene are better than nothing, but talk is cheap, actions are what counts, and nothing can substitute openly talking about the aforementioned open issues related to her past actions with DK, her feelings for the guy and HS, now and in the past, and why he should feel in any way reassured given her recent willingness to use the trauma she inflicted against him (and then making a joke out of his insecurities and pain which, as demonstrated in his outburst at the side of the road, clearly pain him still).

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Since there are already a lot of good, positive reviews for this drama, I'll keep mine brief and focus on what I disliked.
I really, really loved the first 2/3rds of the drama. However, the drama loses interest for me after the romantic tension is gone and all the problems are solved (I seriously don't count his grandma's resistance a real problem, since we have seen how nice she is to Eun Chan in previous episodes and know there is a strong likelihood she will come around). Sure, there are some plot points to complete and tie up during the remaining episodes, but none of them come close to being as engaging as watching Han Kyul's emotional turmoil over liking Eun Chan. I also did not care too much about the three side couples in the drama--even Yoo Joo's and Han Seong's relationship became dull for me around episode 11.
Apart from all that, yes, the drama is great and deserves all the hype it gets.

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Here's the deal with this drama. Episodes 1-6 were just ok to me. They were decent episodes, but the bickering chemistry between the leads was only there for the first 1-2 episodes, then fizzled out and they were interested in other people. I started to lose interest. Then episode 7 hit and it's at this point that their chemistry starts to be out of this world. Those episodes are absolutely a 10/10 masterpiece. Even if you don't watch anything else, you MUST watch episodes 7 -to whichever episode they finally end up together. Thank me later.

However just like in the beginning, I also wasn't that crazy about once they finally got together. This time it was mostly because the writer used lots of immature arguments and fights between them as plot points, almost like they ran out of ideas and so now the show just focused on their arguing over everything. It was beyond bickering chemistry, it was bordering unhealthy. But the show was still totally watchable in these later episodes, and they were still the most adorable couple. I still can't recommend it enough, just beware that there's ups and downs to this show as you go through it.

By the way if you're hesitating to watch this because of the gender bending, do it, you won't regret it.

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Entertaining Rom Com.

Gong yoo is a very flexible actor. It shows here that his love for eun cha is so great that he promised for an all in relationship because he thought that his lover is a guy. Eun cha on the other hand shows how he cares for his family that she has to disguise a man to work in the coffee prince. I like the part when gong yoo and his grandma help eun chan to fulfill her dreams to be a renown barrista and she has to study abroad. On the other hand, gong yoo decided to stay in korea and did not pursue his ultimate dream job as a lego designer in usa because he does not want to be far from eu chan. I think that is a true measure of love by willing to sacrifice for the happiness of someone

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cute, funny, comforting

It's 2022 already and I thought that I will watch such an old drama :).
Even though the production is different from what we see now, it is so good too watch and (at least for me) the quality wasn't a bother at all. When it comes to the story it's really unique and precious. The couple made my heart warm too many times. There was something different in those romantic moments between Eun-chan and Han-gyeol. These moments are really pure and throught the series you can feel that some of them weren't scripted.

If you like something light, funny and comforting, give it a chance and you won't regret it :)

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One of the best!

The first few Kdrama I watched and totally in love with it! Moreover, I end up in a huge crush with Gong Yoo!!! This drama gives me butterflies with the gender neutral situation and realising gender doesn't matter. Many times I think it's beautiful given that it was showing in 2007. Until today I still think that Gong Yoo should be with Yoon Eun-Hye (she's so cute) and they make a great match.

With this drama, casts like Kim Dong-Wook and Kim Jae-Wook caught my eye and still continue supporting them till today. The drama is so fun, engaging and no dull moments, I still misses the whole squad.

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Wholesome, Nostalgic & Feel Good Drama

Ah, I completed this drama in 2 years. Yes, I started it in November 2021 and watched 15 episodes, and then in January 2024, I completed the other two remaining episodes. And I can say it is one of the best dramas you see. If you're someone with a low attention span or ADHD, you probably won't like it.
Because it's like a slow melody, like how Korean dramas used to be back in the day. The acting, cast, and story are all fulfilling. Gong Yoo is hands-down the best Korean actor for me.
I really wish it would have had 20 episodes because this drama has potential. But nonetheless, I recently finished it, and I recommend it to every human being to watch these wholesome 17 episodes. You can have a better story, you can bring a better cast, and you can bring better directors, but still, nothing beats this 2007 show, even after 17 years. I'm so ecstatic, and I thank God every day for introducing me to Korean dramas. I love you, Gong Yoo!!

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Classic for a reason

This is such a massive underhanded criticism of homophobia that uses heteronormativity to make its point, I love it.

Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun-hye. They're so cute! No wonder the former became such a big star in Korea.

The secondary leads are the main reason why I can't give this a perfect score. The character played by Lee Sun-kyun (RIP…) was annoying and the actor didn't do a very good job in my opinion. He was over-acting his scenes and he never came across as believable to me. That was one of his first roles though, as he would go on to have much better roles in the future, namely in Parasite.

However, the others did a good job.

I love it when people mistakenly answer the phone with something other than the phone itself. This time, it's a toy cube. If I remember correctly, the other times I've seen this so far are in Dreaming the Reality (1991) (Sibelle Hu answers a Coca-Cola can) and The Stunt Woman (1996) (Michelle Yeoh answers a brush). These are the only other such instances I can recall right now. Fun gag.

It's strange because, although the writing is a bit forced, contrived and overly dramatic sometimes, I would still praise the writing in this show, mainly because they managed to make realistic, believable characters that feel human and unique. They all have quirks that make them endearing, even if sometimes the story forces them to act in a certain way. It's an odd dichotomy but it is what it is. Imperfect writing can still manage to be absolutely great when it sets its aims high enough.

If you're trying to flee the soap-opera cliché nature of kdrama (especially the OST, this one is refreshingly silent in all the dramatic moments), then this should be your next destination.

I'm not queer and/or LGBTQ+ so it's hard for me to say whether it's good representation.

But it's a killer gender-bender story for sure. Hella hard to beat on that front.

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I found this drama rather simple but refreshing in a way. I specially liked the dynamic between the characters since I haven't seen many dramas were the girl is a tomboy. I honestly thought the fact of the female lead being mistaken for a boy would make the show unbearably clichéish. But thankfully the way that aspect of the story was used made the show funnier and more heart-warming. Also, all the characters are very real and go through legit struggles.
I can totally understand how this show influenced the drama world, as it has that iconic feeling, despite the simpleness.
I looooved Gong Yoo in this, although it wasn't my favorite performance of his; his character was so funny!! I saw real development. Honestly, I loved every character. Usually, female characters in older dramas are difficult to like but "My Chan" (lol again haha) was really likeable and a good character.
It has its flaws and it isn't a drama that I would rewatch (at least for now), but I can see its quality and value, specially since it was released 12 years ago!
Don't regret watching it at all.

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